Chapter 9

Danny cried out when he was hauled out of the car. He couldn't help it. His leg was on fire, the pain pulsing through him, hammering at him, with a ferocity that left him gasping. Right thigh, bullet still in there. Still bleeding. That was about all he could register amidst the swirling colors of agony.

Consciousness had come as he was doubled over and pressed onto the floor at the back of the jeep. It had blossomed from his leg, building and growing and spreading as he clutched at the wound in desperation but his arms were held tight now as he was pulled forward. A bloody trail followed him.

Eyes clenched against the pain, Danny couldn't make sense of where he was and was only vaguely aware of what was happening, as rough hands ripped away his over shirt and vest, he was chained and then hoisted up by the wrists.

Another cry was wrenched from him as his arms took the strain of his body weight and the pain that had been pressing on his chest, where the round had hit during the gunfight, soared.

Men's voices, angry and urgent, hissed orders and snapped instructions. There was movement all around but as he hung at its center, with his feet barely even brushing the floor, Danny could not hear what was being said over the whooshing sound that filled his head.

"Six hours? How can it take six hours?"

Fuentez was furious. Furious at the mess of what had just happened. Furious at the loss of one of his men. Furious at the need to flee the island before he could wrap the Cartel's dealings properly, and at his continued reliance on the man he blamed for the whole fiasco. Frightened at what it would all mean for him.

Kahumoku raised placating hands as he paced back and forth with agitation.

"Look, you want out of here? It'll take that long to get a suitable boat here and I need to get my people organized, get us a crew, get us the right papers. There's a lot of water between us and the mainland...we can't just take to a raft and hope nobody will notice when we pitch-up on the west coast." His voice rose as he walked until he came to a halt in front of a workbench cluttered with tools. With a frustrated roar, he swept them all off.

His two remaining men stayed quiet and waited alongside their Colombian counterpart. They'd seen their boss angry before and knew what he was capable of. Now he was backed into a corner and he was desperate.

Kahumoku had been ambitious all his life – had seen what the wealthy of the islands had and wanted it for himself. He'd started out legitimately enough but. driven by a love of power and greed, he had always known the best business was dirty business. That's where the money was and he followed it. Now though, all that he had worked for, all of his hopes for a lucrative future, all of his life in Hawaii, was over.

He had to make plans but he was having trouble seeing past the chaos of what he was losing. Money, power, a luxury home, all the trappings. He needed to ground himself, to take back control.

His eyes fell upon Danny.

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HPD responded immediately to Five-0's call for assistance. Professional jealousies and suspicions were gone when Steve briefed a room full of twenty senior officers, including Chief Malea, about their targets and aims. Chin and Kono drew up and explained the detailed layouts of their destinations.

Three locations, to be hit simultaneously – Big Island Flowers, Wikiwiki Cars and the port. Other raids would follow but these must happen soon.

No time for subtlety, over eighty police officers moved in at midday. Kahumoku's people, those involved in the illegal side of his businesses, had no time for resistance. Most of his muscle were missing from their usual duties anyway, some already lay in the morgue.

A few shots were exchanged when officers, working with the Port Police, moved into a warehouse on the waterside, but it was short lived. Chilled boxes of fresh cut flowers were ripped open and by the end, it looked like there had been a parade.

Steve took the call and nodded in satisfaction at the reports of hundreds of weapons discovered amongst the latest shipment of blooms and of a dozen expensive cars whose interior panels were found to be packed full of cocain.

It was good news but it was a distraction. The raids would continue but Five-0 still had to find Danny.

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Kahumoku was a sadist. It didn't take Danny long to realize it, just a look at his face, as he drew a box cutter slowly across his chest. He took his time and licked his lips as Danny's blood welled up in the line of the slice, brimming then running down his front to soak his tee-shirt.

He wanted Danny to scream.

Well, fuck you!

It was a battle of wills but Danny was a stubborn guy. As he felt the initial burning sting of the blade, he gritted his teeth and held in any noise as the pain spread out from the long cut.

Kahumoku raised his eyebrows in expectation then smiled again as he walked around behind Danny who tried to follow him with his body, to keep him in sight. Glancing about and above him with an awareness now sharpened by the new pain, he registered the pulley system that had him suspended with his arms each chained above him separately. Judging by an upturned boat hull that took up one end of the shed, the mechanism was designed to hold far greater weight than his. There was no chance of escape and apart from his head, he couldn't even swivel.

"Do you know what you've cost me, Detective?" Kahumoku began. His face was next to Danny's left ear and he could feel his breath as he hissed into it. "Everything."

The next slice came quickly. A diagonal slash from the top of his left shoulder to his opposite side. "I had a good thing going, and you have ruined everything."

Another slice from right to left. Two cuts but one burning pain. Danny closed his eyes against it and when he opened them again, Kahumoku's face was just inches from his own, breathing in his suffering...Oh yes, you're a sadist alright...Danny swallowed back a jolt of fear at what he knew that meant for him and his mind grabbed for the one thing that was good about all this...Grace is safe.

"You do know you're going to die here, don't you?" Kahumoku said. "But before you do, you're going help to minimize the damage you've done."

He jabbed the short blade into Danny's side.

"You're going to tell us exactly what you know."

Jab.

"What the Feds know."

Jab.

"What the cops know."

Jab.

Grace is safe...Grace is safe...Grace is safe...

The Hawaiian's dark eyes were glittering with anticipation as he gazed at Danny's body, deciding where he might slice next, when a phone rang behind him. He still had arrangements to make.

He looked down rather wistfully at the bloodied blade in his hand and back to Danny. With a shrug of regret he turned away but not before gesturing to someone else who's identity wasn't clear through Danny's blurring sight.

"Your brother screamed for us. Let's see if it runs in the family."

The deep, emotionless voice was familiar. Danny had heard it in the conversations they'd had over a different torture session. And there was that tattoo again. Danny's head rocked back as a fist smashed into his face.

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"Nothing at the airport and we've got a watch on all the airstrips. There's a PD presence at the private strips too and all the independents have been warned off." Kono summarized. Her head was spinning with the size and urgency of their task. There were hundreds of privately owned aircraft in Hawaii but all it would take was a helicopter and a field.

"The marinas too," Chin added. "But there are so many landing stages, jetties, bays even, where they could get a boat in and out. The Coastguard are on alert and ready to move if we get anything."

Steve had noticed before how Chin had an admirable calmness in a crisis. He remained still at the central desk while he and Kono prowled and circled to expend pent up energy that should be going into a rescue...If only we knew where to look...

Their update reflected the horrible repetition of the hunt for Danny the day before but this was so very, very much worse. Then, their fears were still suspicions, now they were backed by the knowledge that Danny was hurt, in the hands of killers and in terrible danger.

Matthew Williams was being treated in hospital. Having been blindfolded during most of his ordeal and with no knowledge of Hawaii, he had been unable to help pinpoint where he'd been held or where his captors might go.

"Please...just bring him back safe...Please." Steve had gripped Matt's shaking form and nodded. He couldn't bring himself to voice a promise or his fears. They were mirrored in Matt's eyes.

The police raids on Kahumoku's businesses had turned up nothing of his whereabouts. Having ordered surveillance and a lock down on a possible escape attempt by air, his boat hire business had been the team's next thought and their first stop.

The three of them had burst in through the smart glass doors of Crystal Seas Ltd and ripped through the glitzy showroom, offices and workrooms but there was nobody there, except a group of startled holidaymakers and two salesmen with typically bright smiles but no idea about the true nature of their boss's business, let alone a missing cop.

Danny's investigation was now spread out in front of them once more. For thirty minutes they'd been scouring his information for any place where Fuentez and Kahumoku could be holed up. It would have to be quiet and secure enough for them to stay while they arranged their next move. By now they would have heard of the collapse of their organisation. They would be desperate and that made them even more dangerous.

Steve slammed his hand down on the papers in front of them and elicited a frightened squeak from the one person they hoped might give them an insight.

"There's got to be something here that rings a bell, Soda. Somewhere you went or you heard of." Steve smacked his hand against the lists again. "Something, Soda. Anything."

Soda was hunched over the desk and flinched at Steve's raised voice. He'd showered and been given a change of clothes and a meal when Steve brought him to the headquarters. His quaking had finally subsided and he'd dropped instead into glowering and muttering.

"They were going to kill me...insane...he tied explosives ...a bomb...insane..."

Now he was picking at his chewed nails, twisting plump fingers while fidgeting and still twitching a little. Stress had not improved his appearance. With his hair still damp and flattened and his face mottled, he looked as though he should be in an asylum.

Steve accepted he may have been through an ordeal and had, at first, even attempted some vaguely sympathetic noises but his patience had run out even before they arrived back at Five-0.

"It was a fake, man...didn't even have detonators. C4 is a very stable explosive..." To the former SEAL that was reasonable enough. He fiddled distractedly with the digital alarm clock that had been set to countdown and still couldn't bring himself to feel sorry for his passenger.

The guy was a petty criminal who'd climbed into bed with major felons and paid the price with a bit of trauma...Okay...a major trauma...But, while Steve had been impressed with his partner's initiative and a previously unknown knack with electronics, he still felt awe over his control and unfailing adherence to his own set of principles.

You're a better man than me, Danno...Christ, where are you?...Where the hell are you? It seemed to have become his mantra in the past forty eight hours. He couldn't believe how this had all snowballed so badly so quickly.

"I told you, I don't know." Soda's whine broke into Steve's thoughts and brought him back to the present. "I didn't even go to the boat hire place, I don't know anything about boats."

"We searched all the boats and the dry dock at the marina. There's a couple rented out that are still to be traced, but there's a lot of sea out there." Kono voiced the others' bleak concerns. She held her arms tightly around herself as she paced, trying to keep her emotions in check as well as her team mates. Trying to keep her fears at bay.

"Nothing in there about fitters? Maintenance? Any contractors?" Steve demanded.

Kono and Chin both shook their heads – they'd been through all this before.

They were assuming Fuentez and Kahumoku would stick together, try to escape together. If they had split, they would have an even harder time finding them. Finding Danny.

"Algae."

Three faces turned towards Soda.

"What?" Steve demanded.

"Algae. There was a problem with algae. On a propeller." Soda looked up at them. "On Kahumoku's ex-wife's boat. It was in her, you know...settlement, or something. The guy was ranting about it one time 'cause she was threatening him with lawyers n'stuff and he had to get it cleaned some place."

"Where? Where is it, what's the name?"

"Don't know...No, really...I...I don't know," Soda stammered nervously as Steve loomed over him.

Chin grabbed a box file and began rifling through. Flinging it aside, he pulled another and passed one to Kono.

"It won't be in the businesses – it'll be in the domestic stuff that Danny logged."

"I haven't seen anything on an ex-wife," Kono said as she searched. "Did he go through all of her connections too?"

Steve tapped into the computer files that Kipton had sent them.

"It's here...Candy. Got an address." Steve felt his adrenalin pumping with the discovery. He turned to Soda again. "No mention of where she kept it? Who was doing the work for her? The name of the boat? Anything?"

"There's a photo here," Kono cried, "Candy Kahumoku... Married to him for four years. There's reports here from a hospital...looks like he used to beat her up...he's vicious." She shuffled through a couple of pages, still amazed at the amount of work Danny had put in, at how he had tracked so much. "Look, divorce papers...He must have paid her off...The boat's on the list...'Sweet Candy.' That's the name."

"Oh yeah," Soda nodded slowly. "Yeah...that was it..."

Steve hissed in frustration as he continued in the same vague manner.

"I remember him saying he was going to 'sink Sweet Candy'...'send her to a grave in the waves off Leeward,' he said...I thought he just meant he was going to kill his ex, you know?"

Steve stared at him in disgust over the apparently easy acceptance of such a threat.

"Well, he didn't do it but, I mean, I'd already seen him off Soon Li so..."

The explanation broke off as he was pulled upright and forced backwards, only stopping when he crashed against a wall.

"Yeah, you saw that didn't you?" Steve shouted in his face. "You saw it, and if you'd told us about it in the first place, we wouldn't be in this mess, you miserable piece of..."

"Steve!" Chin jumped forwards to grab at Steve's arm as it rose to land a blow and forced him to look at him instead.

"We've got to keep it together, Man," his hold was iron hard but his advice came softly.

It was several moments before Steve slowly relinquished his hold on the sweating Soda and blew out a breath, his chest still so tight with anger and anxiety.

"Sorry...I know...It's just..." he shook his head.

Chin nodded his understanding. Steve had been at that shed with Danny, had been there to see for himself the kind of people who now held their friend, to see the blood stain on the floor. It was driving Steve crazy. He was a man of action and now he felt helpless.

Chin still gripped his arm hard but now inclined his head towards at Soda.

"Look, he said Leeward, right?" With his steady gaze, Chin forced the former SEAL to concentrate once more and was relieved to see Steve's troubled eyes clear with realization as he gradually claimed back his usual control.

"You're right...why would Kahumoku say that?" He nodded. "It's quiet over there...maybe the ex keeps the boat there. Maybe he'll try and use it...It's the best lead we've got." Grasping his friend's shoulder he gave a grateful squeeze and then pushed him away.

"You're with me...we'll head over there ..."

Turning at the door, he called back to Kono.

"Contact the ex-wife. And see what you can find on anyone who cleans boats over at Leeward...If she kept the boat over there, maybe she found somewhere local to do the work."

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Danny could feel the blood clogging his throat. Blood from his broken nose and split lips. He swallowed convulsively, then gagged at the metallic taste. His head lolled forwards and he watched drops falling on to the floor, adding to the red puddle already there.

While Kahumoku enjoyed inflicting pain, his muscle man simply saw it as his job. And he was good at it.

With each blow came a question. Who'd talked? Pain exploded across his face when a fist crashed against his cheek bone and all he could see were bright white flashes in the smear of crimson.

What did he know about the guns? A kick landed deep in his gut and robbed him of his breath. Another above his kidney...What about the Cartel? He was still arching backwards when the next volley powered into his midsection...Who?...When?...What?... Side, back, head, face.

Danny lost all sense of how long or how many blows. They came so hard and fast he couldn't prepare himself for the next and, hanging like a piece of meat, he was unable to curl away from the ferocious onslaught.

At first he tried to keep some composure, to look up at least, searching for something or someone to end this.

"You really...gonna kill...a cop?" he whispered as his attacker briefly rested his knuckles and chose his next target. A slimy trail of bloody saliva hung from his mouth and he spat it as hard as he could. "Th..they'll h-hunt you down."

Kahumoku laughed from the other side of the room, watching Danny's beating even as he demanded favors over the phone from anyone he could contact, offering payments and bribes to the interested, and violence to those who weren't.

Danny's right eye was swollen shut, and his left open only a slit but he shifted his bloody gaze towards where he thought Fuentez stood, remaining apart and silent. Fuming and fretting.

"B-better tell ...your...f-friends in the...cartel...to look out, P...Pedro...'cause...th-this is gonna...land in their ...back y..."

His words were smashed back into his teeth as Rainbow landed another vicious blow to his jaw.

Danny had always used words as a means of attack but now he could barely form them. His fading consciousness brought instead just a spinning jumble of thoughts, fears and intentions,bursts of events and meanings in terrifying, disorientating and splintered flashes ...Help me...Steve...Gracie...gonna die...Matt ...failed...please ...stop...

The certainties he had clung to before were slipping from his reach now. He clawed for them again but his bobbing head couldn't hold on to them any longer and he felt the edges of blackness creeping closer...Grace?... safe?...abducted...tortured...safe?...gone...dead?

Danny was drifting towards oblivion and he longed for it. His breath came in strangled gasps and he wished he could just pass out. When Rainbow aimed a hard kick at the bullet wound in his leg, he finally did.

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The Leeward side of the island was known for its quiet back roads and gentle bays. Beyond its one luxury resort, it was only lightly populated with those who generally eschewed excitement. The Camaro's swerving, gut rolling progress sent people and animals scurrying out of its path.

Sliding into the skids and spinning out of the mud tracks, Steve handled the wheel deftly and noted from the corner of his eye that, where Danny should be sitting, ranting and gesticulating madly over his mad, you-crazy-SEAL-do-you-have-a-death-wish driving, Chin remained resolutely silent as he gritted his teeth and gripped at the handle over the door.

After one wasted inquiry at the first boatyard Kono had sent them, they were already on their way to the next when Chin took another call.

"Got it," he snapped. "Kono found the wife..." He broke off as the car hit a bump, took off and landed with a jolt that had their heads hitting the roof. "Inlet...two miles north...Mo'o's Boat Services..." his speech was broken up by the speed and bouncing of the car and he grabbed at the dash as they hit a huge puddle and a brown tidal wave obliterated their vision. Steve gripped the wheel tighter and flinched not at all.

"She says Kahumoku knows it, he's been there..."

"Get the coastguard to..."Steve began.

"On it..." Chin waved his phone in Steve's direction and gestured to him to keep his eyes on the muddy road.

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Where it had been blood, now it was water. Danny was drowning in it, gasping and spluttering for air that couldn't bypass the torrents filling his throat, suffocating him. Kahumoko had a new toy.

"Waterboarding...I've always wanted to try it."

Directing the spray at Danny's face, he bent down a little to get a better angle.

"Not quite right, I know, but this will do pretty well," he laughed. "Don't you think so, Detective Williams?"

Danny tried to shield his face from the powerful blast of water but it was relentless. Tucking his head behind his arm, he tried to create enough space to gulp for air but the deluge hit his temple and when he gasped with the shock of it, he inhaled more of the flow.

Kahumoku wielded the high pressure water spray gun like a saber, thrilled with the impact of his novel weapon. Having discovered it at the side of the boat shed he'd dragged it to stand a few feet in front of Danny. With the flick of a switch, the machine howled into life and, setting it on a wide spray to start with, he turned the fan of water to hit Danny with the force of three thousand pounds per square inch.

It felt like a kick in the face, but it didn't stop.

Danny squeezed his eyes closed instinctively, even though one was already completely swollen shut, but the water forced its way through the lids, filling his mouth and nose and into his straining lungs. His shoulders wrenched as he tried to twist away, flinging his face from side to side, up and back, anything to grab a tiny breath but even finally hanging his head down, the torrent simply blasted relentlessly on, slamming against him, cascading down the sides of his face and blocking off all oxygen.

Danny's heart pounded with the panic of asphyxiation. His chest burned with the strain of sucking and sipping for air through lips he hardly dared open for fear of more water filling every gasp. Gagging and choking, he blew out instead, trying to force the water away, but he couldn't replace the last of the air he expelled and his lungs screamed with their need.

Kahumoku watched him drowning with a malicious smile then released the trigger of the spray gun to inspect the jet's nozzle. One twist and the track of the jet was changed to rapier thin. A spiralling concentrated cone directed at Danny's body.

"They use this thing for taking the paint off boats – just think what it'll do to you."

It was like being cut over and over again. As the water moved off his face, the moment of relief at being able to suck in a breath with a desperate whooping gasp was immediately overtaken by intense pain, as Kahumoku aimed the barrel end and played the high velocity flow over his torso like a blade. From neck to waist, Danny felt as though his skin was being flayed. When his torturer held it in one position, it felt like it was drilling right through him.

He cried out with the pain. Gasping and tugging down with his body weight against the chains that held him, he desperately tried to angle himself away from the slashing, whipping water but he was losing all sense of himself. Now he couldn't take a breath beyond the agony and his world was spinning in crimson and white...nomorenomorenomorenomore... Then blackness.

The sound of Danny's last strangled gasp was lost in the thudding clatter of a helicopter. Its reverberations bounced the air and rattled the windows and the men rushed to grab their weapons and peer out.

Kahumoku spun around too, only to find a gun leveled directly at his head. Lax fingers let the jet drop in surprise as he registered the bitter, cold eyes of a man, finally ready to kill.

Tbc...