A/N: We're getting near to the end. I'm thinking about three or four more chapters to go, maybe! Things are about to get tense. And the story will move faster. At least that's the plan. Just saying…
Chapter 12 – Later that day
After meeting with Sherlock, Mycroft and Lestrade, John finally, finally got a chance to get showered and changed. His various aches and pains were helped by the hot water. He did have some concerns about the lingering after effects of the concussion, but he knew there should be a couple more days for him to recuperate before things started moving.
Before his shower he called Sarah and apologized profusely, stating he had had an emergency, a friend visiting from Canada had landed in some trouble and in all the confusion he had forgotten to call about work. John had never been very good at lying, but it was always easier to do it over the phone and he had mixed in a dash of truth. A bit of truth in a lie tends to make it stronger. Sarah was too relieved to be angry with him.
After he had showered and changed he had the happy task of telling Mary everything that had transpired. The shock and joy of Sherlock being alive, was replaced with down right anger at the thought that she was suppose to stay safe and secure while they were all out risking their lives. It was a full blown row and John's headache returned. Just when he thought he had finally convinced her and he started to leave her room he heard her shout at his departing back:
"I'd like to see you try and stop me from coming!" She stood there and glared at him, her arms crossed.
John marched back over to her and said firmly and in a tone that lesser men had quailed at. "You will stay here and you will behave. No tricks and pretending in order to come along. You fooled me with your compliance this morning and that ended up with me punching Mycroft!" Then his toned softened. "Look, it's not that you aren't brave and tough and beautiful," he brushed her hair out of her eyes and used his best charm, "we just don't want you hurt anymore. And look, love, what if you had a full blown flashback in Moran's presence? Then where would you be?" She scowled at him. He tried going back to being tough. "You have to think of this as war. I won't send in a soldier who's going to fall apart. You are use to taking orders. Or at least you use to be. This is an order. You're staying behind." Harsh but necessary. It seemed to work, although he could tell she wasn't happy about it.
Neither of them had noticed the term of endearment.
And John didn't hear what she said as he left.
"We'll see."
oOo
That night
Michael had arrived back at work. He had traded a shift. He kindly offered to work tonight's shift for a junior agent, so said junior agent could visit his mom in the hospital.
He was just that nice.
He chatted up the other security agents on his way in, taking about the latest match coming up, was anyone going down to watch at a pub, anyone going to get lucky after work, laughed and joked about so and so latest attempt to get off with a girl. How's the wife, the family. The usual sort of conversation you'd have with your mates at work.
Just before you killed them all.
Michael was in a good mood. Everyone could see it, laughing and joking. No one questioned it. Michael had always been a good bloke. And so lighthearted.
He should be. He had everything in place.
Before his shift started, he kindly let the agent on duty in the control room get a chance to go to the loo. While in the control room, he spent a few minutes and rewired the security feed to the guest wing and to the front entrance. Taking a page from that movie with the speeding bus, he had a continuous loop all set to feed through, so no one would see him go into the Morstan room and no one would see the arrival of Moran and his men at the front of the house. As much as Moran wanted to see to Morstan personally, they had decided she was too much of a wild card. She was very good at what she did and it wasn't just with knives. Moran had given Michael access to her file and apparently she was full of surprises. It turned out her ability with knives was outstripped by her other talent. Fortunately Michael was as good as she was in that area. He was honoured that Moran had put so much trust in him.
If Michael were to be successful, which he should be, he'd move on to the doctor's room.
The biggest problem was if it did indeed lead to a fight with Morstan, if Michael couldn't take her out with a gun, it was going to be loud and people were sure to show up. He'd have to improvise. He was good at that.
While he was busy taking care of Morstan and the doctor, Moran would come in with his men, right through the front door. Michael had quietly arranged explosives to be sent in a lovely arrangement of fresh cut flowers that had been delivered earlier in the afternoon. It was a regular delivery. It was Mycroft's one weakness. He loved fresh flowers throughout the house. It reminded him of his mother's garden. What Mycroft didn't know was that the vase the flowers had arrived in was made of enough explosives to take out the front door and the security detail there. Moran had enough men with him to ensure the rest of the security in the house would not be a problem.
Moran was going to see to Mycroft personally and he had plans for the younger Holmes. Moran had not forgiven him for enticing Moriarty away from him with their games and puzzles. Moriarty had been perfectly satisfied with Sebastian's forms of entertainment until Sherlock Holmes had come along. He was very, very jealous of the younger Holmes and he held him personally responsible for Moriarty's death. So he wanted to punish him. Personally.
Yes everything was in place.
He just had to wait for the signal.
oOo
Later that night
The four men sat down to dinner in the formal dining room. Mary had refused to come down and was up in her room, as John put it, sulking. He had begun to wonder why he hung out such interesting people who had the added bonus of being first-rate sulkers.
It was an excellent dinner, even though Sherlock was barely touching his food. The first course had just finished when Not-Anthea came into to say that Mycroft had received an urgent call. He left the room while the remaining three chatted about some of Sherlock's adventures while away. John thought the word adventures made it sound like he'd simply gone on a holiday to Spain and had a good time.
Mycroft hurried back into the room.
"We have a serious problem."
The other three put down their forks.
"I have received information that Moran has an agent in the house. One of our people was seen entering a bar earlier today where some of Moran's associates have also been spotted. We need to detain him and discover what he knows about Moran and what Moran may know about us. I would like to know why I wasn't informed of this sooner."
"Perhaps you have more than one mole in your offices," Sherlock replied, not quite snarkily.
"Who is it?" John asked.
"It's Michael Park, the agent assigned to Ms. Morstan's room. He just happens to be working an extra shift tonight."
Sherlock and John looked at each other and both stood up to run out of the room.
"Wait," said Mycroft "We don't know what his plans are and we don't know if he knows that we have been informed about his identity. We need to proceed with caution in order to apprehend him."
John and Sherlock looked back at each other and nodded. They reluctantly sat back down. If they just went running to Mary's room, Michael could become suspicious and flee or turn violent. If he were at Mary's door right now, he would be between them and Mary. Not a good option.
"What if I just saunter up there and give it all a good look," said Lestrade. "He doesn't know me and maybe he wouldn't be suspicious. I could check things out and report back."
"On the contrary, if you were to wander around up there he probably would be suspicious. We'll have to think of something else," said Sherlock, less snide than usual. He must have missed Lestrade. Then he grinned, an evil grin that seemed to say I know something Lestrade doesn't and looked at John. "Well this is all stupid. John's been in and out of Mary's room all day and is apparently familiar with it. Why don't you just go and have a look? He won't notice anything unusual about that."
John tried to ignore the looks Greg was shooting him and he tried not to blush. He failed miserably. He really wasn't ready to talk about his not quite relationship with Mary yet.
"Thanks for that Sherlock."
John stood up to go.
Unfortunately he didn't get very far, because that was when the vase of flowers in the front entry decided to explode.
oOo
A few minutes earlier.
Michael was once again stationed outside Morstan's room.
His outward appearance was all patience and professionalism. Inwardly he was becoming obscenely excited about tonight's fun. He wished there would be more time to have a different sort of fun with that Mary. She was very pretty and Michael specialized in showing a pretty girl a good time, his idea of a good time, before he killed them. Unfortunately it wasn't to be. He'd just have to pick up some unsuspecting girl after they were finished here tonight. This type of job always got him worked up.
He received a text message.
Positions secure. We are all inplace.
That was going to cause some problems. The text was earlier than Michael had originally anticipated. Something must have happened. The doctor was having dinner and not in his room. Maybe if he finished with Morstan early he'd be able to intercept the doctor downstairs.
This next part would be a little tricky because all messages in and out of the house were scanned and tracked. He would have to move quickly. If he were lucky in the chaos of the bomb going off no one should have time to track down one text.
He pushed one button on his mobile. It sent a signal to the security cameras to start playing the loop. It was more of a precaution. Surely security would be more concerned and focused on the front door after the bomb was detonated, but just in case someone decided to check the guest wing, he was all set.
He pushed another button on his mobile.
It sent a signal to the flowers at the front door.
They exploded.
The house rocked.
He could hear moans coming from the front of the house and a minute later the sound of men as they entered.
He fit a silencer on his gun.
Time to move.
He grasped the doorknob to Mary's room.
oOo
A few minutes earlier
Mary stood on the floor beside the bed not far from the door. She had changed into comfortable cotton clothing and she was barefoot. She thought if she did some yoga she might calm down and focus.
She knew John thought she was sulking.
She didn't sulk.
Ok. Maybe she did a little.
But, she resented the implication that she was fragile and she didn't like to think they thought she was a liability. That had hurt.
She didn't like staying behind.
So, she was still mad at John.
Intellectually she understood what he had said, but she didn't like it.
Emotionally, well emotionally she knew it would not be easy to look at Moran and not be haunted by what he had done. She'd like to believe she was stronger than that. She had broken down earlier, but a lot of that was stress and shock. Now that she was prepared and knew…wouldn't it be better? She had been in situations almost as tough before.
She really didn't like being mad at John.
And if she was mad at John and if she was in her room sulking, it meant she couldn't go down and see Sherlock.
She had not had a chance to see him yet. She wanted to see how he was. They had always had a strange relationship. Not really close, but always aware. The nickname had said it all. adf. He only ever talked to her if he wanted something, but sometimes she wondered if he made up obscure questions for her just to see if she was still there. His weird way of saying 'hi'.
He easily could have looked up information on the distribution of scars a throwing star would have left on a body with out bothering to send her a text. Hell, he'd probably prefer practicing on a corpse.
She wasn't sure if she wanted to kiss him for coming back or slap him really hard for what he had done to everyone, but in particularly how it had affected John. He hid it fairly well, but she could see how haunted he had been by Sherlock's death. And even in the midst of their fight, he looked like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders.
So yeah, slapping seemed like a good idea.
Her mind flitted from thought to thought and her emotions the last couple of days had been up and down like a roller coaster. She didn't like roller coasters.
So maybe if she did some deep breathing and some yoga, she could gain back some focus.
She told her mind to be quiet and she had just started with Namaste. Then the room was rocked by an explosion that had come from the front of the house. She looked around the room. Her bag with her knives was on a chair on the other side of the bed. She started to move to grab them.
Just in case.
The doorknob turned.
What the hell? Echoed in her head as she turned and tookasteptoward the door.
And stopped.
Michael had come into her room.
And he stood there with a gun with a silencer pointed at her. She frowned and then she smiled.
It wasn't a nice smile.
"Switching sides are we?" she asked.
Michael grinned back at her, "Why no, Ms. Morstan. I'm on the same side I've always been."
Mary nodded. She understood perfectly.
"So would you prefer me to stand still while you shoot me? 'Cause that ain't gonna happen."
Looks like I'm not going to miss all the fun after all, she thought.
And then she moved.
oOo
The dining room at the Mycroft Holmes estate was, fortunately, at the back of the house, near the kitchens. The force from the explosions was deflected out toward the front of the house. The four men felt the explosion, but there was minimum damage where they were.
Fortunately all four had decided to carry their weapons after this afternoon's meeting.
Just in case.
Because judging by the sounds that had come from the front of the building they were going to need them.
Mycroft calmly pushed a button under the table. This was something Michael didn't know about, not having high enough clearance.
It was Mycroft's deadly little secret.
The four men looked at each other and knew how they were going to play this.
A/N: Yes I'm that evil. I had fun with this one. Hope you did too!