A/N: Thank you again to my wonderful readers! We are about half way now with the story. Soon I promise Sherlock will get rescued! :)
Angelo sipped his early morning espresso and winced when he realised he hadn't changed the pressure of the machine and it made the brew especially bitter. On the bench in the kitchen he'd laid out a simple but hearty breakfast and right now Billy, his front of house, was busy keeping up with the hoard of people in his restaurant, despite the closed sign on the front door.
Big Joe finally arrived and with him came a sense of order. Like Doctor John he was an ex vet one of the many that now swelled the civilian population of Great Britain. A fully trained combat veteran, who attempted to slot back into civilian life after his discharge had struggled. Very little job openings for those who had come back, looked great on a resume but you weren't likely to get a job because of it. In fact nowadays it was more likely to get you looked at with derision and suspicion, and the cops, useless buggers they could be, didn't realise that the violence on the street hadn't escalated really, just more of the average man who was no longer afraid to stand up to the scum, who took back his street, or corner of the world. Angelo pulled another espresso through the machine and handed it to Joe as he called the room to order.
"Okay we have the beginnings of a plan thanks to Jimmy last night and we've got access via Ash, so what we need now is to work out the arrangements."
"Do you have a blueprint or plans of the hospital?" Joe's voice was soft and deliberate, almost timid, but under that was truly a hard man.
"Yeah, Mix got em off their website last night." Billy joined in and pointed to the teenage hacker.
"Well let's see em then?" Joe folded powerful arms across his broad chest as the plans were dutifully tacked together on sheets of A4 until the kitchen bench was completely covered. Silence reigned for a few minutes before his soft voice echoed again. "State of the art surveillance equipment, getting in and out with Mr H will be hard, especially since we don't know what condition he'll be in. So I suggest we run a double blind."
"Huh?" Billy grunted, not the brightest bulb in the box Angelo thought.
"Ok, Angelo you go in with Ash this afternoon and get into the room, see what's what yeah? In the meantime Mix can you handle their security remotely? Get a few cameras turned off?"
"Easy, their security is shit, barely even password protected."
"Good, cameras go out here and here." Joe pointed and looked around. "Angelo goes into the kitchen and calls back via the mobile let me know how much assistance Mr H can give to his own rescue yeah."
Angelo nodded.
"Carmine will organise a delivery to the kitchen of meat, we'll rig the back with a stretcher, and it's already got ramps if we need to use a wheelchair."
"Ok, good but what's the double blind?"
"McKay's wife." Joe smiled with undisguised glee.
"Because?"
"She's tall, blonde and very very persuasive. She'll go in front door, and demand to see her uncle who she will be told was there, but they will have no records, whilst there she'll have a medical emergency which will cause a stir at the front, security will be called to the main entrance, leaving the back free of support. We take Mr H out down this hallway, Mix disables the fire alarm and we load him into the truck."
"So far so good, but we need more Intel don't we?" Angelo asked.
"Which, my friend is why you are going inside, you will have to disconnect him from any medical equipment and get him into the chair, he's a tall lad but I'm sure you could lift him."
"He weighs nothing, is why you keep trying to fatten him up." Angelo's long suffering wife smiled as she saw the condition of her kitchen and tutted.
"You know he's mates with Lestrade and his brother is well connected, just why aren't we telling them?" Billy asked and all eyes turned to him.
"This nutter may have inside connections to the cops, they could kill him long before they get there, besides they all get bogged down with legalities of search and entry and what not. Quicker for us to do it under the radar." Joe answered.
"Okay let's go, Mix set up upstairs use the WiFi and check out their systems, make sure you can get in. I'll get ready to meet Ash."
As the room cleared Joe hung behind and caught Angelo's elbow in a strong grip and steered him into the restaurant proper.
"I know that look Joe, out with it." Angelo pulled his long hair back into his trademark ponytail and peered intently at the other man.
"Doctor John."
"And?"
"We are going to need immediate medical support for him Ange, I know what drugs do to a man, especially one like Mr H. You may need to knock him out to keep him quiet."
"I had thought of that, he may not even recognise me, Ash said that the bitch had him truly fucked up."
"Just so long as you know, can you disconnect him from the equipment?"
"Won't know until I see him, but we need other medical support, Doctor John is probably being watched by her cronies. Can't have him lead them to us before we get him into his brother's compound."
"Agreed. So we will use the squat in Camden, and get Sally to sit with him, you will have to stay with him, we have a better chance of him remembering you, than me. We'll move him to the compound late tonight if all goes well." The two shook hands with a solemn nod.
~~~)))(((~~~
"But I want to see Doctor John." The little girl stamped her foot and demanded at Mycroft's door. Pretty red curls bounced against her shoulders, a well worn and filthy doll clutched in her ten year old hand, and a grimy Brittany Spears T shirt clung to her tiny frame.
"What's all the commotion?" John came to the door and tapped Davis on the shoulder. Mycroft's butler was well used to strange happenings and just shook his head.
"Miss Lucy here wants to see Doctor John." Davis smiled as he turned to the ex army surgeon and opened the door fully.
"But of course." John lead the way through to the front room, aware Mycroft was off overseeing a war in some far off place. "Now what seems to be the problem? Are you sick?"
Lucy just rolled her eyes. "Of course not." She huffed. "Am hungry though and I got a message for you, this place safe?" she looked around the room suspiciously; more wary than any small child had a right to be.
John felt his heart rate speed up as he sat down with the child next to him. "Far as I can tell, yes."
"Ok, Mr Angelo says that you're not to worry, but he needs you to stay with Mr Mycroft or Inspector Geoff, that you're not to come near the network again because you'd be interfering."
"Interfering?" John felt the anger rise and the child saw this as she leant against his side.
"Doctor John, we love him too and they are going to help but you gotta stay put, if you do anything odd it might mean he gets hurt even more."
"Oh God, you know where he is?"
"Me no, the boys don't tell me being because I'm a girl." She rolled her eyes again. "But I hear things, and they want me to tell you to stay put, if all goes well they will have Mr H sorted soon. Okay?"
John felt hot tears course down his face as her small hand wiped them away and she kissed his cheek. "How badly is he hurt?"
"Don't know, but you must promise Doctor John, just give us two days. Okay?"
He wrapped his arms around her and nodded against her shoulder. "You want to eat?"
"Of course. Nice digs by the way, think I could get adopted?" she grinned.
John was never more acutely aware as he was in that instant how Sherlock had impacted on all their lives, this irascible, recalcitrant, patrician of a man, touched hearts, souls and minds. And he wondered if Sherlock even knew, but then dismissed it, Sherlock seemed to know just about everything.
~~~)))(((~~~~
"Fuck." Lestrade bellowed as Sally Donovan cringed opposite him. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." There was a smile on his face as he slapped the documents in his hands, he flipped open the phone and hit speed dial.
"Mycroft." Came the distant and bored reply.
"We've got a hit from Interpol. We have a retired Professor of Criminology living in Basel, Switzerland. Has one child and adopted twins back in the mid 80's, his name is Moriarty."
"Do you have a contact for him?"
"Working on it, seems his adopted son is currently in the morgue, the daughter married Frederick Winston and has been in and out of mental health care most of her adult life. She married her psychiatrist; we're looking for his records now."
"Ah."Mycroft breathed into the phone. "It's why we couldn't find her. She not a damned doctor, she's a patient."
"Criminally insane by the sounds of it." Lestrade breathed.
"My God Geoff, and she has my brother." Mycroft by now had most of Arabella Winston's history on his phone and when he scrolled down the list his stomach lurched at the savagery of the woman.
"We'll find him. I promise you we will find him." And for the first time in many a strange and tiring day DI Lestrade no longer felt helpless as he grabbed his coat and headed out the door.
~~~)))(((~~~
Sherlock looked up through bleary eyes and at once recognised he was no longer cold, well not as cold as he had been, and his head was a little clearer.
Long fingers stroked his body intimately and he arched back into the touch before he realised what was happening.
"See now, we can play nice, and you can enjoy it. All you have to do is submit Sherlock."
He groaned and curled as far forward as he could against the rail of the bed and away from her hands.
"Behave for me and you can eat today and keep the blanket, misbehave and I'll have to punish you again because you've been bad haven't you?"
He nodded as tears streaked his face. He was tired, so tired and her hands were soft, and the blanket was warm and he couldn't think, only feel.
And his mind snapped back, feel where the skin has rubbed clear of his body from being naked on the starched sheets, feel the throb at the multiple injection points, he could feel the itch of the beard on his unshaven face and the salt that had dried from his tears on his cheeks. He ached, body and soul and all he wanted, all he needed was John and he cried again.
"Please stop." His own voice weak and confused and her hand curled into a claw and cut into delicate skin, drawing blood as he shuddered and sobbed on the bed.
"See now, pet has to stop demanding of me. You will play nice eventually, but now you've upset me." And the drug once again filled the canula, only this time it paralysed him, vacantly he thought it must be a diluted form of Curare. Fear ratcheted up into body as the cotton blankets were withdrawn swiftly and he shivered as his hands were cuffed to the bed in complete naked surrender to their whims. He tried to close his eyes and couldn't and his mind refused to give up the unequal fight, totally submerged in the helplessness. He watched the hands of the orderlies, strong, vicious and utterly dehumanising as they set to torment him again. This time he couldn't even scream as the scalpel flashed close to his eyes and down to the soles of his feet as they began the shallow cuts. Eventually he passed out from the pain, as the blood pooled into sheet.
