author's note: A bit back in time from the story line I'm running in Crossfire, but one that needs to be put in place. Just what did Lestrade make of the Five Pips and the Great Game?


Chapter Fifty One- Bomber– a five +1


Lestrade was a heavy sleeper. His wife, Louise, was not. This was a considerable inconvenience for a DI in charge of one of the Met's twenty three Murder Investigation Teams, simply because murders happen most often in unsocial hours. So, when the phone went in the middle of the night, nine times out of ten, she was the one who eventually found his mobile and answered the call. It didn't endear him to her. "I have to work, too, Greg- but, unlike you, once I've been woken up, I find it hard to get back to sleep. So, your work ends up screwing up my work. Have you noticed that it never seems to work the other way around?"

This time when she shook him awake, he blearily said "What's up?" She just thrust the phone into his hand and stalked off to the bathroom, muttering.

He managed a sleep slurred "Lestrade."

The voice on the other end identified himself as Police Sergeant Richards, from CTC. He'd been asked by an officer calling it in on an airwave radio to give Lestrade a call, regarding a civilian who was being treated for cuts from flying glass. It took Lestrade's sleep fuddled brain a moment to connect the three pieces of crucial detail. Civilian…. Counter-Terrorism Command….flying glass with himself.

"A bomb? Sherlock Holmes has been involved in a bombing?!"

"We're not entirely sure if it is a bomb, sir; that's what we are investigating. But, between you and me, if they call this one a gas leak, then I will eat my badge."

By now, adrenaline had woken Greg fully. "Where?" He kicked aside the bed sheets and got up.

"218 Baker Street."

Shit- that's directly across the street from Sherlock. "Is he alright? What's the damage?" Greg tried to keep his anxiety from making him sound unprofessional to a colleague. Greg put the phone on his shoulder and pinned it there between his neck and ear, as he grabbed clothes from the drawer.

"Amazingly lucky, sir. Shattered windows all down the street. But it happened late, so most people were in bed asleep- and on that row of houses, the bedrooms are in the back. Apparently, this chap was in the front room, and got some glass fragments in the back. But, he's kicking up a fuss with the paramedics who want to take him to hospital. The landlady just told me to call you."

Where's John? "Did he say where his flatmate is? Is he OK? He's a doctor."

"The landlady said the other tenant had gone out, not due back tonight."

"Tell them I'm on my way."

oOo

Lestrade was a veteran of the IRA's City campaign- when bombs went off at St Mary Axe, then Bishopsgate, and then in Canary Wharf. He'd been around as a teenager when the Wimpy Bar on Oxford Street went up, too. But the IRA wanted to make a loud bang, without necessarily killing people. In 2007, the 7/7 bombings had shown him just what could happen when civilians were targeted. But, as a Yard DI on Homicide, his involvement had been tangential, and no one he knew personally had been caught up in the horrors of that day in July.

So nothing prepared him for being one of the first on scene at Baker Street. SO15 had taken charge of the area, and the Counter Terrorism Command was out in force. He couldn't get within a thousand meters of the place without having to get out of his car and show a badge. As he walked closer to Baker Street, he watched a steady flow of civilians going in the opposite direction as they were escorted from their houses. A constable told him that all but those injured were being moved to the St Cyprian Church hall up at the top of Baker Street until the area could be judged safe for return. He kept going and turned the corner onto Baker Street.

For a split second, he was just so shocked that he ground to a halt. In the emergency lights that had been set up all down the street, he could see that the entire façade of number 218 had been blown out; bricks and rubble littered the road. The front of Speedy's Café had been smashed in, like a giant fist had plunged straight through the plate glass windows. 221b's windows were gaping black holes, as were most of the windows up and down the street. Fire engines were parked at either end of the road and firemen were putting out the blaze that still flared on 218's ground floor.

At the far end, beyond the fire truck he could see at least half a dozen ambulances, and he realised that if Sherlock and Mrs Hudson were still there, that's where they would be.

He saw Mrs Hudson first. She was standing on the pavement, wearing an overcoat and a scarf, and clutching an orange blanket around her shoulders. He came up to her and put a comforting arm around her.

"Mrs Hudson, are you alright? Your message got through to me."

She turned and Greg could see that she'd been crying, but she brightened when she realised who it was. "Oh, Detective Inspector, I am so glad you are here. Maybe you can talk some sense into him. He won't go to the hospital; he's just being so stubborn."

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. The ambulance crew checked me over; I was in my bedroom in the back. The police want me to go up with the others to the church hall, but I won't leave him."

"Where?" Lestrade looked around. She pointed at the third ambulance along. He looked back at her and then grabbed the arm of a passing constable. "Officer, you are going to take Mrs Hudson to St Cytprian Hall right now." He looked at her with a reassuring smile before she could protest. "I'll look after him, Mrs Hudson; you need to go get warm. If anything happens, I will get word to you, OK?"

She hesitated, but the constable took her arm and said, "Let's go, mam. You're just in the way here, and we can't be sure that there won't be another explosion." Lestrade just strode off to the third ambulance.

He heard Sherlock before he saw him, and that raised a smirk. "Get off of me, you idiot. I am not in need of your assistance. Go practice your ghastly first aid skills on someone who actually needs you."

He came around the back of the ambulance to see Sherlock sitting on the back bumper of the vehicle. Despite the cold night, he was dressed only in his pyjamas and blue dressing gown, and he had one bare foot on the ground. He was trying to remove what Lestrade guessed would be a piece of glass from the ball of the other bare foot.

"Giving the emergency services your usual grief, Sherlock?"

Greg frowned when the tall brunet did not respond; in fact, he gave no indication that he even knew that Lestrade was standing there. There was a paramedic in the back of the ambulance who heard him, however, who gestured towards his ear. "He can't hear very well yet- too near the blast radius." He shot a rather long suffering look at the DI. "I hope you know him and can talk sense into him. That fellow over there had no luck." He pointed to a man in a suit standing about ten feet away watching him. Lestrade guessed it might be one of Mycroft's minions, or maybe an SO6 plainclothes officer. Sherlock was oblivious to the conversation, focussing on using a pair of tweezers to extract another piece of glass from his foot.

Greg started to reach for the brunet's shoulder, but hesitated. He knew Sherlock loathed being touched, but he was concentrating so hard on his own foot, that he wasn't seeing the DI. So Greg sat on the bumper next to him. The movement and the shift of weight on the ambulance made Sherlock look up. "Evening, Detective Inspector, not really your division, is this? Why are you here?" It was said in a louder than normal baritone.

Lestrade pitched his reply at somewhere below a shout, but loud enough he hoped to get through. "I'm here because you're being an idiot, and they think I can convince you to go to the hospital to get checked out."

Sherlock looked back down at his foot which was bleeding now. He gestured to the paramedic in the back of the ambulance. "Now you can make yourself useful. I could do with that antiseptic and a proper bandage." The paramedic started to apply the antiseptic, but Sherlock just snatched the wipe from his hand and shoo'ed him away. "Look, but don't touch." The man just rolled his eyes, and then looked pointedly at the DI. He gestured to the orange blanket that was around Sherlock's shoulders. Lestrade stood up and walked around to take a look. There was blood seeping through, from the younger man's back.

As Sherlock put the finishing touches on the bandage around his foot, he said to Greg. "Need a finger." The silver haired man obliged, putting his index finger on the crossing gauze strands, which Sherlock then tied off.

"Sherlock, look at me." He said it loud enough to get his attention, and then looked at the pair of grey green eyes that lifted to meet his. "Your back is bleeding; there's likely to be glass in there, and you can't reach it. Where's John?"

The brunet frowned and looked back down at his foot. "Out."

"Yeah, I got that from Mrs Hudson." He fished into his own pocket, and switched his phone on.

The baritone voice sounded too loud. "You won't get a signal. CTC will have blocked all mobile traffic." Lestrade looked sheepish; of course, standard protocol in a terrorist incident.

"Tell me where he is and I'll get a constable to pick him up."

Sherlock shook his head." No, let sleeping dogs lie. I don't need him."

There was something a bit abrupt in that statement which made Greg whether the two flatmates had been quarrelling about something. With Sherlock, it was likely. John's patience wasn't inexhaustible. He decided Sherlock was his responsibility. He called the suited man over, and then said quietly, "Go upstairs into 221b and collect some warm clothes, shoes, his coat. Oh, and don't forget the blue scarf."

Sherlock was watching but having difficulties understanding what was said. He frowned as the agent strode away, at last glad to have something useful to do. "He's an idiot. I told him to piss off twenty minutes ago, but he's too scared of my brother to do anything but lurk."

Lestrade leaned a little closer and spoke louder, "Where is Mycroft? I'd have thought this would be right up his street."

Sherlock just shook his head. "He's never here when he's needed, just gets in the way when he's not. According to his PA, he's in Rome and won't be back until tomorrow morning. He could just stay there forever, for all I care."

Greg felt the anger that was just there under the surface. The situation was getting to Sherlock. "Do you think this is personal?"

"What do you think?" The brunet looked at him, those penetrating grey green eyes telling Lestrade what he really didn't want to hear. The DI sighed. "Then best we get you to a place of safety, Sherlock. I can't get a car anywhere near here; you'll have to get out of here by ambulance. We've got to get that glass out of your back, and then you'll come home with me." Sherlock started to protest, but Greg cut him off. He saw something glinting in the unruly hair, reached over and pulled out a sliver of glass. "Stop it. You can't go back to the flat until they've declared the area clear. I'll get Mycroft's man to sort out some boarding for the windows. If you're with me, then when the area is cleared, I will be told and I can bring you back here. So, no arguments."

When the agent reappeared with his clothes, Lestrade told him to sort out the windows and secure the flat, guarding it from intruders until he could be relieved in the morning. The brunet reached for the comfort of his Belstaff coat, but Lestrade intercepted it. "You don't want to get blood on it, do you?"

Sherlock looked back at the blown out windows of Baker Street, with something of a forlorn look. Then quietly, "Will you come with me in the ambulance?"

Greg could only guess what that admission of his need for company had cost Sherlock. He nodded, then looked up to see a relieved paramedic's smile. He clambered into the ambulance behind the injured man, and they left for UCL Hospital.