What followed was pure chaos. Jack temporarily stabilized the wounded FBI agent with a healing spell. The chest and abdominal gunshots had cost the man nearly a third of his total blood volume. Due to age-related deterioration of his bodily functions, the agent had gone into hypovolemic shock early on, putting him in a long-term near-death state.
But the situation was still dire. "Near-death" was still near-death. His organs were shutting down due to blood loss, and even Jack's magic couldn't perform a "miracle" in plain sight. The healing spell could only delay the inevitable for so long. Magic or not, the laws of matter conservation still applied.
There was no way Jack could explain magically restoring that much blood volume on the spot—especially in front of so many witnesses. He couldn't just force-feed the agent a gallon of sugar water and call it a transfusion.
Chin's first aid kit had adrenaline and naloxone, but not even a basic saline bag—let alone dextrose or electrolyte solution. The man needed immediate IV fluids. As it stood, he was surviving purely on Jack's spellwork. Had they arrived even a few minutes later, the agent's heart would've stopped.
Danny and Kono had returned after sweeping the house, visibly anxious. "No one inside," Danny reported, "but there are signs of forced entry and tracks leading away. No sign of Julie."
Chin had just finished a satellite call. "Coast Guard's sending a rescue chopper, but they need at least thirty minutes for prep and another fifteen in the air. We'll also need to clear a landing zone first. HPD's K-9 unit is en route, but larger search parties will take more time to mobilize."
Jack looked up, following Chin's gaze to the few fruit trees in front of the house—especially the two towering palm and coconut trees. Those would need to come down to make space for the chopper.
Coconut trees…
An idea sparked. He thought back to an old movie he'd once seen. "I need a few fresh coconuts for emergency treatment—green ones, as fresh as possible."
"???"
Everyone stared at him like he'd grown a second head. Kono, however, caught on first, her expression flickering with doubt. "You're going to use coconut water… for an IV?"
"I've read the papers. And back in DEVGRU, I talked with field medics about it. It can work in emergencies. High risk, yeah, but we're out of better options."
Danny blinked. "Wait, when the hell were you in DEVGRU? You were in the Navy?"
"Not exactly. I did three months with them—long story. I'll explain later," Jack said quickly.
With the healing spell buffering the patient's condition, Jack wasn't really taking a huge risk—but he couldn't exactly admit to using magic. He needed a plausible medical workaround to explain how he was keeping a nearly-dead man alive without any formal equipment.
To be clear, he wasn't using that sugary, processed store-brand coconut milk stuff. What he needed was the clear liquid found inside green coconuts. It contains glucose and a wealth of electrolytes—sodium, potassium, calcium—basically nature's sports drink.
Crucially, fresh coconuts are relatively sterile inside, and the osmotic pressure of young coconut water is remarkably close to human blood plasma.
Chin and Danny grabbed a chainsaw from the F-150's bed. With help from four HPD officers, they quickly felled a coconut tree. The team continued clearing the area while Kono—leveraging her island girl instincts—picked three of the best green coconuts and strung them together in a mesh net on the truck's side mirror.
Meanwhile, Jack had rigged a makeshift IV using a needle, tied-off tubing, and a bit of gauze to filter out impurities.
Kono knelt beside him, acting as his assistant, eyes wide in disbelief at the MacGyver-tier improvisation happening in front of her. The "disinfectant" he used on the tubing? It smelled like liquor.
Jack adjusted the flow rate using the knot in the tubing, then inserted the needle into the FBI agent's arm. Only then did he exhale and wipe the sweat from his brow.
Danny and Chin, finished with the landing zone prep, came over and watched wide-eyed as the impossible unfolded before them.
Then… the agent's chest rose.
His lips, previously drained of all color, began to regain some pink.
"Fuck me," Danny whispered. "That actually worked?"
——
The thump of helicopter blades overhead was a welcome sound. Jack pulled the needle from the agent's arm just as the Coast Guard rescue chopper descended. Red and white paint gleamed in the sun as it touched down gently on the cleared patch of land.
Two medics jogged over with a collapsible stretcher—one of them a forty-something ER doctor, still wearing a white coat he hadn't had time to change out of.
"What's the status?" the doctor asked as they knelt beside the patient.
"Stable—for now. One round still lodged in the abdomen, likely some contamination. The chest wound is a through-and-through, possibly some shrapnel. Massive blood loss. I used some unconventional methods to keep him going."
"You a field medic?" the doc asked, impressed.
"Something like that." Jack helped transfer the man to the stretcher.
The doctor hung a bag of blood plasma, then caught sight of the coconut IV still dangling from the truck. He gave Jack a surprised thumbs-up.
"Only a military doc would think to use something like that in the field. Hell of a call."
——
As the chopper lifted off with the agent onboard, Jack felt a weight lift off his chest.
They'd done it.
The fallen trees had been hauled away by the HPD team using their patrol cars. The agent was finally en route to proper medical care. Soon, his life would be in the hands of trained surgeons with actual supplies.
"We… actually saved him?" Danny asked, still reeling.
"The rest is up to the hospital," Jack said with a dramatic sigh.
In truth, the chest wound had missed any major arteries or veins—he'd been lucky. The abdominal wound was more serious. If the intestine was punctured, it likely leaked fecal matter into the abdominal cavity, risking sepsis.
But he'd met Jack. With that little edge, and a competent surgeon, the man would live—with nothing worse than a scar and a slightly shorter colon.
"Back to Julie," Danny said, pulling himself together. "That girl's still missing."
"Our work is far from over," Chin agreed grimly.
He gestured for them to follow him and led the group over to one of the two vehicles they'd seen earlier.
It was the HPD patrol car.
Chin opened the trunk.
Inside were two bodies—stripped to their underwear. One had been shot in the head, the other twice in the back.
"They were Officers Tim Lakahana and Joe Lee," Chin said, his face tight. "I just confirmed with HPD."
______
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