A/N: Hey everyone! Hope you Holiday plans are all coming together! I've been super busy! Anyhoo, here is another update to make your American Thanksgiving Week. For me, as a Canadian, it's just another week leading up to Christmas, but that doesn't mean I can't be thankful for all you wonderful people who have been reading and commenting on this story! So thank you so much!

Enjoy!

Chapter 17: Fire Follow-Up

Ever the spy, Doris McGarrett took herself away, turned off her phone and killed the GPS in her Son's truck with a couple of shots from weapon she had managed to procure in the bullpen without anyone seeing her. The truck has been left in the Hale parking-lot the day before and the Camaro was still a part of the crime scene at the McGarrett house. Now Doris was off to do her own thing, something she believed she should have done from the very beginning - granted she didn't know what she was up against until she'd gathered the Five-O crew, but now they didn't seem to want to follow orders, and she wasn't one to take them either.

In the pouring rain, though there did seem to finally be some hope for a break in the clouds as the darkness of evening set in, Doris took herself away to the place she believed would lend some insight into the case, and help in the capture of the insane woman who seemed to be enjoying the game she was playing.

Even with the pouring rain, the house that once belonged to Daniel McMahon was still fully involved in flames. In the darkness it illuminated the entire neighbourhood. Smoke billowed out of the windows as fire fighters tried to tame the flames with what looked like a foam rather than the usual water.

"The CO2 foam isn't a good sign." Doris said as she came toward the barrier, flashed her son's badge too fast for the fire chief to make out that she wasn't supposed to have it and nodded his agreement. "Seems like this was a chemical fire. Smells like jet fuel." Doris added.

"It caught us by surprise. We'd almost gotten the place under control, then there was an explosion and the fire flared up again at full force. It sent three of my men to the hospital - nearly took out more of us and now we're worried about the surrounding houses. We've been evacuating the few families that do still live in the area." The fire chief explained.

"Sounds about right for the woman we believe to be responsible for this."

"It takes a certain kind of crazy, I'm sure, to do what is being done here. We thought it was a routine fire, not that it makes it any less sever, but it looked to be under control. This cannot be the work of one person."

"This woman has a vendetta and is looking to cause as much collateral damage as possible. Be careful and watch out for your men. This might not be the end of it. And I'm sure you're right. There have to be more people involved in this whole plot."

"We know, we've already found bodies on the inside but we can't get to them now."

"Your people?" Doris asked in surprised shock.

"No, they were in the house before the blaze and locked in the back room before the explosion. The doors and windows were braced from the outside. Those people in there were meant to be trapped. They were likely gone before we even got here, the house was so full of smoke."

"Were there children inside?" Doris asked as her voice caught in her throat.

The fire chief nodded but didn't dare speak his response.

5-0

As they came upon the vent and the drainage line, Kono and Chin broke into a run.

"Be careful." Joel yelled as he quickened his pace to keep up. "The ground around here is unstable"

"Danny! Steve!" Kono called out, ignoring the warning.

"Kono!" Chin yelled as he reached out for his cousin, just as she started to slip on the loose ground.

Kono's impeccable balance kept her upright as the mud and rain caught around her.

"This is not the safest place, even with the drain." Kono stated holding tightly to her cousins arm as the rest of the members of their make shift search party arrived on the scene.

"This is the vent." Noella stated as she climbed up onto the concrete platform. "Danny. Steve!" she yelled down but the water down below rushed through the drain and caused a sound like television static to resonated up from the ground.

"We have to move further down." Joel stated and removed the pack from his back. "But it's going to be dangerous. The ground is loose and muddy, and making it's way down the valley as well. Not all the water make it down the drain and it has to go somewhere." He added and pulled a long length of climbing rope from the bag and a chain of carabiners.

"Smart thinking." Chin stated as the man worked to tie off the end of the line.

"We are up here all the time. It pays to be prepared." Joel said with a nod. "So who is heading down the line?" he asked.

"I'll go," Lori stated but Kono and Chin shook their heads.

"We have two climbing harnesses, one for a man and one for a woman. Two of you can go down. The rest must stay." Noella explained as she too dropped her pack.

"Lori and Chin, you go. I'll stay here with these two." Kono said with a nod to her cousin. "I've already had my encounter with the mud."

5-0

"Can you get it?" Steve as from his place beneath Danny in the man hole.

They were out of the water, just barely, and crammed into a space that wasn't quite big enough for one full grown man, let alone two.

"Hold on!" Danny stated as he braced his feet against the rebar steps and his back against the wall, and pushed up on the cover. It moved, slightly but not enough. "It's too heavy."

"Try harder, Danno. We didn't come this far to get stuck here with my face in your ass!"

"Shut up! I hear something!" Danny stated and pulled himself up even higher into the tube - bending his head and pressing a shoulder into the cover. "I think I hear people."

"It could be our baddies." Steve said and fell back just slightly.

"Just waiting there till we pop out like a pair of gophers to be shot." Danny huffed. "What do you want to do? We have no weapons, hell, we don't even have shoes..."

"I'd rather try and fight, than stay here like a pair of trapped rats." Steve stated boldly.

"Right!" Danny nodded and having gained some leverage by pressing his shoulder against the cover, he pushed up with all his might, baring the weight of the cast-iron cover on his back and the cover moved up. Another push and it was high enough over edge of it's enclosure for Danny to move it aside, and then with a clang that rang like a church bell it fell away.

Water poured in all of a sudden as the rain continued to fall, and in shock, Danny climbed out of the hole.

"You're alive!" Chin stated in shock, one hand on his weapon, one on the rope that held him in place.

"Thank God, you're not here to kill us!" Danny stated and moved enough for Steve to climb out. "We're alive, and what took you so long?"

"That seemed a little too easy." Steve stated as he braced his feet on the concrete tube and stood up straight for the first time in hours.

"Sure, trapped, nearly drowning, razor wire, flame throwers, would seem easy to you, but hey, you didn't bare the brunt of the manhole cover so, sure, McGarrett, you got off easy!" Danny huffed sarcastically.

"That's not what I meant!" Steve huffed, "Now all we have to do is get out of the jungle. That should be easy enough."

"Not in this weather." Chin stated and motioned up the climbing line as Lori hurried down to meet them.