Chapter eight


A/N: Standard medical disclaimer applies to this chapter. Blame any inaccuracy on me, or think of it as creative license.


Steve sat inside the Silverado, staring at the picture on the laptop balanced on his thighs.

After calling HPD to alert them of the dead body inside Doyle's apartment, he had used his skills as a Naval Intelligence officer to run the number on Kat Morris' cell phone and get satellite images of the address written in the text message she'd received. That, along with the information on Pacific Shipyards he and Adam had uncovered the night before, had painted a clearer picture of the company's organization, leading Steve to the man he now believed was in charge of running the show.

Frank Luther Whitmore.

Coal-black, piercing eyes stared back at him as he committed the features to memory. The broad forehead, the long nose, the close-cropped hair.

Frank Luther Whitmore.

Steve repeated the name in his head, over and over.

The muscle along his jaw twitched. He wanted to end him, watch the life bleed from his body. He wanted to punish him. Show him that nobody was going to get away with hurting his partner or his family.

Based in San Diego, the alleged businessman owned several shipping companies both on the island and the San Francisco Bay area. Several of his associates had been arrested for money laundering and fraud over the years, but Whitmore never got his hands dirty and had no criminal record. Yet.

He briefly considered calling Chin and ask if he had eyes on the man or could help him track his movements, then quickly discarded the idea and contacted TSA instead to find if Whitmore had recently traveled to Oahu.

And sure enough, he'd flown in on his private jet the day after the drug bust, and there was no record of him leaving the island.

Steve's eyes narrowed. The son of a bitch was still in Hawaii.

The location on the text message was only twenty minutes away. With a bit of luck, he would find someone he could get answers from –or the man himself.

With newfound strength and firm resolution that he wouldn't rest until Frank Luther Whitmore was dead in a hole he closed the laptop, placing it on the passenger's seat, put the gear into drive and headed out for the road.


Jerry Ortega was fast.

Not when it came to running or other physical activities, but give him a computer and his fingers could fly on the keyboard like a pianist playing a symphony.

And he was good.

He could get any information and access almost any classified database and encrypted website. It had taken months to earn his Five-0 badge and now that he was officially part of the team, he worked even harder to provide them with the answers they needed. McGarrett had trusted him, and he would do anything in his power not to disappoint him.

That included finding anyone connected to James Doyle and the task force's recent drug bust. Their leader needed help, and Jerry never backed out of a challenge. With Adam at his side as a trusty aide, he'd pulled up everything he could. Family, known associates, places he frequented, where he did business. Anything he could get his hands on.

So when Lou Grover joined them around the smart table after taking a phone call, he was ready for action.

"That was Duke," the ex-SWAT Captain stated as four sets of eyes focused on him. "He said Doyle's girlfriend was found murdered in her apartment early this morning."

"We should've seen that coming," Tani replied. "I mean, Doyle was clearly fronting for someone. I'm not surprised they exacted revenge. Who called it in?"

"An anonymous tip."

As soon as the words left his mouth, Lou realized who that Samaritan was. "McGarrett."

He shook his head, concern mounting with each second. The man was three steps ahead of them and clearly on the hunt. Or on his way to a suicide mission.

"Jerry, find me everything you can on the dead woman."

In Steve and Danny's absence, responsibilities fell on Lou. It was his job to take the lead and make sure they cleared this mess with no further damage.

"On it, Captain," Jerry nodded. And once again, his fingers started to move.


"Hey, man. I bumped into the nurse on the way in. She said you have some movement back in your arm."

Danny cringed, grateful to be facing away from the door. He wasn't in the mood to see anyone unless his visitors had news on Steve's whereabouts. The latest update from his doctor had left him rattled, the news he'd received dampening the positive attitude he was struggling to maintain. He shifted, fidgeting with the bed controls to avoid Grover's sympathetic stare.

"Yeah… I, uh- not enough to take surgery off the table," he awkwardly replied as he raised the upper half of the mattress.

Two days had passed since he'd first awakened in the ICU with no sensation in his right arm. Hypoesthesia, they'd called it. Partial loss of sensitivity. The doctor had told him that his brachial plexus had been damaged. When Danny had looked at him as if he'd grown two heads, he had patiently explained that those big words defined a network of intertwined nerves that control movement and sensation in the arm and hand. The bullet had sliced through them, causing the loss of said feeling and movement.

They'd done some repair with the first surgery when he was brought in, but had been unable to fix the problem completely.

Now that he had regained some strength, they would determine if the damaged nerves could be salvaged through a procedure called nerve grafting. Danny had tried not to listen as the doctor detailed how they were going to take a nerve from the back of his leg and sew it in between the two ends of the lacerated ones, where it would act as a scaffold to support regeneration and growth and ultimately restore signals to the paralyzed muscles.

To top things off, they had informed him that if the surgery was successful, the recovery period would take up to six months. Six months. Nerves heal slowly, the doctor had said. Which meant weeks of rehab and riding the couch to even going back to desk duty.

In the meantime, they'd put his right arm in a sling, wrapped a swath around it to hold it to his body and told him to relax. Relax. As if there was a world in which Danny Williams could do that.

"Physical therapy can do wonders with nerve damage," Lou offered, bringing him back to the present. "I've seen it with my own eyes."

Danny let out a frustrated sigh. "Detectives are supposed to carry a gun, Lou. What if this doesn't work? What happens if I can't? What am I gonna do?"

The older man heard the desperation in his friend's voice and lowered his gaze, unsure of what to say. Just a week before he'd tried to talk Steve off the ledge and here he was again, struggling to offer support where no support would ever be enough.

"Look, I came to tell you that we caught a break," he said, deciding to change the subject and go straight to the purpose of his visit.

Danny stilled, staring straight at him for the first time since he'd entered the room.

"Doyle's girlfriend was killed this morning. Jerry worked his magic and we think we found the man they worked for." That was the short version. He didn't think Danny needed to hear all the details, only that they were on their way to hopefully rescue his friend before he got into trouble.

Grover had to give it to their conspiracy theorist, the man had almost worked a miracle. He didn't know much about computers but he could recognize strong will and dedication, and Jerry had proved to have both. He had run Kat Morris' financials, finding several wire transfers deposited into an offshore account. The money had then been traced back to a shipping company in San Francisco owned by the same guy who owned the warehouse where the drug bust had taken place, Frank Whitmore.

Furthermore, he had also accessed her phone records, retrieving a text message with the address for a location in Sand Island the woman had received the day before she died.

A location they were hoping would hold both Whitmore and McGarrett, who Lou was positive had come to the same conclusion and was planning a takedown Navy SEAL-style.

"So they were both involved..." It wasn't really a question. Even under medication, Danny was smarter than the average detective.

"Sure looks that way."

"Isn't there a kid in the picture? Steve… he, uh, he mentioned it back at the warehouse." There were details from that day he was still missing, but he clearly remembered the anger in Doyle's voice as soon as he heard that the police had his son. That's when things had started to go downhill.

"Kevin," Lou nodded. "Child Services is gonna take care of him until they find a relative or a foster home." His phone beeped, a text from Tani informing him they were ready to go. "Listen, Danny, I gotta go now. We're about to check this address and we need to move fast if we want to rely on the element of surprise."

"Yeah, sure." Danny made a sweeping gesture towards the door with his uninjured arm, watching as his teammate put the phone back in his pocket and started to leave. A million thoughts were racing in his head, and yet only one was pressing enough to warrant his attention. "Lou?"

The older man turned around. As their gazes met, he saw the concern and the unspoken plea in the detective's eyes.

Please take care of Steve. Make sure he comes out of this alive.

"I will."


Steve drove.

With no seconds to spare, he maneuvered the Silverado around the mid-morning traffic as if his life depended on it. And in a way it did. What was left of his sanity relied on the mission's success.

He knew it was only a matter of time before Whitmore decided to leave the island and go back to San Francisco. With his shipment seized and his business destroyed, the man had no reason to stay and risk exposure – or worse. That gave Steve a limited time frame to check the address on Kat Morris' cell phone and get to him before he fled.

Reinforcing the urgency that kept his right foot pressed on the gas pedal with lights and siren, he covered the last few miles separating him from his destination and reached the one-story building in the heart of Sand Island. Known as Quarantine Island and used as an Army internment camp after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the less-than-a-square-mile area was now mostly an industrial zone, housing warehouses and storage places for various shipping and engineering companies.

Deciding not to draw any unnecessary attention, Steve left the truck in the parking lot of a neighboring store and quickly jogged towards the back of the building. Uneasiness stopped him along the way, a feeling that he was forgetting something, something important he needed to do. Gun in hand, he scanned the perimeter while racking his brain to figure out what he was missing but the answer eluded him and there was no time. He needed to go. He would worry about it later.

The air was heavy and humid. He felt the moisture clinging to his clothes as he stealthily crept up to the construction. Drawing in a breath, he pressed his back against the concrete siding and peered through one of the windows. An empty office. Frowning, Steve shuffled around the building, staying close to the walls and peeking into any opening he could find. No one seemed to be there. The space was barren, furniture and supplies scattered to the ground as if the owners had left in a rush.

Had he missed them? Was he too late, forced once again to witness the events without the power to change them?

The sound of heavy doors closing alerted him that maybe all wasn't lost. He heard voices coming from the front of the building, then an engine starting. Holding his gun at the ready, he edged toward the corner, taking a peak at whatever activity was going on.

Two men, dressed in all black, were stuffing boxes inside the trunk of a grey Mercedes with tinted windows. Two more were standing on each side of the car, surveilling the scene, automatic rifles in hand.

And by the open back door, dressed in a perfectly-tailored, crisp suit and taking a smoke as if he didn't have a care in the world, was the man who had ruined his life.

It took all of Steve's willpower not to drop him with a single shot to the head. Instead, he flattened himself against the wall, waiting for the right moment. Although he didn't have to worry about police procedure as he wasn't planning on letting any of them live, he was one man against five. He needed to assess the situation and plan his attack carefully. Inflict the most damage without making himself a target.

"Car's loaded and ready to go."

The curt statement and the sound of the trunk closing prompted him to peer around the edge of the wall again.

Whitmore was grinning as he took small, slow draws of his cigarette and gave his men a pleased nod. His face held the confidence of someone who wasn't accustomed to losing, his tanned skin and expensive tastes etching stories of money and a privileged life.

Tightening the grip on his gun, Steve vowed to wipe that grin off his face.

He thought about Danny, about the life and safety he'd sacrificed to become his partner when he had given him no choice, and hoped one day he would understand his reasons. If things went south, Steve would at least go down with the knowledge that he had done everything he could to fix what he'd ruined.

Then he counted to three, steeled himself and trained the gun on his target.

TBC