He looked at Danny, knowing he'd heard it too. "Go ahead, I got him," he nodded, glancing quickly to Steve and then back to their sketchy new friend.
He nodded back at his partner, and was gone around through the back of the stage to find the youngest member of his team. "Where are you Kono?" he asked quietly into his bud as he came upon the hallway containing most of the rooms in the behind the scenes area of the stadium.
He stopped dead in his tracks when he heard crackling and some unfamiliar voices in his ear. "I..I just wanted to meet Layn, he's my favourite member," it was definitely Kono's voice, but she was trying hard to sound like an excited young girl.
Steve could hear enough of the voices around her to know they were male, but that was it. He hoped whatever they were saying, to her, that it meant they bought her story and where going to let her go without incident.
"I'm really sorry I got turned around, sir." Kono spoke again. "I didn't mean to end up near the electrical room, that's for sure." She let out a nervous laugh, really hoping her boss could hear her well enough to get her clue. "Can you point in the direction of their people?" she asked, trying to sound as innocent and unassuming as possible.
Steve still couldn't make out what the other voices were saying, but thankfully, he got Kono's hint loud and clear. "Hold tight, Kono." He whispered. "I'll be there in two minutes." Was the last thing he said before starting to run deeper into the under workings of the very large, expansive building to find her.
He had been searching for a few minutes when he heard her voice again. "Steve," She whispered.
All he could do was hope it was because they'd bought her story and let her leave where she'd come across them. "Who was that?" he asked in a whisper, just in case.
"Some maintenance guys, but I don't think they have anything to do with this." She replied, as she found refuge around a corner from the hallway she'd been down when stopped by the maintenance men.
"Are you sure? Where are you now?" he asked, still walking at a fast pace in search of her. "I just passed the sign that said 'Electrical Room this way'."
"Just keep heading towards the electrical room," she replied, whispering. "I'm around the next corner." Hearing footsteps getting closer, Kono had a wave of relief and fear wash over her at the same time, realizing she didn't know for sure it was her boss. She gripped her gun, hidden under her lose fitting concert tee shirt, just in case it wasn't Steve.
"Hey," they simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief as he rounded the corner and spotted her. "Are you okay?" he asked, automatically.
"Yeah, I'm fine." She replied. "Steve, the guys I ran into were janitors who just got called in tonight. They were called because the entire maintenance crew that was supposed to be here tonight didn't show up to clock in."
"Probably because they were in on what happened." He concluded, with Kono nodding in agreement.
"I tried asking if they knew where I could find anyone travelling with the band, but they didn't give me anything." She reported. "It's a ghost town around here, I think they may already be gone."
"Mm." Steve mumbled, thinking. "Would they hang the manager out to dry like that though?" He asked, thoughtfully.
"I don't know," she sighed. "But I haven't seen a single other person here, Steve. I cleared quite a few rooms before I got here." She explained. "So if they are still here, they're probably all together somewhere."
"Yeah." He agreed. "This is all the more reason why we need to go about this as carefully, and safely as possible."
"If they're behind this, they're dangerous." Kono reasoned. "And stumbling upon a group like that by ourselves isn't a good idea." She didn't have to worry about that for too long, however because seconds after that, that he heard Danny's voice. "Steve, where are you?" he asked.
"With Kono." He explained quickly. "We're fine, heading back to you now." He whispered, knowing they needed to gather more information before they could go after anyone else.
"You get much out of the band manager yet?" Kono asked, very quietly as they started walking.
"He just admitted tax evasion, but so far that's all we've got to hold him." he said, suddenly whipping his head around to the left. Stopping at another door in that hall, he put his finger up to his lips to silently signal Kono, and then put his ear up to the door very carefully. "You hear those voices?" he asked, whispering. Kono nodded, which lead Steve to give her the signal for 'I'm going in'. She gripped her gun once again and nodded to show she was ready. Steve took a quick breath, and kicked in the door.
"Five 0! Keep your hands where we can see them!" He yelled, as his eyes scanned the room in laser like fashion. Kono followed directly behind him and swept through the two rooms that branched off from that one, gun drawn.
"There's no one here," she said, letting out her breath. Looking at her boss, she realized he had something. "What is it?" she asked, approaching where he was hunched over at a small table in one corner of the room.
"The voices we heard, they're from a CD." he shook his head.
"Okay, this just gets more bizarre by the second." Kono stated, and Steve agreed. "How did every one of them just disappear like that? She questioned.
"I don't know." Steve replied. "But we've got to get an upper hand to get them, that's for sure. I think this guy knows he's on a time limit, so he's doing whatever he can to slow us down." Kono nodded in agreement as he gestured towards the CD player.
"There are way too many entries and exits, and hidden hallways down here," Kono agreed. "It's way too easy to snake your way through here." she finished.
"Yeah." Steve nodded. "Especially if you know exactly what you're doing," he said. "Either we're dealing with some people who know their way around these halls, like the missing maintenance men, or it is guys travelling with the band, and they did their homework planning their escape route."
"So it might not be anybody travelling with the band then," Kono summed up.
Steve shook his head. "We really can't rule anything out until we have more to go on." He said, looking at her once again. "Go find Max and let me know what he has. "He said, walking towards the door. "I'm going to find Chin, see if he got anything from the security cameras," He said as Kono nodded and they both headed out the door to their respective hallways.
Steve made his way back to the front of the stadium. "Chin!" he called, seeing his team member just disappearing around a corner up ahead. Lieutenant Kelly turned around when he heard his boss's voice. "You get anything from the cameras yet?" Steve asked.
"Nothing really useful yet, but I sent some tapes back to the lab with Fong, so hopefully he'll find something that'll give us a better idea of who we're looking for." Chin replied. "Duke's got his men working on talking to everyone now, but so far we don't have anything useful."
Steve nodded. "Whoever's behind this knew their escape plan, and they probably also knew that in a crowd this size, identifying them would be difficult to do." He was starting to get pretty impatient already.
Chin also nodded. "So many people, no one remembers anything specific about anyone else." He agreed. "You guys get anywhere with Philips?" he asked, not realizing Steve and Danny had split up earlier.
"Danny's got him up on the stage now, and he already admitted to some tax evasion, so I'm going to go see what else we can get out of him." he stated. "I sent Kono to find Max, so maybe we'll get something new there."
Chin nodded, as his phone rang. "Yeah, Duke." He answered. "Okay, be right there." He hung up his phone. "Duke's got a group of girls in the office who admitted to sneaking around to the trailers before the show, trying to catch a glimpse of the band for autographs. I'm going to go see if we can get anything from them."
"Sounds like it could be a solid lead," Steve commented. "If they knew they weren't supposed to be back there, they'd be watching their surroundings pretty carefully so they wouldn't be spotted."
Chin nodded in agreement. "Which means they may have seen someone."
Steve nodded and continued. "Judging by how easily the crew seemed to have disappeared through all the halls and rooms at the back of this place, I'm thinking they know their way around the stadium. So one way or another they were familiar with the layout of the stadium."
"The stadium manager mentioned that sometimes bands hire local temp workers to occasionally work these types of events, if the crew needs extra sets of hands. As soon as I talk to those girls I'll head back to HQ and run checks on everyone with a record of working events here." Chin stated.
"Okay." Steve agreed. "See if you can get a schedule or some kind of record of who was supposed to be on clean up tonight. Kono discovered everyone who was supposed to be here tonight is AWOL. They had to call in an entire new shift."
"You still want to look into everyone travelling with them?" Chin asked.
"Yeah." Steve nodded. "We don't have much time, so we can't rule anything out until we know for sure. We can't waste time going down the wrong path, so until we know whether our guy was travelling with them or not, we have to investigate both paths. Plus, the TSA search will give us good background on everyone, so we'll see any red flags that may pop up."
"Okay, I'll see what I can find and get back to you as soon as I can." Chin stated.
"Danny and I are going to talk to Vincent Philips, I'll let you know if we get any names of interest out of him."
"Sounds good." Chin replied. "You've got a plan to get him to talk?" Chin asked, knowing the words 'plan' and 'McGarrett' were one in the same, usually. Unless, of course you were talking about a back up plan.
"Trust me, one way or another, we'll get him to talk." Steve smiled, the wheels in his head already turning on what kind of fun he could have with this one.
Chin smiled and agreed, knowing all about McGarrett's rather unorthodox ways of getting people to tell him information. "Remember, Duke's outside if you need him." he said aloud and then headed back towards the offices once more.
Steve walked back on to the stage to see something he wasn't expecting. His partner had the band manager tied to a chair, holding the cymbals very close to his ear, about to be rubbed together. "If you want to be able to ever hear your precious band, or anything else ever again, I strongly suggest you tell me where your crew is, for the last time!"
"And for the last time, I'm not telling you anything until you show me proof that you can legally hold us here tonight!" he spat back, showing that he wasn't very intimidated by the detective. "We're playing tomorrow night in Hollywood, so I have to get those boys on that damn plane!"
"Danny," Steve said as he approached the men. He couldn't help but let out a little bit of a grin. "Taking a page from my book, I see."
Danny broke his attention from their person of interest to his partner with a sigh. "Well, actually it's because sometimes, I like to be a little bit rock and roll." he teased his friend. "Unlike you, my friend, who I have to say, was very obviously connecting with the messages in the sappy, love songs played this evening."
"Connecting with the messages?" Steve questioned. "What does that even mean?"
"You know," Danny continued. "maybe it's the fact that you share the same emotional level as their target audience, maybe that's what drew you in."
"Oh, that's good, coming from someone as sensitive as you, Danny." Steve replied with a big smile.
"Hey, Sonny and Cher!" The man tied to the chair spoke up, getting tired of hearing the two men bickering. "Are you going to arrest me, or what? I just said I have a band to pack up and get on a flight out of here!"
They both turned to the man, and then back to each other. "Did he just call us..?" Danny trailed off.
"Yeah, he did." Steve replied quickly before walking to the chair and untying the man's arms only to cuff them behind his back. "You're not going anywhere, my friend."
"Hey, I want to speak to my lawyer!" The man barked over his shoulder at Steve.
Steve stopped, and moved the man so they could look at each other face to face. "Is he in England right now?" he asked, receiving a grunt and a nod from the man. "Danny," he asked, not taking his eyes off the man who was quickly becoming their prime suspect. "Mr. Philips here wants to talk to his lawyer; do you have a phone he could use?"
Danny caught on immediately. He had been in these situations with Steve enough to know what his response was going to be. "No I do not. It must be in my other pants. Do you have one he could use, Steven?" he asked as he set the cymbals down on the stage.
Still with his eyes locked into their suspects, Steve replied with a very forceful tone. "No, I don't. And it's a long swim from across the pond. So you better get used to us, Mr. Philips because until we get some answers, you're going to be seeing a whole lot more of us." He turned to Danny and let out the slightest smirk. "Book 'em-"
"If you call me Cher I will crash these cymbals next to your face!" Danny said in a hurry, determined to get his sentence out before Steve finished his.
Steve just continued smiling; completely enjoying the fact that he could rile his partner so easily. "I'm going to see if Kono and Max have anything. Take him to Duke, and then I'll meet you out front." was all he said before handing Mr. Philips over to his partner and walking off the stage towards the hallway once more.
"For the record, he'd be Cher." Danny stated, as he grabbed their perp. "C'mon," he not-so gently pushed the man towards the stairs off the stage and towards the doors that lead to where Sergeant Duke Lukela was waiting.
On his way to meet Kono and Max, Steve's phone rang. "McGarrett." he answered. "Yes, sir." he stopped in his tracks. "Wait, are you saying that-" He was cut off. There weren't many people Steve would tolerate being cut off by, but he would never question the authority of one of his superiors. "How did he-" once again he was interrupted. "With all due respect, Governor, how am I supposed to get to the bottom of this if we-" he was cut off again. Steve could feel his face getting more red by the second. "Yes, sir." he finally spoke again. "I understand, sir." before giving his superior the chance to say anything else, Steve disconnected the call and shoved his phone in his pocket. He practically ran towards the loading area of the stadium.