Lying on the cool marble floor of the lobby, Steve fought to remain still, although the urge to curl up into a ball and protect his vitals was almost overwhelming. He had seriously underestimated how strung out these men were and he had paid the price. His head throbbed in time to every beat of his heart and his cheek rested in a small puddle of his own blood. He didn't think he had been unconscious for long, but he wasn't sure. Thinking was hard. He thought that he'd only received a glancing blow from the baseball bat; from the shattered remains of lights and mirrors, Steve knew that he would have probably died if he had been hit squarely. All the same, he knew he was in big trouble and he couldn't think clearly enough to work out how to get out of this mess.
The drunken man with the gun was shouting. Steve couldn't catch any words, just the sounds. The shouting was less hard on his throbbing head than the earlier shooting had been, but it was still unpleasant. Was the man shouting at him, Steve wondered? He risked glancing up, a move that almost had him whimpering aloud in agony and caused him to swallow hard against rising nausea. No; in the confused blur of light that passed as eyesight, Steve thought the man was shouting to someone outside. He closed his eyes and drifted for a few moments.
As he blearily came back to reality, Steve vaguely wondered if it was Chin or Kono was in charge outside. He trusted them both with his life. He was sure they would manage to talk these guys down somehow. Wouldn't they?
A voice drew his attention and Steve gritted his teeth as he forced his addled, bruised brain to listen. The voice was familiar. Who was it? He squinted into the horrendously bright light.
Was that Danny? Steve blinked. It certainly looked to his skewed perceptions like his newest detective. It couldn't be! Danny was on a day off. What could he be doing here? Surely neither Chin nor Kono would have sent him in here. And he wasn't wearing a suit as far as Steve could tell. He was confused as he tried to work this out and then decided it didn't matter. Danny was there.
It was almost as though Danny's familiar voice had leant clarity to Steve's brain. He could hear Danny's voice quite clearly, as though listening to a radio show.
"Put down the weapons and put your hands up," Danny said calmly. "We want to end this peacefully. Tell me what's wrong and I'll do what I can to sort it out."
No! Steve wanted to protest but his tongue seemed to be cleaved to the roof of his mouth. Danny shouldn't have been allowed to come in here. He was a good cop and had the makings of a great cop, but someone with more experience should have done the negotiating. Yeah, someone like you jeered a small voice in his mind. Look how well that turned out!
"Are you really a cop, kid?" slurred the guy with the bat. He was so drunk he could barely speak.
"Put the bat down," Danny urged. His voice was calm and controlled, but it still annoyed the drunk.
"Don' tell me what to do!" the batter snarled and swung the bat in a deadly arc towards the young detective. At the same moment, the gun man lifted the weapon, which had been pointing to the floor, and Danny saw it was aiming at Steve!
There was no time to think – only act. Danny had made enough of a show coming in here to hopefully keep the attention of the two men off the sharpshooters getting into position in the foliage outside. They should have both men in range. Now he had to protect Steve and if that was at the price of his own life, that was a price he was willing to pay. He threw himself over Steve, feeling a solid whack on the back of his shoulder that instantly numbed his left arm. Bracing himself to feel the burning bite of a bullet, Danny fumbled for the gun he'd borrowed while still trying to protect Steve with his own body and overcome the pain.
Shots suddenly rang through the lobby, deafening in the enclosed space. Something heavy landed on Danny's legs, pinning him in place. He tried to kick free, but was unable to shift the weight. Even with the gun in his hand, Danny knew he was a sitting duck and tried to lever himself up on his elbows to shoot. His left arm refused to obey him. He squinted up and saw, to his utter relief, armed cops swarming in and taking control of the situation, removing the gun from the drunken man's hand. "Clear!" shouted a voice.
Next instant, Duke was kneeling next to him and Steve. "Danny!"
"I'm okay," Danny mumbled. He let Duke take the gun from him and felt the weight lifted from his legs. He saw it was the gunman and he was obviously dead. Danny swallowed hard. "Steve?"
"Get… off … me," replied a voice from the man pinned under Danny's body.
Duke and Chin helped Danny up while Kono knelt by Steve and kept the Five-O chief from getting up. The ambulance was waiting for the nod and hurried in to take charge.
It didn't take long for them to immobilise Steve and strap him to a stretcher. Steve had complained weakly throughout. Duke continued to support the shaken Danny and helped him outside and into the ambulance. "I need to stay," Danny protested. "I'm in charge."
"You were, bruddah," Kono contradicted.
"Now you're in charge of Steve," Chin assured him.
"Take over the scene," Danny ordered. He was beginning to get feeling back in his arm and wasn't entirely sure it was a good thing. He knew he ought to stay – it was his scene after all – but somehow or other he had been out-voted. There again, he was concerned about Steve. The older man was ashen and his face was stained with blood. Head injuries were tricky.
As the ambulance pulled away, Duke looked at the Five-O detectives. "Am I missing something?" he asked. "Danny was ordering you around – and us, too, earlier."
"No, you haven't missed anything," Chin replied. "But watch this space," he added mysteriously before going back inside to supervise the clean-up.
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The gunman was dead, but the bat-wielding thug was still alive. As he was bundled into the ambulance, Kono loomed over him. "What did ya do dis for?" he asked. All he got in reply was a mouthful of abuse. Kono gestured for one of the uniformed cops to go with the man to the hospital and he and Chin set about gathering as much information as they could. The staff from the Ilikai had mostly escaped with minor injuries, but one of the receptionists had received a heavy blow to the head and was not expected to live through the night. The person that had been thought to be dead had actually been playing possum and had only cuts and bruises from the flying glass. He was the barman and from him they learned what had happened.
"They were drunk as skunks when they came in," he explained. "I refused to serve them and they went away. I didn't think any more about it until they came back about five minutes later and this one guy was carrying a baseball bat. He began to smash up the place and everyone ran! Then the other guy produced a gun and started shooting everything."
"All because you wouldn't give him a drink?" Chin clarified.
"Far as I can make out," agreed the barman. He went off to get his injuries tended to.
Further investigation found several bottles of liquor lying open in the lobby and the whole place stank like a brewery. As the lab boys moved in, the detectives speculated that the men had opened and drunk from the various bottles, then dropping them and opening something else. They would find out for sure when questioning the bat-wielding man.
There was nothing more they could do at the scene. They headed back to their cars and were stopped by the cop who was on barricade duty. "Guys – this girl was with Danny earlier. She's looking for him." Penny was standing there beside him.
Neither of the Five-O detectives had met Penny. "What do you want with Danny, miss?" Chin asked.
"We were on a date and when he went to help here, I left," Penny replied. "I… I wasn't very nice to him and I wanted to apologise and see if he would go dancing with me. Where is he?"
"I'm sorry," Chin replied gently. "Danny is tied up with official duties and won't be able to see you again tonight." It was true; Danny had officially been left in charge of making sure Steve was taken care of. Chin wasn't going to tell this young woman that his colleague might be hurt, too. He had no idea who she was. "If you give me a number, I'll pass it on to him," he offered.
"Oh, he knows where I'm staying," Penny replied. "Don't bother to tell him anything." She stomped off into the night.
"She's one crazy lady," the cop mentioned. "When Danny showed up here earlier, she stormed off then, too."
"He's better off without her," Chin opined.
"Real pretty, though," Kono admitted. "Danny sure can pick 'em."
"In more ways than one," Chin smiled. "Let's go, bruddah."