Yay! It only took me a month to update this time! cheers ... Ok, ok... not funny... ;-p
Enjoy!

Chapter Seven

Wednesday, 9.30 a.m

Two NYPD police cars screeched to a halt outside a run down old apartment in downtown Manhattan. Mac Taylor climbed out of one of them, his face set in determination so strong that nobody could guess that he hadn't had a wink of sleep the last night.

No sooner had he gotten to the front steps leading upstairs, Flack's car pulled up and out came Stella and Flack himself. They had driven straight from the jail to this apartment, contacting Mac on the way to meet them here.

No words were exchanged between them. They knew exactly what to do. Countless arrests have been made by the three of them before, plenty of them were as dangerous, if not more than the arrest they were about to make.

Mac led the way up the stairs, with Flack and Stella right behind him and the three uniformed officers bringing up the rear. At the first floor, a short middle-aged unshaven man in a bathrobe yelled at them from his open apartment door, "What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

Mac stopped short and said to the man curtly, "NYPD. Are you the landlord?"

The short man nodded, "Damn right I am! And you coppers have no right to storm in like that! These are my tenants and they deserve privacy!" He was angry but did not look the least bit threatening, seeing that the bathrobe he was clad it was covered with yellow cartoon ducks all over it.

"One of your tenants has shot a detective. I think that is enough to justify me and my team 'storming in' like this. Apartment 3B," replied Mac.

The man did nothing but merely stared at Mac. Mac stared back, and so did Flack and Stella.

After a pause, the landlord's gaze faltered and he stood aside, "3rd floor, to the right."

Mac nodded, "Thank you."

Outside apartment 3B, it was deathly quiet. Mac stood to one side of the door and Flack took the other. Mac pulled out his gun from its holster and the others did the same.

Flack rapped on the door twice, "Howard Jones! NYPD! Open the door!"

Silence…

Flack banged on the door again, "Howard Jones! Open up, now!"

They heard nothing more than each others' deep breathing and the heavy thumping of their own hearts.

Flack exchanged nods with Mac, curt cop sign language for 'Cover me… I'm gonna smash this door into oblivion…'

They all held their guns steady as Flack threw his right shoulder into the door. Being as old and shabby as the rest of the apartment building, the door snapped off its hinges immediately.

Flack, Mac, Stella and the other officers quickly fanned out into the apartment, guns held at the ready. Mac headed towards the closed room furthest away from the front door. He listened for the slightest noise but couldn't pick up anything. The others were checking the other rooms, shouting "Clear!" every time they cleared a room.

Mac swung open the door and he saw a man with his back facing him. Even from behind, Mac knew this was the man they were looking for. The man slowly turned around, the morning sunlight that entered through the window hit his face, illuminating his graying hair and lined face. In his right hand, was a gun. The one that was used by Max Jones to kill his friends, the one that was used to shoot Danny.

Mac aimed his gun directly at the man's chest. Never before had he been so tempted to just shoot the man right there and then, instead of taking him into custody. "Put the gun down…"

The man smiled and bent slowly, placing the gun on the floor and sliding it over to Mac's feet. He straightened up again, bare hands raised in surrender. Slightly taken aback, Mac said, "Howard Jones, you are under arrest."

Half-expecting Jones to attack him at any moment, Mac walked slowly over to him and securely hand-cuffed his hands behind his back.

Howard Jones remained silent. "Anything you wanna say?" Mac asked.

Howard Jones spoke in a voice barely above a whisper, "Everything happens for a reason…"

3.24 pm

Mac placed a crime scene photo in front of Howard Jones. It showed a close-up of two bullets next to each other, their striations matching perfectly. Howard Jones looked down at the photo with a small, almost amused smile. He hadn't said a word the entire morning.

Mac pointed at the picture, "This is the bullet we test-fired from the gun your son gave you three years ago. It matches perfectly with the bullets recovered from Detective Danny Messer."

Mac placed another picture, this time, of the gun. The handle had been dusted for fingerprints. "The finger prints on the gun, match you."

Mac stared at Howard Jones straight in the eye and said, "Not to mention, over 10 witnesses saw you shoot Detective Messer, and leave the building. Including me."

Howard Jones merely sat there, with that increasingly annoying smirk on his face. "We have everything we need to put you away for a long time for shooting a cop. Why don't you start helping yourself by telling your side of the story?"

Howard Jones looked away.

"You can make things a lot easier for yourself if you co-operate. Why did you shoot Detective Messer? Was it revenge for testifying against your son?"

Nothing.

Mac resisted the urge to reach out and punch him, just to see if he was capable of making a sound at all.

"May I remind you, Mr. Jones, that you denied request for a lawyer. I can't make you talk if you don't want to. But it'll be a lot better for you if you did. Why did you shoot Danny?"

No sound.

"Do you deny walking into the crime lab, yesterday morning, and shooting Danny Messer?"

This time, he shook his head.

Mac asked, "So, you admit you shot him?"

Finally, he opened his mouth and said all of one syllable. "Yes."

"Why?"

No answer again.

There was nothing more that Mac could do. He nodded at the officer by the door, who went up to Jones and took him out of the interrogation room.

But at the door, Howard Jones stooped and looked back at Mac.

Mac looked back at him expectantly.

Howard Jones had stopped smiling for the first time in along while. Softly, even sadly, he asked, "How's the kid? Messer…"

Mac took awhile to answer. "I don't know."

Howard Jones nodded slowly, a sad expression on his face, and let the officer steer him out of the room.

Mac gathered up the photos and went outside as well. The door to the room directly next door opened and out walked Stella, Flack, Lindsay and Hawkes. They had been watching the one-sided interrogation through the one way mirror.

Lindsay spoke first, "So that's it? He's not going to say a word?"

Mac shrugged.

Hawkes piped up, "Despite the fact that it might make a difference in his prison sentence when his case is put in front of the jury?"

Mac looked down the corridor, but not really seeing anything, "When I arrested him, he said, 'Everything happens for a reason', Maybe he doesn't care what happens to him. Maybe he'd done what he meant to do, and doesn't care about anything else..."

Mac looked back at them, "We caught him, and he's not getting away. We're done. Good job, everyone."

11.05 pm

Mac Taylor entered Danny's room. It was pitch black except for the glow of the heart monitor and a dim orange light from the table lamp.

Mac took an arm chair that stood by the wall, pulled it close to Danny's bed and sat down.

Danny had been unconscious for nearly 40 hours. The monitor by the side showed that his heart was beating at a slow, steady speed. The ventilator pushing oxygen into his lungs let out gasps of air at regular intervals. Danny's face was still pale; his goatee had grown a little scruffier.

Mac wondered if Howard Jones really regretted shooting Danny. Whether he had really wanted to. Was that 'How is he?' question a mere throwaway question of an unsteady mind, or did he really care how Danny was?

Mac took Danny's hand in his own, just as he did with Flack a year ago after the bombings.

"Danny… can you hear me?" Mac muttered softly, "We got him…"

Mac squeezed Danny's cold hand in his own, "Danny… can you hear me? We caught the man who shot you. His name is Howard Jones. He's going to go away for a long time. You better wake up soon. Your mum and dad are waiting. We're all waiting…"

Beep... beep… beep…

The room was nicely cool. Mac hadn't slept in over 36 hours. The slightly cushioned arm chair was soft and comfortable.

The monotonous beeps of the heart monitor were making him drowsy.

Beep… beep… beep…

Without realizing it, Mac leaned back in the chair and drifted off to sleep.

TBC

I don't really have a set timeline for this... somewhere in Season Three, I guess, but before the finale (which rocks, by the way. I can't believe I have to wait til' September to watch the full episode...) and before all that M&Ms relationship developments (who else laughs everytime you see a pool table? -guilty-) . Since I'm such a slow updater, the episodes get very ahead of me..

Til' next chapter! Review! MUAKS!