Summary: Russian hit men, extreme terrain, civilians in trouble - Danny must dig deep and lead the escape. It's all downhill from here.


Chapter 7

It was more falling than running. Desperation spurred them, momentum propelled them and it was only the thick vegetation that slowed them at all. Practically bouncing from tree to tree, they crashed down through the undergrowth like they were caught in some sort of crazy pinball machine.

Danny had hiked in the rainforest with Steve or for the job but usually on trails. Nothing he had seen before was as thick as this.

Lianas whipped at their faces and tall ferns tangled around their ankles and thighs. Light was low in here, barely filtering through the thick leaved canopy above and they struggled to see where they were going beyond the fact that the gradient sent them spilling onwards and ever downwards.

Desperately scrambling to keep upright, Danny was trying to keep his eyes on too many places. Trying to help Mrs Hagino as she slipped and slid and grasped at his arms; trying to ensure Trewl didn't get ahead...Because I really need some answers from you..; trying to see back the way they'd come to assess when the threat would reappear. So distracted, Danny failed to avoid the trunk of the next tree in their downward flight and then he was simply trying not to scream.

Spun around, he fell hard against the huge buttress roots that spread out from the trunk's base. He slid down and doubled over, grasping at the pain that flared through his side, gasping for breath as the world whited out.

"Help me! Help me!"

Danny felt hands on his arms and his body was righted and pushed back. The incline of the slope was so steep that his feet seemed higher than his torso. His head fell back against the root.

"Help me with him."

He slowly became aware that it wasn't his own voice that was begging, though god only knew, he wanted to. The pain was sharp and piercing with his every gulp for air. Squinting up, the frightened face of Mrs Hagino loomed near his, swooping in and out of focus with each pounding thump in his head.

"Detective Williams, please, Detective Williams...That's it, careful now..." The woman's concern forced him to still.

Through blood blurred vision, he peered up next at Jeffrey Trewl standing beside him. He was looking up and back, scanning the deep vegetation that seemed to have swallowed them.

"O-okay..I-I'm okay," Danny gasped. He tried pushing up from the ground, desperate to keep moving but felt firm hands on his shoulders as he was forced back again.

"No. You're not." There was no room for argument in the woman's voice. "Just... just take a moment and let me see here."

Pushing aside his jacket, her hands pulled away his own. "Oh my God!" she gasped.

Looking down, Danny groaned too...Shit! His hand was covered in blood and so was his side. His tee-shirt clung to his body with the wetness that had also spread down into the waistband of his jeans. Plucking at it with uncooperative fingers, he felt at the wound underneath, hissing at the instant stabbing pain that the tentative investigation elicited.

There was a ragged hole just above his waist, level with his lower ribs, driven between them. Holding his breath, he fingered at it and could trace a hard shape just a couple of inches in, beneath his hot skin...Bone? Metal?...Shit!

He'd been shot. Hit from behind in the chaos of the villa attack.

The pain burned and his vision tunneled as he tried to stay calm. Peering down, he couldn't actually see the entrance of the wound, it was too far back, and for a second he was uncertain what to do.

Huh, Steve would probably just stick his fingers in there and pull it out, he thought blearily. The image of Steve doing just that brought a jolt of despair... God, I wish you were here. I'm in trouble, I need you, man.

"We have to stop the bleeding." Mrs Hagino's shaky voice cut through Danny's thoughts and she stepped away, stooping over and fiddling with her dress.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon," Trewl whined anxiously, still staring back up the steep hill.

"Wait," she insisted. "Just wait. We have to help him."

Danny shifted and raised a bloody hand to the pain that also seared in his head and across his ear and neck. He knew he needed a few moments. But damn, he also needed answers.

"Who the hell are they, Jeffrey?"

His voice was surprisingly loud, considering how weak he felt. Amidst the chatter of birds, Danny's question seemed to bring a hush, as he and Mrs Hagino stared at Trewl.

He glanced rapidly from one to the other, avoiding their eyes guiltily, as if still resisting the acknowledgment that this perilous situation was anything to do with him, clearly nervous of their response.

"I-I think they're Russian mob hit men," he whispered. "They want to kill me."

"No kidding!" Danny huffed, then grunted at the pain it caused. He sipped a breath. "And why would they want to do that, Jeffrey?"

Trewl pressed down agitatedly on the numerous shallow cuts the broken glass had made on his arms. More showed on his neck and cheekbone. His shaking hands traced them and he looked around desperately as though he might try to take off.

"Jeffrey! What did you do?"

If Danny was going to die, he really, really wanted to know why.

"I-I took some of their money, alright?" he answered. "Their drugs killed my friend, they took her life...So I, I took their money."

The absurdity of it hung in the air.

"You stole from the Mob?" Danny wondered if his injuries were affecting his understanding but his incredulous demands were interrupted.

"Here."

Danny felt Mrs Hagino's hands against his side as she firmly pressed a wad of white material to his wound. He couldn't prevent a cry of pain at the pressure and his world swam again.

"Sorry, sorry," she murmured as she hurriedly wound a strip around him.

He looked down as she tore another piece to bunch against his head and neck. Their eyes met.

"It's my slip," she explained quietly. She was wearing a pink floral mu'umu'u, the traditional style long Hawaiian dress hanging loosely from her shoulders. "At my age, I need a little extra coverage."

For her benefit, Danny mustered a weak grin at that. He knew the woman must be terrified but she was clearly made of strong stuff. He may have shielded her from the worst of the onslaught at the villa but her arms also showed a number of cuts and scrapes from their mad flight through the brush and trees. Her dress was already torn and her bare legs were dirty. She wore floral slippers and, now that he'd noticed them, Danny was amazed she'd managed to run as she had... I have to get us out of here.

"Thanks." He took the material she was dabbing against the worst of his own cuts. He knew he was in a more serious condition than the others.

The talk of hit men and the Mob had set his mind reeling, spinning back over the incidents of the past week but there was no time for any further explanations, they had to get moving again. His sat phone had gone up with the chopper. They had no communications and no transport and the Russian Mob were after them...How the hell did this become my life?...

Danny reached up and the others moved to help him stand. Swaying a little, and fighting to bring the world back into focus, he spoke urgently now.

"We need a plan. We've got to get out of here. You guys know this place. How do we get off."

"The jetty..." Jeffrey began but Danny immediately cut in.

"They'll cover that and there's no way we can get to it without them seeing us. Too open. It was the only proper trail I saw from the chopper. They'd be on us right away." He waved his hand in encouragement of other ideas.

Mrs Hagino made a small, uncertain noise. "I think th-there's another...Small, hidden...I seem to remember fishermen used to use it sometimes." Her lined face crinkled with fearful concentration as though she was trying to picture it. "That's right isn't it, Jeffrey?" she asked the young man fidgeting anxiously beside them.

"Yeah!" He nodded eagerly. "Yeah, I think there used to be a boat kept there when I was a kid and a hut with a radio." His voice lifted with quick hope.

"Where? Can you get us there from here?" Danny demanded.

"It's on the northern point. We're on the right side at least," Mrs Hagino responded. "But...it's so far...In this, it's too far..." She looked anxiously down at the thick rainforest that still fell away from them, so dense in places that it looked like a solid wall.

"No...no, we have to...I think, if we keep going down and then head north, we'll get to a gorge," Trewl said excitedly. "It runs part way down the windward side. I explored it when I was a kid. Camped out. I remember there's some kind of trail right on the shoreline. If we get down to that, we might be able to follow it around. We might be able to get to the boat, get away." He spoke faster and faster, wanting to get on. Again he glanced back up towards where they'd come from, from where their pursuers must soon be following.

"There's no way they'd know about it," he guessed finally.

Danny tried to recollect the map he'd seen of the island they were on, tried to conjure the details he'd seen from the air. From where they'd left the villa at the top, he estimated their descent was taking them north east already, although in this terrain it was nearly impossible to hold a straight course. The main jetty was a long way in the opposite direction, and he still believed it would be the most obvious place the gunmen would look for them. Their only hope was the alternative landing, if it was still there.

Struggling to control his breathing, he became aware that the others were watching him, waiting for his direction. Holding a hand out to steady himself against the tree, Danny gritted his teeth and finally, painfully forced himself to move again.

"Let's go..."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

Steve and Chin ran hard down the gated pontoon at Honolulu's marina, their feet thudding loudly as the surface bucked under them. Pausing only briefly to fling their holdalls aboard, they leapt down into the two launches tied there, engines already revving loudly, exhaust fumes surrounding them in a cloud.

Steve held up the satellite phone he had in his hand, then gestured to the radio at his belt as he called across to the other boat.

"Chin! Keep in touch. You see anything...anything! Let me know."

Chin nodded. "You too," he called back.

He took in his boss's grim determination, the tight line of his mouth and the rigid set of his jaw. He'd seen him like this before. Whenever Five-0 readied themselves for a big operation, Commander Steve McGarrett took over from Friend Steve McGarrett. It could happen in the blink of an eye. He imagined this was how his SEAL team saw him too, before each of their own missions. McGarrett was the consummate hardened military professional.

In Steve's eyes however, Chin saw something else as well. It was the same look he'd seen when Steve's sister had been kidnapped; when he'd gone after Hesse for killing his father; when the Governor was revealed to be a traitor working with Wo Fat, the man who'd ordered that hit. It was dark and dangerous – it was for his family, his ohana. This was for Danny.

Each launch had a uniformed officer already aboard, kitted out in standard issue waterproof jackets and life preservers. Steve had briefed them over the phone. Sakata and Dole were both good men, used to the islands' waters and weather. Grim faced, they waited for his order and when it came, within seconds, ropes were slipped and the engines gunned. The bows of the two vessels lifted high as they roared out of the marina together, leaving parallel wakes behind them.

Steve felt the familiar thrust of power beneath his feet and braced himself against the side of the cockpit to shield himself from the buffeting wind. This was going to be a hell of a ride.

Looking out to sea, he cursed the vagaries of the island conditions again.

The drizzle soaking Honolulu was thick cloud further out, where a dark bank of solid gray now obliterated the horizon. He knew it would be obscuring the islands ahead completely. Most of the time, Hawaii enjoyed the warmest and most beautiful weather, but not always. This was the worst possible time for it to change.

When it had become clear that they could not conduct an air search, Steve's first call had been to the coastguard. He knew the Admiral in Command well but his hopes had been quickly dashed there too .

"I'm sorry Steve, really I am, but we're committed...part of Operation Blackbird. Can't do it."

Operation Blackbird – the long planned, intricately detailed, high security operation surrounding the imminent arrival of The President of the United States to the State of Hawaii. Steve had been a party to it, even though Five-0 were not directly involved. After months of preparation, with hundreds of police officers involved and with just hours to go, nothing would be allowed to disrupt the plan, except a natural disaster or a direct threat to the President himself.

So far, Steve could still only positively say that one of his team was 'missing,' 'out of contact,' not that he was definitely in danger, despite the ache of absolute certainty in his gut that told him so.

Even though they had a witness claiming to have seen Baiev, their case was still largely based on suposition and circumstantial evidence. There was no way the coastguard vessels, so integral to the Presidential visit security plan, could be re-routed at this short notice, no matter how much Steve needed them.

The HPD's Marine Patrol Unit had been his next call but even that had proved difficult.

With seven hundred and fifty miles of coastline to cover, the unit had many resources but with no positive proof of a crime actually underway and facing extra outside pressures, the Chief of Police had refused to sign off on more than two launches. Steve had broken a phone after that particular call. He would not wait.

As a SEAL, Steve was used to larger US Marine Corps assault vessels but the MPU's nine meter long launches could still cover great distances at speed. Now, their powerful twin diesel engines roared as the pilots drove them on hard through the swell.

He glanced down at this watch. They were already losing light and the two islands they were targeting were still hours away. Turning his face to the spray, he closed his eyes and drew in the cleansing air. All his life, whatever the conditions, the sea had always calmed him, settled his whirling thoughts and brought him clarity. The cold sting of salt water did so now.

"Hang on Danno," he muttered into the whipping wind. "We're coming."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

Beneath the dripping canopy, it was hard to keep track of time.

Danny leaned heavily against a tree and stared upwards to the single tiny patch of deepening cloud he could make out amidst the ever moving, spinning patterns of leaves and boughs overhead. He tried to still the hypnotic effect in his mind but his vision whirled on. Drips splashed onto his face, running backwards into his hair, as a dread seeped into his heart.

He'd gradually become aware that rain had been falling. In trickling pathways, meandering down veins and stems and stalks, it permeated the thick leafy ceiling above them, but it wasn't one of the tropical downpours he'd experienced before. No, for them, this was worse.

This was the weather Sam had been warning of, the weather when there could be no flying... Ergo, no flying rescue...He smiled to himself at the thought of how a little latin thrown into a conversation always seemed to amuse Steve. Sometimes he really enjoyed surprising his partner. For the hundredth time he wished he was there.

Exhausted and hurting, Danny really wasn't sure how much further he could go. Having slipped and slid down the steep slope for more than two hours, now they were faced with another challenge. Ahead of them, a rocky escarpment loomed out of the greenery. Upwards...Christ!

"This just keeps getting better," Danny mused aloud to himself.

"I can't climb that."

Mrs Hagino, voiced his own doubts in a small voice that sounded desperate and winded. She clutched a fist to her chest. Danny had noticed her doing it before, even as he'd helped her along. She turned to him now with pleading eyes. "I don't think I can do it. I-I have angina."

Jeffrey Trewl was already ahead, already beginning to clamber up the lower part of the craggy wall. Unhampered by age or serious injury, he was pulling away.

"Hey!" Danny called out. "Hey... get back here, right now!" He ordered, trying to ignore the pain it caused him to shout.

Trewl looked back and hesitated. "Don't you make me come over there and get you." Danny warned.

"You must have kids," Rosalie Hagino noted quietly, recognizing his parental tone and looking over at the blond Detective as they waited for Jeffrey to resentfully return to them.

"Yeah," he muttered back to her with a thin smile. "Luckily, my daughter ...never realizes it's a pretty shallow threat either." His speech was broken as he was finding it harder to breath and Danny knew for sure that he would not be able to catch up to Trewl, if he did decide to go it alone.

He surveyed the rocky climb ahead and addressed the younger man. "You sure this is the only way to go? It's risky...At least we've got cover down here, we're gonna be pretty open up there." Danny wasn't even confident he could trust Trewl's directions.

Jeffrey nodded. "We have to go up to get down into the gorge. If not here, then further down."

They all stood in silence for a moment.

"Okay," Danny decided. "But you're gonna help Mrs Hagino here. We've got to stick together." He turned to the woman beside him.

"It's the only way... We'll take it steady. Better we do it now...when we can see where we're climbing, it's going to be completely dark soon."

She took in his appearance. Hunched over, he held his right arm tightly against his side, hiding the extent of bleeding beneath his jacket. Where she could see it, blood and sweat had mixed to streak the front of his shirt a dirty pink and matted the longer strands of his blond hair, hanging wildly now around his torn right ear.

She had heard him gasping, seen him wincing. The pain he was in showed in every line of his expressive face, in every pulse of his gritted jaw, but she knew he was trying hard to hide it. For her.

Danny had been a steadying hand to her as they'd stumbled along, encouraging her, urging her, doing his best to push obstacles out of her way, pulling her back and slowing her falls, as the hillside tipped them forwards and down. Always down, down, down, until now.

The pains in her chest frightened her but she straightened up. As an athletic young girl she'd scampered easily over island hills like this, she could do it again. For him, she'd try.

"Okay Detective Williams, lead on," she said. "But one thing..." His blue eyes still sparkled as he looked at her, waiting. "Please stop calling me Mrs Hagino."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

"Uploading to you now, Boss." Kono's voice crackled through the speaker at the top of the console, as Steve tapped at the computer screen below it.

"These pictures were taken on CCTV at the airport," she continued. "Like you said, once we knew we were looking for Russian Mafia, it was easier. Facial recognition came up trumps, we have proof. The guy in the center is definitely Aslan Baiev. He arrived here from Los Angeles a week ago on a fake passport." Steve stared at the grainy black and white footage. It showed the busy scene of baggage reclaim. An FBI still of Baiev appeared alongside for comparison and in the sharp features and cold eyes, Steve could see the match.

The picture changed quickly, to a different angle on a different carousel.

"Like we thought, he's not alone. This was taken the day after. Guy with the baseball cap is Vasily Rosanov." Another clear FBI still appeared on half the screen, showing the heavy brow, hooded eyes and beard of the same man, but without the hat. "He's another known hit man for the Sokalov family. Apparently, he's worked with Baiev before, also believed to have murdered at least fifteen people. They're both crack shots."

"So we know now there are at least two of them," Steve said, catching the eye of the launch's pilot who was listening in. Officer Bryan Sakata licked at his lips nervously. He was a cop with ten year's service under his belt and he knew of Five-0's reputation but this was more than he usually had to deal with.

At Headquarters, Kono nodded at the radio set she was addressing as though Steve was right there with her.

"Yeah, they're the main players for sure but it looks like there are more. I traced a charter company who rented a helicopter to five men with foreign accents. Said they were taking a tour of the islands. They also had their own pilot – turns out his license was in a fake name. The manager is coming in to look at photos but from what he's already told me, two of them could well have been Baiev and Rosanov and when they turned up at the airfield, they also had a woman with them who fits the description of the letting agent, Rosalie Hagino. Looks like they did take her to show them where to go."

"And they got in the air before the weather hit. Shit!" Steve cursed.

Kono ran her hand back through her long hair. Her investigations had taken hours, they were vital but she was frustrated now that she was stuck on dry land and not with her team mates.

Steve knew exactly how she would be feeling and sympathized. "Good work, Kono."

"If the chopper rental guy gives solid confirmation and if we can ID any of the others, I'll let you know." She paused, then added hopefully. "You think with these positive sightings, we'll finally get more HPD help?"

In the launch, Steve also recognized the irony of their dire situation. His partner's familiar nagging voice echoed in his head from so many other dangerous times, times they'd faced together..."For God's sake, Steven, you are not a one-man army...Wait for back-up!" This time they'd tried to do just that but the odds just kept on stacking against them.

"Keep at 'em, Kono. Just keep at 'em," he urged.

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

Danny was trembling by the time he neared the top of the escarpment, his whole body shaking with the effort as he sought out foot and finger holds in the rocks. He tensed against the agony he knew it was going to cause, then forced his weight up again, pushing with legs that felt like rubber, pulling with arms that screamed with the hot pain of cuts widened and stretched by the strain of his muscles.

A step, a reach, a pull. A step, a reach, a pull.

He pressed his face against the wet rock and clenched his jaw against the burn consuming him. Forcing open his tightly shut eyes he turned them upwards, trying to judge the distance left in this particular torture. It was harder and had taken longer than they'd thought and now the edge of the rocks were barely visible against a dark starless sky, but they were close.

...Please God!...One step...one more...another...another...He coaxed himself, forced himself on, until, at last, his grasping fingers finally clawed over a different surface. The rocks were flat here, horizontal not vertical, and Danny inched himself over the jagged lip, hissing against the scraping it caused the wound on his side.

He fell flat and the blackness of the sky blurred into the blackness of his consciousness as he lay gasping. He felt himself rolled and dragged forwards and weakly tried to resist until whispered encouragements made their way through the wavering static filling his ears.

"Come on...over here...just a bit further."

Finally he was still. The others had pulled him to lean up against yet another tree, its gnarly surface dug against his back. Through slitted eyes he saw them crouched beside him, both also trying to catch their breath after the climb.

They were at the edge of an open patch of wet rock, the steep escarpment they'd scaled on one side, yet more dense rainforest dropping away on the other. The mad slope they'd descended before was hidden by the night and by the blanket of thick mist that clung against the hillside like a shroud. At another time, in clear daylight, their current resting place might have been a good vantage point but not now. Still, Danny recognized with relief that if they couldn't see much, then neither could anyone else who might be following. He let out a long slow breath, pressing his hand against his side and the movement of his damaged ribs.

"We need to rest," he rasped.

"No! No, no, we have to keep going." Jeffrey responded immediately. He was still puffing from his own exertions but Danny could see he was already shifting anxiously, wiping off his wet glasses and shoving them back on. "Th-they'll be coming."

Danny shook his head and gestured weakly around with his hand. "They can't see any more than us right now." He halted to compose himself and to try to pull in some more air. "It was bad enough before in that f-forest...we won't be able to see anything at all once we get down there in that gorge of yours."

"We can..."

"No," Danny asserted. "Look... at least from here, we stand a chance of hearing their approach..."

Jeffrey looked down at his watch and then down again at the thick vegetation they would have to fight through. Danny reached out a hand and gripped his forearm. "We all need to stop..." He tilted his head to indicate the woman at their side.

Exhausted, Rosalie was pressing both of her hands to her chest once more, eyes scrunched as she desperately tried to slow her racing heartbeat. She was whispering to herself, frightened at the pressure she recognized squeezing behind her breastbone, terrified of their situation.

"Rosie," he said gently. "Hey, hey, Rosie...Take it easy, calm, just breath slow...slowly, that's it."

Danny felt so weak. The pain in his side had spread to meet others issuing outwards from his neck and shoulders, his arms and a long cut on his left thigh, but he felt the weight of responsibility that he couldn't escape. He put a hand on her shoulder.

"Rosie, we're gonna take a rest here...you with us?...It's gonna be okay, Rosie..."

She opened her eyes and they brimmed with tears as she nodded in gratitude while shivering with shock and effort. Danny pulled at his jacket and gasped again at the pain the movement caused.

"Help me," he ordered and Jeffrey moved to slip it off his shoulders, the material dragging against the many slivers of glass and wood still lodged in the lining and his flesh ...Christ! Danny thought he might just pass out from the stabbing sensation. Jeffrey saw the lining was coated with blood and he allowed Danny the time to pull his arms out slowly...Christ!

They all shuffled backwards, further into the cover of the edge of the forest that clung to their plateau. Danny leaned over to help Jeffrey place his jacket over Rosalie's back, tucking it in, one-handed, under her chin. She tried to smile but her quivering lips still betrayed her fears.

Her gray streaked hair curled damply against her cheeks, the white hibiscus flower she'd tucked so neatly behind her ear that morning, part of her careful routine for a day in the office, was now tangled upside down, torn and dangling at the very ends. Danny reached in to gently pull it out and she raised her own hands from her chest to pat self-consciously at her ruined hair-do.

"You're hurt, you should keep your jacket, keep warm," she said softly.

"S'okay, I'm too hot right now anyway," Danny insisted. "...That climb was a pretty good work-out..."

"More like you're getting a fever."

The rain had soaked them all but Rosalie knew the sheen of wetness on this man's face was something more. His eyes still gave her strength but there was a glaze in them too.

"Yeah, well getting shot will do that, I guess," Danny smiled. "Just try and rest, okay. We'll all take a rest, just for a little while."

He looked out into the dark and felt it pulling at him. He tried to push against it, forced his mind to find something positive to hook onto, something good to keep fighting for.

...Grace... family... friends...Steve...

Their images swirled in his head, blending into the question that pounded with each heartbeat... How are we ever going to survive this? as Danny finally succumbed to his exhaustion.

TBC...