Chapter 16
John
Most of the night he consoled Mary, reassuring he wasn't always in that kind of danger. When she pressed for more information, he admitted he had been kidnapped numerous times. It wasn't anything to worry over. She did not agree.
He confessed his was a trying life some days. He liked where he was right now, sitting quietly with her. John told her how much he'd been worrying about his sister's attack and how it bothered him far more than his own near death experience. It especially bothered now that her attacker put in an appearance to meet Sherlock. Anger-inducing talk aside, it was a really nice time and then they kissed.
Kissing. They'd never done that before. They did a whole lot of it before the night was through. He found he quite liked it a lot. For the better part of a year, Mary was the thing keeping him grounded and sane. It had to count for something.
Around two in the morning, they fell asleep watching an old film on the couch. John was woken by a text message a few hours later.
Leaving the country for a while. Don't know if you care. At least I bothered to inform you of my travels, unlike a certain someone you call partner. Sleep well, my Hound. -JM
John returned the phone to his pocket, frowning at the message from Moriarty. What did he mean? Why did that man always have to have the upper hand in everything? He would be forever playing catch up with Sherlock and Jim in his life.
Easing the phone out of his pocket, he dialed Sherlock's number. He didn't answer. He tried again. Still no answer. The third time he tried and there was no answer, he received a text message not five seconds after his attempt.
Out of the country with puffer cheeks. A few days at most. On the trail of your informant. Case should be solved by my return. -SH
Sherlock left the country following his informant, for his case. So many words he would like to use to vent his frustrations. He swallowed all of it down and fixed his gaze on Mary. He didn't want to wake her just because he was upset. She was asleep against his chest looking adorable. This right here with her, this felt safe and happy. Mary would never leave the country without telling him. He had some things to think about.
/
The following morning, Mary made him breakfast and prodded him concerning his inability to sleep much the previous night. He didn't share Moriarty or Sherlock's messages for him. She thought it was her fault he wasn't rested because they stayed up late talking. Too cute.
After disregarding that notion, they went for a walk with Gladstone in tow. The dog always gave him the warm and fuzzy feelings of the day he first met Mary. That had been a good day. He became determined to make this day a good day too.
One good day turned into several good days. Good days which ended when Sherlock called with the bad news. They solved his case. John hadn't known it, but his case trying to find Moriarty's inside man leading to potential corrupt cops had been the crumbs of the case. The real frosting came with the information the corrupt cops were the ones behind the hit out on him. Oh, and once Mycroft identified the names, the dirty look the man gave him at the masquerade ball had an explanation.
Detective Inspector Jack Grant was corrupt. Surprise, surprise, so was his direct supervisor, Chief Inspector Eli Marcus. The same two bloody cops he was chatting up mere days ago! Upon hearing the news, he immediately headed back to the flat to meet Sherlock, who arrived at the airport moments earlier. He would prefer to be present when the men were arrested, but Mycroft had other ideas and wanted to take care of this mess privately. John knew Lestrade was going to be extremely upset if he didn't know what was going on where he worked before their public image went downhill.
The day gone pretty much to hell with the knowledge policemen attempted to kill him, it got worse. He became awfully annoyed when he was once again kidnapped. Twice in one week. This would be difficult to explain away to Mary.
They'd been having evening tea with Mrs. Hudson under the guise they were friends of John. Buttered her up with what were probably false stories about Lestrade until he came home. While Mrs. Hudson was greeting him cheerfully, she was always cheerful after having visitors, Jack Grant walked up behind her and signaled him not to say a word. The dear woman had no idea she was being used as insurance to keep him in line.
Marcus continued laying on the charm, saying his goodbyes in an exaggerated way. From behind, Grant put a gun on him. It was easy to walk him out of there. Not fair. He missed the drug and the benefits that came with it. The drug made him feel invincible and he was able to fight at a markedly higher level. Now, drug-free, he felt helpless. Guess it was back to old times. John just hoped, like the old times, Sherlock would figure things out and save his arse.
/
They were nearing Baker Street when Sherlock's phone rang. He checked the ID to see it was Lestrade calling before answering. He'd just solved a case, maybe he had another for him. It would improve his less than stellar week.
"Sherlock. Have you spoken to John?"
"Yes, not half an hour ago."
"Well, I can't get hold of him. And Sally didn't show for her shift. She's not answering her phone either."
"Who's Sally?"
"Donovan! Sergeant Donovan! Seriously, Sherlock, I swear-"
Sherlock cut him off mid-sentence. He was not interested in hearing him complain how sometimes he acted less than human, the kind of information he should maintain, blah, blah. Besides, he had to try John's number.
"Okay, I'm going to try John again."
"Sherlock! Do you think it could be connected?"
"Ringing John now," he said and ended the call.
Mycroft raised an eyebrow at him. The look went ignored. It went ignored until John wasn't answering his calls.
"I need you to track John's phone."
He was grateful his brother didn't ask for a reason. While they waited for the results, Sherlock observed his brother quickly and expertly using his hand-held device. What was he doing on that thing? He was a second from snatching it out of his hand to see for himself when Mycroft shared the most unpleasant of news.
"His cell isn't sending out a signal. I went ahead and tried to track the sergeant's phone. Same problem. I've been informed our corrupt officers left shift without telling anyone. It is suggestive they have done something to John and-"
"Why would they take Donovan? I get John, but why take a cop?"
Mycroft shrugged. "Perhaps she saw or heard something she shouldn't have."
He glowered at his brother. "How helpful."
Sherlock's mobile rang. He didn't recognize the number. It could be John ringing from a random phone, the only phone he could get to. He answered the call, placing it on speaker when Mycroft looked ready to do something not at all suitable for the tailored suit he wore.
"The world as we think we know it, is the great lie. Compassion is weakness. Strength lies in the purity of the heart, which thrives through understanding the truth of the world."
The voice was prerecorded, automatic sounding. When it finished, the authentic voice came on.
"Did you like it? That's the message I'm going to leave at my crime scene tonight. I've designed two crime scenes. You get to choose which one is to happen. Don't you feel special?"
"Not in the slightest. Where's John? Why have you taken him?"
"I have done nothing to Dr. Watson. I merely..made a suggestion to respected members of the London police force on how they might go about disposing of two problems. All they had to do was pay a beloved old landlady a visit, and well, he walked right out the door with them."
Did they hurt Mrs. Hudson? He'd kill them if they did. John would kill them if they did. It seemed likely they hadn't harmed her or John would probably be a free man right now. Pissed off and volatile, but not in any danger himself...
"So, what? Now you're offering consulting services to criminals, too?"
"No. You see, you're my next experiment. I have a good feeling you'll be better at this than those who came before."
"What do you want from me?"
"It's an experiment, Mr. Holmes. Two lives hang in the balance. You have time to save one."
Sherlock scoffed. "I'll save them both."
The Professor went on as though he never spoke. "A seemingly easy choice. The man who means the most to you is surely the one to save."
Of course it was an easy choice. John was everything. Without John, he wouldn't be happy. He'd feel empty again and nothing would be okay. John was a man who cared a lot about other people. He would not be all right with someone dying so he could live. Sherlock would just have to save them both.
"Except you know that very man would tell you to save Sally Donovan. Dr. Watson is a soldier. He's willing to die to save the life of another."
How well did the Professor know John? Did he have resources everywhere as Moriarty seemed to? He hardly had enough privacy as it was with his brother hovering around him all the time, monitoring his entire life like it was his own. Then Moriarty came along and now this latest criminal. His life was beginning to get ridiculous.
"The question is, are you willing to let your best friend die in order to save the life of a woman who hates you, calls you freak?"
He didn't even want to know how the Professor knew what the sergeant called him on occasion when she was particularly clueless and spinning in circles with her own problematic, personal life.
"Will you save the life of an innocent cop? Or will you disappoint dear Watson by thinking selfishly, saving his life instead?"
Sherlock didn't dignify his queries with a direct response. He responded to a prior statement. The message the criminal planned to leave at his future crime scene.
"Saving either would be an act of compassion. If compassion is weakness as you claim, to meet your desired requirements, I must save neither."
A deep chuckle on the other end. "I knew you'd be better. There are no designated requirements for my experiments, I'm afraid. Nothing for you to observe, document, and solve to a definitive conclusion. Now, time is running out for our friends. One is at a place that comes in second and praises the widespread vulnerability of the human race. The other... Fifth day of the week, two, one, five, one. You have less than thirty minutes."
Very real panic flowed through him. His mind was racing, running every conceivable option and discarding incorrect solutions. There were too many possibilities. He would never be able to figure it out in such a short span of time.
"That's impossible. There isn't enough information to get locations!"
Silence. The Professor said one thing more before hanging up. His words were not helpful and not comforting.
"The first will lead to a..messy death. The second..will lead to an agonizing death. Make your choice."
He fumed for thirty seconds, spent five minutes scanning and rescanning every word the Professor said, and still had nothing. Another five minutes run out and he just couldn't focus. There weren't enough facts to evaluate, no conclusions he could reach and be certain. He was down to twenty minutes or less. He started to panic.
So inside the thoughts and ideas in his mind, he didn't notice his brother moved to sit beside him. A hand rested on his shoulder. He jolted but Mycroft settled him back in the seat and turned his chin toward him.
"Sherlock. I can help. Let's work this out loud with each other. One location at a time. The first. Go over the clues for the first location."
Sherlock numbly repeated the sentences circling in his head. "A place that comes in second. A place that praises widespread vulnerability of the human race. A death that will end messy."
"We know how he hates compassion so it must be the vulnerability of everyone he's referring to."
"But that tells us nothing!"
"Think."
Didn't his brother understand he was trying to think as quickly as he could? He didn't know. He couldn't figure it out. John! It was John! He..decided to break everything apart further.
"What if every word was selected for a reason. Comes in second or second best, praises compassion, messy end."
Mycroft joined his thought-process. "If we narrow the words down further, I'd choose praises and compassion. Praise makes me think preaching. Potentially a church. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of churches in London or England. We can't even guarantee these locations are in London."
Less than twenty minutes. He tried not to think of how John was doomed. An idea entered his mind.
"Churches. There are a lot of them, but fewer significantly tall. A messy death could mean a fall from a great height."
Mycroft seemed to like where he was going with this and had more to add, all the while fiddling with the keypad on his hand-held device. "A place that comes in second. We have it, Sherlock. The second highest church building is St. Paul's Cathedral. It's in London."
Sherlock was already dialing Lestrade. "Okay, the second location."
"Right. This one's complicated, even more so than the first," Mycroft noted. "We have numbers. Fifth day of the week is Thursday. Then we have the numbers: two, one, five, one."
Lestrade answered after the third ring. "Sherlock! Please tell me you've got something."
"Sergeant Donovan's location. The Professor helped your bent cops. They snatched her and John and put them at two separate locations. They have fifteen minutes left to live."
"What? And..what? What the hell's going on?!"
"There's no time for me to explain it to you. We know one location. St. Paul's Cathedral. Donovan will be at the top of the clock tower. You need to get there. You don't have time to waste."
"Sherlock," Mycroft pondered aloud. "How do you know it's the sergeant who's at the first location?"
He answered on automatic. He didn't have time for useless explanations. He had to focus all of his brain power on finding John.
"John's at the second location." He lifted his eyes to his brother, speaking to him and Lestrade. "Because, the Professor said the agonizing death would result there. John dying an agonizing death would hurt me the most. He's at the second location. The one I can't figure."
"Are you sure you can't? John's a civilian, Donovan's not. His life is the priority."
Sherlock hated emotion. He could detect the tremor of fear and guilt in Lestrade's voice as he went by the book, telling him Donovan's life came second. The detective inspector worked with both endangered victims on a regular basis and it was taking everything in him to make the fair assessment. Police signed on for danger with the job. None of it really mattered. He didn't know where John was. He didn't have the second location.
"Go get her. Save Donovan. I'll keep trying to figure out where John is. I don't know. I just don't know."
Sherlock hung up. He stared at his palms in his lap. Two functional hands that were utterly useless. He felt helpless. He felt afraid and it made him angry. He didn't do feelings. Feelings were shut and locked away in a quiet section of his mind.
"Four numbers is too brief a sequence to be coordinates. A code wouldn't make sense..."
He waved off his brother's ideas. They were stupid, unlikely, not helpful. "Numbers... His continuous stressing of time may not have only been referring to the time limit."
"A time," Mycroft considered this theory. "Two, one, five, one. Twenty-one, fifty-one. That's 9:51." He read his watch. "That's in ten minutes. I think you're right. It's a time. But why that specific time? Why not 9:45 or 10:00?"
Sherlock stared out of the car window. It had been parked throughout this crisis while they tried to save the lives jeopardized by the Professor. He didn't have answers.
"A particular time must represent something."
"Yeah, not helping."
Mycroft stared out the window on his side and froze. Sherlock noticed immediately because it was so unlike him. He tilted his head a bit, curious.
"What is it?"
"That's the London Bridge."
His brother pointed to a spot in the near distance.
"Yeah, so?"
He knocked on the window dividing the backseat from the front, ordering the driver to start moving again. He faced Sherlock. "The London Bridge is built over the River Thames. 9:51 must be high tide tonight."
Sherlock leaned forward in the seat to shout at the man behind the wheel. "Step on it!"
Tires squealed as the driver pushed down on the pedal. The action caused him to rock backward against the seat but he didn't care. They knew where John was and that's what mattered. Out of the corner of his eye, he observed his brother checking the tide chart. Sherlock didn't need convincing. He felt the London Bridge was the location. After all, to drown would be an agonizing death.
They arrived at the bridge at 9:53. Two minutes later they spotted the support beam where John was chained. He peered through the darkness. The water was lapping up to his chin. They didn't have much time.
"Help is on the way, Sherlock."
He barely nodded and then he was shrugging out of his coat and tearing off his suit jacket. He moved to the water's edge and turned to his brother. "We need something to cut those chains."
Mycroft didn't seem to know what to do about that. He frowned and walked to the car to open the boot.
Sherlock looked over the surface of the water. "John!"
His friend's head jerked up, searching until he saw him. "Sherlock!"
The desperation and fear in his voice almost broke him.
"Sherlock! I'm chained to this thing!" he gasped out as water splashed on his face. "Bring something that will cut through metal. Hurry!"
"We're in luck," Mycroft said, coming to stand by his side. "My driver keeps his tools in the boot."
Sherlock stared blankly and his brother spoke plain. "He had bolt cutters."
He grabbed the tool and dove into the water. Swimming toward John, he had unpleasant memories of the depths of this river in a different area to rescue him a separate time. The one thing going for him this time was John wasn't gravely injured by two bullets. When he reached him, he pushed John back.
"Keep your head up."
"Sherlock, the water."
"I know."
"It's coming fast."
"I know."
Their eyes met. "Hurry?"
"Right."
His eyes scanned John's body. He went below the surface for a closer look. He had been wrapped up good and proper. That was inconvenient. The water level had risen to John's cheekbones. He was squirming and struggling to hold his head above water. He was shivering terribly too.
Sherlock was surprised when he heard splashing and twisted in the water to see Mycroft treading water near him. He didn't think the man capable of getting wet. It would be touching if he wasn't preoccupied with the task at hand.
"Cut the chains, Sherlock, I'll keep his head upright."
He didn't waste more time. He plunged under the water with the bolt cutters and set to work. It took another two dives beneath the surface to successfully free John of his bonds. When he resurfaced, John was coughing and choking out water, Mycroft pounding on his back and cheeks to help expel the liquid.
Together they dragged John to dry ground. His own limbs were barely functional from the length of time spent trussed up and submerged in cold water. Backup had yet to arrive and Sherlock shuddered to think what might have become of John if Mycroft's driver didn't have a stack of tools in the boot.
Seeing John shivering and hugging himself as they sat on the grassy embankment, he remembered his suit jacket and coat. He grabbed them up from the ground and returned to him. "Put this on."
John glanced at the jacket offered and shook his head. "You need it."
"You need it more."
"You're too thin. Keep it."
He rolled his eyes and put on his jacket, shoving his long coat at John.
"I'm wearing my jacket. Now you wear this."
John opened his mouth, wisely thought better of protesting, and assented. Sherlock helped him put it on and wrapped it about his shivering form. Finally, he wrapped himself around John, pulling him close to make him warm.
Mycroft returned from his visit to the car. "They reached Donovan in time. She was strapped and prepped to fall off the cathedral roof. They got her. She's okay. The Professor didn't claim any victims this time. His crime scene won't come to pass."
Sirens in the distance. Help was approaching. Typical backup, arriving after things happened. Cradling John to his chest, he wanted the moment never to end. It was a warm feeling knowing his John was here in his arms and they were safe.