The Bad Guys Never Forget & Never Forgive
Chapter 7
The black SUV screeched to a halt on the perimeter, the driver stepping quickly out of the vehicle, a hand tightly grasping the door frame in horror at the carnage laid out before him, the likes he had not witnessed since his time in Afghanistan.
One of the SUV's from the convey was now a burning shell, the flames and haze making it hard to distinguish what exactly lay beyond. Metal debris and scorch marks littered the area. To the left he saw another SUV riddled with bullet holes and sitting nose first in a drainage ditch at the side of the road; thirty feet past that, the transport van was laying on its side in the middle of the road, the doors hanging open.
Sam pulled his weapon and began cautiously approaching the scene, looking for survivors—desperately wanting to call out to his missing team members. The flaming SUV was clearly hit while in motion and Sam could just barely discern, through the flames and haze, the outline of the bodies in the driver and passenger seat. He next approached the bullet riddled SUV in the ditch, finding a few blood spatters and three doors hanging open. Turning to scan the area around the van he saw four bodies laid out on the road...the blonde hair giving away the object of his search.
"Deeks!" Sam yelled as he raced to the detective's side, stopping only long enough to check two of the men that lay between him and his teammate...both men, and both wearing Marshall's apparel, were dead; both with a single shot center mass.
Stooping down next to Deeks, the first thing he noticed was the blood still freely flowing from the bullet hole in the detective's shoulder, pressing his palm to the wound elicited a pained moan from the semi-conscious man, but didn't rouse him further, "Hang on man...just hang on, helps on the way..."
Over the comm, Eric said, "Sam, the nearest Marshall is six minutes out and fire and rescue are still fifteen minutes out..."
"He's losing a lot of blood, he may not have fifteen minutes," Sam ground out, as his eyes scanned the detective for other injuries, falling on the deep purple and black bruise across Deeks cheek, "...he's got a pretty nasty head wound too...might even have a broken cheek bone."
Watching the thermal imaging that was still popping in and out of focus despite Eric's best efforts, Hetty asked, "And the rest of the convoy, Mr. Hanna?"
"Looks like a war zone Hetty," Sam replied, as he again surveyed the area, "my guess is that the chopper was equipped with RPG's at least...one SUV was hit...the bullet holes look like heavy artillery fire...the transport van was flipped-except for Deeks I haven't found any survivor's...but the scene is not secure."
"Understood, Ms. Blye is also on her way Mr. Hanna," Hetty informed the agent, asking, "...and Harkin's?"
Peering into the van, Sam gave a worried sigh, "He's gone...and Hetty; I haven't found Callen..."
The tech's and operations manager exchanged worried looks at the startling piece of news.
A sudden noise past the flipped van got Sam's immediate attention and he pulled his gun up, demanding, "NCIS show yourself...now..."
A few seconds later, a man came stumbling around the van, falling to his knees several yards away, a large gash on his forehead covering one whole side of his face in blood; he held a gun held loosely in his hands, "Marshall John Craig..."
Sam lowered his weapon and went to the downed man, helping him back to his feet and maneuvering the man to sit down closer to where he was tending the downed detective.
"What the hell happened out here," Sam demanded.
Still in a daze, Craig waved in a general skyward motion,"...out of nowhere...it came out of nowhere; a chopper, must have been waiting...barely cleared the tree line before it opened fire on the convoy..."
"Must have been a hell of a fire fight..." Sam commented as he again looked around at the hundreds of empty shell casings littering the roadway.
Craig nodded, as he slowly walked himself up the side of the van to survey the devastation that was once his team, "God, we thought we prepared for all contingencies...we expected something; Harkin's was to cunning to let an opportunity like this to go without an escape attempt: but this...missiles from a damn helicopter...how in the hell do you prepare for that!"
"Don't worry, we'll find him," Sam said firmly.
"How the hell are we supposed to do that," Craig snapped, "they were in a helicopter...by the time we can process the scene and scramble any air support of our own they could be to Mexico or Canada...hell, Harkins could have a boat sitting in international waters for all we know..."
"Thought most of his assets were seized," Sam asked.
"All that the forensic accountants could trace," Craig sighed heavily, "but this guy is good at what he does...hiding accounts would be nothing for him."
"Well, we'll find him. We've been tracking the convoy by thermal imaging with a satellite from our ops center..." Sam explained.
Shooting the agent a surprised look, Craig exclaimed, "You what...NCIS had no jurisdiction..."
"Hey...two of our people were in this convoy; and it may not have been our case long—but it was still our case," Sam ground out with equal anger, adding, "and it's a damn good thing we DID think of everything...our tech operator may not be able to follow the chopper's path to its final destination but we can get a good idea where it was heading...cross check it with any known property Harkins might have..."
Craig sighed heavily, and nodded, "sorry, you're right...I'm just not thinking straight..."
Sam nodded his head towards the direction Craig had come minutes before, asking, "what about up front...any survivors...?"
Craig sighed again and shook his head...his eyes scanning the area, "no, the bastards gunned down everyone...guess they must have thought I was dead, they didn't take the time to check..."
"Lucky for you..." Sam commented, "what about the other NCIS agent that was with the convoy...do you know what happened to him..."
Craig just shook his head slowly, "no...I cracked my head pretty hard in the crash, missed all but the tail end of the fire fight; by the time I came to enough to do anything the chopper was disappearing over the tree line...I tried to help my driver, but it was too late..."
...ncis la...
The CSI techs and a second team of Marshalls made it to the scene followed shortly after by fire and rescue; and soon the area was one of organized chaos.
Kensi had also arrived and she and Sam had stayed with the still unconscious Deeks while he was assessed and loaded into the ambulance while the area was being processed.
"What about Callen," Kensi asked worriedly when Sam informed her that the senior agent was nowhere on scene.
"If he's not here, then we can only assume that Harkins has him," Sam said in a voice tight with worry.
"Why, that doesn't make sense...Callen and NCIS had very little to do with the investigation..." Kensi said.
"Not with the investigation, but we did coordinate the take down three years ago..."
"But still...it's...its Deeks that Harkins really hates, really blames; why take Callen and leave Deeks...; and leave him alive..." Kensi mused aloud.
Shaking his head, Sam said, "I don't know, but there are a lot of things about this that aren't making sense. Taking Callen, leaving Deeks alive...and Craig being alive...every single Marshall is dead...killed by Harkin's men, yet he gets out of all of this with a head injury from the crash? Something's not adding up..."
"So, maybe we need Eric to look a little closer at Marshall Craig," Kensi stated.
"We're ready to transport," the EMT said, breaking into the agents' conversation.
"Go with Deeks...I'm gonna stay here, see what they find then head to ops to get a direction on the chopper..." Sam said, helping Kensi into the back of the ambulance, "Hopefully Eric got a good enough fix and Hetty can work her magic and we can have our own chopper in the air within the next few hours."
"Let me know...I'm coming with..." Kensi stated firmly.
Sam nodded towards the unconscious detective, "Deeks?"
"What do you think he's gonna say if he wakes up and finds me sitting around staring at him when Harkins has Callen, knowing how dangerous this man is...?" Kensi replied.
"Good point...soon as we have anything I'll let you know..." Sam said.
Sam slammed the ambulance door shut and gave it a few quick raps; watching as it slowly made its way away from the scene.
The SEAL then looked towards the sky and back to the busy scene, intoning hoarsely, "don't worry G, we're coming..."
...NCIS LA...