A/N: I hope I described this so you can see it. In my head, the special effects are awesome.
Chapter 21: Fire Man
Danny desperately wanted to keep the arsonist's attention off his trapped and wounded partner, so he did what he did best. He talked.
"It was so easy to mislead you," Bacadi gloated. "So easy to mimic a Texas accent and steal Mick's wallet. So easy to stencil a tattoo on my hand and make sure the Arnold idiots saw it."
"So easy for you to persuade your buddy Gratz to meet you here," Danny said.
Bacadi laughed. "He wanted to show you up, Williams. He hated you for knocking him down in front of us. He wanted to find a clue that you had missed. Imagine that, he found the arsonist instead!"
Danny and Steve had no doubt that Bacadi had crossed the line separating sanity from bat-shit lunacy.
"Why do you hate us, Bacadi?"
"Just you, Williams. The commander and pretty Kalakaua are unfortunate collateral damage. You're the one I want, you with your sweet daughter, little Gracie." Bacadi snarled the words with such venom Danny bared his teeth in visceral response.
The fireman's attention was fully on Danny now. Steve slid his phone out of his pocket and tapped the bar for Chin.
Chin and Kono were already trotting out to Chin's car when the phone rang. "Steve, it's Bacadi!" he told his boss. Then he heard the fire lighter screaming in the background and Steve's whisper, "We know!"
Steve quickly explained about the fire trap and ordered Chin to call out the fire department and HPD. "But be careful. This guy is wacko!"
"Why should you enjoy time with your daughter when my Annie is dead?" Bacadi howled at Danny. "Why should any child laugh and play when my child in lying in her grave!"
Bacadi ranted about Mick with his happy family and Jake who had a daughter he didn't appreciate.
"He complained constantly that his wife didn't give him a son. She left him because he hit her, you know. Hit her and hurt his beautiful little daughter. He wasn't fit to live. And you," his gaze homed in on Danny. "You bragging constantly about your daughter. Why should you and little Grace be happy? Why?" he screamed.
Suddenly Bacadi realized that during his tirade, Danny had edged between him and the pit. The fireman scowled and, with no warning, lobbed his firebomb at the trap door. He couldn't throw it hard or he'd overthrow his target, so he gave it an easy toss, which gave Danny one desperate chance.
He dropped his gun and leaped to intercept the bomb with the reflexes of the high school shortstop he had been. He gathered in the delicate bottle using both hands to cushion the impact and rolled over one shoulder to shield the fragile missile. Anticipating flames, he held his breath, but the bottle didn't break. He staggered to his feet triumphant.
Bacadi's placid face twisted in maniacal rage. He flew at the detective, hitting wildly at the shoulders hunched protectively over the bottle, then Bacadi grabbed at Danny's hands to wrest the weapon away.
They struggled back and forth, neither willing to release his grip. Danny was at a disadvantage. Bacadi was bigger, with the frenzied strength of madness, and Danny couldn't use any of his takedown tricks because his hands were occupied. The big fireman used his greater weight to drive Danny down to one knee and then yanked the firebomb away. Danny lost his grip and the bomb flew out of both their hands, soaring high into the air.
Steve hadn't been standing idly by. As soon as Bacadi jumped on Danny, Steve jumped on the copier that had tripped him up. From that wobbly platform, he leaped for the edge of the trapdoor. He caught it with his fingertips and, ignoring the pain of his gashed arm, he clawed his way upward, getting his elbows on the floor above, then swinging one knee up.
He could see the desperate struggle for the firebomb and hurried to help his friend. Steve just got his feet on the main floor when the bomb flew into the air.
Grinning like a lunatic, Bacadi backpedaled to catch the firebomb as Danny had. Danny was down on one knee, looking like a football player at the snap; so Steve, the former high school football star, tackled his friend. It wasn't a takedown tackle, but a drive him back from the goal line tackle. Steve caught Danny low around the thighs and drove forward in an awkward, scrambling, three-legged run until they lost their balance entirely tumbled to a stop in a heap on the opposite side of the room. The officers rolled apart and looked back at Bacadi who was waiting for the bomb to come down. Instead, it hit a sprinkler head in the blackened ceiling. The bottle shattered and gasoline rained down on Bacadi's upturned face, turning into a waterfall of fire as first the phosphorus and then the gasoline vapors ignited.
Danny and Steve flinched back from the explosion of flames. Bacadi threw his arms over his burning face and screamed, but his fireman's instincts remained strong. He didn't run. He dropped and rolled to extinguish the flames — and rolled right over the edge of the trapdoor into the gasoline drenched room below.
From Steve and Danny's view, it looked like another volcanic eruption. The gasoline fumes ignited with a solid whump and the air above the trapdoor turned into a fireball. The Five-0 twosome covered their eyes with their arms, feeling the hair on their arms shrivel in the blast of heat. The inferno passed in an instant as the vapor was consumed. The blinding blaze died to a red glow.
The officers rose and cautiously walked to the edge of the trapdoor. Two crumpled bodies lay side by side in the charred basement. Small patches of fire burned lazily beside the dead firemen.
Coughing at the smoke, Danny shuddered to think that could have been Steve down there. Steve shivered to remember Danny diving under that firebomb. "Let's get out of here," he said hoarsely.
As they reached the door, Danny remembered something that made him gasp. His recently injured throat caught a lungful of smoke and gasoline fumes and he began coughing uncontrollably. The commander hauled him outside into the clean Hawaiian air.
Chin's blue Traverse jolted to a stop and two fire engines rounded the corner, with old familiar Engine 68 right behind them. Steve realized it had been less than 10 minutes since he managed to call for help.
"It's all over, Danny. Help's here. Hang on for a moment."
Steve hurried to the captain of Engine 25, the first one the scene, and hastily explained what had happened. The captain ordered 68 to hang back and take care of the victims, while he took a couple of men to assess the interior. There was no point in making the men of 68 witness the bodies of their two colleagues.
When Steve got back to his wheezing, hacking friend, Danny slugged him hard in the chest, then clutched a fistful of T-shirt so tightly his knuckled went bone white. The expression in Danny's eyes made Steve uneasy. "What? It's over," Steve tried to comfort his friend. "The arsonist is dead."
Mick Harnett, now a member of 68's A Shift, put an oxygen mask over Danny's face. The detective greedily sucked in two lung-clearing breaths, then batted the mask aside.
"Grace," Danny gasped hoarsely. "Time bomb."
A horrified look crossed Steve's face as all became clear. Kono gasped as she and Chin came up in time to hear Danny's words.
"He kept talking about Grace," Danny said fearfully.
Seeing the frightened reactions, Harnett asked what was going on.
"Sacred Heart," Steve barked at the firefighters from Engine 68 who had gathered around. "He's planted a time bomb at Danny's daughter's school."
Engine 68's captain and Chin grabbed for their radios, ordering units to Sacred Heart School. Danny put his phone on speaker and handed it to Steve. The commander hit the contact button for the school. He identified himself and told them they had reason to believe the fire bomber had targeted the school. "We need you to evacuate the school immediately."
The principal was calm under pressure. She was aware of the danger and had prepared her school as best as she could. She'd even had a fireman come out to check the alarm system. Now she activated it, as she would for a fire drill.
Throughout the school, hammers began to beat on the round bells, which sounded slightly muffled, as if there was stuffing inside them. The continuous ringing of the fire alarms caused chemicals planted on each clapper and bell to heat up and interact. Tiny fires sparked fuses that led to small packages stuffed inside each bell.
As children began to file out of the classrooms, black smoke began to pour out of the fire bells.
Over the phone, Danny and Steve heard someone yell "Fire! The bells are on fire!" and then the call cut off.
A/N: When I started this chapter, I thought it was the big finale. But the story had other ideas. To be continued one more time.