This is a continuation to the AU story 'Strange Bedfellows' ID: 8915502
I am grateful to all that have been PMed me over the last few months asking about the sequel to SB. You kept me going! I hope you will enjoy the ride.
Here's a brief recap of the end scene in 'Strange Bedfellows' to set this new story.
Later that afternoon, Frances drove back to her hotel with her head swimming with billions of confusing images, disturbing thoughts, shocking conjectures, outlandish theories and soul-stirring childhood memories; all merging into a lethal blend of mind-scorching embers that were literally ripping her apart, and which she could have done without so soon following the tragic accident that nearly cost Steve's and Danny's lives.
No sooner had she entered her room that she kicked off her shoes and plumped down on the bed, mentally consumed. She closed her eyes in an effort to regain her composure by draining some of the thick soup of information her brain was drowning into.
Once she regained a semblance of equanimity, she reached for her cell phone and dialed Steve's number. Her eyes dropped in despair when she heard his voice mail.
"Hi sweetie, it's me. Say when you have a few minutes, could you call me? I have something to tell you. It's not urgent. Call when you can. Okay, bye." She hung up and turned on her right side where she curled up in a ball.
It was early in the evening when she started out of sleep. She glanced at the digital clock shimmering seven fifteen. With a yawn, she turned on her back and rubbed the haze out of her eyes.
Seconds later, her phone rang. She elbowed herself into a sitting position, picked up her cell phone and read the caller ID. The name 'Chin' made her frown.
"Chin?"
"Yeah, it's me." His voice held a dash of distress.
"What's up?"
"We have a bit of a situation here."
"What do you mean? Is Steve with you?"
"No he's not. He's…well...he and Danny are missing."
"Missing? What you mean missing?"
"We were chasing after two fleeing suspects and at some point, we split into two teams..."
"Wait, wait, wait, did you say chasing after suspects? Chin, what were they doing out there? They weren't cleared for field work."
"I know," Chin sighed with a slight embarrassment. "But try telling that to Steve?"
"I should have known!" she gnarled. "Chin you were supposed to watch them!"
"I know but I thought they would just tag along and be nice boys."
"You dangle a piece of raw meat in front of a shark and you tell him to be nice?" she quipped.
"Yeah, I realize now that it was a dreadful mistake."
"And Danny went along with him?"
"He was beyond incensed that Steve would take off like that but yes, he did follow to make sure he didn't get into trouble. Ironic, isn't it? Anyway Kono and I went after one guy while Steve and Danny tailed the second one. Then the earthquake hit."
"An earthquake? How bad?"
"It was reported 5.6 on the Richter scale and lasted a good fifteen seconds. The information we're getting is still sketchy but at first glance the damage appears to be limited. Steve and Danny didn't report back and it's been well over two hours."
"Were there shots fired?"
"Quite a few but I made them wear their vests just in case it turned ugly. Kono was slapping the cuffs on our man when we heard the shots. She stayed behind while I went to see if Steve and Danny needed backup. They were nowhere to be seen. If they'd been hurt or killed, I would have found them."
"The suspect could have had a getaway car waiting for him. How long a delay between the shots and when you reached the spot where you heard them?"
"I'd say about a minute. They were close by. Definitely not enough time to haul two bodies into a car. Besides which there were no roads leading into the rainforest."
"Were there cliffs nearby?"
"No. It's all flat."
"Chin, that's ridiculous! They couldn't simply have vanished into thin air. They must be somewhere. They could have fallen into a trap or a hole in the ground."
"We checked. So far we didn't find any."
"Chin we must find them," she urged, panic evident in her voice. "They are still recovering from that bombing and they weren't cleared for field work just yet. You can imagine my concern?"
"We all share it with you."
"Well wherever they are at least they're together…I hope. Ah listen, I'm wrapping up down here and I'll try to be in Honolulu in twenty-four hours. Are the airports open?"
"So far it's all clear. We'll wait for you. In the meantime, we'll keep you abreast of any new development."
She hung up, shaken to the core by this additional bolt out of the blue. She glanced down at her left hand and began twisting her engagement ring. "Dear Lord, let them be all right."
Now on with the continuation...
She was livid. She wanted to wring his neck and ripped him to shreds for not complying with his doctor's strict instructions. She knew that daredevilry coursed through his veins and that his impulse to court danger was a trait that she had accepted to live with, but this was downright careless of him. Although Steve and Danny were given the green light to return to duty following the near-fatal tragedy, field work was still proscribed until they had completed their physiotherapy and before leaving for Washington, she had cautioned Steve of the dire consequences if he so much disregarded her warning.
Frances strode up and down the length of her hotel room in an attempt to recover her composure following Chin's call. She was beside herself with a mix of worry and anger. Following a few cleansing breaths to clear the steam, she called the airline to book the first available flight to Hawaii. She hoped that by the time she reached Honolulu the missing lambs would have returned to the fold, and that she would choose to either fall into Steve's arms and shower him with kisses, or rather pummel him to the ground and beat the crap out of him for turning a deaf ear to her warning.
She could not pass any judgment before all facts and circumstances were taken into account but according to Chin's statement, Steve and Danny were engaged in a chase after an offender, not that they were running for their lives, which told her that her stubborn mule had not heeded hers nor his doctor's advices to keep work to a bare minimum. But try drilling that notion into a former SEAL's head? She sympathized with Danny knowing that he must have endeavored to stop him but being his faithful partner, he must have grinned and bore it and followed Steve to keep an eye on him. The thought of them missing together reassured Frances to some extent but she nevertheless feared the worse.
She switched on her laptop to check the reports of earthquake activities in the Hawaiian region and indeed, Oahu had recently been rocked by a 5.6 earthquake that lasted thirteen seconds. Tremors were a frequent occurrence in Hawaii but they usually registered lower than 3 on the Richter scale. However this one was a concern as the NOAA observed unusual seismic activities beneath the earth in the past few weeks and even issued a warning of an impending volcanic eruption. Could Steve and Danny be trapped in a confined space where the team hadn't bothered to look?
HPD officers had converged to the scene where Chin and Kono were already scouring the area for clues to elucidate the baffling disappearance.
"So? Did you find anything?" Duke asked one of his officers.
"Nothing, chief."
"What about patches of quicksand or sink holes?"
"None that we've seen around these parts and there are no cliffs either. The terrain in flat. We also checked for caves. Nothing."
"Come on, they just couldn't have vanished into thin air!" Duke vented his frustration on his young rookie, swiftly offering an apology as he realized he had spoken insolently to the innocent, still inexperienced officer. "I'm sorry, Anderson. It's been a trying day. First the earthquake and this."
"It's all right, chief. I understand all too well. They must still be on the island. We've notified all airports, airfields, marinas, docks. They're all on the lookout for two men with Williams and McGarrett's description. Whoever took them, if anyone, must know that they are trapped and cannot flee the island by regular means of transport," the young officer assured.
"What about charters or even Medevacs?"
"They're also on the alert."
"Choppers however can land and take off just about anywhere, though, with virtually no clearance at all," Chin offered as a plausible conjecture that may have been overlooked.
"But the burning question still remains. How in the hell can you snatch two men out of here so quickly? I expect both McGarrett and Williams were in good enough shape when they took off after the guy?"
"Sure," Chin confirmed.
"Surely they would have put up a fight? Unless they were rendered unconscious."
"Or killed," offered the young officer.
"Indeed it's a possibility we can't rule out even with the lack of blood evidence. Either way you need strong abled bodies to drag dead weights around and you say you showed up barely a minute after you hear the shots?"
"That's right. But I didn't stick around long enough to search the entire premises. It's possible they could have hidden while waiting for me to go back and then moved them out."
"Lieutenant Kelly!" Doctor Max Bergman called out from his crouched position.
Duke, Chin and Kono made their way up to him. "Max, did you find something?"
Max pointed to a faded heel print in the muddy soil. "That is shaped like a boot print, and if I'm not mistaken Commander McGarrett wears combat booths, does he not?"
"Yes he does," Kono concurred.
"That could belong to anyone who passed through here, like a hiker. Nevertheless can you make a mold to have analyzed?" Duke asked.
"No problem."
"Found any blood?" Kono asked.
"Negative."
"Okay so we know they came through here but that doesn't tell us where they've disappeared to. Wo Fat or even McFadden couldn't have been behind this. They're both in jail, unless they're pulling the strings from the inside?" Duke addressed Chin, "What about the guy they were tailing? Did he have ties to the Yakuza?"
"Can't say. We have yet to interrogate his accomplice. Hopefully he can shed some light on this possible alliance."
"If not then I guess we'll need to bring in the heavy artillery." Duke looked up at the sky. "Sun's going to set pretty soon. We'll have to call off the search for tonight and resume first thing tomorrow morning."
At that moment the earth began to move. "Shit, here comes another one."
A wandering pain slowly crept up his spine, spurring him back to consciousness. Danny groaned awake, wincing at the sledgehammer pounding in his skull. As he attempted to shift to a more comfortable position, a tsunami of pain assaulted his senses and instantly fired every nerve in his body.
"Arggggg!" he gnarled, spitting the foul taste rolling off his raspy tongue. Keeping his eyes tightly shut, he brought a hand to his pounding head and remained still to quell the myriad of stinging needles piercing through his skin. The soreness experienced was sheer torture. "What the…" He sucked in a deep breath that seared his lungs and triggered a cough, which in turn elicited a violent spasm down his spine. His arched his back and hissed in pain. "Oh this isn't good," he muttered, daring a sluggish hand to the back of his sore neck with hopes to soothe the throbbing with a gentle rub. He then ventured turning on his left side to sputter the balls of slimy dust out of his mouth.
Once the attack of pain subsided, he rolled back into a supine position and slowly pried his eyelids apart. He blinked open his eyes to a pitch dark world, gasping at the frightening thought of being blind. He slowly and painfully brought a hand in front of his eyes and waved it around to test his eyesight that was gradually adjusting to night vision. Relief set in when he perceived a dim shadowy shape and figured that he was enclosed in either a dark windowless cell or was trapped under ground.
The ferric scent of blood assaulted his nose and he instantly sensed something soft and warm nearby. Keeping his movement to a strict minimum to avoid triggering additional pain, he fumbled with the Velcro straps of his bullet-proof vest to release the pressure and allow him room to take stock of his injuries by roaming his hands over his chest and abdomen and other various parts of his body. Aside from incredible muscle tenderness and stinging bruises, all limbs appeared intact.
In spite of the merciless pounding in his brain, he was able to drill through the murkiness and draw a memory or two of how he came to be in this predicament.
With a wary hand, he started groping the massive lump lying close to him, which he recognized as human flesh. He figured it had first softened his fall before he rolled away on the ground, thus sparing him from any grievous injuries that would have otherwise killed him in what he roughly estimated as a sharp thirty to fifty-foot drop.
As his hand blindly reached for the neck to feel for a pulse, he recoiled at the contact with a sticky warm substance that he deduced was blood coming from what he could feel was a cracked skull. His heart began hammering out of his chest and he swallowed dryly at the likely identity of the man lying next to him.
With a nervous gulp that stuck halfway down in his parched throat, he flashed his watch light at the bloodied face. "Oh thank God," Danny heaved out loud, relieved that the dead man wasn't his partner, but rather the suspect they had been chasing before he quake hit. All things considered he was grateful to the poor fellow who died breaking Danny's fall. He checked the pulse and sure enough, the man was dead.
Suddenly an eerie thought crept up in his mind. That suspect might have acted as his cushion, but McGarrett on the other hand must undoubtedly have landed hard on the solid ground. That chilling thought made his blood curdle.
"Steve? Steve, where are you? Come on buddy, answer me," Danny called out frantically, eliciting a dry cough that triggered searing pain coursing through his body. His heart rate skyrocketed and his breathing hastened, growing heavier with each passing second of silence. "Steve?" With agonizing pain, he rolled onto his stomach and painfully attempted to haul himself up on his hands and knees. He paused to catch his breath before gingerly shedding his vest. The mere task sapped his strength and again, he paused to draw a few steady breaths to suppress the rising nausea before he started crawling on all four, discarding his own stabbing pain and his pounding head, as he focused on finding his partner that he feared might have met a similar fate. "Steve? Can you hear me?"
He groped the ground, blindly fumbling at the dark as he aimlessly crept along. "Come on buddy," he pleaded, "answer me."
"Dannnnnnny?" Finally it came in the form of a quavering, wheezing whisper.
"Steve?" Danny turned toward the faint voice. "Steve? Are you okay?"
"I can't breathe!" Steve said in a choke.