A/N: Sorry about the long wait for this chapter. I have found myself increasingly busy in real life as well as completely immersed in the other story that I am currently working on (Minerva Precisions).
I will continue this story, but I will be doing it in my own time, meaning that the uploads will be few and far between unfortunately, since my primary focus is on the MP story currently. Hope you'll be understanding.
Thank you for the support this story has received, it is indeed mind boggling that there are so many awesome people out there! Thank you!
Eric and Nell were incredibly busy, being the interconnecting link between the different raid groups were a task and a half on its own, and Granger grumble behind them that it was not all up and running yet, even though not all teams were at the ready was definitely not helping either. Luckily for the two technical wizards, Hetty was also in the room, reeling in the assistant director, chastising him for not leaving them alone to let them concentrate on their task at hand.
Kensi and Deeks pulled in behind the dark Dodge Challenger where they knew Callen and Sam would be sitting, overlooking the address where, hopefully, the potential attackers behind the morning's bombing would be.
It was not the greatest viewpoint of the place, but given that they would be raiding it within the next half hour, Sam had pulled back around and parked even further down the street at the corner, in order for them to be able to exit the vehicle and put on the tactical gear out of view of the building.
Kensi and Deeks stayed in their vehicle, whilst standard practice would be for the people arriving to leave their vehicle and enter the already parked one, the team had, from previous jobs, decided against that, seeing as how Sam's car was only a three door one, it did not lend itself to that. It would be a sight to behold for one agent to have to leave the vehicle in order to push his seat forward only to have two other agents slide in behind him, before pushing his seat back and reentering. No. It was just a lot simpler to use the silver SRX currently parked behind them.
So, adhering to their own standard operating procedure, Callen and Sam exited the vehicle once they saw their two teammates pulling up behind them, and got into the rear of the silver Cadillac.
"The gear is in the back." Deeks greeted them, getting straight to business. "Have you seen anything out of the ordinary here?"
"No one coming or going, can't see inside since they have blinds on all windows." The quick briefing sounded from the former navy SEAL.
"Alright, let's gear up," Callen added, wanting to be ready to strike as soon as every other group was ready.
Sam and Callen quickly and quietly strapped into their vests, checked the weapons, and started getting into position. As the four agents neared the house, they got the all ready through the earwigs, and Callen reported back that they were 'green to go'. A few moments later they got the go ahead from the central command, in this case Hetty.
Kensi and Deeks had quickly split off when the all ready sounded, making their way behind the building, ensuring that they would stop anyone trying to escape as well as securing multiple points of entry, as standard procedure dictated.
At the go ahead, Kensi tapped her partner once on the shoulder, the universal signal to move. He easily kicked in the door, but was immediately forced to retreat to the safety of the thick outer wall they were stationed at previously. A hail of bullets and shouting had erupted from the, now open, backdoor. They knew that was a positive scenario, as it would hopefully provide a much easier breach from the front, and just as that thought passed through their mind, they heard the recognizable gunfire of their teammates weapons.
Taking Callen and Sam's entrance as their cue to reenter, they quickly stacked at the door, at Kensi's tap, Deeks once more entered and this time the targets were much more distracted. Deeks quickly double tapped the two men who were looking in their direction, instantly dropping them to the ground.
Two gunshots from behind Deeks sounded right after, and a third guy went down, Kensi having gotten the better of him, covering her partners back. A quick glance back at her and a nod let her know his thanks, and after kicking away the pistols from their downed opponents, they were ready to further clear the house.
Whilst that was going on, shots were still heard from the front entrance, and as such, the two made their way towards it in order to provide support for their colleagues. Deeks flung the submachine gun around onto his back and drew his pistol since they were going into a more cramped space as they were entering a hallway compared to what had seemed to be the living room they had just cleared.
They were walking through the narrow hallway when a door on their left flung open and a man took a step into the hallway, his weapon aimed straight at the former SOG agents' chest. Deeks quickly managed to grab the gun pointed in his direction, and forced it towards the ceiling barely getting it out of harms way before bullets erupted from it. Whilst struggling with his left hand to keep the gun firmly pointed skywards, he fired off two rounds into the man's midsection using his other hand. The struggle quickly turned one sided as the bad guy immediately succumbed to the fatal wounds.
They met up with Callen and Sam who had taken down two shooters themselves, and together they cleared the remaining rooms in the run down estate. After the 'all clear' had been given by the team lead, the four of them gathered in the back room that Kensi and Deeks had first cleared.
After moving some male magazines that were laying on the table in the room they found countless brochures from various government recruitment buildings, a few Navy ones as well as Army and Air Force was present. The presence of the various flyers confirmed that the group Deeks' source had put on their radar was, indeed, the one behind the attack on the US Navy recruitment center.
Even though they had all been connected through their earwigs, Callen stepped out of the room to properly brief their operations manager and in turn be briefed on how the other teams had fared with the simultaneous breaches. Nell made sure all the teams' leaders were directly connected with OPS to properly plan the next course of action.
When he came back a few minutes later he relayed what he had just been told, that out of the six other teams who had all breached different addresses, three had encountered resistance which they had terminated without any ally injuries. Those same three teams had found different information on recruitment centers such as opening hours and one of the teams even found a map of downtown Los Angeles with the locations of some of said centers mapped onto it.
All in all twelve men had been taken down across the four different addresses, none were able to be taken alive, which left the team in need to find any physical evidence that might point out either exactly what the next target was, or any documents, messages, or electronic trails that might be able to tell them who and how many were a part of the local terrorist cell.
None of the teams had found any indications that explosives or bomb making components had been present at any of the sites visited, which meant that they were missing at least one address where they had made the explosive device used at the recruitment center earlier.
Since the building was now cleared of hostiles, the agents went over the place in a more thorough fashion, looking for anything that might give them a lead to follow. In the end they had found two laptops, an external hard drive, as well as a bunch of scribbles in what seemed to be Arabic.
Since LAPD and crime techs had already been called to the address, they decided that their best cause of action would be to return to Eric and Nell in OPS with the electronics. As such the four agents found their way to their vehicles and headed back out into LA traffic.
Eric and Nell had been working vehemently on the two laptops and the external hard drive that the team had brought back to The Office of Special Projects, the result was that just under an hour after the agents had generously brought the technological gifts to the technical operator and analyst, they now had a list of fifteen names in total as well as two additional addresses.
The identification of the men had been left to the auxiliary technical staff that had been called into work, which was procedure in case of any potential terrorist attack. The men whom had already been identified had been American born citizens, but with ties to either extremist websites or suspected Islamist sympathizers. They had also been able to identify the three additional men the laptops had unveiled, three men whom had been recorded entering Los Angeles not even a week ago from The United Arab Emirates. Facial recognition had identified two of them as former Al Qaeda members, confirming the information that Deeks had procured from his 'friend', that there indeed was a connection to a subgroup of the well-known terrorist organization.
Armed with the newly found intelligence, the team quickly gulped down their remaining drops of coffee, and hastily made their way towards the armory to once again gear up for a raid. They now had two more addresses that could potentially either house the three newly discovered men with terrorist ties or be the place where the first bomb had been manufactured.
They were almost fully geared when a tiny brunette quietly entered the room unbeknownst to anyone.
She cleared her throat, grabbing the attention of the four trained agents, "I have just spoken with the associate deputy director of the FBI. They are going to be in charge of the raid on the address we are not going to."
"Which of the addresses do you want us to hit then, Hetty?" Sam inquired.
"You'll be going to the address in South LA, agent Hanna." The assistant director whom had just joined them in the armory said in his gruff voice. "I have taken the liberty to contact both ATF and the LAPD bomb squad to be at the ready at both locations, ready whenever you have cleared the building."
It was not often that Granger chimed in on their missions, and when he did it usually involved some unwelcomed agenda of his. This time, however, it seemed like he was just focused on the task at hand, no hidden agendas, no politics nor cloak and dagger stuff. Just like it happened with the inter agency cooperation whenever any possible terror threats emerged, the assistant director too was feeling the pressure to solve the problem, thus putting any differences he had with the team aside in order to help in any way he could.
"Appreciate it, assistant director," Callen thanked the older man.
"Just try to keep one of them alive this time for questioning," he requested, knowing that stopping the group was one thing, but in order to find out who financed and planned it would be made easier by tenfold if they had a suspect to interrogate.
"We'll do our best," the team lead nodded in his direction, and with those parting words, the team of agents made their way towards the address they had been given by Eric, and hopefully made their way towards the end of the terror threat looming over Los Angeles.
Even with the Los Angeles traffic, the team arrived just a block away from their target in record time. Already geared up in the armory, they all did a one-over of the equipped gadgets, weapons, and protective gear before exiting the large SUV they had driven.
As they were making their way towards the inconspicuous building, they got the confirmation through their earwigs that the FBI tactical team was standing by at the secondary location, ready to breach and enter as well.
A minute later they had tactically approached the front and back door, splitting up with their usual partners. Callen let their tiny operations manager know that they were 'status green', and a few seconds later they got the order to execute.
Simultaneously Deeks and Sam kicked in the back and front door respectively, their partners tossed in their prepared flashbangs, hoping that the inclusion of stun grenades would help ensure the successful capture of anyone who might be inside.
The sound of the stun grenades going off was their cue to enter.
After a thorough search of the inside they found loads of equipment needed in the manufacturing of explosive devices, but unfortunately there had not been any enemy combatants at the residence. They would have to wait for the final 'all clear' from the FBI's tactical team in order to know if there had been anyone present at that residence before knowing if they had any suspects to interrogate.
After a few minutes, Callen made his excuse to leave the building, wanting to attempt to gain any information as to how the second raid had went as well as wanting to let ATF and the bomb squad know that the 'all clear' had been given.
Kensi was busy photographing anything that might be of importance, whilst Sam and Deeks were going over all the different components in the building, trying to determine exactly what kind of bomb they could be expecting.
Based on the components that the two explosives experts had found it seemed increasingly likely that the explosive they had been used was a common variety of plastic explosives, most likely Composition C-4. That would coincide with their previous assumptions earlier in the day when the two had gone over the blast at the naval recruitment center.
Kensi walked back into the room where Sam and Deeks were in the middle of a discussion about explosives whilst they were going over the inventory present at the scene.
"I'm just saying that the fact that it's unable to detonate from anything but a shock wave from a detonator is not always a plus." Deeks argued.
"And why is that?" The larger agent inquired, "I'd say not accidentally blowing yourself up is a pretty big plus."
"That's true," the former SOG agent concurred, "But if you're decoupled with the detonator you can't improvise with fire or a gunshot," he shrugged.
"You speaking from experience?" Kensi half asked half stated, unable to stop her curiosity. She knew that he hated being questioned about his past missions, especially ones where it had not gone according to plan.
"Something like that," the mumbled response sounded.
Able to deduce from the sound of his voice that this was a particular sore subject, Kensi quickly decided to change the subject back to the problem at hand.
"So what have you found?"
She received a slight smile of appreciation from her partner.
"It seems they've been using high grade explosives, most likely C-4." Sam explained quickly.
"Alright, I'll go make a call to Nell. See if there has been any C-4 reported stolen anywhere within the last month," Kensi stated.
"I'll join you, see if G. has gotten any information," he followed the female agent before turning back to the other man, "Will you be alright in here for a minute or two Deeks?"
"I'll try not to blow myself up," he laughed at the larger agent, who just shook his head at him also unable to contain a smile.
Sam joined his two teammates outside the building by the road, Callen had collected their SUV during his conversation with their operations manager and was now leaning against it, still deep in conversation with the tiny woman.
"Hey G. you got anyth-" he was interrupted by a huge blast from behind him, the combination of the shockwave and surprise knocking him over.
Kensi, too, had been knocked over from the unexpected shockwave emerging from the house. When she got past her momentary confusion she looked around able to see Callen, Sam, and… no one else. Dread overtook every inch of her body as she put two and two together, reasoning that the man she had come to care a great deal about would be somewhere amongst the rubble.
The blood running through her veins turned to ice and she was suddenly shivering despite it being noon with the sun high in the sky, shining warm and brightly. She wrapped her arms around her core, attempting to warm herself or hug herself she knew not. The only thing able to comfort her was seeing the man who was currently beneath the large pile of debris in front of her, the state of the man she had no idea of, but prayed that he would miraculously still be alive unable to accept anything else.
The though of the man who had so quickly broken through her emotional barriers caused her shiver to worsen, choking back a sob as her entire body felt stuck in time, frozen. Inwardly she found her thoughts drifting as she cursed herself for taking it so slow with the man, even though he had wanted to do it as well. Her thoughts drifting over what she might never have the opportunity to do everything she wanted with him, and everything she would miss. Playing tourists in their own city. Their shared, sweet kisses. Waking up next to him… everything.
Sam had quickly regained his senses, and upon hearing Callen calling for help over the phone, he rushed to the female agent to ensure her wellbeing.
"Callen has called an ambulance, help is on the way." He stated somberly, knowing that any scenario was likely grim.
"Marty's in there," she broke a sob, her emotional state letting her show weakness in front of the large man she had come to consider her elder brother, who in response to her words pulled her into a tight hug as she buried her head into his strong chest.
As Marty regained consciousness the thick particles and dust in the air entering his lungs causing him to start coughing, the action creating great pain through his entire midsection and head. He tried to look down himself as he forced his eyes open, but all he could see was darkness.