In that brief moment between dreaming and being fully awake, Steve was content and relaxed. Then reality came crashing down around him and events of the last 24 hours or so flashed through his mind and his eyes flew open and he practically launched himself off of the couch in his office.
"Whoa, easy Commander," Karen gently took his arm and guided him back down to sit on the couch as he swayed momentarily. "Getting up so fast when you wake up is never a good idea, but certainly not the day after you were shot in the head."
"I was hoping that was all a dream," Steve scrubbed a hand over his face. "What time is it? Where's Chin? I need to..."
Karen cut him off, "You need to just sit a minute and let me take your vitals and check your head. Then, we'll head out and they'll update you. The last time Kono checked on you, she wanted to make sure you were awake for a briefing before the deadline is up."
"They have something?" Steve's hopes soared.
"This will go faster if you quit moving and just let me do this." Karen let just a hint of annoyance into her voice as she started to remove the bandage on the side of his head.
"Sorry," Steve mumbled. "I feel out of it... I didn't think I'd sleep that long. I'm not used to not being in the loop. I should have been helping my team."
Karen nodded as she gently removed the bandage and began to carefully inspect the head wound and stitches, "I understand, but you needed the rest and your team knew that. Besides, you should almost be back to normal. Almost. I still would rather you not push yourself too hard for a day or two."
"So what's the verdict," Steve gestured to his head.
"It's looking good. I think we can leave the bandage off now. Obviously, you still need to be careful for a while and make sure you don't receive any blows to the head or anything like that. I want to take your vitals before you go out there since I have a feeling this will be my last chance in a while."
Steve didn't deny her observation and tried to wait patiently as she took his blood pressure and pulse. When she finally released him with a nod, he did his best not to run out of his office and to the Smart table where the others were intently working.
"Hey, Boss," Kono was the first to notice him. "How are you feeling?"
"Better. What have we got?"
"We believe we're making headway." Chin informed him. "We have narrowed down the list of possibles with what little information we got from the kidnapper. We've also been looking at the video to see if there's anything there we can figure out."
"Good," Steve nodded. "There's got to be something we can work with."
"I'm working on a rough profile of the kidnapper," a new voice chimed in behind Steve, "to help us narrow down the suspect list once we have it."
Steve turned to find Lori holding some papers in her hand, "I thought you were on the mainland at a wedding or something."
"I was," Lori shrugged, "but when Kono called to tell me what was going on, I booked the first flight I could. I got here a few hours ago."
"Thanks," he nodded and smiled at her. "So what have you come up with so far?"
"Right off," Lori began. "I'd say he's volatile, violent and unstable."
Steve nodded, "Even I had that much figured out. What else?"
"There's not much to go on but I would say the kidnapper feels wronged somehow. I would say he had a brother that got in trouble with the law and our perp is trying to get him out of it. Might be why he's taking it out on law enforcement and he didn't kidnap just anyone."
"So you don't think his target was Danny or me specifically? Any cop would have done?"
"Yes and no." Lori paced a little as she tried to explain. "Given that he called the governor directly, I would say he wanted to target Five-O to exert his control and show us that he was untouchable, but at the same time, I think he would have taken anyone if he wouldn't have been able to get at one of us."
Chin nodded, "Dumb luck that he managed to get at two people on Five-O so easily."
Steve shook his head and felt sick to his stomach, "I should have been more aware of my surroundings. This should never have happened."
"Hey, Boss, you can't blame yourself," Kono placed a hand on his arm. "It could have been any of us, and you were just walking in from the car. It's not like you were expecting trouble."
The look on Steve's face told the others that he wasn't buying it, but they let it go for now.
"We're still checking into cases the two of you have worked on but it's a long shot if you weren't targeted deliberately," Chin filled him in.
The room became unnaturally quiet as the disposable cell phone started to ring and all the officers in the room quit talking. Kono quickly began typing in commands to begin a trace on the call as well as the video feed they were getting once again.
Steve stepped closer to the image on the screen and studied it intently as Chin reached for the cell phone. Steve was relieved to see that it didn't appear as if the kidnapper and done any more damage to Danny.
"Lieutenant Kelly," Chin answered the call. "I need to speak with Detective Williams."
The kidnapper chuckled, "You can see for yourself that he's fine. I don't think you need to talk to him."
"You want us to help you," Chin reasoned. "It would help if you'd let us talk to our man. We can see he's alive, but we'd still like to talk to him."
They watched on the video as once again the gag was removed from Danny's mouth and the phone was held up to him so he could talk.
"Danny, you okay?" Chin asked.
Danny struggled to clear his throat and his voice was raspy when he was finally able to speak, "Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink."
The kidnapper snatched the phone away and again roughly replaced the gag before moving out of view of the camera. "Satisfied?"
"It's a start. It might help if you gave him water," Chin suggested. "We'll be able to make more progress on what you want if you show that you're taking care of him."
"I'll consider it, but I want to know what's going on with my brother."
Chin looked at the others in confusion but tried to sound confident when he spoke, "I'm not sure what you mean about your brother..."
"You don't know what I mean! You don't know what I mean! How can you not know what I mean?" The kidnapper's voice got louder and higher as he screamed into the phone.
"Sir, calm down," Chin tried to reason with him.
"I will NOT calm down until you tell me what you're doing to get Nick released. You better have an answer for that the next time I call." The line suddenly went dead followed quickly by the video feed.
Stunned silence filled the room as the video screen once again went dark. Steve finally broke the silence as he addressed the officers sorting through files and working on the suspect list, "Use what he's given us. The brother's name is Nick, and it sounds like he's in prison. I want to know this guy's name and what's going on."
"He's devolving," Lori said as she stared at the now-dark screen. "He hasn't really told us what his demands are, but he thinks he has. He thinks we know who his brother is and what we're supposed to do for him. I think something set him off recently and he may even have had a psychotic break. That would explain why some things in his plan seem to be well thought out while others make no sense and why he goes into a rage over what he perceives as slights to him."
"We have to find Danny," Steve leaned forward on the Smart table.
Lori nodded, "The more he devolves, the more unstable he becomes and the more danger Danny is in."
Steve straightened and looked each of his remaining team members in the eye, "We find him today. I don't care how, but we find him today."
For those of you who don't like Lori, just hang in there. I wanted her in the story to do the profile for what it's worth. My only experience with profiling psychopaths is from watching Criminal Minds. And how many of you want to see that crossover - H5O and Criminal Minds? Can you imagine Scott Caan, Alex O'Laughlin and Shemar Moore together on one show? Sigh. There I go daydreaming again.
Again, thank you to all who are reading, alerting, reviewing and all that good stuff. I am trying to respond at least once to everyone leaving a review. If I've missed you, I'm sorry, but I sincerely appreciate all the reviews and kind words I am receiving! You guys are the best!