Jax had stirred when Steve tried to slip quietly from bed. Under normal circumstances, both of them were incredibly light sleepers - too many years of being on high alert would do that to a person - but he had hoped not to wake her. The scant hours sleep she'd managed after waking with a nightmare had been fitful at best, even with Steve wrapped around her. Steve hadn't succeeded much better; each time he drifted off to sleep, he was rewarded with images of Danny, motionless and bleeding . . . or of Jax, flatlined in the back of the ambulance.
"Ku'uipo, it's early still," he whispered. "Try to get some more sleep. I want you and Danny to stand down today; rest if you can. I promise I'll keep you in the loop and call if anything of interest comes in." He rested his hand on her hip, his thumb brushing over the scar there. Shaking his head, he marveled at how tiny she always looked in their bed; tangled in the sheets and now cuddling his pillow. It was such a contrast to how she looked in her tac gear, always projecting a strength and confidence that belied her petite frame.
"Promise?" she mumbled sleepily. "Because if you don't, Grover and Kono will, they promised, too."
"I promise," Steve chuckled. Kono and Jax kept him - all the guys, really - on their toes. Reminding them, when necessary, that they were fine officers, highly trained. Lethal, when they needed to be. Not simpering damsels in distress who needed protection; quite the opposite, in fact. Steve still had a little groveling to do, to make up for trying to get Chin and Grover to get Kono and Jax out of Halawa when all hell broke loose. He knew, though, that he'd make the same call again, in the same circumstances - if he even had to. More than likely, Chin, Danny and Grover would take the same action without even being told.
"Promise," he whispered. "Get the Harts to drop you off at HQ when they're ready to leave." He kissed her cheek, turned reluctantly from the bed, then turned back, lingering in the doorway. "Oh, and Jax," he added, "make sure you keep the alarm set." He paused. "And keep both your SIG and your Taurus on you."
Both of her eyes popped wide open at that, fixing Steve with a steady gaze.
"Understood," she said, nodding. So he did think the team was possibly a target for the escaped prisoners, then. No surprise there.
#*#*#*#*#
Fred Hart, Sr. kept a routine that most men half his age would have envied. He was coming in from an early morning run when Steve came through the kitchen to get a thermos of coffee.
"Good morning, son," he said quietly. "Did you get a lead?"
"No, sir," Steve answered. "I was happy to take some time off yesterday afternoon, so I thought I'd go in early this morning. Look over everything while it's still quiet. The Marshal heading up the investigation . . . seems to be doing an awful lot of research. Thought I'd look over it, get up to speed, so that our teams work well together."
"Research . . . not so much your style, is it?" Fred smiled.
"No, sir, but he seems to be a good man. The Marshal service and WITSEC . . . have their own way of doing things. Danny should feel more at home," he added, laughing. "Would you and Maureen be willing to drop Jax off at HQ when you're ready to head home? No rush at all, I just . . . well, Jax is probably under the impression that she's been tasked with making sure you're secured. I didn't tell her about your background."
"I'll be honored to serve as back-up, if needed," Fred said, smiling in understanding. "Though you're more than welcome to tell Jax, Steve. I'm retired, you know. You expecting trouble to come calling? Think your team will be targeted by these escaped prisoners?"
"The whole situation was created by a personal vendetta against me," Steve said. "The man we were tracking before they sent Freddie and me after the Hesse brothers set up the whole thing to get revenge."
"I would have thought he would have been happy to get off so easy," Fred said.
"He's clearly unbalanced," Steve explained. "He stood on the other side of a door from me, put a knife in Jax . . . taunted me. It was personal; very, very personal. I don't know what intel he has, but until we find his body, I'm operating on the assumption that once he realizes we survived . . . he'll be looking for another opportunity to take us down. My team first, then me."
"Well, then," Fred said. "If I see him, I'll be sure to give him your highest regards." He nodded at Steve, a look of grim determination and understanding passing between them.
"The security code to the gun safe is Freddie's DOB," Steve added quietly. Another nod, another exchange which required no words, and Steve was on his way.
#*#*#*#*#
The quiet, empty offices of the Five-O headquarters sometimes reminded Steve of the deck of a carrier, between shifts, in the dark hours of early morning. Or the pre-dawn patrol of a remote Afghan village. When he was in the SEALs, he'd thrived on the steady rush of adrenaline of training and missions; but in Naval Intelligence, he'd some to appreciate the peace and quiet of dark, early hours to sift through clues and data, hoping that some nuance of information would be the break he needed.
Being barely 6 am, no one else was in the office, but he could see a stack of files neatly left on the desk that Marshal Caviness had been using, and decided to start briefing himself on the information gathered by the team of marshals. He'd barely spoken to Marshals Ed Polinski and Alesha Shelton, but they seemed quiet and dedicated, much like their team leader.
Steve frowned at the stack of files . . . there were the four he expected, one for each of the men they were searching for . . . but there were six more. One for each of the members of Five-O. Holding the stack of files, Steve angrily strode into his office and sat down at his desk. He turned on the desk lamp, leaving the rest of the floor in relative darkness, and picked up the file marked with his own name.
"What the hell . . . " he muttered, as he started glancing through the information. Succinct and to-the-point, details of his history were laid out in black and white. High school, Annapolis, the SEALs, intelligence . . . right up to the last item in the file, a picture. Steve examined the photo - obviously taken just as the team was gathering at his house, right after Jax and Danny were sent home from the hospital. He remembered pulling up in front of the house, lifting Jax carefully out of the Silverado, and reaching back in for her crutch . . . then the uneasy feeling of being watched. In the photo, he's looking almost directly at the camera, instinctively putting Jax between himself and the truck.
"I thought for sure you'd made me," Marshal Caviness said quietly, nodding at the picture in Steve's hand. "You looked straight at me."
Steve had registered the quiet sound of someone else entering the office, but had been so intrigued with looking through the file that he hadn't looked up to see who else was there; generally speaking, he'd have assumed it was Chin.
"Caviness," Steve said slowly, "we've gotten off to a good start . . . I hope you have a damn good explanation for why you have me and my team under surveillance."
"I do," Caviness said, nodding, crossing his arms across his chest. "My team is not here just to help take the four missing men into custody, Commander. We're also here to evaluate which, if any, of your team or their families needs to be put into the WITSEC program."
"Shit," Steve said, sinking back into his desk chair. "Novak?" he asked, pulling out the file marked accordingly.
"For starters," Caviness said. "I read the reports; he obviously tried to take out your people, and it seems that Detective Williams and Officer Nolan were his first targets. It's also obvious that you're aware of this." Caviness pulled out the files marked with Danny and Jax's names.
Steve nodded. "I assume my entire team is being targeted by Novak."
"Novak may be the least of your worries, but it's clear that you've taken measures to protect your team. Starting with Officer Nolan . . . you have retired Delta force operator Fred Hart, Sr. at your house," Caviness said.
"The Harts are friends; we were supposed to spend Memorial Day together," Steve said.
"And you didn't argue when they suggested coming to your place instead," Caviness guessed. "My guess is that's the only reason you're here and Officer Nolan is there."
Steve rubbed his hand over his face. "When they leave, they'll be dropping her off here."
Caviness nodded. "Excellent." He flipped open Danny's file. "And I see you convinced Detective Williams to accept the offer from Captain Grover to stay at their house."
"Well, normally Danny would have stayed at my house . . . no Five-O member stays alone when they're injured," Steve said mildly.
"Ummhmm," Caviness said, pulling out a photo from the back of Danny's file. "And the fact that Commander Wade Gutches took a few days of leave time . . . and just happens to be in several of our surveillance photos of the Grover family?"
Steve was silent.
"It must be a coincidence," Caviness said, smiling. "Just as the presence of Commander Joe White in the house next door to Detective Williams' ex-wife; and the shockingly ubiquitous presence of one Kamekona and several of his relatives in close proximity to Lieutenant Kelly, Dr. Malia Waincroft, and Officer Kalakaua - also coincidence?"
"I may have called in some favors," Steve said.
"Is your team aware, Commander, that you've put protective surveillance in place?" Caviness asked.
"Grover, Chin, and Danny were told that I had asked some friends to keep an extra set of eyes and ears on their families," Steve said. "You could have asked, you know. Instead of sneaking around taking surveillance photos."
Caviness nodded. "We could have. But we prefer to observe the situation as it is, rather than planting suggestions."
"And your observation tells you . . . what, Marshal?" Steve said. His hackles were up a bit. Was Caviness suggesting that he was careless with the safety of his team?
"Easy, Commander. Our observation is that your team is remarkably well-protected; especially given that you don't fully understand all of the threats. Yet," Caviness said.
"You said that Novak may be the least of our worries," Steve said.
"Martin Lassiter," Caviness said, pulling his file out of the stack. "Your Lieutenant Kelly did a fantastic job of research, and you know most of the case."
"But not all of it," Steve said. "I'm guessing there's a WITSEC connection here."
"That is correct. Obviously, extreme measures are taken to protect the identity of those in the program; including no mention of their names or involvement in all official case files, including those shared with law enforcement. The information is shared only on a need-to-know basis."
"And we need to know," Steve said.
"You at least need to know that eight individuals, two of whom are minors, went into WITSEC in order to put Lassiter behind bars. Every moment that he walks free, their security is diminished. We have a rapidly closing window before protocol demands that we uproot them yet again and create new identities for them." Caviness hesitated. "The two minors involved are in high school and middle school; doing well, settled in, with good friends, good teachers . . . "
Steve sighed. He knew all too well what it was like, having your life uprooted at such a crucial time. "And you want to be sure Five-O doesn't focus on Novak to the exclusion of Lassiter," he said.
"Commander McGarrett, you've been asked to participate in the hunt for all four criminals unaccounted for, and I have no doubt you will do just that. However, there's no denying that Novak is a particular threat to your team, while Lassiter is a particular threat to our witnesses. We can accomplish more in cooperation, especially if, God forbid, these two maniacs are cooperating and joining forces. We're happy to share every piece of information we have on Lassiter - both what's on and off the record - and assume you'll do the same regarding Novak."
"You assume there's off-the-record information on Novak," Steve said, raising an eyebrow.
"He was willing to put himself behind bars in order to have the opportunity to personally attack your team. That's pretty much a red-flag for there being more to this than meets the eye," Caviness said. "If nothing else, it's an indication that the man is simply nuts."
"So where do we start?" Steve asked.
"I trust my team implicitly, as you do yours," Caviness said. "We start by reading each other in, and then read our teams in. Full disclosure, full cooperation."