Forever's a long time

Chapter 17

Nate sat in his office going over Granger's file after managing to get Director Vance to release as much personal information as he had on the man.

He wanted to know why Granger had requested to join NCIS over three years after Callen had joined, what it was that had motivated him to move closer to his son.

Looking at the picture of the two men he could see vague similarities but nothing that screamed father and son. He looked at the pictures of Granger's/Reznikov's family. There he could see the resemblance.

Callen was the spitting image of his grandfather.

He looked into the background of Anatoli Reznikov and shuddered. He had been high in the Presidium, friends with Brezhnev and a Major General in the KGB. He had been responsible for the disappearance of a few Russian Dissidents over the years.

Anatoli Reznikov was by all he could see a hard line Communist. He used the search program that Eric had written for him and looked up Nikita's file. Such as it was. A lot was redacted by the CIA, but it seemed that Nikita was a model son, he'd been slated for a top job in the KGB riding on the success of his father.

Nikita/Granger had joined the KGB in the mid 1960's and had quickly climbed the ranks, earning the rank of Major in 1968. Then in the early 1970's he was denounced as a separatist and a traitor, working with the CIA. He disappeared early 1974 about the same time Owen Granger joined the CIA.

"What are you hiding?" Nate asked himself as he reviewed Granger's files.

He had risen up the ranks of the CIA only those at the top had known his true name. None had made the connection between him and Callen. But his name popped up from time to time when Callen was sent on assignments. Looking at these Nate could see where Granger had pulled strings to get assistance sent to Callen's aide once or twice.

Then in 2009 Callen had been shot after an assignment which was a joint NCIS operation with the MCRT in D.C.

Granger had still stayed behind the scenes, assigning a CIA unit to discreetly look into the shooting, liaising with Lara Macy.

Until two months after the shooting.

Granger had had a meeting with SecNav, after which Director Vance had been called in to see him and they had insisted that the Office of Special Projects be disbanded. Nate looked up shocked at the turn of events, he'd had no idea how close the elite team had been to being disbanded.

Lara Macy had been fired and Hetty had seemingly appeared from nowhere and been assigned operations manager. That same day Granger had quit the CIA and joined NCIS as assistant director, apparently calling in a few favors.

Nate's investigations showed that even though Jerome Kirsch was already the assistant director, they had created a parallel position for Granger specifically for the Los Angeles office.

"Why did you do that?" Nate mused aloud as he decided to take a break while he mulled the thoughts over in his head.

He walked out of the office Hetty had assigned to him to go and get a coffee. Stopping on the balcony for a moment he watched as Granger, using Callen's desk while the team wasn't there was typing on his laptop but watching Hetty at the same time.

Granger slammed down the lid in frustration and Hetty looked up at him, She lifted her tea cup and motioned him to go over.

Nate had not watched them interact before with the amount of scrutiny he was directing to their attention now. He noticed a slight tightening of Granger's jaw before he softened his face and nodded going to join her.

Hetty... Nate turned and walked back to his office to pull her file as he bumped into Nell.

"You alright Nate, you look worried?" She asked, concerned for her friend.