Marty said little once they were in the car, he gave her directions to his apartment and after that he was silent, but his eyes watched every vehicle that came near and he stared at people standing on the streets.
Kensi pulled into the parking lot, at the edge of the pavement were a row of small shops that faced the expanse of the ocean. Marty's apartment was on the second floor, above a deli that advertised The Best Sub Sandwiches in the State!
Kensi parked a couple of rows out and sighed.
"Is there something you're not telling me?" she asked as she got out.
"I told you everything." Deeks grumbled, slamming the car door.
Kensi shook her head, "I feel like you're holding back on me."
"You sound like Nate." he headed for his apartment, "thanks for the ride and all, but I'd really like to be alone now."
Bullets spattered the car and the pavement all around them. Kensi drew her gun and stepped away from the car, she had no idea where the shots were coming from.
Marty yelled, dove at her and she slammed into the fender of her car, seeing stars for a moment and losing her gun.
She pressed a hand to the lump that was already forming at the edge of her hairline, blood dripped from her fingers and she glared at the detective. "What the hell was that for?" she demanded.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed?' he shouted back at her, "Stay down!" he got up and said in a softer tone, "Please? Please stay down. It's me he wants and he'll kill you to get to me."
Sam's car roared into the lot, Marty saw them and he ran.
"Go away! Leave me alone!" the detective appeared panicked as he looked around. He stared at something across the boulevard then ran for the street. Tires screeched, horns blared as he darted across the lanes.
A sedan clipped him and Deeks spun, stumbled and recovered. He kept running heedless of the cursing drivers swerving to avoid him as he ran against the flow of traffic.
"I'm okay." Kensi shouted, waving at her friends, "Get Deeks!"
Sam gunned the engine and G braced himself as the challenger leaped over the median and across the grass. Vehicles screeched to a halt as the car tore across the lanes. The tires kicked up sod as the car sped along the fence separating traffic on the freeway from the surface street less than fifty feet away.
Marty looked back and saw them coming after him, ran to the fence, kicked off his shoes and climbed the chain link. He threw himself over the top as the car nosed to a stop just inches shy of the barrier.
Sam slammed his hand on the steering wheel, threw the car into reverse and roared back out onto the pavement.
"NO!" Callen shouted as the car accelerated back toward the fence. "Hetty will kill you!"
Sam growled and they both flinched as the fence gave way and the car went airborne off the embankment. Sparks flew as it crashed to the pavement and one of the front tires blew.
Deeks was sprinting, fifty feet ahead of them and heading for a yellow taxi van parked sideways in the street. The passenger window was rolled down and the muzzle of a rifle equipped with a heavy silencer rested on the window frame.
Deeks looked back at the taxi then at the NCIS agents. His expression was one of fear mixed with resolution. He suddenly yanked open the sliding door and then leapt in. The van roared away.
"DAMMIT!" Sam shouted.
G sat with his feet braced against the floor, his hands clawing at the dash, "This is not my fault. I will convince Hetty that this was all your idea and I had nothing to do with it."
Sam turned to his partner and then a smile curled his lips, "You scared, G?"
"Of your insane urge to mimic Mario Andretti?" G glared at him, "Yes!" he got out of the car and looked at the flat tire. "And I am also afraid of what Hetty is going to say about this."
Sam opened the trunk and pulled out the spare, "She won't even know."
Callen's smile was quick and unmerciful, "Right."
While G called Kensi, Sam made short work of changing the tire.
"She's going to meet us back at headquarters." Callen slid his phone back into his pocket and got back in the car.
"I'm telling you, G, Hetty will never know."
Hetty met them at the door; she looked Sam up and down, sniffed and said, "You better have that front tire repaired by this time tomorrow, Mr. Hanna."
Callen raised an eyebrow and smiled at his partner who just shrugged.
"I will, Hetty."
XxXxXx
"OUCH!" Kensi slapped Nate's hand away and continued to clean the cut herself.
"Sorry." he opened the Band-Aid and handed it to her.
"So the guy that was shooting at you was Damon Sharpe, and now Deeks is with him." Sam said.
"I don't understand, why would he just leave with this guy?" Callen asked, "Doesn't Sharpe want to kill Deeks?"
Kensi huffed in exasperation, "Deeks went to Sharpe to protect me. He thinks Sharpe would have killed me to get to him."
Sam threw up his hands, "Well that's just great; we have no idea where to find them now."
"Eric might be able to help us." Kensi suggested.
XxXxXx
The ops room had never seemed more crowded. Kensi, Sam and Callen hovered over Eric's chair, they were all talking at once and the tension was making them all irritable.
"Are there any vehicles registered to Sharpe?" asked Kensi.
"He's driving a stolen taxi; I doubt he's got a Mercedes stashed in the garage." Callen interrupted, "What about property?"
Eric's fingers were flying over the keyboard as he accessed several different databases at once.
"Can't you find the taxi with traffic cams?" Sam asked.
"Do you have any idea how many taxi vans there are in LA?" Eric snapped, "I can't exactly scan for one with a sign on it that says Out of service, bad guy on board."
"Sorry Eric," Sam apologized, "it's just that I'm out of ideas for how we can find this lunatic."
Eric nodded, "There are no automobiles or property registered in Damon Sharpe's name anywhere in the tri-state area. I'm not finding anything useful on the LAPD servers either."
"You can get into LAPD's servers?" Callen looked impressed.
"As far as anyone is concerned, no, I most defiantly cannot get into LAPD files." he closed the screen that had the LAPD logo on it. "Your only option is to go down there and ask some of Deeks' co-workers if they know of anyplace you might locate Sharpe."
Kensi started for the door, swayed and grabbed for the edge of the table.
"You're not going anywhere." Callen insisted, helping her to a chair.
"We'll find him Kensi, I promise." said Sam.
"Alive, Sam."
He nodded, "Alive, Kensi." he wished he could promise her that too.
XxXxXx
The desk sergeant at Hollywood Division checked their credentials, phoned someone and then buzzed them through the door to the detective division. "Lieutenant Berkshire is waiting on you."
The only man in the squad room was a balding, heavyset man in an ill fitting blue suit. He sat hunched over a desk pilled with haphazard stacks of paper.
Sam got right to the point, "Your NCIS liaison officer Marty Deeks has been kidnapped by a man we suspect of killing a Navy CPO this morning."
"Really," he didn't seem too concerned, "and what's this suspect's name?" he picked up a pencil and peeled a piece of paper from a cube of post-it- notes.
"Damon Sharpe."
He dropped the pencil; "Impossible, he's dead." he picked up his coffee cup and took a drink while he scanned some message on his computer screen.
"I am telling you that Damon Sharpe kidnapped Detective Marty Deeks less than an hour ago." Callen reiterated.
"And I am telling you Damon Sharpe is dead, deceased, no more." the officer repeated in the same monotone. "He isn't running around LA kidnapping people." He leaned back in the creaking chair and put his feet up on the desk, folding his hands over his rounded belly. "Wait a couple of days and Deeks will turn up like the bad penny that he is."
"That's what we're worried about; we'd rather not find him down on the docks in the same shape as that guy this morning." Sam tried to impress on the detective.
He waved a hand as if to say 'whatever'. "I can't help you anyway. Any of Detective Deeks' former undercover cases are sealed for his protection." he sneered at the use of Deeks rank, saying it as though it left a bad taste in his mouth.
XxXxXx
"Well that was a total waste of time." Callen grumbled as he got back in the car, "These guys don't seem to give a damn that one of their own is in danger of being murdered in a grisly manner."
"Assholes." Sam growled as he slammed the door.
An officer stepped off the curb beside their car, pages spilled from his case and he bent to pick them up.
"Don't look at me, just listen." He didn't take his eyes off the papers, "Deeks did a good turn for Sharpe's bodyguards that were shot up; he set them up at a dance club called The Edge down on Sunset. Tell the Chang twins you think Zack Donavan is in trouble and you want to help him." As he shoved the last page in the case and started to walk away, Sam caught a glimpse of the name plate, it said R. Wright.
"They really don't like Deeks do they?" Callen wondered.
"All but one of them apparently."
XxXxXx
The Edge was a large three story design made mostly of glass and steel. Even this early in the day there was a line behind the velvet rope. Colored lights flashed beyond the tinted windows on all three levels and the music was just barley audible on the street.
The beautiful Asian woman at the door pulled aside the rope when they showed her their badges.
Callen whistled as they passed the door and waved his hand, "She was smokin'!"
Sam nodded in agreement; he was already counting the bouncers circulating the room that undulated with dancers. One of the burly men came over.
"Can I help you gentlemen?"
"We need to talk to the Chang twins." said Sam.
"Follow me please." he led them up a short flight of stairs and past a collection of small room containing a table and chairs, partitioned with gauzy curtains to a frosted glass door. He tapped three times on the portal, opened it and motioned them to enter.
Callen followed Sam in. The room had steel and glass desks, comfortable pillowed chairs. They were a bit surprised to discover that the Chang twins were two dark skinned men with almond shaped eyes. They were both at least four inches taller than Sam and had the same muscle mass as many of the bouncers they'd seen outside.
"I am Alvin Chang, this is my brother Muhammad."
They could see a slight difference in the features of the brother who had spoken; his twin looked like him but somehow appeared younger.
Sam introduced himself and his partner. "We trying to find a friend of ours, his name is Zack Donavan, we think he's in danger and we want to help him."
"Who gave you the impression that we might be able to tell you where to find this friend of yours?"
"A police officer named Wright."
"Hmm." He carefully looked them over, then said, "Zack's girlfriend Cheryl sure liked collecting purses."
"Her name was Amanda and she liked expensive shoes." Callen corrected.
"True." Alvin nodded.
"Damon Sharpe is alive and he has kidnapped Zack." Sam explained, "We want to find him before something bad happens to Zack."
"Zack helped my brother and me out and we would do anything for him."
"Zack is my best friend!" Muhammad's eyes lit up.
"Sharpe bought a fancy glass house up on San Gabriel Canyon Road for his girlfriend Tia." He gave them the house number, "She left him for a director shortly after that, so I doubt anyone has been up there in at least two years. It's the only place we know that he might have gone."
"Thank you, thank you both." Sam held out his hand to Muhammad who stared at him for a moment then shook the agent's hand with enthusiasm.
"Say to Zack, I greet him!" Muhammad grinned. Alvin put hand on his brother's shoulder and chuckled.
"I will." Sam replied, finally freeing his hand.
"When this is all over maybe Zack will come down here and greet you." Callen said.
"We would both like that very much." said Alvin. "Drinks will be on the house."
"On the house!" Muhammad agreed.
XxXxXx
"There was something a little off about Muhammad." Callen said as they exited into the sunshine. "Do you think it had anything to do with those bullet scars on the side of his head?"
"Probably suffered some brain damage, I noticed one the back of his head too."
"His brother Alvin is a suspicious kind of guy."
"I think that's what has kept him and his brother and Deeks alive."
"I'll call Kensi and let her know what we found out." he dialed the other agent as Sam headed out onto the boulevard and north to the canyon. He spoke with her for several minutes and closed the phone. "She's going to meet us there."
"Is she feeling up to it?"
"She says yes and Nate agreed that she was fine."
"Okay." the engine roared as Sam pressed the accelerator.