It was hot as fuck.
And not in a way that John was used to, either- dry and sandy, sun inescapably in your eyes, matching the enemy in the level of both danger and annoyance it brings.
No, Atlanta in July was not something that John was ready for. It had been oddly cool and rainy for the time of year in England- here, it was freakishly hot. People were dying, it was so hot. The entire city reeked of heat in the way that only a city could reek. On a Saturday such as this one, everyone must have been inside, in their pools, doing anything they could to escape nature.
And John was spending it standing guard outside of a department store.
He didn't know where the others had gone- inside, yes, but they could have just left from another exit and went on about their day.
He wouldn't put it past them, either.
He didn't have to- they'd done it before. Lie to him and leave him behind.
And as much as he was angry about his position, John had to say that he couldn't blame them at all- the five of them make a good team. Angela received word from up high (John's guess was Mycroft, or someone under him) as to what they were supposed to be doing, and she set it in motion. Jenny performed marvels with a computer- she knew exactly what to do to hack or crack or whatever it was she did to glean information or assume an identity. Craig lied their way around security and other roadbumps, Tony collected information underground, Mary seemed to have a way with weapons- there wasn't much room for William Sigerson.
William Sigerson, who really didn't have any sort of redeeming quality, other than being charming and maybe devilishly good looking.
And really good, apparently, at keeping a door open.
After that first meeting, Angela had said goodbye to him with a copy of Crime and Punishment and a threatening glare- I don't trust you, it said, but I don't have a choice. Watch your back.
And he took note. Back in his hotel room (Real room? It was a motel with a weekly rate, he doubted that he would be anywhere other than here for a long while) he stayed up for a while studying the map- he'd slowly been learning the streets, imagining the turns he would have to take to get from one to the other; it was a valuable waste of time, and time was something that he had plenty of.
The copy of Crime and Punishment was more annotations than book- which, in the three days before each meeting in the coffee shop, kept him busy.
Moriarty had a chapter of his organisation in Atlanta that, among other things, served as a way to dispose of the elderly in whatever way they deemed appropriate for themselves- the article that John had pulled from the newspaper the first days he'd been here came to mind, died in a strip club on the other side of town. If one only looked deeper, there were more of them- comical accounts of old men dying at the feet of a hooker aside.
It wasn't that bad of a deal, really. You pay someone a sum to drive you out to wherever you would like to go, hand you a pill of some untraceable poison (customised to whatever medications you were already taking, it seemed) and leave you to your wits. It was almost kind, really.
The group, however, was less interested in the organisation itself than it was its connection to the others- it was a small, inconsequential operation, but it had to have connections and information on the other slightly larger, slightly less inconsequential operations in the country that would eventually lead them closer to taking down Moriarty's American regime.
But he didn't know about that. He wasn't allowed to. He was only supposed to know as much as they told him.
So he'd started reading, he'd gone to the meetings, he'd tried to talk to them- and he was still the outsider. It had been less than a week, he understood.
It was still annoying to be kept at a doorstop.
He had his phone with him, and kept checking for text messages. We'll contact you if we need you. But really, just make sure no one comes in that looks like they're up to something.
John didn't want to sit- that would be lazy. He'd been standing for so long, though, he was starting to get restless.
He'd been waiting for two months. He'd done absolutely nothing in that time period. His knee was starting to bother him. His hands were starting to shake.
He missed being home. He missed Sherlock, as much as it pained him to say it. At least he knew there'd be something to do every once and a while. As much as it felt otherwise sometimes, he'd been generally wanted back home- here, he was barely tolerated.
No, he was lied to and left outside.
This hadn't been the first time, either. Yesterday John trudged himself to the coffee shop for the meeting to find himself alone- it wasn't until twenty minutes later that the other five showed up together, grinning and covered in dirt and bruises. John had never been the last kid picked on the team, never been the one left out- it frustrated him to the point of rage, anger bubbling under his skin as he gritted his teeth and listened to them cheerfully conduct the meeting over him.
The day before that, he was sure he'd seen something on the news that must have, must have been connected to them. They never even bothered to call him.
It made sense, He reminded himself. I would do the same thing, if I was in their shoes. I'm an outsider, they know nothing about me. Even with the things they've been told about me, I'm useless. Worse than useless. I would do the same thing.
He was still pissed.
Twenty more minutes in the sweltering heat. John was sweaty and sticky and growing angrier by the second and his knee hurt and his hands were shaking and he wasn't being included and he was fucking bored, all right? For the past eighteen months he'd been refusing to use that word because that was Sherlock's, it was childish, and either way he'd never been bored in 221B.
But he was bored to tears. He'd been crammed in a stuffy old manor for two months only to be released and disregarded.
John had given up by the time he'd seen any sign of the others- he'd found himself a bench and started playing a game he'd downloaded onto his new phone. He was stabbing furiously at the touch screen, trying to shoot each intruder before they reached the castle walls when he looked up by chance to see the five strutting (positively strutting) out of the department store. They were wearing new clothing, some covered in a smattering of new bruises and each had large grins as they fell in step with each other.
They made very little effort to wave John over as they swung themselves and their bags into the van- Angela had looked towards him, but that was about it. He heaved himself up and willed himself not to limp- that was the last thing they needed to see of him. There was a short moment when Mary and Tony in tandem gave him a look, but he dealt with it in stride by striking a conversation with the much more approachable Jennifer instead.
"Everything go all right in there, then?"
He helped her hoist a rather heavy, clinking duffle bag to the other side of the back of the van so they could fit the new box they'd acquired. Her general disposition towards John was to be suspicious of him for a few moments but ultimately speak to him after she could not come up with a valid enough reason not to.
"Yeah, we got what we needed. Ran into a bit of trouble, but it was nothing we couldn't…Get out of."
She pushed her long hair out of her face, holding out a hand to help him up into the van before closing the door- just in time for the van to whip out of the spot and out of the parking lot.
John had gotten very little time to get to know the rest of the group, and he was no Sherlock Holmes but he found that he could piece together things better than he'd thought- Jennifer was Christian (crucifix necklace) but very superstitious (black cats). John had only met one person who texted more than Angela- even while she was driving, which was a feat of its own considering the ferocity with which she manoeuvred the crowded van. Tony and Mary were closer to each other than they were to anyone else- presently they bowed their heads together and spoke in what sounded to John like a hushed, rapid Spanish. Craig was easiest to talk to, but made John the most uneasy- the ease with which he lied and assumed personalities, accents, roles and not to mention the general flippancy with which he conducted himself reminded him quite a bit of Moriarty.
They spoke to him with varying degrees of frequency- Craig the most, Mary the least- but all held an air of general distrust towards him that kept him from really being a part of the group.
I mean, you missed almost everything of importance, but, you know...
It was unfair how, even an ocean away, Sherlock could taunt him for his attempts at deduction.
"So… What were you doing in there, anyways?"
He was sitting next to Jennifer, in the back seat that sat backwards in the van, looking out the rear window. She looked unwilling to answer- really, really unwilling- but John wasn't past a little manipulation to get what he'd needed.
Not when he was this put out.
"We were- well, you know. We had to go in and check some things."
"And what's in the boxes?"
"Documents. Stuff like that. Lots of personal hospital files on the victims. Some files on the actual hospitals themselves- exit strategies, telephone numbers, the like. That's-"
She looked back to the people behind her. Craig had turned the radio to a top forty station and was singing loudly along with the female singer. Tony was in the middle of giving Mary a small set of stitches on her upper arm- John cringed more at the crudeness of the stitch than the look of the wound, though it looked deep and probably painful.
She looked back to him, and decided she could continue.
"We thought it would be the end of it, but it was mostly cleared out. We think they're in the midst of moving. There's something going on. We don't really know."
He bit his lip. He didn't really know how to take that, either. He was glad that she felt like she could tell him these things- okay, glad that he could weasel it out of her- but that uncertainty even from the knowing felt a lot too much like mystery to him. He wasn't very good at mystery- he was good at point and shoot, catching criminals, building plans. Emergency medicine.
Mystery was, well, Sherlock's area. John just wrote it down later.
"You don't know? How do you know they're- moving?"
She flushed. He knew it had to do with her before she even started talking- she pushed her hair out of the way and began to play with her necklace.
"The emails. I've been looking through a few of them and though they're obviously under some sort of code- there's been some sort of change since May. Things are being switched. Something's being moved."
"When, in May?"
He'd asked before he thought. He shouldn't have said anything. That was the only thing he needed- looking like he knew more than he did.
She caught it, too. It took her a long time before she started speaking again.
"The beginning of May… Why?"
The last word was drawn out, cautious.
"Just wanted to know how long they may have had to plan whatever it is they're planning. Two months is longer than one, sort of thing."
She didn't quite believe him, and it showed in the bite of her lip, the way she twisted the golden chain around her index finger until the skin turned purple. He should have stopped then.
"So there's more to this operation than just- just this thing going on, isn't there? Wherever they're moving things, whatever they're moving and where it comes from… How big is this?"
She shook her head.
"You really don't know much about what you're into, do you?"
"I do, about this. Not- not the rest."
Jen bit her lip. Decided where to start.
"You see, the problem is- we don't really know all that much either. Orders come from Angela's sister, I guess- from England. But all of the names and places are changed if they don't directly deal with us. Everything's fit into the plot of Crime and Punishment so there's less chance of being overheard- we don't get any outside information so we're not a liability. We don't even know who we're up against."
Orders come from Angela's sister-
No.
There was only one person he knew that was on their phones more than Angela.
"Do you know her sister?"
Jennifer shook her head.
"Never spoke to her, never seen her. But I trust Angela, and Angela trusts her sister. She's always in contact with her- email or text, however it's easiest to get to her. Come to think of it, I think the orders come from her sister's superior. "
Yeah, John thought so, too.
When he did not continue, Jennifer assumed that she could continue.
"Anyways, we know the general parts of the global situation. He runs an international company that, basically, outsources crime. People can go to him instead of getting their hands dirty. And he, in turn, goes to a localised branch instead of getting his hands dirty. He's got chapters set up- well, everywhere. There are links, even indirect ones, to almost every major disaster since the late nineties."
Feeling a little less nervous either around him or with the subject, she began to talk with her hands, loud gestures and stress points. She didn't know much about the
"There's a bunch of different types of groups working to take him down, though. Usually they're kind of homozygous- we're a little eclectic. We've got Mary and Tony, who are guns people, Angela and Craig, who're people people- and I'm the computers guy."
She seemed to like filling in exposition the more she trusted him. Which was fine with him- at least someone was telling him things.
"They're already on to us, I think- I mean, chapters are toppling left and right in the United States, we're not the only ones working right now- so we have to be really careful about this… Movement. We're not dealing with some standard criminal; none of the previous tactics apply. We're dealing with… Something no one's ever seen."
He shuddered to think of the familiar way her eyes sparkled at that idea.