A/N: Last chapter. Hope you enjoy it.
Chapter 14 — The Hardware Hunt
Danny froze, hands away from his sides. He turned slowly to see Arnie Innis carrying a twin-barreled shotgun. Five of his workmen flanked him, four carried handguns though only two had the guns in their hands. Innis' Number 2 man, Darrell Dugan, carried an assault rifle.
"So, the criminal returns to the scene of the crime," Danny said sarcastically. Keeping his hands in view, he stepped away from the blocked gate. He hoped to keep Innis from investigating the gate. Coming from the side, Innis and his men could see Danny, but not Steve. A pyramid of paint cans was in the way.
Innis smirked at Danny. "I brought some help to dispose of the body," Innis said. "Now I can do the islands a favor and get rid of one-fourth of Five-0."
"Boss, if Williams is here, McGarrett is somewhere around," Dugan warned. "They're practically joined at the hip."
"Contrary to popular belief, we're not married, not even engaged," Danny drawled. "But I gotta admit, he's kinda possessive. Hurt me and you'll never see the knife coming out of the night." Danny made his voice as darkly portentous as possible. He was satisfied to see two men shy nervously and look behind them.
The six men approached cautiously, wary of the Navy SEAL they couldn't see. Steve drew his weapon, but the holes in the metal mesh were too small to shoot through.
Danny's eyes were on Innis, but his attention was on Steve.
"Toss the gun over here," Innis demanded, gesturing with the barrel of his shotgun.
Danny drew his gun with two fingers and tossed it at Innis' feet.
Innis indicated for one of his men to pick it up. And again, he gestured with the shotgun. Steve saw the shotgun barrel dip aside from his partner and seized the moment. He rattled the muzzle of his automatic violently against the diamond mesh.
Innis spun, firing at the sudden noise. The buckshot blasted the paint cans apart, sending a rainbow shower across his henchmen. Buckshot balls ricocheted off the metal mesh, scattering in all directions. Dugan cursed when a ball struck his thigh. The man nearest the paint dropped dead, his shattered face mercifully covered by blue paint.
Taking advantage of the confusion, Danny bolted for cover. He vaulted a group of power mowers and disappeared into the Lawn and Garden section. The one man who wasn't blinded by paint followed instantly. He barreled around a corner and was hit in the face by a bag of fertilizer. Danny swung the small bag like a pillow in a pillow fight, but the contents were heavier than feathers. The bag burst, sending granules of fertilizer in the henchman's eyes and mouth and scattering them across the floor. Blinded and choking, the man slipped on the mess and Danny hastened his fall with a well-swung shovel.
The detective handcuffed the unconscious man to the metal shelves, then scooped up the man's gun. A bullet spanged off the metal shelf above his head. Without rising, Danny dove through the open shelves, shoving aside stacks of plastic planter boxes. Toppling a stack of white wicker wastebaskets, he emerged in the housewares aisle and crossed it, climbing over a laundry hamper and squeezing between a display of hanging mops and brooms into the cleaning aisle before turning the corner into the center aisle and fleeing toward the barbecue grills near the front of the store.
"Cut him off!" Dugan yelled, sending the other two men toward the front door to herd Danny back. Innis' Number 2 man ripped open a bag of cleaning cloths and tied one around his bleeding leg, then he limped swiftly to intercept Danny.
Innis had paused to gloat at the helpless McGarrett, who was lightly spattered with paint and still trapped beneath the weight of the pipes.
Innis reloaded his shotgun. McGarrett clutched his SIG, but neither man could fire through the metal mesh.
The murderer laughed. "You look like you'll keep until I catch up with your little friend."
Steve scoffed. "Danny's smarter than all your men put together. You'll never catch him."
"It's five-to-one, McGarrett. Your man doesn't stand a chance," Innis said confidently. "Don't go anywhere."
Laughing, Innis stalked off along the back of the store. Steve bucked in frustration, shoving at the pipe trapping his leg. The pipe shifted half an inch, just enough to knock another pipe off a chair onto the first pipe, thereby doubling the weight on Steve's leg. He groaned and cursed.
Steve could hear the enemy spreading out to trap his partner. Shots, shouts and a peculiar "whumping" noise told him Danny was still on the move. Steve needed to help, but he couldn't.
Steve angrily thumped the desk at his side. He heard a jingling rattle from above. Looking up, he couldn't see anything, but below and beyond the desk, he saw a phone jack on the wall. A landline!
Steve turned, contorting his upper body until he could lie on the floor and reach under the desk. Ignoring his uncomfortably twisted position, Steve stretched his arm to catch the cord with two fingers.
Holding his breath, he tugged carefully — so very carefully. He needed to pull the phone off the desk. If he pulled the cord out of the wall, he and Danny would be screwed.
He couldn't see the phone, but he felt the weight slide toward the edge. An avalanche of invoices heralded the phone's approach, then it tipped off the desk and fell. Steve snatched his hand out of the way just in time, then grabbed the desk phone and began punching numbers.
The paint-streaked henchmen blocked Danny from the front door, but the detective hadn't been planning to abandon his partner. He turned right at the barbecue grills and paused in plumbing to take a breather. He popped out the clip of his borrowed gun and cursed. Only three bullets in the magazine and one in the chamber. He needed another kind of ammunition. He filled his pockets with a couple of weighty items and pushed a roll of duct tape up his arm like a bracelet.
As the two men ran down the center aisle toward plumbing, Danny turned into the side aisle and, passing up power tools, took a stand in hand tools. He waited, listening to their shoes squeak on the concrete floor.
As the pursuers leaped into the aisle together, Danny pitched a high hard one at one man's head. The weighty brass faucet flew true and struck like a bean ball, slamming into the man's forehead. His eyes lost focus and he sprawled on the floor, his gun spinning away under the shelves.
Danny followed up by flinging a hammer at the second man. The henchman had time to throw up his hand and dodge, so the makeshift weapon didn't strike true. Snarling, he swung his gun at Danny, so the detective reluctantly gave his position away and shot him, firing twice to make sure. The dying man tried to shoot back. His hand tightened convulsively on the trigger and his automatic emptied itself into the screwdriver display.
Danny threw himself on floor, covering his head until the bullets stopped flying. He cursed the loss of spare firepower and the betrayal of his position. When the noise stopped,
Danny checked the dead man then pounced on the dazed one and quickly bound and gagged him with the duct tape. He could hear Dugan's limping run. Danny only had two bullets left. He had to stay away from Dugan's assault rifle.
Grabbing a pair of bolt cutters off the display, Danny crossed the side aisle to the padlocked gate of the warehouse area. He snipped the padlock and dodged into the lumber storage area.
Dugan saw him and fired as Danny slammed the gate shut behind him. Again the tight diamond metal mesh fencing repelled the rounds and frustrated the shooter.
Dugan yanked open the gate and kept firing. Bullets chopped up stacks of lumber as Danny fled for his life. Dugan started after him, but had to duck back with Danny fired and just missed. Dugan didn't know the detective only had one round left, but he saw a set of tall metal stairs ahead that he could use as a gun platform. From up there, Dugan could mow down Danny whatever aisle he was in. The killer began to run.
Danny saw the platform, too. He only had one chance to save his life and Steve's. He led the running man, anticipating his rapid progress down the next aisle. Danny aimed toward the six-inch gap between two neat stacks of two-by-fours. Knowing it was his last bullet, Danny took the shot and Dugan ran right into the bullet.
Dugan sagged like a punctured balloon, collapsing to the floor.
Then Danny was running, desperate to get to the end of the aisle, because he didn't know where Innis was. He threw the empty gun away and ran, flat out.
He reached the end of the lumber aisle, turned right and skidded to a halt. He'd found Innis. The killer jacked his shotgun closed and raised it, thumb on the twin hammers. Danny froze, his empty hands fully visible.
Innis saw that and grinned a wolfish grin. "Did you forget about someone?" he taunted.
And then he was astonished to see Danny return a grin equally feral. "Funny, I thought that was my line."
Innis jerked the shotgun to his shoulder. Two quick shots rang out – pistol shots, not shotgun blasts. Innis fell headlong, his torso a bloody mess. The silent corpse landed limply on the floor, allowing Danny to see past it to Steve, still trapped in his steel pipe cage, but with a clear line of sight to Innis.
"Is that the last of them?" Steve demanded.
"Dugan and one of his guys are dead," Danny answered. "One's hogtied with duct tape, but I'm not sure how hard I hit the guy with the shovel."
"Better check, I can wait," Steve said.
Danny checked. Four dead, including Innis and the paint-covered shotgun victim. One dazed, fertilizer-covered guy in the gardening aisle tugged at handcuffs in confusion. Danny uncuffed him from the shelves and recuffed his hands behind him, then dumped the unresisting crook in a wheelbarrow. He wheeled the henchman over to hand tools and collected one angry, duct-taped crook with an angrier red goose egg on his forehead.
Danny heard, "HPD!" and "Five-0!" in familiar voices from the warehouse area's loading dock and, a moment later, from the front door.
"Danny? We clear?" Steve shouted.
"Clear!" Danny shouted. "I'm coming to the back."
Danny wheeled his captives through the lumber warehouse and dumped them next to their dead boss, at the feet of Chin, Kono, Lori, Duke and half a dozen HPD officers who had just freed Steve from his cage. The commander limped over to his Five-0 colleagues, rubbing his bruised thigh.
Danny leaned casually on the upturned wheelbarrow, basking in the impressed expressions on the faces of his colleagues.
"All these yours, brah?" Chin asked.
"Steve got this one." Danny toed Innis' body. "And he blasted his own guy over there." He waved at the paint-covered corpse. "The rest are mine." He buffed his nails in mock modestly. "Where'd you guys come from, anyway?" Danny asked.
"Steve called us," Lori answered. She pointed at the desk phone amid the fallen pipes.
"I had to do something!" Steve said, just as the ground shivered in another minor aftershock.
"It's the end of the world!" Danny exclaimed.
"I thought you were getting used to the earthquakes," Kono teased.
"Not that!" Danny said. "McGarrett called for backup, two times in one day!"
"It's the apocalypse," Chin agreed with a grin.
Steve patted his gun. "If the zombies are coming, we'll be ready for them!"
"Zombies, earthquakes, murderers — just another day in paradise for Five-0," Danny said.
The End