A/n: So, yeah. I'm rewriting this story. For those of you who are new, you have no idea what I'm talking about, so that's fine. For those of you who are not, I sincerely apologize for taking the story away. A while ago I got a couple reviews that really made me stop and think about how much Annie had just gotten away from herself. She just wanted to sincerely be awesome, but that turned her from a person into a completely unrealistic character. So I'm rewriting the whole thing, despite the fact that I had like two hundred pages already written. The majority of the story's going to stay the same, though that's not to say there won't be some major changes.
Hope you guys enjoy! Reviews, good or not, are always appreciated!
The flashing lights scattered around the crime scene were nearly blinding in the pre-dawn darkness, and Detective Danny Williams tried in vain to look past them to see his teammates who he knew were already there.
He glanced sideways at his partner as Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett closed the driver's door of the Camero.
As they walked toward the house, Danny slid his hands into his pockets and his eyes landed on Kono as she headed for them in a light jog.
"Morning guys" she said, carefully not spilling the coffee in her hand. "It's pretty bad in there."
Steve frowned at the three M.E.'s vans parked next to a couple patrol cars and then looked back at the youngest Five-0 member. "What happened?"
Kono shrugged. "Max isn't finished with the scene yet" she said. "You know how he is about guessing. The bodies are two US Marshals and two FBI Agents."
Danny sighed heavily and passed a hand over his hair. "Which means this is going to become an interagency pissing contest."
Kono shook her head. "Doesn't look like it. This was a safe house for an undercover FBI agent. She was testifying in Federal court in New York next week. The FBI Agents on site seem to think it would be better for an outside agency to handle the investigation." Kono directed the two men's attention to two men in rumpled suits who were standing by the front door of the house with their heads together.
Steve headed for them, and Kono informed Danny that she was going to check on Chin who was inside the house trying to sort out the crime scene so Danny followed his partner over to the two FBI Agents.
"I'm Agent Rogers" the older one said, sticking out his hand. "This is Owens." He was a rather rotund man who looked like he hadn't seen the sun in years. His hair was a dark brown, though peppered with strands that were going grey. Owens was a younger man, tall and a little on the scrawny side. He had dark circles under his eyes, as though he hadn't slept in days.
"I'm Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett" Steve replied as he shook the man's hand. "Detective Danny Williams." He gestured sideways at Danny and the two watched all the blood drain from Rogers' lined face.
"Daniel Williams?" He echoed, blinking in surprise.
Danny frowned at him, sharp eyes flickering up to Owens' face as the younger Agent let out a string of colorful curses, turning his back on the others.
Rogers gave his partner's back a sharp look and then looked back to Danny. "Detective Williams, your presence puts us in a bit of a sticky situation."
"Excuse me?" Danny asked, and Steve watched his partner's hackles rise up. "I put you in a sticky situation? You're the geniuses that just lost an undercover agent!"
Owens turned back around, looking quite sheepish. Danny eyed him and decided there was something about the kid that he really didn't like. The Jersey native suddenly wanted to punch the younger man in the face. He found that his hands were balling into fists at his sides and he made a conscious effort to relax his hands.
"Yes. It's your relationship to the undercover agent that worries me" Rogers replied evenly, and Steve frowned.
"His relationship?" Steve asked, watching his partner out of the corner of his eye. His main focus was still on Rogers' face. "What relationship?"
"The missing Agent is Special Agent Melinda Ann Williams" Owens said, and Rogers threw the younger man a dirty look.
Danny stood stock still and blinked several times before he snapped "Shut up."
Rogers sighed heavily. "Detective-"
"Oh no. I am no listening. Annie quit! She left the FBI four years ago! She was shot on a raid and she quit!"
Rogers ran a hand through his rumpled hair. "Detective Williams, your sister was one of the best undercover Agents I have ever trained, if not the best. Four years ago we were just beginning to build a case against Cairbre Sloane."
Steve watched the muscles in Danny's jaw bounce. When Danny looked up he sighed heavily. "Cairbre Sloane was the head of an Irish Crime family in New York City" he looked back at Rogers with a cold glare as he added "and he is untouchable. Killed anybody who even got close to his organization."
Rogers nodded. "We built a rock solid background for an Agent to infiltrate their lives. We started her on the weakest link, the youngest son. He's not heavily involved in the organization, but he was a stepping stone. When Annie was shot in the raid, I saw an opportunity. If everyone thought she had quit, no inside man would ever be able to tun her over."
Rogers drew his hand through his hair again as Danny pulled a hand over the stubble on his chin.
"So Annie taking off wasn't because she was traumatized by being shot?" Danny ask the FBI Agents sharply.
Rogers shook his head. "She was worried that you wouldn't believe that she'd broken and go digging. That's why she broke off contact with you."
Danny let out a breath, long and slow as he processed the information. "So what you're telling me is that my little sister has been lying to my entire family for four years, and now she's been kidnapped because she was working for one of the most dangerous crime bosses New York has seen in a long time. Is that right?"
Rogers only looked a little apologetic when he replied with a firm "yes."
Danny closed his eyes and Steve just knew that his partner was doing a slow count of ten in his head so he didn't haul off and punch the FBI Agent in the face.
"Was Melinda in the house?" Steve asked.
"Annie" Danny muttered, and Steve looked over at him. "She decided when she was five that she didn't like 'Melinda.' She wanted to be Annie, like Annie Oakley."
Steve looked back at Rogers, who shook his head. "This was our safe house for Annie" he answered, and the SEAL couldn't detect any remorse in the older man's face, despite the anger and pain evident on Danny's face. "She should have been fine here. Only a few people actually know where we went. That's why we involved the Marshall's Service."
Danny pulled a hand down his face and muttered "I'm going to see what Kono's got" to Steve before turning on his heel and walking briskly toward the house.
Kono looked up at Danny as he stepped through the front door of the house and into the remnants of a bloodbath. The front door opened on a moderate-sized living room where a sofa and love seat faced a decently-sized TV. One of the cushions had been soaked in blood and the far side had been splattered with it.
Kono followed his gaze and said "One of the Marshals was sitting on the couch. Took two shotgun blasts to the torso." The muscles in her boss's jaw twitched and she frowned slightly. "It looks like the first FBI Agent down came out of the kitchen after the shots. He was shot in the doorway and we've got two rounds next to the doorway."
"So he could have hit one of the shooters?" Danny asked.
Kono nodded. "There were more than two rounds missing from his sidearm, so it's pretty likely." She pointed down the small hallway off the far side of the kitchen. "It looks like the missing Agent was in the bathroom when they hit. The mirror's broken and one of the attackers was stabbed in the throat with a shard in the doorway there." Danny noted the blood with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Kono continued, though she was eyeing him carefully. "There's two blood types on the shard, so Max assumes she sliced her hand on it when she stabbed the attacker. The second body in the bathroom appears to have been shot. Rogers said the Agent wasn't carrying while she was here, so we're assuming she lifted it from the assailant."
Danny sighed heavily for what felt like the hundredth time already that morning, and the sun wasn't even up yet. "Annie." Kono frowned at him. "Special Agent Melinda Ann Williams. She goes by Annie."
Realization dawned on Kono's face and her jaw dropped. "Your. . ."
"Sister" Danny clarified. "What else?"
Kono led him down the hall to the bathroom doorway where Chin was talking in low tones with a forensic tech. "The window was broken and we've got blood on the shards on the edges. She scraped herself up pretty good going out the window."
Chin nodded. "There's some blood on the outside of the house, but nothing to suggest a serious injury." He too was watching Danny closely. "The bodies of the other Marshall and FBI were discovered outside. Looks like they were in a car across the street for extra security."
Danny nodded, hands coming to rest on his hips because he didn't know what else to do with them. "And what about outside?"
"Well, there's the blood on the house which matched one of the types from the mirror shard" Kono said with a small shake of her head. "There's the bodies of two more attackers. One was shot in the back, looks like either the Marshall or the FBI Agent got off a shot. It also looks like there was a struggle with another assailant. We found footprints from a wide-heeled shoe, about size seven."
Danny nodded. "Annie."
Kono nodded. "It looks like she was dragged into a car, but not without a fight."
Steve strode down the hallway, eyes on his partner even as he addressed the others. "All right. Kono, pull Agent Williams' file from the FBI database. Danny and I are going to head back to the office with Rogers. He's going to make a list of the people who knew Annie was here. Someone talked."
5-0 5-0
The four members of Five-0 stared at the screen where the pictures of everyone who had known Annie's location the night before sat on display.
"We can probably eliminate the two Marshals who were killed" Chin said, tapping their pictures. The pictures of the two dead men doubled in size on the screen. "Forensics said from the way their bodies were found in the house they were trying to get between the suspects and Annie."
Steve nodded and Chin swept the two pictures off the screen. "Outside Annie's team, that leaves the prosecuting US Attorney. He flew in yesterday to prep Annie for her testimony."
Danny's hands were gripping the edge of the table so hard his knuckles were white. "She testifies in New York in a week" he said, voice rough as he tried to keep his anger in check. "The only other people who knew where she was are Rogers and Owens."
Steve tapped on Rogers' picture, and the older man's face filled the screen. "What do we know about him?"
"He's been with the FBI for thirty years and has spent the last twenty in organized crime" Kono said. "He's got an exemplary record. A few disciplinary actions over his career, but it looks like he was just overzealous. He's been honored a bunch of times and he's brought down a laundry list of bad guys."
Chin shook his head, folding his arms over his chest. "I just don't see this guy burning one of his own undercover agents" he said. "He looks like a good guy."
Steve nodded in agreement. "That's the impression I got" he said, as Kono swept Rogers' picture off the screen. "And that leaves us with Owens."
"I didn't like him" Danny said suddenly, and they looked at him. "What?"
Steve frowned at him. "What do you mean, you didn't like him?"
Danny stared at his partner for a long moment. "Just what I said. I didn't like him."
His partner barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Danny, you've got good instincts. Why didn't you like him? Think carefully."
Danny frowned and stared at Owens' picture as he thought about it. "How the hell am I supposed to know Steven? I met the guy and when he realized I was Annie's brother I wanted to punch him in the face!"
Steve considered Owens' picture for a moment, then looked back at Danny. "He was her handler. Do you think they might have been sleeping together?"
Danny stared at his partner in shock. "I don't even know how to process that question."
Chin's eyebrows pulled together a bit as he thought about Steve's suggestion. "It would make sense. Undercovers and their handlers become close out of necessity. The handlers are usually their only contacts outside of the organization they're infiltrating."
Danny scowled. "Even if I choose to acknowledge that my little sister has had sex, Owens is not her type."
"I don't think type has a lot to do with the relationship between handler and an undercover" Chin said. "I've known undercovers who were devoted to their wives who cheated with their handler. Some people don't know how to handle that kind of relationship and the sex just makes it easier."
Danny looked ready to punch something. "I do not want my little sister and sex in the same sentence." He said flatly. "I am not contemplating this."
"Then cover your ears" Steve said. "It would make sense. Nothing else gives any indication of why someone with fifteen years under his belt at the FBI would leak the location of an undercover agent."
"I need to punch someone" Danny muttered darkly "in the face."
"All right then" Steve said. "Let's have us a little chat with Owens."
5-0 5-0
Annie's throat was dry and her entire body ached, but she continued to glare at Cairbre Sloane as he simply sat in the chair ten feet away, his legs crossed delicately at the knees.
"I must admit you put on a very good show Linda" he said calmly, his accented voice as light as ever. "I will admit I never suspected you were an undercover cop. After all, what kind of cop would sleep with my son?"
She swallowed reflexively, and bit back the wince at the sandpaper-like feeling in her throat. "Fuck you" she murmured weakly with all the venom she could muster.
Sloane's lips tilted upward, just a hair. "Now there's an idea" he said, gaze traveling down her body. Her shirt had been ripped open before they dunked the buckets of water over her head and used the car battery. "Usually, I would have let you take your chances with my men when you started pulling jobs with us. Any woman who can't hold her own doesn't deserve a place on the crew, but I held them back because you were with my son." Sloane lifted one had and examined his fingernails, carefully picking a fleck of dirt from under his middle fingernail.
Annie felt her heart begin to race with fear although she tried to keep it off her face. If she showed this man one moment of weakness he'd use it.
Sloane looked lazily back up at her and then threw a glance at the swimming pool twenty feet to his left. "O'Brian, if you would be so kind, I think Linda looks a little parched again."
The mountain of a man who had been standing just behind Sloane stepped around the boss and toward her again. She struggled, but after hours of Sloane's torture, her body was too weak to put up much of a fight. O'Brian's hands closed on her upper arms and he lifted her clear off her feet as he carried her over to the edge of the pool.
Quickly, Annie started to suck in air hard and fast, nearly hyperventilating as she tried to flood her system with oxygen before being thrown into the pool. O'Brian dropped her in and she struggled her way to the surface only to have the man grab her by the hair and shove her head back under.
Just when she was about to lose the battle with her body to not inhale the water, she was yanked above the surface again by her hair. She barely had time to gasp in another lung full of air before she was forced under the surface again.
She lost count of the number of times she was pulled up and shoved back under again, and it became longer and longer each time until the last time she lost the fight with her body and inhaled a lung full of water.
O'Brian dragged her out of the pool and threw her onto the deck. Her hands were bound behind her back, but her wrists strained against the bonds as she instinctively went to clutch her stomach. Her lungs burned as she coughed violently, spewing chlorinated water alternating with vomit as she tried to rid her lungs of water.
It felt like ages before she stopped coughing and when she did she looked up at Sloane from between strands of her wet blonde hair as he stood over her.
A slow smile stretched on his face. "Now. I'll ask again: are there any other undercover agents in my organization?"
She sucked in as deep a breath as she could manage and said "Bite me."
Sloane shook his head and a look of obviously feigned remorse slid over his face. "Well then I guess we'd better get to it then." He looked up at O'Brian. "Take her upstairs if you would."
Annie was picked up and thrown over the man's shoulder. She didn't even put up a struggle this time because she knew she was going to need her strength soon.
She must have passed out because when she woke up her hands weren't bound behind her back anymore. They were tied above her head, to a very solid headboard. She swallowed against the knot of terror in her throat and tired to remember to breathe despite the pain in her lungs.
She took stock of her situation, trying to stay calm as she made note of the bed she was lying on and the fact that she was completely naked.
She was also, for the moment, completely alone. With a groan and intense complaints from her arm and shoulder muscles, she used the ropes around her wrists to slowly pull herself into a seated position and take a look at the knot.
Her attention flew to the door immediately when it opened and she frantically yanked on the ropes, though she knew it was futile.
Sloane's smile was merciless as he shut the door behind the men who had followed him in. "Well now. Let's get started here."
5-0 5-0
Within five minutes, Steve came to the conclusion that Owens had never been a field operative. All it had taken was two punches that Danny 'slipped' by him and Owens was begging Steve to keep 'the maniac' away from him.
Despite knowing that in any other situation Danny would leave Owens alone now that he was talking, Steve kept a good grip on his partner's shoulder. He recognized the crazy protective look Danny was wearing. It was the same look that he had when Grace and Rachel had been car jacked. He knew without a doubt that his partner would like nothing more than to shoot Owens.
"We know it was you!" Danny snapped, muscles bunching as he tried to move forward.
Owens flinched and tried to curl in on himself, which was difficult because he was handcuffed to the chair. He hadn't said a word other than begging McGarrett to keep Danny away from him.
"Danno, come on." Steve tried to gently move his partner out of the interrogation room, but it simply devolved into a halfhearted scuffle which ended with Steve bodily shoving his partner out of the room. He shut the door behind him and the two of them ignored the fact that Chin and Kono were waiting in the hall.
Danny ran a hand over his hair, which had fallen out of place in their brief tussle. "I need to know what he says" he practically growled, and took a step toward the door.
Steve planted a hand on his partner's chest and stopped Danny dead in his tracks. "Danno, believe me when I tell you I know exactly how you feel, but Owens is only terrified of you. He'll never give us anything if he thinks anything his says is going to make you beat him to death, and I know you'd like nothing more right now that to do just that, but it won't help us find Annie."
The mention of his sister's name seemed to zap Danny's anger and he deflated, stepping away from McGarrett. "Okay. Go play good cop, but I'm not going anywhere."
Steve nodded. "I expected nothing less" he replied, then stepped back into the room.
Owens looked up at him, bruising already growing around his eyes where Danny had hit him. "Keep him away from me" he demanded.
Steve stared silently at him for a long time, arms folded over his chest. Owens tried to glare at him for a while, but when he couldn't win the stare-down, he looked everywhere else in the room before looking back at McGarrett.
"What do you want?" He snapped angrily. "Are you going to ask me anything or am I going to be stared to death?"
Steve tilted his head to the side briefly, then shrugged. "If I wanted you dead I'd let my partner back in here. I'm sure he'd be happy to beat your head into that cement wall until you talked. Then he'd continue until your head looked like chunky tomato soup." He finally moved, pulling a second chair up so he was sitting within arm's reach of Owens, who was eyeing him warily. "But that's because he's a very angry man."
"You wouldn't let him do that" Owens said, obviously trying to sound confident with himself. He was watching Steve very carefully.
Steve shook his head, leaning forward so he was resting his elbows on his knees and looking Owens dead in the face. "No. I wouldn't let him do that, because he's like family to me." Owens' eyes widened just slightly. "And the fact that you hurt his sister really pisses me off."
Owens looked down as Steve opened the hand he'd had in a fist, revealing the black pocketknife in his hand. He flipped it open and twirled it around his fingers before he raised it in a fist and slammed the blade straight down into the chair a scant inch from Owens' groin.
The man screamed like a banshee and Steve heard the door fly open but he ignored it and the three people who had just burst into the room.
"All I did was make a phone call!" Owens exclaimed, voice shaking and a full three octaves higher than it had previously been. "I made a phone call! I told them she was in Hawaii! Where the safe house was! I didn't hurt her!"
"You didn't hurt her?" Steve bellowed. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kono freeze. "You made the call, so whatever happens to her is on your head, and believe me, you're going to pay for it." He spun and kicked the empty chair out of his way so hard that it sailed into the wall of the room with a deafening crash.
The rest of the team followed him out and Kono closed the door behind them. "I'll run a dump on his phone" she said and took off down the hall. Chin followed his cousin without a word, leaving the two partners standing on their own in the hall.
"So I don't get to stay in the room because I terrify him?" Danny demanded. "Steve, the guy wet himself!"
"Remind me to get the room bleached" Steve said simply, the anger from his outburst fading back behind his carefully controlled exterior.
"So instead of playing bad cop good cop we play bad cop psycho cop?"
"Danno, we got the information. Let's go find your sister."
5-0 5-0
The dump on Owens' phone had turned up nothing, but Kono had taken the liberty of running the records for his hotel room and found a number that traced back to a prepaid burner purchased at the airport two days before. A quick scan of the surveillance footage from the airport had revealed Cairbre Sloane and several of his known enforcers arriving in that airport just ten minutes before the phone was purchased. Kono had traced the GPS in the phone and gotten them an address.
It was a large house with three entrances. Steve, Danny and Chin each took the lead of a team of HPD officers and circled around to the front, back and side doors respectively.
"Go!" Steve gave the word and his team breached the front door. As they moved through the house to the sound of gunfire and shouts of 'clear!' Steve kept a sharp ear out for any sound that could be Annie Williams. His team was the first up to the second floor, and he was starting to think they wouldn't find her when he checked the knob of one of the bedrooms and the wood of the door exploded in a hail of automatic weapons fire. Per procedure, none of his team had been standing directly in front of the door, so nobody was hurt.
They waited until the clicking sound of the empty magazine reached them, and then Steve kicked open the remains of the door. Leading with the barrel of his tactical rifle, he turned into the room and focused on the upright occupant. "Five-0! Don't move!" He shouted.
The man with the automatic looked up, bringing his sneering face into the light. It was Cairbre Sloane himself.
"Drop the weapon!" Steve shouted. Sloane ignored him, slapping the new magazine into place. "Don't do it!" Sloane glared at him, shouted something that wasn't in English and raised the rifle.
The first shot Steve put into Sloane's shoulder. The rifle tumbled out of his grip, catching around his shirtless torso by the strap as he stumbled backward and slammed into the far wall. Steve took the brief second to glance around the room to make sure there wasn't another gunman popping out of a closet.
His eyes landed on a figure curled up in the corner, mostly hidden by shadows and his breath froze in his lungs.
When he looked back and found Sloane raising the rifle again, there was no mercy in the SEAL's face. McGarrett didn't hesitate for even a millisecond about the bullet he put straight between Sloane's eyes.
The man dropped and Steve called "clear!" To the men behind him before he moved cautiously to the slumped figure in the corner.
As he passed the bed he ripped the blanket from the top, made a disgusted sound when he touched something sticky and grabbed the sheet from underneath it.
He waved back the other officers as he knelt down in front of a bruised, bloodied and bound Annie Williams. She was curled in on herself, arms folded in over her chest as she shivered. He wasn't sure if she was unconscious, although as he took another step toward her he was answered. Her eyes flew open wide and she drew further into the corner, away from him with a wild panic in her eyes.
"Annie?" Her eyes flew up to meet his, searching for something. "My name is Steve. I'm with the Governor's Task Force here in Hawaii." The edge of panic and her rapid breathing told him she clearly wasn't comforted.
Slowly, he touched the earwig and said "Someone tell Danny we've got Annie, and I'm going to need a paramedic." He didn't say where because he really wanted to get Annie covered up before Danny saw her. "Annie, your brother is here. I'm his partner." Slowly, he extended the sheet to her. "I'm pretty sure he's downstairs. You're going to be okay now. You're safe."
She locked eyes with him, gray-blue eyes searching his own green-blue for something. She must have found it because she shifted, coming just a little bit out of the corner and silently held out her bound wrists.
Ever so slowly, Steve lifted a pocketknife to the ropes and gently cut them away from her wrists. As he leaned forward and gingerly wrapped the sheet around her, her eyes slid out of focus and her eyes fluttered shut.
She immediately went slack, and Steve struggled for a brief moment as he tried to pick her up without sending them both to the ground.
Danny burst into the room moments after McGarrett had managed to regain his feet.
"Annie" Danny murmured, the panic leaving his face the moment he saw his sister face. It was, however, replaced by an intense worry as he checked for her pulse.
"I think she's fine" Steve said gently, trying not to startle his partner. "But she passed out. She needs to get to the hospital." Danny let his partner carry his sister because he was positive his own shaking limbs wouldn't support his little sister's weight.
Nobody dared get in their way or ask them a single thing on the way to the waiting ambulance.