I cannot stay here. I need to get out. I have lost half a day to unproductive sleep and I still have not spoken to Mycroft or got John to a hospital. I said I was coming to him. I need to move, I cannot remain behind an ornamental horse all my life.

I take a deep breath, release it, and step out into the room.

The agents swing round – two junior plus the more authoritative one. All three are armed and now have weapons directed at me.

I raise my hands slightly, fingers spread.

"Who are you?" The commander speaks.

I stand still, move only my eyes to get a proper look at them. Yes, they are here and they know that Mycroft in his official capacity will be very unhappy to learn of this. They are deadly, sure, but they are also diplomatic trained. Good. It makes them lessikely to shoot me if they work for the division which has to smooth over relations afterwards. "Someone who can find what you're looking for. And tell you what's planned for it."

"Name," barks the commander.

"John Watson," I say.

"Address."

"221B Baker Street."

The most junior one is checking it out on his phone.

"Your connection to Mycroft Holmes?"

I give him a disbelieving look. "I knew his brother," I say.

"The dead brother," says the junior agent. "They used to live together at that address."

"Right. Why are you here?" The commander seems unfazed, a good sign. I make no sudden moves, however.

"Why are you?" I ask. "I'm pretty certain Mycroft would be glad to see me, might even offer me a cup of tea, but you I'm not so sure about. Especially as you are ransacking his home."

"Just sit down and talk." They grab my arms and push me into a chair, the classic position of inferiority, and stand looming over me as if this would be intimidating.

But I have already heard of their failure and I don't feel intimidated at all. "Where is Mycroft?" I demand.

"Not here. Talk."

From his relatively relaxed eye muscles and the normal-range vibrations of his vocal chords I deduce that Mycroft is not in a life or death situation. Probably being delayed in some way which means he cannot interfere with this operation. They don't want him to know they've been here. They probably should have been a bit more subtle with ripping out the security cameras, then.

It strikes me that there will be a visual record of them arriving, doing the ripping, but nothing to show that I was ever here. I hope they don't realise this for two reasons. One, because it means I can land them in it later without involving myself, and two, because it means they don't realise that if I am not proven to be here, they can do what they like with me.

"Your data is in the possession of a man I can take you to. I need to confirm his location though."

I gesture towards my jeans pocket and the commander nods.

I take out my phone. "I can also give you the operation that stole the data," I say, "but in return I want a promise that you'll leave us all alone."

"You can want that as much as you like," says the commander. But he has registered it. Just needs clearance for that kind of decision.

I cannot ring the number – this is not the moment to have that conversation in voice - so compose a text and build trust with the agents by letting them see what I have typed. Where are you right now?

There is a pause.

The minutes pass and I begin to regret not waiting, just letting these people leave Mycroft's house disappointed and then going after John directly.

Then my phone vibrates. A text from John. Just the address, nothing else. He does not know – cannot be sure – it is me. Of course. But he is working on the assumption that it is. Just in case.

Ignore the wrench this gives me. Focus.

MedOneLab, Surrey Quays, it says on the screen. Good. He has got to a medical facility, is getting himself checked out. Brilliant John.

The phone buzzes again. Where are *you*? Then just his initials at the end, JW. I clutch the phone.

"EHCo Lab, Whitstable," I read out from the phone whilst actually typing this into my reply to John. "Just letting him know we're on our way." I delete the reply even as I put it back in my pocket.

"Right." A decision has been silently made while we waited. "Come with us."

They convoy with me back down the tedious non-motorway to Whitstable. I spend the time working out what to do. I risk my fake driving licence by ringing Mycroft. The Americans scowl at me from their Jeep and I give them a nod. Either they are very stupid - not leaving someone in my car with me - or they can just take me out me at any time if I try to escape and so do not need to restrain me. Either way, I bet they haven't got listening equipment with them to overhear what I say to Mycroft.

"You've been burgled,"I say.

"Oh, it's you." He sounds disappointed to hear my voice. His default mode.

"Some Americans with guns have kidnapped me from your house and are taking me to the Empty Hands place in Whitstable you told me about. I take it that's sacrificial?"

"If need be." He is sneering.

"Good." I am giving him the chance to extricate himself. Giving him fair warning. I don't really know why. I suppose he is my brother and that means something. I doubt it means what average people would guess, though.

"Don't do anything too reckless." A faint note of concern? Surely not.

"I'm solving your problem for you," I say nastily. "You can thank me later."

"I rather think that I am solving my problem and that you are merely my chosen means of doing so. Goodbye."

So annoying.

I text Jeff. Meet me in your break. Want to talk. See you at guard gate.

That should coincide pretty much with our arrival.

Text John. Am simply assuming he will come. It was always a fair assumption. Meet Jeff at security gate. Say friend of mine. Vital you get into lab. Say anything to him. SH.

I think my Jeep escort is the only thing stopping me getting pulled over with all this texting.

I have to send one more though. Is your hand OK? Are you OK? SH.

I get an effusive if nearly unreadable reply from Jeff in the affirmative.

As we pull up at the EHCo compound I get a text from John. It just says, OK.

Nothing else.

Efficiency, I think. He may be driving too.

Do not waste time now considering deeper meanings which you cannot guess and which have no bearings on your actions.

The EHCo place is closed for the evening by the time we arrive. "High security," I tell the agents, not quite accurately.

"That's not a problem. Where's your friend?" They are quick to get me out of the car, and I get a sense if how desperate they must be, to take it basically on trust that I can help them.

"Not here yet."

I give them chapter and verse on how I uncovered a data smuggling operation while following up an old Hands case lead belonging to Sherlock Holmes. I explain how I broke into this very lab and found documents proving everything. And how I believe their data is inside.

They engage in some muttered consultation, during which I calculate how I will get rid of Crash. However Mycroft is involved, Crash is my target. And it is unlikely that he - or his female namesake -will be here. It is more likely that he will be at the headquarters of the illegitimate part of the operation, called Midnight. And I have still not discovered what or where this is.

The agents bring me to the part of the perimeter fence which I had already worked out during my time in Whitstable was the least surveilled, and briskly get us in. Alarms go off, but then the most junior agent gets out an electronic something, blips the nearest alarm wire, and the ringing stops. Handy. I could use one of those.

"Ok, now where."

"The labs. And try to look as if we belong here. The security team are nor completely stupid." No indeed: Jeff is on shift. Another reason I picked him, the sharpest of the lot. Jeff will see us - me - on the cameras.

Will report a breach to Bolton, who will, I trust, come running.

Will not, I hope, get in the way if there is any trouble.

I never used to have this pointless concern for passing civilians. But then I never used to sleep with them either. And now I won't again. No more chemistry-fuelled bonding, no more using my personal assets to get my way. Soon I will have other resources to rely on.

I will be as I was before. If I can.

I can.

We are at the admin building. The door is locked, but nothing stops my American companions. They blow the lock with another charming device which junior has in one of his pockets. I should have brought these three with me the first time.

We get inside and head upstairs. I I have a weary sense of deja vu. I wonder if they have fixed the window I leapt from this morning.

"Ok, I'm getting a little anxious now," says the commander to me. "Where's your friend and where's our data?"

"Not coming and not here," I say, stopping dead in the corridor outside Bolton's office. "But here's someone who knows all about it."

Bolton is inside, and after his experience early this morning, he has learned a little lesson. He has returned to work this evening prepared.

I drop to the carpet with my hands over my head as Bolton fires the shotgun through his office window and straight at us.

Glass spikes down all around me and I think, This is more like it.