The three members of "Five-O" were quite familiar with Jack, and they couldn't help but feel a little curious about the trepidation he showed when answering the phone.
"Who's calling?" Danny was the first to be curious.
"The OSP department of NCIS in Los Angeles will send two special agents to Hawaii. The call just now came from their director of operations, Ms. Heidi Lange."
Jack put away his phone and breathed a sigh of relief. The aura of this old senior made people a little nervous even through the phone. He roughly summarized the information that Heidi Lange had just revealed and told everyone.
"The two agents are G. Cullen and Sam Hannah. Dracula Comescu is the main suspect in a case they are following up recently. There seem to be some other factors involved."
"Other factors?" Cheng Hao said he didn't understand what this meant.
Jack paused, gathering his thoughts. "Basically, Dracula Comescu is a key member of a Romanian mafia family.
And there's some personal vendetta between this family and Agent G. Cullen. NCIS-OSP just recently wiped out nearly all of this family's assets."
Danny opened his mouth, seemingly at a loss for words. "Uh, personal vendetta? But they still sent Agent Cullen to Hawaii?"
"You can ask him in person tomorrow morning about the details. They'll be on the next Air Force transport plane to Hawaii."
Personally, Jack saw no problem with it. Hadn't he already traveled all the way to Mexico to track down the culprit after his house was bombed? Personal vendettas, as long as they didn't appear in the final report, were fine.
Steve McGarrett, the de facto head of Five-O, had suddenly taken a "leave," reportedly to investigate some personal vendetta.
Of course, if the person involved was acting rashly due to personal reasons, that would be another matter. Fortunately, the NCIS series seems to be quite decisive and seldom follows melodramatic plot tropes, so this issue shouldn't be a concern for the time being.
Furthermore, Grandma Heidi had made it clear on the phone that the two agents' mission to Hawaii was merely to assist, and that everything was primarily to cooperate with the operations of "Five-O" and the FBI.
This minor incident has come to a close for now, and everyone conferred in the office late before retiring.
Tomorrow morning, Jack and Danny will pick up the suspect at the military airport. Cheng Hao will be responsible for investigating Ken Tanner's background, including his relationships and financial situation in Hawaii.
Kono will continue to investigate the identities of the three missing persons. The damaged phones need to be disinfected first, and the SIM cards can only be removed after being confirmed as safe by the CDC. This will slow down the investigation process compared to the normal process, but results should be available by tomorrow morning at the latest.
Because the case involved NCIS, Danny called Steve McGarrett, who was temporarily away in Hawaii. McGarrett was still a Navy officer, holding the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
Coincidentally, McGarrett not only knew about OSP but was also a comrade of Sam Hannah, both former Navy SEALs.
A quiet night followed. The next morning, Jack and Danny drove to Hickam Air Force Base in Pearl Harbor to pick up their crew.
Danny drove his Camaro, which could only accommodate two adults, while Jack drove a Suburban borrowed from a local office.
As they drove onto the runway, one behind the other, a C-17 Globemaster transport plane slowly lowered its rear hatch.
A muscular, bald black man in a red T-shirt and a handsome, middle-aged man with a buzz cut and a perpetual smile emerged from the plane, carrying their respective travel bags.
Seeing Jack and Danny already waiting by the car, they took two quick steps forward and enthusiastically shook their hands.
"Danny Williams, welcome to Hawaii," Danny introduced himself.
"Hannah," the bald black man said, then smiled at Jack, as if a flower had appeared on his face.
"Karen," the handsome middle-aged man greeted Danny and also looked Jack up and down. "This must be Agent Tawalla from the FBI. You're even younger than I thought."
"Just call me Jack." Sensing the somewhat awkward atmosphere, Jack was a little confused. "What's wrong with me?"
Hannah and Karen exchanged glances, their smiles growing even more peculiar. "Nothing, it's just that you're very famous in our NCIS, the man Abby couldn't have."
"Huh?" Jack's smile froze. "You mean Abby Shotto?"
Although Jack no longer needed the technical support of a certain goth girl (Chapter 39) now that he had Alice and Justin, they still maintained contact.
However, NCIS's headquarters is located in the Naval Administration Center, a former Navy Yard complex. Jack rarely ventures into Washington, D.C., so their encounters are rare.
Furthermore, Jack's image has undergone a dramatic transformation, from a skinny, weakling to a sunny, handsome man, and he's fallen out of the eccentric aesthetic of the goth girls.
Their relationship has become somewhat more normal now, especially with one in the FBI and the other as NCIS's chief forensic scientist. They still have much in common.
Last time, he dug up a pile of natural white crystal in Arkansas and selected a perfectly shaped piece, polished it into a crystal ball, and sent it to Abby, delighting the quirky goth girl for a long time.
"Abby often provides us with technical support, and since you're someone Heidi has followed, so..."
It was just a joke, but Karen's expression suggested that Abby, despite her slightly eccentric personality, was quite popular within NCIS.
On the other side, the bald-headed Hannah was also joking with Danny, "So, man, McGarrett didn't show up just to get rid of the steak he owed me, right?"
"Aha, no wonder he took such a long vacation." Danny cooperated and made fun of his absent partner.
After the joke, the atmosphere became harmonious, and Karen took the opportunity to ask about the progress of the case, "How bad is the situation?"
"The good news is that no new cases of smallpox infection have been found so far, and the bad news is that neither we nor the CDC can track his whereabouts in the past two weeks, and we have no idea whether he has had contact with other people before his death.
In addition, there are three suspected missing persons, and we are trying to find out their identities and whereabouts." Danny gave a brief explanation of the current situation.
"That means new infected people may appear at any time, right?" Karen summarized.
Jack nodded and handed a large bag of masks and rubber gloves to the two of them, "Although this is a bit of black humor, we prepared these as welcome gifts."
(End of this chapter)