CHAPTER 16

Wednesday morning, Kamekona's Shrimp Truck:

Chin and Kono picked their way through the usual lunch crowd and quickly snagged a table. Kamekona was busy serving a customer but gave them a nod.

Chin turned to his cousin. "How are you doing?"

Chin had been concerned about Kono; she looked like the walking dead.

"I'm fine Chin, just tired is all."

Chin stared at her. "That's what happens when you spend all night at the office."

Kono glared at him. "Like you didn't stay up all night too?"

Chin didn't answer. Of course Kono was right. He'd stayed up all night analysing the footage, hoping to catch a glimpse of Steve's abductors. It was clearly a snatch and run and Chin knew that had to take planning.

Kono sighed. "I just keep hoping this is all a dream. That when we get back to the office, Steve will be there, arguing with Danny like normal. I don't want to go through this again. I don't want to lose him."

Chin grabbed Kono's hand in silent support; the gesture conveying what he couldn't say. Kono gave him a watery smile.

"Steve asked me why we still trusted him."

Chin tilted his head to the side. "What did you tell him?"

Kono smiled. "I said I trusted him from the first day we met. And that hasn't changed in the last two years."

Chin thought back on the last couple of years and found he agreed with Kono. Between Governor Jameson, Hesse, Wo Fat, Fuentes, Nazeef and countless other trying times, Steve had been a constant. Never wavering, just always there to hold them up.

"He promised to never push us away again when things got tough. He wouldn't just disappear. Not if he didn't have a choice."

Chin agreed. Between the tainted water bottle and the silver van, there was no chance that Steve went willingly.

"Rohypnol affects the respiratory system, right?" Kono asked.

"Yeah, it does," Chin replied, unsure why Kono had asked.

"Steve's respiratory system is already compromised. What if—"

Chin suddenly realised what she was getting at. "He's a lot stronger than he was when he left the hospital. The doctor said he was almost completely physically recovered. And he didn't drink all of it. He'll be fine. He won't let this be the thing that stops him."

"Why now though? Who would do this?" Kono asked desperately.

Chin didn't have an answer for her. He saw the large entrepreneur approaching their table. "Maybe the big guy will have some answers for us."

Kono turned and waved at Kamekona.

"What can I get for Five-0?" Kamekona said, a huge grin plastered on his face as he pulled out a small notebook to write down their orders.

"Hopefully some answers," Chin replied grimly.

Kamekona's smile disappeared. "Why do I get da feeling you guys never come here for my food?"

"Hey!" Kono objected. "We come here all the time and pay full price!"

"Okay. Fine. What do you need?"

Chin exchanged a look with Kono before answering. "Steve's missing."

Kamekona frowned. "Da big Kahuna? I thought he was supposed to be recovering at home. What did he get into this time?"

"We don't know. He disappeared on his run yesterday. We think someone took him," Kono replied.

"Have you heard anything?" Chin asked with a hint of desperation.

Kamekona looked taken aback by the emotion in Chin's voice. "Sorry, I haven't heard anything. I'll put some feelers out though."

Chin sighed and rubbed his face his his hands. "Thanks Kamekona. We owe you one."

"Nah. McGarrett's Ohana. Consider this one on da house."

"Thanks," Kono replied appreciatively.

"Anything for Five-0," Kamekona replied before returning to his truck and the growing line of customers.

"Well, so much for getting some answers," Kono muttered bitterly under her breath.

Chin sighed. His thoughts exactly.

Wednesday morning, unknown location:

The first thing he became aware of was the smell. A flowery fragrance dulled by a hint of antiseptic. His brow furrowed; that wasn't right.

It took him longer than he cared to admit to open his eyes. His eyelids were heavy and refused to cooperate with the basic demand to open. He felt fuzzy, disconnected from his body. Eventually, his eyes opened far enough to allow him to observe his surroundings.

He was in a room. Light blue walls stared back at him. It took him a moment to fight through the fog enough to realise that this wasn't his bedroom.

'Where am I?' he thought as he spotted a gaudy painting on the wall next to him.

There were no windows in the room. The only furnishings were a small bedside table with a lamp on it and a wooden chair in the corner. There was a door immediately opposite him. It looked like a hospital room only it was missing all the medical equipment.

He went to sit up and was surprised when his body was pulled back towards the bed. Looking down, he noticed his wrists were strapped to the bed with hospital grade restraints. The rest of his body was obscured by a white blanket but tugging on his legs told him they were similarly restrained.

Steve took a deep breath and laid his head back against the pillows. He searched his memory for any inkling as to what had landed him in this predicament. The last thing he remembered was waking up at home and then…nothing.

The only thing he knew for certain was that he shouldn't be there. Wherever there was. Which left him one option; assess the situation and make a plan of escape.

He focused his attention on what was holding him to the bed. Pulling on the restraints did nothing except force him to stop and take a few deep breaths. He inspected the beige straps and noticed they were buckled around his wrists. He realised the cuffs were lined with a soft white cloth. Obviously someone didn't want him to get hurt trying to escape from his confines. He filed that information away for later.

Steve started twisting his wrists in the shackles but stopped quickly when a sharp stab of pain ran up his right arm. His wrist had only just healed after the bone had snapped during his attempt to escape Nazeef. It probably didn't help that he'd used it to beat the heavy bag to death a few days ago.

He realised that he actually had no idea how much time had passed since that day. Was it only a few days? Longer?

He pushed the rising panic aside and attempted to focus on his current predicament. Leaving his right hand for now, he concentrated on his left. He jiggled it around to determine how much wiggle room he had. Very little, he realised.

He tried to twist his hand around so his fingers could grasp the buckle which was harder than he'd anticipated. He didn't have the right angle to start pulling on the strap. He'd need a tool, something he could use as a lever.

He turned his head and looked around at the otherwise bare room. There was nothing in reach that could help him. 'Which was probably the point,' he reminded himself.

He continued to work on his bonds, pulling and twisting until he heard sounds coming from the other side of the door. He paused his attempts as the door opened and a tall man wearing a white lab coat and holding a clipboard walked inside.

"Mr McGarrett. It's good to see you finally awake. You gave us quite a scare."

Steve frowned at the man's words. They didn't make any sense.

"What?" Steve replied.

Steve tried to focus on the man. He was young, probably either late twenties or early thirties with close-cropped brown hair and round glasses that sat precariously on his freckled nose. The glasses appeared almost too big for his slender face.

Apparently reading the confusion on Steve's face, the doctor added, "I'm sorry. Sometimes the drugs take a little time to wear off. I'm sure Rebecca can answer all your questions."

Steve's frown deepened. "Who are you? Where am I? Why am I tied up?"

The doctor's happy-go-lucky expression changed and Steve caught the look of nervousness he couldn't hide. "I'm sorry. Doctor Ruskin can answer those questions for you. I don't want to get in trouble. It's my first day on the ward."

'Ward?' Steve asked himself.

Steve looked around again. It didn't look like a typical hospital room but the scent of antiseptic told him otherwise. He took stock of his body. Nothing hurt, so why would he be in a hospital?

Steve stared at the doctor. He was wearing a striped button-up shirt and dark slacks underneath his coat. Unusual attire for a doctor on shift at a hospital. The thing that really caught his attention was the dress shoes that accompanied the business-like attire. The amount of times he'd told Danny that they weren't practical footwear for walking or even running only to be told it was all part of his professional image was astounding. He could understand Danny wearing them, but a doctor?

Something was not right.

"Where am I?" he asked again. "Why am I here?"

His head felt like it was full of cotton. He couldn't think properly. He had so many questions running through his head but he couldn't voice them. Who was Doctor Ruskin? Who's Rebecca? What was going on?

He must have zoned out because the next minute there was a different man staring down at him. Steve resisted the urge to fidget despite the unnerving feeling he got staring into the cold, dark eyes of this new character.

This man was slightly taller than the other 'doctor', but appeared to be of Hispanic descent. His deeply tanned skin stood out against the white lab coat he was wearing. He held a notebook in his carefully manicured hands. Wait, manicured?

'What kind of doctor has the time to get a manicure?' Steve asked himself as he surveyed the man standing beside the bed.

"I see you are back with us, Mr McGarrett," the man said.

Steve shifted so he could read the name tag on the coat. Doctor Emeric Ruskin.

"Where am I?" Steve asked. It had been the one question on his mind since waking up tied to a bed. One that the other doctor had seemed reluctant to answer.

The doctor frowned at him. "You don't remember?"

"If I remembered then I wouldn't be asking, would I?" Steve replied sarcastically.

"Very well," the man pulled the chair from the corner of the room over to the bed and sat down with a small wince.

Something about the way the man had tried to contain a painful grimace stirred an image in his mind. It was fuzzy, but he recalled his legs moving as one and hitting a hard object. Then a face. Angry. Hostile.

The doctor continued. "You are currently in the secure ward of Kennard's Psychiatric Hospital. I am Doctor Ruskin and I've been treating you since you voluntarily admitted yourself. You have been here for the past five months following a severe decline in your mental health after your father's heart attack and subsequent passing."

A headache flared as the doctor's words started forming meaning. Wrong. He knew that his father had died at the hands of Victor Hesse, not a heart attack. Something about the whole situation was off.

Steve said nothing. He waited, hoping the man would give him more information.

"To cope with the guilt, you created a sort of dream world in your head…you made yourself a family out of imaginary people. You had another episode and ended up fighting the orderlies, which is why you are restrained."

"Episode?" Steve asked, intrigued. He wondered what kind of game this man was playing.

The doctor shifted in the chair, clearly uncomfortable. "In your imaginary world, you believe you are a Navy SEAL, running a state police taskforce on Oahu with a team of people that have become family to you, or 'Ohana' as you often tell me. Sometimes, when you believe these people are being threatened, you lash out. I'd thought we'd gotten past that and were making some progress," the doctor paused and rubbed his eyes, "but clearly that is not the case."

Steve's heart was racing. There was no way the doctor was telling the truth. It was all a lie…right? He wasn't crazy. His team was real!

"What have you done to them?" Steve asked, trying to keep his voice even despite the panic building in his chest.

"Who are you talking about?" the doctor asked calmly.

"My team!" Steve yelled as he yanked hard on his restraints.

He was breathing hard through his nose as he glared at the man. He tried to regain control, but he couldn't help thinking something bad had happened to his friends.

"Mr McGarrett," Doctor Ruskin said, his tone calm and even. "You don't have a team. Danny, Chin Kono…they are not real. You made them up."

How the hell did he know their names?

"Don't call me that. My name is Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett," Steve asserted, trying his hardest to regain his calm.

"No, it's not," the doctor argued with a sad shake of his head. "You are not a member of the U.S. Navy. You never have been. You are happily married to your wife Rebecca and you used to work as a physics lecturer at the University of California. You took a leave of absence when your father got sick and came back to Hawaii to assist him."

Steve frowned at the doctor's words. Wife? What was he talking about?

"You're lying," Steve grunted as he pulled harder on the restraints. The urge to smash this Doctor Ruskin's nose was very strong.

"Steve, you're going to hurt yourself if you keep pulling on those restraints," Doctor Ruskin admonished with the air of someone scolding a child caught in the act for the hundredth time.

Steve ignored the doctor and attacked the restraints with renewed vigour. The rage building inside spurred him on. "I don't know who you are or what your game is, but it's not working. My team will find me and they will stop at nothing until you are locked away in a deep, dark hole for the rest of your life!"

The doctor stood with a long-suffering sigh. "No one is coming for you. Your 'team' doesn't exist. You made them up, Steve. It's time you let them go."

Steve watched as the doctor left without another word. His mind was reeling as he leaned his head back on the pillow. He took deep, measured breaths until his heart started beating at a normal pace again.

What the hell was going on?

Wednesday afternoon, temporary Five-0 offices:

Kono walked into their closet office behind her cousin to find Danny pacing like a caged tiger in the small space behind his desk. He was listening intently to the person on the other end of the phone clenched tightly in his hand.

"Okay, thanks." Danny hung up the phone and looked up at them with a startled expression. He obviously hadn't noticed them entering the room.

"Hey," Danny greeted them when he recovered from his initial shock. "How'd it go with Kamekona?"

Kono collapsed into her chair. "Nothing and nowhere."

"He said he would ask around," Chin supplied at Danny's inquisitive look. "How did it go with HPD?"

Danny sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. "I handed the files off to Clarke. That was him; he was just calling to say they'd found a lead. I personally think he just called to gloat."

The frustration in Danny's voice resonated with all of them.

"Where are we on finding Steve?" Chin asked the questioned they all wanted the answer to.

"To copy Kono's earlier sentiment, nothing and nowhere," Danny answered flatly. "We have yet to establish motive or find even a shred of evidence to his whereabouts."

"Still nothing on the van?" Kono asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yeah."

Danny's phone rang and Kono sat up straight in anticipation as he listened to whatever the person on the other line was saying. She watched as Danny's eyes widened and felt a glimmer of hope sparking inside her.

"Thank you," Danny said as he hung up. He looked around at the cousins and announced, "Duke said HPD found the van. It was found in a used car lot on Kalakaua Avenue, something called Auto X-Change. The van was sold to the dealer for well under what it was worth so the guy didn't ask any questions which is why it wasn't discovered earlier."

"Do we at least have some information on the person that sold it to them?" Kono asked.

"Yeah. We have a description of the seller and CSU found lots of prints inside the vehicle. Duke is sending it all through now…" Danny trailed off as his phone pinged with an incoming text. "Looks like we have a hit," he announced after reading the message.

Wednesday afternoon, unknown location:

She waited anxiously for the doctor to return. It had been almost two days since her plan had been put into action. The journey had been long and a little arduous, if she was honest. However, the people she had hired to assist her had come highly recommended and she trusted that they knew what they were doing. If anyone made a mistake…well, there was one way to ensure no further issues arose.

She heard the door open behind her and turned around to greet the man she'd hired to mastermind the logistics behind her plan. So far, he'd done an admirable job and she hoped he would continue to do so.

The doctor sighed as he shed his white coat and placed it on a hook beside the door. "He's not buying it, Rebecca."

"Well, we did expect this. We just planted a small seed of doubt. Eventually, he will come to realise that he doesn't need those people and he is right where he should be," she explained.

She knew it was a risky plan but she'd been preparing for this for so long. The challenge evoked a sense of pride and pleasure within her.

"Do you really think you can make him believe he is someone else?"

Rebecca pondered his question. She understood his concern; McGarrett was trained to resist interrogation and endure torture. That training was not something that could be ignored. However, she knew everything about Steve McGarrett. He wanted to escape the pain of his past and she would be the one show him how.

"I think he'll realise what he could have if he just let go of his past. I will show him the way and he will see how easy it is," she replied.

"What happens if he doesn't conform to your expectations of him?" the Hispanic man asked. "He doesn't strike me as the kind of man who would take the easy way out."

"He will. It will take some time, but he will realise I know what's best for him," she replied confidently.

The man gave her a doubtful look. "What about his team? They are going to know something is wrong when he doesn't show up at the office. In fact, they've probably already realised he's missing."

"Unless the people you hired to do the job messed up, we won't have to worry about that. Besides, they don't have any evidence. It will be like he just vanished," Rebecca told him. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to see my future husband."

"Rebecca…be careful. He's not your ordinary man," the doctor warned. "His disappearance will attract a lot of attention. More than you think."

Rebecca felt a fission of annoyance at the man's warning. "I am well aware of that," she snapped. "You just do your job and leave the rest to me."

The man nodded and stepped aside. She smirked. Money was a good incentive to get people to do what you wanted and this man was no exception to the rule.

She turned away from the man and walked over to the door behind which lay Steve McGarrett. She adjusted her clothing and flicked her hair behind her shoulders before placing a hand on the doorknob. Her heart was racing with anticipation. She closed her eyes, breathed deeply and pushed the door open.