Chapter 6 - The Meeting
Tim tapped his fingers on the side of his knee while swiveling his head to look first forward through the dash, then out both side windows and then behind through the rear window. His 9mm was drawn and resting on his right thigh. Edwin was similarly watchful and alert in the front seat as Sandra drove aggressively through the late night traffic. John sat back outwardly calm and still while his brain spun. Moriarty. Jim Moriarty. Jim Fucking Moriarty plus his thug Sebastian had just paid him personal visit. They had paid him a visit after he'd been unexpectedly called back to work. He suddenly thought of something and glanced at the agents in the front seat and then turned to Tim.
"Who else was covering me earlier?" he asked conversationally.
"What do you mean? This morning? Craig, I think." Tim answered distractedly continuing his survey. Realization crashed over John. The second watcher who had followed him home from work this evening hadn't been Mycroft's. He had been Moriarty's. John couldn't help wondering how close he had just come to The Pool 2.0 tonight.
"Where are we going?" he asked several minutes later sitting up. They had just driven past the turn toward his flat. No one answered. "Where the hell are you taking me?" he demanded in his command voice. Edwin answered without looking at him.
"We've been instructed to take you to the safe rendezvous." John sighed and sat back as Sandra ran a red light. "Mind telling me where that might be?" he asked. Tim just shot him an apologetic 'you now the deal' look.
Twenty minutes later, after a very circuitous tour of central London, the car pulled into a secure underground garage near Whitehall. The wheels had barely stopped moving when John opened his door and strode from the car leaving his watcher to chase after him. He was buzzed through thick glass doors and into a large, well-appointed office where Mycroft Holmes stood ever immaculate in a three-piece suit although it was now past midnight.
"Ah, John. Good that you have arrived here safely." Mycroft's tone was almost condescending as it so often is during their meetings but there was a tell of tension in his face.
"You knew. You bloody knew!" John exploded. "All this time ..."
Mycroft cut him off turning to his agent. "Report." Tim retold the night's events while John paced, seething.
"Is he here, too? Where is he, Mycroft?" John demanded.
"Where's who, John?" Mycroft answered utterly composed.
"DON'T. Just don't. It's over, Mycroft. Your little ruse has failed. Moriarty knows but then you bloody well knew that. You both knew it, didn't you?" John was right up in Mycroft's face, every inch the officer. "Well, it's high time someone told me what the fuck is going on!" Mycroft raised his eyebrows considering for a moment. John remained rooted showing no sign of standing down.
"Alright, John. Mr. Morris would you be so kind as to wait outside."
"Ah, yes, sir," Tim replied quickly recovering from his shock. Nobody ever talked to Mycroft Holmes like that. And they certainly never talked to him like that ... and won. Tim suddenly wondered who the hell he has been watching for the last eight months. John turned to him as he started to leave.
"Thanks, Tim, for tonight. I'm, umm, glad you were there. I appreciate the risk you took." he offered his hand to his watcher, reverting to his familiar friendly demeanor. Then, looking back at Mycroft, he added sharply, "Although it should not have been necessary." Tim shook John's hand, nodded once uncertainly, then exited. He had been watching John Watson for eight months. Like the other team members, he had often wondered why a likable yet unremarkable retired soldier warranted 24/7 Level 5 coverage? Clearly they had missed something.
As Tim Morris left the room, Mycroft crossed to the large desk and pressed a button. Sherlock entered through a nearly invisible door in the left wall of the office. John turned to glare at his former flatmate but found he couldn't hold it. Images of the Fall pushed their way into his mind and he turned to stare out the window instead, his pain evident on his reflected face.
"John, are you alright?" Sherlock inquired urgently. He looked almost rattled and John blinked several times as he fought back fresh memories of the pool. 'Alright? Are you alright?' He huffed out a single humourless laugh to the window then set his face into its stone mask.
"Fine. So? What's just happened?"
"I'm not sure, exactly. As I explained earlier, since my ... " John tensed reflexively and Sherlock felt a pang of guilt. "I've been working on unraveling Moriarty's web. I'd just recently begun gaining access to some of the more inner circles when Mycroft started receiving certain messages. Threats."
"Against me?" John inquired, voice flat still facing the window.
"Yes." Sherlock replied slowly. "They were veiled, of course. Nothing explicit but definitely directed toward you. We assumed they were just fishing, trying to rattle the cage, as it were. But then Mycroft received a ... disturbing photograph via e-mail early Wednesday morning." Mycroft typed briefly on a keyboard before turning the computer monitor in John's direction. John glanced at the screen. The photo was of him, face and torso only, taken through a rifle scope with the cross hairs precisely aligned with his heart. John turned back to the window. His eyes were closed and his breathing was measured as he slowly shook his head.
"How long?" he asked. This time Mycroft answers.
"The first message came approximately four weeks ago."
"Four weeks." John stated. "You've been receiving threats against me for a month and you get around to telling me only after I've had a face-to-face meet-up with Jim?" John voice is quiet but infused with anger.
"John, we are working on some options ..." Mycroft began but John cut across him turning away from the window to look properly at the two brothers. His expression was thunderous.
"How dare you. How dare you keep this from me?" In as far as a Holmes can actually do so, both Mycroft and Sherlock looked abashed. John turned back to the window exhaustion playing on his face and in the slight slump of his posture.
"Listen, John. I came back because its clear that we need to take action. I thought I'd have a bit more time underground but we still may have some advantage. I didn't anticipate Moriarty would move overtly so quickly. That probably means he worried." Sherlock started in with rapid fire delivery but John was having none of it.
"Well, you know Jim. He's SO changeable. I hear its his only weakness." he quipped sarcastically. Sherlock stopped and stared at John's reflection then turned to brother as if at a loss. Why wouldn't John listen? Surely, he appreciated the threat. After a moment Mycroft tried again.
"John, we can tighten your protection. I can double the coverage immediately. Whatever you need."
"That's your solution? Wrap me in watchers?" John was incredulous. "That will only increase the body count when they decide to take me. Sebastian would have killed Tim without a second thought tonight." Sherlock's eyes widened as a cold lump formed in the pit of his stomach.
"Sebastian? Who do you mean?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Sebastian, Moriary's thug. Likes to dress people in Semtex. Probably one of his snipers, too." John continued. Sherlock abruptly turned, running both hands through his hair. He stopped short then started to pace.
"What?" John asked, tensing at Sherlock's reaction. It was Mycroft who answered again.
"I believe you may be familiar with the name Sebastian Moran, John?" John looked at him confused.
"What, you mean the sniper, a colonel, from the 1st Pioneers who was court martialed? Bit of a scandal." After a beat John caught up. "Moran works for Moriarty now. That was him?"
"Yes." Sherlock said quietly. "Moran's not just a sniper, he the sniper. Your sniper."
"Fuck." John breathed slowly.
"Yes. Quite." Mycroft seconded.
John closed his eyes and shook his head. He was buggered, well and truly buggered. To an army sniper there were only two types of people, shooters and targets. Moran was a shooter, among the very best of the best by reputation. John was his target. Holy fuck.
After a long moment, Mycroft finally broke the silence. "We are, of course, also prepared to move you to a safe house with a moments notice. You can go there straight away tonight." John, still staring out the window, considered Mycroft's offer. It was all too tempting in some regards, to just escape and let other people handle it.
"No," he said. Sherlock suddenly ceased his pacing and whirled to face John.
"No? What do you mean, no?" he spat.
"I mean NO." John repeated. "That's not going work. Moriarty, Sebastian, they're not going to go away. And if I disappear they'll just set their sights on someone else, Greg, Mrs. Hudson, maybe my sister, even, to force me out. No."
"Well, what will you do, then?" Sherlock asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Continue blundering around the city in your easily predictable routine? Let them stalk you with impunity?" He was waltzing around the office gesturing wildly now. "Walk with eyes wide open but ever unseeing into their trap?" Sherlock finished his tirade standing toe-to-toe with John glaring down at him. John returned the glare unflinchingly.
"It's a bit obvious, isn't it? The next step" he said in a voice chillingly devoid of any emotion. "We need to gain control of the next meeting." John looked back and forth between the brothers. "We arrange it before he takes me. Then I kill the bastard." Silence filled the office again as Sherlock stared at John in disbelief.
"Don't be stupid, John. You'll just get yourself killed!"
"Oh, I suppose it's better to let you get me killed!" Now it was John who was up in Sherlock's face. "It's the best option we've got. Moriarty has never considered me a threat so I can get in close. I can do it, you know I can." Sherlock did know, and he hated thinking of John in that way, as someone who could willingly kill.
"And you know it, too, don't you, Mycroft?" John turned knowingly to face the elder Holmes. Mycroft regarded the ex-soldier wordlessly for several seconds. John had managed to surprise him yet again. Here he was clearly offering the British Government an out, a way to get rid of Moriarty and save Sherlock at the same time. But, his brother was right, too, John would probably be killed. Still, there was a chance. It could work. He gave John only the slightest nod of acknowledgment.
Sherlock threw up his hands in frustration and disbelief and resumed his frantic pacing. "Of all the idiotic, stupid ... You. Intentionally going to him? He will use you, John, can't you see? He will use you, he will hurt you to get to me. He wants to get to me!"
"I see perfectly fine. It's just that things look a bit different from here," John said coldly. "I'm in the firing line. I get taken out first whether that actually gets to you or not." For the briefest of moments Sherlock looked like he'd been slapped. John knew it was uncalled for but he doesn't care. Sherlock quickly regrouped and tries reason again.
"John, listen, I know today has been a bit ... much but this is too ... rash. We still have an advantage. Moriarty is not certain I'm alive and he definitely doesn't know where I am. I can still move against him behind the scenes. Beat him at his own game. I just need time. Give me some more time. You need to trust me and be ..."
"Trust you! Trust you?" John was utterly incensed. "You've had me living a lie for 8 months and you want me to just trust you? Moriarty is going to come after me and you can't stop that. This isn't about clever any more. Hasn't been for awhile. Now you two" he gestured between the brothers "can go on playing your genius games but do try to remember that it's my life your playing with, hmm?" John closed his eyes for a moment, his body slumping slightly in exhaustion. He brought a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose then scrubbed it through his hair sighing.
"You know what? Sod this. Sod all this." Sherlock started to interrupt.
"No. Don't say anything else. Just, just ... piss off!" John strode to the office door and left without looking back. "Come along, Tim. Fancy a coffee?" Tim followed John out of the building.
Sherlock stood watching powerlessly as his friend walked away. "They're going to kill him, Mycroft." Sherlock's voice sounded small and hollow. Afraid. "They will murder him for a lark." Under other circumstances Mycroft Holmes might have chided his younger brother for outwardly displaying such sentiment. In this case, he simply shared his dread.
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A/N - Sorry, sorry, SORRY for the long delay between chapters again! This was another chapter that just didn't want to come out right. I hope it works. Expect the next chapters fairly quickly.
Reviews, comments, suggestions? Please, please, please.
Don't own anything. Just killing time ...
Not beta'd or Brit-picked.