Heist
AN: I realized that I've been titling my documents Hawaii1, Hawaii2, Hawaii3, etc. Then I thought, 'woldn't it be awesome if I got up to chapter 50, and had a document called Hawaii50?'
But then the 7-year-old in my brain took a nap. This chapter was a day later than usual because of pineapple.
Chapter Seven: Branco
-0-
It was excruciating, watching everything happen through the lenses of federal-issue binoculars. Chin had to let his cousin go, and stand back as she drove straight up to the gates of hell. Somehow, knowing that two highly trained snipers were positioned on nearby rooftops, fingers on their respective triggers, didn't help him feel any better. Snipers wouldn't be able to help Kono and Steve if one of the Liberitas gang members got off a preemptive shot.
Kono got out of the van quickly. The moment she did, the bank's entrance doors swung open, and nine bodies hustled through. The hooded man in front had to be Steve, while the younger woman behind him didn't look at all familiar. No doubt that this was Emelia, the one who was, unintentionally or not, responsible for this chaos.
Chin's heart lurched when one of them pointed a gun at Kono. His cousin was already backing up hastily, keeping her hands in the air. Kono didn't stop backpedaling until the gun went down; then she turned around and jogged back to where Chin stood behind the wooden perimeter.
He watched as they opened the back doors to the van. First, they pushed Steve inside, then Emelia. Two of the men in black climbed in after them, while the rest headed around the side. The largest man of the group got into the passenger side as another took the wheel.
"How long will your men wait before following?" Chin asked, lowering the binoculars to look at Special Agent Doyle.
Doyle gave him a grim look.
"I can't believe this. You're not sending anyone after them," Kono deduced , wide-eyed and breathless. "You've got to be kidding me."
"I've sent a team ahead to the landing strip. We've already secured both the pilot and the airplane they planned on flying out of Hawaii," the older agent explained. This time, there was no undertone of empathy—just business. "The best plan we have right now is to let them think they've won, waltz right into the trap at the airport."
"They'll kill Steve as soon as they see the plane," Chin insisted, barely suppressing a flare of anger. "He's useless to them when they no longer need a hostage!"
"I'm really hoping they don't," said Doyle, inclining his head slightly. "But there's nothing we can do for him from here, Detective. It's all up to Agent Tyler and his old strike team now."
The sound of tires screeching against pavement interrupted Chin before he could respond. He looked back just in time to see the white van peeling out of the semi-circle in front of the bank, and disappear around the corner of the block. That was the signal for the small army of police and federal forces outside to swarm into action. The SWAT team that had been stationed at every exit to the building burst inside, as half a dozen paramedics wheeled their kits and gurneys across the stone pathway towards the main entrance.
Everything in Chin's mind screamed that this was crazy. The FBI was perfectly willing to throw Danny and Steve's lives into the fire, and for what reason? It was all so evident. Because it fit their idea of a perfect endgame. Had Doyle and Coffman even drawn their weapons in defense of their own colleagues once? How many of their own people did they throw away so callously, just to prove a point?
Another part of him whispered, but it makes sense. They were mainlanders. They did not know the ways of this island, didn't know the meaning of o'hana. They had never seen their brothers squabbling over the price of spiced shrimp, or stand on the beach, competing to see who had the loudest cheer when they watched their little sister aced the avalanches of Hawaii's biggest waves. Without that willingness to protect their family, the concept of stretching the rules became a burden.
A burden Chin was more than happy to take off their hands.
He started to run for his car, when Kono's hand on his shoulder stopped him. He looked at her in surprise; there was a touch of mischief in her expression, underneath all the stress and worry.
Chin was good at this—reading her mind, that was. He tilted his head at her, saying sternly, "Tell me you did what I think you did."
"What do you mean, cuz?" Kono responded with a small smirk, before revealing what she had been concealing in her back pocket. A pair of pliers. "Are you talking about the small hole I put in their transmission line to make sure they stall halfway to the airstrip?"
Sometimes, Chin thought his kid cousin had purposely undermined herself when she chose a career as a surfer. This was one of the times. There was no way to feel prouder of her in that instant. A grin stretched across his face.
"Think the feds have everything under control here?" she asked.
Looking over his shoulder at the mayhem that flooded into Honolulu West Estate Bank, Chin concluded that this was indeed the case. "I'd say our work here is finished," he said. "Let's go for a drive, cuz."
-0-
If it hadn't been for Danny, Steve wouldn't have been able to imagine a situation where he didn't get out of this van alive. Now he knew he wasn't completely alone. Undercover Tye or not, being hooded and thrown into a getaway car filled with cop-hating criminals wasn't precisely being on the 'up and up'. So he was very, very glad to know that Danny was not just alive, but there to have his back when he'd need him.
Judging by the smell, the man seated on his right was Tye, and Danny-In-Disguise was directly across from him. The entire vehicle jolted suddenly, and then they were careening away from the bank at top speed.
No sirens, no gunfire, no yelling—either the police were giving the quietest chase of all time, or they were letting Phil's crew get away. Right now, he wasn't sure which would be worse.
At the front of the vehicle, Phil's tenor voice had launched into a violent muttering in a rapid language, to which his brother was responding in kind. It was hard to tell over the sound of the engine, but it sounded Portuguese. Since Steve knew nothing of Portuguese, he could only helplessly assume that they were arguing over how many bullets they were going to finish him off with.
Steve waited. He counted. Every single moment mattered; it wasn't like they were going to get a second chance at this if he made a miscalculation. After ten seconds, he began to work his fingers under the back of his shirt and pulled the pocket knife from its hiding place. Then he set about using the surprisingly crisp edge to saw through the plastic bindings around his wrists.
"I'm sorry you got involved in this," came Emelia's hushed voice, breaking the terse silence. "You are clearly a good man. You deserve better than to die this way."
"I don't plan on dying today," he said in return, just as he felt the zip tie snap under the blade. He shifted the handle around so that he could use it as a weapon, should the need arise.
Though he couldn't see her eyes, Steve swore he felt her intense gaze on him, and it unnerved him. Maybe insanity ran in the Branco bloodline. She had saved Kamekona's life, which she didn't need to do for any reason under the sun, except a sense of honor that her brothers definitely lacked. In another life, he might have even found that attractive in a woman.
Just not this woman.
What seemed like an hour passed—seemed like, but Steve's logic center in his brain told him it had only been ten minutes of gloomy driving. The windowless van (he knew it was windowless, because there was no flickering light through the burlap hood) had become a moving tomb.
All of a sudden, Steve became aware that Phil's bilingual argument had increased in volume. There was something happening at the driver's end of the van. He also heard the engine sputtering, the vehicle coughing and noticed the distinct sensation of slowing down. The slower they went, the higher Phil's voice went until they stopped completely, and Steve heard both the driver's and passenger-side door open and slam shut.
Then Danny kicked him.
It was time.
Steve swung his arms forward, ripped the black bag off of his face, and lunged for the back doors at the same time as his partner. They burst out into the tropical scene, side by side—Steve didn't break momentum, just reached for the masked face that he witnessed rushing at him from the driver's door. He seized Phil's brother's gun arm, just as the automatic went off in a three-round burst, and stabbed the pocket knife into his arm. The man screamed and dropped the gun.
A sharp blow to the face with his elbow, and Steve sent his first opponent's head smashing into the side of the van. Brother-of-Phil went down like a boulder.
He'd heard two rounds go off inside the van. He spared a thought to hope that was Tye shooting his former robber buddies, and not the other way around. They weren't going to hurt Emelia, but some of the most tragic things happened in crossfire situations.
The sound of a nine mil handgun went off several times on the other side of the van, but Steve didn't have time to think about that. He'd just barely grabbed the Beretta off the ground when the third unaccounted-for masked man appeared five feet away, pausing in bewilderment at the corner of the front bumper. He raised the shotgun in his hands—Phil's shotgun, Steve realized—and pulled the trigger.
Click.
Steve raised his arm and fired six rounds into the 'robber's chest, who toppled backwards and died before he even hit the ground. A tiny, preoccupied part of his brain silently thanked undercover Tye for removing the ammunition from that particular shotgun before he'd given it back to his would-be leader.
Then, for no reason at all, everything was quiet. A stifling, out-of-place kind of quiet, not the type that would make anyone feel safe. The forest around him had been silenced; any type of wildlife had fled the moment the first shot went off, and now there was a feeling blanketing the stillness the scene that was completely unnatural.
Danny.
That was all he needed to spin around and whip himself around the corner of the van, coming up just outside of the wide-open back doors. His gun was up, his muscles tensed, ready to tear holes in the first six-foot-four body he saw.
What he saw was the last thing he expected to find.
Danny was standing two feet away on his right, visibly undamaged. But the pistol he clutched in both hands was pointed at the ground. He looked as stunned as Steve felt, maybe even a little sick. Five feet in front of him was Emelia and the lifeless body Philio Branco.
Phil was in a heap at her feet, arms splayed out in odd directions. His mask was gone, revealing the square, dark tanned face that was now smeared with blood. More blood drenched his neck, seeping from the deep gash across his throat that had most certainly severed the carotid artery. The same blood glinted in the sunlight as it dripped from Emelia's hand, as well as the tip of the five-inch blade that she clutched.
The look on her face was nondescript. There was no emotion there, just blankness. Steve thought it very possible that she hadn't registered just exactly what she'd done. But she would, and soon. He knew he had to do something before it came crashing down.
"Emelia," he said gently, unsurprised when his voice didn't appear to reach her. Slowly, he lowered his arm and tucked the pistol into the back of his pants' waist—where he'd had a knife less than half an hour before. "It's okay, Emelia. It's over now. You can let go of the knife; close your eyes if you have to, but it's time to put the knife down. Okay?"
As he spoke, he edged towards her. He'd seen people in this state before, in a state of shock so powerful that they tended to react on pure instinct. Emelia's eyes flicked over to meet his, then glanced down to her dead brother, before reaching back up to steal his gaze.
"Steve," Danny's worried voice spoke from behind. His partner ignored him, knowing full well that his training in this field of post-trauma exceeded that of a New Jersey cop.
Sorry, Danny.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Emelia lowered her knife-arm as Steve approached. It hung limply at her side when he was close enough to put his hands softly on her shoulders. He held her brown eyes with his own. "You're safe now," he promised.
Like a bird flitting overhead, a stray thought chose to enter his mind at that very moment.
Where was Tye?
Emelia transformed. In less than half a second, she went from soft and broken, to a cold, glass statue. Steve felt the explosion of pain in his lower abdomen, the air choking from his lungs, and then he felt her deathlike grip clutch his back,. She was embracing him as would a lover, but firmly holding the hilt of a blade that was driven upwards into his chest cavity.
"Shhh," she said, which sounded like a hurricane in his ears. "Shhh."
TBC
