Hello wonderful readers, FYI, there's a lot of exposition at the beginning half of this chapter, and this entire thing is necessarily rather transitional :)
Please see Author's Notes at the end for some background...
The Morning After
"Well congratulations for pulling it off, Mr. Holmes. I wasn't sure that even you were up to what you proposed."
"Thank you," Sherlock demured, politic at first, though he couldn't resist adding, "yet it seems you were mistaken." He paced the perimeter of the bathroom in circles, impatient to end the connection now that all the pertinent information had been communicated.
"Yes, and you won't hear me say this often, but I'm glad of it," the voice on the other end of the line blustered. "This has been rather fun, hasn't it! A definite departure from my usual duties."
Sherlock rolled his eyes as the man continued, and unbidden, his gaze flicked through the doorway to Irene's still-sleeping form. Immediately an anxious, swooping feeling gripped his chest, and he turned firmly away from her to stare impassively in the mirror at his freshly-shaven and fully-dressed reflection.
"I was a bit wary at first, of course, especially after going through that spot of trouble last year—I didn't want to stir the pot even more!—but it's been a ruddy good time." The man chuckled, then added, "And the fact that you even managed to not expose Captain Mazari, means I won't catch hell from the SSG. Always a welcome change for a managing bureaucrat such as myself!"
"Yes," Sherlock drawled a bit patronisingly, though he doubted the other man would detect it. He hated bloody phone calls; they almost always occasioned superfluous chitchat whereas with texting one only conveyed the essential facts. He knew that there was a salient quote about brevity, but he'd deleted it at some point.
"Well then, I'll leave you to it. Don't make me think I've spoken too quickly here! Just let's finish everything up nice and neatly, and send you two on your ways. Good luck."
Sherlock concluded the call without a response, snorting slightly in derision after pushing the End button.
"That was your source, I take it," a voice said from behind him, and his heart-rate instantly increased in involuntary response. He turned to see Irene fully awake and leaning against the headboard, the sheet wrapped around her chest, her blue eyes fixed on his, and the touch of a smile on her lips. "Oh, and good morning."
"Yes," Sherlock said in a blanket response to both her comments, and he reentered the bedroom, feeling rather self-conscious under her steady gaze. In full daylight things seemed much more vivid and real again; he had recovered his wits (or something, he grappled inarticulately) and he wasn't certain how to act towards her with everything that had happened between them. In the past hour since she'd fallen back asleep, he'd started to be seized by flashes of near panic over what had transpired, and he had come to dread the moment he'd have to face her again. Desire and base impulses had maneuvered him for the most part through the uncertainty of his first sexual encounter, but there were no such instincts this morning; he was entirely too clear-headed and sangfroid now.
During his uni days plenty of his hall-mates had experienced and discussed their so-called 'mornings after', and though he knew that this (whatever 'this' was) wasn't comparable to those anonymous drunken interludes, he felt just as awkward as they had described. In another parallel to those intoxicated liaisons, he also couldn't quite understand what had happened—or how it had happened. It was a blur of sensory memories and pleasure punctuated by a few dizzyingly provocative images.
Overwhelmed by the mere concept of considering everything that had transpired, he automatically reverted to a brisk and business-like demeanor, and was immensely grateful that he and The Woman did have legitimately vital business on which to focus. "He's sending a car and it should be here in a half an hour," he said, his voice a bit wooden. "Are you feeling fit and rested? Today might be a bit taxing."
She smiled slightly at his question, but ignored it. "He's sending a car? Who is he?"
"A man who owed me a favor," Sherlock replied instantly, trying to adjust his tone and respond in his usual flippantly self-assured manner and flashing a side grin. Still, he was aware that he was over-thinking how to react to her, and coming off as noticeably stilted. 'Over' thinking, something he would have argued wasn't actually possible for him, in any other situation. Not to mention, he hadn't cared how he came across to anyone since he was back in school. He had a flare of annoyance towards himself, and returned focus to the question at hand. "I got him out of a 'spot of trouble' last year."
"I get the impression that that particular descriptor applies to a lot of people," she said, smiling slyly at him from below her dark eyelashes, but he quickly looked away from her eye contact once more, and the self-irritation intensified. He was about to pull off his magnum opus of audacious strategic planning against not one, but two extremely dangerous and capable categories of opponent; why did he feel so uncertain and bloody clueless about this?
"You seem to have a similar knack," Sherlock deflected, thinking of the various people with whom Irene seemed to have influence or access, because she 'knew what they liked'. "But of course, due to an entirely different set of services provided," he couldn't help but add—perhaps as a way to put metaphorical distance between them, he wasn't sure.
"Of course," she agreed, but her body language almost imperceptibly tightened. Nevertheless, he could still sense her watching him expectantly, and he sighed, though he had to admit that he was pleased with the tidy way in which things had come together in the preparations for this mission. If he were a man who believed in fate. . .
"My contact is a Mr. Caldwell," Sherlock told her, a bit reluctant to name his source. A feeling of slight mistrust towards Irene Adler had returned with the day, as well. "He's the Deputy High Commissioner to Pakistan, and he heads up the district office of the British High Commission that's located here in Karachi."
Sherlock began to pace around the room as he briefed her, performing final checks that he had all of his belongings and documents, particularly his and Irene's counterfeit credentials. The added benefit, of course, was that he didn't have to look at her nude and supine form as he did so.
"It's actually been rather opportune because his title permits him a certain degree of influence, but since he doesn't have the prominence of the High Commissioner he's able to get away with quite a lot, as we've learned. He's also somewhat devious, which always helps with these types of things," Sherlock added with a sardonic smile.
"How do you know the Deputy High Commissioner to Pakistan, and moreover, how did he come to owe you a favour?" she asked, leaning forward and now also smiling in appreciation.
Sherlock launched into further explanation; he continued to be grateful that he could just focus on tangibles rather than what had transpired over the course of the past ten hours, and now that he had revealed the name, he might as well go in for the pound.
"Until very recently he was actually the UK Ambassador to the Holy See, during which time he was responsible for conveying a gift of extremely valuable Ancient Roman jewelry from Pope Benedict to the Queen. Unfortunately for Mr. Caldwell, they vanished from his care—to significant political fallout—and he was the prime suspect until I was invited in."
She smiled knowingly, a twinkle of recognition in her eye. "Hmm, an ambassador to the Vatican? Were there any cameos in that jewelry collection, by any chance?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact there were," Sherlock replied, his eyes flicking over to her approvingly. She had an impressive memory, though it came as no surprise.
He continued in a hurried but concise pace: "I quickly recovered the artefacts, cleared his name, and saved his political career. . . Although, he did go from the Ambassador in a highly prestigious assignment to the deputy High Commissioner in a satellite office. I take it Her Majesty still held him partially liable for the scandal, even if he wasn't directly responsible. They were, after all, in his safekeeping. Still, he wasn't sacked, his reputation wasn't (very) ruined, and he didn't go to prison, so he's been quite keen to assist."
He paused abruptly and smirked somewhat nastily. "I do suspect it also relates to the fact that he seems to intensely dislike Mycroft—jealous, obviously—and he enjoys that we're keeping my brother in the dark. As a member of the diplomatic service Caldwell runs in a similar circle, you see, and I'm fairly certain he's also a member of that poncey gentleman's club." He brought his palms together. "Now. Will you be ready to go soon?"
"What did you tell him about me, when you approached him about all of this?" Irene asked, not moving in the slightest from her relaxed but engaged position in bed. "Because surely you couldn't have told them the truth. I don't think he would've been particularly inclined to assist someone who'd threatened 'Queen and Country'."
"Literally, on both counts," Sherlock grimaced slightly. Cognitively of course, he still remembered everything, but other qualities of hers had come to outweigh that memory in his mind, and he wasn't thrilled with the reminder. "And probably not, no. Even that might have made his decidedly less-than-officious conscience take pause. Although if he knew it had been Mycroft you'd been provoking, he might've been able to look past your. . . little indiscretion." He chuckled wryly.
"So?"
Sherlock hesitated; this was getting too close to the very subject he wanted to avoid. "I told him the partial truth; that's the best kind of lie, after all. I said you and I had a relationship of a category I'd prefer to keep discreet, but that you had been entertaining a wealthy salt baron here in Karachi when a cell of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group determined your profession. To them, you represented everything wrong with western womanhood and its sordid influence on Pakistani men, and they wanted to make a statement out of you."
"So yes, quite close to the truth. In fact, I think the reason you gave for my capture here was quite a significant factor, on the balance," Irene said quietly.
"Perhaps," he replied.
"And he didn't think it was strange that you wanted it all done in underground channels rather than passing the case to the proper authorities and experts?"
"I said that I insisted on discretion for two reasons. The lesser reason was because if the press got wind of an English woman being held by insurgents it would create a firestorm of media attention, and I didn't want you to suffer that type of focus."
"Why not, if it meant saving my life?" she challenged, playing devil's advocate.
Sherlock frowned; this was the part he didn't want to reveal. "I said that. . . I cared for you and wanted to keep the particulars of your profession private, for both your sake and mine."
She rolled her eyes at that, and Sherlock supposed she didn't find it particularly persuasive. And why would she? he supposed. She wasn't ashamed of what she did.
"And the second, and main, reason?" she followed up.
"I wanted things to be done my way, and obviously I wouldn't have that flexibility, or any part of it at all, if the SSG took over. I was to run the show and call all the shots myself, from start to finish."
"And he accepted that?"
"I was asking, and he owed me a massive favour. He wasn't really in a position not to accept it. But yes, he seemed to."
"And the rest of your plan?" she pressed. "How did you explain why you needed to do anything else beyond my rescue?"
Sherlock wasn't accustomed to having to validate every thought process and move he made, and he was finding a challenge. Didn't she comprehend he had it firmly under control? And yet he knew, if their roles were reversed, he'd have the need to be aware of the finest detail as well. "Again, I didn't justify it to him," he answered, and then continued with a heavily insinuating tone in his voice: "I reminded him that my ways may appear unorthodox, but that he had experienced firsthand what those practices could do, and that he must just trust that I have my motives. He completely concurred, and after that he basically issued me a carte blanche."
"Impressive," she purred, a closed-lip smile pulling up both corners of her mouth. "It seems you've thought of everything."
"Of course I have," he replied impatiently. "Now, will you be ready soon? I estimate we only have twenty minutes."
"Is there any breakfast?" she said, stretching languorously and looking about the room in mild interest.
"Breakfast?" he asked in a distracted tone, as he watched the sheet dip dangerously low over her chest when she extended her arms.
She caught his eye, glanced down, then smirked lightly and pulled the sheet securely around herself again.
He blinked, and slightly shook his head. "You dress, I'll find something for you to eat," he directed, though not out of altruism. Rather, he seized upon the situation as an opportunity to gain some distance to think (escape, a small but insistent voice asserted in his mind), and a strategy to get her out of bed and onto his schedule. Also, to his utter disbelief and scorn, he realised that he was ravenous.
But he was on a case, he thought savagely. Not only was he was always able to suppress his appetite, but it usually barely even registered; the impulse was crowded out by too much other—vastly more important—brain activity. Could it have been all the. . .recent vigorous exercise? He calculated how many calories he'd likely burned, and his lip curled. He immediately dug into his trouser pocket for the packet of Dunhills, and fingered the few remaining cigarettes within gratefully. Last night might have been pivotal in some ways—that couldn't be denied—but he'd be damned if he would let it alter the methods by which he went about his work.
"But not for you?" she asked pointedly, placing her finger directly on the matter as usual.
"I'm fine," he said, sounding a little too peevish for his liking, and he roughly jammed one of the cigarettes in between his lips.
She just raised an eyebrow as if to say suit yourself, then stretched again, and this time the sheet slid to her waist. Immediately he turned on the spot and fled the room, knowing without visual confirmation that Irene's expression was one of knowing bemusement.
Sherlock guessed that the automobile that pulled into the roundabout in front of the hotel's reception was not what Irene had pictured when he'd stated they'd been sent a car, and his thought was confirmed when her eyebrows creased in curiosity and she threw a questioning glance up towards him. Instead of a sleek towncar, the vehicle was an industrial and utilitarian station wagon with limited cramped seating and a large storage bay that was currently stocked with something that Sherlock had loaded in the predawn hours of the previous morning. He ignored her inquiring eyes and simply made his way down the hotel steps to slide into the far seat behind the driver, carefully sliding the stolen AK-47, wrapped up in his coat, under his seat. Taking his lead, she climbed in between him and the long refrigerated container, then stared at it assessingly, and he could see ideas beginning to formulate in her head. She was on the right track, too, he noticed, though she didn't say anything immediately.
The vehicle pulled out of the peaceful and verdant hotel drive and through the gate, where it merged with the chaotic and exhaust-spewing rush of cars, motorbikes, caravans, mopeds, and city buses, but Sherlock and Irene sat next to each other in silence, their arms and thighs almost touching, but not quite.
He tried to move his focus inward and review the day's upcoming schedule, but every time she brushed hair away from her face, or sighed, or slightly shifted her position, he was diverted. She was a magnet and he found himself and his attention inexorably drawn to her, despite his herculean efforts to focus on the upcoming task at hand. It was absurd, he thought almost angrily; they weren't even touching and yet he was overwhelmed by his hyper-awareness of her proximity, and the tension that crackled like static between them.
It wasn't only when he was in her immediate vicinity, either. When he had gone downstairs to collect a plate of food from the hotel's breakfast buffet, he had attempted to review his upcoming stratagem, but to his horror he felt distracted and mentally sluggish. Even worse, he kept experiencing unbidden, powerful, and extremely vivid flashbacks of sensory experiences or visions from the previous night and early morning: the texture of her tongue in his mouth, the intensity of their eye contact, the caress of her hair brushing against his shoulders as she leaned over him, a bead of sweat dripping between her breasts as he pressed her into the mattress. . . Each episode caused him to flinch, screw his eyes shut tightly, and shake his head—all which drew looks of concern from the other patrons in the buffet queue, though he paid them no attention.
This was inexcusably dangerous, he knew, and he realised with fury that he had been grossly premature and permissive in thinking that this trip was some sort of absurd exemption or free pass. If anything, he needed a clearer and more focused mind than ever before. He had never attempted a manoeuvre with this level of detail and danger, nor attempted to fool anyone half as clever as Mycroft Holmes. Only part of the mission was even completed, there was still much more to come, and it needed his full brainpower.
To add insult to injury, as he was travelling up in the lift he found that he'd already devoured three quarters of a large piece of quiche before he'd realised what he was doing. Absolutely no focus or self-command whatsoever, Sherlock had berated himself scathingly, and he'd violently shoved the remainder of the slice into the first rubbish bin he'd passed when he returned to their floor. And yet, even when he'd reentered the room and found The Woman waiting, fully dressed and coiffed, he'd still recognised a flash of desire towards her.
Just as the dense buildings and traffic of the city were beginning to dissipate into dry arid scrubland and dilapidated single-story concrete structures, Irene broke into his contemptuous chain of thoughts, and asked in a low but casual voice, "Is that what I think it is?" She cut her eyes to the container and raised one eyebrow.
Sherlock briefly inhaled through his nostrils to regain a measure of composure. He didn't want to reveal just quite how shaken he was this morning, both because he was feeling guarded after all his injudiciousness of the previous night and early dawn, and because he wanted to appear firmly in control. Fortunately, he considered himself an excellent actor.
"Oh, you can speak up in front of Mr. Jarwar," Sherlock answered her in a suitably normal and even slightly amused tone. "He helped to load the car. And yes, it probably is what you think it is, if you suspect it's the body of a young woman with approximately your measurements, and roughly your skin tone and hair type. It's not as close as you managed, but considering I didn't have much in the way of time to make my selection—or a wide array of choice—it should do quite well."
"How?" she asked, leaning back in her seat and looking duly impressed.
"Mr. Sigerson, or rather Dr. Sigerson, has been publishing in applied chemistry journals for years," he said smugly. He was rather proud of the alias he had been cultivating over the better part of a decade; it had been even more useful than he'd initially imagined, and all his investment of time and effort had been repaid a hundred fold. "A few weeks ago he arranged to deliver a guest lecture at the University of Karachi on one of his latest articles. It was to be tomorrow, but unfortunately I don't think he's going to be able to make it."
She nodded once. "I see. . ."
"I'd expect no less," he replied at once, then continued. "I was given a tour of the campus a few days ago, during which time I was able to explore the premises of the medical school. It wasn't difficult after that to return and retrieve an appropriate cadaver. I'm just glad you have dark hair. Not a lot of blondes or redheads donating their bodies to science in Pakistan. . . though of course there's always dye," he added as an afterthought.
"Macabre," Irene said, but the corner of her lip was twitching and her eyes were dancing in amusement.
"And fortunately unnecessary," he said idly, staring out the window at the passing countryside. "That's one thing made more convenient."
"I hardly think the word 'convenient' can describe anything that's happening here," she remarked lightly, and his lips bent into the approximation of a tight smile, though the movement didn't reach his cheeks or eyes.
"Yes, wouldn't that just be so boring," he rejoined.
Though he acted as if he wasn't observing her reaction, he watched her in his peripheral vision. However, instead of smirking as he had expected her to, she just assessed him knowingly, apparently as maddeningly intuitive as ever.
After a moment during which she was clearly deliberating over something, she took a short breath and he frowned in anticipation. "Sherlock. . ." she started, but he couldn't face anything she had to say if it was prefaced in such a probing tone, and he shook his head sharply, his expression foreboding. Not here, not now. She pursed her lips and her dark blue eyes flashed, but she did not continue.
They relapsed again into silence as they traveled along increasingly empty, dusty rural roads and through increasingly smaller villages, though Sherlock barely registered any of it—intentionally. Through enormous strength of will he forced himself to ignore the distraction seated beside him and focus on restoring and channeling his accustomed mental acuity; he reminded himself that her life certainly, and his life possibly, depended on it.
He closed his eyes lightly, inhaled and exhaled measuredly as if in meditation, then leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his fingertips steepled below his chin. Behind his lids his eyes flickered back and forth, and finally, after he expended what felt like a staggeringly prodigious effort, something clicked satisfyingly and rightfully into place. Concentration flared, expanded, and then encompassed him like a flame, ideas streamed lucidly, and connections spun and joined with instant ease.
A smile of great self-satisfaction tinged with relief spread across his otherwise passive face, and he remained there, taut and motionless, going over detail after detail in his plan and looking for potential weak points or mistakes, or potential revisions. He only lifted his head an hour later, when the driver slowed their vehicle to a stop in front of an abandoned, sprawling concrete compound very similar to the one they had fled the day before, and his eyes were the shade of Torne River ice—and just as hard and clear.
A few Author's Notes (for some background/basis of parts of the chapter):
1.) For those who aren't familiar with the source of the phrase "Vatican Cameos," it was a case to which Sherlock briefly alluded in The Hound of the Baskervilles:
"I was exceedingly preoccupied by that little affair of the Vatican cameos, and in my anxiety to oblige the Pope I lost touch with several interesting English cases".
—Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles
ACD never elaborated further, but the case was imagined by Ann Margaret Lewis as part of the book, Murder in the Vatican: The Church Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes.
The summary of that story is:
"Sherlock Holmes helps Pope Leo XIII recover a rare collection of ancient Roman cameos that has vanished en route to Queen Victoria. A gift with political implications, their loss could cost English Catholics their much-needed cathedral in London. Holmes travels to Rome to locate the stolen baubles, but when this theft quickly turns to murder, Holmes and the Holy Father realize this case is more treacherous than they imagined."
So I've appropriated/updated elements of that story for this one :)
2) Mr. Caldwell is a fictionalized version of Francis Campbell, who really was the UK Ambassador to The Holy See until early 2011, and is now the deputy High Commissioner in Karachi. So apologies to Mr. Campbell for (more or less) inserting him—a real person—into my story! The coincidence was just TOO good to ignore :) Sherlock needed someone who owed him a HUGE favor, and Mr. Campbell (aka Mr. Caldwell), who had been at the Vatican but is now in Karachi, fit the bill perfectly.
(However, this fictionalized version is absolutely no reflection on the real person, who I'm sure is lovely, and isn't at all devious or petty like Mr. Caldwell!)
3) Oh, and the famous quote about brevity is "Brevity is the soul of wit," which makes it the second Hamlet quote I've mentioned, lol. It must be because I recently saw it (with Michael Sheen at The Young Vic, he was phenomenal!).