Chapter 30

Carlton's return to awareness was slow and painful. His confused mind struggled to make sense of the throbbing pain across his shoulders as he gradually regained consciousness.

Hanging upside down like a bat in the crushed helicopter cockpit was not helping his sluggish thought process one bit.

He let out a low moan as he shifted in the tight straps that were cutting into his chest and shoulders. He blinked several times to force his vision to clear and was finally able to take in his surroundings. The dazed man realized that hours must have passed since the moment of impact if the light streaming into the smashed cockpit was anything to go by - it was now clearly daytime. It took a few more minutes before he was able to get his limbs to cooperate enough to start feebly scrabbling at his harness. More by chance than by design his fingers connected with the release button and it abruptly gave way, unceremoniously dumping the seat's unfortunate occupant into the inverted cockpit. Carlton only just got his hands out in front of him in time and he cried out in agony as his pinkie finger bent back at an unnatural angle.

He lay there for a minute until he regained control over his labored breathing and then forced himself to look at his hand.

Carlton was on the squeamish side ever since being taken on a pheasant shoot with his father when he was still a very young boy. The 6 year-old child had recoiled in horror as he had witnessed one of the overfed game birds drop out of the sky right next to him. It was still alive and had thrashed around on the ground until the gamekeeper had stepped in and wrung the bird's neck with a well-practised flick of his wrist. The snapping noise as the bird's neck was broken was something that he could still clearly recall to this day. Subsequently, he really didn't like it when body parts were not where they should be and the sight of his twisted finger nearly made him gag. Squeezing his eyes shut, he firmly grasped the offending digit and clicked it back into place. When he re-opened his eyes he was mightily relieved to see it looking more or less normal again.

Despite his dubious line of business, and although he was not averse to resorting to violent scare tactics during their acquisitions, it was vanishingly rare that it had ever got that far. But on the one or two occasions where this had been required then it had been left to the dependable Mr. Adams and the other man knew to clean up the scene before letting his boss anywhere near. As a result Carlton had never had to see or smell the all-too-real aftermath of a vicious beating or worse. Forcefully pushing away all thoughts of his dead faithful employee, Carlton turned his attention to his current companion.

The pilot was still unconscious, maybe even dead, and with a shaking hand he reached up to feel for any signs of life. The Jefferson heir let out a loud sigh of relief as he felt a strong pulse in Henry's neck. He first braced himself before he released the harness, buckling under the weight as Mr. Normanton dropped onto him. With a loud grunt from the effort, the well-dressed man slowly manoeuvred the prone pilot out of the mangled cockpit and onto the soft forest floor.

Carlton ducked back into the helo and retrieved a black holdall. It contained a picnic which had been thoughtfully prepared by Henry in case his associates fancied a little snack during the long boat trip across to the uninhabited island - back when there should've been three of them triumphantly arriving at the docks after successfully switching the paintings in the museum vault. Of course, when it had just been him slinking out of the shadows and across to the waiting power boat then the last thing on his mind had been a midnight snack. He glanced into the box of goodies and found sandwiches, pastries and fruit as well as a selection of drinks. The holdall also housed Carlton's gun, which he had slipped safely inside the zipped bag during the boat trip. There was nothing else in the chopper; Henry was a pro and never made the rookie mistake of having anything that would lead back to himself or his companions. As an added precaution Carlton wiped down what was left of the flying machine's control panels, both harnesses and the parts of the metal frame which had been touched by himself or his pilot.

He may not like to get his hands dirty, but Carlton Linwood Jefferson was nothing if not a pragmatist and he knew that he would do whatever it took to survive and prosper. He was quite fond of Henry but would leave him in a heartbeat if it gave him a better chance of making it out of his current predicament alive.

His next job was to ascertain just how badly injured Henry was and if he could be roused. It would be a lot easier to get out of this mess if there were two of them. He wrinkled up in nose in distaste as he felt all over the other man's head and body for obvious injuries and recoiled with a strangled cry as his fingers almost disappeared into the back of the pilot's skull.

On closer inspection it was clear that something had caved in the back of Henry's head during the crash. It was even more abundantly clear that the unconscious man was not going to be waking up anytime soon.

If ever.

Carlton loudly cursed as he pondered on his bad luck, he could really have done with some help from his companion but instead the stupid man had managed to grievously injure himself and would be no help to him at all . . . even worse, he was now a liability. Tears pricked at his eyes as he weighed up his options before inevitably settling on the only one which would ensure the other man's eternal silence. Shuddering sobs wracked his body as Jefferson smothered Henry's face and mouth with his jumper. The need for oxygen was a primeval instinct and even in his comatose state the stricken man was able to process that he was being deprived of the life-affirming gas. His eyes flickered open but he couldn't do anything to defend himself against the cowardly attack. As his life ebbed away the only thing he was able to process was the muffled sound of another man weeping.

The newly-minted murderer couldn't bring himself to look at the blank staring eyes of the dead pilot which were silently accusing him. He angrily threw his jumper back over Henry's face. It took all his effort, but he managed to drag Mr. Normanton across the forest floor until he could roll him out of sight behind a large rotting log. With any luck, all evidence of the man's identity would be taken away by the forest creatures over time. No doubt this hateful place was crawling with wild boar and the meat-eating scavengers would make short work of the corpse.

He scanned his surroundings and took stock of his situation.

He might be down, but he was most definitely not out.

The deformed remains of the helicopter were completely hidden from view, no one would ever know to look for it and he doubted that anyone would be venturing into such a remote part of the forest. And even if it was found in years to come then there was nothing to identify its occupants or why it was there. All he had to do was trek out of the forest until he found a road and then use the GPS on his cell phone to work out his location so he could plot a course to the private airfield on the island. He had time on his side; nothing led back to him and the authorities would never think to look for anyone so far away from Oahu. The corrupt airfield owner would soon find him another pilot and then he could finally leave this cursed group of islands and get home to the comfort of his stately mansion on the outskirts of New York.

He let himself have a satisfied smile as he realized that the armored truck would have been hijacked by now and all evidence of the stolen painting completely eradicated. He would still get his money from the dodgy art collector and then he would take his time to regroup while he assembled a new team of trusted associates. Carlton was sad at the loss of his employees but people were replaceable and so that was exactly what he would do - replace everyone and move on. Maybe he would even find himself a suitable 'society' wife and have children. This whole experience had really shaken him up and he felt the strong urge to leave his mark on the world by producing heirs of his own. If he was careful he could still continue his liaisons with his many male and female lovers and essentially have his cake and eat it.

He glanced down at his battered water-damaged loafers and cringed at the thought of trying to trek through the wilderness in the impractical slip-on shoes. His eyes darted across to the dead man and lit up when he saw that Mr. Normanton had been wearing sensible hard-wearing boots. He gingerly reached over to untie the laces and wrestled the footwear off the lifeless man's feet. Upon noting that they looked to be a size bigger than his own shoe size, he also peeled off Henry's socks. Gagging a bit as he rolled the socks onto his own feet, he tightly fastened up the utility boots and was pleased to find that they fit just fine.

His pilot had managed to be useful to him after all.

Having watched enough adventure movies to know that it was very easy to walk aimlessly in large circles in a forest such as this, he decided to head in a westerly direction and keep the ocean on his right at all times. Eventually he would come to a road or a dirt track and then he could follow that. Roads always led to somewhere and 'somewhere' would be a distinct improvement on his current location. He hastily scattered a handful of leaves and branches over Mr. Normanton's body before shouldering the holdall. He violently swore out loud as the bag strap dug into his tender shoulder but he steeled himself and purposefully set out on his long walk back to civilization.

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"Steve." The tone of his partner's voice had McGarrett's head whipping up and he quickly made his way over to where Danny was stood. His gaze followed the detective's and he took in the poorly-concealed body on the forest floor. He dropped down and carefully flicked away the leaves and twigs. Both men studied the dead man's face for a minute before Danny spoke again, "Looks like our pilot, Henry Normanton. He must've been killed in the crash, I wonder if he was thrown out of the helicopter on impact?"

Steve shook his head, "I don't think so . . . look at those drag marks. No, this man was moved here by someone else," he peered more closely at the dead man's face, "can you see the petechial hemorrhaging in his eyes and on his face. Those are classic signs of suffocation-related asphyxiation. I bet Max would find other signs of foul play in an autopsy." Danny nodded in agreement,

"Yeah and that's not all. He has bare feet - whoever killed him took his socks and shoes just for good measure." His eyes scanned the surrounding area looking for evidence, "Oh, that makes sense," Danny plucked up one of the very expensive shoes which had been carelessly discarded near the body, "Stefano Ricci loafers aren't really the best footwear for hiking through terrain like this." Steve raised one eyebrow as he suspiciously eyed his partner,

"I never knew that you were such a fashion guru."

"There are a lot of things that you don't know about me," huffed Danny in reply, "if you must know, I worked with another detective back in Jersey who had a rich wife and she was always buying him the very best of everything. I learnt all about the top design labels - these particular shoes are very exclusive and favored by high society gentlemen . . . it ties in with your theory that the head of this crew is from a very wealthy background." A sad look flashed across his face, "She left him in the end, he wouldn't give up his job and she was sick of being a lowly cop's wife . . . just like what happened with myself and Rachel." Steve rested his hand on his friend's shoulder and gave it a sympathetic squeeze,

"Her loss." He turned slowly around on the spot, "We have ourselves a fugitive. One who can't be that badly injured as he managed to haul his pilot all the way over here and then kill him-"

"And who presumably now has suitable footwear for a long trek," interrupted Danny. "He's clearly a ruthless bastard who doesn't hesitate to take care of any loose ends . . . I can't wait to put a spanner in the works of his criminal empire."

Steve grinned at Danny, "We just need a little something to blend into the landscape if we are going to be tracking down this SOB. You stand out like a sore thumb, we need to do something about your hair . . . it's way too bright." His partner backed away with a horrified expression as he took in the camo paint that the SEAL had gleefully extracted from his backpack with waaay too much enthusiasm.

His arms wind-milled as he edged backwards, "You stay away from my hair with that shit, you absolute Neanderthal."

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Detective Sargent Daniel Williams was busy plotting his partner's demise for the second time that day.

His carefully groomed hair was now liberally streaked with the greasy paint. It was gonna take nothing short of a miracle to get it out of his coveted blond locks. He had to admit though, they both blended into the surrounding forest now that the SEAL had used his camo paint to good effect on both their faces and, in Danny's case, his light blond hair. If they kept the noise down then it would be hard for anyone to spot them. Steve had insisted that they both don camo gear for the mission and they effortlessly merged into the backdrop of trees and vegetation. In fact, Danny had completely lost sight of his partner for a minute until Steve had spoken and revealed his presence.

After a painstaking few minutes of searching, McGarrett had deduced that their prey had set off in a westerly direction and appeared to be travelling parallel to the coastline - presumably in an attempt to keep himself from getting lost in the dense forest. Steve took note, this man was no dummy and they must not underestimate him. He was still probably armed with the lethal armor-piercing rounds as well.

They had duly updated Chin and Kono and then set off in pursuit but they were most likely many hours behind and so had some serious ground to make up if they were to catch their man. They covered the ground with some speed, both of them at the peak of physical fitness. Danny might bitch about their fast progress, but he was secretly a keen runner and could keep up this gruelling pace for hours. Of course Steve already knew this about his partner after observing how quickly he could chase down a criminal and not be out of breath. The only explanation was that Danny trained regularly to attain that high level of fitness but was weirdly unforthcoming about his fitness regime with his work colleagues. Plus a mutual friend had let slip about Danny's regular presence at their local jiu-jitsu gym and that was actually how the detective had aggravated an old knee injury last year - not from chasing down criminals with Steve as Danny had claimed.

What Steve didn't know is that their target was not moving with any particular urgency. The over-confident fugitive mistakenly assumed that he had all the time in the world and didn't see any point in tiring himself to the point of exhaustion. The crash had taken it out of him and he was far from operating at 100%. As a consequence Carlton was taking regular breaks and trudging through the edge of the forest as if he was on a pleasure hike up a tourist trail. He had been forced to cross a number of streams and had stopped after each one to dry out his boots in the sun. He didn't want to develop painful blisters on top of everything else.

He wasn't to know that he had two determined pursuers steadily closing the gap from behind whilst the cousins were leading a posse of local cops to the nearest track. They would then hike down the trail as this was the only track in the area which meandered all the way to the ocean, all of them agreeing that the minute their fugitive came across this trail then he would almost certainly follow it inland rather than continue blindly on through the forest.

He was already caught in a trap, he just didn't know it.

But even a trapped rat can be dangerous . . . especially a rat as unpredictable and ruthless as one Carlton Linwood Jefferson.