As soon as Danny pulled into the driveway, he knew something was wrong. There was an air of tension that had not been around Steve's house since his dad was murdered in the living room. The detective pulled his gun out of the locked glove compartment and exited the vehicle. He kept the weapon aimed at the ground until he reached the porch and saw that the front door was slightly ajar. Instantly, the gun came up, his arms tensed marginally, his heart raced more than marginally, and Danny nudged the door further open with the toe of his shoe.
"Steve," he called out, not really expecting an answer but hoping against hope to get one anyway. Expectation won out over hope as he entered the preternaturally silent house. He swept the gun in a wide berth as he crossed the threshold. Nothing seemed out of place. Not wanting to give any potential attacker the opportunity to come up behind him, Danny first cleared the lower level. No intruder lurked in the adjoining rooms.
Next, he made his way slowly but deliberately up the stairs, back to the wall, arms still outstretched, gun held at the ready. Nothing seemed disturbed in the upstairs hallway, either. Doing his best to slow his pounding heart, and failing miserably, Danny stepped up to Steve's bedroom door, the last place he had seen his partner. Again, he nudged the door open with his shoe and entered the room noiselessly.
This was apparently ground zero for whatever had gone down here. An arm chair was overturned. The nightstand was on its side, its contents covering the floor. The bedside lamp was laying next to the far wall, smashed to bits. The impression of a fist could be made out in another wall. Danny winced when he noticed the blood in the imprint because he knew, even blind, his partner would put up one heck of a fight.
He pulled out his cell phone and called the office. There was no denying it now. Steve McGarrett had been kidnapped!
H50H50H50H50
Kono, Chin, and Danny surrounded the command station at the Five-0 Headquarters. The first thing they had tried to do was get a location based on the GPS in Steve's cell phone. Unfortunately, the phone must have been either turned off or destroyed because they came up empty.
Now, the team was checking into the backgrounds of the thugs they had apprehended in the jungle a few days before, when this whole nightmare had started. They were unable to find anyone that they could link to this most recent, and personal, crime, however - and all the thugs were still resting not-so-comfortably in their prison cells.
Danny ran his hand through his hair in frustration. They couldn't very well find McGarrett if they didn't even know who took the stubborn sonuva -
"Sir?"
All three Five-0 members turned toward the new voice and found a uniformed officer in their midst. He was technically addressing Danny but Kono and Chin were quick to join the fold.
Danny accepted the DVD the officer was holding out to him. "What's this?"
"It's the latest footage from Lieutenant Commander McGarrett's personal security system."
"Footage," Chin and Kono asked simultaneously.
For his part, Danny just looked at the officer like the man had three heads.
"Yeah," the officer confirmed, his attention now moving back and forth between the three team members. "He had tiny cameras hidden in various strategic locations throughout the house. Mainly covering the front and back doors."
"That's my boy," Danny cheered, feeling hopeful for the first time since he pulled into Steve McGarrett's driveway.
H50H50H50H50
This time, Steve's rise to consciousness was anything but gradual. The bucket of ice cold water thrown in his face was a shock to the system, to say the least. Instinctively, he tried to raise his arms to defend himself, only to find them bound above his head. He did a quick assessment of his condition and circumstances.
He was in some kind of warehouse with lots of large pieces of equipment, which Steve was only able to see as blurred objects.
His eye sight was still not a hundred percent, a badly aching hand was testament to that - he winced at the realization that he was going to have to repair yet another wall in his house. Maybe that was something he and Danny could work on together. Granted, it was a small project but, after their most recent argument, Steve was pretty sure that starting off 'small' would be a good thing. Throw on some plaster, smooth it out, enjoy a couple bottles of beer... of course, all of this would be moot if he didn't find a way out of his current predicament.
Suddenly, one of the blurred objects moved! It was... walking toward him? Okay. Not a piece of machinery then. A man, judging by the way he walked. But, no matter how hard Steve tried, he was unable to make out a face. Then the man spoke and the SEAL no longer needed to see to know who his abductor was...
H50H50H50H50
Chin slipped the DVD into the console station, jumped ahead to just moments before the time frame that Steve McGarrett was left alone in his home, then joined Danny and Kono to watch whatever came up on the security footage.
You could have heard a pin drop at Five-0 Headquarters that day because, whether they realized it or not, each team member held their breath in anticipation of what they feared was going to be replayed for them on the high resolution view screen a few feet away.
They watched as a forlorn Danny exited the house. Kono couldn't help but cast a pitying glance at the detective but he kept his own gaze on the events playing before them, so she forced herself to only think of the matter at hand - one vulnerable friend at a time, thank you very much - and turned her attention back to the screen... just in time to see someone stroll right in like he owned the joint. When the door opened, he had been down on one knee, obviously picking the lock. Then, as he entered, he kept his face away from the view of the camera and stepped directly over to the alarm system and disconnected the silent alarm that would have otherwise alerted authorities to an intruder in the McGarrett household. As it was, whoever was on duty at the security company could have blinked and would not have even seen the blip on the radar, so to speak. Thankfully, the cameras seemed to be on a separate circuit. Knowing Steve, they probably weren't even associated with the security system at all. Most likely his own installation. Danny wouldn't be surprised at all if they even had night vision capabilities when necessary - just like the venerable SEAL himself.
Next, the stranger walked slowly up the steps, as if he had all the time in the world. Something about that cocky swagger tugged at a not-so-distant memory, but Danny just couldn't seem to be able to put his finger on it.
Despite the lack of action on the screen, the three team members remained riveted, not wanting to risk missing even the slightest clue about who they were dealing with - and whether or not Steve was taken alive.
This last was doubtful when they saw the stranger return to the stairwell, with Steve slung over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. Kono's hand flew to her mouth when she saw the amount of blood on Steve's face. He just seemed so... still.
"Is he - ?" She couldn't bring herself to give voice to her worst fear. Truthfully, it was the whole team's worst fear.
Danny was frozen in place, his mouth was dry, his hands clenched into fists, as he thought he was seeing a playback of his best friends death. Then: "Whoa, wait a minute. Did you two see that?" At the blank looks from Kono and Chin, he said, "Rewind that back a few seconds."
Chin complied as Danny stepped closer to the screen. "Okay, stop. Now play it back again." He waited patiently. The stranger was just now coming down the stairs again with Steve over his shoulders. "Now, zoom in for me, Chin." He circled an area with one finger. "Right about there."
Kono joined Danny up at the screen and Chin did as was requested. He zoomed in on Steve's face. And, there it was. A twitch. The smallest twitch in the history of twitches, but a twitch just the same. All three sighed with enormous relief that the investigation was still a search for their Lieutenant Commander and not a dead body.
Then all jaws dropped in shock when, just as the intruder stepped over the threshold, he looked directly up at the camera...
VICTOR HESSE!
TBC
