Who the duck is Alice?
Disclaimer – not my characters or premise, no money is being made from this story
Warnings – mild potty mouth
0o0o0
"Hey cuz!"
Chin Ho grins at the light tone and makes a bet with himself that when he turns to say hello Kono's hair will be wet. It is. Sometimes he thinks it's good she skipped the whole uniform deal, there is no way her sergeant would allow her to attend roll call with wet hair and a sprinkling of sand. Not to mention the half-drunk fruit smoothie.
"Hey cuz. How were the waves this morning?" he asks as they round the corner and head for the double glass doors that lead into Five-O's headquarters.
"Primo," Kono's grin gets even bigger, as he knew it would. They push open a door each, and there he is, Commander McGarrett himself, standing in front of the table, back straight, arms folded and … yep. Aneurysm face. Kono's head turns to glance at Danny's office as they pass, but Danny has Grace for the next two weeks of spring break and has taken leave, so no help there.
"Hey boss, what's up?" Kono is brave, and it worries Chin Ho sometimes, the way she marches into the lions' den without fear. Not that Steve would hurt her.
"Someone robbed that diamond exchange in the Westler building downtown, then set off a lot of flashbangs and some kind of gas in the building last night," Steve scowled at the big screens in front of him, "Three people also hang-glided through downtown early this morning. They were caught on camera just after the fireworks started."
The screens were muted, but showing news coverage of the three hang-gliders, whooshing past buildings in the pre-dawn light. Chin Ho could well imagine the over excited tones of the reporter.
"Coincidence?" Chin Ho asked lightly, channelling his inner Danny, and Steve's scowl deepened. Steve did not like, believe in, or pander to coincidence. Kono shot him a look and Chin Ho swallowed his grin. She didn't like it when people riled up the boss.
"No," Steve replied, "I think that they went into the building with the rigs, committed the robbery, set off their diversion, then jumped off the roof."
Chin Ho nodded, and tapped the table to bring up the interface.
"Well, the rigs are kind of noticeable, and they'd find it hard to just walk into the lobby with that kind of thing without being questioned: are we sure they didn't land on the roof to start with?" Kono frowned and helped Chin Ho access the building's security cameras. Fortunately, they were the type that stored to a cloud so access would not be limited by buildings current off-limit status. Until they knew that the gas was not dangerous, no one was getting into the building, not even to check the damage.
"I don't know," Steve admitted, "I know nothing about hang-gliding. You could do it with a parachute, but that's of no help here."
"There is a very tight knit hang-gliding community on the islands," Chin Ho volunteered as he got his bearings in the footage and started looking through the internal corridors an hour before the fire started to see if he could spot their quarry, "They cater to tourists up to a point, but they don't take to outsiders much at all."
"Are they involved in any criminal activities? Bacco lolo or anything like that?" Steve asked and Chin Ho shrugged.
"I couldn't tell you. They've never been on my radar professionally. An old neighbour used to hang-glide, that's how I know about them," he replied and Steve grunted in dissatisfaction. Chin Ho refrained from sighing. Steve at his grumpiest could usually only be managed by Danny, who wheedled, cajoled and outright nagged the man into a better mood (much the way a parent would, but Chin Ho had never even breathed that idea out into the universe). Chin Ho didn't cater to grumpy adults and Kono was too in awe of her boss to try.
The glass doors opened and Steve's face brightened a little.
"Hi Uncle Steve!" Grace's voice, followed by the patter of running footsteps sounded behind them, and then she was there, reaching up to Steve for a hug. Even though she was seven, Steve swept her up and cuddled her like a toddler, a big grin on his face.
"Hey Gracie! Good to see you! What did Danno forget now?" Steve kissed her cheek and she giggled.
"Danno and I came here after school on Friday and I left my bag behind," she confessed. Grace was always honest when she made a mistake, it was one of her many endearing qualities, "Ooh, look at that!"
Kono was glad that for once there were no dead bodies or blood splattered crime scene pictures on display. Just the footage of the hang-gliders, being replayed for the millionth time. Danny joined them at the table, a bright pink Barbie handbag in one hand.
"Nice clutch," Chin Ho grinned and Danny grinned back.
"You like that? Goes with my belt," Danny was impossible to embarrass when it came to the things he did for his kid. "Did you go in your office yet, Steve?"
There was a reminding Dad tone to his voice, and Steve frowned as much as he was able when holding Grace. That look bounced right off his partner, who was dressed the most casual that Chin Ho had ever seen in flip flops, long jean shorts and a vee neck t-shirt.
"Not yet, Danno, as you can see, we had a case come up first thing," Steve grumbled.
"Look Danno! Gliders!" Grace pointed at the plasma and Danny turned to look at the footage, a frown creeping over his face.
"Well, there's something you don't see every day," Danny muttered and held the handbag out to Grace, who wriggled down from Steve's arms, tucked the strap of her handbag over her shoulder and trotted over to a chair, pushing it so she could climb up herself and look at the table and her dad.
"You're right. Hawaii attracts all sort of thrill seekers, but no one has ever flown between the downtown high rises," Kono realised and Danny shook his head.
"After New York, it's illegal to fly between buildings. It was probably illegal before, but the penalties have really amped up since then," Danny replied, and Chin Ho reflected that as a cop who'd lived through the towers coming down, those were the sorts of rules Danny would be aware of.
"Do you know who that is?" Danny continued, waving a hand at the plasma.
"No," Kono replied, "Chin says the hang-gliding community here is tight, so we may not have much luck finding them either."
"Maybe Alice can help," Grace twisted her head to look up at her frowning father.
"Maybe," Danny hedged, which meant that he knew something and was reluctant to talk about it. Steve got that 'locked on target' look in his eyes, but Danny was already calling the news footage to the table, freezing the frames and zooming it in for a better look at the fliers. Grace folded her arms and leant them on the edge of the table, her bag beside her. Father and daughter both looked intent, and Chin Ho had a moment of prescience. There was no way that Danny would let his daughter be a cop, but in that moment the apple wasn't falling far enough from the tree.
"Well, they're a break down rig," Danny pointed to the joint he was looking at, "See that there? These things can be taken apart and stored in something about the size of a duffle bag, then carried around easily."
"Is that a common thing?" Kono sounded startled and for good reason. If you're going to be a few hundred feet in the air, you'd want whatever you were hanging from to be solid.
"It depends," Danny shrugged, calling up security footage of the lobby. The Westler building didn't have metal detectors or anything like that, as there were mostly offices in it. The diamond exchange did not advertise their presence in the building and had strict security in their own floor's lobby. The rest of the team and Grace watched as he fast forwarded footage from the day before, stopping as a trio of painters with trollies of gear rolled into the lobby and over to the freight elevator. There were three of them, and among the paint buckets and drop cloths there were also three large duffel bags.
"That's them," Danny said, pointing to the bags. He captured screen shots of all three faces, sent them to Kono and then slid the screen over to Grace, "Do you mind watching to see if they come out again Gracie?"
"Ok!" Grace chirped and tapped the screen, as comfortable with the technology as any child of her generation would be. Kono started running facial recognition on the three faces, but Danny left the building security footage in favour of the traffic camera down the street.
"We need to see where they went," Steve protested, but Danny shook his head.
"They didn't walk down the street with that gear, which means a truck or van of some sort," he disagreed mildly, "Plus they'd need that van or whatever to pick them up when they landed. There's a good chance they have a driver… ah-hah!"
Chin Ho watched, kind of impressed, as Danny zoomed in on a van being unloaded onto trollies with painters' gear.
"Can you get a licence plate?" Steve asked and Danny nodded, shifting the footage until the plate came up. That capture was sent to Kono as well, who started running a trace on the DMV system. They watched the van pull out, and then Danny switched the footage again to the news, pulling his phone out and timing the clip.
"How much height would you estimate they were dropping in that clip?" he asked Steve, who rolled the footage again, considering the question.
"Overall, I'd say they dropped a couple of feet," Steve replied. Danny called up a map of downtown, marked the Westler building on it, then drew a line in the direction of the hang-gliders travel.
"It's night time, Danno. They didn't come out again," Grace announced, done with her detective work, and leaned over to look at the map curiously.
"Thank you, monkey," Danny's voice was distracted as he ran his finger above the map. He added another marker to the map.
"A parking garage?" Chin Ho asked and Danny nodded.
"At the rate they were losing height they wouldn't have gone far, and that building is too low for a wing suit or parachute, so this is the largest flat area, in their range, where they could land mostly unobserved," Danny replied, "At that time of day, there wouldn't be enough thermal wind currents to keep them aloft and depending on the weight of their loot, they might not have been able to fly far anyway."
"The plates are fake," Kono announced, "No luck so far on facial recognition either."
Steve called up the details of the parking garage to see if he could get any footage, but Chin Ho went straight for the traffic cameras. Grace was first to spot the van they'd seen before leaving and the team tracked it on camera to a warehouse. Speeding up the footage showed the van went into a space and did not leave.
"Let's gear up, they could still be in there," Steve announced, once the footage reached real time.
"Alice did a good job, right Danno?" Grace asked as her father helped her down.
"Sure, honey," Danny smiled at her, "Put that chair back please. And if Uncle Steve catches the bad guys, and no one is hurt, we'll bring steaks to his house for a cook out, how about that?"
"Steaks! We're on it!" Steve promised, and Grace laughed, took her father's hand and skipped off with him.
"Hear that boss? Don't get shot. I'm looking forward to my steak dinner," Kono teased as she strapped on her vest.
"What I want to know is, who the hell is Alice?" Chin Ho checked his weapon.
"Guess we'll have to ask at dinner," Steve shrugged, game face already on, "Let's go."
0o0o0
Danny came through on the steaks, as well as shrimp, salads and a six pack. There was a little anxiety in his eyes as they came in Steve's front door, which cleared when he saw the lack of injuries. Grace went to grill steaks and shrimps with Steve while Chin Ho helped with the last of the salad prep and Kono filled Danny in on the successful raid of the warehouse. All four men, and their loot, were in lock up (or evidence) and not a single shot had been fired.
Family dinners were the best, Chin Ho reflected as they took the food outside to eat at Steve's picnic setting. They told Grace kid friendly versions of cop stories and teased each other. Steve thanked Grace for the picture she'd left in his office on Friday (he'd found it when he went in there, post-raid, to do the paperwork) and she beamed at him happily.
Once they'd cleared up the dinner things, Danny and Steve took Grace off to sleep in the upstairs spare room, then brought another round of drinks out to the back lawn.
"So, I had time to do a bit of research," Steve announced, "And there is a website for someone called Alice who hang-glides here in Oahu and puts videos of their flights on the web."
"Oh?" Chin Ho plays along, mainly because Danny is giving them his blandest inscrutable look, which means he is hiding something, "So who the hell is Alice?"
"Hard to say," Steve draws the moment out, "There are no photos, just a picture from Alice in Wonderland. But in a couple of the videos there is a man's hand, with some pretty familiar ink on it."
"Really?" Kono is playing along too, though just as startled as Chin Ho is, as Danny looks slightly more uncomfortable. Steve is grinning now and opens his mouth for the next salvo against his partner when Danny holds up a hand.
"Yes, yes, very funny," he tells Steve, "You're a good detective, well done."
"You're Alice?" Kono asks at the same time as Chin Ho asks, "You hang-glide?!"
Because Danny is risk-adverse. He's the one telling them to be careful, to not take what he deems 'stupid chances' and Chin Ho is honest enough to admit that Danny is right to scold them. They play as rough as the people they chase, and one day it will blow up in their faces.
"Ok look," Danny frowns, "It's a long story. But the short version is, not long before Steve here got me shot for the first time…"
"You're never gonna let that go, are you?" Steve exclaims and is ignored by them all.
"… I was sitting on a look out, my feet dangling over a long drop," the rest of Danny's sentence shuts them up pretty quick and he rolls his eyes when he realises the impact his words have had, "Not like that! Sheesh! I was thinking, ok? About a case that had gone cold in Jersey, and while I was sitting there, I have this epitomy …"
"I think you mean epiphany," Kono interrupts and Danny flaps a hand at her.
"And I pretty much solve the case. So, I call my old Captain, who says he'll get someone to look into it, and I'm sitting there feeling annoyed with myself. Cos if I'd just worked a bit harder, put the pieces together quicker…"
Danny hates missing things. It makes him a good detective, but it also eats away at him in a way that Chin Ho hates to see. He may call his friend a howli and tease him about hating the place where he lives, but to Danny missing something means someone may get hurt. Danny takes protecting those he cares about (and he cares about the people of Oahu, make no mistake about that, even as he proclaims to be miserable) seriously. Even McGarrett on his best day can't match Danny when it comes to protectiveness.
"… then things woulda been different. And as I'm sitting there, this guy with dreads and a tie die shirt plops himself down next to me and says I look like I'm gonna throw myself off of the cliff," Danny shrugs, "Which I wasn't. So, I tell him that, and we talk a bit, about missing people and homes and feeling trapped. And I get up off the ledge and we head to our respective cars and this guy says that if I change my mind, he's gonna throw himself off a cliff tomorrow. He gives me the time and the place and drives off. So then, all night I'm like, was he joking, was he not, so I go to the place he told me and there he is with a hang-glider."
"Is the guys' name Alice?" Steve interrupts as Danny takes a sip of his beer and Kono has to hit the detective on the back a couple of times to clear his airway.
"Do you want to hear this or not?" Danny asks when he can breathe again and Steve makes a gesture that could mean many things (some not so polite) which the guy from Jersey takes as a request to go on. Chin Ho is glad, because he at least wants to know who Alice is.
"So, he hooks me to him as a passenger and we take off," Danny's voice hushes, "And its'… I can't explain it really. It's like the wind sings to me, blows all the bad away. All that is left is the good stuff. I'm not thinking about falling or dying, or how trapped I am, just the wind. So, when we land, I want to learn. I want to be able to go solo. And I do, I have my own rig and everything – but the wind blows my hair in my eyes, and wearing a cap is uncomfortable, and wearing a bandanna makes me look like a reject from a wannabe punk street gang, so Gracie bought me a head band – it's a wide strip of elastic material, and they call it…"
"An Alice band," Kono realises and Danny points to her with a grin, as if to say 'winner'. Kono laughs and salutes with her beer bottle, "You're Alice!"
Danny grins and throws his arms wide in a ta-da gesture, sitting back in his chair.
"So let me get this straight," Steve drawls, "The guy who yells at me for jumping across a small gap between buildings…"
"It was like five feet Steve, and the guy before you barely made it," Danny interrupts, but Steve rolls over him like he's not even talking.
"… regularly throws himself off a cliff," Steve finishes, "And calls himself Alice."
"That was Gracie's idea," Danny sighed. Chin Ho grins. That little girl can talk her father into the most ridiculous things and he's proud to own it, "She wanted to come up with me, which she can't. Her mother wouldn't allow it, and she's too small anyway. So, I bought a cheap go pro and strapped it to the crossbar. Her computer club had an assignment to build a website, and she uses the footage I gave her to populate it. My rule is she can't use my real name, or hers, and nothing about my job or where she lives."
Danny shrugs like it's no big deal, and Chin Ho supposes it wouldn't be, if it weren't for the fact that they had learned something pretty startling (and impressive, you wouldn't get Chin Ho into that sort of a rig at gunpoint) about him. When he looks up the website that Steve mentioned later that night at home, he is startled to see it has so many followers. And the footage is impressive.
Years later, when Danny is attempting to glide a shot up plane full of illegal drugs, with Steve dying in the pilots' seat, to a perfect beach landing, Chin Ho remembers that post dinner discussion, and he isn't afraid. Cos Steve has Danny, his protector, at his side, and Alice is at the yoke.
0o0o0
