Callen jumped up from the couch. He grabbed his gun from its holster and made his way over to Joelle's bedroom. Sure he hadn't been here in a while but he still knew his way around the house. Carefully Callen approached the bedroom. The door was slightly open. Callen peeked through the door to see what the danger was. He didn't see anyone in the room he just saw Joelle sitting upright in her bed, terrified. He scanned once more to make sure that there really wasn't any danger before he put the gun back in the holster and walked into the room.
"Jo," Callen spoke softly as to not to startle her.
Joelle looked his way. Callen saw she had this really frightened look on her face.
"Are you okay Jo?" Callen asked as he slowly walked up to the bed.
"Callen?"
"Yeah it's me Jo, I'm here. It's okay. You had a bad dream."
"It felt so real," Joelle said as she slowly got a grasp back on reality.
"It was just a bad dream Jo, everything is fine. It's okay. I'm sorry. You're safe here. Everything is okay," Callen replied as he sat down on the bed.
Without really saying anything else Joelle crawled up to him and into his arms. Callen wasn't sure what to do but he wrapped his arms around her.
"It's okay Jo. I'm here, everything is fine, you're safe."
Callen held her in his arms and rubbed up and down her back to calm her down. This felt nice and familiar.
"Callen, can I ask you a favor?" Joelle asked after a while.
"Of course Jo."
"Can you maybe stay here with me in the bed? I just don't want to be alone."
"Yeah sure, I guess."
"Thank you Callen."
"I'm here for you Joelle, it's the least I can do."
Callen released Joelle. He got up and took his shoes off. He joined Joelle in the bed and Joelle immediately crawled close to him. She just needed to feel him close to her, feel his arms around her, she still felt safe in his arms. Joelle lay her head down on his chest as Callen wrapped his arms around her. Callen noticed that Joelle had fallen asleep a little later. He just lay there awake. It was nice to be in bed with Joelle again and to hold her in his arms. He just wished it was under different circumstances.
Callen was glad that when it became morning Joelle didn't have any more nightmares.
"Morning Jo," Callen spoke as Joelle walked into the kitchen. He was making some breakfast for them.
"Morning Callen. Hmmm, it smells good."
"Have a seat, it's almost done."
"Thank you for staying with me here last night," Joelle told them as they sat down to eat breakfast.
"It's no problem Jo, it's the least I could do. How are you feeling?"
"I'm okay I guess. Still a bit shaken off."
"That's normal. But everything will be alright. I'm really sorry for putting you through this."
"It's not your fault Callen, you couldn't have known."
"Still I'm sorry."
"Thank you for helping me."
"Of course Jo. Will you be okay here today? I have to go to work."
"I'll be fine Callen, don't worry about it. I have to go to work too."
"Alright. If you need me for anything, you can always call."
"Thank you Callen but I'll be fine."
"Alright."
They finished their breakfast and Callen helped Joelle clean up. Callen was about to leave when Joelle stopped him.
"Wait Callen, my car is still at your place."
"Right, come on. I'll drop you off at my place so you can get your car."
Joelle grabbed her things and got in the car with Callen. Callen drove back to his place. He needed to get a fresh set of clothes anyway. Callen parked his car in the driveway and they both got out.
"Thank you again Callen."
"Don't worry about it. I'm just glad you're alright."
Joelle walked close to him and gave him a friendly kiss on his cheek. "Thank you Callen."
Callen watched as Joelle walked off and got in her car. He went inside when Joelle was gone and grabbed some fresh clothes. He had liked spending time with Joelle again, it felt nice and familiar. But who was he kidding. They didn't work, Joelle had made that clear to him. Callen grabbed his bag and left for work.
"Morning Sam," Callen spoke as he walked into the bullpen.
"Morning G, how's Joelle?"
"She's good. She wanted me to stay there with her tonight. She felt safer. But she's good."
Sam wanted to say something but he opted not to. He sensed something in Callen that he didn't want to talk about this further.
Once the others were in the bullpen too Eric stood on the top of the stairs and whistled the agents up for a new case.
"What's up Eric?" Callen asked.
"This morning a DOD facility here in Los Angeles was broken into and the thieves got away with three hard drives," Eric informed them.
"What was on the hard drives?" Sam asked.
"Lots of classified intel, including the identities of agents for different agencies all of the world who are undercover," Nell told them.
"That's not good," Deeks remarked.
"I conquer Mr. Deeks," Hetty spoke as she walked in. "Not good at all. We need to get these hard drives back and fast."
"Send us the address of the facility, we'll go check it out. Nell, you're coming with us. We could use you on the scene."
"Copy that," Nell spoke and got her things.
The four agents and Nell left.
"Contact the other agencies, have them pull out all of the agents on that list," Hetty spoke to the tech. "And found out who did this."
"Got it Hetty," Eric replied.
Hetty went back down to her office. She really hoped the agents on the list were safe.
The agents showed their badges to get on the scene. Callen and Sam went up to the server room as Kensi and Deeks went to check the security footage to see if they could find the thieves there.
"NCIS, agents Callen and Hanna," Callen spoke as he and Sam showed their badges. "Are you in charge here?"
"Yes I am," the man answered.
"Do you have any idea how they could have gotten into the server room?"
"No not a clue. Not all our employees have access to this room. It has to be opened with a thumb print and a key. I'm just running a search now to see who's thumb print was used." The man pressed some keys on his tablet. "Alright that's weird."
"What's weird?" Callen wondered.
"It says here that this morning. my thumb print was used to access this room. I wasn't at the office yet this early, no one was. I had an appointment with my physical therapist this morning."
"If your thumb print is used, do they have to use your key too?"
"Yes, it's a key card. The thumb print and key card both have to be from the same person to access the room."
"And you still have your key card?" Sam asked.
"Yes, it's right here." The man referred to the lanyard he was wearing with a card on it. "I have it on me at all times. When I go home I take it home with me. It's always in my bag."
"Anyone with access to that?"
"If I'm at work it's always around my neck. I did already take it to the PT this morning but it was always within my reach. My therapist was the only one there."
"Anyone else that could have had access to your card? Can they get this off of the server somehow?"
"I could be possible that they would look into our database were the key cards are stored but we checked, the system wasn't hacked."
"Can our tech look at the system?"
"Of course."
Nell set up her computer and got to work. She locked into the system so she could see if maybe something was hacked or who had access to these databases.
"Anything else broken into or stolen?" Callen asked.
"We're still doing inventory but it seems like they only went into this room. They didn't touch anything else so they were specifically looking for those hard drives but it's gonna be hard to access them. They're encrypted. Once taken out of our servers they can only be accessed by me or our head of IT. We're both here at the office now."
"Can they bypass this encryption?" Sam asked.
"With time I think every encryption can be bypassed but even if they are really good hackers it's gonna take them at least more than a couple of hours."
"What time was the break-in?" Callen asked.
"According to the logs this room was accessed at 6.24am. We have to get these hard drives back, there's a lot of sensitive information on it."
"Yeah we heard. We're gonna do everything we can to get these drives back."
"Please, ask me anything you need. I'm happy to help."
Callen and Sam looked around the office so see if they could find something suspicious. A little later Kensi and Deeks joined them upstairs.
"Anything from the cameras?" Callen asked.
"No nothing," Kensi answered. "The cameras were disabled this morning during the time of the break-in."
"Clever."
"Maybe not that clever," Nell interjected as she stepped out of the server room.
"What have you got Nell?" Sam asked.
"I noticed the server room has a camera on the inside. I looked but I couldn't find it on the regular list of cameras. It's hooked up to a separate network. If you disabled the security cameras in the rest of the office this one stays on."
"Did you get a picture of our guy?" Callen wondered.
"Yes sort of." Nell showed them the picture on her tablet. "It's a little bit dark and you can't see his complete face. I've send it to Eric, maybe he can get you a clearer image. Other than this he doesn't appear on any of the cameras, not even before they were shut down. It's pretty impossible to avoid the cameras. To switch off the cameras he had to have gone to the security office. I checked the security office. There was nothing disturbed there and the only way is through the door. But that has a camera pointed directly at it. I looked at every angle but it's just not possible to get into that room without being spotted on the camera and the camera wasn't turned in a differently angle so the thief could get in. He could have hacked it from outside but so far I'm not seeing any signs of hacking yet but I'll look further. I let you know when I have something."
Callen and Sam stayed at the scene as Kensi and Deeks went back to the office to see what Eric had found.
"Hey Callen, Sam, look at this," Nell called the agents over.
"What do you have Nell?" Callen asked.
"I looked further into the system and I found this." Callen and Sam looked at the screen. They however had no idea what it was. "This is some sort of malware. With this type of malware they can shut down the system from any location whenever they want. It's hard to see cus it just looks like normal code. Now I'm not entirely sure about this so I've send this turn Eric but I think this is how they got it."
There wasn't much more to do at the scene so Callen, Sam and Nell went back to the office. Just as they came in Eric came walking down the stairs.
"Good work Nell, this is exactly how they got into the system and I think I know who we're looking for," Eric spoke.
"Who then Eric?" Deeks asked.
"It was a couple of years ago, before I came to work with OSP. Someone had hacked a system too and it was very hard to spot. I managed to dig up that case and I compared the codes to each other. They are exactly the same. Either we have a really good copycat out there or he's back at it again."
"Who Eric?" Callen wanted to know.
Eric pressed some keys on his tablet and an ID appeared on the screen. "The man that was arrested for this crime is Charlie Stevens. He ended up going to prison and guess what….. he got released two months ago."
"Do you have a location on him?"
"Already on your phones."
"Alright good work. Let's go."
The agents got in their cars and drove to the address. Unfortunately for them he was in a public library in the computer room. Callen and Sam entered from one end and Kensi and Deeks from the other.
"Eric, you know where exactly Charlie is?" Callen asked.
"He should be on a computer in the far left corner from your position."
Callen, Sam, Kensi and Deeks walked up to that corner. Charlie spotted them coming his way and he made a run for it.
"Charlie Stevens, federal agents! Freeze!" Callen yelled.
There was an emergency exit just behind Charlie. Charlie went out via that one. Kensi and Deeks were closest so they went after him. Callen and Sam went around to cut him off. Charlie came around the building and was looking behind him so he didn't see Callen and Sam standing there. Sam extended his arm knocking Charlie against his chest, making him fall backwards on the pavement.
"What part of freeze don't you understand?" Sam spoke.
"I didn't do nothing, I swear."
"Then why did you run?" Callen interjected.
Sam put some cuffs on him and he and Callen took him to the boatshed. Kensi and Deeks went back into the library to see what Charlie was doing on the computer.
Callen put Charlie in the interrogation room and sat across from him. Sam pulled up a chair and sat next to Callen.
"Why did you run Charlie? We know it was you who hacked into the system of the DOD facility this morning," Callen said.
"I had no choice, they were gonna kill me if I didn't do did."
"Who would?" Sam asked.
"No, I'm not telling you anything. If they find out I talked they'll kill me."
"We can help you Charlie, but you have to be straight with us," Callen told him. "Who hired you? We'll find them."
"You can't find them."
"Just give us a name Charlie. If you give us a name we will tell that you helped us. You can get a deal."
Charlie thought about it for a second. "His name is Omar Tahir."
"Thank you Charlie."
Callen and Sam left the boatshed. There was an agent there to look after Charlie. The partners went back to the office and Callen called Eric and Nell to have them look into Omar Tahir.
About thirty minutes after Callen and Sam had arrived back at the office the wonder twins came down the stairs.
"We looked into Omar Tahir. He's originally from Afghanistan and he moved to Los Angeles about five years ago. Recently the DOD has been looking into him cus they suspect he has ties with the Taliban," Eric informed them.
"They haven't been able to find anything that stuck but he is suspected of it," Nell continued. "Now that combined with the information that was stolen from the DOD facility I think it's likely that he was ordered to do that by the Taliban and he could have played that information onto them already."
"If the Taliban get a hold of a list of undercover operatives it's very bad," Callen stated.
"I conquer Mr. Callen," Hetty spoke as she walked into the bullpen. "Just hope he hasn't been able to crack the decryption yet. You better find him fast."
"We might have a location on him already," Nell said. "We tracked him to this warehouse in Culver City. That was twenty minutes ago but the cameras didn't spot him leaving."
"Alright guys, let's gear up," Callen said.
The team grabbed their gear and went to the address. They parked the car in front of the entrance gate and got out. Kensi and Deeks went around back as Callen and Sam took the front.
"In position," came Kensi's voice over the coms.
"Move in on my count. Three, two, one," Callen replied.
The agents breached the warehouse, rifles at the ready. A few steps into the building they were greeted by gun fire. They ducked behind the first thing they could find and fired back whenever they could. They heard the men shouting something Arabic to Omar Tahir who was at the computer with some other guy, probably trying to hack the hard drives. As soon as the bullets started flying the other guy wanted to stop the decryption and run for his life but Omar put a gun to his head and ordered him to finish it.
After a few minutes the bad guys were down leaving just Omar and the other guy. Rifles drawn the agents walked up to the two men.
"Put the gun down Omar! It's over!" Callen yelled.
Without thinking twice Omar pulled the gun on the agents. He was about to shoot but the team was faster and shot Omar in the chest, making him go down. The man behind the computer ducked underneath the table. The four agents walked up to the table and pulled the man up.
"Did you encrypt the drives?" Callen asked.
"No, I tried to but I couldn't get in. The information is still safe."
Kensi and Deeks took the man to the boatshed as Callen and Sam stayed behind to wrap up. They questioned the man thoroughly but he didn't have anything to do with this. Just like Charlie he was forced to do this. Callen and Sam took the drives back to the office. Eric and Nell checked but it really did seem that the encryption was still intact. The two agents took the drives back to the DOD facility.
The four agents sat in the bullpen as Hetty approached.
"The DOD facility just called. The drives are intact and no information was missing. Good job everyone," Hetty spoke.
Everyone was glad that the information on the hard drives was safe. The agents were safe. They finished filling out their paperwork before heading home. Callen parked his car in the driveway and got inside after retrieving his mail. He sat on the couch reading his mail when there was a knock on the door. Callen put the mail down on the coffee table and went to open the door. He was surprised to see Joelle standing there. Before he could say anything more Joelle jumped into his arms and kissed him.
