A Big Splash
Part 2
Disclaimer: In a place called "fanfiction"dot net, do I really need to say the characters aren't mine? The Five-0 officers belong to other people. Aku and Dr. Tanaka are mine, but CBS can borrow them if they really want to.
I'm changing the rating on this to T. Definitely more violence in part 2, but nothing out of line with the series.
Detective Danny Williams of the state police task force called Hawaii Five-0 noticed some suspicious characters at a marina. When his boss, Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett (Navy Reserve) went to investigate, he was hit on the head and thrown in the water. As the bad guys escaped, Danny dove in the water to rescue his friend (and incidentally prove to Steve that he can swim). Though groggy and half-drowned, Steve remembered something the suspects said: "Bomb. Hospital. That'll make a big splash." The next morning, Steve awoke in his own house watched by a doctor friend of Kono Kalakaua, Five-0 rookie police officer. In his kitchen, he found his teammates fixing breakfast …
"Am I the only one who got any sleep last night?" Steve McGarrett asked.
"Pretty much," Chin Ho Kelly agreed.
"Anything happen?"
"Not a thing," answered Danny Williams, stifling a yawn. "Well, no move from the bad guys. We hard-working police officers checked information, searched hospitals and exhausted six bomb-sniffing dogs. To no avail."
"I know what I heard," Steve insisted.
"I'm not arguing with that," Danny argued. "But I wish you'd heard a date to go with 'Bomb. Hospital. Make a big splash.'"
"Shhh," Kono Kalakaua warned, as Dr. Tanaka returned. She didn't know anything about the threat.
"I'll be going now," the doctor said. "I'm planning a party tonight for friends coming in on the hospital ship and there's still a lot to do."
"What did you say?" Danny yelped.
"Hospital ship?" Steve demanded.
Tanaka blinked. "Yes, the Navy hospital ship Solace is coming into Pearl today. She's due at 2."
The Five-0 teammates felt as if the air had been sucked out of their lungs. They managed somehow to politely usher the doctor to her car with copious thanks, before collapsing back at the table. They tried to wrap their minds around the enormity.
"Blow up a Navy ship ..." Steve began.
"... a hospital ship! ..." Kono emphasized.
"... in Pearl Harbor!" added Danny, to whom Pearl Harbor had always represented a disaster rather than a place.
"That would make a big splash," Chin finished soberly.
Continued …
"OK." Steve took a deep breath. "At least we've got some time. You three get some rest, because we're going to need to be sharp later. I'll call the governor and the admiral and see if we can get confirmation."
"Bright spot. Maybe this time you can get Catherine's help all legal-like," Danny said with a mild leer.
"Every cloud..." Steve agreed.
At high noon, the team met Steve at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base for a briefing. They were cleaned up and rested, but looked out of place amid the uniformed police and Navy officers swarming around. Neither fish nor seafowl, the Five-0 team was shunted into a tiny meeting room to wait.
Too focused, too intent, Steve tapped his finger on the table impatiently and gazed stone-faced at the bare gray wall.
Chin gestured at Danny to break the silence. Why me? Danny asked silently, pointing at himself. Chin gave Danny a look and moved his fingers in a "talk talk talk" gesture.
Danny cast about for something to say. Sports? Sports was always good.
"So, Steve, how are the Kings doing?" he said loudly, referring to Steve's (and Chin's and Kono's) high school football team. "They were what, two and oh?"
"Three and one," Steve said absently. "You're not following them? But I forgot, you don't like football."
"I never said that," Danny protested. "I like to watch it."
"But you never played it."
Suddenly Steve came fully out of his preoccupation and realized the others were openly laughing at him. "What?"
Danny shook his head as his voice shook with mirth. He held his hands up to his brow and flashed his fingers to represent the lights of a movie marquee. "'No formal police training.' Sometimes you can just see it written across his forehead in neon lights."
"You've gotta take it as a compliment, Danny. That's how tough he thinks you are," Chin said.
Steve still looked bewildered.
"Boss," Kono said kindly. "How would you describe Danny, if he was a suspect?"
"Five-five, hundred and …" Steve's voice trailed off as he realized those weren't the stats of a football player. Even kickers were bigger than that.
"And I'll bet you were smaller in high school," Chin said.
"You'd be right. I was 4-11 when I started high school, just two inches taller two years later. I spent my junior year praying, begging God to let me get tall enough to join the police force. Fortunately I shot up — if you can call this up — in my senior year."
He pointed at Kono. "You will never hear me complain about women cops," he told her. "Without affirmative action, I might never have made the force."
"I know what you mean," six-foot-one McGarrett said.
Danny scoffed.
"No, really. When I was in high school I wanted to be a Navy fighter pilot — a Top Gun. But they have a height limit because those cockpits are small! And I just kept growing. I outgrew my dream."
"So you learned helicopters instead," Chin said.
"Well, a Seahawk isn't as sexy as a Hornet, but machine guns and Hellfire missiles are some consolation," Steve answered with a glint in his eye. "Danny, I thought from what you said that you did play basketball?"
"Sure, on the streets, at the Police Athletic League, not in high school. I played baseball on the school team. They didn't care how tall I was, as long as I could turn a double play and hit up the middle. That's how I first hurt my knee. The runner took me out with a slide when I was covering second base. I made the play, though."
He chuckled, remembering something. "And there was Coach Michaels. He saw me in the hall and followed me to homeroom to recruit me …"
An ensign interrupted Danny's story by inviting them to the auditorium where a crowd was gathering.
Resplendent in his full dress uniform, Steve was buttonholed by an NCIS bigwig as soon as they stepped in the door. More anonymous, Danny and the others edged past into the rapidly filling auditorium.
Lt. Catherine Rollins suddenly had the feeling she was being stalked. Almost lost among the taller naval folk, a short, sandy-haired man eeled his way toward her. She held her ground.
"Catherine," Danny drew out her name as if tasting its sweetness.
"Danny Williams," she guessed, holding out her hand in greeting. "I'm so pleased to finally meet you. How did you spot me?"
"I followed Steve's eyes to the first target he acquired." Danny hadn't released Catherine's hand. She let him keep it, because his eyes were sparking mischief. "Is he watching?" Danny asked.
Out of the corner of her eye, Catherine could see Steve's worried gaze. "Oh, yes."
"Does he look nervous?"
"Petrified."
"I think it's good for him to realize that sometimes things are out of his control, don't you?"
"A whack on the head yesterday wasn't enough?"
"Probably not," Danny sighed. "We really ought to get together and share notes."
"I'd like that," she said truthfully. The door opened for the admiral and the governor. "But not now," she added regretfully.
Danny released her hand with a wink and slipped across the room to his seat next to Steve.
"What were you doing?" Steve hissed.
"And you call yourself a detective," was all Danny would answer.
The NCIS chief called the meeting to order, quickly summarizing the situation. "Intelligence has picked up an increase in cell phone and Internet chatter originating in the Pearl Harbor area that seems to confirm a credible threat against the hospital ship Solace." He quelled a murmur in the room. "The Solace has slowed her approach to Pearl and won't enter the harbor until we give the word. The official ETA has been revised to 16:00. That gives us more time, before the enemy gets suspicious." He gestured at Catherine.
"We focused in on three areas that seemed to be most active and began comparing surveillance photos with a cell phone picture Commander McGarrett took," the lieutenant said. "The cell photos aren't the best quality," she said apologetically, "But we got a 68 percent match and my instincts say it's a good one."
A picture flipped on the screen. Danny's fist thumped on the table. "Good instincts," he said, as he looked at his three "foreigners" from the marina.
"That's them?" Catherine asked.
"That's them."
"Confirmed," Steve agreed. "We've got them."
The admiral spoke, "Lieutenant Commander McGarrett and his Five-0 team will lead the raid on this warehouse, coordinating police and military forces." There was an unhappy stirring from the NCIS man. The admiral squelched him with a look. "This is a joint operation and the commander has experience on both sides of the fence. Anyway, he's the one who discovered this threat. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't have known anything until the Solace was resting next to the Arizona."
The Navy guys weren't happy with that assessment, but Catherine spoke up. "It's true that the activity we traced was too low to activate a red flag. It was only when we had a threat to compare it to, that we could see the pattern."
The admiral nodded and gestured Steve forward.
He stepped up to the dais. "I should correct one thing. I didn't discover the threat. It was Detective Williams who first brought the suspicious activity to my attention and who kept me and my intel from ending up at the bottom of the marina."
It was always nice to be mentioned favorably in official reports. Danny tilted his head modestly and almost entirely hid the smile that wanted to flash across his face. He could practically hear little adding machine sound effects as the Navy officers reassessed the net worth of the scruffy little cop slouching at the table; then the smile was wiped away by concentration as Steve began to lay out the details of their battleplan.
The silver Camaro seemed too quiet to Kono on the drive to the assembly point. The rookie police officer had been on raids before, but nothing to compare with the scope of this. She rubbed her hands together compulsively.
Danny glanced in the rear view mirror. "SWAT, the Navy, NCIS — why do we get to be point? We shouldn't be so selfish," he complained.
"You can't tell me you don't want some payback," Chin said from the seat behind him.
"Payback? For what? For seeing my partner dumped in the harbor like a sack of garbage? I enjoyed that. It was like a fantasy come true," Danny said.
"Is that what you fantasize about?" Steve was amused. "You are a sick, twisted little man."
"Hey. Hey! Watch the insults," Danny protested. "I prefer 'vertically challenged'," he added with mock dignity. "Or 'height deprived.' Or the classic 'short,' if you must. But not 'little.' I've got enough problems being the haole without being the 'little haole.' It sounds like a children's book," he finished in disgust.
"But you don't have a problem with the 'sick and twisted' part?" Steve asked.
"Nah, I'm used to that. It's practically Rachel's pet name for me," Danny said, referring to his ex-wife.
At the rallying point, Steve and Danny went to coordinate with the other groups. Chin handed Kono a Kevlar vest from the trunk. "Still nervous, kid?"
She was surprised to realize she wasn't. "I forgot all about it."
Chin's mouth twitched in a suppressed grin. "Danny can be very distracting."
"Wait, you've not saying he started that rant because I was nervous?"
"I couldn't say, but he's a noticing sort of person."
"And what does that get us? …" Chin hadn't realized that Danny had come up behind him. "…Flak jackets and semi-automatics, that's what I get for noticing suspicious characters."
"But the people on the Solace thank you," Kono said.
"They'll never hear about it," Danny countered. He had a bulletproof vest on and two more in his arms. "Here. Take these instead. These are tactical vests. They have ceramic plates as well as Kevlar. They'll stop a knife as well as a bullet. We're might have close-in fighting in there."
"We should have some of these," Chin said.
"They're on order. These belong to SWAT," Danny said, as he adjusted his collar and settled the vest.
"You got cuffs?" Danny asked Kono. She showed her regulation handcuffs. Danny shook his head. He pulled a bunch of long strips of plastic out of a pocket. "Here, take some of these. I've got a whole package. We don't know how many bad guys are inside there. Do you know how to use the plasticuffs?"
"Sure, just pull the tab through the slot. They won't come off until you cut them off," Kono replied.
"How about first aid equipment?"
The officer patted a pocket of her cargo pants. "Danny, if you don't stop fussing over me, I'm going to start calling you Danno." Steve had picked up Danny's daughter's nickname for her father, but no one else used it. Steve mostly only used it to say, "Book 'em, Danno," which he thought was hysterical and Danny thought annoying.
At Kono's threat, the detective flinched back in an exaggerated motion and crossed his fingers before him as if warding off a vampire. "Forgive me," he said more seriously. "It's because I'm nervous, not because I don't trust you."
He pulled something out of his pocket. Chin saw he was looking at a wallet-sized school photo of his daughter. He rubbed it with his thumb, as if stroking Grace's hair. Danny's eyes were sad. Chin gripped his friend's shoulder.
"None of that, brah. We've got your back."
"Right." Danny tucked the photo in his pocket, under his Kevlar, over his heart. Kono could see the anxiety flow out of his eyes, to be replaced by resolve. She found it very Zen. The detective slung a semiautomatic rifle over his shoulder and raised his voice. "C'mon, Steve. If we're going to do this, let's do it!"
"Patience, partner. There are a lot of people involved here. SWAT's already taken out the perimeter sentries, so that's one job down." Steve rubbed his forehead. He'd never coordinated an operation this big and kept running through his mental checklist to make sure he didn't forget anything. He turned to the SWAT commander, whose name badge read Akutagawa. "You've got the infrared?"
The SWAT officer was short and stocky, or maybe he just looked stocky in all his gear. He set a laptop on the hood of a police car, the Five-0 and SWAT officers gathered around. The screen showed the warehouse interior in varied primary colors. People showed up as orange figures wandering in a mostly blue-green landscape broken up by red squares of warm spots under skylights. A bright white blurred the image of the far side of the building. Akutagawa pointed at it.
"They're doing some welding or something really hot near the exit. It's messing up the image. We can't tell how many people are over here," he warned. He brought up an overlay on the image that outlined an open area at the point of entrance, then a single path to another open area where five warm bodies lingered. After this "clearing," two crooked paths ran to the exit by the water. "A few people have been moving up and down these paths. The building plan shows nothing but a big open space with catwalks along the sides. The 'paths' and 'rooms' inside have been created with shipping containers and other equipment, which all look pretty much the same on the infrared." One path ran straighter, with right angle turns. "There's not a lot of detail, but this area seems to be a lot of shipping containers stacked in relatively neat rows." The other path was less regular. "There are containers over here, too, but also construction equipment and we can't tell what else."
"All right. My team is taking point on the ground," Steve said, ignoring Danny's ostentatious sigh. "I want SWAT to take the high road. I want snipers on the catwalks, if there are any, and paralleling us on top of the containers. But you are not to initiate any action without my OK. If you run into the enemy, you'll have to act, but stay covert as long as possible." He looked at all the assembled officers. "I can't emphasize enough that we have to stay quiet as long as possible. If they hear shooting, they'll launch the bomb boat. They're not going to be able to get to the Solace, but a bomb that size can do an awful lot of damage. We've got patrol officers clearing out the nearby buildings and the Navy is clearing the bay, but there are too many people and too many targets."
Everyone nodded.
"We don't want an Oklahoma City," Danny said.
"We'll need a SWAT team with us until we get to this point," Steve said, pointing at the clearing that now contained seven heat signatures. "Let me double check with the Navy and we'll get started."
"Thanks for the vests," Danny said, looking askance at the SWAT officer's name.
Akutagawa chuckled companionably. "It's a mouthful," he agreed. "My friends call me Aku."
"I suppose that means something." All Hawaiian names seemed to mean something.
"Bonito."
"Tuna? You're nicknamed tuna?"
Aku laughed. "The bonito is the fiercest hunter in the sea, pound for pound."
"If you say so," Danny said agreeably. "I don't know a lot about fish, except they taste good."
"Strong muscles and sharp teeth, that's a bonito," Aku said.
Danny regarded the short but powerful SWAT commander with his load of matte black weaponry.
"That suits you, all right," the Five-0 No. 2 said.
Aku turned serious. "No, offense, Williams, but we should be spearheading this offensive. Special Weapons and Tactics," Aku emphasized.
"I have no problem with that," Danny said honestly. "I have daughter that I would like to see this weekend. I don't want her standing by a coffin with a folded flag in her hands."
Aku nodded.
"I don't want you to think we don't trust SWAT," Danny said. "But Steve has his own way of doing things. He wants the team he handpicked and you can't reason with him. But I'll tell you one thing … he won't tell me what he did in the SEALs, says it's classified, but he's really good at stuff like this … kinda hands-on, but good."
"If that's the way he plays, we'll back you up," Aku promised.
"I've heard you SWAT guys give everyone a nickname," Kono said. She'd been listening and learning, as a conscientious rookie should, but thought it was time for a change of subject, before she got nervous again.
"Mm," Aku agreed. "I think we'll call Williams 'oneone'."
The New Jersey native looked at him suspiciously, wondering if this was more haole baiting.
"It means 'sandy,' Danny," Kono said.
Aku patted the top of his helmet.
The detective smoothed back his light brown hair. "Sandy, OK, I've been called worse." Aku started back to his unit. Danny called after him, "But you know it takes twice as long to say oh-nee-oh-nee as it does to say Da-nee."
Aku grinned and waved.
"Making more enemies, Danny," Steve said as he came up, adjusting the tactical vest that his partner had given him.
Danny raised his eyebrows. "I don't know why you keep me around, if you think I'm dumb enough to make an enemy of the SWAT commander just before we go into a firefight."
"Sometimes I wonder," Steve said ambiguously.
Danny settled the brace on his knee. It didn't seem any worse for its saltwater immersion. Steve noticed the action.
"Knee OK?" he asked. Once Danny stopped limping around with a cane, Steve tended to forget his partner's ACL was still healing.
"No pain. No problem," Danny replied. "The brace is just to keep it from twisting. I understand we might have to do some running and dodging in there."
"That's why you're a detective," Steve said. He gestured Chin and Kono closer. "Watch out for alarms, booby traps, tripwires," Steve warned. "Look all around, up and at the floor," he emphasized to rookie Kono, who nodded. "Here we go," Steve said into his mike.
He took point with Danny and Kono behind him and Chin as rear guard. SWAT officers followed in a separate group of four, while others took up positions around the perimeter and naval units lurked offshore.
Handguns out, the Five-0 team slipped inside through the partially open cargo door. It made Chin uneasy that the terrorists were so confident, they didn't even lock the door. Steve, Danny and Kono carried semiautomatics slung on their backs, while Chin preferred his trusty shotgun. They kept the larger weapons in reserve, relying on their handguns until heavier firepower was needed. Ten SWAT officers followed the foursome, all of them carrying semiautomatic rifles.
The warehouse was stacked with cargo containers in a neat but apparently random arrangement. It was quiet, but the rattle of the ventilation system covered any minor sounds the invaders might have made. From the far end of the warehouse, they could hear construction sounds, including the crackle-buzz of welding equipment.
Lighting was uneven with bright patches of sunlight contrasting with gloomy corners. The roof was filled with skylights, but most of them were covered, possibly to control the heat in the unairconditioned building. The ones that weren't covered made blinding patches of sunlight that sent the rest of the cavernous room deeper into shadow.
Aku gestured and two of the SWAT officers peeled off to climb ladders up to shadowed catwalks on either side of the warehouse.
Aku and his remaining men followed the Five-0 group into the wide passage between stacks of cargo containers. The containers weren't lined up neatly, leaving nooks and niches suitable for taking cover. The officers slunk from recess to recess, hugging the sides of the passage.
They slowly approached the clearing where they heard voices. Aku handed Steve a six-inch periscope that he used to peek around the last container. He saw seven men sitting on crates grouped around a cooler of beer. When Steve saw what they were doing, he had to fight to keep from laughing out loud.
"They're cleaning their weapons," Steve told the others in a low voice. "They're all disassembled."
"Good luck for us," Chin said.
"For a change," Danny said.
They shifted weapons, because the semis and shotgun would be more impressive, then waited for a rise in the construction sound. The officers charged into the clearing, surrounding the seven before they realized what was happening. One man snatched up his shotgun only to find the hinged barrel drooping toward his feet. Steve smirked at him.
"Set it down and raise your hands," he said forcefully, but not loudly.
Seeing the barrel of Steve's semi pointed between his eyes, the man did as he was told.
Another cursed, tossed away his useless rifle and opened his mouth to shout. Martial artist Kono spun on the ball of her foot and smashed him in the mouth with a roundhouse kick. Chin shoved the barrel of his shotgun into the gut of another who ignored the guns and tried to shout a warning to his comrades deeper in the building.
The others set down their useless weapons and raised their hands.
"No more heroes?" Danny asked with insufferable cheerfulness.
"We're just hired muscle," said one of the prisoners. "Those two are part of the group who hired us." He nodded at the two shouters.
Steve gagged the two with a couple of oily cleaning rags, while the officers used plasticuffs on all the prisoners. They fastened the ankles of six of the men together, two by two, as if they were competing in a three-legged race, to make it harder for anyone to run. Only the self-appointed spokesman was spared.
"How many more?" Steve asked.
"Two more of us, two big SOBs from Texas. Brothers," the spokesman said. "I can't say for sure how many others. They've been coming and going. Must be half a dozen at least working on their boat bomb."
"You should keep your mouth shut, Tony," one of the other men said, without any real heat.
"Why? I thought we were guarding gunrunners. But that boat bomb — they're terrorists, aren't they?"
"Yes," Steve said.
Tony spat on the floor in disgust. "I'm no terrorist. And I'm no psycho like those Texans. I'd tell you more if I could, but I don't know any more. I've been out on the perimeter mostly. Will you please take me far away from that bomb?"
Aku sent five of his men to escort the prisoners out, one for the spokesman, one for each of the linked pairs and two for the linked and gagged terrorist duo who glared at the officers and wrenched futilely at their plastic bonds.
With the prisoners disposed of, the rest of the officers continued toward the boat bomb. The four SWAT officers mounted to the top of the containers, two on either side of the path leaving the clearing.
It didn't stay a single path for long. Just past the clearing, they came to the fork in the road. To the left was an open area where machinery and a couple of junked trucks created an obstacle course. A crane rested its head on ground, creating a "low bridge." A skiploader stretched out its neck beyond.
Steve gestured Danny toward the clearer path to the right, that led off to more containers; then took a step toward the maze. Danny grabbed the edge of Steve's vest and shook his head emphatically. Hand parallel to the ground at his head height, he mimed shortness. He pointed to himself and Kono and the maze.
"We're the smallest. It makes more sense for us to go that way," Danny pointed out.
He was the shortest, Kono was the most slender; they were better suited for the obstacle course. But there was no high road that way for the SWAT officers to take. The pair that went that way would have no backup. Steve's instinct was to take the most dangerous path himself, but he had to trust his people. He hesitated. Danny crossed his arms and tapped his foot.
"All right, partner. You're right. Be careful," Steve said.
Chin fist-bumped his young cousin. "Take care of Danny," he told her.
Steve and Chin went right. Danny and Kono went left. The groups soon lost sight of each other.
Kono ducked under a crane boom (Danny didn't have to duck) and darted around a corner into a cross passage. Danny moved with her, facing the opposite direction and found himself face-to-face with a giant of a man. A full foot taller than Danny and probably a hundred pounds heavier, he snatched for his gun, but two guns were now pointing at him.
"Take it out with two fingers and be quiet about it," Danny said softly.
The man obeyed. He set it down and kicked it to Kono, who pocketed it quickly, then resumed her shooting stance.
"Now, down on the ground," Danny ordered.
"No. If you want me down, you'll have to take me down, little man," the giant said arrogantly in a Texas accent.
"You remember the man you threw in the marina? That was my partner. So what makes you think I won't just shoot you?" Danny asked in exasperation.
"Too noisy," the Texan said. "And that wasn't me at the marina. That was my brother. But I would have done the same."
"Two of you?" Danny said incredulously. "I've always heard things were bigger in Texas, but c'mon!"
"Your mama didn't feed you as well as ours did," the giant taunted. "Now, I'm gonna walk back and tell my boss the cops have come visitin', unless you wanna stop me."
Danny made an annoyed noise as he shoved his guns at Kono. She slung his rifle beside hers and put his pistol in a pocket, protesting as she did, "But, Danny, he's twice your size."
"The bigger they are …" Danny could see that Kono didn't appreciate his levity. "Look, kid, we've got to keep this as quiet as possible for as long as possible. And besides, I can't shoot an unarmed man."
The Texan smirked.
"Don't look so happy," Danny told the giant. "She'll have no trouble shooting a man who's about to kill her partner."
The man frowned angrily and lunged at the now unarmed detective. He figured if he stayed close to the cop, the girl couldn't shoot. Danny didn't retreat from the expected move. He dove low under the giant's grasp, locked his arms around the big man's knees, planted his shoulder in the man's pelvis and levered up and sideways. The Texan crashed shoulder down on the concrete. It was a classic wrestling takedown, except Danny finished it with a fist to the groin. The Texan swiveled his hip to blunt some of the force of the blow beneath the belt, but the impact stole the breath from the bellow he was about to make.
He staggered to his feet, clutching himself, then rushed at Danny again. The detective skipped sideways, retreating around the corner. The giant lunged after him, out of Kono's sight. She heard a dull clang. When she stepped back to get the cross passage in view, she saw her partner bending over the fallen giant, applying three sets of plasticuffs to his wrists and another three sets to his ankles, then using a seventh to fasten his wrists to the base of the crane. A bruise was forming all across the Texan's forehead.
Danny stood and patted the crane boom just above his head. "Guess I forgot to tell him about the low bridge," he said.
"Always look up," Kono recalled Steve's advice. "Where'd you learn those moves, Danny?
"The first was wrestling Coach Michaels," Danny said. "But the fist was fifth grade bully Mean Billy Green."
He gagged the prisoner with a bandage from his pocket. "That'll keep him from sounding the alarm."
"Then let's go," Kono said, handing the detective back his weapons.
"Two coming your way, McGarrett," said Aku's voice in his earpiece. The SWAT chief was two containers up, on the row between the two pairs of Five-0 officers.
Steve held up his hand in a sign to stop the platoon behind him. The only man behind him, Chin Ho, who had also heard the warning, shook his head at the unintentional theatrics, but stopped obediently just behind Steve's shoulder.
Steve took out Aku's periscope and peeked around the container's edge. He saw two men approaching slowly, chatting and puffing on cigarettes. One was a tall, slender, brown-skinned man wearing a cap and carrying a semiautomatic. The other was the towering Texan who had attacked Steve in the marina. Taller than Steve and wider across the shoulders, he wore jeans, a white T-shirt and an open, long-sleeved flannel shirt that draped loosely over the handgun on his hip. Steve's eyes narrowed at the sight of him.
He gestured Chin to drop back and explained what he'd seen. "The big guy's mine," he finished.
"Didn't expect anything else," Chin answered.
Chin gave Steve a leg up to the roof of the nearest single-stacked container, then wedged himself into a niche on the opposite side of the passage. Hunched over, Steve crept to the edge of the container, then, as his adversaries passed, he leaped on the big man's back like a cougar on a bear.
The Texan gave a roar that was choked off by Steve's forearm crushing his throat.
"Ah, 'hands-on.'" Danny heard Aku's soft comment over the radio and wondered what Steve was up to.
The brown-skinned man brought up his weapon to pick off the attacker. Chin slipped up behind him and swung the butt of his shotgun. The man dropped.
As Chin plasticuffed his prisoner, he watched the battle of the titans unfold.
The Texan slammed backwards into a container. Steve grunted, but held on, trying to strangle his opponent into submission. The Texan bent his legs and jumped up and backwards, trying to crash down on his attacker, but Steve sensed the move and threw himself free. He rolled to the side and sprang to his feet. The big man crashed on his back. It drove the breath from his body, but he still lurched to his feet and, without fully rising, tackled Steve like a linebacker. The commander rolled with the momentum, planted his feet in the Texan's gut and heaved. The man was too massive for Steve to hurl into the air, but the thrust broke the giant's hold. He rolled to the side and came to his feet. He approached more cautiously, arms spread as if to grapple, then a billyclub slid from his sleeve into his palm and he swung in one practiced move. But Steve was ready for the attack Danny had described.
"You won't sucker punch me twice," Steve muttered.
The Five-0 chief ducked under the swing, caught the wrist with one hand and the elbow with the other and broke the Texan's arm over his knee, as if it was a repugnant golf club. An elbow to the jaw cut off the giant's bellow of pain and dropped him to his knees.
Chin and Steve plasticuffed him, fastening the billyclub between his aching jaws as a gag.
Chin retrieved Steve's discarded weapons and returned them.
"Feel better now?" he asked.
Steve considered. "Yes, I do," he decided.
"Then shall we continue?" Chin asked, making an "after you" gesture.
Steve took the point and continued.
A young man paced among a group of stored junked autos. Dedicated to the cause, he was nervous about the delay in the hospital ship's arrival. He was sure it meant the plot was discovered, though no one listened to such a junior member. As he walked and worried, the terrorist heard the sound of soft footsteps, as of two people sneaking along. It couldn't be any of his people. They had no reason to creep. It certainly couldn't be his Texas comrades. They clomped along like longhorn cattle. He was unarmed, so he slipped away to get a weapon and some friends to ambush the intruders.
As the footsteps came closer, one of the men aimed at head height and fired when he saw motion. The bullet slammed into a box truck just above Danny's head. (Another advantage of being below average height.)
With the noise barrier broken, Danny didn't hesitate to fire a round into the suspect's chest. The man staggered back a step, then laughed and brought his weapon up again. "Vest," Danny thought. "Fine." His revolver tipped up at the man's face for a moment, then down. He fired twice, once for each knee.
The suspect bellowed and collapsed to his face. Danny was on him in a flash, kneeling on his back, zipping plasticuffs around the beefy wrists.
A knife-wielding terrorist rushed from behind a car aiming at Danny's back. Kono leaped over the detective driving both feet into the terrorist's face. She rolled to her feet and, in one smooth move, caught the man by his long hair and rammed him headfirst into a container wall.
Still kneeling on the suspect, Danny told Kono, "OK, two more down."
The dedicated young terrorist loomed out of the darkness raising a machine pistol.
"Danny, gun!" Kono called, but she was out of position to protect her partner.
Danny whirled. A shot echoed. The terrorist dropped with a hole in his forehead.
"Quicker than you can say 'oneone,'" Aku's voice said in their earpieces.
Only later would they appreciate the difficulty of Aku's long distance shot under a crane boom, over the hood of a car. At the moment, they just appreciated the timing.
"Three more down," Danny amended, waving thanks to the distant sniper.
"Danny? Kono?" They heard Steve's voice over the radio.
"We're OK, boss," Kono answered. "We were spotted, but the only casualties were on the other side." She quickly cuffed her unconscious prisoner.
A fusillade of shots sounded from Steve's position.
"We'd better move," she told Danny.
"You can't just leave me here. I'll bleed to death," the prisoner protested.
"Not my problem," Danny said cheerfully. He studied the slowly forming pool of blood. "There's no arterial spray. You might last an hour or two." The detective knelt beside the man. "Of course, the sooner we can wrap this up, the sooner we can get paramedics in here. So if you'd care to help us round up your friends ..."
"I've got rights," the man blustered.
"Not according to the Patriot Act," Danny countered. He bounced the suspect's forehead off the concrete, but just as a gentle reminder. It didn't even leave a red mark. "You're a terrorist. So I really don't care whether you cooperate or bleed to death. It's your call."
The man wasn't nearly as dedicated as the slain youth. He calculated his odds of surviving and coldly decided to change sides. The prisoner told them what he knew as Danny hauled him to a sitting position, then pulled a couple of field dressings out of a pocket and tied them around the wounded legs, just a quick knot, nothing fancy.
"You better hope that will hold you, because we've got to go," the detective said.
He and Kono could hear Aku giving instructions from on high. Trotting in a crouch along the top of the containers, he had a better view of the battlefield.
"Keep heading straight, Steve. You shouldn't run into any more fire. The suspects are falling back."
"They're regrouping near the exit. They're going to make a fight of it to delay us," advised one of the SWAT officers on the catwalk. "I make six at the barricades."
"Two have gone out the door. They're going to launch the boat," said the woman sniper on the other catwalk.
"Listen up, people." Danny's voice came over the earpieces as he and Kono jogged to catch up. "They've got a remote control for the boat, a blue plastic game controller, can't miss it. But my informant said they won't hesitate to drive the boat manually. They're fanatics, ready and willing to die for their cause. The good news is, there are no boobytraps. They were afraid they'd set off the big boom."
"Roger," Steve acknowledged. "And the bad news."
"The bomb is on a cell phone trigger and they all have it on speed dial."
There was a heavy silence on the frequency, then …"
"Kid gloves are off," Steve said tightly.
"Don't wait for orders to shoot," Aku told his people.
"The life you save may be your own," Danny added.
"That was very McGarrett, Danny," Kono said quietly — without activating her microphone — as they moved swiftly but carefully toward the gunfire. "The interrogation, I mean."
"He's a bad influence, and I'm corrupting America's youth." Danny wiped his mouth as if to remove a bad taste. He felt unclean, as if he'd taken his daughter to a strip club. "That was not police work, Kono. Police work is rights and regulations and following the rules even when it's inconvenient. That was Homeland Security, Patriot Act, quasi-military expediency. Don't get the two mixed up."
"Don't worry, Danny. I've got a whole family that will come down on me if I turn to the dark side."
"Good girl. Do as I say, not as I do."
"But when it comes to terrorists with humongous bombs, anything goes."
"Those are the rules we're playing by right now," Danny admitted distastefully. "But I don't like it. It's not civilized."
"Terrorists with bombs aren't civilized," she pointed out.
"Kid, New Jersey is right next door to New York. You don't have to convince me that terrorists are bad."
"Watch yourselves on the ground," Aku's warning came over the earpieces.
Steve poked the periscope past the last protective container. A bullet smashed it out of his hands. Aku and his officers began firing, but the terrorists were well entrenched behind a fort of crates.
"Kono, help me with this," the others heard Danny say, but they couldn't see what he was doing. A motor chugged, then caught with a rough, coughing roar.
"Where did you learn how to hotwire a crane?" Kono's voice asked.
"Misspent youth," Danny answered. "One battering ram coming up."
Like a brontosaurus with a bad cold, the sputtering crane rumbled forward on its tractor treads. The progress was jerky and jagged, but relentless. As it came into view, the other officers could see Danny in the pilot's seat with Kono crouched beside him, firing over the control panel.
The terrorists frantically fired at the approaching prehistoric menace, but bullets hardly scuffed the rust of the metal monstrosity and the cabin was set too high to allow a good shot at the driver.
"See if I remember how to do this," Danny muttered to himself.
He shifted levers and the boom swung at the barricades. There was no wrecking ball, but the heavy chain dangling down was more than enough to sweep the crates aside. Enough, too, to the skull of one terrorist who didn't retreat in time. The crane coughed and died. The boom froze. But the damage was done.
The police officers began firing at the now exposed terrorists.
"Police, drop your weapons!" Aku ordered in a bellow.
The terrorists fired back defiantly. "Had to try once," Aku muttered as he calmly picked off a terrorist wielding an automatic rifle. Two more fell. The last two were pressed back into the shelter of one packing crate.
"Steve, Chin, head for the dock, we've got you covered!" Danny yelled.
It was still risky, but the two Five-0 officers were in the best position to stop the boat launch.
They ran past the packing crate. The two terrorists reared up with their weapons. Steve fired on the run, hitting one man in the arm.
The second was hit simultaneously by shots from Danny and one of the SWAT officers.
The man Steve injured had dropped his gun, but he pulled something else from his pocket — a cell phone. He dropped with five shots in him before he could even turn it on.
Steve and Chin Ho charged blinking into the sunlight. Still in their business suits, the two terrorists from the marina had just finished lowering their bomb boat on davits down to the water six feet below.
The nearer terrorist knelt beside a blue plastic game controller.
Chin fired from his hip. The shotgun blast blew the controller to pieces and sent the ruins skidding across the dock. Peppered with pellets, the terrorist grabbed for something in his pocket. Gun or cell phone, Chin wasn't taking any chances. He fired his second barrel into the man's chest.
When he saw the Five-0 officers, the terrorist leader dropped into the back of the boat just ahead of a bullet from Aku. The concrete walls of the dock shielded the terrorist from view.
"No shot,"Aku snapped, as he bounded down from the container tops.
"No shot," echoed his two snipers.
Running out to the edge of the dock, Steve was the only one with a shot, but his pistol clicked on empty.
Triumph on his face, the terrorist raised his cell phone, then glanced down at it to push the "call" button. Shedding weapons, Steve launched himself across the boat in a dive that carried the terrorist into the water between the boat and the dock's far wall. The cell phone went flying.
The frustrated terrorist screamed and cursed in Arabic, flailing at Steve who struggled to subdue him. The fight carried them beneath the water. Steve's shoulder scraped the concrete wall as their heads broke the surface again.
"Steve!" three voices yelled as one.
Gathered on the edge of the dock, the Five-0 officers could see their commander's danger. Caught by a wave, the heavily laden boat was sweeping sideways toward the two combatants.
"Dive!" Chin Ho ordered.
Steve saw the boat looming closer and duck-dived, pulling strongly for the harbor floor. His bulletproof vest hindered him. He was glad he wasn't wearing one of the Navy's buoyancy vests, but he still had to battle against the air trapped beneath the cloth cover and the layers of Kevlar. He fought his way down, until the keel of the boat clipped his heels, then he swam under the boat and turned toward the surface.
Disoriented in the water, the terrorist didn't follow Chin's command. He tried to push the boat away, but momentum and inertia were against him. The explosive-packed boat squashed him against the concrete wall like a bug on a windshield.
Steve broke the surface to his friends' relief. He looked around for his opponent.
"Don't bother," Chin said. "He didn't dive."
Steve grimaced and swam toward the rear of the boat.
"Need me to fish you out again?" Danny called, leaning casually against a railing.
"I'm good." The SEAL swam easily to the ladder at the tail of the boat. He climbed aboard and carefully studied the bomb. He was relieved to see it was pretty simple. (Well, you don't want a motion-activated switch on a boat bomb.)
Kono held her breath as Steve bent to carefully detach the wires from the cell phone trigger. She breathed again when he pulled the phone free and held it up.
In the relief from the tension, Steve felt disgust at the potential for mass destruction represented by the simple cell phone. He started to toss the device overboard.
"Evidence!" Danny called.
With exaggerated caution, Steve set the cell phone on the rear seat, as far as possible from the pile of explosives in the bow.
"Another hundred years and we might train him to be a police officer," Danny told his teammates.
"I heard that," Steve said over the earpieces.
"Oh, am I still online. My bad," Danny said blandly. Grinning at Chin and Kono, he took the earpiece out and turned off the microphone.
Leaving SWAT to clear the building and the bomb squad to remove the explosives, the Five-0 team returned to the Camaro to doff their gear. Steve toweled off as best as he could.
"I hope you didn't lose the car keys when you dove in the water," Danny said as he turned his cell phone on. It rang before he could put it away again. The Five-0 team recognized his ex's ringtone, but when he answered it, they could tell by his body language that the caller was his daughter.
"Hi, monkey. What? You can? What channel?" He looked toward a distant cluster of TV news crews. "Yeah, I see them." He covered the phone. "Grace can see us on TV." To his daughter, he said, "Yes, Steve's pretty wet. He fell in the water again."
McGarrett made a face at him.
"No, I can't wave or the TV lady will think I'm waving at her," Danny continued to his daughter. "Can you see me patting my head? That's for you, Grace. I gotta go now. Sorry we interrupted your cartoons. Danno loves you."
As Danny hung up, Kono's phone rang. "Kono Kalakaua. Oh, hi! Yes, he's right here, but I guess you knew that." She glanced at the TV crews as she handed the phone to Steve. "It's for you, boss."
"Hello? Oh, hi," he didn't sound nearly as happy to hear from the caller as Kono had. "But I … But … No, I wouldn't call it 'taking it easy,' but …"
"Dr. Tanaka saw us on TV, too," Kono explained to Chin Ho and Danny.
The three grinned to hear their fearless leader reduced to a stammering schoolboy, trying to explain to the doctor why he hadn't followed her advice to "not overdo."
"But it was important," Steve pleaded.
"Busss-ted," Kono said with relish.
Chin Ho grinned and nudged the New Jersey detective, "Book him, Danno."
Danny rolled his eyes, but had to admit it was funny — once. "But don't make it a habit," he warned, as the trio walked away from their beleaguered boss.
The End
