Chapter Thirteen
Author's note: Just when you thought you'd figured this story out, along comes a little case fic...
"What do you mean, he's not here? John, I need Sherlock. I've finally managed to convince the Chief Super that the four earlier suicides in the last six months are linked- and that there is a chance they aren't suicides at all. Today was the fifth death, and it was the second in London, so the press is all over the Met to sort it out. Sherlock has been after me for almost three months to take it seriously and now that someone actually has, where's he gone?"
Lestrade was pacing. It was 9.15 in the morning and he'd arrived in a police car. John had heard the siren before it turned onto Baker Street, and the Detective Inspector was out of the car and halfway up the steps before the constable driving had managed to turn the flashing lights off.
John raised his hands in mock surrender. "I don't know. He left the flat in the middle of the night and I haven't seen him since."
That made Lestrade stop pacing. "Without his coat and scarf?" He pointed to the Belstaf and scarf still on the hook. Then he turned and looked down at the breakfast table. "And without his phone?" He sounded even more incredulous, if it was possible.
"Yeah…" The look on John's face said it all. He was worried, and the DI didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure it out.
The steam went out of Greg's tone of voice. "What's happened? What's going on, John?" The need to work a case was now replaced by the need to know about Sherlock. John took some comfort in that fact, and it made it easier to explain, too.
"I don't know. He's …not been well since we got back from Gloucestershire. He broke his wrist out there, working on a private case. Not once, but twice within the space of two days. General anaesthetic surgery. Not nice. But, that's not the half of it."
"What do you mean?" Now the DI's impatience was replaced with concern. Sherlock getting injured in the line of duty on a case was not exactly routine, but over the years, Greg had learned not to worry too much. Physical injuries tended to get shrugged off by the consulting detective as mere transport difficulties. What John's tone of voice conveyed was something more worrying.
"While on the case, he had a couple of panic attacks and a melt-down, then the worst post-case crash I've ever seen. Something's got him worked up, but he isn't talking. Not to me, not to Mycroft, not to Esther Cohen." John dare not go into more detail. While he'd seen the hospital records, he was not about to blab about the trauma to anyone else, even someone like Greg Lestrade. If Sherlock wanted to do so, then it was his business.
"Shit, Cohen? She's involved? That's bad news."
John was surprised. His work with Sherlock at the clinic six months ago* brought him into contact with the psychiatrist, but he didn't realise that Greg knew her too. "You…know about Doctor Cohen?"
Lestrade pinned John was a stare. "Of course, I do. Sherlock and I go back before your time. Well, some of that time, she was on the scene. I've got to say, she's bloody brilliant. But then she'd have to be, to tackle Sherlock when he's being his usual bolshie 'I-know-best' self."
Greg pushed his hand through his short hair and blew out a breath of concern. "Well, if she's on the scene, that's him off the case, for sure. Has Mycroft got eyes on him?"
John just shook his head.
"That's really bad news. Doing a runner in the middle of the night…" The DI's subtext was clear enough, and John couldn't fail to pick it up- the worry that lay behind the 'pretend drugs bust' that John had been treated to on his very first night at Baker Street.
John gave him a grimace. "I sincerely hope it isn't what you are implying. Why you think he'd do that?"
"Hell, John; he's got form, hasn't he? Before your time, I know, but still, whenever Big Brother gets Cohen involved, it kind of drives Sherlock to it. Or, at least it has in the past. Did Mycroft pull his usual stunt of threatening to lock Sherlock up 'for his own good'?"
"Yeah."
The DI groaned. "Well that just makes sure he will run as hard as he can. Bugger!"
The doctor sat down a bit heavily in his chair. "So, where does he go when this happens?"
The DI's attention had switched from his serial murder investigation to a missing person case. He shook his head. "If Mycroft hasn't found him yet, then it means he's holed up somewhere out of reach. Over the years, his bolt holes are getting harder and harder to find, which ups the ante if he is using again."
The doctor's face was grim. "Can you keep an eye out for him, Greg? I know it's not likely you'll turn up something if he doesn't want to be found, but… he might come to you for help."
"ME? I thought those days were long gone. If he isn't willing to talk to you, then it's not likely he'll come to me, unless you two…" Greg left the thought hanging but started pacing.
John's face said it all. "Well, I just might have been seen to take sides, the wrong side in his view."
Greg stopped pacing. "Well, the best cure I know to whatever it is that ails Sherlock is what brought me here in the first place- a nice, juicy, impossible-to-solve-unless-you-are-Sherlock-Holmes kind of case. All we have to do is find a way of getting him to pay attention."
John wanted something to think about, anything other than the fact that he felt so miserable. "What's the case?"
"Computer programmers- five dead guys across Europe and the UK who were working on some huge EU thing, involving over a hundred people from all over Europe. They're trying to build a computer that works like a human brain. Christ, I hardly know how to turn on my PC, so it's all over my head, and everyone else's in the Met, too. This isn't cybercrime, which is the only thing our resident geeks do. If Sherlock is right, then someone is busy bumping them off, but making it look like suicide. The latest was discovered this morning at UCL's IT labs."
While the DI was explaining, John started to think. Maybe this was the best way to get Sherlock to come out of hiding. "Greg, is there any way you could…hype it up a bit? Get it into the papers a lot? If he sees it, then maybe that will be…I don't know, distraction therapy. And get him to surface again."
Lestrade gave a little laugh. "That's easy. I don't even have to try. The press are already calling it the work of someone they've named 'The Geek Killer'. It'll be all over the Evening Standard mid-day edition and tonight's TV news."
oOo
That evening, in a penthouse suite of the Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane, a discussion was taking place.
"You've seen the newspaper coverage?"
"Of course. It's on the television, too." It was said in a self-satisfied tone.
The ex-army marksman poured the Irishman a glass of champagne. "So, round two has started then?"
James Moriarty took the offered glass and stood looking out over the east side of Hyde Park. A few early evening joggers slogged by, dodging the tourists who stood ogling the line of chauffeur driven cars arriving to drop off guests attending a very exclusive private dinner that night.
The sniper smirked. "If they're looking for celebrities, they're going to be disappointed."
"Oh, don't be so sure of that, Seb. The right people will see who is arriving. One minor official in the British Government will keep tabs on the dinner guest list. At least, I hope so. Engineering this good a collection of undesirable reprobates has not been easy. They've been hand chosen because they've got the money to spend on what I am selling. The auction starts tonight. Deal or no deal, within a week, every intelligence service in the world will be wondering what the hell is going on."
"Boss, I'm still trying to get how bumping off five IT squirrels can really lead to world-wide domination."
"I don't pay you to understand, my little tiger, just to follow orders." The dark haired slim man took a sip of the Crystal vintage champagne.
"Still, any army officer does a better job if they understand the basic strategy." Sebastian Moran was not going to give up easily. If he was ever going to convince Jim that he was worthy of being more central to the man's planning, he needed enough information to work on. And, for the life of him, he was finding the connection difficult to understand.
The dark eyes scanning the arriving cars broke off to look at Seb. "Okay- game-plan dumbed down for idiots, then." He didn't hide his sneer. Moran didn't mind. The goal was to get the intelligence, so he could keep up with his boss. If he had to admit to being stupid, he didn't care, so long as he got what he wanted.
"IBM's about to announce the biggest shake up in computing for the past sixty years.** For the past two years the Yanks and the EU have been competing to develop a whole new way of building computer hardware that breaks the mould of sequential operation – that's how today's computers and software work, by the way. It's nothing short of a revolution, Seb, and it will be worth billions and billions of dollars over the next twenty years."
He came up to the sandy haired sniper. "The new SyNAPSE project makes the computer mimic the speed and scale of the human brain. Even one as dull as yours is better than any computer." Jim tapped the side of the Seb's head, knowing that the act would irritate the military man. "They're building a new class of distributed, highly interconnected, asynchronous, parallel, large-scale cognitive computing architectures. Got that?" He smirked at Seb's frown. "No, didn't think so. Lucky for you, I have other people working for me who do."
The Irishman gestured to the cars lined up. "Tonight I get to tell that specially invited audience that I already have one- a prototype- that allows me to break into any old fashioned computer, and to outsmart any of the new synaptic processors they are building. A little string of code can make all the difference. And I'm the only one that's got it. Then I announce the terms of the auction."
Seb frowned. "I get that part. I just don't understand why five blokes who look like they haven't left a lab in their entire existence needed to die. Not that I'm complaining, but they were kind of…too easy to kill, even when rigging it to make it look like suicide. "
Moriarty sighed. "Putting the pieces together never was your strong suit, was it, Seb? With each death, I've left important clues behind. If only the police were smart enough to spot them, but of course, they're not. Even the local spooks will struggle- and will need a certain consulting detective to help them. He just loves serial suicides so will jump at this one. When that certain someone explains how they were murdered and picks up the clues I've left, they will come to oh, such the wrong conclusion! It's so eeeasy to play the Holmes boys. Just deliver something overly complicated, make it look like I'm selling it to the highest bidder and, oops, Bob's Your Uncle- they'll fall for it. Can't wait. I've been bored the past six months. Now the game is finally going to get started again." His smirk grew into a full-blooded grin and then blossomed into outright laughter.
Author's Note: *this is covered in my story Side Lined.
**The IBM SyNAPSE project and the EU Human Brain Computer project actually exist. This is cutting edge revolutionary stuff- so interesting!