![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sealieRating: Slash
Word count: ~5,400 (bit bigger than normal because of the hiatus)
Warning:
Advisory: emotional rollercoaster; potty mouth; IT’S A WIP.
Disclaimer: writing for fun not for profit.
Comments: British English spelling, chance of more spelling/grammar mistakes
Spoilers: none, it’s an AU.
Betas: Spring woof, ❤ thank you ❤ thank you ❤ thank you.
Last time on the Co-operative, it was all a little emotional in the aftermath of Victor Hesse’s death
The first part is here,
The Co-operative.
By Sealie
Danny contemplated his cell phone. Gracie was now at school. Art -- he knew from her memorised timetable. Whether he liked it or not, and he didn’t like it in the slightest, he had to reschedule their weekend. Terrorists were attacking and watching the House. The US Navy was working to capture an international terrorist, who had ties with the Yakuza and Chinese Triads, who funded dead terrorists, who operated all over the world from Afghanistan to Hawaii. A terrorist who was fixated on Seolh. The churning of his gut told Danny that events were coming to a head.
“Damn. Damn. Damn.”
He wasn’t letting his Monkey anywhere near the vicinity. It was bad enough that she and Rachel had a team assigned to them. The conversation about using the emergency alarm signal in Grace’s necklace had been difficult. Rachel had protested and, ungraciously, relented in the face of Danny’s insistence. It was another lead-lined layer in the coffin of their antagonistic relationship. Only the threat of Steve’s looming, powerful lawyers had prevented Rachel from stating that Danny would never see Grace again. Only ‘stating’ because the result of that declaration would be lawyers and court appearances, and Danny was fairly confident that their custody agreement wouldn’t be overturned. Steve was very confident that his lawyers could wrangle out a better arrangement. But now Danny was preparing to call Rachel to ask if she could look after Grace. It would go on her Danny-is-a-bad-parent list.
Danny hit speed dial five.
~*~
Aware that Simons was watching from the top balcony skirting around the House, Danny made his way along the path where he had chased after Steve and Hesse mere hours ago.
Steve had, ostensibly, gone to check on Kono. In reality, the likelihood of him not going in the ocean, after being wrung out in the aftermath of the announcement of Hesse’s death, was zero.
Danny tugged on the brim of his borrowed baseball cap, shielding his nose and face from all the watchers and the evil sun. Apparently the guys out back, behind the House, were still in position. Danny wasn’t entirely sure what to make of them, since they hadn’t been too helpful during the night. Steve had explained that their role had been to observe and report to the authorities, and not to engage. He seemed unperturbed, and understanding of those restrictions. But Danny simply thought that they should have come into the House guns blazing. Although they had protected Malia and Chin.
Danny trotted down the path to the bay, forking away from the dense shrubby undergrowth and the route to Hesse’s demise.
An unknown couple, their tans mediocre and their designer sportswear crisply pressed, sat on the bluff overlooking the bay. The man’s pale blond buzz cut was a dead giveaway along with his slabby muscular build that promised action when needed.
Danny eyed them, belatedly thinking that the short stocky woman in the tight fitting shorts was the officer that had faced off against the two foot taller Talmai the night before.
“Sir.” The man greeted Danny with a terse nod.
“And you are?” Danny asked.
“On vacation, sir. This spot has a lovely view,” the man answered.
The woman’s gaze was unerringly scanning: bluff; path; beach; bay; gaudy beach umbrella, and both of their charges in the water.
Danny made a mental note to tell Joe White that his team members needed some drama training. Grace was a better actor, and her main starring role to date had been as the lamb in her kindergarten’s Nativity.
“Yeah, right. Who are you exactly? Or shall I call you Lucy and Ricky? Ricky and Lucy?”
“Lieutenant Burton, Mr. Williams,” the man introduced himself. “And this is my colleague, Lieutenant Tweed.”
“Sir.” Her encompassing green eyed gaze took in Danny, and returned to sweep over her charges out in the shallow bay.
“Are you planning on swimming?” Burton asked, viewing Danny’s shorts and flip flops.
“Only if I have to bodily go into the water and drag those idiots onto dry land.”
Burton’s thick monobrow rose in surprise.
“Not a fan of water?” he asked.
“No, I like sidewalks and paths, dry land and breathing. I’m guessing you’re a SEAL or something?”
Tweed sniggered.
“I’m not a squid, sir,” Burton said, his flat nostrils flaring. “I’m a Marine.”
“So how does that work when this is a SEAL thing?” Danny hand-waved off the question. “Tell me later. I gotta go corral my troops. Oooh, if we do have to go into town, what’s the procedure? Are you guys coming with?”
“Why,” Tweed asked, “do you need to go into town?”
“I have to pick up my suit from the dry cleaners for tomorrow’s funeral. We do need to go to the funeral tomorrow, has St-- Lieutenant Commander McGarrett mentioned that?”
“Yes, sir, arrangements are being made,” Tweed said.
“The suit can be picked up for you,” Burton said, but Danny heard an uncompromising ‘will be picked up on your behalf’. Danny wasn’t adverse, being inherently lazy, but it was another straw that was bowing the camel’s back.
“I’ll give Simons the dry cleaning slip,” Danny said.
“Excellent, I’m sure that the squid will be able to manage that mission,” Burton said dryly.
Geez, Danny thought. “I’m gonna go get them.” He flicked his fingers in the direction of the bay, and then followed his motion, away from creepy bodyguards and down the sloping track.
A seal-slick head was visible in the ebb and flow of the gently bobbing waves as Steve powered diagonally across the cove. Danny wasn’t entirely sure what Kono, who was sitting astride her board, was achieving surf-speaking, in the calm bay. She was far out. Under the waves, the dark of the subtidal rocky reef below her made Danny think of giant, hunting, sea monsters.
She spotted him coming down the path and waved. By the time he was slipping and sliding over the fine golden sand, Kono was using a baby wave to ride the last few yards onto the beach.
“Hey, brah.” She splashed through the ankle waves.
“Should you be surfing with a sprained and bruised wrist?” Danny nodded at the black neoprene wrapping.
“This isn’t surfing. This is paddling. Actually….” she trailed off considering.
“No,” Danny protested reading her mind. “Now is not the time for a surfing lesson.”
“It’s perfect,” Kono refuted. “They’re baby waves and it’s not like we can go anywhere else, is it?” The shadow of the night’s adventure scrolled across her face, expression smoothing.
“Kono.” Danny reached for her.
“Oh, come on.” Kono shook herself, and smiled hopefully. “You’ve got sun block on; you’re shiny. You can probably even keep your cap on. The water’s lovely.”
Danny reluctantly realised that he was having a surfing lesson.
~*~
“Okay, enough.” Danny spat seawater, and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Half an hour; I’ll have washed my sun block off now.”
“Yeah, judging by the amount of times you got dunked.” Kono cupped his elbow, and helped him stand in the knee-high water. “But you are getting better.”
“I was shot yesterday, you know.”
“What?” Kono was suddenly as close into his personal space as Steve could get.
“Hey, hey.” Danny caught her hands. “It’s okay, I was wearing Steve’s bulletproof vest. I’m just stiff… exercise is helping.”
“Where?” Kono looked him up and down.
Reluctantly, Danny pulled up his wet t-shirt.
“Holy shit,” Kono said -- quite satisfyingly, Danny thought.
Her fingers dabbled a hairbreadth from the bruise on the side of his ribs.
“Don’t touch.” Danny flinched away.
“Brah! You could have died.” She latched onto him, clutching him against her breasts. “Danny.”
“Hey. Hey.” Danny gently patted her back, and indulged in the hug just a little bit because he was emphatically bi. “Steve had me in a bulletproof vest. It was, apparently, a glancing shot.”
“Danny.” She hiccupped miserably.
“Hey.” Danny cupped the back of her damp head. “You’re okay.”
It was his day for comforting people.
“I know, I’m okay.” She sniffed and pulled back. Narrowing her eyes, she held her clenched fists perfectly positioned for an uppercut. “I punched him.”
“Good for you,” Danny said seriously. “I box.”
“Yeah?” Kono mimed an easy hit with her unbandaged arm that Danny pretended to block. “I do karate. But, it’s different when you do it for real. I know that it’s not really about punching people.”
“I kind of thought that was what it was about,” Danny said jokingly, knowing that it was about discipline, primarily.
“Steve uses a lot of different things. They are all violent,” Kono said pensively. “I remember seeing him practice before--”
Before he was hurt, Danny translated.
“I love Karate, but maybe….”
“Hey.” Danny caught her pale cheeks between his hands, holding her still. “Last night was horrifying. Don’t forget that you’re okay. You punched Hesse. You protected and contained Mary. You went to help Steve. You were awesome. I’m proud of you.”
“Danny.” Kono smiled as bright as the sun.
“Kono,” Danny said in response. She was his first friend on the Islands of Hawaii. She had found him and given him a home. He would die for her.
She launched herself back into his arms, hugging him tightly.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said.
“I’m glad we’re okay,” Danny emphasised, returning a firm squeeze.
She released him, but not before bestowing an indulgent kiss to his cheek.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “I mean. It’s been insane recently. And you know, you and Steve.”
“I couldn’t begin to say--” Danny mashed spider fingers together in demented battle. “And that’s because you know. Seolh’s… encompassing, and Steve’s a force of nature.”
Kono dipped down a fraction and kissed his forehead.
“You fit into Seolh so well, Danny. It’s like we’ve been waiting for you since forever. You got me into Seolh.”
“That’s only because everyone else is really slow. I think that Seolh would have got you anyway, like a Godzilla or a giant blanket, engulfing you.” Danny chuckled. “Steve calls it Smothery Seolh. Or Mary called it Smothery Seolh,”
“I get why Mary doesn’t fit.” Kono gritted her teeth.
“I can understand why it would grate. But--” because he understood that Seolh wasn’t for everyone.
“You fit.”
Danny nodded. Even amidst the insanity, he had found a home in Seolh.
~*~
“I think, maybe,” Kono said from under their shared beach umbrella cowering away from the sun’s intensive rays, “we’re going to have to go in and get Steve.”
Danny couldn’t even begin to guess how many times Steve had trawled across the cove. He had only planned to come down and get Kono and Steve back to the House, before he had been railroaded into an impromptu surf lesson. Steve had been swimming for, at the very least, an hour.
Steve was obviously in the zone. Lost in the meditative place where exercise superseded all thoughts.
Danny stood. Steve needed someone to stop him. He was that person. Yanking off his t-shirt, he stripped down to his shorts and stomped into the waves. He dove, short armed, and powered through the water on an intercepting line to Steve. The shallow sloping bay was a perfect harbour. When they had first been trying to figure out why people were targeting Seolh, the primary reasoning was because of this easily-approached bay, where flat-bottomed smugglers’ boats could be easily pulled ashore.
Steve might be exercising to exhaustion, but where he was swimming he could stand and make his way to shore. That babies could drown in a two inch bath, did not, emphatically, cross Danny’s mind. He treaded water directly in Steve’s path. Jerking, Steve jack-knifed in the water to a sharp and staggering halt.
“Idiot!” Danny remonstrated, as Steve stood in the chin-high water. “Tell me -- do your muscles feel like jelly?”
“Danny?” Steve squinted at him.
“Yes, Danny.” He nodded, and mimed doggy-paddling swimming motions and pointed to the shore. Emphasis was added with a brand new sign learned at the coffee meeting, a terse: now, which kind of resembled a double-shaka but palms facing upwards.
“Danny.”
“Before I have to rescue you.” Danny snatched for the collar of his wetsuit, planning on towing him back to dry land.
Steve avoided his grasping with appalling ease, finning back with a mere flick of his fingers.
“Shore,” Danny directed, and started kicking in that direction.
Steve side-stroked along at Danny’s side, watching him like a hawk. Danny started swimming in earnest, concentrating on maintaining a good breast-stroke form as Steve easily kept pace.
“I think we should get you an optician’s appointment. You squint a lot,” Danny huffed out between breaths.
Steve didn’t react, simply, almost insultingly, using a single stroke to maintain pace.
Finally, Danny touched sand beneath his feet, and stood. Steve mirrored him.
“This is nice.” Danny poked Steve’s shoulder indicating the tightly clinging short-sleeved wetsuit. It was patently evidence that Steve might have been checking on Kono, but swimming had been on his agenda. It defined his form in long, delectable narrow lines. The matching blue trunks were a little baggier.
“I’ll pose for you another day.” Steve stalked up the beach towards Kono’s umbrella.
“I’ll take you up on that!” Danny yelled, for once deliberately addressing Steve’s back.
“Did you enjoy your swim?” Kono said carefully, and held up a small towel.
Steve dropped to his knees beside Kono, and scrubbed the towel over his head. Danny scurried under the protection of Kono’s enormous umbrella with them.
“Hey.” Clasping his knees, Danny scrunched up in the darkest umbra.
Pinching one blue waterproof earplug and then the other from his ears, Steve regarded them with his I have no aids in expression. It sort of made him look like an attentive meerkat.
Danny held his palm up before Steve, pressing it forwards, followed by cupping his ear with his thumb and forefinger, and then pointed towards the House.
Steve cocked his head to the side, considering.
Danny repeated the sequence of signs and then added the definite shape of a house -- flat roof and sides with the palm of his hands -- instead of just pointing up to the House on the peninsula above.
“I got that,” Kono said. “You were asking if Steve’s hearing aids were in House. Cool. I really need to learn. Can I come to classes?”
“I can hear, sort of, after a fashion,” Steve said. He pointed at Kono’s water bottle, and she handed it over. “Thank you. I’m trained in lip reading.”
“It’s another string to our bows.” Danny shrugged.
Steve scowled over the cant of the bottle as he drank, clearly not following that sentence.
“Okay, I’m going to go into the base,” Steve stated, hooking the damp towel around his neck. “I want -- I would like you to…. hmmm.”
Ah, Bossy Steve was learning.
“Kono can you read Chinese -- Mandarin, hanzi thingies?” Danny sketched the dragon hanzi in mid-air.
“Excuse me?” Kono asked.
“What?” Steve demanded.
“Yeah,” Danny clicked his fingers. “We didn’t get on to that last night, did we? Let’s go back up to the House, grab your hearing aids, and I don’t know about you guys, but I’m up for a second-breakfast-brunch-lunch, and we can have a download.”
“You’re speaking deliberately fast, aren’t you?” Steve said.
“No,” Danny shook his head, vigorously. “Just thinking fast. Sorry. Come on. Food.” He munched on his fingertips.
Steve reluctantly stood, matching Danny as he clambered to his feet.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” Kono grumbled as she pulled down the umbrella. “You better tell me, or else.”
“Some of it’s classified.” Danny scooped up her bag, and stuffed the water bottle in its depths. “Steve can update you over lunch.”
~*~
Danny spread out all of the portable evidence out on Steve’s expansive architect’s table matching them up with the printed out hardcopies of all the photographs. He had even included the blurred images that Oh had given him on the computer disc. Dolls, vase, and the coins were spread out between the two photographs. They hadn’t found the blonde haired baby-doll. Two of the dolls were warriors, but that didn’t match the third doll.
Steve had given Kono an edited version of the events to date. She was currently looking for the ledger in the reception rooms.
Danny rubbed his hands together. If he solved the mystery, Grace could visit -- that was considerable impetus.
~*~
Glumly, Danny went to check the Nandi’s Head because he’d be fucked if he understood what Doris McGarrett was trying to convey. He contemplated the Nandi’s Head wondering if an axe was the solution. Steve would probably object. He hunted along the wall between the stacks looking for the light switch for the harsh, bright light.
“Whatchya doing?”
“Steven!” Danny remonstrated at the figure silhouetted against the office lights. “Don’t creep up on me.”
“Sorry.” Steve scrunched up. “What are you doing?”
He hadn’t changed out of his tan uniform, coming straight to the museum.
“Hey, have you had your hair cut?” Danny moved into the light from the doorway. The silhouette of Steve’s fluffy head was a little more groomed than normal. Haircut or application of product was the only answer.
“The funeral,” Steve answered simply, implying that he had had a haircut while on the Base. “What are you doing? You were doing this last night as well.”
“Oh, Chin wondered if there was a secret compartment in the Nandi’s Head.” Danny waved at the carving expansively. “Did you know that the Nandi Head is actually the Nandi’s Head and it’s a bull not an antelope?”
“Yes,” Steve said, lying.
Danny eyed him, because he was a master at detecting children lying. How had Steve been an intelligence operative in the US Navy when his dissembling skills were on par with a four year old’s?
Steve reached over beside the door and a hundred watt bright light flooded the room.
“Thank you,” Danny said, eyes tearing.
“You’re welcome,” Steve said primly, because he could be an ass.
“A little warning next time.”
Steve acknowledged the gripe with an absent nod.
“Secret compartment in the carving?” Steve said, dubiously.
“Could be.” Danny shrugged, more interested momentarily in the precise cut of Steve’s hair. Somehow, he thought, he doubted that Steve had popped into the barber’s on Base for a run in with a shaver. That was a two hundred dollar haircut. The errant curl high on his forehead had been tamed.
“I suppose so.” Steve circled around the enormous carved statue.
“So what happened down at the Base?” Danny asked admiring that leonine slink around the podium.
“Hmm?” Steve glanced at him. “Danny?”
Danny shook himself. Oh, for his camera.
“Did you talk to Paulo?”
Steve scowled, so Danny took that as a yes.
“He’s singing like the proverbial canary,” Steve sounded unimpressed.
“What tune?”
“He was in the Hesse brothers’ pocket. He was their lackey. He knows next to nothing about Wo Fat. Victor needed a weak spot -- he’s good at finding them -- and used Paulo as his eyes and ears. There were some threats, some coercion, and a few promises.”
“Promises?” Danny prompted, as Steve continued to circle. Danny could imagine him doing that to Paulo in a small, badly ventilated, poorly illuminated interrogation room.
“I can’t believe that we never suspected him,” Steve grumbled. “He drugged the curry. And where was he during the aftermath? Nursing a measly gun crease on his arm.”
“But why did he do it?” Danny persisted.
“He wanted an in with Wo Fat’s operation. Thought if he proved that he was a good mole in the Kapu, Wo Fat might look after him. Idiot. If he was useful, the Hesse brothers would never let him go. If he proved useless, Victor would have enjoyed killing him for his brother’s pleasure.”
Danny absorbed that with a shiver. It told him more than he wanted to know about the Hesse brothers.
“So nothing about Wo Fat at all?”
“Never even met him.” Steve crouched and tried the same knot in the wooden podium that Danny had tried the night before. “Victor Hesse keeps his associates on a short leash. Kept his associates on a short leash.”
“You thought that Wo Fat had nothing to do with Hesse’s invasion last night. Why?”
“Because it wasn’t well thought out. If anything, Wo Fat has proven to be infernally patient. He’s a planner. All of the intel we have on P-One is that he’s highly intelligent. He was an agent in the Chinese MFS working in Counter Intelligence with the Sixth bureau. Hesse was going to break Seolh apart looking for whatever Wo Fat wants. Which is interesting….”
“How?”
“Hesse took orders from Wo Fat. That Victor Hesse was taking orders led us to the existence of Wo Fat. It was unprecedented.” Steve stood and continued his circling. “Evidently, Hesse was getting a little sick of following orders, and wanted some leverage over Wo Fat. Pretty much the same thing that Jenna Kaye was thinking.” Steve eyed Danny, contemplative.
“Something is rotten in the State of Denmark?” Danny offered, recalling Steve’s comments on the staircase.
It took Steve a moment to parse that sentence.
“It tells me that there’s a vulnerability to exploit. Wo Fat is not as secure in his organisation as we have previously thought. We’re not clear on how his ‘business’,” Steve said euphemistically, “operates with the Yakuza. But if his subordinates think that they can operate independently, yeah, ‘Something is rotten in the State of Denmark’.”
“Maybe they were thinking to get an ‘in’ with the Boss?” Danny offered.
“Kaye, maybe. Victor Hesse doesn’t think like that. Hesse is focused on money, sex, revenge, and violence, and not necessarily in that order. Attacking the House wasn’t a way to get an ‘in’ with Wo Fat.”
“But if he found what Wo Fat is looking for….” Danny said, leadingly.
“No.” Steve stopped his pacing. “Wo Fat killed that greasy, mullet-haired guy -- Sang Min -- for setting fire to the House. Whatever we’re looking for is fragile, easily damaged.”
Danny blinked.
“A ledger isn’t fragile,” Danny pointed out. “Old books can be fragile. But that was page was dated 1988.”
Steve simply shrugged. “Books burn?” he said.
“Maybe it’s not even in the House?” Danny said playing Devil’s Advocate.
Steve absorbed that phlegmatically.
“Mom was all about misdirection and magic tricks. Wo Fat’s spent years, I assume, looking for this. We’ve wondered if my pursuit of the Hesse brother’s brought me to Wo Fat’s attention, and that led him to link me with Doris McGarrett. Mom was watching the Noshimuri family. But I’m pretty sure that she was also operating in North Korea and China. She more than likely killed his dad. Or it might have been you.”
“Excuse me?” Danny said indignantly.
“The photo that you took of him led Sang Min to follow you to Seolh. Maybe then Sang Min reporting that you were here, led Wo Fat to make a bunch of connections -- Steve McGarrett of Seolh to Lieutenant Commander McGarrett US Navy. More digging ended up with him to linking my mom as the woman who was around Hiro Noshimuri back in the 1980s. That was probably Jenna Kaye’s investigative work.”
“It’s less of a coincidence than Wo Fat getting interested in you just because of the Hesse brothers,” Danny said slowly. One little photograph leading to all this aggravation and intrigue, it was kind of incomprehensible. Danny mentally reviewed the incriminating photograph in his mind’s eye. “Victor Hesse is also in the photo of Wo Fat.”
“The little intel that we have on Wo Fat –- to be accurate, the intel on the Hesse Brothers… We always knew that the Hesse Brothers had a funder, but your photograph was the first evidence of that mastermind behind the Hesse Brothers.” Steve preened on Danny’s behalf. “That it is Wo Fat correlates with the evidence that Victor Hesse operates internationally. Wo Fat is not a terrorist with a religious or ideological agenda. He’s in it for the power.”
“So they all shit themselves when they realised that I’d taken a photo of Wo Fat and Victor Hesse, and had moved in with a Navy SEAL.”
“You haven’t actually moved in yet.” Steve leered.
Danny glared at him fondly.
Steve waggled his eyebrows.
“Continue with your inferences, Sherlock,” Danny proclaimed regally, ignoring Steve’s blatant attempts to get him to move into the eyrie.
“Wo Fat is playing a long game. He’s wound us up and pointed us in the right direction, but he doesn’t know where the ‘treasure’ is, either. I think that he’s interested to see where our investigations take us.” Pensively, Steve scratched along the long line of his throat as he thought. “And he’s giving us enough rope to hang ourselves.”
“I’m not entirely sure of your mixed analogies, but I think I know what you’re saying. You’re saying that there might not be a mystery to solve.”
“No, there’s a mystery….” Steve’s expression segued to blankness as he clearly worried at a thought. “I--”
The bright lights flashed coding the dinner is ready signal.
“Excellent.” Danny clapped his hands together. “Chin’s cooking tonight.”
“Hmm.” Steve absorbed that without comment.
Danny could practically see the thought bubble forming over Steve’s head. It was tempting to prod it, but then it would likely pop.
“I’ll be down in five,” Steve said absently, already wandering away. “I need to change.”
“Okay, Babe,” Danny said slowly. He was happy to give Steve his five minutes. He would even let him have ten, because that was an expression of a man chasing an important thought. Danny didn’t want to derail that thinking.
~*~
“Should I put a plate in the oven?” Mary asked, glancing at Steve’s clear place setting.
“He’ll probably go for the rice dish,” Chin judged, “that will dry out in the oven.” He levelled a speaking glance at Danny.
“Hey, Steve knows dinner’s on the table. He’ll come down.” It wasn’t improbable that he had sat on his bed for a moment and flagged. “I’ll give him another five.”
“It’s been ten minutes since we rang the bell … light flashed,” Mary said.
“He could be in the shower,” Danny pointed out. Steve could easily shower two-three times a day, especially if he had been running, gone in to Honolulu, or swum in the sea.
“Hey.” Steve slid into the kitchen. The pristinely pressed Naval uniform had been swapped for one of his tight running t-shirts and cargo shorts. He plopped into his seat beside Danny.
“Spiced carrot, garbanzo, and almond pilaf.” Chin pointed to the bowl on the centre of the table. “Steak Diane with sautéed potatoes and peas.”
Steve promptly put a spoonful of garbanzo and colourful rice on his plate.
Chin called it, Danny thought. He helped himself to another portion of the Steak Diane, making sure to get a generous scoop of the brandy sauce.
While Steve was normally quiet when at the dinner table, tonight he was a vacuum of thought, as he worked his way through fart-inducing garbanzo beans. He appeared to be oblivious to the glances being cast in his direction.
‘Thinking,’ Danny mouthed at Chin. ‘Thinking hard.’
“So.” Chin tapped the tabletop, getting Steve’s attention.
His head came up, focussing on Chin.
“Steve, what are the funeral arrangements for tomorrow?” Chin asked practically.
“Limousine will arrive promptly at ten thirty.” Steve flicked a glance at Mary, who flared her nostrils at him. “ETA at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific is circa eleven twenty. The ceremony starts at twelve hundred hours. We will then proceed to the Governor’s Mansion for a light lunch.”
“And it finishes?” Mary asked.
“I expect that we will be able to return home at fourteen hundred hours.” Steve flashed a luminous smile at Danny. “So we’ll have plenty of time to pick up Grace after school.”
“No.” Danny shook his head. “She’s staying with her mom this weekend.”
“But I thought?”
“Steve.” Danny’s gaze encompassed the whole family. “No. Emphatically not. It can’t happen -- not until we figure this out. There were men running around the House yesterday with guns.”
Chin cast his eyes downward. Malia was conspicuous by her absence; she was staying with her mom and dad.
“I’m sorry, Danny,” Mary blurted. “I wanted to meet her. She sounds awesome.”
Danny carefully sighed, breathing through the misery.
“I could book you a suite in the Hawaiian Hilton,” Steve said, expression serious. “You could spend the weekend in the resort. I’d organise protection.”
In a blinding millisecond, Danny considered the offer. It was tempting but, one, it would cost a lot of money, and while Steve could easily pay, Danny wasn’t a kept man, and, two, Danny didn’t know what this ‘protection’ would entail. They would probably be kept in the room, or accompanied everywhere with a bunch of men in suits. He wouldn’t upset Grace for the world.
“No,” Danny said decisively. “We’re going to find this thing and get Wo Fat off our backs and put this all behind us. Okay!”
“Yes,” was the resounding reply.
~*~
“I’m sorry about Gracie, Danny,” Steve said.
Danny turned from closing the newly replaced eyrie door, and curled straight into Steve’s embrace. He sagged, tension draining out of his body like a faucet suddenly twisted fully open.
“Hey,” Steve soothed, cupping the back of Danny’s head with a large hand.
“We have to figure this out,” Danny said into his neck.
“We will,” Steve said, picking up vibrations. “Gracie will be able to stay with us anytime. We’ll get you a fair and equitable custody arrangement. Everything will be fine.”
“You can’t promise that.” Danny pushed off his chest, digging fingers into Steve’s right hand side ribs. “We’re running around blind.”
“Hey.” Steve wriggled away from the tickle like a scalded cat.
Danny couldn’t help a tiny smile because such a big, rough and ready SEAL could be brought down by tickling.
“Look, I know that there is something, and it’s here in the House.” Steve caught Danny’s fingers and drew him towards the sofa.
“Steve…”
“We’re going to find it, and end this.”
“How?” Danny plopped down on the cushions with a thump. Pulling his hand free from Steve’s grip he crossed his arms.
“You told me,” Steve said intently, as he sat and twisted around to directly face Danny. “Mom was careful and cagey and very intelligent. She didn’t intend on getting that film developed. Remember?”
Danny nodded. He had wondered why she had taken photographs of her home on a film that nominally should have been given to the CIA since she had photographed the Yakuza cop, Koji Noshimuri.
“She was creating a stash. Insurance.” Steve gave Danny his full and intense concentration. “There were passports in the box under the floorboards. Mom had an escape plan. Something prompted Mom to have an escape plan.”
“Your passport and your mom’s false passport were there. But not your dad’s and sister’s,” Danny observed.
“Correct.” Steve nodded. “They’re in the second stash along with the thing that Wo Fat’s looking for. Mom would never have put all her eggs in one basket. The coins under the floorboards are valuable. I’ve sent the paste jewellery that Mary played with to be assayed. They’re probably real jewels.”
“So what,” Danny asked slowly, “made her create these stashes? And the breadcrumb clues?”
“This all kicked off in 1988, when she was just getting back in the game.” Steve picked a loose scab off his forearm, examined it, popped it in his mouth, gave an introspective chew and swallowed.
“Oh. My. God.” Danny gagged.
“What?” Steve asked perplexed. “What?”
Danny slithered back across the sofa cushions out of reach.
“What?” Steve asked again. He shook his head. “She might not have known all the players and that made her collect some insurance. I’m guessing the clues were for whoever might find the stash if her plans went south.”
“Yeah, right,” Danny said dubiously.
“Something or someone scared her,” Steve said, ostensibly agreeing with Danny. “But she didn’t run back in 1988, she controlled the situation… resolved it.”
“By killing Wo Yongfu?”
“By killing Wo Yongfu,” Steve confirmed.
Danny mulled over that. “Don’t forget that two years later someone killed your mom and dad.”
“I’m hardly going to forget that, am I?” Steve said.
~*~
Tbc
Part one hundred
Word count: ~5,400 (bit bigger than normal because of the hiatus)
Warning:
Advisory: emotional rollercoaster; potty mouth; IT’S A WIP.
Disclaimer: writing for fun not for profit.
Comments: British English spelling, chance of more spelling/grammar mistakes
Spoilers: none, it’s an AU.
Betas: Spring woof, ❤ thank you ❤ thank you ❤ thank you.
Last time on the Co-operative, it was all a little emotional in the aftermath of Victor Hesse’s death
The first part is here,
The Co-operative.
By Sealie
Danny contemplated his cell phone. Gracie was now at school. Art -- he knew from her memorised timetable. Whether he liked it or not, and he didn’t like it in the slightest, he had to reschedule their weekend. Terrorists were attacking and watching the House. The US Navy was working to capture an international terrorist, who had ties with the Yakuza and Chinese Triads, who funded dead terrorists, who operated all over the world from Afghanistan to Hawaii. A terrorist who was fixated on Seolh. The churning of his gut told Danny that events were coming to a head.
“Damn. Damn. Damn.”
He wasn’t letting his Monkey anywhere near the vicinity. It was bad enough that she and Rachel had a team assigned to them. The conversation about using the emergency alarm signal in Grace’s necklace had been difficult. Rachel had protested and, ungraciously, relented in the face of Danny’s insistence. It was another lead-lined layer in the coffin of their antagonistic relationship. Only the threat of Steve’s looming, powerful lawyers had prevented Rachel from stating that Danny would never see Grace again. Only ‘stating’ because the result of that declaration would be lawyers and court appearances, and Danny was fairly confident that their custody agreement wouldn’t be overturned. Steve was very confident that his lawyers could wrangle out a better arrangement. But now Danny was preparing to call Rachel to ask if she could look after Grace. It would go on her Danny-is-a-bad-parent list.
Danny hit speed dial five.
~*~
Aware that Simons was watching from the top balcony skirting around the House, Danny made his way along the path where he had chased after Steve and Hesse mere hours ago.
Steve had, ostensibly, gone to check on Kono. In reality, the likelihood of him not going in the ocean, after being wrung out in the aftermath of the announcement of Hesse’s death, was zero.
Danny tugged on the brim of his borrowed baseball cap, shielding his nose and face from all the watchers and the evil sun. Apparently the guys out back, behind the House, were still in position. Danny wasn’t entirely sure what to make of them, since they hadn’t been too helpful during the night. Steve had explained that their role had been to observe and report to the authorities, and not to engage. He seemed unperturbed, and understanding of those restrictions. But Danny simply thought that they should have come into the House guns blazing. Although they had protected Malia and Chin.
Danny trotted down the path to the bay, forking away from the dense shrubby undergrowth and the route to Hesse’s demise.
An unknown couple, their tans mediocre and their designer sportswear crisply pressed, sat on the bluff overlooking the bay. The man’s pale blond buzz cut was a dead giveaway along with his slabby muscular build that promised action when needed.
Danny eyed them, belatedly thinking that the short stocky woman in the tight fitting shorts was the officer that had faced off against the two foot taller Talmai the night before.
“Sir.” The man greeted Danny with a terse nod.
“And you are?” Danny asked.
“On vacation, sir. This spot has a lovely view,” the man answered.
The woman’s gaze was unerringly scanning: bluff; path; beach; bay; gaudy beach umbrella, and both of their charges in the water.
Danny made a mental note to tell Joe White that his team members needed some drama training. Grace was a better actor, and her main starring role to date had been as the lamb in her kindergarten’s Nativity.
“Yeah, right. Who are you exactly? Or shall I call you Lucy and Ricky? Ricky and Lucy?”
“Lieutenant Burton, Mr. Williams,” the man introduced himself. “And this is my colleague, Lieutenant Tweed.”
“Sir.” Her encompassing green eyed gaze took in Danny, and returned to sweep over her charges out in the shallow bay.
“Are you planning on swimming?” Burton asked, viewing Danny’s shorts and flip flops.
“Only if I have to bodily go into the water and drag those idiots onto dry land.”
Burton’s thick monobrow rose in surprise.
“Not a fan of water?” he asked.
“No, I like sidewalks and paths, dry land and breathing. I’m guessing you’re a SEAL or something?”
Tweed sniggered.
“I’m not a squid, sir,” Burton said, his flat nostrils flaring. “I’m a Marine.”
“So how does that work when this is a SEAL thing?” Danny hand-waved off the question. “Tell me later. I gotta go corral my troops. Oooh, if we do have to go into town, what’s the procedure? Are you guys coming with?”
“Why,” Tweed asked, “do you need to go into town?”
“I have to pick up my suit from the dry cleaners for tomorrow’s funeral. We do need to go to the funeral tomorrow, has St-- Lieutenant Commander McGarrett mentioned that?”
“Yes, sir, arrangements are being made,” Tweed said.
“The suit can be picked up for you,” Burton said, but Danny heard an uncompromising ‘will be picked up on your behalf’. Danny wasn’t adverse, being inherently lazy, but it was another straw that was bowing the camel’s back.
“I’ll give Simons the dry cleaning slip,” Danny said.
“Excellent, I’m sure that the squid will be able to manage that mission,” Burton said dryly.
Geez, Danny thought. “I’m gonna go get them.” He flicked his fingers in the direction of the bay, and then followed his motion, away from creepy bodyguards and down the sloping track.
A seal-slick head was visible in the ebb and flow of the gently bobbing waves as Steve powered diagonally across the cove. Danny wasn’t entirely sure what Kono, who was sitting astride her board, was achieving surf-speaking, in the calm bay. She was far out. Under the waves, the dark of the subtidal rocky reef below her made Danny think of giant, hunting, sea monsters.
She spotted him coming down the path and waved. By the time he was slipping and sliding over the fine golden sand, Kono was using a baby wave to ride the last few yards onto the beach.
“Hey, brah.” She splashed through the ankle waves.
“Should you be surfing with a sprained and bruised wrist?” Danny nodded at the black neoprene wrapping.
“This isn’t surfing. This is paddling. Actually….” she trailed off considering.
“No,” Danny protested reading her mind. “Now is not the time for a surfing lesson.”
“It’s perfect,” Kono refuted. “They’re baby waves and it’s not like we can go anywhere else, is it?” The shadow of the night’s adventure scrolled across her face, expression smoothing.
“Kono.” Danny reached for her.
“Oh, come on.” Kono shook herself, and smiled hopefully. “You’ve got sun block on; you’re shiny. You can probably even keep your cap on. The water’s lovely.”
Danny reluctantly realised that he was having a surfing lesson.
~*~
“Okay, enough.” Danny spat seawater, and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Half an hour; I’ll have washed my sun block off now.”
“Yeah, judging by the amount of times you got dunked.” Kono cupped his elbow, and helped him stand in the knee-high water. “But you are getting better.”
“I was shot yesterday, you know.”
“What?” Kono was suddenly as close into his personal space as Steve could get.
“Hey, hey.” Danny caught her hands. “It’s okay, I was wearing Steve’s bulletproof vest. I’m just stiff… exercise is helping.”
“Where?” Kono looked him up and down.
Reluctantly, Danny pulled up his wet t-shirt.
“Holy shit,” Kono said -- quite satisfyingly, Danny thought.
Her fingers dabbled a hairbreadth from the bruise on the side of his ribs.
“Don’t touch.” Danny flinched away.
“Brah! You could have died.” She latched onto him, clutching him against her breasts. “Danny.”
“Hey. Hey.” Danny gently patted her back, and indulged in the hug just a little bit because he was emphatically bi. “Steve had me in a bulletproof vest. It was, apparently, a glancing shot.”
“Danny.” She hiccupped miserably.
“Hey.” Danny cupped the back of her damp head. “You’re okay.”
It was his day for comforting people.
“I know, I’m okay.” She sniffed and pulled back. Narrowing her eyes, she held her clenched fists perfectly positioned for an uppercut. “I punched him.”
“Good for you,” Danny said seriously. “I box.”
“Yeah?” Kono mimed an easy hit with her unbandaged arm that Danny pretended to block. “I do karate. But, it’s different when you do it for real. I know that it’s not really about punching people.”
“I kind of thought that was what it was about,” Danny said jokingly, knowing that it was about discipline, primarily.
“Steve uses a lot of different things. They are all violent,” Kono said pensively. “I remember seeing him practice before--”
Before he was hurt, Danny translated.
“I love Karate, but maybe….”
“Hey.” Danny caught her pale cheeks between his hands, holding her still. “Last night was horrifying. Don’t forget that you’re okay. You punched Hesse. You protected and contained Mary. You went to help Steve. You were awesome. I’m proud of you.”
“Danny.” Kono smiled as bright as the sun.
“Kono,” Danny said in response. She was his first friend on the Islands of Hawaii. She had found him and given him a home. He would die for her.
She launched herself back into his arms, hugging him tightly.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said.
“I’m glad we’re okay,” Danny emphasised, returning a firm squeeze.
She released him, but not before bestowing an indulgent kiss to his cheek.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “I mean. It’s been insane recently. And you know, you and Steve.”
“I couldn’t begin to say--” Danny mashed spider fingers together in demented battle. “And that’s because you know. Seolh’s… encompassing, and Steve’s a force of nature.”
Kono dipped down a fraction and kissed his forehead.
“You fit into Seolh so well, Danny. It’s like we’ve been waiting for you since forever. You got me into Seolh.”
“That’s only because everyone else is really slow. I think that Seolh would have got you anyway, like a Godzilla or a giant blanket, engulfing you.” Danny chuckled. “Steve calls it Smothery Seolh. Or Mary called it Smothery Seolh,”
“I get why Mary doesn’t fit.” Kono gritted her teeth.
“I can understand why it would grate. But--” because he understood that Seolh wasn’t for everyone.
“You fit.”
Danny nodded. Even amidst the insanity, he had found a home in Seolh.
~*~
“I think, maybe,” Kono said from under their shared beach umbrella cowering away from the sun’s intensive rays, “we’re going to have to go in and get Steve.”
Danny couldn’t even begin to guess how many times Steve had trawled across the cove. He had only planned to come down and get Kono and Steve back to the House, before he had been railroaded into an impromptu surf lesson. Steve had been swimming for, at the very least, an hour.
Steve was obviously in the zone. Lost in the meditative place where exercise superseded all thoughts.
Danny stood. Steve needed someone to stop him. He was that person. Yanking off his t-shirt, he stripped down to his shorts and stomped into the waves. He dove, short armed, and powered through the water on an intercepting line to Steve. The shallow sloping bay was a perfect harbour. When they had first been trying to figure out why people were targeting Seolh, the primary reasoning was because of this easily-approached bay, where flat-bottomed smugglers’ boats could be easily pulled ashore.
Steve might be exercising to exhaustion, but where he was swimming he could stand and make his way to shore. That babies could drown in a two inch bath, did not, emphatically, cross Danny’s mind. He treaded water directly in Steve’s path. Jerking, Steve jack-knifed in the water to a sharp and staggering halt.
“Idiot!” Danny remonstrated, as Steve stood in the chin-high water. “Tell me -- do your muscles feel like jelly?”
“Danny?” Steve squinted at him.
“Yes, Danny.” He nodded, and mimed doggy-paddling swimming motions and pointed to the shore. Emphasis was added with a brand new sign learned at the coffee meeting, a terse: now, which kind of resembled a double-shaka but palms facing upwards.
“Danny.”
“Before I have to rescue you.” Danny snatched for the collar of his wetsuit, planning on towing him back to dry land.
Steve avoided his grasping with appalling ease, finning back with a mere flick of his fingers.
“Shore,” Danny directed, and started kicking in that direction.
Steve side-stroked along at Danny’s side, watching him like a hawk. Danny started swimming in earnest, concentrating on maintaining a good breast-stroke form as Steve easily kept pace.
“I think we should get you an optician’s appointment. You squint a lot,” Danny huffed out between breaths.
Steve didn’t react, simply, almost insultingly, using a single stroke to maintain pace.
Finally, Danny touched sand beneath his feet, and stood. Steve mirrored him.
“This is nice.” Danny poked Steve’s shoulder indicating the tightly clinging short-sleeved wetsuit. It was patently evidence that Steve might have been checking on Kono, but swimming had been on his agenda. It defined his form in long, delectable narrow lines. The matching blue trunks were a little baggier.
“I’ll pose for you another day.” Steve stalked up the beach towards Kono’s umbrella.
“I’ll take you up on that!” Danny yelled, for once deliberately addressing Steve’s back.
“Did you enjoy your swim?” Kono said carefully, and held up a small towel.
Steve dropped to his knees beside Kono, and scrubbed the towel over his head. Danny scurried under the protection of Kono’s enormous umbrella with them.
“Hey.” Clasping his knees, Danny scrunched up in the darkest umbra.
Pinching one blue waterproof earplug and then the other from his ears, Steve regarded them with his I have no aids in expression. It sort of made him look like an attentive meerkat.
Danny held his palm up before Steve, pressing it forwards, followed by cupping his ear with his thumb and forefinger, and then pointed towards the House.
Steve cocked his head to the side, considering.
Danny repeated the sequence of signs and then added the definite shape of a house -- flat roof and sides with the palm of his hands -- instead of just pointing up to the House on the peninsula above.
“I got that,” Kono said. “You were asking if Steve’s hearing aids were in House. Cool. I really need to learn. Can I come to classes?”
“I can hear, sort of, after a fashion,” Steve said. He pointed at Kono’s water bottle, and she handed it over. “Thank you. I’m trained in lip reading.”
“It’s another string to our bows.” Danny shrugged.
Steve scowled over the cant of the bottle as he drank, clearly not following that sentence.
“Okay, I’m going to go into the base,” Steve stated, hooking the damp towel around his neck. “I want -- I would like you to…. hmmm.”
Ah, Bossy Steve was learning.
“Kono can you read Chinese -- Mandarin, hanzi thingies?” Danny sketched the dragon hanzi in mid-air.
“Excuse me?” Kono asked.
“What?” Steve demanded.
“Yeah,” Danny clicked his fingers. “We didn’t get on to that last night, did we? Let’s go back up to the House, grab your hearing aids, and I don’t know about you guys, but I’m up for a second-breakfast-brunch-lunch, and we can have a download.”
“You’re speaking deliberately fast, aren’t you?” Steve said.
“No,” Danny shook his head, vigorously. “Just thinking fast. Sorry. Come on. Food.” He munched on his fingertips.
Steve reluctantly stood, matching Danny as he clambered to his feet.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” Kono grumbled as she pulled down the umbrella. “You better tell me, or else.”
“Some of it’s classified.” Danny scooped up her bag, and stuffed the water bottle in its depths. “Steve can update you over lunch.”
~*~
Danny spread out all of the portable evidence out on Steve’s expansive architect’s table matching them up with the printed out hardcopies of all the photographs. He had even included the blurred images that Oh had given him on the computer disc. Dolls, vase, and the coins were spread out between the two photographs. They hadn’t found the blonde haired baby-doll. Two of the dolls were warriors, but that didn’t match the third doll.
Steve had given Kono an edited version of the events to date. She was currently looking for the ledger in the reception rooms.
Danny rubbed his hands together. If he solved the mystery, Grace could visit -- that was considerable impetus.
~*~
Glumly, Danny went to check the Nandi’s Head because he’d be fucked if he understood what Doris McGarrett was trying to convey. He contemplated the Nandi’s Head wondering if an axe was the solution. Steve would probably object. He hunted along the wall between the stacks looking for the light switch for the harsh, bright light.
“Whatchya doing?”
“Steven!” Danny remonstrated at the figure silhouetted against the office lights. “Don’t creep up on me.”
“Sorry.” Steve scrunched up. “What are you doing?”
He hadn’t changed out of his tan uniform, coming straight to the museum.
“Hey, have you had your hair cut?” Danny moved into the light from the doorway. The silhouette of Steve’s fluffy head was a little more groomed than normal. Haircut or application of product was the only answer.
“The funeral,” Steve answered simply, implying that he had had a haircut while on the Base. “What are you doing? You were doing this last night as well.”
“Oh, Chin wondered if there was a secret compartment in the Nandi’s Head.” Danny waved at the carving expansively. “Did you know that the Nandi Head is actually the Nandi’s Head and it’s a bull not an antelope?”
“Yes,” Steve said, lying.
Danny eyed him, because he was a master at detecting children lying. How had Steve been an intelligence operative in the US Navy when his dissembling skills were on par with a four year old’s?
Steve reached over beside the door and a hundred watt bright light flooded the room.
“Thank you,” Danny said, eyes tearing.
“You’re welcome,” Steve said primly, because he could be an ass.
“A little warning next time.”
Steve acknowledged the gripe with an absent nod.
“Secret compartment in the carving?” Steve said, dubiously.
“Could be.” Danny shrugged, more interested momentarily in the precise cut of Steve’s hair. Somehow, he thought, he doubted that Steve had popped into the barber’s on Base for a run in with a shaver. That was a two hundred dollar haircut. The errant curl high on his forehead had been tamed.
“I suppose so.” Steve circled around the enormous carved statue.
“So what happened down at the Base?” Danny asked admiring that leonine slink around the podium.
“Hmm?” Steve glanced at him. “Danny?”
Danny shook himself. Oh, for his camera.
“Did you talk to Paulo?”
Steve scowled, so Danny took that as a yes.
“He’s singing like the proverbial canary,” Steve sounded unimpressed.
“What tune?”
“He was in the Hesse brothers’ pocket. He was their lackey. He knows next to nothing about Wo Fat. Victor needed a weak spot -- he’s good at finding them -- and used Paulo as his eyes and ears. There were some threats, some coercion, and a few promises.”
“Promises?” Danny prompted, as Steve continued to circle. Danny could imagine him doing that to Paulo in a small, badly ventilated, poorly illuminated interrogation room.
“I can’t believe that we never suspected him,” Steve grumbled. “He drugged the curry. And where was he during the aftermath? Nursing a measly gun crease on his arm.”
“But why did he do it?” Danny persisted.
“He wanted an in with Wo Fat’s operation. Thought if he proved that he was a good mole in the Kapu, Wo Fat might look after him. Idiot. If he was useful, the Hesse brothers would never let him go. If he proved useless, Victor would have enjoyed killing him for his brother’s pleasure.”
Danny absorbed that with a shiver. It told him more than he wanted to know about the Hesse brothers.
“So nothing about Wo Fat at all?”
“Never even met him.” Steve crouched and tried the same knot in the wooden podium that Danny had tried the night before. “Victor Hesse keeps his associates on a short leash. Kept his associates on a short leash.”
“You thought that Wo Fat had nothing to do with Hesse’s invasion last night. Why?”
“Because it wasn’t well thought out. If anything, Wo Fat has proven to be infernally patient. He’s a planner. All of the intel we have on P-One is that he’s highly intelligent. He was an agent in the Chinese MFS working in Counter Intelligence with the Sixth bureau. Hesse was going to break Seolh apart looking for whatever Wo Fat wants. Which is interesting….”
“How?”
“Hesse took orders from Wo Fat. That Victor Hesse was taking orders led us to the existence of Wo Fat. It was unprecedented.” Steve stood and continued his circling. “Evidently, Hesse was getting a little sick of following orders, and wanted some leverage over Wo Fat. Pretty much the same thing that Jenna Kaye was thinking.” Steve eyed Danny, contemplative.
“Something is rotten in the State of Denmark?” Danny offered, recalling Steve’s comments on the staircase.
It took Steve a moment to parse that sentence.
“It tells me that there’s a vulnerability to exploit. Wo Fat is not as secure in his organisation as we have previously thought. We’re not clear on how his ‘business’,” Steve said euphemistically, “operates with the Yakuza. But if his subordinates think that they can operate independently, yeah, ‘Something is rotten in the State of Denmark’.”
“Maybe they were thinking to get an ‘in’ with the Boss?” Danny offered.
“Kaye, maybe. Victor Hesse doesn’t think like that. Hesse is focused on money, sex, revenge, and violence, and not necessarily in that order. Attacking the House wasn’t a way to get an ‘in’ with Wo Fat.”
“But if he found what Wo Fat is looking for….” Danny said, leadingly.
“No.” Steve stopped his pacing. “Wo Fat killed that greasy, mullet-haired guy -- Sang Min -- for setting fire to the House. Whatever we’re looking for is fragile, easily damaged.”
Danny blinked.
“A ledger isn’t fragile,” Danny pointed out. “Old books can be fragile. But that was page was dated 1988.”
Steve simply shrugged. “Books burn?” he said.
“Maybe it’s not even in the House?” Danny said playing Devil’s Advocate.
Steve absorbed that phlegmatically.
“Mom was all about misdirection and magic tricks. Wo Fat’s spent years, I assume, looking for this. We’ve wondered if my pursuit of the Hesse brother’s brought me to Wo Fat’s attention, and that led him to link me with Doris McGarrett. Mom was watching the Noshimuri family. But I’m pretty sure that she was also operating in North Korea and China. She more than likely killed his dad. Or it might have been you.”
“Excuse me?” Danny said indignantly.
“The photo that you took of him led Sang Min to follow you to Seolh. Maybe then Sang Min reporting that you were here, led Wo Fat to make a bunch of connections -- Steve McGarrett of Seolh to Lieutenant Commander McGarrett US Navy. More digging ended up with him to linking my mom as the woman who was around Hiro Noshimuri back in the 1980s. That was probably Jenna Kaye’s investigative work.”
“It’s less of a coincidence than Wo Fat getting interested in you just because of the Hesse brothers,” Danny said slowly. One little photograph leading to all this aggravation and intrigue, it was kind of incomprehensible. Danny mentally reviewed the incriminating photograph in his mind’s eye. “Victor Hesse is also in the photo of Wo Fat.”
“The little intel that we have on Wo Fat –- to be accurate, the intel on the Hesse Brothers… We always knew that the Hesse Brothers had a funder, but your photograph was the first evidence of that mastermind behind the Hesse Brothers.” Steve preened on Danny’s behalf. “That it is Wo Fat correlates with the evidence that Victor Hesse operates internationally. Wo Fat is not a terrorist with a religious or ideological agenda. He’s in it for the power.”
“So they all shit themselves when they realised that I’d taken a photo of Wo Fat and Victor Hesse, and had moved in with a Navy SEAL.”
“You haven’t actually moved in yet.” Steve leered.
Danny glared at him fondly.
Steve waggled his eyebrows.
“Continue with your inferences, Sherlock,” Danny proclaimed regally, ignoring Steve’s blatant attempts to get him to move into the eyrie.
“Wo Fat is playing a long game. He’s wound us up and pointed us in the right direction, but he doesn’t know where the ‘treasure’ is, either. I think that he’s interested to see where our investigations take us.” Pensively, Steve scratched along the long line of his throat as he thought. “And he’s giving us enough rope to hang ourselves.”
“I’m not entirely sure of your mixed analogies, but I think I know what you’re saying. You’re saying that there might not be a mystery to solve.”
“No, there’s a mystery….” Steve’s expression segued to blankness as he clearly worried at a thought. “I--”
The bright lights flashed coding the dinner is ready signal.
“Excellent.” Danny clapped his hands together. “Chin’s cooking tonight.”
“Hmm.” Steve absorbed that without comment.
Danny could practically see the thought bubble forming over Steve’s head. It was tempting to prod it, but then it would likely pop.
“I’ll be down in five,” Steve said absently, already wandering away. “I need to change.”
“Okay, Babe,” Danny said slowly. He was happy to give Steve his five minutes. He would even let him have ten, because that was an expression of a man chasing an important thought. Danny didn’t want to derail that thinking.
~*~
“Should I put a plate in the oven?” Mary asked, glancing at Steve’s clear place setting.
“He’ll probably go for the rice dish,” Chin judged, “that will dry out in the oven.” He levelled a speaking glance at Danny.
“Hey, Steve knows dinner’s on the table. He’ll come down.” It wasn’t improbable that he had sat on his bed for a moment and flagged. “I’ll give him another five.”
“It’s been ten minutes since we rang the bell … light flashed,” Mary said.
“He could be in the shower,” Danny pointed out. Steve could easily shower two-three times a day, especially if he had been running, gone in to Honolulu, or swum in the sea.
“Hey.” Steve slid into the kitchen. The pristinely pressed Naval uniform had been swapped for one of his tight running t-shirts and cargo shorts. He plopped into his seat beside Danny.
“Spiced carrot, garbanzo, and almond pilaf.” Chin pointed to the bowl on the centre of the table. “Steak Diane with sautéed potatoes and peas.”
Steve promptly put a spoonful of garbanzo and colourful rice on his plate.
Chin called it, Danny thought. He helped himself to another portion of the Steak Diane, making sure to get a generous scoop of the brandy sauce.
While Steve was normally quiet when at the dinner table, tonight he was a vacuum of thought, as he worked his way through fart-inducing garbanzo beans. He appeared to be oblivious to the glances being cast in his direction.
‘Thinking,’ Danny mouthed at Chin. ‘Thinking hard.’
“So.” Chin tapped the tabletop, getting Steve’s attention.
His head came up, focussing on Chin.
“Steve, what are the funeral arrangements for tomorrow?” Chin asked practically.
“Limousine will arrive promptly at ten thirty.” Steve flicked a glance at Mary, who flared her nostrils at him. “ETA at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific is circa eleven twenty. The ceremony starts at twelve hundred hours. We will then proceed to the Governor’s Mansion for a light lunch.”
“And it finishes?” Mary asked.
“I expect that we will be able to return home at fourteen hundred hours.” Steve flashed a luminous smile at Danny. “So we’ll have plenty of time to pick up Grace after school.”
“No.” Danny shook his head. “She’s staying with her mom this weekend.”
“But I thought?”
“Steve.” Danny’s gaze encompassed the whole family. “No. Emphatically not. It can’t happen -- not until we figure this out. There were men running around the House yesterday with guns.”
Chin cast his eyes downward. Malia was conspicuous by her absence; she was staying with her mom and dad.
“I’m sorry, Danny,” Mary blurted. “I wanted to meet her. She sounds awesome.”
Danny carefully sighed, breathing through the misery.
“I could book you a suite in the Hawaiian Hilton,” Steve said, expression serious. “You could spend the weekend in the resort. I’d organise protection.”
In a blinding millisecond, Danny considered the offer. It was tempting but, one, it would cost a lot of money, and while Steve could easily pay, Danny wasn’t a kept man, and, two, Danny didn’t know what this ‘protection’ would entail. They would probably be kept in the room, or accompanied everywhere with a bunch of men in suits. He wouldn’t upset Grace for the world.
“No,” Danny said decisively. “We’re going to find this thing and get Wo Fat off our backs and put this all behind us. Okay!”
“Yes,” was the resounding reply.
~*~
“I’m sorry about Gracie, Danny,” Steve said.
Danny turned from closing the newly replaced eyrie door, and curled straight into Steve’s embrace. He sagged, tension draining out of his body like a faucet suddenly twisted fully open.
“Hey,” Steve soothed, cupping the back of Danny’s head with a large hand.
“We have to figure this out,” Danny said into his neck.
“We will,” Steve said, picking up vibrations. “Gracie will be able to stay with us anytime. We’ll get you a fair and equitable custody arrangement. Everything will be fine.”
“You can’t promise that.” Danny pushed off his chest, digging fingers into Steve’s right hand side ribs. “We’re running around blind.”
“Hey.” Steve wriggled away from the tickle like a scalded cat.
Danny couldn’t help a tiny smile because such a big, rough and ready SEAL could be brought down by tickling.
“Look, I know that there is something, and it’s here in the House.” Steve caught Danny’s fingers and drew him towards the sofa.
“Steve…”
“We’re going to find it, and end this.”
“How?” Danny plopped down on the cushions with a thump. Pulling his hand free from Steve’s grip he crossed his arms.
“You told me,” Steve said intently, as he sat and twisted around to directly face Danny. “Mom was careful and cagey and very intelligent. She didn’t intend on getting that film developed. Remember?”
Danny nodded. He had wondered why she had taken photographs of her home on a film that nominally should have been given to the CIA since she had photographed the Yakuza cop, Koji Noshimuri.
“She was creating a stash. Insurance.” Steve gave Danny his full and intense concentration. “There were passports in the box under the floorboards. Mom had an escape plan. Something prompted Mom to have an escape plan.”
“Your passport and your mom’s false passport were there. But not your dad’s and sister’s,” Danny observed.
“Correct.” Steve nodded. “They’re in the second stash along with the thing that Wo Fat’s looking for. Mom would never have put all her eggs in one basket. The coins under the floorboards are valuable. I’ve sent the paste jewellery that Mary played with to be assayed. They’re probably real jewels.”
“So what,” Danny asked slowly, “made her create these stashes? And the breadcrumb clues?”
“This all kicked off in 1988, when she was just getting back in the game.” Steve picked a loose scab off his forearm, examined it, popped it in his mouth, gave an introspective chew and swallowed.
“Oh. My. God.” Danny gagged.
“What?” Steve asked perplexed. “What?”
Danny slithered back across the sofa cushions out of reach.
“What?” Steve asked again. He shook his head. “She might not have known all the players and that made her collect some insurance. I’m guessing the clues were for whoever might find the stash if her plans went south.”
“Yeah, right,” Danny said dubiously.
“Something or someone scared her,” Steve said, ostensibly agreeing with Danny. “But she didn’t run back in 1988, she controlled the situation… resolved it.”
“By killing Wo Yongfu?”
“By killing Wo Yongfu,” Steve confirmed.
Danny mulled over that. “Don’t forget that two years later someone killed your mom and dad.”
“I’m hardly going to forget that, am I?” Steve said.
~*~
Tbc
Part one hundred
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-08-02 05:43 pm (UTC)This keeps getting better and better...
no subject
Date: 2014-08-02 06:46 pm (UTC)Yes, I'm back *fingers crossed* I won't need another hiatus
no subject
Date: 2014-08-02 06:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-02 06:48 pm (UTC)glad you enjoyed the rest
no subject
Date: 2014-08-02 06:08 pm (UTC)Thank you!
Regards
Philippa
no subject
Date: 2014-08-02 06:51 pm (UTC)I wasn't familiar with the original series. I didn't have a clue who Wo Fat was. I did kind of want Hesse to hang around for awhile. That we have so many bad guys to play with allows me to up the ante.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-03 03:01 am (UTC)As others have said, glad you're back and this extra long and meaty chapter was worth it.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-03 08:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-04 02:13 pm (UTC)Another great chapter.
thanks
no subject
Date: 2014-08-04 08:23 pm (UTC)G'night.
Yay you are back!!!!!!
Date: 2014-08-04 07:57 pm (UTC)Hope you are doing well in RL:-)
Re: Yay you are back!!!!!!
Date: 2014-08-04 08:23 pm (UTC)People are disgusting.
Woohoo!
Date: 2014-08-07 05:39 am (UTC)Re: Woohoo!
Date: 2014-08-08 05:57 pm (UTC)glad you're enjoying it.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-15 11:32 pm (UTC)This was a nice mix of enjoying the calm before the storm and feeling 'this close' to solving the mystery of Doris and Wo Fat.