A/N: Short and late, I know. Still writing this story and the others in between work and school...
The moment Sam surrenders, Callen knows that being on overwatch won't help Sam or the two younger agents.
He immediately ditches his Beretta M82 rifle and sprints to the stairwell in the corner of the empty floor with his military assigned Sig Sauer MPX machine gun hanging from his belt. He had chosen the location- an abandoned office building because of the absolute perfect view into the market place where the meeting took place. Now with the chaos of Nahili's men now surrounding Sam and Kensi half dragging a protesting Deeks between booths, there's no chance he'll be able to back both of them up.
"Mr. Callen!" Callen winces when he hears Hetty's voice through his earpiece. The operations manager had been oddly quiet ever since the group had left the police station. Callen places a finger on the earpiece as he sprints down the steep stairwell and calls out, "Hetty, shots were fired-"
"I know. Reports just came over the radio. How is the team?"
Callen's stomach drops and he has to stop in his tracks on the landing between the second and third floor. "Sam just surrendered himself to get Kensi and Deeks out of danger. I couldn't- I can't get a shot so I'm-"
Hetty sighs loud enough for Callen to hear through the earpiece. "If that is the case, I need you to rendezvous with Miss Blye and Mr. Deeks at the location that we had discussed."
Callen bites the inside of his cheek and balls his hands into fists while managing to keep down the curse he so desperately wants to spit out at Hetty. "I know that it's not what you want to hear," he suddenly hears over the earpiece and shakes his head in frustration while Hetty continues, "I had a feeling that Mr. Hanna would do something like this so I had a tracker put in the heel of his boot. I have also assembled everything we need to strike the camp within two hours."
How and when- you know what, I give up in trying to figure out her tricks. Callen now rubs his forehead and repeats, "Fine. Rendezvous Kensi and Deeks at the bank."
"And then return back to the police station as fast as you can. Keep in mind of time- I have a feeling that Miss Blye and Mr. Deeks will take some time to make it to the bank. I'm sure that Mr. Hanna's sacrifice won't sit kindly with Mr. Deeks."
"Deeks, stop it! Stop fighting me!"
"I'm not going to leave Sam- I'm not! Let me go, Kens!"
In an alley three and a half blocks away from the marketplace, Kensi pushes Deeks against a red bricked apartment building and tries her hardest to stop him from taking off. She's had to drag him down the streets amidst the chaos of running bystanders before pulling him into the alley. The brunette agent has never thought of her partner of being physically overpowering to her, but then again they've never really had to deal with a situation like this.
"We can't just leave him!" Deeks yells. He pushes himself forward and Kensi has to muster all of her strength to push him back against the brick. Kensi prepares himself for him to fight back and says, "Sam gave himself up so we could run and if we go back there, all of this will be for nothing!"
"I don't care."
"That's crap- of course you care. I can't drag you all the way back to the meeting place." Kensi places her hands on his cheeks and states strongly, "I love you but get it together. Now."
"I can't have Sam die with me holding everything against him, Kens. It'll kill me."
"You and Sam already came to an understanding before we left so he knows that you don't hate him. Plus, if we go back there without backup, we both will be killed, alright?"
In response, Deeks nods his head frantically like a young child. "So-so where do we need to go?"
"Follow me." Kensi tugs his arm down the alley where a small gap between two businesses leads to another open street. Kensi takes the lead and slowly begins to walk and pull off her burqa. Deeks hesitates to move as there's something that's suddenly nagging at him.
There had been five or six men, possibly all ex-military, that had joined Farooq in firing at Sam, Kensi and himself. Even in the chaos, he's sure that at least one or two of them could have been close to chasing them down to the alley. But when Kensi calls out his name as he stares at the street they had just come off of, Deeks gasps, "Why aren't they coming?"
"What?"
"I don't think anyone's coming after us."
"There's no need to, in their eyes," Kensi replies, "If they have Sam, they know we'll be coming full force."
Ail Ain, UAE
"What the hell is the matter with you?"
Sam can't help but sigh when the blindfold he's been forced by Nahili's men to wear finally comes off and he the first thing he sees is his wife scowling at him.
By his own count, he had been handcuffed and forced into the back of a vehicle about half an hour ago. The room he's been tossed into is dark, damp, and small enough for him to leave a couple of feet between him and his irritable wife.
"No happy embrace?" Sam jokes. Michelle, standing with her hands on her hips in her torn and bloody yellow jacket pants, "I'm holding up because I know that my still injured husband is safe and will be able to go back to our children. Why are you here?"
"We had a trap for Farooq and it went south. Deeks and Kensi were cornered and I made a choice to get them out. I'm sorry, babe," Sam apologizes. "What the hell did Nahili do to you?"
"That's not important. What's important is how long the rest of your team will take to get here. The last guy to come in here and….the last guy came in and was saying something about moving. I think that the moment Nahili leaves the camp to sell his weapons, he's going to kill us."