Hello!
I present you the third chapter of the story. It's a little longer than the first two and hopefully you will not close it before reaching the end, because the first half is a little bit different and I wrote it without any knowledge about how it works in the military. So, if you know more, then you better read it with closed eyes .
And this way I'd like to thank Melfris and Guest for reviews, as well as everyone else for following the story. You all keep me motivated to move the story forwards.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Chapter 3: Demons of War
4 years ago
"So, it was like Around the World in Eighty Days?" Captain Lukas Koerner, a military surgeon assigned to the 4th Special Purpose Detachment of the 3rd Special Operations Regiment as a medic, stepped out of the Humvee after Captain Nicole Moore drove it to a stop next to other military vehicles in the parking lot-like space next to the dark green military tent at the military base located somewhere in the Middle East.
"No, not really. How many times do I have to tell you that it was neither eighty days nor around the world. It was only four weeks and we spent them in the Farther India." She retorted after she closed the driver's side door and went to open the backdoor to get her bag.
"Who is we?" From behind the Humvee that parked simultaneously with the two captains jumped out a shorter skin-tanned man with dark hair, the First Lieutenant Terrance Galleano, radio specialist. He greeted the doctor with their special handshake. Captain Moore only shook her head at their childish behavior. Then Lieutenant Galleano turned his attention to her, ready to get the answer to his question but she silenced him by raising a pointing finger in warning.
"Zip it, Swordfish! Don't. Even. Try." She tried to say as seriously as possible, even gave him a threatening look. But before Terrance "Swordfish" Galleano could drop the topic, his question got answered by the doctor.
"She's been dating this guy for a while. Spent some time of the leave together in Thailand and Malaysia." He laughed at the look on the fellow captain's face and if looks could kill, he would have been dead right now. Like twice.
"Traitor!" She shouted, baring teeth at both of them, put the bag on her shoulder and left toward the command center, an old timeworn building behind the tent, leaving behind the laughs and facetious remarks. "Children."
But as much as she tried to be angry with either of them, it never worked.
Although Lieutenant Galleano's nickname was Swordfish, due to his endless inquisitiveness, he was a trustworthy man, brave soldier and a great friend. But maybe from time to time it would do no harm to him to pacify his witty Italian-French personality.
As for the Captain Lukas "Coroner" Koerner, his German roots equipped him with punctuality and accuracy at what he does.
Truth to be told, they were an irreplaceable asset to the team. The same sticks to the rest of the team, Lieutenants Riley "Rye" Reyfeld and Ryan "Frostbite" Kreutz.
...
Captain Moore stepped into a small, poor- furnished conference room. The four members of the team had been quietly sitting at the old scratched wooden table. The scene reminded her of disobedient students in the principal's office. However, after she realized their team had been joined by another three army officers, she knew the truth couldn't be far from the scene from school. And on top of that, she came late and that was a big no in this department. But when those puppies were so cute...
At the sudden movement at the doorstep, all seven pairs of eyes were stabbing her, some of them more, some less.
"Did they teach you in the elementary school what is time and how it works?" Asked the man who was seated at the head of the oval table situated in the middle. The man was the highest ranked army officer in the room, General Reginald Parson himself. In the full uniform and with the sharp expression on his face he looked frightening. No one would want to get on his bad side, it was a so-called suicide. And yet, someone had the guts to turn up late, and it didn't matter she had been only almost two minutes late.
"I'm sorry, sir." She apologized, turned her eyes to the ground and without a word sat down on the empty seat by Riley's side.
"There better be a very important reason for being late." She looked up at the man sitting by the General Parson's side, on the left. She didn't know him; his face didn't look familiar at all. But the stars on his uniform told her that he was a Colonel. Colonel Happer, to be exact. Then the feeling of familiarity hit her, although it had been buried too deep to uncover it now. But eventually she would remember where that name came from, so she shook it off for now.
"It won't happen again, sir." She reassured him looking straight into his dark eyes. He only scoffed at her words and let the General Parson start the meeting. She hadn't liked him since the first moment and she had the feeling that maybe her colleagues shared her opinion. But no one could say a word, of course. They were all pulling on the same end of the rope, after all.
"Now that everyone is present, how about we start, in medias res. This right here-" General pointed at the pile of files in front of him, "is all intel we managed to gather on your next mission that starts by the end of the day. But before you get the details, I'd like to introduce you Colonel Richard Happer."He pointed to the dark-eyed man on his left side. After receiving the information about the health of the Colonel James Winston and Captain Jackson Pratt's decision to leave, I had to reassure the Tactical Operation Center that this unit would be fully functional. After Colonel Happer's personal request and a thoughtful consideration of unit's status, I decided to assign the 3rd SPD to Colonel Happer, along with the unit's new commanding officer of his own choosing, Captain Jonathan Reith." General pointed at the man who had a smug look on his face as he was sitting on Colonel's left side, clearly enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame.
At this gesture, the original members gave each other confused looks until their gazes met at Captain Nick Moore. They presumably didn't approve of the change, as they believed that if there had been any changes in the leadership, Captain Moore would become the new commander. She had proved that she was more than capable of handling things around here and everyone knew it. But obviously women in leading positions were not trusted, especially in military. Or did this curse revolve only around this unit? One could have been wondering about it as more and more women had taken over higher seats in this food chain in the recent years.
They had expected that General's words get a reaction out of her, a possible objection, but she had just been closely listening to every word that left the General's lips, not paying any attention to her indignant fellows.
She tried hard to look calm on the outside, but deep down it had infuriated her. They couldn't replace someone who they had known for years with someone who they had known for five minutes, and not to mention the fact that by the end of the day they would face the enemy. She had known people more suitable for this position and none of them were Captain Reith or Colonel Happer, in that matter. There had been one significant part missing. Trust. 'You can't assign it, you earn it' were one of the first words their former commanding officer told them at the beginning of their journey many years ago.
"My part here's over now so I'll leave space to Colonel Happer. But before I leave..." He looked at each of the five members, "You've been highly successful in the past in direct attack missions. That's why I chose you to do this. Don't let me down." The words came out and one might think they were sincere. It was a risk to create a special unit with not one, but two women, but his worry about possible regrets had slowly disappeared and now he had fully trusted the team's competence. With a nod, he left five members of the Special Purpose unit in the room to talk about the details with their new man in charge and his yes man.
"Now back to work-related business, please." Colonel Happer jumped up and made everyone's head turn to him. "What you are going into requires you being in your top form, both physically and mentally." He opened the first folder that was on top of the pile and sent it over to male participants before continuing. "We got a word from our sources that some important documents had been stolen from the transit. The package you're going to pick up is located right here." He took the second folder and sent it the same way as previously.
"Idiot." Riley murmured under her breath silently only to get unnoticeably jabbed in the ribs by Nick's elbow. 'Grow up.' She mouthed.
"What kind of documents are we talking about?" Galleano interrupted. Nick rolled her eyes. Who else than Swordfish would ask silly questions. It had been obvious they didn't want them to know the true nature of the stolen documents, but he had a point though.
"I'm afraid that is-" He got interrupted again.
"A secret. Of course, it is a secret." Nick gave Galleano a look that said he should have known better. Then turned to the man in charge to ask the same question. "With all due respect, sir, how do we know what kind of papers to retrieve? As much as we know now, it can be anything from magazines to leaflets-"
"Or even a toilet paper." Riley somewhat unimpressed with the current situation added her opinion that earned a few laughs, even the corners of Colonel's mouth quirked up.
"It's good to see humor's still with you, Lieutenant. We will see how far it goes." The tone of his voice changed from light to serious in a matter of milliseconds. "And to answer your question, Captain, the files you're looking for are locked in an inaccessible safety box located in a small compound that is, for our advantage, not heavily armed or secured. We believe that the enemy works under an assumption that we won't be looking for the package there, as we would not expect it to be on such an accessible location. Inside the box, there is a one single hard disk drive containing information about many military operatives. If the information become public or end up in enemy's hands, know, there will be a lot of blood and dozens of widows. That's how much I can tell you about the files." He finished, noticing that for the first time everyone in the room had been on the same page, and smiled for himself inside his head.
All of the them were discussing the details afterwards to come up with a solid plan of attack. In these situations everyone had needed to be silent, except a blowing grenade or smoke can here and there as a replacement of door knocking, and extremely fast so the opposite part wouldn't catch what hit them in time. Retrieve the thing and get lost before any possible back-up would arrive. As many times as they had done the same thing like this one, it had never got easier. The task was there, the enemy too, and not to mention the same risk of losing lives.
"...and before I leave I got one last thing." Colonel Happer stood up, straightening his jacket. "I don't expect any trouble, but if you get into any, we don't know you and you don't know us. Are we clear?"
"Yes, sir." Everyone said automatically in unison.
Colonel Happer looked at each soldier, his eyes lingering on Nick's for few seconds longer as he wished them good luck. Then, after he patted their new commanding officer on the shoulder, he made his way to the door.
Only after he had left they allowed themselves to let sink in the fact that they were sent on a black op which means that if it goes south, they are on their own.
...
"I don't like it." Lieutenant Ryan Kreutz, known as Frostbite, complained as they were putting their tool bags into the Humvee trunks in the early evening. "I don't like it." He repeated.
"What's up with you, Frosty?" Riley, who was leaning on the side of the vehicle, asked him after she couldn't take the complaining any longer. "I thought your nickname meant that you can keep your head cool in every situation?" She asked, wondering about the actual reason why did the name stick to him.
"You're forgetting the fact that he grew up in the Swiss Alps." Galleano piped in.
"Well, that could work too." She shrugged. "Maybe we could ask the Coroner if he could diagnose him. He's somehow losing his cool." She whispered quietly that only Nick could hear her.
She laughed but then realized Captain Koerner was not with them. "Speaking of that, have any of you seen Luke? He should've been here already. I want to say goodbye before we leave." Nick looked at the watches on her right wrist, seeing that it was almost the right time to leave.
"What? Don't like when someone's late?" Galleano smirked.
"Oi, just shut up." Nick shushed him.
"Speak of the devil." Riley interrupted them as she saw Captain Koerner coming their way. "And Happer and Hopper right behind him."
"Oh no, you didn't." Galleano tried hard to contain his laugh but it got harder and harder by every second.
"I like that." Nick said as Frostbite raised his eyebrows. "What? We all know that he hops like Happer whistles."
...
"You. Gotta. Be. Kidding. Me." Riley said disbelievingly at the sight in front of her. Not that she had seen much, everything had been covered in the darkness and for an hour or so it still would be, but thanks to the night vision she got the foundation of the picture.
"Sir, I think there is no way we can get close unnoticed if we go from here." Frostbite informed their commander as he scanned the area himself.
"We could go around and try from the opposite, northern side. We've seen the maps, we might find there a way to go in." Galleano tried.
But commander did not acknowledge their opinions, he had been deep in thoughts. "Captain Moore, what's your insight?" He turned his attention to the silent person standing by his left side. "When women are silent, even God has no idea what's goin' on in their minds. Care to share?" He tried to joke with no success and plus it smelled like the kind of jokes that Colonel Happer would use.
"Going around to approach the compound from opposite side would take too much time. We wouldn't make it out by sunrise if we all went there." She argued after she collected and sorted the facts.
"Very well. What do you suggest then?" He prompted.
"Let me and Lieutenant Kreutz approach from here. You, Lieutenant Galleano and Lieutenant Ryefeld can go and try to get there by the time we'll be on the way out." She suggested in the same manner as when she had been the second in command.
"You can't be ser-" Riley tried to argue when commander interrupted her.
"I must agree with Captain Moore, Lieutenant." He turned back to Nick. "You have quite outstanding deductive skills... " He paused. "For a woman." Satisfied with his remark, he continued. "It is decided then. Kreutz, Moore, you've got ten minutes, then go. Reyfeld, Galleano, with me. See you on the other side." With that he secured his tactical gear and left, Galleano with a nod to his colleagues quickly following his steps while Riley managed to utter final words to Nick.
"You're dead." She whispered in a serious tone and then smirked, letting her friend know that they are still on good terms with each other.
There were only two of the team left at the original spot. Lieutenant Ryan Kreutz and Captain Nicole Moore.
"I though Colonel said it was a cornfield when we discussed the details" He mused loudly.
"Obviously not." She muttered in response, not really surprised that things turned out this way at the very beginning.
They only could guess what would happen next as they were looking at the at least half a mile-long strawberry field that they had to crawl across unnoticed to reach the premises of the compound...
...
Then the fire died down.
...
She had been burning in the blazing fire of pain.
And then everything went to black.
...
But the pain came back.
And then it subsided as she welcomed the darkness.
Again.
…...
She woke up covered in sweat. Not only were her demons haunting her through the day, but they didn't leave her alone at night either. It took a strong will to keep going, day by day, night by night, running away only to bump into them head first once again. If there was some bright light at the end of the misery, and she was sure there was, it was worth to keep going. To take things to the finish line and restore what needed to be restored.
She pulled herself together before standing up to go to the bathroom to take a cold shower to fully wake up and wash away the bits and pieces of another nightmare.
She picked up her phone to check the time first, and if someone had been looking for her. Time on the screen read 5:21 in the morning and below the time was a notification of one missed call. She clicked on the icon in hope that Joe White had finally found time for her. But her prayers were not answered. Riley called, most likely she wanted to know how the bar meeting went the previous evening. There was not much to talk about except what she learnt while sitting at the bar listening to the senseless rambling of a man who wanted to drink away the memories of his ex or to occasional screams of small group of half-drunk college students who obviously passed the finals' week. But whether she wanted or not, she had to return the call. But not before she took a shower.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"So, you're saying that he didn't show up and you spent the night at the bar by yourself." Riley mused after she had listened to everything Nick had told her. "And he didn't pick up when you called him. So, you left him a voice mail where you told him..." She paused for a second. "And he hadn't called back yet." Another pause. "Seriously, what's wrong with them men, that's not how you treat a woman, especially if the woman is you... Hey, stop laughing, it's not funny!" She addressed the last part to someone who was standing next to her. "So whatcha gonna do now?" She turned her attention back to the ongoing conversation.
"I'm not sure. He was the only person who could put some light into it." She sighed before the bulb in her head turned on. She was fresh out of shower but her brain still took its sweet time to become fully functioning again. "Hey, Rye, could you get me his home address? I think I have no other choice." She grew aggravated by every moment at the unnecessary trouble she got because of one man. This part should have been the easiest. Yet, the same had been said about many missions and similar situations and in the end, they turned out to be one hell of a mess.
"I'm on it." Riley interrupted her line of thoughts which Nick was thankful for. 'Not the right time to dwell on the past.' She reminded herself for like hundredth time since she had arrived on the Island.
"Just send me the address when you get it."
"Yup. Hope to hear from ya soon." Nick disconnected the call afterwards and landed on the bed, watching the ceiling fan, not really thinking about anything.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Crime never slept and with every sunrise came new challenges and the Wednesday morning wasn't any different.
Danny parked his Camaro at Steve's driveway. He had been infuriated that his partner didn't pick up his phone when he called twice. Or when Chin Ho Kelly called, for that matter. All the way from his apartment to Steve's house he had wondered if Steve had been still asleep or doing some ninja related stuff they had taught him in the Army. 'Or Navy... Whatever.'
He didn't bother to knock this time, he simply used the help of the spare key he managed to "borrow" from Steve's bunch of keys when he wasn't looking. After inviting himself in, he scanned the downstairs area but his partner was nowhere to be found. That was until he heard someone turning on a shower in the bathroom upstairs.
Now that he was reassured that everything was alright and everyone was alive, except for the man lying in the alley who was waiting for them, he moved to the kitchen to make himself and Steve a mug of fresh coffee and impatiently had been waiting for Steve to grace him with his presence.
Ten minutes later, already dressed Steve ran down the stairs confused after smelling the coffee in the air. To his surprise, when he stepped into the kitchen, Danny was leaning on the kitchen counter, sipping coffee from his mug.
"Danny... What are you doing here?" Steve sounded like it was impossible for Danny to be standing in his kitchen, and yet, there he was.
"Good morning to you too. Now that you're finally here, can you, please, tell me, why you didn't pick up your phone when I called you?"
"Maybe because I was showering?" Steve answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Twenty minutes ago?" Danny raised an eyebrow.
"I was swimming and believe it or not, I don't have the phone on me when I'm swimming." Steve reasoned.
"Right. And tell me what you were doing fifty minutes ago when Chin called? You know what? Don't even say it because you were swimming." Danny sighed, putting down his coffee.
"I was." Steve shrugged and took his coffee to take a sip. "So anyway, what are you doing here?"
"I'm here, because we have a case. Which you would know about if you picked your ph-" Danny paused in the middle of a sentence as he watched Steve making a face after taking a sip of the coffee. "Hey, you okay?" Steve's eyes wandered over and froze upon the fridge. Danny noticed it right away and realized what was going to happen. "Are you serious? How can you put something like that in the coffee!" He blamed Steve. "You know what?" Danny raised both his hands in surrender. "You're disgusting and I'm going to wait for you in the car. Just hurry up."
Smile on Steve's face grew as Danny left him on his own, not wanting to see how he "jeopardized" Danny's excellent coffee with a spoon of butter.
...
When Steve and Danny arrived on the crime scene, it had already been full of Honolulu Police Department officers, Crime Scene Unit members, and there was a small curious crowd gathering behind the police tape.
"I'm telling you one last time. It is an act of barbarism!" Danny shouted from behind Steve when he had not responded to him. He's been giving him one of his talks all the way to the crime scene about how coffee and butter don't mix. Little did Danny know that Steve turned off his receiver right after they drove off. Arguing with Danny was useless as he always had to have the last word.
After not getting a response, Danny seemed to drop the subject as they were making their way to the victim that had already been examined by Dr. Max Bergman, the Chief Medical Examiner.
"'Morning, Max. What do we have?" Danny greeted the doctor and moved to look at the body.
"Good morning to you too, Detective. Commander." Max stood up and greeted them in response before he informed them on what he had found out. "Male, white, in his thirties. No ID. Time of death around midnight but I'll be able to give you better numbers after the further examination."
"How about the cause of death?" Steve piped in to the conversation. Danny gave him a look of disapproval.
"I was going to get to that." He squatted down and pointed at the victim's chest. "The cause of death was a single gunshot wound right to his chest. I'm positive that it went right through his heart but there's no exit wound. As soon as I extract the bullet, I'll send it to the lab. But there's more. I believe this is not the primal crime scene considering that there's small amount of blood on the ground and the marks on his body indicating that after getting shot he fell down face first. He had been moved." Max informed them
"Thanks, Max." Steve wanted to turn around and find Chin to know if anyone had witnessed anything strange at night.
"Wait a second, Commander!" Max called out, wanting to share last piece of the evidence he found. He stood up and walked around the body only to squat down on the opposite side. He picked up the victim's right arm and carefully rolled up the sleeve to uncover the forearm. "I found a tattoo on the inner side of his forearm. I already asked Lieutenant Kelly to send it to Officer Kalakaua." He turned the arm a little, so Detective Williams and Commander McGarrett could see the inked picture better. They didn't expect to see what they did. "I think he was in the Navy." Max said as they kept looking at the tattooed anchor and eagle holding a trident and a shotgun in his claws. There were two options: either he was a big fan of United States Navy SEALs or he was one of them. If it was the latter though, things might get personal for Steve as he himself was a Navy SEAL.
...
A half an hour later, Chin joined Kono at the Headquarters and together they had already been standing by the smart table in silence, uploading and sorting the found information and still in search of another leads. Steve and Danny arrived fifteen minutes later. Both of them were quietly walking side by side as they walked into the briefing room.
"Tell me you got something, Kono." Steve broke the silence as he stopped by Kono's right side next to the table, facing Danny who stopped to stand next to the other cousin.
"Well, first, I got an ID." She pulled up the photo on a monitor and gave Steve a look that confirmed what he had been thinking. "His name is Jackson Abbott, 33, and he is a Navy Lieutenant." Everyone looked sympathetically at Steve who, they knew, had probably taken this as seriously as an attack on his own family. "His older brother, Jeremy Abbott, is a Navy SEAL, currently deployed in the Middle East. Jackson is divorced, no children. His mother lives fifteen minutes from here." Kono continued. "And looks like this runs in the family because his father was a Captain. He died two years ago of a heart attack. His name's-"
"John Abbott." Steve suddenly blurted out, not giving Kono a chance to finish her sentence. Everyone stood there surprised that he knew the name.
"Yes, John Abbott. How do you know?" Kono said at the same time as Danny asked: "Do you know him?"
Steve had been thinking about it for a while, remembering where he knew that name from.
"The last time I've heard about him, he was a close friend of Joe White." Steve said, the name of the man leaving a bitter taste in his mouth as he still had not forgiven him the betrayal. "All I know is that they pulled off some pretty crazy stunts back in the days."
"How much do you think Joe knows about John and his family?" Danny inquired.
"Joe definitely knows more than he says he knows." Chin answered when he saw that Steve had declined to talk about Joe White anymore.
"Alright, anything else? Someone popped up as a possible suspect?" Danny prompted, trying to lead the conversation off the subject as he noticed that it had made Steve slightly uncomfortable.
"Nothing yet. You might want to talk to the parents." Kono addressed to the Commander.
"Sounds good. Danny and I will go talk to the parents. Chin, you pay a visit the ex-wife. Kono, go through the camera footage from the area, see if there's something to hold on to. Hopefully we will find the original crime scene soon." Steve gave an order. "And let me know when you get the word from ballistics on the bullet." Steve ordered before he walked out of the room with Danny behind him.
...
Steve and Danny were leaving Mrs. Abbott's house when they got a word from the ballistics. The 9mm bullet extracted from Navy Lieutenant Jackson Abbott came from a gun he owned. It had not been the result they had been hoping for but they would not up on finding the justice for the man. Steve promised his mother that he would find the man behind the murder of her son, although he knew that making promises like that is a risk. But sometimes one could not help it when it reached close to home, the thoughts of his best friend Freddie appearing in his mind.
"Maybe we could ask Joe, you know, he might know something." Danny stated. "Are you even listening to me?" Danny raised his voice as his partner kept walking without a word to the car. "Stop giving me a silent treatment! I didn't do anything to you!" He shook his head at Steve's antics as he opened the door, sat behind the wheel, waiting for Danny to join him.
"What do you think you'll achieve with this, Danny?" Steve simply asked as Danny closed the door behind him.
"Well, I think that maybe he knows something. Even the smallest details could help. And I see in what desperate need of details you are now. Details that will help us get the monster who did this behind bars. Now tell me you don't want any of this." Danny reasoned and Steve found pieces of truth behind his words. When he didn't say anything, Danny assumed that Steve finally agreed to what he had been insinuating. "Good. But if you decide you don't want to go in, you can stay in the car." Danny finished as Steve drove off toward Joe White's house.