Hawaii Five-0 Imagines

Chapter 2

Steve stared at Dr. Bergman uncomprehendingly. He understood the individual words, but not their meaning. "I have a sister," Steve said. "Her name is Mary and she lives on the Mainland."

"Technically, Commander McGarrett, you have a sister and a half-sister," Dr. Bergman corrected. "You only share the DNA of one parent with Officer Grant."

"Are you saying that my dad...," Steve did not have the chance to finish the thought when Dr. Bergman interrupted.

"Actually, you two share Mitochondrial DNA. This is passed through the mother. You and Officer Grant have the same mother."

Steve knew his mother kept secrets, a lot of secrets, but this was a new one. The fact that he had another sister left him reeling. "Who is the father?" he asked. "Unknown," the doctor replied. Steve's mind was grappling with this new discovery, but the professional in him, pushed it to the background, compartmentalizing it with things he would not, or could not, deal with immediately. He would deal with it later, but now there was work to do. Why was Officer Grant's blood at the house of suspected human traffickers?

Steve went to his computer. Called the HPD page, entered his credentials and looked up Officer Alyssa Grant. A picture popped on to his screen. A young woman with honey blond hair and blue eyes looked at him from underneath her uniform hat. He stared, trying to find a family resemblance, but shook himself and went on to read her information.

Her CO was a friend of Steve's father, somebody Steve knew well; Sergeant Kama. Steve picked up the phone. "Hi Sarge, a question for you."

"Always happy to help Five-0," came the reply with just the barest hint of irony. After all, his team did have a reputation of riding roughly shod overall policies and procedures when necessary.

"CSU found a few drops of blood belonging to one of the officers under your command at a crime scene. Just making sure she's ok."

"Officer Grant." It was a statement, not a question and Steve could see Kama nodding on the other end of the line. "She has been temporarily assigned to the Covert Operations Team- dealing with human trafficking to South East Asia and the Middle East. Check with Captain Sandoval- he's in charge there."

"Thanks, Sarge," Steve said and was about to hang up, but Sergeant Kama was not finished.

"She's a good kid, Steve. And a damn fine cop. A few years of seasoning, and you may want to consider her for your Five-0 task force." And with that, Kama hung up.

Steve realized that Dr. Bergman was still in his office. "Doc," he said, "can we keep this between us?"

"Of course, Commander McGarrett. This is your private information to do with what you see fit."

Sandoval picked up on the second ring. "Captain. This is Steve McGarrett of Five-O. Just wanted to check some info with you. In our sweep of the safe house, CSU found some blood belonging to Officer Grant. I understand that she is currently working with your team?

"Yes, she is, Commander. She is actually our informant inside. The traffickers were looking for young, blond, blue-eyed women and she fit the bill. I had heard about the blood and was, frankly concerned, but we've now heard from her and she is OK. In fact, we would appreciate Five-O's participation, in a support capacity, of course, as we move to arrest this ring."

"Support capacity, of course," muttered Steve in mild annoyance. Out loud he said, "Happy to help."

"Grant is indicating that the ring will be at their current location," Sandoval indicated an address in the Liliha neighborhood of Honolulu. "Unless something changes, we are thinking a nighttime raid when the captives are asleep to hopefully mitigate potential casualties."

Steve nodded. "We'll be there."

Even with the lights from downtown, the various neighborhoods could be quite dark at night - advantage and the Five-O team and the police moved carefully and cautiously toward the house. Most lights were off. This type of operation was particularly nerve-racking as there was only a vague idea, thanks to Officer Grant, on where the suspects were in relation to the captives.

On a pre-determined signal, doors were kicked in and smoke and flash-bang grenades were launched. Immediately the house rang with cries and screams of women, as well as men attempting to maintain control of their hostages. Due to the surprise of the operation, the ring members were gathered up rather quickly and the teams performed room – to – room searches to ensure no more suspects were hiding and to ascertain the number and condition of the hostages.

There were about twenty young women in all. Ranging in age from about fifteen to thirty. Steve looked at each face carefully– some were terrified, some belligerent, and some just looked confused after being roused from a deep sleep. He finally spotted the face he was looking for. In the back of a room, holding a sobbing young girl. All the commotion had scared her and now Grant was trying to calm her down.

If Steve had not known better, he would have passed her as just another surfer girl with her long straight blond hair in a ponytail, short shorts, and flip flops. But there was something in her voice and in her presence that drew his attention. Even now, she radiated control and authority that had the other women listening to her. She finally calmed the other girl down and passed her off to one of the policewomen who would be handling the victims. She then looked up at Steve and he noticed her bruised cheek and badly split and swollen lip. Not thinking about what he was doing, he reached out toward her and lifted her chin so he could better see. She did not flinch away but met his gaze with steady blue eyes.

"What happened?" he asked, indicating her injuries.

"Cuz over there, " Grant tossed her head in the general direction of the gang, was beating up on Macy," she pointed to the young girl currently sniffling in the arms of one of the HPD officers. "I told him to pick on somebody his own size, so he picked me." She was very mattered of fact about a beating that looked to have been fairly severe. "Tough," Steve thought approvingly.

She stood up, and Steve found himself staring down into a pair of blue eyes. She seemed to be slightly taller than average; perhaps about 5 ft 6 inches to his 6 foot 1 frame. Although she was quite filthy and had clearly taken a beating, her eyes were bright and she was observing everything around her.

"I'm Officer Alyssa Grant, HPD," she said as she stretched out her hand to Steve.

"McGarrett...that would be Steve McGarrett, Five-O, " Steve stumbled over the words. There was something familiar about her after all.

"An honor, Commander." Steve noticed that she used his military rank. "I have heard a great deal about you and your team."

"Its Steve."

"Alyssa, then," she smiled.

"Hey Grant," Sandoval called from the other room. "Want to do the honors with this S.O.B.?"

"Love to, Cap'n." Alyssa walked to the other room, took the handcuff's proffered by one of the uniformed officers, went to the one that she had indicated hit her and none to gently pulled his arms behind him and cuffed him. "C'mon, Cuz, let's go. They are going to love you in lockup once they find out you like hitting a little girl."

Something was pulling at the back of Steve's mind as he pulled into his driveway several hours later.

After pulling a beer out of the refrigerator and without thinking about it, he went to the boxes that still held his mother's belongings. He rifled through them not really knowing for what he was looking until he found the photo album that contained his parents' wedding pictures. Driven by curiosity he could not understand, Steve took the album and his beer into the living room where he sat on the couch and started leafing through the album.

One of the first ones he came to, had him set this beer down on the coffee table and stare intently at the photograph. Were his eyes working? Could he alter what he was seeing by continuing to stare at the wedding photograph?

Looking back at him, from under the veil and wreath that was the fashion in the late sixties and early seventies was his mother's face. A face that was the mirror image of Alyssa Grant's.