sealie

Rodney was, in fact bored. He was beyond bored and he really didn’t like being bored. The totally stereotypically eccentric forensic examiner had both confused and bamboozled the ancient judge – lower case ancient as in old, rather than Ancient – until the defence lawyer supplied by the Air Force painstakingly made Dr. Bergman reiterate that McGarrett had not fired any weapons. Rodney just thought that it was a minor miracle that McGarrett had been wearing brand new BDUs, because if they’d tested John’s for gunshot residue, he probably would have glowed in the dark.

Rodney’s own recitation has been logical, erudite and straight forward; he had only had to repeat it twice.

There was some sort of ongoing discussion by the bench where the judge sat, which Rodney tuned out. He ignored them, because, frankly he couldn’t add anything to the debate between the judge, defence and offence (Rodney thought that might not be the right term, but he hated watching ‘Law and Order’ on team television nights because it was too depressing). The wall of uniformed officers –- Sheppard, McGarrett and Cody -- standing at parade rest, staring implacably at the judge as he made his decision, were resoundingly threatening in a way which, impressively, couldn’t be called on.

Detective Williams and an Asian guy, who after a quick check through the H5-0 Human Resources page, Rodney identified as Chin Ho Kelly, were sitting on the opposite side of the court room. They were an intent, glowering wall of police intimidation.

Toby blew out his cheeks and sighed heavily. He had taken off his suit jacket and tie and was slumped beside Rodney on the hard wooden bench.

“You look pale and sweaty,” Rodney noted, and shifted away, “are you ill?”

“Headache, I get them. Do you have any acetaminophen?”

“Is that from overusing your telepathy?”

Toby’s eyes widened. Rodney guessed it was because he wasn’t used to casual acknowledgment of his telepathy.

“What?” Rodney asked. “It’s a reasonable question. Presumably, it involves a great deal of biochemical processing in the brain. It’s quite fascinating, actually.”

“Acetaminophen?” Toby prodded.

Rodney rooted in his laptop bag and fished out a bottle of pain pills and tossed them over. Toby cracked the child-proof cap and swallowed two down dry.

“Thanks.” He made to hand them back, but Rodney shook his head.

“You should talk to Carson. You wouldn’t believe the progress that the SGC has made in medical technology. Trick is to not end up as one of his nefarious medical experiments. Kidding. Well, not quite. But he’s learned his lesson. Keep quoting the Hippocratic Oath at him; it usually stops the more insane experiments. And he’s not fond of experimenting with gene manipulation anymore.”

“Unreal,” Toby said flatly.

Rodney shrugged. “Welcome to the SGC.”

There was some sort of commotion by the podium and the annoying detective vaulted over the barrier and flung himself into McGarrett’s arms, yelling, “I knew it, Babe.”

“Huh,” Rodney smacked his lips together. “I didn’t know it was like that.”

Toby glanced at him blearily, finger rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “What are you talking about?”

“Are you okay?” John was there standing over them, eying a pale and wan Toby.

“Baby Flyboy,” Rodney said with an edge of mocking, “has a headache. I’m thinking Carson.”

“It looks more like a migraine. Good Idea. Cody.” He beckoned his junior officer over. “Get Toby out of here and to Carson. Tell Carson that Toby mentioned before that his skill set can hurt him.”

“I’m not leaving.” Toby shot up impulsively and wobbled alarmingly, which shot his protestation in the foot.

John caught his elbow. “Carson’s the best doctor in the galaxy; he can help you.”

“Assuming that he’s doesn’t make you grow an extra head,” Rodney quipped.

Toby’s expression could only be described as horrified.

“Give it a rest, McKay,” John said. “Carson’s a great doctor. Cody?”

“Yes, sir.” Cody saluted precisely. “Mr. Logan, if you would come with me.”

Toby let himself be conducted out of the court room. John rubbed tiredly at his face. Rodney felt a small degree of sympathy, but he liked coffee and had had a triple shot, grande latte with hazelnut syrup, so any ‘Gate and jet lag was masked behind a veil of caffeine and sugar.

“What has Danny just told me?” A Ronon-sized McGarrett stormed over. Well, on reflection -- as he and John went head to head –- Rodney realised that McGarrett was the same height as John, but exuded palpable threat.

John had, however, faced down Wraith Queens.

“I don’t know what Detective Williams has told you,” John drawled. “I’m not a telepath.”

Rodney coughed into his fist.

McGarrett didn’t react to the bait. Thumb jerking over his shoulder at his partner, he growled. “He says we’re related. You and me.”

“That’s what I wanted the DNA test for. See if we were. And according to every test the Air Force has, we are.”

“You can’t run them in less than twenty-four hours,” McGarrett said suspiciously.

“We can,” John said implacably. “New tests. New technology.”

McGarrett blew out a sigh and clapped a hand over his mouth, rubbing at his clean shaven cheeks.

“It gets more complicated, but this isn’t the place to discuss it,” John said. “Let’s get past the blood sucking reporters outside and discuss this somewhere private.”

McGarrett’s eyes narrowed. Rodney noticed that they were a curious shade of hazel, which matched John’s, but there was also a lot of blue in them like Toby Logan’s – no doubt Carson would be fascinated.

“We’ll go back to H5-0 headquarters,” McGarrett ordered. Back to my place, back to my space, he didn’t say, but that’s what he meant.

~*~

The H5-0 task force main office had been ransacked.

“What the fuck!” Williams rushed into the work space, looking left, looking right. Hardware had been tipped over. The big screen which had been on the east wall was a shattered pile on the floor. The computer data table in the centre of the room had a piece of rebar smashed through the centre like Excalibur in the stone.

“Who did this?” McGarrett demanded.

“More to the point, where’s Grant!” Rodney shrieked.

“And Jenna. And your Marine?” Williams countered.

John stalked forward. The hairs on the back of his neck were crawling. There was someone still in here, someone on their last legs. He un-holstered his P14-45, extended it at arm’s length and ghosted silently towards the source of his unease.

“You got a spare?” McGarrett whispered by his side.

John unclenched long enough to fish out his Beretta 92FS and hand it over. Behind them, Williams and Rodney shut up. There was a momentary scuffle as Williams bodily wrenched Rodney down behind the data table.

Together, John and McGarrett skirted the perimeter of the room, heading towards McGarrett’s office. John peered through the open windows. Dusty lay in the centre of the room, a glistening pool of blood along her side.

“High,” McGarrett said.

“Low,” John responded, he slid into the office ahead of McGarrett who kept an eye on the whole area. He knelt at Dusty’s side. She was unconscious but breathing, low, rapid breaths and there was a thready, ropey pulse at her throat.

John cast a glance at McGarrett, made the right decision and then tapped his comm. “Daedalus, this is Colonel Sheppard. Lock onto Sergeant Mehra’s subcutaneous transmitter and get her to the SGC infirmary. She’s been shot in the abdomen.”

The beam-up lights swirled and Dusty was spirited away.

McGarrett blinked twice and then, impressively, said, “We need to clear the rest of the offices.”

John slowly rose to his feet.

“Holy Cow!” A young athletic woman burst into the main office, Chin Ho Kelly on her heels.

“We need to clear the area,” McGarrett barked. “We’re looking for two potential victims, someone called Grant, and Jenna, plus possible perps.”

Chin Ho Kelly already had his weapon out and was casing the area. The woman, John guessed she was Kono Kalakaua, bobbed down and plucked a compact gun from her ankle holster.

“Will you stay under the table, Mr. Civilian, while we clear the area!” Williams shouted at Rodney.

“I’ve seen more action than you have, Blondie,” Rodney retorted.

“Shut up!” John and McGarrett yelled simultaneously.

The department was clear; not a soul present. They cased every office, every nook and cranny. Surveying the devastation in the main room, John closed his eyes for a heartbeat. Damn. Grant…

“They’ve taken Grant. Your Wo Fat has taken Grant.” Rodney was poised to jab McGarrett in the chest. Abruptly, John intercepted him, tucking a hand down the back of his pants and yanking him back.

“He’s not my Wo Fat,” McGarrett snapped.

“Yeah, right, he’s been intimately involved in your family since forever.”

“What does that mean?” McGarrett roared.

John got himself between McGarrett and Rodney, arms outstretched, fending them both off.

“Geez, this isn’t helping. Focus, McKay.” He pushed him back. “Get on what remains of these computers, see what you can retrieve.”

“Like Hell, I will. I’m going to look for Grant.” Rodney pulled back, already hauling his primary laptop out of his backpack.

“I’ll look at the computers.” Chin slumped sadly, looking at the devastation.

“I’ve got everything here,” Rodney said snidely as he crossed his legs and sank down on the floor right in the middle of the wreckage. He reached into his bag and pulled out a data tablet and handed it over to a bemused Chin. “Here, make use of this. You appear to have some computer skills.”

John was definitely getting Carson to give Grant a subcutaneous transmitter at the first opportunity.

“No,” McGarrett said to Chin. “Go get Sang Min from wherever you’ve stashed him. We need to find out what he knows about Wo Fat’s operations.”

Chin smiled a tense, vindictive smile. “He’s with the family. The cousins and uncles are ‘looking’ after him. They can bring him to us.”

“Even better.” McGarrett closed his eyes for a second. “Okay, call the family and get them to bring Sang Min here. Then get on that computer. Kono, breakout.”

Kono glanced at the motley crew that suddenly stared at her. McGarrett glowered at all and sundry before turning on his heel and heading to the office opposite his own. Frankly curious, McKay watched McGarrett and Kono go into office before Williams blocked his view. And then the two of them were off again.

“McKay,” John said bluntly, “find Grant and Ms. Kaye.”

That stopped Rodney mid-spiel. Brow furrowed, the question was obvious, ‘What about Rusty-Dusty? Hang on she’ll have a subcutaneous transmitter…’

“Daedalus,” John answered.

“What does that mean?” Williams demanded.

“It’s about Icarus and Daedalus from Greek Legend. They built wings out of feathers and wax so that they could fly. Icarus flew too close to the sun and the wax holding the feathers on his wings melted and he plummeted to his death. But his father, Daedalus, was the better inventor. It’s McKay’s nickname. And to remind him not to fly too close to the sun.” John was pretty proud of that piece of baloney. Luckily, Williams’ attention was on him and not on McKay wildly rolling his eyes.

John leaned back a hair. McGarrett was speaking softly and intensely to the younger woman. She was nodding, throat bobbing as she swallowed convulsively.

Williams twisted and glanced over his shoulder. He sighed. “I’m fairly sure that Wo Fat engineered a witness against her. Got her put on suspension. She’s pretty cut up about it.”

McGarrett rested a hand on her shoulder and Kono nodded, lips pursed. Then suddenly, she smiled, bright as the morning sun. She nodded sharply.

“Okay,” McGarrett said loud enough for the others to hear. “Kono, I want you to access the Hawai’i State Supreme Court CCTV. Spot our perps and see if you can figure out how they got in and did this and, more importantly, got out with Jenna and the other guy.”

“Yes, Boss.” She snapped off a salute. “I’ll get right on it.”

“Grant. His name is Grant,” Rodney informed Kono as she headed to the exit.

She stopped on a dime, but was vibrating to continue with her mission. “Okay. Do you have a picture of this Grant?”

“That’s not necessary.” Rodney tilted his chin. “For the sake of simplicity -– We’re twins. Grant looks like me.”

“Okay,” Kono said slowly. She produced a Blackberry^TM from somewhere in her skimpy top and snapped off a picture. “I’ll get right on that.”

“What?” Rodney was open mouthed in the face of her exit. John thought that it was kind of funny.

McGarrett tapped John’s shoulder and then jerked his thumb at the office adjacent to his own bloodied office.

“We need to talk,” he said with studied niceness.

John got into the office ahead of McGarrett and perched on the edge of the desk that dominated the room. McGarett began to talk, stopped half way through the first sentence, paused, made an abrupt about turn and paced the length of the room. He stopped again, turned and glared at John, mutely.

“Have you heard of the SGC?” John opened with.

McGarrett pursed his lips, top one jutting out. Finally, he said, “Rumoured highly-highly classified operation out of Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado? Takes specialists and Class A from all services?”

“Yes.” John nodded. He knew that McGarrett wasn’t read into the mission, but rumours were the bread and butter during late nights on operations, especially that long hour before dawn on watch. “You know anything else?”

McGarrett struggled to get the word out, before finally saying, voice rife with disbelief, “Aliens.”

John couldn’t help but shrug. “It’s true. We prevent incursion from a variety of alien races. What you saw before was Sergeant Mehra being beamed up using tech that we acquired from a race called the Goa’uld, or was it the Asgard? I can never remember.”

McGarrett had seen the evidence with his own two eyes.

“How does this link to my case?” McGarrett asked intently.

“I’m not too sure,” John said slowly. He was impressed with McGarrett’s focus; the Lieutenant Commander had weighed the evidence, came to a decision, and was now moving on to ramifications in the space of a minute. This guy would be great in the SGC.

“Really?” McGarrett’s nostrils pinched. They didn’t have the same nose, John observed, apropos of nothing.

“Grant would probably have a hundred theories, but honestly there’s so much here that makes no sense. Why the focus on your family? Why didn’t Wo Fat kill you? Wo Fat wants something from you. It…” John froze in horrified realisation. He snatched his cell phone from his breast pocket. Glancing at his wrist watch, he calculated the difference between the Islands of Hawai’i and the East Coast headquarters of Sheppard International. It was early morning. He extended one finger demanding patience from McGarrett.

McGarrett crossed his arms and glared.

The phone rang once.

“Mr. Sheppard’s office,” a bright, young voice said.

“This is his brother, John. Put me through, Sabrina. Thanks.”

“Yes, sir, Colonel Sheppard.”

“Hi, John. I didn’t know you were Stateside,” Dave said with just a tinge of distrust.

“Hit that fancy button on your phone.”

Dave huffed out a laugh. “I hit it as soon as Sabrina said it was you.”

“This is about Sheppard Industries. You have any business with a Wo Fat or a Hero uhm?” John trailed off -- what was the name of that guy that was involved in McGarrett’s mom’s death? His mom? Their mom? Rodney’s report had been sketchy and delivered at the speed of light.

“Hiro Noshimuri,” McGarrett supplied. He gave up standing over John, glaring, and perched on the desk beside him, head canted to the side so he could listen.

“Hiro Noshimuri,” John echoed.

“Hang on.” There was the sound of laptop keys tapping.

“I’m familiar with the name Noshimuri. He’s a heavy hitter, though,” Dave said offhand as he continued to hunt and peck at his laptop keys. “He expressed an interest in combined work in Asia and in the Pan Pacific. But he made an unsuccessful move on a floating stock option just after dad’s death which was more than a little underhanded. I haven’t heard anything about him for a while.”

“And Wo Fat?”

“Never heard of him. Why?”

McGarrett held up his Blackberry^TM showing a photo of Wo Fat.

“Holy Shit.” John leaned closer to scrutinise the picture. The man was a dead ringer for the Sataeden ex-wraith worshiper, Tyre. A little bit older, though, and -- John found it hard to put his finger on the correct term but settled for ‘polished.’

“You know him?” McGarrett asked.

“He kind of looks a little like a… terrorist I knew. Tyre’s dead. Blew himself up.”

“Any chance?” McGarrett asked, an edge of suspicion colouring his words.

“Nah, long dead. Not a chance in Hell.”

“Who are you talking to?” Dave asked waspishly.

“Hang on, Dave, I’m just going to FTP a photo to your secure server – have a look. See if you know this guy.”

McGarrett handed over his phone. Tucking his own phone between his cheek and ear, John tapped out the http link and attached the file. It pinged and a millisecond later pinged on the other side of the country; announcement email dropping into Dave’s inbox. John tossed McGarrett’s phone back over.

Click, click, click. “Downloaded it,” Dave said. “Oh, yeah, that’s Uncle Sun's son. Zhang Kaige. I only met him a couple of times. But you remember Sun Kaige, don’t you?”

“No.” John’s heart sank. “Are they shareholders?”

“What is this about, John?” Dave countered.

“It’s important,” John said in the face of his brother’s typical wrangling.

“Yes,” Dave said succinctly. “Less than 0.5%. We have the option to buy back if they want to sell. It relates back to dad’s first company, Irving-Sheppard, when he was first starting out from under Grandfather’s umbrella. Sun Kaige part-financed Dad. Dad sold the company outright at a profit when he had proved himself to Grandfather and started working full time for Sheppard Industries.”

“And Sun Kaige bought that company.”

“Yes.”

John pulled back and looked at the phone. “You’ve got a good memory.”

He could imagine his brother rolling his eyes.

“It was dad’s ‘coming of age story.’ How he proved himself to Grandfather. I can quote it verbatim.”

“Anything else?” John asked tersely.

Dave snorted. “You’re visiting before you head back out, aren’t you?” he bargained.

That was to be expected. Dave was fully aware that these weren’t just simple questions. And even if the line was secure, he wanted to get to the bottom of John’s line of questions and their relevance to Sheppard Industries, face-to-face.

“Yes, I promise.”

There was a millisecond of stunned silence in the wake that promise.

“Look, John, that’s all I know about him. He wasn’t involved in the business. Sun Kaige and Dad were good friends, you know that, John. He was a nice guy. He visited.”

“Were?”

“Yeah, he died of a stroke about two years ago. About two or three months before dad died. John, what’s this about?”

“I’ll tell you when we see each other. I gotta go.”

“What? John--”

John pressed down hard on the disconnect key.

“So you know Wo Fat’s dad, this Sun Kaige,” McGarrett said suspiciously.

John just had to stop a second and listen to his heartbeat throb in his ears. “Yeah, but under different names,” he finally said. He laughed but there was no humour in it. “Sun Kaige is an old family friend. So old that… that he actually introduced my dad to my mom.”

“Whoa.” McGarrett’s pushed off the table, putting space between John and him. “This is getting really strange,” he said.

“It’s about to get significantly weirder.” He slipped his Ancient data ball out of his pocket and gently lobbed it to McGarrett.

McGarrett caught it instinctively and it lit up. Ancient blue lights strobed across the surface. He scrunched his nose at it, perplexed, and a hologram began to form in the air before them.

John reached out and plucked the crystal out of McGarrett’s hands before the hologram could resolve into a recognisable shape and commanded the data ball to switch off.

“This--” John spun it in his fingers, “--responds to a specific gene type which we share. It’s maternal DNA. We know we probably share the same mother. I thought my mother was dead forty years ago. Wo Fat murdered your Mom in 1992. Then it gets really complicated, we have a younger brother, he was born in 1981.”

“This is insane. I don’t have a younger brother. I have a sister.”

“When was she born?”

“1981. May.”

“The gene set that makes this happen--” John lit up the ball and made a hologram of a detailed surf board resolve in mid-air, “--is very, very rare and it’s very, very old. And up until about a day ago, I thought that only people in the SGC cared about it. But I’m thinking that maybe other people, people like your Wo Fat, know about it. And that’s why, even though you’ve been a complete and utter pain in his ass, he hasn’t killed you. And now it turns out that Wo Fat’s dad introduced my mom to my dad.”

“The Governor said that I wouldn’t like what I would find about my family if I probed.” McGarrett stood stock still as he processed, his mouth open a fraction. He held out his hand and John dropped the crystal ball back onto his palm. John knew the visceral stroke of activating Ancient tech; it had a curiously sensual feel to it. “It’s talking to me.”

“Not in words, though?”

“Nah.” McGarrett chewed on his bottom lip. “I mean. So what. We can make a glass ball light up. Why is that important? How does it all relate?”

“There’s other stuff out there which isn’t so innocent. And, that younger brother I was talking about? He’s a telepath. He can pluck words and thoughts out of your head.” John continued, “You heard the Antarctic rumours? The base down there near McMurdo? There was a big fire fight. Russians were involved. US Air Force. Japan even?”

“That story’s true?” McGarrett said disbelievingly.

John nodded. “Those Goa’uld I mentioned? They tried to invade Earth. A guy with our gene set, we’re probably related somehow, stopped them invading. He sat in an alien-built outpost manning a giant gun and blew the aliens out of the air. One space ship that he took out was near the moon.”

“Jesus.” McGarrett slumped forwards.

Can you hear me? John tried, thoughts of aliens and Ancients and genes in his mind. McGarrett?

Inexplicably, he was relieved when McGarrett didn’t react. He didn’t think that he could face being telepathic.

McGarrett suddenly snorted. “I can’t believe it, you really are a Space Cadet.”

“Better than being a squid, Squid,” John riposted. “I’ve been in space battles. And in my day job I fire lasers.”

McGarrett’s reaction could only be described as green, outright jealousy.

Movement caught John’s attention. Simultaneously, he and McGarrett turned towards the glass door. Williams froze, hand poised on the handle. They held his gaze for a millisecond and then the detective was in the office as fast as if he had teleported.

“So what is it? What’s going on? There’s blood all over the floor of your office, Steve. Jenna or that Grant guy or the lady Marine’s been hurt.”

“Or one of the bad guys,” John said equably, secure in the knowledge that Sergeant Mehra was in the SGC infirmary getting top notch care under Carson’s eagle-eyed scrutiny.

“Yeah, well, we have to operate on the assumption that it’s one of ours. And given the amount of blood whoever got hurt is in trouble. So less of the private little chit chats and more sharing. I want to know who exactly you are and how you link with McGarrett, Mr. Colonel John Sheppard, sir. Because according to Chin’s hacking, you’re this two bit asswipe who was heading for a dishonourable discharge before you suddenly went off the map and then re-emerged as a colonel. And that smacks of those underhanded affairs that Super SEAL here calls black ops. So tell me exactly who you are and why all this effort for McGarrett.”

John blinked. This guy could give Rodney a run for his money.

“It’s classified,” John drawled and leaned back, bracing his arms behind him, pose deliberately relaxed.

Williams bristled.

Some people were just too easy to wind up, John noted. It was far too much fun.

“Classified. Classified. I’ll give you classified!”

“Danny.” McGarrett intercepted the smaller man before he could bounce across the office.

“I don’t believe for one minute that you’re related to this guy, Steve.” His chest puffed out, putting a Bantam rooster to shame.

John sat up straighter. He was having problems with that himself. Twenty-four hours ago he had had one slightly estranged half-brother. Now he had three. A snapping whisper over his comm caught his attention and spoke of Rodney’s growing frustration. He tweaked the base unit in his trouser pocket, increasing the gain. Rodney was in communication with the Daedalus as they tried to locate Grant’s Human-Ancient cobbled together kit using the sensors.

Detective Williams was bouncing up and down on his toes, pushing himself fractionally taller. His fingers dib-dabbed away as he added emphasis to every word by poking McGarrett in the centre of his chest. McGarrett met his abuse phlegmatically.

“There’s no way on God’s Green Earth,” Williams said, “that you--”

“Power source,” John blurted in the face of that fire cracker energy. “What’s Grant using to power his tricorder?”

“Eureka!” Rodney bellowed, deafening John in one ear and informing everyone in the office and the entire Alo’iōlani Hale building that he had made a breakthrough (courtesy of John and indirectly Danny Williams).

“I gotta go, Sheppard. I gotta go to the Daedalus and calibrate the sensors,” he yelled. “Grant used a prototype naquada cell.”

“Don’t!” John shot by McGarrett and Williams, just making it in time to stop Rodney calling for a beam up. “Civilians.”

“Oh.” Rodney had the grace to look abashed as he shot an insincerely toothy smile at Chin Ho Kelly sitting on the floor beside him. “Got to go. Out. The. Door. Yes. The door over there.”

McKay was criminally bad at bluffing. It was almost embarrassing to watch. He scrabbled around, corralling in laptop, external hard drive and what looked like a bulkier version of Grant’s tricorder, and thrusting them willy-nilly into his backpack.

“Hey. Hey, I want some answers. What are you doing?” Williams demanded.

“No time. No time,” Rodney carolled, sounding a lot like Grant. Belongings half packed, he clutched them to his chest and bolted. “Won’t be long.”

“So,” John said in the wake of his departure, while everyone else got used to the fact that there was suddenly more air in the room to breathe. “Has the CCTV showed what went down here?”

Slowly, Chin Ho Kelly uncrossed his legs and stood up. He held Rodney’s spare datapad. He actually held it a little covetously. John made a mental note to get it back as soon as possible.

“Everything has been wiped. Very professionally, I might add,” Chin said dispassionately. “There’s not a single bit of footage available from the moment that we left the headquarters for the justice building to when I switched it back on. Two things happened: video memory was purged, about two hours between 13:00 to 15:00. And then the cameras ran on a short loop so no new images were recorded. Security watched the loop.”

“How did they do that?” Williams asked.

“I can think of a few ways. But the easiest is within the building,” Chin mused. “Everything’s gone. Including imagery of people coming in and out of the building, parking lot, everything. Kono went to talk to the security guards to see if they saw anything. This was very professional.”

McGarrett stepped forwards and all eyes turned to him. “How long will it take your guy to track this power cell?” he asked John.

“McKay normally verbally estimates half an hour. It will be about twenty minutes.”

“Okay,” McGarrett had his tie halfway off before John had finished speaking. “Everyone kit up, we’ll be out of here in thirty.”

Making an abrupt turn on his heel, which John could have never managed on his best day of drill training in his life, McGarrett marched into his office shedding his dress uniform as he went. His jacket he carefully hung on a hanger and hooked it to hang off the bookshelf beside the big table. His suspenders, shirt and tie ended up in a heap on the couch.

Absently, John stepped over Dusty’s blood.

Rooting around in his desk drawers, McGarrett found a clean, white t-shirt. Shaking it out, he pulled it on in one smooth movement.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got another change of clothes in there?” John asked, looking down at the blue of his own dress uniform.

“T-shirt.” McGarrett tossed over a new one, cellophane wrapping crinkling. “Another pair of pants, no.”

McGarrett kicked off his shiny Oxford shoes and skinned out of his pressed pants.

“Shameless!” Williams hollered from outside the office. “You’re opposite your window.”

“Grow up,” McGarrett called back as he yanked up a pair of cargo pants, buttoning them low on his hips.

“Rodney.” John tapped his comm.

“Busy,”

“When you come back bring my BDUs.”

“I’ll be bringing more than your BDUs. I’ll be bringing an assault team. Now leave me alone. I’m busy!”

John plucked the tiny receiver out of his ear, and stuck a finger in its place and wiggled it. Rodney’s sign off had actually been painful.

“So you guys will be bringing an assault team?” McGarrett echoed.

John raised an eyebrow in question.

“I’ve got good hearing,” McGarrett responded, “and that dude’s voice carries.”

John couldn’t dispute that. He stuck the receiver back in his ear; he couldn’t stay out of touch.

“Good idea,” McGarrett continued. “I really don’t know who to trust in the HPD.”

“Boss!” Kono called.

McGarrett dodged around the table and out of the office. John strolled after him.

“The cousins are here and Sang Min.” Five tall, solid locals flanked a skinny Asian man in a prisoner-orange jumpsuit, chained at the wrist and ankles.

“Okay.” A nod of McGarrett’s head had Chin directing them to forcibly sit the prisoner on a chair in the centre of the room.

Sang Min licked his lips, taking in the devastation around him.

“Had visitors, I see.” He smirked.

“There’s two ways that this can go, Sang Min,” McGarrett said. “You tell me what I want to know and live. You don’t tell me what I want to know and I put you in the General Population in the Honolulu Correctional Facility and stand back and watch the entertainment. Where is Wo Fat?”

“I don’t know,” Sang Min whined a millisecond later.

“Not good enough.” McGarrett crossed his arms.

“I don’t know what you want to know. I’ve told you everything.”

“Wo Fat’s got something going down. Something big,” Williams interrupted. “And it’s going down today. Tomorrow at the latest. What is it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Sang Min reiterated, shifting against his chains. “I don’t know.”

“You know Wo Fat. You know his operations,” McGarrett said. “Where would he base something big?”

Sang Min froze, sly understanding scrolled across his thin face. “Not something big. Someone big. The Dragon.”

“Who’s the Dragon?” John asked.

Sang Min shrugged as best he could with a cousin’s meaty hand on his shoulder.

“High up in the Yakuza. But quiet. When the Dragon walks people look away.”

“What does that mean?” Williams demanded.

“I do not know. To speak of the Dragon can mean your death. You promised to protect my family, McGarrett. You gave your Word.”

“They’re safe.” McGarrett paused for the space of a heart beat, evidently thinking. “This Dragon where is he likely to be?”

“I don’t know. On my family’s safety, I do not know.”

McGarrett jerked his head at the door. “Get him out of here and put him somewhere safe.”

“Right, got it,” Rodney said over John’s comm.

“That was quick.” John turned his back on the interrogation.

“Genius,” Rodney preened.

“What are the coordinates?”

“I’m beaming down to the headquarters. I’ll bring the scans that are downloading to my spare datapad as we speak. Is my favourite one there?”

John eyed Chin Ho Kelly. “Yeah, I’ll get it for you.”

“There’s a team setting up. Ronon’s going with. He’s looking forward to -– and I quote -– kicking some ass. Okay, I’m at the platform, be with you in two ticks. Oh, Toby’s coming.”

“What?” There was the unmistakable sound of the transporter engaging, sort of like falling light in a waterfall.

McGarrett was staring at him. “We have a location?”

“Yeah.”

“Excuse me. Excuse me. You’re big. Is he a prisoner? Is that why he’s wearing orange? I thought that was only on television.” McKay darted into the office around the wall of cousins exiting. “Ah ah!”

Chin jerked back as Rodney flew across the room.

“That’s where that went. I need that.”

“Where have you been hiding? The stairwell?” Williams asked suspiciously.

Rodney stared at him wide eyed and then snapped, “Classified.”

Williams’ face scrunched. “I--”

“Hey.” Toby tossed John a bulky backpack. “Your equipment.”

Toby was kitted out in SGC-standard black BDUs, one hand protectively over the medical satchel that probably Carson had gifted him.

“Is there somewhere I can change?” John asked.

“You can use my office,” McGarrett said absently.

“Don’t you have a changing room?”

“Don’t be such a girl,” Rodney said as he juggled datapads and datasets. “Okay, this is what I’ve figured out –- don’t ask me how because I can’t tell you.”

John chose to change there in the main room; time was of the essence. Grant had been missing anything up to four hours. And that was three hours and fifty nine minutes too long in John’s estimation. Everyone was focused on Rodney’s presentation, so he could skin out of his dress blues quickly and unnoticeably. Kono grinned at him and waggled her eyebrows. John pulled off his jacket and balled it up. The creases were going to be a bitch to get out. He chucked it and his tie in the backpack.

Rodney handed his second favourite data tablet to Chin. “Angle it so everyone can see,” he ordered.

Chin complied.

“I’ve copied the information over. This is the location, it’s on a headland. There’re a lot of them in Hawai’i, aren’t there? Must be because it’s volcanic? The house on the tip, that’s where Grant’s signal is coming from. Satellite telemetry and state of the art scans show eighteen people in the house and grounds. Eight are in the garden patrolling, I guess.” Rodney stroked a stubby finger across the screen, zooming in on the west portion of the house. The real time infrared filter imagery abruptly resolved with 3-D schematics.

“Cool,” Kono breathed, her attention on the briefing.

Faster than the speed of light, John pulled his shirt off and his black thinsulate fleece on. No one noticed. Thank god he had chosen to wear shorts, he thought, as he shuffled out of his pressed pants.

“What you’re seeing is an approximate correlation with received signals and known architecture. This room in the centre of the basement--” it highlighted in red, before their eyes, “--is very definitely shielded.”

“How?” John asked, because depending on the answer this shit had got significantly more serious.

Rodney grimaced. “I only have one series of scans so far to work with. Information is being uploaded in real time, but I’ve had to utilise decryption algorithms to filter the signal.”

“Rodney.”

“The basement room is physically protected – lead casing or another dense metal. We are encountering electronic interference, but NID, Trust, any criminal organisation with a half a brain can use white noise generators, other jammers to interfere with signals. Multiple jammers.”

“Who are you guys, really?” Williams demanded.

“Shush,” McGarrett interrupted. “Continue.”

“Don’t you shush me.”

“Seriously, Danny, we need to hear this and we won’t be going anywhere until we have all the information we need. Go on.”

Rodney pursed his lips together. “You know, they really don’t need to be here,” he pointed out to John.

Before Williams could explode into tiny irate pieces of detective, McGarrett spoke, “There’s no way on Earth you’re cutting us out of this.” He held up John’s Ancient glowing crystal ball. “We have missing people. This is about my mom. My dad. And Wo Fat. You’ll leave us behind over my dead body.”

“Commander,” John said in the face of that statement. “Stand down and let Dr. McKay finish his briefing.”

McGarrett’s expression flattened into neutral weighing assessment. John waited for the thoughts that he knew were churning behind that façade to reach their inevitable capitulation.

“Okay, Colonel.”

“I--” Williams immediately started up again. The man was relentless.

“Danno,” McGarrett quelled him with a word.

Turning pink with indignation, Williams sat down with a thump.

“The shielded room is probably a walk-in safe given, you know, the lack of plumbing and air conditioning in this humid, hot hell you call Hawai’i,” Rodney continued.

“Don’t,” McGarrett said inexplicably to Williams.

“There are two people sitting in the room on the ground floor. There’s a lot of electronic equipment in the office, so I’m assuming it’s the security hub. Two hot bodies are walking through the house. Patrolling?”

John concurred, watching their path taking in all the doors and exits.

“Second floor, Grant’s tricorder is here.” Rodney tapped the room in the centre of the building, conveniently and suspiciously, directly over the shielded room in the basement. “It’s moving so someone is carrying it. Three people are moving between the tricorder room and the balcony and a third room -– reception or bedroom? -- two of them move around the entire mansion. Serving staff?”

“Grant?” John asked.

“There’s one person in the bedroom – sitting in the corner with his back to the wall.” Rodney stroked the screen and numbers began to stream down the left hand side window. “Data’s still compiling. But body mass index puts him in Grant’s percentile.”

“Where’s Jenna?” McGarrett and Kono asked simultaneously.

McKay tapped the central room where three bodies radiated heat. “This is her, based on height and probable weight. She’s not carrying the tricorder.”

“Straightforward extraction, get in and get out with Grant, Ms. Kaye and Wo Fat, plus any intel that we find on site,” John summarised. “Come on, McGarrett. You’re with us.”

Williams froze; his sudden silence spoke loudly of his utter focus. “No,” he said. “No way.”

“I’m sorry, Detective,” John said, “you’re not read into this mission and it’s so classified that you cannot be read into the mission. And you don’t have the skill set we need. McGarrett, are you coming or not? I will bring Jenna Kaye back and Wo Fat will be incarcerated.”

“No frigging way!” Williams screamed, bouncing forward, chest out.

“Danny!” McGarrett caught him around the waist and bodily lifted and blocked, preventing Williams from invading John’s admittedly considerably wide personal space bubble and probably following through with a round house punch.

“He can’t do this, Steve.” Williams hollered, drowning out Chin and Kono’s protestations.

McGarrett corralled his partner, curling around him. “He can. I’ll be safe. I promise.”

“You can’t promise that. You don’t even know this guy.” Williams pushed half-heartedly against McGarrett’s encircling arm.

McGarrett craned his head and stared directly at John, weighing. John met his stare unflinchingly, counting down in his head. McGarrett had the information he needed to make an informed decision. When push came to shove the SEAL’s presence wasn’t actually necessary; John was offering to allow him to come along on the ride.

“I have to go, Danno. We need boots on the ground at the site and I’m the only one that can go.”

“Will they cover your back?”

“You have my word, Detective.” John finished clipping his tac vest. Ronon must have packed his kit bag because there was a P-90 stashed in the bottom. He hooked it on its carabineer and rested his hands on its butt. “McGarrett.”

“Yes, sir.” McGarrett straightened leaving Williams looking smaller than usual.

His partner sagged, bereft, as McGarrett stalked out of the H5-0 task force office without looking back. John nodded once at Williams and followed McGarrett out the door.

“Right. Pack up. Unpack. Pack up,” Rodney said as he once again gathered his computers.

“Don’t forget your spare data tablet,” John directed.

“Oh, oh.” Rodney clicked his fingers.

Reluctantly, Chin Ho Kelly passed over the computer.

Toby? You coming?

Toby blinked. ::Yes, man, that was intense. Back to the roof to be picked up by the Daedalus::

You’re taking this really well.

::Weird is my life. Met a faith healer once, she could heal you with her thoughts. Still couldn’t prove it was real, though::

McKay came running up behind. He had his data tablet in his hands. “About time. We’ve spent far too much time updating people. We have live feed; data’s still compiling. Stairs. Stairs.”

There was an office worker at the end of the corridor, who took one look at them and bolted off in the opposite direction.

McGarrett abruptly turned left and kicked open the door into the stairwell. He fetched up, back against the wall on the landing.

“We need to be gathered in an area of less than two meters diameter,” Rodney said for McGarrett’s benefit, and crooked his finger. “Off the wall.”

Rolling his eyes, McGarrett took a step away.

“I love saying this: four to beam up.” Rodney grinned.

~*~

“We should wait until it’s dark,” Ronon rumbled, the only voice of discontent in the twenty man team waiting in the Daedalus’ F-302 hanger.

“No,” John said. He gave Ronon too much leeway. “They’ve had Grant for four hours. We have the element of surprise. And it’s not subject to discussion. Zats. Take down everyone. And then interrogation. Who knows what they got from Grant. And they separated his Ancient tech from him. That needs to be retrieved. Collect all hard drives.

“Your pads are updated in real time,” John continued addressing the combined SGC and SGA teams. “Team four, Major De Salvo, will beam down in the grounds and take out the guards. Team three, Major Yeung, basement and assess the shielded room. Team two, Major Harjo, first level, secure the guards, take out the jammers. Team one, my team, secure Grant and take out Wo Fat and this Dragon.”

“Dragon? Serpent? Snake? Goa’uld?” Rodney proposed.

“Knowing the shit we face, probably yes,” John said soberly. “But there’s no proof. Not even an inkling of Goa’uld involvement. Open minds, people. Secure and control. I want no fatalities. Treat this like any off world mission. Understood?”

“Yes, sir!” they bellowed en masse.

“Beaming down in ten.” John snapped off his characteristically cavalier salute. His men understood him.

Lorne nodded at him, secure in covering John’s ass, although John was going to assign him to go with McKay to retrieve Grant. Cody was assigned to babysit McGarrett and that had gone down well. Ronon was pumped, ready to fight, part of him focused on getting Grant, but the larger portion just wanting to kick ass. Ronon wasn’t that fond of Earth. He thought it was boring. Teyla was benched, seven and a half months pregnant with Torren’s baby brother or sister (she wasn’t telling).

“Why don’t you just beam them up into the hold and shoot the shit out of them?” McGarrett asked.

“Signal degradation. There are in situ jammers. My algorithms are effective, but you don’t want to risk molecular reintegration errors,” Rodney answered. “Works best with a subcutaneous transmitter.” Rabbit-fast he leaned over and tapped McGarrett’s newly injected bicep, courtesy of Carson.

McGarrett manifestly restrained himself from smacking McKay’s hand out of the way. “I’d be willing to chance it.”

“You might sing a different tune in two or three years when you’ve got Parkinson’s or something equally nasty,” Rodney said pithily. “I’m fairly sure that the signatories of the Geneva Convention would protest too.”

“So that’s why we have to beam down into the grounds to make a ground assault?” McGarrett double-checked, sensibly, John thought. “How far?”

Rodney nodded and began to explain how far away from the building.

I’m not comfortable with you coming, John said to Toby. Immediately, he revised that, You’re not coming, Toby.

::No way. This is about my life. And I’ve been trying to figure this out a lot longer than you::

We’re running a strategic op on an armed foe. You’re not trained--

::I’m a paramedic; I’ve gone in with SWAT before. I know how to follow orders, I know to stay back and I’m freakin’ invaluable. I’m a telepath::

McGarrett was staring at them, eyebrows drawing together, forming deep furrows in the centre of his forehead.

I don’t want this Dragon to have sight of you.

Toby jerked back ::You don’t even know if this has anything to do with your Ancient gene stuff. It’s all guess work. It could be something entirely unrelated. And the Dragon could just be a pretentious name. Nothing to do with any of the creepy stuff you’re thinking::

And you’re not trained, John said mulishly. And stop reading my mind.

::I am too trained. I’m a paramedic!:: Toby pointed at the four teams. ::Where’s your corpsman? I don’t see your corpsman – you need a medic on site::

You stay with McKay and Lorne. Okay? Grant’s probably going to need your help. That was a bit manipulative, giving him a patient, but John was comfortable with manipulation when it protected the people he knew.

“What are you guys doing?” McGarrett waved his finger, mid-air, in a circle.

::Can you hear us?:: Toby tried, piercingly.

McGarrett squinted. “What is that?” He jabbed the finger in his ear. “It’s like a high frequency whine but infinitely more annoying.”

“So you’re not getting any words?” John asked.

“Seriously, you weren’t kidding about the telepathy?” he asked, dubiously.

“It’s weird to say it out loud, but yes, I am a telepath. Picture and images, word melanges, but, yeah, telepath.” Toby shrugged. “You’re obviously picking up something.”

“This is fascinating,” Rodney interrupted. “And, honestly, the experiments that I’ve got lined up will blow your mind. But this isn’t the time. You, McGarrett, ignore the whining. I do--”

“Hey,” John protested, because if anyone whined it wasn’t him.

“--we’re about to go and rescue Grant and your small, CIA woman.”

“Jenna,” McGarrett said.

“McGarrett, you’re partnered with Lieutenant Hall. Toby, you’re with McKay and Major Lorne. Ronon, with me. We need to talk.” John was determined to get the last word in.

John jerked his thumb at the nook where the platform engineers hunkered down when the F-302s took off. Ronon cocked his head, curious, but willing to wait for John to expand on the reason why he’d been pulled away.

“The guy we’re after could be Tyre’s twin brother. Totally looks like him. It’s creepy. I don’t want you to…” John trailed off, freaked wasn’t the right word for Ronon. “Be distracted.”

Ronon huffed. “Guess it proves we’re more closely related than we think.”

John blinked, a little thrown. That was pretty cool.

“John? Ronon?” Teyla called, her voice echoing in the hanger.

“In here,” Ronon rumbled, sticking his head out of the gloomy little crevice.

John popped up behind him. Teyla spotted them immediately and strode over, Marines and Airmen scattering before her like a flotilla of tugboats before a majestic galleon in full sail.

She stopped before the bolthole and she eyed them dubiously. “Well, I am not climbing down there. Come up.”

That was announced with due authority, both Ronon and John scrambled to obey.

“Hey, Teyla.” John scrubbed at the back of his neck. “How are you doing?”

“We’re doing fine.” She patted her tummy, and said pointedly, “Thank you for asking.”

Damn, Teyla was pissed. John tried to remember the last time that he had called her in the last twenty-four hours. He couldn’t remember.

“How are you doing, John?” She glanced over her shoulder at McGarrett.

“Fine,” John said rote.

Teyla raised a finely plucked eyebrow.

“It’s a little weird, okay?” he said diffidently. “I mean, you know…”

“I do not. But I can guess. It is disconcerting to suddenly gain two half brothers, and realise that your mother is a mystery. But your family is here and we will help you. And should you desire, welcome your new brothers into our fold.”

End part four.

Part Five