Pressure Makes Diamonds
Chapter 3
Danny had left Steve hopeful. That was a good start, but he knew he was far from solving everything. He had to help Kono now. Internal Affairs had brought her in for questioning and he had advised her to not say anything until he got back to her. Steve had gotten arrested at the same time so he hadn't had a chance to touch base with her. He had called her and had found out that she had gone back to Five-0 so he headed back there.
Danny looked around at the shambles that was once their offices and couldn't help, but feel a weight both of responsibility and loss. They had torn the place apart to find evidence against both Steve and Kono. From what he had been told by Jenna, whom he had entrusted to keep an eye on things, they hadn't found anything substantial. That was a good thing, but he knew it was only a temporary reprieve and more sadly, it still meant that Five-0 was no longer in business. He would need to talk to her as well. Chin was working inside of HPD, but he knew that he would need to have help working things from the outside as well. He would ask Jenna for her help and would only take it with her full knowledge of the consequences for helping him. Despite her enthusiasm for the insane things they had done in the name of justice, he wouldn't accept her help unless she understood fully what she could be getting herself into.
As he walked towards Kono's office, he heard sobbing. His heart lurched into his throat at the sound and kept walking towards it. In a strange way, having a daughter and having had to comfort her through her own tears, Danny felt oddly attuned to that sound of distress. Kono was skilled, her roundhouse kick was to be admired and appropriately feared, but despite all of her physical abilities and training, she was still a young woman, tough yet still vulnerable and very inexperienced about all of the darker spectrums of law enforcement. He envied that she wasn't jaded yet, but knew that it would only be a matter of time. Experience would not only give her the skills needed to season her, but it would also damage and distort her rose-colored perspective of law enforcement. Her zeal to help her cousin from dying at the hands of a gun running maniac was understandable, but Danny knew that despite the emotional resolve that had gotten her through helping Steve with the forfeiture burglary, her ability to see past the consequences had been shrouded in the protection of being in Five-0, of having Steve and Danny as well as Chin watching her back. One third of that protection was in jail and her cousin was ostensibly a mole in the very police department she had vowed to be a part of. Danny was all that was left between her and being discharged from the work that he knew had fulfilled her. She had only just started her career and now was suddenly facing yet another career ending event. To Danny, it wasn't fair and he felt just as strongly to do everything he could to save her career.
He lightly knocked on her doorjamb. She looked up and didn't even bother to wipe away her tears.
"Hey," Danny gently uttered.
"Hey," Kono said, her voice hiccupping from her tears.
Danny pulled out a pocket pack of Kleenex and handed it to her. She smiled and took it from him, pulling a couple out to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.
"Guess I don't have to ask how you're doing," Danny said as he said in a chair opposite her.
She just shook her head.
"You up to telling me what happened?"
"Yeh, yeh, they put me in a line up for the witness they had and she identified me," Kono said. "I know who the witness is."
"You do? Well, that's good, right?"
"Maybe, she's a sweet, if a little nosy woman, who asked me what I was doing around the sewer where Steve was getting into the locker from below."
"That all they have?"
"Far as I know. I just told her that we were doing some water work. I don't know how they found her or how they're connecting me to the stolen money, but…"
"Maybe they're not. All they have is some old lady saying that you were at a sewer hole."
"Danny, I'm a cop or was…how am I going to explain what I was doing there?" Kono said, her crying resuming.
"Hey, hey, let's not jump the gun here. And by the way, you're still a cop," Danny said as he stood up to go around the desk to where Kono was sitting and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
"They took my badge and gun."
"They don't make you a cop, Kono. You're more than those things."
Kono took in a breath. "Chin said something similar on the day of my graduation."
"Well, he should know, right? Look, from the sound of it, they have a weak case. All we'll need to do is find an explanation for why you were there. I'll think of something."
Kono looked up with a shaky smile.
"You? Lying? Now look who's been around McGarrett too long."
Danny walked back to his chair.
"If you're going to be insulting, I'm leaving," Danny teased.
Kono laughed and it had felt wonderful, like a HUGE weight had been lifted. She knew that she was far from out of the woods. She could still lose her badge and a part of her felt guilty that Danny could lose his by lying for her, but she knew that just like he had placed himself in the Governor's anteroom with her, Steve and Chin to take whatever punishment the team would be given, even though he hadn't participated in one thing other than stay by Chin's side throughout, he would face whatever consequences for her. Danny was a constant comfort in times of crisis.
"How's Steve holding up?"
"As well as can be expected, but I have to figure out how to get him out of there. Given the charges against him, he is not going to get bail, but I know that we have to keep him from Hesse and protect him from Wo Fat. He's a sitting duck in there. With the Governor dead, we've got nothing to use to shield him," Danny recounted then his expression changed.
Kono noticed. "What? What is it?"
"Sang Min. We have him in protective custody. I need to talk to him before he loses that."
"And gets killed by Wo Fat."
Danny pulled out his phone and tapped the screen to dial the number he wanted.
"Chin, we need to get to Sang Min."
TBC