Bound by Blood, Forged in Fire

Into The Fire

"Once the RHIB team is aboard the helo team will follow suit," said Holloway. "We need him alive so watch yourselves."

Everyone left to get ready before Jace reached the Ziva got ahold of him.

"I think I should be there with you on the operation."

"Zee—"

"You need someone to interrogate Brandt anyway."

"We can do that, I'll be handling his initial interrogation."

Ziva just looked at him, at that moment he knew that she wouldn't be ignored. Jace sighed

"We're wheels up in twenty minutes, if you're not there in time you're swimming to the target yourself."

The Israeli smiled at this and went off to prepare for the Op.

"We flipped a coin for it."

Jace turned around to see his father.

"I won but she stared me down."

The two laughed.

. . .

Jace was leading the helo team while Halloway took charge of the RHIB team. Jace, like the other SEALs, donned a balaclava and tinted eye protection.

"Alpha-One to Two, teams will engage the target in 3 mikes, over."

"Lima Charlie One. Standing by, Alpha-Two out."

They watched as the SWCCs engage the security vessels. This was their queue to draw the yacht's gunmen's fire. Ziva and the other operators readied their MK18's. Despite the weapon's limited range he made do perfectly. As they engaged their target Holloway's team boarded the vessel, once they cleared the deck Jace's team went in. Ziva and Reese stayed at Jace's sides as they entered the bridge, they split into teams of four. Wesson joined the trio as they cleared their way towards the lower levels of the boat. They engaged three guards before cornering Brandt.

"Mr. Brandt, we're with the United States Armed Forces," said Jace, forcing the detainee into a chair. "From now on you are in the custody of NCIS."

Ziva sat across from Brandt, Jace stayed with her while Reese and Wesson conducted SSE.

"Mr. Brandt the only way you're getting any semblance of a positive outcome is if you cooperate," said Ziva, laying out photos of confiscated arms caches and satellite imagery of the ghost ship. "Tells us about La Grenouille's militia."

"Mr. Beniot doesn't have any militant forces, he spent almost two years putting that thing together." Brandt pointed at the photo. "He auctioned the ship off to a militia group based in Somalia. He hired engineers to build one of these things, there was a special order for warships with incognito capabilities."

"How much did he get for it?"

"Over twice as much as he paid to build it."

"And the weapons cache?" inquired Ziva, she saw that the topic was steering away from La Grenouille. Director Sheperd wasn't going to like this.

"A shipment for the group, they're transporting a load of drugs and weapons to a client."

Ziva decided to take the interrogation back to Bainbridge, they put a bag over the detainee's head and finished confiscating anything of value. They escorted Brandt to the Seahawk and departed.

. . .

Blackwell, Jace, and Holloway were discussing the operation to assault the militia's base with Director Sheperd. The compound was relatively small for a group that paid billions of dollars for a technical war vessel. Apparently, they had distributed large sums of drugs to pay for it and the compound doubled as a farm for their product. Due to the last-minute planning and scarce intelligence, the operators were reluctant to move forward. Director Sheperd wasn't having any of it.

"What is the problem?" asked the Director, adamant on her perspective. "You have ISR and a QRF, more has been done with less."

"Director, we've barely had any time to plan, it hasn't even been twenty-four hours," said Jace.

"We can't just raid without more intel, we need more time to scout the facility," interjected Xavier.

"You have thirteen hours to scope out the compound," said Sheperd firmly. "After that, you will either conduct the operation or I will arrange for another task force team or regional assets to do it in your place."

. . .

Under the cover of night, the platoon split into two squads and trekked their way to two hills adjacent to the compound. Jace was in charge of the squad taking the western hill and Holloway took his squad to the east. They took note of everything: patrol patterns, how many guards were on target, weapons used. the compound approximately spanned into a 40-mile radius, the farm took up half the space, there were small stone buildings taking up the rest, the largest being at the center.

Jace focused his scope on the center building, he noticed small figures moving back and forth from the building to the farm.

"Alpha-Two to TOC, we have an issue," Jace said into his radio. "The target appears to be utilizing child labor."