A/N - Time to pick up a little speed. Here we go!
It isn't that a male agent couldn't have done this – the men they work with are kind and compassionate with empathy and character. Kensi and Fatima just know if it was them in that bed with that story to tell they would probably rather tell it to a woman. There are nuances to what makes you feel powerless, what thing might seem small to a man but encapsulates what violation is to a woman.
"Ma'am, I'm Agent Blye, this is Agent Namazi." Fatima dips her head the slightest amount at the introduction. "We're with NCIS, and we're hoping you can tell us what happened to you."
The woman starts shaking her head rapidly. Her eyes dart around the room. She pushes back against the bed where it positions her upright, looking for escape.
"I'm sorry," Kensi tells her. "We're both very sorry, for what happened to you, and for how uncomfortable it must be to have strangers around you now. Can you tell us your name? Is there anyone we can contact for you?"
After a long pause the woman whispers, "Arianna." Her voice has an accent to it Kensi pegs as South American, west coast, native Spanish speaker.
"Hello, Arianna," Kensi says. "I'm Kensi, and this is Fatima. The police told us what you told them, and we wanted to come speak with you. We want to know if there is anything else you remember, or anything else you can tell us that will help us find who did this to you."
Arianna begins to shake her head again. "I don't want to find him. I don't ever want to see him again."
"And you don't have to," Fatima says. "But the police said you remembered there being other women there. And that you thought you were on a military base. If there are other women in danger anything you could tell us could help us find them."
"He's going to sell them," she tells them. "He sold me." The tears begin to fall. "He sold me."
Kensi thinks about getting closer in support, to connect, but Arianna makes eye contact with her as she considers stepping forward and something in this woman's eyes tells her to stay back. Kensi holds in place as Arianna continues speaking.
"Everyone there, they were in uniform. All the men who came and …" she ran her hands over her face quickly. "They were all in military uniform. And sometimes they talk to each other. Sometimes they forget we're even human. And they said things about garrisons and barracks and MPs. That's what I told the policeman."
Kensi forces herself not to close her eyes in frustration and disgust at how this woman was abused. The signs are violence are all over her body. She keeps her face steady and her posture relaxed.
"Can you tell us how you got away?"
"He told me he sold me. He let his men have their fun, said they all earned a chance to say goodbye, and then they were taking me to someone. He drove for a while and then they stopped at a gas station, and I ran."
"Do you remember anything about the drive? How long it was? Road signs?"
"No, I don't remember anything. I don't want to remember anything."
"Arianna, please," Kensi says respectfully. "Help us find who did this to you. Help us find these other women."
She considers Kensi's words, looking from Kensi to Fatima back to Kensi.
"We drove about 30 minutes before we stopped. And before he made me put the bag over my head and lay down, I remember the sun was setting on my left."
"That's good, Arianna," Kensi tells her with conviction, ensuring her voice wasn't patronizing. "Anything else you can tell us?"
She shakes her head. Kensi gives her a card, encouraging her to reach out if anything else comes to her about her ordeal, no matter how small. The things that became routine to her in captivity may actually be very distinctive in narrowing down a location. They are almost at the door when they hear her.
"Helicopters. I heard a lot of helicopters and big trucks."
"Thank you. That will help a lot," Fatima tells her.
The agents walk back to the car in silence, both grateful for the time to gather their thoughts. When the doors are closed Kensi dials Ops and puts it on speaker.
"So it sounds like maybe a military airstrip to the south. Helicopters and big trucks. Seal Beach is too close. Maybe Tustin?" Kensi wonders out loud.
"Also, she didn't tell us anything about herself. I'm not even sure the name was real. She's as afraid of law enforcement as she is of the men who did this to her."
"Accent is South American," Kensi tells them. "She said she was sold. Trafficked and sold. Maybe someone is bringing victims in on military aircraft?"
"We'll start reviewing all helicopter traffic and military and non-military airfields south of where she was found," Rountree confirms.
"OK. Heading back to you."
They pull out of the parking lot, making a right onto an LA road finally past morning rush hour. Buildings, sidewalks and parked cars line the right side of the car. To the left are feeder streets that add traffic to the road at regular intervals. The light is green, and Kensi moves at a good pace down the street while a work truck approaches an upcoming intersection. The heavy steel vehicle is accelerating, and as it gains momentum its inertia is palpable. It fixes Kensi's car as its target, timing its path to meet her. It's almost going in the wrong direction as it closes the gap. There is no avoiding it. There is nowhere to swerve.
The collision is bone shattering. The truck rams Kensi's Audi with unbelievable force, not crashing into it, crashing through it. The particulars of the collision momentarily make Kensi wish she'd taken more physics, because she swears she is flying despite how improbable that is. She recognizes the orientation of the outside world shifting and comprehends that the car is rolling. It does a complete barrel role and there's a painful jolt to her body when the tires find purchase again on the pavement.
The airbags have deployed, and Kensi sees nothing but the inflated balloon on front of her. She is dazed and recognizes pain although in her current state she'd be hard-pressed to say exactly where it's coming from. She has no time to gain her bearings. As the airbag deflates and she helps it with her arms to clear the space in front of her face, she makes out something coming at speed towards the cracked but intact driver's side window.
She turns away just in time to feel the glass shower in around her. Before she can turn back to see its source she hears a pop like a gun but also not, and registers a new pain in her arm. Then her vision gets blurry and despite how hard she fights, her eyes close.
The arm aims again, the gun looking object firing another projectile at Fatima, yielding the same results. Then the man gets to work. He uses the crowbar to open Kensi's door, slashing through her seatbelt. He checks her ears, removing an earwig and then finds her firearm. throwing them somewhere in the car. He pulls out Kensi's unresponsive body. She's lifted in a fireman's carry and hauled to a van parked on the side of the road. Opening the door, he deposits her unceremoniously in the back, and returns to Fatima's side of the Audi. The process is repeated.
Kensi's phone was resting between the front seats, and on impact flew onto the floor by Fatima's feet. Fatima's phone is in her back pocket. The man takes it and turns it off, placing it in his own jeans. He secures the doors of the van and drives, leaving the wreckage blocking the road. There are sirens in the distance, as someone must have called 911, but when the emergency vehicles arrive through the traffic, there is no one at the site.
Rountree is in Ops when he gets a call from the motorpool. They tell him that the electronic sensors on the Audi indicate collision and that the airbags have deployed. He passes the information to Sam, who is driving Callen and Deeks in the Hellcat.
"Send us the last known location," Sam tells him, and he immediately plots a course.
Deeks grabs his phone and starts calling Kensi, while Callen dials Fatima, already knowing who Deeks called first. Neither phone gets answered. They continue their fruitless attempts for the ten minutes it takes to reach the location, already busy with activity including LAPD, LAFD, and an ambulance. Deeks bolts from the backseat of the car, frustrated at how long it takes Callen to clear a path. His badge out in front of him, he peeks into the back of an empty ambulance, and then heads straight for the Audi.
"No one in there," a cop yells in his direction as he approaches the car. There isn't a surface of it that isn't damaged. Deeks can see the broken glass and twisted metal, and he's sick to his stomach.
"Where'd they go?" he asks in return, only to have the young officer shrug and approach. "Witness from that car," he explains pointing at a car that was behind Kensi and narrowly escaped being involved, "said that the driver of the truck got out, shot the women in the car, then took them. He loaded them into some kind of work van that was parked .. there," more pointing. "And left."
Sam and Callen arrive and don't like any part of that description.
"Rountree, can you track their phones?" Callen asks.
"Kensi's phone is pinging from your current location, and their earwigs are both there, too. Fatima's phone is offline, no signal. I'm working on street or security cameras now."
"There isn't a lot of blood in the car," Sam tells them. "Some, but not like people got shot in there. You're sure that's what the witness said?" Sam asks the cop.
He nods, and points to the two people who LAPD has on the sidewalk, their best witnesses to the event. NCIS talks to them to hear the details themselves and sees a few seconds of video they caught on their phone as it ended. The agents take a few pictures of the wreckage, ask LAPD to call with any information, and head back to Ops.