CHAPTER 17

Wednesday afternoon, temporary Five-0 offices:

"Meet Samuel Ortiz," Danny announced as he brought up the man's profile on the computer screen. "Twenty-nine years old. Mechanic. No family except for an older brother that served in the Marines. No record except for the fact his prints are all over the van."

"Let's bring him in," Kono said, jumping to her feet in eagerness.

"Hold on there, Rookie." Danny admired Kono's enthusiasm but he sometimes forgot she had much less experience than himself and Chin. "Let's get all of our facts straight before we go chasing after a suspect."

"For all we know, he could just be the mechanic that checked the vehicle over before it was sold to the dealership," Chin reasoned.

"Are we ignoring the fact that this guy matches the description given by the dealership owner?" Kono pointed out.

Danny had to admit she had a point. Samuel Ortiz matched the details provided by the witness exactly. Brown hair, brown eyes, tanned skin, medium build. But then, so did many other people on the island.

"It's worth at least talking to him," Kono continued.

Danny looked over at Chin and found the older man shrugging his shoulders. "She's right."

Danny relented. "Fine. Chin, you and Kono talk to this guy, see what he knows. I'll dig into his background and see what pops."

Danny plopped his head down on the desk as soon as the cousins left. He prayed this would be the break they needed to find Steve.

They would find Steve. He'd promised Catherine that they would and he intended to keep that promise. A small niggle of apprehension in the back of his mind had him doubting that he could make good on his word. What if they don't find him? What then?

Failure was NOT acceptable.

They would find Steve. Steve would never give up, so neither would he.

But Danny couldn't help but wonder just how damaged his friend would be when they did find him.

Wednesday afternoon, Makiki Auto Repair:

"Hey, we're looking for Samuel Ortiz," Kono said to the first person she saw when she walked inside the car repair shop.

A man looked up from the car he was hunched over and took one look at her, his eyes flicking to the badge strapped to her belt, before pointing to the back of the shop.

"Thank you," Kono said sweetly with a feral grin before turning on her heel and heading in the direction the man had indicated.

Chin shook his head at her while trying to hold in his own grin; his cousin could be intimidating when she wanted to be. He also didn't miss the way the mechanics all stopped to watch Kono as she sauntered through the workspace to the very back of the shop. If any of them laid a hand on his little cousin…

"Samuel Ortiz?" she called.

"Who's asking?" Ortiz snapped without looking up from the bolt he was tightening.

"Five-0," Kono replied smoothly.

Ortiz dropped the wrench and it landed on the floor with an almighty crash. He looked up, his eyes wide as he took in Kono and Chin.

He gulped visibly before choking out, "What can I do for you?"

"You recently sold a van to a used car lot called Auto X-Change, is that correct?" Chin asked.

Ortiz stood up straight and glanced down at the dropped wrench; a movement that did not go unnoticed by either cousin. "Yeah. What about it?"

"We have reason to believe that van was used in a crime," Kono answered.

"I don't know anything about any kidnapping," Ortiz replied with false bravado.

Chin exchanged a knowing look with Kono before turning back to Ortiz. "We never said it was a kidnapping."

Sometimes Chin relished the stupidity of criminals. No matter how hard they tried to lie their way through any given number of scenarios, they always ended up getting caught. He could, however, do without the extra cardiovascular exercise it took once they figured out their lie had been detected and they had to chase said criminals through several back alleys.

He slowed to a jog as he let Kono tackle the suspect to the ground and cuff his hands behind his back. Chin suspected Kono had been waiting for a chance to get her hands on someone since Steve had disappeared. All that pent up guilt and anger had to come out some time. Chin was just grateful she hadn't unleashed it on him.

"Hey, come on. I didn't do anything!" Ortiz yelled as Kono pulled him up by his restrained hands.

"Oh yeah? Then why did you run?" Kono asked as she shoved him forwards.

Ortiz chose that moment to clamp his mouth shut.

"Here's the deal, Sam. We think you were involved in the kidnapping of the head of the Five-0 Taskforce. Now, you can tell us what we want to know right now or we could throw you in a shark tank until you do," Kono threatened.

"For real?" Ortiz asked, his voice cracking.

Kono nodded. "For real."

"My question is, how does a guy with no criminal record suddenly become involved in something like this?" Chin asked. Other than being connected to the van that took Steve, the man had nothing on his record.

"Look, I didn't know what was going to happen. All he said was to drive the van and follow the directions I was given. I swear that's all!"

Chin exchanged a look with Kono. "Who gave you those instructions?"

Ortiz bit his lip and reluctantly answered. "My brother, Gabriel."

"What does your brother want with McGarrett?"

"No, it's not like that. He was just hired for a job. He cut me in. I needed the money," Ortiz explained.

"So you just did the job, no questions asked?" Kono asked.

"I didn't want him to think I was weak. He's done two tours overseas and I can barely hold a job for longer than four months. I didn't want to need his help anymore."

Chin sighed. He could understand needing to show you didn't need anyone's help. "How much did he pay you?"

"Forty grand."

Kono whistled lowly. "That's a lot of dough."

"Where did you take McGarrett?" Chin asked impatiently.

"To the harbour."

"Which one?" Chin pressed.

"Ko Olina Marina."

Chin turned to Kono and muttered, "That's definitely out of the way, but not exactly private."

"Do you know anything about who hired your brother?" Kono asked, turning back to Ortiz.

"No. All he told me was that he was going to be away for a while once the job was done," Ortiz answered.

A sinking feel of dread came over Chin as he thought about the implications of Ortiz's statement. He was distracted by Kono patting down Ortiz's pockets. She produced a cellphone with a look of triumph.

"Call him. Tell him Five-0 is on to you and you need his help," Kono demanded as she took the cuffs off and shoved the phone into his hand.

Ortiz looked at Chin fearfully before doing exactly as Kono had told him.

"Hey, it's me…Listen, I need your help…"

Wednesday afternoon, unknown location:

Steve stared at the door that was the only entrance to the room he was currently trapped in. It had been a couple of hours since the doctor had left, leaving him with nothing but his thoughts for company.

Doctor.

There was no way that man was a doctor. He'd seen enough of them in his life to know the difference. Still, there was a flicker of doubt in the back of his mind. What if he had been telling the truth? What if he really was insane?

No, not possible.

He tugged on his restraints again. Nothing about this situation was normal. He took a deep breath and started to catalogue everything he knew about his predicament so far.

The last thing he remembered was waking up at home and then going for a run. Everything after that was just a blurry mixture of colours and faces that he couldn't decipher. He remembered voices; someone had been talking to him, something about going home?

Was he home?

No. Another look at the room told him he was most definitely not in his own bed, let alone his house. He remembered feeling like he was floating. Had he been on a boat? If that was true, then he could be literally anywhere in the world right now.

That thought filled him with anxiety. How would his team find him if he'd been taken somewhere overseas?

His attention was drawn back to the door as it creaked open. This first thing he saw was a wisp of blonde hair preceded by a shadowy figure. The lighting in the hallway outside his room was suspiciously dull. It further confirmed his suspicions that he was not in a real hospital.

"Hello Steve."

He felt his body tense in response to the eerily familiar voice. He'd heard this voice before; he just couldn't place where in his muddled mind. A woman stepped forward into the light and suddenly the last piece of the puzzle fell into place.

"What the hell is this?" Steve growled angrily as he tried to sit up but the restraints held him fast.

How could he have let this happen? He should have seen what she was. All those times his instincts told him something was off with her…

"Steve…it's okay. You're safe. Just try to relax."

Rebecca Marsden, his brain finally supplied. The reporter from the Honolulu Times.

"Safe?" Steve scoffed at her as he tried to pull his appendages free of his bonds.

She approached the bed and held his hand. It was ice cold. "Steve, stop. You are just going to hurt yourself and then Doctor Ruskin will have to sedate you again."

Steve tried to shake himself from her grip but to no avail. She held on tight and looked at him with a pleased smile. As though she enjoyed watching him squirm.

"Look, I brought you something," Marsden said as she let go of his hand to produce a bunch of bright red roses from behind her back. She placed the flowers in a plastic vase on the table beside the bed.

Steve almost recoiled at the sight. The deep crimson flowers invoked a feeling of unease so deep inside him he almost shivered. She was the one that had been sending him gifts. Watching him. He didn't know what to say to her. For all his training, nothing had ever prepared him for this scenario.

When he didn't respond to her, she frowned and her bottom lip quivered slightly. "You don't remember?"

"Remember what?" he spat.

The woman sat down in the chair that had been occupied by the doctor a few hours earlier. She tucked stray strands of blonde hair behind her ears and smoothed her red dress over her knees.

"Our wedding."

"Wedding?" Steve repeated, gasping out the word.

Rebecca smiled down at him. "It's okay if you don't remember right now. Sometimes, after you've had one of your episodes, you tend to forget things. It's okay, it will come back to you."

Steve fought to remain calm under the scrutiny of the blonde woman. Did she seriously expect him to believe this?

"You knew I loved roses so much you organised to have the entire hall decorated with them. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me. As if I didn't already know you were the one, that just cemented it for me. I knew in that moment that we would be together forever."

Steve knew for a fact that this woman was insane. Surely he would remember if he had been married, right?

"We met on campus at Berkeley. I had just started my tenure at the university and we literally ran into each other in the hall. From that moment we just clicked. We got married two years later. Then, when your father's heart started failing and you returned to Hawaii. I was only able to join you at the end. Maybe if I had been here earlier, then I could have helped you."

Steve frowned. "I don't know what you are trying to pull here but we are not married. I have never lived in California and my father did not die from a heart attack. He died because I wouldn't give Victor Hesse his brother. I came back to Hawaii to solve my father's murder."

Rebecca shook her head and grabbed his hand again. "No, you didn't Steve. You came back to help your father. I feel like it was because you felt guilty for not reaching out to him after he sent you to school on the mainland. The point is that Victor Hesse doesn't exist. You made him up, just like you did the taskforce. You don't have to protect anyone or keep putting them above yourself. We've got our whole future ahead of us and when you get better, we can pick up where we left off."

Steve shuddered as her icy cold fingers slowly slithered between with his own. "If you think that I will conform to your ideals, then you don't know me at all."

"Steve," she smiled softly. "I know you better than anyone. The sooner you let go of these figments of your imagination, the sooner we can truly be together. Don't you want that?"

"No," Steve ground out as he tried to dislodge her grip on his hand.

Steve felt a spark of enjoyment at the hurt flashing in her eyes.

"I know you are only saying that because you don't believe me yet. I'll just have to remind you of what we have together."

She leaned in and grabbed his face in her hands. He tried to jerk his head free of her grip but she held on tighter the more he struggled. She pressed her lips to his. Steve shivered; her lips were just as cold as her hands. She probed his lips with her tongue and pulled back when Steve pressed mouth tightly shut, preventing her access.

An electronic beeping sound had her stopping her pursuance. She looked down at her wrist and sighed.

"It looks like visiting hours are over. I'll see you tomorrow, sweetheart," Marsden said as she traced his lips with her finger. "Sleep well," she whispered in his ear before she left.

As soon as she left the room, he let the tension in his body melt away. Her unwanted touch had set him on edge and he had fought the urge to rip her head off. The complete absence of guilt or remorse in her actions told Steve she knew exactly what she was doing. It was then he decided he needed to play along with whatever scenario she was playing out until she made a mistake.

He listened for any movement outside of the room but all he could hear was his own breathing. With the knowledge that he was entirely alone, he focused the hospital-grade restraints that prevented him from leaving the bed. He would need to find something to help him release the buckles. Or make Rebecca or one of the 'doctors' trust him enough to untie him.

He knew his team would be searching for him. They had to know he was missing by now. All he had to do was wait for them to storm in and rescue him. Like they had countless times before.

His gut instinct was telling him this was all fake; the ward, the doctors, the story they'd concocted about him being a psychiatric patient in a secure ward. And the story about his father? There was no way he could have made up something so…despicable. No, he hadn't lost his mind.

He wasn't sure what the point behind it all was, but there was no way he'd accept their version of his life. He just needed to be patient and find a flaw in their plan. In the meantime, he had to be careful. He had a feeling that one wrong move could have detrimental consequences. His team would find him; of that he was certain.

But in what condition?

Wednesday afternoon, the Cruze:

"We're on our way back now. Ortiz set the meet for later this afternoon," Chin told Danny over the phone. "We'll see you soon."

Kono glanced briefly into her rearview mirror at their suspect in the backseat before returning her attention to the road in front of her.

"Did Danny find anything useful?" she asked as soon as her cousin hung up the phone.

"Not yet. The brother's file is sealed and he has Catherine working on getting it unsealed," Chin replied with an edge in his voice.

"Meaning we just ventured into spook territory?" Kono guessed. A locked file never meant anything good. More often than not, it lead to more questions than answers.

"More than likely," Chin said, his eyes flicking to their passenger.

Kono knew exactly what her cousin was thinking. If the other Ortiz brother was a mercenary or Government agent of some kind, things just got incredibly complicated. Which meant finding Steve was going to be harder than they thought.

Kono let out a frustrated breath. They had only just got Steve back and now they were hunting for ex-military guns-for-hire with no idea why. When would they finally catch a break?

"Are you sure there was nothing your brother mentioned about who hired him?" Chin asked their suspect.

"Look man, I already told you everything I know. He just asked for my help to pull it off. Then he was going off with this girl he'd been seeing for a while. That's it, I swear!"

"What girl?" Kono heard her own words echoed by her cousin.

"Just some chick he met a while ago. He said she was hot and pretty cool."

"What does she look like?" Chin asked, turning around in his seat.

"I don't know. I've never met her. My brother likes blondes, if that helps," Ortiz answered. "I think he was pretty smitten. He would always answer when she called and would drop everything to bend to her every whim."

"Did he ever mention her name?" Kono asked, her eyes back on the rearview mirror.

"I'm pretty sure it started with an R," Ortiz answered with a small shrug.

Kono frowned when she saw a white truck rapidly approaching from behind. She pulled over to the left lane to allow the car to pass. Her frown deepened when the vehicle followed her movement.

"Kono?" Chin asked, having sensed the change in driving style.

Kono was busy concentrating on evading the vehicle that was getting closer every second and didn't answer. She tensed up when the truck got so close that she could see the dark eyes of the person driving behind them.

"Hold on!" she yelled as she swerved to the right to avoid a slow moving car in front of her.

She winced when she felt a sudden impact on the rear left hand side of her car and suddenly the car was spinning out of control. She threw her hands up in front of her face at the same time as slamming the brake as hard as she could when the solid wall of a shopfront came into view.

It felt like her entire body was jarred as the out of control car finally came to a full stop. She breathed in, just to remind herself that she could. She looked over at her cousin, pleased to see that he was conscious and looking back at her. One assessing glance told her that his only injury was the small cut on his forehead that was bleeding slightly.

The sound of a bullet pinging off the rear panel of her Cruze had her ducking and reaching for her weapon. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Chin doing the same. Opening the car door, she slipped out and crouched behind the protection of the totalled car.

More bullets were flying through the air. It only took her a moment to realise the bullets weren't aimed in her direction. Instead, they were aimed at—

"CHIN!" she screamed.