Renee did have some resources that until now had remained un-utilized. She knew the leader of the Cajun Navy so she could ask if some of the members could keep an eye out for any unusual activities in the area. If anyone could know all of the bayou, it would be the Cajun Navy.
Renee called in a few favors and was able to get into contact with the group's leader. The leader was more than happy to put the word out.
The leader went even further and gave the members some advice. "If you see the suspect do not, and I repeat, do not approach him."
"He is armed and extremely dangerous. He has killed a lot of people, including members of the Navy, Marines, as well as NOPD officers. He even tried to kill my long-time friend Renee."
The Cajun Navy would drive their boats and airboats up and down the various waterways that make up the bayou looking for any boat or person that shouldn't be there.
Since the navy were just members of the community, they knew all of the locals. They would know who should and who shouldn't be there.
This setup worked quite well until some of the members failed to check-in at their specified time. When they failed to check in on time, their boss called it into Renee and the team of NCIS agents that she was working with.
Patton tracked the pair's satellite phone down to a square mile before he lost the signal. Getting to the location where they lost connection, Renee and Horatio began to scan the area.
Seeing a plume of thick black smoke, they followed it to the remains of the missing Cajun Navy member's flat bottom boat.
Someone who they could only assume was the suspect had burned the boat. The pair of officers found no sign of the missing men, so it looked like the men were still alive.
But where were they? Did the suspect take them, and if he did, where did he take them?
Horatio and Renee called in the burning boat and missing men to the NCIS command center.
With Pride manning the command center, he sent more agents to help search the area for any signs of the missing men or the suspect. Having more agents coming to help search, let Horatio and Renee send for Echo.
She knew the dog could track anyone or anything. With a piece of the missing men's clothing and a piece of clothing that they had managed to get from the compound after the suspect blew it up.
Renee just needed to get Echo to get the smell of whoever Renee wanted to track down and to tell Echo, "seek." Giving the dog the command sent Echo into a smelling frenzy.
Tracking over water is almost impossible for most dogs to do, but Echo's breed was created in Louisiana to track wild boar over the bayou.
For Echo, it was easy to do. Smelling around the area, it didn't take long for the dog to get on the trail of either the suspect or the missing Cajun Navy members.
Renee didn't know who her canine was tracking, but she trusted the dog to tell her if she was in danger.
Echo has a history of saving her partner from danger. Whether it was Renee or even Horatio and James, the dog would do whatever was needed to keep her partner safe. So when Renee heard Echo let out a low growl, she knew something was up.
Right after Renee heard Echo growl, a bullet missed her head by inches. She and her brother were under fire by who they thought was the suspect.
Coming around the bend in the river, Renee and Horatio came across a shocking scene. The pair by chance ran into one of the missing Cajun Navy members.
Pulling the bleeding man into the flat bottom boat, the two of them couldn't wait to find out what happened to him and his buddy. Quickly they asked the man if he was the one shooting. Quietly he answered, "yes, I thought you were the suspect."
As soon as the injured Cajun Navy member could talk, they proceeded to question him. They needed to find his buddy and the suspect since both men were still missing in action.
While sitting at the bottom of the boat, the newly found man who's name was Mason Lowell began answering the police officer's questions.
"Well, Garrett McKenna and I were driving the boat down the bayou when we saw a suspicious boat. The house that we saw the boat had been abandoned since Katrina. I guess that someone saw us since they started to shoot at us."
"We thought that we were inconspicuous by pretending to be hunters, but I guess that they saw right through our charade."
"One bullet hit me in the shoulder, and I fell overboard, where I threw my rifle into the water. I continued to hear gunshots, so I played dead."
"Whoever it was that was shooting at us came up to check if I was dead, but I guess that I fooled him because he left. I don't know what really happened to Garrett since when the suspect left, I never saw Garrett again."
"I think the suspect took him hostage since I didn't hear him hit the water or fall down into the boat." The victim had finished his testimony.
After hearing what the new victim said, they wanted first to get him the medical treatment that he needed. Then, they wanted to find out where the house was.
The duo knew that the odds were against them, but maybe they could get some evidence as to where the suspect went and, by chance, find some clues as to what happened to Garrett.
Grabbing a map of the bayou, Horatio asked Mason to point out where the house was at. The home was located deep in the bayou. So deep that people almost never visit.
The only ones that ever visited the house to check on the resident were members of the Cajun Navy. They would come to visit about twice a month just to check on the elderly homeowner.
Before Katrina hit members of the Cajun Navy came to evacuate the homeowner, but they found him dead from a heart attack. So the Cajun Navy knew that no one should be there since the owner had no family.
When Horatio and Renee approached the supposedly abandoned house, they did find signs that they had just missed the person that was there.
They also found a small pool of blood against the back wall. Horatio could only assume that the blood was from Garrett, the missing Cajun Navy member.
Mason told Horatio and Renee that his buddy Garrett did have an Emergency Personal Response Beacon. The EPERB works like a reverse GPS unit. It sends a signal out rather than receiving a signal. All the members of the Cajun Navy had one on them at all times.
Renee and Horatio had managed to track the suspect to a huge abandoned shrimp processing plant. The plant had not been used since the Deep Horizon accident. The oil spill decimated the local shrimp population, which led to the company going bankrupt and being forced to close its door.
Mason, the Cajun Navy member that had been shot by the suspect, described the boat as a three-gallon gas tank since it was a Zodiac with a 10 HP outboard motor. A tank that size as a rule of thumb can run three hours on a full three-gallon gas tank.
That gave Patton a one and a half-hour radius in which the boat can travel. So he mapped out a one and a half hour area around the house that the Cajun Navy members had spotted him at earlier.
Patton then turned on a drone that he had to scan the area on the map, looking for heat signatures. He scanned and scanned the area looking for a hot location that was putting out a large amount of heat.
This strategy did eventually work when the drone came across a large, abandoned shrimp processing plant.
Neither Horatio nor Renee wanted to put anyone else at risk, so the two of them went in alone to investigate. As they got close too the building, they were soon under fire from at least seventy-five people.
It took them about an hour to make their way from the boat outside to being inside the processing plant.
During the course of the firefight, Horatio and Renee got separated when Renee attempted to flank the suspect. The firefight was very intense since the suspect had close to seventy-five subordinated shooting the MDPD officers.
While technically outgunned, both Renee and her brother have an impeccable aim. They hit more than they miss. Renee never missed and killed everyone that she shot at, and Horatio killed just about everyone that he shot at. With twenty-one rounds in his Sig Horatio ended up killing fifteen gunmen. The shots fired slowly dwindled from seventy-five down to five, not including the suspect.
By this time, Horatio was out of ammo, and he forgot to grab his back up weapon. Since he left his house on a road trip, he really didn't think that he would need to have his back up weapon.
Renee, however, given her history of people always trying to kill her, she never goes anywhere without both her back up weapon and at least four full extra magazines for her Sig Sauer.
She had to get a replacement Sig since the suspect still had hers from when she was caught sneaking onto the suspect's compound. The Sig that the suspect had possession of had been the Sig that saw Renee through fourteen years in the Marines, three years on the border, and now three years with MDPD. Her mother had gotten her the firearm when she graduated from Marine boot camp.
She had four full magazines on her ammo belt and thigh bags along with one in the gun. She also always kept a bullet in the chamber. That policy of keeping one in the chamber had saved Renee's life on multiple occasions. In total, she had fifty rounds in the magazines and one in the chambers.
With Horatio's twenty-one rounds, they were evenly matched since the bad guys had a really bad aim. But since Horatio forgot his back up, it was down to Renee to take out her Kimber Micro that was chambered in .380 ACP out and take out the remaining five bad guys and shoot the suspect.
She really wanted just to wound him since they still needed to find the women and young girls that he was trafficking and the missing Cajun Navy member.
While the bad guys were busy reloading their AK-47's, Renee stood up and took them out one at a time, not missing one. It was now down to the suspect and Renee. With one round left, she couldn't miss. When her gun jammed, she had to think fast.
By this time, they were both out of ammo, and therefore they were unarmed. Renee, however, still had the SEAL dive knife that Gibbs had given her a few months before.
Renee had been training at knife throwing since she got the knife. She thought that if she was going to carry around a large knife, she better be proficient at using it. The knife was never off of her thigh.
Renee motioned to her brother that she was going to flank the suspect and hopefully take him down without anyone else getting killed.
They really needed to take him in alive since other people's lives were in danger. Renee snuck around the back of the abandoned fishing shack to the busted down door.
Renee really tried only to injure the suspect, but he made a move towards her brother. The war-hardened police officer was in fear for her brother's life, so she threw the knife. Her reaction was more reflex than anything. The blade of the knife sank deep into the suspect's chest.
With the blading sticking out of his chest, he fell onto his back and was bleeding out on the floor of the gigantic abandoned fishing shack's floor.
When Renee threw the knife, it punctured the suspect's lung making it impossible for the suspect to talk so she couldn't ask him where the missing women are.
They had no clue how to find the women and girls, along with the missing Cajun Navy member Garrett.
When the suspect died, Renee searched him to clear him from any weapons. At that time, Renee located her Sig Sauer P-226 that the suspect had taken when Renee had been caught in the suspect's compound.
Renee was buried alive, and the suspect had taken her gun. That gun was a gift from her mom when she had graduated from Marine boot camp. It saw through years as a Marine, time at the border not to mention her years in MDPD. She loved that gun very much.