There was light and smoke and confusion.
Several guns were raised and somebody shouted.
Greg strained his ears to listen from the stairwell. He didn't have clearance to enter the hotel room until the area had been secured, but he had made sure he would be close by ready for when that occurred.
Mycroft and John had remained downstairs, much to John's chagrin. They had been requested to do so by the Tac Team for reasons of safety. Mycroft was understanding, being used to staying out of the thick of things, but John was unimpressed and stood fidgeting outside.
A girl's scream travelled out of the hotel room door and along the corridor.
"Not him!" she shouted, struggling desperately to drag her still-tied body off the bed and out of the room. As she appeared in the doorway, assisted by one of the tac team, she yelled to anybody who would listen.
"Not him. It's not him." She was crying frantically, and Greg approached her as the tactical team member handed her over and started to turn back to re-enter the room.
"Wait!" she cried again. "Please wait."
She reached out, grabbing hold of the man's arm with her newly freed hand.
"Please. The man with the gun. That's not the guy. That's Sherlock. He..."
She got no further as the message sank in and both the tac team guy and Greg made a move for the hotel room.
"No!" commanded the armed man, indicating that Greg should stay with Cassie. "I'll sort it."
Greg nodded and pulled Cassie's hand from the man while releasing the last of her bounds and catching her as she fell, exhausted, into his arms.
"Shhhhh." he said, dropping to the floor with her and leaning back against the hallway's flock wallpaper, "It's over now. It's all over."
Her sobs and heavy breathing began to subside, and Greg couldn't help letting his eyes wander over to the hotel room doorway. God, he hoped Sherlock was OK. He wasn't sure what had happened but it was evident that all wasn't what it seemed in that room.
"I'm OK." Cassie whispered hoarsely, her voice tired from screaming and crying, "Please... make sure he's OK too?"
Greg frowned, reluctant to leave the girl, but she was clearly as concerned about what might happen inside the room as he was.
"You sure?" he questioned, wishing somebody; anybody; even Donovan, had come upstairs with him to look after her.
Cassie nodded and lifted her arms to push him away.
"Please."
The room erupted into chaos as the four men burst in and finally came to a halt with their weapons lined up with both Jim and Sherlock's heads. Sherlock was suddenly acutely aware of how it looked. He was standing there with a pistol to Sebby's head and, to anybody looking on, he looked every bit the perpetrator rather than the victim.
He held out his hands in front of him and slowly lowered the gun before raising his hands again, hoping for a placating stance which would relax fingers on triggers and giving him a chance to explain.
He saw Cassie being escorted from the room by one of the men, his partner's weapon honed in on Jim Moriarty's head. The vicious smile that Jim shot at Sherlock made the detective's stomach lurch. This was bad. This was very bad. Even if Jim went willingly, there would be serious repercussions. Sherlock realised now that there was absolutely nothing he or Mycroft could do about that now. Words would be said. Stories would be told. The Holmes brothers could only hope to come out of the other side unscathed or, at least, in one piece.
Sherlock turned to the two men who were closing in on his and Sebby's position, one man's rifle still aimed squarely at the younger Holmes' head. Sebby was crouched on the floor, playing the victim, and the difference in stance between the man who was headed for Sebby and the man with his gun pointed towards Sherlock was clear to see.
"Wait!"
The tac team member who had escorted Cassie out re-entered, drawing the attention of the remaining three men. He made a subtle gesture which Sherlock hoped was good and the three men nodded. Jim took this opportunity, however, to take advantage of the team's divided attention.
He reached behind him and raised a pistol of his own, levelling it, to begin with, in the general direction of Sherlock and Sebby. He was clearly undecided how to proceed, expecting that this could be the end and he would either fight his way out or go down in a blaze of something vaguely resembling glory.
He had little time to hesitate though, and he crossed the room swiftly and pressed the pistol to Sherlock's temple.
"If I'm going down," he whispered to the detective, his voice hard and determined, "you are sure as hell going with me."
The room erupted again as two men dragged Sebby from the room, and the re-entered team member raised his weapon to Jim.
Two clear shots were heard, and as Greg stepped into the room, both men dropped to the ground, and the room fell into a deathly silence...