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AvalonReeseFanFics
A/N: this is the last update for this month. Next month I'll have another two chapters to post for you! Happy reading and see you in September!
Chapter 452
Adam found out where Brandon Kenzo was laying low within the hour.
Steve had wanted to go in guns blazing like Con usually did. But Adam convinced Steve to let him go in first. He was certain he could convince Kenzo to come out.
Steve wasn't as optimistic but he was ready to let Adam try. He had the SWAT team and his own team ready to go into the building if he heard anything untoward. He had a timer going and if Adam didn't have Kenzo out of the building by then, he was going to storm in.
He had been already to go. He had everyone on point, had his Kevlar on, his gun out, and his eyes on the timer. But Adam was right, he could convince Kenzo and his men to surrender to Steve, which was evident when they all came out with their hands above their heads.
He let his team deal with hand-cuffing and moving the men, while Steve decided to tackle interrogating Kenzo himself, then and there.
"He said you guys had the Rabbit," Kenzo said as Steve came to stand before him. "That's the only reason I came outside."
Steve shot a glance to Adam who was chuckling at him. "You mean my brother-in-law? Sin Nombre?" When Kenzo nodded Steve nodded too. "I'm sure he'd love to be here. I can call him if you want, tell him that Kenzo wants to see the Rabbit."
"Aw no man, come on…" he said with a sigh. "Noshimuri said that I would get a fair deal. No need to involve your in-laws."
"Yeah, okay, well that depends on what you've done, Brandon, doesn't it? You heard about that bombing. The FBI agent and his family who died."
"I did but that had nothing to do with me."
"Yeah, see it looks to us like, as the acting head of the Yakuza, who only got his job because Wo Fat said you could, that you had a lot to prove," Steve said. "You lit the fire that started this gang violence and then you stepped back and you watched all these rival territories start tearing each other apart. And when you're the last man standing, you make your move. Then you end up controlling the whole damn thing. We got ourselves the new Wo Fat."
Kenzo said nothing, he just stared at him.
"This hit on Fischer was just you pouring more gasoline on the fire, wasn't it? I mean you knew that law enforcement would clamp down on every single faction out there. And with your men off the street, you strengthen your position while you weaken theirs."
Kenzo nodded. "Well, that all makes perfect sense. There's just one problem."
"Oh yeah and what's that?"
"None of it's true," he said. When Steve just glared at him, he continued. "It's true, Wo Fat let me take this position, but that works in my favour because so few people want to argue with or take on that man, even if he is going straight right now. Though there are bets on how long that's going to last. As for starting all this violence, that's not on me or my organization."
"I suppose next you're going to tell us you had nothing to do with the hit on Agent Fischer."
"Killing a fed and his family? You'd have to be crazy to wanna bring that much heat on yourself. And whatever else you may think of me, I'm not crazy."
"Right."
"I can tell you one thing though."
"Yeah?"
"You're right about the new Wo Fat. It's not me who wants it, but someone does."
"Yeah, we figured."
"Thing is, everyone knows that his hold on Hawaii was defensive. It had nothing to do with personal gain, he wanted and held control of Hawaii to protect your wife. This spread in violence is because he's losing. And sooner or later they're gonna figure the easiest way to get him to stop caring about this island is by taking out your wife."
Steve stared at him for a moment, really let that sink in and then got close to him. "You're clearly getting your rumors from someone. It might be wise to inform them that killing Rowan Pierce won't excise Wo Fat from this island. It's just going to make him mad enough to come down here himself and deal with them. And no one has ever liked it when he does that. Both Sato and Shioma can both attest to that."
For a moment they held one another's gaze before Steve snapped: "Get him out of my sight."
He went for his phone, fully intending to call Wo Fat, to tell him about the developments. To ask if maybe it might be wiser to get both of their families off this island and into that safe house the Chaos Siblings kept mentioning they had.
He'd hate to do it, to send his wife and Nahele away, but he would if it was the best way to keep them safe.
But once he had his phone in his hand it started to ring. It wasn't Wo Fat though, but Jerry.
"Jerry what's up?" he said as he picked it up.
"Boss, we got a problem. Someone just hit the rendition facility. I'm counting eight hostiles. They're overpowering the guards."
Immediately Steve rounded the men up, getting into his own truck. He needed to get that facility before something horrible happened.
"We got three… no make that four cops down. Hold on." Jerry paused slightly. "It looks like they're starting to open up the cages. They're freeing Bautista, Cho, Santos, Garcia."
Those were all their high value targets. Each a boss in their own right.
"Jerry, what are they doing?"
"Oh no." And then Jerry promptly stopped talking. Steve had to repeat the question two more times before Jerry said: "They just cut the feed."
They all raced to the rendition facility in Ewa beach but they were too late. All the bosses had been killed. All of the people who had been loyal to Fat, all the last ones in power, they had all been wiped out.
It may not happen right away, but this was how Wo Fat was going to lose control of the Island. This moment was where the scales tipped and it was entirely Steve's fault.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
When Wo Fat got cornered into admitting what was going on to McGarrett he assumed chaos and disaster would strike shortly after. He assumed that Rowan would find out what was going on with him and he'd have to scramble to keep whatever hairbrained scheme she put into place from imploding. Never in his wildest dreams did he think Steve would single handedly put him in the position he was in now.
Every single last man who feared him, every last man in power anyway, had just been murdered.
He had no idea that Steve had decided to round up every person linked to Organized Crime on the island, and when asked why the hell he thought that was a good idea Steve couldn't give him a straight answer.
Other then he didn't think someone would use this as an excuse to wipe out the people in power in one fell swoop, but then again, the person behind all of this probably hadn't figured Steve would round them up for them.
Not even Wo would have passed up that opportunity had it been him in that position.
That didn't stop him from yelling at Steve. Screaming at him for putting both their families in danger. Steve was appropriately remorseful, the bleeding heart felt bad that his decisions led to the deaths of so many people, even if they were criminals. He was sorry that his actions jeopardized all the work Wo and Con had been doing trying to keep this new crime boss at bay. Horrified that he had put Rowan and his family in danger. And while Wo could recognize that, the fear didn't stop him from drilling it into Steven's head that this was all his fault.
He had hung up on him to call Con. Con, luckily, already knew of the situation. Apparently, Steven had called him before calling Wo Fat and admitting what he had done and what had happened. He had figured this to be a problem and had alerted Con.
Con had already moved Jian into the McGarrett house, only because he couldn't watch two households, he was closer to the McGarrett house and it was better fortified with two Five-0 officers inside. Steve and the Mini-Seal he had recently sort of adopted. Wo could never remember his name, not that he really cared to try.
They spoke briefly about options, but honestly there wasn't much to do be done. The tasks were surmounting. Watch the two ladies, run protection detail and investigate, it was too much for one man and anyone else he trusted was either off island or dead.
He agreed that Con should worry most about protection at that moment. He agreed with Con going to Steve to ask for help from the Five-0s. He'd need more though, which was why Wo Fat called this meeting.
This was the second time this day he was in the Director's office, the first time, of course, when Rowan went and got herself arrested by an FBI agent in Hawaii. Now he was here again, hoping to ask for another favour, knowing full well that this was going to dig him even farther into their debt.
At this rate he was never going to be able to retire.
Director Mills had made him wait, which meant he wasn't in the best mood. That would make asking for this favour difficult. When the door did open, Wo was quick to let himself in and sit down.
Director Mills sat down as well and the sighed at him. "And why did you want to see me now?"
"I'm sure you heard what happened in Hawaii this afternoon. I'm sure you understand what that means."
Mills nodded. "You've lost control of Hawaii." He quickly repositioned himself. "And now, I'm guessing, since you've lost control and you want me to send you back there to do damage to control. And I expect you'll want me to allow you to sweep through there in a bloody rage…"
"No," Wo said quickly cutting the man off. "No. I don't want to go down to Hawaii."
"Oh no?"
"No. Me returning to Hawaii will be expected. They'll be ready for a full-frontal assault, and with my allies few and far between it will not be successful."
"Then what do you want?"
"What I want doesn't matter right now. What matters is what we need to do. We need to figure out who this person is and stop him. In order to do that we're going to have to give them room to move."
"You think that if you don't act on this, if you don't make the first move, they'll get comfortable and slip up and you'll be able to figure out who they are."
"Yes."
"And when you figure it out, what do you expect to do with that information?"
"I expect that, when it comes to it, I'll be able to go back to Hawaii and deal with it," he said. "I also expect to stay there once I do, but we can discuss that when we get there."
"Yes, I supposed we can. But what do you want right now?"
"I've got Sin Nombre still in Hawaii. He's willing to look into this, but he's going to need help. I was hoping that whoever you got on that taskforce will be told to help him. Either with intel or with gear. Maybe back up if necessary."
Mills seemed to think it over before saying: "And what would Sin Nombre do for us in return?"
Wo Fat bristled at that. "Unless he specifically wants to, you're not getting your hooks into him. If you ask nicely, he may be willing to trade missions, but otherwise he's off the table."
"Fine, then what are you willing to do for us in return?"
Wo Fat sighed heavily. "I'm willing to do other jobs. I'm okay with being taken off Kono's team to do… other things… maybe more to my expertise."
"Well, that's definitely something to explore. For now I'll agree to the terms. I'll call the Hawaii Field Team and tell McNeal to let Sin Nombre in on the mission, give him what he needs to keep on this. I'll expect to be kept in the loop on what's going on. You will also arrest and hold whoever you find. Do you understand?"
"Of course."
Director Mills nodded at him and Wo Fat figured himself dismissed. He left Director Mills to make his phone calls, and Wo Fat left to make his own.
He knew that Director Mills wanted him to arrest whoever behind this, but he also knew that that wasn't going to happen. He was going to kill whoever had done this, to set a precedence if anything else. After this no one would ever question him, his motives, nor just how violent he could be to keep what was his under his control.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
It was late at night when Adam showed up at the Five-0 office. Steve had called him there and in light of what happened that afternoon, Adam felt that he couldn't turn him down. Despite the lateness of the hour.
Adam knocked twice and then let himself into Steve's office. Steve half looked up to him and then back to the tablet he had been pouring over.
"Hey, hey buddy," he said absently.
"What are you still doing here? I would have thought you'd go home," Adam asked.
"I uh… I did. But uhm… Wo's in defensive mode, and pretty pissed at me. He uh… he had Con move Jian into our house and she's not too happy about that, but they had to pick one location for Con to watch cause two is too much and they don't trust me to help."
Adam caught the implication there. "This wasn't your fault."
"Well, Wo's under the impression that if I just hadn't rounded them all up and left them vulnerable in one location there would have been more time for him to investigate while this person picked them off one by one. I got them all in one place and sped it up and now he's going to have to scramble."
"You know he's just worried, right? This is about his favourite baby sister and his soon to be wife, not you," he said softly. Then he shot a bit of a smirk at him. "Actually… he may even be worried about you."
Steve cocked an eyebrow at him. "Wo? Worried about me?"
Adam chuckled. "You might not believe it, but I think you've grown on him. He worries about you."
"No…"
"He does, he gets eyebrow creases if Ro tells him you got hurt. Asks how you are and what not. And most importantly he remembers your name."
That got Steve to laugh.
After a while Adam asked: "Are you okay?"
"I haven't had a day as bad as today for a long time. Just everything, the way it went down, you know, the rendition facility. The fact that whoever murdered Agent Fischer, his wife, his six-year-old daughter, that person is still out there they're not behind bars, they're not dead in a hole. And I'm thinking about my family, my kids, my wife, and how I've put them in danger." He took a deep breath. "I'm just having a little trouble with it, you know?"
"Yeah, well, tomorrow's another day, Steve."
Steve took a long drag from the coffee mug he was drinking out, though by the subtle smell it might have been whiskey.
"Yeah it is," he said as he handed him the tablet he hand in his hands. "I want you to see something." Adam took the tablet form him. "So we ID'ed the dead shooters that hit the rendition facility. Alright, they were foreign mercenaries out of Tokyo. Now, according to the Japanese Criminal affairs Bureau, and Con, these guys had no affiliations with any established crews. They had no Yakuza ink. None of them had any arrest records that tied back to any syndicate crimes."
Private mercenaries. That was uncommon. Usually gangs didn't outsource like that.
"So Kenzo was telling the truth. This had nothing to do with him."
"It looks that way. I think it's safe to assume that whoever put the rendition hit together also took out Fischer."
"And Wo Fat still doesn't know who it is?"
"Whoever it is, is hiding well. Which, you know, considering how rabid Wo and Con are, makes sense."
"What about Ro. Her strings. She could figure it out."
"The pregnancy is messing with her strings and visions. It hurts her to pull from the void. And we're all a little worried if she sees something very bad in those strings she'll try to deal with it herself. We're trying to keep her out of it unless absolutely necessary." He caught Adam's smirk and scowled. "What's the smile about?"
"It's just every time you guys try this it ends up that she already knew. I guess I just wonder when you guys are going to stop trying?"
"One day it will work," Steve muttered. "Look, I called you here tonight because I need your help. I want you to head up a special division within the Five-0 Task Force that focuses solely on organized crime on this island. Now, you got the connections. You know how these guys think, you know how they act. I want you to help me find who did all this. Now, listen, I know it's a lot for me to ask you to walk back into that world…"
"Steve, you don't have to convince me. I'm in," he said. "Anything to help you, to help Ro, even Wo. I'm in."
Steve found himself smiling and Adam returned the gesture. "Though, I got to say, I would have thought you'd offer something like this to Wo Fat."
Steve half wince. "Full transparency. I did. FBI won't cut him loose yet."
At that Adam laughed at him again. They shared a bit of a happy smile before Adam once again said: "You've got me Steve. I said I'm in and I meant it."
"Wonderful. You start tomorrow."
At that Steve offered him the whiskey bottle and a second mug to hide it in. Adam was certain to watch Steve, noting how haggard the worry seemed to have made him in such a short amount of time.
He owed so much to McGarrett, to Wo Fat but to Rowan especially. The least he could do was help them for once, instead of them having to help him.
And this time he would be of assistance. He would be.