A few hours later...
Jack was alone in the interrogation room, his hands cuffed and his head bowed. His shoes and belt had been taken away, and any possessions he had on him were confiscated. Taking the time to think, he wondered why he was being charged with Nina's murder. Sure, he knew that it was indeed an act of murder – he had meant to kill her – but he had done it for the greater good. Nina was simply too dangerous a person to be allowed to exist. Even so, Jack knew the law, and he knew that his actions may have had good intentions, but that wouldn't stop a jury from sending him to the execution chamber. His concentration was broken when a cop entered the room. He was blond like Jack, but taller and younger, with deep green eyes.
"Mr Bauer, I'm Officer James Aylesworth. Do you have any questions before we begin?," the officer told him in a Californian accent which sounded like it belonged to a surfer.
"I would like to know why the hell I'm being charged now! You could have charged me weeks ago, so what's changed?," Jack asked, raising his voice slightly. The officer cleared his throat before answering.
"I cannot give you any details at the moment, sir. As for our timing, we were building a case against you which, I'm sure you can appreciate, is hard when the crime took place in a federal building by a federal agent. We've faced a lot of opposition from CTU in regards to this case," James replied.
"Do you know why I killed her? I killed her because she was going to kill my daughter, in the same building where she murdered my wife!," Jack yelled angrily, before calming himself down. The officer looked shocked, and Jack gained satisfaction from it.
"I am sorry about your wife, sir, but we've reviewed the footage of Ms Myers' death, and your daughter appears to have left the scene quite a few minutes before you shot Ms Myers," James told him. Jack looked at him for a moment, wondering how to respond. The problem was that very few people even within CTU really understood the struggle between him and Nina over the years. It was if they were in their own world, where the only goals were control, and survival. If you lost control, it would not be long before you lost your life, and Nina was the first one to truly lose control. She had lost it when she was lying on the floor, totally at Jack's mercy. He could have arrested her, sent her to jail to await execution, but he knew that the only way to end the struggle was that one of them had to die.
"Look, if I hadn't killed her then, I would be indirectly responsible for any deaths she caused afterwards. The footage may make her look like a victim, but minutes before her death, she killed numerous doctors who were simply trying to save her life. Nina Myers was a dangerous person, and I believe that there is no prison on earth that could hold her indefinitely," Jack said. He didn't like killing her, but he had felt it necessary to do so. James nodded, before leaning forward.
"Can I suggest something, Mr Bauer? Take a plea bargain for manslaughter. You'll spend far less time in jail then you would for murder," the officer suggested, but Jack simply scoffed.
"I'm not going to beg for less time in jail for something I felt was needed to protect innocent people, officer," Jack replied firmly. He was getting tired of the pointless talking, which did nothing but bore the people involved. James nodded before standing up and leaving the room, unsure of what to do next. He had a lot of sympathy for Jack, but couldn't understand why he was being so stubborn. The guy could face the death penalty, yet he seemed to be more annoyed at the fact that they even considered his actions to be criminal.
At the FBI morgue, an autopsy was being carried out on Nina's body. No such procedure had taken place at CTU as the cause of death had been obvious, but now that her death was being investigated, it was important to clarify the facts of her final moments.
Dr Alberta Cuthbert, the pathologist for the Los Angeles branch of the FBI, was beginning the autopsy.
"The subject is a white female, early thirties, approximately 5 foot 5 inches tall and weighing 110 pounds. The only apparent wounds are a scar over the carotid, one gunshot wound to the shoulder and three gunshot wounds to the chest," Alberta spoke into her recorder as she examined the body.
"Official cause of death as listed by CTU was multiple gunshot wounds, which appears to be consistent with the wounds suffered by the subject. It appears as if the shoulder wound was incurred first, followed by a fatal shot to the heart. Two more followed post-mortem, which suggests that the person who killed the subject intended to kill her, as well as suggesting that her death was violent," she continued. Alberta had not been given that much information about either Nina or Jack, but looking at the body and at the wounds, she could tell that the subject's death was not exactly the self-defence plea she had heard from the CTU pathologist. Placing her recorder down, she noticed a massive scar on Nina's back. Running a gloved finger down it, she concluded that it had been caused by laceration, and was probably years old. Wondering what on earth had happened to Nina, who had been of similar age to Alberta, she decided to continue with the autopsy and leave Nina's history to CTU.
Jack was now sat in a cell, which consisted of a small room with breezeblock walls painted white, a metal bunkbed, a porcelain sink and toilet, a small wooden table and chair, and one wall made up of steel bars, with the door in the middle. A small shelf was on the wall above the table, and on it were a few books, which Jack assumed were either left there by the cops for prisoners to read, or that they belonged to a potential cellmate. Realising that he was going to be in the cell until they could move him to a jail, he laid back on the bottom bunk, and closed his eyes. If he was denied freedom of movement, he knew that he always had freedom of thought.