Our Devoured Minds Part 3/8 (Hawaii 5-0)
Our Devoured Minds Part 3/8
Author: Tari_Roo
Rating: PG (Gen)
Disclaimer: I own nothing, I profit from nothing. Although if I had my way Steve would be bare-chested even more than he is, we would actually ‘see’ Danny trying to surf and Kono would be a secret Cylon. That is all. Wait… Chin would be as awesome as he is.
Summary: Everyone says it’s the not knowing, right? Danny disappears and someone tries to kidnap Grace. Cue 5-0 and serious ass-kicking as Steve & Co try to keep Grace safe and find Danny.
Spoilers: Set in Season 1. No spoilers, but you kinda have to know the show, ok?
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Danny blinked. It felt so peculiar, eyelashes fluttering against damp material. Darkness so complete pressed against his face, his eyes straining to pierce the oppressive gloom, all in vain. Without moving his head, Danny sucked in a ragged breath and tried to orient himself, figure out what had happened. He’d either passed out or dozed off in the heat, a combination of spent adrenalin, fear, over-anxiety and well, pain sending him into oblivion for a few seconds. Or minutes. Not hours. Definitely not hours.
Silence though had returned with a vengeance and Danny turned his attention to listening, still keeping his head still. True absolute silence is almost impossible, unless it’s artificial. There were sounds, just muted and distant through the blindfold and his own pounding heart. A rustle, a whisper of the ocean, probably the docks, not too far away. The drip of water. Seagulls. Maybe traffic.
But that was it. No movement, no footsteps and best of all, no screams.
Right, time to run the check list - figure out how bad off he was and if, given an opportunity, he’d be able to make a move against his captor.
Danny licked his lips, slow and cautious. They were cracked and bleeding, and felt thick and puffy. His whole back was tight and angry, the burn of muscles pushed to their limits and beyond but his shoulders and wrists were the worst, mostly due to the raw wounds and cuts. Danny wasn’t too sure where to put the state of his legs and feet, whether on the plus side or con, because they were a riot of pins and needles, and the feeling came and went in spurts of sharp agony. Every breath though burned, no matter how cautiously he exhaled, the reflex of ribs expanding, catching, aching shuddered through him. In fact, Danny had absolutely no intention of moving his shoulders any time soon, the long, deep (he assumed) cuts making every twitch and flinch painful. Throw in a massive headache from lack of sleep, pain and dehydration and ...
He was in bad shape. Escape would be difficult. He couldn’t trust his legs to get him up and out of the chair, let alone the room and swinging any punches would probably floor him.
That didn’t change the fact though, that given the chance, the smallest tiniest chance, Danny would take it. Try. Wobbly legs and carved up chest be damned. The bastard had Grace - maybe.
Maybe.
A scrape, the drag of shoe on concrete and Danny froze, ears pricked.
“It’s the not knowing, right?”
The voice was shit closer than expected and Danny immediately pulled away, and choked off a cry as everything protested the sudden move. The chair didn’t move, it never did, but taut muscle pulled against plastic ties with no give.
“Do I have her? Don’t I?”
Danny growled, voice rough, more a croak than anything, “If you... I want to see her.”
“No.”
The guy was moving, walking slowly around Danny, feet light, occasionally running a finger over his bare shoulders, gooseflesh prickling at the motion. Danny didn’t try and follow the motion of the voice, he stayed still, face forward, rigid with tension. Threaten or plead?
“Here’s the thing, Detective Williams. Right now, you have no clue who I am. Sure, sure, you know my voice, but really, when was the last time someone was convicted on a voice ID?”
Danny made no sound, but twisted slightly as the guy pulled up a chair, bracing himself. As expected, the cool sensation of a straight razor, blade flat skimming over his shoulder came next. “But if I show you your daughter, well... there goes you and her surviving this. And realistically this is something we can both walk away from.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Danny hissed.
The blow, a backhand probably, made all sorts of lights dance in front of his eyes. Through the pounding in his head, Danny heard the bastard continue, his drawl long and indolent, “Besides, it’s the not knowing, that’s the real killer. Is it Grace, all soft and bruised in the other room? Or some random kid I grabbed off the street? Or maybe no one at all?” The razor blade tapped an insolent staccato on his skin, promise and threat, and a cheap card trick all rolled into one.
Shaking his head, Danny swallowed. It sure as shit mattered though. It mattered because yes, either way Danny would hunt this SOB down. Hell, for what he had personally endured, Danny fully planned on beating the little shit’s face in. But if it was Grace .... whatever he did, he’d do it without his badge.
Air on his face, breath exhaled, words following, “And you’re probably thinking, maybe it’s just a recording, a trick. Maybe it is. But can you take the chance, Williams? Are you willing to take that chance?”
Ignoring the hurt, the pain of clenching his fists, Danny curled his thick, blood filled fingers into white knuckled fists, turned to face him, and said slowly, “Either way, dickhead - you’re dead.”
Surprisingly enough, there was no come back, just a derisive chuckle. “So, back to the business at hand.”
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“Boss?”
Steve looked up from his tutorial on Angry Birds, and quirked an eyebrow at Kono. Unbeknownst to him, Grace did so too - right down to the same eyebrow and Kono grinned. “Got something.”
McGarrett nodded and slowly disentangled himself from the couch and Grace, who protested silently, her face falling. “Stay here, sweetie. Your mom is on her way.” Steve absently touched Grace’s cheek, his smile soft.
Rachel had been beside herself, half shrieking on the other end of the phone, half hyperventilating but she was coming - first charter flight, ferry or helicopter she could secure. But it would take a good couple of hours for her to reach Ohau. Grace had had a long chat with her mother, both reassuring the other that they were ok, the unspoken worry for Danno hanging over them all. And there had been a lot of tears, lots and lots of tears.
Afterwards, as Grace had sat in a sprawl of the emotionally spent and distraught, her expression distant and closed off, Steve had slipped back on to the couch and pulled her closed. Little girl smell, with fruity shampoo, and coconut oil based sunscreen was its own brand of soothing aroma. Who needed aromatherapy. And Steve pulled out his book on Grief Avoidance 101 - and went straight to point one. Distraction. Cue the iPhone and catapult ejected birds.
As Steve turned to follow Kono, Grace sat up on the couch, and Steve felt her watching him, again, eyes tracking his progress.
Chin was talking animatedly on the phone, jabbing his finger into the touch screen with emphasis. Kono though waved Steve over to her side of the table and said quietly, eyes darting at Chin. “We might have a break through. Chin’s arguing about a warrant.”
Steve shot a glance at the collected HPD officers, and Lt. Chou indicated that he was on the phone too. “Tell me,” McGarrett snapped. Kono pulled the rushed fingerprints from the SVU over to them and said, “CSU pulled four distinct sets of prints from the car.”
Nodding, Steve interrupted, “Three dead, one in holding.”
Kono shook her head, a small smile showing, “No, that’s what’s interesting. Two of the sets are for our dead haole. One for Olekane. And one... mystery passenger.” Eyes widening, McGarrett pulled up the stills of the dead suspects from the morgue. “Jurgens and Studer are accounted for.. and Herr was wearing gloves. Any hits on the mystery man?”
“Unfortunately not yet, but before you get too pissed... there’s this.” Kono happily opened an email from immigration and showed Steve a scan of a passport. “Because the whole island is on high alert, some bright spark at immigration spotted this.”
She pointed to a scan of an Italian passport, “This guy flew in last week, five whole days before the other guys, but the thumb print on the passport is Jurgen’s. Different name, different picture, same thumbprint.”
Steve huffed, and made the picture bigger, “That’s either an incredibly stupid forgery or ...”
“Jurgen’s passport had his actual thumbprint on it, so perhaps the forger did a rush job, got things mixed up but either way, a lucky break, Boss,” Kono sighed, bringing all of the passports closer and the fingerprint records.
“Did you run this passport - Vizzini, through Interpol?” McGarrett asked, staring at the picture, burning the man’s face into memory.
Kono nodded, “It’s an alias, definitely. Nothing on Interpol, but the information used to create the identity is sketchy at best, and doesn’t stand up to a lot of scrutiny.”
“But you are running facial recognition on the passport photo?”
Her smile was bright and had a little ‘of course’ thrown in, but Kono quickly replied, “We’re running it through every database we have access to, and Interpol are doing the same.”
Steve leant against the table, arms stiff with suppressed frustration, fingers taping on the edge. Kono fidgeted slightly, eyes darting over the collected information. Finally, McGarrett sighed, “Good, good. What’s the warrant for?”
Across the table, Chin was giving them a thumbs up. Kono noted the signal as well and replied, “The real good news - this guy, Gianfranco Vizzini, has a reservation at the Halekulani. And now we have a warrant to search the place.”
McGarrett was moving, heading for the doors, checking his firearm. “Kono, good job. Stay here with, Grace?”
McGarrett phrased it as a question more than an order but Kono’s face said it all - she wasn’t impressed, but she nodded anyway.”I’ll call if facial rec pops up anything.”
Steve nodded, not really paying attention, noting several HPD officers were also mobilizing, and that Chin was hard on his heels. Steve paused to wave at Grace, not quite daring to promise but hoping none the less.
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“Where is Frank Marks?”
For the first time since three meatheads had grabbed him as he entered his condo, Danny paused before saying, very slowly, very clearly, enunciating each damn word, “I don’t know. Swear to God, I don’t know.” He injected as much credibility and belief into his voice as he could.
Long trails of sweat, or blood, maybe both were running down Danny’s chest and back. If he thought it’d do any good, Danny would have demanded some water or a friggin’ ice cold beer, but the chances of getting a punch in the kisser were a hell of a lot better. And he was tired of being slapped around, so Danny bit back the urge to snark a little, because honestly, he might find himself begging. Instead, Danny braced himself for another blow, punch or cut after his answer - the same he’d been giving all night, but as the seconds dragged by, nothing happened.
Instead, the SOB moved closer, the legs of his chair scraping on the floor with a screech. “We’ve been dancing this annoying two step for hours, Williams, and I’ve been very patient. But my patience is running out, so let’s cut through the crap. I’ll change the question. Do you know who Frank Marks is?”
Danny paused again, fists tight, fingers pulsing in time with his heart. Ah.... this was a tricky one. Once you started answering anything, even the seemingly innocent questions, well... it was a slippery slope. But there had been a night, oh months and months ago, back when he’d first met Steve, and the guy was more Annoying Super Seal to Danny than a partner. Steve’s first stake out with Five-0. Danny’s one millionth stake out. McGarrett had strangely turned out not to be the most annoying person in the world to be trapped in a car with for five hours. But the conversation? Shit scary. An interesting, over the top, ‘you are not serious’ conversation about SERE and surviving interrogations.
So did Danny Williams, currently tied to a chair in a room with a straight razor wielding mad man, know who Frank Marks was?
“Yeah, sure. I know who he is.”
“Good, good. And what does Marks do - as an occupation?”
Ah, and down the rabbit hole of spilling the beans like a stool pigeon Danny went. Licking his lips, Danny coughed, throat dry, and said gruffly, “He’s a crappy small time conman, sorta old school grifter.”
Talking felt wrong, wrong, especially after hours of gritting it out, and being a stubborn SOB himself. But as rapidly as Danny’s brain was reviewing McGarrett’s all to brief review of SERE, another very real, far more important than his own skin, reason for talking was looming inside Danny’s heart.
The guy laughed, “Yeah, you ran into him a couple of times when you were a rookie, right?” He patted Danny’s cheek condescendingly, startling Williams with the sudden movement and the fact that it didn’t hurt.
Startled and worried, Danny drawled in reply, “You’ve done some research...” He tried to resist the urge to flinch away but failed. If the interrogation was continuing along the soft route, Danny wasn’t going to complain - much. And the one big, no, huge bonus to his capitulation to answering ‘the small stuff’ meant that Grace (or whoever, please please be a whoever and not Grace) would be left alone. For that remote, slim possibility that maybe, maybe Grace would be safe, Danny would talk the hind leg off a donkey about shit no one cared about.
Danny refused to think about that when they got back to the ‘big stuff’.
Another laugh from his captor, a laugh full of smug pride, and the bastard sneered, “Of course. I know a hell of a lot more about you, Detective Williams, than you realize. But you busted Marks once after you’d made detective. A con that turned violent...”
Danny nodded, but remained silent. A con that ended in blood and Marks blabbering about needing protection and how it wasn’t his fault!
The guy trailed off, and waited. In the seconds that ticked by, Williams counted silently, wondering how far he could push his ... delay. Not long at all, it seemed and Danny flinched as he felt cold metal slide over his skin. The flat of the razor blade probably. The bastard’s voice was hard again, as unyielding as metal, “When was the last time you saw Marks, Williams?”
Concentrating more on the sensation of threatened violence rather than those distant memories, Danny took the plunge, swallowed and growled, “Not too sure.... maybe a few years ago.”
His growl turned into a strangled hiss as the bastard cut into his arm, long and slow, following the curve of his bicep. “Try again, Williams or Grace gets cut... just like this. Or maybe her sweet, little face...”
‘Shit, shit.’
Breathing hard, Danny bit his lip, and waited for the burn to pass, trying to ignore the new trickle of blood down his arm. It was now, here that he had to decide. The questions were skirting the big question of Marks’s location. The more he answered, the more he slid down the slope of spilling the beans. But the Damocles sword of Grace, Grace, Grace! hanging over his head made his heart pound harder and faster than the prospect of pain. Could he, dare he, gamble his little girl’s life, let alone safety on this information.
“Fine. The Krasnov case.” The words slipped out. Easily.
If the guy was bluffing, and Grace was safe and sound at home.... Not in the next room. Not scared, alone, terrified, hurt. But if she was?
Danny was supposed to have picked her up this morning, and Rachel was away - Grace was his for the whole weekend. But with only the housekeeper at home until Danny came to pick Grace up, the odds of her being safe were... too shaky for his liking. And... shit, the Krasnov case was old news. Old, old news. Not important any more. Really. Sorta. Maybe.
Grace.
“Right, Krasnov,” the guy drawled, dragging out the words. “Enlighten me.”
Pissed, furious, and well - in a great deal of pain, Danny snorted and croaked, “Like you don’t know.”
He knew, the SOB knew all about the case. He had to. It was why he was in Hawaii and why Danny was tied to a chair in an abandoned boat shed, why Grace was maybe, maybe, maybe in a world of trouble. Or maybe ok. Maybe with Steve.
“Oh, I know,” the bastard hissed, breath hot on Danny’s face, the razor back, and tracing circles on his shoulder. “But since you’re being so co-operative and have a little girl to keep safe... you tell me.”
Suddenly, it was too much, all of it - just too much and Danny snapped, “Go to hell! Marks is in the goddamn Witness Protection Program, you moron. I don’t frigging know where he is!”
His pulse was roaring in his ears and absently Danny knew he’d reopened the cuts on his arms and wrists but anger surged through him and adrenalin kept the pain away. But the bastard didn’t cut or punch, or kick ... he stood. The chair fell over, metallic percussion on the cement floor, footsteps loud but away, away from Danny.
Shit!
He was going for Grace and Danny’s heart exploded. “Wait, stop! No!”
Danny had been trying desperately, determinedly not to think, picture Grace in that room. The mind’s eye can conjure up horrors worse than any reality can produce. And sometimes reality out did itself. But right now, helplessly, all Danny could see was his precious little girl, tied up, gagged, crying, bleeding - all because her father was being a hardass about a stupid, long forgotten case.
“Just stop! How in the hell am I supposed to tell you something I don’t know! Please, please... don’t!”
The whole sentence had started out as a shout and as that heart shredding image burned into his brain, Danny’s voice dropped, rolled over and exposed its throat, begging.
“Please.”
The footsteps got louder, closer and Danny’s heart slowed, minutely, in its frantic dance.
Through the blindfold, Danny sensed that the SOB paused in front of him, looming, in control, the one calling the shots.
“Then how, Detective Williams, did he testify in one of your cases, two years after he ‘disappeared’?”
Danny didn’t know whether to be terrified, amazed or panicked. He went with all three. So much for the DA office and their vaunted security measures. So much for the Marshall Service and their tight lips.
Grace’s life hung in the balance. It didn’t matter if she ‘was’ here, in this hell hole. It didn’t matter that maybe she was safe, somewhere else. There were too many maybes, too much possibility, too much uncertainty. And Danny’s brain was about to explode with it all.
So. Screw the DA. Screw the Marshalls. And screw Marks.
“I don’t know where he is - I swear to God! But I know how to contact him.”
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Continued in Part 4
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7