Chapter 71
At the end of the previous year, Kono had been deeply affected by a case involving young girls forced into the sex trade by ruthless businessmen. They had rescued 10 girls being held captive in a semi-truck that was refusing to stop and, even worse, the desperate driver was threatening to drive straight off a cliff and kill everyone inside the trailer. A coordinated team effort quickly followed and involved Steve jumping from the structure of the Tetsuo Harano tunnels onto the top of the speeding semi-truck as it emerged from the tunnel below him, nearly rolling right off when another man inside the truck had started shooting at him as he was cutting a hole in the top. Steve cursed as he desperately clung to the side of the trailer by one hand, he should have considered the possibility that there would be a hostile in the trailer with the girls. He used his anger at himself to fuel his determined climb back onto the top of the trailer and then jumped down through the half-finished hole in roof, his body weight causing it to crash down inside the trailer. After unceremoniously dispatching the gunman straight out of the back of the truck onto the highway, they were now ready for phase II of the crazy plan. Chin and Kono crawled along a makeshift ladder that had been hastily welded onto the front of a rescue truck. Danny drove right up to the back of the semi and they used the extended platform to transfer the girls to safety, all the while the two vehicles being driven within inches of each other at considerable speed. The cousins had not let their close proximity to the tarmac flashing under the precarious platform distract them from coaxing the terrified girls out of the trailer.
It was madness really, but it hadn't ended there. Deon Miller, the ruthless trafficker and driver of the semi had noticed and sped up, leaving one of the girls hanging from the ladder until Chin managed to pull her to safety. Steve had climbed back onto the top of the trailer and crawled across to the cab. Once he had carefully climbed down, he managed to unhook the trailer and shoot Miller as he got out of his cab to investigate. Afterwards he had attempted to snark with Danny, but his heart wasn't really in it and he found himself rambling as let his worried partner put his arm around his shoulders and lead him away. That had been close and he had very nearly been the filling for a tire sandwich on the highway.
Kono couldn't let herself rest on her laurels as she knew this was just the tip of the iceberg and followed a lead on the driver that took her to Carson City in Nevada. Once there she could see how much still needed to be done to bring down the people responsible for ruining so many young lives, the insidious network spreading out across the state and beyond. Charlie had never left Oahu and declared that it was high time that he got to see the world and so handed in his resignation and followed Kono to Nevada. He had no problem getting a job with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department's CSI unit, requesting that he be assigned to provide forensic support to the case.
That single lead had turned into multiple avenues which required further investigation and the Nevada state officials approved the funding for a task force with the sole remit of bringing down the trafficking ring. Kono was invited to head up the team and she grasped the opportunity with both hands, filling her Task Force with competent police officers and later added a couple of Federal agents when the Feds started taking an interest in her investigation. Steve mourned the loss of another friend and colleague but had seen the fire in the determined officer and couldn't do anything other than wish her well in her endeavours. She had earnt the right to lead her own team and she did it with passion and prowess.
Kono and Charlie had been married for over three years now and were a solid unit – where one went, the other one would follow. Steve and Mia had video calls with the couple every month, sharing their growing family with Kono and Charlie. The couple had discussed children, but Kono was deeply disturbed by the horrific exploitation of the young girls she rescued and confided in her husband that she didn't know if she wanted to bring a child into a world that had such darkness. Charlie understood and reassured her that he would support her, whatever her decision. They were already making significant inroads into the human trafficking network and agreed to revisit the issue if they were able to achieve the aims of their Task Force and shut down the entire operation. At that point they would most likely move back to Oahu, or possibly Maui to be close to Chin, and start a family as they both missed their island paradise 'home'. Kono especially longed for the warm Pacific Ocean waves but was prepared to forgo them for now if it meant shutting down the traffickers.
With Kono at the helm, the human trafficking Task Force freed hundreds of young girls and boys from their lives of forced prostitution and systematically chipped away at the people behind the organization. Kono put everything she had learnt on Five-0 to good use, finding imaginative and, for the most part, legal ways to get the arrested criminals talking. It was 2 long years later, but she and Charlie were sat in the public gallery watching as a prominent, supposedly respectable, businessman was convicted of being the mastermind behind the whole operation. The judge handed him a life sentence and the businessman's opulent assets were seized. It was a just punishment for the despicable man. Kono couldn't understand it, this man had children of his own and yet saw fit to destroy the lives of someone else's children for profit. The State of Nevada tried very hard to retain the crime-fighting couple, but the pull of the ocean was just too strong and Kono and Charlie came home to Oahu.
The Governor had talked to the Chief of Police and together they offered Kono the opportunity to set up her own task force on the islands of Hawaii, focussing solely on human trafficking. She was quick to take the opportunity and soon had her Task Force up and running. A couple of years later she stepped back and let her SIC take the reins. Detective James Keoki was a natural, his experience in organized crime coming in handy when trying to unravel the many disparate threads of evidence and make sense of it all. Kono and Charlie welcomed a baby girl into the world just under a year after that, little Mele Fong named after her beloved aunt who had died when her transplanted kidney stopped working.
For a time, Steve had wondered if he would be able to fill the gaping void left by the departure of Chin and Kono. New hires had taken their place, bringing in some very welcome youthful exuberance, and Steve was able to see that change was inevitable and could do some good. A Navy SEAL called Junior Reigns had just turned up on his doorstep one day, looking for all the world like a lost puppy. He most likely would have offered his home to Junior, but it was a bit full with his growing family and so Mary had offered him a place to stay until he found his feet. Junior instantly hit it off with Sean, Mary's fiancé - the other man glad that Mary would have someone looking out for her when he was away on business. The couple were very sorry to hear about Junior's estrangement from his father and were gently encouraging him to make some tentative first steps towards a reconciliation. For his part, Junes listened as Mary recounted what had happened with her own father and decided that he was going to put his pride aside and make the first move. He didn't want to be in the same position of regret if he never took the chance to made it up with his Dad while he still could.
Steve had insisted that the young SEAL go through police training before he could join the Task Force and to Junior's credit he had worked hard and graduated at the top of his class. Unsurprisingly, his proficiency with firearms had been off the charts – the other recruits gaping at him in awe whenever they were at the gun range. No one had been keen to be paired with the young man when it came to mat work in the gym. It wasn't if you were going to be taken down, it was a merely a matter of when and how hard and quickly became known as doing 'The Reigns' when you were picking yourself up after another brutal takedown.
The other new hire, Tani Rey, was a real firecracker - an unpredictable ball of energy and bright as a tack. She was just what the Task Force needed and Steve knew without a doubt, even at that early stage, that it would be Tani who would take over the running of Five-0 when he retired. Without even realizing, they had started to refer to them as 'the kids' and were letting them do more and more of the heavy lifting when it came to chasing down suspects. Although, to be fair, Grover didn't do an awful lot of running anyway - preferring to use his head and chase down fleeing suspects in a vehicle or predicting their escape route and then efficiently cutting them off. He had an uncanny knack of popping up when the criminals least expected it, bringing their escape attempts to an abrupt and usually painful halt.
At the same time that Junior arrived home on Oahu, Steve had gained an unexpected new member of his family in the shape of a lively golden labrador by the name of Eddie. His handler had been tragically killed in a DEA bust gone horribly wrong and Eddie had been shot trying to take down the gunman. When the dog was at the vet's and recovering from surgery, Steve had stared into those big brown eyes and been powerless to resist. He had always declared cats to be far superior animals but there was something about this dog that had him stopping off at the nearest pet store to buy all the supplies he needed. Eddie came home with him when he was well enough to be released and never left. Little Johnny was bedside himself with excitement to have a pet and Eddie shadowed him everywhere. He also accompanied Steve on his morning swims, although Steve was sure that the canny dog waited to shake himself until Johnny ran to meet them - making the little boy shriek with delight every time.
The intelligent dog had appointed himself chief baby-watchdog and guarded Kaia like his life depended on it; Steve was pretty sure that if anyone tried to get near her then Eddie would rip them apart. He was grateful that Eddie was still a young dog as that meant that they had many happy years to look forward to. An old re-run of 'Marley and Me' had been on the TV when they were trying to get Kaia settled one night and as he watched with Mia they had both unashamedly bawled their eyes out at the end. Eddie looked just a little bit too much like the dog in the film and they had cuddled the bemused canine for a long time that night. He didn't mind though, soaking up the fuss like a pro.
Steve didn't know it yet, but in just over a year's time he would also get his chance to own a 'far superior animal' in the shape of a prize Turkish Angora cat called Mr. Pickles. He had been left to the owner's former neighbor, but the young man was unable to take the cat due to his illegal activities landing him in a halfway house while on parole. Steve and Danny had never met the owner but they had taken over the old lady's apartment for a stakeout many years prior and Steve had taken an immediate shine to the cat, even getting Ricky to help him find Mr. Pickles when the pet escaped through an open window. Danny had not been able to find a suitable home for the cat and so he had ended up coming home with Steve. After a shaky start between Eddie and Mr. Pickles, things settled down. They pretended to hate each other, but every now and again Steve would catch the cat curled up with Eddie in the sun. When Ricky finally got himself a suitable apartment and came to collect Mr. Pickles, Eddie had been bereft. Mia had visited the animal shelter and found an older cat whose owner had died. He was used to dogs and so she decided on the spot to bring him home. Marvin the cat had been named after the legendary Motown singer, Marvin Gaye, and was just as chilled. Eddie very graciously let the other animal share his dog bed, but drew the line at sharing his food. Marvin would now most certainly think twice before trying to steal Eddie's kibbles from right under the dog's nose.