Chapter 59
Chin had collaborated with Jerry to add even more functionality to the new Five-0 system. He wanted to be able to keep tabs on all of the criminals that had reason to hold a grudge against them. The story that Duke had recounted to him and Steve about being ambushed in the forest in the May of '83 by a madman with a grudge against Steve's Dad had really struck a nerve. Three police officers were shot that night by one man seeking vengeance on someone who had just been doing his job when he made sure that the man was imprisoned for his crimes. John McGarrett had been wearing a bullet-proof vest, but the other two officers weren't. One had died and they very nearly lost Duke that night as well. Only John's desperate attempts to keep pressure on the wounds had stopped him bleeding out before the ambulance had arrived on the scene.
Once he had finished inputting all of the Five-0 cases he started going back through every case that each of them had ever been involved with since starting their law enforcement careers. Kono didn't have any prior cases, but he most certainly did and so did Danny. The detective's former boss from Jersey, Captain Russo, had been only too happy to provide the information; finding it despicable when his officers and their families were targeted by criminals for just doing their job. He got back to Chin the next day with a comprehensive list of all of Danny's cases and had even included a brief summary of the particulars of each one, along with his personal cell if Chin needed to contact him for more details.
Chin couldn't include Steve's classified operations from his time in the Navy, but would talk to Harry about setting up a similar database on the Naval systems. They would now get alerts when a person of interest was released from prison and another if they were logged as passing through immigration to gain entry onto any of the Hawaiian islands. Of course, it wouldn't be any use if they were travelling under an assumed name but it was better than nothing.
Chin set the new software to search back over the past 2 years, he figured that any further back than that was pointless as if they hadn't tried to do something by that time then they probably never would. Most former felons just wanted to get on with their life once they were released and revenge was the last thing on their minds as that would put them on the fast track for going straight back to prison.
The system had immediately flagged a large number of names and Chin patiently scrolled through them all, most of them being petty criminals on the island whom he didn't consider to be a threat. He frowned as he came to a name he didn't recognize, it was one of Danny's old cases from just over 10 years ago. He clicked on the file attachment to find out more, a man called Rick Peterson had been released from prison just a few months ago. He was a former police officer from the Newark New Jersey Police Department who had been on the take and it was Danny's testimony that had been key to his conviction and subsequent decade-long incarceration.
The astute lieutenant had an uneasy feeling that he couldn't quite put his finger on, the two men had been partners and so this Peterson would have seen Danny's actions as the ultimate betrayal – not to mention that as a dirty cop he can't have had an easy 10 years in prison. With Steve and Danny out of cell phone range on the other side of the island, he checked the current time in Jersey and rang Captain Russo for more information and to gauge his views.
It was not encouraging, Russo sharing Chin's concern that Peterson could be bad news. The Jersey captain divulged that his wife had been good friends with Kim Peterson and the distraught woman had confided that her jailed husband had brought disgrace on their family and she was taking their son, Cole, and moving back to her home state. She had no intention of ever letting him see his kid again. The Captain had called back an hour later to warn Chin that Peterson had missed his last two check-ins with his parole officer and the patrol he sent to check on his house had reported that there was no sign that Peterson was currently living there. Unopened mail was piled up and the neighbors hadn't seen him for weeks.
The prison was able to send over a recent headshot of Rick Peterson and Chin started running facial recognition on all arrivals coming into Honolulu International Airport when a search of Peterson's name didn't bring up any records. The trouble was that he didn't have a timeframe to narrow down the search parameters and unfortunately he didn't get any hits. When Danny got back to the office, he reviewed all the information but just couldn't see the man coming all the way to Hawaii to exact revenge - believing it to be far more likely that he skipped town to try and track down Kim and Cole.
However, at Chin's urging, he reluctantly shared Rick Peterson's photo with his family. He hadn't wanted them being fearful for no reason, but eventually showed them Rick's picture just to keep Chin happy. He was forever grateful to the dogged lieutenant, as Grace had recognized the man only a few weeks later when he turned up at her private tennis club and tried to get the little girl to come with him under false pretences, posing as a beat cop. Grace instantly realized that this was the same man from the photos that her Danno had shown her, explaining that he was a very bad man and not to go anywhere with him.
She backed away and did exactly what her dad had told her to do if she ever found herself in this situation, basically to kick up an enormous fuss to get the people around you to take notice and come and help. Her brave tennis instructor had immediately waded in and taken a few blows for his trouble, but managed to physically prevent the fake cop from forcibly taking Grace. When Peterson had then cut his losses and tried to flee, the club's burly private security guards were able to restrain the disgraced former officer before he could leave the grounds and get away.
The team had been on his trail without even realizing it, chasing a man called Rick McGuire who was suspected of murdering Dave Collins, a Jersey-based marshal who had been escorting a prisoner on a flight to Oahu; he was a friend of Danny's and had been brutally murdered while trying to call Danny from the plane when he recognized Peterson. It transpired that Rick Peterson had taken on the identity of a deceased model citizen called Rick McGuire and when they raided the house under that name, they found hundreds of surveillance photos that the obsessed man had taken of Danny and his family. Peterson was charged with murder and attempted kidnapping. Danny had sat in the public gallery to provide support to Dave's widow and watched impassively as the man was sentenced to life with no parole. Nothing would bring back his friend from the mainland, but at least the man responsible for his murder would die in prison.
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A glimpse into the future . . .
No one could have possibly known at the time, but the system was to save Danny again 6 years later when it flagged that a man called Ray Gardner was released from prison in Newark and then a few months later travelled to Oahu. Danny had received the automated alert and had not immediately remembered the name. Puzzled, he had examined a recent photo of the man sent over by the prison and was still none the wiser. He had to read the case summary that Captain Russo had so diligently provided all those years ago before his reasons for wanting to harm Danny became apparent. He was the abusive husband of a lady called Brooke Gardner, a battered wife who Danny had helped to escape from her violent husband.
It was years ago when the detective was just a young officer on the mean streets of Jersey. He had tried in vain to convince Brooke to leave, but she was too under the thumb of her controlling spouse. Danny had gone to extreme measures to help the frightened woman and goaded her husband into attacking him in full view of a passing police patrol. When the man was sent to prison, Brooke was able to get away and start again somewhere new. Ray Gardner might have come after Danny the first time he was released from prison, at the time Danny had just made detective at his Jersey-based precinct. But the abusive man's foul temper got him into trouble before he had the chance. A petty bar brawl had turned nasty very quickly and he blinded someone in one eye when he smashed a beer bottle across their face. The judge had not been lenient and sentenced Gardner to a lengthy spell in prison.
The team didn't know it at the time, but the bitter man spent much of his second sentence blaming Danny for all his troubles and vowed to kill the man when he was finally released. He had tried to make good on that promise, buying a one-way ticket to Honolulu once he had finally managed to track Danny down to Oahu. He had been using a false name once on the island, going by the name Joshua Hollister, but had bought the plane ticket under his own name - obviously not wanting to risk getting caught travelling on a false passport and being prevented from carrying out his deranged revenge mission.
Five-0 had looped in HPD and a BOLO was issued for Ray Gardner. The next day, an eagle-eyed officer had spotted the wanted man and he instructed his partner to pull over their patrol car. They quickly exited their vehicle and flanked the man as he was walking down the street, their guns raised as they shouted at him to kneel down on the ground and put his hands on his head. Gardner had already acquired an unlicensed gun that he bought from a local thug the very first night he arrived on the island. He foolishly went for his gun, forcing the officers to discharge their weapons. He died right there in the street, wheezing out his last words as he coughed up blood. They were, "He deserved to die." Upon searching the dead man, one officer pulled out a photo that had been in his pocket - it was a picture of Danny with the words, 'he deserved to die' scrawled across it.
Danny had been pretty shaken up by the whole incident, this would be the second time that his past arrests from when he was just a beat cop in Jersey had come back to haunt him. Steve had recognized that his partner needed some time away and borrowed Kamekona's helicopter after explaining the situation to the canny entrepreneur. Steve decided that a visit to Danny's brother on his island hideaway was in order and they both stayed the night on the beautiful islet. Danny took great comfort from being around his brother and Steve went diving with Kawai and marvelled at the diversity of the marine life around the island and was deeply impressed by everything that the siblings had achieved.
When the pair got back they were horrified to discover that there had been an bioweapon incident involving an adrift yacht while they had been away. The initial call came in just hours after they had left and with Steve and Danny out of communication, the decision was made to dispatch the Coast Guard. When three of the crew had boarded the yacht they had discovered that everyone on board had died from some sort of haemorrhagic pathogen and immediately ordered their craft to move away and return to shore, leaving them exposed and alone on the boat. The rest of the Five-0 team had rapidly got to work trying to secure the antidote, but it had gone down right to the wire. By the time the team had arranged for a SAR helicopter to fly out to the yacht with the antidote, a brewing storm had caused the lockbox containing the vials of antidote to drop into the churning sea when the helo was forced to break away from the yacht during the transfer. One brave coast guard stranded on the yacht had jumped into the huge waves battering the side of the boat, but his weakened state had led to the poor man drowning as he was trying to retrieve the box. The remaining two people on board had succumbed to the virus that night. It was a truly dreadful outcome after coming so close to saving them. The team were all in a state of shock, berating themselves for their inability to save the coast guards.
Steve had stepped up as the leader of the Task Force and made them see that it was impossible to save everyone, but that it wouldn't ever stop them trying. He told them that being in law enforcement opened yourself up to vengeful criminals and heart breaking failures, but they all needed to focus on all the good that they did and remember the people that they had managed to save. Danny caught his eye and gave him the slightest of smiles, understanding and appreciating what his partner was trying to say to him.