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Steve distracted himself by spending the rest of the afternoon by the ocean with Jamba. The kid was slowly getting better at swimming, and Steve enjoyed teaching him the basics very much. He could do that all day long. But he had somewhere else to be today.

"I´m ready," Jamba announced, rushing down the stairway with a backpack thrown over his shoulder. "Can we go?"

Steve glanced at the watch. "What´s the rush?" he asked, a smile tugging at his lips. "You´ve got all night."

"Charlie said to hurry up. He wants to teach me how to play games on…" Jamba paused, scrunching his eyebrows. "I think it was called X-something."

"Xbox?"

"Yes. So can we go, please?"

Steve´s heart melted with Jamba´s impatience to spend time with his friend. No words could express how thankful he was for Danny and his kids, now more than ever. For most people, it was nearly impossible to make Jamba trust them. But Charlie wormed into Jamba´s heart just like Danny into Steve´s and kept guiding him through the world that was nothing like he´d known until recently.

All the poor kid had known was death, pain, and suffering and he would never be able to forget what had happened. How could he? His parents had been murdered trying to protect him and his older brother. Both boys were then taken and forced to live captive in slavery among so many others like them. Working hard every day without being paid, starving, injured, beaten, living in terror, was Jamba´s reality.

Things so simple as a clean bed, warm breakfast, or even school were something Jamba had spent almost a year and a half only dreaming of. He had managed to pull through and had been lucky enough to be saved by Steve and his friend Adama, who had died for the cause later on. But Jamba´s brother wasn´t that lucky. He had cut his thigh open with a machete and left this world way too soon at the age of eleven.

Steve swore to love and protect Jamba at all costs, to never let him feel that kind of pain again. To show him how to live in a world where most people weren´t monsters waiting for an opportunity to hurt him.

As it showed up, the best person to help him accomplish this was little Charlie Williams, who showed Jamba how to be an eight-year-old again.

"Okay, then let´s go."

Steve dropped Jamba at Danny´s house at six.

"You sure you don´t mind staying for the night?" Steve asked for the hundredth time. "I can come pick you up after a few games if you want to."

Jamba nodded, brimming with excitement. "Yes."

"Yes? Yes, what? You want to stay or should I come earlier?"

"He´ll be all right," Danny stepped in, smiling at Jamba. "We´re gonna have fun, right buddy?"

"Right," Jamba said with a grin.

Steve couldn´t identify the weird feeling in his gut, but maybe that was just nerves from leaving Jamba out of his sight, or maybe because his ex wanted to see him. He wasn´t sure. He pushed that feeling aside and crouched down.

"All right. Come here," he said.

Jamba threw his arms around Steve´s neck in a second and buried his face into his shoulder.

Steve squeezed right back. "Have fun and be good, okay?" he said. "I´ll see you in the morning."

"Okay."

Reluctant to let go, Steve held him a little longer and kissed him on the top of his head. "I love you, son," he said, remembering how much he had wished to hear that a little bit more often as a child.

Jamba didn´t reply, but didn´t pull away either.

"Hi Jamba, hi, uncle Steve!" Charlie´s voice carried over to him.

Steve lifted his head and let go of Jamba, who rushed inside right away.

"Hi," Jamba said, a smile spread over his face.

"Hey, buddy," Steve greeted him.

Danny shuffled in the doorway. "You try and have a good evening," he said to Steve.

"Yeah. Thanks for letting Jamba stay."

"Don´t worry about him, okay? He´s safe with me."

Steve´s lips curled up. "I know."

"All right, go. You´ll be late."

Steve waved his goodbye to Danny and the kids, and headed out.

Lynn texted Steve she would meet him in Alley Cat in downtown Honolulu, which he considered a weird spot, but didn´t argue. The bar looked unappealing from the outside, but Steve wasn´t an expert as to what was okay for women these days.

He went inside. It was quiet, with just a few other people. Lynn was already waiting for him. She sat at the bar, looking down at her phone, and didn´t see him as he came inside. He stood and watched her for a moment. It´s been almost five years since he´d seen her the last time. She was as beautiful as he remembered. She was sitting on the stool, her slender legs crossed elegantly and offset by a tight white dress and a pair of heels.

Steve felt the burn of the tension in his stomach. He was frozen to the spot and had started to entertain thoughts of leaving when she pushed the phone away and turned in his direction.

She saw him and smiled.

Steve couldn´t turn back now. He crossed the room.

"Steve!"

Lynn stood and, smiling again, put her hands on his shoulders and reached to kiss him on the cheek. Her perfume was sweet, he was dizzied, the smell instantly casting him to the time they were dating.

"Lynn. You look great," he said.

"You too."

Steve allowed himself a smile. "I look old and tired."

"Tired, maybe. Old, not really. But I see you´ve got a few more scars too."

A few didn´t describe it properly. After the latest experience at the hands of the brute that was Khalfani Iwu, his skin was scarred up from head to toe. But the worst of the scars caused by relentless flogging were luckily hidden from her sight.

She sat and Steve did the same.

"Do you want a drink?" she said, nodding down to the empty glass in front of her on the bar.

"Just orange juice for me."

Lynn looked at him quizzically.

"I´m driving," he added.

"Your choice. I definitely need something stronger, though."

Steve noticed how her eyes darkened behind the nervous smile she threw him. "Why? What´s going on?"

"Just had some big decisions to do," she said. "And I didn´t really like either of the options. But I don´t want to talk about that right now. Why don´t you tell me how have you been since I haven't seen you?"

Steve sucked in a breath. A lot had changed since he´d broken up with Lynn. His life was filled with a series of events that kept waking him up at night and draining him off slowly, piece by piece. What was he supposed to say?

Chin and Kono left Five-0, and I haven´t seen them since then.

My mentor took a bullet for me and died in my arms because a man from my military past was out for blood.

My mother died in a similar fashion not even a year later, after I´ve hunted her down in Mexico and blew her cover.

I couldn´t wrap my head around it so I took the first opportunity to leave the island, thinking I was helping a good cause at the same time.

Turned out someone needed my help in a completely different way and I got dragged into a terrible child´s slavery problem instead. I had to stop it, but it didn´t really work out as planned.

Someone didn´t like me knowing stuff and tampered with my plane in an attempt to kill me. Failed. But to have a chance at exposing the truth I had to make everyone believe he succeeded, including my closest friends, for ten long months.

Then I foolishly dragged Danny into it too, which nearly cost him his life. I myself barely escaped death, only thanks to my friend´s persistence.

It was all worth it in the end, though, and a lot of the children were saved from a terrible fate, but several of my friends died in the process.

"I´m a father now," he blurted out instead, focusing on the only good thing that came out of the whole mess his life had been in the last few years. "I´ve adopted a boy six months ago. His name´s Jamba."

Lynn didn´t hide the surprise. "Oh, really? You´ve got a son?"

"And a dog, Eddie."

She smiled. "A kid and a dog? I want to hear more about them both."

Steve soon lost himself in a pleasant conversation. It was nice to talk to Lynn again. For a moment it made him wonder why things hadn´t really worked out for them.

After telling her about Jamba, he´d asked about her, and then he talked to her just about anything with surprising ease, completely oblivious to the impending threat.

Roederer parked his car down the road, not so close to the bar that McGarrett might spot him, but close enough to attend to things when the time was right. The windows of the rental were tinted. McGarrett wouldn't be able to see him.

Roederer had received a text to confirm that both the woman and McGarrett had arrived and that they were talking at the bar. Lynn had instructions to keep him there long enough for his drink to be spiked. She had impressed him with her ability to dissemble. She and McGarrett had a lot of reacquainting to do, he supposed. He didn't think that McGarrett would be leaving any time soon.

He looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes had passed. He had no idea whether he had frightened the barman enough to have him go through with what he needed him to do. That unpredictability was the only weakness in his plan. If he didn't, McGarrett would gain a reprieve. Roederer's instructions were very precise. It would have been easy to take McGarrett out now, but that was not what he had in mind. It would have been too easy and he wanted him to suffer first.

Focusing on what lay ahead, he kept waiting for the right moment.

He had stopped at a gas station on the way to the bar and purchased the things that he would need for his work this evening: two bottles of bourbon and two six-packs of strong beer. He had moved on and bought a box of powdered green nitrile gloves in the pharmacy next door. The items were in a plastic bag on the seat next to him.

He had almost everything he needed.

Now he just needed McGarrett.

A phone buzzed in Steve´s pocket.

When Danny´s name popped up on the screen, he froze in anticipation something had happened.

"I´m sorry, I have to take this," he said, standing up and tilting the screen toward Lynn so she could see it was Danny calling.

She giggled. "Go ahead. I´ll be right back, then."

He walked further from the bar and answered the phone. "Hey, what´s going on? Is Jamba okay?"

"Would you please relax? He´s fine."

Steve released a sigh in relief and watched Lynn leave to the bathroom. "Okay, good. Then why are you calling right now?"

"Wanted to know how it´s going with Lynn," Danny said. "Did she tell you why she wanted to meet you?"

He shook his head. "No, she didn´t. But if that´s the only reason you´re calling I´m hanging up right now."

"Come on, I thought we share stuff like that," Danny protested.

"Not in the middle of something. I´ll talk to you in the morning."

"So it is something, huh?"

"Bye, Danny."

Steve hung up and headed back to the bar.

Ben watched the man make a phone call in the corner of the room.

"Can I get the same again, please?" the woman asked.

"Another orange juice and a gin?"

"Yes."

"Of course."

She got up, collected her phone from the bar, and went to the bathrooms.

Ben swallowed hard. He was nervous. He had been thinking about what Paul had told him and, the way he figured it, he didn't really have a choice. He was deep in the hole, there was no way he could find the money to pay him back, and, worse, there was something about the way Paul had looked at him that made him even more fearful than he had been with Masao. There was something icy about his manner. He had looked at Ben with disdain, as if he was nothing, and, when he had shown him his pistol and made his polite threat, Ben had believed him.

He quickly filled both glasses with ice, added gin and tonic and a slice of lime to one, and poured orange juice into the other. He had the bag that Paul had given him in his pocket. He reached down, found it amid the loose change and lint, and brought it out. He unsealed the mouth of the bag and tipped half of the dirty white powder inside it into the gin and then the other half into the orange juice. He took a stirrer and whisked it around in both drinks until the powder had dissolved.

The man returned and, a moment later, the woman came back in through the door.

Ben picked up both glasses and set them on the bar. His hands were shaking.

"Thank you," the woman said, taking out a twenty-dollar note from her purse and handing them to him.

He took the money and put it in the till. When he returned to them with their change, they had both taken sips of their drinks. He put the change on the bar and had to clasp his hands together to stop them from shaking. He expected them to comment on an unusual taste and then to ask him what he had done with their drinks, but they didn't seem to notice the powder. Perhaps it was tasteless, as Paul had suggested.

Another customer signaled that he wanted to order drinks. The distraction was a welcome relief. Ben left them as they took another sip of the drinks, and went to take the new order.

Minutes dragged as he waited for what would happen next. After a while, he didn´t know what to do.

Thirty minutes had passed since he´d spiked the drinks. The man and the woman were both still at the bar, but they were incapacitated. It was as if they had gone from being sober to utterly drunk without having to take another drink. The man, Steve, was slumped forward, seemingly unaware that his elbows were resting in a pool of spilled beer. He wore a look of confusion on his face, his eyes closed and his brow wrinkled from frowning. His friend, Lynn, was faring no better. She had slipped from her stool and now she was standing next to Steve, her hand clutching his elbow as her knees buckled.

Ben looked at the other customers. This was the kind of place where people came to get wasted, but it was early, and no one else was nearly as drunk as they appeared to be. They stood out. He felt bad for what he had done to them. Paul had promised him that they wouldn't be harmed, but now he worried that he had been lying. He wondered whether he should call someone for help. Perhaps he should call for an ambulance.

He opened the hatch and had just stepped out from behind the bar when he saw a man and a woman sitting in a booth at the back. It was dark, and they had positioned themselves there so that they could watch what was happening in the room via the mirror that Ben had installed to make space look bigger than it really was. They stood up.

And then Ben saw Paul, too. He was wearing the same neat suit, the glitter of the lights sparkling off the lenses of his glasses. The other man and the woman headed toward the bar. The man was dressed similar to Paul, although his suit was not as well fitted. He was bigger, too, his jacket a little too tight around muscular shoulders. The woman was compact but plainly fit and strong, with a hardened look to her face that suggested it would be foolish to annoy her.

Paul came up to him. "Well done," he said.

The man and the woman arrived behind him.

"Who are they?" Ben said to Paul, gesturing to the other two.

"They're here to help me."

"To do what?"

"We're going to take them with us."

"You didn't say…"

"I'm not asking for your approval. I'm telling you what's going to happen."

"You said they wouldn't be hurt."

"And they won't."

The second man ducked down and looped Steve's arm over his shoulders. He put his arm around Steve's waist, straightened up, and then carefully helped him slide off the stool. Steve had no strength in his legs, and he almost collapsed. The man was strong, though, and he was able to hold him upright. He pretended to say something to Steve, laughing as if they were old friends and he had made a joke about the condition that he had found him in. Steve tried to speak, but the effort was too much for him, his mouth curling around the words as if he had forgotten how to speak.

Paul stood aside as the man helped Steve to the exit. "If anyone asks, you don't know who they are."

"But I don't know who they are."

The woman put her arm around the woman's torso and half-carried her in the same direction.

"They got drunk, their friends arrived, they left. That's it."

"I don't know about this," Ben said before he could think to be silent.

"Do you want your debt to be paid, or do I have to look at collecting it another way?"

"No. It's fine. Just go."

Paul nodded, and, without another word, he turned and followed the others out the door and into the street beyond.

*to be continued*

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