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Chapter 4

"Okay," Eric said. "So we have Petty Officers Alex Stephens, Jim Scotty, and Tiberius Pine. All grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same school, enlisted together, right out of high school. Served one tour in Afghanistan. Overall, nothing remarkable about them, except for the fact that they're dead." As he spoke, Eric pulled up pictures and pertinent documents about the three murdered Marines.

Nell took over. "We looked through their bank records. There's quite a bit more money in there than petty officers generally make. Also, $150,000 dollars was transferred to another account- $50,000 from each man. We haven't gotten around to tracking the other account yet, but we will do that next."

Tony pursed his lips. "Pine looks familiar."

Eric shook his head. "He's never had a run in with NCIS, or any police departments, as far as his record shows. Must've been someone else."

"No… not him exactly…" Tony mused. "Maybe like a brother, or a cousin… No… A parent!" He turned to the lead agent.

"Columbia," the two men spoke in unison.

"Pine… Wasn't he one of the ones that did border crossings?" G asked.

"Yeah we supplied to him sometimes, remember? But I thought he got caught with the rest?" Tony recalled. There was a nagging feeling in his gut that something wasn't right with this.

"Yeah he did, and I'm pretty sure he didn't have a son then." G replied. His body language didn't change, but a hint of unease appeared in his blue eyes. "Eric, look up his father. Tomás Pine, if memory serves me correctly."

"Tomás… sounds right," Tony said.

"Right," Eric pulled up an ID of Tomás Pine, reading from his tablet. "Born in Columbia. His parents moved to the US when he was 15, but he didn't really work out here. Minor charges, but when he was 20, his parents died. A few months later, he moved back to Columbia, and was suspected to be a member of the Lopez drug cartel there. The cartel was taken down 17 years ago by an unnamed Philly PD detective and a CIA agent who went undercover, and he was taken into custody for ferrying drugs across the border. I don't think we'll be able to get anything else on the undercover op; it's pretty heavily redacted. I'll keep working on it, though," the tech said apologetically.

"No need," Tony replied.

"What do you mean?" Nell piped up. "That might have something to do with the murders."

"We already have the intel from that op," G put in.

"What? How?" Deeks asked. Then his eyes widened in realization. "Wait- you don't mean… That was you two?"

"Guilty as charged," Tony smiled easily as he hopped up on the edge of the table.

"Huh?" Eric asked articulately.

"I was the CIA agent, Tony was the Philly detective," G explained to his stunned team.

"You guys took down an entire drug cartel by yourselves in the space of just six months, in a foreign country, with no backup?" Nell gaped at the two men.

"Well, I wouldn't say there was no backup…. The backup just wouldn't have been able to get there in any reasonable amount of time," Tony said casually, as if he were speaking about the weather instead of a highly dangerous undercover mission.

"You are insane," Deeks muttered. "Anyways, can we get back to the case? When did Tomás have a son and who was his wife?"

"He had the son 7 years before the op, but the kid and the wife stayed in the US. They were divorced when he was 3, and Tomás only got to see him a few times a year. When he was 10, Tomás got out of prison, and a few months later, the ex-wife was killed in a suspected drug hit. Custody was transferred over to Tomás until he was 18," Nell reported, reading from Eric's tablet.

"We need to find Tomás. These deaths could have been cartel-related. After all, they were killed standard execution style," Deeks suggested.

"Damn," Tony swore under his breath. He'd never wanted to hear of the cartel ever again, and now everything was coming back. Almost everyone from the cartel had been taken down, including Lopez. So who was starting it up again? Or had they ever really gotten rid of it in the first place? Lopez had been killed in the shootout, Tony had seen his body.

G's phone went off, startling him out of his thoughts. "It's Sam," he said, stepping slightly away from the group. "What's up?" he asked quietly, then listened for a moment. "Really? Yeah, I'll be there." He ended the call and stuck his phone back in his pocket.

"How's Sam?" Deeks asked.

"Bored as hell, but okay. He wants to talk to me about something. While I'm gone, keep looking into the cartel. Find out everything about their recent activities, and how and when they started up again. Look into Lopez's family, and if you need anything unredacted, just wait and I'll work on it when I get back. Tony, come with me."

Tony slid off the table and walked after the lead agent. "What's up, G?" he asked under his breath.

G shook his head, walking quickly to his car. The two agents slid into the car, and G accelerated quickly, speeding out of the area.

"So why am I here?" Tony questioned again.

"I want you to meet Sam. Also, I thought it would be a good idea to… refresh our memories on Columbia and maybe bounce ideas about what the hell is going on here," G said, sighing. "It's been seventeen years. I thought this was over then, so why the hell is everything coming back now? Lopez died. We both saw his corpse, so who is running the cartel now? And since when?"

"Family member?" Tony suggested. "Waited until the cartel was off of everyone's radar and then crawled out of the woodwork? And are we sure everyone got captured in the raid? We were a bit busy trying not to get shot or blow our covers to really check."

"Maybe family," G said slowly, pondering. "We'll have to wait for Eric to look into that. But… now that I think about it…. I don't remember Hernandez being found."

"The last time I saw him was when he put a bullet in my gut," Tony agreed. G flinched slightly. "Then he shot you and I don't really remember anything after that until I woke up in the US again."

"Nah… Figures that you wouldn't," the agent said tiredly. "I think I saw him run, but I had a bullet in my leg so I can't really say who it was for sure."

"We mentioned him to the CIA," Tony recalled. "But we did kinda wake up after it was a bit too late to do much. Did they ever say anything about it to you?"

"No. I'll contact some people, see if they know what happened to him," G replied as he parked. "We're here, by the way," he added unnecessarily.

"Got that, thanks," Tony muttered. A little louder, he asked "Are you sure he's not going to shoot me on sight?"

"Probably not, but you'd best let me go first, just to be sure," G said, chuckling as he knocked and then pulled out a key to unlock the door.