Danny had gone to bed the night before with every intention of sleeping in the next morning, but somehow, he found himself up early that Saturday. His evening had not been as restful as he had hoped because he had found himself waking every couple of hours wondering what Charlie and Steve were doing, if they were having a good time, or if they were asleep.

It was still dark outside at this early hour and he chose to only turn on the stove light to allow his eyes to acclimate. After pouring his first cup of coffee, he scooted one of the cereal boxes over so he'd have a little room to set his cup down. He was careful to make sure the Battleship game wasn't disturbed so it could be resumed when Charlie got back. As he reached for his phone so he could check on the local news, it lit up with an incoming call.

"Mornin', Duke," Danny's voice was still gravelly from sleep. He tilted the phone away from his mouth so he could cough to clear his throat.

"Sorry to call so early."

"No, no, it's okay. I was actually up already. What's up, Duke? Are you working on a Saturday?"

"Well, technically, I'm off duty but I got a call from the captain and he wanted me to reach out to Five-0. I didn't get an answer when I tried calling McGarrett."

"Yeah, he um, he's with Charlie at an overnight camp and is out-of-pocket for a while. Unplugging was one of the conditions. What's going on?"

"One of our guys got a call from one of his CIs with a tip. It was about the Vargas cartel. Sounds like Ledford's reemerged."

The fog in Danny's head dissipated in an instant. Danny remembered right away the long hours put in, leading up to the day the team took down Mario Vargas. The shootout had ended in several arrests, a handful of casualties, including a couple of fatalities, and the confiscation of a giant shipment of cocaine. The team had been lucky they had gotten out of that mess with their lives. And though they hadn't fully given up, it had seemed the one cartel member that had made it out of the fray was destined to remain in the wind.

"Trustworthy?" Danny inquired of Duke.

"She's come through for us before."

"She?"

"She's a waitress in a 24-hour greasy spoon near Pearl City. Said she knew Ledford before he disappeared, but according to her, he's come out from under his rock. She saw him a couple of hours ago when he came into the diner. She said he had a young boy with him that looked scared and that they appeared to be in a hurry. They got some breakfast and left."

Danny felt a chill skitter down his back. Whenever a tender age child was involved, it struck a special chord with him.

Duke continued, "She won't come forward. She normally only talks to her handler and only did this time because of the boy. I think the intel's good but I think she's skittish and will talk to Five-0 only if it's on her territory."

"All right. Send me the address to the diner and I'll get a hold of Steve. We'll get on it."

"I thought he was unreachable."

"Almost, but not completely. I think he'll want in on this one. Thanks, Duke. We'll be in touch."

After quickly showering and getting dressed, he tried Steve's phone for good measure but, as expected, got the same result as Duke had gotten. While he was getting into his car, he juggled his keys and phone in both hands as he thumbed through his contacts looking for Coach Maki's entry. He hated to call this early knowing the whole group probably had a late night, but they needed to act fast while this lead was fresh. The answer on the other end was as sleepy sounding as he must have been to Duke.

"Hello?"

"Hey Coach, it's Danny Williams."

"Who?"

"Danny… Charlie's dad?" he asked, wondering if he'd catch on without more explanation.

"Oh yeah, sorry, man, yeah I was… "

"It's okay, Coach. I know it's early and I hate to do this to you but I think I'm gonna need to talk to Steve. Can you get his butt up to talk to me?"

"Sure, Danny. I hope nothing is wrong?" Maki rubbed his eyes first with the back of his free hand and then attempted to put his unruly hair into some semblance of order as he got up to get Steve. He took a moment to pull the phone away from his ear to check the time and figured he probably needed to be getting up anyway.

"Just a work issue. I'm needing to pull him in. I'll get Rachel to pick up Charlie… or maybe Jerry can if she can't."

"No worries. Let him stay. We've got plenty of chaperones and I'll look out for him and get him home when we finish. He's had a great time and I'd hate to spoil it for him."

"Well, if you're sure. I'm sure he'd like that, but Steve, on the other hand, will be my problem child. I bet he's been like a kid in a candy store, hasn't he?"

"He may have had a better time than anyone."

"Figures."

"Here, I'll let you ask… him your… Steve?" There was a pause and it sounded like Maki had taken the phone away from his mouth. "Steve?"

Danny heard another muffled voice in the background and then Maki spoke again. "Hey, have you guys seen Steve… and Charlie? … Hey, Danny, they're not in their beds. They're probably in the bathroom or waiting for breakfast in the mess area. Do you want me to have him call you right back?"

"He probably jumped off the boat for his morning swim. Yeah, just have him call me when you see them."

"Will do. I'll head that direction now. It should just be a minute."

"'kay. Thanks, Maki."

One minute went by, then another, and after only ten minutes that seemed like thirty, Danny was already pulling up at the diner and he still hadn't gotten his return call. He started to try Steve's phone again thinking he may be taking his sweet time getting back to him just to get under his skin, but his phone rang first. It was Coach Maki.

"Don't tell me. McGarrett's not there because he's trying to get the Navy to give authorization to take the ship out to sea," Danny answered without a greeting.

Coach Maki ignored the quip. "We can't find them."

"Sorry, Maki, my ears are still waking up. Sounded like you said you can't find them."

"I did. They're not in the bunks, the bathrooms, the mess deck…"

"And when you say 'them', who are you talking about?"

"Steve and… Charlie. We can't find Tyler and his dad, either."

"Damn it. I swear, if he went out for pancakes, I'll kill him."

"That'd be a waste cause that's what we're having for breakfast."

"All right, look, I'm close by. I was going to have him meet me to interview a witness, but I'm going to do this without him then I'll be right over. If you find him first, put him in the brig or something 'til I get there."

"Sure thing. We've got the camp administrator on it, too. I'm sure by the time you get here, they'll have shown up. See ya in a bit."

Danny entered the diner and, in his normal casual dressy work attire, stood out like a sore thumb among the few patrons that were there. A waitress with her dark hair pulled into a high ponytail glanced over her shoulder as she finished topping off a customer's cup of coffee. She turned her attention back to her table and reached in her pocket and pulled out some creamers and laid them on the table before approaching Danny with the carafe still in her hand.

"You can sit anywhere. We don't have a hostess," she sarcastically stated.

Danny took the hint and slid into the first open booth he saw. He flipped over the mug that was already on the table and she poured him a cup.

"I know why you're here, all right?" she spoke quietly. The woman's unusually light aqua color eyes were dancing around the restaurant to see if anyone was in tune to their conversation. "Our specials are on the back side. You know what you want or you got questions?" She spoke louder.

Danny took note of the name on her nametag, Charlene. "Look, I'll get right to it. What time was Ledford here?" He returned the equally hushed voice to accommodate her apparent comfort level.

"It was sometime around two or three. They ate and left."

"And there was a child with him?"

She nodded. "A young boy. When I asked, he said he was his son."

"His son?" Danny sounded surprised.

"Mm, hm. I've known EJ a long time, but this time... he was acting strange and never had a kid with him before. And at that time of the morning? I'm not so sure he was his son. He never told me he had a kid."

"Do you know about how old he was?"

She shrugged and set the coffee on the table and reached into her pocket and pulled out a phone. She tapped a couple of times and then laid the phone down on the table in front of him. "I took that from the kitchen when I felt the whole thing seemed off."

Danny looked at the photo and squinted. He picked up the device and zoomed into the photo with his fingers and leaned in closer.

"What is it?" She seemed interested in his odd reaction. Wrongly assuming the reason, she apologized. "Sorry, I know it's hard to see EJ from that angle, but you can see…"

"That's…" Danny stared at the phone a minute to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. Then his mind went to Maki's revelation that not only were Steve and Charlie missing, but so was Tyler and his dad. "Hang on a minute." Danny pulled out his phone and scrolled through some pictures until he found what he was looking for. He handed it to Charlene and pointed at a man standing in a group. "Is that EJ?"

She shook her head. "No… but that's the kid." She pointed out the picture of Tyler standing in front of the man Danny had asked about. "How do you have that?"

"His name is Tyler. He's on my son's baseball team. That's his dad behind him."

"Well, that's not EJ. Not sure who he is." She had to quickly back up to give Danny room when he scooted out of his seat. He appeared to be a man-on-a-mission.

"Was anyone else with them?"

Charlene felt the swing in this cop's mood to one of obvious worry. She discarded the hushed pretense from earlier to match his volume. "No."

"Are you sure? You didn't see anyone else around? Another man or another little boy?"

"No! It was just the two of them. I'm sure. Why? What's going on?"

Danny ignored her question. "Did EJ say where he was heading after leaving here?"

"They were killing time before meeting Whitey."

"Whitey. Who's Whitey?"

"He runs a charter boat out of Rainbow Bay Marina. I don't know. They just call him Whitey."

"Do you know what kind of vehicle EJ was driving?"

"Nope. Didn't see it. Sorry."

Danny looked to the front of the diner and could see his car through the window sitting in the parking lot. Why would she not see his? He turned back and breathed out a disappointed sigh. He stared at her a few seconds as he thought. "Are you going to be here a while?"

"Shift's up at 9:00."

"Okay." Before leaving, he took a minute to enter his contact information onto Charlene's phone then returned it to her. "I've got to go, but if you think of anything else, call me right away."

"Sure, no problem."

"Anything!"

"Got it," she promised.

He retrieved his phone and reached in his pocket and pulled out a small wad of bills. He started to count out some ones for the coffee he never touched, but that took too much time so he pushed the folded money into Charlene's hand and left with a hurried, "Just keep it. Thank you." He all but jogged out the door.

Danny felt torn. He wanted to go to Rainbow Bay, but he needed to get to the Missouri. He wasn't far from either, but he couldn't be in both places at once. As he drove, he called Lou. This time, he didn't spare a second to apologize for the hour. He knew he was leaving out a lot of information that he'd have to fill in later, but for now, he just gave him the bare necessities.

"Lou, I'll explain later, but you need to grab Tani and Junior and get to Rainbow Bay Marina… now! I got info that EJ Ledford from the Vargas cartel was going to be there this morning. Hopefully we haven't missed him. There's a boat that should be registered to a Whitey. That's the only name I have, but there're not many slips there."

"Yeah, man, got it." Any other time, Lou would have complained or offered a sarcastic comment, but he could hear a seriousness in Danny's voice that was not usually there.

"You need to know, there's a young boy with him, Charlie's age. His name is Tyler and his safety is the most important thing. Make sure the kids know that."

"Yep, I'll call them now. You meeting us there?"

"No, I'm going to the Missouri."

"What? You know, never mind. Tell me later. I'm looking forward to hearing this story."

"I'm here. I gotta go. Lou? …just be careful."


~to be continued~

BronsonL\,,,/