TC worked his way through his pre-flight checklist as fast as he could, without compromising safety. He knew that speed was vital right now, but missing something important and endangering Rick's life, as well as his own, was not an option.
There'd been nothing in the information that Magnum had sent them about Nick Stevens, earlier that day, to indicate that the man was dangerous, but during the long drive back from where they'd lost sight of the black Mercedes, an uneasy feeling had been building up along TC's nerves. He had absolutely no rational reason for his worry, but the feeling lingered.
Eventually, he'd put it down to hard-won experience and admitted that sometimes this particular feeling didn't need a reason – it just was. And it meant that Magnum was in trouble of some sort.
The moment he'd stepped out of his van in the Island Hoppers parking lot, Rick had been right at his side, with the same feeling reflected in his eyes.
"You too?" TC asked.
"Yeah." Rick nodded. "Don't ask me how I know, but I do."
"He's in trouble again." TC confirmed.
"So, what's new?" Rick sighed, but the attempt at humour fell flat.
TC shook his head and indicated his office with a wave of his hand. "I'm going to start the pre-flight. I should be ready in half an hour, maybe forty minutes."
"Okay." Rick turned to head for his car, keys already swinging from his fingers. "I just need to fetch some supplies from my place. I'll be back before you're done."
True to his word, Rick had been back in less than thirty minutes, carrying his sniper rifle. A kit bag full of ammunition, his handgun and a medical kit was slung over his shoulder. He'd also taken the time to change his dark trousers and dress shoes for jean and sneakers, some instinct warning him that the change would be necessary.
"Do you know something I don't, Orville?" TC let his gaze rest on the rifle for a long moment.
"No." Rick immediately shook his head. "Just pays to be ready for anything."
Rick headed for the chopper, loading his bag into the back and making sure it was strapped down. Then he hoisted himself up and settled in the front passenger seat.
TC finished up his checklist and stowed the clipboard down the side of his seat. He'd just strapped himself in, and was about to start the engine, when Rick laid a hand on his arm. "Hold on a second."
"What for?"
Rick simply pointed at the entrance to the parking lot and tipped his head to the side, eyes closed for a moment as he concentrated on something only he could hear.
Seconds later, Higgins shot into the parking lot in the Range Rover, tyres squealing as she took the turn from the road. The engine had barely died before she was hopping out of the vehicle and yanking the back door open.
Rick slid out of the chopper at once, heading straight across the lot to Higgins. TC stared after him and wondered why he was still amazed when Rick heard things before he did – his friend had been doing it for as long as he'd known him, yet every time was still a surprise. He smiled, shook his head and followed Rick across the lot.
"Jules. What's wrong?" Fear laced Rick's words and the uneasy feeling that had been tormenting TC suddenly spiked dangerously.
As Higgins leaned into the vehicle to pick up her laptop and a small kit bag, TC saw the gun tucked into the back of her trousers. Whatever she'd learned clearly had Higgins spooked.
Rick took the kit bag from her, looking inside to check the contents.
"A medical kit? Something we should know?" The fear was still there in the words and TC met Rick's gaze in concern.
"We can add it to ours." TC saw the curious look on Juliet's face and managed a smile for her. "We know what he's like, Higgy. We always have one. But why are you bringing one?"
"This." Higgins lifted her phone, pulled up the last message she'd received from Magnum and showed it to both men.
"Not good." TC admitted.
"He hasn't answered his phone since then." Higgins added. "And there are too many odd coincidences happening here, for me to think that there isn't something wrong."
TC took a moment to follow the logic in that sentence, then nodded. Rick looked just as concerned as he felt.
"Then we'd better get moving." He headed back towards the chopper, knowing that Rick and Higgins were only one step behind him.
When they reached the helicopter, he swung himself into the pilot's seat again, strapping himself in securely without conscious thought.
Rick offered Higgins a hand into the front passenger seat and swung himself into the passenger seat behind her. TC shot him a quizzical look and was rewarded with a nod towards Juliet.
"Jules can tell us both what's going on while we're on the move." Rick glanced away for a second, then met TC's eyes again. "And it's easier to use the rifle from here."
The statement was nothing but fact, yet TC could feel the cold emanating from Rick's words. If anyone had harmed Magnum, Rick would have no problem with ending their time on the planet. If he were being honest, TC could admit that he had absolutely no issue with that outcome either.
He glanced across to check that Higgins was safely strapped in, and saw the sudden dawn of clear understanding on her face. She turned her head to look at Rick for a long moment, then looked back at TC and nodded once.
Apparently, Higgins shared their feelings.
He drifted the helicopter lightly into the air, waiting for his emotions to settle fully, then set course for the road where they'd last seen the black car. Then he turned his attention back to Higgins, who now had her laptop open and balanced on her knees. "Okay, Higgy. So tell us what's going on with our boy."
Higgins tapped one more key, stared blankly at the screen and then snorted in disgust.
"Okay, then. From the beginning, I think." She sighed quietly, giving the impression of getting her thoughts in order. TC admired her ability to think clearly under pressure, especially given the lives they all seemed to lead lately.
"Magnum and I accepted a case this morning, investigating Nick Stevens, at the request of his business partner, one Lewis Harrison. While we were … accessing some background information …" TC grinned at the faint blush that he could see on Juliet's face at her own choice of words, "we found out about Katsumoto."
"Magnum went out to the last location where Katsumoto's phone was active, while I was diving into our client's business records."
"I'm guessing you hit pay dirt?" Rick's question was almost more of a statement, floating in from the back seat.
"I did indeed. Nick Stevens is definitely moving large sums of money through the company, without his partner's knowledge. As best I can tell, all of the money appears to tie back to a shell company, which has only one registered address on the island."
"Which is?" TC tossed in the question.
"A coffee plantation about an hour's drive from Honolulu." Higgins tapped the same key on the laptop again, shaking her head before carrying on. "The first odd coincidence is that the coffee plantation in question is also the same place that Katsumoto's phone was last active."
"You don't say." Rick sounded unamused.
"Unfortunately." Higgins nodded. TC risked a longer look at her face, sensing that something worse was still to come.
"There's more, isn't there?" His words were quiet, but Rick caught the worry and shifted forward on his seat to hear the answer.
"I believe so." Higgins nodded. "The location pin you sent to me, from the last location where you saw the Mercedes …"
"Go on." Rick encouraged Higgins when she stalled.
"Well, that location is also very near to the coffee plantation."
"The same place?" TC got the words out first.
"The very same. A second odd coincidence. Which is far too many coincidences, to my mind." Higgins sounded sceptical of the possibility of so many things leading to the same place.
TC had to agree with her. It just didn't seem possible that all three things could lead to the same place and not be related.
"Hey, Jules." Rick spoke suddenly. "Did you find any mention of a shipping company in any of the paperwork to do with Nick Stevens? A place down at the docks, maybe?"
"Oddly enough, yes." Higgins swung around in her seat to stare at Rick. "I was planning on doing more digging into that later. However did you know?"
TC focused on the route he was flying for the next few minutes, leaving Rick to fill Higgins in on the information Lara had given them earlier in the afternoon.
When Rick had finished, Higgins stared out of the window for several minutes in silence. Then she looked back at the laptop screen and started typing furiously. Five long minutes later, she sat back in her seat and sighed.
"I'm not completely sure of what's going on here, but it seems as though Nick Stevens is paying one Ted Morkot for a semi-regular charter of his boat. Two days every time, but no manifest registered with our client's company, or with the shipping agent at the dock."
"Sounds odd." TC agreed.
"And not in a good way." Rick chimed in as well.
"True." Higgins agreed. "This is only a theory, but it would seem that Nick Stevens is involved in shipping something off the island. Whatever is it, the process is clearly illegal. The coffee plantation must be some sort of headquarters for the operation, or maybe Stevens is using it as a cover for whatever else he's involved in. And then somehow Detective Katsumoto became aware of the happenings at the plantation, and went out there this morning."
"Think it ties in to him being suspended?" That seemed logical to TC.
"Bet it does." Rick sounded certain. "We all know those charges are bogus."
"There is a certain logic to all of that." Higgins admitted. "So it would seem that Magnum has managed to walk right into the middle of whatever is going on."
"Only Thomas." Rick sighed, even as an amused chuckle slipped out.
"It's not his fault, Orville." TC disagreed. "Not this time, anyway."
"I guess not." Rick admitted. "But he really does seem to attract the oddest clients. And weird situations."
"Although, to be fair, he didn't go to the plantation because of our case." Higgins added. "He went because Katsumoto was there."
"And this time, Katsumoto can't even blame Magnum for dragging him into trouble." Rick sounded faintly pleased about that.
"Yeah. This time, it's all Katsumoto's fault." TC had to laugh at how the tables had turned.
"Well, I guess he's family." Higgins murmured quietly. "So, obviously, we're going to get involved. Whether he asks us to, or not."
"Did Thomas say that?" Rick's question was deadly serious.
"In a manner of speaking, yes." Higgins confirmed it with a nod, her smile wry. "Much as you two gents also did. Even if none of you used that specific word when you admitted it."
"In which case, there's nothing he won't do to help." TC tone was worried now. "And nothing he won't endure."
MPI-MPI-MPI
"Stupid, brave, son of a …"
Quiet, muttered words were the first thing Magnum heard when he regained consciousness this time. In a voice he immediately recognised, thankfully, as that of Detective Katsumoto. The words cut off as soon as the other man realised that Magnum was waking.
Magnum kept his eyes shut, trying to get an idea of what was going on around him by using all his other senses. Besides, he was pretty sure any bright light was going to make the pounding headache worse, so keeping them shut seemed far more sensible.
He remembered being chained to the wall of a barn, and a single twitch of his right hand confirmed that the situation hadn't changed. He also remembered sliding down a hard, rough wooden wall just before passing out again.
But now that wall was gone. Another reason to figure out what was happening before letting the tall guy know that he was aware of his surroundings again.
The clues he was picking up where confusing, to say the least. He seemed to be resting against something solid, but warm. Firm, but not hard. And he was far more upright than he'd expected to be, after getting backhanded and kicked in the ribs.
Suddenly everything clicked together and made sense – he was next to Katsumoto.
Shocked embarrassment had his eyes popping open, providing him with proof that he was leaning heavily on the detective. It even looked as though Katsumoto had moved as close to Magnum as he could, in order to hold the investigator upright.
Magnum immediately tried to push himself further upright, to take his weight off the other man. A sharp pain spiked in his side and he gasped, freezing in position to let the pain settle. A minute later, the sharp flare settled into a viciously nagging ache that he was far too familiar with. The next few weeks were not going to be fun.
"Stay still, you idiot." Katsumoto hissed the words at him, keeping his voice as quiet as possible. "Or our friend over there will come back here."
Magnum turned his head just enough to see that the tall man was now on the far side of the barn, just inside the doorway. He turned to look at Katsumoto again, glad to see no new damage on his friend's face.
"You okay?" He breathed the words out. "He didn't do anything to you?"
"No. Just you." Katsumoto shook his head.
"Good."
"Not good, Magnum." Katsumoto actually managed to shout in a whisper, and Magnum found himself grinning at the tone. "I don't care about whatever it is that you think that you're doing, or whatever you think that you're saving me from, don't do that again. I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself."
"Yeah, well, that's not how it works." Magnum muttered back. "I told you that already."
"Stubborn ass." The disgusted tone of the rejoinder made Magnum smile again for a moment.
But he had to move again, as the angle he was leaning at caused too much pressure on the broken rib, making it hard to breathe. He forced himself back against the wall, aiming to get to a more vertical position, feeling Katsumoto leaning hard against his side to help him shift around on the sandy floor.
Even the small amount of noise they'd made was enough to alert their captor, who immediately stalked across the large space to stand in front of them. He stared down at them in silence, then spat out one command.
"Shut up."
Magnum stared back without blinking, forcing himself to look unconcerned.
"Enjoying yourself?" The words were a taunt. "Afraid to take on someone who can fight back?"
Magnum heard the shocked gasp from Katsumoto, but kept his attention riveted on the man in front of him.
A flicker of rage crossed the man's face, and he reached behind himself and produced the same large handgun that he'd used earlier when he'd knocked Katsumoto out. He aimed it right between Magnum's eyes and pulled back ever so slightly on the trigger, before freezing in position.
Magnum simply smirked, knowing that he'd guessed right. Now he planned to make the most of that guess, and see what else he could get this idiot to let slip.
"Coward." The word dripped derision, before Magnum spoke again. "Why don't you just kill us both?"
The man took another threatening step forward, hefting the gun slightly higher.
"Not my place." Magnum could hear the disappointment and smiled again. "That's up to the boss."
Without another word, the man turned his back on them and headed back to the open door. This time, he walked outside and the shadow that fell on the ground outside showed that he'd taken up a position just outside the doorway.
Magnum let himself lean more heavily on the wall behind him, needing the support after the effort it had taken to hide the pain flaring in his side and head while talking to their captor. But he wasn't destined to get much breathing space, as the police detective next to him shifted to stare pointedly at him.
"What the hell were you thinking? Have you got a death wish, or something?" In other circumstances, Magnum would have teased Katsumoto about the level of concern those questions showed. But right now, he simply didn't have the energy to spare. He needed to be ready to move when they got the opportunity, and wasting energy now would just slow them down later.
"Of course not." He kept the words quiet, slow, trying to breathe carefully as he answered honestly. "If I did, I probably wouldn't still be here."
"That's … good to know." The relief in that answer brought him up short, mind racing to parse out the implications buried in the tone.
"Wait a second." Magnum shifted minutely, enough that he could look directly at his friend. "Gordon, you honestly thought I might have a death wish?"
"Maybe not … consciously." Katsumoto shrugged one shoulder, eyes guarded. "But it's not that long ago we had that discussion about your lack of self-preservation."
"And?"
"You haven't shown much intent to look after yourself in the last few hours." The words were flat and factual.
"That's different." Magnum couldn't see the issue. He would have stepped in front of anyone trying to hurt any one of his friends. "You're here."
He could see Katsumoto pondering on that, wondering if Katsumoto had figured out yet that Magnum would protect him in the same way he would his brothers, and Juliet. But Katsumoto carried on talking quietly, and Magnum forced himself to listen to the serious words.
"Look, I know you've had a bad year. First there was Hannah, then what happened to TC, then the mercenaries at the estate. Now Abby leaves …"
"I'm fine." Magnum sighed the words out, tired of dealing with issues that couldn't be changed. Tired of thinking about all the things that kept going wrong in his life.
"You're not fine. We all know it, we all see it." The concern in those words almost drowned out his anger that they'd all been talking about him behind his back again.
"We? I told you all, I'm fine." Magnum hissed back, voice rising too much as he carried on speaking. "I don't need to be watched all the time!"
"Shut up!" The man at the door stepped inside and glared at them again, hand reaching for the gun in his waistband. "You don't want me to come over there again." He waited a moment, then stepped back outside.
Magnum relaxed slightly against the wall, a hiss of pain escaping as the broken rib shifted. He closed his eyes against the light, hoping the headache would ease a bit if he stopped trying to focus on the dust motes floating in the needles of sunshine coming in through the barn window.
Katsumoto slumped back against the wall, too, shoulder touching Magnum's just enough to offer an added support. Magnum opened his eyes a crack to see the detective was shaking his head, as he carried on talking, voice barely loud enough for Magnum to catch the words.
"It's not like that. We care about you, okay?" A heavy sigh followed that admission, along with a shadow of a smile. "And if you tell anyone I told you that, I'll deny it, okay?"
Katsumoto took a deep breath, but said nothing more. He sighed again, then started to talk.
"Look, when my wife left me, all I could think was … it was my fault." Magnum could hear the lingering sadness in Gordon's voice. "I worked too hard, too much, I wasn't there enough for her."
"That's the job." Magnum offered the consolation quietly, keeping his voice as low as Gordon's, and hoping their captor would stay outside.
"I know." Katsumoto agreed. "And she knew that. We'd even talked about it, before we got married. But things change. People change." He shifted slightly, offering Magnum a little more support by leaning a little closer to the investigator.
"But it still took me a really long time to realise that I didn't make her leave. When everything started to go wrong, when things started to change … she didn't even try to work it out." A quietly pained laugh punctuated the story. "Instead, she cheated on me – with someone I worked with – and then she chose to leave me."
"Ouch." Magnum kept the word toneless, but his heart ached for his friend. He knew how much it hurt to be betrayed by the one person you thought, and believed with all your heart, would never act against you.
He looked across, to find Katsumoto watching him with a faint smile on his face. Then the smile faded and Gordon's expression turned completely serious.
"You probably don't want to hear this, but Abby chose to leave. Her choice didn't have anything to do with you. It wasn't because of you, or anything you did."
"I took her case." Magnum's regret over that one fact slipped into the words.
"If you hadn't, someone else would have. Your friend Harry was going to, until he asked you to take it. She would have found someone else. And the result would have been the same for her." The compassion behind that logic was almost too much for Magnum.
"I know that, I guess, but still …" Sometimes logic just wasn't enough. Guilt didn't let go its grip easily, as he'd learned over the last few years. No matter how many times he'd been told that the Korengal wasn't his fault, or how many people had pointed that fact out to him, he still felt that he was, somehow, to blame.
"This guilt isn't yours to carry." Katsumoto paused then, waiting until Magnum looked right at him before speaking again. "You carry enough, I think." The detective tipped his head slightly to one side, and Magnum wondered for a moment what he saw with that careful, considering gaze. "Everyone has their limit, Thomas."
"Even you, Gordy?" The nickname slipped out, an attempt to lighten a conversation that was suddenly too serious, and far too insightful. No wonder Katsumoto was such a great detective.
"You saw me when we found Stanley's body. What do you think?" The detective was sharp and self-deprecating.
"That's different." Magnum couldn't agree, because that would mean that the other man was right. That, right now, he needed his friends to be watching over him. Even if the feeling of being watched was enough to make his skin itch, and to drive him out on the surf ski for far longer than was normal.
"How?" A faint snort of amusement accompanied the question.
"It just is." Magnum knew just how petty that sounded as a reason, but admitting the truth would be a step too far at the moment.
"It's not, really." Katsumoto was laughing at him, even if it wasn't out loud. "Just so you know, if I'd had to deal with my divorce at the same time as we were solving Stanley's murder, I probably would have cracked."
Now that was a revelation he hadn't expected, and Magnum fell silent as he reflected on what that told him about Gordon. He considered the detective to be one of the most honest people he'd ever met, with a moral code that never wavered from its own true North – a standard that was probably the highest he'd ever encountered. Which meant that what Gordon had just told him was the truth. So, perhaps none of the guilt over Abby being disbarred really was his burden. Perhaps that really was all on her, and her choices.
Her leaving still hurt, though, and it would for a long while. But now, at least to himself, he could start to accept that he wasn't the cause of her actions. Just another victim of her need to see a guilty man in jail. All he had to do was wait for that to sink in properly, so that everyone could see it, and then they would stop walking on eggshells around him.
Everyone except Higgins, of course, who'd blithely pointed out that if his heart were truly broken, he'd be dead. Although he was pretty sure that sarcasm was her way of worrying about him, too. At least, he hoped it was.
There would be time later to think over all these insights, and consider what it all meant. But right now, he had bigger problems to worry about.
Starting with the shackles. It was just his luck that he'd left his lockpicks in the car today. He'd never considered that he might need them when hunting for Katsumoto, because how many locked doors was he really likely to find on a coffee plantation? That would teach him to make assumptions.
He let his fingers stretch out behind his back, hoping to feel something he could use, some way to get the shackles off.
While he let his fingers and mind wander over ways of getting free, he tipped his head to the side to look at Katsumoto. Gordon was staring at the open door, eyes dark and inscrutable.
"Just so you know, I did have a reason for going at him like that." Magnum twitched one foot in the direction of the door to indicate their captor.
"I'm glad to hear it." Mild sarcasm filled the reply. "So, what was it?"
"Information. The more we know, the better our chances." Magnum murmured quietly, seeing the question on Katsumoto's face. "We learned that he's a low-level guy. They're always the ones who get their kicks from hurting people who can't fight back."
"That helps us how?" Katsumoto's curiosity was clear now.
"Well, now we know that the boss is coming here. Probably sometime soon, if that idiot's willing to leave us chained up here until the boss gets here. Which also means that they're not planning to do anything with us until whoever that is gets here."
"Okay." A nod gave Magnum that point. "But how does that help us right now?"
"Point one, we're still alive. Point two, we're likely to stay that way for a while longer. Point three, we have some time now to get free. Point four, after we're free we can get out of the barn and take it from there." Magnum listed the points without emotion, like running through a briefing for a military operation.
"We get free, just like that, huh?" This time Katsumoto actually laughed out loud, the chuckle low and brief. "So clearly you have a fool-proof plan, then."
Magnum managed a tiny laugh at that, catching his breath as his ribs flared with pain again.
"Ah, no, actually. I'm … still working on that."
Magnum closed his eyes again, ignoring the thumping pain in his head and the sharper ache in his side that he could do nothing about, and instead put all his attention on the shackles he was carefully running his fingers over. Unfortunately, the metal felt solid, with no way to work them loose. He grabbed hold of the chain near the one shackle and pulled experimentally against the now-immobilised shackle. There wasn't enough leeway to try sliding his hand out, not even if he tried dislocating his thumb.
Giving up on that idea, he ran his fingers along the chain instead. Maybe there was a rusted link, or some sort of weakness he could exploit. But luck wasn't smiling on him today.
As a last-ditch option, he shifted both hands along the chain until he reached the pipe that he and Katsumoto were shackled to, hoping that it might be something he could break or move.
But that idea was a non-starter too, with the pipe seemingly solid. He slid his hands slowly along the length of pipe, praying that his luck would turn soon. And then he felt something different. A ridge in the pipe, but even and regular. So not a spot-weld to repair a break, but some kind of intentional joint in the pipe.
A few more moments of feeling around the shape brought a moment's clarity. There was some sort of joiner screwed onto the piece of pipe behind him. And if the joiner had been screwed onto the pipe, reason said that it could screwed off the pipe as well.
It didn't get their hands free from the shackles, but getting free from the wall would be a good start on his plan for getting away. He gripped the joiner and tried to turn it, but the metal refused to twitch. Another try netted the same result.
He opened his eyes to check where their captor was, and saw the man's shadow was still holding steady outside the door. Keeping that shadow in the centre of his gaze, he shifted quietly and carefully towards Katsumoto, until his shoulder was pressed tightly against that of the detective.
He followed the pipe with his fingers until he felt the chain from Katsumoto's shackles, then wrapped his fingers around the links and pulled until he'd dragged the chain towards him enough that the other man turned his head to look at him.
"Magnum, what are you doing?" The question was barely a breath.
"Feel this." He whispered back, as he reached to the side, slid his fingers along the chain and grabbed Katsumoto's fingers.
The detective froze for a moment, then Magnum could feel his fingers running over the same things Magnum had already noted.
"It's a pipe. Solid. Not breakable." Katsumoto hissed the answer.
"Not that." Magnum guided the other man's fingers to the joiner he'd found. "This."
"What is that?"
"Some sort of connection. A joiner of some kind." Magnum risked a glance at Katsumoto, seeing comprehension dawning, before turning his eyes back to the shadow at the doorway. "It's got thread, so it was screwed onto the pipe."
"You want to unscrew it?"
"Yeah." Magnum tapped his fingers on Katsumoto's in agreement. "But I can't get enough leverage on my own to make it move."
"Okay." Katsumoto's fingers brushed over Magnum's, then settled firmly next to them on the joiner. "Let's do this."
Magnum leaned his head back against the wall, concentrating on his hands and their grip on the small piece of metal. A sense of time running out filled him, and he murmured to his friend.
"Yeah. Before the boss shows up and kills us."
MPI-MPI-MPI