Steve McGarrett pocketed the keys to his car, depositing the vehicle in the small parking area set aside for hikers on the edge of the Kahana Preserve. A back pack was on the seat next to him, and he swung it over his shoulders. There was more than just rope in there; Steve feared that he'd need not just first aid but a heavy dose of emergency medicine. The video that he'd gotten that had led him to this spot was not reassuring. He put Chin's borrowed cell into his pocket after making certain that the tech toy was on vibrate. That would be all that he'd need, for the thing to ring in Chin's favorite song smidgen for all to hear as Steve was trying to decide how best to take down a nest of thugs with a half dead hostage.

Three miles along the Pa'utani Trail, that's what Chin had told him. Steve had to admit, Chin had done a fine job of narrowing down the location of the last call from Hanolo's men, the one where they'd sent that little snippet of recorded agony. Chin had transferred the video onto the computer, he'd said, and backed it up some place else so that it couldn't get 'lost' like the tape from Hanolo's bar.

Steve refused to let the lush beauty of the preserves lull him into the sense of enjoyment that he had always had when he'd hiked around here. He broke into a trot, a fast-paced easy gait that covered the miles swiftly, feeling his wind settle into the rhythm with his heart. He'd have to do this more often, he promised himself, once he'd gotten things back the way they were supposed to be.

Those things included listening to one slightly annoying mainlander in the passenger seat of his car, telling Steve that he was an adrenaline junkie who knew nothing about police work…

There—tracks. Fresh ones, too, not more than two hours old, and surrounded by footprints that told him that at least one man had exited his vehicle, circled around, and then returned. Steve took a moment to let his ears reassure him that he was alone, that Hanolo's men had moved on from this spot, then he pried open Chin's cell. "Chin?"

"You find him?"

"No." Steve moved on. "Check my position. This where the video was transmitted from?"

"Just a minute."

It was more than a minute; it took nearly three. Steve waited impatiently.

"Exact position, Steve, far as I can tell. Give or take a few yards."

Steve frowned. That didn't make sense. He scanned the area; there were trees lining the dirt road that was barely large enough for a jeep to slide through with more bushes threatening to block the path altogether. Come to think about it, the footprints looked as though they represented a single shoe size. Now, unless each one of Hanolo's thugs wore the same size shoe… "Chin, can you send me a copy of the video?"

"Yes." Chin's tone darkened; he too had looked at the ten second film, frame by frame, trying to dig out additional clues. Steve could tell simply by the anger in his team member's voice. "You got something?"

"Maybe. Send it over."

He didn't need sound for this, and Steve almost guiltily muted the screams that accompanied the pictures. As if listening to them over and over would make the situation any better? I can't afford the distraction. Danny can't afford for me to be distracted. Instead, Steve focused on the details surrounding his partner, looked at the bushes and the clearing where the man had been located.

Clear. There were several feet of open ground in every direction, more than enough room for the haole bastard to swing a whip and have it land on a man's back already shredded by previous torture. Steve scrutinized the clearing where he himself stood, estimating the distance—and he had the answer.

The video had been transmitted from here, but not filmed here. No, Hanolo's men had done their dastardly work in another spot, then sent one of their own to transmit the evidence of their work from this spot, just to throw off the pursuit.

Steve refused to grind his teeth. The ploy had worked. Takahara and his men weren't making progress, and now Steve himself had wasted precious minutes tracking down a spot where Danny Williams had never been. He glanced at his watch; he still had time. There was still another half hour before Kono had to be in court, and knowing that Danny Williams was safe would be a good way to keep her from faltering on the stand while the judge was deciding if Hanolo needed to stay behind bars to wait for a trial. He could do this.

Okay; what next? Steve McGarrett had spent a great many hours here hiking in his adolescence, and it was time to put that experience to work. There were only just so many places in the preserve where a man's screams would go unheard. He pulled the maps from his pack and spread them on the ground in front of him.

He began to out-think the opposition.


Kono ground her teeth. It wasn't fair! Here she was, stuck inside where it was safe. Kono didn't want to be safe; she wanted to be out in the Kahana Preserves, tracking the bastards that had taken her team mate. Instead, here she was, following orders, hunting down whoever had wiped the tape from last night's bust.

Kono snatched up the file that recorded the chain of custody of the taped sting, wondering which name on the file was dirty. One of them had to be; that was the only way that Chin's tape could have gotten wiped. Chin had recorded the entire conversation that had taken place inside the Night's Pleasure and now that recording was gone.

Here it was, the Evidence Record, with Chin's name on the top, Chin's signature in slender black ink. Her cousin's signature fit him, Kono decided: lean and spare, almost like a glyph on a piece of Oriental art. He had turned the tape over to Hugo Takahara, the same man who was leading the SWAT team in search of Danny Williams. Takahara had backed them up at the bar, arriving just in time to take charge of the arrestees and clean up the mess. Takahara had had custody of the tape until they all arrived at Headquarters, then he'd turned it over to an Evidence clerk by the name of Jones.

Ebony Jones; that was a name that Kono didn't know. Not that it was any surprise—Kono didn't know a lot of the cops on the force, only the ones that she'd grown up with. Even some of those cops had drifted away after Chin had been forced out. Nobody wanted to be too close to a 'dirty' cop.

Kono could barely make out the signature, or the one beneath it. Jones had then turned the tape over to Ralph Waldo, AKA 'Emerson'. Kono had never realized the significance of the man's nickname until she'd finished her obligatory English course in college. She'd read Emerson in high school, of course, but she'd never made the connection until one night when she'd been browsing through the stacks of books in the university library and stumbled across a tome with the author's name on it. Then she'd felt foolish for not thinking of it sooner.

Emerson: not a chance. The man was old enough to be her grandfather, had worked for the police department in the Evidence Room for more years than she'd lived. No one in the department would ever suspect him of anything more heinous than lying about his health when everyone could see that he was crippled over with arthritis. "Never felt better!" he'd always declare whenever anyone asked, and even the department medics hadn't yet persuaded him to retire.

The final signature was almost illegible, and Kono squinted at the letters, trying to make them come clear. It started with an 'N'—Neil? Maybe Nathan?—and the last name looked like 'Detroit'. Was there someone named after a town? Kono didn't know any cop by that name, and decided that it was likely some newbie from the D.A.'s office.

Well, she had her list of suspects, and some she could cross off right away. Chin was one, and Emerson was another. Takahara wasn't likely, but Ebony Jones and this 'N. Detroit' would be her first picks. Anyone of them could have surreptitiously wiped the tape clean. All it would take would be a heavy duty magnet in the vicinity of the tape, and the State's Evidence would be History.

Time for some computer searching into a couple of backgrounds.


They weren't paying attention to him. That worked in Danny Williams's favor.

He took stock of his surroundings: he was slumped in the back seat of a jeep, with one guy driving and Cutler, the haole mainlander, in the other front seat. There was a third goon on the seat beside Danny, a gun sitting lazily in his lap. Danny allowed his eyes to slit open—not that it was any trouble to keep them closed, since they were all but swollen shut—and saw that there were three other bastards hanging onto the frame of the jeep, hitching a lift as the vehicle grumpily meandered through a path barely large enough to accommodate its size.

Escape wasn't going to be a reality, not in this lifetime. Run away from them? Hah; they wouldn't even need to put a bullet into his back. He'd face plant before they even had a chance to notice that he had exited the vehicle, then they'd haul his ass back in once they finished laughing.

Danny forced his muddled thoughts to focus on what was going on. Cutler, Hanolo's main man, was determined to extract his boss through the use of a hostage, namely Danny himself. With Danny in Cutler's clutches, they'd be pushing for Kono to crack on the stand. Maybe she wouldn't even make it to the stand. Danny hadn't missed all the living Technicolor photos that they'd been taking of him, suitable for framing in a gallery of horrors. There wasn't one doubt in his mind that those pictures were getting shoved under her nose, trying to frighten her into backing away. Hell, they were enough to make Danny himself back away.

Would Kono crack? Danny didn't want to think so, but the girl was a rookie. She hadn't had time to develop the tough skin that a cop needed. Sure, she was way better than most, however underneath there was still a little girl with as much innocence as his daughter Grace. Would she crack? Steve McGarrett would do his best not to let her, though Danny wasn't about to say that it would be enough. Hell, he'd be thinking twice if the tables were turned.

Danny could tip the scales in favor of justice. Without a hostage, there would be no leverage. Kono wouldn't be motivated by fear, but she'd be plenty pissed and looking for revenge. Hanolo's ass would be grass and ready for planting behind bars.

There it was, coming up just around the bend. The edge of the path dipped off onto a cliff that plunged straight down for further than Danny could see from his slumped position. Danny held himself still, didn't give the slightest clue that he was awake, let alone coherent enough to think.

Coherent? Hah. What kind of half-assed idea had he come up with? Danny was always accusing Steve McGarrett of doing stupid things, and this idea of Danny's was going to outdo them all.

The jeep rumbled around the curve, the driver slowing to make sure that the outer wheels didn't slip over the edge.

Danny grabbed the gun in the lap of the man beside him. The man yelled and snatched at the weapon; Danny didn't care.

He pulled the trigger, hastily aiming the barrel in the general direction of the driver.

Bang!

The driver slumped over, taking the steering wheel with him. The jeep slid over the cliff edge and tilted crazily, dumping the hangers-on over the side. Cutler yelled, and Danny couldn't make out the words.

Not that it mattered. The jeep rolled over the side of the road and tumbled downward, taking all of Hanolo's men and Danny with it.

Couple of good things here, Steve. You're never again gonna have to listen to me lecture you about how police work ought to get done. I'm not gonna have to live through any more of Cutler's torture, and as soon as you find my body, you can tell Kono to sing her little heart out. You make sure that Hanolo stays put; you hear me?