Chapter 15: Threatening, Planning and Gossiping

Team's Interrogation Room

"You could go to jail," Danny threatened their suspect, whose real name was Aldo Nicolai.

Ali stood beside Danny in the interrogation room at headquarters. She let out an annoyed sighed at the weak threat her friend just delivered.

"What?" he accusingly demanded as Steve came in.

"Seriously?" Ali asked, her tone drenched in sarcasm. "He's shaking in fear from the thought of jail."

"What's going on here?" Steve questioned, stepping in between them as Aldo sat in the small, metal chair, his expression giving away the fact that he was confused.

"They're idiots," Aldo piped up, his accent making Ali want to hit herself.

"Hey," Steve shouted at him in a terror filling tone. "You're gonna' tell us where your friends are-"

"What will you do if I don't?" Aldo asked in a condescending manner. "Shoot me? You're police, you can't do that-"

"You want to test that theory out?" Steve shot back. "Be my guest!I only have to say that you came at one of them or me and nobody will care about what happens to you. They'll let your dead carcass rot in a shallow grave."

Aldo's jaw clenched and Ali could tell that he was beginning to become scared. He stared at the ground and a moment later looked back up at Steve, whose demeanor tormented the gangster. Even Ali was beginning to feel a little afraid, but she couldn't bring herself to tell Steve to stop berating the man because what he was doing was working.

"Alright," Steve said when the man wasn't saying anything. "Get up."

The SEAL grabbed Aldo by the collar and forced him to his feet. Ali exchanged concerned glances with Danny who shrugged his shoulders.

"What are you doing?" Danny questioned, holding up his hand to stop Steve from walking any further.

"Saying aloha to the tourist," Steve replied, leaving Danny and Ali stunned as he left the room with Aldo.

"Saying aloha?" Ali repeated.

"He's going to kill the guy," Danny said in an exasperated tone. "Then I'm going to go jail because of him."

"Let's make sure that doesn't happen," Ali proposed as she took off after Steve.

"Uh, boss?" Ali heard Kono say from the computer. "I hate to question you, but what are you doing?"

"Kono, I will tell you as soon as you find me a bucket and a rag," Steve ordered as Ali neared them.

"No!" she refuted. "Whatever you're doing, just don't!"

"Find the bucket, Kono," Steve demanded as Aldo looked from Steve to Ali to Kono.

"Water torture?" Danny shouted from beside Ali. She was so worked up over stopping Steve from doing his secret naval interrogation that she hadn't noticed Danny run beside her.

"Torturing this guy with water is your plan?" Chin, who had been silent, necessitated in a scornful manner.

Ali couldn't let that happen; she couldn't let somebody, even if she thought that they were a complete creep, endure water torture. She was shocked that Steve would go that far with his questioning. She looked at him and the expression on his face was… weird. He seemed amused and annoyed at the same time; it was almost as if … he was planning something! Ali realized he wasn't arranging any type of torture for the gangster, but, rather, pretending, that he was just enough to scare him into talking. Ali should have known from the start.

She put on a confident façade and sighed, "You know, Kono, let's go find that bucket."

"You too, now?" Danny asked.

"Yes, Daniel, me too. We've been running in circles and we finally find this guy and he doesn't want to tell us anything! I'm sorry, but we need to pull another red tie op," she exaggerated, hoping that everybody would catch her hint.

"Okay," Kono agreed, catching on. "Come on then, let's go find supplies for this op, Chin and Danny – you guys should stand by the doors to make sure nobody sees what we're doing."

"Vait!" Aldo finally shouted with his funny accent. "I'll tell you everything! I'll give you all of my vorkers, every single one of them! Just give me a vay out!"

Ali looked at Steve, who seemed to be celebrating a victory inside his head.

"You're mistaken Aldo," she said. "Although, you will give us those names now."

Aldo squinted up at Steve, distress in his eyes, "Vat are they talking about?"

Steve let go of Aldo and patted his back, "We weren't coming in on your drugs."

"Yeah, Dracula," Danny poked fun at his accent. "We just vant to know, how you know Katia."

"Katia?"

"Katia Maksasinskya," Chin explained as Aldo's expression changed from one of fear to one of distraught.

"I know which Katia! Where is she? You found her?" he demanded and from his tone Ali was sure that everybody realized he had deep feelings for their victim. She felt her heart sink with dread.

"Aldo," Kono began remorsefully. "Katia was found dead yesterday morning."

Aldo sighed, "No, no, Katia can't be- how?"

"She was attacked with a knife and" Ali explained, she couldn't tell him that it was made to look like a rape. The man was already crying and now, Ali was trying to hold back her own emotion as she saw tears stream down Aldo's face.

"Katia vasn't married to me, obviously," Aldo began to expound. "She vas one of my closest friends since childhood. We tried to have a relationship once, but we just loved to be friends. She left to America a few months ago and I stopped hearing from her two veeks ago."

"How did she contact you?" Steve asked.

"It vas always through telephone at first, but then she began writing letters and one day even the letters stopped," Aldo informed. "The letters didn't sound like Katia, they sounded like they ver from a person who hated their life, Katia loved living."

"How did you know she was in Hawaii?" Danny pried.

"I didn't, she told me she vas in New York and I got a veird letter that vasn't signed saying she vas in Vaikiki," Aldo told the team. "So I came to surprise her, but I couldn't find her anywhere."

"Do you still have the letters?" Kono asked.

"In my hotel room," he nodded.

"Stay here," Steve ordered as he waved for everyone to follow him to the conference table.

"You believe him?" Danny asked.

"His face contorted in all the right ways," Ali pointed out.

"What?" Chin and Kono asked at the same time.

"If he were lying, his face expressions would have been awkward, like Steve's was with the water torture," Ali said.

"And his eyes would have been darting to the left," Steve added as Danny nodded.

"One thing I learned in the academy," Danny pointed at Steve. "If a suspect's lying his eyes dart to the left cause that part of the brain is the creative, story creating part."

"They didn't teach me that at the academy," Kono brought up.

"Yeah, me neither," Chin backed his cousin up.

Danny shifted uncomfortable from one foot to another, "I read one of Steve's books from his office, okay!"

Ali laughed, then covered her mouth to stifle her amusement. She didn't want Aldo to think somebody was making jokes when his best friend was found dead.

"I win," Steve directed at Danny, then focused on the group. "Ali, those letters could have been from Francois, do you have any type of writing sample to compare the letters to?"

Ali bit her lips, "I don't-"

"Yes you do!" Kono interrupted.

"I do?" Ali asked.

"The file Odette brought back, I went through that thing at least twenty times today," Kono informed. "There's a journal you stole from him on that mission!"

Ali thought back to the assignment in Estonia. She remembered seeing Francois writing every night in a journal and when Ali had to escape, she grabbed the journal which was the most crucial piece of evidence against Francois.

"She's right about the journal," Ali assured.

"Danny and Kono, we're going to escort this guy to his hotel room and get those letters, Chin and Ali find that journal," Steve ordered. "I know that's a sideline task, but see if you can find anything about his plans concerning... you."

"Sir, yes sir," Ali mocked the military man and turn around on her heel. She tried saying that last statement jokingly, but she had to admit she was becoming more fearful. The more puzzle pieces the team put together, the more she hated being the target of Francois's plans.

"What did you mean by "I win"," she heard Danny ask from behind her.

"I meant I won in convincing you that my way works too," Steve answered.

"Whoa-ho! I took it to see if that's what explains your Hulk attitude!"

"I'm sure you did."

"Whatever!" Danny replied, approaching Aldo. "By the way, there was never anything in those books about scaring the crap out of your co-workers during an assignment!"

With those final words, Danny took of the handcuffs from Aldo's wrists and walked out of the office before Steve could argue back. Ali headed towards Kono's office, which is where she assumed the files would be, when the main glass doors flew open and her sister in law walked in with Little Max, who was holding a piece of paper in his hands.

"Leah?" Steve cumbersomely greeted as he neared the doors.

"Hi," the tiny blonde greeted as Max ran up to Steve.

"Uncle Steve!" Max shouted excitedly, grabbing onto the sailor's hand.

"Hey, buddy," Steve squeezed Max's tiny fingers.

"I colored this for you and Aunt Ali!" he explained as he held up his artwork.

"Wow," Steve said with the feigned, but cute surprise adults used around children. "I love this Max, why don't you go hang it up in either my office or Ali's?"

"Okay!" the boy ecstatically said, running into Ali's office.

"That's your nephew?" Kono questioned, her eyes on Max.

"Yeah, isn't he something?" Ali bragged as Leah laughed.

"I came to see if you guys were free to go out to eat, but it looks like you're busy," Leah brought up, looking at Ali and Steve.

"We're investigating a case," Ali affirmed as Kono stared at

"Hey, keiki," Chin interjected. "You go out, I can handle the journal. You'll be back after you eat anyway."

"Oh, I couldn-"

"Ali, you go eat," Steve assured. "I'll stay here and help Chin."

"Are you sure?" she asked as Chin walked into Kono's office to look for the journal

"Hey," he pulled her off to the side. "As much as I don't want you away from me, you haven't eaten this morning, from what I remember."

Ali blushed as she remembered Steve visiting her at home that morning, "From what I remember, I didn't have much of a chance to get food this morning."

"Hey, we doing this or what!" Danny interrupted, popping his head through the doorway. "I've been waiting on the stairs with Dracula for ten minutes.

"Go eat," Steve assured her as she smile.

H5-0

Hawaii Pacific University

"He's dead," Odette pointed out, checking Professor DeBroglie's neck for a pulse, but not feeling one.

"Good," Francois waved his hand as he began to search the office.

"What are you looking for?" Odette asked.

"The keys to his car, Odette," her stepfather replied as she tied her, long, dark hair into a ponytail.

"I sense a very evil plan," she remarked, stuffing her hand into DeBroglie's pocket to see if his keys were there. She felt the metal ring of a key chain; she put her finger through the loop and snatched the keys out of his pocket.

"Good work," Francois smiled, grabbing the keys and putting them in his own pocket. "We have to move him to his car."

Odette felt her mouth fall open. She didn't mind busting her butt to finish a job, but she minded when a plan wasn't thought out to the end. If they lured the professor to his car beforehand and then killed him, it would have saved them a lot of time. Now, though, she had figure out a way to move a dead body through a university. She took the professor by the arms and dragged him off of the chair that he had been sitting in when he was shot (it had been done, of course, with a silencer on the gun) by Francois. Odette then took his place in the chair and stared at her stepfather.

"I'm not doing anything, until you tell me what the plan is," she explained.

"We move DeBroglie to his car, we cause an accident which will attract Alexandra and her team," Francois explicated.

"Is there anything else?" Odette questioned. "Anything after that? How do we attack her? How do we get her?"

"I have not thought that fa-"

"You need to think that far. It is why you got caught by her in the first place! You don't think things through to the end. Do you expect me to bust my ass and get caught? I want that money more than anything and I will not get caught by Sarna, her boyfriend or that team!"

"Then start thinking," Francois ordered.

Odette grinned, "I already have an idea."

"Share."

"We do what you say, but instead of risking failure by moving his body to the car we call the school's emergency clinic-"

"Why?"

"Because they have EMT's who have uniforms and gurneys and an ambulance," Odette said. "We use that as a cover."

"How?"

"We call them over here and say DeBroglie has had a heart attack. They come and we overpower them, take their uniforms and move him to the ambulance."

"Then we can put the EMT's in the ambulance and cause a crash," Francois deliberated.

"Yes, we tie their hands behind their back and their feet together, and then we throw them into the front seats of the ambulance," Odette supplied.

"Professor's books can be used as a weight on the gas pedal," Francois suggested.

"Sure, but then Ali and the team comes, we'll set ourselves up so that we can see Ali from one of the school towers and, with a sniper, we shoot her."

"She's supposed to be alive," he posed.

Odette laughed maliciously, "We shoot her so that she's grazed on her right side. It's enough so that she's rushed to the hospital without dying. We kidnap her from the hospital after she receives treatment."

"And we fly to Estonia!" Francois cheered.

"And we fly to Estonia!" Odette repeated gleefully.

H5-0

Starbucks Café

Ali sat across from her sister in law in a Starbucks as she sipped on a small coffee. She was annoyed that the coffee, the small coffee, cost her nearly five dollars. She looked outside and stared at Steve's truck (he allowed her to borrow it so that she could drive herself back to HQ in case something happened).

"So, tell me about Steve," Leah inquired from her as Little Max paced around the empty coffee shop. All the young baristas were doting upon him and offering the little boy candy that they reserved for children.

Ali let out a nervous laugh as she thought of Steve. She felt like such a girl whenever she was around her boyfriend, like a delicate flower. She didn't mind, but it was weird because she was so used to feeling like… a spy, someone who slept with a gun in their nightstand.

"Leah," she began. "I can't even describe how happy he makes me."

"We can tell," Leah laughed.

"It may just be those early relationship feelings talking, but I love the way he smiles at me and he's so thoughtful and he doesn't demand sex like other men-"

"Kid!" Leah warned. "In case he walks by, I don't want him to hear."

"I'm sorry, but when was the last time you've seen me like this?" Ali giggled.

"You're right," Leah remarked. "Last time you were this excited was when you finally mended your friendship with that one friend who slept with Matt," she added quietly.

"Elyse Dantes?" Ali asked in a whisper, and then shook her head. "It didn't matter, Matt's insignificant, that was my first boyfriend and I was a junior in high school. Besides it wasn't like I was ever going to sleep with him."

"That is the first time you've admitted that," Leah said. "When that Elyse was with Matt you were so frustrated and you even insisted that you wanted to be with Matt on prom night."

"But I lied, Leah," Ali sighed. "I just wanted her to feel guilty, I never, ever thought about Matt like that when I dated him."

"Because you never stopped thinking about Steve, right?"

Ali blushed, "He's one of those people that when he makes an impression on you, you'll never stop thinking about him."

"Mhm, just like you," Leah commented, taking a sip of her latte.

Ali arched a brow, "I don't follow you."

"You're a beautiful woman who knows how to fight, use a gun –"

"Stop," she rolled her eyes.

"No, it's true!" Leah insisted. "You're really smart too-"

Right then Ali's phone began to ring. The caller ID told her that it was Kono, so she guessed that it had to be something important. Ali looked up at her sister in law with an apologetic look.

"I love you because you feed my ego like that, but it looks as if I might have to go back in to HQ," Ali said.

"Go kick ass," Leah jested.

"Mommy that's a bad word!" Max gasped. He had snuck up on both of them and Ali couldn't control her laughter as she bent down to give Max a kiss goodbye.

"Oh mommy didn't mean it, Max," Ali heard Leah say as she left the coffeehouse.

"Time to kick ass," Ali repeated as she dialed Kono's number.

I FINALLY finished chapter 15 guys! I hope everybody enjoys it!