Sherlock hated not knowing how to do things. Always had. He had made it his mission in life to learn any skill he might someday have a need for, just so that (and this was the issue, at its heart) he never had to ask for help, ever.
So it was somewhat galling to sit in his boring flat the following morning with Gabriel Austin and have to confess that no, he did indeed not know how to drive a manual transmission vehicle. Mycroft had offered to teach him when he first learned to drive, but Sherlock had turned him down because, well, Mycroft. And for whatever reason, another opportunity had never presented itself, and Sherlock had been fortunate enough never to need that particular skillset.
Until now.
"Seriously?" Gabe asked again, in an insultingly incredulous tone. "I thought every teen-aged boy learned that at some point. I mean, didn't you ever want to be ready just on the off-chance that someone asked you to flog a Jaguar or the like 'round a circuit?"
"I grew up in deepest Somerset," Sherlock sniffed. "Nowhere near a 'circuit'."
Gabe shook his head. "Really not the point. It wasn't ever going to actually happen to any of us—didn't stop us from wanting it to, now did it?" He gave Sherlock a disapproving look.
Sherlock felt himself flush, and despised it. This was all too reminiscent of his school days, when anything other people liked was incomprehensible, and anything Sherlock liked was 'weird'. He only just managed to stop himself from verbally annihilating his erstwhile partner, reminding himself firmly that this was a means to an end, not an enduring relationship.
Better option—change the subject, quickly and firmly. "So, now that we've established my complete lack of interest in being a typical teen-aged boy, can we move on to what exactly makes that relevant? I presume you were intending me to be a driver in your car theft scheme. Not really the best use of my talents, and…" he held up his casted arm and gently waved it, "I think this would make my driving problematic at best."
"Well, true enough," Gabe said amiably. "And to be honest, I assumed I'd be the primary driver anyway. But I'm sure we'll have times when a backup will be helpful. I may have to enlist a ringer or two." He settled back comfortably into the couch, while Sherlock paced methodically back and forth, unable to sit still. The anxiety was back, a bit—he needed to do something, anything, to move this process along. He'd actually hoped to go through this briefing last night, until the older man stopped abruptly after Sherlock's third yawn, shooed him towards the bedroom, then kicked off his own shoes and curled up on the couch.
Now, after a Spartan breakfast of tea and dried-out scones, Gabe pulled out his phone and texted briefly, then handed Sherlock the laptop from the side table. "Here, open up the link I just sent you. It's easier for you to visualize it if you have a starting point."
Sherlock sighed and took the laptop, perching on the corner of the table. The website was for an auto rental firm, specializing in exotic and high-performance vehicles. He skimmed the basic information, then raised his eyebrows at his partner inquiringly.
"So," Gabe began. "We know that Moran is the head of an import/export firm, handling this same type of vehicle—Maseratis, Lamborghinis, that lot. We also strongly suspect that the shipments are being used to transport both illicit materials and, in at least one case, highly-sensitive information. Three weeks ago, one of the cars began leaking unknown fluids while being unloaded from the train at the far side of the Chunnel in Calais. It was pulled from the delivery and taken to an impound yard where it could be held until someone ponied up money for clean-up of the train and potentially the train lines themselves, depending on what was leaking."
He pulled out his phone and showed Sherlock another picture, this time of a poison-green exotic car sitting in a damp chain-link enclosure. "The impound mechanics started opening the engine up to find the source of the leak. But like a lot of these high-end vehicles, this one had extremely sophisticated computer controls. So the technicians hooked up monitors to check for error messages and the like. And all of a sudden, the damn car exploded. Killed one mechanic outright, injured two others. Lots of carnage, fire alarms going off everywhere, police on their way within minutes." He flipped to another picture, showing the same site, but this time there was no car—just a flash-burned space, surrounded by bits of charred green body work and broken fittings. "That's what they found when they arrived. So in the roughly one-hour time period between the car arriving at the impound yard and the rescue and police squad responding to the explosion, someone was notified of the seizure, knew where the vehicle was taken, and organized the retrieval. The surviving mechanic who was conscious said a team of two men showed up two minutes after the blast, hooked the remains of the car up to a winch, pulled it into the back of a large panel van and took off. He also said they were foreign—not French, not British, maybe Russian."
"So," Sherlock said, thoughts skimming at light speed through his head, "the cars are tracked individually, not by shipping labels but by electronic measures within the cars themselves. No telling what the fluid was without access to the analysis, but that may well be immaterial, just some random mechanical malfunction—cars this sophisticated are still subject to normal automotive ills, after all. But the computers—it's clear that accessing the system set a fail-safe into motion. The explosive charges had to be already present in the car, of course, but the blast could have been triggered either directly by a command built within the on-board system or remotely from the trackers."
Gabe beamed. "Very good indeed. Got it in one, with one exception that we'll get to shortly."
But that led to another question. "Then why wasn't the shipper prosecuted? Clearly shipping explosives through the Chunnel would violate a host of regulations, and the injury to the technicians should have facilitated murder and attempted murder charges," Sherlock said, words almost tumbling over each other as his brain sped ahead of his mouth. "Ah, I see—that's where the presumed connection to MI6 is an issue. Someone squashed the investigation at a high level."
Gabe nodded. "And that's where I came in. I was involved because of the cross-channel aspect—I do a lot of that kind of thing, since I prefer to stay based here. I was called in specifically because the French were concerned that this was the tip of a much larger issue—theoretically, the computers on board these cars have the potential to carry a lot of sensitive information, especially if some relatively-simple augmentations are made. It got even more interesting when the fluid that leaked was analyzed, and the results of the analysis, as well as all of the samples, mysteriously disappeared before the technician doing the test could send it on to the investigators. And then the tech who actually did the test disappeared the next day as well—not been seen since."
"Convenient," Sherlock murmured. "And elaborate—someone knew whom to target, knew what lab would be involved. That implies ready access to a great deal of information that wouldn't normally be widely available externally." This, then, was presumably when his brother began setting up his tests. It wasn't a question of "is there a mole", but rather "how many are there, and where are they?".
His partner hummed. "Exactly. When I started investigating the shipper, i.e. Moran, I was told some fairy tale about this particular car being sent from a private individual, with Moran's company simply providing space among their normal shipments. All of the shipping documents were very good fakes, but we couldn't prove the fakes originated within Moran's group." He paused momentarily. "I say Moran—I didn't know that name at the time. All I knew was his company name – Montrose Motors - and his alias, Stephen Montrose. I didn't found out his real identity, or his connection to, well, a larger criminal organization, until this week."
"I had managed to get a man inside the operation a little over a week ago; we lost contact, and we found his body four days ago." The tall man took a slightly-shaky breath. "When I took this to my superiors, I was told that the death was clearly a robbery gone wrong, and that the French were now satisfied that the car was a ploy by the Russian Mafiya, trying to initiate shipping hazardous materials through the Chunnel to avoid the scrutiny of other routes." He leaned forward intently. "I made, um, quite a bit of noise in the executive offices, and was asked not-too-politely to leave, and consider myself on holiday for the next two weeks. But when I got back to my flat, Anthea was waiting for me."
Sherlock made himself sit very, very still. Schooling his reaction was extremely important right now, as he could see where this conversation was heading. "And?" he said coolly.
"And," Gabe said on a sigh, "she took me to her boss, who can be one of the scariest people I have ever met in my life."
"Do tell," Sherlock murmured, feeling ridiculous. Somewhere his brother was laughing at him; he could feel it.
"Mmm. Mycroft Holmes. Ever met him?" his partner asked. Sherlock just shook his head. "Well. I know him slightly," Gabe continued. "Never worked directly with or for him—not even sure what his official position is, honestly, but I'm too damn afraid to ask. All I know is, if he says something will happen, it does. I, ah, assisted in a special project of his, some months back. Can't say more. But I will say, the man is not afraid to make some very hard decisions. So when he 'suggested' that I involve myself in what amounts to a sub rosa investigation that contradicted what my own superiors had told me to do, I didn't have a great many qualms about agreeing. I figure he's got the power to protect me from any blowback, if need be." He gave a small grin. "And besides, it lets me do what I wanted to do in the first place, which is usually my goal in life."
Sherlock found himself smiling as well, without being quite sure why. "And mine," he added. "I often tell people I don't do anything I don't want to. Not entirely true, of course, but I might as well set expectations appropriately at the outset."
"That's why we'll get on so famously," Gabe said, nodding wisely. "Anthea was absolutely right. In addition to being really, really attractive." The grin was back.
"So. I presume, from your earlier statements, that our approach is going to be offering Moran stolen high-value vehicles. Just one wouldn't make sense—they wouldn't take the risk of buying one car from casual thieves," Sherlock said, walking through the logic as he spoke. "But if a seller could locate a larger supply, and a method to acquire more, they would almost certainly be interested – we already know they traffic in stolen cars at least part of the time. So the point is—clearly you have identified a potential source."
"Yes I have, and it's surprising an enterprising thief hasn't already hit on it," Gabe said smugly. "That website I showed you—the rental car company. There are a number of British locations, all in major cities. And their turnover rate for cars is quite high—all those tourists rolling in every week. That means they need access to a lot of cars, since they're only in demand while they're newish, and those cars have to come from somewhere. I did a bit of investigating – turns out they source the cars predominantly from America, and some from Dubai, of all places. Most of them are turned back in from leases after 6 months to a year, and the rental company buys them and has them loaded on a ship and sent here. They come into London or Dover or Cardiff, and some are then put on special lorries for transport to the rental agency locations. But a certain proportion are driven out—they put temporary banners on them and use them as free adverts."
"Who drives them?" Sherlock interjected, suspecting he could see where this was going.
"The rental company hires a service. They don't want to pay the insurance rates for a staff of their own people driving high-value cars across major cities. Their own staff drives the lorries—that's it. And here's the best part." He waggled his eyebrows at Sherlock. "Bonus points if you can figure out how they keep track of the cars once they arrive." He waited expectantly.
Sherlock could see many possibilities, but only one or two left an obvious opening for theft. "They presumably track the cars as they receive them—they're hardly going to accept responsibility for them until they physically have them in hand." Gabe nodded encouragingly. "But that means there are two different methods, with different timing and paperwork. The lorry cars are all accepted at the docks, and go immediately into the company's possession. There's no gap between the shipment and the end recipient. But the driving service—those people are just drivers, nothing else. They get in the car, probably toss the paperwork in the glovebox or the boot, and drive off. And the same goes for the ship owners—once the car is officially off their hands, they don't care who has it."
The tall man beamed. "You're quite good at this, aren't you? Makes that lack of interpersonal skills less of an issue." Sherlock sniffed and ignored him.
Gabe took up the story again. "So, as it happens, the rental company doesn't actually know what cars they're going to receive until the shipment pulls into port. The sellers send them a list of possibles, and the rental company indicates which ones they want. But because there's always an issue of space in shipment containers, and sometimes mechanical or body issues with the returned cars that have to be addressed at the last minute, the list that are actually shipped don't always match what was on the original purchase order. They resolve the difference by the 'acceptance' method—the company only pays once they've taken possession of a car, and they have 30 days to pay the final invoice, and that invoice goes to the head office, not the locations. So they need part of those 30 days just to reconcile what car went where."
Sherlock suddenly sees it all in its entirety. "So the rental company, when it comes to the 'driven' cars, doesn't track anything until the vehicles actually pull into their car park—they just arrange for the service to drive one or more of the vehicles out of whatever shows up, and since they go to different rental locations no one site would know what was coming in. The driver service doesn't care—they just drive whatever they're told to drive, and I suspect the number of those cars varies from shipment to shipment. I'd imagine they're usually the last cars left after they load the lorry. The ship owners don't track anything once it's left their docks. The sellers don't definitively know for 30 days whether the cars they shipped actually went to the buyer—they just know what they shipped and that the shipping crew offloaded them." He blinked. "That's…astoundingly stupid."
"And thank God for it," Gabe said fervently. "So basically, we could interrupt the hand-off of one of the driven cars, and it could easily be 45 days before the sellers started looking for their money. And in the meantime not one soul would even know it was missing. And because we're talking multiple ports and multiple rental locations…"
"We could take one car out of every shipment for the next 45 days, and no one would ever know before the cars were shipped out of the country," Sherlock finished for him. He suddenly realized his face was mimicking Gabe's grin. He pulled himself sternly back under control, but not before he noticed Gabe shaking his head in amusement.
Sherlock gathered his frayed dignity around himself with a huff. "So, what is the first step, and where will I be involved?" he asked, in a clinical tone of voice.
"Well, as you pointed out, you can't be the driver. But I think your computer skills will be a big help. We need to locate the next incoming shipment off the rental company's system—I have the basic IP address for that, but you'll have to crack the encryption. I know you're not quite hacker-level, but Anthea tells me you're more than capable of this kind of thing. We need to look around in their records and see what driving service they've contracted with. Then we need to send the driving service a message, purportedly from the rental company, cancelling the booking for that particular delivery." Gabe stopped, pondered, then nodded. "I think that's it, in the short run at least. You are going to need to come with, though, just in case I need an extra set of hands." He looked quizzically at Sherlock. "Well, hand, I suppose."
Sherlock made a vulgar gesture with said hand. Then he picked up the laptop and raised his eyebrows at the older man. "The address?" he said primly. Gabe handed over a scrap piece of paper with scribbled letters.
Sherlock was dimly aware of Gabe moving around the flat over the next couple of hours, while Sherlock concentrated on breaking through security levels and pulling up poorly-secured financial information. Finally he surfaced, having accomplished everything necessary, to see his partner placing plates and cups on the coffee table next to him. "Lunch," Gabe said simply. "Cheese toasties and chips." He sat heavily beside Sherlock and picked up his plate. "We have now exhausted my culinary repertoire."
Sherlock was surprised to find himself famished. He put his plate on his lap and shoved several chips into his mouth, then leaned back into the couch cushions with a sigh. "It's extremely difficult to use a computer with only one working hand," he said sourly.
Gabe reached over and patted his back solicitously. "Next time you just let me know and I'll hit the shift key for you whenever you need it," he said. "And when we're done I'll put everything away and tuck you right into bed."
"Piss off," Sherlock growled.
"Oi! Lighten up, sonny," the older man said, still with that mocking smile. "Lesson number one in the whole 'interpersonal skills' thing—don't take yourself so bloody seriously all the time." He shoved a large portion of his sandwich in his mouth, chewing vigorously before he continued. "So, what did we find out?"
Sherlock pointedly ate half of his own lunch before responding. "WE did not find out anything, as WE were faffing about in the kitchen. I, on the other hand, broke the rental car company's security, downloaded the shipping invoices for the next thirty days, and messaged the driver service not to come for the next shipment. It's tomorrow, by the way. We'll need to get to Dover by 2 PM." He handed his plate over with a smug expression.
"Well done, you," Gabe said admiringly. "Even if hitting all those nasty keys was difficult, you got the job done." He picked up the dirty plates and cups and wandered back towards the kitchen, still talking. "Do we know what make and model of cars may be on tap? It makes a difference as to who I call for backup drivers."
Sherlock reached for the laptop and reopened the file. "Here, take a look," he said. "There are five possible makers, eight different models, all told. But if the list is correct I don't think you'll need a second driver. The lorries hold seven vehicles, so presumably at most we'll be dealing with the one outlier."
"Good point," Gabe said reasonably. "But we do have one additional order of business we'll have to take care of this evening before we go. How's a little light breaking and entering sound?"
At just past midnight, Sherlock found himself huddling, uncomfortable and sweaty, behind a skip in south London. His partner was beside him, twiddling with what look like a telly remote and swearing under his breath quietly. Across from them was a tall fence, surrounding a swarm of aggressive-looking cars in a variety of eye-catching colors. Security lights bathed everything in an orangeish glow that grated on Sherlock's senses, and a low buzz of power from transformers set at intervals on the fence poles indicated that the fence was alarmed, if not electrified.
They had now been lurking here, with (in Sherlock's case, at least) increasing annoyance for the past twenty minutes, trying to get the handheld jammer in Gabe's large, sweaty hands to interrupt the power to the fence and lights.
"Come on, you bastard," the man growled, as he entered yet another combination and punched the controls, holding it out hopefully towards the fence. The lights continued to shine, the fence to buzz.
Sherlock had reached the end of his (admittedly limited) store of patience. "Are you ready to try it my way now?" he asked, with the weary tone of someone who has already made this offer one too many times.
Austin sighed and stuffed the useless electronic jammer into his pocket. "All right. Though I'm going on record as saying that this is officially a Very Bad Idea."
"Noted," Sherlock sniffed, as he unfolded himself from behind the skip and strode back up the alleyway away from the hateful lights. Gabe sighed again and followed.
Sherlock worked up to a fast walk, heading around the corner until he reached the building housing the company offices. This, of course, was adjacent to the lot containing the cars, but wasn't enclosed within fencing. He found himself automatically gauging camera angles for security cameras, looking for wiring along doorways and windows—this was very much in his comfort zone, and he found himself relaxing, in an odd way.
Finally, almost the entire way around the building, he found what he was looking for—a small, high window, probably opening onto a loo, perhaps 5 feet up the side of the building. And best of all, no visible alarms wiring, and, when he touched the panes with outstretched fingers, no tell-tale vibration from a nearby power source. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out two pairs of latex gloves (one for him, one for his partner) and his lock pick set—one of the few items Anthea had brought from Baker Street, since it was unlikely John would ever notice it was missing. He pulled out the small piece of builders' putty and stuck it firmly to the window, then used the glass cutter to scribe a careful circle around it. "Hold onto the putty," he muttered, and Gabe snaked a large hand over his shoulder. Sherlock gave the glass a sharp, practiced rap with the back of the cutter, and the glass popped loose while Gabe fumbled, but held on, and then fished the piece out of the way.
Once the hole was made, entry was easy – Sherlock fished his long, bony fingers through the hole, turned the latch, and slid the window up smoothly in its track. No alarms—just silence. He took the opportunity to give Gabe a triumphant look over his shoulder before realizing that he had a problem—his wretched arm. He turned again, reluctantly, to see the tall man's knowing look. "Wondered when that would hit you," Gabe drawled quietly. "Let me go first and then I can pull you up."
"No!" Sherlock said sharply. "There may be a system that has to be disarmed once we get inside. You don't know how to do that without your non-working toy, do you? Can you hear the systems running, like I can?"
"No," Gabe said grudgingly. He backed up a bit. "Can't just boost you—you can't catch yourself on the other side." He shook his head. "The things I do for England." Sherlock managed not to flinch when the big man gently pushed on his shoulders to turn him, then fished one arm around his waist and lifted. Sherlock quickly lifted his feet and pushed them through the window, and Gabe gave him a quick shove up to the window ledge. He felt gingerly around with his feet until he found the toilet below him, put both feet on the lid and shimmied his way in. He quickly rose and looked around, sensitive to the sounds of security systems. Nothing.
He turned back to the window. "Come on," he whispered. There was a thump and a rustle, and Gabe's head, shoulders and arms pushed through the window, but then abruptly stopped. Sherlock watched with a grin as the older man wriggled, and shifted, and tugged…and then stopped again. "All right," he finally said. "I'm stuck. Very amusing, I'm sure," he grumbled. "Now come pull me through—my trousers are hung up somehow."
Sherlock walked forward and stuck out his one good arm, and Gabe latched on, forearm to forearm. Sherlock backed up and pulled hard—nothing. He pondered the fact that Gabe outweighed him by at least 40 pounds. He braced his feet and pulled again, hard. Gabe groaned and wriggled, but remained stuck. Finally, Sherlock leaned forward and wrapped his good arm completely around Gabe's, bracing it against his side, and threw himself violently backwards. There was a creak, and the sound of ripping fabric, and then Sherlock abruptly found himself lying on his back with the tall man draped halfway across him. His bad arm shrieked in protest, and he rolled quickly out from under, leaving Gabe groaning on the floor. Sherlock stumbled to his feet and settled himself. Just before he reached out his hand, though, Gabe spoke. "You offer to help me up and I'll break your other arm," he growled, and Sherlock pulled himself back smartly, while making no effort to suppress the grin on his face.
The older man rolled onto his stomach and then pushed himself painfully up. "You're the one who pointed out that I'm much older than I look," he sighed mournfully. Sherlock tried, and failed, to banish the grin, and looked over to find Gabe suddenly mirroring him. Gabe theatrically dusted off his bum, clapped his hands together, then swept his arms wide. "Well then. Let's go steal shit!" he boomed enthusiastically. Sherlock snickered and followed him out of the loo.
They actually did have a legitimate – well, necessary - reason for being here. Well, sort of, anyway. Gabe had pointed out that the purpose of the "driven" cars was advertising, and that the cars were draped with temporary banners for the purpose. Given that the lorry drivers were very familiar with that part of the process, they would expect to see the "driven" car draped with a banner before being driven off—were probably bringing one or more banners with them for the purpose, in fact. But neither Gabe nor Sherlock wanted to rely on that—it was just as likely that the driving service had already been supplied with the banners and would be expected to produce them as needed.
In truth it probably wasn't a major issue—the "drivers" could always claim to have forgotten the banners, if the lorry driver didn't have them. But Sherlock strongly suspected that Gabe wanted to test him in action before they became involved in any more dangerous dealings. And Sherlock couldn't argue with that—in Gabe's shoes he would have felt exactly the same.
Besides, Sherlock needed to get out of that horrible flat.
When they stepped out of the loo, Sherlock took a moment to acclimate himself to the low light—turning on light switches wasn't an option, obviously. But he also took the time to listen, very carefully. Once he was sure of his directions, he strode off confidently towards the left-hand hallway, Gabe trailing along behind. When they reached a door marked "Security", Sherlock checked the door handle—which turned easily. "So much for that," he smirked. Gabe rolled his eyes. "They really only worry about the outside, generally. Nothing much to steal in here," he murmured.
Sherlock plopped himself down in the chair facing a large console. "How convenient," he said. "Everything labelled." He busied himself with flipping switches and re-adjusting timers. When he finished he looked over his shoulder at his partner. "Now. The system is disarmed, and I just opened the gate—we can leave that way, since I don't think you want to make use of the window again." Gabe absently flipped him a two-fingered salute. "Left the lights on—someone might notice if they went out. But the system won't go back up for two hours."
"Let's go look for a storeroom, then. Most likely spot for the banners." Gabe opened the door and wandered off down the hallway.
They hit the jackpot once they rounded the corner to the next hallway—a large room lined with shelves, filled with a cornucopia of tat and marketing materials. Gabe picked up a cap bearing a Maserati logo with a glad cry. He offered one to Sherlock, who shook his head absently. Gabe continued to rummage through the clothing and other materials, but Sherlock spied something in the far corner and pounced on it. He hauled out a long length of bright yellow silk. "Got it!" he said, holding it out to demonstrate. "Let's go." He headed towards the front of the building without looking to see if his partner was coming. He heard Gabe make a discontented noise behind him before he followed.
They unlocked the main glass door at the front of the building—no need for stealth, as the broken window in the loo would make it readily apparent that a break-in had occurred. The gloves they had donned before starting this escapade assured there would be no incriminating fingerprints (though Sherlock found himself idly considering the reaction if his fingerprints turned up in a robbery investigation). They had turned to walk out through the car park when something suddenly occurred to Sherlock, something that made him come to an abrupt halt. Gabe, walking a bit too close, bounced off him with an annoyed huff. "What now?" the older man snapped.
"They will know there was a break-in," Sherlock said. "But we really don't want them to know what we've taken, now do we? Particularly since we're going to shortly lift one of their cars and we don't want them to realize it quickly."
Gabe blinked, while Sherlock gazed across the rows of brightly-colored cars. "So, we probably need to steal something else to put them off the trail, don't we?" he said, and gave the tall man a slow smile. Gabe's face cracked into a huge grin, and he spun on his heels to race back inside. When he came back out, he was dangling a set of keys from his fingers as he trotted over to a cherry-red Maserati, which he stroked lovingly.
He unlocked the door and looked invitingly at Sherlock. "This one," he crooned. "It matches my hat."
Notes:
The "hearing security systems" that Sherlock can do? Not made up. I could hear the security systems used for jewelry counters until I was 13 or so. Swear to God. It was so high-pitched it was painful.