"On your knees," the gunman demanded keeping the weapon steadily trained at the blonde's head. Callen debated if he could carry out some sort of attack. However, his hands were still tied behind his back and the man was too far away to try sweeping his feet out from under him, so Callen shelved his plans and slowly maneuvered himself into the requested position.
"You got the wrong person, pal," Callen said looking his captor directly in the eyes, his voice reinforcing his tough guy persona.
"Oh you killed him alright. I saw it with my own eyes," Joel replied as he got up, grabbed a framed picture off the nearby shelf and shoved it in Callen's face. "This is the man you killed. My brother!"
Callen gave the picture of a young man in uniform a cursory glance before turning his cold-as-steel blue eyes back on his captor. "I'm telling you. You got the wrong guy. I've never seen him, whoever he is," he finished with a shrug of indifference.
Outraged by his prisoner's apathetic attitude, Joel pistol-whipped Callen's face. The agent's head snapped back from the force of the blow as blood started to flow from his spilt lip. However, Callen didn't let his tough guy attitude wavier. "Suppose you tell me how I allegedly killed that man," he said gesturing with a haughty jerk of his chin towards the picture.
"There is nothing alleged about it. I saw with my own eyes," he repeated towering over the agent. "It was in Venice Beach. You chased my brother down the boardwalk into a restaurant and then you shot him; you and your cop partner but YOU," he yelled, "YOU pulled the trigger! I was in that restaurant. I saw the whole thing," he finished angrily raising the muzzle to rest against the kneeling agent's temple. "Go ahead." The gun vibrated against Callen's head, fueled by Joel's rage. "Deny it," he snarled.
A quick moment of panic flashed through Callen's eyes as he realized this situation was spiraling out of control. Struggling to keep his breathing even, he recognized he had to diffuse Joel's fury before, like a bomb, he exploded which, Callen had no doubt, would leave him dead. Dropping his arrogant attitude, Callen neutrally intoned, "I'm sorry. What was your brother's name?"
Keeping the muzzle firmly pressed against his prisoner's head, Joel answered, "Jake. Jake Amello. He was in the Navy and was on leave. I hadn't seen in in 8 months. We were meeting for lunch at the Sidewalk Café." The gun drooped a little as Joel got lost in the memories of that day. "It was a beautiful day, even for LA. Jake said he had some business to attend to and he'd meet me for lunch around 1:00 at the Cafe. I got there a little early and found a table outside with a great view. Jake and I always enjoyed watching the people on the boards," Joel smiled a little. "Especially Jake. What he really loved was the hot girls; even more since he joined the Navy. Guess that happens when you spend 24/7 cooped up on a ship."
Taking a calculated risk in an attempt to put some distance between him and the bullet aimed at his brain, Callen slowly sunk back onto his heels. This opened a foot gap between his skull and the gun; however, it was still a death shot if Joel pulled the trigger.
As he continued to reminisce, Joel let the gun droop until it was resting at his side. "Funny how I can remember everything so clearly from that day. The sound of the waves, the smell of the food wafting in the breeze, the noise of the games, the hawkers and the crowds; it is almost surreal."
Callen started to slide further from his captor but Joel immediate caught on and brought the gun back to bear causing Callen to freeze and school his face into one of contrition.
Joel's eyes hardened as he glared down at his prisoner. "Then I heard the sound of running and Jake sprinted by me and into the restaurant, you hot on his heels. I got up to follow, but before I got to the door, I was bowled over by your muscle-bound partner. I finally made it into the restaurant just in time to see you shoot my brother. He was just standing there, unarmed, and you murdered Jake, in cold blood!" Viciously, Joel swung the barrel of the gun into Callen's temple so hard it knocked the agent to the floor and left him dazed. "You didn't give him a chance," Joel shouted, rapidly swinging his foot into Callen's unprotected ribs with sickening thuds. "Not…a…damn…chance!" he hollered, interspersing each word with a swift kick to Callen's body. The semi-conscious agent, blood flowing down his face again, tried unsuccessfully to crawl away from the abuse.
"You killed him," Joel repeated over and over, punctuated by blow after blow. Finally exhausted, Joel dropped into the nearby chair, covering his face with his hands. Callen lay on the floor, desperately trying to breathe and remain conscious. As he lay there, working himself back to equilibrium, Callen searched his brain for the details of the case the man had just described. It did sound familiar and finally he was able to recall the facts of the incident.
It had involved an E-2 Seaman who had stolen classified documents. Jake Amello. NCIS had been called in to retrieve the missing data and determine the collateral damage. Callen had posed as a buyer and had arranged a meet with Jake in Venice Beach. At the time, the whole case had seemed pretty open and shut, amateurish; nothing cloak and dagger about it. As near as Callen and his team could tell, Jake had more or less stumbled across the classified data and decided to make good on the opportunity to score some extra cash. Nell had uncovered the fact that Jake had a drug habit and on an E-2 pay, the ability to earn a little extra income would have been most welcome. However, it appeared that once Jake had secured the classified data he was at a loss as to how to sell it, so he'd approached his bunk mate who had connections to the criminal element in LA.
An informant of Sam's, hoping for a 'finder's fee' had contacted the agent and had told him about the flash drive of classified data for sale. Eric had obtained Jake's cell number and Callen had placed a call to him, posing as a buyer who had heard about the 'goods for sale' from a friend of a friend. The meet had been set up for noon. Only Sam and Callen had gone to the rendezvous site because the team had agreed this was a low-risk operation. Eric and Nell had eyes on the meet through security cams, Callen had a distress word, 'sea bass', and Sam had been on guard on a nearby bench pretending to peruse the paper.
As his head somewhat cleared, Callen decided this would be a good time to try to position himself for another escape attempt, since Joel was still across the room in a chair not paying attention to his prisoner. Fighting back the pain, Callen maneuvered his body until he was sitting, propped up, against the wall. Jake seemed unaware of his movements; his face remained buried in his hands. Deciding to go for broke, the injured agent strained to get on his feet. Halfway up, his right leg buckled causing him to slide down the wall to the floor with a loud crash. That caught Jake's attention, as both his red-rimmed eyes and the gun refocused on the stricken agent. At that point Callen gave up his attempt to physically escape and went back to working the verbal angle.
With the gun now pointed at him again, Callen swiftly ran the last part of the Op through his mind. He'd met up with Jake, whose appearance and erratic behavior had led Callen to believe the man was stung out on drugs. However, the two had managed to strike a deal and exchange the goods. As soon as Jake had taken possession of the cash, Callen had flashed his badge informing Jake he was under arrest. It had been no real surprise when Jake, under the influence of narcotics, had violently swung the backpack containing the money at Callen which resulted in Callen getting knocked off his feet and sprawling on the cement. While the downed agent had scrambled to his feet, Jake had taken off running. In a few seconds, Callen had been hot in pursuit with Sam several yards behind.
Chasing a suspect down the boardwalk in Venice is always a pain because people did not seem to be able to comprehend the fact they had to move out of the way of the runners. It always reminded Callen of a bad game of grade-school dodge ball with people bouncing off of the bad guy, spinning in front of the good guy who either ran into them, or if lucky, dodged them; in either case it slowed down the good guys, letting the bad guys get further ahead.
Jake had been 100 yards in the lead when he had suddenly veered into the Sidewalk Café, Callen recalled. By the time the agent had gotten there, the suspect had already disappeared inside. Entering the restaurant, Callen had spotted his adversary ducking behind the bar. Using standard protocol, Callen had pulled out his gun and yelled 'Federal Agents'. The usual panic had ensued; people screamed and bobbed out of the way while the suspect took the words 'Federal Agent' as permission to do something stupid. Most often the bad guys drew their own weapons and shot at the person who had yelled 'Federal Agents'. In this case, Jake had grabbed a knife from behind the bar that had been used to slice fruit for exotic drinks. He had secured the bartender, a good-looking redhead in her twenties, around the waist, held her in front of him as a shield while positioning the knife against her jugular vein. Callen had yelled at him to drop the knife but Jake only held it tighter to the bartender's neck, drawing blood. Callen had been left with two choices, try to talk the man into releasing his hostage or go for the shot. As a trained agent, he had quickly evaluated the risks; heavily populated locale, high probability for additional casualties the longer this played out; unstable suspect, highly unpredictable behavior; the knife welder had already drawn first blood; choice, go for the shot.
Callen did not remember every person he'd shot, in his line of work, shooting at people unfortunately was the norm. However, he did remember each time he had pulled the trigger in a scenario like the one he had found himself in with Jake; a one on one, execution shot. These scenes haunted his nights and had led to many an appliance being rewired. The outside world judged him after the fact on his actions, but no harder than he judged himself in the cold darkness of the night. But in the moment, an action had to be taken and he had; Joel had walked into the restaurant just in time to see Callen shoot his brother. One could rationalize that the drugs in Jake's system hadn't helped and led to his demise, but in the end, Callen had pulled the trigger.
Knowing he was in no physical condition to overpower Joel, Callen knew his only hope was to verbally convince Joel not to pull the trigger. It might be bad hostage procedure, but Callen allowed sympathy to guide his next actions. Letting out the breath he didn't realize he was holding, he raised his head to meet Joel's eyes and said, "You're right. I'm sorry. I did kill your brother."
Joel straightened in his chair and brought the gun to bear on Callen. Even though Joel's hand was shaking, if he pulled that trigger Callen knew he would die; he had to talk this man down. "But, if you shoot me, kill me, you'll be a murder."
Joel's hand continued to tremble but the gun remained fixed on the agent.
"Killing me won't bring your brother back, but it will mean spending the rest of your life looking over your shoulder, waiting, wondering when the police will show up."
The gun was shaking so violently now, that Callen was afraid Joel was going to accidently set off the trigger. This had to end.