)( )( )( )( )( )(
Chapter 6: Early Withdrawal
A/N: 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: It's hard to believe that the first quarter of Season 6 has already been broadcast. I originally wanted this story to be about 3 chapters long and to have it done before the episode 6x04 "The 3rd Choir" aired. Well, the best laid plans of mice and men do not take any plot bunnies into consideration. I split my original chapter 5 up into two parts and found it had to be reworked, but was easier to deal with. That also meant that this chapter had to be reworked eextensively too. Anyway, here it is...better late than never.
)( )( )( )( )( )(
Callen drove to one of the small parks that dotted the city. He sat there in his car, watching the children play on the swings and the slides, with no cares in the world. Seeing them enjoy their childhood years, something that he never experienced, always seemed to calm him down. Perhaps it was because they were the ones for whom he really did what he did. He and the rest of the people like him, no longer had their innocence to enjoy right now nor the prospect of a "happy ever after" in the future. But these children were a different story. A new and better life could be worked out for them if enough of the evil elements that tried to destroy them were removed permanently. Their parents could only protect them so far. Beyond that, people like those who worked at OSP were needed to extend that range of protection beyond the immediate family.
This is what made him so extremely angry with what had gone on just a few hours before. Someone had nearly killed Nell, thinking she was Hetty. It pained him greatly to have to place the young analyst in that great amount of danger. But it truly angered him that someone was trying to capture or kill their operations manager, the woman that Callen more and more looked to as the mother he never had.
In his mind, he had already gone through all the options that were available to him as a federal agent. The only solution that he was able to come up with was to eliminate Mattias Draeger, not put him in a witness protection program, not even to lock him up to get all his secrets, but to take him out completely. If Hetty would allow it, Callen even wanted to mount Mattias' head on one of her warrior poles to warn others of his kind not to mess with the little "Black Widow", because she and her family would hunt them down and they, too, would be devoured.
But if he wanted to eliminate Mattias Draeger, he would have to find him first. The Chauvenet website was no longer available for him to order a hit for hire. He would have to do it the old fashioned way, pound the streets and get the word out that G. Callen was willing to pay for information leading to the capture or confirmed death of Mattias Draeger.
The next question was, how much was he willing to pay for this? He had no idea of how much money he had in his various accounts, and how much he had secretly stashed away. He started up his car and drove over to a nearby mall and bought himself a burn phone. While sitting in the food court, after eating a double double with fries and onion rings, he placed several calls to various banks in which he had accounts. When he got the totals, he figured that he had about $21,000.00 in all those accounts. It was a start, but by far, that was not enough for the job he needed.
He knew that Eric would be tracking his bank accounts to find out his location, so he sent a text message to Nell, asking for her help. He slowly walked over to his car, then checked for Nell's response. Nothing. He knew she should still be up at ops and not out in the field, because he hadn't debriefed her yet on what had happened at Hetty's house. He tried calling her personal cell, but it just went over to voice mail, "This is Nell, leave a message." Every fifteen minutes he placed another call, and every time it went over to voice mail.
After an hour of trying to get her, Callen was starting to worry about their little analyst. He was close to her apartment, and decided to swing by her place to see if she was there. Callen pulled through the parking lot and saw that her red Mini Cooper was parked there. Pulling into one of the visitor parking slots, the senior agent got out of his car, entered the building, and went to her door. "Nell, are you there?" he asked as he knocked, but silence was all that greeted him. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he once again dialed her number. Callen could hear the phone ringing inside her apartment, but one more time it went to voice mail. "I know that you're in there, Nell. It's me, Callen. Won't you please let me in?" but she still would not answer. After another five minutes of waiting there with no response from her, Callen went back to his car and made his way back to the boat shed. Since he could not enlist Nell to help him, he knew that he would have to contact Eric for help and come back onto the reservation.
On his way back, he put in a call to ops, but got Kirstin Chambers instead of Eric.
"Hi, Kirstin, it's Callen. I take it that Nell called in sick that you are filling in for her?"
"I don't know, Callen. Assistant Director Granger has had me over on this side today, but he didn't say where Nell was or what she was doing." The young woman had cleared one of her screens and had typed this message, "Callen's on the line." and pointed it toward Eric as she threw a pencil at him to gain his attention. "I can switch you over to Eric, if you want."
"I suppose he is really upset with me, for what I did today, but, yeah, let me talk to him."
"Callen," the senior tech was almost shouting over the phone, "where are you? Are you all right? We all have been worried about you."
"Eric, calm down. I'm on my way back to the boat shed. I haven't been hurt, shot, knifed, blown up, or anything else, so you can tell Sam he doesn't have to worry about me. What's going on with Nell? I am really worried about her, now."
"I don't know, Callen. She drove the limo back here and checked it and her wardrobe in. Then she just got into her car and left, without saying a word to anyone. I have tried to contact her several times, but she just lets her phone go over to voice mail without picking up at all. Her GPS trackers on her car and phone say that she is over at her apartment, but beyond that, I have no idea."
"Yeah, I know. I've tried too and got the same results. She had a rough day today, Eric. One of those hit men made it all the way upstairs, and found Nell in the bathroom of the master suite. I don't know if he hesitated at seeing Hetty's clothes and hair on a much younger woman, or what, but Nell was able to trust her training again and shoot him. He fell down dead in front of her, and ended up blocking the door."
"Shit," Eric exclaimed. "This is her first kill, isn't it."
"Yeah," Callen confirmed. "She must be going through a hell of a time right now, and the worst part about it is that she is trying to do it all on her own. You need to get in touch with Nate Getz, Eric. Tell him the circumstances of the shoot, and ask him, for me, if he will come back and work with Nell. I know they have some history between them. I don't want to lose Nell from the team over something like this."
"Got it. Will do what I can to make that happen for her. Is there anything else you need?"
"Yeah, Eric. I need a work order for Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, authorizing me to open up a crypt in the mausoleum and placing a coffin into it, and I need a panel truck for this evening."
"I'd ask you what for, but I really don't think I wanna know. Plausible deniability and all that stuff."
"Probably the best route to take, Eric. Can you do it?"
"Ask me to do something hard, Callen. I'll fax the work order over to the boat shed. The white Chevy panel truck is now reserved for you. You'll have to sign it in and out."
"Thanks, Eric."
)( )( )( )( )( )(
Late that evening found Callen on the service drive of the Rose Hills Memorial Park. He had shown his work order to the guard at the gate, who just waved him through so he could get back to the television program he was watching in the guard house. Callen drove near one of the sections of outdoor mausoleums, looking for the crypt of Клара Ничтожество (Klara Nictozhyesvo) Clara Nobody or Clara the nonentity, an obvious pretense to the fact that his mother Clara's body was not in there. When he located the crypt, he ran his knife over the seal on each of the sides, took off the little star shaped plugs and inserted the special tool to unlock the faceplate. It opened with a slight pop, and Callen carefully set it aside for later reuse.
Using his little flashlight, he looked into the crypt to see if it still contained what he had placed in there almost a year ago. He grabbed the oversized equipment bag, squeezed it to feel the shape of the contents, then pulled it out. Scraping the old sealant off the faceplate, he took a tube of new black latex sealant and applied it to the edges, replaced the faceplate over the opening, locked the faceplate to the mausoleum wall once more, and inserted the plugs to hide the holes. He got into the truck with the equipment bag, and drove back to the Mission to trade off the truck for his Mercedes. When he returned to the boat shed, he threw the big equipment bag into his locker, where it joined a smaller gym bag. He took a padlock out of his pocket and secured the locker before he crashed on the couch from exhaustion.
)( )( )( )( )( )(
When Sam came in the next morning and went to his locker, he noticed the padlock on Callen's. He took one of his extra towels and went to look for his partner. Seeing him on the couch, he threw the towel at his head. As Callen woke with a start, Sam started to tear into him.
"Damn it, G. Now you don't trust me to look in your locker? I am your partner. I had your back. I trusted you to have mine. If you can't trust me with your stuff, how can you trust me with your life? What you got in there that you don't want me to see? Is Deeks right. Did you blow off Joelle for a blow up doll? Is that what you got under lock and key in your locker? Is this the end of our bromance?" Sam no longer could keep up the stern look on his face and the mock anger in his voice, and broke out in a deep belly laugh.
Callen ran his hand through his hair as he tried to wake up completely. "Geez, Sam. For a moment I actually thought you might be serious. No. I trust you and the other members of the team. I just didn't know what to do with the 'stuff' as you call it. I didn't want any of it walking away if we had to interrogate anyone here."
"So what have you got in the locker, G?'
"I'll show you."
Callen went over to the locker and dug the key out of his pocket. He opened the door, took out the two bags, and carried them into one of the interrogation rooms. He set the larger one on the floor, and zipped open the smaller one, spilling a large amount of money onto the table.
"Ah... G? Where did you get all this money?"
"I cleaned out all my bank accounts this afternoon . That's everything I had in my savings accounts."
"And just what do you think that you are going to do with it?"
"The same thing that the Iskorenit cartel did to find out where Hetty lived. I'm gonna post a bounty for some information."
"What sort of information?"
"The whereabouts of Mattias Draeger, wherever he is, alive or confirmation of his death."
"This ain't gonna work, G."
"Why not?"
"First of all, the Chauvenet website is no longer up and running, so it is not gonna be easy to find him. Secondly, that ain't gonna be enough money to put a price on his head."
"You know, Sam, you're right. We are gonna have to get a whole lot of people looking for him to be sure of finding him and that's gonna take a lot of work on our part. I also agree with you that this is not enough money to find out where Mattias is located. But maybe this is..." Callen picked up the oversized equipment bag and unzipped it, pouring out its contents on top of the money already on the table.
Kensi and Deeks came in just as Callen was pouring out all the money the other bag contained.
Deeks greeted him sarcastically, "Glad to see you are back on the reservation, Callen. Just how much of it have you sold to get this little nest egg of yours?"
"Where did you get all that?" Kensi wanted to know. "You didn't rob a bank, did you?"
"Nope. It's all the extra from my undercover missions."
"Extra, what do you mean, extra. I never got any extra money when I went undercover. Did you ever get any extra money, Kens" Deeks asked.
"I didn't even know there was something like extra money." she answered her partner.
"All right, let me explain it to you," Callen said to the three of them. "Whenever any of us go out on an undercover mission, we are usually provided with a credit card authorized to a certain amount, or a certain amount of money, as part of our cover. And as soon as the mission is over, we are supposed to return those funds back to the issuing person or agency, correct?"
"Well, that is the way it is supposed to work. You are responsible for the funds and have to account for the amount given to you." Sam admitted.
"So, what happens if you come back with more money than you left with?" Callen asked. "I had a big argument with Hetty the first time that it happened to me. She wanted to charge me for all of the equipment and clothing I had damaged and take it out of my salary."
"So what's new with that? You are kinda hard on the cars that she provides you." Sam snickered.
"But I came back with more money than she gave me to start the mission. I argued with her that all the extra money should be credited to me as an offset on what she claimed I owed. She told me that she could not do that, because what monies she received from me was a gift that I was giving to NCIS. I didn't have to turn that money in, because it was not part of the money I signed out on. So, from that day on, I figured that if Hetty looked upon these monies as mine to give to her as a gift, if I chose not to give it away, it would be mine to keep. So I do."
"I see two things wrong with that, partner. Sam said. "First of all, you didn't get this much cash by just ending up a few dollars in the black on your undercover missions, and secondly, if Hetty ever finds out what you are doing, she's gonna make you pay the taxes on all that and then turn it all over to her, as what you owe her, not a gift, so you don't even get a charitable deduction out of it."
"Hate to disappoint you, Sam, but the taxes on most of this money has already been paid. You're right, though, most of this money was not from squeezing out a profit on the mission monies that Hetty gave me. In fact, Hetty could not even claim ownership of most of this money. Some of this money is the salary I earned when I was deeply embedded in a couple of the undercover missions with the cartels. If anyone is entitled to the rest of the funds, it would be the CIA. Remember those two last times that I was loaned out to them for their undercover missions in Europe? In both cases, I was to be a jet setter, one with a penchant for gambling. The CIA gave me a state of $50,000.00 each time and they expected me to gamble it away and confirm my backstopped identity. They were extremely surprised when, at the end of both missions, I returned the complete amount they originally handed over to me. They had expected me to lose most of the money, and had already written it off as part of the cost of the operation. They never did bother to ask me if I had any winnings, and I wasn't gonna tell them that I had nearly doubled my original stake each time on those two missions. All the extra I won is part of the money on the table here."
"Swe-e-e-et" was Deeks' reply. "The next time you go out gambling, can I come with you?"
Kensi gave her partner an icy stare, then asked Callen, "So, how much do you think is here?'
Callen said, "I have no idea. I never stopped to count it, but it should be at least $200,000.00."
)( )( )( )( )( )(
"Eric, I want some pictures of Mattias with the word 'Reward' posted over the bottom. I want 8x10s, I want post card size, and I want business card size. I need at least a thousand of each. I want so many eyes out looking for him that there will be no place for him to hide."
"Okay, Callen. How much reward are you offering?"
"Two hundred, thirty thousand."
"Okay, do you want the amount printed on the picture too?"
"No, but I want it all tied to my phone. Do we have a new burn phone in the office that I can use for just this purpose?"
"Yeah, we have a couple of them. I will set one out for you and make sure that number is listed on the back of the wanted poster."
"Thanks, Eric. How soon do you think those will be ready?"
"Give me an hour and you should be set to go."
"Okay. I'll stop by and pick them up in about an hour"
"Ah... Callen? Have you heard anything from Nell?"
"No. Has nobody talked to her today?"
"Not as far as I can tell."
"Put in a call for Nate to see if he can get in touch with her."
"Granger already did."
"We'll have to wait and see what he says."
"Okay, Callen, see you in about an hour."
)( )( )( )( )( )(
Callen came into the Mission building to pick up his posters. On the way up to ops, he met Granger coming down the steps with one of the 8x10s in his hand.
"Callen, what is the meaning of this?"
"We're gonna get Mattias, any way we can."
"You know that I damn sure cannot authorize a reward for information about him."
"I'm not asking you, Granger. I am putting up the reward. Every last cent. Mattias is a threat to us, to Hetty, and I am not gonna stand around and let him run the streets and do whatever he wants. Not to Hetty, not to my team."
"You sound as if you are making this personal."
"Of course it's personal. We are family here. You mess with one of us and you have all of us coming to help. That's what families are all about."
"You know that I can order you off this case?"
"I suppose you can. But you also know what I will do, and what I think the whole team will do if we are ordered off."
"Unfortunately, I do, and this seems to be the only way to make sure you don't make a wrong move. Officially, I have no knowledge of what you are doing. Unofficially, I hope you find him."
"Oh, we'll do that. You don't have to worry about that."
Callen dropped off most of the wanted fliers at the boat shed and told Kensi and Deeks to pick some up and pass them out to their contacts. He did warn Deeks not to let the LAPD get wind of the fact that he was offering a reward for this information, because he knew that they took a dim view of that.
)( )( )( )( )( )(
At this point, Callen was willing to deal with anyone to get the information he wanted, and if that meant turning to gang members, drug runners, anyone, trying to flush Mattias out, he didn't care. He wanted Mattias.
Sam saw a half dozen of Salazar's gang members hanging around their boss, who was sitting in an old, overstuffed chair in front of the house that served as their headquarters. The lawn looked like it was last taken care of when the chair was new, maybe a decade ago.
Salazar got up as the two agents approached the chain link gate to the property. "Hey, Navy cops. Whacha doing here? You missing a boat, or something? You can look inside, but I don't think we got it."
The rest of the gang laughed, and elbowed one another at their boss' attempt at humor.
Callen looked at Salazar and told him, "We didn't come here to roust you. We need your help, you and your boys."
Salazar looked at his men, "What, your enlistment numbers are down and you want us to join?" He started laughing at his own joke, and his gang members quickly followed suit.
"No," Callen said. "I want you to help find someone for me." He opened up one of the larger pictures of Mattias. "This man. If you find him and deliver him to me, I am ready to give you a substantial reward."
"What, a few hundred dollars? That's hardly worth my time."
"No," Callen said. "It's closer to a quarter million. Would that be worth your time?"
"You ain't got that kind of money, and you sure wouldn't give it to me."
"We get the man; you get the money. No strings. No questions."
"You sure must want this guy bad."
"Yeah. We do." Callen said with a snarl as he handed out a couple of the wanted posters to the gang members.
"Hey, Navy cop. That money is mine."
"When we get the man we want. Not before." Callen told him as he and Sam headed back to the Challenger to continue the search.
)( )( )( )( )( )(
Later that day Eric's excited voice sounds in their coms. "Callen, Sam, how close are you guys to Marina del Rey?"
Sam asks him, "Eric, aren't you tracking us by GPS? You should know how far away we are."
"Normally I would, but now I'm busy trying to keep eyes on someone you are very interested in."
"Mattias?"
"Bingo. I caught him on a park camera in Burton Chace Park in Marina del Rey. He was meeting with someone. I think it was Mattias, who killed him. I'm running the victim through facial recognition right now to see what I can come up with."
"What about Mattias? Did you see where he went?"
"Yeah. It's really strange. It looks like he's just walking over toward Fisherman's Village. He's not trying to hide, not checking if anyone is following him."
"Thanks, Eric. We're ten minutes out. Keep following him so we can grab him."
"Got a match. The victim in the park was Ryan Green. Mattias must have taken his phone because it is still on and we are tracking it. He also used Ryan's credit card at a food truck in the village. We have no shots except a few from the back, but we are tracking him."
"Just pulling in. Eric, where is he."
"Got you guys. He's about five hundred feet ahead of you and a little off to the right. He's wearing a tan jacket, jeans, and a tan ball cap."
"Got him, Eric." They both drew their weapons. Sam circled off to the side while Callen approached from the rear. He got close enough to lay a hand on the suspect's shoulder as he said, "Federal agent. Freeze."
Just then a shot rang out, and their suspect crumpled to the ground, bleeding from a chest wound. Callen thought he saw some movement on the roof of a nearby building, and made his way toward it, looking for an entrance.
Sam went over to the victim, and saw that he was dead, but he was definitely not Mattias. Taking out his cell phone, he snapped a picture and sent it to Eric, asking him to run it through the facial recognition program, and to send LAPD to deal with the body. Then he looked to see if he could find his partner and catch the shooter.
Callen had made it to the roof and saw no one. He looked at where the shot came from, and immediately determined that it was a professional hit. The roof was clear of any clues. The shooter had policed his brass, leaving absolutely nothing. The agent called down to his partner "Clear," and went back down the stairs to wait and give a statement to LAPD.
)( )( )( )( )( )(
Eric called, just as they were getting back into the Challenger to head back to the boat shed.
"What you got for us, Eric?" CCallen asked.
"The guy you were following that got shot has only been here in the country for about two months. His passport claims that he is Dimitri Zaytesev, a Russian who was here on a student visa. But I have checked all the major schools in the area, and none of them have him enrolled for classes."
"Good going, Eric. I guess we need to pay a visit to our friend, Arkady, to find out how the Russians are mixed up in this."
"Do you want me to call Svetlana and find out where he is right now?" Eric volunteered.
"If it's not too much trouble for you, Eric, that would be great."
"I'll call you back when I find out."
Sam looked at Callen and raised his eyebrow.
"Callen looked at him and asked, "What?"
"If it's not too much trouble to call your girlfriend and have an official reason to talk to her? Come on G. You know he's seeing her."
"Yeah, but I figured that I would give young love a boost."
Just then Eric called again. "He's not at the Cultural Ministry. Today's the day he goes over to the gym. You have the address on your phones."
"Thanks again, Eric." Sam said as he turned the Challenger around and headed off to the direction of the gym.
When they entered, they asked the receptionist at the desk where they could find Mr. Kolcheck.
"He's either in the sauna or over in the weight room," she answered.
They went over to the weight room and saw Arkady there, flanked by two armed guards that kept scanning everyone else in the room.
"I'm getting a bad feeling about this, G." Sam said softly, indicating all the security they had seen on the way in.
"I know what you mean. It's more like an armed camp around here."
As they approached, the guards eyed the two agents suspiciously.
"I take it that this is not a social call. I didn't think my social secretary had placed you on the agenda for a meeting now. How did you find out where I was."
Callen smiled at him and said, "Your social secretary told us. How else would we find out?"
"So, what does NCIS want with me now? What do they presume that I am guilty of doing?" Arkady asked, trying lighten up what appeared to be a very serious mood that had settled over his guards.
Callen pulled out his phone, which caused one guard to go for his gun. "Easy." he said to the guard, "I'm just going for my phone." The guard nodded his head, but did not take his hand off his weapon.
"Have you ever seen this man, Arkady?" he asked the older man, showing him the picture that Eric had found of the man that Mattias had killed earlier.
"I have never seen him before. Should I know him?" Arkady asked.
His passport says he was Dimitri Zaytesev, a Russian who was here on a student visa for the past two months, but who never went to school. I am betting that if we look into it deeper we will find out that isn't even his real name."
"So Callen, do you know the name of every American who is in Moscow right now, who is there on a student visa, and are not who they say they are?"
"I don't worry about any spies we have in Moscow. I just worry about the ones who are right here and are looking for my boss."
"The Duchess of Deception? She always has had enemies who are looking to kill her."
"I'm talking about one specific enemy, Arkady. Mattias Draeger, and I think he wants to take her alive, not just kill her."
"So, it is as I feared. The "Cold War" is again becoming hot. This time it is going to be even more dangerous,"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Look around you, my friend. Do you not see all the precautions that I am taking? I have no fear of your government, or mine for that matter. I would go about my normal business if it were only our governments involved. But the players have changed. I am afraid of who is gunning for her, and for me too."
"Who is it that you are afraid of, Arkady."
"It is someone you should be afraid of too. These people think that there are still huge stockpiles of weapons laying around on both sides, and they want to find them, and control them, and use them, not as deterrents, like our countries did, but as weapons of terror and destruction. Rather than go through piles and piles of government documents, they just want to grab the people who might know about it, and find out what they know. They want all us old spys for our brains."
"And these players would be," Sam asked skeptically.
"People who it is not even safe to name, because even here, the walls may have ears and things that would be better left unsaid, might get back to them in Moscow."
"The Russian government is behind this?" Sam asked.
"I told you, it is not any government. If it were, I would not have to make the Cultural Center an armed camp. Now, I have told you what you came here to find out. I think it is time for you to go. Protect Hetty as much as you can. I like her. I would hate to see her gone." With those words he dismissed the agents and went back to his workout. One of the guards showed them back to their car, just to make sure that was where they were going.
While they were driving back toward the boat shed, Sam looked at Callen and asked him, "You think Arkady was talking about the Iskorenit cartel?"
"I don't think he could be talking about anyone else besides them."
)( )( )( )( )( )(
They were almost back at the boat shed when Callen's burn phone rang. He pulled it out and told Sam, "It's Salazar."
He put it on speaker so Sam could hear it too. "Hey, Navy cop, I want my money. I got your man here."
"We're on our way," Callen said and turned off the phone.
When they got back to Salazar's gang headquarters, everything was eerily silent. The chain link fence gate was wide open. No one was sitting on the overstuffed chair in the front yard. The door to the house was swinging freely from its hinges.
"You sure that they said they had Mattias?" Sam asked.
"You heard them on the phone. They said they had him and to bring the money."
"Well, we just better be careful." Sam said as he drew his gun and assumed the traditional search position.
"I agree," Callen replied as he too pulled his weapon and held it at the ready.
They stood on each side of the front door. "Federal agents." Sam called out. "NCIS" Callen added, as both of them entered the front room.
Three bodies lay dead on the floor, all of them Salazar's men. As they started to clear each room of the house, all they found were the dead bodies of Salazar's gang. Finally they came to the final room. A chair was set up in the middle of the room, with someone sitting in the chair. A hood covered the head, the legs were zip tied in two separate places, as were the arms. Both agents put their weapons away and looked at one another.
"You think..." Sam asked.
"Probably..." Callen answered
Callen walked over to the body and pulled the hood off the head. It was Salazar, with a very surprised look on his face.
Both agents heard a clink and a thud when Callen pulled off the hood.
"Grenade" Callen yelled as both he and Sam dove through different windows in the room.
There was a huge flash as the explosion blew the room apart.