Mycroft is seated in the back of a military staff car befitting his rank. He chose the rank of Major because it's impressive enough to intimidate, but not enough to draw unwanted attention. His driver is a lucky last-minute acquisition, an asset who knows something of the prison as well as the staff they will likely encounter. He also has experience as a medic that Mycroft hopes will not be needed. Ironically, the woman Mycroft was most irritated with out of the six operatives he employed to get here is the one who found this man for him, and he owes her an apology he can never offer.
Of the three possible targets, Mycroft has made the best choice he can with the available evidence, but it's still a guess. He received a call five hours ago referencing a report that had been intercepted and dismissed three weeks earlier from a medium security detainment facility in eastern Serbia near the Romanian border. It stated that one of their detainees, a Serbian national of no fixed address, had been accused of mind-reading trickery by one of his guards. The prisoner in question is one of the three previously selected as potentially being Sherlock. This latest piece of data focused the search and put Mycroft on a plane.
Unfortunately, they have lost the element of surprise. Word has gotten back to Mycroft's contact that the prison officials know of the new interest in the weeks-old report, and they are worried that they've missed one of their prisoners being a dangerous subversive. It means Sherlock is no longer an anonymous prisoner, and there are no longer any limits to what they will do to get the truth from him.
This is the situation he's always feared: Sherlock trapped somewhere out of reach, in mortal danger that Mycroft is powerless to stop. He is still hours away from finding out just how close to reality his nightmares have become.
* * * *
"You are to keep him awake." The team leader has just re-entered the interrogation cell and is clearly not pleased by the fact that his prisoner is hanging limply from his manacled wrists, knees flexed and all of his weight suspended on the chains.
"We have to let him rest. We cannot get answers from a corpse." This is from the man who has been handling the 'questioning'.
Sherlock has discovered that playing dead is the only way to stop the abuse, if only for a short time. They don't like any of the answers he gives, and not answering isn't any better. Unconsciousness - faked or real- provides the only respite, and he's unfortunately finding it less and less necessary to fake it.
"There has been an inquiry from Intelligence about this man. If we are not able to find out who he is, we will have to answer for it. Do you wish to find yourself on the receiving side of this interview?" The voice is the team leader's, and he is masking fear with a growl.
"What if he's telling the truth? His answers do not change."
"I will show you." The team leader walks behind Sherlock as he speaks.
Sherlock starts to raise his head to 'wake up', just in case the man has plans to force it, when something that feels like a flexible rod slams across his back at kidney level and takes his breath away. His head snaps back as his body arches around the pain, bending backward and bringing him to his feet from pure reflex.
The man who struck him comes around to the front, smiling at his success. He turns to the interrogator. "You see, he's neither dead nor unconscious. Do your job." He turns and leaves the cell, letting the door slam behind him with a deep metallic boom.
Sherlock looks directly into his abuser's eyes and sees doubt and exhaustion. It almost makes him smile. The inquiry from Intelligence can't be a coincidence. There's nothing about his cover identity that could have sparked it. It has to mean that Mycroft has found him.
*All you have to do is stay alive until he gets here.*
The man turns away for a moment, bends down and picks up the leather strap he's been using on his back. That's better than more blows to his front, by far, but it's also easier for the man to swing the strap than it is to throw punches. He'll be able to keep it up longer.
"What is your name?" he asks as he walks behind Sherlock.
Sherlock hears strap hiss on the backswing and closes his eyes in fierce concentration. He tries to force the tension out of his muscles, but his body refuses to obey. Reflex overrides willpower and his back knots under the blow, and the next, and the next.
****
The plan they've settled on is deceptively simple. Mycroft will commandeer the prisoner as a high value threat who must be taken to headquarters for intense interrogation. It's the type of glory-grabbing that happens routinely, even in British Intelligence. Let the foot soldiers do the work, and the upper echelons take the credit. The maneuver won't come as a surprise to the men who are holding him. Mycroft wanted to tell the prison staff to get the prisoner ready for them, hoping to stop whatever they're doing to him. His driver provided sound reasons against such a move.
"There's nothing you could do that would raise suspicion more quickly. You will be expected to observe the interrogation, not stop it. You don't want them to start wondering why you came in person rather than just having the prisoner sent to you."
The driver holds his gaze in the mirror until Mycroft nods before he continues. "We're going to get him, sir."
The next two hours are the longest Mycroft can remember. They've seen no other vehicles for twenty minutes, driving a winding two lane paved road through a deeply forested area. The darkness is total, which makes the glow of the prison lights when they appear through the trees seem much closer than they actually turn out to be.
"There will be a cursory examination of my credentials at the gate. They won't ask to see yours until we get inside, if then" the driver tells him as they approach the razor wire fence at the entrance.
There are two guard houses, one on either side of a double metal gate that swings from the center to accommodate motor vehicles. A guard comes out of the one on the left as they pull up and stop at the gate. He accepts the wallet that the driver offers, and walks quickly back to his booth. They can see him speaking animatedly into the phone for a moment before he returns.
"We have not been told that you were coming." The man's voice betrays his nervousness.
The driver snatches his wallet from the guard's hand. "My commanding officer does not need permission to inspect your facility. You would be wise to announce to your commander that he has an important guest and open this gate at once."
The guard doesn't move. The driver looks at Mycroft in the mirror, eyebrows raised. Mycroft opens his door and steps out. "You will open the gate and notify your superior that I am coming in. Now." His voice is pitched in his most commanding register, and his practiced glare is fixed squarely on the guard.
"Yes, sir. Yes." He immediately opens the gate and returns to the gatehouse. Mycroft gets back in the car and watches though the tinted window as the guard picks up the phone with a trembling hand.
The driver gives him an approving nod. "That's exactly the attitude they'll be expecting, and you will have to maintain it while the interrogation goes on in front of you, or we're not going to get out of here. They'll keep after him until he gives them something. Let's hope your brother knows what to do."
Mycroft's performance at the front gate has apparently been shared with the welcoming committee inside the prison. The captain of the shift is deferential and accommodating. He quickly verifies that the prisoner they have come for is being interrogated.
"Take me to him," Mycroft orders. As previously arranged, the driver will keep track of the staff while Mycroft retrieves his brother.
There is a young man at the end of the corridor dressed in a heavy winter coat and hat, a rifle over his shoulder and the white wires of an iPod dangling from his ears. He salutes the Major as he passes. Mycroft barely acknowledges him. His focus is on the sounds coming from the other side of the metal door.
****
*You stopped shivering. This is not good.*
He knows this without John's helpful warning. The shivering stopped about the same time that he stopped feeling the cold. Since he can see his own breath in the air, it's not because the temperature has gone up. The last bucket of water still felt cold, but he's been getting sleepy and almost warm since then. It is not sitting well with the man with his tormentor.
"You will tell me who you are and why you are here."
"I told you," Sherlock gasps. The conversation has become repetitive and predictable. The blow that lands on his back in response is not a surprise, and barely hurts. Nerve endings eventually become desensitized, he's discovered. Hit the same spot often enough, and it stops hurting. This does not seem to apply to his abdomen or ribs, unfortunately, and his abuser knows this, going by the flurry that lands next.
His full attention is on trying to pull in a breath without moving his shrieking abdominal muscles when the heavy door opens and the man snaps to attention.
"I will have your report now," a new voice commands.
*Sherlock, it's Mycroft. Did you hear? It's Mycroft.*
He's afraid to look up because he can't hide his relief. He's suddenly shaking with it. Or it might be that he's responding to the cold again. Either way, his physical reaction surprises him. Every nerve ending that had been numbed is now wide awake and screaming. His heart is hammering with a new rush of adrenaline, and it's hard to breathe, but for a different reason than a few moments ago.
The interrogator is speaking to Mycroft, reporting that the prisoner has not responded to questioning. He makes no excuses. He apologizes for his ineffectiveness and asks if the Major wishes him to continue.
*He'll get you out of here now, just hang on another minute. You're safe now.*
"Continue."
*WHAT?*
He barely notices the punch that snaps his head to the right. Mycroft is watching this and not stopping it. The man who's beating him senseless is now doing it to impress Mycroft.
*You know there's a reason, Sherlock. There has to be. What is it? THINK.*
He doesn't know. He has to get the man to stop hitting him so he can think, and he tries playing dead. It works for a few seconds, and then the bucket of icy water splashes over him, and the beating resumes.
*Sherlock, talk to the man who's hitting you. Listen to his voice. You know who that is.*
He does know the voice. He remembers making a special effort to note this voice. It was going to help him somehow. He must have had a plan, but he never carried it out. He doesn't know why.
Another crack on the jaw makes everything go gray and quiet.
*No, you can't pass out now. You know who he is. You have to talk to him. He'll stop if you just play your cards right."
Cards. The guards were playing cards by the clipboard with the blue paper. This voice was there. Sherlock listened for a week, every night on third shift. The guards played cards just across the corridor. This voice did most of the talking. His flat. Money trouble. Neighbor trouble. His wife.
*Tell him what you told me, Sherlock. You remember. You had a plan. You know what will make him stop and leave you alone. Mycroft will help you if you make him stop.*
Suddenly the hitting stops on its own, and Sherlock looks up because there's no longer any relief on his face to hide. What he sees tells him he's about to die while Mycroft sits there watching.
****
Mycroft knew it was Sherlock the instant he heard the sounds of pain through the door. Now that he sees what they've done to his brother, he understands what the driver was warning him against. He can't react to what he's seeing, and knowing that Sherlock must realize he's sitting here allowing this to continue is infinitely worse than he ever expected.
They planned for everything but this. There are distress words Sherlock could use in a communication to call for help. Codes words to identify a location for extraction. But they never expected to be in a situation like this. Mycroft needs a false confession, a statement, an excuse to congratulate the man who's slowly beating his brother to death in front of him. Something that will get them out of here alive.
And abruptly, there's no time left.
The man has picked up a heavy pipe from the floor, and it's clear that his frustration has erased his common sense. This is not a tool to extract information. It's a murder weapon. He swings it back.
Mycroft is frozen by the certainty that he can't possibly stop the blow before it lands. He is about to see his brother murdered before his eyes.
The man freezes in mid-swing, then leans close to Sherlock's bowed head, listening to whispered words that Mycroft can't make out.
"He says the power is out in my bathroom."
Mycroft breathes again. *There you are, brother mine. There you are.*
The man is still holding the pipe, but he's not swinging it now, he's leaning on it like a cane, still leaning down and listening.
"What is he saying?"
The man is shaking his head in disbelief. He repeats what Sherlock is telling him, something about his wife cheating on him with the coffin maker, but Mycroft is no longer listening. Already focused on the next step, he's trying to judge his brother's ability to walk out of this room. The man is being manipulated into going after his cheating wife, and Mycroft will have very little time to get them out when that happens.
"He says if I go now, I will catch them," the abuser growls, and leaves without another word.
Mycroft gets to his feet and crosses to where Sherlock is hanging limply from the manacles on his wrists. He pulls on the matted hair and looks into his brother's battered face. He sees defeat and exhaustion and flagging consciousness. He needs to see anger and adrenaline. The words he hisses into Sherlock's ear are carefully chosen based on his knowledge of exactly what buttons to push.
Sherlock responds with a tight smile that Mycroft knows well. It says there will be consequences for this, and Mycroft nods. *Fight back, Sherlock. I need you to fight.*
"We need to get out of here now." He unsnaps the manacles, and Sherlock drops to his knees, then to all fours, head down.
"No, Sherlock. Get up."
"Wait," Sherlock pants, his breathing ragged and strained.
Mycroft grabs his left shoulder and pulls him to his feet. "Sorry, we don't have time. You have to walk."
Sherlock cries out, then bites it back and staggers forward.
The driver is heading toward them when they reach the end of the corridor. He gets on the other side of Sherlock and helps support him in the guise of restraining their prisoner. He's barely keeping to his feet, and it takes both Mycroft and the driver to keep him moving.
"I will send my recommendations for your reward when I return to headquarters," he tells the man at the front door as they walk out into the freezing night. No one stops them.
Sherlock is in ragged cotton prison trousers, no shirt, and bare feet. He should be shaking with cold. The fact that he is not is concerning. They load him into the back seat, and the driver gets behind the wheel.
The car pauses at the gate, and the guard waves them through. Mycroft and the driver are both watching the rear view mirror until the lights of the prison begin to fade into the trees.
"What took you so long?" Sherlock asks in a shaky whisper. He's huddled against the door as far from Mycroft as he can manage.
Mycroft takes in his brother's trembling, shockingly thin body. Even in the dim interior, the damage is painfully clear. "You had a lot to do with that yourself."
"Not what I meant," Sherlock whispers, trying for a furious glare that comes off more glazed than angry. He's slurring his words.
The driver catches Mycroft's gaze in the mirror. He's frowning. "We need to pull over so I can get a look at him," he tells Mycroft.
"I would prefer to put more distance between us and any potential pursuit."
The driver nods, but he keeps glancing in the mirror and turning in his seat to look at Sherlock. A few miles later, he starts looking for a place to pull over.
"I don't think anyone is coming after us. I need to get a look at him."
A moment later, he pulls the car onto the shoulder and turns off the lights. "My kit is in the boot." He gets out and goes to retrieve it.
Mycroft turns on the overhead so he can see Sherlock's face. He's utterly still, and Mycroft shakes him lightly, trying to get him to open his eyes.
The driver opens the door, and Sherlock jerks awake, eyes wide and every muscle suddenly tensed with adrenaline.
"Whoa, mate. Take it easy."
Mycroft takes him gently by the shoulder. "Sherlock, it's me. You're all right. Let him look at you."
"I'm just going to make sure you're okay." He reaches for Sherlock's face and flinches at the quick deflecting swipe. "Lean him back against you so I can get a look at him."
It's an excuse to do the one thing Mycroft has wanted desperately since he walked into the cell. He pulls his brother against him, arms wrapped around his shoulders in what anyone but the brothers would call a hug. There is a brief moment of resistance before Sherlock relaxes into him and closes his eyes.
End of Chapter 10