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Hey, everybody! Welcome back to another chapter! Sorry that it's late, but I had to take an unexpected trip and it put me behind.

I have really enjoyed writing about Allie being involved with the CIA again, and I'm glad that you guys have enjoyed it as well. This chapter flew by because it was so full of excitement, so I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it!

Thank you so much to all of you that have read, reviewed, favorited, or followed this story (and me!)! I appreciate each and every show of support that I receive for this story. It really keeps me going. Keep it up!

Happy Reading!

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Chapter Twenty-Three: And Ye Shall Know the Truth

Steve

"No," I said immediately, shaking my head for extra emphasis. "Absolutely not."

"I don't like it, either," Agent Sanderson said, though the displeasure on his face said it better than his words. "But Allie is the best chance that we have of catching this guy."

"This assassin," I reminded him. "The one that's already taken out one of your assassins." Allie was good, but she'd never been an assassin. She was trained to spy and to fight, but not to kill. And when it came to fighting an assassin, they typically didn't stop until they were dead. Would she be able to do that?

"I don't need your permission, Commander McGarrett," Agent Sanderson told me, obviously annoyed that I'd told him no. He obviously didn't hear that a lot. "This assassin knows Allie from her time with the Esguerra cartel."

"Where she betrayed them." It was like this guy knew nothing.

He seemed surprised that I knew that, but he recovered quickly. "You shouldn't know the details of that mission, but, nevertheless, believe me when I say that our assassin is not aware that Allie was the one that took the information. No one outside the CIA had that information."

"Actually, a couple of people might have," Allie stepped in for the first time in several minutes. She stood with the rest of the Five-O team, watching my exchange with Sanderson. "It was a Mossad agent that came to rescue me while the CIA sat around in a conference room and argued about what to do."

Agent Sanderson flicked her an annoyed glance. "If there had been clear and eminent danger-"

She cut him off, her annoyance twice the size of his. "They had the place on lockdown and were going room to room, torturing people to try to get a confession out of them."

I was the only member of Five-O that was shocked by this news. Agent Sanderson's annoyance grew roughly three sizes. "This has no bearing on the current mission."

"Allie doesn't need to be a part of this," I told him, using my best 'Commander' voice.

And then Allie stepped forward and said, "Not without Five-O as backup."

Sanderson was confused. "You'll have CIA backup. I'll be going in with you since he's never seen me in the field before and there will be agents a short distance away."

"The CIA has never proved to be a very reliable backup," she said, not the least bit worried about what he would think about her words. "Five-O has. Either they help to serve as backup, or I'm not going in."

"You don't have to go in, anyway," I told her. "You don't work for the CIA. You work for Five-O. And I'm the head of Five-O, not him." I gestured to Sanderson. "This is extremely dangerous, and I don't like it."

"I'll do it," Allie assured me and then looked to Sanderson. "But only with Five-O as backup. Consider it an extra precaution; I know how much the CIA loves precautions."

It took Sanderson a few moments, but he finally sighed and nodded. "Fine. I need you on this because that's what Riley requested. If you say Five-O has to be part of the backup team, then fine." He looked to me and I could see the anger of his loss burning there. "I'll have a member of my team contact you with details."

I didn't ask if he needed me to write my number down. He was CIA; he could get my number whenever he wanted. "Great."

With one last nod to all of us, he turned and stalked out of the room.

"That was overly dramatic," Danny commented.

"Typical Sanderson," Allie sighed. "Look, the op is really pretty simple. The assassin's name is Braxton Riley."

"Who does he work for?" Kono asked her.

"No one; he's freelance. And since he doesn't have an agency behind him to back him up, he doesn't want to get caught in the crosshairs of some battle that he didn't know he was fighting. He agreed to give someone that he trusted the name of the man who hired him."

"You know him?" Chin asked.

She nodded. "I met him while I was working undercover at a Colombian drug cartel. The same cartel that is supposedly responsible for this. I reached out a couple of days ago and told Riley that the CIA had been asking me some questions and that Morrison was actually a member of the same cartel that was doing some spying on another cartel, trying to find a mole. Riley obviously didn't want any part of that, so he said he'd give me the name and I could do with it what I wanted."

"When is this meet taking place?"

I was the one that answered. "Tonight. So, grab whatever weapons you want out of the gun locker and practice with them, if you need to. I'll let you all know when I have more details about where we're supposed to be."

They all wandered off to do their own thing and I drifted closer to Allie, wanting so badly to pull her into a hug. "You still don't have to do this."

Her expression was serious. "Morrison was my friend, Steve. He would have done it for me."

And as much as I wanted to tell her that she still shouldn't do it, I knew that I would have done the exact same thing if it was for one of my SEAL buddies. Or even a member of Five-O. Once you've served with someone – put your life on the line together – you developed a special connection. A family. And you didn't turn your back on your family.

"Okay," I sighed. "Promise me that you'll be careful. And go in with more than just your sidearm."

Her nose wrinkled in distaste. "You know I don't like guns."

"I don't care. This guy that you're meeting is an assassin and even though you don't think he knows that you're the one that betrayed the cartel, he could still know. Always better to be safe than sorry."

"Fine." She smiled. "I'll put another gun on an ankle holster. Happy?"

"I won't be happy until you're done with this thing. I don't like this Sanderson guy or that he's going in with you."

She shrugged. "I don't like it either, trust me, but he did have a point about not being recognized from his field experience. He has next to zero. From what I've heard, he was the worst field agent ever."

I laughed. "I could believe it."

"I'll be careful," she promised sincerely, and I told myself that would have to be enough.

A few hours later, we were gearing up in the storage unit that the CIA had set up for the occasion. There were a few computers on a small table and a few agents sat around, watching and waiting. Listening devices had been planted in the nearby warehouse where the meeting was to take place, and all we had to do was wait and listen.

A glance at my watch told me that it was time for the meet.

"No one's talking," I stated the obvious. "They were supposed to meet now."

"Patience, Commander," one of the agents said, clearly annoyed with me. "They could be running late due to traffic."

I gave my team a look, telling them to be ready for anything.

They responded with nods.

Allie

There's a feeling that humans get… some people call them 'bad vibes'. It's a gut feeling, something in your body telling you that something is very, very wrong and you should get out of there as quickly as you can.

The bad vibes began as soon as I felt myself waking up.

Did Steve and I have a fight? I couldn't even remember spending the night with Steve, and our nights were usually pretty memorable. The last argument that we'd had was about the CIA op…

My eyes flew open and I looked around, my vision going blurry for a minute.

I was in what was clearly a hotel room, and I was cuffed to the chair from the desk. My location wasn't ideal – I was stuck between two twin beds and the chair didn't roll. But what in the world had happened…? Had Riley gotten the drop on me? What about Sanderson?

Like a very slow instant replay, I remembered what had happened.

"This isn't the right way," I told Sanderson as he turned down the wrong road. "You should have gone left."

He shot me an annoyed glance, his signature look when it came to me. "I know where I'm going."

"I live here," I reminded him, equally annoyed. He had that effect on people. "This isn't the way to Sand Island, and that's where we're supposed to meet Riley. At one of the warehouses on Sand Island. Right? Or did the meeting place change last second?" It wasn't an uncommon thing, really. People like Riley could be paranoid.

Sanderson nodded. "The new location is just up ahead. We'll make it in time."

"Does everyone else know?"

Again, he gave me that annoyed look. "I know that I don't have as much field experience as you, Officer Rhodes, but I'm not an idiot. The tech team should be setting up as we speak and I had Gibson get in touch with Five-O. You're covered."

I nodded and took out my phone. "Okay. I'll just send Steve a text and let him know, just in case."

The next thing that I had felt was my body violently shaking.

And then nothing.

"That son of a bitch tased me," I muttered to myself and tried to force the grogginess out of my system so that I could get away. Things weren't making sense, but I couldn't focus on that right then. I needed to get out of the room and try to call Steve.

A beep signaled the insertion of a room key into the lock and moments later, the door opened and in stepped Sanderson. He had changed out of his suit and was wearing something more suited to a tourist. In one hand, he held a bottle of bleach.

I swallowed hard. Bleach was used for cleaning up all trace evidence.

He was going to kill me and wipe down the room.

"Seth didn't get called back for a mission, did he?" I asked him, remembering his excuse from the day before.

"Oh, no, he did." Sanderson informed me and set the bleach on the dresser, right beside the TV. "I called in a favor and had him sent away on a mission."

"Because you needed me," I realized and laughed humorlessly. "Really, you son of a bitch? You're so pissed off that I got away with my love affair with Ari that you want to kill me over it?"

He didn't seem affected by my words, for once. "It did piss me off that you managed to erase those tapes," he admitted and sat down on one of the beds, staring at me. "But that's not why you're here, and I'm not going to kill you."

"You're not going to kill me, but you tased me and now I'm handcuffed to a chair."

"I'm actually due to retire soon," he told me.

"You were due to retire ten years ago; you're ancient, and you were never that good at your job, anyway."

His eyes grew hard as he glared at me. "How rude. Don't make me gag you."

As that would likely make it even harder to escape, I bit my tongue and cautiously began to move my hands, trying to get to the bobby pin that I always kept clipped onto my back pocket. Old habits died hard, thankfully.

"Very good," he said with victory in his eyes. "On a CIA pension, I won't make much."

You don't deserve to make much, I thought, but kept it to myself. I could feel the pin, but couldn't get a good angle on it. It required most of my concentration.

He sighed and continued with his pity party. "It's been grieving me, lately. I've served this country faithfully and all I have to show for it is a crappy apartment in DC and a divorce. The government doesn't pay any of us nearly enough for the kind of work that we do."

Got it! My fingers closed around the end of the pin and I carefully began to pull it out, centimeter by centimeter.

As I did, I used my other hand to press a button on my watch. It had been a special gift from Kol for our birthday last year, and it had all kinds of useful functions – one of which was going to be immensely helpful.

"And then, while I was puzzling out whether to retire or work for another five years so that I can actually afford to live when I'm not working, I realized that I could make all of the money that I need to within a week. Why do people sell government secrets, Allie?"

I stared at him, not responding, as I finally got the pin into place. The tricky part was about to start.

"That's not rhetorical," he told me with a smug smile. "Go ahead and answer."

"I don't know why people sell government secrets." My voice was as dry as bone. "Maybe to make themselves feel important because they turned out to be the worst field agent the CIA has ever seen?"

That one earned me a slap across the face, but it was worth it because I could rustle around without arousing suspicion. I managed to get the pin into the lock and began to move it around a bit, feeling it out.

"You've always thought you're so clever," he said, the anger evident both in his voice and in the redness of his face. "No, Allie." He began to pace. "People sell government secrets because it pays well. Millions, if you sell to the right person. The right organization."

The realization hit me harder than his slap had. "That's what happened to Morrison," I realized. "You sold his safety. Allowed his enemies to find him."

"He was an assassin," Sanderson told me. "There were plenty of people that wanted him dead. It took me months, but I finally managed to find the highest bidder. His death earned me five million dollars."

I felt sick to my stomach. "That was his life! He never did anything to you!"

"Not directly, no, but he represented everything that I hated."

"An assassin?"

"A field agent!" he practically yelled. "That's all that I ever wanted to be, and I tried so hard for years. But every time that I tried to prove myself, something out of my control would happen and I failed. Finally, they just stuck me behind a desk for good."

"And somehow that was Morrison's fault?" I yelled back at him and finally got one side of the cuffs off. I needed to check my anger, or I would act too soon. "Because he was good at something that you weren't? Grow up!"

That earned me another slap, but also gave me the perfect cover to get the other side off. I held the cuffs in my hand, waiting. Sanderson had a gun in his back pocket and both of my guns had been stripped off of me. I needed to proceed with caution.

"I don't expect you to understand. You've always gotten everything that you wanted. You've jumped from job to job after the CIA and excelled at them all."

I was surprised. "You've been keeping up with me?"

"Only after I ran into you here." He smiled. "It really irked me that you wouldn't let the CIA handle the entire investigation, but then I thought… I can use this to my advantage. I started doing some reaching out, and as it so happens, the Colombian cartel would love to get their hands on the rat that burned their business to the ground. They still haven't been able to completely rebuild, you know. Not after all of the raids and arrests."

"Good. They were selling drugs to kids."

"Now, all that I have to do is take you away from here. I used a solid alias of mine to rent a remote piece of land and that's where I'll hold you until I find the highest bidder. Then, I'll sell you."

"How are you planning to explain my disappearance?" He'd done a very poor job of thinking this thing through.

"I've already gotten rid of the burner phone we were using to keep contact with Riley," he told me. "I'll say that he got the drop on us after changing locations, and took you. All I have to do is give myself a few believable injuries."

Okay… maybe not a super poor plan, but there were holes. Not that I was going to tell him that. But I did need him to come closer.

I had a lightbulb moment then and said, "That won't take much. No one thinks that you're that capable, anyway."

Anger flared in his eyes and he stepped forward, drawing his arm back with the intention of slapping me. But I didn't give him that chance. I charged him and because he'd been expecting me to still be cuffed, he was surprised.

Not only did I have youth on him, but I had years of training and experience that he'd never had the opportunity to gain. A few quick jabs to the stomach made him double over, and then I reached around him and grabbed the gun out of his back pocket.

He tried to struggle with me, but it was no use. I kicked out and sent him flying backwards, where he crashed into the wall. I came forward and pointed the gun at him, barely keeping enough control over myself to not shoot him.

"I can't wait for your trial," I told him honestly. "Because after that, you'll have nothing."

"You have no proof," he spat at me angrily. "It would be my word against yours, and you're not in the CIA anymore."

I kept the gun in my left hand and showed him the watch on my right hand. "This was a gift from one of my brothers. It has a lot of useful functions, but my favorite is the recorder."

Sanderson's face paled. "You're bluffing." But he didn't look so sure.

"I'm not. Hang out right there, would you?" Keeping the gun aimed at his chest, I moved to the desk and grabbed the phone, dialing Steve's number.

"Allie!" he said as soon as he heard that it was me. "What happened?! Where are you?! We raided the warehouse and found Riley's body, but you were nowhere to be found. What the hell happened?!"

So, Riley had just been a pawn. I glanced down at the hotel notepad on the desk and gave Steve the address.

"We'll be there in ten," he promised me. "Are you okay?" He relayed the address to someone.

"I'm okay. It was Sanderson. He sold out Morrison and got him killed."

Steve cursed. "I never liked that guy. Hang tight, okay?"

"Okay."

The rest of it was a blur. Sanderson was taken away by CIA agents, and I handed over my watch momentarily so that the evidence could be collected. Paramedics showed up to check on me, but I had no real injuries. The injuries would have happened later, when Sanderson would have cut me to make me bleed so that he could create a crime scene.

The sick bastard.

And then Steve was there, and nothing else even mattered.

I stood and ran to him, throwing my arms around him as I fought against the tears. He made me feel better, even after everything that had happened.

He kissed me deeply and then pulled me back in, telling me that it was all going to be okay. That I'd done so good and he was so proud of me.

And off to the side, the rest of Five-O stared in shock as he kissed me again.

"They know now," I told Steve, breathless, when he finally pulled away.

He smiled. "Good." And then he kissed me again.