Sam had informed Hetty about Callen's request and although she hadn't been happy with it or use to being told what to do, she knew that she was practically backed into a corner. When he said that he would get out that evening with or without their help, she knew that the only thing that she had the power to do was to make sure that he didn't get himself killed or let the case that he had worked on for over a month now go south. So she gathered a team and sent them to where Callen had requested, keeping in touch with them via Eric's technical room as well as keeping up to date with finding Kensi.

The pictures that Kensi had taken before being kidnapped were of good quality and allowed Eric to run them through the databases for identification. There were 4 different men in the pictures but only one of them was in the system for petty theft and assult. His name was Chris Morgan and because he had just gotten out of jail, they had an address for him. It wasn't too late in the day, although it wasn't early either, so they weren't sure whether he would be home or not. Deciding to go along with the only lead that they had, Sam and Deeks went to the home of Morgan in hopes of finding him.

By the time 7o'clock came around, Hetty was back in her office waiting for the arrival of her senior agent. The bust had gone well, capturing most of the members of the gang with only two fatalities and Callen had gotten out of there as soon as he could so that noone could say that it was him who had set them up. Now, she waited for him to come in because she had instructed him to as soon as he had called her asking what was going on with Kensi's case. She could have told him about their only lead but she wanted to wait until she saw him and could tell him face to face because otherwise, there was no doubt in her mind that he would go straight to Morgan's place without a care for any regulations.

When she saw him, she got up from behind her desk and walked over towards the main part of the hidden base in a calm manner. She was only calm on the outside though, especially as she saw the agitation and anger and worry written all over Callen's face and actions as he hurriedly entered the place.

"Mr Callen. Nice to see you back again, fit and well, although I wish it were under different citcumstances." she said and he stopped short. Anyone else, he would have ignored them and gone straight up to be filled in with what he could but not with Hetty.

He crossed his arms. "Don't we all." he said before looking up towards the balcony of the upper floor. "How far have we gotten on the case? Have we found who those people in the photos were?"

"Sam and Deeks have gone after the one that we were able to ID." Hetty informed him with the rarity of using her agents' first names or dropping the titles, but he guessed that it was a high stressed situation and everyone was going to be acting different than normal. "They should be back soon. Why don't we go see if they've checked in with Mr Beale?" she said, reverting back to her professional mode.

Callen had no choice or time to do anything but follow her up the stairs. He knew that pressing the matter with Hetty would get him nowhere as opposed to anyone else in that building. The only way he was going to get any information on anything was to follow her to the Ops center where he hoped they would explain it to him and get him up to date.

Eric was still in his seat in the technical room, typing away on his keyboard as Callen guessed he searched something for whatever Sam or Deeks was asking him to over the earpeice currently in his ear. When he saw them enter, he paused a bit before carrying on when he realised that he hadn't replied to the person on the other side of the call.

"I'm sending you the address now." he told them before pulling out his earpeice and putting the phone on speaker so that everyone could hear. He turned to look at Hetty and Callen once he had sent it and they had confirmed they had received it before hanging up. "Sam and Deeks went to Morgan's place but he wasn't there. Neighbor said he might be at some club so I sent them the address." he explained.

Hetty nodded but Callen had questions. "Who's Morgan?" he asked and Eric forgot all about the welcoming back formalities and went straight to the case at hand.

"He was the only one we could identify from the photos Kensi took." he told him as he put the information back up onto the screen so that the agent could see.

Callen nodded as he read the information. "Let me see the pictures again." he told him. After he had met with Sam and before the bust, he had managed to talk to the kid who had informed him about the kidnapping to get a better description of the guy he had spoken to about it. He hadn't known a name but once Callen had told him that he thought it might be a good business to go into, the kid had readily told him the best description he could considering he had met him at night in some alleyway. "Here, clear this up for me." he ordered Eric as he spotted one photo with a good shot of a person who matched the description.

"And who is that, exactly?" Hetty asked him carefully.

Callen didn't turn to face her as he spoke. "He's the one who spoke to my contact about what was going on. He's not smart and I know exactly where he'll be in about," he paused to look at his watch. It was already 7.30pm and that meant that Kensi had been missing for near to 8 hours now. The thought of it made his insides churn but he pushed it away so he could focus on his job to get her back home again. "In about 2 hours."

"And where's that?" she asked him as Eric finished doing his job and put up the new image that Callen quickly zoomed in to.

"An alleyway off of 21st." he told her. "Can you get any hits off this?" he asked Eric who shook his head.

"Nothing." he said apologetically and he nodded.

"Never mind. I'll go meet with him." he said coolly before changing the subject. "Where are Sam and Deeks with Morgan?" he asked Eric who turned to look at his screen quickly before turning back.

"They haven't said reported anything yet, so they probably haven't gotten to the club yet." he told him. "It was a little bit away from the house."

Callen nodded impatiently. "What else?" he asked and when noone answered, he frowned and crossed his arms. "That's it? What about the dead PO from this morning?"

"Nothing substantial came back from that. And we cross referenced it with the other victims but without their bodies, there's nothing else to be found." Eric informed him

"There's always something to be found if we look hard enough!" Callen snapped to noone in particular only for Hetty cut him off before he could add anything more to it.

"Mr Callen. We are doing the best that we can with what we have." she told him but it did nothing to ease his mind or soften his mood. "I suggest that you take time to cool off and perhaps clean up before we go any further." she said, eyeing the few scratches on his temple and arm from when he had escaped from the gang at the bust.

Callen shook his head. "I don't have time for that." he told her in a more quieter voice but he anger, worry and a bit of fear was still there. She knew that a personal case was bad enough for anyone on the team to handle, but this was 10 times worse for him. The only thing she could rely on was the fact that Callen was the best agent that she had ever known and he would be able to get the job done with keeping his emotions in check at times of need. "I have to meet with him soon."

"In a couple of hours. Mr Hanna and Deeks should be back by then and we can converge our theories and get everyone up to date before that. But until then, there's nothing to do but to get yourself cleaned up and a bit more presentable for the meet." she told him and he hated it but he knew that she was right. Even though the man he would meet would be no good, he could go looking like he had just escaped a fight. He had to look more able and skilled and smart.

Callen turned to Eric as he began to leave. "You let me know the second anything happens, yeah?" he said and Eric nodded, not needing to have been told that.

It was an hour later when Sam and Deeks had returned to the headquarters. They had called in when they had found Chris Morgan but unfortunately they had been too late and hadn't had the chance to speak to him as he had already been dead a little while by the time they caught up to him. LAPD had been informed and they had stuck around to gather as much info as they could but eventually handed the case over by telling them they wanted to know everything that they found out about him before heading back.

Now, they were all gathered in the bullpen area of the building, trying to work out what to do with their main lead gone. The presence of their team leader hadn't been anything momentous past a few greetings because of the dire situation but they had had time to fill him in with everything else before moving back onto Morgan.

"Single shot to the head so it was someone who knew what they were doing." Deeks explained after getting off the phone with his collegues at LAPD about the cause of death. "They don't have much else though." he said and the others weren't too surprised with the way the case was currently going.

"So that's one out of the 4 down." Sam stated and crossed out the picture of Chris Morgan from the stills on the TV screen that showed them the remaining three memebers of the group that had kidnapped Kensi.

Callen stared at the screen as they all fell into a silence. There wasn't much else to say or do because they really had nothing else to go on. He sighed and turned away to go to his desk to get his gun and car keys.

The others watched him but only Sam spoke up. "Hey, where are you going?" he asked, moving towards him but Callen didn't bother to glance up.

"To meet with the other one." he said.

Sam look at his watched. "You still have another half hour." he said and Callen looked at him and shrugged.

"Beats waiting here, doing nothing." he said and began walking away. "Keep digging and let me know if you find anything." he told them while leaving. He heard the footsteps before he saaw his partner fall into step next to him. "What?"

"I'm coming with you." Sam said. Callen gave him a questioning look that made him carry on. "You'll need back up in case he's not on his own."

Callen sighed, not in the mood for fighting right then. "Fine." he said, making his way to his car and getting into the driver's seat. "But I do the talking, alright?"

Sam nodded but didn't say a word. He'd let him do the talking at first but if things got out of hand, he'd take over.

Sorry in the delay in updating. Had a very busy day yesterday and today, but here's the next chapter! Thanks again to all of you who have read this fic, especially to keelzz64, evershort, Cowboy's Girl, MadiL93 and .grace for the reviews. Please R&R and enjoy!