Fic: Malasada's H5Obigbang chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX: Shock Value
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Bryce dragged McGarrett’s deceivingly heavy body the few meters to the trees and then dumped him under the low-slung palm. It wasn’t a perfect hiding place but it would do in a pinch and the chances of someone coming through here in the next half hour and spotting him were slim to none. He looked down at the limp body and belatedly remembered that the man had a cell phone that could, theoretically, be used to track him down. They didn’t need any more than a good half hour to make their retreat, but Bryce wasn’t willing to take any unnecessary chances. They were already leaving him alive and that was as big a risk as he was willing to take.
He bent down and searched the Commander’s pockets, grabbing the cell phone and finally stepping away. It would have to do.
“Ready?” Eric asked sharply and Bryce nodded, turning back to his brother, Ms. Anook and their prize: Danny Williams in the flesh. Bryce moved to him and performed a thorough pat down, ignoring the grumbled protest and the halfhearted attempt at moving out of reach. Eric had a solid enough grip on the guy, but they both knew it was the gun and the possible future violence towards his partner that kept the shorter but powerfully built man mostly complacent. He didn’t have any extra weapons on him, so Bryce liberated his wallet and cell phone and stood quickly, giving the clearing one last look, before taking point and leading their little team towards the beach.
Now that they had Williams he wanted to get the hell off the island and start making their money. They stopped again at the edge of the trees, the stretch of soft sand that met the ocean wasn’t very wide here and as far as he could tell nobody was about. They pulled off their masks and WIlliams response was a heated glare and a visible testing of the cuffs that bound his hands.
“Just remember that we don’t need you in perfect working order. Try anything and we won’t hesitate to put a bullet through your foot,” he warned and the smaller man obediently stopped twisting the bonds.
“Let’s go,” Eric ordered, prodding Williams out onto the stretch of sand closer to the waters edge. Ms. Anook stuck closely to their side, as planned, her practical sandals easily handling the loose ground and Bryce could tell that she was keeping a tight lid on her interest with their product, her features schooled in professional interest only. Bryce paused a moment once they hit the water’s edge and threw the mask stuffed with the phones, other masks and the gloves that he and his brother had worn, out as far as he could into the waves. He’d made sure the phones had been turned off, but this extra precaution made him feel more at ease. They started heading down the beach as quickly as they dared, but it was late and the only couple they passed were very much not interested in anything but each other.
“You should not have left the other man alive,” Ms. Anook’s clipped tone broke into the sound of crashing waves. Beside him Williams stumbled a little and he grabbed roughly under his armpit to keep him on his feet, eyeing him carefully. He was being quiet, his attention focused straight ahead and a look of concentration on his face that made Bryce uneasy. He could be planning something. He tightened his grip in warning.
“We’re taking a man who, as you have probably realized by now, carry’s a badge and a gun. The minute the HPD realize that one of their officers had been taken they are going to swarm the islands in blue looking for him,” he explained quietly, irritated by her tone.
“All the more reason to kill the other man, leave no trace,” she pointed out.
“Those masks weren’t just to hide our identities incase the video feed to your boss was hacked. We don’t need the attention killing a decorated military man would bring.” He didn’t mention that while he’d wanted to kill him Eric had pointed out that Williams had a reputation for being stubborn and uncooperative when being forced to do something he didn’t want to. He’d already proven that he would expose his very, very well hidden talents to save his partner’s life, which meant that they could continue to use McGarrett’s life against him should he decide to not do as they ordered.
She gave them a considering look before pulling out her phone and typing a text. Williams stumbled again, and it wasn’t Bryce’s imagination when the man began to lean slightly more into their tight grips despite the gun at his back. He shared a look with Eric, whose eyes just said to keep going. It wasn’t far now anyway.
A few minutes later they rounded a bend and the rickety old dock came into view. They were on a small stretch of beach between tourist and local hotspots, chosen specifically because it was as secluded as you could get on this particular area, which was not secluded at all but it was enough to suit their purposes. They moved swiftly to it, stepping onto the washed out wood that was on its last legs and began the short trek to the boat moored at the end.
Williams seemed to come out of whatever fugue he’d been in right as they reached the shiny vehicle and he stopped moving abruptly.
“No,” he finally found his voice and turned to glare at Eric. It was kind of pathetic and lacked the vibrancy they had come to expect of him after weeks of surveillance. “This is not a good idea, you don’t want to do this.”
“Get on the boat,” Eric gave him a pointed shove and he stumbled a step forward but caught himself again. Bryce moved forward to drag him the last few steps but the man still resisted. “We could still go back and finish off your partner,” he threatened darkly which earned him a heated glare. Bryce tugged and Eric pushed and a moment later Williams was practically tripping over the edge and onto their not insubstantially sized boat. Eric followed immediately and together they herded him roughly to the tiny cabin under the boat’s nose. It was nothing more than a cubbyhole with a mattress, but it had no windows and locked from the outside securely. Williams didn’t have time to balk at it as they rushed him down the three steps and tossed him into it. He grunted, rolled onto his back and closed his eyes, making no further attempt to move. Bryce locked the door as Eric started the engine and they sped away into the dark.
The woman Marcel had sent out to be the physical witness to the demonstration took a seat at the back of the boat, promptly ignoring them. Bryce didn’t particularly like her, sure as hell didn’t trust her, but she’d played the part they’d given her well and he could respect her for that, if not for her obviously valued position in Marcel’s ranks. He moved to join his brother at the wheel, bracing himself as they hit some of the larger waves before heading out to deeper waters.
“There’s something wrong with him,” he declared as quietly as he could over the engine and wind and Eric pursed his lips.
“He looked like he was stoned, couldn’t keep his feet easily. Must be a side effect of using his mojo. Let him rest for a bit and then get some water and food into him. It’ll be a few hours before we meet up with them. If he’s not better by then we’ll tell them he still needs to recharge and figure it out from there.”
“I don’t trust the woman,” Bryce declared, giving her a look over his shoulder and seeing that she was still hard at work on her phone.
“I don’t trust any of them, but business is business and we need a starting clientele otherwise nobody will believe in our product. Just stay sharp. We do the job, get the money and then head off to the first safe house and figure out what we’re going to spend it on,” he gave Bryce a huge grin and Bryce returned it whole heartedly. They’d planned and planned and gone over everything five times and the only way this was going to end was with enough money for ten mansions all over the world and a man who would keep them stupidly rich for the rest of their lives.
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He blinked back to consciousness when the engine’s roar dimmed to a low purr and struggled weakly when two sets of hands dragged him upright and then out onto their boats deck. Squinting he’d glared at them in the predawn sunlight, goose bumps prickling in cool morning air, but they were unaffected as they moved about and shoved him onto a cushioned bench along the side. He twisted his wrists in the cuffs uselessly and didn’t make it easy when they decided to remove them briefly to strip his outerwear and ordered him to wash Steve’s blood off his hands and forearms. He didn’t look at the pink hued water in the bucket when he was done and didn’t linger too long on thoughts of Steve (please let him be okay), because before he knew it they were moving again and this time he knew their destination.
In the distance a large cargo ship loomed closer and closer, the multi-coloured crates stacked high and beginning to shine in the sunlight. Danny watched, trying to look more alert than he felt and keep the threatening nausea under control as the boat jumped the waves. They pulled up to its side, waaaay too close for comfort, and only moments later a big, muscled man climbed down the built in ladder like a monkey and plopped onto the deck.
“I’ve got your boat,” he announced gruffly and thrust what looked like a harness at Danny’s dark haired captor before moving to take the wheel from the balding guy. The monkey man made no effort to hide his interest in Danny as he moved past, giving him a long, thoughtful look before turning his attention to keeping their tiny, miniscule vessel from being pulverized against the massive metal hull of the cargo ship. Danny just glared, keeping his lips tightly pressed together because he could recognize when words would be useless. They were useless when it came to Steve (a deathly pale face and blood tipped smile) and maybe he was still reeling over that, because he was definitely still feeling weak from trying to save his life. Weak, dizzy, lethargic, not a good combination on a good day and pretty much disastrous right now.
He tried to unslump from against his seat when the dark haired guy approached with a harness and held it out to Danny.
“Put this on,” he ordered, the harness loops dangling in the air and Danny eyed it, then eyed the ladder that they were floating beside that went allllll the way up to the ships deck. At the top he could see two heads bent over the side, watching them, and a bright blue rope with a carabineer was dangling in the air just waiting to be put to use. He looked around the boat, the big guy at the wheel kept glancing over at them, the woman that he felt so betrayed by was giving him a cool, assessing look even as she spoke into her phone, and the two guys who had apparently orchestrated this entire thing were towering over him, their weapons very visible and their calculated threats to Steve very fresh in his mind. It was the ladder or the ocean and Danny wouldn’t want to climb that metal monstrosity unaided even if he was feeling like a million bucks so-
“You expect me to put that on with these?” He held out the cuffs pointedly, his wrists visibly red from twisting in them, and the bald guy stepped forward and undid them quickly and without argument. Danny put the harness on and watched distractedly as the woman gracefully launched herself off the boat and onto the ladder, shimmying up it with ease.
When it was Danny’s turn he wasn’t anywhere near as graceful, slipping and bashing a knee against a metal rung, almost clipping his chin. He felt the tug of the harness around his legs the entire way up and was stupidly grateful for it because by the time he reached the top his limbs were shaking from the exertion. He hadn’t had a chance to recover enough from the marathon healing he’d given Steve and he felt it. When he reached the top, flakes of rust sprinkled across his palms, hands reached out and hauled him over the side and he nearly lost his footing as his body came to grips with the idea of solid ground. Or as solid a ground could be on the water.
“This is him?” Danny looked to a man with a head of dark curly hair, dressed like he was preparing for a business meeting with Donald Trump, and scowled as he looked Danny up and down, like he was a freaking horse at an auction.
“It is,” Baldy replied, his grip tightening possessively on Danny’s arm.
“It is a pleasure to meet you Mr. Williams,” the suit offered with a well meaning smile. “I am Marcel.”
“It’s Detective Williams,” he snapped back heatedly and the man’s face fell a little at the open hostility. He tisked, his eyes glancing at the cuffs that had been reapplied when the harness had been removed.
“As you wish,” he bowed his head and looked at the two men flanking Danny, his original captors. “Mr. Bryce, Mr. Eric, shall we get to it then? I fear my brother will not wait forever.”
“Certainly,” Mr. Eric, agreed from Danny’s left. “We would be glad to go to your brother, just as soon as the first half of our agreed payment has been transferred to our accounts.” His tone was as polite as Marcel’s, his grip loose on Danny’s elbow, and it was all so polite that it made Danny’s teeth hurt. But there were cuffs on his wrists, hands bruising his upper arms, and armed men surrounding them that clearly belonged to Marcel. Marcel, who was still watching Danny with undeniable fascination, even as he nodded to his assistant and she pulled out her blackberry, quickly typing into it, before nodding.
“There,” Marcel declared with a wide, friendly smile, “the first three million has been transferred as per our agreement. You will receive the second half once my brother has been seen to.” He looked to Bryce and Eric as they checked the funds on their own phone but Danny had the distinct impression that his real attention was focused on him. Of course now that Danny had finally figured out what the hell was going on, he kind of wished he’d taken his chances in the Pacific because he wasn’t an idiot (unlike the two yahoo’s who had discovered him and stolen him in the first place) and he knew what was lurking behind the polite veneer on Marcel’s face.
“Agreed, please lead the way to your brother,” Eric said easily after a long look at his phone, all professional and confident and clearly a moron. Marcel took the lead with the blond, traitorous assistant and Eric fell into step beside him for polite small talk as they began what felt like a mile long walk to the aft of the ship. Danny felt dwarfed by all the steel, the sun’s heat already beginning to reflect off the painted crates and the wind whipping his hair even more out of place. Behind them three men with partially concealed weapons followed at a respectable distance, closing them in, and Danny couldn’t keep his silence any longer.
“Tell me you guys aren’t serious about this!” He hissed quietly at the man, Bryce, who still had a firm grip on his arm. He gave Danny a warning look but as no one up ahead turned to acknowledge them Danny continued. “Do you really think that abducting me and selling me to this guy is a good idea? Really?”
“We’re not selling you to this guy,” Bryce replied just as quietly, giving his arm a tug, “We’re selling your services.”
“You’re serious,” Danny muttered incredulously, not a question because he could tell that the moron beside him truly believed that that was what was happening here. “Listen to me,” Danny gave him his darkest, most sincere look, “you are not selling anything to this guy. Just look at him! I don’t have to know who he is to know that he is the real deal here, not you. As soon as we’re done meeting with his brother do you really think he’s just going to toss you another three mill, shake your hand and send us on our way? No, he isn’t. My guess is he’ll shoot you and your partner and throw you over the side and then I will be stuck in his graces instead of yours.” This was something that actually concerned Danny, because he could recognize that Bryce and Eric were small time criminals who had somehow (How, damn it?!) stumbled across his secret and seen dollar signs. Danny could work with small time, because they made mistakes and didn’t have the resources or reputation to back up their apparent ‘ownership’ of him. This Marcel guy wouldn’t think twice about taking Danny as his own and then Danny would be in real trouble, because he suspected escaping from this guy was about five million times more difficult than Tweedles’ Dee and Dum.
“Keep it to yourself,” Bryce snarled, “just do what we tell you and maybe we won’t have to make another visit to your partner. And if that’s not enough, then maybe your ex-wife and little girl wouldn’t mind if we dropped in.” Danny went stiff at the threat, stopping on the spot and turning to face Bryce to let him know exactly what he thought of that idea.
“Problem?” One of their three honour guard asked politely, their progression also halted by Danny’s actions. Danny stared at the stubborn set of Bryce’s jaw and decided to hell with it; you would severely piss Danny Williams off by threatening the people he cared about, his family, but you did not ever threaten his little girl.
“No problem,” Bryce announced calmly and Danny began walking again as he was prodded along, not saying another word. They were met with inquiring looks when they caught up to the rest of the party but everyone was too polite to ask and before Danny knew it he was herded inside the ships four story aft tower and up a metal stairwell until he was finally pushed into a large, ridiculously luxurious room. Sunlight was pouring in through windows on his right, a large, plush couch and wing backed chairs made up a seating area in a corner, a massive flat screen TV that would probably take up an entire wall in Danny’s apartment was dark and shiny over the seating area. In the middle of it all was a bed, surrounded by medical machines that Danny recognized but didn’t really know the function of.
A man was lying on the bed, almost skeletal thin, his skin papery looking and nearly translucent. He was wearing a warm looking woolen cap and was wrapped in about a thousand blankets. A stern looking man in a white lab coat stood off to the side, eying them all keenly while dutifully checking monitors. Marcel had walked to the side of the bed and was leaning over it, gently holding the man’s bony hand.
“I’ve brought someone to see you, Alfonse,” he said softly, a gentle loving smile on his lips. The man, Alfonse, turned his head weakly towards the voice but he didn’t open his eyes and a moment later Marcel was standing and looking very expectantly towards Danny. Danny didn’t move, looking right back and trying to pretend that he didn’t know why he was here. His fingers twitched and he balled up his fists and then the damn blackberry that Eric carried was thrust into his vision and he could see an image of Grace playing in the front yard of Stan and Rachel’s massive home, the puppy Stan had bought her chasing her around.
Point taken. It didn’t mean Danny had to be gracious about it. He held up his bound wrists and smiled insincerely as he waited for the cuffs to be removed and he was led to the bedside before he really felt ready. The man in the bed was almost as close to dying as Steve had been, Danny could tell he only had days left, maybe hours, and he knew that when he was finished here Danny would be even more helpless than he already was.
He stepped beside the bed and, swallowing back the fear that was becoming engrained in his bones, laid his hands on the dying mans chest and pushed.
When he did this he didn’t have fancy medical terms to diagnose someone’s illness or a planned method of attack; it was all done by feel, by energy and instinct. Alfonse had something wrong with the basic core of his body, with his ability to fight off illnesses; with his cells. Danny ruthlessly sought out not the cells but the bones, to the marrow, needing to fix the source of the issue first and then, if he had enough energy left afterwards, he would give the body a boost to begin fighting on its own. He worked for a few minutes, his knees growing shaky and a thin sweat coating his entire body. It was too soon, too soon after Grace’s friend and after Steve and after too many long nights and not enough decent food and when spots began to dance in front of his eyes Danny pulled his hands away and stumbled back. For a long moment there was nothing but silence.
“Well?” Marcel’s cool, lightly accented voice, cut through the air and he was looking at Danny expectantly, the tension clear in the set of his shoulders even if it wasn’t on his face.
“Did what I could,” Danny mumbled and wondered if he should look for a chair or maybe just sit right there on the floor and breath deeply until the world settled a little.
“Will he live? Will he heal?” Now the man was looking between Danny and the doctor, who was fluttering around the bed and looking at the monitors, frowning.
“His pulse is stronger, his breathing slightly less labored, but I will need to run a few blood samples before I say anything conclusive.”
“He’ll only improve from here on out,” Eric, the idiot, declared confidently and drew Marcel’s attention. “I understand that this is a moment of great importance to you, but I’m afraid we have a schedule to keep. If you could please send us the rest of our money then we will be on our way.” The floor was looking really good right now and Danny decided that it would probably be a good idea to get a little closer to it before his legs gave out completely. He hunched over and began to lower himself when strong arms caught him from behind. He didn’t have the strength to even squawk in protest, but a moment later he was being lowered onto the plush couch he’d eyed earlier. At least someone around here had a bit of common decency.
He cracked open eyelids that had closed and found that he had lost a few moments in time as Bryce and Eric were now being led out of the room at gun point, loudly protesting with red and furious faces. The blond woman was standing off to the side, watching them disappear out the door with little interest before focusing her attention on Marcel, her look softening to the first emotion he’d seen from her since her act as a hostage. So that’s how it was.
“Why is my brother not responding to me?” Marcel asked Danny, his blue eyes focused on Alfonse. Danny considered not answering, mainly because it took so much effort, but he could recognize that his survival might just depend on his ability to explain what his new jailer should expect.
“It takes energy to heal,” he lifted his hand to help make his point, got about three inches of height before letting it collapse and he rolled his head back against the soft cushions. “People are always tired, the more serious it is the more they’ll sleep after. He’s jus sleepin,” his words began to slur. “Needs t’heal.”
Four loud bangs muffled through the walls from somewhere outside. Gun shots. Danny had been expecting something along those lines but still twitched at the understanding that Bryce and Eric would never kidnap anyone else.
“And you are always this weak afterwards?” Marcel was right beside Danny now, too close and too functional and Danny wanted to scream at him to get out of his face and let him go home. Instead he grunted, tried to open his eyes to glare and failed. He felt sick, tired, drained. Sucked dry. He was nothing more than a withered old husk of stretched skin and dust and wanted to wail that everything that was happening to him was wrong.
This is what his parents had been trying to protect him from. This is what he’d spent his life hiding from. This is what he had always feared would happen and as the moments passed he cared less and less until finally he just shut the world out and slept.
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Chapter 6 Part B