A/N: Thank you to everyone who continues to read and review this story. A special thanks to the most recent Guest reviewer, who caused me to alter and expand this first few scenes from my original plan.
Kensi sat in her SRX outside the Mission and seriously contemplating calling in sick today.
The only good thing about today was that Hetty was in Washington for a budget meeting, a relatively new development as she used to attend via videolink. Apparently, Kensi wasn't the only person who was pissed at Hetty.
That didn't mean today was going to be easy. She headed through the oak doors and walked slowly towards the bull pen. Even from this distance she could hear them bantering away. She walked into the main room and the two men looked up as she entered the bullpen. Rather than heading for her desk, Kensi remained where she was.
"Kensi, what's going on? Callen asked. Kensi didn't respond.
"Kensi?" Sam said, leaning towards her. Callen moved his chair back, about to rise. Still Kensi didn't respond.
Finally she gathered her courage, walked over to her desk, dropped her bag and turned to the two men. "Come with me."
She led the two men out into the courtyard within the hacienda, coming to a stop next to the fountain in the centre.
"What's going on?" Callen asked.
Even now, it took Kensi a long moment to speak. "Deeks is infiltrating Thornhill's ranks. Thornhill brought the drugs we chased with the DEA and he probably ran the pump and dump and killed Peter Griffin and Jennifer Gates. Now he's getting Deeks to buy a shipment of arms and I need your help."
"Why didn't you tell us before," said Sam.
"We all work on things on our own," said Callen to his partner.
"No, Deeks was undercover, he needed back up," said Sam.
"This isn't undercover, this is infiltration and you know as well as I do that when you do that, you're on your own."
"We could've helped him. We could've worked together and we'd have more than we have."
"We have a lot. We know the names of front companies, locations, top lieutenants."
"And a murderer walks free."
"Even if we knew who killed Griffin and Gates, and we don't, that wouldn't be enough tie it to Thornhill. He'd walk and hire more killers.
"We could have found out more," said Sam.
"How?" Kensi leaned towards Sam. The former SEAL reciprocated.
Callen stepped between them. "We can't spend time feeling sorry about what might have been," said Callen. He turned to Kensi. "How does Deeks link Thornhill to the pump and dump?"
"One of Thornhill's lieutenants had a list of bank accounts, at least two of those matched accounts that the Sunshine money was sent to."
"Can Deeks get the list?"
"It was shredded."
"When's the arms deal?"
"Tomorrow or the next day. There will be separate cash and weapons exchanges. We follow the arms up the chain of command."
"We can't just let them walk."
"We were thinking GPS transmitters," said Kensi.
"Too obvious, not to mention you can't use them on the pistols," said Callen
"We could use Overwatch," said Sam. "Totally invisible, trackable for up to three weeks, which should be more than what we need."
Callen and Kensi nodded. "The Crows supply everyone, from terrorists, to the Aryans, to Mexican Cartels. They're on every watch list from here to Hong Kong. We can justify this to Granger."
"I agree, but we should have a plan first, and we need to tell Eric and Nell, they can help.
"Let's get to work," said Sam. He headed back into the mission.
Callen turned to her. Why didn't you tell us about Deeks?"
"Because you'd've told Hetty."
Deeks walked towards "What were you thinking?"
Deeks turned to look at Callen. "Oh, I'm just here to keep the peace."
"It wasn't necessary to bring you in."
"We shouldn't be keeping things from each other.
"We keep things from each other all the time. Sudan, Jada, your family." Sam opened his mouth. "Look I'm not saying we shouldn't have told you, or that we were running it, and we chose not to because we thought it was best."
"You thought we were a security risk?"
"Yeah, we did. And I would point out that you never questioned it when it was Hetty was making the calls, no matter how badly it went."
Sam's face changed to a look of consideration. Conveniently, before the big man could formulate a response, Deeks' phone buzzed.
"One second." Deeks pulled his phone from his pocket. "The Crows have set a meeting for tomorrow at a warehouse in North LA."
"Then we've got a job to do." Sam paused. Deeks said nothing, "You're not going to apologise?"
"If I had to make the same choice again, I'd make the same one, and so would you."
Sam nodded, Deeks thought he understood, even if he didn't emotionally agree. The three men headed inside.
Granger approved their plan with surprisingly little convincing. A check through the Justice Department computers revealed that the ATF was still attempting their way through the outer bulwarks of the Crows.
Deeks leaned against the side of the van. He and two other members of Thornhill's crew were gathered in an alleyway, four blocks from the warehouse where the meet had beem scheduled.
"Repeat the instructions I gave you."
"I already did."
"Do it again."
"I go into meet the Crows at the money exchange while you check the guns. When you give me the go ahead, Bob brings in the money and you take the guns. Are you sure you don't want someone to help you out?"
Thornhill had asked the same question and Deeks gave the same answer both times. "The fewer people involved, the less chance there is that someone will say the wrong thing to the wrong person." Also, he needed the opening to spray the weapons with Overwatch, which Kensi had provided.
Kensi climbed up onto the roof of a building overlooking the warehouse. Kensi toggled her comms. "Position One, the Crows are on site."
"Copy that," said Deeks. "Proceeding."
Kensi was so focused on Deeks' van as it drove towards the warehouse, that she had no warning before she heard a click behind her. She whipped round to see a figure standing over her. "Don't move."
The moment Deeks walked into the warehouse, he scanned every face. It was a habit he had picked up after an unpleasant lesson in how incestuous the LA underworld could be. He saw no faces he recognised, but one of the men hung in the back, always keeping someone between Deeks and himself. Before Deeks could take a closer look, Duke walked over.
The biker stuck out his hand. "Afternoon."
"Hot enough for you," Deeks said as he returned the handshake.
"No power means no power bill, but it also means no AC."
"Then let's get this over with."
Duke nodded and led Deeks over to the hardware. Deeks looked them over. He was satisfied that they were the real deal. He doubted that the Crows wanted people who brought automatic weapons to come back for a refund.
He texted the moneyman, waited for a response, then pulled the SIM card out broke it into four, then smashed the body under his boot.
"Must cost you in phones."
"But it's saved me in years." The truth was that he'd given the phone number to Eric, and seeing as Eric did everything on computer, to Hetty as well, and he didn't want to give the tiny ninja any more information than he absolutely had too. Plus, it had impressed his co-worker, and Duke and his men in the bargain.
After a few minutes, Duke received his own text, and followed Deeks' example.
"You know, you're not what I expected.
"Oh,
"You're supposed to be well..."
"Crazy" Duke said nothing. "I only have the two modes, be thankful you don't get to meet the other guy."
Duke smiled and nodded, probably because the man's finely tuned bullshit detector had just pinged. He turned to his men and waved a finger in a circle.
Deeks closed up one of the crates. Then he and Duke brought it over to his van.
The other Crows soon had a rhythm going, shuttling boxes between the warehouse pile and the van.
Deeks finally got a good look at one of the guys carrying the guns. It was Bauer from ATF. The recognition was clear on his face. Deeks shot the man a pleading look. Bauer shook his head. Fragglerock.
Deeks walked over to help the ATF agent load the case into the truck. "How long do you think we have to do this?" he asked, referring to the ATF's pending arrival.
"About two minutes." Loading up would take twice that. And he couldn't very well just drive off without inviting some very awkward questions about why. Fragglerock. There was nothing to do now but play it out. He continued carrying crates back and forth between the two vehicles.
Duke's radio crackled. "Someone's-"
"Knuckle up," shouted Duke.
Ten seconds later the door burst of its hinges.
"Federal agents, don't move." Bauer immediately dropped to his knees and Deeks followed his example, along with Duke and several other members of the crew. One of the Crows did not comply. The ATF agents shot him without hesitation.
Within a minute the warehouse was secured. The breach team and the windbreakered agents half led half dragged Deeks and the Crows to the wagon waiting outside. The last thing Deeks saw before he was dragged out was a pair of clipboard carrying DEA agents cataloguing the cache of weapons.