Conclusion
Danny was a bit concerned, no, a lot concerned, that Steve had seemed to take the news about his mother in his stride. Yes he had avoided his house as much as possible, only going in to check on the mail, get more clothes and make sure squatters hadn't taken residence, but that seemed to be it.
Which was not good at all.
Even when Danny brought the subject up Steve would avoid all talk about it. Some of the distraction tactics he used were very effective the Detective admitted with a private, self-indulgent smile, but they were still unhealthy avoidance techniques all the same.
Joe White hadn't been around either for the couple of weeks since. Danny was pleased about that one too. But he also knew, because this was his life now, that the shit would hit the fan spectacularly, soon, and however far he ran, or how low he ducked for cover, he knew he was going to get covered in it.
He was surprised at Steve's timing – he was watching Kono teach Grace some more surfing techniques on a small public beach a few days after Rick Peterson had tried to ruin his life and ended up knocking Danny's world off it's axis for a few days. His partner strode out of the ocean in nothing but a low-slung pair of board shorts from where he had swum about five miles, and stood in front of Danny, dripping sea water on his feet and blocking his view of Grace.
"Move, you great goof," Danny protested from his seated position, and moved his arms to shoo him to the left or right. "I can't see Grace."
"You see?" Steve demanded of him as he stepped to the left. "That's why I don't want to have anything to do with that woman, especially if she's my mother." With that he sat down next to Danny and dragged his hand through his hair, turning his piercing gaze onto Grace.
Danny frowned and handed him a dry towel from their stash as he thought about what he'd said. He came up with some ideas as he watched him dry his face and then his hair, but had too many options to make a choice. "Okay, you got me," he admitted. "What's going through that head of yours?"
Steve huffed and, in a very Danny-like move, waved his hand in Grace and Kono's direction. "You're a great father, Danno," he explained. "You moved to a 'pineapple infested hell hole' to be with your child. And you show her how much you love her on a daily basis. My Dad hardly said two friendly words to me in the last twenty years, and my Mom apparently faked her own death to get away." He shrugged and then raised both hands in the air. "What am I supposed to think about this?" he queried. "That she's Shelburne and Wo Fat has been chasing after her? Is that what they want me to think? And did my Dad know she was alive? Either way he died for nothing, my Mom…"
Danny nudged him with an elbow and Steve turned to look at him with a frown. "No," he said firmly to him. "This woman does not deserve you calling her that." He slipped his arm through the gap between Steve's and his knees that he had taken to hugging. "Any parent worth that term would never do anything like this to their kids. Never." He looked back at Grace and Kono and waved at her when Grace waved at him. "I could never do that to Grace," he told him and turned to face his lover. "And you have no idea how sorry I am that you've had to go through this," he told him sincerely. "If I could take any of this from you…"
Steve shook his head and used their joined arms to pull him closer. "I don't want you to go through any of this," he replied. "But I can deal with it if I have you."
Danny smiled at him and pressed a kiss to his lover's chin. "Whatever else has happened with this, you've become a lot more verbose," he told him, fondly amused. "And a bit sappy too."
Steve smirked. "You've rubbed off on me, he answered him.
Danny laughed quietly. "Yes," he retorted archly. "I have rubbed off on you, quite often."
Steve laughed too, Danny had done it again and he was grateful to him because of it – his partner wouldn't let him brood, wouldn't let him go off on his own half-cocked. And he loved him for it.
Chin had not been impressed when Danny had told him what he had asked Adam to do, not impressed at all. In fact he had glared at the other detective over the tech table and shook his head. In normal circumstances Danny would have backed away and hidden out in his office but he needed Chin's help, he wasn't silly enough to think he could take on Wo Fat on his own.
So, after Chin's initial snit and: "You did what? You've definitely spent too much time with McGarrett," he was willing to get to it. Soon enough Danny found himself bugged and tracked to the gunwales. Chin added two extra trackers to the Camaro, just in case the one HPD had added when Danny's car had been retrofitted after he had bought it was compromised. He had another set of trackers in his shoes, so he made sure he wore those as often as he could, and another one in his watch. Chin had shooed him away from his stuff in the hotel room as Danny dreaded to think exactly how many bugs and trackers he'd planted – the guy had even handed him a ring with a tracker in it somewhere. It was quite a nice ring too, titanium apparently, a simple band that fit his ring finger and he grinned at his friend when he put it on. "Do you think Steve'll like it?" he asked him.
Chin nodded. "But he might want to know why you've got it," he commented.
Danny nodded thoughtfully. "Have you got another one?" he asked him. "Just in case Wo Fat goes after Steve?"
Chin nodded again with a patient smile. Danny knew he had given their boss and his stuff the same treatment after they had gotten him back from Korea, whether the Commander knew about that was another matter. "Just in case," he added, and handed him another box with a ring in it. Danny checked it over and raised an eyebrow – the ring was the same as his but bigger, the tracker buried in the inside of the band. He looked up at Chin with a knowing smile. "And this one will fit him, just as well as this fits me, won't it?" he asked him.
Chin had the good grace to look away for a moment before he looked up and nodded. "Good or bad idea?" he asked him curiously.
Danny paused to think for a moment and then nodded. "Very good idea," he agreed, and walked out of his office to Steve's where he was doing something on his computer (probably Minesweeper, he was scarily good at that) and stood next to him.
Steve looked up and smiled at him, and then frowned when Danny gave him a black velvet box. "It's got a tracker in it," he told him straight away. "If you don't want to wear it for any other reason. But, if you do..." he suggested, suddenly embarrassed and showed him the ring on his own finger. "If it's too soon, I'll understand."
Steve took the ring from the box and studied it before he slipped it onto his ring finger. It fit perfectly and he studied it again, turning his hand this way and that and he looked up at his partner. Danny was watching him closely and he brightened immensely when Steve grinned at him and nodded. "It's not too soon," he assured him and stood. "The tracker is incidental."
Chin watched with a smile as Steve enfolded Danny in his arms and kissed him, and Danny hugged him and kissed him back as enthusiastically.
They came for Danny three days later after he had dropped Grace back to her mother's after school. He was on his way back to the Palace, they'd picked up a case and he'd only gone for a few minutes but he didn't begrudge the time with his daughter. He had to stop the Camaro at a set of traffic lights, the next thing he knew the windscreen had shattered in front of him, his door was pulled open and something hard, cold and fucking painful was pressed to his neck. He was out cold before the thought of irony could form in his mind: he wasn't immune to tasers either.
He woke again to find himself in his favourite position – not – tied to a chair, arms behind him, ankles strapped to the legs and he blinked but tried not to move until he figured out what was going on. His head ached; his shoulder hurt like hell and he could feel some stinging cuts on his face, maybe from the windscreen.
Rather than concentrating on his own hurts he tried to figure out what he could see and hear. He was slumped forward and he could see he still had his shoes on, bonus, but the floor was concrete between them. There was light too, it seemed natural, and he wasn't sitting in a sunbeam, so he took that as another bonus. He could hear he wasn't alone either, there was someone not too far away from him breathing, fidgeting every so often by the rustling of clothes, and someone a bit further away who seemed to be pacing.
He didn't know how long he had been there but he remembered telling Chin that he wouldn't be long; Steve and Kono were out on a case so he hoped they were looking for him already. It shouldn't be too hard – he could feel the tracker ring on his finger, as well as what felt like wire around his wrists, but he didn't let himself relax – it would only take a second for whoever it was to put a bullet of two in his head.
He probably should have stayed slumped forward until help arrived to not antagonise the situation, but, never one to run from an argument; Danny lifted his head and looked around him. He needed to know who these people were, the whole idea of this was to get Wo Fat out of hiding, not have to deal with a couple of underlings. But, Danny was hoping, Shelburne meant more to the asshole than that and he wouldn't trust it to anyone else.
The first person he saw was the closest to him: tall guy, blond crew cut, gold stud in one small earlobe, muscled body builder type, black jeans, black tee, small snub-nosed Mach 10 held easily in one hand. He could be the advert for Goons-R-Us but Danny wasn't intimidated by him, Kono could easily kick his ass, Steve would be able to finish him off with his pinky finger and an elastic band, and Chin would nerve pinch him into submission or something equally Zen-like. And Danny? He was going to go with a dick punch to incapacitate, but changed his plan when the guy spoke – his voice was so thin and high pitched he didn't think he had any dick to punch.
"You're boy is awake!" he called over to whoever else was in the room.
Danny tried hard not to laugh, the guy was carrying an automatic weapon after all, but he was still smirking when he looked around them.
They seemed to be in some sort of storage shack – not a warehouse at least – with a concrete floor and breezeblock walls, a couple of large windows letting in light. Wo Fat, who had been pacing in front of a partitioned off office about fifteen feet away looked up, saw Danny looking around, and strode forward.
"About time," he grumbled, and stood in front of Danny, frowning down at him, studying him for a few moments.
Danny studied him back – the guy, normally so tidy and well-groomed, was sporting a couple of days of stubble, dressed in simple green shirt and chinos, ratty sneakers on his feet. "No Armani?" Danny asked him. "I'm insulted."
Wo Fat gave him a sardonic grin. "I'm sorry I didn't have time to dress up for you, Detective," he retorted, amused. "I will for your funeral however."
Danny surprised him by grinning and shaking his head. "By that time you'll already be in hell," he retorted. "You'd have been there at least fifty years."
Wo Fat shook his head and sighed. "Look around you, Williams," he told him. "Your partner won't find you here, and once you've told me about Shelburne, which you will, you're of no further use. You know the way this goes, Detective," he added with what sounded like a tired sigh. "Tell me what I need to know and I'll pay for your body to be repatriated to New Jersey with full honours."
Danny was surprised enough to snort with derisive laughter. "That's supposed to persuade me?" he asked incredulously. "Not much of an incentive. If you think that's going to work then you're even crazier than McGarrett, and that's saying something." He wondered how long it would take for his team mates and the cavalry to get there, so decided he could probably use some time to delay the inevitable, so … "What is wrong with you?" he demanded. "You waste your life chasing after shadows and a word? How many people have you killed because of one stupid word? How many millions have you spent? How many years? And for what? To end here in some shack somewhere on Hawaii? Is it worth it?"
Wo Fat stepped back and pressed his thumb and forefinger to his nose, eyes closing as he took a moment. "My father was murdered," he told him grimly. "He didn't deserve it."
"Does anyone?" Danny retorted. "I've seen plenty of murders, Wo Fat, and no one deserves it. Mokoto didn't deserve it; Jack McGarrett didn't deserve it. What gives you the right to decide who lives and dies? Just because of your Dad?" He took a breath. "Do you really think he would have wanted you to waste your life chasing after someone or something that might have killed him?" he demanded, an argument he'd actually had with Steve some months ago.
"You don't understand!" Wo Fat snapped back, his calm resolve cracking. "I have to honour my father."
Danny shook his head and looked down for a moment, hating not being able to use his hands to talk. Instead all he could do was try his bonds and rub his middle finger against the ring on the next one, using it to remind him of what he had. "I'm a father," he told him unnecessarily; he had no doubts that the guy in front of him knew everything about him. "The last thing I want for my child would be what you've done with your life," he replied. "I just want to know she won't forget me, that I'm her father. Are you sure your father didn't want the same from you?"
Wo Fat was silent while he thought about it. Nothing Williams was saying was new to him, he'd had the same argument with himself, with his mother, but he prided himself on his tenacity and calm. He was certainly not going to admit to a brash, loud mouthed American detective with much too much empathy and insight that he was right – his own father would not have been pleased or appreciative of what he had done in his name. So he did what he always had when confronted with things he didn't want to think about – got back to business. He took some deep breaths to calm, dropped his hand from his face and opened his eyes again. "Enough of this," he said firmly to the helpless man in front of him. "Tell me what Shelburne is."
Danny huffed a resigned laugh and shook his head. "I don't know," he lied, and wasn't really surprised when his face exploded in pain as Wo Fat back handed him.
"Don't lie to me," the guy snapped and pulled out a knife from a sheath on his belt, showing it to Danny. "I don't have a lot of time," he added, and pressed the blade; about an inch wide, at least eight inches long and very, very sharp; against Danny's throat, drawing blood.
"Why?" the cop demanded. "Your goon over there charge by the hour?"
Wrong thing to say, definitely, he thought to himself only a moment late. Wo Fat's face clouded over in anger and before Danny could prepare himself the criminal had plunged the knife into his thigh, hard, to the hilt. He wasn't stupidly proud to fight a scream of pain, he let rip, and it hurt like… Even more so when the bastard twisted the knife. "Tell. Me. About. Shelburne." Wo Fat growled at him, twisting the blade with every word. "Now."
Danny looked up at him, tears streaking down his face, and Wo Fat moved closer to hear him.
Enough so the enraged, agonised man in front of him was in range. Danny spat at him, and before he could pull back in disgust the cop pulled back and head butted him as hard as he could in the temple. "Fuck you," Danny growled, and watched, his own eyes blurry, his head spinning as Wo Fat toppled away from him, letting go of the knife, and collapsed on the floor.
Which was when the nameless guard made a move. Danny looked up when the man cocked his gun and pressed the muzzle to his temple. "You finally going to earn your pay, Rent-a-Goon?" he asked him. Mentally he was saying something else – now would be a good time, SuperSEAL, a very good time.
Chin frowned when he looked up and saw Kono and Steve walk back into the office – he had thought it would be Danny. He checked his watch and looked around the office, wondering whether their haole had sneaked in without him noticing. But no, and he looked up at Steve again. "No Danny?" he asked, trying not to panic. Yet.
Steve frowned and Kono shook her head. "Car's not in his space," she answered.
"He was picking Gracie up from school and taking her to Rachel's," the SEAL commented as he pulled out his phone from one of his many pockets. "How long has he been gone?" he asked, finger hovering over speed dial 2.
"About an hour," Chin replied. "He said he wouldn't be more than half, but I've been concentrating on this …" he explained, waving his hand over the tech table. It was running all the information they had gathered on the case, facial recognition included, and Steve knew how deep Chin's concentration got when he was immersed in it.
"S'okay," Steve answered but before he could call Danny and ask him where the hell he was, the device rang in his hand, and Duke Lukela's name flashed up on the screen. With a frown he quickly answered it. "Duke, what's up?" he greeted him.
Duke looked at the mess in front of him at the intersection and frowned. "Is Detective Williams with you?" he asked him, dreading an answer. The Camaro registered to the haole was at the lights, a crime scene by all witness accounts and it was obvious McGarrett hadn't been driving; he wouldn't be talking to him then. Which lead him to one conclusion.
"Why?" the Commander asked quickly, his voice hard, worried. "He was supposed to be dropping off his daughter."
Duke's frown deepened; there had been no indications a child was with him when Danny had been taken. "He's been kidnapped, it looks like," he explained quickly. He told him the location and could hear the Commander ordering his people into action in the background. Then: "What happened?" Steve demanded of him, and Duke could hear him striding quickly, probably to a vehicle.
"Witnesses state he was in his car at the intersection, waiting on lights," Duke explained as he watched CSI techs tape off the car. "Someone stopped an SUV next to his, got out and smashed his windshield with something. A witness said they thought he was tasered, then dragged out of the car into the SUV."
Steve stopped walking, fear hitting him like a punch in the gut. But he tried to pull himself out of it and think – Danny needed him now to be on top form and being a petrified gibbering wreck wasn't going to help. "Duke, send all CCTV images to us, asap." he ordered him. "Have you seen what's in the car? His phone? Shoes? A ring?" he asked.
When Duke frowned in confusion Steve waited a few moments before he snapped. "Duke! What was left in the car?"
"Let me check," the officer stated and walked over to the vehicle in question. There was an iPhone in an evidence bag on the passenger seat, the seat covered in glass, but nothing else that he could see, not shoes or a ring. "Just his phone," he told the SEAL.
"Thank fuck," Steve replied and turned back round and jogged into the offices. "Chin!" he called. "They didn't get his ring! Track it!"
Chin was already loading up the program on the tech table. It came up with a satellite image of the Palace first, two dots in the area Steve knew they were standing in, another two in the same colours – blue and red – outside where they parked their vehicles. Steve had driven his truck in so he had transport while Danny was out, and Chin had been dropped off by Malia so the red one must had been Kono's. She got that the same time he did and glared at her cousin, but she was far too good a cop to start an argument with him now.
Chin ignored her as he quickly pressed the table to zoom out. Two silver dots flashed at the intersection Duke as at. "That must be the car and the phone," Steve spoke, but he couldn't see another dot. "Where…?"
"Wait," Chin ordered him, and quickly pulled up the touch keyboard to type an order. The screen quickly panned out some more to show a wider view. There were more silver and blue dots clustered together not far from the Palace. "That's the hotel," Kono commented. "We need one on it's own."
"Wait," Chin said again, typed in another order and watched.
The program seemed to be searching the island for the missing dots, zooming out then back in again, and it took only moments to find two silver ones together. "Got him," the Lieutenant said, satisfied, and looked up at Steve. "We need back up,"
Steve, ready to go there straight away, knew it, but hated to wait, anything could be happening, whoever had had his partner for maybe an hour. "Find Grace," he said tersely to the pair of them, and then pressed his phone back to his ear. "Duke, we've tracked him," he told the officer who had been waiting patiently. "We need back up, at Sand Island Rec area, off Sand Island Parkway," he explained. "There seems to be a small building closer to the sea. Rendezvous at the main car park, Chin'll send you an aerial photo," he added, and looked over at Chin. He nodded back but before he did he pointed to a green dot on the map, in Kahala and mouthed 'Grace' at him. Steve nodded, relieved, and got back to Duke. "Do it quickly, Duke," he told him. "We don't know who's got him or what they want."
Duke nodded. "We'll be there in twenty, McGarrett," he told him, and meant it, Williams was one of their own after all. He hung up, checked his email for the photo, figured out where it was, and started yelling to his people milling around the junction.
Steve turned back to the two cousins and took a breath. "Vests, as many weapons as possible, downstairs in five," he ordered, then rushed to his office to do exactly the same. Vest on first, Danno would yell at him if he turned up without it, gun in his chest holster, two more about his person, a couple of knives, some throwing stars but no explosives – they were in a duffle he kept in his own truck, it's contents a mirror of what he kept in the Camaro. Instead he made sure his ring was on his finger, and checked the screen saver for his phone, a photo of him, Danno and Grace all smooched up together that Kono had taken, and smiled fondly at it. "We're coming Danno," he murmured and lightly touched the screen with his finger. "Just hang in there." With that he put his phone away and headed out to muster with the other two at the vehicles.
Chin had loaded the trackers onto his iPad and he climbed into shotgun of Steve's truck, keeping it in front of him to make sure they weren't going anywhere before they got there. Kono climbed in the back seat with her rifle, and she spent the beginning of the journey checking it, making sure it was loaded, that she had spare ammo.
Steve drove like the Devil was on their tail, making Chin glad they were all strapped in and he wondered what was going through the man's mind.
Kono though, was the one to pose the question. "Who's taken him?" she asked the two in the seats in front of her. "Why?"
Steve shook his head and blasted through an intersection, lights and sirens blaring a warning to anyone stupid enough to get in his way. "Joe wouldn't do this," he said, sure of it. "He'd do something, face to face, not just grab him."
"You sure?" Kono asked grimly. Yes, Danny hadn't wanted her mixed up in this but Chin had explained after she had figured out something was going on. She'd had to remind him of how pissed he had been when she had kept Delano and Fryer from him and he'd caved eventually.
"About this, yes," Steve replied firmly. "About everything else, not so much."
Chin shook his head. "It could be someone else," he told them grimly. "It could be Wo Fat."
Steve glanced at him but not for long, he was going 90mph down Kalakaua Avenue after all. "Wo Fat is a psychopath," he replied, looking back at the road. "He'd kill him in front of me, just…" He paused, his voice cracking. It had been a fear of his before he had started sleeping with Danny, still was a fear that his lover would be used against him, but, however much he had tried, the man had gotten under his skin and demanded more from him rather than fear.
"Not if he had something Wo Fat wanted," Chin added and studied their boss for a moment before he continued. Aneurism face was out in full force so Danny obviously hadn't told him what he'd said to Adam. "Danny asked Adam to make it known he knew what Shelburne was," he explained. "I thought he'd told you!" he added at the astounded look the Commander gave him. "He wanted to get the asshole out of hiding so we could catch him, and finish this."
Steve didn't say anything; there was nothing to say. Danny would do this to protect him, he knew it, to give Steve some closure and because he was still pissed at Wo Fat about Korea. He was going to have words with his lover and partner over this, so many words. But he had to get him back first, and he coaxed a bit more speed from the big truck as he pushed the vehicle over the bridge onto Sand Island. He just hoped they would be in time.
Rent-a-gun was just about to pull the trigger and splatter Danny's brain all over the shack walls and floor when the body at the Detective's feet groaned. He put the gun down, making the cop breathe in relief, and crouched beside his temporary employer to lay his free hand on his shoulder. "Hey." he called to called to him and gently shook him. "Hey, you back with us?"
Another groan and Danny swore to himself when Wo Fat moved, put a hand underneath himself and pushed himself up into a sitting position. He had to lean against the legs of the guy behind him while he tried to recover. His head hurt like hell, it felt like his brain had been rattled in his skull, and as he held his head in his hands he could feel blood oozing down the side of his face from his wound. He concentrated on his breathing, trying not to let his anger get away with him, but he knew the Detective had given him a head injury he wasn't going to get over in a few minutes. But he wasn't going to let Williams know how much he had hurt him and pulled himself together. He let go of his throbbing head and pressed one hand on Danny's damaged leg to push himself back up to his feet. He had to lean on the gunman he had rented for this for a few moments but he grinned at Williams' groan of pain. "Not bad, Detective," he admitted to him as he looked down at him, spotting the bruise forming on his captive's lined forehead, well, the two foreheads he could see in front of him.
Danny still with some bravado left, chuckled evilly. "You look like shit," he told him.
Wo Fat looked him up and down, studying him. "You don't look so good yourself," he retorted. Danny didn't, blood pooling from around the knife still buried deep in his thigh, starting to drip onto the concrete floor, he had some scratches on his face and arms from the windshield, another small cut on his forehead, just above his eyebrow from his act of defiance.
Danny shrugged. "I'm not a clothes horse," he replied blithely.
Whether or not he meant it as an insult Wo Fat took it as that and back handed him again. It wasn't as hard as the first one but still hurt and Danny swore again and blinked a couple of times.
"I'm not a clothes horse," Wo Fat grumbled, surprising himself with his poutiness. Normally insults from his victims washed over him, not connecting, but Williams seemed to be different. Especially with his next one.
"No," Danny told him. "You're a coward. You only go after people that are incapacitated, you had to chain up Jenna and Steve before you started on them. You've done the same for me. What are you? Scared that we might fight back? That we can hurt you?" He was getting desperate, he could feel the blood flow from his thigh, the last blow to his face hurt like hell and his ears were still ringing, and he didn't know how long Wo Fat had planned to be here. And he really didn't want to die here, especially at his hands, not now he finally had something else to hold onto as well as Grace. Where the hell was SuperSEAL when he needed him?
Not very far away. Duke had done them proud, SWAT were pulling up when Steve, Chin and Kono tumbled out of the truck at the rendezvous point. Duke was already there with another two patrol cars, and even as Steve strode over to him another three, all fully loaded, turned up. Steve had ordered them all to approach silently, the shack was a couple of hundred yards from where they were they didn't want to spook anyone inside with sirens and lights.
"Duke," Steve greeted the officer. "Thank you," he added and waved a hand to the gathering around them.
"No problem, Commander," the man in question responded. "Where do you want us?" he asked.
Steve turned and waved over the SWAT leader, a tall muscled native woman called Lea Aikane, and she jogged over and nodded at the pair of them. "I hear your cute blondie is in trouble, Commander," she said to Steve. "Where is he?"
Steve indicated to the shack with a finger – they could just see the roof over the sand dunes. "We've got a tracker on him," he explained to them both. "He's in there, we've just arrived so don't know how many targets there are."
Lea nodded and studied the land layout. "We can move in under cover of the dunes," she mused. "Crossing the space in between might be a problem. Depends on how many targets."
He nodded and turned back to his other teammates. As he had hoped they weren't just standing around, the pair of them were already scoping out the area, it looked like Kono had his binoculars and was checking out the area with them, and Chin had the heat seeker recorder out. They were both under cover of some scrubby bushes, and even as Steve watched Chin turned and started to jog back over to them.
"There's three people inside," he told them when he got to them and pointed them out to the trio of officers on the screen. "Also another two outside," he added. "Kono's got eyes on them." He pointed to the heat signatures together outside, probably outside the front door. "The SUV might be out the back, out of view."
Lea took the recorder from him and studied it while she thought. "Kono'll be able to take them out without a problem," she told him with a grin. "There's only four. Why all of us?"
Steve shrugged. "We didn't know how many before we got here," he explained. "And we think it might be Wo Fat."
"The bastard who killed Jameson?" Lea queried. When Steve nodded she handed the recorder back and squared her shoulders. "My team will move in from the sides," she told him and pointed out the route. "We'll surround it. Duke, use your people as the perimeter, we don't want anyone to slip through."
Steve, normally doing the planning rather than being on the receiving end, was quite used to her style by now and she was pretty good too. "We'll go in the front," he agreed. "We'll breach when Kono's taken out the two, follow us in," he told her.
She shook her head. "Door might be locked," she explained. "Wait for my front man, he's got the ram, and don't go in before we're all in position," she added, and then turned and jogged back to her own group waiting for her by their truck before he had a chance to argue. Steve sighed, shrugged at Duke, and then rejoined Chin and Kono at the back of the dune. He could see the two door guards, not particularly well defended but they were well armed, and from the hear seeker he could see inside the shack. There were two people standing, it looked like they were close to each other, as if one needed support from the other, and another one seated. It was most likely Danny, at least he was still hot, but there was a spot on the floor beneath him that concerned his partner, it was either pee or blood, and however much he wanted it to be pee, Steve knew it was most likely the other.
Lea and Duke though, were used to this, it had taken a lot of ranting from Danny to get him to realise that, and they got to positions quickly. He, Kono and Chin tooled up and, keeping low, moved from the back of the dune to the front and stayed at the top. It was not a new dune; it had lots of small scrubby grasses on it so it was stable enough to support the three. Kono set up her rifle as they lay down on the lip of the dune, she nodded at Steve when she was done and he quickly and quietly used the radio on his shoulder to contact the other team leaders. "5-0 in position," he told them, and waited for the others to respond. He could see the SWAT members, under the cover of the steep sides of the dune moving out to flank them, but until the two at the door were neutralised they could go no further.
"HPD in position," Duke murmured in Steve's ear and they just had to wait for the others. Lea was at the front of her team and she settled down, just out of sight of the guards. "SWAT in position," she said in her radio.
Steve wasn't going to wait and he nodded at Kono. "Take them out," he ordered, and pulled up his binocs to his eyes to watch. They weren't far away so Kono had put a silencer on the rifle; the two guys didn't know what hit them.
She took a calming breath, aimed at one and took the shot. The guy staggered and fell as the high calibre round took him in the chest. The other guy stared at him at him in shock for a moment before he stepped forward to check out what had happened to his colleague, only to receive Kono's next round in the same sort of placement.
Steve didn't wait; he scrambled to his feet activating his radio as he did so. "Targets down, move in!" he snapped. The face of the dune was a bit crumbly, he slid down it to get to the more solid ground the shack was on, and sprinted over the clear ground to it, Chin on his heels. The SWAT personnel swarmed out of their cover, Lea and two others joining Chin and Steve as they got to the walls of the building and pressed themselves against it, while the others spread out around it. Chin and Steve flanked the door, one of the SWAT guys turned up with a battering ram. He waited for the nod, swung it back and then forward to the door. The lock shattered at the force, the door slammed inwards, and Steve leapt in the gap it made, gun up and in front of him, Chin and Lea following quickly behind. "5-0! Freeze!" he yelled and took in the scene, even as he moved further inside.
As he had surmised Danny was seated, tied to a chair it looked like, another armed man he didn't recognise staring at the newcomers in shock. And Wo Fat, his nemesis, standing over his partner, glaring at him in impotent fury.
He had a gun pressed to Danny's neck, a weapon he had pulled in response to Danny's taunt of cowardice, and, as soon as the noise of the door startled him he had used it. Now though, as he watched McGarrett and Kelly, three SWAT people and Kalakaua enter and spread out, he knew Williams was the only way he was going to get out of this alive.
Steve moved closer to the two, checking out his lover as he did so. Danny was awake, a few bruises and cuts on his face, hands behind him, the thing most concerning was the knife hilt sticking out of his thigh. The pool of blood under the wound was quite large but not huge, but it still meant they needed to get this done quickly. "Drop your weapons," Steve snarled at the pair. "And step away."
Rent-a-goon wasn't a stupid man, he saw the futility of taking on this lot, he wasn't paid enough; he slowly lowered the pistol to the ground and kicked it over towards Lea beside him. She grabbed his rising hand and pulled him out of the way, shoving him towards her personnel and he was quickly shoved out. He spotted the two guys at the door, decided he didn't want to turn up dead, so he didn't struggle when he was cuffed, patted down and relieved of his other weapons, and then handed over to HPD.
"Drop it, Wo Fat," Steve said again, ignoring everything going on around him apart from the murderer in front of him and the gun he held far too close to Danny.
"Why?" the guy asked him, his voice bleak. "What are you going to do? Finish me off?"
Steve smiled at him; an evil grin that Danny, still and silent, knew normally preceded lots and lots of explosions. "If you want," he replied, ever so slightly amused. "I was thinking more along the lines of solitary for life, but…" He shrugged. Inside he was panicking, he was not going to let the man in front of him take away another of his loved ones, definitely not Danny. The guy was everything he needed, everything he wanted and he'd just gotten him. But here, now, he had back up, even as they spoke Kono and another SWAT man were making their way, slowly and quietly, behind Wo Fat and Danny, he just had to keep him busy until they were in range.
Wo Fat wasn't going to drag this out any longer then necessary. He grabbed Danny's hair with his free hand, pulled his head back and pressed the gun harder into his throat. "Fuck you," he snapped and squeezed the trigger.
