The blade was in the air. John waited, willing his body to relax. Tension increases pain.
The blade above his head and the gravel on the ground in front of his open eyes. Sherlock.
"Wait."
It was the masked girl who spoke. "He's not sick."
John lifted his head, arms still held out by the accomplice, the man with the machete lowering it in confusion.
"Listen," said the girl in a withering tone, and John recognised her from the clinic the previous evening - the punk girl with the face full of metal. But tonight her voice was clear and authoritative. She was no terrified hanger on. She was in charge of whatever this was. John searched his memory for the name she had given him. "They usually die. We usually run round trying to retrieve the samples from bodies. We waited all day for this one to pop his clogs."
With a tremor John realised that they must have been following him all day. The people in the greasy spoon...
"But he's fine," said the girl pointedly. "Look at his hand," she commanded.
Machete man peered at John's hand. Behind John, the bloke holding his shoulders eased off marginally as he took in the new situation.
John looked too. The pen mark was gone, but the skin where he'd scrubbed it away was pink and tender.
What had been in that marker pen? Nothing good. Something that could be retrieved, later, even from a corpse. Something valuable enough to warrant all this.
John looked around rapidly. Two hands-on men, one with a machete. A girl with a sarcastic tone of voice. No guns that he had seen, though that was no guarantee. Plenty of open space and, crucially, a man whose only job it was to sit in a van with the engine running.
"We'll take him," decided the girl. "Put him back in the van, we're going straight to Echo."
Before the men could begin to wrestle him back into the van, John threw his hands upwards, using their motion to swipe machete man under the throat. The man gasped and clutched his battered windpipe. The machete went flying.
John swung round, up on his feet now, and smashed his forehead into the face of the second man, who had lost concentration as the girl was talking.
He sprawled to the ground and John sprang for the masked girl. "Crash," he said, "I know it's you. Untie me or there'll be trouble."
She jolted in surprise as he spoke her name, and this gave him a second to reach her, loop his arms over her head and pull her against him, his tied wrists hard against her soft throat.
"Get out of the van," he told the masked driver. "Leave the engine on."
Machete man was scrambling to his feet, the other man was reeling but recovering. There was no time.
"Now," said John in a low clear voice, increasing pressure on the girl's windpipe.
"Do it," she gasped to the driver with great frustration. "Get out!"
John held Crash by the neck, threatening the others with his eyes as the driver climbed out of the van."Sit down on the floor over there or I'll kill the girl. I'm a soldier and I will not find it difficult. "
As his kidnappers edged away, John shoved the girl around the van and up into the passenger's seat, keeping hold of her arm with one hand. He scrambled up himself, awkward with bound hands, and pushed her into the driver's seat. "Drive," he ordered. "Don't try anything," he warned her. "I'm having something of a bad day."