Chapter 9

"I'm eternally grateful, Sherlock. Thank you," Sherrinford said as his brother handed him a USB stick with the expertly redacted documents. They were meeting at the Baker Street flat since the agent had finally been released from the safe house. Both his medical and his career history slate had been declared clean.

"Just don't screw this up, Herring," Sherlock replied. "It would irk me no end if all my hard work was for nothing."

Sherrinford smiled. "Always so confident in my abilities, little brother. But don't worry. I'm sure this will put me back in the group's good graces, and the moment I know my family is safe I'll give you the time and location of the attack. Which reminds me - I'm not sure if I will have a way of contacting you, so why don't we make an appointment for a meeting right now. The worst that can happen is that I have nothing to report."

"Sure, why not," Sherlock agreed. "Where and when?"

"Let's say tomorrow. 1600 hours in the abandoned Sumatra Road Underground station," Sherrinford suggested.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "Well, well, well, I didn't peg you for a fan of Watson's blog."

"Guilty as charged," Sherrinford said with a smile. But then he turned serious again. "I may have been dead to you, but you were very much in my thoughts. So I was glad to have a way to keep tabs on your exploits and successes."

"Let's add another one to them then," Sherlock said, clearly uncomfortable with the sentimental turn the conversation had taken. "Although I doubt that Watson will get free rein to publish our current case. Even in redacted form."

"As long as we get a happy ending I don't mind either way. But I better go. Miles to go before I sleep and all that." Sherrinford pocketed the USB stick and held out his hand to Sherlock. "See you soon - hopefully."

"Good luck."

They shook hands and the older brother left.

It was in the very early morning of the next day that Watson was yanked from his slumber by Sherlock shaking him awake.

"Rise and shine, John. The excrement has hit the ventilation system. Obviously Mycroft has his own spies in the group of extremists Sherrinford has returned to. He is aware that they have the handbook of outbreak procedures, and he's hopping mad. We've been summoned to his ostentatious office. You better get dressed in a hurry, making him wait won't improve his temper."

"Right." John quickly swung his legs over the side of the bed, then stopped there for a moment as a head rush hit him. "Oh, Sherlock, I forgot to tell you..."

"Not now," Sherlock interrupted, already on his way out the door. "I barely have time to make myself some tea while you get ready. I refuse to be subjected to Mycroft's tedious superiority without at least a dose of Darjeeling."

During the taxi ride Sherlock was brooding and discouraged any attempt by John to start a conversation. As Sherlock had predicted, they were led to Mycroft's office.

"Of all the ridiculous stunts you've pulled this one tops the list by a mile." To describe Mycroft as 'hopping mad' didn't do the scope of his rage justice. "What on earth were you thinking? No, don't answer that, you obviously were not thinking at all."

Sherlock was witnessing his brother's tirade lounging in the comfort of a sofa and appeared completely unfazed. "Well, we rarely see eye to eye but aren't you overdramatizing things? Yes, I provided them with a copy of the handbook, but all codes were cunningly redacted."

Mycroft looked at Sherlock as if he exuded a bad smell. "Redacted?" he asked.

"Yes," Sherlock said with a sigh.

"Well, these codes don't look redacted to me," Mycroft sneered. He hit a switch and a projection appeared on the wall across from Sherlock. Using a laser pointer, he outlined several figures while flipping through the pages. The detective sat up in his seat, his relaxed demeanour gone. "This is not the document I sent to the extremist group."

"But it is the document that my operative copied from one of their laptops."

Sherlock shook his head. "I don't understand..."

"Obviously you must have handed over the wrong version of the file," Mycroft said, his voice dripping with scorn.

"Impossible. I deleted the original file before saving the redacted version to the USB stick."

"You deleted the original?" Mycroft pinched the top of his nose and closed his eyes as if suffering from a sudden migraine attack. "You were keeping a copy of a highly sensitive document on your private laptop?"

"That's usually where I keep files while making changes to them," Sherlock snapped. "But I never let it out of my sight while the original file was on its hard drive. And then I deleted it."

"You realize that even deleted files can be retrieved unless the hard drive is completely reformatted?" Mycroft asked.

"Of course I do, but only if you know that the file was on the computer in the first place. Apart from myself only two people knew about it, Watson and... well, Sherrinford." For a moment uncertainty flickered over Sherlock's features, but then he caught himself again. "But he was only at the flat once to pick up the redacted file, and he didn't even go near the laptop."

Watson cleared his throat. "Actually... well, I tried to tell you earlier..."

"What is it, man?" Mycroft demanded. "Out with it!"

"Sherrinford came by yesterday afternoon while you were out, Sherlock."

"What?" Sherlock exclaimed while Mycroft just gave a groan and raised his eyes to the ceiling. "Tell me exactly what happened while he was here," Sherlock demanded.

"Sure... um let's see." John racked his brain for the details. "He said he'd forgotten his scarf when he was there that morning. Well, we found it at the bottom of the closet outside. The weather was horrible and he was dripping wet, so I offered him tea. I noticed he wasn't comfortable, so he admitted he had a headache and asked me for some Aspirin. There wasn't any in the bathroom cabinet, so I went downstairs to ask Mrs. Hudson." John's voice had become progressively more hesitant and finally dropped to almost a whisper. He closed his eyes. "He played me. Again. Didn't he?"

"He certainly did. Dropping his scarf into the hallway wardrobe as he arrived was only too easy. And did he by any chance ask to use the bathroom so it would give him a chance to remove the Aspirin from the cabinet?"

"No, but he insisted to put his wet umbrella in the bathtub," John had to admit with a sigh. "But really, I was only gone a minute, there was no time for him to retrieve a deleted file."

"That would not have been necessary," Mycroft explained. "I'm pretty sure if I have one of my tech people take a gander at the laptop in question he'll find some kind of trojan or spyware that allows remote access to the hard drive - giving him all the time he needed to search for and retrieve the original file."

Watson buried his face in his hands. "God, I feel like a complete fool."

Mycroft shook his head. "I should have listened. I've heard rumours that our dear brother was quite the little Machiavelli back in Karachi."

Sherlock perked up like a pointer. "Where did you hear that?"

"From Sir Percy. I think I told you the other day I was going to have lunch with a friend who'd been posted out East. Although it's rather surprising we are still even on talking terms after the way you made him take the fall for the break-in at the High Commission. He's very well informed on the whole mess with the Pashtun independence movement, and he told me Sherrinford has been playing different sides against each other."

"Did he now..." Sherlock looked very thoughtful. "When did he tell you?"

"Not that it matters, but late yesterday evening over a nightcap at the club." Mycroft shook his head. "Obviously our brother is not the man we once knew. But Sir Percy has agreed to help us identify possible targets for the attack. I'm sure his input will be quite valuable." Mycroft turned to his desk in what was clearly a dismissal. "Run along now, I need to perform damage control on the mess you created. New codes need to be implemented, which is always a tedious business. We'll be lucky if we get them in place within 48 hours. Until then our defences are vulnerable."

When his visitors were gone he grabbed the remote control and shut off the projection. Then he patted his pockets. "Now where did I put my laser pointer?" he wondered.

"What are we going to do now?" John asked his friend as they walked down the long hallways leading to the exit.

"Not sure what your plans are, but I intend to keep my appointment with Sherrinford tomorrow afternoon."

"I was wondering why you didn't mention it to Mycroft," John mused. "I assumed you expected he wouldn't show. And why would he? He has what he wanted from us, why should he bother?"

Sherlock smiled his famous 'cat-got-the-cream' smile that showed that he had more information than he was willing to share. "Oh, he'll be there. The puzzle pieces are starting to rearrange themselves in a fascinating new pattern."