CHAPTER 5

Thursday morning, Mr Chang's Supermarket:

After receiving a call from her cousin that they had found Steve's truck and phone, but not Steve, Kono had driven down to the crime scene to see for herself. Her cousin hadn't said much over the phone, but Kono had felt a pit of worry in her stomach the entire drive. When she arrived at the scene, she saw Steve's car parked in the lot and Danny's Camaro a few spaces over. She parked next to the Camaro and got out.

The first thing she saw was the yellow crime scene tape that had been put up. She asked a nearby officer where Chin and Danny were and they pointed her in the right direction. She found them inside the shop where they were inspecting a small pool of blood on the floor. A forensic technician was collecting a sample.

Chin and Danny acknowledged her presence with a grim nod. Kono returned the nod before her eyes were drawn back to the pool of blood on the floor in front of her.

"What happened?" Kono asked, trying to look at the scene objectively.

"We don't know yet," Chin answered. "What we do know is that Steve was here when an apparent armed robbery occurred. According to Mr Chang, the whole thing was over in about ten minutes. We don't know where Steve is and we can't contact him because his phone is in his truck."

"The blood?"

"We are hoping that it's not his."

"Do we have surveillance footage?" Kono asked as she spotted a small camera above the registers. She had put aside her personal feelings and was looking for clues like she had been taught to do.

"Yeah, Officer Milton is getting it for us. We will go through it back at HQ," Chin answered.

Kono moved around the aisles, looking for anything out of place. She saw something sticking out from under the shelving in the aisle three. She bent down to see what it was, listening to Danny as he talked through his theory.

"Okay, so Mr Chang said that Steve entered and went straight to the back. A couple of minutes later, four armed men walk in and they tell Mr Chang to get on the ground and cover his ears. He heard a gunshot and then people running away. So, there are two options. Either they shot Steve and then ran for it, with Steve following them, or Steve shot one of them and they ran and Steve followed," Danny suggested.

"Good theory Danny," Kono said as she held up the object she now identified as Steve's gun. "But I don't think Steve would go after them without his gun."

"Oh, I don't like this," Danny said as he ran a hand through his hair, causing his hair to drift from its normal slicked-back position on top of his head. "I really don't like this."

Of course, there was one other explanation for Steve's disappearance. It was one no one wanted to say out loud unless there was real, physical proof.

Danny turned to the technician that was just packing up his tools. "How long until you can get us a DNA match on that?"

"Within the hour," the technician replied. "I will make it a priority in the lab and let you know the minute it comes in."

"Detective?"

Danny turned around and looked at the young officer they had talked to when they first arrived on the scene. They had since learnt his name was Officer Milton.

"Officer Milton?" Danny asked.

"I have that video footage for you."

"Thank you very much Officer. Please call us if any more evidence shows up here, or if Commander McGarrett returns."

"Of course," Officer Milton replied, handing Danny the thumb drive.

Danny turned to look at Chin and Kono. "Well, I guess we should go back to the office and take a look at this. Hopefully it can tell us where Steve went."

Thursday morning, unknown location:

Steve ran.

He ran harder and faster.

Then he kept running.

He continued running until he couldn't hear anyone pursuing him. Even then, he didn't stop. Only when he was sure he had created a large enough distance between himself and his kidnappers did he slow to a jog. He panted, trying to regulate his breathing as he took in his surroundings. He saw lots of green. Green and brown. And lots of shadows.

Steve sighed. He hadn't exactly thought his escape plan through. What did he really expect to happen? That they would just let him go? They had taken him for a reason and were definitely not going to let their efforts be wasted.

He had no idea how long he had been running for, but it felt like hours. In reality, it was probably only half an hour. Steve brought his slow jog to a complete stop and looked around. He took a moment to catch his breath as he looked back the way he had come. He certainly hadn't been inconspicuous in his retreat.

That gave him an idea.

He thought back to his training, about how he would track a target in vegetated terrain. He would follow all signs of movement such as overturned rocks, broken branches, broken off leaves that were still green, and of course, footprints. Steve smirked as he formulated his plan.

He continued his path into the bush, purposefully breaking branches and turning over rocks as he went. Satisfied that he had left a convincing enough trail, he doubled back and went in the direction he thought the road was in. Hopefully, he would end up behind his captors and be moving away from them while they were following his false trail. He moved carefully through the brush, taking care not to leave any trace of his movements.

Steve paused when he heard voices in the near distance. Steve ducked low in the brush, concealing himself from sight as he waited for them to pass. A few moments later, he was rewarded when two large, tall men walked by. They both had semi-automatic weapons in their hands. They were conversing in another language, obviously arguing about which way to go.

Steve smiled when they eventually moved off, following his carefully constructed path. Steve remained where he was until it was silent again. With his senses on high alert, Steve continued stealthily along his chosen path, hoping he would not cross paths with the other men. He knew there were at least two other men pursing him, maybe more.

As Steve was carefully covering his tracks, he didn't notice one of the men creeping up behind him. Steve froze when he heard a twig snap underfoot.

"Do not move," a low voice commanded from behind him.

Steve straightened and put his hands in the air. There was only one man, Steve was pleased to note. The man came closer and poked his gun into the small of Steve's back. That was all he needed. Steve drove his head backwards, satisfied when he heard the crunching of cartilage associated with a broken nose. Steve spun and grabbed the hand holding the gun before twisting the arm behind the man's back.

Steve applied pressure to the man's wrist, which caused him to involuntarily drop the weapon. The man cried out and Steve quickly placed his hand over the man's mouth to stifle the sound. The man tried to bite his hand, so Steve quickly put him into a chokehold. He tightened his hold until the man started struggling, trying to loosen Steve's grip. Steve held fast and waited until the man passed out from the lack of oxygen.

Steve dropped the man to the floor and paused to catch his breath. His shoulder was aching fiercely after the altercation. Steve pushed the pain aside, knowing he didn't have time to dwell on such things. He had other, more important things to worry about.

Steve grabbed a few leaves and handfuls of dirt, covering the man and concealing him from view. It wasn't his best job, but it would do for now. Suddenly, Steve remembered the man had a gun. Searching the ground, Steve saw a flash of silver in the morning sun. He grabbed the gun and quickly checked the magazine. He counted two bullets.

'Not much. But, better than nothing,' Steve thought as he tucked the gun into the back of his pants.

While the gun wouldn't help him much in a firefight against semi-automatic weapons, it could help him in other ways. With any luck, he wouldn't need to create a diversion. Steve continued along his path towards the road and didn't meet any more resistance. Approximately forty minutes later, he arrived at the road.

Peering out from the brush, he looked up and down the road. He saw the car he had escaped from parked on the side of the road. He must be somewhere secluded, otherwise another motorist would have found the abandoned vehicle suspicious with the trunk left open like that and at least investigated it. Steve was just about the emerge from the brush when he heard the cocking of a gun from his left. Flicking his eyes to the left, he saw the profile of a fourth man holding a gun that was pointed at his head.

Steve cursed himself. He should have been more attentive, should have heard them coming. He should have known that someone would be waiting by the road in case he returned. Steve risked another glance at the man holding the gun on him.

The man looked somewhat familiar, but Steve couldn't quite place him. He was tall and lean, wearing black pants with a black t-shirt. He had dark hair and black, almond-shaped eyes. He had olive coloured skin and a large scar on his dominant hand. While Steve was trying to identify the unknown, but slightly familiar man, two more men emerged from the bush.

"Where's Angelo?" the man holding the gun asked the other two.

"No idea," one of the men answered with an indifferent shrug.

Steve's smirk went unnoticed by the man to his left. This man was obviously the leader of the group and the other two men answered to him.

"Oh well. He was more trouble than he was worth anyway," the leader said, sneering at Steve.

Despite being caught again, Steve felt pride in the fact that he had reduced the number of his captors from four to three. The man with the gun brought it down on the side of Steve's head. The last thing Steve saw was the ground rushing up to greet him.

Thursday afternoon, Five-0 Headquarters:

The drive back to headquarters was silent as each person ran through the different scenarios in their head. They were all trying not to think the worst; that Steve was the victim and it was his blood on the floor. However, they couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that had settled deep in each of their respective guts. As soon as they parked their vehicles, they raced into the Iolani Palace and into their office.

Danny plugged the thumb drive that Officer Milton had given him into the smart table and downloaded the video. With any luck, they would know what had happened in mere moments. Kono forwarded the footage to the previous evening and they watched with bated breath, waiting for their leader to appear on camera.

At 08:42pm, according to the timestamp on the video, Steve walked inside the shop. He exchanged pleasantries with the store owner and grabbed a basket from the collection by the door. Just like Mr Chang had told them, Steve walked straight to the rear of the shop. They noted that Steve still had his badge and gun on him at that point.

At 08:50pm, eight minutes after Steve had entered the store, four men walked inside. They were all wearing baseball caps that protected their faces from the cameras. They all wore dark clothing and carried large semi-automatic weapons. One man aimed their gun at Mr Chang and evidently told him to get on the ground. Unfortunately, they couldn't tell what was actually said as the tape had no audio.

This is where things got confusing. Instead of going straight to the cash register to take the money, the men just stood there, as though waiting for something.

"What are they doing?" Kono muttered, voicing the words the others were thinking.

"It doesn't look like much of a robbery, if you ask me," Danny said.

At 08:52pm, Steve came into camera view, his service weapon in his hands instead of a shopping basket. They watched him glance around the shelving unit before slinking back out of sight. They watched as he felt in his pockets, probably for his phone, and came up empty.

"Well, at least he thought about getting backup," Danny murmured.

A minute later, Steve emerged with his gun aimed in the direction of the armed robbers. He appeared to be telling them to drop their weapons. Instead of dropping them, one man moved forward and shot Steve without even so much as a blink of an eye.

The team watched in dismay as Steve's body jerked with the force of the bullet penetrating his shoulder, spinning him around and landing face down on the ground. They watched as his gun skidded across the floor and out of his reach.

One of the men approached Steve's prone body as he turned himself over. They winced in sympathy when the man delivered a vicious-looking right hook into Steve's face. Steve's body went slack, clearly unconscious from the blow to the face.

The man next to Steve waved the other men over. They helped situate Steve's unconscious form onto his shoulder and the team watched as they carried Steve out the front entrance of the store. The remaining three men jogged out after him. At 08:59pm, they observed Mr Chang standing up and immediately making the call to the police. Kono paused the footage at that point.

"What the hell just happened?" she asked quietly.

"That was no robbery. They were waiting for Steve. Do we have any footage from the parking lot or outside the shop?" Chin asked hopefully.

"No, only the inside cameras the working. The outside cameras were damaged in the storm last month. The technicians are working on getting some usable footage from it, but they aren't holding out much hope," Kono answered, disheartened.

"Why would they shoot Steve and then abduct him?" Danny asked.

"I don't know, Danny. How did they know where he would be and at what time? Who are these guys and what do they want?" Chin asked.

"Steve has made a lot of enemies since starting Five-0. He must have made a few from his time in the military too," Kono reasoned.

"Which doesn't help us right now," Danny said angrily.

Before they could speculate much more, Danny's phone rang. Looking at the caller ID, he announced that it was Forensics before answering the call.

"Detective Williams," he answered.

"Detective. Ioku Hanula from Forensics here," the forensics technician from the crime scene answered.

"Hello Ioku. What do you have for me?"

"I have the DNA results from the blood at the crime scene…Unfortunately, it does match Commander McGarrett's."

Danny sighed. "Yeah, we knew that. We just watched the video footage from the surveillance cameras. Did you find anything else?"

"Yeah. The uniformed officers found his badge and wallet in the dumpster behind the store. No prints. Sorry I don't have anything more for you," Ioku replied.

"That's okay. Thank you Ioku. You've been a great help."

"Please let me know when you find the Commander."

"Will do," Danny said as he hung up with a sigh.

"So, nothing new?" Chin asked.

"Yeah. Just confirmed what we already knew. They did find his badge and wallet in the dumpster out back. No prints, though," Danny answered.

"What do we do now?" Kono asked, looking at the others desperately.

Kono was still a rookie. She hadn't experienced cases like this before. To be fair, neither had Chin nor Danny. It was too personal. But the seasoned detectives did have experience, which would be beneficial to getting their leader back from whoever took him.

"Let's go back through the footage and see if we can get a clear image of their faces," Chin suggested.

They spent two hours combing through the footage, waiting for a glimpse of one of the assailants' faces. Unfortunately, their hats kept their faces from view of all the cameras. The only thing they knew for certain about the kidnappers was that they were all tall men with olive to dark tanned skin and well built.

They spent another hour discussing who would go to the trouble of abducting the head of the elite taskforce. The only person they could think of was Hiro Noshimuri. They all knew he was angry that Steve had not only foiled his plans to kidnap Steve's sister, but had sent him to jail because he had left his fingerprints on the Champ toolbox.

They decided Noshimuri wouldn't stoop so low. Besides, the Yakuza boss would have used people from within his own organisation to do the deed, so to speak. The men that took Steve looked to be European, not Asian. But that didn't completely rule him out.

That brought them to Victor Hesse, whom Steve had also managed to recently incarcerate. Chin shuddered when he remembered the explosive device that had been rigged around his neck. The efforts that his team went to in order to save his life were extraordinary…and maybe a little insane, but who was he to complain? He knew he could never repay them, especially Steve. Steve had definitely stuck his neck out for Chin.

However, if Hesse was behind it, they would have found Steve's dead body. When Chin voiced his theory, Kono yelled at him, saying that Steve can't be dead and that they took him for a reason. After Kono had calmed down, they went back to the drawing board, which was mostly blank.

"Oh, Steven. What have you gotten yourself into this time?" Danny muttered as he started at the screen above the smart table that showed the clearest, but still blurry, image of one of the four kidnappers.