I do not own Hawaii Five-0 or any characters. No copyright infringement intended.

Notes: thank you ALL for the amazingly wonderful reviews and comments. I'm terribly behind in responding to many of you - I'll do my best to catch up. To be honest, I'm struggling with these next two chapters since their flow is not what I want. Regardless, Dylan and Spenser are a bit - extreme and there's more in store for Danny. This next chapter was incredibly difficult to get right though .. so I hope it makes sense and you all like it. As an aside, I learned cliffies from the Queen Cliffie! Miss Fifilla! :-)

Chapter Seven

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She was sitting on the fourth step she'd managed to clear from debris, eyes closed and breathing hard through the material she had covering her nose and mouth. Steve was upstairs and exactly where she'd left him not less than thirty minutes earlier. Still unconscious, his wounds were still sluggishly bleeding despite the bandages she'd added to complement what had been first used to dress them.

With nothing to do but worry and try to dig a way out, Kono's scalp wound had begun to make itself known. Either that, or it was the stress of needing to keep going not only for Steve, but for Chin and Danny. Not knowing about either of them was slowly killing her step by dusty step. Her gloved hands hung limply between her knees, sagging along with her neck which was bringing her chin nearly to her chest. Her rifle was slung over one shoulder, but her now friendly metal pipe, which made for an excellent crowbar, sat propped sturdily against her hip.

So, Kono was in the stairwell and just sitting there when it happened. The faint rumble vibrated first through the soles of her feet. Her head snapped up at the odd sensation, and she held her breath, truly afraid as another rumble followed less than twenty seconds later.

"What are they doing?" She murmured to herself, eyes wide once more as she got to her feet. The sounds were distant but certainly close enough. She scowled as a third went off, automatically ticking the seconds in her head to prove that each was a synchronized event. Knowledge which did nothing for her terrible thoughts about her cousin or Danny.

"They're leaving," Kono stated, her eyes widening as that certainty settled inside her mind with an incredible clarity. She turned on her heel then, the rifle thumping against her back as she ran up the short flight through the space of the narrow path she'd managed to clear. Once through the door to their floor, she sped past Steve to look out across the expanse of the complex from her safest vantage point. She couldn't see much, but what she did finally confirmed her assessment. A smokey haze was rising from the parking area parallel to the lowest floors of the Palace. HPD, SWAT and other first responders had split ranks. Some remaining to retain the current perimeter, while others re-deployed to the new zone.

They were leaving and what they'd done was orchestrate the perfect ploy. Divide and conquer. Separate and divide. "Damn them!" Kono shouted, her frustration at being trapped and unable to help rising to the top. She could see what was happening with her birds' eye view and could do nothing about it. She was sick as she first one and then a second vehicle leave though the diversion. Two unrecogniable shapes lurked on the outskirts; too elevated above the action to be part of the good guys and Kono watched in disbelief as they vanished from her sight on the heels of one final explosion. They were like ghosts and had never been seen by anyone of import.

"Damn ... damn them!" Kono roughly ran her fingers through her hair, ignoring the way she accidentally hit the painful crease on her head. She didn't spend time spinning in place though wondering what to do. There was only one thing to continue as she virtually stalked back the way she'd come. This time though, she stopped long enough by Steve to tweak the emergency blanket she'd found up around his shoulders. He was unconscious and still shivering, and by the look on his face, also in a great deal of pain.

"Hey boss," she whispered, her attitude changing entirely as she gently sketched a finger near his head to smooth a portion of the bandage. "Soon ... I promise... I'm going to get you out of here and you'll feel so much better. Then ... we'll get them back."

Over an hour later, shouts could be heard from the opposite side of the landing and Kono sighed in relief when she distinctly recognized a familiar male voice. Sergeant Duke Lukela was leading the charge to rescue them and Kono couldn't have been happier.

"Here!" She hollered loudly. "We're in here! Duke!" She fought the destruction to help them reach her, hope in her eyes fading quickly after Duke's sorrowful admission.

"Steve's hurt. He's upstairs and we need to get him out of here now. But tell me ... did you get any of them?" Kono clasped his hand, pulling him over the last mound of debris and making room for three other HPD officers who were followed by a pair of medics and three members of the Army National Guard.

"Danny and Chin … are they alright?" Kono asked as she made even more room for the now growing ranks of support.

"No. We didn't get anyone. Not a single one and I just don't understand it," Duke replied, the stress of the day clearly showing on his face. He had a host of injured officers to contend with and a continuing amount of utter chaos on his hands. He didn't even know how to explain to her that none of them knew either Danny or Chin had been abducted until they were employed as human shields.

Until then, their negotiator had been so very positive of a successful outcome. They'd been talking to the man in charge and supposedly set to task on working through certain demands ... all of which were apparently for nothing. His head was now spinning because they'd been so badly played. And while the National Guard's appearance provided instantaneously relief to bolster their numbers, the FBI had spontaneously on their doorstep. Arguments had begun nearly at once regarding control of the scene and he'd little time or patience for which of the authoritarian factions might own what. He merely wanted his people and his o'hana accounted for and safely home.

"We're in the dark and practically dead in the water. The Governor's declared a State of Emergency and the National Guard are here, and offering support. Everyone's on high alert and assisting," Duke explained. Desperate to find words, he ran his hand over his face, exhaustion and anger warring with each other.

"But Kono, we don't know where Chin and Danny are … whoever these people are ... they're all gone … they're all just … gone."

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Steve roused many hours later in the hospital and he couldn't remember a waking ever being so ... god awful. The experience was a dizzying kaleidoscope of white noise and too many colors which immediately twisted his stomach and made his head pound. Good stuff. Why wasn't he on the good stuff? He moaned, squeezing his eyes closed for a moment while forcing himself to take stock of each limb and the dull ache emanating from not only his abdomen now, but near his lower back. Very close to his hip.

"Steve?" Kono's questioning voice teased his eyes back open.

"Hey?" Steve murmured as he squinted painfully at the dark blurry shape perched by his side. "What ... happened?"

"Hey, yourself, boss," Kono whispered, beyond pleased at finally having him wake. She'd been rehearsing what to tell him as information dribbled in to her from the field. She thought she'd have so much more by the time he'd made it to recovery post surgery to remove the bullet. She had very wrongly assumed that she'd have some real updates to share. Yet now, she virtually had what she'd been left with so many hours ago when Duke had first arrived after the final explosion.

"It's good to see you. How are you feeling? Any pain ... do you feel okay? Should I call the nurse?" She pressed, concerned by the dark look of pain which clouded his eyes. "Never mind, I can tell that you're hurting, so I'll get the nurse."

"No." He grabbed her hand, pulling her down to stay by him. "No, no nurse. What happened? How long was I out?" Steve interrupted, frowning in confusion as he sensed the widening gap of time that he'd seemed to have lost. It was dark outside and the more he found the wherewithal to focus, the more Steve realized that Kono's expression was just as bleak. He was waking more quickly with each passing second and while he was the farthest from fine that he'd ever been, he had only one recollection that he cared about.

"Chin. Danny. Where are they?" Steve's questions were coming even faster now. He scowled darkly at himself for the vague snippets of remembered conversation; none of which seemed even remotely satisfying. But if he was indeed hospitalized and if Kono was sporting a small white bandage over a portion of her scalp, then some good news had to be on the near horizon. However, Kono's ongoing morosely pensive attitude communicated something else entirely.

"Is it over? Did we get them?" Steve asked carefully. "Yes?"

"No." Kono's eyes sparkled with tears as she breathed out her reply on what sounded like a soft moan. She fidgeted while tightening her fingers around Steve's hand. "No. Not … exactly."

"What? What does that mean?" Steve whispered. His heart was now thumping along in an even cadence with the pounding inside his head. Things were wrong - terribly wrong and he inadvertently shifted in bed, hissing in pain as he pulled on his wounded chest. It spiked a sharp ache deeper in his back and he blinked in surprise, barely suppressing a very real groan of pain. His left leg felt all wrong, too. Heavy and leaden high near his hip. He'd been badly injured, but he had much more to contend with based upon the desperate nature of Kono's underlying expression and the too soft tone of her voice.

"Try not to move," Kono chastised him quickly. "You were in surgery for a long time. I was ... worried."

"Yeah, okay," Steve murmured absently while he inhaled slowly and then exhaled just as carefully. "Tell me ... keep going." He didn't feel well and was in pain, but he gestured for her to continue. He needed to know so much more.

"It was a coordinated assault. Long story short, they got away, Steve, and took both Danny and Chin as hostages," she whispered in an attempt to deliver what she did know as gently as possible. "They took them both … and Duke thinks that they separated them almost immediately. But we don't know where … or, really even why. I can only tell you that the Governor has called a State of Emergency and that the FBI is involved; but no one is able to share very much."

"Separated?" Steve pushed out, teeth clenched in pain and a budding stress because nothing she had yet to say made any sense "What do you mean by gone, Kono. What are you saying?" He spoke too loudly, an inhale was made much too deeply and he gasped as pain overtook his chest, forcing him to weakly wilt into the bed.

"Steve!" Kono hung onto his fingers as she pleaded desperately with him, concerned as he grunted in annoyance for his condition and in refusal to be anything but calm. "Please try to stay calm. None of this is easy and I don't know what to tell you!"

He shook his head angrily, blinking through a spate of tears when his head swirled in resentment. As he gritted his teeth, eyes scrunched closed to ride out the dizzying feeling of vertigo, Kono's voice change from plea to one of frightened anger. "Please, Steve, you just got out of emergency surgery and you have a bad concussion. Plus, you were shot twice and lost a lot of blood. One bullet went through and didn't cause too much other than soft tissue damage, but the other lodged in your hip bone. You're going to be laid up for a bit, and need some physiotherapy ..."

"Fine, fine. Okay, but tell me exactly what's going on ... and for how long," Steve demanded as he cut off her frenetic recitation, stammering impatiently through a studious effort at making his roiling stomach obey. He could - and would - cope with his own injuries, but he was pointing towards the night sky which he could see through the distant window. Too many other things were criticallly important. Hours had gone by and he was woefully behind in the know regardless of what Kono might be trying to explain. "Cameras? Pictures .. any intel? There must be … something."

"Steve, trust me, we've tried all of that. But it was a calculated strike from the very start. Initial opinion is that whoever did this was on the island about five days prior to today's attack. Duke is all over parts of this as having been an inside job. Everything was disabled before the first incendiary went off and we have very little other information to go on," Kono admitted. "Their demands were phony … all of them were faked to buy time and keep us busy. They led us all on a wild goose chase and we believe that this whole fiasco was a distraction for something much bigger … the FBI is on site, but sharing very little about some sort of top secret joint escapade with INTERPOL. There's supposedly some advocate on the way here from INTERPOL headquarters. Someone important from Lyon, France. But, Steve, we don't have a single thing to help us find either Chin or Danny."

"But …that's impossible." Steve was baffled about what he'd just been told. "The island … this is an island ... they have to at least still be … here. Don't they?"

"Steve," Kono felt the childlike whimper building inside her throat as she only managed a dismal shrug. She couldn't even hope to describe the fine precision employed against them all. "It's been close to six hours. We've still got … nothing. It's like they all just vanished into thin air." She'd never felt this hopeless. Until that very minute, she'd manage to stem her emotional tide to a great extent because she was juggling two things: obtaining whatever intelligence she could from the field and focusing on Steve's general health and safety. Now with Steve's waking though and assurances from his doctors that he would recover with time, she just couldn't keep up the charade. She was petrified for every single one of her friends.

"Six hours?" Steve frowned, heavy lines scoring his forehead in disbelief and volumes of physical discomfort. He couldn't fathom what he'd been told and he could just imagine the political game playing and infighting positioning taking place amongst the peers. The entire thing was a mind-boggling clusterfuck from the word go. None of it made and sense, plus if indeed true … as with any kidnapping and such a time lapse ... both Danny and Chin were likely already … dead.

"Officer Kalakaua?" A strange male voice brought the two up short from continuing their conversation. Struggling to her feet, Kono looked through her tears at the HPD officer who beckoned her from Steve's side. But Steve wouldn't relinquish her hand and the man was forced to walk into the room and towards the bed.

"What is it?" Steve demanded, his eyes piercing as he absorbed the officer's silent and very telling cues. "What's happened?"

"Officer Kelly's been located, Sir." The man swallowed hard with a nervous glance from one Five-0 officer to the other. "He was found down by the docks."

~ to be continued ~