Notes: sooooooo it has been a long time I am so sorry! I got super busy with my new job, my internship and the new project I am working on. Luckily for us part of my job includes sitting in Walmart for 2 hours a day on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I was able to finish this chapter and start the next! I will not promise more uploads because I am still busy job coaching most of the time but that client is independent enough for me to just sit in the subway and be there to answer questions leaving me a couple hours to write. (See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Mike Franks knew this would be a hard and long week. He had his whole team sit down and gather all the evidence they have. He took it all to the JAG office in order to get a warrant to search the last known residence of Pedro Hernandez. After working in conjunction with Jag and the Mexican government Mike Franks and his team were packing their bags to travel to Mexico. Agent Pride would be staying behind to protect Kelly, Harry and Gibbs along with the Director and the Marines.
The agents jumped on a military charter headed for San Diego where they would then hop in vehicles and drive down to Mexico. They were meeting up with a few members of the Mexican FBI or The Federal Ministerial Police. They were going to be collaborating as the FMP wanted to take down the whole cartel while NCIS only wanted Hernandez for the murder of a federal agent as well as the initial murder and the murder of Shannon Gibbs.
The drive was long with the agents taking turns driving and resting. After two full days travel they made it to the headquarters closest to the location of Hernandez. The FMP had surveillance on the cartel and saw Hernandez arrive back in Mexico. They assumed he was in a safe house by that point so they had some time to connect with the locals and plan. This was not the type of situation you want to go in blind.
Mike and the team arrived eager to complete this and get back to the US so he knows that the kids are safe. They meet in a conference room and map out where the cartel's known safe houses are and where they think others are. The FMP had a confidential informant on the inside who gave them what he could. He was lower ranking and did not have access to everything. The map was laid out and the team coordinated with the local police to do a quick drive by each one and report on activity in the area.
NIS would be going to the last known location of Hernandez and execute the warrant they have to search the residency. The FMP would coordinate with the local police and create a report of activity then determine the best place to search first. This was going to be a big production between NIS, FMP and the local police, leading to many arrests and finally some cold cases being closed for the FMP and police. Mike Franks, Dan McLane and Felix Betts jumped in the car with an agent from the FMP Agent Melanie Romero. They all grabbed their tactical vests, an extra gun was strapped on and their radios linked to the FMP channel.
Mike and Felix went to the front door while Dan and Melanie went to the back door. Mike knocked on the door and waited a few minutes. When nobody answered the door they picked the lock and made entrance. They went through clearing the whole house as they went. Mike and Felix cleared the first floor while Dan and Melanie cleared the basement. They worked together to clear the second floor.
Mike swung into a room where he found a computer and a hatch in the ceiling. He had Felix and Melanie going through the computer while he and Dan went up to the attic. He dropped down the latter attached to the door and drew his gun climbing up quickly. Dan clicks on a flashlight and hands it to Mike when he gets high enough to look through. He spots what looks like a whole room of weapons, everything from automatic machine guns, grenades and even a rocket launcher in the corner. He scans the room and does not see anybody so he makes his way further into the room. There is a table in the middle with a map of target locations. He quickly takes it in and pulls out his radio to call it in. He will grab the camera from his bag when they go back out and take pictures of everything.
They collected everything they could as evidence and made sure to label everything correctly. This all needed to be done by the book, crossing t's and dotting i's due to the international cooperation of it. It takes a few hours to collect everything and secure it for transport back to the office.
They decide to let the forensic team go through the evidence and the computer team go through the desktop they found. The team gets the information they have and gather the info from the patrols around the other safe houses and bases they know the location of. They compare the map they have to the safe house information they found in the house. Everyone takes turns sleeping while the others continue to work and put together all the intelligence they have on the group. Everyone is able to get at least five hours of sleep throughout the night leaving the team rested enough to continue the next morning.
They got reports that two of the houses had moderately busy activity throughout the drive by's the police did all night. They made sure to use the unmarked cars to not give anything away. Mike and Felix are going to go with a team of FMP agents to one house while Dan and Melanie are going to go with her team to the other. They were prepared with zip ties for handcuffs to arrest everyone at the houses and bring them in for questioning.
The house that Dan and Melanie went to was full of men. They ended up arresting over thirty individuals in the house and found the basement full of weapons and drugs. The team called in backup to transport the prisoners and collect evidence, making sure to go through the residence with a fine tooth comb. They made sure that every t was crossed and every i dotted in the paperwork, the group would not get off on a technicality. The group did not include Hernandez, however his alleged right hand man in the cartel. He was in the United States at the time of the original murder that was witnessed by Shannon Gibbs. The agents would not let her death be in vain.
Mike Franks was having much more luck in his location. They set up surveillance and watched for a bit to determine the security patterns. With the new warrant available for the location and probable cause they were preparing to breach the house. Franks and Felix suited up in the heavy body armor and coordinated with the teams that arrived for backup. Local police units and the FMP were there in mass to contain the situation the best they could.
The group moved in sync on the house with Mike leading a group in the front, Felix in the back with his group and two of the FMP teams covering the sides. Mike held up his hand and counted down from 3 on his fingers. When he got to one they kicked in the front door, throwing a smoke grenade and running in to take down everyone in the room. Mike stayed towards the back while the group got everyone in zip tie handcuffs for the time being. They were all led outside to be watched by the fifth group that was in charge of securing the prisoners.
Mike rounded the corner slowly towards a short hallway. The hallways had two doors, one on each side and a staircase at the end up to the second floor. He motioned towards the three agents with him to clear the rooms. The door on the left was a bathroom that was empty. The door on the right lead to an office where they found some documents but not as many as they thought. Mike saw something off about the office and decided to investigate.
Under the desk the wall seemed to be a slightly darker color, which he at first attributed to a shadow, however it did not fall like a shadow would. He felt around the edges, moving the desk slightly away from the wall to find a hatch he could open. He motioned to the other two agents that he was going to open the hatch. He stood slightly to the side and swung the door open, immediately ducking behind the desk in case there was someone right there. He took his flashlight and shined the light in there to see a tunnel. The three agents shared a look and one broke off to inform the others what they found, letting the second team know to be watchful in the back as they did not know where the tunnel lead. Mike crawled in there with his headset flashlight on. He grabbed his gun and crawled through the tunnel, and an agent followed behind him. When there was a split they each went one way, Mike going right and the other going left.
Mike crawled right until he reached the end, where he felt around and pushed the wall out a little. He was met with a quick round of gunfire where he quickly hid behind the rest of the wall. He peeked around the corner during a break in shots and saw Hernandez in the room alone from what he could tell. He quickly used his radio to alter the others using simple morse code. He peeked around again and took a shot, hitting Hernandez on the right shoulder and a second hitting the hand holding the gun. Hernandez quickly dropped the weapon giving Mike enough time to tackle him to the ground. The door to the room was broken down as more agents came swarming in the room only seconds later.
They were quickly to help Mike get him in cuffs, making sure to tie his ankles with zip ties for extra precaution. The rest of the house was secured at this point with Felix having arrested another twenty three men in the basement level of the house and then securing the upstairs with only six women who were hiding in the room. The group was quick to transport the group to the FMP headquarters and place them in cells as far from each other as they could.
The next week was full of interviews, arrests, evidence gathering, and getting ready for prisoner transport in order to bring Hernandez back to the states along with the second in charge who was there during the murder of the marine and Shannon Gibbs. The team was exhausted but felt accomplished, knowing they helped a family find justice and safety in arresting Hernandez. The trip back to Washington DC was long but successful with Hernandez being placed in NCIS headquarters for the time being until he was tried and sentenced to most likely a supermax prison.
Notes: As always please let me know what you think. This chapter was really hard to write for some reason but I am glad I am over that hurdle! Also yes I am still working on the 9-1-1 Harry Potter crossover but it is something I will publish eventually when I either finish this or get farther in writing it because I keep starting then not finishing stories and it bothers me and I know probably others.
I saw your comment and fixed the prison. That was just the first one that came to my mind.