"Not real comfortable in here, y'know?" Steve leaned back against the cold cinderblock wall that comprised one side of the women's bathroom on the third floor of the Kamehameha Building. The corner of one sink made the spot just a bit too small for his tall frame. Humidity seeped in through the crack in the frosted window above his head. Steve McGarrett looked down on his youngest team member.

Kono was on the floor, arms curled around her knees, pale and sweating. Breathing through her mouth, trying not to toss her cookies one more time. Steve stared down at her. He'd seen this before, seen it in the newly enlisted types who hadn't yet seen slaughter. Not combat, no; not pictures of heroism, where gunfire was exchanged and winning meant that the other side recognized that withdrawing politely was the best possible option for the conservation of military resources. No, this was a reaction to barbarism, where the enemy sought to destroy morale from within. Give in, or this will happen to you. Give in, or I will tear your soul from your heart and feed it to you, bite by bitter bite.

There was one, and only one, way to deal with it: set it aside. Acknowledge the evil, but never allow it to rule. Never allow it to dictate.

"Kind of hard to put Hanolo away from in here, Kono. It's Judge Hard-Ass, and he's not noted for conducting his court in the women's bath."

She wouldn't look up at him. "I can't do this, Steve."

There were several things Steve could have said, beginning with yes, you can all the way through are you crazy?

He said none of them. He merely waited, arms folded.

"I mean, I really can't do this." There was a tear in her eye to go along with the spot of blood on her bitten lip.

Wait.

"If I go through with this, if I testify at Hanolo's hearing, they'll kill Danny."

Not a sound.

"I don't care that Danny wants me to do this," she told him wildly, refusing to meet his eyes. "They're going to torture him! I can't let that happen!"

Steve continued to look at her.

"They're going to kill him anyway, aren't they?" Kono finally looked up. She dashed away a tear that escaped. "No matter what I do. If I testify, they'll kill him. If I don't testify, they'll kill him because he knows who they are."

Small nod.

"They're torturing him."

Shrug of agreement.

"You're going to bring him out, right, Steve?"

Steve finally spoke. "Dead or alive." Too honest to promise something he couldn't guarantee. If I can't bring him home alive, I can at least make sure that he has a hero's funeral.

Kono's hands still shook. "I have to do my part. I have to testify. I can't be true to myself, or to Danny, if I don't do this."

Steve reached down his hand. She took it.

He slid his arm around her waist, sensing the need for tactile comfort from the rookie. They exited the small cold room, heading for the third member of their team.

The small sign on the outside of the women's bathroom still hung off of the door: out of order.

Probably only one vehicle, sitting on the dirt with mud splashed up and over the tires, but right now Danny's eyes were insisting that there were two. He squeezed his eyes tightly together, hoping that one of the vehicles would have vanished when he opened them back up again.

Crap. Now there were four.

Likewise, there were multiple sets of quadruplets wandering around the makeshift camp, four Cutlers sitting on four identical boulders with four identical knives with which each was paring four identical fingernails. There were four more island boys, each with their own cell phone, looking up through the tall trees at the sky in unison for some mystical 'can you hear me now?' ritual. Danny thought about trying to count up the individuals in the crowd and dividing by four, and decided against it. It'll only depress me.

This wasn't going to be a permanent location, no matter how many people were milling around. It was just a stopping point for the moment, so that the group wouldn't have to refill the gas tanks of each duplicate vehicle as they moseyed around the island. It had the added advantage of nobody around to question what they were doing with a battered and bruised body in the trunk of the car.

Danny didn't remember leaving the shanty that he'd been in, but it had obviously happened. That part of his life remained blissfully unclear, although there were still parts of him that would be happy to remind him of the events should he be so foolish as to move any part of his body not intimately involved with breathing. Even expanding his rib cage to inhale was not a pleasant experience; someone was clearly holding a lighted candle to his back and scorching the skin back there inch by inch. Must be another set of quadruplets, he decided muzzily.

He vaguely remembered saying something to Steve McGarrett, and Steve saying something back. Probably was important, and Danny wished he could remember what the hell they were talking about.

Oh, yeah. Hanolo. Bastard at the club, wanted Danny to off Kono on the spot. Like that was going to happen.

"He awake yet?"

"I heard him moving around. You got any signal?"

"Not here. This is like the middle of nowhere, man."

"Like, this is why we're here, man," four of the Cutler's told one set of quadruplets irritably. "Unless you want to join Hanolo in front of a judge? Get 'im over here. Tie him up to that tree branch so he looks like he's on his feet."

Everything hurt when they grabbed his arms and hoisted him up. His back screamed in scalding agony, and the sharp stabbing pain suggested that his broken ribs had failed to heal themselves in the past hour or two. Was he actually breathing while those moans were coming out of his mouth? Danny wished that unconsciousness would set back in.

He achieved something akin to stupor by the time they finished tying his arms over his head, swaying in the cool evening breeze. Okay, the soles of his feet didn't hurt. That was one thing. Two, if he counted the fact that he had two feet.

"Smile for the camera, Williams."

Camera? What camera? All he saw was four little cell phones in front of his face—

Crkt!

Clarity. Stark, horrid clarity.

He didn't realize that he'd screamed until he heard the sound floating in the distance. The four vehicles merged into a single jeep. The quadruplets turned back into one bastard holding a cell phone in front of Danny's face to catch every wavelet of sound.

It was all being filmed. It was being filmed on the little phone's memory, not for Steve McGarrett's benefit, but to prevent Kono from appearing at Hanolo's arraignment.

There wasn't a damn thing Danny Williams could do to stop it.

The voice that came out of his cell phone was hushed. "You do realize, Steve, that I could get court-martialed for this."

"Hey, I got the governor's backing for this, Kathy."

"Not my chain of command," the navy lieutenant replied nervously. "You getting this?"

"Chin?" Steve looked over at his team member, hovering over the computer screen set into the table.

"Not yet—there it is." Chin pounced on the tab one-handedly. "Coming in now. On screen." He pushed the satellite images onto the wall screen so that Steve, Kono, and Chin could all visualize the area.

The remnants of SWAT were there in the midst of the Kahana Preserve, searching for clues as to where Hanolo's crew had gone. Steve could see Sgt. Takahara's goatee going gray in the extreme clarity of the military grade imaging, watching the man and the rest of his team as they identified different aspects of the crime scene.

Takahara's voice came over more conventional channels, sounding sharp and clear across the police radio. He didn't know that the Five-O team was watching him through a purloined military channel, but he still automatically glanced upward as he talked. "Somebody was here, Steve. Signs are pretty obvious, and fresh. They high-tailed it out of here probably about twenty minutes ahead of us, maybe more."

"Can you catch them?"

Heavy, frustrated sigh. "Not likely. Most of the trail is hard. It will take us too long to track them. They'll get too far ahead too fast."

"Which direction?"

"Best guess: north. We'll take some tire track impressions from in this clearing, then the tracks fade out on the hard-packed dirt as the trail heads north."

"They leave anything behind?"

Hesitation. "Not much, Steve."

All three of the team caught it: the pause. The sense that there was something that Takahara didn't want to share. Steve exchanged a worried glance with the other two. "What's 'not much'?"

On screen, Takahara looked away, even though the man was unaware that his every move was blown up to twice life-size on the wall. "There's a couple scraps of rope with some blood on them. Forensics is taking a sample right now. We'll see if it matches any known samples."

Known samples, like blood belonging to Detective Danny Williams.

Steve spared a glance for Kono. The rookie was biting her lip again; was he going to need another talk with her, to make certain that she didn't blow it on the stand?

Imperceptible shake of the head from Chin: she'll come through, boss. I'll make certain of that.

Steve turned back to Takahara's image automatically. "Do your best to track them. Call in whatever you get. I'm headed out your way; see what I can find."

"We'll find him, Steve." It was a promise that Takahara didn't think he would able to keep. "Takahara out."

Steve cut the connection, watching Takahara and his men round themselves up and take off in their vehicles. North, he presumed; that was what Takahara had said. He moved to his other source of intel: "Kathy?"

"Still here, Steve. You finished with me?" Before I get caught?

"Almost," he lied. "Pull back. Let me see the surrounding area of the Kahana."

The scene on the wall obediently zoomed out, the trees blurring into a mass of green sliced into irregular shapes by the dirt roads that passed into the wild. Steve studied the terrain, trying to guess where Hanolo's men had gone, well aware of the other two beside him trying to figure out the same thing. It could almost be anywhere, he thought with despair. The north road led to an intersection, and from there his partner could have been carried off into almost any direction. "More," he ordered the naval lieutenant. "I want to see if there are any moving vehicles in the area."

"It'll be hard to see at this height."

"Try, anyway."

The roads in the image shrank to mere threads. Kono approached the wall, trying to make the indistinct images give up their information. "Maybe here?"

"Or here." Chin too pointed. "No. This one doesn't seem to be moving."

"Unless they pulled over, to hide."

Static crackled from the intercom. "Yes, sir!" the lieutenant's voice rapped out smartly. "Pulling up the Far East theater right now!"

The image on the wall flashed, and an expanse of water dotted with three American navy vessels replaced the greenery they had just been seeing. A moment later the static dropped off along with the connection.

"Chin!"

"Got it!" Chin darted for the computer controls, pulling back the last image of the Kahana Preserve that they had.

But the image was no longer real-time, no longer feeding them data any more useful than the tourist map handed out at the ranger stations. Steve ground his teeth in frustration, wanting to bang his head against the wall where the image sat.

It was Kono who put it into words. "What do we do now?"

No choice. "You go to court, Kono," Steve ordered. "I'm going after him." He couldn't sit around here, doing nothing, waiting for another phone call to come in, riding herd on a rookie who was terrified that her testimony would get someone killed. Eventually one of those cell phone calls would be announcing the death of a very fine cop and a very fine father, and Lt. Commander Steve McGarrett would be left only wishing that he'd done something before it finished hitting the fan.

His cell pinged with an email arrival, and Steve almost ignored it. Hanolo's people had been calling, live voices; not this time. His nerves wouldn't let him not check it out, and he glanced at the small screen: DanW. His blood ran cold. This time they'd sent a picture—no, it was a short video across the cell phone towers. What would this one be? A ten second video of Danny Williams getting his throat cut? Steve couldn't help but look at Kono, the girl this time refusing to bite her lip. The knuckles were white, though, and Steve could see the tightly controlled tremor.

"Is it—?"

No choice. Steve thumbed it open, hit the button to start the playback—and just as quickly turned the sound to mute. There wasn't any question about what was coming out of Danny's mouth, and Steve wasn't going to let Kono hear it. "Yes," he told her, more harshly than he intended. "Just a picture. You don't need to see it."

More than a picture. It was a ten second advertisement for Hell, with Danny as the Star Tourist.

"Triangulate the signal," Steve ordered Chin. "Give me a position. A direction, at least."

"Cell towers. Got it."

Had to give Kono something to do, or she'd crack. "Kono, get me some maps of the Kahana," he instructed her. "Hard copies, something I can take with me. I need some showing the trails, and some topo maps with elevation. You can find some around here?"

"I'll get them," she promised.

He really did need them, Steve told himself, watching her scurry off in search of the prize, if he intended to go after his partner. It had been years since he'd been home, more years since he'd hiked in and out of the preserves. Rope; he'd need that. Knife: obviously. Gun? Probably not, although he'd stick it into his camo holster, the one he'd kept with him since he'd gotten home all those months ago. One man against several meant stealth was the better option but there was always the chance that Steve would need to put a few bullets in the right spot.

Or put one through your partner's eye, to spare him any more torture.

Steve refused to entertain that thought. This was modern America, not the Old West with a dude in a black Stetson torturing some poor slob for the fun of it. Not some far off land with the village tribes people chanting through a ritual end for the foreigner.

He opened the cell phone once more, refusing to meet Chin's eyes.

"Bad?"

"Yeah." The look on Danny's face would haunt his nightmares for the next three years if not more. If it had that effect on him, what would it be like for Grace's father? Danny would never allow his daughter to sleep over, not if it meant exposing her to leftover screams in the night. Steve steeled himself; it was time to get his partner out of this mess. "I'm going after him, Chin."

Chin flexed his arm, the one in the sling, a thoughtful look on his face.

Steve correctly interpreted that look. "Not a chance, Chin. The way I intend to go in, you'd only slow me down. Besides, I need you to ride herd on Kono."

Steve's team member almost objected, then sighed, acknowledging the rightness of Steve's decision. "I don't like the idea of you going in alone. No back up." It was a last gasp of protest.

Steve didn't shrug, didn't disagree. "I don't much like it, either. But I've trained for this; you haven't. Not like this. And there isn't one inch of the Kahana that I haven't hiked through."

"Ten years ago," Chin reminded him, and sighed again. "Trade cells with me," he told his boss, handing his own over to Steve. "Any call that comes in, I'll trace it and call you with a location."