Crosshairs
Chapter 6
Callen calmly walked into the interrogation room. He had decided to try one more ruse, a blatant threat and within their usual area of intimidation tactics. If that failed, all bets were off.
He wordlessly put a single bullet onto the table in front of the shooter, watching the man's eyes move to the bullet. He also saw that the man acknowledged the fact he was wearing protective gloves.
He sat down and waited until the man's eyes came up to him. "One of you guys fired a bullet at me yesterday during the raid. You missed," he said evenly.
He saw recognition flitter through the man's eyes and decided to press his advantage when he felt he had found a weak spot. "The techs found it was coated with something. There was enough residue left to transfer it to another bullet." He deliberately allowed his eyes to move to where he had put the bullet.
The shooters eyes followed his to the bullet on the table and he licked his lips. Callen reached for the bullet and took out his gun, releasing the magazine and casually adding the extra bullet on top before slamming the magazine home once more. "I wonder if you were more inclined to tell me the name of the counter agent if you needed it yourself," he stated conversationally.
Again, the man licked his lips nervously before watching him calculatingly. "My partner already died for this. So will I. I will not tell you anything, even if you put that bullet into me." He leaned forward in his seat, meeting Callen's gaze firmly. "Plus… I don't believe you."
Having his bluff called and finally allowing his control to snap, Callen surged out of his seat and was around the table in a flash, dragging the man out of the chair and propelling him backwards. He registered in satisfaction the breath going out of the man's lungs when he hit the wall and the pain entering the man's expression when the gunshot wound on his arm was jostled. "Listen, you idiot, I will get the information and I don't care just how painful it's going to be for you, but you will tell me what I want to know," he snarled, shoving the man back into the wall again for good measure. His hands were bunched into the fabric of the man's shirt and Callen's eyes flickered down when he noticed something. The man followed his glance and his eyes widened before he tried pushing him away.
Callen growled and forced the man back. He changed his hold and used his left hand to rip the fabric open, his eyes falling on the tattoo that had caught his eye. Finally, connections snapped in place in his mind and everything slotted together.
He shoved off of the man and stepped away.
When the other man charged him in a desperate attempt, Callen sidestepped and in a quick and vicious struggle overpowered the shooter and pushed him face down on the table. He leaned down and whispered a "busted," into the man's ear before manhandling him back into his seat and striding out of the room.
Even before the door closed behind him, he had his cell phone out and was calling Hetty's number.
"Mr. Callen?"
"Tell Steve it's some kind of scorpion venom," he told her urgently, "not sure which one - I'll have Eric look into it - but that may help him already."
He heard movement on the other end of the line before Hetty relayed the information and she came back online. "How do you figure?"
Callen stepped into the main room and found Kensi's eyes on him. "The shooter has a tattoo below his collarbone… a stylized scorpion we've seen before," he told both Kensi and Hetty. He watched Kensi's eyes widen in understanding. He nodded to her and gave her an order, tilting his cell slightly to speak to Kensi, "have Eric look up the scorpion species in Colombia. Escoripo was very proud of his country from what we found out after he got away last time. I'm certain he would use one of the endemic animals… also to send a hidden message that he's behind this. He's fond of those messages as we know."
They had gone up against Escorpio before. Callen himself had been taken by the man and left in a sea cave to struggle against the elements. His team had found him before he lost the fight, but they hadn't managed to apprehend the man who had only been known as Escorpio to various authorities before he tangled with NCIS and made the mistake of going up against his team. The man's identity had been burned. They had crippled part of his business, freezing up a large amount of his money, killing one and apprehending another of his security detail but not managing to arrest the head of the snake. Obviously, he was still very well connected and also well off considering the expensive helicopter escape just yesterday.
"Mr. Callen?" Hetty called his attention.
"Yes, Hetty?" he returned his focus to his boss and mentor.
"Nail that bastard. I want you to pull out all the stops and find him. We will not let this stand."
He could hear the anger and grim determination in Hetty's voice, knew that it matched his own feelings. "Understood," he told her curtly before hanging up on her.
Kensi was watching him when he turned back to her. They shared a glance before he turned to the screen. "Eric?" he called and a moment later, the screen changed from displaying the inside of the interrogation room to their tech watching from Ops center. "Anything on the scorpion species?"
Eric nodded emphatically, "there are only two endemic scorpions in Colombia that are potentially deadly to the human and both belong to the Centruroides family. I've just forwarded the information to Steve and he sounded relieved. According to him there's a good antivenin for those species."
He allowed a relieved smile to break through his masks, "that's good news." He sighed softly, "I know you both want to be with Nell and Deeks, but we need to finish this guy before that." He, too, wanted to see for himself how his friends were doing, but stepping back now put them all at risk for future assassination attempts. "Eric, you especially will not leave Ops without either Kensi or me. With Nell down, we'll be blind if you get taken out."
"You think there are more of his men waiting for us?" Eric asked quietly.
"It's entirely possible," Callen nodded. "We know he's had a close knit security team of four men back when we first had dealings with him. We took out two of them back then, but he must have replaced them by now. The fact that they knew the location of the boatshed is worrisome, but can be put down to us interrogating one of his men here back then. We put that guy in prison, where he probably talked. I don't want to compromise Ops, so neither Kensi nor I will return to the mission for the time being."
Kensi nodded in agreement. "What now? You think we'll get that guy talking?" she asked, nodding her head towards the interrogation room.
"With enough time, probably," Callen shrugged. Their time frame had eased a little now that they had managed to extract the crucial information to help their team mates. "We'll have a go at him again in a few minutes. In the meantime, I need you to run another search, Eric. Go through our old files and pull the company logos from back then… Escorpio used fragments of a symbolized scorpion in all of his company logos. See if you can find any fragments of that same symbolized scorpion in any current company logos and if any of those are located in or around L.A."
Eric nodded, his fingers already moving over the keyboard of his tablet. "On it."
"You think he's dumb enough to do that again?" Kensi asked skeptically.
"I think he's proud, cocky and arrogant enough to do that again," Callen corrected. "He thinks he's superior to us and so far he's not all wrong with that assessment." He briefly allowed his anger to show, as well as his determination, before he carefully schooled his face neutral again, "and I think it's time to change that."
Xxxxxxx
Both Kensi and he had taken a few minutes to reread their files on the Escorpio case from back then, reminding themselves on the small details while Eric worked his own magic in Ops. After Eric had focused his facial recognition program on Colombia - combined with a hack job into their national database - they had a name for both their shooters. More than names for a dead and an apprehended shooter, they were waiting for the crucial information of Escorpio's whereabouts. All three of them wanted to put that man behind bars and be done with him before heading to the hospital to check up on their partners.
They had had another go at their shooter, confronting him with the knowledge about his identity. He was nervous but still didn't break so they left him to stew for a while longer.
Callen glanced up when the monitor flickered to life and Eric appeared. "I got a potential location," he told them, his voice carefully excited, "there are two companies in the greater L.A. area that use pieces of the scorpion as their logo. I checked through their data and it's a pretty safe bet that they belong to Escorpio."
Callen straightened and beside him, he could see Kensi vibrate with tension and the need to move.
"I've checked and found two security cams around the warehouses they use. There was also a satellite conveniently passing over that I…" he broke off, a mildly embarrassed and mostly satisfied smile on his features.
Callen grinned, "we get it." All of them knew that Eric sometimes used his talents in a not so much sanctioned way that got them the results desired. Legal tape could take a while to be cut through and sometimes they needed to get things done faster and without a tap dance on the legal line.
Eric returned the grin. "There are multiple heat-signatures in one of the locations and going back through the traffic cams around the area, I've found this..." he said and pulled up a traffic cam picture on the screen. There he was: Emanuel Alvarez, also known as Escorpio.
"Are you sure he hasn't left the area?" Callen asked.
"As sure as I can be. I've got Kaleidoscope looking, but so far I've only got that picture showing him moving towards the location about an hour ago," Eric shrugged.
"Alright, that's good enough for me," Callen nodded. "Eric, we need back up at that location. Fix a meeting point two blocks over where we can set up and go through a plan of attack. Get the warehouses blueprints, etcetera… you know the drill. Have one team swing by at our secondary site across from the boatshed with clothes and gear. Kensi and I will take a swim."
Kensi arched an eyebrow, "we will?"
Callen smirked, "oh yes, we will. I'm not planning on walking out of here to get myself shot at again. Plus, if Escorpio has this place under surveillance, they can keep an eye on 'nothing happening here' while we're preparing the raid and getting the drop on them. We have a perfectly good tap door that can't be watched from outside. Why not use it?"
She tilted her head to the side and nodded with a predatory grin that mirrored Callen's, "I like that."
Callen turned back to the monitor, "Eric, check the security cameras around the boatshed for anyone who's been here for longer than they should have. If you find any such person, I want you to have them apprehended as soon as we're closing in on the warehouse. Not earlier so as not to trip them."
"Copy that," Eric nodded and started typing before the monitor switched off.
"Fancy a late night swim in the moonlight?" Callen asked with a glance at Kensi.
"Let's hope we won't be overrun by a late night yacht cruising in said moonlight," Kensi gave back.
Xxxxxxx
Note: and there we have it… The missing link. As of now, this story is officially the sequel to "The Hispanic". For those of you who didn't read that one, don't worry, you this story works without knowledge of the previous one.