Chapter 2: Whose side you are?

San Francisco

That afternoon, Chin leaves his office, and goes to his car. By the corner of the eye, he can see two men dressed in black suit and tie, on a black Mercedes. Two blocks further, he realizes the Mercedes follows him. What the heck! Now NCIS agents want to control all his movements. Okay! He'll give them that pleasure.

Starts driving aimlessly, and spends two hours circling the sloping streets, going to the Bay and getting off the car to sit on a bench to watch the sunset. He always liked sunsets, but none like the ones from Hawaii.

Suddenly, he feels angry. Coughlin has given his consent to these guys of NCIS to take the case from his hands. This would have never happened in Five-0. It's true that the Governor had tried to sabotage them a couple of times, but then he had realized it was better not to obstruct their work and things had turned out better.

Suddenly, Kono's words come to his mind, "You're nostalgic cousin!" She had told him. And if he's honest with himself, he really is. He misses his home and his family. He misses his Ohana. Sighing, he gets up and goes to his car. The black Mercedes is parked twenty yards from him. He turns on the engine and goes home.

Honolulu

Steve is standing on the bridge, waiting. Looks at his watch, 10:00 pm. "He should be here any minute", he thinks as leans on the railing. A minute later, a silver car stops on the other side of the bridge, and a young man gets off. Walks close and gives him a yellow envelope saying "Good evening, Commander". The man turns around and goes back to the car, which leaves a few seconds later.

Steve looks around to make sure that nobody has seen them. Waits a couple of minutes and walks towards the headquarters.

Ten minutes later, he sits behind his desk, to read the documents in the envelope. Langley classified files about a recent operation of the CIA called Hephaestus. It's true that much of the file is crossed with black lines to avoid its reading, but everything he can read makes his heart to stop for a second. It seems that a SAD team has been assigned to give armed support to the Op. That could explain the NCIS interest.

While reading, he realizes that Chin Ho has run into something very big and very secret. Takes the other papers that come in the envelope. There are pictures and files about the four victims. Okay! It seems that he has found the connection between the victims. All seem to be undercover CIA agents assigned to Hong Kong.

Slowly reads the files. The four have returned to the United States recently, but there are no details of their activities or their mission. Looking inside the envelope, he takes the latest pictures. They are images of Chin and his team in San Francisco. In the crime scenes, eating at a restaurant with Abby, picking up Sarah at school. It seems that the guys from NCIS have monitored Chin's activities for several days.

He takes his phone, calculating the hour in San Francisco. It must be around 2:00 am. Abby is going to kill him, but he needs to contact Chin. Suspects that if he is under surveillance, his phones should be tapped, so he's going to try to draw attention as little as possible. Quickly looks between the contacts on his phone and finds the one he needs. Opens the top drawer of his desk and takes a pre-paid phone he has there to make not traceable calls and after turns it on, begins to write a text message to Abby's phone. "Look for a secure line and call this number. SM"

San Francisco.

Abby is half asleep, She cannot sleep deeply until Chin is at his side. She heard him arriving home a couple of hours ago, and thinks he should be now on the couch with the TV on, trying to distract his mind as whenever he face a difficult case. When they arrived to San Francisco, agreed that she shouldn't take part of his task force, so she was promoted and returned to SFPD. They thought to work, live and raise Sarah together could be too much.

Suddenly, the vibration of her phone distracts her. Takes it and looks at the screen. At first, she thinks it's a mistake, but the letters SM call her attention. Gets up and heads to the living room. When she gets in, goes to Chin, who is sitting in the armchair with a glass of milk in the hands and looking at a Hockey game in which he hasn't the lower interest.

Leaning to him, places her arms around his neck and kisses him gently on the cheek. "Got a message for you," she tells giving the phone to him. Chin straightens and looks at the screen. There is no doubt that the message is from Steve and he apparently knows that NCIS has eyes and ears put on Chin. Walks to his desk and pulls out the pre-paid phone. Something he learned from Steve, is always have additional resources on hand.

Goes out to the backyard and dials the number. Steve answers in the first tone "McGarrett".

"Steve, it's Chin"

Steve asks, "Can you talk?"

"Yes... I think," Chin says, doubting for a second "Have you found something?"

"Many things, but is too complicated to explain it over the phone. What do you think about come to visit us for a few days? It would be a good idea to give some false leads to your new best friends, so it takes a while to find out where are you."

"Okay, I'll see what I can do and I'll tell you tomorrow."

"Okay... Aloha" Steve says as farewell.

"Aloha Steve".

Chin goes back into the house, comes close to Abby, who is sitting on the couch and asks, "What do you think about visiting your family in Minneapolis?"

Next morning, turns on his computer, and checks the schedules and fares for flights to Minneapolis. Chooses the flight of 11:15 am. and buy three tickets for Abby, Sarah and himself, making sure to pay with his credit card. Then, checks the schedules of flights to Honolulu. There is one at 11:55 am. He plans to buy it at the airport counter, when Abby and Sarah have taken off.

Goes up to the room and after a quick shower, puts on a pair of faded jeans, a white t-shirt and sneakers. Completes his look with sunglasses, a cap and a jacket of the 49ers. An hour later, all three come out of his house and take a taxi heading to the airport.

Agent McNeill is resting on the couch in his office. He has not gone home in several days, and anticipating what his wife is going to yell as soon as she sees him, he's thinking to delay that moment as much as he can. At that moment his phone rings and he picks up "Agent McNeill".

"Sir, It's Hayes" a voice says "Lieutenant Kelly just bought three flight tickets to Minneapolis. He paid with his credit card. The flight leaves today at 11:15 ".

McNeill checks the time on his watch, it is 9:30. "Okay, follow him to the airport and make sure they board the plane. Then notify the office in Minneapolis".

"Yes Sir" Hayes answers and hangs up the phone. Then looks through the rearview mirror, when Chin and his family take a taxi to the airport, following them a few seconds later.

A while later, they arrive at the airport and goes direct to the boarding room. Chin looks at his watch, there are still twenty minutes until the take off. He leaves Abby and Sarah sitting in the chairs in the waiting room and goes to the bathroom. Inside, he meets officer Choi, of SFPD, who looks almost like him and wears faded jeans, white shirt and sneakers. Quickly Chin removes his cap, jacket and sunglasses, and gives them to Choi, taking the man's cap and jacket. "You know what to do" says "make sure you go with Abby to her parent's house".

"Okay" Choi says and comes out of the bathroom, to meet Abby and Sarah.

Hayes and his colleague are standing next to the monitors that inform the passengers all departures and arrivals schedules. Suddenly they see Kelly coming out of the bathroom and reuniting with his family. The three comes close the flight assistant who is beginning to receive passenger tickets and they go through the door to board the plane. Just to be sure, the two agents wait a few minutes for plane takes off, and then leave the waiting room.

Chin calculates the time. It's been 15 minutes since Abby's flight took off. Puts the cap and the jacket on and cautiously leaves the bathroom. There's nobody in the waiting room. Walks to the main terminal, making sure that no one follows him and buys a ticket for the flight to Honolulu at 11:55 am. pays in cash and gives the name of Choi. Fifteen minutes later, the plane is in the air.

Honolulu

The buzz of the phone wakes up to Steve, straightens in his chair with a stiff neck. He has fallen asleep, resting on the hard surface of his desk. Takes the phone and sees the message from Chin in which alerts him the flight will arrive at 14:30 and he's travelling under the name of David Choi.

Gets up and goes through the dark offices heading to the kitchen. He needs coffee badly. At that time, the glass doors open and Danny appears, with wrinkled pants, the messy hair and a backpack, yawning loudly.

Steve smiles and leaves the kitchen with coffee pot in hand. "Danno, I know you missed me, but it wasn't necessary that you were here so early."

Danny growls and comes close to Steve, giving him a pat on the shoulder, desperate to drink coffee. "The flight arrived at 5:00 a.m. and I thought it was better to get here directly. And you? What is your excuse?"

They both sit down, and Steve quickly explains the previous day Chin's call and the information his contact of the Navy gave to him.

"Seriously, Steve? Why is that whenever I'm out for a few days you get in trouble like this?" Danny asks waving his arms.

Steve cannot help but smile. These are the moments that he miss so much during Danny's absences. "Me, Danno? I told you problems always find me. What about Gracie?"

"She's happy. Loves Princeton, also her teachers. I think she'll make her application once the summer is over." Danny smiles when sees the famous aneurysm face and guessing, as always, his friend's thoughts, tells him "It's going to be until next year, Steve. We'll manage".

Steve spends the morning studying operation Hephaestus files and the records of the four murdered agents. Listening to his instincts, scans each one of them, keeping the files on a SD card, which hides among the folds of his father flag. Then looks at his watch. It's time to pick up Chin at the airport. Gets up and heads to Danny's office. "Hey! Are you coming to the airport?" he asks, poking his head in.

"Of course," Danny says. Both come out of the Palace and get into Steve's truck.

Twenty minutes later, Steve parks the truck in the airport parking lot and turns the engine off. Both friends walk to the terminal. Shortly before 15:00, Steve sees Chin and raises his right hand to draw his attention. Chin feels a great joy to see his brothers again. "Steve, Danny." He says and gives them a strong hug, slapping their backs. "Hey. Buddy. How are you?" Steve asks, taking Chin's backpack and walking in front of his friends to the exit.

Minutes later, they are in the truck, and Danny asks, "Is anyone hungry? I only had coffee this morning".

Chin immediately answers, "I would kill for some lemon and butter shrimp at Kamekona's!"

A few minutes later, Danny and Steve are sitting in front of Kamekona's food truck, while the enormous man crushes Chin in a hug. "Hello Big Guy!" Chin says as soon as he recovers the breath.

They order their food and Steve takes the yellow envelope, to explain Chin everything what he has figured out. "The four agents were first in Hawaii, before flying to the Mainland. Here are the dates. Apparently, they didn't know each other. Pickford was here in March, Tesser came the second week of May and Nelson in early June. Kalani arrived in February and stayed on the island until last week when he traveled to San Francisco."

After a while crumbling theories, Chin feels that his head tumbles. He cannot help but be surprised at everything Steve has figured out in so little time. He tells them his airport strategy to distract NCIS and the three laugh for a moment, causing Chin's nostalgic feeling growing a little bit.

Thirty minutes later, the three gets up and walk to the truck. At that moment a black SUV, stops with a shrill sound of tires, in the street right in front of them, preventing them to go away. Quickly, the three friends take their guns, but two Navy men in uniform gets out from the front seat, with automatic weapons in hand. Steve puts his gun down, making a sign to Chin and Danny to do the same. One of the armed men, a Lieutenant comes close to them, saying. Commander McGarrett, you should come with us, Sir. The three men get in the back seat of the SUV, which leaves at full speed.