“That’s probably for the best, Deeks,” Kensi said. “I’d hate to be brought up on charges for shooting one of them, but every time I come out of the theater after watching some stupid movie, a little part of me itches to pull the trigger.”
“Maybe try therapy, instead.” Laughing, Deeks ducked away from Kensi’s wide punch.
* * *
“What do you have for us?” Hetty asked.
“Make it good,” Owen Granger added. “We can’t have a SEAL running around Los Angeles getting into firefights.”
Eric looked up from his monitor. “I was able to—does something smell strange in here? Like… livestock?”
“That would be me,” Granger said. “I’m taking care of a friend’s horses for a couple of weeks, while she’s out of town. I stopped in this morning and haven’t had a chance to shower yet. Her place is way up in the hills, off Coldwater Canyon.”
“We have a shower down in—” Nell began.
The assistant director cut her off with a sharp “I know.”
“Never mind.”
“Anyway, I grabbed a decent face shot from that cellphone video,” Eric said. “The lighting was terrible, and the focus only so-so, but I cleaned it up and enhanced it. They’ve always been masked, before, but now that I have this face, I’ve been trying to find an ID, and maybe get a look at who his friends are.”
“That’s a start,” Hetty said. “But we need—”
“Got him!” Nell broke in.
“Got who?” Granger asked.
“Kelly Martin,” Nell replied. “I’ve been running facial recognition software, looking for him, and finally got a hit.”
“Where is he?”
“He walked past a bank branch on Alvarado and the ATM camera caught him. Eight minutes ago.”
“We don’t need to know where he was eight minutes ago, dear,” Hetty said. “We need to know where he is now.”
“Scanning,” Nell said.
“Eric, get the field agents headed toward downtown,” Granger said. “We should have something for them momentarily.”
“On it,” Eric said.
“Ooh! Got him again!” Nell said. “He just crossed Olympic, then turned right. Headed southeast on Olympic, toward Westlake.”
“Keep on him,” Hetty instructed.
“I am.”
“You got that, Eric?” Granger asked.
“Relaying it now,” Eric said. “They’re en route. Sam and Callen are closer. Kensi and Deeks just left Julianne Mercer in Santa Monica, but they’re almost to the freeway.”
“Tell them to turn around,” Hetty said.
“Excuse me?”
“Was I not speaking English? Tell them to turn around.”
“Hetty says turn around.” He paused, listening, then said, “They’re turning. They’d like to know why.”
“Because they should pick up Ms. Mercer and take her along. Kelly Martin is a trained SEAL, and he’s already been in one firefight today. He’ll be on high alert, with strong situational awareness. If he sees Mr. Callen and Mr. Hanna approaching him, he’ll either bolt or start shooting. Neither would be constructive. But if he sees his girlfriend, he might not even notice that she’s with Agents Blye and Deeks. And if he does, he might not care. Without her there, we have a less than fifty percent chance that he’ll be taken easily. Since they’ve only just left her, getting her won’t be too time-consuming, and well worth the slight delay.”
“Did you get all that?” Eric asked into the phone. After a moment, he turned back to the others. “They’re almost there. They’ll pick her up and be on their way.”
“Good,” Hetty said. “And, Eric?”
“Yes?”
“I didn’t mind explaining my reasoning just now. But you do understand that if I had simply said, ‘Because I said so,’ it would have been an equally valid response, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Eric replied. “I do.”
“Excellent. Keep the teams aware of Mr. Martin’s coordinates. But hold Sam and Mr. Callen back and let Kensi and Deeks approach first, with Ms. Mercer.” When she finished speaking, she glanced up at Owen. “My office?”
“By all means,” he said, and followed her from the room.
* * *
This time, Kensi parked on the grass.
A lighting tech had to dive out of her way, and he knocked over a stand of lights in the process. Someone holding a large reflector panel dropped it, and a breeze caught it and whisked it away. The director started screaming before they were out of the car, and Julianne Mercer stared at them, as if in a state of shock.
“Get in the car!” Deeks shouted.
“What? Why?”
“We found him, Julianne!” Deeks said. “But we want you there when we make contact. He won’t trust us, but he will you.”
“But I’m working!”
“If they’re not out of our shot in precisely three seconds, you won’t be,” the director threatened.
“Julianne, it’s important,” Kensi stressed. “We want to take him safely, but we need you.”
“One,” the director said. “Two…”
“All right,” Mercer said. She sought out the apologetic production assistant. “Where’s my bag?”
The PA was already on her way, holding a messenger bag that Mercer could almost have carried Hetty in. “Right here.”
“…three,” the director finished. “You’re—”
“Never mind, I quit!” Mercer said. “And by the way, you don’t know jack about camera angles.”
“Come on,” Kensi urged. “We need to go!”
Mercer tossed her huge bag into the backseat and climbed in with it. “It’s not that I object to losing this particular gig,” she explained. “But if someone gets a rep for this kind of behavior, word gets around and other casting directors put you at the bottom of the pile.”
“We wouldn’t have interrupted if it wasn’t important,” Deeks said.
“I know. Trust me, I want to find Kelly as much as you guys do. More, probably.”
While Kensi drove, Deeks got on the phone with Nell. “Plenty of cameras in that area,” he said after a moment, “so she’s keeping close tabs on him.”
“What’s he doing there?”
“Just walking, as far as we know,” Deeks said. “My guess is he’s still looking for the bank crew, but I don’t know why he thinks they’d be around there.”
“Since you still don’t know how he found them at that motel, I guess that’s not surprising.”
“But we do,” Nell said.
“Do what?”
“Know how he found them at the motel. There’s just been so much going on, I haven’t had a chance to tell you.”
“How?” Deeks asked.
“They told him.”
“Sorry?”
“Posts were made on a few different websites last night, all with some variation of ‘Mitch B, see you at the Sea Vue.’”
Deeks chuckled. “Advertising for a gunfight,” he said. “That’s a new one.”
“Maybe they didn’t think he’d come in shooting. Maybe he has something they want to trade for.”
“We’ll know more in a little while,” Deeks said. “Either Kensi will have us there in a few minutes, or you can scrape our corpses off the Santa Monica Freeway.”
“I’m a good driver!” Kensi snapped.
“If by good you mean fast and occasionally reckless.”
“I haven’t killed you yet.”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
“Oh my God,” Mercer said from the back. “You guys are a couple. Nobody bickers like that unless they’re in love.”
“You caught us,” Deeks said. “She can’t get enough of me.”
“Right, that’s how it is,” Kensi argued. “You should have seen him trailing me around, like a duckling imprinted on a human. I had to go out with him just to stop him from embarrassing himself.”
“Kensi’s nothing if not se
lf-sacrificing,” Deeks said. “North one-ten.”
Kensi pushed the accelerator to the floor and shot across two lanes of traffic, narrowly squeaking past the front fender of an eighteen-wheeler. “Now you tell me.”
“I thought you knew how to get there.”
“I’d have to know where ‘there’ is, wouldn’t I?”
“Exit at James Wood, then take Cottage to Olympic. Martin’s just about to cross under the freeway. There’s an urgent care center on Olympic, so we can park there and intercept him.”
“You guys are sickening,” Mercer said. “In an adorable way. But sickening, just the same.”
Kensi whipped her Escalade north on the 110, then screamed down the ramp onto James Wood. Deeks was used to her driving—as used to it as someone could get who didn’t have suicidal tendencies—and, although he wouldn’t admit it to her, he appreciated her control behind the wheel. She concentrated on the task at hand, and when that task was getting somewhere in a hurry and in one piece, her skills were hard to beat.
Still, he braced himself when she flew around curves, because not to do so would either throw him into her lap or slam him into the door, seatbelt notwithstanding. The turn into the narrow alley called Cottage Place was especially sharp. They hurtled down uneven asphalt, between fences and walls that Deeks expected to scrape, and at the end of the alley, she made another wrenching right onto Olympic. Behind them, horns blared and tires squealed. The SUV lunged forward, charging through the tail end of a yellow light at Francisco Street and another at Georgia before bumping up over the curb and into a parking lot.
They bailed out, Mercer hesitating only long enough to grab a smaller purse from inside her big bag.
“You walk ahead of us,” Kensi said. “We’ll be about ten paces behind. Sam, Callen, are you guys onsite?”
Callen’s voice sounded through Deeks’s earwig device. “We see you,” he said. “I’m in the parking lot behind the palm-reading place, and Sam’s across the street, by the movie theater, in case Martin runs that way.”
Deeks eyed the theater and saw Sam, standing at the corner, seemingly checking out the movie posters outside the box office. “Got him,” he said.
“Here comes Martin,” Callen said. “Heading your way.”
Deeks and Kensi hung back and let Mercer get out ahead. A block away, a muscular guy walked toward them with an easy, rolling gait. He wore jeans and a tight black Tee shirt and had a duffel slung over his shoulder. Deeks was watching for the moment of recognition, when he spotted Mercer, but it hadn’t come yet. Maybe he was playing it cool, in case he was being watched.
Then Eric’s voice came over the earwig, anxiety tightening his tone. “Guys, don’t let Julianne Mercer get near Martin! Repeat—she’s a hostile. Don’t let her get close.”
Deeks was still processing what he’d heard when he saw Mercer reach into her purse, then drop it and raise the gun she held in her hands.
10
“Gun!” Deeks shouted.
“Drop it, Julianne!” Kensi cried. “Don’t be stupid! You’re surrounded!”
If Mercer heard them, she didn’t show it. She calmly leveled the weapon at Kelly Martin. Behind Martin, Callen drew his own weapon, knowing that if she missed her intended target, she might well hit him.
Martin’s SEAL training and honed reflexes kicked in. Traffic was still rushing down Olympic. When he saw Mercer’s gun, he tossed his bag to his left and hurled himself to the right and down, dropping off the curb just as her first round hit the sidewalk, inches away.
Callen had tenths of a second to assess the situation and make a decision.
Martin was on his feet again, darting into the traffic on the busy road. Mercer was tracking him, adjusting her aim for another shot. If she missed—even if she hit and the round passed through him—she was likely to hit a vehicle, maybe cause a pileup. So far Callen had no reason to think Martin was anything other than what she had said he was—a Navy SEAL whose phony identity had been compromised—and although he still didn’t know if the man was connected to the bank crew, he knew for sure that Mercer had lied about her intentions. She had played them all, with the intention of killing Martin.
He could see her finger tightening on the trigger as she blew out her breath, waiting for a clear shot as Martin wove in and out of traffic. She was going to take the shot.
Callen took his first.
Popular entertainment filled people’s heads with a lot of nonsense about shooting to wound someone. In movies and TV shows, someone in his position might shoot the gun out of Mercer’s hand, or kneecap her to spoil her aim. A more “serious” depiction might include something about shooting her “center mass,” since that was the easiest target.
But a shot center mass might leave her the opportunity to squeeze off several more rounds, straight into traffic. And Callen was confident enough in his own abilities to not have to rely on what was easy.
His round struck her just above the right eye and ejected a spray of red mist out the other side of her skull, and she collapsed in a heap.
He raced to her side, kicking away her weapon even though she appeared very dead indeed. As he did, he scanned the street for Martin, who had almost reached the sidewalk on the far side.
Which was where Sam Hanna slammed into him. They both went down.
Drivers were reacting now—slowing and stopping. Callen heard the sound of a fender-bender. Even in Los Angeles, a mid-morning shootout was too much to ignore. Half the people observing it probably thought they were a movie crew, but that was okay.
At any rate, the road jammed up, giving him safe passage across it. Kensi and Deeks were rushing toward Mercer, so Callen darted between the cars and trucks. He reached his partner just as Martin struggled to his feet. Callen hooked one of Martin’s legs and pulled it out from under him, and Martin went down again.
“NCIS!” Callen shouted as Sam clambered onto the other SEAL’s back, grabbing at one of his flailing arms. “You’re safe, Martin! Stop struggling!”
Sam wrenched the arm behind Martin’s back, then clawed at the other one. “This would be a lot easier if you’d just calm down,” he said.
“Show me a badge!” Martin demanded. Callen crouched a few feet in front of him, making sure the man could see not only his badge but the SIG Sauer in his right hand.
“Here you go. We’ve been looking for you. You’re lucky we found you first.”
Martin relaxed then, allowing Sam to zip-tie his wrists behind his back. That done, Sam took a small automatic from the man’s ankle holster and a bigger one from a holster tucked into the small of his back. “Any more weapons?” he asked.
“Just in my duffel,” Martin said.
“Secure that bag, Deeks,” Callen said.
Deeks’s voice came back over Callen’s earwig. “That’s no way to talk about the recently deceased. Nice shot, Callen.”
“The duffel bag,” Callen snapped. Sometimes Deeks still got on his nerves.
It had been a nice shot, and he took some professional pride in that. But his pride was tempered by regret.
Not regret that he’d done it—regret that it had been necessary in the first place. He didn’t know anything about Mercer, but she had seemed nice enough. Kensi had been to her home, and she and Deeks had seen her working, so even at a more-than-cursory look, she appeared to be who she said she was. The way she had drawn down on Martin, though, indicated professionalism in a field other than modeling.
Callen had killed before, and he expected that he would have to again. Sometimes it was unavoidable, in his line of duty, and that line of duty was important. The life of a criminal or a terrorist was a small tradeoff if it meant protecting the nation and people he had sworn to defend.
Still, Mercer had been a human being. She’d had friends, family. She’d worked as a model. She had value above and beyond whatever her less savory qualities might have been. Callen believed that any human contained the possibility of redemption, but ending one’s
life also took away that option.
And he didn’t have any illusions about how easy it might have been for him to follow that other course. His upbringing had not been one that automatically led toward a career in law enforcement, after all. If it hadn’t been for the invisible hand of Hetty, he might have fallen in with the wrong element, become as expert at violence as he was now, but working toward opposite ends. There but for the grace of God wasn’t just a saying, to him. As a child, he had been both unlucky and profoundly fortunate, and he was glad the fortunate side won out. Julianne Mercer’s corpse, bleeding onto the sidewalk on a hot summer’s day, was a grisly reminder of where he might have wound up.
* * *
Three cameras had captured footage of Julianne Mercer’s shooting. Hetty, Granger, Eric, and Nell watched all the video in the Ops Center, on the biggest screen they had. Multiple times.
“I say it’s a good shoot,” Granger said finally. “Callen didn’t have any other option. If he hadn’t shot her when he did, she’d have taken out Martin, and who knows how many innocent motorists.”
“I am inclined to agree, Owen,” Hetty said. “Impressive, too, from that distance. Certainly a shot I could have made, but I’m not sure I would have wagered that Mr. Callen could make it.” She turned around to face Eric and Nell, who stood a few paces behind the others. “What can you tell us about Ms. Mercer that you couldn’t have told us an hour ago?”
“An hour ago, we were spending all our time trying to find Kelly Martin and the bank robbers,” Eric replied. “We didn’t know that Mercer was someone we should be checking out.”
“I’m simply asking, not criticizing,” Hetty said. “Although, since you bring it up, everybody involved in any active investigation should be subject to scrutiny, as I’m sure you know. That said, I know there are only two of you, and that there were competing priorities.”
“What really tipped us off—” Eric began.
Nell cut him off. “Eric was scanning for the face of the bank robber we caught on that cellphone video. He got a hit when the crew stopped for gas, and—”
“If it’s Eric’s story, perhaps he should be the one to tell it,” Hetty suggested.
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