A/N This is a happy piece of nonsence that I started writing many years ago. This is cross posted on AO3 as well. Happy reading :).
Usual disclaimers apply - I'd love to take credit for the idea and characters, but alas they belong to better writers than me.
Summary: In which the CIA and FBI make a mistake, get in a muddle and have a very awkward conversation with the British Government.
Like many things, it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Nine hours was more than enough time to show everyone just how bad an idea it was to take John Watson away from Sherlock Holmes.
Mycroft was above all a creature of habit. People could, and indeed those with the appropriate level of security clearance had been known to, set their watches by him. He liked his routine and when it was interrupted Mycroft tended to be rather put out – which is why he had an entire team of exceptionally clever and highly paid professionals dedicated to ensuring that the world continued to run smoothly so that his routine could continue undisturbed.
There was nothing remarkable about this Wednesday morning when it began that heralded the coming apocalypse of one Britain's closest allies. It started as usual with a black coffee and fruit salad at 6:30 sharp which was then followed by the usual mundane activities of getting ready for work. 8 o'clock saw Mycroft walk into his office and that was to be the end of normal for quite some time.
The top secret department for which he was responsible was in uproar. Overnight a virus had somehow been uploaded into the secure mainframe of one of the largest American banks completely halting all transactions and causing a stock market crash. This good news was followed quickly by reports that a previously unheard of terrorist cell in Afghanistan had somehow got hold of the entrance codes for a top secret American army base and had used them to effectively hold all personnel hostage while simultaneously halting all peace keeping efforts by taking the occasional pot shot at both ally and hostile soldiers.
The report continued to get worse.
The Bulgarian government was in uproar following a highly derisive email, from the President's Office in the White House itself, about their chances in the Football World Cup which had already been leaked to all of the national and international newspapers. China was threatening global action after the money that was owed to them defaulted due to the banking crisis and all attempts to transfer funds from America to China, irrespective of the bank, met with failure. The Dominican Republic was out for blood after an American naval submarine had an accident involving one of its torpedoes and a highly expensive and popular sea side golfing resort which sat next to a beautiful natural coral reef that had been designated an area of scientific interest. And to cap it all off Egyptian militants were now armed with American weapons and artillery and were busy showing off their acquisitions in the centre of Cairo before the world media.
It was a diplomatic nightmare with the USA right at the middle.
By this point a lesser man would have given up the situation as a bad lot and gone back to await the impending Armageddon in bed with a large single malt whisky. Mycroft Holmes was, fortunately in this case, not that sort of man and instead squared his shoulders and got on with the task of trying to work out the how, when and why while calming his panicking staff by giving them something else to worry about – namely finding this information for him.
It was in the midst of trying to make sense of this chaos that two burly men in their early 50s came barrelling through the doors of Mycroft's office, complete with loud demanding voices, and their security contingent of stereotypically large, overly muscled square headed homunculi squeezed into uniform black suits.
The reason for the highly unusual and borderline suicidal behaviour of these two black suited individuals quickly became obvious to the astonished and rather put out British Government. The United States of America had a problem.
A rather serious problem; and one that was growing in severity by the minute.
The problem was the result of a foolish miscalculation and could be summed up in one word: Sherlock.
Which was why the heads of the CIA and FBI were now sitting, rather chagrined, before the British Government like naughty school boys awaiting punishment in the headmasters office.
Mycroft was not pleased.
It had all started quite simply and had, at the time, seemed like a very good idea. The CIA had, to their embarrassment, lost a rather important brief case in England. Unable to work out where it was and how it had gone missing in the first place they had contacted Mycroft for assistance. Mycroft had quite sensibly pointed them in the direction of his famous younger brother who had the talent, time and willingness to run around the country after a puzzle. Knowing that Sherlock's attitude to America was apathetic at best Mycroft had offered the man on the phone one last piece of advice before ending the call: the best way to ensure Sherlock's cooperation was the get John Watson on side.
What Mycroft had not foreseen was how that advice would be interpreted – in future he would have to ensure that there was no ambiguity regarding Sherlock's associates as he was not sure the world would survive the level of destruction his little brother would wreak should actual harm come to someone he cared about.
"And what, gentlemen, do you think that I can do about it?" Mycroft asked calmly after listening to Messrs Bloomsbury and Hodgeson's explanation of how following a short and disastrous interview with one Sherlock Holmes at 11:00 hours yesterday in which Sherlock had, in no uncertain terms, declined any sort of participation in solving the mystery of the missing briefcase - the respective heads of the CIA and FIB had decided that in order to prevent the national emergency they feared was imminent they would take Mr Holmes' advice and get John Watson on side... by kidnapping him and taking him to Washington DC.
Sherlock's response both to the original overture and the John Watson contingency plan was not a surprise to Mycroft – and, indeed, if the upper echelons of the CIA and FBI had stopped to consider The January Incident for a moment, it wouldn't have come as a surprise to them either. The last time Sherlock Holmes had had the pleasure of interacting with a member of the CIA he had repeatedly dropped the man out of his first floor sitting room window in retribution for the officer's unfortunate decision to restrain Mrs Hudson in a less than careful way and use her as a bargaining chip during that dreadful business with Irene Adler.
His response to such threats had only got worse following The Moriarty Problem a few months later. Mycroft very much doubted that James Moriarty, when planning his little fairy tale, had stopped to consider the long term ramifications of repeatedly using John Watson as a stick to beat his brother with.
Moriarty had tried to set his brother up as a fairy tale hero so that he could then orchestrate his fall from grace. The Final Problem, he had called it, "staying alive": far too Harry Potter really, the notion that one of them would have to die because neither could live while the other survived. The world was a big place. after all, and both parties had managed to live quite successfully for 34 years without any problems. Sherlock's response was instantaneous and showed his nemesis that staying alive wasn't the Final Problem – upsetting a genius who had only just learnt to care….now that was a problem.
By the time Sherlock had finished his counter move he had left James Moriarty exposed on the world stage, bankrupt, his reputation as a master criminal in tatters and with no world-wide criminal organisation of note left to complete his diabolical plans. And he had accomplished this in the space of two weeks and with the assistance of only John Watson, a laptop and the Baker Street Irregulars.
So, no, Sherlock's response to the inadvisable removal of his flatmate was entirely predictable.
Shortly after 19:00 yesterday John Watson was bundled into the back of an unmarked black SUV with blacked out windows as he walked home from work. Three agents suffered moderate injuries in the apprehension of Doctor Watson but seven on one were difficult odds to overcome even for a former member of her Majesty's army. This would have been bad enough if not for the unfortunate timing of the abduction.
It was curry night. On any other night Sherlock might not have noticed his flatmate's absence from their residence with any degree of speed, which would have given the assorted powers more time to straighten this mess out. Unfortunately, however, it was not any other night and Sherlock was very aware that John Watson was not where he ought to be.
As a result Sherlock had decided the proportionate response was to hack into the CCTV network and look for his missing friend. It hadn't taken him long to find the correct camera and come to the rapid conclusion that the black suited individuals from earlier had refused to take no for an answer and instead decided to use his flat mate as leverage.
His response had been immediate and unequivocal. Either John Watson was returned to him straightaway or America would face the consequences for every additional hour that they were separated.
Here, at least, Mr Hodgeson had the sense to look embarrassed as he plaintively asked Mycroft how Sherlock could have possibly known every single one of his private email addresses and phone numbers. Mycroft considered the head of the FBI repressively, - "my brother", he said at last, "is a man of great intelligence and many talents and if it were not too much of chore for him to run such an enterprise he would have made Moriarty's empire look like that of a comic book villain. Your first mistake was to underestimate him. I would suggest it is a mistake you do not continue to repeat".
"Your second" he added when it looked like Mr Bloomsbury was about to find his voice, "was to remove John Watson and think that you could control the fallout. I would recommend, gentlemen, that you return Doctor Watson and with some degree of haste. Sherlock has never been the patient sort and John Watson may be the one man who could talk him out of his current temper tantrum. Judging by the progression of events over the past fifteen hours Sherlock appears to be working his way through the alphabet and at the rate he is progressing he will be getting to I, J and M by early afternoon. He is already up to 'G' if the sudden unveiling of your new spy satellite, 'Gamma Station', is anything to go by; unless, of course, it was always your plan to announce to the world the new generation of spy satellites by having them broadcast live from the Pentagon and the Whitehouse to all digital channels".
"Now see here," Mr Bloomsbury drawled in his thick Texan accent, "there must be something you can do. I mean he's your brother for gawd's sake… surely you can make him listen to reason. We just want that damned brief case found," before he continued morosely, "and then he can have this Doctor Watson back."
"My advice remains the same," Mycroft stated patiently, "Sherlock has been intractable and unaccommodating from the cradle – I doubt very much that that aspect of his personality is going to miraculously change. If you wish for the retaliations to stop you first need to return Doctor Watson."
"See, that's the problem," Mr Hodgeson admitted, sending an admonishing glare at his fellow security man when it looked like he was about to speak again. "You know the position of the US Government, Mr Holmes. We don't negotiate with terrorists! EVER! And right now, with what he's been pulling that's exactly what your brother is. We might not be able to pin it on him with any evidence… yet, but… we know!… and he knows that we know. If we bring John Watson back it goes against all of the US governments stated protocols and it'll set a dangerous precedent."
"Ahhh, now that is unfortunate, gentlemen," Mycroft said softly a thoughtful look on his face. Mr Bloomsbury and Mr Hodgeson started to relax – at last they were getting somewhere. Mycroft would take his irascible brother in hand, stop these attacks and set the younger Holmes on the path to locating the missing brief case, and hopefully this whole disaster could then be brushed under the international diplomatic rug of things best not talked about.
It was only once his guests had finally relaxed that Mycroft delivered his coup de ta; "as Sherlock doesn't negotiate either," he finished with a distinctly cat like smile.
"Buhwaht?!" stuttered Mr Hodgeson incomprehensibly as Mr Bloomsbury turned an interesting shade of puce in the chair beside him. "I believe," Mycroft continued as though Mr Hodgeson had not spoken, "that once again you have misunderstood the realities of the situation. It is not a case of whether the United States will negotiate with my brother. It is a case of whether he will negotiate with you".
"Now, NOW… YOU SEE HERE!" bellowed Mr Bloomsbury, temper beyond frayed after the onslaught of the last day, as he leapt from his chair to lean aggressively over the desk so that he was nearly nose to nose with Mycroft. "THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS THE GLOBAL SUPER POWER. SHE DOES NOT BOW TO TINY, INSIGNIFICANT ISLANDS WITH DELUSIONS OF IMPERIAL GRANDEUR AND SHE DOES NOT NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS. WE ARE THE WORLDS GREATEST SUPER POWER! EITHER GET YOUR BROTHER UNDER CONTROL OR WE WILL!" before he collapsed, chest heaving, back into his chair.
"And yet," replied Mycroft, as he calmly wiped spittle off his cheek with a clean handkerchief before dropping it into the bin next to him, "you've been brought to your knees by one man who is merely after the return of the innocent British civilian whom you illegally abducted in order to use as blackmail; breaking numerous international laws and human rights agreements while you're at it, I might add. I have explained to you gentlemen, several times now, the easiest course for an immediate resolution to your difficulties. Your threats just now, I'm afraid, are both as ill-timed and as badly thought out as the plan - and I use that term loosely - which got you into this situation to begin with. The kerfuffle this morning," he said with a grand sweeping gesture towards the bevvy of screens monitoring all the developments, "isn't an attempt at negotiation – it's annihilation and will end only one way… with the restitution of John Watson to Baker Street. And woe betide you if he is in anyway harmed," Mycroft finished forebodingly.