A/N: Many thanks to everyone who favorited and reviewed so far. Any mistakes are mine alone.
"A bomb. Someone planted a bomb in my backpack."
"What?" Danny stared at Steve with a shocked expression. "You can't be serious." He moved forward, but Steve held up a hand to stop him.
"Stay back, Danny. I don't know what the trigger is. Could be motion-sensitive, weight, a switch… Just stay over there."
"Can you disarm it?"
"I don't know. I can't see much of it. And all my tools are at the bottom of the pack."
"I'll call Chin and bomb squad," Danny said, digging around in his own backpack for his phone.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Both men turned at the sound of the new voice. A middle-aged man stood just off the trail a few yards away, his hands buried deep in the pockets of a tattered blue jacket that hung loose around bony shoulders. He was white, a haole, with greying hair and a shaggy, unkempt beard. Heavy lines darkened his face as he studied the two officers.
"Who are you?" Danny growled. "What do you want?"
"My name isn't important," the man said with a slight shrug. "As for what I want…" He pulled a small device from his pocket and held it up. "I think you know what this is."
"A dead man's switch," Steve stated, eyeing the tiny trigger under the man's thumb.
"Very good, Commander McGarrett." He smiled as Steve started slightly at the use of his name. "I don't think I need to tell you what will happen if you make any sudden movements. I've already taken your sandals out of your backpack. Put them on."
Steve reached cautiously for the flip flops and slipped them on, his eyes never leaving the man. "If you're here for me, then let my partner go," he said calmly. Inside, he tensed, waiting for a good moment to pounce and throw the backpack- and himself, if necessary- off the trail and deep into the forest to protect the civilians around him from the blast. Expecting the man to refuse, he was surprised to see the slight shoulders shrug again.
"I don't care about your partner or the girl. They can leave whenever they want."
Steve relaxed slightly. "What do you want with me?" he asked, while gesturing to Danny to back away.
"You will soon find out. In the meantime, you and I are going to take a little walk. Put on the backpack," the man gestured with the hand holding the switch.
"Wait a minute-" Danny protested as Steve gingerly picked up the backpack and slid his arms through the straps.
"Danny, take Grace and go."
"But-"
"Please, D," Steve begged earnestly. "I don't know what he's got in here, but it's heavy- very heavy. If he slips and accidentally releases the trigger, it could blow up this whole section of trail." Steve gestured to the path leading down to the swimming hole where another family had set their bags and were busy applying sunscreen and blissfully oblivious to the danger a few yards away. "Just get Grace out of here."
The man standing in the jungle behind Steve nodded and gestured for Danny to go. Biting his lip, Danny looked at his daughter who was waiting obediently beside the banyan tree down the trail. Then he looked back at his partner and friend.
"And you say I have a kicked puppy dog face," Steve commented wryly as he watched Danny's indecision. "Just be a good boy and go home like I told you." He gave Danny a strange look as he spoke, but the white-haired man cut off any further conversation.
"Let's go," he gestured impatiently and motioned for Steve to proceed in front of him along the path. With one final look at Danny, Steve turned away and marched obediently up the trail. The white-haired man followed behind him, glancing back occasionally to be sure that Danny wasn't trying to follow. Danny, for his part, waited impatiently in the same place and watched until the pair disappeared into trees.
"Grace?" he called as soon as they were out of sight.
"Yes Danno?"
"Take my pack and sit down there. Don't move." Leaving Grace under the tree, he sprinted up the slippery, eroded path to the top of the hill after Steve and the white-haired. From here, the trail proceeded in an almost straight line along the edge of the ridge, but the path was empty. He jogged a few paces along the route, looking occasionally into the forest on either side, but he saw no sign of the pair. They had vanished.
…
"Danno, where's Uncle Steve?" Grace knew something was wrong but wasn't sure exactly what had happened. She had seen the white-haired man leave with Uncle Steve, but she hadn't seen a gun or weapon and hadn't heard her uncle's comment about the bomb, so she didn't understand why her uncle wasn't following them back to the car. "Did that man need help? Is Uncle Steve going with him to help him?"
"Oh, that man needs help, all right," Danny growled under his breath as they hurried down the trail toward the parking lot. He checked his phone for the fifth time in as many minutes. Still no signal. He took a breath and tried to calm his voice for Grace. "Monkey, I've got to come back and pick up Uncle Steve later. And yes, that man needs help. A special sort of help. So we need to hurry down to the car so I can get a signal and call Uncle Chin to come help us, and then call your mom to pick you up."
"Oh. Okay." Grace picked up her pace to a quick trot and the pair made their way quickly down the trail to the parking lot. As they neared the gravel lot, Danny checked his phone again and rejoiced to see one small bar light up in the corner of his screen. "Hang on, Monkey. Let me make a couple of calls."
He called Rachel first and asked her to pick up Grace from the parking lot. She was less than happy but at least agreed to come. Danny hung up quickly- he would deal with his ex-wife later. Next, he called Chin and explained the situation.
"You haven't seen the guy before?" Chin asked after hearing what had happened. "He's not from a past case?"
"I didn't recognize him, and he only wanted Steve. It must be somebody from Steve's past, but that just makes it more difficult. What if he's from a classified mission? How are we supposed to get information on that?"
"Joe White might be able to help. Kono can contact him. I'll send a crime scene unit to the trailhead- maybe he left evidence around your backpacks or maybe, if we're lucky, his car will be there."
"Grace and I already picked up our backpacks," Danny said. "They seemed undisturbed."
"Can't hurt," Chin replied.
"One last thing- do 'puppy dog' and 'good boy' ring a bell for you?"
"No. Why? Did Steve tell you something?"
"Yeah. Told me I had a puppy dog face, and then said to be a good boy and get Grace out of danger, or something like that. But his expression… I'm sure he was trying to tell me something." On the other end of the phone, Danny heard Chin calling Kono over and relating his query to her. For a moment, all he heard were garbled voices. Then Kono's voice came over the speaker.
"Danny? Kono here. I wonder if Steve wanted you to get a K-9 unit or SAR dog out there. It's not supposed to rain up there today, so any scent left behind should be good for another several hours or so. We could have a couple of SAR dogs at the trailhead within an hour."
"You think that would work?"
"It's worth a shot. The Ewa forest reserve is massive. If they've gone off-trail…"
"…then it could be a while before we find them," Danny finished. "Okay, let's try it. I also want to run every plate on every car in the parking lot in case the idiot drove here in his own car, and I want officers checking other trailheads in case he hiked in on another route. I also want an ambulance waiting in the parking lot because that stupid Neanderthal will probably get himself injured if he doesn't get blown up first."
"We should also check traffic cams for evidence of someone tailing you," Chin added. "If this man really does have a grudge against Steve, then how did he know Steve would be on the trail today?'
"I'll man the office and run down the traffic cam footage and any leads you find," Kono volunteered. "Chin can meet you at the parking lot and interview witnesses along the trail while you accompany the dogs."
"We'll find him, Danny," Chin assured. "We'll find him and bring him home- we always do."
"I hope so," Danny sighed. "He has my car keys."
A/N- I like numbers. Based on the rudimentary statistics I've run so far, most writers on FF are East Coast, female, have cats, and work in a high-stress environment, usually either medicine or education. I'm guessing, but haven't run the numbers yet, that the percent of British writers is higher than the percent of British readers. (In other words, FF fans who are British are more likely to contribute their own stories to the site.)
Next thing to look at: I have a hunch that more people post during holidays than other times of the year. I want to run the numbers and find out. I'd also love to run the numbers on days of the week- is there a better day to post? What days get more feedback? And times- where do most readers live? What times do they read? How do genres break down by country? Do some countries prefer one type of writing over the other? So much fun!