Chapter 6
Sam and Callen had brought back the planted tablet from the apartment from the dead Petty Officer, Eric of course immediately getting to work on that one mysterious encrypted file that was on their but had failed to get it open up until now. Meanwhile Nell was still busy with going through the security footage of the warehouse near the Navy Base, where a mysterious black van had been seen the last time before it suddenly disappeared of the radar. It took quite a while to get something useful out of the footage but then she finally had that one really important breakthrough: "I've got a facial rec on one of the guys that drove that van; his name is Michael Peterson, dishonorable discharge from the Navy because of bad conduct on duty."
Nell said and looked a little bit triumphant at her partner, who clearly got more and more frustrated by the minute even if he tried his very best to hide it from her. But to Nell he was always like an open book and so she asked with a little bit of concern in her voice: "You don't seem to be very optimistic considering my latest breakthrough is everything alright Eric?"
"Sorry for being such a downer right now, but this one file on the tablet gets me so frustrated because I can't get it to open. I've seen this highly encrypted code and the usual decryption programs don't seem to work here but maybe you have some tricks up your sleeve Rockstar." He replied, anxiously waiting for his partner's response and he really hoped that she was able to get him out of this little predicament. She shortly took his hand, softly squeezed it and replied: "Of course I am able to help you, because I've done some decryption work myself on one of my past jobs." Eric then gladly handed the tablet to her and got to work, on what seemed to be a very complicated code to crack but Nell was very confident to get it done in the end. Meanwhile the rest of the team including Hetty was busy with discussing the latest case and that little "situation" that Nell had made just recently aware of: She knowing the killer of the Petty Officer very good and that of course concerned all of them very much. "I don't know why yet but I certainly have a bad feeling about this guy and he will somehow be after her looking for revenge, because he may be felt wronged by her in his sick twisted mind." Callen said, who sitting at his desk while Hetty was standing just a few feet away and of course also was worried for the safety of her employee.
"At least Mister Beale is with her all the time since the two moved into one apartment a while ago, that won't make it that easy to kidnap her there if that's even the plan of Mister Marks and the associates of him." Hetty finally made her contribution to this little briefing on the status of the case and of course all of them were very determined to protect one of their own by any means necessary.
Eric finally called them all upstairs to tell them the newest breakthrough in the case: Nell getting a match in facial rec on one of the guys that were in that mysterious van, which was seen near to the Navy Base on the day when the victim was presumably murdered. One thing was for sure: Whoever those guys were, they were definitely pros but who had hired them to the job? They still had no idea what the connection between Nell's stalker ex-boyfriend and the dead petty officer was and that made Sam say: "Maybe those two haven't met at all and Marks has just put all this into motion to lure Nell out in the open and get revenge on her." Sam could really have a point there, but I'm not afraid of him, if he's coming to get me he can try it. Nell thought as she was still busy with decrypting the one file on the tablet, knowing that her ex-boyfriend had put the fie on there for her to decrypt she knew exactly what to do to get it open.
More and more code fragments were cracked by her and if she was able to keep up that fast progress, it wouldn't take so much longer to open the file on the tablet: What are you trying to hide from Steve? You should know that you can't outsmart me!
Two hours later
As Kensi, Deeks and Sam were out in the field again Nell had finally reached the last decryption layer to crack before she was finally able to access the file on the tablet. I'm almost done just a little bit further and then I will see what you've hidden for me on that tablet Steve. As she had finally cracked the final decryption layer a text file opened: "Soon we will be together again Nell and NO ONE will be able to do anything against that! As Eric looked on the tablet screen, reading the text file several times and now he was really scared for his partner's safety.
Nell called to tell him what the decrypted file was containing: "Thanks for the information Nell and keep me posted on any new developments." Callen only replied and then ended the call and he now realized that time was clearly running out for them. I really hope that Callen and the others will be able to stop this guy before he can do anything to my Rockstar. Eric thought and now he could barely concentrate on his work, even that it was still important that he was getting his work done no matter what. Of course it didn't go by Nell unnoticed how weird Eric was acting all over sudden, so turned around his chair to face, took her hand into his and said: "I know you're worried about me, but the team will make sure that nothing will happen to me and I'm totally able to defend myself if it comes to the worst case scenario." Eric finally said after just looking deeply into his partner's eyes for some minutes: "Okay I think I can try to worry about you just a little bit less than now." He kissed her on the forehead and then went back to his work, even if it wasn't easy to concentrate on that after he now knew about the threat to Nell's safety made by her ex-boyfriend.
With not much progress being made the day finally ended, Eric looking into every direction at least twice before he was ready to get into the car with Nell, just so he was able to maybe minimize his paranoia a little bit. Just when they thought, that the coast was clear Nell realized that someone was apparently tailing them as she looked into the rear mirror: "Someone is following is, I have to try to lose them." So she accelerated the car a little just to get a little space between them and the peopled that followed them and as expected they quickly adapted to the speed change. Practically out of nowhere another car went on collision course to them, as he came from another street right next to them and before Nell could react the car was hit with full force knocking both of them out in the crash.
AN: I hope you like this chapter, Please read and review
