A/N : Wow! Thank you all for the reviews and PM's. I really do appreciate the feedback and I am glad that I haven't offended anyone so far. Was very worried about publishing this given the subject matter. Now why you understand that the rest of this story is M rated. I have tried to keep this from being too graphic though you will see some of what happened through Mac's eyes in the following chapters. As for this one it's Jo that is shocked by what the doctor's have in mind.

Chapter 10

The few people that were in the office at such an early hour tiptoed carefully around hardly daring to disturb their colleague and friend as he sat rifling through statement after statement, frustration written over his face and in the tense lines of his body. They suspected that he had been there all night but no one dared to ask. In fact the air in the detective's office felt so tense they were sure it could be cut with a knife. By now they had all heard what had happened. Maggy Gunn's photograph was plastered everywhere. She was now the NYPD's number one wanted person.

The door to the detective's office swung open with a grating squeak that caused everyone to look up. Even Don Flack had to tear his eyes away from the pile of statements strewn across his desk. A uniformed officer pointed towards Don. He was accompanied by an attractive young Asian woman in a neat tan linen dress and ballerina slippers. She had a huge leather bag slung over one shoulder. He said something to her and she nodded before making her way across the office.

"Detective Flack?" she asked in a timid voice looking nervously at the exhausted-looking, unshaven man seated in front of her. "They told me at the front desk that I should ask for you. It's about the woman you're looking for." She pointed at the poster of Maggy Gunn. Don felt a small spark of hope as she looked at him with her penetrating dark eyes.

"Please sit down … Miss?"

"Chang … Nicole Chang." She smiled as she took a seat.

"Do you know where she is?" asked Don hopefully.

Nicole shook her head immediately extinguishing the small spark. "No I'm sorry, but I can tell you what she looks like now."

Don frowned. Nicole reached down into her bag and pulled out a magazine and a board with swatches of hair in a myriad of colours. "I work at Gloria's. On Baker Street." Nicole pointed at the poster again. "She came in on Monday. I cut and coloured her hair." Nicole opened the magazine to show a retouched picture of a pale, almost anorexic looking fashion model. "She wanted that style ..." Nicole pointed to one of the swatches in a rich auburn. "... and that colour." Don stared at the picture for a moment without saying anything. "Erm … I don't know if that helps at all ..." She broke off as Don looked up at her, something in his eyes making her catch her breath.

"Help? You have no idea … thank you." he whispered, the dying spark turning into a tiny flame. Seconds later the flame grew into a furnace.

Nicole smiled with pleasure. "I 'm sorry that I can't tell you where she is now but if you wanted to know where she went when she left the salon, you could always ask Max. He might remember where he took her."

Don couldn't believe his ears. "Max?"

Nicole nodded enthusiastically. "He drives for Star Cabs. He often hangs about outside the salon if he's in need of a fare. Our clients don't like to get their new hair-styles messed up. I saw him pick her up as she left."

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'CSI:NY – CSI:NY – CSI:NY – CSI:NY – CSI:NY'

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Jo sat in the hard-backed chair looking at the bandaged hand. She ached to reach out but could not. The most natural response to seeing someone in a hospital bed was to reach out and hold their hand ... to comfort … to reassure … to let them know someone was there. But she couldn't. So instead she talked, softly, quietly, hesitantly, unsure as to whether he could hear her. She told him about the latest office gossip, the weather, Ellie's soccer match, her latest argument with Tyler, the baseball results. All the while he slept a drug-induced sleep. Eventually she ran out of words, exhausted, drained, reeling from the previous 72 hours.

"He's doing very well."

Jo turned to see Sheldon's friend. She smiled weakly and nodded. Simon approached and looked at the clipboard at the end of the bed and cast an eye over the monitors. He nodded satisfied.

"Hopefully he'll sleep through till tomorrow morning. The surgery went well. Dr Skelton was very pleased. With some rehab, he shouldn't have any lasting discomfort."

Jo looked down at Mac's right hand, only the fingertips showing among the white bandages. She nodded before looking at his face again. The swelling had reduced significantly and although the bruises will still livid against his pale skin, the grey tinge had gone and he looked peaceful as he slept. Simon looked carefully at the woman sat before him. He could see how she desperately wanted to reach out. Gently he watched her place her hand on his arm well away from the bandages before slowly getting up.

"The rest of his injuries are healing nicely." He said reassuringly. "With any luck we should be able to transfer him by Monday."

Jo's head flicked round, her face a mask of incomprehension. "Transfer him?"

Simon felt a moment of panic. "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you knew …" Simon wasn't sure how to continue. He had been certain that he had see them talking the previous evening. They had seemed so close, so intimate and she was listed as his emergency contact. He had assumed that she knew. He took a deep breath. "What did he tell you yesterday?"

Jo hesitated before answering. What had Mac said? He had seemed so tired, so distant. In fact, she realized, he had said very little. She had done all the talking. "Only that you were going to operate on his right hand this afternoon, that it was a relatively straight-forward procedure, if you can call anything that takes five hours straight-forward … and that his left hand would need more radical surgery later." Jo looked at the young doctor intently. "What should he have told me?"

"He didn't explain what we have in mind …?" Simon pushed. Jo shook her head. She thought back. Mac hadn't said anything, he had just kept staring at his left hand deep in thought until the painkillers had finally taken over and he couldn't fight sleep any longer. Simon looked at Mac. "Perhaps we should continue this conversation in my office."

By the time Jo reached the doctor's small but well-appointed office, she felt as though she was going to be sick. She knew that Mac had been holding something back. It was almost as though he had been afraid to look at her let alone say anything but at the time she had put it down to him being tired, pumped full of drugs and concerned about the next day's procedure. But now she realized there had been something else.

Jo sat on the small leather couch and took a deep breath. Dr Gallespie perched on the coffee table opposite her. "What did he mean by radical? Did he mean that you're going to ..." she couldn't bring herself to say it.

"Amputate? Yes!"

Jo closed her eyes and fought to keep the nausea at bay.

"What we propose … and you have to understand that this procedure is still in the experimental stage though several such procedures have been carried out successfully abroad. However it is something that cannot be carried out here hence the need for his transferral..." Jo opened her eyes at the word experimental and looked questioningly at Simon. "... er ... so what we propose is to perform an elective amputation and use tissue from his damaged hand to form a pad for the prosthesis." Simon smiled. "He won't be able to do everything that you can do with a normal hand but the mobility, I'm told, is quite impressive and Dr Skelton assures me that it is a much better alternative than being in constant pain and having years of surgery which will most likely not produce any significant results."

"Are you saying that you're going to give him some kind of ... mechanical hand?" Jo looked at the young doctor in amazement.

"Essentially yes. Dr Skelton has been working with an eminent Austrian surgeon in the field of artificial, mechatronic hands to train a specialized medical team here in the States with a view to helping our soldiers who have lost limbs in the line of duty. There is a facility in Maine equipped to carry out this procedure. Until now there hasn't been a suitable candidate for hand-replacement surgery but as Detective Taylor is a former Marine and a serving law enforcement officer, he is therefore eligible for the program. That together with the fact that the nerves in his arm are undamaged and he has excellent musculature makes him the perfect ..." Simon looked for the appropriate word.

"Guinea-pig?" suggested Jo somewhat shocked by the doctor's revelation. Simon looked a little uncomfortable.

"...initial candidate." Simon watched Jo carefully gauging her reaction which had gone from incomprehension to incredulity to what he could only describe as shock. "Detective Taylor … has agreed to the procedure. I'm sorry, I thought … I assumed that he had explained that to you last night." He finished lamely.

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'CSI:NY – CSI:NY – CSI:NY – CSI:NY – CSI:NY'

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"Adam?"

Adam almost shot out of his skin as Don Flack burst into the room. "Hey what's up? Is Mac …?" he stammered. Don stopped abruptly, a guilty look on his face as he saw the worry etched in the young man's face.

"Sorry Adam. I didn't mean to make you jump. I just spoke to Jo. She said the surgery went well. He's doing okay." Don sank into a chair next to him. "You'll see, he'll be back to normal in no time." Don wished that he could sound more convincing but his all too brief conversation with Jo had left an empty feeling in his stomach. He could tell that she was deeply upset about something but wouldn't say what. Don pushed his feeling away. "Anyway I've got a lead. This morning this girl comes into the station saying that she changed Maggy Gunn's hair." Don handed Adam a retouched photograph of the wanted poster. "She also tells me that a certain Max picked her up in his cab. To cut a very long story short ..." Don rolled his eyes at the word 'very' making Adam show a ghost of a smile. "I found out that she chartered a plane to Wilmington in North Carolina."

Adam looked puzzled. "Why there?"

"That's what I'm hoping you can tell me." Don looked at him hopefully. "Do the Greene's have any business dealings there?"

Adam suddenly cottoned on. Hitting a few keys he brought up a primary list. "Oh right … well there definitely isn't anything under their own names other than the apartment in Hell's Kitchen, a house in the Hamptons, the boat and apartments in Paris and Dublin." He hit a few more keys and a long list popped up. He scrolled down slowly. "Okay … so there is nothing under their main holding company. Not surprising. But I need to follow the chain as they have a number of companies within companies. I mean … it's amazing really … I would never have picked up on it if Mac hadn't been looking into their buildings here. " Adam spoke as he typed. A search bar popped up and Adam entered his search criteria leaning back to wait for the results."Mac must have spent hours on this. At first I couldn't figure out why he had all this stuff on building legislation. I got to thinking why would he be wandering around Manhattan like that but then I realized when I checked up on the Landmark's commission what he was trying to do." Adam smiled at Don.

"Well …?"

"Huh? … Oh he was doing an Al Capone! Or rather an Eliot Ness! Actually more of a Frank J. Wilson ..."

Don looked at Adam clearly thinking that the young tech had completely lost it.

"Oh. Okay! … In 1929 Eliot Ness and his team of 'Untouchables' attempted to get a conviction for Prohibition violations. They knew Capone was guilty of racketeering but were unable to prove it. Frank J. Wilson investigated Capone's income tax violations and … to cut a very long story short … he was eventually found guilty of tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years."

Don looked at Adam suspiciously. "Yeah I've seen the movie too!"

"Don! Mac couldn't find evidence to prove that Maggy Gunn had ordered Colm to kill Candace Broadbent. He couldn't link her to the robbery that killed Kevin Bart though he clearly suspected she had masterminded it. He obviously tried to find evidence to link her to Finbar Gunn's murder but concluded it wouldn't hold up in court. So he was going after her from another angle like Wilson did with Capone."

Adam grabbed a handful of print-outs. "She was using the Greene Corporation as a holding company to hide other companies and she was skimming money into private accounts. She was bribing city officials to allow her husband's company to build non-authorized buildings in Manhattan that violate planning codes, urban zoning, housing policy … you name it, she did it. She's made millions. I have enough information here to finish what Mac started. " Adam's eyes sparkled triumphantly. "To build a dossier to put Maggy Gunn away for a very long time … just not for murder, or robbery … but for fraud, bribery, corruption, tax evasion not to mention breaking every law in New York's urban planning legislation!"

Don nodded slowly, impressed by Adam's dedication. "If we can find her..."

As if in answer the computer bleeped. Adam hit a key and looked at the results. "Hmm. According to this, one of the subsidiaries of the Greene Corporation has a small company in Wilmington that produces ..." Adam broke off paling visibly. "...nails."