Chapter Eight
Ruthless Empiricism – The Lack of a Moral Compass – A Settlement of Debts – Two Hours from Landfall – Anthea Unleashed – For the Love of Cake – John Wishes for His Gun.
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Sherlock and John were in the temporary lab when Tomas wandered in, a distant expression on his face.
"You okay?" John stopped grinding up a rock sample in a mortar and watched the boy carefully as he strolled into the well-lit room. Although he was walking slowly, his appearance didn't seem to be one for immediate concern. There were no missing limbs; no sign of blood or tears, so perhaps Mycroft had been gentle, after all.
"I'm …" the teenager turned his head, thinking, a momentary frown between his eyes. "Fine, actually," he nodded, his demeanour brightening. Yes. Fine was what he was. The talk he'd just survived with his uncle had been a mixture of anxiety, shame and mind-blowing disbelief. The key word, however, was 'survived'.
Lifting his focus from a series of filtration papers spread out in front of him, Sherlock paused with a liquid-filled pipette in one hand and a pair of long tweezers in the other.
"It seems my assumption of the protection-value of youth was correct," he blinked slowly. "My brother is rarely noted for his forbearance," he added, returning to his quantitative testing. "He must like you for some reason."
"He wants me to go to Oxford and then come and work for him," the boy looked uncertain. "Is that good?"
"There are worse things, I suppose," Sherlock concentrated on his titration. "Although a specific example escapes me at present."
"If Mycroft Holmes has asked you to go and work for him, then you've clearly got something he wants," John scraped the crushed minerals carefully into a small glass dish. "The numbers thing?"
Shrugging awkwardly, Tomas nodded. "The numbers thing."
"Then let us hope you remember my brother appreciates idiots even less than I," the younger Holmes selected a beaker and added a tiny amount of the damp powder handed to him by John.
Having the grace to look distinctly embarrassed, Tomas walked up between the tall man and the doctor and watched as experienced fingers made short work of the several test processes.
"I'm sorry for being stupid," he said quietly.
Without turning his head, Sherlock raised a single eyebrow but remained silent and focused on his work.
Tomas saw. "Okay," he said. "I'm sorry for being very stupid. I was showing off and not thinking straight and I'm sorry for getting the both of you into a horrible situation, but especially you, Sherlock," Tomas looked into a pair of pale grey-blue eyes. "Thank you for saving my life."
"Yes, well …" Sherlock paused thoughtfully before offering him the tweezers. "How do you feel about sample preparation?" he asked. "I have approximately seventy different tests to do and they all need an homogenous sample dissolution, precipitation and then at least thirty of them need to be filtered through these," he said, pointing to a box of circular filtration papers. "Nothing says sorry like six hours of lab-assistance."
Grinning like a maniac, Tomas took the slender steel implements and started the wearisome process of separating out individual papers and setting up glass flasks to hold them. It was going to be a good night.
Looking over the boy's head as he bent to his task, Sherlock raised both eyebrows in John's direction. The doctor smiled, shook his head at the rational irrationalities of the Holmes brothers and continued pulverising another sample of tin-ore in the heavy mortar.
"So," the blonde man muttered, compressing a particularly recalcitrant fragment of rock. "You got any ideas about this stuff, yet?"
Holding up a long measuring beaker up to the light, partially filled with a dark-blue liquid, Sherlock took care as he added distilled water, filling it exactly to the 200 millilitre level. Swirling the distilled and dilute solution, the younger Holmes watched and waited to see if any colour-change resulted. It didn't.
"I always have ideas, John," he murmured. "However, there is a ruthlessness to empiricism that demands substantive rather than hypothesised proof, and it is that which eludes me for the moment."
"So, ideas, but no real leads, then?" John frowned. "Should we be worried?"
"The problem is in identifying those chemical signatures which have been admixed within the sample," Sherlock frowned. "If I knew more precisely what form of toxin we were seeking, I could separate out those indicators and work on nullifying measures," he shook his head in some frustration. "There're too many possibilities for a swift conclusion."
"In other word, you really have no idea what to look for?" John sounded surprised. It was rare for his flatmate to admit difficulty in anything.
"John," Sherlock paused what he was doing and looked the shorter man in the eye. "Smell this," he said, placing the flask of bluish liquid directly beneath the doctor's nose.
Unwittingly taking a deep whiff of the stuff before he realised what was happening, John recoiled, yanking his head back as fast as he could; the violent reek offensive even to a nose with his olfactory experience.
"Jesus effing hell, Sherlock," he cried, turning his head away and looking revolted. "What is in that stuff?"
"Surely you can smell the sulphates?" Sherlock put the flask to one side seemingly unaffected by the rank stench. "What else can you smell in there?"
"Don't think I'll be up to smelling anything for a while after that," the blonde man sticking his head out the back door, inhaling great drafts of early evening air. It didn't do a lot of good: the dreadful whiff refused to leave his nostrils. "God," he coughed. "That's appalling."
"Can I?" Tomas asked tentatively. "My mum always gets me to taste her curries in case she's made it too hot and I can usually tell just by sniffing the pan."
Looking at him in silence, Sherlock pushed the beaker back across the bench top towards the boy. "Be my guest."
Stepping closer, and without touching the flask with his hands. The teen leaned forward and took a small, tentative sniff. His nose wrinkled immediately, but he persisted, leaning closer and taking another, slightly deeper inhalation.
"It's pretty grim," he acknowledged, making a pained face. "And I can definitely smell the rotten eggs … but I can smell something else as well," he offered. "Hang on …" he added, bracing himself and leaning back in for a third and final breath. He was choking as he stepped back, waving the air away from his face as if that might help.
"Bleach," he said. "I can small bleach."
"Indeed," Sherlock nodded meaningfully. "But it's not bleach that affronts your nose, but chlorine. There's more than a trace of ammonia, too, lending it that subtle je ne c'est quoi."
"So what contains sulphates, chlorine and ammonia?" John wrinkled his forehead.
"And is lipophilic," Sherlock added. "The speed with which it soaked into human flesh means it has to be attracted to oil rather than water."
"Sulphates, chlorine, ammonia, likes body-fat and is also a highly effective neurotoxin …" John pondered, his chem-lab days long behind him. But there was a faint little flag waving distantly at the back of his mind.
"And don't forget the way it's also affected Mycroft's emotional state and neurological function, which therefore also speaks of some form of endocrine disruption," the younger Holmes folded his arms. "Even if I don't have all the facts yet, I'm reasonably certain of this thing's provenance."
"Then what is it that's making Uncle Mycroft sick?" Tomas was worried but oddly fascinated as well.
Lifting both eyebrows, Sherlock breathed softly and looked thoughtful. "A biocide," he said, finally. "I believe my brother has been poisoned by some pernicious mutation of DDT."
###
Waiting until Tomas had left the front room, Cate slipped back in before Mycroft had a chance to leave. She had known what was in her husband's mind the second she'd heard that particular tone in his voice. It wasn't one he used often, and it had been directed at her only on the rarest of occasions, but still; she had known her nephew was about to experience the fabled Holmesian wrath first hand.
"Is he alright?" she asked, the moment she'd closed the door behind her. Mycroft was standing, hands clasped behind his back as he stared out through the window facing the front of the house. "Did you upset him terribly?"
Mycroft turned from the view, a light smile lifting the corners of his mouth. Cate felt something inside her relax.
"He's going to be perfectly fine in a couple of years," he smiled at the private joke. "Although you might never forgive me after what I've done."
That didn't sound good.
"And what have you done?" she asked, sliding both arms around his waist and resting her face against the linen of his t-shirt and breathing in the scent of warm husband.
"Convinced him to go home and stay at school for the next two years."
Cate grinned up at him, delighted. "Why on earth would you imagine forgiveness would be needed for that?" she laughed softly.
"Oh, not for that, specifically," Mycroft slipped his arms around her, still smiling.
"Then for what?" Cate was both puzzled and curious.
"Our nephew is also going to attain five A-levels in order that he might be accepted at a reputable university," Mycroft's smile was still there and though Cate felt his arms close a little tighter around her shoulders, she thought nothing of it.
"Really?" her grin widened. "Did he say which university he wanted to attend?" she thought for a moment. "Cambridge, by any chance?"
"Not Cambridge," Mycroft clasped her just a little closer as he shook his head, waiting for the inevitable moment of comprehension.
It was only a few seconds. He felt her entire body grow still with certainty.
"You're going to arrange for Tomas to go to Oxford, aren't you?" Cate lifted her head slowly until their eyes met.
"Absolutely," Mycroft grinned back down at the rising expression on his wife's face.
"That was sneaky, manipulative and exhibits a distinct lack of any moral compass," attempting to push herself away from him, Cate realised now the reason for his tight embrace. She was pinned.
"Don't mention it," he laughed down at her, keeping her tight against him as she attempted to wriggle free.
"Physical force? Really?" she scowled as his quiet laughter shook them both.
"I said not to mention it," Mycroft breathed her in and felt his laughter morph into something less light-hearted. "Catie."
The tone of his voice had dropped nearly a full octave as he stared down into her eyes; dark eyes already wide open from hearing her name spoken in … like that. Mycroft only used that tone when his thoughts were moving in a very specific direction since it made her knees wobble. And he knew it.
"We have a house-full of guests," she demurred, her protest somewhat undermined by a heartbeat escalating so fast he could feel it hammer through her back.
"It's our house," he whispered, reaching a long arm over and turning the key in the door.
"You might be needed, Sherlock might want to talk to you …" Cate felt herself grow lightheaded as his lips brushed the line of her jaw. She closed her eyes at the exquisite sensation of warm skin on skin.
"Sherlock can wait," he said, his hand flat between her shoulder blades, pressing her closer to him, keeping her body aligned with his molten core. His head was spinning with the nearness and sheer physicality of her. He wanted to touch and hold and kiss and taste …
"This isn't even our bedroom," her words were heavy with the sensual pleasure of his caresses.
"We don't need a bedroom," he murmured finding the sensitive place under her ear.
"This is madness, we're not teenagers," Cate gasped as his fingers raked through her hair, exposing her throat to his mouth.
"You want me," Mycroft's voice was entirely beguiling and persuasive as he drifted over her silk-fine skin, pulling her head gently back to expose more of it for his enjoyment.
"I think that would be a terribly bad idea," she breathed as he caught at her collarbone with his teeth, his hands and arms holding her closer so that she could feel his own wild heartbeat; feel his desire for her. His fingers stroked her skin beneath her t-shirt, finding the buttons of her shorts.
"You want me the way I want you … now," he whispered, drawing her to a thickly upholstered chintz sofa, his fingers stroking her face, her throat, as she tried to breathe normally, to find a moment of sanity and of pause.
But sanity was not in his plan. Smiling at her soft groan as he pulled her into his lap against his chest, his kisses became more demanding, more wanting. With a shuddering sigh, Cate started to push the shirt from his shoulders and Mycroft knew that, this time, they would both get exactly what he desired.
###
The knocking at the front door had remained unanswered for such an extent of time that Sherlock felt himself forced to look for the reason why. Surely one of the others would have heard the noise by now and seen fit to investigate? The noise continued. Apparently not. Where were Mycroft and Cate and Mrs Compton?
With an exaggerated sigh, and a sharp grimace at John, he threw down the sample slide he had been preparing and stalked through the house to the front door. Yanking it open, prepared to be as unpleasant as needed to deter whoever it was from conversation, he snapped his mouth shut when he recognised the leader of the nearby camp, Leander Purrun.
"Mr Purrun," he smiled fleetingly. "Everyone seems to be elsewhere at the moment. How may I assist you?" the younger Holmes raised his eyebrows.
"So sorry, Mr Sherlock," Nora scurried along the passageway behind him. "I was upstairs getting the children ready for bed and couldn't leave them to get the door, but I'm here now."
"Not to worry, Nanny Nora," Sherlock nodded. "Mr Purrun and I have met. He waggled his fingers in the approximate direction of the kitchen. "You run off and do whatever it is you need to do, and I'll see to our visitor."
"I'll just go and put the kettle on then," she smiled at Purrun who nodded back. There was the sound of a nearby door rattling open and Cate stepped into the hall from the front room. Her hair was distinctly dishevelled and her t-shirt was inside-out. There was a light flush on her face and a vague air of disorientation about her which told the younger Holmes entirely more than he wished to know of his sister-in-law's recent activities. He sighed. For a person lately approaching death, his brother was sexually active to the point of incredulity. The impairment of his endocrine system and very probably his hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis had to be more profound than could be imagined. For someone with such fine emotional and intellectual command, Mycroft must be suffering dreadfully from the inevitably diminished authority over his baser impulses. For a moment, Sherlock pitied his sibling.
"Hello, Mr Purrun," Cate smiled abstractedly at the older man. "Would you like some tea? I'm sure some of us would like one about now."
Walking into the large square kitchen, Cate ushered the visitor to sit at the main table upon which Nora began to set out cakes and pastries and plates.
As he passed her side, Sherlock tugged at Cate's shirt-hem until she looked down at his fingers. Saying nothing, he exited towards the lab, a faint smile curling his lips as he heard her annoyed hiss of realisation.
Mycroft walked in, carefully adjusting one of the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt-as-a-jacket. There was a look of general affability on his face.
"Leander," he smiled, offering his hand. "Is everything well with your grandson?"
"The doctor has told us he will be fine by tomorrow and maybe even ready to come home by tomorrow night if he continues to improve," the old man nodded, pleased. "And again, I must give you the thanks of us all," he paused. "The child is a favourite," he shrugged and smiled.
"We're just happy your boy is getting better," Cate handed the old man a cup of tea while Nora set about slicing up a couple of cakes and setting pieces and forks onto plates.
"But that's not why you are here now, is it?" Mycroft accepted a cup of the steaming liquid and scrutinised Nora's cakes. He really shouldn't.
"You are right," Leander sampled a piece of Mrs Compton's coffee and cream gateaux and was transported. "Magnificent," he grinned.
Nora almost blushed.
"If not the child, then ..?" Mycroft sipped his tea.
Leaning his hands on the grained top of the old wooden table, Purrun's face grew sombre. "In the last few months a lorry has driven down the track near our camp every few weeks when there is no moon," he began. "At first, none of us were sure what it was doing and why it kept returning always at night, and so I had my Watchers keep their eyes open for it and twice now, they have seen it arrive and observed what it has done."
"And what did it do?" Cate sat down at the table, interested.
"It threw many large steel barrels down the biggest of the mineshafts," he said. "The one your young man fell down earlier today."
"Did it, by God?" Mycroft sat back in his seat, his face turned blank and inward as he drew the obvious conclusion. "Did your watchers notice any visible marking on the drums, any names or words or numbers?" he asked. "It could be helpful."
Shaking his head, Purrun linked his fingers on the table. "No," he admitted. "My grandsons were able to give no details of the actual cargo, but the youngest, the one you helped, was able to bring me this," he added, a crafty smile lifting his mouth as he laid a small scrap of paper on the table and pushed it across.
Touching the paper with a fingertip, Mycroft noted the childish writing and the faintness of the pencil marks: faint, but not unreadable. There were a series of letters and numbers: a vehicle registration number.
"This will be very useful," Mycroft was already reaching for his Blackberry. Within moments, he had relayed the information to Anthea together with instructions as to what she was to do with the data and with whom she should share it.
"This information is of value to you?" Purrun looked hopeful. "I am in your debt for the gifts you have given me, and I would feel happier if I had been able to repay you, if only in a little way."
"Any debt between us is entirely on my side," Mycroft leaned forward. "This information may provide me with vital information and may save more than one life, so do not concern yourself with any notion of repayment. In fact it is I," Mycroft paused, smiling, "who am now in debt to you."
"Then let us settle this between us as men," Purrun slapped the table with a palm and grinned. "Let me take away one of this lady's incredible cakes for the children and we might both consider the matter finished," he smiled. "Does that meet with your satisfaction?"
Raising his eyes to Nora, Mycroft asked a silent question.
With a big smile on her face, Mrs Compton walked into the old stone-floored pantry, returning in moments with a large, domed Tupperware container.
"Will this do the job, do you think, Mr Mycroft?" the housekeeper lifted the plastic lid to reveal an astonishing multi-layered strawberry-and-cream affair with, Mycroft noted, a lavish bestrewment of dark chocolate shavings.
Turning to Purrun with an inquiring expression, the older man almost laughed.
"There is enough here for an entire tribe of children," he looked absurdly pleased. "Though I do not expect there to be anything left by tomorrow when the youngest returns from hospital."
"I'll have another made by then," Nora replaced the protective dome. "Send one of your lads over tomorrow morning after ten or so and they can carry it back," she placed the precious cargo on the table. "Can't have the little laddie go without his share of cake."
Standing, Leander walked to the housekeeper and lifted her hand in his. "A most gracious gesture," he smiled, bringing Nora's fingers to his lips. "We must be careful or there will be yet another debt to repay," he added, turning to make his way out of the kitchen. He was careful not to forget the cake.
A pink blush tinged the older woman's face. "Yes, well," she murmured, about to show him out. "That's enough of that now."
Looking over the rim of her cup, Cate met Mycroft's impossibly innocent blue gaze and struggled not to grin like a loon.
"I'll go up and tuck the children in for the night," she said, coughing as the tea went down the wrong way. "Lovely to see you again, Mr Purrun. I'm sure we'll meet again very soon," she added, shooting a sideways glance at Nora as she left the kitchen.
Mycroft's mobile rang. "Yes, Anthea?"
What followed was a strange, one-sided conversation of single-syllabled words and short, staccato instructions. "Good," the elder Holmes finished. "Inform me when the information is confirmed. It is important." Standing, he pocketed his phone and went in search of his brother.
Mycroft knew if the information he'd just received was true and he would have been very surprised if it wasn't, then his brother might find it useful in order to help determine the nature of the poison that was damaging his mind.
###
The cove just north of Saint Just was precisely thirty-two nautical miles from the concealed harbour in St Mary's. With The Clear Sky's powerful engines and a calm sea, Bisset knew he could make the crossing in under an hour, however he did not want to attract any attention whatsoever and so he would keep his impressive engines half-asleep unless they were needed just as they had been the previous night. The crossing would take two hours.
They had laid up all through the daylight hours, resting mostly, but while their mysterious passenger had continued to sleep, he and Joubert had also spent quite some time checking the boat to see if anything of last night's encounter with the tanker had left any lasting damage. Thankfully not, although the bilges needed pumping out after the massive amounts of water that had swamped the entire vessel as the enormous ship had borne down on them. The boat would need a major clean-up when they returned to France, but there was nothing in the way of damage that might significantly alter their plans. They would land on the British mainland tonight, a little after ten, when the darkness was full and the moon barely risen.
###
"Yes, but drums of what?" Sherlock folded his arms and looked doubtfully at his brother. "I already have a fairly clear idea of what we might be dealing with, but if I am to identify a specific cause and therefore an equally specific remedy, then I need a little more detail, Mycroft."
"Which you shall have as soon as Anthea is able to locate those responsible," the elder Holmes confirmed. "I have set her on the spoor of the miscreants, and would expect some sort of progress before the night is out."
"Will you be able to find a cure?" Tomas looked hopefully at the younger of the brothers.
Assessing the nature of the question and the underlying concern, Sherlock was slow in answering. "Perhaps," he offered, turning to meet Mycroft's gaze with an open expression. "If there is one."
"Don't alarm the boy, Sherlock," Mycroft was brisk and all business. "Please continue with your evaluation of the situation and as soon as Althea's has information of value, I shall make it known to you," he turned and made to walk away.
"And in the meantime you will undoubtedly be … resting?" the mildly provoking tone in Sherlock's voice had Mycroft pause his stride before he continued his exit without making a comment. But it was only a little pause.
###
Having had such a long nap during the afternoon, neither of the twins was particularly sleepy and were both sitting in their pyjamas, playing contentedly with toy cars in a corner of the room they shared temporarily with Nora. Julius was fast becoming an expert in handling a grey Aston Martin around the legs of chairs, while Blythe preferred the shiny blackness of the Jaguar. It was just like Daddy's and she kept it running smoothly along the edge of the rug. She had already decided she wanted one just like it.
Cate sat on the floor and stroked her daughter's hair. Baby-soft and very dark, there were curls forming along the bottom where it was still drying after their bath. "Did you have a nice day today on the beach making sand castles?" she asked softly, combing her fingers gently through the springing waves.
"Can we go back tomorrow?" Blythe turned with a hopeful smile. "I liked the big puddle on the beach," she nodded in confirmation. "I liked making sands cassels with daddy."
"And I liked making sand castles too!" Jules shot over as he raced the Aston Martin across the hem of the rug and up to his mother's leg where he performed a screeching handbrake turn before parking it in the crook of her knee.
"We can all go back to the beach tomorrow and make some more sand castles and play in the pool if you would like to do that," Cate noted the sunscreen had done its job and there were no pink spots in sight. "Are you feeling hot anywhere?" she asked, lifting her son's chin up so that she might inspect his face more closely. But there was no sunburn. Just a golden-glowing happy little face with bright hazel eyes.
Standing, Jules reached up and put his arms around her neck, pressing his soft lips gently against her cheek.
Cate felt her breathing tighten with unspeakable emotion. She smiled. "What was that for?" she asked, reaching an arm around her boy and hugging him back.
"For jelly and ice cream," he said. "And Nanny Nora's cake."
"I see," Cate could not avoid smiling. "You love me for cake."
"Yes," the child nodded very seriously. "For good cake."
At a loss for words, Cate wrapped him entirely in her arms and breathed in the scent of clean child.
"Time for bed, I think," she said. "Who wants to go at the top and who wants to go at the bottom tonight?" The children were sharing one of the twin beds in the room and saw the whole thing as a great adventure. They never got to do this at home.
Mycroft stepped into the room. He had been listening to the conversation with a smile curving his mouth. The deep affection he felt for his children had grown with them and now they were becoming increasingly independent, both physically and emotionally, he found himself endlessly fascinated by their developing individuality. That his genes and guardianship were affecting the adults these two might eventually become was indeed a humbling realisation. He was incredibly glad that they had a mother such as Cate: never treating them as children in the intellectual sense, her every interaction encouraged a blossoming of personality. He felt a warm surge in his chest.
"Who wants a story about internet pirates?" he asked, bending to pick Blythe up from the rug. She squirmed like a puppy in his arms until she was able to put her hands on his shoulders and stare directly into his eyes. Eyes that were the mirror-image of her own.
"Is it a story about bad people?" for one so young, Mycroft noted her smile was happily predacious.
"Yes," he acknowledged. "But there are good people in the story too."
"I like stories with bad people," Blythe was emphatic. "Bad people do more clever things."
Meeting Cate's eyes as he lowered his daughter into her cocoon of soft sheets and fluffy blankets, he saw she was fighting not to laugh.
"But bad people are caught and put in prison where they can't be with their mummy and daddy, and so it's not really good to be a bad person," Mycroft offered, barely managing to keep the amusement from his own words.
"If I was being bad, nobody would catch me," she yawned extravagantly, cuddling down into the bedding with her teddy.
"Best of luck with that one," Cate sniggered as she finished tucking the children in and left him to it.
###
The sun was well-down by the time Sherlock completed his baseline tests. It was irritating that he was still unable to differentiate clearly between the mineral constituents and those of the debasing pollutant.
"Then if this toxin is, as I assumed," he frowned, thinking. "A mutational form of biocide organically entangled with the chemical signature of the tin, I need an unpolluted sample of the ore in order to construct a functional comparative analysis. Once I have the entire compositional spectrum of the unadulterated material, I can begin to tease out those elements which are foreign," he stood, abruptly. "I need a pure sample."
"To the Batcave?" John grinned.
"Indeed," the younger Holmes reached for a couple of the HAZMAT kits. "Still got that lighter of yours?" he asked Tomas. "We're going hunting."
"Then let's go," John was already heading down the passage towards the bookroom, a determined look on his face.
In seconds, the bookcase had been moved to its usual resting-place at one side of the gaping entrance, a breath of fresh air flooding the room with its salty fragrance. Torches at the ready, three beams of light stabbed into the pitch blackness as they proceeded down into the depths of the earth, their progress reflected a million times from facets of sharp quartz implanted in the dark granite.
More certain of their footing now, they moved swiftly down the first flight of steps into the expanded waiting area where Tomas again lit the coagulation of old candles. They seemed to light faster and burn fractionally brighter this time.
"The wicks are starting to re-saturate with wax," Sherlock nodded. "The more they burn now, the better their light will become."
He turned to the lower exit, searching with his torch for the protruding machete, preferring not to crash into it in the dark. "We know the seam of tin is contaminated down to at least this level," he said, following the lighter undulation of rock with the finger of his torch. "The question now is how far down do we have to go to find an uncontaminated site?"
"Does this go all the way down to the beach?" Tomas was also following the line of paler deposit with the light of his torch. "What happens in we can't find a clean sample?"
"Let us hope that is not the case," Sherlock moved towards the lower steps. "Everyone keep your eyes sharp for any differences in colour or texture in the rock," he instructed. "The sooner we get the sample, the sooner we can identify the agents which are the cause of the problem."
Heading slowly down the stone steps, the streams of light synchronised as far as possible on following the snaking line of ore as it kinked and curved along the wall beside them, sometimes far too high to reach, sometimes vanishing for yards at a time, only to reappear further down the stairs.
At various intervals, Sherlock stopped and sniffed the rock itself, clearly trying to find the point in the seam where the adulteration ceased. But what if the entire seam had been corrupted? Preferring to focus only on what was, rather than what might be, Sherlock said nothing and searched harder. It looked as if the rock was becoming both drier and more irregular. It was certainly getting more difficult to see.
They reached the fake landslide and the old iron gate, but there was still occasional evidence of the greasy residue fixed within the seam. They needed to follow it lower still, and the three passed quickly through the gate, tracking the now increasingly-illusive thread of lighter rock along the wall.
By the number of steps they had traversed since the gate, they knew they were rapidly approaching the exit into the cave. They could hear a faint sound of waves on sand, and though it was now dark, there was a light glow from the not entirely-dark sky. They still had not found a place where the line of tin had proved to be pure and uncontaminated.
"What if we can't find a clean sample, Sherlock?" John spoke softly, but his concern was clear.
"There is still hope," Sherlock strode down the last few steps and suddenly stopped, his eye caught by a dull gleam of silver-grey. "Stop!" he commanded, turning his head back and forwards trying to rediscover the glimpsed smudge. "Go back," he instructed. "It was around here," he added, his eyes raking the rock wall.
"Here," John motioned across the wall with his beam of light which chose, at that moment, to flicker and die. "Ah, bloody hell," he muttered, smacking the back of the torch with the heel of his hand. It remained stubbornly dead.
"I got it," Tomas shone his light in the same spot, revealing a faint patch, no more than a few feet square, where the powder-grey tin flowed visibly across the rock at a reachable height. Slipping a hand into a protective glove, Sherlock brushed his palm lightly across the surface of the seam, looking down at the dusty particles that clung glitteringly to the heavy-duty plastic. He sniffed his hand and could make out nothing more than dust with a trace of salt.
"This looks like a possibility," he murmured, handing his torch to John. "Keep it there for me, would you?" he asked, digging the sample packets from his pocket.
Tomas stepped back, looking around the cave entrance itself in case there might be another outcropping of the precious ore. It was only when he came level with the actual opening to the cave onto the beach that his attention was drawn to movement on the shore. Some age-old sense of preservation stopped him form shining the beam of his torch out into the night air.
There was a very large dark shadow on the beach itself, obviously a boat that had only just arrived, judging by the activity on the low-slung deck.
Stepping across to the very edge of the rock overhang which hid the cave from full view of the shore, Tomas watched and listened. There were voices, but they weren't speaking in English. He listened harder. Ah.
"John! Sherlock!" he hissed, still watching. "Quick! Over here!"
Having satisfactorily completed his sample-collection, Sherlock looked over at the oddly-positioned teen. From the way he was standing, anyone would imagine he was trying to hide from …
"What is it?" John spoke in his normal voice at which both Tomas and Sherlock shushed him.
"There's something odd going on, on the beach," Tomas stabbed his finger repeatedly in the relevant direction.
Looking out into the darkness, Sherlock made out the shapes of three men climbing down a short rope ladder thrown over the bows of the craft. Once they had their feet on dry land, there was some laughter as well as the handing-over of a heavy-looking package; payment of some kind, he assumed, as this was clearly a transaction of sorts. He wondered what was in the package. Money or drugs?
Still talking, now that the deal was done, the three men lit up cigarettes, smoking them companionably in the deepening dark.
"We have a problem," Sherlock whispered.
"With what?" John whispered back.
"The man highest up the beach," Sherlock spoke softly. "I recognise him, and that's the problem."
"Why?" Tomas hissed. "Who is he?"
"His name is Totoni Elbaneh," Sherlock sighed breathily. "He's been on the FBI's most wanted list for the last five years, and we can't let him get away."
Closing his eyes John wondered, not for the first time, how he never seemed to have his gun when he most needed it.