OK, I lied about not posting early again. I couldn't help it. But I suppose you don't mind :)
Thanks for the reviews and PMs, I appreciate it a lot.
There's not much excitement in this chapter - it's more like a preparation for the next one, though.
Danny realized that he was nervous.
Actions based on improvisations and plans patched together in a matter of an hour or two weren't how he usually did things. He liked planning everything with exacting precision, and, as much as he could, minimize the effects of chance. Excellent preparation reduced the scope for surprises and that, in turn, gave him confidence.
But they were short on time, and they would have to make do with the plan they'd managed to put together. Or hope to hear about Roederer's whereabouts from their friends before they put this craziness in motion. But so far, that didn't happen. And if he had to choose between committing a crime along with risking his life or letting Steve die in jail, his choice was clear.
He concentrated on his breathing, maintaining an even rhythm, in and out, and tried to tune out the thoughts racing through his mind.
"Danny?" Lou's voice broke the silence. "You okay?"
Danny turned to meet Lou's eyes and shook his head. "This can't possibly end up well, Lou," he said.
"I know. It's not ideal, but we've run out of options," Lou said. "We'll handle whatever comes next. But Adam's right. We have to get McGarrett out of there first."
The big man stood in the open doorway, and Danny could see the rest of the team in vivid conversation over in his own living room behind Lou's back. None of them liked the idea, but they didn't complain either. The loyalty radiating from each and every one of them left Danny in awe.
"You don't have to do this," he said for the third time that day. "The stakes are too high. You've got family, Lou. And they're too young to throw their future away just like that."
"We've already talked about this," Lou opposed. "McGarrett is family too," he said and pointed his finger in direction of the team. "Every person you see in there knows the risks. But they choose to take it because Steve gave them a family. In a way, this family saved every one of us, including me." He paused, as if fishing in the memory. "He was there for each of us every time we needed help. We owe him."
"Yeah, but this isn't like North Korea, or Africa," Danny stood his ground. "We might have broken a few rules back there trying to save his ass, but this is different. What we're about to do…" He shook his head, still in disbelief, still surprised by his decision to agree with this madness. "We'll risk everything."
"We know." That was all Lou said.
"There's still time to stop this and find another way."
"Am I interrupting?" another voice said.
Lou turned and stepped aside so Danny could see the man standing in there too. "No," Lou said. "Go ahead, Jerry."
Jerry's presence meant a lot to Danny. He might have left the taskforce, but he had never forgotten them. It only took a brief explanation of the situation through the phone to get the man to offer his help on his own before Danny even had a chance to ask.
"You should join us over here so we can go through a couple of ideas," Jerry said.
He led the way to the living room with Lou and Danny on his heels.
"So?" Danny said.
Jerry threw a glance around the group of people watching him. "Uh, I think Adam's idea sounds more like an improvisation," he said, looking at Adam apologetically. "No offense."
"You got a better one?" Lou asked.
"Maybe?"
"Maybe?"
"It depends," Jerry said. "Can we go to the prison now?"
Junior shook his head. "We won't be able to get you inside," he said. "Danny barely managed a visit for five minutes during visiting hours this morning."
"I don't need to go inside."
Danny shrugged. "Then it shouldn't be a problem. We can be there in half an hour."
The gates had been rolled across the entrance to the prison compound and there would be no way for them to get any closer to the building without arousing suspicion. Danny pulled over to the side of the road. It was a little after seven, and the light was beginning to fade.
Jerry looked out at the building beyond the gate. "Have you scouted it?" he said to Danny.
"I went inside when I saw Steve," he said. "I couldn't see anything that looked like a weakness, but I didn't get to see all of it. It's not like I went in for such a purpose."
"What's the technology like inside the prison?"
"How do you mean?"
"What about the network? Is it low tech or high tech?"
"I have no idea."
"Do they have Wi-Fi?"
"I've never needed to find out."
"Well, we'll need to know. Here." He handed her a phone from his bag.
Danny took it, looking down at it dubiously. "I already have one."
"Not like this," Jerry said. "This one is special. You need to take it into the building."
"They won't let me see Steve again today," Danny said.
"You just need to get the phone inside. No need to see Steve for now."
Danny stared at him. "Not unless you tell me what it's going to do."
"The phone and my laptop are linked. I can control it from here. I need you to take it inside so that I can analyze the network. I need to know where the vulnerabilities are. I should be able to get what I need from the network connections in the guardhouse."
"Will the guards be able to tell what it's doing?"
"No. It'll look and act just like a normal phone," Jerry said.
"How long will you need?"
"I can't say. Not long."
"Not long? Jerry, I need to know more than that. I'm not exactly welcome in there."
"Someone has to take that phone into the guardhouse," Jerry said. "It doesn't have to be you. We can ask someone else."
"No," Danny disagreed. "It has to be me. When?"
"I can't do anything until I know what the network is like," Jerry said. "So we do it now."
Danny swallowed. "Tell me what I need to do."
Danny walked through the double door and made his way through the hall, doubts about what he was doing still present on his mind. It felt all kinds of wrong, and he had to constantly remind himself why he agreed to this beyond desperate plan.
As he walked, he could feel the shape of the phone in his pocket. It was larger than his own, and he suddenly felt certain that it was going to give him away and betray his purpose. He reached across his body with his right hand and tapped his fingers against it. It looked just as it should. It was just a phone. There was no reason why it should arouse suspicion.
The late hour meant that there were far fewer members of staff in the lobby than had been the case during his earlier visits. There was a clerk behind the plexiglass screen, and Danny went over to stand before him.
The clerk looked up from the screen, studying Danny with a frown. "Can I help you?" he asked.
"Hi. Yes, uh,… I'm Detective Danny Williams and–"
"It's late, Detective. What do you want?"
Danny remembered pressing the guy didn't work last time, so he tried a different approach, even though this time a different clerk was on shift. He smiled through the man's bad temper. "You have an inmate here."
The clerk was distracted by a TV that was out of sight.
Danny knocked on the glass. "Excuse me?"
The man scowled as he looked back at him. "What?"
"I want to see one of the inmates."
"Too late for that."
"I'm sure an exception can be made," he said. Sure, Jerry said no actual visit was actually needed, but if he managed one by any chance, it would be a welcome bonus. Plus, he needed to buy time for Jerry one way or the other.
The man cursed under his breath. "Who is it?"
"Steve McGarrett."
"McGarrett," the man said, tapping at his keyboard.
"That's right. I need to see him."
"Not tonight. The visiting hours were this morning. You should have called before you drove down here. You've wasted your time and now you're wasting mine."
"When?" he asked. He remembered the other time slot for visits was on Saturday afternoon, but he was hoping to buy more time.
"Tomorrow. Between four and six in the afternoon."
"Can't you make an exception today?" Danny kept pressing.
"No. Tomorrow. Now, leave before I call the security." The clerk turned his gaze to the TV screen again.
This time, Danny did as told, dragging his steps out as much as possible without looking suspicious. He could only hope Jerry got what he needed already.
When the door opened, Danny forced himself to walk slowly even though he wanted to run back to the car as soon as she was beyond it.
As he opened the car door and slid back onto the seat, he saw that Jerry had opened his laptop and was scrolling through a page of incomprehensible data. He didn't look away from the screen as Danny closed the door behind him.
"Did it work?"
Jerry didn't answer.
"Did it work?"
"Jerry," Danny said when he didn't reply.
Jerry rested the laptop on the dashboard. "Sorry," he said. "Yes. It worked. You did well." He paused. "But that doesn't mean this is going to be easy."
Danny frowned. He had never thought it would be easy. "Meaning?"
"I thought that the network security would be basic. It's not. I used the phone to sniff the Wi-Fi. They're using WPA2 encryption. That's the standard level, and it's very secure."
"You can't hack it?"
"I could, but it could take weeks. And it doesn't sound as if we have weeks."
"We don't," Danny agreed. "Steve can be attacked again anytime and this time there might not be anyone to stop them from killing him."
"So we have to get in another way," Jerry said.
Danny encouraged him to go on. "And you've thought of that?"
Jerry grinned. "I have. As you were inside the building, the phone picked up another signal. A Bluetooth connection. It's for a keyboard or a mouse—probably a keyboard. Every Bluetooth device has a unique hardware identification number. If I can learn the number for the keyboard, I can spoof it to my own keyboard dongle. Then I can transmit from my device to the computer in the security building. If I do it right, the computer will think the keystrokes are coming from the keyboard it's been paired with, only they're not. They're coming from me. And chances are that the computer is networked into the prison's system with a static, always-on connection. This all means that if I can get into the laptop by spoofing the keyboard, I can get into the prison network. If I can do that, I might be able to start causing trouble. You know, opening doors, setting off fire alarms, that kind of thing."
Danny stared at him for a moment, trying to understand but only getting about half of it. "Can you get it ready by tomorrow?" he asked.
"It's not easy," Jerry said. "I'll have to rig up just the right kind of payload. But…" He shrugged. "If I work overnight, it should be possible."
"You're sure it'll work?"
"I can't say for sure until I'm inside. I'm assuming that the control network for the internal prison security—the doors, the CCTV, their alarms, that kind of stuff—is on the same network as the standard systems. But there might be separation with air gaps, firewalls, or VLANs which will slow me down."
Danny waved his hand impatiently. "What do we need to do? Practically."
"One of you needs to get close enough to the computer in the building so that I can access the Bluetooth."
"How?"
"The phone. Same again. This time, it'll connect with the computer and make it think it's the keyboard. And then I'll be in."
"As simple as that?"
"You need to stay close enough so that I can access the connection."
Danny shook his head. "If I go through security, they'll take the phone and put it in the storage cupboard."
"That might not work. Is it near the keyboard?"
"No."
"And you need to be close to it."
"For how long?"
"Hard to say. A minute. Maybe a couple of minutes."
"That's just great," Danny said, exhaling an anxious sigh. "So you want me to do what? Talk to the guards?"
"Whatever you need to do."
"It's going to look weird if I have to stay there for long. They get people in and out as quickly as they can."
"I'll be as fast as I can."
Danny took a breath. "Shit," he said.
"You did good just now," Jerry said. "And this is exactly the same."
Danny was thinking about what would happen if the plan they were seemingly concocting on the fly went wrong. He let that thought play out a little more and didn't like it at all.
It was for Steve, he reminded himself. He had to risk it.
"So, how can we help now?" Danny asked.
"Just let me work. You go home and I'll see you tomorrow."
Danny didn't protest this time. He needed to see his children before this madness. To get ready for tomorrow, mentally and physically. To catch some shuteye in order to fuel up his drained-up energy. Because he would no doubt need it once the plan was set in motion.
*to be continued*
As I said - not much action in this one, but it needed to be mentioned to make sense before I set things in motion.
Let me know what you think.