Chapter 996 Still in Hawaii (Part 6) (Patreon)

Though Jack was no stranger to the phrase “misfortunes never come singly,” it didn’t mean he could stay calm while facing one bad news after another.

By the time he and Danny returned to the office, it was already nighttime. They hadn’t even sat down to catch their breath when Kono arrived from the crime lab—with a piece of news that couldn’t have been worse.

The large bag of clothing sent to the crime lab had been confirmed to be contaminated with the smallpox virus. Researchers were cautiously handling the hazardous materials, hoping to extract usable biological samples like hair for DNA analysis.

But some things didn’t need lab work to identify—like clothing sizes. Among the bag’s contents, the lab confirmed at least four distinct clothing sizes, and they’d also found four smashed phones.

The only reason Kono had even been able to trace the items back to Palmer was pure luck—his phone’s screen had been smashed, but the damage hadn’t gone far enough to completely destroy the internal components.

“This means we’ve got at least three more victims,” Kono said grimly. “And they might still be alive.”

Danny looked like he was about to blow a gasket. As acting head of “Five-O” while Steve McGarrett was away, he was supposed to be filling in temporarily. Instead, he was dragging his injured “nephew” Jack all over the island investigating what now clearly amounted to a potential bio-terror attack.

After a full day of investigation, the shadow of “biological terrorism” still loomed over them. And now three new potential smallpox victims had just popped up—location unknown, status unknown.

Oahu wasn’t huge, but it held over two-thirds of Hawaii’s entire population—nearly a million people. And that didn’t include tourists. Trying to find three potentially infected individuals in that sea of people was like searching for needles in a haystack.

“Don’t panic,” Jack quickly tried to calm Danny down. “Palmer’s sudden appearance was obviously unexpected—even to the perpetrators. That’s why they had to hastily silence Ken Tanner.”

“The other three might still be under their control—likely used as test subjects.”

“The most important thing now is to identify them. Waiting for DNA results isn’t our best bet. Have the crime lab prioritize extracting and analyzing the SIM cards from the destroyed phones. That’s the fastest way to get IDs.”

“And what about the fingerprints we pulled from Tanner’s house?” he added, turning toward Cheng Hao, who had taken over Kono’s workstation and was frowning at the screen.

As if waking from a trance, Cheng Hao clicked the mouse and hit “Print.” A moment later, the office printer began whirring loudly as it spat out several sheets of A4 paper.

“Nothing came up in the local crime database,” Cheng Hao said, “but your colleagues in New York just found a hit in the federal system. The print belongs to someone with a weird name—Dracula Comănescu?”

Danny had just grabbed the stack of papers. Hearing the name, he slapped a hand to his forehead. “So now, on top of an ancient virus, we’ve got an ancient vampire to deal with too?”

“Apparently so. He’s Romanian,” Cheng Hao added with a shrug.

Jack didn’t join in their banter. His attention was locked on the file Cheng Hao had pulled up on the screen. It wasn’t particularly detailed, but one annotation stood out immediately.

“This guy’s flagged by NCIS?” Jack muttered.

“What do you mean, ‘flagged by NCIS’?” Danny asked, leaning in.

Just as Jack was about to explain, his phone rang. Expecting a call from one of his NY colleagues, he was surprised to see a landline number—area code from Los Angeles.

Could it be something from Chris? With that thought, he answered—only to freeze when he heard the voice on the other end.

“Agent Jack Tavoller, hello. This is Hetty Lange, operations manager for the Office of Special Projects under NCIS. I understand you were recently injured—I’d like to know if that will affect your current work.”

“…Uh.” The slightly raspy, elderly female voice immediately brought to Jack’s mind the image of a petite, frail-looking little old lady. He shuddered involuntarily.

“Hello, Director Hetty Lange. It’s an honor to speak with you. I’m doing fine—recovered well, no impact on my duties,” Jack replied formally.

He hadn’t expected his first brush with NCIS would come not through a standard field office, but through OSP—their black-ops adjacent Special Projects Office based out of Los Angeles.

In his past life, Jack had seen the spin-off NCIS: Los Angeles, which sounded like just another field branch. But OSP—Office of Special Projects—was actually an elite NCIS sub-division handling classified and sensitive cases, often with even higher clearance than standard NCIS agents.

But that wasn’t what made Jack so respectful. FBI and NCIS weren’t even directly related; they operated under entirely different federal umbrellas. Occasionally, they'd collaborate, but there was no hierarchy between them.

No—what truly made Jack treat this call like walking a diplomatic tightrope was who Hetty Lange was.

In the original series, the tiny old woman was a legend: respected by admirals, feared by enemies, and known to be one of the last surviving Cold War operatives still active. By age and seniority, she ranked alongside Joe Mason, the old CIA spymaster who’d mentored Jack.

Jack had never met Hetty in this world, but he knew she was one of Joe Mason’s few surviving confidants—and still kept in contact with him. That alone meant she deserved every bit of the deference Jack was showing.

On the other end of the line, Hetty let out a dry, rasping chuckle, clearly amused by Jack’s tightly wound formality.

“You’re a bit tense, young man. I’ve heard of your exploits. I’d very much like to recruit someone like you for my own team. Unfortunately, little Rossi seems determined to keep you under lock and key.”

Well, that answered one thing—at least Hetty wasn’t one of Joe Mason’s rumored “special companions.” That was… comforting.