CHAPTER TEN - PART ONE

TEN TIMES MORE DANGEROUS

FIVE-0 HEADQUARTERS - DOWNTOWN HONOLULU - O'AHU

Driving back to the Five-0 Headquarters, Steve called Eric Russo, Danny's nephew, slash CSU investigator. Partly to explain the situation before the boy would show up at the garage and investigate the vehicle that belonged to his uncle. But mostly to ensure the boy that the team was doing everything to locate Danny. Because months ago, when Danny was shot, Eric had been terrified to lose his uncle. Steve found that the boy deserved more than a phone call, but it was all Steve could offer at the moment.

At the Five-0 headquarters, Steve McGarrett pulled open the glass door leading to the general workspace. Jerry, Junior, and Lou were gathered around the technical table. All three of them wearing their casual day off clothes as none of them expected to be working this Sunday night. Now one could say they should've changed before heading in, but they all had been called in with a rush.

Together with Tani, Steve walked up to their team. "Guys, any word from Danny?"

Lou shook his head. "Nothing so far."

"Junior, did you check the hospitals?" Steve asked as he and Tani now joined them at the technical table standing opposite of the group.

"I did," Junior nodded. "I've called each, and every one of them like you asked. There's no record of Danny being admitted at any of the hospitals or local clinics, nor do they have patients that match his description or injury."

"All right," Steve faced Lou and Tani. "Walk me through the last two days."

Tani seemed confused by the question. "Okay? Like from the moment that you left?"

"Yes, from the moment that I left. What happened? Did you see Danny? Did you speak with him?"

"No, not since he texted me back yesterday morning," she started. "After you left on Friday, I called him a bunch of times. He didn't answer, so I got worried and went by his place."

Steve's eyebrows snapped together. "You got worried?"

Tani's innocent look changed to amazement as Steve wasn't the only team member surprised by that. "Yeah, I got worried. The guy has a collapsed lung, okay," she said, genuinely concerned, but went on rather quickly. "Anyway, I drove down to his place. The house was dark, so I knocked a couple times, had to wait a while before he opened the door. Apparently, he was already asleep, and I woke him up with the knocking. We talked for a bit, and then I left. I went home with Eddie. The next day I sent him a text to apologize for the other night. A few seconds later, I get a text back. All's good, and that's the last I heard of him."

That sounded like a plausible story, so Steve looked up at the tallest man standing around. "What about you, Lou?"

"I called him too after the two of you left Friday night. You know, check-in, see how he was doing, physically. Didn't have any contact after that."

"So neither of you have seen or heard from him since yesterday? Correct?" Steve concluded. Both team members nodded, and Steve felt the panic tighten inside him. "All right, Junior, call in a missing person's report and alert HPD. I want every available unit out and on the streets looking for Danny." Junior took the order and walked over to the office cubicle he and Tani shared.

Lou looked doubtful at Steve. "Do you really think all that's necessary?"

"I do," Steve said firmly. "It's been roughly thirty-two hours since one of you heard from him. His phone's switched off, someone stole his car, and he didn't show for his appointment at the hospital. So unless you know where he is, I suggest we start searching."

Jerry took that as his cue and asked. "You found the Camaro?"

"We did," Steve crossed his arms over his chest. "It was right at that garage you sent us to. The shop owner said a kid brought it in. Asked to strip the entire vehicle so they could sell the parts. CSU's dusting the thing for prints as we speak."

Lou ventured. "Do we know who the kid is?"

Tani answered. "Based on the owner, AKA, the mechanic's description, the kid's male, local and about twenty years old."

"That's it?" Lou raised his eyebrows. "No trouble finding the kid with a description like that, now will it?"

Steve concurred. "It's not much, I know, but we have to find this kid. He stole the Camaro, and he didn't just steal it off of Danny's driveway."

Jerry directly started typing, his fingers whizzing on the computer table. "Did you see if the shop had surveillance footage? Maybe we can I.D the kid if he's on camera."

"Well, you can forget about that," Tani stated. "To me, it didn't seem like that shop conducted any legal business at all."

Disappointed, Jerry stopped his search. "So no footage?"

"No footage," Tani said, putting her hand out of solidarity on Jerry's shoulder. "However, the owner told us the kid would be back in a couple of days, so that's something."

Steve objected. "Except we can't wait a couple of days for the kid to show up, okay? I know that there's nothing logical about this situation right now, but believe me, Danny wouldn't just vanish like this. Something happened."

"I hear you," Lou spoke, his voice tranquil, "But we have to stay calm. There's gotta be an explanation to why he's not answering his phone."

"His phone's turned off," Jerry pitched in. "You can't answer a call when your phone's off."

"We know that thanks, Jer," Lou said and eyed Steve. "What'd you think we're dealing with?"

"Honestly, I don't know. None of this is making sense to me, but we need to take every scenario into consideration before we can assume nothing happened."

Tani glanced aside at Steve. "You don't think someone killed him, do you?" The entire team now stared with a shell-shocked expression at Tani. She shrugged. "What? I mean, a guy shot him after years, out of revenge."

Lou put his hand out. "Slow down now. This can be anything. It could be blowback from a case he ever worked on. It can also be nothing."

"Lou's right," Steve pointed at his coworker. "We have to keep an open mind here, okay? Danny's not dead." At least not until we find his body. Steve thought to himself.

"You're right," Tani said and shook her head as she seemed upset by the situation. "I'm sorry. It's all my fault. I should've checked on him sooner."

"Tani, listen to me," Steve put his hand on Tani's shoulder and looked her in the eyes. "You have nothing to be sorry about. Whatever happened, it's not your fault. This is not on you, do you understand?"

Tani looked back at Steve. Her eyes glistened with tears. "I just feel so bad about all of this."

"That's good."

It caused Tani's forehead to pucker. "I don't follow."

"The fact that you feel bad about it tells me that you'll do anything to find Danny. And right now, that's all I care about, okay?" Steve addressed the situation like a true leader and then turned at Lou and Jerry. "I want a scrub on all of our cases. Top to bottom. See if this is related to a case, or out of revenge, or maybe someone's seeking information. Let's also run Danny's financials and pull his phone record. Maybe we can find evidence on where he went and who he's been in contact with. He didn't just disappear, okay? There has to be something, anything that can help us locate him."

"Wait," Tani stated, "Danny mentioned something to me earlier this week."

Now it was Steve's turn to be confused. "Mention what?"

Instead of responding, Tani jogged over to Danny's office, went inside, searched, grabbed something off his desk, and returned within the minute. "Here, he wrote it down." She said and handed Steve the blue post-it.

"Charlie's soccer game. Yesterday morning, right?" Steve remembered. How could he forget? Danny had been talking about it for weeks. "There's no way he would've missed this."

Steve handed Tani back the post it. He marched back toward the office doors, the same way he had come in ten minutes ago.

"Where you going?" Lou shouted.

Steve pushed the door open, looked over his shoulder at the team. "Go check his phone records and financials," he instructed and added. "I gotta take care of something."

SKATE HANGAR - O'AHU

Hours or maybe even half a day since Danny had been thrown into the skatebowl, he found himself back on the concrete again. He stood face-to-face with what felt like Kim Leung's last trump. Face-to-face might not be the correct phrase. Danny had to look way up because the guy standing opposite of him was at least twelve inches taller. And in size, the guy was like twice as big as an NFL linebacker. He was about twenty inches wider across the shoulders than Danny, and he probably outweighed Danny by two hundred pounds of muscle. The guy was gigantic.

No one can get this shape without any help, so Danny guessed the guy devoured steroids like candy for years. And judging by the guy's dull eyes and bad skin, he was still taking them. Then with a blink, the dull eyes switched gears and were now blazing with a kind of fury that made Danny fear for his life. That's one of the problems with steroids. Too many of them rewire the head. Making this situation ten times more dangerous than the previous ones. The guy had gone from empathy to cold emotional indifference in a split second. Danny doubted the guy was even capable of showing empathy, maybe without the steroids, but that clearly wasn't going to help him one bit at this moment.

The angry eyes were wide and locked on Danny and said I'm going to kill you and not care at all. And obviously, no one was going to stop him from doing that. No one could actually. Danny couldn't imagine there was anyone capable or strong enough to stop this guy. A bullet to the brain might do it, but Danny didn't have a gun, and Kim wasn't going to shoot his trophy. Speaking of Kim, the man had distanced himself and stood high and far out of reach on top of the platform surrounding the skatebowl. Danny wondered if the reason why Kim was all the way up there might because he actually was afraid of this guy. It was either that, or Kim wanted an overall view on the fight, which sounded like a possibility for a guy as mentally nuts as Kim.

Danny focused on the giant form standing six feet away from him. He didn't move. He looked heavy. Heavy and strong. Very strong. If he hit Danny, he would go down, and if he went down, he would never get up again. Danny figured he just couldn't go down. Easier said than done, but he had to outsmart this guy. That he could do. The steroids had clearly clogged this guy's chimney, so there was a slight chance Danny could get out alive after all. Danny watched the guy. Thought hard. The guy was heavier than nature intended, maybe by a hundred or a hundred and fifty pounds. He was so muscle-bound that his legs and arms had limited motion. He probably couldn't even touch his shoulder with his finger. His biceps were too big. Maybe Danny could use that as his advantage.

There wasn't more time to think it through. The giant form exploded at Danny. Just launched himself forward with his right arm scything round in a huge roundhouse strike. Danny sidestepped the launching body and ducked under his arm and bounced up again and spun around. The guy stopped short on stiff legs and whipped back towards Danny. They had changed places. That was all that happened. Danny watched him. The eyes were still blazing, but his face darkened. He was annoyed and came at Danny again. Same move. His right arm swung. Danny sidestepped and ducked away again and felt the breeze as the giant fist passed an inch above his head. They were back where they started.

He came on again. Moved fast. Danny dodged left and crashed an elbow into the guy's side. It had no effect. He bounced straight off, and it actually knocked Danny sideways like he weighed nothing at all. In return, a low left fist was coming Danny's way. He arched around the crazy lunge, and the fist missed his gut by a quarter-inch. The wild momentum pulled the herculean guy past Danny and a little downward, which put the side of his head right in line for a left hook. Danny let it go with everything he had. His fist crashed into the guy's ear, and it made him stagger back. Danny followed up with a colossal right to the jaw. He danced back himself and took a breather, and tried to see what damage he'd done. No damage.

Danny stood still. Held his ground. The blow had done nothing at all. Absolutely nothing. Just rocked the guy back an inch. He shook his head once and hit Danny in the face. Danny saw it coming and whipped his head back just in time. It took some momentum out of the blow, but it was still a tremendous impact, like being hit by a train. Danny's lights went out, and he went down hard and lost track of where he was, so the concrete ground came up at him like a second colossal punch in the back. Air thumped out of his lungs, and he saw a spray of blood from his mouth. The back of his head hit the concrete and the arched roof dimmed above him.

Danny lost half a second. He had ended up flat on the floor. Just lay there. His head hurt. He had hit it hard.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" The guy said gravely.

Danny grimaced as a spike of pain shot across his head. "Italian for dinner?"

The guy laughed, but evil intended. "You're a funny guy."

It would be funny if the situation weren't so deadly, but there wasn't time to laugh anyway. Danny tried to move, but it was like a car that doesn't start with the key's first turn. Then he tried again, and he rolled over and got up on all fours. Pushed himself upright, slow and easy. The guy had hit Danny one time, and he was a mess. Blood flowed freely down his face, dripping onto his chest. He was aching all over, his ribcage burned, and he could taste the blood in his mouth. He looked down at his bruised chest to check the tube. Everything was still intact. Danny spat out the remaining blood and looked back up at the gigantic cartoon.

Danny had hit him three times, and it was like he hadn't hit him at all. He showed no pain. No concern. He was dancing around and smiling. He was relaxed. Moving easy. Huge. Impregnable. Danny looked at him and knew for sure he had no chance at all. And the guy looked at Danny, and this time they were thinking the exact same thing. The guy smiled wider and exploded toward Danny. The smile changed into a terrible wide grin of pleasure. He came straight at Danny, and Danny dodge left. But the man-mountain was ready for that maneuver, and he landed a right hook in the center of Danny's chest. It felt exactly like being punched by a four-hundred-pound weightlifter moving at six miles an hour. Danny's sternum seemed cracked, and he thought his heart would stop from the shock. He came up off his feet and went down on his back. The air punched out of him. His lungs were empty. His chest was crushed. He was going to die. He knew it, and he knew it with sudden clarity.

— TBC / HAWAIIFIVE0 —

A/N: I promise, I won't let Danno actually die.

There is more whump coming you're way though, next Monday!

Hope you enjoyed it, and I always love to hear what you think of it!