Lori looked up to see what was going on. She quickly checked where Callen and the girls were. The girls were sliding down the slide with Callen standing next to it. They seemed to be okay. Lori looked around to see where the scream had come from. She saw a kid lying on the floor near the monkey bars and he was holding his arm. She looked around and she saw an adult walk up to him. It was his mom.
They stayed at the playground for about an hour before going back home. The boys had fallen asleep in their stroller. Lori carefully lifted them out and brought them upstairs so they could sleep some more in their cribs.
…..
The boys were now two weeks old. Callen's hand was still in a cast. It still had to be on for at least four more weeks. Callen and Lori had settled into a good routine with the kids. It was some hard work with two sets of twins around but they had it handled. For the girls it was a little getting used to. They were so used to having both their parents' attention but they had to share it with their two little brothers now. But they loved their baby brothers, they wanted to help take care of them. It was so cute to see Myra and Julie with their baby brothers.
That Saturday Callen and Lori went to the store to buy a Christmas tree. They took the kids with them. They first went inside to buy some more Christmas decorations. They bought two new stockings for the boys and the letters they needed so Lori could sow them onto the stockings. They also bought some new decorations for the tree, last year some decorations had broken, and some more lights for outside. They paid for everything and went outside to the tree lot to buy the perfect Christmas tree. They looked around the lot and found a perfect big nicely filled tree. Callen paid for it and together with Lori they strapped the tree onto the roof of the car after getting the kids into the car.
Once home Lori got the kids inside first and then went to help Callen take the tree inside. They put the tree in the corner of the stairs. Lori made sure it was secure as Callen held the tree.
"Mommy, help you?" Julie asked.
"You wanna help decorate the tree?" Julie nodded. "I guess you could help us."
Lori got the Christmas stuff from the attic and together they started decorating the tree. Lori handed Myra and Julie a box with decorations they could hang up, it were all decorations that couldn't break if they fell. Lori first hung the lights in the tree.
"Make sure you spread them out girls, so that way there are decorations in the entire tree."
Callen was busy to put the lights up outside. It wasn't really easy with a cast but he was getting the hang of it. Callen looked inside through the window and saw his girls decorating the Christmas tree. It was such a beautiful picture. Callen walked inside and snapped a quick picture with his phone before going back outside again.
Lori hung the breakable decorations higher up the tree so the girls couldn't reach them but they knew that they weren't supposed to touch the decorations in the tree.
"Mommy, bake cookies fow in twee?" Myra asked.
"Yes, we're gonna back some Christmas cookies as well."
"Yay!" The girls cheered.
"But you can't eat them all at once."
"No mommy," Julie replied.
Once they were done with the tree Lori went to decorated the house as the girls went to play with their toys. Lori checked on the boys, they were lying peacefully in their playpens, sucking on their pacifiers and looking up to their music mobiles. Lori took out her sewing kit and sowed the letters for the boys' names onto the new stockings. Once they were done she hung all six stockings on the mantle. She put a string of lights on the railing on the landing of the stairs, some Christmas figurines around the living room, a small vase with balls in it on the mantle and a plate with Christmas decorations on the dinner table. She hung a piece of mistletoe on the door to the kitchen and a decorative string with fir, lights and Christmas decorations on the kitchen counter. Just as Lori was done decorating Callen was done too. There was a string of lights hanging above the door and above the window, in the garden stood a reindeer and Santa with sleigh. Around the tree trunk hung a string of lights and several strings of lights were placed in some bushes and on the fence.
Since Callen was inside to keep an eye on the boys Lori took the girls to the kitchen to make Christmas cookies. Lori made the beginning of the dough so the girls would only have to roll it out and make the cookies. Once the dough was done Lori threw some flour onto the dinner table and gave both girls a piece of dough.
"Now grab your rollers girls and roll the dough flat."
The girls did as Lori told them to. While the girls were rolling the dough Lori pre-heated the oven.
"Good mommy?" Julie asked.
"Yes that is very good girls. Now picked out some shapes and make the cookies, press down firmly so the dough gets cut all the way through and then place the cookies onto the plate."
Myra and Julie used different shapes and placed the cookies onto the plates once they were cut out. Once all the dough was up they could decorate the cookies. Lori made some small holes at the top of the cookies so they could but a ribbon around it to hang it in the tree. Lori placed the two plates of cookies into the oven once the girls were done decorating.
"We eat cookie?" Julie asked.
"Once they are done you can each have one cookie. The rest will go in the tree. And no sneaking around trying to get the cookies from the tree. Mommy and daddy will tell you when you can have one okay."
"Okay mommy," both girls replied.
The girls went back to playing and Lori cleaned up in the kitchen. Lori was just done cleaning up when Callen walked into the kitchen with a crying Finn in his arms.
"Our little boy is hungry," Callen announced.
"You want me to feed him?" Lori asked and at that moment Charlie started crying too.
"No, cus I think our other boy is hungry too."
Lori walked into the living room and picked Charlie up. She sat down on the couch and breastfed him. A little later Callen joined her and he bottle fed Finn.
That Monday Callen went back to work. He had one more week before the Christmas break, Lori was still on maternity leave. She would start in February again.
"Morning," Callen spoke as he walked into the bullpen, only Sam was there.
"Morning G, how's everything at home?"
"It's good. We've gotten used a bit to having two sets of twins around the house, but it's hard work sometimes."
"Yeah I can imagine. Especially with your hand in a cast."
"Yeah it's not really handy, but I've gotten the hang of it."
"How's your hand?"
"It's okay. It still hurts a bit but not that much anymore. It just sucks, I can't really hold anything with that hand cus I can't bend my wrist and sleeping with the thing sucks. But it'll pass. Just a few more weeks then I have to go back and we'll see if the cast can come off."
"That's good. How are Myra and Julie with the new kids around?"
"They love their baby brothers but it's a little getting used to for them sometimes. But they love them and they love taking care of them."
"That's good. Yeah for Aiden it was a little getting used to as well when Kamran was born. But having kids is great."
"Yeah it is. I never thought it would get this and that I would love it but I love having the kids around."
"Yeah it's great to come home to your wife and kids after a rough day at work."
"Yeah it is. But doing what we do we sometimes miss a few things."
"Yeah I know. It sucks sometimes."
"Yeah it does."
A little later Kensi and Deeks came in. They sat talking for a little while before Eric whistled them up.
"What have we got Eric?" Callen asked as they walked into the bullpen.
"This morning this happened in downtown LA," Eric told them and he put some footage on the big screen.
The agents watched the footage. An armored truck was driving through LA when it was suddenly cut off by a car and two men with guns stepped out of the car. The guards in the truck stayed calm since they were behind bulletproof glass but then the men opened fired and the bullets pierced through the glass, killing the two guards inside the truck. They shattered the glass on the driver side door and one man got inside the truck after throwing the guards out. The other man got back in the car and they both drove off.
"LAPD found the armored truck a few miles further near an abandoned warehouse burned out," Eric explained.
"What was in the truck?" Callen asked.
"According to the company they were transporting money, three million dollars to be exact."
"Pfff, you can buy a lot with that kind of money," Deeks stated.
"Why is this a case for NCIS?" Sam wondered.
"Because of the people who stole the money," Eric answered and he put two ID's on the screen. "Meet Victor and Ramon Alvarez, both Mexican nationals who are part of the Ramirez cartel. There have been rumors that the cartel has a part here in LA."
"SecNav is concerned that they will use this money to fund their war against America," Hetty spoke as she walked into OPS. "Find them and fast."
"We will Hetty," Callen replied.
Callen and Sam went to the site where the truck had been found and Kensi and Deeks went to the site where the truck was hijacked.
"Three million, they can buy a lot of weapons for that," Sam stated as they looked through the truck.
"If the rumors are true, and they really are here in LA we've got a big problem."
"Yeah we do."
They looked around the site but there was nothing there. Just as they walked back into the office Kensi and Deeks arrived too.
"Any luck?" Callen asked.
"No, not much. The guns they used we already knew that the cartel had them. Some bystanders saw it but they didn't see anything special," Kensi answered.
"Let's hope Eric and Nell have more luck."
Two hours later Eric and Nell walked downstairs.
"You got something?" Callen asked, eager to get some new leads in this case.
"Unfortunately there were no cameras at the place where they dumped the truck but we did catch the car they used in the robbery just a street from where the truck was dumped. The two men were in the car. We followed the car but they ditched it a few miles down, again in an area without cameras. But we just got lucky, I had kaleidoscope search for the two men. They were just spotted in a convenient store on Rodeo Road. Luckily the street has cameras so we caught in which car they got and we followed them to this house." Eric put a picture of a heavily secured house on the screen. "According to the intel this house in owned by the cartel but as you can see it's heavily secured. We've looked at every possible entrance but there's just no clear way in. That's why they have been able to operate here for so long and they haven't been able to catch the owner in the act."
"We need to find a way in," Callen stated.
"There's no way to sneak in without getting caught."
"Then we don't sneak in."
"You got a plan G?" Sam asked.
"What if we go in undercover."
"Undercover as what?" Kensi wanted to know.
"To sell something he wants, like weapons. We can find out what their play is."
"You wanna go undercover in one of the most dangerous cartels there is?" Deeks questioned. "Yeah sounds like a good idea," Deeks added sarcastically.
"We can't let them get away with the money."
"We can go in like we did at the Russian consulate or something else that would get us through the door without getting into the cartel," Kensi suggested.
"They have a heavily secured house, they're not just gonna let anyone in their house… Nell, check to see if they have something like a cleaning or a gardening service or something."
Nell typed some keys on her tablet. "They have both, both are legitimate companies with a good record."
"They might not know they are working at a cartel house. Eric, get Kensi in as a cleaning lady and Deeks in as a gardener, Sam and I will keep watch outside."
"Got it." Eric and Nell went back upstairs.
Kensi caught Deeks laughing at her. "What are you laughing about?"
"Kensi as a cleaning lady. That's funny, you can't even keep your own apartment clean, how are you gonna clean a house?"
"I can handle it."
"Yeah right."
"I can clean, I just don't always have time for it with the job."
"Uh-uh."
"Besides I have you to clean up, so why would I do it? Kensi spoke with a smile.
Once their backstopping was done Kensi and Deeks left to get ready for their undercover jobs. Callen and Sam found a spot nearby where they could keep watch of the compound. Callen was behind the sniper rifle as Sam watched through the binoculars.
"That's Kensi," Callen spoke when they saw a cleaning van pull up. Kensi and another cleaning lady stepped out.
A little later Deeks arrived with the gardening crew. By the end of the day they hadn't found much information yet but Kensi had managed to plant bugs and cameras around the house.
….
They were busy with the case for three days already. There was still no sign of what they were going to do with the money. Kensi and Deeks tried to find out as many things as they could without giving themselves away. Callen and Sam kept watched on them throughout the day.
"Why take the money and do nothing with it?" Sam questioned.
"I don't know, maybe they are waiting on the right buyer. You would expect that they would get rid of this money as soon as possible."
"Uhm guys, I think we've got a problem," Kensi interrupted their conversation over the com.
"What's up Kens?" Callen asked.
"They've got a full arsenal in here. Guns, grenades, explosions, you name it. There's enough C4 here to level a city block."
"Any sign of the money?"
"No nothing."
"Uhm guys," Eric interjected. "We've looked a bit deeper into the armored truck but they weren't transporting money, they were transporting C4."
"That's definitely not good," Sam stated.
"Not good at all," Callen added.
"Eric, I'm sending you some pictures, looks like a map of a place they are going to bomb," Kensi said.
"Got them Kens," Eric replied.
Kensi heard some footsteps coming closer so she quickly got out of the roof and locked it again. Kensi pretended to fiddle around with the lock to get it to open.
"Uhm, excuse me ma'am," a voice with a Spanish accent spoke behind her.
"Oh hi, I was just cleaning the house but this room is locked," Kensi replied friendly.
"This room doesn't need cleaning."
"My boss said that I should clean every room of the house."
"And my boss said this room doesn't need cleaning."
"Okay. He's the boss here. I'll go to the next room then."
The man looked suspiciously as Kensi walked off. Kensi hoped her cover was still good.
"I've got the location," Eric announced after two hours. "They are planning to bomb a hotel in Marina Del Rey. I've looked at the events going on there and later today a senator will give a speech there. He's like the complete opposite of the cartel."
"They're gonna bomb the event to make a statement," Sam stated.
"Eric, notify LAPD and the bomb squad but don't let them move in until the cartel is there. We need to catch them this time," Callen spoke.
"Got it."
"Kensi, Deeks, stay in, we will handle the hotel."
Callen and Sam went to the hotel once two other NCIS agents were there to keep over watch on Kensi and Deeks. Callen and Sam pretended to be spectators in the crowd. They spotted the LAPD officers but not more than usual, so that way they wouldn't spook the cartel guys. Just as the senator was making his speech two masked men stepped in and started shooting up the place.