"God, I knew you'd be here, you no-good, scum-sucking dirtbag. Just can't resist another drink after a hard day at the office."

He glances up just in time to see the angry sneer on the woman's face before her hand comes up and makes sharp contact with his left cheek.

"Micheal? Is there a problem here?"

He barely hears the question from the man beside him as he watches the woman take a step back and notch her hands on her slim hips.

"And who the hell is she?" The woman asks, nodding towards the curvy "entertainer" currently attached to his arm.

If his confusion were feigned, he'd call himself the best operator in town. Unfortunately, the emotions he's currently displaying to the group in the seedy lounge are all too real.

"She's just…" he manages to sputter before the dangerous arms dealer before him draws his attention.

"Micheal, we were doing business here. Do you need one of my men to…take care of…this nuisance?"

"Nuisance?" The woman fairly screeches. "Nuisance, huh? Is that what you've told them about me?"

Hamel is watching him with a narrow-eyed expression; confusion, annoyance, and perhaps just a tad too much suspicion. Meanwhile, the "entertainment" has decided that she'd rather not stick around for the ugly show down and has inconspicuously moved off to another table.

He knows that the situation has become sticky at best, has known for about two days now that Hamel has begun to doubt him. And yet, despite the danger brewing about them, all he can do is stare at the brunette currently seething with apparent anger before him.

Rationally, he knows that what he's seeing can't be real. He'd seen her not two weeks ago, and a thing like this takes longer than that to…develop. Right? And yet, as he stares at her in mute shock, he can't force himself to accept the shift in his role and move on.

"Micheal? Do you know this woman?" Hamel is asking him, and all he can do is shake his head in confusion.

"Oh don't you play dumb now, Mister. You were dumb enough seven months ago when you got me stuck with this." She's got her hands on her protruding belly, glaring at him as if he's the antichrist, and still he can't force himself to speak.

Hamel's on his feet now, his men moving in around him, hands on weapons just barely concealed by their expensive jackets.

"Micheal, is that true? Is this woman pregnant with your child?"

He knows how Hamel feels about family, about attachments. The man would never continue their business dealings if he thought there was a pregnant girlfriend in the picture. And yet he now knows too much for Hamel to simply let him walk away. Could he get any more screwed?

He shakes his head desperately, in an attempt to convince Hamel as much as the woman beside him. What the hell is she thinking? "No, I…I mean, I don't think so."

She's in his space again, one shiny red nail practically touching his nose. "If you think you're gonna walk out on us, you've got another thing coming, asshole." She's still screeching and poking him, but Hamel has once again caught his notice.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Hamel's second in command slip him a piece of paper. Hamel reads it carefully before nodding to the man and then glancing back up at the couple before him. It doesn't take a whole lot of deductive reasoning to see that the shit's about to hit the fan.

"I would have figured a cop to be a bit more…responsible in his intimate dealings, Micheal. Or should I say Detective Deeks," Hamel drawls quietly.

"C-cop. I don't know what you're talking about, man."

Deeks is suddenly overwhelmingly aware of the fact that he's unarmed and that Hamel and his men are not. He's also aware of the fact that there are no security cameras in this place, and no one here who would stop these men from killing him. Well, almost no one. He prays to God she has a plan.

"My man here has managed to sift beneath your cover, Mr. Deeks. It seems that LAPD backstopping leaves much to be desired and it wasn't difficult to find the hole in your story. We just had to ask around a bit. Pay off a dirty cop or two. It pays to have connections in this town."

The importance of having connections is something Deeks is more than aware of. Never more so than in this moment as the pregnant woman at his side now turns on him with a screech.

"A cop? A fucking cop? You're kidding me, right? God-damnit, how could you…" She's ranting and raving and smacking him furiously and he can't help but be amazed when he feels the cool metal of his berretta slide into the back waistband of his jeans.

Deeks finally manages to remove the woman from him, but she's still gritting her teeth and spitting at him in anger.

Hamel's grinning at him now, obviously believing that he's managed to pull one over on the LAPD detective; that he'll manage to rid the streets of one more good cop. "If I weren't so sure that no self-respecting law enforcement agency would send a pregnant operative out on assignment, I might suspect that this little diversion was planned," Hamel finally says. "End him."

She moves faster than he can, reaching beneath the front of her shirt, beneath the obviously fake belly and pulling her glock free, pointing it in Hamel's direction.

"Federal agent," she states. "I suggest you tell your men to stand down."

Hamel looks from her, to Deeks whose gun is also trained on him, his plan unraveling as he realizes they'll shoot him without a qualm, and that there's probably back-up nearby. Slowly he motions his men to lower their weapons.

"I should have known," Hamel says with a slight shake of his head.

Kensi smiles. "You should have."

And he should have realized that Kensi would never jump in and purposely blow one of his operations unless she had a very good reason for it and a plan to get them both out alive.

Callen and Sam are moving in behind Hamel's men and Deeks breaths a deep sigh of relief for the first time in almost two weeks.

As uniformed LAPD officers move in to cuff the suspects, Deeks turns to Kensi with what he knows is a silly grin.

"Something you want to tell me?" He asks, nodding to her overlarge midsection.

She cocks an eyebrow, a glint of mischief in her mismatched eyes. "Yeah, your LAPD pals really need to brush up on their backstopping skills. They almost just got you killed." She turns away even as she reaches behind her and unvelcroes the strap holding the fake belly around her waist.

"Eric and Nell had been keeping an eye on any activity concerning your alias Micheal O'Callahan."

His eyes narrow on the team lead. "Why? It was an LAPD investigation."

It's Hetty who answers. "Yes, but you are one of us, Mr. Deeks. And we watch out for our own."

"Okay, but how did you even…I mean, you don't have access to…" He spots Eric and Nell grinning in the corner and he stops himself before they can point out the obvious. "Never mind. Stupid question."

"We realized that one of Hamel's men was digging just a little too deeply into Micheal O'Callahan's past," Nell says. "We tried to…refortify your backstopping, but they were shoveling through it too quickly." She winces, but there's no way Deeks could ever blame her. Her or Eric, for that matter. The two are the best at what they do, and really it shouldn't have been their job to protect him in this instance. It had been an LAPD op, after all.

"A couple of Callen's snitches revealed that someone had been sniffing around after you," Kensi states. "We honestly didn't figure they'd make you as a cop, but the fact that you weren't who you said you were would have been enough to make them itchy. That's when we decided to move in."

"And the…the, uh, pregnant girlfriend act?" Deeks asks.

Kensi shrugs. "It was Callen's idea. He figured it would make them less suspicious of me. That it might make them hesitate. Also," she grinned. "It did make a handy hiding place for our guns."

He can't help but shake his head and chuckle at that.

They're all still watching him when he forces himself to be serious.

"Thank you," he says to the room at large. "Seriously, I don't even want to think…"

"Neither do we, Mr. Deeks. Neither do we." And with a last smile and a nod, Hetty exits the room.

"But really, I mean, how did you guys even know where…"

They all just smile, and he forces himself to accept that they are just that good, and that he's glad he's a part of their team.