It was over.
As Danny held the phone loosely in his hand he could hear the cheering of those on the other end. They had done it. They had fooled Wo Fat, they had gained invaluable military information while their enemies believed that they were ignorant.
Though as Danny looked at Vogler he just hoped that this all was worth it. The poor man stood slouched against the computer, so exhausted that he could barely stand, sweat dripping down his face. The man needed to rest. He had been used badly. His daughter had been taken hostage. He had been threatened by enemy and friend alike.
Hanging up the phone, Danny walked over to the shaken man and gently laid a hand on his shoulder. "Let's go."
Vogler jerked back and glared at him, his face full of fear and his eyes wide in horror. Danny almost froze right there as the implications of Vogler's reaction hit him. This man clearly wanted nothing to do with him, couldn't stand being in the same room as him, and Danny knew why.
Keep it together, Williams. Danny admonished himself. You're a cop.
A cop he may be but he was in danger of being sick. However, hiding his true feelings was an essential part of his job and one at which he had a lot of practice. So projecting an air of calm, he led Vogler out of the room and handed him off to a waiting attendant.
Danny wanted nothing more than to collapse in a chair and relax but his job wasn't over yet. A waiting officer led him to a small room where he was debriefed by one of Kaye's assistants and warned repeatedly about what would happen if he divulged any of the confidential information he had witnessed today.
When he was finally freed, Steve took one look at him and said, "I need to wrap things up there. Why don't you go home and take a break. You've earned it."
"Right, Steve."
For once Danny wasn't ashamed to admit that he was tired. Grateful to his boss for noticing, he slowly worked his way through security and exited the secure bunker. However, once he sat down in his car, home no longer seemed like a welcome option. He needed to think. He needed to process through what he almost done inside that bunker. What he had been prepared to do.
He needed to know that he wasn't a monster.
Forcing those thoughts away, he concentrated on driving. He couldn't let himself be distracted and hurt someone else. But his demons could only be held back for so long and, as he stepped into the Five-O sanctum, they returned in force.
His hands shook as he fiddled with the coffee pot. The same hands that had come mere seconds away from killing a man in cold blood.
"You are to stop Vogler from blacking us out. Now, that's any way you have to, Danno. You understand?"
Yes, he understood. Steve had never said the words aloud but Danny had known exactly what his boss had ordered him to do.
"Doctor, don't force me."
Vogler stared at him, his eyes wide in shock, his voice pleading, "Wo Fat has my child. He will kill her."
"I know that, Doctor. Don't move."
For a few unbearable seconds that felt like an eternity, Danny had held a gun to an unarmed man's head, prepared to pull the trigger, praying that he wouldn't have to.
Any way you have to.
He would have killed him.
Any way you have to.
He would have done it. It would have been justified.
At least that's what he wanted to believe.
Air. He needed air. Leaving the coffee pot to do its job, Danny opened the French windows in Steve's office and stepped out onto the lanai.
Honolulu looked so peaceful with the rays of the setting sun. It was a view that seemed at odds with the war raging inside of him. Was he a monster or a cop? Just following orders was the most common excuse war criminals gave but following orders was a necessary part of his job.
However, he was a cop, not a soldier. He never should have been placed in that situation. Steve should have known better. A wave of anger surfaced in him that was directed towards his boss. Steve knew how killing affected him. He should have remembered.
"It's a stinking job."
"Who told you it was anything else?"
"He was just a boy, Steve. A boy. Probably never even had to shave."
"You think it's easier to kill a grown man? You think the next one will be easier than this one? God help you if you do. It better hurt every time. It better tear your guts out every time you pull that gun, whether you use it or not. You learn to live with it, but don't get used to it."
How had he gone from the man who agonized over the first man he had ever killed to the man who would have killed another simply because he was ordered to?
Perhaps Steve had given him that order because he realized that Danny had changed. That in becoming accustomed to killing, Danny had become a man who was capable of killing on command.
Yet, was not Steve still that same man who told him that killing should tear his guts out every time?
The sun had fully set and Danny still had found no answers to the demons that plagued him. Because as he stared out into the sky all he could see was the fear on Vogler's face as he looked at him - his would be executioner.
It was a face that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
The sound of office doors opening was a welcome relief. Steve had come. Perhaps now he find the answers he was searching for.
It didn't take Steve long to spot his second-in-command. "What are you doing here?"
Danny turned and looked into the eyes of his boss. "Waiting for you."
Steve didn't press the issue, and Danny knew that he wasn't surprised. Steve might act annoyed at first, but not for long. He understood that his men needed to find the solace that only this space seemed to offer.
"Any coffee around here?"
"I just made a fresh pot."
Steve poured two mugs and handed one to him and for a few moments the two of them silently sipped from their drinks as they looked over the land that they had been charged to protect.
Somehow, just be being in Steve's presence made him feel calmer. For several minutes he felt like a real human being again as Steve shared the latest news from this case.
As he laughed while imagining Wo Fat's reaction to the two million dollars being donated to the Policemen's Widows and Orphans Fund, Danny came to an important realization. Steve could still surprise him with the level of his selflessness. Somehow, even in the most difficult of circumstance, his friend always managed to do the right thing.
Danny's train of thought surprised him enough to suddenly stop laughing. Could he believe that and still doubt the events of this day? Had Steve's order been right?
Noticing the sudden change in demeanor in his second-in-command, Steve's facial expressions became serious as he asked, "What is it, Danno?"
"Nothing," Danny lied. "It's been a long day."
Any way you have to.
It better tear your guts out every time you pull that gun, whether you use it or not.
Any way you have to.
Steve would understand wouldn't he?
There were times that Danny cursed the perceptiveness of his boss, but tonight wasn't one of them as Steve saw right through his lie and kept pressing. "I've known you long enough, Danno. Something is bothering you. Is this about Vogler?"
He trusted Steve. He wouldn't have been prepared to carry out that order if he hadn't. He needed to trust him now.
Danny told him.
Steve took another sip of his coffee as he mulled over his detective's confusion. "Let me see if I understand everything. You're beating yourself up about feeling bad about holding a gun to Vogler's head by remembering a conversation in which I told you something would be wrong with you if you didn't feel that way."
Steve's logic immediately made Danny feel embarrassed. "Something like that," he mumbled.
"Danno, you would have pulled that trigger because deep down you understand that threats don't always come from a maniac waving around a weapon. A broken scared man thinking only of his daughter's life was a threat in that situation. You knew that. You understood that. Or you never would have been able to make him back down in the way you did."
"It still feels wrong, Steve."
"It should never feel right to make the decision to kill. Do your duty and remember the pain and the agony of having no choice but to take another life so you will always choose to preserve life when offered that choice."
"Thanks, Steve," Danny whispered. He was grateful that his friend was able to put into words exactly what he needed to hear. To let him know that it was okay for him to feel conflicted. Because being conflicted meant that that he was living the difficult life of cop who would always seek to preserve life.
As Steve told him that fateful day so long ago: God help him if that ever changed.
PAU
Danny's thoughts contain dialogue from "The Ninety-Second War" and "…And They Painted Daisies on His Coffin."