FanFic: "Ground Fire" (Hawaii Five-0) - Chapter 13 of ??
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Chin had received Duke's call just before entering the Coast Guard medevac helicopter. Steve was lingering briefly to make sure that Danny, Kono and Tortorro were safely onboard before leaving himself. Everyone was occasionally glancing upwards as the skies continued to darken ominously. But so far they had been lucky with the actual rain continuing to hold off.
"She's gone! Winston!" He had to virtually scream over the roar of the blades as the pilot readied to leave. But the expression on his face said it all as he needlessly clarified who for Steve. "Andrea Winston .. she's gone! She paid off a hotel waiter and managed to sneak out with his help without being seen.
He's not sure when it happened."
The curse that sounded from Steve was effectively drowned out by the escalating noise surrounding them. "He" meant Duke Lukela and Steve was stunned by the update. It was obvious by the anger in his eyes what his feelings were about the news. There was no time to get into what it might mean though or what else there could be to share, because behind where Chin was standing, Abrams was gesturing wildly.
They needed to go and they needed to go now.
Steve had insisted upon Chin remaining with the trio and especially due to the sheer danger surrounding Tortorro and the continued nature of their business to protect the man. Even if sticking to the plan to intentionally plant intel that he'd been killed, there was continued danger because Angel Tortorro would want proof right up until the day of his sentencing. So without a doubt, this latest news only solidified that need. While Chin personally enforced their safety, Steve would pilot the HPD chopper back to its permanent base and retrieve his truck.
"I'll meet you at Tripler. Be careful, I'll be there about thirty minutes after you land." Utterly disgusted and shaking his head in anger, Steve threw his hands up in the air. He knew Duke's temper and the strong likelihood of the man to already lambaste himself for the woman's escape. It was all Steve could do though as Chin turned and ducked low to run back to the Coast Guard helicopter before it could be fully fired up. At first standing there with is hands on his hips, Steve wound up needing to leave the beach proper for the fringes of the jungle. As the chopper began to lift off, the stinging 100-mile-an-hour rotor wash whipped up dangerous amounts of both sand and seawater. But once the larger bird left, he dove for the smaller and more agile HPD version.
Out of breath and growling to himself, Chin took the closest available seat to watch the team's continued work on all three of the injured. Each was wearing a headset for protection from the overwhelming noise and Chin nodded his thanks as yet another spare was handed to cover his own ears. After another argument with Steve about his ability to walk on his own, Tortorro also lay on a stretcher. The criminal might have been forced to acquiesce, but now seemed content to lay on his back despite having been handcuffed once more. Resting heavily to the side, Kono had finally given in completely to her exhaustion and migraine-like headache pains. He was as concerned as the medic once they had learned of her bouts of extreme nausea. A truth validated oddly by an enthusiastic corrective reprimand from Tortorro when Kono attempted to play it all down.
"It hasn't been that bad." Kono had tried to say, only to be interrupted first by a loudly chuffed disgusted sound. Eyes flashing, she dared him to say more and was stunned when he had the nerve. "Excuse me?"
"She's been sick the entire time." Tortorro had folded his arms and then winced painfully as he dropped them to his side. "Very sick ... barely kept the water down after he left." He had jerked his head in Steve's direction at that, clearly challenging Kono to countermand every word he'd just uttered. "If any of it at all."
After that, Kono had slammed her mouth closed while glowering angrily at the criminal. He had merely scowled back at her in total defiance as if daring her to deny it a second time.
Chin made a perplexed sound about the odd exchange under his breath which was immediately buried in the ambient noise. It was the first moment he had to rest himself now, and Chin was momentarily lost in thought and wondering what might come next when he realized that Danny was staring wide-eyed in his direction.
"Hey. He's awake." Leaning over where he could reach, Chin tapped the medic's shoulder to gain his attention before gesturing towards Danny. The two shifted their positions to care for the injured detective who suddenly seemed agitated by the combination of headset and oxygen mask.
Assisted by pure oxygen and dual intravenous lines, Danny had begun to waken to the noise he not only could hear, but could also feel through his very bones. He was fighting to open his eyes just as Chin was clambering aboard and the medevac began to lift off the beach. His hands flexed and then searched wildly for a moment to connect with blankets and then the vibrating metallic sidewall of the chopper. He froze for a moment staring at an unfamiliar ceiling as his stomach dipped to sudden centrifugal changes as the medevac tilted and lifted upwards at an even faster speed. It exacerbated his anxiety and brought on a very real bout of light-headedness.
"Chin." Danny found his friend's face but was far from relieved as he felt another terrifying change in altitude. He flinched and forgot to breathe when the static-filled voice tried to softly calm him through the headset. To add to his rising misery, not only was an oxygen mask fastened securely to his face, but a heavy head-set encased his ears. Then he realized he couldn't move.
"Chin." He tried, yet nothing else would come out except his friend's name. His breathing stuttered anew when the blood pressure cuff tightened around his bicep and this time, his hand did flail upwards again. Unable to control his rising sense of panic at being trapped, Danny began to fight.
"It's alright, brah." It didn't matter that he could barely hear Danny for the oxygen mask. It interfered with the headset and built in microphone; because he could certainly understand his name easily enough. "You're okay."
Chin grabbed the frantic fingers before they could connect with the side of the medic's own helmeted head. His other hand flew to Danny's shoulder as he weakly heaved upwards against the straps used on the stretcher to keep a patient in place. That fact only made matters much worse as Chin fought to help get Danny back under a semblance of control. "Danny, we're going home." For a moment, he was taken aback by the unexpectedly frightened look in his Danny's eyes as they flew towards the hospital. "We're only a few minutes out."
"His temperature is spiking." The medic was quiet and nearly speaking to himself as he showed the reading to Chin. "His confusion is part and parcel of that combined with shock. On top of it, I don't envy him needing to fly so soon and this is not exactly first class." The Coasties knew their pilot was concerned about the weather and was dealing with fickle winds, though there was still no actual rain. Working with flight control, he was constantly considering and adapting to the best travel course to avoid the worst of changeable weather conditions. They were in no danger, but his skillful flying was wreaking havoc on one of their three patients.
"Got it." Chin muttered just as quietly. While the helicopter might not be five-star's worth of comfort, the care was astronomically perfect and he greatly appreciated the medic's expertise.
"We're okay, Danny. Everyone's on board." Nearly strangling Danny's fingers as he heaved in protest, Chin leaned in closer to lock eyes. "Kono's off to your right, brah. She's going to be okay after a few days in the hospital." He waited and then grinned as that slowly made its way through the confusion. "You probably know already that she had a pretty bad concussion."
There was a slight nod and Chin raised a curious eyebrow as he measured Danny's face to conclude that his tactic was working. "Her ribs are bruised up, too. But nothing to write home about."
As he internalized his battle, Danny's eyes closed tightly in a face heavily lined with stress and a dull, but very persistent ache felt with each shaky breath. It was a hazy unsettling experience to argue with himself as the chopper banked to the right. Through a broken inhale, his initial focus wound up being the tight hold that Chin maintained on his hand.
"Hey, brah. Look at me. Did you hear what I said about Kono?" The pressure on his fingers increased but Danny's true anchor suddenly became the man's steady voice as he prattled on first about Kono, and then Al Tortorro. On some level Danny knew precisely what Chin was doing and he was grateful for every syllable which replaced the manic noise trying to echo dangerously inside his head.
"Yeah. Kono." Danny chuffed out the sounds while reopening his eyes. He returned the tightness of Chin's hold and faintly nodded. He jolted slightly as the chopper gained altitude and their stomachs universally lurched with the uncomfortable motion.
"You probably think Steve's flying this bird." It was going to be a bad inside joke, but Chin pulled on Danny's hand before he could lose him again. Regardless of how poor it might wind up being, Chin knew that Danny would get it eventually. Nudging Abrams knee, Chin used the Coastie as part of the distraction to keep Danny's attention on the here and now. "He wanted the keys, but Abrams wouldn't allow it. So, Steve is about five minutes behind us and off flying an HPD helo back home."
Abrams forehead pinched slightly at being used in the soft conversation. He smiled kindly at the downed man, feeling a sense of relief when his team-mate's words at least seemed to make sense to him. There was a brief lull as the detective found his tongue, after which Chin Ho Kelly laughed out loud.
"Neanderthal control freak." Danny mumbled around a faint smile. "Should stick to water." Chin's laughter was genuine and it briefly lifted his spirits. But he felt queerly disoriented and at times Chin's face swam blurrily over him.
There was a longer silence as Danny apparently calmed. Ever steadfast, Chin waited to see what he might need, eventually realizing that Danny was gathering the energy to ask another question. It was only taking him a few long seconds to get out what he wanted to say, and again he was thankful for Chin's immovable presence.
"Arm? How bad?" Under the mask his voice was badly muffled and nearly imperceptible, yet Chin understood the question. Grinning in approval, Chin warmly squeezed Danny's shoulder. Behind his smile, he then hid the majority of his concern for his cousin as he wisely chose what to share. What he selected would be the truth with a heavy dose of editing to keep his friend on a more even keel.
"My triage was so good, that our medic here at first didn't feel the need to take off my expert bandaging." Still grinning, Chin barely gave Danny time to respond. "But of course he had to in the end to make sure Kono's arm hadn't exactly fallen off."
For that, the medic snorted out a laugh from where he sat next to Danny's side. He was half listening as he retook the man's blood pressure and kept a solid status of both pulse and respiration. He gave out with a slight sound of approval as his patient's readings remained somewhat high, but his overall posture calmed.
Without acknowledging the subtle messages, Chin deftly continued in his recitation. "Her arm wasn't bleeding too badly to begin with, but I'm sure it's going to need a good cleaning. Definitely stitches, but I can't even guess as to how many."
"Okay." He was paying attention now. Though he did try, another smile clearly wasn't on his agenda despite his grasp of Chin's lightly voiced jokes. "How's .. Tortorro?" The name was hard in a dry mouth and Danny stammered twice over it.
"Well, you missed the fireworks there." Conspiratorial, Chin hunkered down more closely to Danny. His breathing was still mildly erratic, but mostly improved. A coy look towards the medic communicated less than twenty short minutes before touching down at the TAMC helipad. Focused solely on keeping Danny away from negative thoughts wholly driven by illness and pain, Chin gently rubbed his shoulder soothingly when he seemed near to losing the thin hold he had on his self-control.
"Tortorro's here too." This time, bringing Danny back to center was easier and with less than thirteen minutes to go, his distractions were working. Taking his time with a purposeful calming tone, Chin got comfortable as the medic aimed a subtle thumbs up signal down by his knee. Maintaining the tactile connection, he leaned forward as he continued talking. "He thought he'd walk back to the beach, but he lost that particular argument to Steve."
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He was waiting for them in the hospital parking lot with no expectations of hearing from Angel's daughter until the job was done. He had little doubt that she was long gone anyway, using her own rather deep set of criminalistic skills. After leaving the Pratt woman as instructed, he only saw this revision to his orders as another aspect to his own latest tasks and it was much more exciting than watching a trapped woman squirm and sob at a construction site.
Broad shouldered and muscular, he sat on the bumper of his car while casually smoking a cigarette as he absorbed the comings and goings in the parking lot. He was relieved to be outside and moving as he stretched long enough to pop an elbow with a satisfying snap.
He had parked in a remote corner to be partially hidden in its shadows and after astutely identifying the few security cameras spaced intermittently from various light poles. Inhaling deeply, the bluish smoke curled out from the left side of his mouth in a fast rush as he studied the helipad structure on the roof. It was something he could barely see from his angle on the ground, but he could envision the logo emblazoned landing pad and egress into the upper floors of the hospital.
His best bet had been Tripler Army Medical Center due to US Coast Guard involvement, though Queens Medical was also a strong possibility. If he was wrong in his current assumption, he'd simply make new plans based upon revised intelligence should it be warranted. However now at TAMC, he was ready to lounge there for the immediate future while cataloging entrances, exits and employee habits. He already knew where the emergency room was, where ambulances most often came and went from, as well as which side of the building housed the hospital's cafeteria. The occasional military staff or visitor didn't even vaguely impress him; they were just additional players within the landscape.
Initial research had informed him that TAMC had been opened its excellent trauma services to the general public, so there was a definite mix of civilian to military persons. It also indicated to him that perhaps security was now more lax based upon this change in hospital mission.
It only made his pending job all the more easy if Al Tortorro was even still alive.
Just shy of an hour later, his interest piqued as the well-defined staccato whump-whump sounds of distant blades split the air from the east. Rocking off his car, he didn't even wait at that point to be sure. He knew.
He had been playing mental games and creating any number of opportunities with various outcomes as people arrived or left the hospital. What would he do if he needed a second vehicle, or perhaps a hostage? Could he easily neutralize a white-coated doctor strolling to the main entrance? What would he do if recognized or questioned as he loitered in the recesses of the large lot? Constantly imagining what he would do and how if the need presented itself, his latest creative role play was soon to come to fruition.
He had been watching the orderly wander and smoke in the darkness along a windowless exterior wall. A little-used employee exit seemed to drop onto a sidewalk which carried on to the parking lot. As he drew stealthily closer, he saw that it was actually an emergency exit which had been propped open by a large rock.
The alarm had either been broken or disabled, but it made no difference now as he timed his attack with a sinister ease. He had a knife concealed by his ankle and a small snub-nosed revolver hidden in the back of his pants, but he could not yet afford to draw blood; it was too messy and he needed his hands to be clean ... at least going in. The open door became part of the budding opportunity and he accepted it happily. The orderly was meandering with his head down as if in deep thought when one hand went over his mouth and another encircled his head. The movement after to break his neck was so quick, he literally never knew what happened.
Moments later, his stripped body lay disposed of in the deep underbrush and another orderly was re-entering the emergency exit with a cat-like stealth. Overhead, the sounds of a large helicopter were telling as it landed on the roof.
~ to be continued ~
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