DOUBLE TAKE

Chapter 40

Callen and Sam were surprised to see the Dallas team gearing up in the makeshift armoury.

"I'm so glad the two of you could grace us with your presence." Hetty stood firm in her small stature, not amused by her senior agents' disappearance.

"Hetty!" Callen tried to calm his aunt down.

"Where the hell have you been? We are in the middle of taking down our enemy here, and you just buggered off. You better have an extremely good reason for your disappearance." Hetty was not amused, but very surprised by their unusual behaviour. She just hoped George was not up to his lone wolf behaviour, taking Sam along with him. They needed to remain a team, even if there seemed to be a conflict between Agent McMann and George. She had hoped that tendency of his would have gone, now that he had found his family and who he was.

"Where are they going?" Callen wanted to know what was going on. They didn't have time to explain what they couldn't. How on earth could they explain that Amy was alive and living as Sidorov's daughter?

"We've located Sidorov in Los Angeles," Nell piped in. "He's staying with a Russian business man, called Stefan Koslov. We are trying to get intel on the family, but all the information appears to be locked away extremely well. Eric and I have tried to hack into the CIA files on Sidorov, but are being blocked. So we are gearing a team to go into the location, to take Sidorov out."

Callen and Sam's eyes almost popped out at the information Nell was telling them. "No! It is too dangerous," Callen blurted out. The lives of his sister and her family were at risk, if McMann and her team enter the property. "There are innocent people in that house that do not deserve to be scared out of their wits by armed Federal Agents, let alone hurt or killed. There has to be another way." Callen stood in front of McMann, to prevent her leaving the building.

"George. Please let Miss McMann leave to do her job," Hetty scolded her nephew. "Mr Hanna, could you please put some sense into your partner." She pleaded with the former Navy SEAL, who she had teamed up to protect her nephew seven years prior.

"Sorry, Hetty!" Sam stood beside his partner. "I'm with G on this one."

Lily McMann huffed in frustration at the two stubborn agents before her. "We are here to help you. But you have to let us go to do that. I don't understand why you are suddenly interested in protecting the people who are harbouring an enemy of this country's!"

Lily had a point, and both men knew it.

"Where's Granger?" Callen asked.

"I have no idea where that man has gone to," Hetty sighed. The Assistant Director had turned his phone off and was unreachable.

"I'm here." They all turned and saw the older man enter the building. Relief crossed over Callen and Sam's faces at the sight of the man.

Hetty noticed, and suddenly realised there was more going on here, than she was aware of. "Will you please tell me what you haven't told us, Owen?" Her voice boomed across the office.

"Bingo," Nell called out.

All eyes turned to the screen, where Nell placed photos up of what she had found.

Hetty's eyes bulged as she saw the images of the Koslov family appear before her. "Owen, you have some explaining to do." She turned and saw Callen's eyes fixed on the screen. She could tell he knew some of what was going on. But it was the image of the woman and the boy that shook her the most. Oh she knew as soon as she saw her.

"Hetty!" Owen knew he had to come clean on this matter with his old colleague and friend.

"Oh bugger, Owen. You knew all this time that she was alive, and yet you chose to keep that piece of information to yourself." She shook her head in disbelief. "Now what on earth is she doing in there?" She was not impressed. No wonder her nephew had trouble trusting the man.