I O U
Written by AS
________________________________________________________________
RATED PG-14 -- for intense,
mature situations
“OK, Steve, take your
time. No, there are no pressing issues
here. Everything is fine… --“ he laughed. “No, I’m
not keeping things from you except, of course, for the 5 murders, 3 kidnappings
and 6 bank robberies we’ve been given since your plane took off! Relax!
Have some fun and we’ll see you when you get back.”
Danny
Williams leaned back in his chair and sighed as he hung up the phone and
surveyed the mess on his desk.
Fortunately, Steve didn’t go to the mainland
THAT often. He glanced at his watch,
amazed at how quickly the evening had flown by.
He knew he still had several more hours of paperwork to complete. Although he normally handled his own share of
the large amount of paperwork that Five-O generated, getting
stuck with all of it on his own whenever the boss was out of town never failed
to overwhelm him. Thankfully, McGarrett
was due back in a few days. Dan couldn’t wait.
He heard the ringing
of a phone and wondered who could be calling at such a late hour. Realizing it was Steve’s private line, he hurried into the office and picked it up. He figured it was probably McGarrett calling
because he forgot something or felt the need to get just one more update. Dan quickly decided not to give him any more
information.
But it was not McGarrett.
Danny recognized the voice of Lehue, an
informant that Steve had kept on the side for many years. The man insisted that he had to meet with
McGarrett. Without giving a reason,
Williams refused him, playing out the snitch, wondering if he had anything good
to sell or was just looking for a quick buck.
McGarrett was never known as a soft touch with
the few informants he dealt with personally, but he did pay well.
Lehue assured he had some vital information on their
investigation of a bribe from a local developer to the Mayor. That was all he would say over the
phone. He need
to talk to McGarrett.
Should he level with
the snitch, tell him Steve was not there and was unavailable? No, never good to give out
that kind of information to a street hood. But the bribery case
was an important one.
Maybe he should take
Steve’s place?
Danny hesitated momentarily before agreeing to
a meet as he thought it was a little odd for the guy to be calling so
late. Finally, he decided that things
were probably on the level and that the informant simply needed the cash.
He scribbled some
information down on the pad that Steve kept close to his phone and hung
up. He glanced down at the meticulously
neat workspace and thought back to his own messy desk. He did not know how his friend managed to
keep involved in so much and still be able to keep a clear desk most days. He shook his head and hurried out to drive to
the meet. It wasn’t
until he pulled the LTD out of the Palace’s parking lot that he realized he had
forgotten to grab the piece of paper off Steve’s desk. Fortunately, he remembered where he needed to
go.
********
As Dan pulled the LTD
to a stop in front of the run down apartment building, he shuddered at the
number of times McGarrett had come here by himself to meet the informant. He jogged up the stairs and silently vowed to
take the time to accompany his friend to more of these meets. After all a little informal back up never
hurt. He knocked on the door of the
apartment, identifying himself.
********
On the other side of
the door, a shadowy figured paused, his finger itching on the trigger of gun
with a silencer. What was Williams doing
here? It was supposed to be McGarrett!! He glanced back at
the bound and gagged figure in the corner.
His plan was ruined. Then again maybe not…
A small sadistic grin played on his face as he turned his arm &
fired towards the corner. Eyes on the
door, he watched the handle slowly turn and positioned himself behind it.
********
Williams wasn’t sure but thought he had heard something on the other
side. Pulling his weapon from his waist
holster, he slowly turned the handle, pushing the door open. THWACK!! Pain radiated briefly in his mind as he
collapsed to the floor, gun falling by his side.
********
Walking next to the
pretty photographer, Steve silently admitted that the hastily arranged get-away
had turned out quite well indeed. Even though they had barely been there two days he had to admit that he was more relaxed
than he had felt in months. While not on the same level as the beauty of
The room at their
bed-and-breakfast was a little too ornate for his liking but the peace and the
beauty of the surrounding area nearly equaled the islands. Especially
the beauty of his private scenery.
He glanced over at his companion as they entered the inn.
“I’m going to call
Danno, Nicole.”
Ms Wylie nodded. She knew – you could take the man off the
islands and away from the job, but you could never take Five-O out of
McGarrett. It was one of the things she
found to be so intriguingly special about him.
Among others.
She turned towards him, stopping him with a hand on his arm.
“I’m going to take a
shower. Remember you’re
on vacation – you aren’t supposed to be worrying about work. Let Danny handle things for once.” She gently chided.
“Worrying about the
way he handles things isn’t it. I trust
Danno with my life under normal occurrences…” He did not finish the thought as
he realized she had baited him. She smirked
and walked away as he moved to the phone.
********
Nicole entered from
the bathroom to find Steve pensively contemplating the view from their window.
“Problems at
the office?”
She mentally crossed
her fingers that if there were he did not know about them.
“Oh no – even if
there were, Danno would never tell me.
He thinks I need this weekend too badly.”
Nicole walked up
close behind him. “Then you probably
do,” she whispered.
********
“DANNO!”
Steve
bolted upright breathing heavily, nerves twitching, body sweaty with an ominous
fear. His eyes darted around the
darkened room searching, not finding what he expected to see.
Nicole had turned
over to face him. “Steve? What is it?”
Slowly he realized he
must have been dreaming. “It was just a
dream. Go back to sleep. Sorry, Honey.” He lay back down next to her, but knew he
would not go back to sleep.
It had seemed so
frighteningly real – almost like he was witnessing something, but no one had
known he was there. No, that wasn’t quite it. It
was too vivid for that. Even with his
eyes open, he could still clearly see Danno’s face. The image from the dream popped in Steve’s
mind again. Dan’s face
– eyes darting wildly around in fear.
Then a sudden fixed stare. His blue eyes growing huge.
The terror that was in them! The pain – no,
agony - that was written all over the face he could read so well.
All were visions that
chilled his soul and Steve’s breathing quickened
again, his chest tightened as the images replayed themselves. The voice that was clearly Danno’s
replayed itself in McGarrett’s mind. The
scream was full of a myriad of emotions.
But it had clearly been a cry for help.
“STEVE!”
In his mind, Steve
heard Dan screaming his name over and over again. He couldn’t shake
it, couldn’t banish the feeling that Danno was looking for Steve to help him,
that this was more than just a dream.
The thought briefly
occurred to Steve that this was a message.
That somehow his friend was trying to contact him. He scoffed at the notion and decided it was
his overactive imagination; the dream was a product of his dark Irish
heritage. Now that he had little stress
and time to waste, his occasionally-brooding side must
have reared its mystical image once more.
He’d have to work at firmly shoving it back
down before he returned home.
He spent the
remainder of the night convincing himself that the sense of foreboding that
gripped him was nothing to be worried about – just remnants from a strange
dream. Then how to
explain the uneasy fear clutching his chest.
The sun was just
starting to peak on the horizon when Steve silently slipped out of bed and got
dressed. He’d
call Danno’s apartment, hear his voice and listen to his chiding about the very
early morning call. That would put his
demons to rest. Not wanting to wake
Nicole, he silently left the room to use the downstairs phone. His hand was on the phone, his fingers
starting to dial when he finally realized how absurd it all was. It was early now, that made it practically
the middle of the night at home. No
matter how close they were, more because of how close they were, Steve knew
that Dan would not be pleased with the night-time
call. He hung up slowly. Maybe if he were still bugged by the dream, he’d call later.
Sighing deeply, he turned and went outside for a walk.
********
He
thought he was starting to become aware of his surroundings. He tried to take a conscious self-inventory. He knew he had a strange buzz playing in his
head and his brain felt like it was moving in slow motion. He felt like he could not take a deep breath
and his stomach felt really queasy. His mouth was really dry. He could not move his arms or legs. Dan Williams slowly opened his eyes, not sure
where he was or what had happened. The
last thing he remembered…
A door opened and a figure approached
him. He fuzzily watched hands doing
something with an object that must have been on some table next to him. The hands raised the object into the air and
a little bit of liquid came out of it. A needle! He needed
to move away! He couldn’t
move – not the littlest bit! He was trapped!
Steve! Steve should have found
him by now. He tried to call out to his friend – to scream Steve’s name. He found he could barely think the name, much
less say it. Dan felt the needle
pierce his arm, the liquid enter his veins.
The ‘rush’ was almost instantaneous.
He drifted.
********
“Earth to
McGarrett.”
After several
minutes, Steve glanced over at his companion as they walked the dirt path
edging the rolling hills scattered with vineyards. He smiled, but remained pensively
silent. The scent of raw, moist earth,
the fertile colors of the green vines, the brown soil, the
blue sky failed to nab his attention.
His mind centered far away, on the
“Penny for
your thoughts?”
He tried to smile at
Nicole, but it barely reached his lips.
“No, don’t say
it. Let me guess – the dream.”
“Sorry, Honey,” he
sighed.
“Let’s go back to the
inn before dinner. I’ll
freshen up while you talk to Danny.
After that, I expect to have your undivided attention again.”
They returned to the
bed-and-breakfast and Steve went to use the phone while Nicole walked upstairs
to their room for a few minutes. When
she returned, she noticed his face was still concerned, worried. “He didn’t answer?”
“No, and I tried both
the office and his condo.”
“Maybe he’s enjoying
a day off – you know, a private life,
Steve.”
He nodded in
acquiescence not wanting to continue the discussion. He knew better. Sure, Williams had an active social life –
one McGarrett frequently ribbed him about.
But his second in command’s dedication to the
job was complete, especially when the boss was out of town.
They went to dinner
at an expensive, but highly recommended local hot-spot
and Steve tried to focus his attention on Nicole. But a large part of
his mind and his heart were in
Nicole felt his
uneasiness. His inability to talk to
Williams was a little unnerving to her.
She remembered too well when she had been involved with the mob how
abruptly and quickly people completely vanished. Tomorrow, she decided she would talk Steve
into returning to
That night Steve
napped more than he slept. He tried to
not disturb Nicole too much but every time he closed his eyes
he saw Danno. It was as if he was
reliving their years together – Dan’s life was passing before Steve’s
eyes. He wiped the morbid thought from
his mind, but could not loosen the stranglehold the uneasy disturbance had on
his chest. It was silly, he silently
lectured his psyche. Plus everything would be fine once he talked to his
friend.
********
After paying off the
cab, McGarrett hefted his luggage and briskly climbed the front steps of the
Palace. He was already weary from a combination of not sleeping well the
previous evening, rising early and the hectic sudden activities customary to
changing travel arrangements. It was now late in the afternoon and he noted no
company LTD’s were parked in the customary slots in
front. So, all
the detectives were out working. They hadn’t expected
him home so early.
A little disappointed
he would not be seeing Williams, he was also a bit
relieved. Looked like just another day
at the office. No
crisis. The dreams -- the
unsettling images of nightmares -- had meant nothing; he breathed out with a
slight sigh of relief.
Then why hadn’t Danno answered the phone last night when he had
impulsively called? No
answer at the apartment or at the office. Well, Williams was not
scheduled to be on call last night.
He DID have a private life, as Steve so often teased him. Still no indication that
anything was wrong. The
premonition was nothing more than a bad dream.
Climbing up the front
staircase of the interior of the Palace, he reminded that Williams usually did
not take time off when he was away. In
fact, Danno over-compensated and over-did the attention to work. Danno had hedged about the
‘If I’m going to play the boss I want to do it right,’ he had joked when he drove McGarrett to the airport last
week. ‘No calling you even if there’s an emergency.’
‘Is that a promise?’
Steve had joked.
Steve had been
distracted thinking about Nicole and the verdant fields of vineyards that would
be a different kind of scenery for him.
He had hardly thought about what he was leaving behind. He forced himself to sever the connection with
work and
The
unsettling feeling harbored under his skin for the last two days swept over him
again and reasserted itself firmly in his consciousness. Again. Why? What had happened while he was away?
This was
ridiculous! Since when did he have -- feelings
-- of impending doom? He chided himself
for the regression into a race-memory of mysterious Irish mists and ancient
tales of superstition. This was not like
his sixth sense perceptions during cases, this was merely an over stressed mind
left with too little to think about while on holiday.
Still, he increased
his speed as he rounded the corner of the upper landing in the Five-0
wing. He’d find
everything as usual when he opened the polished koa
door in front of him. The staff
secretaries -- just preparing to leave for home at this hour -- would greet
him. Later, Danno would return and grill
him about his weekend. Steve would tease
him about his absence when he was supposed to be minding the shop. They would probably go out together for a quiet
meal to trade stories and catch the boss up on cases while he had been in
Sweeping into the
main office, he was nearly at Jenny Sherman’s desk when quick observations
clicked into his deductive faculties and he knew his predictions were
completely wrong. Only Jenny was there,
all the other desks were empty. Her face
was strained and sad and when she looked up at him, it was, at first, with a
ripple of disappointment. Whom was she
expecting? Then a flood of relief. He dropped the suitcase at his feet and
stopped.
“Steve! Oh, it’s so good to see you!” She rushed around the desk and flew at him to
give him a fierce hug. “We’ve been so
worried.”
Confused and
concerned, he gave her a cursory hug in return.
“Worried? I’m
fine. Why? What’s wrong?” His voice already strained with anxiety.
“Well, no one knew
where you were but Danny. And -- oh,
Steve -- no one knows where he is.” Her
eyes brimmed with tears. “He’s been
missing for two days. And we couldn’t
get in touch with you -- “
“Danno’s
gone?” Two Days! He couldn’t believe
it. His chest seemed to fold in at the
emotional blow. “No,” he sighed in pain,
stunned at the horrible news, surprised his dread and dreams had come true.
Automatically, he glanced
into the cubicle by Jenny’s desk. The
lights were out. The desk was slightly
messy, uneven stacks of papers covering most of the top. Danno was not there. A chill singed through his system like a wave
of fire and ice. He didn’t
understand the subliminal message he had received. He didn’t know what
kind of psychic level he was working on.
What he knew, though, was that two days ago, he had experienced an
unusual nightmare and he had heard his friend -- in agony -- calling for him. Too far away, too disbelieving, he had done
nothing.
“Tell me everything,”
he demanded, pushing away the socket in his heart that was
filled with alarm. What had he
done? Why didn’t
he read those subconscious warnings? “I
have to know everything,” he insisted.
Jenny guided him into
Williams’ cubicle and she turned on the light.
“He was working hard on that Nelson case,” she unsteadily reminded,
touching the desk but not disturbing any papers.
McGarrett carefully
shuffled through the arrest forms, stake-out summaries,
scribbled handwritten notes. The Nelson case. While Chin Ho had handled a string of auto
thefts, Ben Kokua covered the investigation of two
con men working
Instantly suspicious,
McGarrett started skimming through the notes, looking for a direction. Had Danno gotten too close
and Nelson’s heavy friends silenced him?
He asked what the other detectives had been doing about the
disappearance.
Jenny,
calmer and more certain now that the boss was back, summarized, “You know, the
standard procedural steps.”
The door at the end
of the corridor slammed open and shut.
Ben Kokua’s tall, athletic form rushed through
and he stopped instantly when he saw Steve.
His expression, just like Jenny’s was one of relief.
“Steve, good
that you’re back.”
“Tell me what’s going
on!” he demanded. An instant accusation,
though he did not mean it like that.
“What happened to Danno?”
“He was here late
Friday night, Steve. The next day we came in and he never showed. We didn’t figure it out right away,” he shook
his head in deep regret. “Most of us
were in and out of the office all day.”
“I was off until
today,” Jenny supplied, regretful.
“So he might have
been gone for two and a half days!” Steve concluded harshly. He stabbed Kokua
with a narrow glare. “His
apartment?”
“We checked. The hospital, the morgue,” he stated quickly,
“Even some of his girlfriends. Nothing. No one’s
seen him since Friday night.”
“His car?”
“The Mustang’s at his
apartment. The LTD is gone.”
“I can’t believe
this! Where is Chin?”
“He thought he had a
lead out at Waianae. Duke’s
been hitting the streets and pressuring some informants. I just came back from HPD. Thought I’d check
out our recent cases. In case some one’s
come back for revenge or something.” He
grimaced. “There’s
a lot of investigations that Danny’s been in on. And a lot of enemies,
bruddah.”
Not what McGarrett
wanted to hear.
A necessary step, but one that might be nothing more than leg work. He felt like they were striking out blindly
with no skill, no hope. What did they
investigate when someone just walked away and disappeared?
“I’m going to
concentrate on Nelson,” he decided and started gathering up files.
Ben
helped and they relocated the mass of paperwork onto McGarrett’s office. It was a little stuffy in there and Ben
mentioned no one had been in here since Steve left. Danny did all his work from his office. Steve opened the lanai doors. A gust of fresh wind blew some of the papers
off and Ben gathered them together.
Steve stared out at the afternoon twilight sky, wondered where his
friend could be.
********
“Steve?”
A whispered scream floating from
darkness trailed by unfocused, misty gray. Suddenly,
a flash -- like a flashbulb lighting a dark room.
Danno. Disheveled, hurting, crying out -- crying -- in pain. Trapped. He couldn’t move.
“Steve!”
*******
A faint tickle
against his cheek woke him. McGarrett
blinked his eyes open, seeing papers ruffled in the breeze brushing his face.
He raised his head off his desk before his mind filtered away form the dream and grasped
reality. He had spent the night going through evidence
-- searching for clues. Glancing around,
just for a moment, he thought it was Danno, bringing in coffee and opening the
door . . . .
“Chin!” he breathed
in, trying not to show the confusion and disappointment he felt.
Kelly was not looking
at him. The Oriental detective was busy
shuffling the papers around the coffee mug he’d just
placed on the desk.
“Anything
new?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing.”
Then it was all
real. The disorienting dream, the images
of Danno hurting -- trapped -- in pain -- had confused him. It was an illusion. Was there any basis in fact? Was it just his imagination supplying the
visions of dread? His
expectations filling in the scenes of terror?
Sipping
the coffee, he only half-heard Chin’s report on the night’s lack of progress
from HPD. There were the usual crime
incidents around the island and Kelly reported those, but Steve wasn’t
listening with full attention. He sortied the papers
that had been reshuffled in the breeze. One, he noted, had blown onto the floor. Picking it up, his heart skipped a beat.
LEHUE
PIKAKE APARTMENTS
# 4
IN THE BACK
Danno’s distinctive -- all capital -- bold writing.
Lehue. One of Steve’s rare
informants was named Lehue. Keo Lehue. He lived at the old, run down Pikake
building at the edge of
“We’re going to check
this out. Come on.”
Knowing it was a bad
neighborhood, and not knowing what they would find, McGarrett ordered Kokua and Lukela to meet them there.
While the morning was
sunny and bright, the Trades coming off the ocean didn’t
reach as far inland as the stuffy, mean streets in the old downtown area. When they pulled up, Kokua
and Lukela were already there, standing in front of the stucco-crumbling
three-story apartment house.
Jogging up the
outside stairs, McGarrett drew his revolver.
When they reached the back at number four, he stood to the side and
tapped on the old wood with his weapon.
“McGarrett! Open up!”
No response. No
noise inside.
Without patience, too
anxious, he kicked down the flimsy door.
Inside the small studio apartment, it was fetid and hot, humid and
sickening with the scent of death.
Nearly choking, fear spiking to clog his throat with bile, McGarrett
took a deep, filtered breath through his hand.
In the dim light of the thin curtains, he saw a body in the corner
behind the door. Gasping, he stepped
back, imagining it to be Williams. In
the next instant, he realized it was not his friend, but the tingle of fear
still danced on his nerves.
“Lehue,”
he rasped hoarsely.
Coughing, he turned
away and froze. On the wall, written in
smeared red, was the scrawl:
I O U
“A message,” Chin darkly
concluded.
McGarrett’s tight
chest hardly allowed any air in or out. Revenge. Someone was
out for revenge. They had killed Lehue, set up Danno, and -- and done what to his
friend? Was that blood
used to write the message? Whose blood?
There was no room
anywhere else here to hide a body and he felt himself shaking. Slowly re-holstering his weapon, he exhaled
through his lips and stepped outside into the fresher air. The room was too small for all of them and
Duke had remained outside. While Chin
and Ben studied the little apartment, Lukela’s gaze
was across the street at the lip of an alley.
“Steve.”
McGarrett grunted,
too keyed up to speak.
“I think that’s
Danny’s car.”
McGarrett
stared at the black Ford across the street.
It was sitting on its rims -- the tires gone -- and several other items,
too, like mirrors and the front grill. Stripped. This WAS a
bad neighborhood. A little dazed, heart
racing with anticipation, he jogged, then ran down the old steps and over to
the car.
Yeah, it looked like
Danno’s black LTD. No license plates
left to confirm that.
“Get a lab crew down
here right away,” he ordered, studying the car through the open window.
No signs of violence,
he noted. No blood. No damage. That was something anyway. The trunk was open and he checked. No body.
Rubbing hands over
his face, he paced away, staring at the ruined vehicle, hoping it was not
symbolic of his missing detective.
“Danno.” he whispered
in quiet despair. “What happened? Where are you? I need something more than the dreams, my
friend.” He stared at the streets, the
old buildings, wondering if they would find William’s body somewhere here in
the warren of hopelessness. “I’m trying
to find you, Danno. Please be
alive. I’m not
giving up. Promise.”
********
His brain felt like mush. He’d lost count of
the number of times the hands had approached him with the needle. He was numb.
No longer did he feel the needle pricks.
His mind was constantly buzzing.
He felt warm and a little nauseous but other than that nothing bad. The ‘rush’ was fairly
pleasurable. The hands approached
him again. He thought he heard a
voice. The voice was asking him if he
wanted more. The boring, rational part
of him tried to scream ‘no’. He fought
it down and sighed ‘hhhmmmmm’ as the needle sank into
his arm.
********
Steve
shoved his office door open and slammed it shut behind him as soon as he
cleared the doorway. He needed to block
out, to forget all that he had just seen.
The scene at Pikake Apartments had unnerved
him in a way that very few things ever had except for his initial ‘dream’
several nights ago in
“Reporters! That’s
got to be the third one. Every
one of them wanting to know what is going on by that apartment building you
went to.”
“You ARE giving them
the usual story, yes?”
“Of course, but this
last one was more specific than the others.
Acted like he already knew certain
details. Wasn’t
happy at all with the ‘no comment’. Said he knew that we were trying to hide something.”
Jenny finally raised
her eyes to examine her boss. McGarrett
looked terrible – worse than he had before they left the office. She wondered what he had seen out there. She knew that if they had found Danny Steve
would have told her. Since he had not,
she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know what they
HAD found.
“Just stick with the
usual story, Jenny. Any
other calls?”
Before she could
reply, Steve wandered off towards the cubicles, drifting into Williams’. He leaned
against the doorframe staring but not really seeing anything. He couldn’t explain
it but felt that there was something immeasurably comforting about being in
Danno’s office. He took a few slow
breaths. Although he had never felt it
before -- perhaps had never paused long enough to try and ‘sense’ it -- there was a kind of aura – presence – that he
detected here lately. He wondered at the
sudden birth of characteristics that reminded him of ancestral stories his
mother used to tell. He had never put
much faith in the tales until recently.
Here, in Dan’s office, it was as if he felt his friend’s presence in the
most comforting way possible. Being in here seemed to soothe the rage and hurt that had boiled in
him since realizing that his foreboding nightmare had become reality.
Jenny stared at McGarrett, a small stack of messages in her hand. She didn’t reply to his question. He would never have heard her if she did. She knew that the boss’ mind was no longer in the office. It was with Danny wherever he was. She closed her eyes against the emotion that made her weepy at night once she was home, striving not to let the sorrow hit her here and now. She could not cry here. She needed to be strong for these men, for the boss who was so close to going over the edge himself this time. She wondered at the difference. Dan had been hurt many times before, had even been held hostage and kidnapped but Steve had never reacted the way he was now. The only legitimate thought was that any other time something occurred McGarrett had been there immediately afterward to help or to locate Williams. Not this time!
McGarrett abruptly turned from the office and snatched the messages out of Jenny’s hand. He moved into his own office, slamming the door behind him. He dumped the memo papers onto his desk, walked immediately over to the lanai and flung open the doors. He leaned against the railing and tried to settle his ragged breathing as he thought back to the ominous message that had been written on the apartment wall.
When he had fled the scene, the lab team had
arrived. A couple of them were already
examining the vehicle.
Che Fong himself had
gone up to the apartment to study the wall.
He had taken a few pictures and scraped off a sample from the smeared
message on the wall, and had promised a report before the end of the day. He had offered to make Steve copies of the
pictures and have them delivered to the Palace.
Revulsion had filled McGarrett and he was only able to turn and quickly
leave the building. He knew he would not
need pictures to remember the message.
It was indelibly stamped in his mind, on his
heart, even though he still did not understand what it meant. He wasn’t positive
that message was tied to Dan’s disappearance.
He looked up at the sky as if all of his answers were
written there.
“Where are you? I know you need me, but I don’t know how to
get to you, aikane.”
Finally, he walked
back into his office and absently sorted through his messages. The normal ones, the ones he expected to
see, were all there. But
one – he paused over it. And read the two words on the
paper.
‘Nicole’ Then
further down on the paper a question. ‘Safe?’
He should call her;
let her know what was happening.
The phone rang before
he could act on his thought. Jenny told
him that Che was on the phone waiting for him.
“Yes,
Che – what have you got?”
“I hurried the test
because I knew you’d want to know right away, Steve. The message on the wall was written in blood,
Steve.”
He froze momentarily. His
voice sounded stiff in his own ears.
“Can you identify whose blood?”
There
was a long pause. “Yes, Steve, the blood
was the same type as Danny’s.”
McGarrett’s mind
blanked. He was incapable of thought or
reaction. He did not even know how he
managed to end the conversation and hang up the phone. He was hardly aware of anything else he did.
The rest of the day he did not remember any details. At some point, late at night, he could not
even begin to explain how he managed to leave the office and arrive at his
apartment. Somehow, he found himself
sitting on his lanai. Was that his phone
ringing? He finally went inside and
answered it.
“Steve, its
Nicole.”
“Hi, Nicole, are you
back home?”
“Yes, is everything
OK over there?”
Reluctantly
Steve told her about how true his dream had been and some of what had happened
since his arrival home. Talking about
it, verbalizing the events made them real again, made them hurt even more than
they already did if that was possible.
He didn’t know how long they talked, couldn’t
even tell what he did the rest of the evening.
He knew he wasn’t hungry. He hardly ever ate at home, much less
alone. Most of his meals were shared with Danno.
Steve couldn’t help but wonder if they would
ever again do something as ordinary as that again. Morose brooding was so unlike him. He never permitted it. But it was like he
had no power over it of late.
Irrationally, he blamed the haunting nightmares.
Later
that night he dreamed again:
Dan’s blood was everywhere he
looked. But Dan
was no where to be found even though Steve could hear him calling for him.
He walked into a hospital room and looked around. This was the room where Danno had been held hostage after he was shot several years ago. There was a lump of something over near the
window. He walked over and knelt beside
it. He turned it over and froze as he
stared at Danno’s dead body.
Suddenly he was climbing up
A blinding flash of light and then --
He was pacing in the corridor of the hospital as
he waited for word. So much blood had been shed already.
All to save the lives of his three neighbors. The danger that came with this safe house assignment
had been the very reason why his second in command had gone. There was no one that McGarrett trusted
more. A stretcher was
wheeled out of the trauma room and he stopped it, eyeing the young
oriental woman a few feet away. She
would be unable to ID the body. It was
up to him. He raised the sheet and
pulled it slowly off the face. He stared
down at the curly hair, the pale face and closed eyes – eyes that had always
been so expressive and easy to read, eyes he would never see again. He lifted the sheet higher to look at the
damage the bullets had caused, to look at what he had done to his friend when
he had given the gunman the address to the safe house. Danno’s death was his fault, his friend’s
blood would be forever on his hands.