After catching his breath sufficiently, Sherlock walked over to the door that led to the next car. The people riding in the car seemed like they wanted to protest at Sherlock and John's actions, but made no move to stop them.
They climbed through three more sets of doors, then emerged into the car that the bomber had vanished into. Just as they moved to go through this door, someone found their voice.
It was a man just below-average height wearing a suit and tie. His hair was a fiery red, which complemented his fuming countenance.
"Hey! What're you doing?" he yelled, moving to the center of the aisle to block their path. "That's illegal."
"Oh, you're very boring, aren't you? Get out of the way," said Sherlock.
When the portly man made no move to get out of the way, Sherlock and John pushed him aside and charged through the next door. There were only six cars on the train, and they had cleared four cars already. That left only one more passenger car and the engine car.
"He's not in here," said Sherlock, looking around at the fifth passenger car.
"On to the last one," John agreed.
They opened the last connecting door and wrenched open the corresponding door in the car ahead of them. The dark underground air whirled past them, threatening to rip Sherlock and John from their small perch.
They carefully crossed and, once they were safely inside, pulled the door shut. Then, they turned around to scout out the new car. This car had a different layout than the previous passenger ones. There was an emergency door directly to their left, as well as a long aisle down the middle. At the end of the passage, in the very front of the train, there was a small compartment and a window.
Sherlock and John started toward the steering compartment, eyes up ahead. Although they got a good view of the steering compartment, they were blind to the long, thin wire stretching across the central aisle.
It ensnared their feet and knocked them down to the ground, knocking the breath out of them. Before they could move, a heavy boot stomped down on both of their backs.
A deep, guffawing laugh came from up above. Sherlock and John tried to turn their heads upward to try to find out where it came from, but the heavy boots kept them pinned to the ground.
"How pathetic," tutted a big, tall man with a thick southern American accent. "Now, I ain't seen nothing like tha' in my life. The best detective in all of Britain, brough' down by a simple tripwire."
He succumbed to another fit of maniacal laughter.
"I'll take tha' gun, if you don't mind," he said, leaning down to grab John's gun from where it lay. He detached the tripwire from both sides of the passageway and bound it around their ankles. "Can't have you puttin' up a struggle. Where're my manners? Come on in and join the party!"
He pulled them roughly into the steering compartment, where two petrified-looking drivers manned the controls. He propped them up on the wall of the train.
From there, they could see their captor. He was a beefy, short-necked man wearing a heavy coat. He sat casually in the corner of the train, holding a gun in his lap.
"What do you want?" asked John, trying in vain to break the tripwire.
"Him," responded the captor darkly. "Sherlock Holmes. I'm going to kill him."
"Well, that's nice," muttered Sherlock.
"I hate you," growled the captor.
"So do loads of other people," said Sherlock. "I mean, you're not the first person to hate me with a passion."
"I despise you for capturing my friend. You're the reason he's in jail."
"Again, that's nothing new."
"...Your snarky comments…"
"Oh!" Sherlock cried excitedly. "Trying to kill me for my snarky comments. Now, that's a first!"
John realized that Sherlock was trying to buy time. If they could delay their demises in time for the train to come to the next stop, they might be able to escape. John reached his hand into his pocket and grabbed his cell phone.
Holding the phone close to his body so that the bomber couldn't see, he opened up a text message to Lestrade.
We have bomber on Tube. Need assistance. Kennington station 5 mins.
JW
"It's no use," said Sherlock. "He won't get there on time. He's still hanging around St. Bartholomew's Hospital removing the bomb."
"But his deputies might."
Sherlock's eyes lit up with hope at the prospect.
"Quiet," snapped the bomber. "Are you that John Watson fellow?"
"Erm, who's John Watson?" lied John to buy time. "I've never heard of that person. My name is Philip Konrad."
"You're lying," said the bomber.
"How very perceptive of you," said Sherlock sarcastically, shaking his head.
John looked back at his phone. Lestrade still hadn't responded.
Sherlock continued to buy more time, but he saw that his captor was itching for the trigger.
"No more delays, Sherlock Holmes," growled the bomber. "The only reason I've been keeping you alive is to see the fear on your face."
He lifted his large gun and, just a few feet away, pointed it at Sherlock's head.
"You should know, Roger Jones, that it is inadvisable to-"
"Hang on, who told you my name?" interjected the bomber.
"I read you like a page in a book," said Sherlock. "The letters are plastered all over your face. Anyway, as I was trying to say earlier, it would be extremely inadvisable for you to shoot that gun in here. The explosive power in that gun would destroy the whole room and take the controls along with it. You may inadvertently strand yourself here with nowhere to run."
Jones bit back a snarl.
"How interesting," observed Sherlock. "You were so caught up with trying to kill me that you ignored the basic logistics necessary to complete your task. You're no gunman, Jones; you're a bomber, through and through."
This last part enraged Jones. "I'll show you my skill at firearms!" he yelled. "But not in here."
Jones dragged them back down the hallway. John wasn't sure if he was imagining it, but the train seemed to be slowing down. Unless he was wrong, the slowing of the train could only mean one thing, that the train was coming into a station.
"The controls won't be damaged if I kill you in here," spat Jones.
He took up a shooting stance in the aperture in front of the emergency door. Slowly, he raised his gun, looking down the sights to be sure that his aim was true. His finger curled around the trigger.
Sherlock gave John a near-imperceptible nod and their bound legs kicked out in unison at their captor. The bomber toppled backwards into the emergency hatch. His hands grabbed around for a handhold to stop himself falling through, and his fingers closed against the very mechanism meant to open the hatch.
He toppled backwards out of the hatch, his gun going off somewhere in midflight.
"After him!" said Sherlock. "We can't afford to let him get away."
In an odd, three-legged gait, they hobbled through the emergency exit. The train hadn't been at a full stop when Jones had fallen out, so they had to walk back a few feet to find where Jones was.
Sherlock leaned down to pick up the fallen gun while John looked at Jones. He was in bad shape; he had been winded by the fall.
"I don't believe it!" cried John, pointing at Jones' arm. "The bullet ricocheted off the ceiling and hit him!"
Sure enough, there was a little indentation on the corresponding section of the wall.
Down below them, there was a sick groan and Jones clenched at his bleeding arm.
Instantly, Sherlock and John doubled over in uncontrollable laughter. Perhaps, some of it was caused by the hysteria inflicted upon them from their near-death experience, but that didn't take away from the sheer hilarity of the situation.
Within a minute, Lestrade's deputies charged through the gate and took Jones into custody.
With surprise, John saw that Lestrade was among the police.
"How did you get here so fast?" asked John.
"I had already left the hospital by the time that you texted," he responded quickly. "Why're you two walking like that?"
"He tied our ankles together," said John.
"It's kevlar, I'm afraid," said Lestrade, trying to stifle a laugh.
"This isn't funny, Lestrade!" insisted Sherlock.
But Lestrade seemed to think it was.
After using a enormous set of loppers to cut the tripwire, Lestrade offered to give them a ride to the hospital, which they gladly accepted. After their ordeal, they didn't want to ride the train again any time soon.
As they rode along in the backseat, John used the time to ask Sherlock about the things that still didn't make sense about the case.
"I have one question. How did you know that his name was Roger Jones? If you didn't have that information to use as a diversion, we probably would've died."
"Simple, really. I had Lestrade here send me the results of the DNA test. I recognized the pattern from a file I had seen earlier regarding the robbery of a bank in Texas, belonging to a man named Roger Jones."
"You remembered an entire human genome?" said Lestrade from the front seat, shocked.
"Yep," said Sherlock, tapping his head. "It's all stored up here."
John shook his head in disbelief. Sometimes he forgot how advanced Sherlock's brain was, then was rudely reminded of it at times like these.
"I hope that Molly is O.K.," said John. "Jones seems like a particularly nasty person. He might've killed her, like you said earlier."
"I'm sure that we're all hoping that's not the case," stressed Lestrade. It was quite obvious from his tone of voice that he was trying to test Sherlock for signs of a conscience.
"Come on, Lestrade," said Sherlock. "You should know by now that I'm not a bloody psychopath."
"He's a high-functioning sociopath," finished Lestrade irritably.
Author's note: The next chapter will be the final one. I hope you've enjoyed reading this story! It was fun to write.