"Oh, okay they are connected since everyone on this list are people who worked with the nurse in some way in the past, and...some of them are people adopted through a different company then I was adopted through"

"Wait, this other company might be the missing link that the police back there needs to figure out the cousin aspect of the potential code"

"You're right, we'll send them the information right away and then go to the locations of the new pieces of evidence in the hopes that actually going there will allow us to solve those cases"

"And once the Scotland Yard half of the case is resolved you'll be able to go back to the other location and finish that case as well"

"Well, at least resolved for the most part, because if it truly is related to the other case neither case will truly be solved until both halves are solved"

"Very well then let's get to work on resolving the case as much as possible and hopefully the other half of the case will be resolved with us dealing with the London half"

"Probably not, but it might make it easier"

"True and I'll accept that all things considered"

Sherlock then speaks up

"I've read those files from the days before we reunited at least a hundred times, how did I not see those connections sooner?"

"Two reasons Sherlock, one of them being that the case developed so fast we didn't exactly write down everything like we were supposed to, even after the case was solved, and the second reason is your Switzerland job, you've been over there so much lately that it's not surprising that you're having trouble connecting dots to cases strictly related to Britain right now"

"If you didn't write it down, how do you remember that information then?"

"Simple Watson, see those shorthand notes that are in the files? We knew we would never remember everything after a long time if we were ever asked to look at those files again for some reason, and we were intending on writing all of it down, we just...never got to it. But because of our intentions and the fact that we knew of this possibility we wrote certain information down in coded shorthand that would trigger our memories if needed"

"I see and that shorthand has allowed you to have the ability to resolve the case again hopefully"

"Exactly"

It would take another three weeks but eventually the group figured out that the current case was because of the partner of the original perpetrator, and thus once the partner was captured and confirmed to be the partner the case was solved, at least to a degree

"Now then you'll be granted leniency if you tell us everything about your partners, including names, how they contacted you, everything"

"And if I don't cooperate what will happen to me?"

"You'll be tried to the fullest extent of the law and after you're in prison, even if you help us while we'll check on what you give us we won't be as quick to offer any privileges that others might get for helping while in jail, if only because of what you're being accused of, and don't think a reduced sentence will happen without very, very convincing help while behind bars"

"Do I have time to think about it?"

"Yes, not a lot of time, but you do have time, once the transporters come then you lose your chance"

"Understood"

"We'll leave you be for now"

As it turned out though the person wouldn't need the full time before making his decision instead only thirty minutes later he agrees to tell the police everything he knew in exchange for even a small amount of leniency

"You're doing the right thing you know, and don't worry we'll make sure that you're protected from the rest of the gang"

And so the group goes over the list of names and locations and everything and suddenly Lestrade speaks up

"Bradstreet, Donavan, look, the nurse that was involved in your abduction is listed"

The two look at the list and confirm that it was indeed the same nurse

"We should send this to the others immediately in case this helps over there, especially the doctor that will resign after everything is said and done"

"Do you really want him to resign Donavan?"

"I don't have much of a choice, it's his decision and while I've talked to him about it he refuses any other course of action"

"Very well, we won't fight the doctor on his decision then, though I do wish he would reconsider, in the meantime I guess this means you're going back to the other case to resolve it once and for all"

"Indeed it does"

"Then good luck and tell us when the case is well and truly over, we'll celebrate afterwords"

And with that the group heads back to where Bradstreet and Donavan had been born and gave the new information to the police there

"This information concurs with what we found out about the nurse and that conversation, the nurse never had any living family at the time of said conversation as you might recall we found out when you left for this other case. Well we've been working with that information ever since and have discovered that there were several people who adopted from an agency that was shut down for records reasons recently who remember strange conversations being overheard and none of the people involved had living relatives either, in fact as far as we can tell no one at the agency had any living relatives"

"Which means that this adoption agency which you're investigating is part of a larger network and probably connected to the one we investigated years ago and then did another investigation more recently"

"Exactly"

"Soon then, soon we will have our answers and finally close this case, if for no other reason then to give the doctor who got caught up in all of this closure before he resigns"

"About that Donavan, he's not going to resign after the case is over, he's already done so"

"But..."

"He had no choice Donavan, while you were away he suffered a devastating stroke and while he's capable of making competent decisions about his health he needs help doing every day tasks and might need that help for years to come and thus he decided to resign rather than to leave his position open or have the hospital administration decide not to wait for his health to improve and choose a successor themselves"

"Oh, I see, I will still get closure for him because he deserves that much at least, even if he's no longer working in the medical field"

"Exactly"

And so the group continues to try and figure out the network that the nurse had used to abduct Donavan and how it was all interconnected with the group in London

"This isn't going as we planned"

"True, I think this might actually be an international group"

"Sherlock..."

"I'll head to Switzerland and ask if they have any similar cases then"

"Can't you just use the Switzerland embassy here in Britain?"

"Unfortunately not at the moment due to the fact that the embassy has been shut down"

"What?!, why? I'm also wondering for how long"

"Remember that report about a water pipe burst along with a gas leak causing fire to break out"

"Oh, the building has either been condemned or is at least in need of repair and can't be open until the repairs are completed"

"Precisely, there's a temporary base of operations set up but it can only fit so many people and nothing that requires extremely classified work can be done there, just the basic services"

"Then I guess you're arranging a flight to Switzerland and we're simply going to have to wait until you get back before we can continue this case any further"

"Indeed"

And so Sherlock arranges a flight to Switzerland and naturally calls ahead letting them know that he was coming, though he didn't state his reasons and the next day left on his flight and called John to let him know that he could tell the rest of the Yard that Sherlock was safe in Switzerland since it was a straight flight

"Good to hear, hopefully now that he's in Switzerland he can call and fax us information about any potential international cases, by the way how good is it that you no longer are part of that group Donavan?"

"Very, I was actually beginning to wonder if I would have to do something drastic to increase my climbing rate because being undercover for so long is exhausting"

"I'm sure it is"

"Plus to be honest I was getting worried that I would be asked to do something I couldn't do in the course of my investigation, forcing me to break cover and hope for the best"

"That's a risk all police officers run though"

"Yes, but not one I was going to be happy about, especially in a different country then my own"

"In any case that didn't happen, now all that's left is for Sherlock to tell us if this case is indeed international like he suspects"

As it turned out the case was indeed an international case

"Now what?"

"I honestly don't know"

"We'll figure it out, but now that we know that the case is international it makes a little more sense why it took so long for the nurse to be discovered, they were either a low level person or they were high up enough to be trusted not to say anything until now for whatever reason"

"Yeah, so how are we going to resolve this issue?"

"I have no idea, with this being bigger then we thought I think...I think we need to go higher up in authority"

"You mean the King?"

"No, there's a group of police officers that have authority all over the world, Lestrade and those at the Yard have heard of it, and have on occasion worked alongside them"

"Interpol, you're right with this being an international case we really do need to bring them into the fold explaining the full story so that they understand why we've called them in"

"I'll make the call then since for whatever reason Interpol doesn't recognize consultant detectives, despite you being a government agent for Switzerland Holmes"

"That's true enough"

And so Lestrade calls the nearest Interpol office and gives the bare basics which has them sending officers to Scotland Yard for the full story, and when it was given they agreed to help

"Now then you know that they've operated in Switzerland but you're unsure if they've operated any where's else correct?"

"Yes and that's where we need your help, you can help coordinate the search for the group in other countries and help figure out if any of them can be extradited here or if other cases need to be delt with before extradition can happen"

"And in the meantime you'll continue to look for them here locally and put pressure on any people you arrest to help give us leads"

"Exactly"

"Very well then, let's do it, where can we set up?"

And so Bradstreet leads the Interpol officers to where they could set up their base to help coordinate everything

"Thanks, now then you guys do understand that it might take time to truly take that gang down right?"

"We know and fully understand, it's just...this is needed for me and my twin brother, we need the closure of knowing that the particular group that abducted Donavan is no longer working"

"We understand and you'll get that closure I promise"

"Let's hope it's soon because there's a doctor that also deserves closure"

"We know, many doctors deserve the closure you're talking about"

"Yes, that's probably the case, we'll keep giving you information as we gather it and hopefully you can give us any tips in return and naturally coordinate any tips given in multiple countries now that we know for sure this is an international gang"

"Yes, that's what we'll do to keep things straight"

"In any case do you guys have a place to sleep?"

"Yes everything has already been arranged, including having Holmes help with the coordination due to being a government agent for Switzerland as well as England"

"Understood"

"Oh, and we'll take over with coordinating with Scotland Yard and the local police since handling international coordination is hard enough, we've seen Holmes struggle with it since his return and can't do much to ease his burden"

"Understood, let's just hope that we get closure soon because it's beginning to look like we should have been involved a lot sooner then now if Holmes found evidence of this group operating in Switzerland"

"I think part of the problem was that no one was aware of just how big it actually was until now"

"Perhaps"

"Listen the nurse connection was only recently discovered and we didn't even know about the group as a whole, just that the nurse had been falsifying death certificates with the help of an unaware doctor"

"Why now though and not sooner?"

"That's...that's for later, for now though we have a lot of work ahead of us"

"Indeed"

"Though how we're going to find all of them is currently beyond us, but hopefully we can figure that part out on our own soon enough"

"Maybe the nurse will give us more information to not only lighten their sentence more but have more visitation rights"

"Perhaps, but don't truly count on that to work"

"We know, we have other means besides the nurse to hopefully get us the leads we need to take down this ring of kidnappers, means that not even Interpol might think of due to the means being so rare that it's not generally heard of by you guys no matter where you're working"

"But why wouldn't the countries we work in tell us about those methods? I mean if they're not illegal we should be told about them right?"

"It's not the legality that's the problem, it's the fact that the methods aren't really used by us that makes it so that we don't mention it to Interpol because we never think it might be needed since you're helping us"

"Oh, that actually makes sense then"

As it turned out Scotland Yard would indeed have to use the rarely used methods of unregistered informants and undercover work that normally wasn't done on a regular basis. When Interpol realized the method being used they didn't say anything knowing that they would have done the same. Plus some of their unregistered informants weren't registered because of the country they lived in, where it was too dangerous to be known as someone willing to talk with police

"I can see now why you didn't tell us the methods earlier, some of it was safety reasons"

"Yeah, as it is they can't leave their country and talking over the phone isn't done very often, or very long, which means we're going to have to figure out how to contact them in person"

"How did these contacts happen in the first place then?"

"Conferences in those countries for the most part, though for one of us it was actually due to being on holiday in the country at the time"

"Who was it by the way? I mean the one who gained the contacts during holiday"

"Gregson, he was the one who gained the contacts while on holiday, after his death though it took time his contacts agreed to meet with Lestrade if needed, or someone Lestrade trusted if Lestrade couldn't come himself, and that includes police contacts within the country the informant lives in"

"In any case if we can take down this ring then perhaps we can finally send a message that child abductions are not permitted and cases will be followed even if the group operates internationally"

"Which I'm surprised hasn't worked out before now"

"That's something that confuses us as well, but not something we can really dedicate our time to in figuring out"

"Same here actually, I guess that's something that will probably remain a permanent mystery"

"Perhaps"

"In any case would you be able to get those contacts to trust an Interpol agent so that they can stay in their home country and yet not be suspected as being in contact with the police?"

"Yeah, we can do that, it'll take a little coordination and specifically meeting in a place that they're comfortable with, plus your people are going to have to confirm it's really them from us via a code word or phrase depending on the contact but it's doable"

"Done if it makes them comfortable"

"We'll let them know and then let you know where and when the meetings will take place"

"Understood"

"Oh and the doctor who was going to resign after all of this but was forced to leave for health reasons wants to speak with you guys soon"

"What about?"

"I don't know really, all he said was that he needed to talk to you"

"Then I'll go talk to him and see what's going on"

As it turned out the reason the doctor needed to talk to the Interpol agent was because of the fact that the doctor had some contacts that the police didn't because of conferences and knew that the international agency would want to use those contacts as well if at all possible

"What I'm wondering is why the doctor didn't give us those contacts"

"He might not have thought about them until now, or there's something about those contacts that he knows that means he had to wait until Interpol got involved, who knows"

"Maybe Interpol will tell us"

As it turned out Interpol did tell them why the doctor hadn't given Scotland Yard his contacts made from conferences, it was because of the fact that they could only talk to someone who represented multiple countries for certain issues to make things a little more streamlined and this kind of situation was one such issue

"I see, that makes sense in a way"

"Yes, it does"

"Hopefully this additional resource will mean we can take down this particular ring sooner rather then later, or even a different ring if that turns out to be the case"

"Agreed, that would be nice, taking down more than one kidnap and adoption ring would definitely help and hopefully finally send a message to every criminal who does this or is thinking about doing it that it won't be tolerated"

"Perhaps, but it might not, in either case those the extra leads will at least give us something to work with for the moment in taking down what rings we can and saving what people we can as well"

"Yeah there is that at least"

As it turned out having doctors as part of the investigation would actually help take down the trafficking ring down all that much sooner since the doctors knew what to look for and could inform certain law enforcement agencies about the abduction on the lo down so as to not bring suspicions upon them for safety reasons. And those hints would lead to rescues which would ultimately lead to the ring that had taken Donavan all those years ago, though the fight was brutal when it came to taking down that ring

"It's finally over"

"Yes, it took longer than expected, and not without loss, but we finally have closure for you and Bradstreet"

"Yeah, I just wish..."

"Same here Donavan, same here, but they went out fighting and protecting the innocent which is the best death a police officer can ask for"

"But Dr. Watson..."

"Was ex-army, he knew the risks as well as anyone"

"I see...what now?"

"Now...now we bury our dead and continue the work that they started regarding not only this group, but others like it, and that's on top of our normal police duties, it won't always be easy but it is necessary"

"Then let's go"

And so the two leave the battlefield to begin the hard process of burying their comrades, things weren't easy after the raid that cost the Yard many officers and Sherlock his friend and autobiographer but over time they all healed. Eventually the survivors of those reincarnated retired from the force as did Donavan who went home to his adoptive parents, but regularly visited his birth parents who finally accepted the truth about him being their long lost son. As for Sherlock he eventually retired to the country and took up beekeeping, not even being a part time consultant for the local police and enjoying life as best as possible without Watson at his side. Sherlock would also be the first to die while Lestrade was the last with Donavan being the person to attend his funeral before dying himself only a few short years later. After that happened the higher ups who had known the full truth about Lestrade's team, the Holmes brothers and Watson sealed their file with the permission of the King and made sure they would never see the light of day if they could help it since their story was unbelievable from the start, though while they became legends in their own right what they created survived them and would help many in child trafficking cases even if they never truly stopped them completely