Chapter 3
Ellie looked around her prison; oh it was a nice prison, but a prison nonetheless. She had a bed, a desk and chair, and a well stocked bathroom. The man guarding her day to day was nice enough, he made sure she got fed and watered, and he got her bag, after checking she had no cell phone or laptop in there, and he dropped it at her feet.
"You need anything?" He asked
"To be let out." She quipped, knowing it was a useless request.
"I can't do that, the boss would kill me." The man said.
"Get another boss, you thought of going into something more lucrative like burger flipping."
The man grumbled and walked out of the room locking it as he did so.
As soon as he was gone Ellie looked through her bag to see if he had left anything useful.
"Nothing!" She sighed, she got her homework and out decided it was a good idea to at least get it done, maybe if she was lucky she'd live long enough to graduate high school.
She paced the room a few times, did some stretches and some pushups but nothing could get her to calm down, her instinct told her, this was going to be bad. She had met two of the 'goons' who had her, but not the boss. Whomever he was, but she had seen their faces, she'd watched enough procedural cop shows to know if you see their faces the outcome for the victim isn't good….and she loved cop shows.
She tried to look out of the boarded up window, but she couldn't see anything outside but scrub-land, so screaming was out, which was good in her opinion, coz she wasn't a weak girly girl.
She sat on the bed and took stock of her situation, She'd hated D.C as a child to her it was always too cold, she had longed for the sea and the waves, when she was small her mother had taken her to California to see her Grandfather, who was very old and kept looking at her like she was evil, she hadn't liked him at all, but she had loved the waves. Joining a summer program while her mom looked for work she had learnt to surf, it was, she felt in her blood. If she'd had her way she would have lived and breathed surfing. Her mother however told her it was frivolous and she should concentrate on her studies that fight was when she'd first heard about her father.
They had come back to Washington, D.C. as Uncle Ducky from NCIS was unwell, someone had hurt him and her mother had been asked to fill in for him at the navy yard. She hadn't wanted to come and had begged her mom to be allowed to return to California to enroll in the summer school that they had out there for the next month.
"NO!" Jordan yelled as Ellie stormed up the stairs at their brownstone.
"But mom, all my friends are there and it's surfing, there's nothing to do in DC in the summer!" she yelled back.
"There are parks, museums, cultural things you can see and do!" Jordan said trying to calm down, "You are not going all the way across country without me."
"But I'm old enough!"
"You are 12 years old!"
"Exactly, I'm not a baby!" She yelled her blue eyes flashing.
"You're being irresponsible." Jordan countered
"I just want to surf, MOM!" Ellie stormed.
Jordan huffed "You're just like your father, stubborn, willful and headstrong."
Ellie stopped; her mother had never mentioned her father.
"I am?" she looked her mother in the eye and looking at her Jordan could see a lot of Marty in her. "Why does he never come to see me, does he not like me?" she asked her anger dissipating as she sat on the stairs.
Jordan sat beside her daughter and wrapped her arm around her shoulder.
"He doesn't know about you, baby. I'm sure if he did he would come straight away and would love you as much as I do."
"Why doesn't he know about me mom?" she asked.
Jordan sighed; this was a conversation she had been avoiding for years.
"Marty was a lot younger than I was, and what we had although special, wasn't for very long, I didn't want to tie him down and I left before I found out I was pregnant. I tried to find him after that, but he was still in foster care, he'd moved and I did know how to find him, I think he's a lawyer at least that's what he was studying for."
"What was his last name?" Ellie asked
"Deeks, baby his last name was Deeks although he had changed it once, I'm not sure if he still uses it."
Ellie listened to her mother and got up. "Ok." She said determinedly.
"What?" Jordan asked suddenly afraid. "Ellie Mae?" she called.
"I'm going to find him…well at least write to him." She said and headed to her room.
Jordan sat on the step listening to her daughter run up to her attic bedroom, "Oh, God…Marty I am so sorry," she sighed her head in her hands.
Ellie had written hundreds of letter to her father, she had tried to find him, but in all of the lawyer's lists she found his name was only mentioned once as a pro-bono lawyer for children. She had written to the address on the list but her letter had come back 'no longer registered at this address'. Stubborn and determined she had written to him once a week ever since then and had put the letters in a box in her room. Someday she would find him and someday he would read the letters and want her in his life and be proud of her.
She worked hard at school, if her father was a lawyer then he would want her to be smart, so she kept her GPA up and she helped out where she could with some of the charities her mother and uncle Ducky helped out with, and sat listening to his stories for hours when her mom had him round for dinner.
All in all she was 'trying to be' a model child.
However, she loved police TV shows although she go annoyed as she could figure out 'who done it' within the first few minutes of the show starting. She still loved surfing, although that was strictly a holiday pastime and she loved music and the outdoors.
She just hoped she lived long enough to meet her father.
She looked up as the door opened and 'goon number 1' as she had nicknamed him walked in. "Food" he said and walked out again this time getting stopped by 'goon number 2' as he left….and he forgot to lock the door.
She waited to see if he would remember and come back but there was no sound so packing her bag, she slipped her shoes on and slipped out the door.
Glancing at a calendar on the wall she was surprised to find she had been there three days, it had felt longer, but no matter she was outta there!
Jordan Hampton sat quiet in the car as Deeks and Callen drove her back to the mission.
As they got out of the car she put her hand on his arm. "Marty, please?" she begged him, just wanting to talk.
"Jordan, I will help you save our daughter, but that's it." He said and walked off ahead of her leaving her to catch up.
"Ah, Dr. Hampton." Hetty said greeting her, "Welcome to OSP. I'm Hetty Lange; I hope my agents have been helpful to you."
Jordan nodded, "Thank you for help find my daughter." She said, "I'll do anything you need me to."
"Good, Mr. Callen has a plan, if you would like to accompany him and Mr. Deeks to Ops."
She nodded and she and the operations manager walked up the stairs, "You have a beautiful daughter," Hetty said, "She looks a lot like her father."
Jordan smiled, "She acts a lot like him as well." She said.
Walking into ops, Callen turned to them all, "Ok so here's the plan." He said.
Ellie slipped out of the house and started running in the direction of the road she could see in the distance, running past a sign she stopped dead, Mexico? She was in Mexico?
Luckily her Spanish wasn't too bad and Hell, Los Angeles is Los Angeles anywhere in the world, so she followed the direction the sign pointed and keeping just out of sight of the road started walking.
Carlos and Diego started screaming at each other when they walked into her room and discovered she was missing. "You let her get away!" Carlos screamed at his little brother.
Diego shrugged his shoulders, "Where can she go, it is 100km to the nearest person, she will die before she gets anywhere, she has no food or water, she will never make it."
Carlos had to agree with him, he picked up his satellite phone, "Agent Fitzgerald please," He said and waited. "Simon, it's Carlos, the Chica, she ran away…. We can't find her but she would make it far in this heat with no supplies…." He waited as Agent Simon Fitzgerald ranted on the other end of the phone, "You want us to do what?!" he asked
Carlos shook his head but did as he was asked; He climbed into his truck and drove to the medical center 100 km away. He shivered as he drove back knowing what his cargo was, the paperwork and fake badge, Agent Fitzgerald had provided him had come in very handy.
Pulling up outside the house Diego came out, "Where have you been? What did he say?"
"We were supposed to find and kill the girl, we aren't going to do that, so he sent me on a mission, apparently Dr. Hampton has been working with another agency, we are to stop her from ever working for NCIS again." Carlos said as he opened the back of the truck.
"Madre Dios!" Diego breathed when he saw what was in the truck.
The dead body of a fifteen year old girl, with blonde hair. "She died of a ruptured appendix, I didn't kill her, and we picked up her body and 5 units of blood."
He carried the girl into the house, "Come on Diego, it isn't murder, she's already dead."
"No Carlos, this is desecration I won't have any part of it!" Diego shook his head and backed off.
Carlos stormed into the house cussing his brother, he laid the girl's body on the bed, moving her hair to obscure her face and moved the sheets on the bed so it looked like the girl had been violated, he moved a knife across her throat, "Sorry Chica," he said to the corpse.
He liberally sprinkled the blood around the body to look like she'd bled out.
Then he set up the computer.
Eric was surprised as he received and incoming transmission.
He looked at Hetty for permission to open it and she nodded.
A man in a ski Mask dominated the screen, "Dr. Hampton, you were told not to interfere in this matter, by working with the LA NCIS team, you did that, your child has paid the price."
Jordan screamed as he moved allowing them to see the staged body on the bed.
Deeks caught her just as she fainted and the screen went black.
"Eric…find that son of a bitch!" Deeks growled, shaking with anger.