CHAPTER NINE

LICENSE PLATE D-V-TWO-THREE-NINE-NINE

WILLIAMS' RESIDENCE - KĀHALA - O'AHU

Tani turned her head. Looked straight at Steve with questions in her eyes. "So where's he?"

Steve flicked a despairing glance back at Tani. "I don't know," he said, with a trace of worry in his voice. "Everything looks normal. His bed's made, which tells me he didn't leave in a hurry. I also checked his safe. His gun and badge are accounted for. All that's missing is the Camaro."

"Hold on," Tani stared disbelieving at Steve. "You have the combination of his safe? But you don't have a key to his house?"

Steve ignored the sassy comment and dragged the cell phone from his pocket. Then he dialed a number and waited for the call to connect. "Jerry, you at the office?"

"How?" Jerry asked like he got caught committing a crime. "Are you watching the security feed? Because I know you said not to use our resources for personal matters, but I just had to check a gut feeling."

"It's fine, Jerry. That's not why I'm calling," Steve quickly settled Jerry's nerves. "I need you to locate Danny's Camaro."

Just like that Jerry's work mode was flipped on. "Sure, what's going on?"

Steve shared a look with Tani. "It could be nothing, but Danny's not taking any calls, and he's not at home."

"Just a sec," Jerry said, and Steve could hear him type fast. After a few seconds, Jerry popped back up. "Okay, here we go. The Camaro's GPS is tracing to an Auto body shop."

"Where?"

"Fort Shafter."

Steve frowned. That didn't make any sense to him. The residential neighborhood Fort Shafter wasn't exactly around the corner of Danny's place, so why would he drive all the way over there while there were, to his knowledge, at least two body shops right here in Kāhala. There was one thing that came to mind— a car accident.

"All right, send me the address. Tani and I will check it out," Steve notified. "What about his cell phone?"

"I went ahead and checked, but it's turned off," Jerry reported. "Can't ping his exact location. All I can tell is that it connected last near a tower five blocks from that body shop."

"How long ago?" Steve questioned, but it stayed silent on the other side of the line. Steve's frown deepened. "Jerry?"

"Yesterday, at eleven-fourteen AM."

"Yesterday?" Steve repeated, confused and now growing actually concerned. Instead of getting answers to this situation, it got more troubling with the minute. "All right, do me a favor, stay at the Palace, keep checking if his phone gets turned back on."

"Will do."

Steve disconnected the call, only to call another number. "Hey Junior, I need you at the office. Jerry's already there, okay? He'll fill you in."

"Did we catch a case?" Junior quizzed.

"No, it's about Danny. I want you to check in with every ER and local clinic on the island," Steve requested. "See if any one matching Danny's descriptions has been treated or admitted for a collapsed lung. Not sure what we're dealing with, okay?"

"Copy that, sir."

SKATE HANGAR - O'AHU

Danny had watched the sun go down for the day. He never really did that. Watch the sun set. It was just something that happened every day while he completed his daily schedule of taking care of his kids and working and, if by a miracle, he had some spare time, squeeze in some exercise. Today he made him promise himself to watch the sun set more often. He had enjoyed it. He partially blamed his concussion for that, but the main reason was that it had been the first peaceful thing in hours. Correction. Based on the time of the sunset, Danny did the math. It had been the first peaceful thing within thirty-three hours. Thirty-three hours had gone by, and he was still stuck in this hellhole.

Thirty-three hours without any ransom demand. Without any leverage or whatsoever. To his knowledge, at least. Maybe Kim had demanded a million dollar's and nobody had given him that. Or maybe Kim had demanded something complicated, like releasing a prisoner. Or maybe he hadn't demanded anything, and Danny was here pure out of personal hatred. That sounded the closest to the truth. Yet, they were keeping him alive for some reason. They had kept him alive for thirty-three hours, while within those hours, they had plenty of opportunities to kill him. They could've shot him. Strangled him. Stabbed him. Or snapped his neck. They hadn't done that.

Kim wanted him alive, but what for and for how long. Danny didn't know, and he hadn't figured it out the past thirty-three hours either. He did know that he was closing in on death with each additional hour. He didn't want to die, and especially not this way. Who does anyway? But that was not the point. He had his kids to think about. He didn't want them to grow up without a father, and he didn't want Rachel to be right. That woman had told him over, and over that his job would kill him eventually, and after all that had happened between them, she didn't deserve to be right about it.

Sitting upright, Danny let out a pained grunt. He hated that he felt anger towards Rachel, but it seemed to fuel him enough to rethink another escaping approach. The first time he had tried to make a run for it, his kids had been his power source. Even Steve had made the list of reasons why Danny had to escape. Now that Rachel was on that list, too, it made Danny feel desperate. That was an understatement. He did not only feel desperate. He also turned out to be in a desperate situation because what's it worth being alive when he was kept in a skatebowl, with barely anything to drink or nothing to eat and with pain much greater than he had ever felt in life.

Danny glanced up at the edge of the skatebowl. After several unsuccessful attempts of escaping, Danny had been guarded by the minimum of one armed man and the maximum of four. At the moment, only one man, with a horrible neck tattoo, was pacing back and forth with an AK-47 slung around his neck secured with a nylon strap. There was a thirty-round magazine attached to the weapon. Locked and loaded. And if Danny was right about Kim wanting him to be alive, they wouldn't shoot him. No matter what his next move was going to be, they wouldn't shoot him. That entirely depended on Danny being right or wrong. That was the choice Danny had to make.

To be right or wrong.

To be a hero or to be a coward.

To fight or to give in.

To live or die.

One hell of a decision. Getting riddled by thirty bullets wasn't a risk he'd be willing to take. Yet, he didn't think he was wrong or a coward. Or a person who'd give in or was ready to die. And just like that, his choice was made. This plan of his probably equalized with something his insane partner would do and could use some rethinking, but Danny went for it anyway. He pushed himself off the ground. Or he tried to. He got a sudden sharp pain in his shoulders. And his arms. And a savage dull pain on the right side of his chest. Like heartburn, but not heartburn. He hadn't eaten anything for more than thirty-three hours. Danny doubled over in pain.

"What are you doing?" The guard shouted from above.

Danny couldn't breathe properly. Couldn't move either. His chest locked up solid. His legs gave way, and he dropped on his knees. He squeezed his eyes shut and mumbled. "I think one of your— buddies broke my rib."

"Not my problem, is it?"

"Depends on how— much you like to live," Danny said and rested for a moment on his knees. Then pitched sideways and dropped down on his butt. He wasn't getting enough air. He was suffocating. "I can't— breathe." He gasped as his chest was being crushed. Like it had a heavy weight on it.

"You really can't breathe?" the guy asked, and Danny could hear a hint of panic in the man's voice. Danny couldn't answer, though. He had no air in his lungs.

"Hey, answer me!" The guard demanded.

Danny fought for a minute to answer. Then he gave up because he knew with sudden strange certainty he would never be able to answer that man. He relaxed and let himself slump back to the floor. To distract himself, Danny kept his eyes focused on the guard. The man went into a full-blown panic attack. With his hands in his hair, he paced, taking tight steps. Three steps forth. Three steps back. He looked over the fence to presumably get help, but apparently, he decided against it. He jumped into the skatebowl to deal with the situation himself instead of warning anybody.

With wide eyes, Danny watched the armed guard closed in on him. "I'm gonna be in real trouble if you die." The man said and leaned over Danny's collapsed body.

Danny smiled— they wanted him alive. He was right and about to be a hero who put up a fight to live.

When the guard inched closer, Danny answered. "You're gonna be in trouble either way."

Danny grabbed the nylon strap and strangled it around the guy's throat. Keeping a tight grip until the guy's knees weakened. Then Danny dragged the guard close to the wooden halfpipe and battered the guy's head against the curved ramp. Once, twice, three times, hard and vicious, until he went quiet and stopped moving. Danny did take no pleasure in taking that guy down. None. It was just necessary.

Danny checked the guy's departed pulse to be certain and took the man's gun with him. Danny ejected the magazine, checked the chamber, worked the action, looked down the barrel, and verified its capacity. Fully loaded. Thirty bullets. All accounted for. Danny clicked the magazine back into its housing and tugged on it once to see it was secure. He used the nylon strap to swing in around his neck. His plan had worked. He didn't really had trouble breathing. He just had to get that guy within hands reach to take him out and capture that gun.

Part one of his plan had been the most challenging. Now it was time for the easy part. To gain some momentum, Danny took several steps back. This was going to hurt. He knew that, but he had come too far to give in. Danny took a five-stride run-up and launched himself straight at the halfpipe. With enough speed, he ran up the curved ramp and grabbed down the coping with his palms, and pushed himself up, like he was getting out of a swimming pool. His arms trembled a little, and his chest hurt tremendous, but he didn't stop.

Danny straightened his arms as his eyes landed at a pair of black boots standing right at the edge. Then one boot lifted and kicked out— a heavy blow from a heavy boot. Danny's head snapped backward, and he thumped right back into the skatebowl again.

J&J AUTO SHOP - 740 AHUA ST. - FORT SHAFTER - HONOLULU

The auto shop was a very generic garage. Located in an industrial building made out of steel plates. Low in height, just one floor. It didn't have an outside loading dock. No waist-high platform. It had three overhead roller doors instead. Big enough to drive a truck through and perfect for getting cars in all shapes and sizes. Maybe it once had served as a warehouse, but today it clearly was in use as a repair shop. The words J&J Auto Shop were painted in yellow on each of the rusty navy blue doors. The shop seemed done for the day. All overhead garage doors were shut tight except for the middle one. That door was only half-closed, and judging the light and mechanical drilling sounds blasting from underneath, there was still someone at work.

Steve and Tani ducked underneath it and entered the repair shop. Just like the outside, the inside of the workshop looked just like any standard auto garage. On the east wall, there was a pegboard with the larger tools attached to it. The small hand tools were presumably kept in the red storage cabinets standing across the workstation. Cans of oil and gasoline, and grease littered the workbench. Tires were piled up in the west corner. Everything you expect to find at a repair shop was accounted for. Nothing abnormal, but one thing did attract Steve's attention. A black Camaro.

Or what was left of it. A man stood with its elbows deep in its hood, tinkering and, by the looks of it, not to repair any damage. Both doors were taken off. The bumper, along with the engine block and gearbox, were detached and on the concrete floor. The man stripping the Camaro seemed to be the only one around and was dressed for the mechanic part. He was wearing a blue coverall— almost the same shade as the garage doors. The coverall was dirty and stained with black filth. The same went for the former white tank top, which showed as he only used the bottom part of the coverall by tying the top part with its sleeves together at his waist.

The mechanic looked briefly up from his work and shouted. "We're closed."

"It'll only take a minute," Steve said and walked up to the man. "Are you the one in charge?"

"Depends on who's asking." The mechanic turned around. He was somewhere in his forties. He had long and wavy and pitch-black hair. Tied at the back of his head. Both arms were decorated with traditional Hawaiian Kākau tattoos. Local guy for sure, and by his attitude, he seemed annoyed by the interruption.

"Five-0," Steve introduced and lifted the tail of his shirt, revealing the badge clipped on his belt. "I'm Commander Steve McGarrett, and this is Officer Tani Rey."

The mechanic put his tools aside and wiped his greasy hands off with a paper towel. "All right, you're speaking to the one in charge. What's going on?"

That was a good question. Steve himself wasn't even sure what was going on, but what he did know was that his partner's car was being taken apart. And it was undoubtedly Danny's car because the stripped-down license plate D-V-two-three-nine-nine was lying next to the engine block. Steve pointed at the destructed Camaro. "How'd you get your hands on this vehicle, Sir?"

"Seriously, Five-0 has time to locate cars now?" The man asked.

Tani placed her hands on her hips. "Just answer the question."

"I don't know," the mechanic shrugged his shoulders. "Some guy dropped it off."

With a bit of hope, Steve inquired. "When did he drop it off?"

"Yesterday," the man answered. "Around noon, I guess."

Steve took his phone out of his pocket and swiped until he found a picture of Danny and showed it to the mechanic. "Is this the guy that dropped it off?"

Negative. The mechanic shook his head. "No, he was no haole. It was a local kid, about twenty years old."

"A kid?" Steve put his phone back. "You don't find it strange that a twenty-year-old kid drives a car like this in here? With lights and sirens in the front bumper? Don't tell me you just assumed it was his and didn't ask if it was stolen or not?"

"If I would ask questions like that, I'd be out of business."

Tani scanned around her and asked. "Do you have security cameras?"

The mechanic gave a nonchalant shrug. "Nah, you see, customer service's very important these days."

"Please tell me you did ask his name, though."

"Sista, like I said, I don't ask that kinda questions. I just do what they pay me for. That's it."

Steve interfered as he didn't like the sista attitude. "Okay, then what did this kid pay you for?"

"He didn't pay me. He asked me to strip the car and sell the parts. Offered to split the profits fifty-fifty."

"He asked you to sell the parts, and you didn't buy the car from him?" Steve's eyebrows were forced together. Generally, people sell their vehicle to the shop, and whatever the shop decides to do with it for profits was up to them. It'd be stupid to just hand over the car and ask the mechanic to strip and sell the parts for you. And without a doubt, this mechanic was going to rip off the boy, unless… "Do you know this kid?"

"Never seen the boy before. Said he'd be back in a couple of days for the money." The mechanic gave a lopsided grin. He was clearly never going to pay the kid half or even any of the money. The kid for sure didn't have much brain capacity if he thought he would.

Tani glanced at Steve. "If we find this kid, we at least have proof that evolution can go in reverse."

That was a good one. On any other day, Steve would've laughed about the comment, but not today. His best friend was missing, and he had no clue where to find him. Steve focused back on the mechanic. "If the kid drove down here in the Camaro? Then how did he leave? Did someone pick him up?"

"How would I know? He walked out here on foot, but maybe someone picked him up around the block, I didn't see."

Steve sighed. This was getting them nowhere. "All right, listen to me. Forensics are coming down here, they're gonna process every inch of this car, and once they're done, you're gonna put everything back the way it was. Like right, that second. Then HPD will pick it up a couple of hours later, all cleaned up and polished."

The mechanic paused a beat and said, "How much you gonna pay me?"

That drew a smile. Steve took a step closer. "I'm gonna pay you by not taking you in and locking you up for grand larceny. Sounds fair to you?"

The mechanic held up both hands and did a step away from the Camaro. "Sounds good to me, Commander."

SKATE HANGAR - O'AHU

Danny woke up again. Or, more accurately, something woke him up. Like a switch being thrown. From sound asleep to completely conscious in an instant. An instinctive response. A sound had triggered that warning, and to be specific; it had been the sound of a gunshot. A single loose tap. Very close by and very loud. It was followed by a wet punch of the bullet finding its target. Then a solid thud of limbs sprawling sideways on the concrete. The person was dead. Danny knew it for sure. There was no mistaking the sound. He had heard such sounds before. It had been a headshot. Through and through, in and out. Like a curveball finding the strike zone. Not survivable. Not even remotely. Danny remained still. He waited, but there was no second shot, meaning it had been an execution.

Danny slowly opened his right eye. Then his left, which wouldn't open for more than a slit. That heavy boot from earlier had kicked him in the eye and was now forced shut with swelling. Nonetheless, Danny could see there was no one around him. He was left behind on the bottom of the skatebowl, and he was alone. Even the platform was cleared out, which was suspicious enough on its own. That could only mean one thing. Or maybe two. Either someone had breached the hangar, eliminating all men, and was coming to rescue him. Or, all men went to grab a bite since Danny had been out cold by that kick. Calculating on Danny's pounding headache, they might as well have gone out for dinner someplace on the other side of town because he would've stayed knocked out if it weren't for that roaring gunshot.

Neither options turned out to be true. Danny recognized Kim's voice as it thundered through the cavernous hangar when he asked. "What'd you do?"

Danny stayed rock still, didn't move a muscle. Just listened in on the conversation when a low male voice he hadn't heard before said. "The dude was a snitch. CIA."

"CIA? You sure?" Kim Leung asked.

"One hundred percent, Sir. He just admitted it himself."

Danny couldn't vouch for that, he'd been unconscious, but if it were true, it'd mean he just lost another way of surviving this.

Kim thundered with outrage. "Then why'd you kill him?"

"You would've done it yourself, no?" The unknown voice answered with hesitation.

"Wrong!" Kim shouted. Then Danny heard a click. He knew that sound. The safety mechanism of a handgun was being released. Without question, Kim was holding the guy at gunpoint as he said. "Tell me again. What would I've done? You've been by my side long enough to know what I do with people that turn on me."

The voice trembled fearfully. "You kill the person closest to them."

"Yes, and why's that?"

"To make them suffer."

"That's right. People who disappoint me deserve to suffer," the voice didn't respond. Instead, Kim continued. "For example, I can rip that tube out of the Detective's chest, and he'd die in a matter of minutes. You don't see me doing that, do you?" Kim paused a beat and said, "People like that deserve to suffer first, and so does the person nearest and dearest to you."

"Sir?"

"Not right away, of course. Don't worry," Kim laughed amicably. "First, I'll torture her. Get her to scream like you have near heard her scream. Then I'll kill her. Then I'll use a screwdriver to perforate both your eardrums of the middle ear. You'll be deaf for as long as I decide to let you live. The doctors will sign to you you'll never hear another sound, but the thing is, you will hear one thing as it's forever engraved in your mind. The scream of your lovely wife when I kill her. Do you understand?"

Danny swallowed. So did the unknown voice, or Danny imagined as there was a piercing silence. It was followed by.

"I do, Sir."

There was a click again. Then footsteps, fading away with distance. "For your own and your wife's sake, go clean this up and get rid of the body."

— TBC / HAWAIIFIVE0 —

A/N: Thanks to everyone who has faved, followed or left a review this far. Also the guests who are reviewing, thank you!

Next chapter will be up on Monday. With more to come!

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