Disclaimer: No infringement of copyright is intended. All characters originated with CSI:NY. Poetry not otherwise referenced is original.
A/N: Thanks as always to all those who have written to tell me what they like and didn't like in the story so far. And thanks to those who continue to read along, following the adventures.
Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Seasons 2 & 3, up to and including "Silent Night".
Now the Silence
It was a flash of movement and colour and noise
And now the world has stopped revolving,
And the wind has died down.
It was a sudden flurry of activity and flailing emotion
And now the eye of the storm is upon us
And the air is still and heavy.
A moment ago, the heart was pounding, the breath heaving
And now lungs will not expand to fill with air
The heart is afraid to beat.
There was, a moment ago, no time left to think.
Now there is nothing to think about.
Chapter 53: Rescue Me
It was a multi-pronged attack, with several agencies involved. It should have been a strategic disaster, given the egos involved, but for once every man there sublimated his need for control, and within seconds of Lindsay's whispered confirmation that she was on the roof and prepared to go down the shaft, the operation was underway.
One team of SWAT was at the back door awaiting orders, while others took up positions around the perimeter, weapons trained on windows and access points. Uniformed officers were securing the neighbourhood, moving out anyone who might possibly be in danger. Hawkes and a technician were glued to the computer monitors; surveillance monitors had been planted at doors and windows – cell and wireless transmissions were being tracked. Lindsay was wired, and Hawkes could see her signal moving through the ventilation system.
"She's getting close," he warned. "Hold up a moment, Linds. Let's get you some cover before you go in."
"Let me get a little closer – I don't want them coming after her if things go wrong." Her voice echoed in the close quarters of the ventilation shaft.
"Right." Flack said. "Mac, Stella, and Danny, you're with me – we're going up the side of the building. There's an access door to the third floor – it will get us closer to the office where the two are hunkered down. SWAT will secure the gang members on the first floor once we give them the signal. Monroe, your team goes straight for the third floor – that's where Natalie is. If Lindsay can't get her out the way she got in, you'll need to extract them both."
John Monroe nodded grimly.
Flack took a deep breath, and glanced once at Stella, but couldn't think of a thing to say. "Let's do this."
Flack and his team did not even pause; after getting up the building, they moved through the second floor, checking corners to be sure the electronic surveillance had not missed anyone. The four of them moved swiftly and efficiently, Flack receiving a steady stream of information through his headset from Hawkes.
"Two guards moving in the building," he said to Mac in an undertone, "Two still in the office around the corner down this hallway. Linds has got to Natalie – they are going to try to get back up to the roof."
Mac nodded and motioned Danny and Flack to one side of the door, while Stella and he went down the hallway to another door. When they were all in place, Flack held up his hand to hold them in place, hearing voices coming from the office.
"Antony. Tell me. What have you done?"
Danny glanced at Flack and mouthed, "Uncle Gino."
"I don't know what you are talking about, Gino. What could I have done?"
Flack's eyes widened as he focused on Danny's white face. Antony Messer did not sound good, and if Gino's caressing voice was any indication, his brother was the one who had inflicted the pain they could hear. He shook his head violently as Danny made a move as if to go in the door. He couldn't tell yet where Gino was, but he was sure both men would be armed, and there were still eight men unaccounted for in the building. He needed his teams in place first.
"You let the kid go, didn't you, Antony? Loosened his hands and gave him back his phone so the cops could come to the rescue. Why would you betray me like that? I'm your brother. I protected you all these years, and now, when we are one step away from getting it all, you stab me in the back?"
They could hear Antony coughing a little as if in pain. "No. I mean, yes; I let the kid go. Taylor would have taken you down if he had found out you were involved, Gino. When I found out the kid was connected to Daniel's boss, I knew we had to get the kid out of here. I just wanted to keep you from making a mistake."
"My little brother. Always protecting me." Gino's voice was cold and smooth. Danny flinched as he heard the snap of a hand across a face. "And always screwing up. You think I'm afraid of Mac Taylor? You and that precious son of yours think he is such a hero. Well, I know a thing or two about Taylor. And about the Flack kid. A little information goes a long way, Tony."
The men listening on the other side of the door could hear a shuddering breath, the sharp tap of polished shoes against linoleum floors. Flack looked down the hallway again to check Mac and Stella's position; he had to look away from her anguished stare.
Gino Messer's voice started up again, "I needed that bitch Garrett to back off just long enough for me to shut down the clinic operation. I needed a little more time, and the kid was going to buy me that. But then you had to discover your noble side. Fuck, Antony. Can't you do anything right? Can't control your woman. Can't control your boys: lost one to the Bonnanos and one to the cops. Can't even stay loyal to your family."
Every sentence was punctuated with another sharp slap of skin on skin.
"I've carried you long enough. You know me, Tone. I don't keep deadwood. Tag screwed up, and I took him out. I cleaned up the remnants of the Tanglewood mess you let go too long. Joe Taglia will be taken care of by tonight. The girl has become a liability – we'll take care of her before we leave. But there is just one last thing to take care of, brother mine…"
Flack could have sworn Danny was moving before they heard the click of the gun hammer being drawn back. Everything seemed to slow down, and he could track, heartbeat by heartbeat, each move: Danny going through the door, his gun held at the ready; Mac and Stella bursting through the other door to the office, identifying themselves and shouting at Gino Messer to put up his gun; Flack himself screaming orders to his men to move in on the gang; Lindsay's voice loud and panicky in his earphone as the sound of a gun cracked through the still air.
Mac had Gino Messer flat, face crushed against the floor. Stella was covering the guard who had come racing up the stairs at the sound of the bullet being fired.
And Danny was huddled in the corner of the room, arms cradling his father, hands frantically pressed against the rapidly widening stain of blood across Antony's chest.
-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY
"Two dead. One of the poker players went for his gun when SWAT hit the main floor. The second guard tried to rush us; Mac took him out. Gino Messer is on the way to the precinct for questioning; his shark will be meeting us there. Antony Messer is on his way to Queen of Mercy; Danny's riding with him." Flack's rapid debrief was cool and detached, but Lindsay was not fooled.
"How bad is it?" Her voice was so soft he had to bend down to hear her.
"Bad. Mac has sent an officer to pick up Maureen Messer now. We're hoping she'll make it the hospital in time."
Lindsay looked over the head of Hawkes, who had gently stepped in and taken over for the EMT assigned to bandage her hands; that ventilation shaft had been harder to go back up than get down, especially with the added terror of gunfire behind her and a traumatized teenager in front of her. She winced as her shoulder stabbed with pain; climbing with a still healing collar bone had seemed easy given the alternative, but she would pay for it now, she knew.
Mac came over to the ambulance and smiled wearily down at Lindsay, "You okay?"
She nodded.
"You should be getting a ticker tape parade, you know. Good job, Lindsay. We couldn't have gone in until we were sure she was safe." He glanced over his shoulder as the other ambulance – now loaded with Natalie tucked in on a stretcher, IV fluids pumping – sped away with the sirens blaring.
"Not an emergency," he reminded himself. "Just a precaution, that's all." He had already called Reed and told him which hospital to get to. Queen of Mercy was becoming an all too familiar meeting ground for his team.
Lindsay jumped off the back of the ambulance. "I need to get to Danny. He's going to need … support, for when his mother gets there."
Before Flack could say anything, John Monroe loomed up. "I'll take her."
The other men nodded. Jurisdiction was coming into play: kidnapping was a Federal offense, and so Monroe, as the FBI liaison, would have a place in the interrogation and investigation. But until Antony Messer's condition was known, there was no percentage in rushing off to talk to Gino. He'd lawyered up before they had the handcuffs on him.
Stella strode over, long legs eating up the ground. She had pulled her hair back when donning her Kevlar vest, and without the softened curls, her face looked stripped for action, somehow. Although his vision was graying slightly around the edges with stress and exhaustion, Flack was struck by the power she projected, as if her strength had a physical presence. Behind her, a few steps back and a little distant, Special Agent Troy Grant stood on the edges, and something about his stance, and Stella's presence, and Flack's awareness of Danny's torment all came together …
"Shit!"
At the harsh exclamation, every hand dropped to a gun butt, and eyes monitored the area coldly. When no immediate danger presented itself, Mac looked at him with a slight scowl, then more sharply, "What is it?"
"Mac, remember that list Danny came up with – the one with all the different connections between everything that's been going on?"
Both Mac and Lindsay nodded; they had both examined the scribbled mind map Danny had worked on when sleep was impossible.
"He had Gino Messer on there. And Nikki …"
"His cousin," Lindsay explained to John, who was waiting more or less patiently for someone to connect the dots for him.
"And Nikki's boyfriend. Seph Reagan." Flack said it slowly, then, when no one immediately registered, he looked at first Stella, then John and said slowly, "Father Anthony Reagan's cousin: Michael Joseph Reagan."
Grant stepped forward, "The teacher. The one that got away at the clinic."
"He set the boys up. He set up the trouble at the clinic – to make it look like terrorist activity." Hawkes spoke up. "Misdirecting us towards Nasreen? Or the men from the neighbourhood – the ones who stand outside the clinic?"
"Or anyone really, other than Messer. The clinic was on several watch lists." Grant's normal bluster was slightly toned down now.
"So, if Reagan set up the clinic attacks – including the bomb?" Flack looked at the team and saw no immediate argument about it, "Then what is the next target? Or who?"
"Maybe Gino's arrest will stop him?" Grant said.
Every other head around the circle shook, some more forcefully than others. "Only if Messer really was working alone," John pointed out. "I'm not sure we can count on that. If the Luccheses really were behind it all, then Reagan may still have a goal to accomplish."
"We need to get to the hospital. The rest of the Messer family is an obvious target." Lindsay urged, her eyes wide and scared.
Flack and Monroe looked at each other over Lindsay's head, then turned with one accord to Troy Grant.
"Yes," John said quietly. "The Messer family. All of it."
-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY
Nikki looked up from her computer and smiled as a red carnation was dropped in front of the screen.
"Seph? What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in class? It's not even two o'clock!"
She wound her arms around his neck as he pulled her up against his body and kissed her thoroughly.
"Take a coffee break," he said a little breathlessly.
She giggled and looked around at her suddenly very busy co-workers at the travel agency. "Baby, I can't. I have two clients coming in this afternoon to book big holidays. I need the commission."
He rested his forehead against hers for a minute. "Come with me, just for a minute. I need to talk to you."
She cupped his face with her hands. "Seph? Honey, what is it? Are you okay?"
"No. You have to come with me, Nikki. Please?"
She looked at him again, and everything in her stilled. Without another word, she reached down for her purse and coat, and said, "Helen, could you take the Cristos and Pallatinas appointments this afternoon for me, please? You'll find the information on my computer; it's not passworded. The Cristos can be talked up by at least 30; Pallatinas, probably no more than five. Okay?"
Helen nodded her vivid red head, and snapped her gum thoughtfully, watching as the couple walked out of the office, Nikki held tightly to Seph's side.
So when the police showed up a few hours later to ask where Nikki Messer was, Helen was able to say with a fair degree of accuracy that she had always thought there was something funny about that Seph Reagan, and she couldn't really say she was surprised that Nikki Messer had got herself into trouble.
