A/N - I'm putting a warning here for medical torture. I personally don't think it is that bad considering what happens in this chapter was and still is used as a medical treatment but some of you may not like it so thought I'd put in a warning anyway. If you would like to skip it, it's they very last scene so just read up to there.

Chapter Five

Flack hummed as he drove into the car park and saw Mac had already arrived. He was feeling in quite a good mood despite the fact that the Institution had been a total bust and that he had therefore been forced to spend the rest of the day searching employee records. So far he'd come up with zippo and while that annoyed him, Mac had called saying he'd got a lead and that put him in a very good mood. He pulled up alongside the Avalanche and frowned as he noticed the CSI wasn't inside. His eyes flickered to the abandoned building in front of him.

"Dumb son of a..." Flack sighed as he shook his head.

Mac must have already gone on ahead into the building, despite saying he would wait. Flack climbed out of his car and made his way cautiously over to the building. As he got nearer his eyes were suddenly drawn to something on the ground. He hurried over and bent down beside the item. Mac's firearm. Flack suddenly blanched as he looked up and glanced around the area. It was quiet, no sound at all and there was no way Mac would have gone into the building without his gun.

"Mac?" Flack shouted as he stood and looked around.

"Mac?" he shouted again, louder this time.

His eyes fell on a small object lying near to the firearm and he knelt down beside it. It looked like a small dart. Flack was starting to get an uneasy feeling in his stomach about what might have happened to Mac. He frowned again and pulled out his phone, dialling Mac's number. He waited patiently for it to ring when suddenly a computerised female voice told him the number he was trying to reach was no longer in service.

"Shit!" Flack cursed, starting to panic now.

He quickly dialled Jo's number and waited for her to answer.

"Jo? Yeah, I think I'm gonna need you guys down here...Mac's gone missing."

Jo closed her phone and stared numbly in horror at the wall opposite her. Mac...gone? No. This wasn't possible...Mac couldn't be gone. She'd just spoken to him half an hour ago. And he was too clever, too sharp...he knew the dangers, he'd taken Flack with him...he...

"Jo?"

Jo turned to see Sid staring at her.

"Jo, are you okay? You've gone really white?" Sid said worriedly as he gently touched her arm.

"I...I..." she choked.

"Let's get you to a seat," Sid murmured as he put his arm around her and gently pushed her towards her office and sat her down in a chair. He then poured her a cup of water from the jug on her desk and placed it into her hand.

"What's happened?" Sid asked softly.

"Mac...Mac..." Jo said, her face white as a sheet.

"What about Mac?" Sid asked.

"Flack said he's gone," she whispered.

"Gone?" Sid frowned, he couldn't understand what was going on.

"Oh God, what if I never see him again?" Jo cried, looking down into the cup she held in her hand.

"Hey," Sid said calmly and knelt down in front of her, removing the water and taking her hands in his. "I'm sure he'll be fine. Where did he go?"

"He went to meet a lead. Flack went with him. He just rang, he said Mac was gone."

Sid swallowed as dread slowly creeped over him. If this had something to do with the case...no, he wouldn't think of that. There was no point in thinking the worst. It didn't help anyone.

"Jo, I'm sure he's okay," he tried to say as convincingly as possible.

"I...I..."Jo stammered as she stared out in front of her. Suddenly something snapped. "God! What am I doing? I should be out there, he needs me, Flack said he needed the team down there!"

"Jo, just calm down. If you need a moment...it's no use charging off like a..."

"No! I need to go," Jo shouted and she turned on her heel and stormed down the hallway, looking for the others.

Sid stood opened mouthed as he watched her go. There was something more to this situation than she was letting on.

Flack sighed in relief as he saw the CSIs pull up. He'd been waiting over half an hour for them and was getting antsy to find Mac. The older detective had yet to return to his car and there was no sign of him anywhere at all in the local vicinity, bar his estranged firearm of course. A couple of squadcars had arrived ten minutes ago and the officers had secured the scene but he was yet to do anything else, needing to wait for back-up. Danny, Jo and Lindsay all stepped out of the car and headed his way.

"Flack, what happened?" Jo snapped at him.

Flack was taken aback at her tone; the mild mannered Southerner was never usually so short.

"When I got here Mac's car was empty. I thought he'd gone in without me so headed over there," he replied, nodding to the building.

"And?" Jo said curtly.

Danny, Lindsay and Flack all looked warily at her before swapping a look.

"Follow me," Flack frowned. He led them to where the gun and dart lay on the ground. "As I was going over I saw these on the ground. It's Mac's firearm and what looks like some kind of dart."

"This doesn't look good," Lindsay said worriedly as she put her kit down and knelt down beside the items.

"Of course it doesn't look good," Jo said brusquely.

"Err, Jo are you okay?" Flack asked apprehensively, swapping a look with Danny.

"I'm fine. Now get on with your job will you, Flack? Have you swept the building yet?"

Flack pursed his lips, he'd had enough. "Couldn't very well do that on my own, Jo," he said coldly and then turned towards the building and stormed off.

"I'll go with him," Danny muttered and headed off after him.

"Thanks," Lindsay mumbled irritably as he left. She knew exactly why Danny had volunteered to help Flack, so that he didn't have to work with Jo, which she was now left to do alone.

"Lindsay, you take these items, I'm going to search the rest of the area," Jo stated and then walked off.

Lindsay sighed, she didn't know what was up with Jo but she was sure acting strangely and it was starting to get tiresome.

"Hey, Flack, wait up!" Danny called after the lanky detective.

Flack didn't slow down and Danny had to jog to catch him up.

"What the hell's bitten her?" Flack said grouchily.

"I dunno," Danny muttered, trying to keep up with the detective's long stride.

"Well she's sure got a bug up her ass," Flack growled.

"She was like that the whole car ride over," Danny replied, glancing back over his shoulder at Jo.

"She's not the only one concerned about Mac," Flack retorted. "At least she wasn't the one who was supposed to be backing him up."

Danny halted and flung an arm out to stop Flack. "Flack, don't you go blaming yourself for this," he warned, knowing full well what his friend could become like if he felt it was his fault someone had been hurt.

"I was supposed to be here!" Flack spat. "And because I wasn't Mac's now in the wind. Course it's my bloody fault!"

He stormed past Danny and continued on his way to the building. Danny just stared after him wondering what the hell they were going to do if Mac had truly disappeared. They already seemed to be falling apart as it was. And cracks in the team would not be easy to mend.

Mac slowly came to, his body aching all over. It was dark where he was and he was strapped into a chair, metal cuffs holding his arms and legs flat against those of the chair. He moaned and cricked his neck. He had no idea where he was, how long he'd been out for or even if the others knew he was missing. They must have realised by now, he hoped. Flack had only been a couple of minutes behind him. He had no idea why he'd been taken either. It hadn't felt like they'd been getting anywhere with the case. Perhaps this was to do with something else entirely?

"I see you're awake."

Mac jumped as a voice spoke at him from the darkness and suddenly a spotlight illuminated him from above. Mac blinked against the bright light, trying his best to see who was standing just out of sight in the darkness beyond.

"You're Detective Mac Taylor? Head of the New York Crime Laboratory?"

"Yes, yes I am," Mac said angrily. "And who are you?"

"Why were you at the Thorn Everidge Mental Institution?"

"That's private police business!" Mac snapped, still blinking furiously at the light.

"Who was your contact there?"

"Why am I here?" Mac retorted. His mind was racing, trying to work out any detail he could from the voice alone. It was male and curt. It also sounded quite old.

"I see you're going to be no use to me like this. Thomas, take him down for preparation and then I'll see him in my surgery."

Mac blanched and felt his stomach drop out of him.

"Who are you?" he shouted again, desperately.

Figures moved within the shadows, and Mac realised that wherever he was, he had no hope of getting out alive by himself.

"Right, I want to know exactly where we are," Jo snapped at her team in the conference room. "Mac has been gone now almost five hours."

Anxious looks were exchanged round the table as they heard the dreadful news of how long Mac had been gone for.

"Lindsay?" Jo asked pointedly, staring at the younger woman.

"Right, well I examined Mac's gun. It hadn't been discharged and the only prints on it that I found belonged to Mac."

"Hawkes," Jo continued staring at the doctor.

"I'm afraid I'm having no luck with that plant trace," he sighed. "But I'm working on it," he added hurriedly, seeing Jo's face.

"What about the dart?" Jo asked.

"I examined it carefully and discovered there was definitely some type of tranquiliser in it. But it's something I've never seen before. It doesn't match anything we've got on record."

"If we are dealing with someone trained as a medical professional," Sid mused. "Then perhaps this concoction was his or her own preparation."

"What about the dart itself?" Jo interrupted.

"It's common. Sold in many shops over the state and it will be impossible to pin down its origin."

Jo sighed and pursed her lips. "Does anyone have any good news? Danny?"

"Well after Flack and I swept the building and found nothing, I examined the area outside. I discovered a cigarette butt behind one of the dumpsters. It's a common brand but had some DNA trace on it."

"At last," Jo said. "Did you get a match?"

"I did. But it matched to a guy called Kyle Black. He's dead, died seven years ago from a heart attack."

"What?" Jo asked, snatching the results from Danny's hand.

"How's it possible for a dead guy's DNA to match that on a fresh cigarette butt?" Hawkes frowned.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out," Danny nodded.

"Keep on it," Jo ordered. "Adam?"

"I looked into the last known location of Mac's phone signal. It cut off two miles north of the city," squeaked the nervous lab tech.

"Is it possible they were heading to the Thorn Everidge Institution?" Flack suddenly asked, speaking for the first time.

"It's possible, but there's nothing to confirm that," Adam said sorrowfully.

"Sid, you said we were dealing with a medical professional?" Jo asked.

"Oh, I'd say that was without a doubt. There are too many coincidences in the case for it not to be. The transplantation, the operating skills, the link to institutions, electroconvulsive therapy and now this strange tranquiliser in the dart."

"Okay, well at least that gives us some idea of whom were dealing with," Jo muttered. "What about you, Flack?"

Flack stared up her angrily, still pissed from earlier on.

"My guys did a complete search of the area and came up empty handed. I questioned the tenants of the building that backs onto the car park but no-one saw anything. I've also been searching into this 'Sue' whom Grace spoke to at the Institution. As far as I can see no-one called Sue or Susan or anything similar has worked there in the past twenty years," Flack muttered.

"Well then you best be getting on with that," Jo said shortly, staring at him from across the table.

Flack was aware of the others all glancing between them like they were watching a game of tennis being played. A very tense, very awkward game of tennis.

"Course," he ground out.

"Good. Well let's get on then," Jo said, standing up. "I want Mac found!"

She turned from the room and headed down the corridor.

"Jo!"

She turned to see Flack walking hurriedly towards her.

"What is it, Flack?"

"Since when am I Flack to you?" he asked. "And for another thing what's with the attitude?"

"What attitude?" she snapped.

"That attitude. Why are you being so short with everyone, we're all worried about Mac and doing our best to find him," Flack replied.

"Well clearly your best wasn't good enough then!" she shouted at him.

A flutter of lab techs disappeared nervously into the breakroom as they heard her irritable tone. Danny stuck his head out of one of the labs and listened carefully.

"And what do you mean by that?" Flack demanded.

"If you'd gotten there sooner, Mac would still be here!" she hissed at him.

"What, so you're blaming me for New York traffic now?" Flack growled.

"All I'm saying is that you shouldn't have let Mac go alone. Why didn't you go together?"

"Because I had a call to finish at the precinct that couldn't wait. It may have led..."

"Well I hope you're happy," Jo interrupted him. "Because that call may have cost Mac his life."

Flack took a step back at her words and stared open mouthed at her.

"If he dies it's on you," she murmured and then turned and continued on her way.

Flack stared stupidly after her, his heart breaking inside him.

"Don..."

Flack turned and saw Danny beside him.

"Don't, Danno. Just don't," he choked. "She's right. It is my fault."

Before Danny could stop him he'd turned to the elevator that had just arrived and disappeared inside it. Danny watched him go, unable to move his feet after him, knowing full well it would be impossible to change the detective's mind that this was his fault. Flack was a stubborn son of a bitch when he set his mind on something.

"Mac, where are you?" he whispered to himself. "We need you."

Mac struggled against the leather straps that fastened him down onto the doctor's table. He felt sore, abused and scared. Not that he often felt scared. After the questioning, he'd been taken to a white tiled room and stripped of his clothes by two large, identical looking men who had easily overpowered any attempts he'd made to escape. Then they'd showered him in icy cold water, scrubbing his skin with bleach til it was red raw. Then they'd dried him and dressed him in white scrubs, similar to those that their John Doe had been wearing. After that he'd been once more strapped into that chair and had had his hair shaved off until nothing remained. They'd been rough with him and he couldn't help but think that perhaps he'd been left with sores and cuts on his scalp. Then, the worst bit of all had come. His head had been pushed forward and pain had jolted through his body from the back of his neck. It had taken him a while to realise what had been happening to him. A tattoo. Just like that of the John Doe. He was being tattooed, numbered, erased. Finally they had dragged him into what could only be described as a surgery and strapped down onto the table, awaiting the next form of torture he would be submitted to.

The door opened and a man he hadn't seen before entered. He was old, in his seventies, but he moved with the grace and agility of a man much younger. His beady eyes stuck out of his thin face and spectacles were balanced on his long beak-like nose. His thin lips leered into a smile as he looked at him.

"Hello again," he murmured and Mac recognised it as the voice which had spoke to him from the darkness.

"Who are you?" Mac coughed.

"My name is Doctor Oscar Emerson; remember it, for it will bring fear into your heart."

"Why am I here?" Mac asked.

"You are here because someone made a mistake. And because of that you found 359's body before it could be properly disposed of."

"359? Who was he?" Mac asked. "What was his name?"

"I have no idea," the doctor laughed as he walked round the table to behind Mac's head so that the detective couldn't see what he was doing. He heard the clanking of metal.

"Why did you kill him?" Mac ordered.

"I didn't," the doctor said casually. "He killed himself. I gave him everything, I gave him the world."

"You destroyed his world," Mac shouted.

"You need to calm yourself, 567."

"567? 567? My name is Mac Taylor and..."

"You have no name. You are patient 567 and you are mine now," the doctor said, voice suddenly low and evil.

He came forward and rubbed something into Mac's temples. Some sort of oily substance. Then he placed something over his head that felt very much like a set of headphones. Mac had a feeling he knew what was going to happen next.

"You can struggle if you want to, but it will only make things worse for you," Emerson said calmly. "I suggest you keep still and bite down on this."

He forced as huge rubber mould into Mac's mouth.

"St..stopsh thish..." Mac struggled to say.

"You will feel much calmer after the initial treatment. I do this to all my first time patients, it makes them...much more susceptible to my will."

He turned a dial on the machine next to him and all at once Mac felt the most pain he had ever encountered in his life pass through his head...his body...and then it was gone.

"Very good. Let us try again, only this time for a little longer," smiled Emerson.

Mac tried to shake his head but before he could pain erupted in his skull again. Light flashing before his eyes. His mouth clamped down involuntarily onto the rubber and he let out as much of a scream as he could. His back arched off the table as high as it could possibly go.

And then it stopped.

"Excellent. You are strong, 567."

The third time the doctor turned it on Mac only lasted for a few moments. Then he passed out, a welcoming blackness swallowing him.