A/N: Hope you haven't been in too much suspense! Here's some more excitement! This one was tricky to write with all the back and forth between characters and times. Hope I didn't miss anything.
Special Hello toMegaTigger98 (the wonderful thing about Tiggers…)
Some swearing, general violence.
Chapter 13 – earlier that day
Moran left the pub shortly after Michael had. He headed out the back door of the pub. Not many CCTV cameras in this part of London, especially in an old alley. He had other plans to see to. He knew Michael would carry out his orders and have everything in place, but that wasn't all that needed to be prepared.
Even Michael didn't know about these plans. Moran had no one to trust ever since Moriarty had died. Now he had one person he was putting his trust in and he really didn't know who it was. He knew they were highly placed in Mycroft's organization. They knew things, had access to information even Michael didn't know about. It was almost exciting. It was almost worth it. He had been waiting to bring down Mycroft Holmes for so many years and Mycroft had no idea that someone so close to him was going to help.
He really shouldn't be so trusting. But everything they had sent to him, every bit of information had been checked and cleared and had been accurate.
Now everything was in place he couldn't wait any longer. He had given his orders and he was going to have them carried out tonight.
He was going to relish the moment when he saw both the Holmes men die. They were going to see all their little friends die first and Sherlock was going to see his brother die. Then Sherlock was going to die very slowly. He deserved it. Mycroft had crushed his plans for an empire, but Sherlock had destroyed his god.
No he couldn't wait. He was on his way now to meet with this person. They were going to get him and a few of his men into the house before tonight. Michael had no idea his part was a diversion. Well except killing Morstan and Watson. That was just expediency.
Moriarty had taught him many things, but one thing he had taught him well is that diversion is a useful tool.
And it's always good to have more than one agent in place.
oOo
Later that day
Michael was secretly pleased that he hadn't just shot her as soon as he entered the room. He really wanted to have a go at her after reading her file. He was a master at his craft and apparently so was she. It wasn't often you had the opportunity to take on someone at the same level.
He was going to enjoy this.
oOo
Mary had a secret.
It wasn't a well-kept secret because everyone in this business found out your strengths and weakness quickly. She had a feeling Moran would have informed this Michael all about her special skills, but even Moran really didn't know how good she was at this. Sherlock knew because he'd read it in her stance the first time they'd met and it was one of the things that had intrigued him. It intrigued him enough that he kept coming back once every blue moon to work with her, perfecting his own skills. Not that he'd needed much. Mycroft was well aware. After all, he'd been involved on some level with the training of most of the recruits. Everyone else thought her real specialty was with knives. Hell, they were just a party trick compared with how good she was using her body as a weapon. Her mum had sent her to dance and gymnastics from the time she was 5. Her dad had wanted a boy, her dad, who had a passion for the cheesy martial arts films of the '70s and had raised his daughter on a steady diet of that genre from an early age. They'd watch together on cold East Coast winter nights. Warmed them up some how. He had ensured his daughter had been enrolled in as many classes as she could fit in. After her mother died when she was 12, that's all there was. And that, not her throwing skills or even how she looked oh so innocent and her size, which made people less suspicious of her, was the main reason she had been recruited, in spite of what she had told John, because yes it was important to kill your target, but it was important to get away, so you could go and do it all over again. She didn't usually use the arts to kill someone because you had to be in close contact in order to do that and that wasn't safe. They were for defence, usually. She preferred using knives to kill, because they were usually silent and a knife was harder to trace than a bullet, as long as you could take it away with you. She had been taught juggling at summer camp one year and had developed it well enough to use knives. That had lead to busking on the streets of Halifax one August. She and a friend had developed a knife throwing routine. She was seventeen. That's when the shadowy figures of secrets and spying and killers of threats had started keeping an eye on her. The medals and ribbons and awards racking up on her father's shelf in the den hadn't hurt either. Then her father died halfway through her third year of University and the offer had come. And they took her talents and honed them and perfected them and set her on the world at the age of twenty-three. All the rest of it was frosting on the cake. She had combined all these passions, dance, gymnastics, karate all of it and came up with her own style, her own brand of mixed martial arts.
And she was fast.
Michael hardly knew she had moved before the gun was swept out of his hand. He blinked and then threw himself into the fight. He was very good. She would just have to be better.
Michael threw out a punch to her head and she blocked it. That's what most of it was: punches, blocks, knee and elbow strikes, kicks. He grabbed her arm at one point and pulled it behind her, she rolled him over her back. She hadn't been kidding when she told John she could throw him across the room. Well maybe not quite that far. Michael leaped back onto his feet and kicked her hard in the chest. She hit the bureau behind her and the air rushed out of her. It would have been a good time for Michael to pick up the gun, but he was enjoying himself too much to merely shoot her. It gave her time to get back on her feet.
They weren't exactly evenly matched. They certainly had advantages and disadvantages over each other. Michael was younger than she was, about the age when she had stopped being an assassin. He outweighed her and had probably been fighting more regularly. At least fighting with the intent to kill. She was short so he had a longer reach. But because she was short she could come in under some of his punches. She was also very fast. She was dressed in more fluid clothing, which helped with flexibility while he was in a suit and tie, which hindered his movements. She was barefoot and was anticipating the time he realized that and started stomping on her feet.
He managed to catch her chin and she faltered. He followed with a blow to her ribs. She swept her leg out and he fell and she was back on him. He threw her and she tucked and rolled away as he came after her. She rolled out into the hallway, which was better. There was more room here.
They resumed fighting, the blows and kicks rained down.
But Mary was tiring. The problem was he had given her some hard knocks. She was pretty sure that that kick to the ribs had cracked something, two fingers were broken on her left hand, there was a cut on her forehead and the blood running down was obscuring her vision on that side, her nose was bleeding and probably broken and that last blow to her chin had really hurt. It had also been a while since she'd had to put up with this level of action. She was going to have to try to get in a mortal blow soon, but she had difficulty getting close enough.
That's when he kicked her down again. She hit her head against the wall and came close to blacking out. He pulled out the gun again. He must have grabbed it when she had rolled out into the hall.
"As much fun as this has been, Ms. Morstan, unfortunately I have other thing to attend to."
He raised the gun to point it at her.
oOo
They knew it was an attack from Moran without having to say anything.
John left first. He knew where he was going. The other three did as well. In that inexplicable way that people had who worked together in adversity and in difficulty situations, the four men knew where everyone was going without saying a word. It would be a variation on their original plans. They hadn't been prepared for an attack on Mycroft's house, but they would work as if they had.
John raced through to the kitchens and past the security room. He went up the back stairs to the guest wing. As he drew closer he could hear crashes and the noise of bodies that had hit the floor. He didn't hear yelling, but grunts of pain and heavy breathing. He drew his gun and came up the last few steps in time to see Mary had rolled out of the bedroom and a few seconds later Michael had come after her.
His mouth fell open a little. He hadn't known. It was a surprise. He stood there for a second wrapping his head around the fight that was going on in front of him. It was like watching poetry or dance or something. He'd seen some good sparing matches in his army days, especially when they had down time or some of the units from other countries came by and in their boredom they entertained themselves with fights and bets. This was better than anything he had seen.
He was becoming aware that they were both tiring and he needed to move closer and finish this if Mary couldn't. That was when he saw Michael kick her hard into the wall. She lay there, dazed. Michael pulled a gun.
"As much fun as this has been, Ms. Morstan, unfortunately I have other thing to attend to."
Michael raised his gun, but before he could aim and pull the trigger, John shot him in the head.
He ran over to where Mary lay as she tried to get her breath back.
"Are you ok?" he asked anxiously, as he helped her to sit up a bit.
"I'll live. That bastard was good. He pretty much had me. Thanks for showing up and good shot by the way."
John grinned at the memory it conjured up, but then started looking at her injuries.
"I think there's a first aid kit in the bathroom," she said. "Mycroft must worry his guest are going to damage each other. I guess he was right to worry," she giggled a little. She knew she was losing it. All the aches and pains had caused her to lose coherent thought. The blow to her head hadn't helped.
John returned with the kit and a wet flannel and quickly and efficiently wiped the blood off her face. Her nose had mostly stopped bleeding. He placed a plaster on the cut on her forehead. He taped her two broken fingers together.
"It looks like you have damage to your ribs and you have a lovely bump on the back of your head," his tone sounded angry, but was more from the fright he had had when he saw what had happened.
She looked at him and chuckled, "I've had worse. Believe me." She surprised him a bit when she grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him in for a rough kiss. "Nice that you care so much," she said as she released him.
He grinned back at her. "Not right now, please. Right now I'm going to get you some paracetamol and find a place to hole you up."
"No chance, nope, not going to happen," she said shaking her head at him. "See what happens when I'm on my own? I'm going with you."
"Mary you are injured, your ribs are bruised if not cracked. If you get hit again, they're likely to break. No."
"Well you can try, Watson, but I'll find a way to follow you. So shut up and get my damn running shoes and my knives and let's join the party."
John glared at her.
"Look," she said, "we can waste all kinds of time being stubborn. But our friends are in trouble and we can help. So move your ass and get my stuff."
He knew she was right, but he didn't like it. He ran to grab her shoes and bag.
He came back and while she was putting on her shoes, he said, "There's something we'll need to do first."
She looked at him and raised her eyebrows as he explained.
oOo
When John headed out the room towards the kitchen, Mycroft followed behind towards the room were the security detail was ready to be dispatched.
Even though Mycroft was the British government, there were only eight agents here. That was actually four up from what would normally be in place. He had doubled security after bring John and Mary back to the house last night.
The two at the front door were incapacitated, if not dead. Michael was an enemy presence in his house. That left these four agents and his ever faithful, personal assistant Anthea.
He spoke to the lead agent.
"You will need to send one agent out to sweep the perimeter and ensure that no further enemy agents are entering. Send one to personally check all other entrances and exits. One will stay and monitor activity from here. One will come with me to check the front of the house and prevent a breach there. I have instituted a priority one protocol on the house and have signaled for reinforcements. The special forces team will arrive in the next ten minutes. We also need to redirect the police. There are sensitive issues involved here. If the local constabulary were to find out what is going on, we will have more than a egotistical mad man to deal with."
The agent nodded and indicated that Mycroft's orders were being carried out.
"Carry on. You know what is expected of you."
Mycroft left followed by the lead agent who took up a flanking position beside him. They would join Sherlock and Lestrade in protecting the front of the house. They would try to ensure that Moran and his men would go no further. He didn't notice that ever faithful Anthea wasn't following him.
oOo
Meanwhile Sherlock and Lestrade both drew weapons and slowly made their way through the door on the other side of the dining room into an unlit sitting area. They moved cautiously and carefully. This room led into the front entryway. They hadn't seen any movement in the front hall. It would be a matter of time.
Lestrade had been surprised to find Sherlock now carried a gun. He had been purposely ignorant of John's gun all this time. He ignored the illegality to be expedient. Sherlock had seldom carried a gun before and Lestrade was pleased that John had been there to protect him, knowing the kind of trouble Sherlock could get into. John knew how to handle a gun properly. He wasn't sure he could say the same about Sherlock.
Sherlock had informed him of the weapon earlier in the day and in his characteristically sarcastic way, only slightly softened in deference for his expanding feelings toward Greg, had told him he had found it extremely helpful while on the run systematically killing Moriarty's henchmen. It sounded like he had discovered the proper way to use a gun, after all.
Greg had nodded and wisely refrained from asking specific details.
The less he knew and all that.
They had talked over dinner about other things Sherlock had been up to on the run these last few months.
Now they made their way closer to the door. They could see shattered glass and chunks of plaster. One wall was blackened from the blast. There were two agents lying just outside the broken front door. Or what was left of them.
"God," whispered Greg. "You just don't get use to that, ever." He was working his mouth in order to keep from being sick.
But there was no one else there.
Sherlock stood there, taking in the wreckage that had been the front entry, his eyes were flicked back and forth rapidly.
If the idea was to use the bomb to destroy the house it wasn't powerful enough.
The bomb had been powerful enough to blowout the front door and kill the agents.
The blast, radiated outwards not in, suggesting the idea was to destroy the front door.
Suggesting the front door would be destroyed in order to allow access to the house.
So where is the invading army of Moran's men?
Why have they not moved in quickly under the cover of the chaos a bomb would have caused?
Ah, of course. It's because the bomb is a…
"Diversion," he said out loud.
"What?" asked Greg.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. Why couldn't anyone keep up?
"We need to leave here and go to the back of the house. This is a diversion." He ran toward the hallway that led past Mycroft's office. "Hurry, Lestrade," he called.
oOo
John kept his gun out and ready. He and Mary cautiously made their way to the top of the front staircase. This was not ideal as there was not much cover. There was not much noise coming up the stairs. The front entry was a mess. There was shattered glass and plaster everywhere.
Something wasn't right.
John thought hard about this, thought about it from a military point of view.
You don't plant a bomb at the front entrance of a building, if you are not trying to gain access to it. If it were meant to level the building it would have been a bigger bomb. It would have been easier to kill them, just destroy the house if they had just used more explosives.
If I had planned an attack on this house I would have brought men in as soon as the bomb went off. Therefore…
This was a diversion.
They needed to see what was happening in the rest of the house.
It was a shame that Sherlock hadn't been there to hear John's thoughts at that moment. He would have been pleased that John could indeed keep up.
He signaled to Mary and they pulled back around the corner.
"Something's up," he whispered to her. "Moran hasn't brought anyone in yet. He's wasting valuable time. I'm afraid that there's more going on than we can see. We need to get to the back of the house and check it out, but we need to get word to Mycroft as well."
"What do we do?" she asked.
"Let's go down the stairs to the back. We can check it out and then head around to find Mycroft. It will be faster than going through the front to find him and we can kill two birds as it were."
She nodded and they took off down the hall.
They trotted down the stairs and stopped at the bottom. John heard Mary gasp.
Mycroft had shown John and Lestrade photos of Moran at the meeting and of course Mary knew him very well.
He was standing at the bottom of the stairs with three other people who had guns levelled at them. Moran surprisingly did not have a gun out. One of the three was…
Anthea.
John cursed under his breath. He lowered his gun.
"Ah the lovely Ms. Morstan. My dear, I wish I had time to pick up were we last left off, but sadly I do not."
John heard Mary breathing harder beside him, but she seemed steady on her feet.
"And of course the pet," he sneered at John. "Your death shall make Sherlock so upset. Well as upset as he ever gets, I suppose. I wish I had shot you that day. The day he jumped. I had you lined up in my sights the whole time. But Jim had specifically warned me he would be most put out with me if I killed you after Sherlock had jumped. He had plans for you, you see. Even with Sherlock making the sacrifice he did. When I found out later that Jim had died, I almost came and killed you then, but I'm glad I didn't. This will be so much better, because Sherlock can now see your dead body."
He turned to Anthea. "Now my dear." He smiled at her. She smiled back. And shot Mary and John in the chest.
She didn't miss.