A Question of Honour
(Part A: Sherlock vs. Mr. Jarwar)

The instant the reality of their situation struck him, Sherlock swiveled in his seat to try the door handle, and saw Irene attempting the same in his peripheral vision, but with equal futility. An instant later, he was grabbing his coat again and his fingers flew to an inside pocket, but the Swiss Army Knife he had placed there was gone as well, and his eyes flashed in fury. It may not have been an obvious contender against an AK-47, but it would have helped to break a car window, and if he and Irene managed to somehow team together and overcome their captor from behind it would've been rather effective when held against his throat as a threat. His last cursory thought, though distinctly unlikely to be of any use, was his mobile, which he did have on his person in a lining pocket of his jacket. He whipped it out and glanced down, but his lips tightened. Just as he'd suspected—no coverage whatsoever.

He clenched his fists in disbelief and outrage that someone had actually managed to deceive him in such a way, and adrenaline coursed into his veins to set his heart galloping with near-painful speed in his chest, and his mind was racing even faster. Be careful what you wish for, he reflected angrily, remembering his thoughts from just a moment before. But he hadn't wanted anything like this. He had been so very close to getting them away and pulling off the entire thing flawlessly, so near to completing the most daring and intricate plan he'd ever constructed, all despite the entwined challenges of sentiment and lust.

He had not anticipated this, he acknowledged in biting dismay, not at all, and as tempting as it would be to lay the blame on how diverted he had been in the moments leading up to this betrayal, the fact remained that he had been assisted by Zairaan Jarwar since he'd arrived, and he had never suspected anything of the nondescript young man. Naturally he had carefully assessed his driver when they'd first met, and had been satisfied in his evaluation: he was nonviolent, non-ideological, and meek; not prone to rash action and easily malleable and compliant. This made no sense at all; it jarred in the same way that his first impression of Mazari had conflicted with his role as cameraman, except that this was precisely the opposite situation.

That recollection made him immediately reassess this turn of events, to determine whether perhaps their abduction might also not be what it appeared—a Lashkar e Taiba, or LeT, plot. Yes, it seemed that way on the surface, but after all, his instincts had been correct about the SSG captain. . .

Almost at once an idea occurred to him, and a bitter grimace twisted his face. Mycroft, he thought. Had he somehow put everything together? There had always been a risk of that, of course. As careful as Sherlock had been, and as immaculate as his plans and security measures were, his brother was undeniably brilliant and had access to infinitely greater resources. Had he approached Caldwell with his suspicions and promised to reinstate him to another prestigious assignment in exchange for information? Surely an offer like that would be enough for such a shrewd and ambitious man to sell out Sherlock and Irene Adler, and Mycroft was perceptive and manipulative enough to know it. Also, the scenario fit with Sherlock's perception of Jarwar's personality; if the Deputy High Commissioner gave him such an order, he would surely obey.

For Irene, though, it didn't matter if they were headed for LeT or British Government discovery; ultimately the result would be the same, and he could not allow that to happen. Not after everything he'd done to protect her. . . and especially not after everything they'd experienced together, he understood a moment later. He had a responsibility to see his mission through, and to ensure she would be safe.

Sherlock pounded on the locked gate once more with the side of his fist, venting his rage both at the turn of events and his own failure to anticipate them, and roared, "Explain this, Jarwar!" He didn't know if the driver could even hear him, but he had to release some of the fury that was bubbling like white-hot magma in his chest, threatening to obliterate his ability to concentrate.

For a moment, only silence met his demand, but then Sherlock heard a caught breath, muffled through the metal divide, and his eyes narrowed and his brow knitted together in even greater aggravation.

"I'm s-sorry, Mr. Sigerson," the man stammered a moment later, and Sherlock knew his voice would have sounded small even without the expanse of steel that separated them. "I have no choice."

Sherlock ground his teeth and glanced to Irene, who was leaning slightly forward with her hands grasping the front of her seat, clearly assessing their surroundings for options. Her lips were pursed in concentration and her gaze swept methodically through their area, before lifting to meet his look. Her face was calm, but in those eyes he saw the same anxiety he felt. Still, he knew both of their gazes also reflected a mutual resolve to generate some sort of plan—neither of them would simply accept this sudden change in course.

Sherlock nodded sharply at her, then turned back to the front. "Why?" he growled forcefully in his lowest, most menacing voice. He leaned close to the divider, desperate for more information, for data. And Jarwar struck him as the type of man—of pawn—who could be either manipulated or bullied, or both, into sharing such information, even from Sherlock's position behind a metal barrier.

For a moment all he heard was heavy breathing, and incensed impatience threatened to overwhelm him. Had there been no separation between the two men, he knew he might have been unable to resist putting his hands around the driver's throat and squeezing. Instead they curled around the lip of the sealed gap so tightly that his fingernails drained of any colour.

Then, just when he was about to give up and shove back into his seat to consider their options without any information, the man said in a choked voice. "It's Mohsin. . ."

"Mohsin?" Sherlock asked sharply, cocking his head towards the divider again. Who the bloody hell was Mohsin? He did a quick search through his mental inventory but only came up with a single return, Mohsin Hamid, whom he promptly dismissed.

"The brother-in-law of my sister," Jarwar elaborated dismally a moment later as if in response to Sherlock's unvoiced question. "He's dead."

Sherlock's eyes darted back and forth as he considered this non-sequitur, but nothing occurred to him, except for the fact that this disclosure didn't seem to support his theory that Mycroft was behind this, unless it somehow spoke to Jarwar's motive to assist.

"So?" he questioned in a harsh tone, finding the driver's halting explanation intolerable.

"Mohsin—he was young, so dogmatic. . . You have to understand, some of my sister's in-laws are very devout and fundamental. . ." Jarwar said disjointedly, sounding defensive.

"Oh get on with it!" Sherlock barked, but he suddenly saw with great clarity where this was going. Mohsin must have been the migraine sufferer Mazari had executed—the one Sherlock had loudly proclaimed killing, to cover for the SSG man and ensure the future of the mission. Now those very words were the ones compromising it.

He briefly and rather sarcastically considered the concept of fate again, thinking wryly that if he were a man of faith rather than a man of science, this would seem like the direct karmic counterbalance to his fortuitous relationship with Caldwell. Whereas his chance link to the current Deputy Head Commissioner in Karachi had greatly facilitated Sherlock's mission, Zairaan Jarwar's fluke connection was potentially catastrophic. Regardless, he had to appreciate the ironic symmetry of it all.

"When I found out that - that he'd been shot, I thought you might be behind it, after everything you've been up to this week," the man continued in a stifled voice, re-diverting Sherlock's attention. "And then when I saw you with her this morning it confirmed it, so I had to tell them." As if to convince himself, he repeated softly, "Mohsin was family, I had to. . ."

No, it wasn't Mycroft behind it at all, Sherlock understood, but the driver was a pawn caught up in another powerfully demanding circumstance nonetheless: he obviously felt compelled to uphold family honour in a tradition where such obedience was expected and demanded above all other considerations. Sherlock reflected on the tremendous contrast between Jarwar's family dynamic and his own, and in another context he might have found the extreme disparities somewhat amusing.

"I didn't kill your brother-in-law, Zairaan," Sherlock stated, using Jarwar's forename for the first time in an attempt to establish enough of a rapport so that the man would at least listen to his words.

It didn't seem to work.

"That's not what they said," Jarwar replied in the tone of someone working hard to justify his actions, including to himself still. "And even if that were true, if you hadn't interfered—"

Sherlock immediately sought to exploit that evident hesitation. "If I hadn't interfered with Mohsin's participation in the murder of this woman? Yes, perhaps you're right—so inexcusable of me, trying to save someone's life," he spat in caustic irony, hoping that hearing the statement aloud would resonate with Jarwar's weak but seemingly ethical character.

He then lowered his voice and it took on a resounding quality. "Your brother-in-law thought that way, and he died because of those beliefs. But you, Zairaan, you're not an extremist, you're not violent—this isn't you."

There was no response, and Sherlock shoved his fingers through his hair in frustration, wishing he could read the driver's body language. He was accustomed to engaging all of his senses when reading and manipulating someone; not having a visual on Jarwar was immensely restrictive, just when the stakes could not be higher.

He looked to his co-abductee. Her lips were still set tightly, but she looked lost in contemplation, and as per course, he had no insight into the content or nature of her thoughts. Wasn't she going to say anything. . .? As she herself had pointed out earlier, she liked being in control. Why then was she letting him direct the conversation now?

He paused, then turned his consideration back to which tact to take next. "What is your stake in this, Mr. Jarwar, since this is so obviously out of character for you?" he pressed after a moment. "Is it money? Is the LeT offering a reward for us?"

Sherlock saw Irene briefly shake her head beside him, reacting to his and Jarwar's exchange for the first time, and though he agreed that blatant bribery wouldn't be effective in this situation, it wasn't his actual objective. Instead, it was only the means by which to try his primary aim. . .

If he could elicit a self-righteous and emotional enough response to the concept of bribery, he might be able to redirect that indignation towards his and Irene's own predicament. After all, if Jarwar took a strong moral stand about this, and assumed a position of ethical superiority, how could he then in good conscience hand them over to their deaths? Granted, it hadn't worked when Sherlock had bluntly pointed out Mohsin's involvement in Irene's attempted murder, but he thought that perhaps that had been a too heavy-handed and direct approach. He recognised that this too was a tenuous strategy, and rather simplistic, but there seemed to be little other recourse.

"Whatever it is, I can get you more," Sherlock continued, trying a confident, co-conspiring tone. "You've seen what I can do over the past week, what I can accomplish. You know how powerful my connections are."

"I don't care about money," the man replied predictably, sounding petulant, but not particularly offended. He just seemed resignedly numb, which left Sherlock with nothing. He couldn't manipulate apathy. "Or power," Jarwar added listlessly.

"What, then, what?" Sherlock roared, finally losing patience despite knowing how dubious that tactic had been. Although he had summed up the driver as weak and suggestible, the man was showing considerable resilience against Sherlock's methods of persuasion, and it was profoundly maddening to find himself so impotent against someone he considered such an unworthy adversary. Especially when he had been so, so close to completing the mission.

"You're not LeT," he said in a cross between a sneer and a snarl, "nothing of the sort; the British High Commission vetted you when you were employed, and I vetted you. Stop this madness, Jarwar. Let us go now."

There was a long period of silence from the vehicle's cab, and Sherlock started to believe that the other man might be wavering; he even cast a somewhat sanguine glance towards Irene, although she returned his gaze with a doubtful expression of her own.

A moment later, her reservations were confirmed. "I'm sorry," the hollow-sounding response came through the metal gate. "No I don't support LeT and I didn't condone Mohsin's decision to join. But now he's dead because of what you did, and it's too late because they already know all about you." His voice jumped slightly up in pitch as the he blurted out, "I don't want to hurt you, but where I come from family and honour are everything, and must always come first. Even now." Jarwar sounded miserable, absolutely wretched, but he also sounded resolute.

Sherlock slid wordlessly back into his seat, still somewhat furious yet also partially satisfied that he now had a comprehensive understanding of their circumstances. Although apparently Jarwar's conscience hadn't allowed him to go as far as to defy his family obligation and release them, at least he'd felt the need to justify himself to them—thereby briefing them on their situation.

Relatively speaking, this is actually very good news, he assured himself thoughtfully. He would opt to face the LeT over a furious and officious Mycroft Holmes any day. And moreover, if they did manage to escape this—which they obviously would. . .somehow—then he could still trick everyone who mattered into believing that Irene Adler had indeed been executed. She would still be able to make a new life for herself. Conversely, if it had been Mycroft then all his work of the past few months would have been for naught. His brother may not have actually placed her under any sort of arrest himself (too much effort, it wasn't his style) but he would know she was out there, and so she could never be safe.

But while this was the preferable of the two options, it was obviously considerably less than ideal.

All right. Data processed; time for action. Sherlock's eyes systematically swept through the interior of the car, measuring the potential usefulness of everything he saw, either as a weapon or implement of escape, but then almost as quickly dismissing them. Their options were extremely limited; the only object of any promise he saw was the coil of rope from which he had cut lengths in order to tie up both Irene and the cadaver. If they managed to get close enough to Jarwar without him shooting them, they could bind him and take him to Mazari to let the SSG deal with him. And Sherlock felt confident that simply turning them over to the LeT was traumatising and difficult enough to Jarwar; he highly doubted the driver would be capable of pulling the trigger to kill them himself. That was perhaps their trump card.

He turned to Irene and lowered the volume and timbre of his voice so that it nearly blended in with the hum of the vehicle's motor. "We're traveling approximately seventy-four miles per hour on a motorway," he observed. "If we attempt to escape from the car at these speeds we'll almost surely be killed, or at least so incapacitated that he would be able to stop the car and recollect us. Still, we should be prepared to break a window in case we do come to a stop and can ascertain a place where we're able to take cover."

"I've come to the same conclusion," Irene murmured, speaking for the first time since the gate had crashed down in front of them, and Sherlock felt strangely but immensely warmed and reassured by the sound of it. "The weapon is, of course, a concern, and while I judge him as the type who couldn't actually use it against us, I'd prefer not to challenge that."

"That's assuming we're even able to break the glass, which will be obviously difficult since it's been tempered," Sherlock pointed out. "And I can't detect anything that would quite work."

"Ah. But I can," she said quirking a smile, and her hands lifted upwards towards her face. For a moment Sherlock didn't follow, but as soon as her fingertips reached around her earlobe, he understood the principle, but he couldn't see how she could execute it.

She unfastened the screw-back post of one of her large marquise cut diamond stud earrings and enclosed it in her palm, then leaned down and slipped out of one of her red-soled heels, turned it upside down, and secured it between her knees.

"Ah," Sherlock said, and he looked up at her in admiration. "You're creating a hammer, with the diamond as the head and the vamp and quarter as the lever."

"Yes. It would be more effective if I were able to reverse the stone in its setting so that the point faced outward, but since we don't have the tools for that, hopefully its strength and the force of the blow will be sufficient."

Sherlock cursed the confiscation of his Swiss Army Knife again, but thought that the plan had great promise anyway. "That's rather good," he complimented, observing her work.

She smiled in response as she concentrated on driving the point of the earring's post into the stiletto heel. "Just call me MacGyver," she murmured, then laughed softly at his blank expression. "Never mind, just an American series I watched as a child. . ."

He'd never heard of it and so he didn't understand the context or humour of her comment, but the mention of her childhood and the reference to America set off a cascade of old questions in his mind. . .

Very initially after they had last parted ways, he had thought that she was a 'solved' mystery: he had found out her shameful secret and exposed it, and that was that. But as the days wore on, he realised that it was hardly that simple—she was hardly that simple; there was still so much about her that he didn't comprehend. And so he had found himself progressively more and more obsessed with understanding her, and in particular he burned with curiosity about her background. How had she become who she was, the way she was? Had she had an upbringing similar to his own? How were they so very alike, yet polar opposites in so many other ways? How and why had she developed feelings for him?

The majority of his free time not spent planning her future was spent investigating her past—or at least attempting to. He had failed spectacularly, and it was another way in which she was hidden to him. And so the more walls he hit regarding her origin, the more dedicated he became to finding her, as if his quest for data in the 'lab' was inconclusive and so he'd have to go to the 'field'. (In retrospect it was so glaringly obvious that she had planted all his leads for him; if she'd wanted to erase her trail from him, she could have, just as she'd erased her past.) Still, all that time. . .had he been focusing on databases and media archives of the wrong country?

Or was it just a throwaway comment? There was crap American telly on all the time, after all.

He was abruptly drawn out of his internal conversation when Irene made a small sound of triumph and grinned: the point of the earring had penetrated the hard rubber, and it was only a matter of screwing in the post. Sherlock watched her, and thought that if this succeeded and they managed to get to safety, he would just ask her about her past outright. They had disclosed so many other things to each other in the past day, perhaps she would share this, too.

But before she was able to complete the final step, the car swerved off the main motorway into a much narrower strip of unpaved road that cut a straight line across a wide dusty plain, with not so much as a boulder in sight.

Sherlock exchanged a dismayed look with Irene, which turned to one of greater concern when the car began to slow before they had a chance to agree on a strategy.

The moment the vehicle rolled to a complete stop, Jarwar leapt from the cabin with the key in his hand, the AK-47 strapped across his chest, and a mobile at his ear, and he walked several metres to the side of the road, until his conversation was out of range. Still, Sherlock and Irene remained very much in view and in range of the rifle, which was now pointed directly at them.

Sherlock strained to hear the words but all he could make out were the sibilants, and he wasn't nearly competent enough in Urdu to be able to read the man's lips. Nonetheless, it wasn't difficult to deduce the topic and purpose of the conversation.

"Better finish it," Sherlock said through barely moving lips. "He might have reservations pulling the trigger, but I can guarantee that none of his associates will, and it's obvious he's ringing for them to collect us now."

Without looking down at her progress, Irene gazed straight ahead as her fingers completed the revolutions of the screw-back post into the heel until the stud finally came to a stop, imbedded firmly into the stiletto. They looked at each other grimly before Sherlock cast a covert glance towards Jarwar, who was still engaged in conversation, though watching them closely.

"Break it on your side and then as soon as possible reach through to try the door handle, and we'll take cover behind the car," he said.

"Yes," she agreed, then added, "But not yet."

Sherlock nodded almost imperceptibly. Despite the time constraints, they still needed to act prudently, and since they only had one chance, timing was everything. Every second's head-start they had over their captor was critical, and right now his eyes remained fixed on them.

The seconds grew into minutes, and the wait and inaction were torturous to Sherlock. He expected a convoy of vehicles to turn off the motorway at any moment, and couldn't think of a plan to address such a contingency. Jarwar made an ongoing series of calls, but continued to always, throughout his conversations, watch them intently, and Sherlock felt ablaze with impatience.

"I saw that you have your mobile, do you—" Irene said softly from the side of her mouth, breaking the fraught silence as they both watched Jarwar in their peripheral vision, perfectly still and almost unblinking.

"Yes, but it's useless. No signal," Sherlock interrupted immediately through equally stiff lips, faintly offended. Didn't she think he would have utilised his phone by now, had he been capable of it?

"I know," she replied steadily. "But do you still have mine? It has a quad-band GSM system, so it should work here."

After a slight hesitation, Sherlock admitted, "No." There was a tinge of regret in his voice, and he was irritated that a feature of his plan that he'd previously considered especially elegant was now serving to undermine their safety. "Mazari has it now. One of his men is going to drop it off anonymously in front of the British High Commission the day your execution video is released, to corroborate your identity. They'll use a vehicle known to the SSG to be LeT, so that when my brother checks video surveillance around the building, everything will be consistent."

"It's fine, we don't need the phone," Irene said, shaking her head slightly. "It would've been useful, but it's not necessary. . . I have a plan."

Sherlock's eyebrows shot up automatically, but he did mange to suppress his impulse to whip his head around to her.

"Tell me," he breathed in a low exhale, but she shook her head again.

"I can't just now, you'll have to see it as it plays out," she answered softly, and Sherlock felt incredulous. She was going to pull a power-play like this when their lives were in danger?

Irene apparently read his indignant disbelief in his rigid posture and tight lips, because she placed a hand on his wrist and squeezed slightly. "Just trust me, Sherlock," she murmured, and to his utter shock, he did. He was reluctant, but he did: both in her intentions, and in her ability to pull something off.

It was unprecedented for him to have faith that anyone else could do something as well as he could (literally, he couldn't recall such a thing ever happening before), but in this case he believed it might actually possible. He couldn't deny that she was remarkable, and besides, it wasn't as if he had made any notable progress with the man, himself.

They fell back into silence, and after he spent a lengthy amount of time trying to determine what her plan could possibly be, he gave up and his thoughts turned more bitter, admonishing himself for his unforgivable negligence of that morning. It was incredible that he had not detected the signs of anxiety and apprehension that a man like Jarwar certainly would have displayed since he'd seen Irene by Sherlock's side at the hotel that morning. If he had, they wouldn't even need The Woman's plan; they'd have never found themselves in such a situation in the first place.

He narrowed his eyes at that thought, recalling his state of mind during that ride. Perhaps he shouldn't have been so hasty to dismiss sex as a responsible distraction after all—at least in part. After all, there had been no cues to read prior to this morning; Jarwar had had no motive to harm him prior Mohsin's death the night before, so Sherlock hadn't been remiss.

Well, not until today, that is, he thought bitterly. Yes, he had cleared his thoughts of that topic by the time they'd reached their destination, but in that time, how many indicators had he already overlooked?

"This isn't your fault," Irene murmured a moment later, correctly judging the tone of his silence and his tense body language. "You couldn't have anticipated his connections."

Sherlock grunted in noncommittal response. "But I should have been able to observe that something was off today," he said in barely muted anger. "I spent the entire morning and afternoon in his presence, and I completely missed the signs. Stupid, so stupid," he hissed.

"You were focused on all the details of filming a realistic execution—something that has to pass muster with Mycroft Holmes, for God's sake—and you'd already been with the man for what, a week?" Irene asked. "You even told me in as many words that he could be trusted; for you to actually verbalise that you must have felt fairly confident. So why would you waste time on him, when there were so many other things to—"

"Don't." Sherlock snapped the word, lashing out in his frustration and anxiety, while a more detached part of him recognised the irony of their traded positions. Now that she was the one attempting to console him, he understood why she hadn't wanted to hear it either; they were so alike in their pride and the high standards to which they held themselves. For his part, he didn't want his carelessness and complacency to be mitigated, or to be absolved. He judged himself harshly and felt that any attempt to justify his lapse in thoroughness only made it seem as if it were understandable or somewhat acceptable. It was neither.

"There's really no excuse," he continued in a flat tone, still monitoring Jarwar carefully from the corner of his eyes. "I would've never missed it if I hadn't been so utterly distracted this morning."

Irene's eyes narrowed. "I see," she said after a beat of silence, but before Sherlock could formulate a response, a shout interrupted him.

"Ai! Stop talking and keep faced forward," Jarwar cried, holding the mobile away from his ear and jabbing the rifle towards them. He was obviously attempting an intimidating and forceful voice, but he sounded like a frightened child trying to sound brave instead.

Still, Sherlock thought it wise not to antagonise the man since they needed to lull him into a false sense of security, and so they resumed their silence and continued to wait for Jarwar to show a moment of distraction.

It was terse silence yet again, Sherlock noted as he continued to watch. For such similar, intelligent, and ostensibly compatible people they seemed constantly prone to miscommunication and discomfiture. Why? he attempted to understand so as to give his mind something to do as they waited, else it be consumed with impatience and even a trace of fear. Was this normal between two people in a sexual relationship? Too much mutually invested? Too much of the ego made vulnerable? Or was he simply incapable of the empathy required to connect to someone in such an intimate way?

No, he immediately dismissed. He might have previously believed that (or a variation thereof: not incapable per se, but unwilling, uninterested), but if he had learned anything in the past few days, it was that despite the present manifestation of the consequences he had always feared, he was still apparently both capable and willing. Even now, when he was confident that they wouldn't be sitting here in mortal danger had he not been so sidetracked that morning, for some inexplicable reason he still didn't—couldn't—regret what they had done (even if he did 'do' regrets).

His thoughts were abruptly interrupted when Jarwar's voice raised again in some sort of emotion—but now it was directed towards the party on the other end of the mobile. At the same time, his hand left the trigger to gesticulate in the air, and as if choreographed, both hostages sprang into simultaneous action without even a second's indecision.

Irene clasped her hand tightly across the upper span of the shoe and swung in one long arc, making shattering contact with the window, which splintered into thousands of raindrop-sized shards upon impact, as Sherlock lurched forward to shield her with his body, not risking the chance that they were incorrect about Jarwar using the weapon.

As soon as she penetrated the glass, Irene thrust her arm through the empty pane and wrenched the door handle so hard that Sherlock could see the cords of her tendons straining, but it wouldn't open from the outside either. Without further hesitation, she dove head first through the space and dropped to the ground behind the car.

Ignoring Jarwar's shouts, Sherlock was about to do the same, but then a spray of bullets—he estimated just over a third of the magazine in the one-second burst—exploded into the side of the car. Instinctively he dropped to the ground, even while he understood that the man was just trying to intimidate them.

Damn, Sherlock thought. If only Jarwar had held his finger on the trigger for two more seconds he would have been out of rounds.

Still, they could use that to their advantage. If they baited him into shooting again, it was possible he would expend the entire magazine if he didn't realise how rapidly AK-47s expended ammunition. Conversely, if he were aware, then he would want to preserve the bullets for something really significant, and they would be able to have slightly more flexibility. The problem was, which was it? He was inclined to believe it was the former, but it was impossible to be certain at this point.

Breathing hard, he called to Irene, "You all right?"

"Yes," he heard her confirm from outside the car. "You?"

"Yes," he grunted shortly. On his hands and knees he crawled backwards through the glass debris to the side of the car closer to Jarwar, then flattened himself against the interior and risked a glance over his shoulder through the window to determine the man's position.

Jarwar had crossed half the distance between the side of the road and the vehicle, apparently hesitant to come closer and risk ambush from Irene, and the two men made direct eye contact. Sherlock's former driver no longer resembled the bland and mild-mannered man of the past week. His eyes were now wild and conflicted and his hair was standing in peaks where he had clearly run his fingers through the locks in stress and agitation. But his hands were clamped tightly on the gun, and he circled warily around the front of the vehicle, looking for Irene, whom Sherlock heard slowly edging clockwise as well, keeping the car between her and the gunman.

Several threads of possible plans ran through his head like streaming data, but his next move wasn't apparent yet; it all depended on what happened in the upcoming moments, how Irene initiated her idea, and how Jarwar conducted himself. Sherlock concentrated all of his significant mental acuity on the driver, waiting for any suggestion as to whether he would carelessly fire and burn through the cartridge in an attempt to control them, or seek to preserve the munitions, giving Sherlock and Irene more short-term flexibility. He rather hoped it was the former, but had no idea how, or if, either option figured into Irene's design. Ah, it was so bloody frustrating not to be aware of her intentions!

"Come out," Jarwar said, his voice cracking and tremulous. "Come out or I will fire. I mean it! They won't care who kills you, as long as you end up dead."

Oh please do fire, we all know you won't aim for us, Sherlock thought sardonically, although he also knew it was a bluff and didn't give any real insight into the course Jarwar would take. Still, he almost wished something would happen, because at the moment they were all frozen in place, as if on stage before the curtain was raised.

On with the show, he thought ironically with a small smirk to himself, but he didn't have to wait long.

As Sherlock and Jarwar looked on, Irene rose slowly from behind the car as if giving herself up, the expression on her face cold as Absolute Zero.

Her strategy had been set in motion.

Note: I know Jim M. also used a diamond to smash through glass in TRF so I waffled on this, but given that Irene always wears those same marquise-cut earrings and they were locked in a car stripped of any other useful resources (Jarwar isn't a total moron), the options were limited. I do regret that there's overlap, but I felt that it was 'realistic' to the situation and what Irene would do. Plus the idea that she used her diamond earring and a Christian Louboutin pump to break out of captivity amused me and so I wanted to use it, hehe. Badassery, Irene Adler style!

(And in my mind, I like to think that Sherlock had a moment of flashback when he saw the Moriarty footage and said, "Not tougher than crystallised carbon. . ." :)

Thanks, everyone, for reading!