Fic - Signs of Allegiance - 2/3 - NCIS LA Big bang
Title - Signs of Allegiance 2/3
Author: Ceindreadh
Genre: gen
Characters: team
Rating: T
Summary: When Hetty goes missing on Deeks's watch, the team must work together to find her. But how can they find her when they don't know who can be trusted
Warnings: none
Spoilers: Pretty much all of S2.
Disclaimer. I don’t own the NCIS LA characters, I’m only borrowing them, no copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter 1
“That’s not what I’m sorry about,” said Hetty. “It’s for this.”
“What?” Deeks turned his attention from the hillside just in time to see Hetty lean forward with a tazer in her hand. “Hetty?” was all he managed to say before he blacked out.
“Back up a minute there,” said Sam, “Hetty *tazed* you?” The disbelief in his voice was echoed in the faces of the rest of the team.
“What, you think I’m lying to try and cover something up?” Deeks pulled up his shirt to reveal a small burn mark on his side. “The paramedics thought I’d been knocked out from the crash until they found this.”
“Why the hell would Hetty want to taze you, Deeks?”
“Apart from the obvious?” Deeks tried to crack a smile, but couldn’t. “I *don’t* know!” He rubbed his arm. “All I know is one minute I’m trying to figure out how to get her out of the car without being seen, and the next thing I know I’m flat at my back looking up at the ceiling of an ambulance.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” said Sam.
“None of it does,” said Callen.
“I think I may have something,” said Nell. She tapped a few keys on her keyboard and brought up a blurry picture on the screen.
“What’s that supposed to be?” asked Sam.
“That’s the street where they ran us off the road,” said Deeks as he swallowed hard.
“I found this footage on a privately operated security system,” said Nell.
“It wasn’t affected by the ‘glitch’?” asked Kensi.
“Glitch?” asked Deeks.
“Somebody messed with the traffic cameras at a specific time and in a specific area,” said Sam, throwing a sidelong glance at Deeks. “Somebody who knew exactly where Hetty was going to be and when.”
“And you guys figured it was me,” said Deeks, morosely. Under the circumstances, he wasn’t really sure he blamed the others for suspecting him of some involvement in the situation. And when it came down to it, Hetty’s safety had been *his* responsibility and he had let her down.
“Can you clean up that footage?” asked Sam.
“The camera angle’s not great, and the resolution leaves a lot to be desired,” said Eric.
“Can you do it or not?” snapped Sam.
“On it,” said Eric, tapping away furiously.
“You and Hetty were lucky to get out of that in one piece,” said Kensi, trying to cheer Deeks up as they watched the picture take shape. “Your driving must be better than I thought!”
“Doesn’t mean anything if I couldn’t keep her safe afterwards,” said Deeks. He scratched his arm absently. “I should call L.A.P.D.,” he said. “See if they’ve found anything…assuming they’d tell me if they had,” he added under his breath.
“I’m already on it,” said Nell. “They promised to let me know if they found anything relevant.”
“Guys, I think you need to see this,” said Eric, turning round in his seat.
The quality of the video he brought up on the screen was far from pristine, but it was clear enough for them all to see the rear door of the N.C.I.S. vehicle being forced open from the inside. The team watched as Hetty slowly climbed the slope towards the other cars. As she reached the top, her hands were outstretched in a classic ‘surrender’ pose. Approached by a man with a gun, she was stripped of her handbag and briefcase before being led to the S.U.V.
“Oh my God,” said Kensi.
“Eric, can you get a clear shot of the license plates on either of those cars?” asked Callen.
Eric shook his head, “A better angle, or better cameras…I’ll see what I can do.”
“You said the cameras were out in a specific area,” said Deeks. “What about the cameras just outside that area. Maybe you could pick up the S.U.V. on one of them.”
“Do you have any idea how many black S.U.V.s pass through L.A. in any given day?” asked Eric. “It could take days; weeks even to track them all.”
“Then maybe you’d better get started,” said Callen. He glanced at Sam who was still intent on the screen. “You got something?”
“She just walked straight to them,” said Sam. “Like she knew they were there. They could have taken her out easily once she got out of the car, but they didn’t.”
“They wanted her alive,” said Kensi.
“Yeah,” said Sam, “And she must have known that. She didn’t even draw her weapon.” He glanced at Deeks, “And if Deeks had played the hero trying to stop them taking her…”
“He could easily have ended up as collateral damage,” said Callen. “Hetty may just have saved your life, Deeks.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” said Deeks, eyes focused on the screen where the footage was playing in a loop. “So what do we do now?” he slumped in his chair. “Eric’s right. There’s got to be thousands of black S.U.V.s in the city.”
“Kensi, you and Deeks check out the car. Maybe Hetty left a message somewhere,” said Callen. “Sam and I will check Hetty’s appointments diary. See if we can find out where she was en route to.”
“Wouldn’t I be better doing that?” asked Eric. “I mean, not that I *want* to hack into Hetty’s private files, I mean, I *really* don’t…but if it has to be done, I’m the one best able to do it.”
“Hetty doesn’t keep her appointments on the server,” said Callen. “We’re going to have to break into her desk.”
“I…don’t think that’s such a great idea,” said Eric, slowly. “I once put a latte down on it without a coaster, and she barely spoke to me for the rest of the day.”
“And you want us to *break* into it?” said Sam.
“Do you really think that Hetty is going to have left information just lying around for us to find?” asked Kensi. “I mean, she’s more security conscious than the rest of us put together…she even encrypts her grocery list!”
“Right now we’re not exactly flush with ideas,” said Callen. “Look, I’ll take the blame when Hetty finds out.”
“Oh you bet you will,” said Sam.
Callen ignored him, “The main priority is finding out where Hetty was taken, and getting her back safely. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” the team answered.
“Nell, get on to L.A.P.D.” said Callen. “Find out where they’ve taken the car. Kensi, you and Deeks go and tear it apart if you have to. Hetty *knew* she was going to be taken, she may have known where. Maybe she left a message even just as a backup plan.”
“That’s assuming she *wants” to be found by us,” said Sam.
The team looked at him. “What if she doesn’t want to be found? She must have known those men were going to take her. The traffic cams going offline, that couldn’t have happened without some advance notice. What if Hetty planned all this?”
“First you accuse me,” said Deeks, “Now Hetty. Have you always been this paranoid and suspicious about your co-workers?” He scratched his arm.
“No,” said Sam. “Yes,” said Callen, ignoring Sam’s glare. “He tried to follow me home the first night we were assigned together.”
“My first day,” said Kensi, “I caught him running a background check on me.”
Sam shrugged, “You call it paranoia, I call it a healthy degree of skepticism. Look, all I’m saying is that Hetty knew more than she was saying.”
“Hetty *always* knows more than she says,” said Callen.
“Yeah maybe, but we go chasing after her, what if we mess up something she’s been working on for a while?”
“She’ll be pissed,” said Deeks.
“But if she’s expecting us to figure it out and come looking for her,” said Kensi, “And we don’t show when she needs us…”
“She could be dead,” said Deeks.
Callen and Sam exchanged glances, “I’ll take an alive and pissed off Hetty any day of the week,” said Callen.
“Me too,” said Sam. He glanced at Deeks, “Will you *stop* with that scratching? You’re going to draw blood!”
All eyes turned to Deeks, who stopped mid-scratch. “What?” he looked at his arm and grimaced. “Ouch, that must have come from the crash.”
“Let me take a look at it before we go back out,” said Kensi. “There may be some glass in there. She saw the nervous look on Deeks’s face and rolled her eyes. “I’ll be gentle.”
“I’ve heard that before,” grumbled Deeks as he followed her out of the room.
“Big baby!” was the last Sam and Callen heard as the doors closed behind the pair.
------------------------------
Sam and Callen stood by Hetty’s desk. Callen had a set of lock picks in his hand; Sam favoring the less subtle approach was wielding a crowbar.
“You first,” said Sam. “Maybe we can do this so she won’t even notice.”
Callen took a deep breath as he crouched in front of the desk. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” he said. “She could have this booby trapped or anything.”
“Why do you think I’m letting you go first?”
Callen looked up, “Did I ever tell you that your respect for my health and safety brings a warm glow to my heart?”
“Not recently no.”
“And now I know why.” Callen held his breath as he slid the first pick into the lock.
“Callen, Sam! I think I found something!”
Kensi’s voice echoed through the building. Callen jumped involuntarily, his lock pick scraping across the wooden paneling.
“What is it?” asked Sam as Callen stood up.
Kensi was pulling Deeks along behind her. “I thought that there was probably some glass embedded in the muscle,” she said, “So I went digging for it with a tweezers.”
“Digging? More like *excavating*,” muttered Deeks as he let Kensi hold his arm out.
“But it didn’t feel like glass, more like metal,” said Kensi. “It was too deep to reach with the tweezers, but then I remembered where I’d seen that type of wound before.” She pushed Deeks’s sleeve further up his arm.
“Is that what I think it is?” asked Sam.
“C.I.A. had one put in Buddy,” said Callen. “Congratulations Deeks, you’ve been tagged!” To Kensi he added, “Have Nell dig out an R.F.I.D. scanner.”
“Already on it,” said Nell, showing up behind Kensi, scanner in hand.
“She tagged me?” said Deeks.
---------------------------------
“That’s not what I’m sorry about,” said Hetty. “It’s for this.”
“What?” Deeks turned his attention from the hillside just in time to see Hetty lean forward with a tazer in her hand. “Hetty?” was all he managed to say before he blacked out.
Hetty watched Deeks slump against the seat belt. But there was no time to regret the course of action she was now committed to. Reaching into her bag, she brought out a small case. It took less than a minute to implant the microchip into Deeks’s arm and conceal the case beneath the back seat cushions. Not that she expected a search to be made, not immediately though, and certainly not by the people on the slope above. Hetty took a minute more to arrange Deeks over the steering wheel, taking care to position him in as least uncomfortable a pose as she could manage. “I do hope that I will have a chance to apologize to you properly, Mr. Deeks,” she said to his unconscious form before turning her attentions to the door.
The slope was steeper than it had looked from the bottom, and Hetty almost sighed with relief when she reached the top. Not that the men with guns were all that welcoming, but then, that was only to be expected. Also to be expected was that they would take her briefcase and handbag…not to mention the pistol concealed under her jacket.
The rear door of the S.U.V. was opened, and Hetty was guided towards it. Sitting inside, she made herself comfortable before saying to the other passenger, “Hello, Mattias.”
“Herta,” said Mattias.
“I’m surprised that you didn’t let your men handle this without your supervision.”
“It would have been ungentlemanly of me not to meet you myself.”
“It would have been more gentlemanly of you had you kept to our original planned rendezvous,” said Hetty as the S.U.V. moved off. “My driver should *not* have been harmed!”
Mattias shrugged, regretfully. “My current employers are not of a trusting nature,” he said. “They felt it…inadvisable…to allow one such as you the command of the rendezvous point. What could I do but comply. I trust that your driver is not too badly injured?”
“He’ll have a headache when he wakes up,” said Hetty, “I felt it necessary to temporarily incapacitate him. To ensure he would cause no interference in events.”
Mattias nodded approvingly. “You will of course appreciate that our eventual destination must remain undisclosed.”
“Of course.” Hetty watched as Mattias pressed a button on the armrest. A panel slid up, separating the passengers from their driver. Another button rendered the windows opaque. “In the old days, a simple blindfold would have sufficed. I fear Mattias, that one day you may become too reliant on technology.”
“That is true,” conceded Mattias, “But times have changed, and many of the ‘old school’ ways are no longer appropriate in this day and age. In the old days, a simple pat down was sufficient to discover the most advanced of listening devices and tracking systems. Now we have gadgets that will detect even the most expertly concealed bugs.” He smiled as he heard the sharp intake of breath. “Oh yes, Hetty. From the moment you stepped inside this vehicle, measures were taken to ensure that no signal from you could leave it. And if you try to alert your colleagues, or they try to contact you, well, I have been assured that it too will be detected and suppressed. So you see, you might as well sit back and enjoy the journey.”
“It appears that I have no choice,” said Hetty, evenly. She smiled at Mattias, “At the very least though it will give us a chance to catch up on old times.”
----------------------------------
Nell ran the R.F.I.D. device over Deeks’s arm. “I’m getting a signal,” she announced with glee, and then her face fell. “But it’s encrypted.”
“If that’s Hetty’s grocery list, we are so having words when we get her back,” said Deeks.
“Eric?” said Callen.
“On it,” said Eric. “If it’s a standard N.C.I.S. encryption key, it shouldn’t take too long.”
“And if it’s not a standard key?” said Kensi.
“Hetty put that chip in Deeks for a reason,” said Callen. “She *wanted* us to find it.”
“We’re her backup plan,” said Sam. “Let’s just hope we don’t fail her if she’s relying on us.”
“Got it!” said Eric, triumphantly, a few seconds later. “It’s directing me to a website.” He pressed a few buttons and turned around in his chair as the site appeared on screen. “Oh,” he said, as a pet database showed up. “Maybe I used the wrong decryption key.”
“I don’t think so,” said Callen. “Was there an I.D. reference on the chip?”
Eric nodded and turned back to his keyboard, “Inputting it now.” The screen went blank for a few seconds and then came up with a picture of a dog.
“Monty?” said Deeks, “What the hell?”
“I think you mean, *Marty*,” said Kensi, pointing out the name under the picture.
If the situation had been less tense, Deeks knew he would have been the subject of considerable teasing from the rest of team, but right now Hetty’s safety was their main priority.
“Okay,” said Callen, “Eric, Nell. Hetty set up this page and directed us here for a reason. Somewhere there’s got to be a message. Find it.”
-----------------------
“I think I have it,” said Eric, only minutes later. “The picture of Marty, I mean Monty, which she uploaded. There’s a G.P.S. frequency listed. I think that Hetty may have tagged herself as well as Deeks.”
“Good work, Eric,” said Sam. “So where is she?”
“I uh, haven’t tracked her yet,” said Eric. “See, as well as the frequency, there’s also contact details listed. The phone number is Hetty’s standard cell which diverts to N.C.I.S. when she’s off base, but it clearly states only to call between specified hours and there’s still over an hour to go. I think that wherever Hetty is, she doesn’t want us to track her until she’s good and ready.”
“Why would she want us to wait?” asked Deeks.
“Maybe she didn’t think that we’d need to come and get her,” said Callen. “And this is just a failsafe if she doesn’t return.”
“So should I go ahead and track it or should I wait?” asked Eric.
Callen thought about it. “Whatever situation Hetty’s after getting herself into, she knows more about it than we do. If she wants us to wait for another hour…then we wait.”
“We can’t just sit around and do nothing,” said Deeks.
“We won’t,” said Callen, “Kensi, take Deeks and search the car, just in case we’ve missed something. Sam, get us geared up for a rescue mission. Wherever that G.P.S. puts Hetty in an hour’s time, we’re going to get her.”
---------------------
Kensi glanced over at Deeks as she drove. Her partner had barely said a word since they’d left the building.
“This wasn’t your fault,” said Kensi, finally.
“Hetty didn’t trust me enough to tell me what was going on,” said Deeks, morosely as he stared out the window. “Yeah, that’s totally not my fault.”
“Hetty keeps her cards close to her chest,” said Kensi. “She keeps a lot of information out of our hands. It’s just part of the way she works.”
“You mean while we’re trying to do our jobs, she’s out there working her own agenda and not telling us about it?” said Deeks, trying not to think of the last time he’d found out that somebody that had been supposed to have his back, had instead being playing her own game. Jess had ended up dead, in part because she hadn’t trusted him enough to let him in on her plan. He only hoped that Hetty wouldn’t suffer the same fate.
“It’s the way she works, Deeks,” said Kensi. “Hetty’s forgotten more about this business than we could ever hope to learn. And if it makes you feel any better…she could have picked Callen or Sam or me to drive her today. But for whatever reason she did it, she trusted you enough to pick you.”
“It doesn’t.”
Chapter 3
Author: Ceindreadh
Genre: gen
Characters: team
Rating: T
Summary: When Hetty goes missing on Deeks's watch, the team must work together to find her. But how can they find her when they don't know who can be trusted
Warnings: none
Spoilers: Pretty much all of S2.
Disclaimer. I don’t own the NCIS LA characters, I’m only borrowing them, no copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter 1
“That’s not what I’m sorry about,” said Hetty. “It’s for this.”
“What?” Deeks turned his attention from the hillside just in time to see Hetty lean forward with a tazer in her hand. “Hetty?” was all he managed to say before he blacked out.
“Back up a minute there,” said Sam, “Hetty *tazed* you?” The disbelief in his voice was echoed in the faces of the rest of the team.
“What, you think I’m lying to try and cover something up?” Deeks pulled up his shirt to reveal a small burn mark on his side. “The paramedics thought I’d been knocked out from the crash until they found this.”
“Why the hell would Hetty want to taze you, Deeks?”
“Apart from the obvious?” Deeks tried to crack a smile, but couldn’t. “I *don’t* know!” He rubbed his arm. “All I know is one minute I’m trying to figure out how to get her out of the car without being seen, and the next thing I know I’m flat at my back looking up at the ceiling of an ambulance.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” said Sam.
“None of it does,” said Callen.
“I think I may have something,” said Nell. She tapped a few keys on her keyboard and brought up a blurry picture on the screen.
“What’s that supposed to be?” asked Sam.
“That’s the street where they ran us off the road,” said Deeks as he swallowed hard.
“I found this footage on a privately operated security system,” said Nell.
“It wasn’t affected by the ‘glitch’?” asked Kensi.
“Glitch?” asked Deeks.
“Somebody messed with the traffic cameras at a specific time and in a specific area,” said Sam, throwing a sidelong glance at Deeks. “Somebody who knew exactly where Hetty was going to be and when.”
“And you guys figured it was me,” said Deeks, morosely. Under the circumstances, he wasn’t really sure he blamed the others for suspecting him of some involvement in the situation. And when it came down to it, Hetty’s safety had been *his* responsibility and he had let her down.
“Can you clean up that footage?” asked Sam.
“The camera angle’s not great, and the resolution leaves a lot to be desired,” said Eric.
“Can you do it or not?” snapped Sam.
“On it,” said Eric, tapping away furiously.
“You and Hetty were lucky to get out of that in one piece,” said Kensi, trying to cheer Deeks up as they watched the picture take shape. “Your driving must be better than I thought!”
“Doesn’t mean anything if I couldn’t keep her safe afterwards,” said Deeks. He scratched his arm absently. “I should call L.A.P.D.,” he said. “See if they’ve found anything…assuming they’d tell me if they had,” he added under his breath.
“I’m already on it,” said Nell. “They promised to let me know if they found anything relevant.”
“Guys, I think you need to see this,” said Eric, turning round in his seat.
The quality of the video he brought up on the screen was far from pristine, but it was clear enough for them all to see the rear door of the N.C.I.S. vehicle being forced open from the inside. The team watched as Hetty slowly climbed the slope towards the other cars. As she reached the top, her hands were outstretched in a classic ‘surrender’ pose. Approached by a man with a gun, she was stripped of her handbag and briefcase before being led to the S.U.V.
“Oh my God,” said Kensi.
“Eric, can you get a clear shot of the license plates on either of those cars?” asked Callen.
Eric shook his head, “A better angle, or better cameras…I’ll see what I can do.”
“You said the cameras were out in a specific area,” said Deeks. “What about the cameras just outside that area. Maybe you could pick up the S.U.V. on one of them.”
“Do you have any idea how many black S.U.V.s pass through L.A. in any given day?” asked Eric. “It could take days; weeks even to track them all.”
“Then maybe you’d better get started,” said Callen. He glanced at Sam who was still intent on the screen. “You got something?”
“She just walked straight to them,” said Sam. “Like she knew they were there. They could have taken her out easily once she got out of the car, but they didn’t.”
“They wanted her alive,” said Kensi.
“Yeah,” said Sam, “And she must have known that. She didn’t even draw her weapon.” He glanced at Deeks, “And if Deeks had played the hero trying to stop them taking her…”
“He could easily have ended up as collateral damage,” said Callen. “Hetty may just have saved your life, Deeks.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” said Deeks, eyes focused on the screen where the footage was playing in a loop. “So what do we do now?” he slumped in his chair. “Eric’s right. There’s got to be thousands of black S.U.V.s in the city.”
“Kensi, you and Deeks check out the car. Maybe Hetty left a message somewhere,” said Callen. “Sam and I will check Hetty’s appointments diary. See if we can find out where she was en route to.”
“Wouldn’t I be better doing that?” asked Eric. “I mean, not that I *want* to hack into Hetty’s private files, I mean, I *really* don’t…but if it has to be done, I’m the one best able to do it.”
“Hetty doesn’t keep her appointments on the server,” said Callen. “We’re going to have to break into her desk.”
“I…don’t think that’s such a great idea,” said Eric, slowly. “I once put a latte down on it without a coaster, and she barely spoke to me for the rest of the day.”
“And you want us to *break* into it?” said Sam.
“Do you really think that Hetty is going to have left information just lying around for us to find?” asked Kensi. “I mean, she’s more security conscious than the rest of us put together…she even encrypts her grocery list!”
“Right now we’re not exactly flush with ideas,” said Callen. “Look, I’ll take the blame when Hetty finds out.”
“Oh you bet you will,” said Sam.
Callen ignored him, “The main priority is finding out where Hetty was taken, and getting her back safely. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” the team answered.
“Nell, get on to L.A.P.D.” said Callen. “Find out where they’ve taken the car. Kensi, you and Deeks go and tear it apart if you have to. Hetty *knew* she was going to be taken, she may have known where. Maybe she left a message even just as a backup plan.”
“That’s assuming she *wants” to be found by us,” said Sam.
The team looked at him. “What if she doesn’t want to be found? She must have known those men were going to take her. The traffic cams going offline, that couldn’t have happened without some advance notice. What if Hetty planned all this?”
“First you accuse me,” said Deeks, “Now Hetty. Have you always been this paranoid and suspicious about your co-workers?” He scratched his arm.
“No,” said Sam. “Yes,” said Callen, ignoring Sam’s glare. “He tried to follow me home the first night we were assigned together.”
“My first day,” said Kensi, “I caught him running a background check on me.”
Sam shrugged, “You call it paranoia, I call it a healthy degree of skepticism. Look, all I’m saying is that Hetty knew more than she was saying.”
“Hetty *always* knows more than she says,” said Callen.
“Yeah maybe, but we go chasing after her, what if we mess up something she’s been working on for a while?”
“She’ll be pissed,” said Deeks.
“But if she’s expecting us to figure it out and come looking for her,” said Kensi, “And we don’t show when she needs us…”
“She could be dead,” said Deeks.
Callen and Sam exchanged glances, “I’ll take an alive and pissed off Hetty any day of the week,” said Callen.
“Me too,” said Sam. He glanced at Deeks, “Will you *stop* with that scratching? You’re going to draw blood!”
All eyes turned to Deeks, who stopped mid-scratch. “What?” he looked at his arm and grimaced. “Ouch, that must have come from the crash.”
“Let me take a look at it before we go back out,” said Kensi. “There may be some glass in there. She saw the nervous look on Deeks’s face and rolled her eyes. “I’ll be gentle.”
“I’ve heard that before,” grumbled Deeks as he followed her out of the room.
“Big baby!” was the last Sam and Callen heard as the doors closed behind the pair.
------------------------------
Sam and Callen stood by Hetty’s desk. Callen had a set of lock picks in his hand; Sam favoring the less subtle approach was wielding a crowbar.
“You first,” said Sam. “Maybe we can do this so she won’t even notice.”
Callen took a deep breath as he crouched in front of the desk. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” he said. “She could have this booby trapped or anything.”
“Why do you think I’m letting you go first?”
Callen looked up, “Did I ever tell you that your respect for my health and safety brings a warm glow to my heart?”
“Not recently no.”
“And now I know why.” Callen held his breath as he slid the first pick into the lock.
“Callen, Sam! I think I found something!”
Kensi’s voice echoed through the building. Callen jumped involuntarily, his lock pick scraping across the wooden paneling.
“What is it?” asked Sam as Callen stood up.
Kensi was pulling Deeks along behind her. “I thought that there was probably some glass embedded in the muscle,” she said, “So I went digging for it with a tweezers.”
“Digging? More like *excavating*,” muttered Deeks as he let Kensi hold his arm out.
“But it didn’t feel like glass, more like metal,” said Kensi. “It was too deep to reach with the tweezers, but then I remembered where I’d seen that type of wound before.” She pushed Deeks’s sleeve further up his arm.
“Is that what I think it is?” asked Sam.
“C.I.A. had one put in Buddy,” said Callen. “Congratulations Deeks, you’ve been tagged!” To Kensi he added, “Have Nell dig out an R.F.I.D. scanner.”
“Already on it,” said Nell, showing up behind Kensi, scanner in hand.
“She tagged me?” said Deeks.
---------------------------------
“That’s not what I’m sorry about,” said Hetty. “It’s for this.”
“What?” Deeks turned his attention from the hillside just in time to see Hetty lean forward with a tazer in her hand. “Hetty?” was all he managed to say before he blacked out.
Hetty watched Deeks slump against the seat belt. But there was no time to regret the course of action she was now committed to. Reaching into her bag, she brought out a small case. It took less than a minute to implant the microchip into Deeks’s arm and conceal the case beneath the back seat cushions. Not that she expected a search to be made, not immediately though, and certainly not by the people on the slope above. Hetty took a minute more to arrange Deeks over the steering wheel, taking care to position him in as least uncomfortable a pose as she could manage. “I do hope that I will have a chance to apologize to you properly, Mr. Deeks,” she said to his unconscious form before turning her attentions to the door.
The slope was steeper than it had looked from the bottom, and Hetty almost sighed with relief when she reached the top. Not that the men with guns were all that welcoming, but then, that was only to be expected. Also to be expected was that they would take her briefcase and handbag…not to mention the pistol concealed under her jacket.
The rear door of the S.U.V. was opened, and Hetty was guided towards it. Sitting inside, she made herself comfortable before saying to the other passenger, “Hello, Mattias.”
“Herta,” said Mattias.
“I’m surprised that you didn’t let your men handle this without your supervision.”
“It would have been ungentlemanly of me not to meet you myself.”
“It would have been more gentlemanly of you had you kept to our original planned rendezvous,” said Hetty as the S.U.V. moved off. “My driver should *not* have been harmed!”
Mattias shrugged, regretfully. “My current employers are not of a trusting nature,” he said. “They felt it…inadvisable…to allow one such as you the command of the rendezvous point. What could I do but comply. I trust that your driver is not too badly injured?”
“He’ll have a headache when he wakes up,” said Hetty, “I felt it necessary to temporarily incapacitate him. To ensure he would cause no interference in events.”
Mattias nodded approvingly. “You will of course appreciate that our eventual destination must remain undisclosed.”
“Of course.” Hetty watched as Mattias pressed a button on the armrest. A panel slid up, separating the passengers from their driver. Another button rendered the windows opaque. “In the old days, a simple blindfold would have sufficed. I fear Mattias, that one day you may become too reliant on technology.”
“That is true,” conceded Mattias, “But times have changed, and many of the ‘old school’ ways are no longer appropriate in this day and age. In the old days, a simple pat down was sufficient to discover the most advanced of listening devices and tracking systems. Now we have gadgets that will detect even the most expertly concealed bugs.” He smiled as he heard the sharp intake of breath. “Oh yes, Hetty. From the moment you stepped inside this vehicle, measures were taken to ensure that no signal from you could leave it. And if you try to alert your colleagues, or they try to contact you, well, I have been assured that it too will be detected and suppressed. So you see, you might as well sit back and enjoy the journey.”
“It appears that I have no choice,” said Hetty, evenly. She smiled at Mattias, “At the very least though it will give us a chance to catch up on old times.”
----------------------------------
Nell ran the R.F.I.D. device over Deeks’s arm. “I’m getting a signal,” she announced with glee, and then her face fell. “But it’s encrypted.”
“If that’s Hetty’s grocery list, we are so having words when we get her back,” said Deeks.
“Eric?” said Callen.
“On it,” said Eric. “If it’s a standard N.C.I.S. encryption key, it shouldn’t take too long.”
“And if it’s not a standard key?” said Kensi.
“Hetty put that chip in Deeks for a reason,” said Callen. “She *wanted* us to find it.”
“We’re her backup plan,” said Sam. “Let’s just hope we don’t fail her if she’s relying on us.”
“Got it!” said Eric, triumphantly, a few seconds later. “It’s directing me to a website.” He pressed a few buttons and turned around in his chair as the site appeared on screen. “Oh,” he said, as a pet database showed up. “Maybe I used the wrong decryption key.”
“I don’t think so,” said Callen. “Was there an I.D. reference on the chip?”
Eric nodded and turned back to his keyboard, “Inputting it now.” The screen went blank for a few seconds and then came up with a picture of a dog.
“Monty?” said Deeks, “What the hell?”
“I think you mean, *Marty*,” said Kensi, pointing out the name under the picture.
If the situation had been less tense, Deeks knew he would have been the subject of considerable teasing from the rest of team, but right now Hetty’s safety was their main priority.
“Okay,” said Callen, “Eric, Nell. Hetty set up this page and directed us here for a reason. Somewhere there’s got to be a message. Find it.”
-----------------------
“I think I have it,” said Eric, only minutes later. “The picture of Marty, I mean Monty, which she uploaded. There’s a G.P.S. frequency listed. I think that Hetty may have tagged herself as well as Deeks.”
“Good work, Eric,” said Sam. “So where is she?”
“I uh, haven’t tracked her yet,” said Eric. “See, as well as the frequency, there’s also contact details listed. The phone number is Hetty’s standard cell which diverts to N.C.I.S. when she’s off base, but it clearly states only to call between specified hours and there’s still over an hour to go. I think that wherever Hetty is, she doesn’t want us to track her until she’s good and ready.”
“Why would she want us to wait?” asked Deeks.
“Maybe she didn’t think that we’d need to come and get her,” said Callen. “And this is just a failsafe if she doesn’t return.”
“So should I go ahead and track it or should I wait?” asked Eric.
Callen thought about it. “Whatever situation Hetty’s after getting herself into, she knows more about it than we do. If she wants us to wait for another hour…then we wait.”
“We can’t just sit around and do nothing,” said Deeks.
“We won’t,” said Callen, “Kensi, take Deeks and search the car, just in case we’ve missed something. Sam, get us geared up for a rescue mission. Wherever that G.P.S. puts Hetty in an hour’s time, we’re going to get her.”
---------------------
Kensi glanced over at Deeks as she drove. Her partner had barely said a word since they’d left the building.
“This wasn’t your fault,” said Kensi, finally.
“Hetty didn’t trust me enough to tell me what was going on,” said Deeks, morosely as he stared out the window. “Yeah, that’s totally not my fault.”
“Hetty keeps her cards close to her chest,” said Kensi. “She keeps a lot of information out of our hands. It’s just part of the way she works.”
“You mean while we’re trying to do our jobs, she’s out there working her own agenda and not telling us about it?” said Deeks, trying not to think of the last time he’d found out that somebody that had been supposed to have his back, had instead being playing her own game. Jess had ended up dead, in part because she hadn’t trusted him enough to let him in on her plan. He only hoped that Hetty wouldn’t suffer the same fate.
“It’s the way she works, Deeks,” said Kensi. “Hetty’s forgotten more about this business than we could ever hope to learn. And if it makes you feel any better…she could have picked Callen or Sam or me to drive her today. But for whatever reason she did it, she trusted you enough to pick you.”
“It doesn’t.”
Chapter 3