CHAPTER 29: WE ALL FALL DOWN

AUGUST 2015

Barcelona

Bill Murray was thinking about his children. The youngest would be turning four soon. The oldest was entering year 2 at his primary school. They were such bright little children. Tow-headed, wide-mouthed, and tooth-gapped, just like him. He thought about how he had cursed them with bad teeth, the pair of them, and he imagined them as young teenagers with braces, as twenty-somethings with bonded retainers, as old men needing dentures, and it made him sad. That was his legacy to his children. For the rest of their lives, when they looked in the mirror, when they saw their own crooked teeth and cringed with disgust, they would remember their father.

'Italian marble, that.'

They had arrived late, just as the sun was going down, and Murray was exhausted and desperate for a pillow, which he was sure was still hours away. Still, this man, Magnussen, insisted on the tour: in an expansive entrance hall, the erotic statue of woman in the throes of pleasure, and a painting of a naked man revelling in his own debauchery.

'You'll notice,' Magnussen said as he proceeded to a set of double doors, 'that there are few exits, all of which—I presume—will be manned.'

'Security detail is tight,' said Moran. His tone was short, impatient, but Murray could see the excitement growing in him as they approached the doors, which Magnussen, after smiling over his shoulder at the cadre of men, threw open with flare.

'The ballroom,' he announced, and his voice echoed loudly in the vast empty space. He pointed to the cameras set around the room, one at a time. 'We'll be broadcasting from here. All channels encrypted, of course. Members of the network won't even be given the password until two minutes to showtime. Over there'—he indicated a platform to the left of a long stage—'we'll set up the string quintet, and the cage is beside it'—he pointed to a second platform with an attached pole—'with the mic built in. And of course, as requested, the pièce de resistance: the gallows.'

Moran's face beamed his pleasure. He took off at a jog, with just enough momentum to grab the edge of the stage and launch himself upon it. There, he circled the scaffolding, hopped up the stairs to the platform, and jumped to grasp the crossbeam, which held his weight without so much as a groan. He swung there like a child before hopping back down to the stage.

'Beautiful,' he said breathlessly, a large grin stretching his ugly face. 'Then it's all in place.'

'All of it,' agreed Magnussen. 'Tomorrow morning, we knock on their hotel room door and invite them to tea.'

With a bark of a laugh, Moran turned to regard the gallows one more time with fondness. Then he jumped back to the ballroom tiles and continued his surveillance of the room, shouting orders at the men, pointing out their stations and assigning their duties.

Murray was left in the centre of it all, trying to force his imagination from conjuring the party Moran was planning. He was still reeling at how quickly it was coming together. This man, Magnussen, had resources and connections and influence to boggle the mind. One command from his captain, and wheels were set in motion that weak, pathetic, impotent Bill Murray could not grind to a halt. Sherlock and John were somewhere in this city, about to be set upon, and he was powerless to warn them.

'And for you, Bill'—a hand clapped on his shoulder; he jumped and turned to find Moran's grinning face close to his—'a very special task. Follow me.'

Dry mouthed, Bill followed Moran back to the grand entrance hall, dreading whatever would come next. He despised that he had any role to play whatsoever. Often, he imagined taking off running. He didn't even care that he wouldn't get very far. Rather, it was his most ardent wish that Moran would use him as target practice: one bullet, right to the back of the skull, and it would all be over.

Only, he had made a promise. To John. This time, he would not run.

'Only one way in, one way out,' said Moran, drawing a pathway from the ballroom to the front door with his finger. Then he rotated slowly, facing Murray head on. 'Are you my man, Corporal Murray?'

He said Murray's name scornfully, as though the rank were a joke attached to an unworthy man. Murray blinked uncertainly, swallowed, and answered as he always had. 'Yes, sir. I am.' And he waited for the next line: Is Bellfield? But it didn't come.

'Horse shit.'

Murray started. But before he could protest his loyalties, Moran had grabbed him up by the front of his shirt and walked him backward. He nearly lost his footing, and would have done, had it not been for the wall that Moran shoved him into.

'You're a liar and a coward. In a storm, you'll run to anyone holding an umbrella. That is the reason you're here, the only reason. If Irene had got to you first, you'd be her lapdog.'

'What? No! I would nev—!' But his protest died on his lips. Moran backhanded him across the face.

'Do you take me for an idiot? I know who you are, we all do. The other men, they watch you. They tell me about how you sit on the touchline with a stupid smile on your face, nodding like you agree, laughing when you have to, never saying a word. They see you texting when you think no one's looking. Who are you texting, Bill? What are you texting?'

'No one! Nothing!'

He was glad, now, that he had ditched the mobile. He had seriously debated, but his instructions had been clear: if he believed himself compromised (and after that last text exchange, he did), he was to destroy the mobile. But the madness in Moran made him quail, and he couldn't keep direct eye contact for long. His eyes darted away, casting him in a pall of guilt.

Suddenly, Moran threw his head back and laughed.

'Look at you! You'll piss yourself, you're so scared. I'm teasing you, Billy boy.' He let go of Murray's jacket and smoothed it down his chest, but otherwise did not back away. Murray couldn't even force a laugh; his heart was nearly beating out of his chest in terror. 'I mean, really, I can't trust any of these sods, can I?' He laughed again. 'I can only get them to do what I need them to do, you follow me?'

Murray had no idea how to answer and said nothing. God, but he wanted all this to be over.

'So here's what's gonna happen next,' Moran continued. 'You get one more chance with me. Mm? One more chance to prove that you really are my guy, and not Irene Adler's lackey.'

They strapped him chest to back in a gilet padded with Semtex, enough to blow a hole in a mountain. It was tight, like a life jacket, cinched and locked in five places, so no matter how desperate he was, no matter how much he wriggled and twisted and squeezed, there was no way he was getting out of that gilet—not without setting the whole thing off in a massive explosion. He wouldn't dare. He had seen far too many casualties of bombs and mines during his time in Afghanistan, men blown apart or riddled with shrapnel, so he had no illusions of the danger he was in. Hell. He'd been at risk of an explosion since the day he met the Colonel.

They placed him under the stage and set Payne as his guard. Before leaving him there in a cold sweat and on the brink of hyperventilation, Moran showed him a small black box with three buttons, two glowing green, one glowing red, and a black button on the side under a clear plastic box.

'Prove yourself to me,' said Moran. 'Stay here. Do as your told. If you try to run, or hide, or cry for help . . .' He pretended to press the side button, then flung his hands apart and made a noise like an explosion.

Murray jumped.

'You're a dead man, Bill. Unless you do exactly as I say.'

He was as a prey to hyenas—surrounded on all sides, still standing but surely defeated, his demise just one pounce away. The heat of a spotlight burned into the side of his face, blinding him, making impossible his search for John. He filled his lungs again and cried out for his friend, only to be answered by a fist in his gut. He bent double with a groan. Then, as his knees collided with the hard ballroom tiles, his head was jerked upright by the hair and he saw, through squinting vision, that the partygoers had pulled something out of their little black bags and affixed something to their faces. Masks. Black masks, ornate but plastic, in the shape of a fanciful M.

Think, Holmes, think! But before he could discern the truth of what was happening or how to circumvent it and save himself, suddenly, the world went dark. A bag was thrown over his head. Vice-like hands squeezed his arms as they hauled him forward so roughly he was nearly unable to find his feet. They were marching him forward, and over the speaker, Moran continued to cheer on the crowd.

'Kindly welcome to the stage … tonight's entertainment!'

As applause surged anew, the toe of Sherlock's shoe hit something hard. 'Up, you prick,' a captor said, spitting in his ear. He stumbled up a flight of stairs and knew he was now on the stage, and only a few more paces on, he came to the steps leading up again, this time to the scaffold. There, his captors twisted him around to face the audience. His breath was loud in his ears, competing with the thrum of his overstressed heart.

His arms were pulled to the sides, and he was wrangled into what seemed to be a coat. It was thick, weighty, and hit him at about the knees, though the front remained open.

Moran's voice, once again through a microphone blasting in his ears: 'You will recall, ladies and gentlemen, the masterful James Moriarty and all he did—for you. You will recall how he fixed it—for all of us. How he removed . . . let's call them obstacles . . . from our path.'

Appreciative laughter rippled through the crowd. Sherlock felt something around his neck. Not a rope. It was lighter, thicker, softer. A scarf.

'That's right, pesky little obstacles on our way to wealth, and power, and success. And he did it all from the shadows, never showing his face, jealously guarding his name. Until'—Moran's voice, already booming throughout the room on speakers was suddenly doubled as it swiftly moved toward him—'this man tried to expose him.'

With that, the bag was ripped from Sherlock's head, and he was face to face with Sebastian Moran for the first time since their battle on the grounds outside the convent, when Moran held a gun to his head, and only the word of a devious, calculating woman had stopped him from pulling the trigger.

Moran spat in his face, and the partygoers roundly applauded, masking the sound of a distant bang.

'Get Sherlock!' Moran shouted into the microphone, whirling around to face his adoring fans. 'The call we are answering tonight! After four long years, the time is now! Behold the man! This is the twat who took the life of James Moriarty!'

The room swelled with boos and shouts of hatred. The men behind Sherlock yanked his arms behind him. He felt the cold metal around his wrists, heard the harsh click as the cuffs locked tight.

'This is the tosspot who faked his own death for three fucking years. This bloody sod is the reason that A.G.R.A. is in disarray today, why your livelihoods are under threat, why your power stands in question. So tonight! We show that bitch Adler woman who at last—finally, indisputably—gets Sherlock Holmes.'

It was then that the rope was thrown over his head and cinched around his neck. A well of terror arose in him, unlike he had ever known. He had faced death before, and not a few times. But in the white-hot panic of a gun being pressed to the back of his head or at this temple, or the mind-numbing flight-or-fight that took control when trapped in a burning building, or the freeze impulse that seized him when facing an explosive device, he had had neither the time nor the presence of mind to stare his own mortality in the face, as one would a mirror, and see the truth of himself in the presence of Death. Until now.

He was that little boy again, lonely and forgotten, crawling inside a casket yawning open just for him, to sleep. He was in the company of the bones that had fascinated his youthful mind, the remnants and evidence of life long passed, voices crying out from the dust to be heard just once more. He stood again on the precipice of a fall, atop a building white as a mausoleum, cold as a gravestone, and tipping precipitously earthward, where all things were buried.

His was the fate of King Arthur of old, a story he had once loved for its singular ability to stir in him a feeling of deep sadness he could not describe. Arthur, whose death had been foretold, who had loved so well and yet, alone and forsaken, would go down to his grave. A known destiny, the landing after a fall, the final domino.

A fatalistic superstition, a voice chided him.

It isn't superstition, he heard himself reply. It's reasoning.

If he hadn't come to Spain. If he hadn't left London. If he hadn't returned from the dead, if he hadn't fallen from a rooftop, if he hadn't engaged Moriarty, if he hadn't . . . if he hadn't . . .

He thought of Mycroft and hoped Anthea would save him. He thought of Mrs Hudson and hoped Molly and Lestrade would make her laugh again. Kind, lovely Molly—he hoped she would get all she had ever desired. A life with Lestrade, a family maybe, a happy home and satisfying career. And Lestrade, he hoped he would work to give her all of that, right there on Baker Street. Let the one place Sherlock had ever embraced as home not sit empty, not ever, not if Lestrade and Molly could make it their own, and with Mrs Hudson be a family, and be happy there.

And he thought of John, his dear John, the truest and wisest friend any man could hope for in life. His has been such a sad, lonesome life . . . until John. His eyes swam in search of him, but the harsh spotlight all but blinded him, and the swell of masked onlookers were a dark sea. John, John. He wanted to see him one last time, just one last time. A final mercy before he met his inevitable death, the sight of the friend he loved so well, who loved him.

He almost sobbed. How could this be their end? There was still so much to do, so much to say. They had only just begun, it seemed, and too soon it would all come to an irrecoverable end.

The events of our lives are not dominoes waiting to fall, the voice continued in reprimand.

For a time, he had almost believed Dr Thompson's words. He wanted to believe them. But he had known it from the beginning, down in his bones, bones that knew their own mortality. He knew it as surely as the wise man knew what happened when a rope snapped taut. Ewan Nichols had known it. Karim Omid Niazi, too. Moran had told him at the start what his fate would be—the cradle will fall—and shown it in the deaths of all those who had died because Sherlock Holmes lived. It was only fitting that he meet their same end. Only, he was still afraid.

You have ignored a key component.

Agency? Autonomy? Free will? Her assertion was a joke.

You are ignoring it even now.

His breast burned with anger. It was a lie, all a lie. There was nothing he could do to stop this, nothing he could ever have done. Fate. Fate. Fate.

One man's power to choose.

Lies! He was a man already dead because he was a man doomed from the start. He had never had a choice. Choice itself was a lie. Dr Thompson had tricked him into believing that he could choose for himself, and save himself, but he had ended up with a rope around his neck all the same.

It did not occur to him, even once, that his salvation lay in a choice he had already made, and, as a consequence, in the agency of another.

Upon entering the crowded ballroom, John Watson was instantly separated from Sherlock Holmes.

As Sherlock's escorts pressed him forward, deeper into the heart of the room, John's own guards held him back, until the sea of bodies filled the space between them, and suddenly, Sherlock was lost from his view.

He was on the cusp of calling out—and damn the consequences—when it happened: he felt a sharp pinch in the side of his neck, and in the same moment, a hand clamped across his mouth, trapping an expletive behind his teeth. His first instinct was to struggle. He tried to twist around, dislodge the needle, counter his attacker, but a circle of guards closed in, and then he was sinking toward the ground, his muscles lax and his vision swimming.

'¡Damas y caballeros!'

The back of John's head hit the floor.

'Ladies and gentlemen, welcome!'

The press of bodies above him blocked out the light as the voice on the PA system continued: 'We are gathered today in memoriam . . .'

Move, damn you, move! He could still feel his arms and legs, but they weren't responding to his commands, as if the electrical connection between brain and muscle had gone out. A thrill of panic surged through him instead. Sodium thiopental, he presumed, the same stuff they had used on Davenport and Anthea, Ella and Naomi. Only seconds, he knew, and he would lose consciousness altogether.

But seconds passed, and he was still alert. A different dosage? A different barbiturate? Think, Watson, think! Neuromuscular paralysing agent, inducing a state of conscious sedation, one to two millilitres in that syringe . . .

'. . . to solve . . . the final problem.'

Amidst the ensuing applause, he heard Sherlock's cry of anguish.

'John!'

John swelled his chest with air, his lips forming the first sound of Sherlock's name, when he was cracked across the side of his skull with a pistol.

His dark world burst with stars. His head split with pain. Dimly, through a fog of medicine, fear, and confusion, he was dimly aware of being dragged across the floor by the black tie he had been made to wear, even as a sheet of his own blood coursed down the side of his face. He gagged, gasped for air, but could not struggle enough to free himself. He saw men's shoes and women's heels as his face slid past their feet. Sherlock, he thought, but was unable to speak. Sherlock.

In the prison of his mind, fluorescent lights flickered overhead.

They left him lying on the floor, panting for air, and thirsty, he was so thirsty. The orange tiles beneath his bare skin were so cold.

No, no, stay awake, stay awake! He blinked rapidly, and the ballroom slowly swam back into focus.

'Kindly welcome to the stage … tonight's entertainment!'

That voice! He felt his heart tremble. God, he knew that voice, that terrible voice, a voice he had not heard in person, in such close proximity, booming through loudspeakers, since that hellish October, so many months now passed. He raised his eyes and saw, on a giant screen hanging on the wall, the face of Sebastian Moran, smiling that sinister smile, and staring straight into the camera. It was as if he were looking straight at John, boring into him with those horrible black eyes.

Something inside him tried to scream, but the body refused—drugged, his vocal cords had gone lax.

They hauled him upright again, dragged him, lifted him, practically threw him, and suddenly he found himself on a large, black box, a platform. His body was limp as a dead fish. Through the blur of pain and drug, his attention was attracted to the stage, where he saw Sherlock, standing on the scaffolding with a black bag over his head. But there was no mistaking the black coat, that dark-blue scarf. They had dressed him as a parody of himself, and above his head swung the noose.

John's heart was pounding so loudly in his ears he could no longer hear the words of his tormentor booming throughout the room. He was numb to the applause, the cheers, and the laughter as Moran, stepping close to his dear Sherlock, ripped the black bag off his head, and the giant screen broadcasted the moment Moran spit in his face.

John's blood was hot. He wanted to wrench himself free of the hook and wires, spring upon that stage, and strangle Moran to death with his own two hands. Or, at the very least, stand in Sherlock's stead and tell him to run. If Death had to choose between them, then let it be John. He was okay with it, now. He was ready. But he could not bear to watch Sherlock die twice. He could not abide standing as helpless witness to another loved one killed in front of him. So let it be him. Let it be him.

'So tonight!' Moran cried in vengeful glee. 'We show that bitch Adler woman who at last—finally, indisputably—gets Sherlock Holmes.'

The rope fell round Sherlock's neck.

Tears sprang to John's eyes. Look at me, Sherlock, he thought desperately. His blood dribbled down his neck and chin and stained his shirt and the platform beneath him. But all he could think was this: Look at me, Sherlock. One last time. Keep your eyes fixed on me.

But in the dark of the ballroom, Sherlock could not see him.

'James Moriarty said he owed you a fall. I, Sebastian Moran, am going to make good on that promise. Hell. I even brought with me his promissory note!' He stepped to the edge of the stage and made a show of shielding his eyes from the glare of the light while searching the crowd until—there!—he thrust out a finger toward the platform on which John lay. 'Aha!' he cried. 'Ladies and gentlemen, behold! My I! O! U!'

Moran bent down and placed a hand on the edge of the stage, then bounded over the platform. With athletic ease, he launched himself atop it and came to stand over John, grinning down at him.

The spotlight had shifted. Now it was shone brightly on the platform, and John caught only a glimpse of the jumbo screen with his own terrified face filling it from top to bottom before Moran's body obscured his vision.

He signalled to two of his men, who joined him on the platform.

'Let us show Mr Holmes my intention to pay in full. Boys.'

While the audience chittered in anticipation, John felt himself seized upon once more. They lifted him bodily from the floor the platform and balanced him on his knees—one man gripping him by the hair—while they tugged at the necktie, yanked off his jacket, and tore at his shirt. As the air rushed against his exposed skin, John thought he saw the Slash Man standing in the centre of the room, a head taller than then tallest man. But he blinked, and Daz was gone.

The men didn't stop at uncovering John to the waist and laying bare his scars. Upon Moran's orders, they removed his shoes, then his socks, tossing them into the hungry crowd like Moran was a performer at a concert, feeding his audience with prized keepsakes. And finally, he produced from a pocket a spool of . . . thread? No. John saw the light gleam off its surface just as he began to unspool a long stretch of silver wire.

He screamed soundlessly in his own throat, but he did not have the strength even to ball his hands as the men held his inside wrists together and lash them together with the wire. Then, last of all, they dragged him to the pole protruding from the far corner of the platform, near the top of which curved a hook. They stretched his arms toward the hook, let it catch on the wire, and left him there to hang.

The crowd clapped enthusiastically.

Moran stood in front of him and lifted his head by the chin, squeezing his cheeks on either side. Softly, but with relish, he said, 'Johnny boy. Did you miss me?' Then Moran pressed his mouth to John's in a violent, nausea-inducing kiss, rife with plunging tongue and contorting lips. The room exploded with cheers, laughter, and a swell of applause, and John—imprisoned by wire, hook, and drug—was powerless to withstand the assault.

Then he dropped John's jaw, and his chin fell to his bare chest. Stepping back, Moran addressed the crowd again. 'A gift to myself,' he said, pointing to John, 'for a job well done.' The mob laughed appreciatively. 'But first, let me earn my prize.'

From inside the pocket of his suitcoat, Moran extract what might have been mistaken for a pen to the unknowing observer, but John, struggling to lift his head and keep it high, knew what it really was, even before Moran presented it to his adoring fans like a magician about to perform a magic trick. And there it was, projected on the jumbo screen: the silver scalpel.

'Do you see, Mr Holmes?' Moran shouted back to the stage. The hook on the pole swivelled, and John was twisted around, exposing his back to full view of the audience, the cameras, and Sherlock. 'The IOUs I wrote you, my promise to pay you back for what you did to James Moriarty, and to make good on Moriarty's promise to you. Let's get a good look at them, yes?' He waved the camera on, encouraging the zoom. 'Let's make sure Irene can see them, too. Here, this one, right here! I believe this was my first.'

Using the scalpel as a pointer, he indicated the scar in the centre of John's back. John felt it's cold tip on his sensitive skin. He felt his throat thicken, forestalling a sob.

'I owe you a fall, Sherlock Holmes!' he bellowed, and his voice was so loud in the speakers John's ears hurt. 'I!'

A sudden searing pain fired in John's back as the scalpel made a sudden downward slash. He howled in pain, his cry mixing with that of another's.

'O!'

A more deliberate cut this time curving to the right first, then the left. The mob hooted and hollered and stamped their feet at the sight of his blood on the screen.

'U!'

Maybe it was terror more than pain, or maybe the drug was at last encroaching on his mind—John felt near to faint.

The cutting was done, and Moran twisted John's body back around. He could see his own tormented face filling the jumbo screen, and Sherlock on the stage, weeping openly.

'Now watch closely, Irene.' Moran pointed a finger across the room at the central camera, and the giant screen zoomed in on his face, John's blurred form just over his shoulder. 'This is how I win the game.' Then he leaped to the edge of the platform, faced the stage, threw an arm in Sherlock's direction, and in a voice of booming command said, 'Let that man swing!'

John howled in anguish, but his cry was not heard.

Not his.

It was the voice of another.

'MORAN!'

A confused murmur swept through the room before dissolving into silence like salt in agitated water, and Sebastian Moran twirled back around to face the bewildered partygoers, their masked faces twisting on their necks in search of the source of the cry.

It came again.

'Colonel Moran, you let them go!'

For what felt like an eternity of unbearable seconds, Moran's eyes searched the dark room, until his head lifted toward the balcony whence the demand had come.

'House lights, now,' Moran ordered, and a moment later the room was fully illuminated, and so was Bill Murray. He stood on the balcony, one hand holding a gun, the other gripping the collar of the man Magnussen, now on his knees and one trigger pull from death.

The onlookers gasped, and Murray felt his face—already perspiring—go red, but his grip on his hostage only tightened. He glanced down from the balcony, only briefly (he was afraid to drop his sight from Moran for long), and saw, first, how John was looking at him with naked horror, and how Sherlock was looking at John. Then he saw the masked faces, like a forest of black bats, gazing up at him in anger. He had seen those masks already, had in fact helped stuff them into one hundred and sixty-five little black bags. Plastic, flimsy, shaped like an M, they had seemed to him absurd then, and grotesque now. He despised the fools who wore them. That did not make him any less a fool himself.

Moran stared aghast, but his confusion displaced rage for only a moment. 'Murray, you sod, what the fuck?'

Murray felt like he had stepped outside his own body and was watching himself from below, and above, and behind. He was spinning, and yet, paradoxically, he was perfectly still. He was the calm and the storm, existing simultaneously in a world of chaos and order.

It was the calm that had taken him where he had been held prisoner beneath the stage. He could hear the noises above him and knew exactly what was happening, moment by moment, and could fit it with the plan Moran had outlined for them the day before. It was like being in a war but being powerless to do anything about it—neither flee nor fight.

Until an eerie, unaccountable calm descended upon him, and in the same moment he was filled with a storm. In an instant of wild resolve, he had attacked Samuel Payne, his guard, stolen his gun, and shot him while above them both, applause swelled.

It was the calm that had not even tried to remove the Semtex vest (lest he set the damn thing off), and the storm that had sped him up a set of stairs, through an unmarked door, and up to the sole balcony of the ballroom.

It was the calm that had said not a word to the balcony's lone occupant, and the storm that had forced Magnussen to his knees at gunpoint.

Now, the calm and the storm existed in one—a pounding heart, a steady mind.

'You let them go,' he repeated across the hushed room; his voice carried easily, 'and I won't kill the man who runs Appledore.'

Moran didn't move. Murray didn't dare look away, but from his peripheral vision, he marked Sherlock Holmes in a noose on the scaffolding and John Watson hanging from a hook on the platform, and the sea of onlookers waiting with bated breath for what would happen next.

'Someone turn that damn camera off,' said Moran behind gritted teeth. But the seconds passed, and his face was still a giant on the screen. He stepped closer to the edge of the stage.

'Did you hear me?' Murray's voice croaked a little on the final syllable. He cleared his throat and said louder, more steadily, 'Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, you let them go now, or Charles Magnussen dies.'

Magnussen let out a great sigh, as though exasperated.

'You're fucking joking,' said Moran. 'Bill, I swear to God, I don't know what you think you're doing right now, but if you don't drop that gun right now and walk away, I'll put a bullet through your eyes. You know I will.' When Murray didn't instantly comply, Moran's composure broke. 'Right fucking now!'

'Untie them,' Murray repeated.

'Not a chance in hell.'

No one moved. No one blinked. A bead of sweat slipped down Murray's neck and into the collar of his shirt.

Moran laughed shortly. 'So what are you telling me? That you've been a Sherlock Holmes fanboy all this time? An inside man?' He laughed again. 'Does he know you helped us abduct his little friend here? And then told us how to keep him just barely alive? Hm? Does he know you watched while Daz fucked his beloved John, and you did nothing?'

'We'll all answer to God for that, and more,' Murray said, and though he spoke at reduced volume, the sound of his voice carried anyway—the ballroom's acoustics were well designed.

'There is no god but me,' said Moran dangerously. 'Not for you. So think about it, Bill. I let them go—for now—and what do think will happen next? To you?'

'It doesn't matter what happens to me. You strapped me to a bomb. I know exactly what you mean to do to me, in the end.'

Magnussen sucked air sharply through his nostrils, finally comprehending his true peril.

'And what do you think happens to them?' Moran continued, an overtone of laughter in his voice. 'Think it through, moron. When you're a dead man, I'll just catch them in another spider web.'

The black masks laughed appreciatively, and a smile of victory began to slowly stretch Moran's ugly mouth on the jumbo screen.

'Best think what happens to you, colonel,' Murray retorted. 'I'll shoot Magnussen dead, I swear to God I will. Then what happens to your precious kingdom?'

For the first time, Moran hesitated, and Bill knew he had struck true. Charles Magnussen was the key to A.G.R.A. Moran knew it, had practically boasted of it, and so he knew, too, that without Magnussen, there was no kingdom to speak of.

The hesitation made Magnussen panic. 'Oh, for God's sake, just do it, Seb.'

'He's bluffing,' said Moran. 'The man's a coward, not a killer.'

Murray shook his head. 'Tell that to Samuel Payne. I think you'll find him hard to convince.'

The expression on Moran's face hardened—on the large screen, everyone in the room could see it.

Murray repositioned the gun, pressing it right into the crown of Magnussen's head. 'I'll count to three if you make me.'

'Sebastian,' Magnussen spat, temperature rising.

Moran snarled. Without taking his eyes off the balcony, he returned to where John hung by his wire-lashed wrists. He made little fanfare but seized John's forearms and pulled him upright until the wire was free from the hook. Then, like a sack of flour, Moran dropped John back to the platform where he collapsed to his side. Weakly, though, John lifted his head to lock eyes with Murray, regret etched into every line of his face. Murray shook his head. He couldn't stand the look of pity.

'Now Holmes,' he said.

Moran's eyes smouldered with rage. Murray could practically feel the heat, like hell fire, reach him in the balcony.

But even as Moran took one step toward the edge of the platform, Murray knew it was futile. All of it. Moran was right. He was like a man standing on a snowy mountain, and above him an avalanche had begun. He could lie to himself that he could outrun it. He could scream warnings to his friends. But the truth was, he wasn't getting out of this. None of them were. Moran could cut their binds and even open the front door and watch them leave, but they would be hunted within the hour, and killed, and Murray with them. There was no doubt. He really was a fool. No matter what he wanted or how hard he tried or to whom he prayed, his fate was sealed with theirs, and it would all end in death.

The only choice, then . . . he saw this clearly now, too. The only choice was to end A.G.R.A., that many-headed beast that destroyed anyone unlucky enough to be caught in its deathly web.

He pulled the gun away from Magnussen's head, and pointed it, instead, at himself.

At the Semtex vest.

Below, Moran froze.

'Don't.'

He locked eyes with his erstwhile friend. John looked back, eyes wide with horror, and shook his head. But his choice had been made. One last time, he thought of Fran, of his children, and of his God, whose judgement awaited him. He was ready.

'For John Watson,' he said.

He squeezed the trigger.

All was light.