Welcome back to my world of Five-O in the nineties. If you are not familiar with my stories, I took the cast and crew of the original series and moved it into the future. The stories start five years after the Gulf War, and include women soldiers and sailors, both active duty and retired.

Once again, all the classic characters and concept of Hawaii Five-O belong to CBS. Everyone else is simply a product of my overactive imagination.

Read and enjoy. Please don't be too critical of the action scenes, as I am trying to learn how to write them well enough to be believable. Yes, there are a few bad words, including the 'queen mother' of all bad words. Try not to be too offended. Surprisingly little sex in this one but lots of blood, guts, and pig feet.

Constructive criticism is always welcome.

Thank you for reading.

LMS

Of Guns and Monsters

O-O-O-O-O

Chapter 1

It started out as a robbery.

Two kids with a couple of big guns they knew very little about wearing the obligatory black ski masks printed with red skulls, in April, in Honolulu, because they thought it made them look tougher than they really were, but when combined with the desert cammo fatigues they had stolen off a clothesline from the housing area on Fort Shafter, it made them look like a pair of apprentice douchebags. Another kid waited in a stolen car, the designated driver as it were. He had an even bigger gun, an M16A4, loaded with NATO standard 5.56mm steel jacketed rounds with two 30 round banana clips taped together for quick reloading, and while the kids with the Glocks knew little about their weapons beyond the bullets exit through the hole in the end, he knew the sixteen inside out and could assemble it blindfold in less than half a minute.

Today's target of choice had been a local mom and pop convenience store located in a strip mall at the corner of McCully and South Beretania Street. The store did a brisk business in bill pay and check cashing especially at the first of the month when retirement, social security, and welfare checks came in. The kids had been watching the place for nearly three months now, supporting themselves when their parents got tired of giving them money with the occasional mugging, breaking and entering, and selling bad weed and even worse methamphetamine to local high school kids who didn't know the difference between ditch weed and Maui Wowie or crystal meth and ground up aspirin cut with powdered milk.

The three of them had the combined IQ of a concussed chicken. The two with the stolen Glock 9's were both just past their sixteenth birthdays. They were chosen as trigger men because of their youth, each of the partners in crime being blissfully ignorant of a state law allowing juveniles to be prosecuted as adults for gun crimes. The 'brains' behind the plot, rocking the obligatory cammo and death mask junior douche combo, was all of twenty-two and thought of himself as some sort of military genius, or he would be if command would just get off his back. He was a member of the National Guard when he could be bothered enough to attend meetings. Last weekend's meeting had been the first one he'd attended in months. He had taken the chewing out he knew he had coming and reported to work at the arms room to spend the rest of the day cleaning, oiling, and packing the M16's that would eventually be replaced with the newer, upgraded version of the world's bestselling Mattel product. As usual he spent more time running his mouth than working. By Sunday afternoon, the El Tee and the sergeant in charge had gotten tired of listening to his bullshit and went for coffee, leaving explicit instructions for him to clean the place up and be ready for inspection when they got back. That was the opportunity he had been waiting for. When he left that afternoon, after the OIC had grudgingly signed off on his time sheet, the gym bag he had brought in with him was a lot heavier than it was when he arrived.

The store was owned by an elderly Cambodian couple. They had survived Nixon's clandestine bombing raids, Pol Pot's reign of terror, the Khmer Rouge, Chinese pirates, and the god awful refugee camps of Thailand and really weren't intimidated at all by a pair of punks shakily holding guns way too big for their hands. Mama-San simply knelt behind the bullet proof glass and hit the silent alarm as she dialed 911 on her cell phone. Papa-San shoved a very illegal sawed off double-barrel twelve gauge mounted on pistol grips and loaded with birdshot through the payment window, giving both hoodlums a sprinkling of steel bb's. Papa-San knelt to reload the shotgun as the two punks opened fire with the Glocks, scattering 9 mm hollow points in every direction, breaking liquor bottles, exploding cans of soda, and shattering a jar of pickled pig's feet, the smell of vinegar and spices mingling with the aroma of cheap booze. Papa-San had counted the gunshots, and as soon as he heard the pistols hit slide lock, knew both weapons had been fired dry. He popped up like a deadly jack in the box, this time with the shotgun loaded with double ought. He fired both barrels at once, making it impossible to identify the punk on the right without fingerprints and DNA and catching the junior desperado standing next to him with enough buckshot to partially remove his left arm.

The kid waiting in the car knew from all the gunfire that things were not going quiet as planned. He snatched the sixteen off the seat, pulled back the charging handle, loaded a round into the chamber and set the selector switch to full auto. He burst through the door just as Papa-San, thinking there were only two would-be robbers, was opening the armored door of the cash booth. He opened fire, emptying the clip into the elderly Cambodian and chewing up a magazine rack filled with comic books and soft porn. He quickly reversed the clip, loading the sixteen with 30 fresh .223 rounds.

He pulled open the door and kicked Papa-Sans bleeding body aside. He tossed a canvas bag to Mama-San, who was cowering on the floor. "Put the money in the bag, bitch, and I won't shoot." She emptied the contents of the safe into the bag as the first police officers responded, the sound of their sirens screaming through the quiet of early morning. He put one round through Mama-Sans chest, adding lying to the list of sins he had committed that morning.

He grabbed the bag and ran for the door as the first blue and white screeched to a stop. He opened fire as the two officers were getting out, stitching the squad car and the officers with NATO approved steel jacketed bullets. He emptied the clip and ran for the get away car. An empty weapon was at best a club and he wasn't planning on sticking around long enough for hand to hand. He hurled the weapon to the ground and kicked it across the street, hoping it would slide across the asphalt and into the storm drain, and took off in a hurry, burning rubber and scraping a layer of paint off the blue and white responding from the opposite side of the street. He turned left, then right, then took the second left until he was in the warehouse district. Most of the buildings on Waipahu Depot Street had been slated to be torn down in a burst of urban renewal dollars and the prospect of low income housing. Now most of the buildings stood empty and decaying with signs every few feet informing anyone who didn't want to die from exposure to the assortment of chemicals the Navy and Marines corps had been storing at the Depot since the mid thirties to stay away. He found the warehouse with the broken lock and pulled in, effectively disappearing into the gloom.

He wanted to count the cash, only survival instincts outweighed greed. He cautiously checked his surroundings and when he had reassured himself no one had seen him, he ran to the front gate, grabbed the chain and lock he had stashed earlier under a nearby bush. He chained and locked the gates, taking care to leave the lock hanging on the side of the gate facing the street. That done, he gave the building itself a good once over and secured all the entrances. Now he had time to leisurely peruse the canvas bag. He opened the bag and emptied its contents onto the still warm hood of the getaway car.

"That lousy gook bitch," he said through clenched teeth as he pawed through the banded newspaper clippings. "That cheap ass slant-eyed bitch. What a fucking rip-off!"

There were two bundles of obviously marked cash mingling with the bundles of scrap paper; a hundred in tens and fifty in ones. He would just about bet the farm the old gooks had a list the money's serial numbers stashed under the cash drawer. Leave it to a pair of conniving slant eyes to cover all their bases.

He should thank Papa-San for killing both his stupid partners. Three months of planning for a lousy hundred and fifty bucks. Those two were too stupid to live.

All he had wanted was a little cash to tide him over until his real partner found the right buyers for the real merchandise. He smiled, thinking about the bright side of things. With his two business associates dead, he didn't have to share, and there was an even less of a chance for betrayal, or of his shadow partner finding out. He had been ordered to keep his mouth shut and to keep a low profile and he was fairly certain that this mornings activities were going to be anything but low profile.

O-O-O-O-O

Compton and Marks were second on the scene and were nearly creamed by the suspect pulling out in one hell of a hurry, taking the driver's side mirror and the spotlight with him and leaving one of the cars fancy spinner rims and a streak of black paint from the front fender to the trunk. As much as they would have liked to have given chase, they had a more pressing concern. Two officers were lying in pools of blood. Marks was on the radio before the squad car even stopped rolling.

"10-99! Officers down! Repeat: officer's down, McCully and South Beretania. We need backup and ambulances. Officers down! We have multiple gunshot victims. Approach with caution. We do not know if the shooter is still at the scene. That's at McCully and South Beretania. All units, all units, 10-99 McCully and Beretania!"

Every police officer, on duty or off who heard the call would be hurrying to the scene. A 10-99 meant only one thing, that a brother or sister was hurting and it was time to issue some payback. Within minutes the area was crawling with police officers and paramedics.

Compton was checking the driver of the squad car. The man was half in, half out the car, still conscious, and having a hard time breathing. He'd been shot in the upper right chest and shoulder and from the look of it, the Kevlar vest he was wearing had only managed to slow the bullets down. He recognized the man as Jonathan Campbell. He'd gone to the academy with Campbell and they had both served in the Gulf War. "Hold on, buddy, he said, "ambulances are on the way."

"Bastard had a sixteen," Campbell managed to get out. "He tossed it when it ran out of ammo." He leaned back against the seat, those few words having exhausted him.

Compton went around to the other side. Campbell's partner was a female rookie of Chinese descent named Marsha Hong. She had caught two to the neck, just above the collar of her Kevlar vest. The bullets had blown out her carotid artery. She had bled to death before she'd hit the ground.

More officers and ambulances arrived. One of the EMT's was applying a pressure bandage to Campbell's wound and another pair were starting CPR on Hong. Compton and Marks, guns drawn, entered the small shop.

It was like walking into an abattoir. The floor was slippery with a combination of blood, liquor, spilled soda, and, bizarrely enough, pig feet. One of the suspects was dead, most of his face gone and what few brains he had were splattered across the wall behind him. His partner in crime was still alive, although bleeding profusely from a nearly severed arm and he appeared to be going into shock from blood loss and pain. Compton holstered his weapon, grabbed the suspect's belt, and used it as a tourniquet. He stripped off the skull mask. The kid couldn't have been more than sixteen.

"What's your name, kid?" He asked."

"Kini," he said. Compton could tell the kid was terrified. "Am I gonna die?"

"Probably not today," Compton said. "ETM's are on the way." The kid's eyes rolled back in his head as he passed out. Compton checked his pulse and found a weak one. Chances were the kid would live if he made it to the trauma center in time.

He opened the door of the cash booth to find Papa-San's bullet riddled body kicked into a corner like so much dirty laundry, his shotgun lying empty on the floor next to him. Mama-San, had a serious chest wound but was still alert, and, unless he was wrong, very, very angry.

She was muttering something in a language he didn't understand. "Where are the damned medics?" he asked the world in general. Suddenly, there were EMT's everywhere. He got out of the way and let them do their job.

He went outside, leaving Marks and Kanoa to get what info they could from the victims. Campbell was being loaded into an ambulance for transport the hospital. Campbell had said the shooter had an M16 that he had tossed when it was empty. There was one vacant parking spot in front of Campbell's squad car. If the getaway car had been in that spot, and if the shooter had tossed the gun, then maybe it had landed across the street, possibly under the dry cleaners delivery van parked by the curb. Compton got down on his hands and knees, and there it was, the business end halfway down the storm drain. He cautiously pulled the weapon out by the strap.

He stared at the weapon but didn't touch it. Marks came over to see what his partner had found.

"Is that what I think it is?" Marks asked, frowning, "Because if it is, the shit is about to well and truly hit the fan."

"It's exactly what you think it is. It's an M16A4 with taped together 30 round magazines. Why me, Lord? Why is it that every time some damned fool on this blasted rock gets his hands on military ordnance, I'm the one who gets to call the Big Man? While I'm doing that, see if you can find someone who can understand what Mama-San's saying. I think she's Cambodian but don't get me to lying." He looked over to where the EMT's were trying to revive Officer Hong. McCully street was starting to look like Iraq's Highway Through Hell. He shuddered as he hit the button on his rover unit. He had more pressing matters than Desert Storm bullshit. "Central, this is Compton, patch me through to McGarrett at Five-O, please."