Sherlock's face was deadly calm now, his silver eyes as sharp as blades. "Moran," he said.

"At your service," the voice on Mycroft's mobile replied. "Now, are you and the good doctor alone, or shall I call back later? After all, Mycroft and I have nothing but time at our disposal." The voice was mildly accented, the clipped vowels and harsh consonants adding an extra layer of mockery to Moran's tone.

Sherlock gestured to the door with his chin and John moved almost automatically, clicking the lock into place. "What do you hope to accomplish by taking Mycroft?" Sherlock asked stonily.

"I am only giving you what you hoped for, Mr. Holmes. A chance to meet. That is what that circus today was about, wasn't it? At least that's what my source within MI-6 told me."

Sherlock's hand tightened on the mobile as a sound of inarticulate rage escaped him.

"Oh, yes," Moran continued. "I have a little birdie in MI-6 and one at the Metropolitan Police as well, so do understand that if you seek help from those organizations I shall know, and your brother shall pay the price. Next time it will be just us, Mr. Holmes, as it should have been from the start."

"You want me to meet with you, then? To come to my death, with only my brother as collateral, so that you can kill us both? I'm afraid you've been misinformed as to our relationship." Sherlock's face was set and pale, but his tone of voice was flawlessly insouciant. "Shoot him if you like, he is nothing but an annoyance to me."

John drew in a sharp breath and Sherlock's eyes narrowed at him in warning.

Moran only chuckled. "Really, Mr. Holmes, do you think there is anything about you that I don't know? You'll come, and what's more you'll bring your doctor with you."

"No." The single word was explosive with emotion as Sherlock's eyes flew up to John's face.

"Come now, Mr. Holmes. He's such a faithful pet, he'd only follow you anyway. There is a cafe nearby, I will text you the address. Lose your minders and a car will pick you both up there in an hour. I can't give you time to scheme, after all."

"Why in the bloody hell would I do that?" Sherlock's control was slipping, John could see it. He stepped nearer, placing a steadying hand on Sherlock's bare shoulder.

"I want to meet you and the doctor, Mr. Holmes — face to face, as men should. And you'll do it, because you think that you are smarter than me, that you'll manage to outwit me somehow." Moran's voice had lost its casual tone, a manic edge creeping in. "You and Jim were quite a pair, weren't you? All your plans, and ideas. It was never enough to just..."

Moran suddenly cut off his words, as if realizing that he was revealing himself. He breathed heavily for a moment before resuming in a calmer tone. "In any case, you'll take this chance. Because if you don't, I'll kill your brother now, and then some time in the next few days I'll put a bullet in Doctor Watson's head from a thousand yards away."

Sherlock made an involuntary choked noise, his pale eyes wide and haunted as he looked at John. "I'll leave you alive, of course," Moran continued, his voice oily with sham good humor. "For awhile, at least. Long enough to savor the full measure of your grief, and then I'll put a bullet in your head too. Can you really doubt me, after what has occurred today?"

The room was silent, John watching helplessly as Sherlock struggled with emotion, eyes darting frantically as if he would find the answer somewhere in the room.

"No, you understand the position you're in. Your ego would not let the opportunity to face me go by."

"I'll come alone," Sherlock said finally, his voice hoarse with emotion. "I'm the one you want, the one who was there when Moriarty died. I'll not risk John."

Moran tutted chidingly. "I'm afraid not, Mr. Holmes. It is both of you that I want, and both of you that I shall have. You have one hour."

Sherlock's face was devastated, the hand that held the mobile shaking. He looked at John helplessly, as if John was already dead. As if they both were.

John took a deep breath, steadying Sherlock's hand with his own. "We'll be there," he said curtly into the phone, pressing his thumb to the button to end the call.

Sherlock stood numbly as John forced himself into action, gathering Sherlock's shirt and jacket. He started forcing Sherlock's lax arms into his shirtsleeves.

"John," Sherlock said, his voice hollow.

John doggedly began doing up Sherlock's buttons. "I know. But it's a fighting chance, and so we'll take it, yeah? He's right, we can't do anything else."

"We can't just...stop it, John!" Sherlock's hands squeezed John's tightly, holding them still. "The only reason he's doing this is because he doesn't want us to die easily. He wants us to suffer for Moriarty. He wants to kill us slowly and painfully, but he will kill us, all of us."

"I know!" John's voice was too sharp, making Sherlock flinch. "I know," John repeated, softly this time. He shook his hands free of Sherlock's tight grip, continuing down the placket, buttoning Sherlock up. "But you'll think of something. You always do. The only way through is forward, and right now we have to focus on getting past every member of MI-6 and the Met who stands between us and the exit. We have to get to that cafe, Sherlock. Now can you get us there?"

"John..."

John's voice was harsh now. "I asked you a question, Sherlock. Can you get us there?"

The dazed look faded somewhat from Sherlock's eyes. "Yes," he said, somewhat unsteadily. He seemed to shake himself. "Yes," he repeated, his voice certain now. "I can."

"Good." John clicked the door lock open and cracked the door, peering into the hall. The two guards who had been watching the door had apparently been called away. No doubt Mycroft's disappearance had been discovered, and with any luck they would benefit from the resultant chaos.

He held Sherlock's jacket out to him, watching as he shrugged into it. "Then let's move out."

John brought two teas over to the small table in the back corner of the cafe. The sound was off on the television, but from time to time footage would flash across the screen of the supposed news van Mycroft had been using as his base of operations. The door was blown off, black singe marks along the edge. From time to time the caption "Domestic Terror Attack?!" crawled across the screen in giant letters. As the cashier had pokily prepared the teas John had got a closer look and saw a few seconds of Anthea, directing police officers imperiously with her Blackberry in one hand and a bloody bandage pressed to her forehead with the other.

John sat down and checked his watch. "Twenty-five minutes," he said, handing Sherlock one of the teas.

Sherlock grasped the tea between his palms but didn't drink. He shifted restlessly in the dainty chair, his gangly legs barely fitting under the tiny cafe table. "There has to be something we can do...some advantage we can find." He rolled the teacup between his palms in agitation. "I could fashion some sort of explosive device, or perhaps a topical poison, absorbed through the skin..."

"Sherlock." John's hands wrapped around Sherlock's, feeling the slender fingers ice-cold underneath his palms despite the hot cup Sherlock was holding. "This man is a professional. A mercenary, with extensive military training. He will be in control of the situation from start to finish. If he knows you as well as Moriarty did, then he knows how you think. He will not give you the opportunity to try any tricks. That's why he took Mycroft, and why he only gave us an hour."

Sherlock's expression grew even bleaker, his head dipping in acknowledgement. Suddenly he jerked his head up again, his gaze calculating. "He's a soldier," he said. "Like you."

John shrugged, but Sherlock was undeterred. "So what would you do?"

John leaned back in his chair, considering the question carefully. "We can only guess at his resources, but Mycroft seemed certain that he had two associates at the most. Maybe the driver of the car as well, so let's say three." Sherlock nodded.

"He's had time to plan," John continued, "So he'll have chosen the location carefully. Isolated, of course, but close to where he had to maintain the surveillance. A short drive from here, but an industrial area."

"Abandoned warehouse," Sherlock sniffed. "How dull."

John couldn't help quirking a smile at that before his expression grew serious again. "He'd make sure we couldn't pull any tricks. At the very least have us searched before we made it in, at worst have us strip. Maybe even incapacitate us before we even caught sight of Moran or Mycroft. Not cuffs, he'd know you can pick those. And not drugs, not if he wants us awake and suffering. Plenty of other options, though — rope if he's experienced enough to use it, which he no doubt is. Wire, zip ties. Even duct tape can do the job, if you're thorough. Hell, the man is a sadist, I'm sure he has plenty of ideas."

John took a sip of his tea, hoping to quiet his churning stomach. "And of course he'll keep Mycroft in jeopardy the whole time. Explosives seem a little fancy for Moran, but he could even just have one of his associates with a gun to Mycroft's head. Enough to make us behave until we don't have a choice anymore." Christ, it sounded hopeless when he laid it out like that.

"He doesn't want a game of wits," Sherlock said, rubbing his forehead with barely-suppressed frustration. "Not like Moriarty, not like Jefferson Hope. He doesn't want to prove how clever he is, he won't give me any chances to win. He just wants to hurt us. The most we can hope for is a moment of carelessness, or of distraction. Something we can turn to our advantage."

They sat in silence for a few moments. John resisted the urge to check his watch again.

"He wasn't supposed to do this," Sherlock finally expostulated, his voice startlingly loud in the quiet cafe. "It was always about Moran and Moriarty, you and me. Mycroft was never supposed to be a target."

John nodded. It sounded silly, like they had expected a remorseless killer to play fair in some way, but there was no doubt that Moran's move against Mycroft had caught them all by surprise.

"We weren't expecting it, that's for sure." John felt an inkling of a thought, just a small shadow of an idea niggling at the back of his brain. He furrowed his brow, trying to bring it into focus.

"He knows about you," he said slowly. "Everything about you, so he knows what to expect. We need to do something that surprises him, something that he wouldn't expect from you."

John's eyes were drawn back to the television. "I think I have an idea," he said.

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