Hours earlier, a nondescript gray car, after circling the entrance to Bodmin park, pulled away and headed toward the city.
Jigen drove while Goemon sat at the passenger side. It was the first time in a while that their loudest, most rambunctious partner had been absent.
"He can let us know if he is in danger, can't he?" Goemon asked, after nearly a half hour of silence between them.
Jigen used his left hand to tap a somewhat outdated looking GPS system on the dashboard. "The signal is here," Jigen said. "This will show us if he's in danger, or once he's out of there."
"Got it," Goemon replied. The two of them took a few moments to view London's landscape. There was plenty of time to look, as traffic started to clog the roads. Aside from casing the scenes of their various heists, they hadn't seen much of the city. A companionable silence fell between Jigen and Goemon as Jigen pumped the brakes and they continued a slow drive through London.
The city's landscape continued to change as Jigen went down some less traveled roads. Without turning his head from the window, Goemon spoke. "Jigen, can you do me a favor?"
Jigen's eyebrows rose, though not visible underneath his hat. "Sure, what is it?"
"May we stop at the doctor's office to the left?"
Jigen turned his head to glimpse the brick building with the name "Dr. Hatson" in the window.
"A doctor's office," Jigen remarked. "You doing OK, Goemon?"
"I'm fine," Goemon responded. "It's" – Goemon looked at his recently healed fingers and felt his face redden. "It's good karma I wish to return."
Jigen was curious. He wouldn't have guessed that Goemon would know anyone from these parts. Jigen also knew that if Goemon wanted to elaborate, he would have. And he respected Goemon's sense of privacy and duty enough not to ask further.
"Well, parking is out of the question," Jigen said, gesturing to the traffic, "maybe I can drop you off here?"
"That would be fine."
There was a pause in traffic long enough for Goemon to get out of the vehicle and walk across the street to the building. Jigen watched Goemon enter the building, then started looking for a place to turn around. Goemon was a man of few words. Whatever he needed to do likely wouldn't take long.
Jigen put out a cigarette in the vehicle ashtray, glad to find that one modern car had that feature, and made a few turns. Jigen's eyes met the brick building again when the glass in the windows shattered. Jigen's ears barely registered the deafening sound of the explosion before his hands switched on the emergency brakes and he ran out of the vehicle, dodging the now stopped traffic to get inside the building.
In the record time he could rely on in an emergency, he pulled out his gun, straining his eyes through the smoke to seek out any perpetrators. He felt one or two people push past him, but as he turned realized they were nurses and patients scrambling to evacuate the building.
Jigen kept his weapon ready, looking at all sides until his eye caught deliberate movement at the badly damaged receptionist desk. Jigen stood, aghast, as the figure came into view, and moved their hand to form the smoke into a capital "T."
It was bullshit. Jigen could have easily inhaled too much smoke and started hallucinating, but he realized he had seen much stranger things before. But that wasn't important. The figure made another movement forward, and Jigen fired two bullets, a thud on the ground telling him his bullet had reached its mark.
Noise further in the building caused Jigen to move forward, hoping he could find Goemon and get out of here sooner rather than later. Dodging crumbling walls and billowing smoke, Jigen spotted Goemon in a room. Goemon, to Jigen's relief, looked fine. The bearded man Goemon had flung over his shoulder looked much further from fine. He was half-conscious, blearily staring at Jigen. Both looked at each other in recognition.
"The other moron?" Jigen said softly. He looked up at Goemon. "You realize this is the other guy who tried to break into our hideout, right?"
"What?" Goemon said, looking genuinely thrown off. He closed his eyes. "I didn't get a good look at them."
As sirens began to blare outside the building, Jigen shook his head. "We should get out of here." Jigen, Goemon, and a half-conscious Dr. Hatson limped out of the building. They carefully placed Dr. Hatson in view of paramedics before vanishing, long gone before the London Police Department, and a terrified Herlock Sholmes, were at the scene.