Chapter 60

Steve was half-awake and just thinking about getting out of bed for his morning swim when he was fully woken up by a call from Joe. Harry had managed to convince the top brass at ONI to trial a new system that he had developed with significant input from Toast and a couple of his other IT contacts from around the world. The IT-savvy man was hopeful that it had the potential to automatically scan for and detect breaches in the Naval secure databases, but the system was currently untested. The decision was made to install it on just a limited subset of files to test its functionality. The plan had been to carry out a mock breach the following week, but before the testing could be conducted the system flagged an instance of unauthorized access. Harry was too far down the food chain to be told directly about anything, but a call had been placed to Admiral Janderman and he in turn had contacted Captain Brown and told him to 'deal with it'.

Eddie had briefed the Naval Intelligence officers at Pearl and also called Joe, even though he was not currently on duty – he knew the man had a vested interest in the subjects of the breach. The file that had been subject to the unauthorised access detailed a classified operation in South America, where SEAL Team 9 had conducted a raid on a compound belonging to the Alvaro Cartel. The full names and contact details of every member of SEAL Team 9 had been in the file.

Steve was already getting dressed while he was still talking to Joe. Steve wanted to first swing by the local CIA office to see what they knew about the Alvaro Cartel and then they made arrangements to talk with the Team's CO, Wade Gutches, currently taking recruits through their pool-based drills at Pearl. The two men waited at the side of the pool while Wade finished reaming out the exhausted recruits in the water before giving Steve and Joe his full attention. He creased up his forehead and frowned deeply at the news, "How sure are we that this is a real breach and not some software glitch." Steve shrugged,

"It's still in the testing phase and so anything's possible, but I'm inclined to take it seriously. My CIA contacts confirmed that Juan Alvaro has been reviving what was left of the cartel after the SEAL Team 9 raid and so my money's on him looking for revenge on the people who killed his brother, Rafael Alvaro." Gutches swore and then replied,

"God damn, I thought we took out all the high-ranking players and put them out of business for good . . . Gentleman, you already know the members of the Team from our little excursion in North Korea. We'll recall the entire Team back to base until we know the extent of the threat – I'll think up a suitable training exercise that needs to be conducted imminently. I'm not willing to risk my men's lives and would rather be over-cautious. The Navy can't start investigating if Alvaro has sent people after the Team members, but perhaps Five-0 can step in and help?" Steve nodded his head in agreement,

"Roger that, Sir. You get me the contact details of the Team members and I'll do the rest." Joe added,

"I'll provide assistance until such time that we can verify whether this threat is real or not." The two men left the training camp and were driving back to the Palace,

"I don't like this, Joe," said Steve, "this could get nasty really quickly." Joe concurred with the other man's grim assessment of the situation,

"Let's get ahead of this before the bodies start to drop. I have full confidence in the Task Force, let's get them to work."

With Steve's intel from the CIA, they soon had a much fuller picture of just how fast and how effectively Juan Alvaro had rebuilt his brother Rafael's empire. They estimated that the cartel had pulled in over $700 million in the past year, more than enough to pay for the world's best dark web hackers. Kono had been cross-checking all the passengers arriving in Hawaii from South America over the past few days. They had a list of known cartel associates and were running facial recognition on any passengers who might be a match. It took a number of hours but eventually Kono called them all over,

"Meet Hector Ruiz. He's linked to over 40 drug-related murders and has over 50 aliases, and that's just the ones that Interpol actually know about. He arrived a day ago, so hopefully he hasn't had chance to put his plans into action yet. How do we catch him?"

Steve's face went stormy as he stared at the hard features of a ruthless killer, one who was coming after his fellow SEALs, "Let's spring a trap and catch him like the rat he is." Over the next few hours, they had contacted as many of the SEAL Team 9 members as possible. Only three of them were currently on Oahu and so they would be Ruiz's first targets. Chin had a thought,

"This Juan Alvaro isn't going to be put off just because we catch the first hitman he sends. How do we stop him going after these boys again?" Joe and Steve exchanged a knowing look and it was Joe that spoke,

"If we catch Ruiz in the act, we just need him to tell us who he works for and the location of their compound and that will be enough to scramble a Team to put the cartel out of commission, this time permanently."

Joe and Steve liaised with Wade and soon established that two of the three SEALs on Oahu had already been recalled and had reported for their 'training duty' on base. The Five-0 team hadn't been able to get hold of Clay Garcia, his wife told them that they were having some time apart and that her husband had taken his camping gear and set off for the forest to clear his head. She confided that he was having some problems adjusting to being home and had even accused her of having an affair with a co-worker. She was seriously worried about his state of mind and told them that two bottles of whisky were missing from their drinks cabinet.

Danny handed them a map, "She knows the general area he goes to camp when he needs some alone-time, I've marked it on the map. How do you want to do this?"

Steve scanned the map, "I know this area, but it's pretty remote. Ruiz will take a day or so to try and locate all of the Oahu-based Team guys. We'll instruct Mrs. Garcia to tell whoever else asks about Clay to tell them exactly what she said to us. Ruiz will head up to this area to track down Garcia to kill him. Except we're not gonna let him anywhere near the man." Stealth was the order of the day for this mission and Joe and Steve decided to do this without the rest of the team. If the hitman saw anyone in the forest then he would abort his plan and they might never see him again.

After a few hours to get their gear together, the two men were being driven to Clay's favorite camping spot. Danny dropped them off and then drove away, they didn't want a parked car drawing any attention. It took a few hours of hard trekking before they reached the general area. Steve surveyed the surrounding forest with a trained eye, "He's gonna want to be at a higher elevation, within striking distance of a main trail but still completely hidden from it," he waved his hand towards a small hill, "I'm thinking he would be this way."

Joe grunted his agreement and they set off in the direction that Steve had indicated. They stuck to the trail, both men eyeing suitable camping spots as they walked. As they were getting to the highest part of the trail, Steve held out his arm to stop Joe. The man followed his gaze and immediately understood. They split up and circled quietly around until they saw the tent. Steve was being ultra-cautious, he didn't want to be attacked by a surprised SEAL.

However, his caution was completely unnecessary as Garcia was propped up against a rock near his tent with a half-full bottle of whiskey stood up next to him. As he got closer he could hear the gentle snores from the man and signalled to Joe to come and join him, "Shit, Joe. He's a bloody sitting duck when he's in this state of mind. When we get this case wrapped, I'm gonna get him to visit a psychologist who works out of Tripler. She's got the necessary security clearance to be able to hear classified intel during the sessions."

Joe looked at Steve with an unspoken question. Steve explained further, "I've had a couple of appointments, finding out about my not-dead mother and all this shit with Wo Fat brought a lot of things back up to the surface that I thought I'd buried. I didn't want to let it get to the point where I'd take myself up to the hills and give myself alcohol-poisoning like this poor sod." Joe considered his next words carefully, knowing that Steve was always striving to prove himself to him,

"It's okay to not be okay sometimes, Son. At least you recognize it and you're doing something about it before it spirals out of control. I've seen it happen too many times with Team Guys and it saddens me, asking for help is not a weakness." Steve swallowed a couple of times, he'd never opened up like this to his training CO and mentor,

"I've talked to Eddie quite a bit and that has helped a lot, but I just sort of felt that I would be letting you down if I admitted to having problems with missions that have gone bad. Losing Freddie was really hard." Joe knew exactly how close the two men had been, he had witnessed the bond being forged during BUD/S and knew that they had been as close as brothers. He squeezed Steve's shoulder,

"I'm here if you ever want to talk, but it's also fine if you find it easier to talk to Eddie . . . he's one hell of a good man. There's no right or wrong way to approach this, Steve." Steve got a little choked up, wishing he had opened up to Joe years ago. He looked down at the ground and got control of his emotions and back on point,

"Copy that, Commander. Now let's sort out Petty Officer Garcia and catch this sonovabitch red-handed."