Chapter 4 - Dénoument
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Chin Ho Kelly walked into McGarrett’s office, where Steve seemed to be having at least three separate telephone conversations at once, stabbing at the phone buttons with his left forefinger to switch between them as he stood behind his desk.
“Yes, the passengers are safely off the plane. We’ll be having a press conference this afternoon. Yes, the steps of the Iolani Palace.” He looked up to say, “Hang on, Chin, I’ll be with you in a minute,” then pressed a button.
“Thank you for waiting. No. No, I don’t think we reopened the airport prematurely. The hijackers made no claim to have any sort of explosive device, we kept that entire end of the terminal closed off, and it was important that we not leave travelers stranded any longer than necessary. This is an island, Mr. Cooper. Of course we’ll cooperate fully with the NTSB’s investigation. You’re welcome. Aloha.” He sighed and switched lines.
“Hello? Yes...Nakamura-san, I’m sorry you were kept waiting. Please tell Mr. and Mrs. Yoshida’s families that they are safe and unharmed. We are putting them up in the Ilikai Hotel, and United Airlines will fly them home as soon as the official investigation is completed. Arigatou and aloha.”
McGarrett pressed the button for the intercom. “Jenny, why are you giving me calls from the Japanese Consulate? Can’t Simons deal with those?”
“I’m sorry, Boss, Mr. Simons went back to his hotel,” she told him. “He said he was sure you’d want to handle everything personally.”
“Beautiful,” McGarrett said. “Thanks, Jenny.”
McGarrett looked up, giving Kelly a rueful look as he put the receiver back on the hook.
“You did ride him pretty hard, Steve,” the Chinese detective pointed out.
“I only expected him to do his job. What have you got for me?” McGarrett leaned across the desk to take the folders Chin passed him.
“Reports on the hijackers. Autopsy on the leader, Diego, shows nothing unusual. Kono got the one who called himself Fernandez in the leg. He’s out of surgery, but the docs won’t let us talk to him yet,” Chin said.
“What about Garcia?” McGarrett asked, coming around to the front of the desk and leaning on the edge.
“In the hospital with a fractured cheekbone and two broken ribs,” Chin reported. “He’s awake.”
“Talking?” Steve asked, giving his bandaged right hand a rueful glance as he flipped through the report.
“Not a word,” the Chinese detective told him. “Not to us, and not to anyone else, either. The FBI and a guy from Military Intelligence tried questioning him and Juan, that’s what the fourth hijacker says his name is, but no luck.”
“Thanks, Chin,” McGarrett said, “I’ll want to talk to them myself, but we need a lever first.”
“I sent all of their prints to the FBI on the mainland, and wired photos to Los Angeles,” Chin said.
“Good, good,” the head of Five-O told him, continuing to read. “What about Carlton?”
“He’s in surgery,” Chin reported. “I left an officer there to keep an eye on things.”
“Keep me updated. And, Chin....” Steve looked up from the report. “If Danny comes in, I’d like you to take his statement.”
“You sure you don’t want to do it yourself?” his detective asked.
“No, I think it will be easier for him to tell you,” McGarrett said, closing the folder he held. “With me, I’m afraid he might want to hold back the worst parts.”
“Okay, Steve, will do. Is he...what did the docs say about Danny’s condition?” Chin Ho asked, concerned. “He looked pretty bad on the plane.”
“I had Kono take him to the hospital for X-rays,” he told Chin, his voice grim. “His wrists....” Steve abruptly stood and strode over to face out the window.
Chin shook his head sadly.
After a pause, McGarrett continued briskly, “The FAA and NTSB are sending teams. They’ll need copies of the passenger statements and access to the aircraft.”
“I’m on it, Steve,” Chin said, turning to leave. “Oh, one more thing. There’s a lady passenger waiting to see you in the outer office.”
“Can’t someone else deal with whatever it is?” McGarrett asked tiredly, turning to toss the report he still carried onto his desk.
“She told me she’d wait until you were free, but she has to see you in person. She says she has something she needs to give only to you. A Mrs. Miller,” the Chinese detective explained.
“Mrs. Miller?” McGarrett looked up. “Send her in.” He pressed the intercom button. “Jenny, hold my calls.”
Chin Ho exited the office. A minute later, Lauren came tentatively through the door.
“Mrs. Miller, please come in.” McGarrett stood, ushering her to a seat in front of his desk before perching on the edge. “I understand I have you to thank for looking after Danny. And Captain Carlton,” he remembered to add.
“I wish I could have done more,” she said. “They’re both heroes! If it weren’t for that stupid, cowardly man hitting Danny on the head, they would have saved all of us three days ago.”
“Yes, I intend to have a word with Mr. Brown,” McGarrett said ominously.
“Even when he was in so much pain and it looked like...like we might never get off that plane, Danny was trying to keep my spirits up,” Mrs. Miller told him earnestly. “My husband and I were only married six months ago, and I was pretty upset that...that I might never see Bob again.”
As the head of Five-O looked on sympathetically, she said, “Anyway, the reason I’m here....Danny and I, to pass the time, we talked about what we would tell our loved ones, if we could see them again. He said he had someone special waiting for him, too, so when we heard that the women and children would be able to leave I offered to take a note from him...just...just in case.”
“That was a kind thought,” Steve said. What did Danny tell her? Surely not about us....
Mrs. Miller was continuing. “He said to give it to you, Mr. McGarrett, that you’d know who it was for. Of course, now he can say what he wanted in person, but I thought it might be a nice keepsake.” She opened her handbag and took out a folded piece of notebook paper, standing and handing it to Steve.
The head of Five-O blinked hard to hide his emotions. He cleared his throat. “Thank you, Mrs. Miller. I’ll...I’ll see that it gets to the right person. Danny’s still at the hospital having his injuries checked out, but I know he’ll want to see you. Are you at the Ilikai?”
“No, I was flying out to join my husband, and he has an apartment here already. If you could give Danny my telephone number?” She wrote on a piece of paper and handed it to Steve.
“Of course, and I thank you again.” He shook her hand, then clasped her shoulder briefly.
“I’m glad I got to meet you in person, Mr. McGarrett,” she said with a smile. “Danny talked about you a lot.”
The intercom buzzed. “Boss, the senator from California is on the line, and he won’t take ‘no’ for an answer,” came Jenny’s voice.
“Okay, put him through,” McGarrett told her. As Mrs. Miller left the office, Steve tucked the folded paper into his inside jacket pocket, beside Danny’s handkerchief, carefully transferred from his other suit. I’ll read it later when all this calms down, he thought.
A bit later, Kono knocked briefly at the door to McGarrett’s office before entering, followed by Danny. The head of Five-O was standing in shirtsleeves leaning over his desk talking intensely into the telephone, looking exhausted and harassed.
When he glanced up and saw them, McGarrett said into the phone, “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to call you back,” and set the receiver back on the hook.
Kono stepped up to the desk and reported, “The X-rays show no skull fracture or internal bleeding, and the docs don’t think Danny has any permanent nerve damage from the wire, so he should get full use of his hands back in a few days.”
Thank God for that, Steve thought, avoiding looking over at his partner for fear of what would show on his face.
Kono continued, “The cuts on his wrists are pretty deep, though. They put antibiotic ointment on but the doc said they’re gonna leave scars. Otherwise, he just has a lot of bruises, some of them pretty bad.”
“I can tell him myself,” protested Danny.
“The boss told me take care of you, I’m reporting how the job went,” Kono said righteously.
“Thanks, Kono,” McGarrett said, forcing his attention back to the job at hand. “I’d like you to collect all the passenger statements from HPD and go through them for any information about the hijackers. Look for anything they said that would tell us more about who they are and what they wanted. I need something to use when I question the surviving men. And stay updated on Captain Carlton’s condition. He had the best chance to hear them say something during the takeover.”
“Right, Boss.” Kono strode from the room.
“Danny....” As the door closed behind the Hawaiian detective, Steve came around the desk and put his hands on his partner’s shoulders, looking him up and down. The younger man had a large square of white bandage taped to his left temple, and the left side of his face was badly bruised, his eye swollen almost closed. He had an obvious chunk of his curly hair missing on that side, reminding McGarrett of things he didn’t want to think about. Danny’s hands didn’t look nearly as bad as they had before, but they were still a bit swollen, and a neat cuff of bandage circled each wrist. He was in shirtsleeves without a tie, his cuffs hanging undone.
“How are you feeling?” Steve asked his partner, reluctantly letting him go.
“Almost human,” Danny replied with a wry smile.
“Let me fix these for you,” McGarrett said, rolling his second-in-command’s shirt cuffs up neatly.
“Thanks,” Williams said. “I gave up on those—getting the shirt buttons done was enough of a struggle.”
“You should have had Kono help you,” Steve gently suggested.
“I didn’t want to ask. I’ve had enough humiliation to last me a while,” Danny said, looking down at the corner of Steve’s desk.
“I should have taken you home myself.” The head of Five-O turned away, clenching his hands in frustration, suppressing a wince as he moved his damaged knuckles too abruptly.
“It’s okay, Steve, I know you couldn’t,” Danny assured him. “Anyway, now that I’m here, what can I do?”
McGarrett turned back to his partner. “Go give your statement to Chin. Then I’ll have someone take you home.”
“I’d rather be here,” Williams protested.
“Danno, people may accuse me of being a slave driver from time to time, but even I don’t expect you to go back to work a few hours after escaping from being held hostage, to say nothing of your injuries,” McGarrett said with a smile.
“It’s just...I really don’t want to be alone with nothing to do right now. I’d rather be here with you, and...and everyone. It would feel good to be part of things again, not just a victim,” Danny said.
Damn it, I would give a month’s pay to be able to just leave all this and take him home right now, Steve thought. He should be in bed, but I don’t have the heart to send him home to his empty apartment after what he’s been through.
“Please, Steve?” Danny looked up at McGarrett appealingly, something haunted in his blue eyes.
The head of Five-O sighed and said, “Okay, Danno. If you’re sure you feel up to it. But if your head starts bothering you or you want to get some rest, tell me immediately and I’ll have someone take you home.”
“Thanks, Steve,” his partner said with a relieved smile. “What should I do after I give Chin my statement?”
“How did you get along with the other passengers on the plane?” McGarrett asked.
“That Brown character obviously didn’t care for me, but generally we were all in it together,” Danny told him.
“You could take over as liaison, then,” Steve said. “Duke’s been fielding complaints so far, and some of them are giving him a hard time. They want to go home, they’re not happy with their rooms, they think the airline should have prevented it...that sort of thing. I figure they won’t be so likely to vent their anger on someone who was there with them.”
“Sure, Steve, no problem.”
“Duke’s in the conference room down the hall—get the phone numbers you need from him, and have the calls transferred to your office instead. Thanks, Danno,” McGarrett said, giving Danny a pat on the shoulder and wishing desperately for a private minute with his partner.
The telephone on Steve’s desk rang, and he walked back around to answer it, throwing a last frustrated glance over his shoulder at his partner. No matter what resolutions I make, I can’t get away from the job. He sighed and picked up the phone.
Danny sat in Chin’s cubicle at one end of his desk, looking over at the older detective, who was setting up a tape recorder.
Chin began, “Steve wanted me to take your statement because....”
“He’s got a hundred other things to do, I know,” Williams said.
“No, it’s not that,” Chin told him. “The boss knows things got pretty rough on that plane. He didn’t want you to hold anything back to spare his feelings.”
“Oh. I suppose I might,” Danny said, a shadow passing over his face as he recalled where he had so recently been.
Chin pressed the buttons to start the recorder. “Okay, take it from the beginning.”
Danny described the taking of the flight, the scuffle on landing, and he and the pilot’s failed plan to overpower the hijackers. “Chin, do you know how Carlton is doing?” he asked.
Kelly shook his head. “The hospital says he’s still in surgery.”
“It’s my fault he got shot,” Five-O’s second in command said grimly.
“Danny, If you hadn’t done something, they’d have killed a passenger, anyway,” Chin said gently. “And you couldn’t look in all directions at once. Now, what happened next?”
“Well...like I said, the hijackers had the radio hooked up to the cabin PA, so we were able to hear how the negotiations were doing. You have no idea how glad I was to hear Steve’s voice on the radio,” Danny said with a flash of a smile. “But after he offered to trade himself for the hostages, two of the hijackers had a discussion in Spanish. They were talking fast, but I understood enough to know that if he came on board they were going to kill him ‘as a present’ for someone. I couldn’t catch a name, but I think it was someone helping them, someone high up.”
Chin’s eyes widened slightly. “They must have meant Wo Fat! He’d love to get rid of Steve once and for all.”
“Wo Fat! He was behind this?” Danny exclaimed.
“At least indirectly.” Chin filled Danny in on what they knew about the hijackers’ plans.
Danny continued his story of waking up in even worse shape and hearing the hijackers threaten to mutilate him. “When Garcia came at me with that knife—I was sure he was going to cut off my ear. I....” He looked away with an involuntary shudder. “And then when I realized what he was going to do to Steve....”
Chin stopped the tape. “It was bad. We really thought he had done it. I’ve never seen Steve so shaken up. Danny...you know he got you off that plane as soon as he could.”
“I know. There’s no way he could give in to the hijackers’ demands, and storming the plane would just have gotten the hostages killed,” Danny said. “Chin...I know how much I owe all of you.”
“If anything happened to you, we’d have to get used to a new second-in-command. Too much trouble,” Chin said, shaking his head.
“Sure,” Danny said with a half smile. “That explains it.”
Chin restarted the tape. “Go on.”
“The food was brought on board. Diego had fun putting a bandage on me, so what with the blood on my face from the cut, it would look...look like they had....” Danny shuddered again, then took a deep breath and continued, “Anyway, after the women who brought the food left, the hijackers passed it out to the other passengers. Mrs. Miller tried to give me some, but they stopped her.”
Chin stopped the tape again. “Danny—didn’t they feed you at all?”
“No, they didn’t want to ‘waste food on a cop.’ I think they wanted to keep me as weak as possible,” Williams said.
“But did you eat since you got off the plane?” Chin demanded.
“Yeah, I found a banana at my place when Kono took me back,” Danny said. “I couldn’t really manage much more with my hands like this.” He looked down at his still-swollen fingers.
“Danny! You should have said! Wait here.” Chin hurried from the room.
McGarrett, standing behind his desk, looked up as Chin burst through his office door. “Hold on a minute.” He covered the telephone mouthpiece with his hand. “What’s wrong, Chin?”
“Steve, the hijackers didn’t give Danny anything to eat that whole time!” the Chinese detective said indignantly.
“I’m sorry, Director, I’ll have to call you back in a few minutes,” Steve told the phone before hanging up.
“Damn it, he should have said something,” said Steve. “I suppose he couldn’t fix anything at his place because of his hands.” Also, I don’t know how much food he keeps there, since he spends so much time at my condo, he thought guiltily.
“I’d have helped him!” said Kono, who had been waiting in the office for Steve to finish his phone call.
“It’s not easy to be helpless, even in front of one’s friends,” Steve replied, thinking back to the various times he’d found himself in Danny’s care. How he’s put up with me through all that, I’ll never know. The head of Five-O snapped his fingers. “What’s easy to eat?”
“Manapua!” Kono suggested.
“Good idea, Kono.” McGarrett picked up the phone. “I might as well order for the whole office, everyone will be hungry. Hello, Island Manapua Factory?” He said into the receiver, then placed a large order. “And be sure to put in some of that hot Chinese mustard. Mahalo.”
“Danny’s favorite?” Chin asked.
“Yeah.” Steve reached for his jacket hanging on the coat tree behind him and extracted his wallet. “Here, Chin, this should do it,” he said, handing his detective some bills. “Make sure Danny gets his share. And send someone out for some soda straws so he doesn’t have to pick up a cup.”
“Good thinking, Steve. I’m sorry to interrupt your phone call,” Chin said.
“That was the Deputy Director of Government Intelligence!” Kono told him.
“Danny’s more important,” Steve said with a smile.
“Thanks, Chin, I really needed that,” Danny said, finishing the last potsticker from the plate sitting next to the tape recorder in Chin’s cubicle. “And thanks for thinking of the straw.”
“That was Steve’s idea,” Chin told him.
“You didn’t bother Steve with this on top of everything else?” Danny said in dismay.
“He hung up on Washington and placed the order himself,” Chin said. “He said you were more important.”
Danny couldn’t help but smile. “Now, where were we?”
Chin played back the last few minutes of the tape, then pressed the record buttons.
Five-O’s second-in-command continued his description of the events of the hijacking, finishing with, “I knew Steve would come for me before the end, that he wouldn’t let the hijackers take me and the plane. But I never expected he would be the pilot!”
“He wouldn’t leave it to anyone else,” Chin said, then looked at his watch. “It’s time for the press conference. Do you feel up to it?”
Danny sighed. “Might as well get it over with....”
McGarrett, the governor, HPD chief Dann, and Carstairs of the FBI stood in a row behind microphones on the Iolani Palace steps. Danny, Chin and Kono were ranged behind McGarrett, and various HPD officers were arrayed beside them.
After the governor announced that the hijacking had been resolved and thanked Five-O, HPD, the FBI and the armed forces for their efforts, the reporters clamored with generally sympathetic questions.
“Hey, can you have Williams step forward? We want some pictures!” shouted one reporter. McGarrett smiled and encouraged his partner forward.
“Wait, you should get all of Five-O,” Danny said, moving to stand beside Steve and waving Chin and Kono over to his other side as the shutters clicked.
The press conference over, the members of Five-O returned to their work. Danny started dealing with complaints from the passengers, which mostly turned into conversations about their mutual experiences and expressions of concern for his health. He was glad to note that dialing the phone with a pencil held in his fist, while still painful, was getting easier.
Taking a break, he walked over to the coffee urn in the outer office, wondering if he could manage to pour himself a cup without spilling hot liquid everywhere.
A tall, trimly-built man wearing a naval uniform came through the outer door. He glanced over at Danny, then looked back more sharply.
“Dan Williams, I presume,” He said, joining Danny beside the coffee urn. “Paul Jones.” He started to extend a hand, then glanced at Danny’s bandages and let it drop to his side.
“Paul Jones—that’s the name Steve used when he came on board the plane,” the Five-O detective observed.
“Yes, we figured it would be easier for him to borrow a real name, so there wouldn’t be so many things to forge,” the Navy man explained. “I’m an old friend of Steve’s, stationed at Pearl Harbor now. Steve calls me ‘Jonesey’.”
“He calls me ‘Danno’,” Danny responded, giving the other man a speculative look.
“In case you’re wondering, Steve and I weren’t...we were just friends,” Jones said.
Danny flushed. “You know.”
“I’ve known Steve a very long time,” Jones observed, studying the younger man. “He couldn’t hide what you mean to him, not from me.” He glanced at the silver urn. “Hey, do you mind if I help myself to some coffee?”
“Sure, sorry, I should have offered,” Williams said.
Jones poured two cups. “How do you take it?”
“Black is fine. Thanks.” Danny acknowledged the other man’s tactful help with a smile, carefully taking the cardboard cup handed to him in both hands.
“It was always difficult for him,” the Navy man reminisced, taking a drink of coffee. “Inevitably, living in such close quarters, some people found out, and, while there’s code of silence about such things, that didn’t stop some of them from giving him a hard time.”
“He told me what he owed his friends back then,” said Danny. “And now I owe you even more.”
“I’m just glad I didn’t have to see those hijackers ruin his happiness,” Jones said bluntly.
Danny flushed again.
“Well, I’ll go see if Steve can spare me a couple of minutes,” the Navy man said, finishing his coffee and tossing his empty cup in the trash. “It was good to finally meet you.”
“Hi, Jonesey,” Steve greeted his friend in a break between phone calls. He opened his desk drawer. “I’ve got your wallet and ring here. Thank you,” he said, clasping the other man’s hand, his eyes saying more than his words.
“I’m glad I could do something to help,” his old friend said, perching on the corner of Steve’s desk as he returned the ring to his finger. “We should get together for dinner sometime soon.”
“You’re right, it’s been too long,” Steve said.
“Bring Williams along,” Jones suggested. “I just met him out there. He seems like a good kid.”
McGarrett grimaced.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Steve,” his friend protested. “What’s the age difference between you, seven or eight years?”
“Ten,” Steve admitted, turning to look out the window.
“Ten years is nothing. If Danny were a girl, no one would think twice about it.”
McGarrett turned to give his friend a pained look. “That’s not helping, Jonesey....”
“Besides, Steve, you never seem to get any older,” Jones said, running a hand over his own salt-and-pepper hair.
The head of Five-O gave him an innocent smile.
Steve rubbed his eyes and looked at his watch. 7 PM. That explains the lull in phone calls. The East Coast is in bed and everyone here is probably eating dinner. Dinner—come to think of it, I don’t remember eating lunch. I trust Chin made sure Danny ate, anyway.
Danny.... He remembered the note Mrs. Miller had given him. He took it out of his jacket pocket, unfolded it, and read. ‘...I never told you that I love you...’ The words blurred before his eyes, and he blinked hard.
Just then, as though summoned by Steve’s thoughts, Five-O’s second-in-command came through the office door balancing a plate of sandwiches in the crook of one arm. “Steve, Jenny ordered....” he stopped short.
McGarrett looked up from the page he held.
“I...” Danny swallowed. “I see you got my note.” He set the plate down on the desk and straightened up, looking squarely at Steve with a vulnerable expression in his eyes.
Steve came around the desk and put his hands on Danny’s shoulders. “I love you too, Danny Williams.” He smiled down at his partner, a suspicion of moisture in his eyes, and Danny relaxed and returned the smile.
“I should have told you long ago,” Steve said softly, reaching to caress the uninjured side of his partner’s face. “Danno....”
There was a knock at the door.
Steve abruptly released Danny and turned towards the door, which opened to admit Kono, carrying a folder.
“Yes?” McGarrett snapped, somewhat more brusquely than he had intended.
“The hospital called to say Carlton made it through the surgery,” the Hawaiian detective reported.
“That’s great!” Danny said.
“He’s not awake yet and they say his condition is still serious, but I thought you’d want to know.” Kono advanced to hand McGarrett a folder. “Here’s my report on the passenger statements, Boss. A lot of nothing, mostly.”
“Hm,” Steve said, turning pages.
“The only things were that some people noticed Juan, the one we’ve got locked up, didn’t seem to speak Spanish as good as the others. Also, everyone said the hijackers argued among themselves a lot,” Kono reported.
“Thanks, Kono. If Chin doesn’t need you for anything else, go ahead and head out. Good work today on that plane,” McGarrett said, clapping his detective on the shoulder.
“You want me to take Danny home, Boss?” Kono asked. “It’s no trouble....”
“Danno?” Steve turned inquiringly to his partner.
Danny shook his head. “Thanks, Kono, but I’ll stick around here for a while.”
“Take care, bruddah,” Kono said earnestly.
Steve gave the closing door a look of frustration, then moved to put his desk between himself and his partner, seating himself on the edge. Sighing, he said, “Well, we can take a break for dinner, anyway.” Not exactly the sort of dinner I imagined to celebrate having Danny back, but I suppose I should have known, he thought ruefully. At least we’re together....
Danny perched on the other side of the desk and leaned over to select a sandwich. “Mm, egg salad,” he said, taking a bite.
“How’s it going with the passengers?” McGarrett asked.
“I think they’re all settled. Mostly they didn’t give me any trouble, just asked if I’m doing okay. That was a good idea, Steve.” Danny took another bite, then flexed the fingers of his free hand. “I’m doing a lot better at holding things now.”
“Good, but take it easy,” Steve said, looking at his partner’s hand with concern.
Finishing his sandwich and reaching for another, Williams said, “I got a call from Duke. You know Brown, the guy who hit me? HPD arrested him at the airport trying to leave. They charged him with assaulting a police officer, but the DA is thinking of letting him plead to a lesser charge.”
“They should throw the book at him,” McGarrett growled. “If it weren’t for him, this might have been resolved two days ago with a lot less bloodshed.”
“People do stupid things when they’re scared,” Danny said. “I suppose he....”
He was interrupted by the telephone.
“So much for our dinner break,” Steve said with a rueful smile, setting down the remains of his sandwich.
Danny flashed him the smile that always made Steve’s heart skip a beat, the effect slightly marred by his bruised and swollen face, and left the office.
A few hours later McGarrett walked into the outer office. He felt that today had been going on forever, although beneath his weariness was his joy at Danny’s safety and a hunger to be alone with him at last to hold him in his arms and say everything he’d been saving up during the last three awful days.
The main room was dark and empty save for a litter coffee cups and paper plates. The only light came from Chin Ho’s cubicle.
Steve stuck his head in. “Chin, where’s Danny?” Was I so immersed in work that he left without saying goodnight?
The Chinese detective looked up from the papers he was studying. “He’s lying down in his office—he was dead on his feet, Steve.”
“I told him to tell me when he got too tired,” McGarrett snapped. “You should have had someone drive him home!”
Chin stood to face his boss, protesting, “I offered to take him myself, but he wouldn’t go. He insisted on waiting. Stubborn, just like....” He stopped himself.
“Like me?” Steve asked, his glare softening into a rueful smile. “I’m sorry, Chin. Go home and get some rest. And...thanks for everything, these past three days.”
Chin Ho neatly stacked the papers on his desk and reached for his jacket. “You get some rest, too, Steve. And look after Danny....”
“I will,” McGarrett said. Not that I’ve been doing a very good job of that so far...I should have made sure he got home hours ago, instead of leaving him to sleep on the floor, he berated himself. I could have put him in a taxi to my place if he didn’t want to go to his apartment, but I didn’t even think to check on him, and I suppose he didn’t want to interrupt me...always the job.... He sighed.
“Goodnight, Steve,” Kelly called on his way out.
Steve went to Danny’s doorway and knocked softly before entering the darkened cubicle.
His second-in-command, who had been stretched out on the carpet with his head pillowed on his jacket, suddenly sat bolt upright, staring anxiously at the door.
“Easy, Danny, it’s me,” his partner told him, reaching to turn on the desk lamp.
“I’m sorry, for a second there, I forgot where I was,” Danny said, climbing painfully to his feet.
“Time to go home, Danno,” Steve said, his voice gentle. They walked out to McGarrett’s car, Danny stumbling a bit with fatigue and Steve with an arm around his shoulders, ostensibly to steady him.
As they drove through the darkened streets, McGarrett asked, “My place?”
“Yeah. Though I’m afraid I won’t be up to anything but sleeping,” Danny warned him.
“As long as you do it beside me, that’s all I could ask,” Steve said, smiling over at his partner.
A short time later, the two men stood in the hallway as McGarrett unlocked his front door. Only three days since I locked this door behind me. It feels more like three weeks....
As soon as the door closed, Danny moved into Steve’s arms, resting his head against the taller man’s shoulder. Steve held him close, his cheek against his partner’s sandy curls. They stood that way for a while in silence, trying to banish the demons of the past three days with the undeniable reality of physical contact.
There are so many things I want to say to him, McGarrett thought, fighting to master his emotions. “Danno...” he began, then had to stop as his voice broke. He tried again. “My fault...my fault you were on that plane, and that we didn’t even say goodbye properly. I took you for granted, and I’ve been so afraid I was going to lose you without ever seeing you again. When I saw that box....” He choked on the words, tightening his arms around his partner.
“Steve,” Danny said, looking up. “It wasn’t your fault! It was just chance I was on that plane, and if it weren’t for you, I....” He shuddered. “I knew you’d come to get me, but I was so afraid something would go wrong, and...and you’d be shot...and I’d never have the chance to tell you how I feel. I love you so much, Steve.”
“I love you too, Danny.”
They stood holding each other tightly until Danny, smiling despite the emotion still in his voice, said, “I’d like to propose an addition to our rules. If we’re going to be separated overnight, we arrange to have a goodbye kiss, no matter what.”
“That...that seems like a good rule to me.” McGarrett said, managing a crooked smile. “Now, I think it’s time we go to bed.”
Both exhausted, they fell asleep at once, Danny wrapped in Steve’s arms.
McGarrett awakened some hours later. The room was in darkness, but for a faint wash of moonlight, and he was alone in the bed. For an awful moment he thought he had dreamed yesterday, that Danny was still on the plane, the hijacking still going on. Then he saw that his partner was standing silhouetted against the glass lanai doors, looking out between the curtains.
Steve got quietly out of bed and went to join him. He touched the younger man softly on the shoulder. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Danny started, then turned to look at his partner. “Steve...I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up. It was just a nightmare.”
In the shaft of moonlight coming through the narrow gap between the drapes, Steve saw that Danny’s cheeks were wet. He put a reassuring arm around his partner. “About being on the plane?”
“Yeah. When he came at me with the knife I was so frightened,” the younger man admitted. “I tried not to be, but I couldn’t help it.”
“You were helpless in the hands of a sadist. I was terrified, too,” McGarrett said.
“In the dream...he didn’t cut...my hair.” Danny couldn’t repress a shudder.
Steve held him close. “Danny, you’re safe now.”
Danny looked up at his partner, the light falling across the undamaged side of his face. “Steve...if he had cut off my ear, could you still stand to look at me?”
Steve found he couldn’t look away from that direct blue-eyed gaze. He met his partner’s eyes and answered him seriously. “Yes. It would be painful to see, being reminded that I couldn’t stop him from hurting you, but...I thought about it, after...I realized that if I could just have you back alive, talk to you, hold you...anything else wasn’t important.” McGarrett blinked hard, and turned his face away from the shaft of light.
“Steve. Thank you.”
Steve felt Danny’s fingers brush his cheek, the white cuff of bandage gleaming in the moonlight as the too-long sleeve of the borrowed pyjama top fell back. “Come on, Danno,” he said, and had to clear his throat. “Let’s go back to bed.”
“Yes, the passengers are safely off the plane. We’ll be having a press conference this afternoon. Yes, the steps of the Iolani Palace.” He looked up to say, “Hang on, Chin, I’ll be with you in a minute,” then pressed a button.
“Thank you for waiting. No. No, I don’t think we reopened the airport prematurely. The hijackers made no claim to have any sort of explosive device, we kept that entire end of the terminal closed off, and it was important that we not leave travelers stranded any longer than necessary. This is an island, Mr. Cooper. Of course we’ll cooperate fully with the NTSB’s investigation. You’re welcome. Aloha.” He sighed and switched lines.
“Hello? Yes...Nakamura-san, I’m sorry you were kept waiting. Please tell Mr. and Mrs. Yoshida’s families that they are safe and unharmed. We are putting them up in the Ilikai Hotel, and United Airlines will fly them home as soon as the official investigation is completed. Arigatou and aloha.”
McGarrett pressed the button for the intercom. “Jenny, why are you giving me calls from the Japanese Consulate? Can’t Simons deal with those?”
“I’m sorry, Boss, Mr. Simons went back to his hotel,” she told him. “He said he was sure you’d want to handle everything personally.”
“Beautiful,” McGarrett said. “Thanks, Jenny.”
McGarrett looked up, giving Kelly a rueful look as he put the receiver back on the hook.
“You did ride him pretty hard, Steve,” the Chinese detective pointed out.
“I only expected him to do his job. What have you got for me?” McGarrett leaned across the desk to take the folders Chin passed him.
“Reports on the hijackers. Autopsy on the leader, Diego, shows nothing unusual. Kono got the one who called himself Fernandez in the leg. He’s out of surgery, but the docs won’t let us talk to him yet,” Chin said.
“What about Garcia?” McGarrett asked, coming around to the front of the desk and leaning on the edge.
“In the hospital with a fractured cheekbone and two broken ribs,” Chin reported. “He’s awake.”
“Talking?” Steve asked, giving his bandaged right hand a rueful glance as he flipped through the report.
“Not a word,” the Chinese detective told him. “Not to us, and not to anyone else, either. The FBI and a guy from Military Intelligence tried questioning him and Juan, that’s what the fourth hijacker says his name is, but no luck.”
“Thanks, Chin,” McGarrett said, “I’ll want to talk to them myself, but we need a lever first.”
“I sent all of their prints to the FBI on the mainland, and wired photos to Los Angeles,” Chin said.
“Good, good,” the head of Five-O told him, continuing to read. “What about Carlton?”
“He’s in surgery,” Chin reported. “I left an officer there to keep an eye on things.”
“Keep me updated. And, Chin....” Steve looked up from the report. “If Danny comes in, I’d like you to take his statement.”
“You sure you don’t want to do it yourself?” his detective asked.
“No, I think it will be easier for him to tell you,” McGarrett said, closing the folder he held. “With me, I’m afraid he might want to hold back the worst parts.”
“Okay, Steve, will do. Is he...what did the docs say about Danny’s condition?” Chin Ho asked, concerned. “He looked pretty bad on the plane.”
“I had Kono take him to the hospital for X-rays,” he told Chin, his voice grim. “His wrists....” Steve abruptly stood and strode over to face out the window.
Chin shook his head sadly.
After a pause, McGarrett continued briskly, “The FAA and NTSB are sending teams. They’ll need copies of the passenger statements and access to the aircraft.”
“I’m on it, Steve,” Chin said, turning to leave. “Oh, one more thing. There’s a lady passenger waiting to see you in the outer office.”
“Can’t someone else deal with whatever it is?” McGarrett asked tiredly, turning to toss the report he still carried onto his desk.
“She told me she’d wait until you were free, but she has to see you in person. She says she has something she needs to give only to you. A Mrs. Miller,” the Chinese detective explained.
“Mrs. Miller?” McGarrett looked up. “Send her in.” He pressed the intercom button. “Jenny, hold my calls.”
Chin Ho exited the office. A minute later, Lauren came tentatively through the door.
“Mrs. Miller, please come in.” McGarrett stood, ushering her to a seat in front of his desk before perching on the edge. “I understand I have you to thank for looking after Danny. And Captain Carlton,” he remembered to add.
“I wish I could have done more,” she said. “They’re both heroes! If it weren’t for that stupid, cowardly man hitting Danny on the head, they would have saved all of us three days ago.”
“Yes, I intend to have a word with Mr. Brown,” McGarrett said ominously.
“Even when he was in so much pain and it looked like...like we might never get off that plane, Danny was trying to keep my spirits up,” Mrs. Miller told him earnestly. “My husband and I were only married six months ago, and I was pretty upset that...that I might never see Bob again.”
As the head of Five-O looked on sympathetically, she said, “Anyway, the reason I’m here....Danny and I, to pass the time, we talked about what we would tell our loved ones, if we could see them again. He said he had someone special waiting for him, too, so when we heard that the women and children would be able to leave I offered to take a note from him...just...just in case.”
“That was a kind thought,” Steve said. What did Danny tell her? Surely not about us....
Mrs. Miller was continuing. “He said to give it to you, Mr. McGarrett, that you’d know who it was for. Of course, now he can say what he wanted in person, but I thought it might be a nice keepsake.” She opened her handbag and took out a folded piece of notebook paper, standing and handing it to Steve.
The head of Five-O blinked hard to hide his emotions. He cleared his throat. “Thank you, Mrs. Miller. I’ll...I’ll see that it gets to the right person. Danny’s still at the hospital having his injuries checked out, but I know he’ll want to see you. Are you at the Ilikai?”
“No, I was flying out to join my husband, and he has an apartment here already. If you could give Danny my telephone number?” She wrote on a piece of paper and handed it to Steve.
“Of course, and I thank you again.” He shook her hand, then clasped her shoulder briefly.
“I’m glad I got to meet you in person, Mr. McGarrett,” she said with a smile. “Danny talked about you a lot.”
The intercom buzzed. “Boss, the senator from California is on the line, and he won’t take ‘no’ for an answer,” came Jenny’s voice.
“Okay, put him through,” McGarrett told her. As Mrs. Miller left the office, Steve tucked the folded paper into his inside jacket pocket, beside Danny’s handkerchief, carefully transferred from his other suit. I’ll read it later when all this calms down, he thought.
A bit later, Kono knocked briefly at the door to McGarrett’s office before entering, followed by Danny. The head of Five-O was standing in shirtsleeves leaning over his desk talking intensely into the telephone, looking exhausted and harassed.
When he glanced up and saw them, McGarrett said into the phone, “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to call you back,” and set the receiver back on the hook.
Kono stepped up to the desk and reported, “The X-rays show no skull fracture or internal bleeding, and the docs don’t think Danny has any permanent nerve damage from the wire, so he should get full use of his hands back in a few days.”
Thank God for that, Steve thought, avoiding looking over at his partner for fear of what would show on his face.
Kono continued, “The cuts on his wrists are pretty deep, though. They put antibiotic ointment on but the doc said they’re gonna leave scars. Otherwise, he just has a lot of bruises, some of them pretty bad.”
“I can tell him myself,” protested Danny.
“The boss told me take care of you, I’m reporting how the job went,” Kono said righteously.
“Thanks, Kono,” McGarrett said, forcing his attention back to the job at hand. “I’d like you to collect all the passenger statements from HPD and go through them for any information about the hijackers. Look for anything they said that would tell us more about who they are and what they wanted. I need something to use when I question the surviving men. And stay updated on Captain Carlton’s condition. He had the best chance to hear them say something during the takeover.”
“Right, Boss.” Kono strode from the room.
“Danny....” As the door closed behind the Hawaiian detective, Steve came around the desk and put his hands on his partner’s shoulders, looking him up and down. The younger man had a large square of white bandage taped to his left temple, and the left side of his face was badly bruised, his eye swollen almost closed. He had an obvious chunk of his curly hair missing on that side, reminding McGarrett of things he didn’t want to think about. Danny’s hands didn’t look nearly as bad as they had before, but they were still a bit swollen, and a neat cuff of bandage circled each wrist. He was in shirtsleeves without a tie, his cuffs hanging undone.
“How are you feeling?” Steve asked his partner, reluctantly letting him go.
“Almost human,” Danny replied with a wry smile.
“Let me fix these for you,” McGarrett said, rolling his second-in-command’s shirt cuffs up neatly.
“Thanks,” Williams said. “I gave up on those—getting the shirt buttons done was enough of a struggle.”
“You should have had Kono help you,” Steve gently suggested.
“I didn’t want to ask. I’ve had enough humiliation to last me a while,” Danny said, looking down at the corner of Steve’s desk.
“I should have taken you home myself.” The head of Five-O turned away, clenching his hands in frustration, suppressing a wince as he moved his damaged knuckles too abruptly.
“It’s okay, Steve, I know you couldn’t,” Danny assured him. “Anyway, now that I’m here, what can I do?”
McGarrett turned back to his partner. “Go give your statement to Chin. Then I’ll have someone take you home.”
“I’d rather be here,” Williams protested.
“Danno, people may accuse me of being a slave driver from time to time, but even I don’t expect you to go back to work a few hours after escaping from being held hostage, to say nothing of your injuries,” McGarrett said with a smile.
“It’s just...I really don’t want to be alone with nothing to do right now. I’d rather be here with you, and...and everyone. It would feel good to be part of things again, not just a victim,” Danny said.
Damn it, I would give a month’s pay to be able to just leave all this and take him home right now, Steve thought. He should be in bed, but I don’t have the heart to send him home to his empty apartment after what he’s been through.
“Please, Steve?” Danny looked up at McGarrett appealingly, something haunted in his blue eyes.
The head of Five-O sighed and said, “Okay, Danno. If you’re sure you feel up to it. But if your head starts bothering you or you want to get some rest, tell me immediately and I’ll have someone take you home.”
“Thanks, Steve,” his partner said with a relieved smile. “What should I do after I give Chin my statement?”
“How did you get along with the other passengers on the plane?” McGarrett asked.
“That Brown character obviously didn’t care for me, but generally we were all in it together,” Danny told him.
“You could take over as liaison, then,” Steve said. “Duke’s been fielding complaints so far, and some of them are giving him a hard time. They want to go home, they’re not happy with their rooms, they think the airline should have prevented it...that sort of thing. I figure they won’t be so likely to vent their anger on someone who was there with them.”
“Sure, Steve, no problem.”
“Duke’s in the conference room down the hall—get the phone numbers you need from him, and have the calls transferred to your office instead. Thanks, Danno,” McGarrett said, giving Danny a pat on the shoulder and wishing desperately for a private minute with his partner.
The telephone on Steve’s desk rang, and he walked back around to answer it, throwing a last frustrated glance over his shoulder at his partner. No matter what resolutions I make, I can’t get away from the job. He sighed and picked up the phone.
Danny sat in Chin’s cubicle at one end of his desk, looking over at the older detective, who was setting up a tape recorder.
Chin began, “Steve wanted me to take your statement because....”
“He’s got a hundred other things to do, I know,” Williams said.
“No, it’s not that,” Chin told him. “The boss knows things got pretty rough on that plane. He didn’t want you to hold anything back to spare his feelings.”
“Oh. I suppose I might,” Danny said, a shadow passing over his face as he recalled where he had so recently been.
Chin pressed the buttons to start the recorder. “Okay, take it from the beginning.”
Danny described the taking of the flight, the scuffle on landing, and he and the pilot’s failed plan to overpower the hijackers. “Chin, do you know how Carlton is doing?” he asked.
Kelly shook his head. “The hospital says he’s still in surgery.”
“It’s my fault he got shot,” Five-O’s second in command said grimly.
“Danny, If you hadn’t done something, they’d have killed a passenger, anyway,” Chin said gently. “And you couldn’t look in all directions at once. Now, what happened next?”
“Well...like I said, the hijackers had the radio hooked up to the cabin PA, so we were able to hear how the negotiations were doing. You have no idea how glad I was to hear Steve’s voice on the radio,” Danny said with a flash of a smile. “But after he offered to trade himself for the hostages, two of the hijackers had a discussion in Spanish. They were talking fast, but I understood enough to know that if he came on board they were going to kill him ‘as a present’ for someone. I couldn’t catch a name, but I think it was someone helping them, someone high up.”
Chin’s eyes widened slightly. “They must have meant Wo Fat! He’d love to get rid of Steve once and for all.”
“Wo Fat! He was behind this?” Danny exclaimed.
“At least indirectly.” Chin filled Danny in on what they knew about the hijackers’ plans.
Danny continued his story of waking up in even worse shape and hearing the hijackers threaten to mutilate him. “When Garcia came at me with that knife—I was sure he was going to cut off my ear. I....” He looked away with an involuntary shudder. “And then when I realized what he was going to do to Steve....”
Chin stopped the tape. “It was bad. We really thought he had done it. I’ve never seen Steve so shaken up. Danny...you know he got you off that plane as soon as he could.”
“I know. There’s no way he could give in to the hijackers’ demands, and storming the plane would just have gotten the hostages killed,” Danny said. “Chin...I know how much I owe all of you.”
“If anything happened to you, we’d have to get used to a new second-in-command. Too much trouble,” Chin said, shaking his head.
“Sure,” Danny said with a half smile. “That explains it.”
Chin restarted the tape. “Go on.”
“The food was brought on board. Diego had fun putting a bandage on me, so what with the blood on my face from the cut, it would look...look like they had....” Danny shuddered again, then took a deep breath and continued, “Anyway, after the women who brought the food left, the hijackers passed it out to the other passengers. Mrs. Miller tried to give me some, but they stopped her.”
Chin stopped the tape again. “Danny—didn’t they feed you at all?”
“No, they didn’t want to ‘waste food on a cop.’ I think they wanted to keep me as weak as possible,” Williams said.
“But did you eat since you got off the plane?” Chin demanded.
“Yeah, I found a banana at my place when Kono took me back,” Danny said. “I couldn’t really manage much more with my hands like this.” He looked down at his still-swollen fingers.
“Danny! You should have said! Wait here.” Chin hurried from the room.
McGarrett, standing behind his desk, looked up as Chin burst through his office door. “Hold on a minute.” He covered the telephone mouthpiece with his hand. “What’s wrong, Chin?”
“Steve, the hijackers didn’t give Danny anything to eat that whole time!” the Chinese detective said indignantly.
“I’m sorry, Director, I’ll have to call you back in a few minutes,” Steve told the phone before hanging up.
“Damn it, he should have said something,” said Steve. “I suppose he couldn’t fix anything at his place because of his hands.” Also, I don’t know how much food he keeps there, since he spends so much time at my condo, he thought guiltily.
“I’d have helped him!” said Kono, who had been waiting in the office for Steve to finish his phone call.
“It’s not easy to be helpless, even in front of one’s friends,” Steve replied, thinking back to the various times he’d found himself in Danny’s care. How he’s put up with me through all that, I’ll never know. The head of Five-O snapped his fingers. “What’s easy to eat?”
“Manapua!” Kono suggested.
“Good idea, Kono.” McGarrett picked up the phone. “I might as well order for the whole office, everyone will be hungry. Hello, Island Manapua Factory?” He said into the receiver, then placed a large order. “And be sure to put in some of that hot Chinese mustard. Mahalo.”
“Danny’s favorite?” Chin asked.
“Yeah.” Steve reached for his jacket hanging on the coat tree behind him and extracted his wallet. “Here, Chin, this should do it,” he said, handing his detective some bills. “Make sure Danny gets his share. And send someone out for some soda straws so he doesn’t have to pick up a cup.”
“Good thinking, Steve. I’m sorry to interrupt your phone call,” Chin said.
“That was the Deputy Director of Government Intelligence!” Kono told him.
“Danny’s more important,” Steve said with a smile.
“Thanks, Chin, I really needed that,” Danny said, finishing the last potsticker from the plate sitting next to the tape recorder in Chin’s cubicle. “And thanks for thinking of the straw.”
“That was Steve’s idea,” Chin told him.
“You didn’t bother Steve with this on top of everything else?” Danny said in dismay.
“He hung up on Washington and placed the order himself,” Chin said. “He said you were more important.”
Danny couldn’t help but smile. “Now, where were we?”
Chin played back the last few minutes of the tape, then pressed the record buttons.
Five-O’s second-in-command continued his description of the events of the hijacking, finishing with, “I knew Steve would come for me before the end, that he wouldn’t let the hijackers take me and the plane. But I never expected he would be the pilot!”
“He wouldn’t leave it to anyone else,” Chin said, then looked at his watch. “It’s time for the press conference. Do you feel up to it?”
Danny sighed. “Might as well get it over with....”
McGarrett, the governor, HPD chief Dann, and Carstairs of the FBI stood in a row behind microphones on the Iolani Palace steps. Danny, Chin and Kono were ranged behind McGarrett, and various HPD officers were arrayed beside them.
After the governor announced that the hijacking had been resolved and thanked Five-O, HPD, the FBI and the armed forces for their efforts, the reporters clamored with generally sympathetic questions.
“Hey, can you have Williams step forward? We want some pictures!” shouted one reporter. McGarrett smiled and encouraged his partner forward.
“Wait, you should get all of Five-O,” Danny said, moving to stand beside Steve and waving Chin and Kono over to his other side as the shutters clicked.
The press conference over, the members of Five-O returned to their work. Danny started dealing with complaints from the passengers, which mostly turned into conversations about their mutual experiences and expressions of concern for his health. He was glad to note that dialing the phone with a pencil held in his fist, while still painful, was getting easier.
Taking a break, he walked over to the coffee urn in the outer office, wondering if he could manage to pour himself a cup without spilling hot liquid everywhere.
A tall, trimly-built man wearing a naval uniform came through the outer door. He glanced over at Danny, then looked back more sharply.
“Dan Williams, I presume,” He said, joining Danny beside the coffee urn. “Paul Jones.” He started to extend a hand, then glanced at Danny’s bandages and let it drop to his side.
“Paul Jones—that’s the name Steve used when he came on board the plane,” the Five-O detective observed.
“Yes, we figured it would be easier for him to borrow a real name, so there wouldn’t be so many things to forge,” the Navy man explained. “I’m an old friend of Steve’s, stationed at Pearl Harbor now. Steve calls me ‘Jonesey’.”
“He calls me ‘Danno’,” Danny responded, giving the other man a speculative look.
“In case you’re wondering, Steve and I weren’t...we were just friends,” Jones said.
Danny flushed. “You know.”
“I’ve known Steve a very long time,” Jones observed, studying the younger man. “He couldn’t hide what you mean to him, not from me.” He glanced at the silver urn. “Hey, do you mind if I help myself to some coffee?”
“Sure, sorry, I should have offered,” Williams said.
Jones poured two cups. “How do you take it?”
“Black is fine. Thanks.” Danny acknowledged the other man’s tactful help with a smile, carefully taking the cardboard cup handed to him in both hands.
“It was always difficult for him,” the Navy man reminisced, taking a drink of coffee. “Inevitably, living in such close quarters, some people found out, and, while there’s code of silence about such things, that didn’t stop some of them from giving him a hard time.”
“He told me what he owed his friends back then,” said Danny. “And now I owe you even more.”
“I’m just glad I didn’t have to see those hijackers ruin his happiness,” Jones said bluntly.
Danny flushed again.
“Well, I’ll go see if Steve can spare me a couple of minutes,” the Navy man said, finishing his coffee and tossing his empty cup in the trash. “It was good to finally meet you.”
“Hi, Jonesey,” Steve greeted his friend in a break between phone calls. He opened his desk drawer. “I’ve got your wallet and ring here. Thank you,” he said, clasping the other man’s hand, his eyes saying more than his words.
“I’m glad I could do something to help,” his old friend said, perching on the corner of Steve’s desk as he returned the ring to his finger. “We should get together for dinner sometime soon.”
“You’re right, it’s been too long,” Steve said.
“Bring Williams along,” Jones suggested. “I just met him out there. He seems like a good kid.”
McGarrett grimaced.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Steve,” his friend protested. “What’s the age difference between you, seven or eight years?”
“Ten,” Steve admitted, turning to look out the window.
“Ten years is nothing. If Danny were a girl, no one would think twice about it.”
McGarrett turned to give his friend a pained look. “That’s not helping, Jonesey....”
“Besides, Steve, you never seem to get any older,” Jones said, running a hand over his own salt-and-pepper hair.
The head of Five-O gave him an innocent smile.
Steve rubbed his eyes and looked at his watch. 7 PM. That explains the lull in phone calls. The East Coast is in bed and everyone here is probably eating dinner. Dinner—come to think of it, I don’t remember eating lunch. I trust Chin made sure Danny ate, anyway.
Danny.... He remembered the note Mrs. Miller had given him. He took it out of his jacket pocket, unfolded it, and read. ‘...I never told you that I love you...’ The words blurred before his eyes, and he blinked hard.
Just then, as though summoned by Steve’s thoughts, Five-O’s second-in-command came through the office door balancing a plate of sandwiches in the crook of one arm. “Steve, Jenny ordered....” he stopped short.
McGarrett looked up from the page he held.
“I...” Danny swallowed. “I see you got my note.” He set the plate down on the desk and straightened up, looking squarely at Steve with a vulnerable expression in his eyes.
Steve came around the desk and put his hands on Danny’s shoulders. “I love you too, Danny Williams.” He smiled down at his partner, a suspicion of moisture in his eyes, and Danny relaxed and returned the smile.
“I should have told you long ago,” Steve said softly, reaching to caress the uninjured side of his partner’s face. “Danno....”
There was a knock at the door.
Steve abruptly released Danny and turned towards the door, which opened to admit Kono, carrying a folder.
“Yes?” McGarrett snapped, somewhat more brusquely than he had intended.
“The hospital called to say Carlton made it through the surgery,” the Hawaiian detective reported.
“That’s great!” Danny said.
“He’s not awake yet and they say his condition is still serious, but I thought you’d want to know.” Kono advanced to hand McGarrett a folder. “Here’s my report on the passenger statements, Boss. A lot of nothing, mostly.”
“Hm,” Steve said, turning pages.
“The only things were that some people noticed Juan, the one we’ve got locked up, didn’t seem to speak Spanish as good as the others. Also, everyone said the hijackers argued among themselves a lot,” Kono reported.
“Thanks, Kono. If Chin doesn’t need you for anything else, go ahead and head out. Good work today on that plane,” McGarrett said, clapping his detective on the shoulder.
“You want me to take Danny home, Boss?” Kono asked. “It’s no trouble....”
“Danno?” Steve turned inquiringly to his partner.
Danny shook his head. “Thanks, Kono, but I’ll stick around here for a while.”
“Take care, bruddah,” Kono said earnestly.
Steve gave the closing door a look of frustration, then moved to put his desk between himself and his partner, seating himself on the edge. Sighing, he said, “Well, we can take a break for dinner, anyway.” Not exactly the sort of dinner I imagined to celebrate having Danny back, but I suppose I should have known, he thought ruefully. At least we’re together....
Danny perched on the other side of the desk and leaned over to select a sandwich. “Mm, egg salad,” he said, taking a bite.
“How’s it going with the passengers?” McGarrett asked.
“I think they’re all settled. Mostly they didn’t give me any trouble, just asked if I’m doing okay. That was a good idea, Steve.” Danny took another bite, then flexed the fingers of his free hand. “I’m doing a lot better at holding things now.”
“Good, but take it easy,” Steve said, looking at his partner’s hand with concern.
Finishing his sandwich and reaching for another, Williams said, “I got a call from Duke. You know Brown, the guy who hit me? HPD arrested him at the airport trying to leave. They charged him with assaulting a police officer, but the DA is thinking of letting him plead to a lesser charge.”
“They should throw the book at him,” McGarrett growled. “If it weren’t for him, this might have been resolved two days ago with a lot less bloodshed.”
“People do stupid things when they’re scared,” Danny said. “I suppose he....”
He was interrupted by the telephone.
“So much for our dinner break,” Steve said with a rueful smile, setting down the remains of his sandwich.
Danny flashed him the smile that always made Steve’s heart skip a beat, the effect slightly marred by his bruised and swollen face, and left the office.
A few hours later McGarrett walked into the outer office. He felt that today had been going on forever, although beneath his weariness was his joy at Danny’s safety and a hunger to be alone with him at last to hold him in his arms and say everything he’d been saving up during the last three awful days.
The main room was dark and empty save for a litter coffee cups and paper plates. The only light came from Chin Ho’s cubicle.
Steve stuck his head in. “Chin, where’s Danny?” Was I so immersed in work that he left without saying goodnight?
The Chinese detective looked up from the papers he was studying. “He’s lying down in his office—he was dead on his feet, Steve.”
“I told him to tell me when he got too tired,” McGarrett snapped. “You should have had someone drive him home!”
Chin stood to face his boss, protesting, “I offered to take him myself, but he wouldn’t go. He insisted on waiting. Stubborn, just like....” He stopped himself.
“Like me?” Steve asked, his glare softening into a rueful smile. “I’m sorry, Chin. Go home and get some rest. And...thanks for everything, these past three days.”
Chin Ho neatly stacked the papers on his desk and reached for his jacket. “You get some rest, too, Steve. And look after Danny....”
“I will,” McGarrett said. Not that I’ve been doing a very good job of that so far...I should have made sure he got home hours ago, instead of leaving him to sleep on the floor, he berated himself. I could have put him in a taxi to my place if he didn’t want to go to his apartment, but I didn’t even think to check on him, and I suppose he didn’t want to interrupt me...always the job.... He sighed.
“Goodnight, Steve,” Kelly called on his way out.
Steve went to Danny’s doorway and knocked softly before entering the darkened cubicle.
His second-in-command, who had been stretched out on the carpet with his head pillowed on his jacket, suddenly sat bolt upright, staring anxiously at the door.
“Easy, Danny, it’s me,” his partner told him, reaching to turn on the desk lamp.
“I’m sorry, for a second there, I forgot where I was,” Danny said, climbing painfully to his feet.
“Time to go home, Danno,” Steve said, his voice gentle. They walked out to McGarrett’s car, Danny stumbling a bit with fatigue and Steve with an arm around his shoulders, ostensibly to steady him.
As they drove through the darkened streets, McGarrett asked, “My place?”
“Yeah. Though I’m afraid I won’t be up to anything but sleeping,” Danny warned him.
“As long as you do it beside me, that’s all I could ask,” Steve said, smiling over at his partner.
A short time later, the two men stood in the hallway as McGarrett unlocked his front door. Only three days since I locked this door behind me. It feels more like three weeks....
As soon as the door closed, Danny moved into Steve’s arms, resting his head against the taller man’s shoulder. Steve held him close, his cheek against his partner’s sandy curls. They stood that way for a while in silence, trying to banish the demons of the past three days with the undeniable reality of physical contact.
There are so many things I want to say to him, McGarrett thought, fighting to master his emotions. “Danno...” he began, then had to stop as his voice broke. He tried again. “My fault...my fault you were on that plane, and that we didn’t even say goodbye properly. I took you for granted, and I’ve been so afraid I was going to lose you without ever seeing you again. When I saw that box....” He choked on the words, tightening his arms around his partner.
“Steve,” Danny said, looking up. “It wasn’t your fault! It was just chance I was on that plane, and if it weren’t for you, I....” He shuddered. “I knew you’d come to get me, but I was so afraid something would go wrong, and...and you’d be shot...and I’d never have the chance to tell you how I feel. I love you so much, Steve.”
“I love you too, Danny.”
They stood holding each other tightly until Danny, smiling despite the emotion still in his voice, said, “I’d like to propose an addition to our rules. If we’re going to be separated overnight, we arrange to have a goodbye kiss, no matter what.”
“That...that seems like a good rule to me.” McGarrett said, managing a crooked smile. “Now, I think it’s time we go to bed.”
Both exhausted, they fell asleep at once, Danny wrapped in Steve’s arms.
McGarrett awakened some hours later. The room was in darkness, but for a faint wash of moonlight, and he was alone in the bed. For an awful moment he thought he had dreamed yesterday, that Danny was still on the plane, the hijacking still going on. Then he saw that his partner was standing silhouetted against the glass lanai doors, looking out between the curtains.
Steve got quietly out of bed and went to join him. He touched the younger man softly on the shoulder. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Danny started, then turned to look at his partner. “Steve...I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up. It was just a nightmare.”
In the shaft of moonlight coming through the narrow gap between the drapes, Steve saw that Danny’s cheeks were wet. He put a reassuring arm around his partner. “About being on the plane?”
“Yeah. When he came at me with the knife I was so frightened,” the younger man admitted. “I tried not to be, but I couldn’t help it.”
“You were helpless in the hands of a sadist. I was terrified, too,” McGarrett said.
“In the dream...he didn’t cut...my hair.” Danny couldn’t repress a shudder.
Steve held him close. “Danny, you’re safe now.”
Danny looked up at his partner, the light falling across the undamaged side of his face. “Steve...if he had cut off my ear, could you still stand to look at me?”
Steve found he couldn’t look away from that direct blue-eyed gaze. He met his partner’s eyes and answered him seriously. “Yes. It would be painful to see, being reminded that I couldn’t stop him from hurting you, but...I thought about it, after...I realized that if I could just have you back alive, talk to you, hold you...anything else wasn’t important.” McGarrett blinked hard, and turned his face away from the shaft of light.
“Steve. Thank you.”
Steve felt Danny’s fingers brush his cheek, the white cuff of bandage gleaming in the moonlight as the too-long sleeve of the borrowed pyjama top fell back. “Come on, Danno,” he said, and had to clear his throat. “Let’s go back to bed.”
Author’s Note: The hijacking is resolved, and Danny’s safely off the plane, but the story’s not over yet....