A/N: Everyone, I'm so sorry it has taken so long for these updates. I've been struggling to say the least. I'm having some crazy issues with my eyes, so headaches, eye fatigue, blurriness, has hindered my typing things up. I can't sit and look at the computer for very long, but the good news is I am finally going to see a doctor on the 29th, and glasses, hopefully, within two weeks of that, so just a struggle for now. I have some stuff typed up and some new stuff in the wings, so I hope that this hiatus I've been on will not continue much longer.
Chapter 32: Follow The Leader
The explosion sounded over the combs just before they went dead and the static filled the ears of the Five-Os who could do nothing but listen.
"Get us there faster!" Danny ordered as Steve drove.
"I'm going as fast as I can!" Steve yelled in response.
"The one time I give you permission to drive like a crazy person, and you yell at me?" Danny asked trying to fill the car with something other than the sounds they'd just heard.
They could see the plume of smoke and debris as they rushed toward their office, but there was nothing they could do to make the cars go faster.
Danny and Steve were the first to arrive, followed by the screeching tires of their friends and co-workers. They arrived and disembarked from their vehicles just as the dust was settling and people were making their why out of the front entrance to the building. The front facade of the Hale still stood, and much of the main sections were still intact, but toward the rear of the structure, and crumbling over into the parking lot, the damage was extensive but isolated. Bricks and debris scattered all about the parking lot, smashing vehicles and revealing the damage to the building as a large hole could be seen and the second floor now opened up to the sky.
"Catherine!" Steve yelled as he jumped into a run but was grabbed by his partner and held back, but a rumbling followed and another section of the building tumbled into the parking lot and Steve broke free.
"Toast!" Danny echoed his partner's calls as the crumbling sound died away and he bolted after Steve. The rest of their team followed but were held back by the officers who guarded the site.
"You can't go near that building." One officer yelled but Danny and Steve were already climbing over rubble.
"We don't know the extent of the damage." Another said to the Five-Os they held back.
"Fire and rescue are on the way," yet another shouted from down the line of police barricades. "Along with more EMS, we weren't able to get in to retrieve the casualties from the shooting before the building went into full lock down."
"But our people are in there," Steve growled as he came back slightly to retrieve his team.
"We are aware!" Yet another, higher ranking officer yelled at Steve. "They were the ones that threw the whole building into total lock down!"
"We're here," Catherine coughed as she held up Toast and they made their way toward the safety zone.
"We're out!" They stated together as they came across the lawn and were followed by the back-up officers who had remained in the officer.
"But the lobby looks like a war zone." Catherine continued.
"And the families?" Kono asked as she and Lori rushed forward to help Catherine support a clearly injured Toast.
"We can only hope that they made it to the shelter in time and that the shelter withstood the blast." Catherine answered and let the other ladies support Toast as Steve came over but refrained from the public display of affection with so many bystanders. "We weren't watching them when we saw the bomb go off, and that flash sent us to the floor and scrambling for shelter as the building shook."
"It okay, you will explain everything later, for now you need to be checked out." Steve said as the ambulances and the fire and rescue started to arrive on the scene. "And we have to check the emergency shelter to see if we can get into it or if it survived the way it was meant to in these kinds of situations." Steve added, drawing his weapon and motioning for his team to follow as their favourite paramedics moved in to take Toast and Catherine away from their team.
Danny, Chin and Lou moved to follow Steve as the ladies stayed with the injured and helped with the people still coming out of the front of the building. Stepping lightly, and avoiding the parking lot all together, they moved passed the damaged area of the building and onward toward the far rear.
The back of the building was nearly completely destroyed. The damage caused almost a clean split, and where there was once two levels of the old, historical building, there lay only a pile of rubble and the gaping opening of the part of the building that remained standing. As they moved around the building, for a better look, the Five-Os could see that the blast has been contained primarily in the stair well that was now just a pile of rubble, but the lower levels of the building, the parts that ran underground, were completely indistinguishable and part of the blast sank the lower level in on itself. Part of the parking lot sank into the debris, taking cars and trucks with is, and scattering loose debris among the others, but the brick building that looked like nothing more than a utility shed, and which stood at the very rear of the property, almost encroaching on the neighbours, was still standing and looked relatively untouched, although debris did butt up against the structure.
"Well that is a good sign," Steve said as he climbed around the rubble to get closer to the door of the building.
"Ever the optimist." Danny sighed and carefully followed his partner.
With his keys, Steve unlocked the door of the concrete structure. He tried the lights, just on the inside of the door, but the electrical was out. Retrieving a flash light from one of his pockets, Steve moved forward into the building, cautiously, and Danny followed him past the shelving and the tools, past the riding lawn mower and the equipment used for gardening and repairs, all while Chin and Lou stood in the open door and shown more light into the dark space. At the very back of the shed like structure, a double pair of heavy steal doors rose up, at and angle, from the floor.
Steve unlocked these doors as well, and with Danny's help, the two men threw open the two doors. Shining their lights down into the passage, Steve and Danny moved forward once more, down a flight of steep stairs and down into the ground, where they were met, once more, by another set of steal doors.
"Please let them be alive," Danny whispered from behind his partner as the last lock was opened and the door gave way.
"Who's the optimist now?" Steve asked over his shoulder and then turned back to the darkness. "Hello, is anyone down here?" he called with his weapon now levelled once again.
"We are," Vladimir Prokovia answered as he came forward with a small child in his arms, "but some are injured."
"Come, help has arrived. Let's get you all out of here." Steve said with a sigh of relief and moved to let the able bodies carry the injured out of the emergency shelter.
Once freed from the safety of the shelter, and the injured taken to local hospitals, the Five-Os gathered together at a safe distance from the building that was now closed off to everyone but the rescuers.
"Now what do we do? We have nothing now." Toast said with his head bandaged and supporting himself with a crutch he had been given after refusing to go to the hospital. He'd given up his place in an ambulance to a person pulled from the shelter who had been shot while fleeing the bombers.
"Doris is still out there and she's still following Gladys. That's not nothing." Danny said optimistically.
"And the SEAL team is still out at that construction site." Steve added.
"I think it is high time we made a move on those places in the jungle. Gladys is alone now. She may have the upper hand but we have each other, and this has got to stop." Lou chimed in, with his hand on his hips and his face set for action. "I'm sure we can borrow what we need from the HPD arsenal and leave this in the capable hands of the rescuers. There is no reason for us to stay here." he added and motioned over his shoulder and down the street to the police precinct.
"I agree," Danny said with a nod of his head and a very audible sigh. "It's time to face this head on and stop running around like a chicken with its head cut off. We have to face her." He added as his phone began ringing in his pocket. "It's your mother." he stated before he answered it and passed the phone to his partner. "Like she knew we were talking about her or something."
"Yes, Doris, everyone from the team is fine, but there is a lot of damage to the building and rescuers are looking for survivors in the debris." Steve said in response to the woman on the end of the line.
He listened for a moment wordlessly and then with an affirmation to his mother he hung up. "Gladys is on the move and headed toward the jungle. Doris is still on her. We don't have much time. Are we going to do this or leave Doris to clean this up?"
"We're doing it!" The team answered.
"All right, let's get suited up once more and head out to the cabin. This needs to be the end of this ordeal." Steve said with a prideful smile at the people before him and then moved back toward the Camaro, shouting orders at others as he went.
The rest of his team followed along and climbed into their respective vehicles ready to follow their leader and finally be finished with this whole situation.