Chapter 4: Russian Mobs and Local Hitmen
A/N: I saw "Deep Trouble II", and I was in the same ocean with a similar target, but that was as close as it got. I also watched 6x02 "Inelegant Heart" and now realize this story is so far from canon, it has to be rated AU. This chapter is an attempt to try to bring the two closer. I wrote this based on the two teaser photos for the episode "Third Choir" and the one of Callen where it looks like he is trying to match Deeks' hair styling in "Praesidium". Some of the dialogue from previous canon episodes are used here. Parts of this story are condensed from other stories that I have already posted. Thanks again to G, my Russian thesaurus. I hope you enjoy it.
A/N 2: Sorry this is being posted so late, I rewrote this chapter more times than I want to count, and as it is, I still am not perfectly happy with it. The plot bunnies were not kind to me these past couple of weeks. They gave me parts to other stories I am working on, a partial outline for a whole new story, but for this chapter, they all ran and hid. And so, before I fall too far behind the televised version, here it is:
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"Me, Matias? I can understand why some elements among the Russians would like to eliminate me from being an active player, but why would the CIA or any other US government agency want to stop me from doing my job?"
"You have no idea of how many enemies you have made, Herta, both among your foes and your 'so called' friends."
"You mentioned the CIA. We have worked hand in hand with them. Why would they be trying to get me?"
"Three words, Herta, 'White Ghost, Afghanistan'. They are still upset at how you intervened in their operation there,"
"How would you know about what I did there?"
"The CIA had farmed out the operation to my Russian friends. They turned it over to me. I was supposed to make sure that Jack Simon was eliminated. To help me accomplish this task, I made certain that the rumor of his being a traitor was circulated, so both sides would be looking to kill him. The legend of the 'White Ghost' was nothing more than my trying to save my own life and keep my Russian friends from coming after me."
Deeks had to hold Kensi back as she listened to Mattias' explanation. With all that she endured, the doubts about her former fiance, the failure to obey Granger's orders and administer the kill shot, making herself also look like a traitor by sneaking out of camp and allowing herself to be captured, undergoing torture at the hands of the Taliban, and the helpless feeling of having the team have to come halfway around the world to rescue her, she was ready to kill him with her bare hands.
"Easy, Kens, he is not worth it. Besides, even if we would drop his body through the trapdoor of the interrogation room, it would probably float, and even the fishes would refuse to dispose of it."
Kensi stopped struggling, but Deeks kept his arms around her, partially because he was concerned that something else would set her off, but mostly because he loved the close contact of her body next to his.
"Herta," you could hear how imploring his voice had become. "I need the same protection you gave to Jack Simon. Since it was my mission to 'eliminate that problem', and because I didn't, I became a new problem for them. Now they have decided to run a new operation, called 'Red Spook'. It is exactly like 'White Ghost' operation, only with a different person painted as the target, ...me."
"But you were not the one who saved the White Ghost from the Taliban. It was the team that I had sent in to rescue my agent that took him from the Taliban's control. That was never the main mission, it was only incidental to what they were charged to do."
"If only your agent could shoot straight, Herta, all of this could have been avoided. Are you sure you sent the best to do the job?"
Kensi started to struggle with Deeks again, wanting to go in and show Mattias just what type of agent she really was.
"Mattias, the agent I sent was the only one qualified to do the job. Rest assured, she did NOT miss. She is too well trained to miss. Her father was a Marine scout sniper who trained others in his craft. She honed her skills under his tutelage and the men who trained him."
"Are you sure, Herta? Can you truly be positive about that?"
"She is the preferred sniper for her team. My agents trust their lives to her skills. She has never let them down and they believe that she never will. Nor do I. They are confident that should she ever be unable to do the job, she would tell them, and they would just accept it."
"I could never have such faith in someone else."
"You have never worked with people as special as these."
"Are they special enough to protect me from the Russians and the CIA?"
"I can understand why the Russians are trying to eliminate you, but why would the CIA be joining in that project?"
"They were still upset with me over Branston Cole's book that you provided me. I gave it to the Russians who were posing as CIA agents. I don't know when the Agency finally found out that I had played them and was not going to give them the book. They said that I still owed them my freedom and that they would find some way for me to buy it back. When I told them that the micro dots the Russians were able to find were old and corrupted, they did not believe me."
"I know how persistent they can be. They must have worked it out the night that I provided you with the book. The lights at Langley burned well into the dawn as they tried to analyze how two Russian agents were able to pass themselves off as CIA agents. It was just so embarrassing for them."
"The first thing that they wanted me to do was to provide them with all the information that the Russians were getting from the micro dots. It took a while for my operatives to steal that information, and when it was given to me and I read it, I couldn't believe what it contained. This was supposed to be a little black book on Staatsseccherheit (East German Secret Police) operatives, as well as foreign agents from numerous countries, all the infamous. secret, operations of the KGB, the US and Israel including assassinations, intelligence gathering operations, counter-intelligence operatives, everything that the Virgin Mary herself would sell her soul to possess. Instead, it was nothing but specifications of equipment that was proposed shortly after the Cold War started, mostly Russian, some American, all of them projects that never did get off the ground because they were completely impractical or financially impossible to complete. There were two other micro dots that probably contain more of the same, but were totally unreadable, because after some sixty years, they had deteriorated with age. Who knows what was done with this book. Perhaps it was left open to those pages for too long a time and the natural light of the sun caused a reaction. Your guess is as good as mine as to what happened to it."
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Back at ops, Nell and Eric were listening to the explanation that Mattias was giving Hetty about the micro dots and their deterioration. She giggled out loud, and Eric spun her chair around to give her a high five. Both of them remember the time constraints she was under as Hetty ordered her to take the micro dots off of a bookmark that they found in Renner's apartment and place them into a fake book that they could trade to the Russians to save Kensi, whom they had captured. How much depended on the simple little things that these two people did, and how often were they the reason that the agents came back home, safe and sound?
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"You did not believe me when I told you that the book that everyone wanted never did exist."
"Herta, you should know that no one believes anything that anyone says in our business. What is true on one day becomes lies the next. All your friends become your enemies, and then suddenly, they are your friends and allies again. There are very, very few, if any, people that you can count on, and it seems that the older we get, the fewer those people become."
"I cannot tell you how wrong you are, Mattias. I may not always enjoy the veritable approval of my superiors, but the members of my team are much more than my friends and coworkers. Each of them are one of my children. We sometimes fight like family members regularly do, but I would give my life for each and every one of them if it came down to that, and I am certain that they would do the same for me, because they have already offered to do it, more than once."
"I know about your team members, Herta. They had their own last visit with me after I saw you that last time, and gave me a warning to leave you alone, totally, or I would have to deal with all of them. They are indeed a formidable group, and I understand why you have such confidence in them. It is just that I don't know if they will be able to stand up to the combined power of the Russian искоренить (iskornit') cartel."
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Callen immediately called out, "Nell, Eric, everything that you can find on the Iskorenit cartel. I mean everything, and I need it now."
"We're already on it," Nell told him, as both of them started typing furiously on their computer keyboards.
Sam looked at him with worry all over his face, "G, what's wrong – what's got you so worked up?"
"That name, Sam, 'Iskorenit', in Russian it means 'eradication'. I've heard some rumors of a new player on the block in Russia and Eastern Europe. If this is the one they meant, we are in for a whole lot of trouble."
"Why, what's the problem with this cartel that makes them different from any of the others we have faced?"
"They play by their own rules, and those rules keep changing all the time."
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Hetty seemed unperturbed at this. Instead she asked Mattias, "This is the Russian group that you have associated yourself with?"
"I didn't seek them; they found me and told me what they wanted me to do."
"You could have come to us then."
"I had too much to lose then."
"And how much do you have right now?"
"Nothing. They took it all. I went into hiding with my wife, Marlis, fearing the vengance they wanted to extract from me. They waited and gave me a new mission. While I was trying to accomplish that for them, they uncovered her sanctuary. I honestly thought I had found a good enough way to place Marlis into hiding, but they surprised her one afternoon, and made a DVD of them torturing her before she was executed. They made sure that I received that warning. I tried even harder to find a safe house for Elli, but they found her too. They had promised me that they would not hurt her. But they are the new type of power we deal with in the world today. You trust their word, and you are a fool. Elli wanted to trust them, and look what that got her. That is why I come to you. I am out of options. I have no more friends. I am forced to seek help from my enemies."
"And just why should I consider helping you? In all the time we have plied our trade, you have never done me any favors. If I remember correctly, it was mostly my sharing the intelligence and activity that I developed with you, rather than the other way around."
"Self-preservation, Herta. They are just as angry with your sending your team into Afghanistan to rescue the White Ghost as they were with me for not killing him. They will start to come after you, or the members of your team, to let you know of their displeasure."
"You are sure of that, Mattias?"
"The information is reliable. It was passed along to me through the same channels that told me they were after Marlis and Elli. You know what Iskorenit did to them. They can do the same to you."
"Many others have tried, and as you can see, I am still here."
"And that is why I have come to you, Herta. Everyone else thinks they are invincible. It's only us old war horses, who worry about the future and know how easily it can be terminated, we are the ones that may survive. And the older we get, the less likely that survival becomes."
"Very well, Mattias, we will try and find a safe house for you, until we find you a new life. But you do understand that there will be a price for it."
"Any price will be less than the one Iskorenit wants to impose."
Hetty looked up, and started to set the plan in motion. "Mr. Beale, would you please contact Director Vance and let him know that I need to speak with him later today. Then contact the Special Agent in Charge, I think it is Malcolm Page, in the Protective Operations Field Office at the Washington Navy Yard. Please tell him that I may need a team sent here for protective duty and validation of the threat potential of the Iskorenit cartel."
Eric's disembodied voice came back over the speaker, "On it, Hetty. Things should be all set up for you by the time you get back to ops."
I also want you to continue your surveillance of the boat yard. Ms. Blye and Detective Deeks will you escort Mattias to the living quarters upstairs. The two of you will stay here with him and provide protection for him until I can get some other agents here to take over. Mr. Callen, Mr. Hanna, I will meet you in ops shortly."
"Herta, my weapon?" Mattias asked, worried that he would not be able to defend himself.
"All in good time, Mattias." was Hetty's answer, even though she knew it was not the one he wanted.
Kensi and Deeks went into the interrogation room and led Mattias upstairs. The others went to their vehicles to go back to ops.
Later that day four agents from the San Diego office arrived at the boat shed to take over protective duties. Hetty called Lieutenant Bates and asked if they could use an LAPD safe house for a few days, not knowing if any of the NCIS ones were compromised. Together with two other agents from NCIS's LA team two, the protective detail waited to hand over Mattias to the Washington POFO team.
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Callen was getting ready for the undercover operation that was postponed when Mattias showed up. He was supposed to try to get information on the illegal activities of Raphael Cruz, who, though he was an inmate at the California State Prison for Los Angeles County in Lancaster, was still one of the crime lords for the city of Los Angeles. There were a couple of other inmates at that facility that Callen and his team helped take down, but he hoped that the facial hair and longer locks he had grown would help disguise him. Sam would continue to have his back since he was posing as one of the state prison guards. They would be aboard the prison transfer bus the following afternoon.
When Hetty informed Director Vance about Mattias and his message to her, he gave her a different message that sounded just as foreboding. The Department of Justice was initiating an investigation into the Office of Special Projects and how she ran things there. Evidently the person or persons who initiated the first witch hunt through the Joint Defense Committee was not satisfied that Hetty was not crucified, her office in LA shut down, and her primary team disbanded. She was to fly to Washington the following day to answer the questions the DoJ had in regard to her operations.
Two agents from Protective Operations flew in early that evening. They wanted to bundle Mattias up and move him out as quickly as possible, by car to the military airport at Naval Air Station Point Magu and from there to an undisclosed location. Hetty had him brought to OSP by agents Jamie Cobb and Shaun Clark, who would go back to their normal duties out of the secondary ops near the rear of the building. Before he left, Hetty wished him a good life, since she knew she probably would never see him again. She gave him back his weapon, and asked if he needed anything else.
"It would be nice, Herta, if you would give me a full magazine for my pistol, right now the only thing I could do with it is throw it at someone, and I doubt if that would stop anyone."
"I may be old, Mattias, but I am not stupid. I no longer have any control over your fate. It is up to these agents to decide if you get any ammunition for your pistol, or even if your weapon remains your own. They will care for you from now on, and you will take your orders from them. Good bye, Mattias." She looked at him intently, as if to fix his facial features permanently in her memory. Then she went to her office to gather the files and folders that she would need to defend herself at the DOJ investigation.
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The following morning brought great changes to the Office of Special Projects. Hetty was off to Washington again, and Granger was sitting behind the desk that she normally occupied. The Assistant Director was told that Raphael Cruz had been rushed to the prison hospital in the middle of the night and had an emergency appendectomy. Since he would be given time to heal and was not going to be released back into the general prison population for a week to ten days, the undercover mission of Callen and Sam was again postponed.
Shortly before noon, Eric whistled them all up to Ops. It seemed a little strange seeing Granger up there in place of Hetty, but Callen turned to Eric and asked, "What have you got for us?"
"This was passed along to us from the LAPD. They got a call about a murder this morning from an anonymous caller on a pay phone."
"A pay phone? Where can you find a pay phone these days? And who has the change to use one?" Sam wanted to know.
"Better yet, why has the LAPD passed it on to us?" Deeks was wondering.
Nell put up a picture on the plasma as Eric continued, "The victim was Brian Bel, a boy genius, who had hacked into the Pentagon from his school library, and did cyber security work for them."
"Any idea what he was working on?" Sam asked.
Eric resumed the briefing, "I called in a favor from one of my friends working in the Navy Cyber Command program in San Diego. Technically Bel was attached to Tenth Fleet out of US Fleet Cyer Command at Fort Meeade, Maryland, but they have units throughout the world keeping track on intelligence, cyber warfare, and information management. He said that Bel's death would get everyone worried, because he was trying to work his way into the on-line black markets."
"You mean the 'Amazon for terrorists,' where you can buy anything and everything, a clip of ammunition to a hit on a world leader?" Deeks asked.
"Yup, and apparently he had zeroed in on one particular group, Chauvenet. He must have gotten too close and they had him eliminated." Eric concluded.
"Okay, Eric, you and Nell work your magic on internet links to Chauvenet. Kensi, you and Deeks go over to Naval Base Ventura County and talk to the base commander to see if he knows anything about this. Sam and I will go and check out the crime scene."
"Sent the address to your phone already, Callen." Nell assured him.
"Anyone finds out anything, we'll meet back here." Callen had already started out the doors of ops, and everyone else started working on their assignments.
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Arriving at the crime scene, Sam and Callen found no computer equipment at all. There was evidence in the dust patterns and fade marks on the desk and the table that monitors, keyboards, and other components were there once, but now all that was left was a bunch of cut and unplugged wires. With nothing else to find there, they went back to the mission.
Deeks & Kensi talked to the base commander and were referred to a chief petty officer Morris Fowler, the military liaison officer in charge of the cyber command program at the base. He was surprised to find out that Brian Bel had been murdered, because he was not working on anything that had a high security status. He confirmed that the scope of Brian's work was trying to find out more about the group Chauvenet, how they were set up and who was in charge of it. He did have several photos of the murdered man and the computers he built from scratch. The two junior agents took the pictures with them and returned to OSP. There Eric sent the photos to the LAPD with a request to circulate them among the pawn shops, to see if they could capture the person who did this crime.
It was the wonder twins that found the key to this case. Eric first tried to find some cameras that showed anyone breaking into the house. All he found was a white van that had been parked on the street. Nell was working on the Chauvenet web site. There she found the picture of Brian Bel after he was murdered as proof of the kill. She also found the picture of the killer. Of course there was only a code to identify him, no name was provided. Eric ran his picture through all the photo recognition programs, they still had nothing.
Eric also hacked the Chauvenet e-mail files and found that Brian had figured out who created the site and was blackmailing him. Rather than keep paying Brian, Chauvenet's creator, Papa Legba, put out a contract on him, and the killer claimed his prize.
Since all of this was done on-line, Deeks and Kensi were sent to the morgue to add a little makeup to Brian's face to remove the pallor, and one of Deeks' shirts to cover up the incisions, and take a selfie and post it to the Chauvenet website, claiming the killer botched the job. When the killer went back to finish the job, Sam and Callen were waiting for him as he wiggled through the doggie door to again gain access to Brian's house.
He was taken down for Brian's murder, but they still didn't know who Papa Legba was. But Eric once again proved that he is the king of the keyboards and the caliph of cyber space, when he figured out who Papa Legba was, by matching e-mail accounts, website postings, phone and banking records. From there it was easy for the team to take down Papa Legba and put his site out of business.
While Eric and Nell were going through the Chauvenet files, they found that someone paid a quarter of a million dollars to find the address of one Henrietta Lange. The proof was posted here, one of Hetty's houses was pictured along with the address. Were her other homes listed in some other files? Had the team members been targeted also, listing their homes and addresses in still other files? With all the redundancy that Hetty used to hide her identity and homes that she owned, how could this have happened? Maybe there was some truthful reason why, as Callen once jokingly said to Sam, "Hetty sleeps every night in a different one of her homes."
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Somewhere in Idaho
Mattias went to get the restroom key from the attendant at this gas station on the edge of nowhere. Why the restrooms were even locked, he had no idea, besides the two agents, the attendant, and himself, there were no other human beings within fifty miles of the place. Once he entered and relocked the door, he pulled out the little burn phone that was clandestinely slipped into his pocket before he left the OSP building in Los Angeles. Seeing that he had a text message, he opened it and read the two words, "THA NO". Mattias knew it would come down to this. He went back into the store to return the key to the attendant and purchased three cold drinks. From a pocket inside his jacket, he pulled a small capsule, and breaking it open, dropped half of the tasteless powder into each of two of the bottles. Offering one of the doctored bottles to each of the NCIS agents, he engaged them in small talk until they both dropped over dead on the far side of the car. Matias picked up one of their guns, forced the attendant outside before he shot the man. He quickly loaded all three bodies into the trunk of the car, and then turned the car around and drove off the way they came. There was a side road about seventy-five miles back where he could dump the bodies and they wouldn't be seen from the road. Since no one would be looking for him for at least another two days, he could get back to Los Angeles and steal a replacement car there. He just wished that he would have had one more day before he had to put this part of his plan into effect.