Chapter 17

As expected Hendrickson's men made it quite hard for the SWAT Team and the NCIS Agents to get through the room, from where Hendrickson and a skeleton crew were right in the middle of hacking into the Central Control Unit, which was the entry into the Nuclear Arsenal of the United States of America. Sam couldn't help but get a little bit worried, as they already had lost a couple of people during this big shoot out between the good and the bad guys but they just had to win this battle one way or another. Meanwhile Hetty and Granger where watching over the progress of the operation from OPS, both of them knew all too well that time was certainly their big enemy in this case.

„There has to be some way to turn this whole thing around, because the way it looks like right now Hendrickson and his men will sucessfully start the third wold war soon." Assistant Director Owen Granger said and it was obvious to Hetty that he wasn't pleased at all at this moment. Of course she also wasn't happy with the fact how bad things were looking, but she wasn't ready to give hope, as she was still confident that her team would find some way to avoid disaster from happening today. She looked closely at the images of the little camera that all the NCIS Agents and SWAT Team Members had attached to their bulletproof vests, trying her best to find something useful that could help her Agents in the Field to get out of this mess in one piece. It took quite a while but finally she had found another way into the buildung, so she said to one of the analysts:

„Mister Robertson please enlarge that big vent at the north side of the building for me." The Analyst immediately did as ordered by his boss and as she now had a closer look at the big vent, she knew how her team would be able to get into the part of the building where Hendrickson and a small part of his crew where located at this moment.

„Mister Hanna, I have found another way that you can get to Hendrickson in time. There's a ventilation shaft at the north side of the building and that way you should be able to get through to Hendrickson without being detected." Of course Sam had heard every word from the allmighty little Operations Manager and he was thankful for this great idea at the moment: „That's really that one great idea that we need to end this stalemate once and for all." Immediately after he had ended the conversation with Hetty, he told Callen and the rest of the team about the plan and together they tried to come up with some kind of distraction.

They had lost a couple of men during the shootout, but in the end they had been able to apprehend Hendrickson and the rest of his crew: „It is over Mister Hendrickson, as the entire building is surrounded and because of that you have no other options than to surrender yourself right now." Sam said as he stood in the little control room with some men from the SWAT Team and deep down he hoped that Hendrickson would make the right decision.

„If you think that this end with putting me behind bars, you're deadly mistaken but fine I surrender because sometimes a man needs to know when he has lost, even if it's maybe just for that specific moment in time." Hendrickson finally replied with an evil grin on his face, as he and also the rest of his men had raced their hands above their heads and then were taken away by the SWAT Officers.

Later they had finally escorted a totally distraught Stephanie Saunders and her father, who was in a very weakened state because of the whole agressive interrogations methods that he did have to endure for that long time and Hendrickson knew that this thing wasn't over by a long shot. But the NCIS didn't know that he had sent a copy from the code of the trojan horse to an associate of him that prefered to stay in the dark and that he had only commuicated with via E-Mail.

Meanwhile in the hospital Eric, who still sat in a wheelchair because the injuries that he had suffered and still wasn't near a hundred percent again even if Nell had suffered injuiries that where much worse than his and had held onto her right hand since had been brought into his girlfriend's room. Thankfully for him the hospital had been able to organize him some new glasses, since his orginal ones unfortunately had been destroyed during the attack that he and Nell had been right in the middle of. „Come on Rockstar please wake up, you know how much I need in my life and I won't leave your bedside, till you finally open your eyes again because I want me to be the first thing that you see once you finally wake up."

Nell was already full awake in reality but because of the fact that she just wanted to mess a little bit with Eric, she had decided to pretend that she was still sleeping once she heard his voice as he entered her room. As she heard those words being spoken by her boyfriend, she couldn't help but be so touched by everything that he said and even if she tried hard to fight it, one single tear ran down her cheek. Of course that didn't go by Eric unnoticed, so he lowered himself a little bit down to her level and gently wiped away that single tear with one thumb.

Even if she still felt pretty sore, Nell slowly sat up in her bed and for a moment she and Eric just looked deeply into each other's eyes without saying any word at all for a few minutes. Then she was the one to close the little distance between them, Nell and Eric forgot everything that was around them at this moment as they kissed amd she fought hard to supress the pain that she had suffered from her back injuiry.

AN: Thanks to- NCIS LA is BAE for reviewing this story, Thanks to- RAD 092515 for adding this story to her/his favorite stories list. It took a lot longer than I had orginally intended it, but now the story is finished and I hope you liked the final chapter. Please read and review