"Jack, are you going with Daddy to deal with the bad guys?" Grace looked up at Jack with her innocent face.
Jack pinched her chubby cheek, the touch was exquisite. Now he understood Danny a little. Protecting one's own cubs is an instinct deeply ingrained in every normal human being, especially when it comes to tricking you into having a daughter, which is so adorable it's almost unfair.
"Yes, I'll play with you when I get back, okay?" Jack hooked his fingers with Grace, then smiled and nodded to Rachel, quickly returning to his room.
He hadn't brought any gear on this vacation. Besides a spare magazine, he didn't even bring extra bullets. However, he had plenty of toilet water, cooling oil, and DEET. Jack stuffed his
long-unused Type 83 water bottle and two bottles of purified water into a backpack, then went downstairs and waited at the hotel entrance for less than three minutes before seeing Danny's Camaro arrive in a hurry.
"Where are your other colleagues?" Jack got into the passenger seat and buckled himself in.
"Chenghao and Kono have reunited with the HPD. The two missing officers are theirs." Danny stepped on the accelerator, anxiously driving onto the highway.
"You, the FBI, have hidden the witness in a safe house in Kahuku. It's very remote."
"Yes, on an abandoned sugarcane farm." As the two spoke, Jack's phone kept ringing. Alice, already in New York, was sending him intelligence reports one by one.
"The defendant is Allen Brenner, a key member of the Baha drug cartel, responsible for the entire distribution network. Julie Master is the only witness so far. According to the prosecution, this is their only chance to put him in jail first."
Jack quickly flipped through the information and briefly explained the situation to Danny.
"I don't understand what you, the FBI, are thinking. Kahuku is deep in the jungle, right next to the tropical jungle. There's no cell phone signal there. Wouldn't it be better to put the witness in a hotel?"
Danny complained, feeling a headache.
"The agent protecting him has a satellite phone, but it's currently disconnected. According to the local office, they're forced to use this safe house, far from the crowds, due to the experiences of several previous witnesses."
Jack showed Danny several bloody photos on his phone. "These are the fates of witnesses who once threatened to accuse the Baha drug cartel. They're not afraid of assassinations in broad daylight, and they don't care about collateral damage."
"Then how is this Julie Master connected to the drug cartel?"
Danny kept overtaking after entering the highway, slowing down slightly at an off-ramp. He opened the window and gestured outside. A dark blue Ford F-150, lights flashing, followed by two HPD cars.
Jack glanced out the window. Kono was driving, and Cheng Hao waved at them from the passenger seat.
"She used to be an accountant for an import-export trading company in Honolulu, and that company was actually part of a drug trafficking network run by Allen Bryner.
The information says that one night a dock worker was loading a container ship when he stumbled upon some 'special cargo' hidden inside."
"Drugs?" Danny wasn't surprised at all; he'd heard similar stories all too often.
"Yes, cocaine. Allen Bryner, who was at the scene, killed the dock worker himself, but Julie Masters stumbled upon him. He tried to silence her, but she escaped,"
Jack sighed. "She was incredibly smart and brave. She fled to New York on her own before the FBI found her."
"It's beautiful too." Danny glanced sideways at the enlarged photo on Jack's phone.
"I hope they're okay, otherwise things will be very difficult. If the girl doesn't arrive at the Honolulu courthouse by 5 PM today, the judge will have to grant bail to Alan Brenner."
Jack was in a bad mood. What had originally been a simple escort mission, returning the girl to New York after the trial, had turned into a rescue mission and a limited-time escort, all on Oahu, a tropical island he was unfamiliar with.
The convoy quickly left the highway and drove along a winding road that hugged the coastline. Finally, it turned onto a small road, where the asphalt disappeared, replaced by a bumpy gravel road.
The Hawaiian Islands are a well-known volcanic region in the Pacific. All of the islands, including Oahu, were formed by volcanic eruptions along the Pacific tectonic fault line.
As a result, even Oahu, the most populated island, has an extremely rugged terrain. Two long mountain ranges dominate the island, with a total area of less than 1,600 square kilometers. The highest peak, Mount Kahala, rises 1,228 meters above sea level.
Kahuku is located at the northernmost tip of Oahu, while Honolulu is at the southernmost tip. The straight-line distance between the two is only about 40 kilometers.
However, the group drove along the coastal highway for nearly an hour, and after another half-hour of bumpy ride, they finally saw a somewhat dilapidated farm.
There should have been some wire fences or something around the farm, but because of the lush vegetation climbing up, the original appearance is no longer visible.
However, it can be seen that someone has been maintaining this place. In addition to a wooden house that looks a bit like a stilt house, there are some fruit trees sparsely planted in the open space in front of the house, and the weeds are also kept clean.
"Stop!" Danny stopped the car as soon as he entered the farm, feeling that the situation was not good.
In the open space in front of the house, there was an unmarked car and an HPD police car parked one after the other. A person could be vaguely seen lying in front of the front of the car.
Jack got out of the car, drew his sidearm, and said to Danny, "Have the HPD officers take cover and hold the intersection. We'll go check it out."
The F150 pulled up behind them. Seeing the two men already armed, Cheng Hao grabbed a lever-action shotgun from the back seat and followed. "I'll cover you!"
Jack ducked, avoiding the line of fire from the cabin as best he could, and trotted towards the fallen man.
"Who's this?" Cheng Hao crouched beside the car, pointing his shotgun toward the cabin. Danny and Kono crouched at the rear.
The fallen man was a white man in his fifties or sixties, wearing a white shirt and a very old-fashioned sling holster. A Glock 17 lay beside him.
"Should be one of ours, but he's gone. He's still alive?!"
The old FBI agent had been shot once in the chest and abdomen. Blood had already soaked the grass beneath him, and his chest was completely flat. Even small, unknown insects, attracted by the scent of blood, were swarming around him.
But when Jack reached out and touched his carotid artery, he actually felt a very weak pulse.
I played The Witcher 3 for a while yesterday and found that I don't seem to be getting 3D sick anymore. Should I consider buying the Black Monkey?
(End of this chapter)