A/N: Written for NCIS:LA Magazines Callen's Corner Challenge #4

Disclaimer: As always, each and every character or place you may recognize is not owned or controlled by me. They get to come out and play with me for a short time, but have to be home by curfew.

Seal of Approval

Chapter 1

Callen sat at his desk in the bullpen of the Office of Special Projects. It was the only one occupied at the moment. Hetty Lange, the NCIS Operations Manager in Los Angeles, had appointed him to head up a team and ordered him to choose the people who would make it up. He had decided that he would interview the people and get a "vibe" on how well they could work with him before he would read their resumes. So far he had interviewed three people. Two of them had good resumes, the third's could even be classed as great. But he somehow had a gut feeling that none of these three would be able to become a person that he could make his teammate, much less a partner.

G. Callen didn't do partners. Every time he was partnered up on a CIA op, something eventually went wrong, and people ended up badly hurt or dead. The only one he ever worked with where things didn't blow up in his face was Leroy Jethro Gibbs, a former Marine who became his mentor at NCIS. Gibbs was now was NCIS Special Agent in Charge of the Major Case Response Team in Washington, DC., the team Callen was on before being reassigned to Los Angeles.

Callen was more of a lone wolf, and was very good at it. He had taught himself to speak Polish, Russian, German and Czech, so he could infiltrate almost any country in Eastern Europe. He was incredibly patient; put him next to a statue and you would swear that the statue would move first. And when he did move, it was like a ghost viewed out of the corner of your eye; now you see it, now it's gone, making you wonder if it really ever was there at all. He could take on almost any persona and pull it off without a hitch. Even, on that very rare occasion, when his cover was blown, he usually was able to save the mission.

But he is starting to wonder if he can save this mission that Hetty has given him. He is quickly running out of candidates. There are just two files left, and he is scheduled to meet with the next one in thirty minutes. As he leaves to go to the boat house, he wonders if this is just another attempt at futility.

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At the scheduled time, there is a knock on the door. Callen looks up and sees a huge black man who walks with the grace of a black panther. The agent goes over and shakes the offered outstretched hand. He could feel the power behind those fingers, power he knew could crush his hand so easily.

"Sam Hanna?" he asks and receives a nod of agreement. "My name is Callen. Sit down and tell me about yourself."

The big black man sits down on the other side of the table, his eyes looking Callen up and down as if he were the interviewer and not the interviewee.

"Please, just call me Sam. About me – there ain't much to tell you. Born and raised in Brooklyn. Family didn't have much money. Played some football in high school, but didn't get a college scholarship, so I enlisted in the Navy. Got out a little while ago and now am looking for a way to support myself. A friend from Naval Base San Diego told me he was putting my name in for a job. I got a letter describing the work in general and was told to come in for this interview."

The vibe that Callen was getting from this man was different from any person he had interviewed before. The closest person he could compare him to was Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Like him, Sam was a man of few words, obviously from the discipline he learned in the Navy.

"So, why'd ya quit the Navy?"

"Didn't say I quit. My time was up there, and I wanted to spend more of it with my wife."

"Honorable discharge?"

"Discharge?" he said with a laugh. "I suppose you could call it that. They just moved me from active duty to reservist, subject to call-up at any time. You never really get out."

"What did you do as a squid?"

Sam cocked his eyebrow and looked intently at the smaller man. *This guy served too,* he thought.

"I was a Seal, Senior Chief Petty Officer. What branch were you in"

"What makes you think I served?" Callen asked

"There are only two types of people who call Navy personnel squids, usually it is by those who themselves have served in some branch of the military..."

"And the other type?"

"People with a death wish who have no idea what they are talking about - and I didn't figure you to be one of those."

Callen snickered at that. "You figured right, I was a dogface and was there for 'Just Cause' in Panama." he told him, wondering if Sam would open up more and talk about some of his Seal activities.

"Well, if you know anything about Seals, you know that I can't talk about most of the prior operations that I was involved in. But if you need a reference about my Seal days, call Commander Steve McGarrett from Hawaii Five-0. He and I were in BUD/S together. But if you do, don't mention my name. Just tell him you want some info on the guy who hauled his sorry butt the last two miles on a training hike after he sprained his ankle trying to show off how well he could run backwards."

"You mind if I rub it in a little bit? I met Steve once while I was over in the Islands working on a drug case. He tried to get me to put on a Hawaiian dancer's outfit, you know, the kind with the coconut bra, and embarrass myself by doing the hula."

Sam shook his head, trying to get that image out of his mind as he let out a big belly laugh. "Nope. Go ahead. Just laugh a little bit and tell him his version of the story is complete BS, no matter what he tells you. Whatever he says or how hard he tries to defend himself, just keep telling him how full of it he is. That way he will know that I was the one to tell it to you in the first place."

With a smirk on his face, Callen said, "OK. I will do that." But then his face changed to a very serious look, with his blue eyes seemingly piercing to Sam's very soul. "Now I have one last question for you. Is this a job that you would want to do? Not just put in your time, maybe even a little extra effort, because it puts food on the table, but a job you would give your heart and your soul for?

Sam put his elbows on the table and folded his hands. He rested his forehead on his folded hands for a minute as he gathered his thoughts. Then he looked up at Callen. "I was a Seal. I pledged my whole life to goverment service. I pledged my soul to the members of my team. If I get this job, the only thing that I see changing is the uniform and the team members. Does that answer your question?"

"Yes, it does, Sam." As the two men rose and shook hands, Callen walked with Sam to the door of the boat house. "I will personally get back to you in a couple of days. Thanks for coming in."

As Sam climbed into his Challenger, he waved at Callen and raised his voice just a little, "Thanks for the interview."

*What a sweet ride,* thought Callen as Sam drove off. His choice of car was just another plus to top off the positive vibes that the agent got from the ex-Seal. He would have to read the resume and call Steve in Hawaii to see if there might be anything negative clinging to the record of Sam Hanna. If there was nothing glaring that stood out, he just might have found his partner.