Illusionist

Washington D.C.

Leon Vance held his fist ready to knock on the door. He paused as he thought 'why bother'. It was unlocked and the owner would most probably be down in his basement anyway. He turned the knob and entered the darkened house. A small table lamp lit the entry, enabling him to see his way to the door which led down to the basement. Slowly he opened the door and saw his agent working on something at his workbench.

Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs lifted his head as he heard the footsteps on the stairs. He looked through his glasses, surprised to see his boss arrive. "Leon. I wasn't expecting to see you for a few days. Did you even go to Los Angeles?"

Leon continued the last few metres and sat on an empty wooden stool. "Me neither, but a pressing issue has brought me back here sooner than I expected."

Gibbs was a patient man, he continued staining the small wooden toy truck he had in his hand, ready for it's new owner.

Leon knew Gibbs wasn't being rude, it was just how he was. Keeping his hands busy, while he listened. "How well do you know Agent Callen?" Although he knew the two men had worked together in the past, there was no record of any friendship outside of their joint operations.

Gibbs stopped and looked at his boss. He placed the truck onto the bench and emptied two jars of nails and poured some bourbon into them. "Drink this and then I will tell you."

Leon raised his brows as he obeyed him.

"First of all, you need to tell me what this pressing matter that sent you on an urgent mission to Los Angeles and what this has to do with Callen," Gibbs demanded.

Leon sighed as he gulped the burning liquid down his throat. "The SecNav has been hounded by someone in the CIA about two former CIA operatives who are now quite high up in NCIS. They told Sarah Porter that they have been aiding a rogue CIA agent and protecting Callen."

Gibbs furrowed his brow over the news. "Who are they referring to, Leon? Whose the supposed rogue CIA agent? And what's Callen got to do with all of this?" His hands moved back to the truck he was working on. A second sat beside it, completed. He knew the recipients would be excited to to receive them when he visits them next. He was always turning up with some new toy he made out of wood. His favourite was a treehouse he built alongside the boys' father and grandfather.

"A Nathan Rede. He went rogue along with Callen's mother back in the mid 1960's. Both agents went underground, Clara re-emerged ten years later in 1975, pleading for help to get out of Romania with her two children. Her body was found on a Constanta beach. Her children were never found until Callen resurfaced as a federal agent many years later. Rumour has it, this Nathan Rede is Callen's father. It is said that Henrietta Lange and Owen Granger have aided Rede in hiding, and kept Callen and his sister hidden from the agency over the years." Leon hated to go into all of this information, especially after talking with Hetty. But it was necessary for him to seek where Callen was from Gibbs, so he could keep them safe from the CIA.

"Why would someone in the CIA, after how many years...forty-nine years care what happened to some former CIA operative? If he was twenty back in 1965, he'd be almost seventy by now. And you can clearly see in Callen's record he has no family, not even a first name. Surely you're not seriously looking into this, Leon?" Gibbs almost scoffed over the allegations. Why would anyone care after all that length of time. What concerned Gibbs, was that after all of this time someone was still after Callen's father.

"I have tried to find out who this source in the CIA is, but so far all I have is what Hetty has told me," Leon admitted.

"If someone is out to get this Rede guy, then you hunting him down may do more harm than good. What if this someone has planted the intel to let someone else lead them to him? This sounds just like the Reynosa Cartel all over again, Leon. Tread very carefully before you aide the enemy here. Callen, Hetty and Owen are our people. We look after our own, unless that's changed with the new SecNav. What's Sarah's take on this?"