The black and white turned off the siren a block away but still had its lights on when it pulled up to the scene. The vehicle virtually became invisible, blending in with all the other Honolulu police cruisers already there. Steve's apprehension grew when he saw the ambulances that stood out amongst the emergency vehicles with their red lights flashing in the dark. He grabbed at the pain in his side that he had forgotten about until he tried to jump out of the car too rapidly. Pushing through a sea of blue, he mechanically apologized as he disrupted the work of the first responders. His eyes were scanning the crowd.

Lou had tried three times to reach him, but he chose to ignore his call because he'd either have to deal with his scolding or let him know what he was about to find out by being there in person.

A wave of relief fell on him as he finally found one he'd been searching out. "Kono! Excuse me," he apologized as he bumped against someone. "Kono!"

Kono turned at the sound of her name being called. She excused herself from the officer to whom she had been providing information.

"Steve? What are you doing here? You need to be home."

"Not now, Kono, tell me what went down here? Did we get Gabriel? Where's the rest of the team?"

Kono sighed in resignation, knowing it would do no good trying to talk him into leaving now. "They're still checking the bodies, but to my knowledge they didn't get him. As to what happened? I'm not quite sure. Upon approach, we were fired upon. We fired back and then all hell broke loose."

"The team? Where's everybody?"

"Inside." She gestured toward the warehouse. "Still checking the scene. Trying to find Gabriel."

"So, everyone's accounted for?"

She knew what he was getting at. She didn't want to be the one to tell him. She was thankful when she saw her cousin making his way through the crowd toward them.

"Steve…"

"Don't… just don't." He held up both hands in a stop gesture. "Kono was just about to report on the team. Where is everyone?"

Chin glanced at Kono. "Well it appears as though Gabriel was a little more ready for us than we expected."

Steve threw his arms up in exasperation, willing him to get to the answer to his question. "Danny and Tani are unaccounted for."

Steve's arms dropped to his sides, suddenly unable to summon the strength to hold them up. His breath was taken away like the first drop of a roller coaster. "Damn it." He knew it. He knew something like this was going to happen. He cursed himself for going along. He knew he was not one hundred percent physically, but he could have done something. When his breath came back to him, it was faster and more difficult to control.

Kono stood by with a worried expression as Chin continued, "Adam and Junior are still in there trying to find something, but so far, there's no sign of them."

"When's the last time you heard from them?" Steve was grasping at straws.

"They reported in when they arrived at the site, but we had no radio contact after they breeched."

"Have they secured the warehouse? I'm going in."

Chin put his hand on Steve's chest when he tried to approach the scene. "I'd wait 'til they've given the 'all clear'. Shouldn't be long."

Adam walked up to the group, followed several steps behind by a dejected looking Junior, his rifle hanging by its strap down by his side. Adam gave Steve a curious look but knew him well enough to not bother to ask why he was there. He held something in his hand. He looked at Chin and Kono and shook his head, answering their unasked question. Then, assuming they had caught Steve up on what they knew, he began with what he had just found out.

"Gabriel's MIA. He was not one of those taken into custody nor one of those pronounced at the scene. And… we found these." He opened his hand to reveal the two earpieces that Danny and Tani would have been wearing.

Junior had caught up to them at that point and needed to rationalize their finding. "That doesn't mean anything. They probably witnessed Gabriel's escape and pursued him. We need to find them and give them support. Those… those could have just fallen out."

"Both of them?" Steve franticly erupted.

"Well, maybe it was on purpose," he defended.

"Why? Why would they both ditch their coms?!" Steve raised his voice even more in response to the absurdity of the statement.

"Steve, let's stay calm and think this through," Chin stepped in. "Junior's right. There may be a reasonable explanation. It's too soon and we don't have enough information to come to a conclusion that may turn out to be false."

"What about their phones?" Steve breathed through his anger and lowered his voice.

"They were found in the car, like protocol for this type of operation," Kono answered.

Steve started nervously nodding his head as he thought. "How the hell did Gabriel make it out?"

"They're still working on that, but it's like he just disappeared," Chin said.

"Yeah, disappeared with my people. What about the damned phone? It brought us here. Can you trace its current location?"

"Tried. It's undetectable, maybe powered off," Adam answered.

Steve put his hands on his hips and turned away from the group for a few seconds as he put together his next thoughts. He spun back around with his next idea. "You say they brought some of Gabriel's men into custody?"

"There were at least a couple that made it," Adam confirmed.

"Rendition. I want at 'em first."

"We can handle this," Chin pleaded. "Please, you shouldn't be here."

"Lieutenant Kelly's right, sir. I can do it." Junior was incensed and needed answers as badly as Steve. "I've primaried interrogations before."

Steve nodded. "You, come with me. You got a vehicle?" He wasn't going to back off, but when he saw Junior's determination, he at least agreed to his company.

"Yes, sir."

"Steve, I…" Chin tried again.

He looked at Chin and then Kono and Adam. "Stay here." His eyes begging them to understand and fill in for him since he couldn't be in two places at once. "Let me know anything you find."

They could feel Steve's distress radiating off of him. Adam spoke up first, "Steve, Kono and I can stay here and manage things. Let Chin go with you. The last thing we need are dead or incapacitated witnesses that can't help. The way you two are keyed up, that's what we may end up with," he pleaded his case.

Chin waited for Steve's answer, agreeing with Adam's assessment. After a few seconds, Steve agreed. "All right." Then looking between Adam and Kono and pointing at Adam, he reinforced, "Anything."

"You'll know immediately."

One of Junior's legs was bouncing in anticipation. "You ready?" Steve asked of him.

"Yes, sir."

"Chin?"

Chin nodded.

"Then let's go."

~~~~~H50~~~~~

"Danny? Danny, wake up. Are you all right? Can you hear me?"

Tani. He could hear Tani's voice. It sounded like he was waking from one of those hazy, paralyzing dreams and he still couldn't wrap his brain around where he was and why Tani would be there if he was sleeping.

He slowly managed to open his eyes and went to stretch, but he couldn't. His arms were pinned behind him. His heartrate immediately accelerated and his sluggish waking became instantaneous, prompting an abrupt jolt of his body.

"Hey, take it easy. You're hurt."

She had not needed to inform him of that. He felt it as soon as he heard her words. He wasn't able to speak yet. His mind was still catching up.

"Oh, thank God. I was worried about you. Are you okay?" she asked again.

"Yeah, yeah, where are we?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. Some creepy, disgusting place is all I know."

"You okay?"

"I'm good, just hunky dory." She settled back from her kneeling vigil to sitting with her back against the wall.

Danny ignored her familiar sounding sarcasm, knowing the last part was referring to their current situation, not her physical well-being. He struggled with his bonds and found them to be tight.

"Don't bother," Tani suggested. "They used our zip ties."

"Yours are tight, too?"

"Oh, yeah. Believe me, I tried."

"What happened?" he growled out as he pulled himself from lying on the hard, concrete floor to a sitting position.

"You don't remember?"

"Nah, I… you're gonna have to help me out," he said as he looked around at the room they were in. She was right. It was creepy and disgusting. It had the feel of the basement rendition room except larger and dirtier. The only door was dark, discolored metal with extruded rectangular moldings at the top and bottom. Each rectangle formed a border around the same extruded "X"s in the center of them, intimating their own warning.

The floor was streaked with what appeared to be mud and other stains, he didn't want to know what from, that ran toward a common point in the middle of the room… a drain. Just like Five-0's very own interrogation room, they were blessed to be in the company of a similar, formidable drain. The cinder block walls were either wet, or covered in mold, or a combination of both. The only light above them was a harsh, unnatural fluorescent bulb. The other bulb beside it was glowing a shaded, tan color that didn't illuminate all the way but teased at trying with an almost indiscernible rapid flickering. The whole fixture was enclosed in an ironic wire cage housing.

Danny's lack of memory caused Tani's worry to resurge. "What's the last thing you do remember?"

"Uhm, let's see. Gabriel. We were in the warehouse and Gabriel came through the door."

Tani's cheeks ballooned out and then she released the air slowly, relieved to hear he remembered that much. "Yes, aaand…?"

"And… was it cold?"

"What? No. Don't you remember anything else?"

"Sorry, everything's a bit fuzzy."

"That's 'cause they wonked you on the head. You went out like a light."

Danny scrunched his eyes tightly closed and shook his head. "What happened?"

"They were expecting us. We were distracted by Gabriel. His thugs came up behind us. There were four of 'em. We didn't know they were there until we heard the hammer pull back on one of their pistols. You turned and saw one of the gorillas holding a gun on me."

Danny's face relaxed from the strain of trying to remember when it came back to him. "Oh, yeah. I remember that now. I think we were both thinking of trying something, but I couldn't chance it. I surrendered my gun and gave up."

"And I did the same."

"I don't remember anything after that."

"Well, like I said, even though you gave up, one of the quartet hit you from behind with his piece. You were out. They tied us up, put a hood over my head, and voila."

"But, how did we get here?"

"There was a trap door in floor that must have jutted over water because we went directly into some kind of small boat, we were there for maybe twenty, thirty minutes and then up onto a pier, into a van, truck, I don't know, and another thirty minutes or so later, here we are. They must have carried you. You were already laying there when they took the hood off me."

"Lovely."

"Sorry. That's about as good as I could do being blinded and all."

"Wait. We got the transmission from Adam. The team was there."

"Yep. I heard gunfire being exchanged as we left in the boat."

"Great. Not knowing how that worked out and if everyone is…"

"…all right. I know. I've been sitting here thinking the same thing. At least they know something happened to us. They'll be looking."

"We've been looking for Gabriel for weeks. What makes you think they'll have any better luck now?"

"They have a location and probably got some of Gabriel's guys."

"By the way, have you seen Gabriel since the warehouse?"

"Haven't seen or heard from him."

"Maybe if we're lucky the son of a bitch didn't make it."

Neither believed it or they probably would be dead instead of here, but it needed to be said. "Maybe," Tani agreed. "Maybe."

They both turned their heads at the same time when they heard a loud clang from the old metal of the door. Someone was unlocking it. They were about to officially meet their captors.

~to be continued~

\,,,/BronsonL