G. Enemy

The moves in the game are deadly serious. One skirmish precipitates another. What we do in back rooms and board rooms has repercussions throughout the world. One false move can result in the collapse of an institution, or the loss of a fortune, or the loss of a life.

I anticipated my meeting with John all week. I bought a new tie. I thought of five different restaurants where we could meet, finally resolving on one that served Chinese food, because I had heard that he liked that. But on the morning of the meeting, intelligence reported that James Moriarty had been captured. I canceled the appointment.

Therefore, I was nowhere near pleased when I went down into the interrogation block and looked through the one-way glass to see James Moriarty smirking there.

Dr. Gustav M. Berliner was a cryptographer and computer scientist. He had lived in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin wall. He moved to China and lived there for many years. Two weeks before he had returned to Germany to attend the funeral of his daughter, but he never arrived there. Moriarty had abducted him.

Before his capture, Dr. Berliner was rumored to be working on a universal key code that could open any door or lock. We had planned to detain him ourselves, but Moriarty had got to him first.

An interrogator entered the cell "Where is Dr. Berliner?" he asked.

Moriarty said nothing.

"Where have you taken him?" Moriarty only smiled.

"We have been polite up until now, but if you do not answer our questions, we can use methods that are not so ...civil."

Moriarty frowned looking down at the man with a dark expression. "Try," he said.

We were on a time table. By law we had to release Moriarty in two weeks if he had not been charged. Our agents were looking everywhere while the interrogation proceeded. I spent a good part of each day watching as it progressed, or failed to progress. Moriarty had not uttered another word.

One evening while I was meditating on the problem at the Diogenes club, I got a text that someone had used my identification at a military base in Baskerville. It was my little brother on one of his escapades again.

I texted him [What are you doing? M]

I waited and then texted again.

[What's going on Sherlock? M]

Sherlock did not bother to reply, so I denied the authorization and called Gregory Lestrade of Scotland yard. He was an associate of Sherlock who I had strings to manipulate.

"Detective Inspector Lestrade. Do you know who this is?"

"Ah! Mycroft Holmes," he said.

"Yes. I believe that you are overworked, it may be time for you to take a vacation."

"But I just got back from vacation!"

"Then you will take another one to Baskerville, tomorrow. Find out what Sherlock is doing. Your supervisor will be advised of your absence."

"Hey, I can't just..." I hung up.

The next moment an urgent alert came in. I walked into the office and made a call.

"Mr Holmes," said the agent, "he's asking for you...by name."

I went down into the cells and looked through the one-way glass. Moriarty was yelling and waving his hands. "Holmes! I want Mycroft Holmes! Get Mycroft PLEEEAASSEE!"

He sounded demented. He sounded mad. I took a moment to straighten my tie and dust off my jacket, and then I walked into the cell with James Moriarty.

We stared at each other. The guard stood on the side making sure that Moriarty did not touch me.

"Hi Mycroft," He said, "So good to finally meet you at last."

"You wanted something?" I asked.

"You can't keep me in here you know," he said. " I have associates ready to shake down the walls of this place. Unlawful detention. OH! The injustice!" he said waving his hands.

"You are referring. I suppose, to your associates in Covent Garden. They have been … neutralized I'm afraid."

Moriarty pursed his lips for a second, and then he widened his eyes and said in a sing song voice, "Oh well, can't be helped!"

"Where is Dr. Berliner? You know of course."

"Of course," he said, "But you should know that you can't get anything for free these days. You'll have to trade for it." He nodded his head.

"Trade what?"

"Oh you'll love this," he said smiling, "I won't ask for any of those government secrets that you think are so important. They're not secrets to me anyway. Boring. What I want to know is totally insignificant."

"What do you want to know?" I asked.

"That's right Mycroft. Always working for your government. It's so important isn't it, but how important? That's what I want to know."

"My patience is wearing thin."

"Tell me about Sherlock."

"What?" I asked surprised.

"I want to know about Sherlock. What he was like as a child?"

"Why?"

"Because I'm a FAN!" he said.

I watched James Moriarty. His face was covered with the beginning of a mustache. His prison-issued clothes were loose on his thin frame, but his eyes did not look beaten. He looked powerful, exultant.

"Where is Dr. Berliner?" I asked.

"In Berlin where else would a Berliner be?" Moriarty quipped.

"The address?"

"My turn. What was Sherlock's favorite fairy tale as a child?"

"What? How can this possibly ..."

"That's my price. SEE it's so easy! What are you going to chose? Will you stand before all these fine gentlemen and ladies and say that your brother's reading preferences as a child take precedence over the safety of this nation? I'm asking so little. It's just for my own ...amusement. Tell me and I'll give you the address."

Moriarty was the most dangerous criminal that the world had ever seen, and now he was asking me about my brother's childhood preferences. I could not understand why it was important, but I knew that it was a direct attack against me.

I had a decided lack of weaknesses. I had cultivated this quality for just this reason, and now he was attacking one of them. But he was correct. The books that Sherlock liked as a child were nothing against the safety of this nation, and I could not see how this information could ever be used against him.

"Hansel and Gretel." I said, "That was his favorite fairy tale."

"Excellent!" Moriarty said. "Two little children, abandoned in the woods kidnapped by a wicked witch. A crime story. Yes! Yes! I like it."

"The location of Dr Berliner."

"The Edelweiss apartments, room fifteen."

I immediately turned and left the cell. "Contact the BND. Have them search that address and report to me at once."

That night I got the report from Berlin. Dr. Berliner was indeed in the room as Moriarty said. He was in the freezer, dead.

The next few days were grueling. We would start by denying him sleep. Then the traditional interrogation. Then my turn with him followed by his meal.

I had delegated many of my smaller tasks, but some I could not avoid. I found myself going from work, to the cells to home with no break. It was grueling to me as well. We had just retrieved Dr. Berliner's papers. They were in German, which I could read, but the mathematics were unfamiliar to me. I could learn it, but I didn't have the time. I had just decided to send it to our decryption team when there was a visitor at the door.

Wendell, our old butler, showed in Dr. John Watson. I was not dressed to receive visitors. I was not even wearing my waistcoat, but John didn't seem to notice.

"Hello Mycroft," he said, "So this is where you live. It's pretty impressive. Do you live all by yourself?"

"Yes. The butler has an adjoining apartment, but the other servants go home at night."

"Amazing! Feudalism lives," John said looking around the sitting room.

"So John, what can I do for you? Why are you here?"

"Ah, no reason. I just wanted to give you this." John handed me a foil bag. I reached inside and pulled out a small dog toy.

He reached out touching the base of my hand as he pushed the dog's head making it bob up and down. "You put it on the counter, and its little head goes up and down. You see?"

"Ah?" I said confused and distracted by John's touch.

"It's a souvenir. I told Sherlock that it was a requirement when on a trip to buy souvenirs for your relatives."

"Is it now?" I said, "Thank you." And I set the dog toy on the mantle next to a seventeenth-century china tea cup. "I've never gotten a souvenir before."

"You haven't? I figured your parents would have given them to you all the time, whenever they returned from business trips and such."

"My father rarely left London," I said. "Please come into the dining room. I'll have Wendall set another place for dinner."

"Oh no, I didn't mean to impose. I just came to drop this off."

"Please," I said, "I'm eating alone."

John stopped and looked at me. He took in the empty house, the chairs that no one ever sat in. The rooms kept like a museum and said, "Actually, I am a bit hungry, if it wouldn't be an imposition..."

I smiled and called Wendell.

That night, I had another blissful sleep.

The next morning when I went to see Moriarty he narrowed his eyes."Something's changed," he said.

"Let us go back to the keycode. Where can I find it?" I started.

"Oooh! I see it now!" he said excitedly. "Your eyes aren't red, and are those laugh lines? Who's been thawing the iceman? Who do you care for if not your little brother?

I put on my most impassive face. I could see that I had made a dangerous mistake. I realized then that this entire interrogation was about me. I had thought that we had captured Moriarty. He had let himself be captured, let himself be detained because he wanted to get to me, personally.

He knew my weakness, and he was pumping me for information. Whereas I had not gotten anything of significance from him that would help us discover the computer key code. It was locked up in that devilish mind of his. The mind that was planning even now how to drive a knife into my gut and twist it.

I nodded to Moriarty "Nicely played." I said and turned and left the room.

I grabbed the arm of my principal interrogator. "Take off the gloves." I told him. "We need that key code now."

I walked outside and smoked a half a pack of cigarettes. I knew I was being watched. I couldn't visit John again or he would be in danger. I got into the car and drove to work racing against time to see how many problems I could solve before Moriarty was released to begin his attack on me.

The time allowed for our detention ended, and Moriarty was released. He had covered the room with Sherlock's name scratched with his fingernails, written with his sweat. Drawn with his hair. Moriarty was obsessed, and we had gained nothing.

"Alright let him go." I said and they opened the door releasing this dangerous criminal back onto the streets.

He sauntered out slowly. As he passed he turned and whispered, "You'll be hearing from me, Mycroft."

He had written Sherlock's name backwards on the one-way glass to make sure that I knew who his target was. The next turn was going to be devastating. The next turn, would be the destruction of Sherlock Holmes.