Rescuing Hi`ilani (Special Forces: Operaton Alpha) (Delta Force Hawaii)

by Reina Torres

  She wanted him to know ahead of time that Jackson was in the audience. He’d likely come backstage after the show and given the last time that Mackie had seen Jackson, he’d given him a rather large piece of his mind.

  Sliding her feet into her slippers she left her dressing room and headed down the flight of stairs to the ground floor. A quick wave at a stagehand, and she was out the door.

  She didn’t hear or see anything at first.

  “Mackie?”

  Still nothing.

  Pursing her lips together she turned on her heel to go back inside.

  “You leave me out of this.”

  She stopped short.

  The voice had been an echo. She knew it was Mackie and it was outside, but she hadn’t seen him.

  Turning back around she narrowed her eyes to look deeper into the shadows of the park. A large over-hanging tree made everything seem darker. “Mackie?” She whispered into the dark. “What’s going on?”

  “You got into this trouble all by yourself, old man. We’ve given you enough time to square things up. Now we want what you owe us.”

  She heard the words.

  Heard the scuffle of sound.

  Looking around she didn’t see anyone on the street.

  They were a block away from the Chinatown Police Substation. Where was everyone?

  A soft groan of pain punctuated a soft thump.

  Tears sprung to her eyes as she struggled to understand what was happening.

  She wanted… no, she needed to find Mackie and get him inside where there were other people.

  Safety in numbers. That’s what people always said.

  And from the voices she heard. The numbers were against Mackie.

  Hi`ilani took a few steps toward the door before she heard another few thumps of sound. When Mackie cried out and began to beg, she knew she couldn’t leave him alone out there with whoever was hurting him.

  He’d stood by her for years and she was going to stand by him.

  Once she found him.

  The audience knew something was going on. The end of one act had rolled easily into the next all night, but now the stage was empty.

  Jackson turned when Mary put her hand on his arm.

  She leaned in and gave him a wink. “How did you ever let that girl go?”

  He looked back at her and didn’t really have an answer.

  After seeing the two couples and knowing that their entire unit was happily living their lives and doing their missions flawlessly he had no answer for her. Nothing that made sense, anyway.

  Rayne leaned forward and gave him a disbelieving look. “Her voice is incredible! And the way she dances,” she leaned against Ghost’s arm and sighed, “I understand what people say about hula. They really tell a story with their movements.”

  Truck chuckled low in his chest. “The way someone described it to me before we left, I was expecting it to be more like a mime.”

  Jackson nodded, his eyes straying to the stage. “I didn’t know what to expect at my first show either. It didn’t take me long to appreciate the art in it.”

  Truck picked up Mary’s hand in his and brought it to his lips. “When you’ve got the right woman at your side, it really changes the way you see things.”

  Jackson blew out a breath. “Yeah,” he leaned to the side and bumped his arm against the man sitting beside them. “Sorry, sir,” he offered the apology, “I was just trying to see backstage.”

  The man waved if off. “Not a problem, son. Sounds like you know someone in the cast?”

  He cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.”

  Jackson might have said more if he hadn’t seen the curtains move at the side of the stage.

  A group had gathered in the wings and there were enough voices in the mix to make the sound nearly audible in the house.

  He saw Kaleo push through the group to talk to the stage manager and that’s when he moved.

  He had no way of knowing what was going on.

  Not really.

  It was just a feeling, deep down in the pit of his stomach.

  He barely managed to mutter an, “Excuse me,” as he moved to the end of the row and started up the aisle.

  The conversation continued and right before he reached the apron on the stage Kaleo looked over in his direction.

  Something was wrong and it had to do with Hi`ilani. He’d had a feeling when Mackie hadn’t come out on stage to do her introduction.

  And he knew her well enough to know that she’d come out anyway if something had prevented Mackie from coming out on stage, because ‘the show must go on.’

  He jogged up the steps at the side of the stage and none of the stage hands tried to stop him.

  Panic.

  He felt it nagging at the edges of his calm.

  When things went bad on a mission, they had plans based on plans based on plans. But there was nothing to prepare him for this kind of situation.

  Once he was at the corner of the stage he looked around, assessing the situation.

  The majority of the staff and cast were gathered in the wings of stage left, crowded near the front of the fly rail. Their voices were getting louder, but he didn’t need to hear their words, he saw it all in Kaleo’s face. He knew the man enough to know that he wasn’t above messing with him because of what he’d done, but the expression on his face told a different story.

  She wouldn’t be in her dressing room. That would have been checked already. The other usual places, too.

  A soft bump of sound off to the left turned his head.

  The side door to the park was open.

  That struck him as odd. He’d been in the building before and had heard the warnings. That door had to remain closed to keep out the homeless that sometimes inhabited the park from time to time.

  That was a place to start.

  Pushing his way out of the door, he closed it quietly behind him.

  Sorting through the sounds of the city around him, he searched for the one sound he needed to hear. Her voice.

  The pond in the park wasn’t natural. The city had spent a chunk of money installing a pump system that looked like it was a big rock pile.

  That’s where she figured the sounds had to come from, the dark side of that installation.

  Just a few weeks ago there had been a restaurant open on the far side of the pond and that would have made it impossible to hide back there with a bunch of patio tables just a foot or two away, but now it was only too clear how dangerous this whole area was now.

  Dark enough to make people invisible to prying eyes.

  She felt the rocks before she expected to. She jammed her toes into the rough surface and barely held back a cry of pain.

  “I’ll get you your money. I just need more time.”

  A rough grunt was followed by a withering moan.

  They were hurting him!

  “No more, please. I already promised you-”

  Hi`ilani moved forward, her mind furiously working over her options, or the lack of them. She had to do something.

  And soon.

  “And you don’t have the money, so your promises are no good. Are they?”

  The metallic click that echoed in the quiet night air pushed her forward and the rock she was circling tore her gown.

  The sound of the rip sounded like a scream in the darkness and that was enough to startle everyone.

  “Who came out here with you?”

  “No one,” Mackie groaned, “I came alone. Like you said.”

  “We need to go! If someone’s out there-”

  “We’ll take him with us and get the cash.”

  “Fine,” Mackie sounded like he was crying, “take me with you. I won’t fight.”

  He’d given up. Mackie sounded like he wanted to die.

  That was unacceptable.

  She wasn’t going to let that happen.

  “Don’t! Please!” She rushed toward the voices and stopped when she saw a gun pointed right at her. “Let
him go.”

  “You brave or stupid, girl?”

  Holding her hands out in front of her, she tried to get a look at Mackie, but he was deep in the shadows. Only the ghost of a glimmer from his jacket was visible in the faint light of the security light from the abandoned restaurant.

  “Stupid,” she told them. “I’m stupid, but Mackie’s my friend. Please let him go. I won’t tell anyone about-”

  A door banged open behind her and the world stopped spinning.

  The soft lapping sounds of the pond turned into a heavy slush of sound. The two men before her froze and then burst into sluggish movements.

  Mackie was pulled into the light, his face contorted into a mask of fear… for her.

  The men were mad, blaming Mackie for a double cross, but she couldn’t seem to speak or move. She just stood there with her arms in front of her, lost in the most terrifying moment of her life.

  She heard footsteps pounding across the pavement behind her.

  Help was coming.

  She knew that.

  “Damn Bitch!”

  She heard a metallic click and her eyes lifted. There were two guns pointed at her now.

  And two men moving away from her, toward the far side of the park.

  She felt the first few pangs of hope that everything was going to be okay. If they were moving away. They weren’t planning to shoot

  And she smiled.

  Smiled at Mackie.

  So that he’d know everything was going to be fine.

  “Someone’s got to pay!”

  “No!”

  She told herself to move. Told her legs to move. She should have been able to do something.

  But Mackie did.

  He pulled himself free and turned.

  “Get down!” Someone behind her was shouting, repeating the order again, but she kept her eyes on Mackie.

  That’s why she saw it happen.

  Both guns exploded at the same time. She was sure she felt the concussion of the shots, but it was only when Mackie fell into her that she began to drop.

  She wrapped both arms around him to cushion his fall and lifted her face to look at the men in disbelief.

  One at a time they passed under the streetlight at the other end of the park and she saw them. Saw their faces.

  It was probably only for a moment, but that moment seemed to last forever for her.

  Until everything went black.

  Blood.

  Shit. There was so much damn blood.

  Jackson heard Ghost’s command and was more than eager to follow it. He dropped down to the cement beside Hi`ilani and Mackie.

  He found pulses for both and called the information over his shoulder. One of the women answered back. Someone was on a cell phone with 911. The rest of it was just noise.

  Someone must have turned on the flood lights because the whole park was suddenly lit up like it was daytime.

  Mackie groaned and tried to move, but Jackson put a steadying hand on his shoulder. “You’re shot. Let me help you.”

  The two wounds were easily visible on the back of his jacket. The flood lights only made it look garish and horrifying. Mackie wasn’t a big man and the shots had drilled through his back.

  “I don’t… don’t think they went through.”

  Gingerly, Jackson rolled Mackie to the side so he could see between them.

  There was blood on her arms where she’d wrapped them around Mackie during their fall. He’d seen that much. There was no blood on her dress, no sign that she had been shot as well. He began to peel off his jacket.

  “No,” he told the older man, “you saved her.”

  A soft laugh coughed from his lips and bubbles of blood burst from his mouth and popped against his chin and cheeks. “She… saved me.”

  Sirens blared out into the night, cutting through the excited murmurs of the gathering crowd.

  “Ambulance is coming.” Jackson gave him a smile. “Hold on.” Quickly folding his jacket, he placed it against Mackie’s back to staunch the flow of blood.

  Mackie’s next breath wheezed from his throat. “Don’t bother.” Another cough, weaker this time. “Tell her… that I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” Jackson leaned down, trying to catch Mackie’s eye.

  “Move aside, sir. Emergency Services.”

  He wanted to argue and ask Mackie the question again. Instead his training took over and he rattled off the observations he’d kept fresh in his head.

  One EMT worked on each of them at the site, calling out observations to the other while they worked.

  Movement from the other side of the park drew his eyes for a moment.

  Ghost and Truck were back, empty handed. Chinatown was a maze of dark entries and back alleys. Criminals who worked the streets likely knew every little nook and cranny. He turned back to the scene and felt a gentle hand touch his arm.

  Rayne leaned in closer, her voice reaching his ear easily. “What happened?”

  “She hit her head, but she wasn’t shot. I don’t think Mackie’s going to make it.”

  As they all gathered together, Jackson kept his focus on both of them as the EMTs examined the two. His hands itched and he looked down at them, there was drying blood on his right hand, left over from trying to stop the flow of Mackie’s blood.

  “Here,” Rayne handed him a packet of wipes, murmuring, “I’ve gotten used to carrying them around with all the crazy stuff that happens.”

  Truck reached out and pulled Mary into his arms as the EMT working on Hi`ilani turned to look up at Jackson. “We’ll need to take him in first. They can send another ambulance for her in a few minutes.”

  Jackson crouched down beside her and smoothed his hand over her face, quietly speaking to her. “Hey, hey… I need you to wake up.”

  Her eyes fluttered open and she started, jerking away from his hand.

  “You’re okay.” He reached out a gentle hand to touch her, but she pulled away, pushing up onto her hands as she looked around at the unfamiliar faces beside him, her eyes widening in confusion. He tried to draw her attention back to him so she wouldn’t see the EMTs. “They’re sending another ambulance and-”

  Another.

  She mouthed the word and turned.

  The two EMTs seemed frozen in time. Sitting still as statues until one lifted his head to look at the other.

  All it took was a subtle head shake and the world fell apart.

  “No.” Hi`ilani got up on her knees, but she couldn’t stand. The long length of her gown was caught up with her legs. The EMTs lifted Mackie’s still form onto the gurney. She reached out a hand. “No, wait!”

  The EMT on the far side of the gurney gave her an apologetic look. “We’re sorry, miss.”

  “No, no… you can’t stop trying. Just get him to the hospital.”

  Jackson helped her to her feet, but he had a feeling she didn’t even know what he was doing.

  The other EMT reached down to the base of the gurney and lifted the edge of the sheet.

  “No, no! Please don’t. Not him. Not him.” She reached out a hand toward them and froze.

  Some of the blood on her hands was still wet, glistening between her fingers.

  Jackson wrapped his arms closer around her body. “Babe, don’t look.”

  “Oh my God!”

  She turned her hand in one direction and then the other. The pale glow of the street light cast enough light to make her skin sallow and the blood a glossy red-black that made Jackson’s skin crawl.

  And he’d seen his share of blood.

  When the EMTs turned away to roll the gurney toward the ambulance, she came to life again. Lurching forward, one of her feet stomped on the toe of his shoe. She was light enough that he didn’t really notice it.

  All he could do was hold onto her as she started to cry… and scream… and beg.

  It was the begging that did it.

  Tears swam in his eyes as he heard her begging them to try again. To try something el
se.

  “Me!” She pounded her open hand against her chest. “It was supposed to be me!”

  “Baby, stop.”

  She tried to push away from him, free herself from his restraining hold, but he didn’t let her.

  “They did everything they could-”

  “Don’t!” Hi`ilani turned on him. She brought her hands up between them and shoved at him with her palms. “Don’t say that! He’ll be fine. He will! They just can’t give up… no, no!” She started to turn around again, but he lowered his arms to her lower back, pulling her closer against his body.

  Her arms were loose but he didn’t care.

  She pounded at his shoulders, raining blows down on him as she struggled in his embrace, but he didn’t let go.

  Not when the ambulance pulled away.

  Not when the police tried to speak to her.

  Not even when she wore herself out, her hands dropping listlessly to her side and her voice wore down into a rough whisper.

  He didn’t let go.

  Jackson figured he’d done enough of that in the past. From now on, he was going to make it up to her. No matter what it took.

  Chapter 4

  She was surprised when Jackson just took her exactly where she said she wanted to go. Maybe he was giving her a break. The last day certainly hadn’t done her any favors, turning what should have been the happiest day in her life into the worst.

  The police detective had followed them to Queen’s Hospital and questioned her in the examination room. She knew Jackson wanted to argue with the timing, there was no mistaking the angry clench of his jaw and the tight tick of a muscle in his cheek.

  From there, they’d gone to the police station, the main HPD office on Beretania Street was just no more than two blocks away. Officer Wong had started her on the mug shots in the computer and switched to physical pictures when her eyes blurred and her headache got worse.

  She knew Jackson had wanted to leave, but she had to stay. If she could find the men in the books then they could arrest them.

  She owed that to Mackie.

  Owed her life to him.

  Jackson opened the passenger door of his Jeep and lifted her down to the ground. She would have argued in the past, but she was too tired to do anything more than push her hand into her purse and grab her keys.