Suicide mission ?

Steve knocked on the front door and waited for a response. Since no one came to the door, Steve kicked it in with his gun drawn. The others followed him.
"Jeffrey Torres! Five 0!"

Together they worked their way through the house, but couldn't find anyone. So Steve, followed by Danny, went into the garden. There Jeffrey Torres was sitting in a chair with a book in his hand, not seeming to care what was happening.
It was only when Steve stood in front of him that he put his book aside and spoke to him.
"Can I help you ?"

"Yes, we have a few questions for you."

"Then hurry up. I have other things to do. And get out of my house !"

"We heard you're in the drug business, so we're going to take you with us. But what we're really interested in is whether you knew Samuel Carpenter. Apparently he was a pretty good customer of yours. And if I were you, I'd talk to us so maybe we can help you get your sentences reduced. "

"I was really just a mediator. I didn't sell anything to Samuel myself or buy anything from him, but I introduced him to a friend of mine and they worked out more deals together."

"And which friend was that?"

"Well, not a real friend of mine. I don't even know his name. We only spoke on the phone and I can't give you his number because he always uses different burner phones, he's very careful."

"So he always gets in touch with you when he wants something from you?"

"Exactly, and I once told him about Samuel Carpenter in a conversation. No idea how exactly they got in touch. But I could help you with something else, but only if my sentence is reduced."

"Depends on what you have to tell us."

"There's a big deal in less than two hours. Namely between merchants from the mainland and a larger cartel here on the island. Before you ask, I'm telling you this because it's always good to stop the rivals from making a deal."

Steve then briefly discussed with the others and gave them instructions. Jeffrey Torres gave them the exact address, was then arrested and the team drove to headquarters to prepare. Because Steve wanted to follow up on this tip about the deal, maybe they would finally find a track to Samuel Carpenter and could solve his murder.

However, on the way to HQ, Danny expressed his opinion, which was arguably the opposite of positive.

"Maybe we should check this lead before we just walk in there and possibly commit suicide."

"We don't have a choice, Danny. We must follow the lead. And verifying might be difficult as we only have one source of information on this and he's the one we just spoke to. So if you don't find someone in the short term who knows that there is a deal going on there or not, it probably won't work."

"But we need more information, otherwise it will be another McGarrett-style suicide mission! You've already exposed me to enough danger in the last few years, I've had enough!"

"Are you serious ? You're still alive, aren't you? For five years you've been telling me I'm trying to kill you. But you're still alive because I'm always had your back. I'm always careful. So calm down and just trust me!"

"Well, that won't happen until we retire and are no longer exposed to danger. Anyway, right now I feel like I can't stop you. So let's go to this supposed deal and if I die, you can apologize to my entire family for coming up with such a stupid idea that got me killed."

"Yes, sure."

Arriving at headquarters, the team spoke briefly and organized support from SWAT. Shortly thereafter, fully equipped, they set off.
The journey took about 20 minutes. Once there, they stood in front of a gray building on the outskirts of Honolulu. It had several floors and according to Jeffrey Torres, the deal was to take place in the underground garage. So everyone made their way down as quietly and carefully as possible. Steve went ahead and finally ripped open the door to the underground car park. When they got inside, everyone was very surprised. There was absolutely no one here, the whole underground car park seemed empty.
So Steve turned to the SWAT people.
"Okay, guys. It was probably wrong information or they noticed something and went through with the deal somewhere else. But thank you for your support."

So the SWAT Captain went back upstairs with his team. Then Steve spoke to his team.
"Kono, please call the DEA and see if they have any clues that a bigger deal is going to happen in the next few days. Maybe there really is and Torres was just misinformed as to where and when."

"Sure, I will."

"Chin, Lou, please try and talk to Samuel's wife Laura again. Maybe she still knows something about her husband's contacts and is deeper into it than we thought."
So Kono, Chin and Lou also went upstairs and out of the building to complete their respective tasks. Now Steve and Danny were alone in the garage and Danny didn't hold back his opinion any longer.
"I told you right away, we shouldn't have listened to that Torres man. He tricked us."

"Okay, got it. But it could be that he really only had wrong information about the place or time."

"I still think he was just kidding us."

Suddenly they heard a loud beeping. It came from one of the back concrete pillars. Steve picked up his gun and walked toward it, Danny following.
When Steve came around the pillar and saw what was there, he didn't think twice.

"Danny, get out of here! Right now!"

Danny knew it was very serious when Steve reacted like that. Although he hadn't seen what was there, he trusted Steve and immediately started running towards the stairs without asking any questions.
But when the two had reached the stairs and wanted to run straight up, it happened. The bomb exploded...


A few minutes later, outside the building:

Chin was just regaining consciousness, his head still pounding badly and opening his eyes was hard enough. Then he saw Kono walking towards him, she was calling his name. However, he only noticed that marginally, since he could hardly hear her.
When Kono reached him, she helped him up.

"Chin, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm okay."

The two looked around and it didn't look good at all. The front of the building was almost completely destroyed and debris was everywhere. They could hear Lou already calling for help. And as Kono looked around more closely, she noticed that Steve and Danny were nowhere to be seen. That scared her a lot. What if the two hadn't made it out? Perhaps they were caught in the blast and now lay deep under the rubble. Or they were even dead. But Kono didn't want to think about that anymore. Now she had to try to remain optimistic and do everything to get them both out of there alive.
Kono took a deep breath and tried to remain calm until emergency services arrived and they could do something.


At the same time, Honolulu International Airport:

Catherine got into a cab and was on her way to headquarters. Shortly after texting Steve this morning, her mom got even worse, so Catherine ended up driving her to the hospital. She was well cared for there and Catherine quickly made up her mind to fly home and think about other things. Her dad was by her mother's side for that, so Catherine didn't really have to worry about that. Besides, Steve would be happy that she was here for Christmas after all. Although she will really only stay here for a few days and then fly back to her parents.
This whole thing was supposed to come as a surprise to Steve and because he had written to Catherine earlier that they were on a case, she drove straight to headquarters.
When Catherine got there no one was there. So now she called Steve to let him know she was back. But the mailbox went straight away, even after several attempts. That was unusual, but Catherine thought nothing of it at first. To find out what was going on and where Steve was, she called Danny. But the same thing, the mailbox went straight away. Now Catherine had a weird feeling about it and decided to just keep trying, so she called Kono. At least she was lucky with her.

"Hey Kono, this is Catherine. I'm back earlier than planned and tried to reach Steve but he doesn't answer. Are you on a mission right now?"

"Hey Catherine. I'm glad you're back and Steve... well... um, he's..."

Now Catherine was really worried. Something was very wrong here.

"Kono, what's going on?"

"It's complicated. It would be better if you come here. Are you at headquarters ?"

"Yes."

"Okay, I'll send a patrol car from HPD to pick you up and bring you here. See you soon."

Catherine hung up feeling bad, just hoping it wasn't as bad as she was thinking.

It took almost half an hour before Catherine finally got to the scene and what she saw was the opposite of good. A building had partially collapsed, debris was everywhere, and the area was crowded with people in different uniforms, so it took Catherine a moment to locate Kono, Chin, and Lou. They stood with another man around a small table that had been set up and looked at some kind of map or plan, probably the plan of the building.

Catherine walked up to them quickly and then recognized the other man as well, it was Hank Iona, the Honolulu Fire Department's chief of operations.

"Hey! So what happened here? Kono let the others continue to discuss a possible plan and stood a little apart with Catherine.

"Well, we got a tip that a drug deal is supposed to be taking place in this building. We arrived and the building seemed empty. Steve gave us more tasks to figure it out. That got us all out of the building, at least except for Steve and Danny, who were still talking about something. Then suddenly there was this explosion and it looks like the two of them didn't make it out of the building in time. We're doing everything we can to find them and get them out of there alive."

Catherine couldn't utter a word, expecting something like this but hoping for something else. The thought that Steve and Danny might be dead and buried deep under the rubble was nagging at her. The fear came up, the fear of never seeing them again, but especially Steve. This fear grew incredibly fast and Catherine tried to concentrate and fight her fear. Because this would not help her to get the two alive to the surface...


Hope you liked it :)

And what happened to Steve and Danny is of course very similar to Season 4 Episode 19 and that's intentional. I was initially considering making an OS for the episode, but decided to build something very similar into this story. It will still be different than in the episode ;)

And my Story Trailer is now also om YouTube, the title is: Hawaii Five-0 Story | Impossible