A hui hou kakouf Part Two: Separated; Charred-B
“Sorry ‘bout this Danno,” Steve whispers to his partner’s dead corpse before he abruptly pulling his pliers out of the burnt corpse’s mouth causing an audible crack.
“Huh.” Steve grunts, his suspicions slowly cementing in his mind. Sliding his finger on his iphone, he calls Chin, “Hey, it’s McGarret. Did you get the picture of the right incisor?”
“Yes. It’s Danny’s alright, but that’s not why you called was it?”
“Just wondering why when Danny’s supposedly drunk off his ass (off Ballentines which I might add is the only brand of scotch he won’t drink) he would want to replace his perfectly funtional teeth with acrylic ones.”
“So they’re fake. Perfectly molded copies of his original teeth….”
“I looked closer at his scalp and found something interesting. It’s been shaved. It was hard to find a clear spot, still blond but shaved. Not only does Danny care more about his hair than a woman, him shaving it in the car seems more than suspicious. The hair samples that were DNA referenced were stated still attached, but at Danny’s normal hair length. I am bringing this hair over to Max to try to find who this really is.”
“So we are definitely confirming the possibility that this is not Danny,” Chin’s voice deadly serious.
“I- I don’t know. We need to get this sample to the lab to confirm it. I’m just going on a hunch right now.” Steve tries not to make the mistake of letting his emotions get the better of him.
“Yea that Danny just happened to be driving drunk at dangerous speeds, shaved his hair, and replaced all his teeth with a perfectly duplicated acrylic set.” Kono chuckles,
“Bring two samples from different parts of the scalp, as easy a conclusion we are leading to, this is not something we want even a 1% chance of getting wrong, this is Danny we’re talking about here.”
“Yea. I will call you two with the results.”
=
Max’s glasses reflected the computer screen as it madly fiddled with random figures and databases, “Interesting. The subject’s DNA is not registering with known databases.”
“But it isn’t Dan- I mean Detective Williams’ DNA?”
“No, neither sample you have brought me matches Detective Williams’, as you call ‘Danno’s, DNA.”
An enormous weight lifted off of Steve’s shoulders and he heaved a sigh of relief.
“So. Steven, ‘buddy’” Max attempts casualness and slides in his chair up over to the desk Steve was leaning against, “Exactly when was the first time you had coitus with Detective Williams?”
Steve’s grip on the table slips and he teeters momentarily in utter shock, “What!? Me and Danny have never done anything remotely sexual, in any way!”
“This is unfortunate.”
“Wah?!”
“I have never had to doubt my deductive reasoning, but once again the enigma of social interaction is my down fall. Please be sure to give this to Detective Kalakaua.” And Max hands him a twenty dollar bill.
“She has a gambling problem.” Steve grudgingly takes the obscenely pristine and crisp bill from Max and shoves it into his pocket.
Cringing at his perfect creaseless dollar ruined, Max quips, “It is not a problem when she keeps winning. Last week she bet that you an-“
“Can I have the DNA results of the hair samples?” Steve interjected.
“We have already concluded that it was not from Detective Williams.”
“But I need to find out who this person is.”
“But my databases.”
“You don’t have the data bases I do,” Steve grins. Taking the folder out of Max’s hands out the door he thanks the awkward lab rat, “Thanks for all your help, Max.”
“It was no problem… ‘dude.’” And jerks his hand up to wave still trying to imitate casualness in vain.
“You should get out more Max…”
And as if deeply offended, Max dropped his hand seething, “Never. Good evening lieutenant.” And slams the lab door.
Steve sped home, ‘Danny is alive’ Steve’s pulse was pounding in his eardrums. He strides across the kitchen straight to the computer room. Before signing in, something registers in his mind and he back tracks again to the kitchen to promptly greet Catherine, “Hello Cat.”
“Thought you really didn’t see me for a second.” She grinned going in for a kiss.
Steve backs up out of reach and whispers, “I’m really sorry but I am really preoccupied right now. How the hell did you get in here?”
“Your partner always told you to install a good security system.”
“I did install a freaking-“
“He said good.” She giggled, “You should really listen to Danny.”
“Danny… Danny’s dead.”
“Oh.” Catherine feigned fake shock like a pro, “Oh, oh my God Steve, you’re serious. I’m so sorry, sorry I ever mentioned. Shit- I guess that’s why you don’t want to- shit this is a bad time. Yea, I should go,”
“No Cat, it’s fine. You came all the way over here, do you want something to drink?”
“No, no. It’s really stupid. There was an envelope that came through our office for you from higher up and I volunteered to bring it over to you to ‘catch up.’” She air quoted, “I should go. I’m being selfish, you need time for yourself.”
She left the envelope on the desk and turned on her heels to the door.
‘Oh what the hell, I do need some me time.” Steve attempts to grab her arm when he feels his phone vibrate. He glances over the text and stops his mouth halfway telling Cat to stay when he sees the text’s header from Chin, “Do not trust Cat. Call back ASAP.”
“You say something Stevo?” Cat faces Steve eyes hopeful.
“Um. Uh-“
Cat senses something wrong and for a flash her eyes get dark, Steve wonders if he was just seeing things but a millisecond later she’s back to bubbly-as-fuck.
“I could drop you off where ever you’re staying; you don’t need to get a cab.”
“Such a gentleman, but I think you’ve got enough on your plate,” She giggled and turns back on her way to the door, rolling her eyes in disgust. Her mission was just to fuck him, she assured herself, Pepper never directly ordered her to hold his hand or coddle the man.
When Steve sees Catherine’s cab leave the driveway, Steve speed dials Chin while slipping in the DNA cd into his computer, “What exactly are you trying to say Chin? Do you mind explaining why I have to question my friend, whom I might add, I’ve known since academy?”
“I know, I know. It’s just a hunch I’m sorry, but I kept getting this feeling.”
“A feeling.” Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. Too many stresses in too many directions.
Chin’s voice scratches over the phone, “I started to dig a little once we established that Danny could have been kidnapped. I tracked the last location of his cellphone before it died off the grid. I located it and it’s been chucked over an overpass next to a private airport on the south part of the island.”
“Why would Danny throw his phone out the window?”
“He wouldn’t. Though the man barely understood how a touch screen phone works,” Chin loved everything touch screen, “nut even he knew that his five-0 grade phone was a precious thing to waste.”
Steve’s mind wanders to the first few weeks Danny-the-luddite-Williams struggled with the top brand phones Steve had gotten the team. ‘Turn the phone on its side, the keys get bigger.’ Steve bites back the slew of memories of when they just started getting to know eachother.
“Or he could have left it there for us to find.” Steve interjected softly.
“Either way, I downloaded all the traffic surveillance footage from the last time Danny was seen to the time of the accident.
“Did you find anything?”
“I had no idea where to start, there’s literally a week of footage, but when Catherine called the office wondering where you wer-.”
“And what about Catherine.” Steve grunted, Steve only had only a hand full of friends and he was worse than a mother hen when it came to them.
“Well. I mean I don’t know. She’s been hanging around for quite a while, and you know everyone is a suspect. Her arrival on the island what right in the window, I had to check.”
“She is off the tabl-“
“Steve. I found something you might not want to hear.”
Steve’s palms started sweating, “What. What exactly did you find?”
“Steve. Are you sure you want to know?”
Steve was so sure. Sure that at least Cat, his academy graduate-mate, close friend with benefits, would never. Never-ever have anything to do with Danny’s disappearance. His mouth starting to dry he mutters, “Tell me.”
“I looked up the plate of her rental and ran it through the database, and it clocked her over the same over pass as Danny’s phone.”
This still didn’t prove anything Steve reassures himself, “So? It’s a popular over pass.”
“I looked through the traffic cameras for that afternoon and… here I’ll send you the footage.”
Steve felt his phone vibrate and he opened the video clip. The video showed a slowed dawn enhanced clip of an attractive young woman rolling down the window and throwing what appeared to be a cellphone over the overpass in a large, black van.
“Steve? You still there?”
Lips parted in shock Steve could barely form the words, “Yea. Yea that’s Cat.”
“Steve, you alright?”
“….Yea.”
“Do you know of any reason why she would have Danny’s cell?”
“No. Or why she’d need to rent a van that could fit a whole circus in the back.”
“Steve. Do you think-“
“Yea. Listen, Chin, I have to go. I think I know where to start looking to ID our John Doe.”
“Steve, you sure you’re ok?”
Shakily he answers, “Yea… I. I really need to go check this lead. Thanks Chin, good work. Dig deeper, and find out more about what the hell is going on. I’ll tell you more about our John Doe if I get anywhere.”
Steve mauls over into his palm. Cat. Catherine. Catherine Rollins. They’ve been pseudo dating for years. What the fuck was going on? Steve opened the cd on the computer and doubles his efforts to find the identification of Danny’s substitute corpse. There’s still a chance, despite having his world flipped upside down yet again, that Danny was alive.
Steve entered his clearance code into his CIA/USN knowledge database. He ran the DNA sequence through every database and came up with nothing. He ran it through the criminal database, even the officers and recruits, but still nothing.
‘There must be something I am missing.’ Steve thought furiously, and something clicks in his mind. Maybe he came up with nothing because that’s exactly what he was meant to find, somebody was hiding something. With Catherine now in suspicion this brought a whole new slew of perspectives on this whole situation. If Catherine had anything to do with any of these things, he was sure that would have caught a snag in his CIA/USN database. With her betrayal she brought the whole USN under question; if this was a USN database there was a great big possibility that the USN itself could be trying to hide certain information.
He needs to find what someone who can find what is meant to be unfindable. He needed someone who could do better than whoever in the USN was hiding things. He needs a hacker. Danny’s smug voice rings in his mind, ‘I know a guy.’ Steve smiles, Danny never ceased to amaze him. Even though he was mainlander-tie-wearing-as-fuck, he still walked his beat and knew a guy. Adam ‘Toast’ Charles.
Steve’s perception of time is as follows: time keeps up with him, he sets the pace. So to Steve, barraging through the jungle in the middle of the night with a tank of a truck, that’s fucking normal just because he says so. Adam Charles is in for the worst trips of his life, even though he is smoking up 96% oregano.
“Waoo, Army man- dya know what time it is?” Toast stutters half lidded waving for his groupies to run for the hills.
Steve is truly intimidating. His tall broad silhouette towers over the quaking ring stoners as his truck’s high beams blast over his powerful shoulders. “Navy.” He gruffly corrects, anyone other than Danny mistaking the two is more an insult than an endearment, “Everyone out now, I’m not here to bust you… yet.”
At his last words all the heavy lidded bloodshot pot heads scramble up and out, bumping into each other in hallucinated terror.
Adam scrambles up trying to regain some sort of composure while his heart almost visibly thumps up against his chest, “Hey man- it- I swear- holding it for a- Look man, where’s Danny. He- he can explain.”
“Detective Williams” Steve lazer eyes, “Is dead.”
“What?! That guy is unkillable!” Adam says stupidly.
“I’d like to think so too. I believe he’s missing. I need your help.”
“Dude, that man has saved my ass in so many different ways, I’d do anything. I can find him-just, please don’t kill me.”
Steve grins sinisterly, he’s still got it, “That can be arranged. But I don’t need you to find Danny just yet, I need you to find out who this is.” And chucks the DNA file into Adam’s lap.
“Promise, no killing me?”
“Promise.”
Shakily, he runs the CD into his custom built laptop and his eyes whir over different windows.
“Did my standard CIA sweep, nothing.”
“I’m not here for you to do what I could have done,”
“Pushy pushy. You still think this person would be in here?”
“Yes. Very strongly.” And unconsciously puts a hand to his hip above his holster.
“Yes… So do I. So you think someone is hiding our little friend?” Toast grins he loves a challenge, “Well… let’s see what how strong the walls our tax dollars put up are, shall we?”
Fingers blur as he gleefully hums, cracking away deeper into the database for a match. His computer beeps and the window crashes, “Shit!”
“What happened, what’s wrong?”
“Been force closed, my standard tools aren’t good enough. This is definitely off regulation and off the grid. Your little buddy definitely is in here, but someone really really really doesn’t want him to be found.”
“But you can find him,” Steve worries.
“For Danny Williams, I could get you this guy’s latest porn subscriptions.” He cracks a grin and even though Steve gives a small chuckle, he goes straight faced again in fright at Steve’s low rumbling voice.
After 15 minutes of code crunching , Adam’s computer lets out a happy ping and Steve perks up off the post he has been leaning cross armed against.
“John Woodal. Age 30, Male, Caucasian, 5’9”, missing.”
“What else.” Steve utters.
“That’s it. But you gotta look through the cracks brah.”
“Illuminate.”
“That’s all his file says, but if you look at all the hoops and ladders I had to get through to find him, we can learn a little bit more than his ASL.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I had to hack through the Navy high security clearance levels, slip through a CIA cover up file, and then back to a high level naval group. Admiral rank at the least.”
“US Navy.” Steve pauses.
“Unmistakably Navy.” Toast assures.
“Can I get a copy of this?” Steve points a blunt finger at the screen of Woodal.
“Sure.” He clicks three buttons and his computer whirs then Steve feels his phone vibrate.
“You have my number?” Steve is impressed.
“I have everybody’s number.” And gives a grin as he smashes the DNA cd between his fingers getting rid of all the evidence, “You are lucky that I think Danny is such a cool guy, you do not want me all up in your business.”
“Hmm. Thanks again. Dude, lay off the crap, makes you all bug eyed. A mind’s a terrible thing to waste.”
“You are worse than your partner.” Adam rolls his eyes and takes another hit of oregano from his bong waving Steve out of the lanai.
==
“James Woodal. 30. CIA informant.” Chin slides a criminal picture up off the table to be projected on the large screen monitors on the wall.
“CIA…” Steve contemplates. The CIA cover file. He has still yet to open the envelope Catherine had given him, its weight sinks harder into his hands as if cutting them.
“Boss. Maybe we should just open it.”
“They can’t be trusted Kono.” Chin warns.
“No, but if we keep the charade that Steve still trusts them fully-“
“We might find Danny.” Steve finishes her thought. He rips open the embossed envelope and skims the message. “It’s a mission. Special ops, top secret.”
Kono raises her voice curiously, ”Well, don’t just keep us in the dark-“
“Kono,” Chin warns seriously.
“What?” She questions her cousin at the sudden seriousness, “We’re a team, we need to know everything the other-“
“If he breaks the code of secrecy, he will lose his rank, be dishonorably discharged, might even be charged with treason.” Chin says grimly.
Steve stares gravely down in the thin piece of cardstock in his hands and breaks the silence, “Kono is right, we are a team. We share everything, more over we are family. Danny would do the same for me, for all of us. He’d risk it all if there was even a slight chance that we could still be alive.”
“Steve you don’t have to.” Kono apologizes.
“No.” Steve had already decided, the moment he held Grace’s hand, the moment he made that promise staring into those fierce eyes, Danny’s electric blue eyes; he knew he would risk everything he had, everything he’d worked for to find him, “My mission is to infiltrate a North Korean terrorist threat on the mainland, DC.”
“Boss.” Kono taken aback at Steve’s quick decision to throw everything away to find his partner.
“Steve, what do you want us to do?” Chin is all business and already formulating strategies.
“Set up surveillance on the perimeter of the meeting ground, sneak around looking for anyone who could be hiding, use thermals, use everything but do not be seen. Be invisible, I want them to be sure no one is watching them.”
“You want to have a feed on you?” Chin questions.
“No. I’m sure they’d sense it and know what is going on.”
“Steve, you really think that I haven’t thought of that? Fixing cars maybe your hobby, but mine just happens to be gadgets.” He grins.
Kono adds, “Yea, despite the racial stereotype cuz is enforcing, he has some mad sick stuff he’s been working on, better than what he calls the crud we use here.”
Steve runs his fingers through his head with an exhausted smile, he’d spared no expense for their equipment and technology and the fact that Chin had things that would make them crud, made him extra thankful to the powers at be for landing him with such an incredible team.
Kono slaps a hand on Steve’s shoulder and laughs, “I’ve got a connection or two in the underground that can get you whatever sick ass weapons we might need. I hear they even have jetpacks.”
Steve feels a grin crawl from one end of his face to the other beaming at his team. ‘Hold on Danny, we’re gonna find you.'