Breaking Free (1) ~ Hawaii Five-0

6. Its you

Seth Madla's poker game, 2:40 pm

We split up into different cars so that it was easier for one of us to leave if they wanted to. Danny was in a car on his own as he made it clear that he wasn't staying the whole time, Junior and Tani in her car, Lou on his own too, and Steve with me in my car. The cars were parked at various spots to surround the abandoned shop where Madla held the poker games. Steve and I were stationed at the front of the shop where we had a clear view of the front entrance,

"Okay guys take a picture of anyone that enters or exits the place, the pictures will be automatically sent to Jerry back at HQ for facial recognition," Steve says over the comms 

"Copy that" the voices of the team members comes through my earpiece.

We got to the location 20 minutes before the meet, so it was pretty quiet. The abandoned shop was one of many shops that were on that street and theirs was the only one that was out of business - to the public at least.

"You know I'm curious," Steve suddenly says to me, "How does a girl like you suddenly switch sides,"

Knowing that he wasn't talking about sports or anything else, I answer him, "Joining the FBI wasn't the first thing that I thought about pursuing;  I thought about going to university and getting another degree but I didn't want to waste any more years learning," I say.

"Bet your degree was useful though," He says,

"My parents made me do it, a degree in business management meant I could get more involved with Lang Incorporated but the skills from that weren't the skills that were needed for the family," I explain to steve.

I look away from him, back towards the shop entrance and I see 2 people stepping out of a car. With the camera in my lap, I lift it up so that I could take pictures of them before they went inside the shop. The car they were in left as soon as the door of the shop closed behind them, I quickly took a picture of its license plates before the car was out of view.

"I had no interest in starting my own business," I carry on saying after taking the pictures,  "and there was no way I could go work a normal job and I didn't see myself enjoying anything else, so... putting my skills to work for the government seemed like the best plan,"

"I understand. Coming out of the navy that's one of the reasons I agreed to start this task force," He says.

"It's like the saying huh? Once you get a taste of something you don't want to taste anything else- or something like that," I chuckle.

"Yeah I'm not sure that's how the saying goes," Steve laughs too

"Well you understood it so I'd say I was pretty accurate," I smile at Steve before turning back to the shop.

"Alright kids I'm getting increased activity on my end, they're walking up to the front," Lou's voice comes through and Steve and I turn on our microphones again.

"Copy that," I respond to him when I see the people Lou was talking about. I zoom in with the camera and take pictures of each one.

"Yeah Junes and I got people going in through the back," Tani informs us as well.

"Well, I guess it's nice to know that criminals are decent enough to show up on time," Danny's sarcastic voice fills my ear. I laugh to myself when I look at the time on my watch and see that it is indeed 3 o'clock.

Several cars started to pull up and go, unloading the passengers that were inside quite frequently now until it finally slowed down to a stop at 4 pm. None of the cars stayed at the shop which is smart, it would draw attention if there were a lot of cars parked in front of an abandoned shop.