Fic: Stealth and Sudden Violence (Chapter 11)
Kono rounded the corner and felt her heart rate quicken. There it was, the house that probably belonged to Hesse. She ran over the plan again in her head, rehearsing all the scenarios just like she'd been doing since yesterday. She heard Steve's clear instructions in her mind, calming words in Chin's voice and affectionate ranting in Danny's. She knew why their new friend was worried, it was a dangerous plan, but even he'd had to admit it was the best they had. It didn't stop him grumbling about it though. He was probably still bending Steve's ear with his complaints even now.
She couldn't see any of her team, which she told herself was a good thing because it meant they were in position as they were supposed to be. Steve had been following her for most of the way dressed as an Egyptian, but he'd peeled off somewhere around the last block and was no doubt already in the alley at the back of the target house.
As she walked, she surreptitiously checked all the things she had hidden in her robes. The black abaya might be making her hot and frustrated, but it was certainly useful for disguising all kinds of interesting items. She thanked whatever gods might be listening that she had friends, a team, family like she did. They were the most inventive, wonderful, devious people.
When he'd returned from the embassy the previous day, Steve had already run though the plan with Danny, who didn't agree with it, but gave up arguing due to frustration, and a need to see his daughter. Steve had explained it to both her and Chin once Danny stopped shouting. Chin wasn't that happy about it either, until Steve told them about the little extras he was going to bring to the party. Some of those extras were currently under robes and even though Danny had called them a walking death trap, she felt a whole lot safer with them.
They'd spent until the early hours of the morning preparing for the operation, practicing the parts they could, and discussing those they couldn't. Steve had altered the robes, creating hidden pockets and all kinds of little surprises. He'd been sitting in the courtyard sewing the red jalabiya and veil Kono was wearing under her voluminous abaya when Danny had arrived with his daughter for dinner. Danny had apologized for turning up unannounced but Grace had been keen to meet his new friends and he'd wanted to indulge her. He'd given them all a look that said nothing was to be said about their plans for the raid in front of his little girl.
Kono, who'd been pouring over the plans of the house, such as they were, got a ringside seat for the introductions between Steve and Grace. Danny's daughter was a fun kid, completely unafraid but not a spoiled brat like some of Kono's cousins in Hawaii had been. The little girl had ended up convincing Steve, who was more than a little shell-shocked by her, to make her a copy of Kono's jalabiya. Without the extras, Danny's stern look had said.
Grace had stayed for an early dinner, happily moved forward by Kamekona, and then Danny had taken her back to her mother's before returning to help work on the raid. Danny had been quiet when he returned, and Kono really felt for the man. He was a good father who wanted to spend time with his child and yet he couldn't. It seemed unfair that her own father could have spent all the time with her in the world, but didn't want to, and Danny who did, couldn't.
She pushed the thoughts from her head, turning into the narrow alley that provided access to the only door to Hesse's house. She took several calming breaths as she walked, running over the words she'd practiced in her head. She had a message from a friend, one only for William Pratt, and if he wasn't there she'd wait.
She pulled the bell rope, hearing a distant tinkle somewhere in the house, and waited. She hoped there was someone in or all this work was going to be for nothing, although she suspected Steve might actually break in if it no one answered. She shifted from one foot to the other, feeling adrenaline rushing in her blood. She took a breath and counted to ten before letting it out. This was the biggest thing she'd ever done, and she was not going to screw it up by being too nervous.
She was beginning to think they had made a mistake when she heard footsteps approaching the door and bolts being drawn back. She drew the abaya close around herself and stood up straight as the door swung open. The man who answered, a thick set Egyptian with a loosely wound turban and several days' stubble, looked at her curiously for a few moments, as though he couldn't work out what was going on.
“It's not Tuesday,” he said eventually, which, if Steve hadn't had words with the pimp about when and to whom he delivered his girls, would have made little sense.
“I'm not one of El Gharbi's girls,” she said, hoping her Arabic was good enough to fool him. “I have another master and I have a message from him for William Pratt.”
“He's not here,” the man said, obviously trying desperately to work out what he was supposed to do. Kono suspected that he wasn't usually trusted with decisions much more complicated than if he should have sugar in his tea, or not.
“I'll wait,” Kono suggested, hoping this guy was the only one in the house, because it was going to make things so much easier. “You send a message to him and I'll wait for him here. He'll be very pleased to see me.”
She dipped her head a little and hoped that her heavily kohled eyes, the only part visible above her veil, would convince him she was what William Pratt would want. She also hoped that Steve and El Gharbi were right and Pratt and Hesse were the same person.
After a few moments' hesitation, the man finally came to a decision and stepped aside, waving her into the house. “I'll send a message to him. He might not come though.”
“Tell him my master has information he thinks Mr. Pratt will find very useful and that I am here to make his day more pleasurable.”
The man managed a lecherous smile before he had to concentrate on walking again. He led her to a room on the left of the entrance way, gesturing to go inside. “Wait here.” She nodded her head and turned into the room.
The interior of the house, the entrance hall and the room she was now in didn't really match the exterior of the house. They were both Arabic in style, but there the resemblance ended. The outside was a little dilapidated, not enough to draw attention because it was so bad but just enough make sure people didn't even give the house a second look as they passed.
Inside, it was clearly meant to impress. The room she'd been shown into had walls of blue and white tiles with swirling floral patterns and beautifully carved, dark wood paneling. The tiled floor was covered with the most amazing Persian carpets she'd ever seen, and the cushions for the divans looked as though they were hand embroidered. The dappled light in the room came through the carved wooden window screens, high in the walls, making sure the occupants inside couldn't be seen at all from the street outside.
She looked around. For all it was a beautiful room, it was kind of sterile and gave nothing away about the owner of the house, other than he liked nice things. And it certainly didn't help her get the information they wanted. She needed to explore.
Kono dropped the cumbersome abaya from her shoulders, discarding it on one of the divans. Red wasn't the ideal color to wear for sneaking around a house, but she valued her freedom of movement more. She pulled the red veil that matched the dress from the bag she carried across her chest, sighing as she clipped it to her headscarf. It was a lot heavier than it looked, thanks to Steve's modifications, but she knew she needed it. She resettled the strap of the bag across her chest and went to the doorway.
She stuck her head out, looking down the entrance hall towards the central courtyard. There was no one around that she could see, so she walked quietly out of the room. She strode with confidence into the courtyard, knowing she needed to not look like she was sneaking around in case she met anyone. Her cover story, at least until she got up the stairs, was she was looking for a bathroom. El Gharbi had told Steve that none of his girls had even been off the ground floor.
There was no one in the courtyard and Kono felt her spirits lift. Maybe this crazy plan was going to work. She hurried across to the foot of the stairs and after picking up the skirt of the jalabiya sprinted up them. She wondered if she was missing a trick not exploring downstairs, but all her instincts, and El Gharbi's, were telling her there was something to see in the upper rooms.
She stood and listened, hearing nothing but the sound of her breathing and the distant noise from the street. There were six doors leading off the balcony that ran around the upper floor of the central courtyard, all of them similar. Kono decided, if she were a master criminal she'd probably put the things she didn't want people to find by accident furthest from the stairs, so she ran quietly to the door at the opposite side of the courtyard and listened again. She heard nothing, and so slowly turned the door handle.
Inside, she found a sparsely furnished bedroom, nothing more than a low bed, a table and a wash stand. She huffed out a quiet laugh, so much for her instincts as a master criminal. She shut the door and moved on to the next room. Another bedroom, slightly more lived in if the pile of clothes on the chair were anything to go by, but still devoid of any obviously useful information.
When she opened the door to the next room though, she knew she'd hit paydirt. It was obviously a study, a well used study, with papers and charts spread over every surface. Gods, she could search for days in the room and still not find the information they wanted. Except, everything here was probably useful.
She moved quickly to the desk and began leafing through the papers. There was a map of the desert out where Steve and Danny had been ambushed, which wasn't surprising but convinced her there were things to be found. She wanted to take everything with her, give the team time to analyze it, but she knew she couldn't. Not without alerting Hesse that someone might know his plans. Which being found here would do, too.
She scanned through the documents, finding nothing that immediately sprang out as something they could use or didn't already know. There were letters and papers from people all over the Middle East, but unless they were in code, which she knew was a possibility, they didn't contain anything useful. The desk drawers were filled with the usual things people collected. Pencils, erasers, ink, pens, thumb tacks, blotting paper. She let out a frustrated sigh and pushed the final drawer shut with a little more force than she should have.
She couldn't believe she'd gotten into the house, found the center of the operation, and there was nothing to be found that was going to lead to them finding out who Victor Hesse was, or to stopping his plans. She looked around the room again, her eyes settling on the large armoire in the far corner. She hurried over to it and flung open the doors.
Her heart skipped a little at what was inside. A radio receiver. Around it were notebooks and papers, stubs of pencils and scribbled doodles. She picked up a notebook and thumbed through it. Dates, times, and what looked like random words. Damn it. She found a blank piece of paper in the mess and a pencil began scribbling down the last few entries. She couldn't take the notebook with her, but she was damn well not going to leave empty-handed.
She'd nearly filled the sheet with quick scribbles she hoped she could understand later, when a banging on the front door downstairs made her jump. She stuffed the paper into her bag, already moving to the door. She peered out, seeing no one; she stepped on to the balcony and hurried towards the stairs.
She was nearing the bottom when the man who let her in came into the courtyard followed by a European man she'd never seen before and four Egyptians. She froze, wondering if she had time to run back upstairs, but it was too late - they'd already seen her.
“Stop right there,” the Englishman shouted, gesturing to the men who followed him. Was this Hesse? Had he walked right into their trap?
Two of the men stepped forward and Kono took a reflexive step back, almost tripping on the stupid skirts of the jalabiya. The man nearest to her sneered, obviously more than happy to be menacing what he thought was a helpless woman. Well, he was going to be in for a bit of a shock if he got too close.
“What were you thinking?” the Englishman yelled in Arabic at the man who'd let her in, clearly convinced she was already taken care of and he could turn his attention to berating his staff. “You know you're not supposed to let anyone in.”
“She said she had a message for Mr. Pratt,” the man said, cowering away from the Englishman.
The man who clearly wasn't Hesse, at least if Pratt and Hesse were the same person, swung out his arm and backhanded the man across the face. “You're a moron and I should kill you for it. But at least now we'll have one of McGarrett's team to use against him. You're lucky that our source warned us he was going to try something, it's just a shame we thought he was going to raid the other place.”
The men were nearly at the bottom of the stairs and Kono needed to make a choice, let herself be captured and hope to find out more information or alert the team she needed an escape route. Being captured would make Steve pull his disappointed frown of death, and that would make Danny rant. She liked the new addition to their odd little family, glad that the loud mouthed man made Steve happier than she'd ever seen him, but she could do without the ranting when it was directed at her. Escaping it was, then.
Kono pulled the drawstrings at the waist of the jalabiya and the skirt bunched up at the sides freeing her legs and making the nearest man pause. A flash of stocking and garters seemed to have the stunning power of one of Steve's flash grenades for most men. She almost felt sorry for the poor saps who were about to find out her legs weren't her only weapon.
She leapt from the stairs, kicking the man in the chest and knocking him to the floor. She landed with a little stumble that she wasn't too proud of, but managed to connect a swift kick to his head before he'd even managed to move at all. She felt bone crunch under her foot and he lay still.
“Bloody hell,” the Englishman cursed, and Kono flashed a grin at him, the one Chin said made her look like a shark.
Kono threw a punch at the other man who'd been approaching her, but he was faster than his companion and ducked out of the way. He came back up swinging and it was Kono's turn to dodge a blow. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the other men had gathered their wits and were all advancing on her. Two of them with guns drawn. Okay, time to employ some of the extras Steve had given her.
Scuttling back onto the stairs to buy herself time, she ripped off her heavy necklace with her left hand as she flicked out her right and unhooked the little cigarette lighter she had attached to her wrist. She quickly sparked the flame to life, thanking the hour of practice she'd done the previous night, and lit the fuse of the smoke bomb Chin had cast into the back of the cheap costume jewelry.
She threw the necklace onto the floor and it started belching out clouds of dense, purple smoke. The men in the courtyard took a step back, and Kono quickly dug into her bag and extracted her driving goggles. She slipped them on and pulled her veil across her face. Steve's makeshift smoke filter, sewn behind the red fabric, was heavy but she wasn't coughing and choking like the men who were scrambling to get out of the way of the smoke.
She looked up and grinned at what she saw, the smoke billowing up and out of the open courtyard. That was the signal her team was waiting for. All she had to do was avoid getting caught in the melee and stand clear of the wall to her left. She drew her knife from the sheath on her thigh and waded into the smoke. Maybe she could catch herself a prize before the rest of the team started picking off all the targets.
“This is a terrible plan,” Danny complained, wishing again he'd managed to talk his friends out of it.
“So you said,” Steve muttered next to him, both of them slouched against the wall, crudely disguised as beggars. “About a million times.”
“Well, it bears repeating,” Danny replied quietly, fighting the twin urges to raise his voice and his head. Beggars tended to not have pale skin and blue eyes, and they tended to not yell in English.
“Trust me, your worries have been noted,” Steve huffed, holding out a battered cup to a passerby who ignored him. “Your negative thoughts are putting people off.”
“Oh, I'm sorry,” Danny objected, his voice getting a little too loud. “I didn't realize we were actually trying to make money here. I thought we were watching out for the signal from our brave but foolhardy warrior woman inside the bad guy's lair.”
“Shut up,” Steve hissed, jabbing him in the ribs with a surprisingly bony finger. “For the love of all that's holy, shut up.”
“I don't...” Danny started, but was cut off by a shrill whistle. Chin's signal, from his vantage point on the roof above them.
Danny looked upwards, knowing Steve was doing the same, and saw the very faintest of wisps of purple smoke wafting over the roof of the house. Steve was already up and moving and Danny scrambled to follow him. They darted down the narrow alley at the back of the house and Steve shed his robe, dropping it on the floor and unhooking the explosives he had strapped to his chest. Danny had objected strongly to hiding explosives about his person, but it had been a fruitless argument. Like a lot of the ones they'd had recently.
Danny decided, as he shed his own robe, he was going to have to have a long talk with the man who had wormed his way so quickly into his affections about how he should be conducting himself if he didn't want his partner to die of a heart attack. He pulled out the detonator and fuse he had in his own pocket and tossed it to Steve, who had already pressed the explosive charge to the wall, the curved metal plate he'd fastened the lentonite to, was facing outwards. According to Steve, and Chin whom he trusted to actually tell him the whole truth, this would direct most of the force of the blast at the wall. Danny still didn't want to be in the alley when it blew though.
Steve pushed the detonator into the explosive and, after a quick glance at Danny, lit the fuse. They sprinted out of the alley, turned the corner and pressed themselves against the wall and waited. Danny thought it hadn't worked, that something had gone wrong, because an eternity seemed to pass before there was a huge explosion that sent bits of masonry rushing past them and into the street.
Danny's ears were still ringing so he nearly missed the slither and thud that heralded Chin's descent from the roof. The man appeared next to him, goggles and face mask already in place and his gun drawn. The man was good. The detective pulled his own goggles down from under his turban and dragged the bandana he had around his neck over his face. Steve did the same before peering around the corner. He raised his hand and they edged into the alley, stepping over pieces of stone and plaster; the air was filled with dust and yellowish, acrid fumes. Purple smoke was already starting to pour out of the gaping hole in the wall of the house, filling the alley and drifting into the street.
He could hear people screaming and yelling, both inside the house and in the street. He wondered, as they edged forwards and into the hole in the wall, how long they'd have before the Cairo Police arrived and how long he'd get to keep his job when Russell heard about what they'd done.
Someone stumbled out of the smoke towards them, coughing and gasping, and Danny realized just how good a job of keeping the smoke out of his lungs the makeshift gas mask was going. He was going to have to thank Steve, right after he yelled at him for getting them into this mess. Steve moved quickly, landing a blow to the man's jaw that felled him with barely a sound.
They moved further into the house, the air clearing a little as the smoke billowed out of the hole in the wall. Another figure stumbled towards them, ducking at the last minute and charging into Steve, knocking him to the floor. Steve's gun skittered out of his hand and Danny whirled around to see where it went only to be faced with his own attacker, who swung at him. He ducked under the blow, feeling it glance off his shoulder, and kicked out at the man who dodged backwards.
“Weren't the occupants of the house supposed to be disorientated by the smoke?” he yelled at no one in particular, landing a hefty kick on his opponent’s leg. “Wasn't that the point of this plan?”
“Hey, guys,” Kono shouted from somewhere in the purple cloud. “There were five still up and about when you came in.”
There was a crunch of bone and a grunt before Steve responded. “That's two down, three left. You okay?”
“Oh yeah,” Kono replied, sounding like she was enjoying herself. “It's like fishing for grouper.”
“Jesus Christ,” Danny spat, landing a fist in the solar plexus of the guy he was fighting that dropped him coughing and spluttering to the floor. He pulled out his cuffs and secured the man's hands behind his back, determined there was going to be at least one prisoner they could question later. “Two.”
“One,” Chin shouted from somewhere over on Danny's right.
There was a scuffle somewhere in front of him, followed by a muffled yelp that sounded female and Danny's heart jumped into his mouth. “Kono?”
“She's fine,” a male voice he didn't recognize, rasped, voice roughed by the smoke. “But if you want her to stay that way I suggest you back away and let me go, McGarrett.”
“You know I can't do that,” Danny replied, flattening out his New Jersey accent and hoping Steve would follow his play, using the distraction to rescue Kono.
“Does she mean that little to you?” the man asked, and Danny thought he was getting nearer. “Does she count as an acceptable loss for you?”
“If you let her go now, I won't have to kill you later,” he said, thinking it sounded a lot like what Steve might say in this situation. Except when he re-ran the sentence in his head he thought he might have said it was okay to kill Kono as long as he understood Danny would be shooting him later. That wasn't right.
“I'm sure she'll be glad you have another name to add to the list of people you need to avenge. You still haven't done much about your father, have you, McGarrett.”
As he spoke, the man stepped out of the smoke, Kono held against him with a gun to her head. He blinked, looking at Danny in confusion, before realization he'd been duped spread across his face. Danny was about to speak when the smoke swirled behind the man and Steve appeared like some ghostly assassin. The man holding Kono crumpled without a sound, his gun falling uselessly to the floor, Steve's knife embedded in the base of his skull.
“Zero,” Steve said, pulling his knife out of the body. “Is that Hesse?”
“No,” Kono said, disappearing back into the rapidly clearing smoke and the returning with her own knife. “He's not here.”
“He seems familiar,” Chin said, stepping out of the smoke and peering down at the body.
“He does?” Danny said, as they all looked down at the dead guy.
“He's the friend of the Idiot,” Chin said, with a snap of his fingers as he remembered. “The one from the Khan el Kalili.”
“Really?” Steve asked, bending to look closer.
“Great,” Danny sighed, because this day just couldn't get any worse. “Extra paperwork.”
“Why?” Kono asked, still brandishing her knife but otherwise looking like every man's fantasy with her skirts pulled up and her stockings on display.
“He's Lord something or other,” Danny explained. “Or said he was. You have to be extra thorough with all the forms if you kill the scion of some great family.”
“Even if he's a traitor?” Steve asked.
“Do we even know that?” Danny asked them all, wondering if they'd forgotten they still had no evidence. “We've got no proof he was other than our word.”
“There's lots upstairs,” Kono said matter-of-factly, making them all gape at her. “What?”
“Good,” Steve said, recovering first. “We need to search the place and make sure we get as much information as quickly as we can. There's no way Hesse isn't going to find out about this within a couple of hours and we need to be on his trail before then or he'll disappear.”
“There's another problem,” Kono said, sounding a little unsure about what she was going to say. “He mentioned a source telling them you were planning something, but they thought we were targeting another place.”
Steve looked at Danny, his face unreadable, but Danny could guess what he was thinking. They'd only told one person, other than their team, about the raid, and somehow the information had gotten to Hesse's source. They needed to search the building and find proof, not only to satisfy the police that dead Lord Whatsit was a traitor, but to get a lead on Hesse and his plans. And they also needed confirm their growing suspicion that Jameson was a traitor.
“Steve, we can't leave here, not without searching the place,” Danny said, making Chin and Kono stare at him.
“We're not leaving,” Steve said, making Danny relax a little. “I'm leaving. You guys can stay and search the place in case we're wrong.”
“Leave?” Chin asked.
“We only told one person,” Steve explained, the anger he was feeling starting to bleed through onto his face finally. “He's got to be the leak.”
“The ambassador?” Kono sounded completely incredulous. “Really?”
“Jesus,” Chin murmured, already seeing the logic of their thoughts. “This is going to be messy.”
“We have no proof,” Danny pointed out, hoping Steve was going to listen to him. “We can't just go after someone like the ambassador without cast iron evidence. I know you want to find Hesse, babe, I get that, but we can't make a move now. It's too early.”
Steve seemed to hesitate for a few moments, obviously wanting to run off and confront the ambassador. Danny couldn't blame him. If he thought one of his dad's best friends had betrayed him and gotten him killed, he'd want to confront them too, make them tell him where the murderer was. But Danny needed Steve to listen to him now and not go running off. The ambassador was far too powerful to confront without evidence and even if they had it, there was no way Danny was ever going to let Steve go off on his own.
“You're right,” Steve said, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. “We need to get all the evidence together.”
“And convince Russell to not throw us in jail for blowing up a house,” Danny said, clapping a hand on Steve's shoulder and squeezing. “I think I'm going leave that one up to you.”
Danny could hear the bells of a fire tender nearby and the shrill blast of a police whistle. It wouldn't be long before they were overrun with clod footed constables who would need to be herded away from the important evidence and matters of national security. He needed to send word to Russell with one of the first officers who arrived, but right now, he needed to make sure Steve was occupied and not running off to confront Jameson.
Steve could hear Danny speaking to Russell in the main reception room near the front door, both men too far away for him to catch anything other than the occasional word. Danny hadn't made him explain the explosion to the Assistant Commissionaire, for which he would always be grateful, and he thought Danny might actually be blaming the owner of the house for it.
Chin and Kono were sorting though the papers upstairs, doing the job that he should be doing, but he couldn't focus. All he could think about was how it had to be the ambassador who had betrayed them, how Jameson had almost certainly betrayed his father. It was eating at him, feasting on the hurt that had been there since he found out about his dad's death. He couldn't believe how big the hole inside him had already grown.
He knew what he was about to do might well destroy Danny's trust in him, he might even get himself killed, but he couldn't not do it. He slipped out of the room he was in, across the side of the courtyard, no one even giving him a second glance, and out of the hole in the side of the building.
He strode towards where they'd left the car, nodding at a couple of the uniformed officers on the way, before he became lost in the throng of people pressing down the streets to see what was happening. He knew he wasn't going to get away without anyone noticing he'd gone, but if he could just get as far as the embassy before Danny caught up with him, he'd call it a win. There was no way he could put any of the rest of the team in danger, most of all Danny. This was something he had to do on his own. Something he had to do for his father.
“This is really an impressive find,” Russell said as he looked around the study of the house. “I think you've broken the back of the organization even if you haven't caught Hesse yet.”
“Thank you, sir,” Danny agreed, getting a nod from both Chin and Kono. “Steve still wants to find Hesse though.”
“I quite understand,” Russell responded. “Where is he, by the way?”
Danny suddenly realized he hadn't seen his partner in a while and with that came the growing suspicion that Steve had done exactly what he said he wouldn't do. He rushed from the room, leaned over the railing of the balcony and shouted, “Steve?”
He got no reply, which only confirmed his fears. Damn it. He couldn't believe Steve had lied to him, just stood there and outright lied. Danny was furious. He knew Steve wanted to catch Hesse, needed to exact some kind of vengeance, but this was no way to treat his partner and his friends, let alone the person he said he cared about.
“I need to borrow your car, sir,” Danny said as he stepped back into the study. “And you might want to come too. I think we need to stop Steve doing something really stupid.”
“What?” Russell asked, looking completely confused.
Chin and Kono looked at him and he could tell both of them knew what he meant. “Can you guys stay here and keep sifting through this stuff?”
“Sure,” Chin said
“I'll explain in the car, sir,” Danny said, turning to Russell and finally answering his question. “But I think we really need to leave now.”
Russell looked at him for a moment, obviously trying to work out if it really was urgent or if Danny was panicking about nothing. Finally he nodded his head. “This way then. I'm bringing two of my officers with me though.”
“The more the merrier,” Danny said grimly, leading the way down the stairs. He just hoped they weren't too late to stop Steve doing something he was going to regret forever.
Chapter 12