So Sam's okay with Callen and Nell being together. That's great but when are they going to get a break on this case? Who is really targeting the team? This story is about half over now so answers will be coming.

I only own my own characters which include Stefan and Mark in this story.

Anything in italics within single quotes is a quote from my one-shot "Can't Stay Away". Anything in italics and double quotes is thoughts.

Nope…no matter how hard I wish, NCIS LA nor any of the characters on the show are mine. And sadly, they never will be. Bugger!

Reviews are always welcome. If you are enjoying this story, especially this chapter, or even if you're not, leave a review on your way out and tell me why. It really is the only form of payment I receive and truly does inspire me to write more often.

Enjoy.

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CHAPTER 14: A Portable OPS Center

Sam grabbed a cup of the coffee as he and Callen walked into the living room where Nell was just finishing setting up the portable OPS center. She looked up as they entered, then glanced at Callen with a questioning look on her face. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders to let her know everything was okay.

"Here's what we have so far guys." She stated bringing up information on the plasma TV attached to the wall. Before she could even begin to brief them, another knock came from the front door which turned out to be Eric. Sam let him in and they all gathered around the plasma. Eric set up his equipment while Nell finally started with the briefing.

Nell began "First, here's a recap on what we know at this point. Based on what we found out about the Commander, there was no reason for him to be targeted. His record is not only clean; it is exemplary. Both his and his driver's financials and background checks came back clean. We investigated friends and relatives of them both to see if we could find anything out of the ordinary. Nothing suspicious showed up so far. We'll keep digging. From what Kensi and Deeks found at the base, the commander was well liked. No one could think of anyone who might have a grudge against him. The briefing he was attending was a normal briefing for him and occurred on a monthly basis. This might have been why he was targeted in the first place, he had a set routine so it would have been easy to target him to get NCIS involved."

Eric took over for Nell "I checked all the traffic cams in the area of the crash including where the shooter was known to be but found nothing. I also went back two hours before you and Sam arrived at the scene to see if maybe the shooter set up early. I found a black SUV with tinted windows entering the access road to where we believe the shooter set up. I couldn't get a good angle to see the license plate. Sorry guys. Here's the traffic cam footage of the SUV." Kensi and Deeks arrived as Eric was putting the footage up on the plasma and took their places in front of the screen. Hetty was networked in from OPS so she could see and hear everything going on at the safe house.

"We also collected the traffic cam footage from the streets around your house Callen and it looks like the same black SUV was there last night." Nell brought up the footage from the previous night.

"On this footage, I was able to pull the first three numbers of the license plate. I have a Kaleidoscope search running now." Pointing to the screen, Eric pointed out "Right there, you can see what looks like one man take out the guard in the car while a second man took out the guard patrolling your house. This happened just before Arkady arrived," Eric fast forwarded the footage to the time Arkady arrived. As they continued watching, what looked like two men left the area on foot as Arkady looked into the car and saw the guard slumped over. They then watched him go toward the back of the house. The time stamp on the traffic cam was just a couple of minutes before Callen caught him in his kitchen.

"Well at least we know Arkady was telling the truth." Sam interjected.

Nell continued "We're still checking the camera footage around the base to see if we can figure out who sabotaged the Commander's car. We've found nothing so far."

Eric took over once again, "Here's some good news. We checked through airport footage of everyone entering through passport control here in LA from Romania for the last month and ran facial recognition on all of them." Eric put a picture up on the screen. "The only person of interest we identified is this man." Eric posted the passport photo on the plasma. "The name on his passport is Stefan Badžo. He entered the US last week. Digging deeper into his background, we found out he worked for the Comescue's but we haven't yet been able to find out much more. Even though his last name is different, we did establish he is a distant relative. We think this is the guy targeting you Callen. We're using Kaleidoscope to try to find him as well. We've got nothing yet, but we're still searching."

"He looks familiar, but I can't figure out where I've seen him before" Callen said studying the face on the screen. It bothered him he couldn't figure out where he had seen the man before. He was racking his brain trying to come up with the answer but coming up empty.

"Keep looking for him Mr. Beale. I don't care what you have to do, find him," Hetty instructed. Hetty looked to the rest of the team. "While Eric and Nell are looking for Badžo, I want all of you to comb through Mr. Callen's old cases and see if you can find out why he looks familiar. I'll bring them to the safe house and you can all work from there."

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The next few days were a blur for the team as they poured over old case files while Eric and Nell continued trying to track Stefan Badžo's movements. They ran into a dead end with the SUV. They found it abandoned in an alley, but it turned out to have been stolen a couple of days before the shooting so they had no idea what type of vehicle Badžo was using now. The SUV had been wiped clean so they didn't have any forensics either. At one point the team successfully tracked him to a seedy hotel in a poorer part of LA but missed catching him by a day. They had yet to pick his trail back up and were becoming frustrated. The camera footage around the base hadn't yielded any leads either. They were no closer to finding out who had planted the bomb than when it first went off.

The case files weren't providing much in the way of leads either. Nothing stood out in any of the files that caught their attention. In desperation, Callen began re-reading the case file from when they had gone to Romania to save Hetty. He started from the beginning while trying to remember every little detail of the trip and the subsequent shootout. As he continued to read, his mind wandered.

"I still can't believe Deeks came with us to Romania. He isn't even a federal agent but he came anyway to save Hetty and back us up, especially Kensi. I don't tell him enough how talented, smart and brave I think he is. He really lightens the atmosphere in the bullpen with his quips, jokes and the insane ideas he throws out on occasion. It took me a while but I finally realized he does it for just that reason; to relieve the tension when we're working a case. He's a good man and I need to make sure he knows that's what I think. I wish Hetty hadn't separated him and Kensi like she did. He's not as light-hearted as he used to be. Watching him these last few months, I can tell he doesn't trust Hetty like he used to. It's a real shame, and it's also affecting the way Nell and I are conducting ourselves. We don't want to be separated and I'm not really sure any more that Hetty wouldn't do that to us. I'd quit before I let her separate us. I hope she realizes just how much damage she's done to this team and our trust in her. I hope to God she figures out a way to fix the mess she caused before it's too late."

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Nell was the first one to finally get a lead on where Badžo might be. She and Eric had been checking all the social networking sights in hope of a lead. She finally saw someone who looked a little like him on one of the sites. It was a party at a bar called the Happy Hippo on Wilshire where one of the party goers seemed to think he was the next Spielberg. A blurry figure in the background of several of the pictures looked somewhat like Badžo so Kensi and Deeks were dispatched to the location to see if the manager of the bar could identify him as their man. If he could, they would try to pick up his trail from there.

Since it had been days since anyone had been around Callen's house, he was finally able to talk Hetty into letting him return home and have the case transferred back to the Mission. "I'll be careful, Hetty. I don't think whoever was sneaking around found out anything. Hell, it might not even be connected to Badžo. Besides, this way we can use the OPS center here, instead of the one in the safe house."

"Are you sure Mr. Callen? You're taking a risk because it could still be connected. We don't know for sure."

"I know Hetty. I'll be more comfortable in my own home though. Even if you did kind of force me to buy it, I find that I like it there." Callen replied.

"Okay Mr. Callen. Just be careful." As he turned to leave, Hetty continued "And watch your back! This isn't over by a long shot."

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