It feels 'right' here, in this story based on a US tv show, to take a moment and reflect on the horrors of 9-11... 17 years ago, almost to the hour, that I first heard the news and watched the appalling events play out half way round the globe, yet touching so many people here with the raw terror of it. Half my lifetime ago, and yet something I will never forget. My thoughts are with all those whose lives were changed forever on that day xx
CHAPTER NINE
Williams' interrogation of Callen seemed to last an eternity to Kensi, watching helplessly from where she'd been thrown to the floor. To her relief, Williams had nothing more than the muscle men's fists at his disposal, but their attentions on her team leader were enough for her to bear witness to, and did nothing to ease the lingering guilt she still felt. She started to worry that he would be beaten to death right there in front of her and amidst her fear for him she recognised and tried to shun a rising terror that she would be left on her own with these animals.
Apart from an occasional grunt or hiss, Callen was silent, doing his best not to make things worse for Kensi. After a short while, which felt much longer to both of them, Williams again decided he wasn't going to get any information out of Callen using fists alone. As he turned to the door, Kensi didn't have to pretend to shudder away from him, and he laughed evilly.
"Later, sweetheart, later," he promised. "After I find my son… it'll be your turn." He left to get further reinforcements, leaving Callen crumpling to a heap on the floor, bloodied and sore. Kensi rushed over to him, scanning him from head to toe, trying to ascertain if he'd suffered any life-threatening damage.
"Just more bruises," he reassured her croakily. He lifted his head to squint at the door. "Reckon we can attempt an escape?" Kensi looked at him, trying to ascertain if he was serious.
"Are you kidding?" she eventually asked. "We wouldn't get beyond the door!"
"Help me up," he ordered her, and somewhat helplessly she obeyed, trying not to touch his skin where he'd been burnt but feeling him wince as she held him in other places to help him clamber to his feet.
"Callen…." Kensi said desperately.
"Trust me?" He looked at her, experimentally freeing himself from her grasp. She nodded.
"You know I do," she replied hesitatingly.
"Good. Bang on the door. Tell them you're worried I've stopped breathing, you need help, and then stay out of the way. Don't engage them. I mean that." Callen moved behind the door. "I just need one of them in the room," he added, trying to reassure her. "Okay?"
"If you say so," she looked at him searchingly, a worried expression on her face, but he nodded, and she crossed to the door, crying and shouting in Spanish, acting up the scared young stable girl, pleading for help. It wasn't long before her efforts were rewarded by the sound of the door being unlocked and she stepped away from the door cowering against the wall and still pretending to cry as two burly guards pushed past her. Callen made his move on the first man, pushing himself off the wall so that his whole bodyweight slammed into the Mexican, throwing them both to the floor. They scrabbled, and Kensi winced as she saw the man's brutality towards her senior agent, desperate to intervene but reluctant to break the cover he had ordered her to maintain. Within seconds, the two men had subdued Callen, whipping some rope from their pockets which they used to secure his hands behind his back, and yelling angrily at Kensi they left the room, slamming the door and locking it hard behind them.
"What the hell was the point of that?!" Kensi exclaimed as she rushed over to where Callen lay gasping for breath on the floor. He grunted and tried to sit up, and seeing his intention she helped him, grasping his shoulders and gently tugging. He ended up leaning against the wall still trying to catch his breath, and she got up to go and retrieve the knife she'd hidden earlier.
"Wait," Callen huffed, and she turned to look at him. "Leave that… for now. Come here… quickly, before they come back." She crossed to him, curious, and ever more so when he moved to angle his left hip towards her. "The phone," he whispered. "In my underpants. Dial Ops, and hide it somewhere, quickly!"
Kensi coughed to cover her surprise, reaching with urgent but gentle hands to retrieve the cell phone he had lifted. Despite her care she brushed past the burn on his stomach and winced as he took a sharp intake of breath.
"Sorry," she whispered.
"Doesn't… matter. Just make… the call." Kensi obeyed, her fingers trembling as she programmed in the number. Even before it was ringing she was moving across the room to hide the phone where they'd stashed the knife, underneath the deep heavy wooden wardrobe, with a gap that only just cleared the floor and only her narrow arms could reach to the darkest corners under it. She heard footsteps again in the corridor and she pushed the phone back as far as she could before hurrying back to cower again near the wall. Callen nodded his approval, and meeting his eyes she saw the nod was also a reminder to her, to keep her head down and try to stay out of trouble. She gave him a grim smile of understanding, not sure how much more she could stand to watch him take.
NCIS:LA
The incoming call to Ops made Eric startle. He answered it, puzzled when no one spoke, but simultaneously running a trace, and he nearly fell off his chair when the trace started narrowing down the area to Mexico.
"Nell!" he yelled, keeping his eyes on the screen as the trace showed Sinaloa, the desert, the compound… "Nell!"
"What is it?" Nell burst into Ops breathlessly. She had been downstairs with Hetty, on the phone to Arlo Turk, almost crying with relief when she heard Sam and Deeks speaking to them both, alive, and more or less in one piece.
"Get Hetty! I've got a call coming in from an unknown mobile on Vasquez's compound…"
"Do you think…" Nell started excitedly, peering at the screen as she connected to Hetty's phone downstairs. In less than a minute Hetty was beside them and they all three tried to make sense of the audio feed they were hearing.
"So, we start over…" A loud voice echoed.
"That's Spencer Williams isn't it?" Nell whispered. They waited silently, each trying not to get their hopes up. They heard Williams start to interrogate someone, demanding to know where his son was, who had ordered him taken and why. The rising tidal wave of questions produced no flood of answers, only silence, and up in the quiet of the Ops centre all that could be heard was the heavy breathing indicating several people in a room, punctuated here and there by a grunt as noises that sounded like a fist meeting its target were the only identifiable sounds.
All three of them jumped when suddenly a female voice sounded loud, pleading, begging, speaking only in Spanish.
"¡Por favor no! no hagas esto! ¡Por favor!"
"Oh, God, Kensi?" Nell whispered, aghast. They heard what sounded like a slap, and the voice abruptly stopped.
"She must be using the phone as a one-way," Eric said, his face pale as he heard the desperation in the disembodied voice that might be Kensi. He didn't speak much Spanish, but he could tell the voice was begging and he tried to remain detached as they continued to listen to the horrifying sounds they could now hear. In the background was quiet sobbing, and then a loud groan, followed by the female voice once again crying and begging for whatever was happening to be stopped.
"Stay out of the way!" They heard Williams command, his voice not sounding quite so close to them, and seconds later they heard a female voice try to suppress a blood-curdling scream.
"I've already told you, she doesn't know anything," a male voice, heavily tinged with pain, panted flatly.
"Callen?" Eric said hopefully, turning to Hetty, and she nodded silently with a grim expression. She would recognise Callen's voice anywhere, though she fretted about how he sounded and wondered what on earth Williams was doing to her agent down there.
"If that's Callen, then it must be Kensi," Nell said, trying to be positive. "At least they're both alive…" She trailed off, knowing from the sounds they'd heard on the line that, with both agents at the mercy of Williams and Vasquez, neither were likely to be in good shape.
"But you do." They heard Williams state coldly.
"Maybe," Callen's voice said. "But I'm not telling you anything until you let her go."
"So!" Williams boomed. "You do care for this girl?"
"Not really," Callen spoke as if he were bored. "Her screams are giving me a headache."
"Gag her!" Williams ordered, and there was the sound of a scuffle, and then Williams once again speaking. "Now, no more screams. You can tell me what you know." They heard Callen's voice lower, almost inaudible.
"I'll tell you…" For several long seconds, they could hear nothing, and they waited on tenterhooks, hardly daring to look at each other, straining to catch the slightest possible sound in the room. They all jumped again as they heard a loud groan, followed by a thud. Spencer Williams violently uttered a string of expletives and then there were the sounds of heavy boots echoing on a wooden floor, and finally a door slamming. And then silence.
NCIS:LA
"Callen?" Kensi pulled the gag from her mouth and crawled across the room, tears in her eyes. "Oh, God, Callen!" She reached him, seeing with relief that he was still breathing, but passed out cold from what Williams had done to him. Rocking back on her heels she stuffed a fist in her mouth to prevent her vomiting at what she had witnessed, and eventually, breathing hard to calm herself down, she remembered the phone. She crawled across to the wardrobe, and stretched her arm under it, choking on a sob as she couldn't reach it, stretching further, finally clasping her trembling fingers around it with relief.
She pulled it out, and the line was still active. She held it to her ear.
"Hello?" she said shakily. "Is anyone there?"
"Ms Blye," Hetty's voice came calmly down the line. "It's good to hear your voice, my dear. Where are you?"
"We're in a room… in Vasquez's compound. Round the back of the main house." Kensi started to feel more composed now that she was able to talk to someone.
"By 'we', can we assume that Mr Callen is with you?"
"Yes," Kensi barely held on to her composure, choking back a sob.
"Alive?" Hetty asked with some trepidation, knowing that Kensi was rarely easily shaken.
"Yes, but, oh, God, Hetty!" Kensi paused, taking some deep breaths.
"It's okay, my dear. Talk to me," Hetty reassured her, feeling anything but calm as she waited for news of the man who was like a son to her.
"They burnt him, Hetty. They used a lighter, along his ribs… Each time Williams asked a question, and he didn't answer, they burnt him!" Nell and Eric gasped in revulsion, and Hetty had to dig deep to maintain her cool.
"And yourself, Ms Blye? How are you holding up?"
"I'm… I'm fine, Hetty." She paused, gathering herself. "Have you heard from Sam and Deeks? Did they make it to Los Mochis?"
"Sam and Deeks are both fine," Nell spoke, giving Hetty a few moments of quiet.
"Oh thank God!" Kensi exclaimed.
"Yes. They're on a chopper headed back up here. They'll be here within an hour. They're both dehydrated and pretty tired, from what I gather, but they're okay."
"Neither of them wanted to come home without you guys. You can imagine how that went down with Hetty," Eric said, trying for normalcy, smiling with relief as he heard Kensi make the faintest chuckle.
"They told us about Callen's plan, and we just hoped you'd contact us somehow," Nell continued. "We've already got a covert team heading your way, but it's going to be a few hours. Arlo Turk is going to coordinate from that end. We'll get you guys out soon," she said reassuringly, hoping she spoke the truth. Kensi's mouth was dry as she nodded and then realised the others on the phone couldn't see her.
"Thanks," she said. "Look… tell Deeks, when you can speak to him," she paused, not sure what she wanted to say. "Tell him… Well, just tell him I'm okay, will you?"
NCIS:LA
"What's the… deal… with you and Deeks?" Kensi heard the faintest of voices from the floor and her eyes flew to Callen's face. His eyes were open, as much as they could be with the left one now even more bruised and swollen.
"Hey!" she said, tears of relief welling in her eyes.
"Who was on the phone?" His voice was a little stronger.
"Hetty. Eric and Nell. Shall I call them back?" Callen gave the tiniest shake of his head. He had a pounding headache from where he had head-butted Williams when he had enticed him in close enough by making him believe he was about to tell him the whereabouts of his son. It had been Williams' furious retaliation that had knocked him unconscious, though he wasn't sure he'd been far off blacking out anyway. The burns on his chest felt like they were still on fire.
"Hide it," he instructed her, and though she didn't want to move from his side, she obeyed, pushing the phone as far back into it's hiding pace as she could reach.
"How are you doing?" she asked, crossing back to him. He lifted his head and started to push himself up.
"Shit!" The pain from the burns almost took his breath away.
"Don't move," Kensi said worriedly, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"I'm okay," he said, eventually sitting so that he could look her level in the eyes. "How's your arm?"
"Callen!" Kensi almost sobbed, wondering why she was surprised that he held more concern for the single burn she had suffered on her arm when Williams had whipped round to silence her, than he gave over to his own welfare. She looked at the angry red burn marks running neatly along his ribs and winced. He shrugged.
"How long was I out?" he asked.
"Five minutes, ten maybe. Not long…" She looked him over with concern. "Do you think they'll be back?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Callen said, hating the look he saw in her eyes.
"Callen, I…" Kensi swallowed. How could she say she wasn't sure how much more she could take? "Help is on the way," she said instead, her voice low. "Sam and Deeks, they made it, joined up with Turk. Hetty made them get on a chopper back to LA…" She couldn't hide the relief in her voice, and saw it reflected in Callen's eyes too. "Hetty has sent a covert team… but it's going to be a few hours before they get here."
"Okay," Callen said, shifting uncomfortably.
"What shall we do?" Callen thought for a moment, playing through possibilities in his head.
"I'll give Williams what he wants," he finally said.