Title: History Lesson
Disclaimer: I own no rights, I make no profit.
Chapter 13 – Drinks and Deductions
I accepted my drink, a gin and tonic, from Lisa and glanced around the room. We were in the rooms Mycroft kept in the Diogenes club which was probably the most secure place in the city given the assembled company. Lisa continued serving drinks and I reflected on the events of the past several hours.
Bond and I had managed to get to the meeting location well before the appointed time. I had to laugh when I saw what we were dealing with. How much more cliché can you get than a little used warehouse? It had been simple to pick the lock on one of the doors and gain access to the main area. Once again we were lucky. The security lighting was enough to see by and there were only a few pallets of crates and boxes in a couple of piles on the main floor. An office was cantilevered off one wall with an exposed stairway connecting it to the ground floor. From the top of the office the rafters and beams were easily accessible. It hadn't taken long after we'd entered to get settled, myself in the rafters and Bond on top of the largest pile of crates.
I had armed myself from the arsenal that was the boot of the car. Of course, I recognized that a good portion of the armaments had been declared lost or broken beyond repair by one or another of the 00 over the years. I snagged the briefcase which stored a sniper rifle and a handgun. Bond hadn't objected to my choices. While I'm good with a handgun I'm much better with a rifle thanks to Mycroft. Somehow, it seemed, that Bond knew that.
Once settled I was prepared for a bit of a wait but our putative note writer had also arrived early trailing two bodyguards. The ensuing conversation among the thugs and their employer provided Bond an absolutely stellar opportunity to make an entrance which he did. His movement also managed to provide cover for Sherlock and John who had chosen just that instant to enter through the back door out of sight of the thugs. Things started moving very quickly at that point. Bond seemed to be doing all in his power to provoke a sword fight with the female bodyguard when out of a corner I was sure had been empty when we arrived stepped a man in what looked like olive-green trousers, a jumper and tie. His messy blond hair had a ragged fringe over his forehead making him seem absurdly young. That was belied by the way he moved. I remember thinking that this was someone who was used to command, knew exactly what he was doing and why.
The note writer seemed to recognize him. He addressed him as Kirkland. What really surprised me was Bond's response. He seemed to recognize the young man also. I had made a mental note to ask Bond later why exactly he had given Kirkland the sword in that particular manner. The resulting sword fight between Kirkland and the female bodyguard, what little I saw of it, had been impressive. I, however, was more focused on keeping the male bodyguard who had some unknown contingency measure in my sights. When the male bodyguard pulled a weapon the difference between myself and Bond became evident. Where I shot to wound, Bond shot to kill.
By the time I had made it down to the warehouse floor the note writer was secure, the female was out cold being tended to by Watson and Mycroft had arrived. I don't know what Mycroft had been planning when he walked in but it was clearly derailed by John's offhand response to our note writer's assertion that somehow this whole set-up was a means to gain control of the government. Mr. Kirkland had also seemed surprised by John's statement and I think that was what caused Mycroft to divert us all to his club rather than his office while his people cleaned up the scene.
Lisa handed Mycroft his scotch as he stood next to his desk and then parked herself in a chair by the door. John was in one of the wing back chairs with Sherlock perched on its arm. Bond and I took up the small sofa. Kirkland was in the other wingback chair commanding all our attention as if he'd been sitting on a throne.
He took a drink and addressed Watson, "You've met one of us before?"
It wasn't really a question.
John snorted slightly, "I patched up Jones several times in Afghanistan."
"And you remember? Interesting."
"I've also met Matthew Williams," John added, "He's the one who explained the whole thing."
Kirkland pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, "Expecting you to forget."
"Yeah, he mentioned that too."
Sherlock looked like he'd been hit over the head with something, "Bored American Marines?" He muttered.
John looked up at him smiling, "Yep."
Mycroft cleared his throat, "As entertaining as it is, this conversation is not at all enlightening regarding the particular situation at hand."
Kirkland moved a hand to his chin, placing an elbow on the chair arm and cocked his head at Mycroft and asked "And to what particular situation are you referring?"
Mycroft looked briefly like he'd eaten a lemon before he reluctantly admitted, "The situation about which I clearly don't have all the facts."
He glared around the room, his gaze finally settling on Watson, as if he could will him to explain what exactly it was that he knew. John, however, was focused on Kirkland whose face was carefully neutral. It was a classic agent's tactic. I'd seen Bond use it numerous times when he wanted to see how a situation developed. It was at this point that Sherlock, clearly in a bid to defend John from Mycroft's not inconsiderable ire, started in on one of his deductive rants.
"You," he said gesturing at Kirkland, "are clearly a deep cover agent with your own unique handler known as The Historian probably because Mr. Levonson actually was a history professor and his legitimate connection to the intelligence community was as a chronicler of black ops and other top-secret missions. You and he were nominally under Mycroft's purview but clearly my brother doesn't know much, if anything, about you or your mission which of course makes him nervous and more importantly annoyed."
I heard a very faint noise from Lisa that sounded like a stifled snort. Mycroft was again looking like he'd eaten a lemon but he didn't say anything. Bond had on his gambling face but I could tell he was amused.
"Someone, probably an informant of yours from one of your cultural meetings," Sherlock inclined his head at Kirkland, "tipped you off over a week ago, probably Thursday, that Mr. Hayden, the premier purveyor of forged documents in the country, was interested in Professor Levonson. Knowing Mr. Hayden's interest in historical artifacts, especially documents, I postulate that that there was something he wished obtained and he was not above using Levonson's putative nephew, Mr. Kirkland, as leverage to ensure cooperation. You judged the threat to be credible and arranged for Professor Levonson to take a leave of absence but you didn't want to appear to be in a huge hurry and tip off Mr. Hayden so the professor kept his office hours on Friday as usual before meeting up with you so you both could disappear until the threat was dealt with. Unfortunately, this delay allowed Hayden's people time enough to set something up."
Kirkland had shifted in his chair at this. His elbow was now on the chair arm with his chin resting on his hand. I noticed some roughness to his knuckles and could also see a bit of what just might have been remnants of rope burn on his wrist. He looked contemplative.
Sherlock kept going, "They drugged you two, tied you up and tossed you in the back of a lorry then hauled you back to their base in London. "You managed to get out of your bonds only to find that Mr. Levonson was having a bad reaction to the GHB derivative provided by Mr. Hayden's associates. You attempted to get out the back door of the lorry and when that didn't work you punched the side wall in frustration. The two Canadians and Mr. Scott used your companion's condition to ensure your cooperation in getting into the warehouse."
Sherlock paused momentarily, "Why the criminal classes think an abandoned warehouse is the ultimate in safety and security for nefarious purposes I'll never understand. What you really need is a busy tourist Hotel. The staff has seen it all and as long as you are not obnoxious, loud or overly demanding they are not going to question whatever strange thing you get up to." Sherlock glanced at Bond, "Of course, high end hotels are even better if you have the money to pull it off."
Bond inclined his head in acknowledgement of Sherlock's point.
"Canadians?" John asked,
"Shoes and the tattoo in French…clearly Quebec," Sherlock responded.
"They indicated what they wanted," Sherlock gestured at the sword which was propped up in its sheath beside Mr. Kirkland's chair, "and you agreed to have a confederate get it in exchange for Mr. Levonson receiving medical attention. After you contacted your confederate they drugged both of you again despite Mr. Levonson's previous bad reaction and he died of a heart attack."
Kirkland's lips pursed slightly and there was a flash of anger tinged with a bit of sadness or regret on his face. Only my years interpreting the expressions of the 00's and before them Mycroft enabled me to spot it.
"Your confederate stole the sword with the assistance of one of the security guards." Sherlock paused again clearly struck by an idea, "I'd be really interested in which one by the way. They managed to fool some of Mycroft's best as well as jigger the electronics well enough to keep Q here from figuring out what happened. I could really use someone like that if they were willing to freelance."
"That was in the wee hours of Tuesday morning," John interjected.
I realized then what Watson was doing. Sherlock's deductions and thoughts always ran way faster than his verbal explanations so he'd often skip over details. To an outsider it would look like he was making up facts from thin air and getting side tracked on non-essential tangents. John, by asking strategic questions or restating a fact was in effect getting Sherlock to reset his narrative and not jump ahead to keep up with his reasoning.
"Mr. Scott was tasked with hiding the lorry containing Mr. Levonson's body and picking up the sword. He does the lorry first by fitting in with all the other early morning deliveries on Tuesday and stashing it in the car park with a bunch of other truck belonging to his ex-employer. He picks up the sword from wherever it was arranged to meet. Scott being a relative novice at the spy game allows your confederate to tail him back to the warehouse. He probably thought his detour to his favorite hole-in-the wall eatery was enough to confuse any surveillance. In the meantime, his Canadian counterparts have been setting the scene for your beheading. They are hoping, of course to confuse the issue and make everyone look toward a Middle Eastern origin for the crime rather than a home grown one."
Sherlock smiled at Kirkland, "Of course at this point you have a good idea about what is going on and have managed to get free again. You bide your time until the sword arrives, trusting that your confederate is not far behind. You fight, managing to kill your three captors but you are injured yourself. Your confederate comes in on the tail end and is also wounded. Together you two escape the scene taking all the tech with you that you can find and your friend's pet monkey throws the deadbolt on the door."
John looked confused, "But that amount of blood…"
"Both were injured badly enough to require them to hole up for four days John. That's consistent with the crime scene," Sherlock explained.
"The only thing I'm not clear on is why did Mr. Bond end up with your sword? Clearly you've run into each other before but he is not your confederate."
Sherlock was looking at Kirkland intently clearly hoping for a more detailed explanation. I was curious as well but what I really wanted an explanation for was Mycroft's behavior. I found it very strange that Mycroft hadn't once interrupted Sherlock's deductive rant. It was normally a game between the two of them. Could Sherlock get out his entire train of reasoning before Mycroft poked a hole in a piece of it. Since I'd been kidnapped what had previously been a cut-throat contest of one-upmanship had degenerated back to what it had been in the first place, a friendly rivalry. I'd been glad to see the change. It certainly made dealing with both of them at once more pleasant. I glanced in his direction. Mycroft had that slightly abstracted look which meant that he was rapidly sorting through large amounts of disparate information.
Bond caught where I was looking and commented in a low voice for my ears only, "You get that look when hacking for information."
I didn't get a chance to respond because Mycroft broke his silence, "There was no monkey brother mine. Just a judicious application of lock picks."
"It's always something!"
Kirkland chuckled, "Both wrong; it wasn't even that complex. The door was slammed and the lock engaged. There is a certain amount of randomness in any series of events. Mr. Bond is another example. I just happened to spot him on Saturday. Knowing who he was and his skill set I knew the sword would be safe with him. I must admit I didn't expect either it or any of you to show up at the rendezvous."
"While enlightening as of all of this is," Mycroft spoke in his I'm going to take charge of the situation since no one else appears to want or able to voice, "it does not address the problem of how to reestablish Mr. Kirkland's cover and lines of communication in addition to insuring that a similar situation never happens again."
I could hear the implicit at least not on my watch tacked onto the end of his statement.
Bond shifted slightly. I looked at him and he gave a little half smile. I knew that smile. It was the one he threw at CCTV cameras just before all hell broke loose. This time, however, he seemed to be waiting for my agreement that I'd follow his lead and back him up. As if I wouldn't back him up. He was my agent and, well, I was beginning to believe he could indeed be something more. I gave him my best of course you idiot looks and that little smile broke into a grin.
"Obvious," Bond said doing a rather good impression of Sherlock's voice and mannerisms. He reverted to his normal voice and continued, "Mr. Kirkland is an agent, treat him as one. Run things from Q-Branch or MI 5's Logistics as a deep cover asset. They are both already set up for those types of operations. You add a few more levels of protection and you have something that is more robust than a single point of contact. Run the routine stuff using old-school trade-craft, recognition codes, blind drops and the like. Do it correctly and the supporting staff will never know exactly who they are dealing with. It also has the side benefit of making the whole operation less vulnerable to hacking." Bond looked at me, "Even you can't hack something that isn't in the system in the first place."
Kirkland looked thoughtful, Mycroft surprised, and Sherlock just grinned at Bond's suggestion. I think Sherlock was just enjoying the look on Mycroft's face.
After a moment of silence Kirkland said, "That should work."
It wasn't really a statement. It seemed to be an order.
I was a little surprised when Mycroft agreed without any comment by nodding and making a little affirmative huffing sound.
Sherlock looked back and forth between the two. It was clear to me that he was also confused by Mycroft's agreement.
Finally, he blurted, "Well that's fine but what are you going to do about Lestrade's murder investigation?"
"Label it a need to know take down of a terrorist operation and hide it under the Official Secrets Act," I chimed in.
"Will that hold up to scrutiny?" Kirkland asked.
It was my turn to grin, "It will when I'm done with it."
Kirkland finished his drink and stood. I'm not quite sure why but every last one of us in the room followed suit.
"I think, Gentlemen and Lady," Kirkland said looking around the room and meeting each of our eyes in turn for a few seconds, "that we've solved the most immediate problems and the remainder can be handled between myself and the Quartermaster."
Kirkland turned looked at both Mycroft and Sherlock, "I assume that you gentlemen will be able to return this to it's proper place?" he gestured at the sword.
They nodded in unison.
He moved toward the door, "Quartermaster?"
He looked at me and included Bond with a inclination of his head. We followed in his wake.
"But sir," Lisa blurted as she started to open the door, "Bran the raven is still missing."
I didn't understand that particular non-sequitur and neither did Bond but judging from the reactions around the room everyone else had some sort of reference point for that assertion. Kirkland just chuckled.
"Don't worry about that my dear," he informed her, "He'll turn up where he belongs shortly,"
With that he strode out of the room and Bond and I were left to catch up.
Author's Note: One more full chapter after this followed by an epilogue. Total word count should be somewhere close to 45K. Technically by the standards of the Science Fiction Nebula Awards I've written another novel!
Addendum: For those of you not familiar with Hetalia; Jones = Alfred F. Jones the personification of the U.S. and Matthew Williams is the personification of Canada.