Drona Project

The Drona Project was a program that the C.I.A through the Department of Education created with the intention of identifying children who were part of the foster care system (more specifically orphans) and might be gifted despite their circumstances.
To determine that, cognitive tests were run on the children in question. This was done under the guise of diagnosing learning disabilities. The children who passed then received a “diagnosis” and began attending the “special needs school” that was the program’s cover story. The male subjects were called Owls and the female subjects called Swans. 
Henrietta Lange was involved in the recruitment side while Howard Pembrook/Baines was a behavioural psychologist also assigned to the project who lead the actual training of the Drona subjects.
However, the program was disbanded or ended abruptly in 1986, when Pembrook took the name Arnold Baines, keeping the property and continuing to work black ops for the C.I.A. The man working for the Institute of Noble Maidens as an instructor at one point, teaching with the same Drona methods.
==Biography==
===Pre-Series===
Established by the C.I.A during the 1970s, the program was conducted out of a large, converted house in Cypress Park, Northeast Los Angeles, with Lange involved in the subject recruitment while Pembrook, a behavioural psychologist worked with the children involved, particularly Callen who attended the program from the age of 8 until Hetty pulled him from the program and took him in at the age of 15.
Each child with potential was given a series of cognitive tests before entering the program.
However, Anthony Beltran and four other members of the group who had been left greatly damaged by the project went rogue as adults, killing for hire.
===NCIS: Los Angeles Season 13===
After remarks from Arkady and Admiral Kilbride, Callen starts feeling things make more sense than they should and that he’s missing something. He soon finds the documents in Hetty's archive at OSP labelling him as Subject 17 in and angrily confronts Hetty to have it confirmed by her.
His memory (repressed due to traumatic amnesia) starts coming back in bits and pieces. First, the initial test and being told he had Dyslexia, then doing puzzles and games, and then increasingly unpleasant things done in the name of training by Pembrook. 
===NCIS: Los Angeles Season 14===
In March 2023, during the NCIS: Los Angeles Season 14 episode, Sleeping Dogs (episode), Callen and the OSP team received a cryptic message on their servers that was later traced back to Novak, leading the team to it was all connected to Pembrook and the Drona Project. 
However, Novak was shot and seriously wounded, eventually falling into a coma from her injuries.
Later, at the hospital, Callen met Beltran who was revealed to be going after Pembrook with the intention of killing the other man who had used Novak and the other people on the program to participate in black ops missions, Beltran having also been working alongside his fellow former Drona Project associates to track down Pembrook.
The confrontation ended with Callen being drugged while Beltran fled and while Callen eventually recovered, he told his partner, NCIS Special Agent Sam Hanna if Beltran killed anyone, that was on Callen himself.
In May 2023, during the NCIS: Los Angeles Season 14 episode, The Reckoning (episode), while Novak was being transported to an off-site area, four members of the Drona Project were shot dead while C.I.A officer Chris Behr escaping. This prompted the C.I.A and the NCIS Office of Special Projects to begin investigating the attack with fellow C.I.A officer Rafael Cortes arriving at OSP HQ to meet with Operational Manager Hollace Kilbride, Cortes wanting to talk to Callen and informing Kilbride the group responsible were Russian operatives with Cortes and Kilbride butting heads as well.
Later, after receiving a phone call from Pembrook, Callen met with him Pembrook revealing that Beltran and other subjects of the Drona Project went rogue and became mercenaries, resulting in Pembrook taking matters into his own hands and killing them so they presumably wouldn't target the other surviving members of the project.
NCIS Special Agent Fatima Namazi soon determined that Cortes's statement that the group were Russians was false and upon Cortes being exposed, he held Kilbride hostage at gunpoint with the revelation that he was working with Beltran. 
Fatima later called for backup and responded by shooting Cortes in the chest, killing him, the other agents having shot Cortes while also damaging the window of Kilbride's office.
Upon retrieving Cortes's phone, she sent NCIS agents Kensi Blye and Devin Roundtree to a location where Callen and Pembrook were, the two fending off Beltran and another attack before Kensi and Rountree arrived to arrest the other three.
Later, as their conversation wound down, Pembrook gave Callen his file and informed him that Hetty considered Callen her son. He also informed Callen that Hetty had not known about Pembrook’s methods when enrolling him into the program and that she pulled him out when she’d found out took him in. He also explained he had been the one to suggest to Hetty that Callen be partnered up with Sam Hanna, hoping that Sam could be the friend Callen needed and admitting it was an attempt to look out for him and to make up for what he’d done to Callen. 
==Known Drona Subjects==
*8- John Jenkins.
*11- Leah Novak. (Had “ADD”)
*14- Anthony Beltran.
*17- G. Callen. (Had “Dyslexia”)
*22- Patrick Hertel.
*NA- Rafael Cortes.
*NA- Chris Behr.
*NA- Avery Lamica.
Category:Organizations in NCIS: Los Angeles
Category:Projects in NCIS: Los Angeles