Fic: 01:00:00
Title: 01:00:00
Author: gloria_scott
Fandom(s): Sherlock (BBC)
Characters: Lestrade, Sherlock, Mycroft
Genre: Gen
Rating: R
Word Count: ~4280
Warnings: Violence - not too graphic
Summary: Lestrade wakes up handcuffed in the boot of a car, which would be bad enough if he didn’t also have to worry about the bomb sitting next to his head.
Notes: (1) Originally written for bwblack for the holmestice exchange.
(2) Much thanks to catchoo152 for the beta!
(3) A helpful commenter on the original post to this pointed out a discrepancy that I can't really fix without re-writing pretty much the entire thing, so...for anyone actually familiar with the Battersea area, let's just say this is an AU in which the railway lines are not on a raised viaduct.
****
It was cold, wet, and dark when Lestrade came to, lying on the damp ground with his arms bound behind him. There was a slight drizzle of rain, and the wind kicked up and made him shiver. He could see nothing, though his eyes were open, and it took him a few seconds to realize he had a hood over his head. His nose was filled with the copper smell of blood, mixed with the salty, briny scent of the Thames and dirty burlap. He put up a brief fight against the restraints, hearing the dull clink of metal on metal.
My bloody handcuffs, he thought, ruefully.
The pain in his head made him nauseous and weak and he soon gave up his struggle. He lay still again, trying to piece together what had happened. Last he could recall, he’d been parked around back of a block of flats in Vauxhall, just off Clapham Road. Sherlock had texted him and asked him to meet there at five; said he had a tip that a couple of the higher-ups in a counterfeiting and drug-running gang they’d been looking for would be there. Someone other than Sherlock must have been waiting for him, though - he’d barely made it half a dozen steps from his car when something struck him on the side of the head, and he went down hard.
And now here he was, trussed up and bleeding with no idea who his captors were or what they wanted.
Before long, he heard a car drive up and stop not far from him, then footsteps on gravel. A voice he didn’t recognize spoke quickly and low.
“Do you have the package?”
“Yeah, it’s right here,” a second voice answered.
“A bit small, don’t you think?”
“Enough to do the job. Boss says no need for overkill on this one.”
“Well, hurry up and get it in there.”
He heard the sound of a car boot opening, and then a few moments later, footsteps drawing closer.
“Right, Detective Inspector, your turn now,” said the first voice.
Two sets of hands grabbed him and hauled him to his feet. He wasn’t in any kind of shape to put up much of a fight as they half carried, half dragged him to the car and then lifted him in. The boot lid clicked shut, and he heard the muted sound of footsteps before a car door opened and closed. The engine started and the car began to move, with the crunch of gravel beneath the tires quickly giving way to a paved road.
Lestrade took a few deep breaths and tried to clear his head, which would have been easier without the damn hood. When he’d steadied himself a bit, he realized his first order of business was to get the handcuffs off. He bent his knees, trying to draw his ankles up closer to his hands, but a sharp cramp in his thigh made him howl and back off. He cursed and shook his leg out as much as he could within the limited space, then tried again. This time he hooked his fingers under the leg of his trousers and pulled until he could reach his right shoe. Slipping his fingers into the side of the shoe, he searched for the tiny piece of metal tucked away there - the spare key. It was a little trick he had picked up from Sherlock during the early days of their acquaintance, after the third time the man had inexplicably escaped his handcuffs while in custody. He pressed the key between his first two fingers and carefully drew it out. Working it around, he tried to find the key hole on the right cuff, but his hands were shaking and his fingers were slippery with sweat, and he lost his grip on the key.
“Fuck!” he muttered. He rolled onto his back slightly, searching the carpet behind him with his fingertips. When the key was safely in his possession once again, he took a deep breath and tried to will his hands to steady.
“Come on, Greg, you stupid git. Just calm down and do this already,” he said aloud to himself.
He startled and almost dropped the key again when he felt an insistent buzzing coming from his front trouser pocket. So they hadn’t taken his mobile - that was something. Heartened by this stroke of luck, he quickly managed to loose first one cuff, then the other. Once free, he pulled the hood from his head and took a few deep breaths of fresh air. He could feel the dried blood caked to the side of his head and face from where he had been struck.
Well, he thought, rubbing his face on the carpet and shaking his head vigorously, if I don’t make it out of this, I’ll at least leave some evidence for the forensics team.
As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he gradually became aware of a dim light, green hued and flickering, coming from somewhere behind his head. He rolled over to investigate, and there it was - the package - a digital timer neatly done up with a couple of blocks of Semtex. The numbers 00:56:57 burned into his retinas. Less than an hour.
Shit.
He fished the mobile out of his pocket and hesitated, momentarily confused by an unfamiliar screen and buttons.
Not my mobile, he thought. He scanned the screen and found the tiny envelope icon indicating one unread text message. He selected it, and the message from ‘Unknown Number’ popped up.
My Darling Greg,
May I call you Greg? Of course I may! My game, my rules, my lovely. So Greg it is, then. Since I’m the sporting type, you get to phone a friend. You-know-who’s # is programmed into this phone - perhaps he can help you find a way out of this delicious predicament. Pero, cuidado! Call any other # = BOOM! Try to kick out the back seats = BOOM! Open the boot without the key fob = BOOM! Well, you get the idea. Good luck! (Not really) Ta!
Fucking brilliant, Lestrade thought. He had known after the incident at the pool that it was only a matter of time before he became a pawn in Moriarty’s demented little games. Today was his lucky day, then. There wasn’t enough light to see whether the bomb was, in fact, booby trapped, and he didn’t know if it was even technologically possible to rig a cell signal detonator by exclusion that way. Regardless, he wasn’t about to risk it.
Lestrade navigated to the mobile’s contact list, which contained only a single name: Sherlock Holmes. His first try rang through to voicemail.
“Damn it, Sherlock! Answer your fucking phone!” he shouted.
While he rarely answered calls directly, Sherlock tended to give texts priority. Lestrade’s hands shook violently as he punched in a quick message, forgoing all attempts at punctuation or proper grammar. Under the circumstances, Sherlock had better not be a prick about it.
For gods sake sherlock pick up gl
He waited only a few seconds before trying the call again.
“Sherlock Holmes.”
In the five years of their acquaintance, Lestrade had never been so happy to hear that dulcet, haughty voice.
“Sherlock, it’s me,” he started, breathlessly.
“Yes, Lestrade, I gathered that from…”
“Shut up and listen!” Lestrade cut him off. “I’m stuck in the boot of a car going God knows where, and there’s a bomb. Moriarty’s doing. I need you to call Donovan and let her know what’s happened.”
“Do you know where you are?” Sherlock asked, as calmly as someone preparing to give directions to a tourist.
“No, no idea.”
“Then it hardly makes sense to call Donovan until I have something to tell her about your location.”
“Look, Sherlock, I don’t have time to argue. Call Donovan…”
“How is the bomb rigged to detonate?”
“What? Er, it’s a timer.”
“How long?”
“Less than an hour.”
“Precisely how long, Lestrade?”
Lestrade looked behind him at the bright green numbers counting inexorably down. “Fifty four minutes, twenty-seven seconds. Call Donovan now!”
“Pointless. She can’t do anything until we know where you are and what the target is.”
“Well obviously the target is stuffed in the boot of the bloody fucking car!” Lestrade bellowed.
“Unlikely,” Sherlock replied, his tone even and unruffled. “If you were the primary target, you would already be dead. Choosing a vehicle to deliver the bomb could mean an individual target, but more likely a building or other public space.”
“Fine, whatever. Call…”
“The average traffic speed in London is twelve miles per hour. It’s a simple calculation of distance related to time. I can figure out where you are, and possibly where you are heading, but I need anchor points - as many as you can give me. From where did you start?”
“Where you told me to meet you - that block of flats off of Clapham. Thanks for standing me up, by the way,” Lestrade chided.
“I never asked you to meet me anywhere. Obviously it was a setup,” Sherlock tersely replied.
“It came from your mobile.”
“Moriarty must have spoofed my number. So we have one data point. What else?”
“Well, after they bashed me on the head they must have taken me to a different location. It was closer to the river; I know that much at least - I could smell it. Beyond that, I couldn’t tell you - they’d put a hood on me. Then they put me in the car. There were at least two of them, South London accents…” Lestrade prepared to search his mind for more details about his captors, but Sherlock interrupted him.
“They’re not important now,” he snapped. “What else did you hear? What about road conditions?”
“I heard dogs barking before they put me in the car. Then there was a bridge.”
“How much time had elapsed from start to bridge?”
“Don’t know exactly. I was busy trying to get the handcuffs off. Not long - couple of minutes.”
Sherlock hummed a bit as if thinking. “We can’t know for sure, but it’s probably safe to assume you started south of the river, and are heading into the heart of the city. It’s more of a target-rich environment. I need to know where you crossed. What else can you tell me? Right after the bridge, what then?”
Lestrade shook his head. “Sorry, no idea, mate. I was otherwise occupied, like I said, trying to get free and messing about with the mobile. Then arguing with you, of course.”
Sherlock sighed heavily into his ear. “You must tell me every time the vehicle takes a turn from here on out. Also, anything you can hear that stands out from normal traffic and road sounds. Do you understand?”
“Yeah, I get it. I’m not an idiot.” He was used to Sherlock’s superior attitude, but his nerves were frayed at the moment, and the raw, tattered ends were showing up in his voice.
“Of course you are. How fast are you going?”
“How should I know?” Lestrade snapped. As soon as the words were out of his mouth he took a deep breath and held it. Being angry wasn’t going to help matters. Slowly, he released the air from his lungs. “Fairly standard speed, I suppose,” he continued, his voice more even.
“Tell me if that changes, either faster or slower.”
“Will do. Okay, we just made a right turn.”
“Timer reading?”
Lestrade glanced quickly behind him again. He didn’t much like thinking about his little traveling companion, let alone looking at the damn thing. “Fifty minutes, three seconds.”
He was met with silence on the other end, making his heart skitter in his chest at the thought of losing his one tenuous connection to the outside world.
“Sherlock, you there?”
“Yes, Lestrade,” Sherlock responded coolly. “Don’t distract me unless you have more data.”
Lestrade did his best to remain quiet, fighting his natural inclination to be overly chatty when nervous. He tried to occupy himself with listening, but there was nothing more than the sound of cars passing, and an occasional horn. Finally, he picked up something new- a sort of dull rumbling and metallic hammering.
“I can hear construction or something,” Lestrade said, happy to finally have something to report.
“Time?”
“Forty-two fifteen.”
“Roadworks or building?”
“How the hell should I know? Sounds like heavy machinery, is all.”
“Did traffic slow down?”
“Yeah, now that you mention it, we’ve been stop and go the past five minutes or so.”
“Lestrade!” Sherlock’s voiced seethed with exasperation. “If I am to help you, you must tell me these things.”
“Sorry.”
A few more minutes passed before Lestrade piped up again. “We’ve turned in somewhere - right turn - bit of a bump - maybe off the road. We’re stopped. Engine’s off now.”
“Time.”
“Thirty-nine forty seven.”
“Can you hear anything?”
“No, nothing. Maybe a parking lot or garage? Look, this is it. This is the place. Call Donovan now.”
“There’s nothing to tell her yet. Did the driver exit the vehicle?”
“No, I didn’t hear the door.”
“Then it isn’t the target. You might try calling for help. Low probability, but someone might hear.”
“Hello! Help! In here!” Lestrade bellowed.
“Not in my ear, you cretin!”
“Sorry!”
Lestrade put the mobile down and called out again, kicking at the side panel with the bottoms of his feet. He couldn’t get his legs untangled enough to kick with any real force, so he tried banging on the boot lid with his fist. The noise of his voice and the banging all seemed muted; he doubted it was carrying far outside, if at all. After a few minutes, he gave it up and picked up the phone again.
“Can you please call Donovan now?” he pleaded.
“Oh, all right. John is here with me now. He’ll call her.”
Lestrade strained his ears, listening for any sound of people or vehicles close by. There was nothing. He forced himself not to keep obsessively glancing at the timer. Every so often, he would lay the phone down and shout and bang, but to no avail. Finally, the engine came alive and the car started to move.
“Engine’s started up again. We’re moving. No wait, we’ve stopped again. Driver’s door opened. Now rear passenger side opened. Now closed. We’ve picked someone up.”
“Time.”
“Twenty-five eleven. Moving now. We’ve turned left back into traffic.”
A few minutes later, Lestrade felt a slight pull of g-force. “Okay, feels like we’re going round a circle - it’s twenty-two twenty-two,” he added before Sherlock could demand the time.
Sherlock hummed in acknowledgement. It occurred to Lestrade that, while sounds from inside the boot might not carry outside, they just might carry inside. He dropped the mobile and started banging his fists on the lid again.
“Oi! You in there! If you can hear me, there’s a bomb here. Get the fuck out if you can. Get help. Oi!”
He repeated the litany twice more, before falling silent again. He listened for any response, but heard none.
“Ah well,” he said, picking up the mobile again. “It was worth a try.”
“Indeed,” Sherlock agreed.
Lestrade slumped forward, dejected. After a few minutes, he perked up.
“We’re a bit stop and go again.”
“What can you hear?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Lestrade! I need more data points. Really listen!”
“That’s what I’ve been doing!” Lestrade countered. He bit back a curse and closed his eyes, angling his head so that his ear was pressed up against the side panel of the car. It was very faint, but after a few moments he started to discern the melodic chiming of bells.
“I can hear bells - church bells.”
“How many chimes?”
“Three. No, wait, they started up again. Three again. Chiming the hour, I suppose. It must be about six o’clock, yeah? No, there’s more - chiming like mad. Wedding?”
“Angelus bell. Catholic church. Only about twenty of them in the city - a dozen or so with working bell towers, ten north of the river. That’s good Lestrade. What else?”
“We’ve turned left - eleven forty.” Lestrade resumed his turn-by-turn accounting. “Right turn - eleven oh three.” After another minute or so, “Left again - ten thirty-two.”
“This is no good - too many possible routes,” Sherlock complained. “I need to pinpoint your starting location. Go back to the beginning.”
“I told you everything already.”
“There must be something else. Think, Lestrade, think!”
“Easier said than done, mate. I do have a head injury, you know.”
“You said you heard a dog barking? What else?”
“Not a dog - dogs. Lots of them - like the noise you’d hear coming from a kennel or something.”
“Good. That’s good,” Sherlock actually sounded encouraging. “Give me more.”
“Er…oh! Railroad tracks. We went over some tracks almost immediately after setting out.”
“Aha! Battersea,” Sherlock shouted triumphantly. “There’s an animal shelter near the power station. Explains the railroad tracks as well. I’m sure of it. You came over the Chelsea Bridge.”
“Something else about the tracks, now that I think about it,” Lestrade said. “The sound was a bit off.”
“Off how?”
“I don’t know - like it took longer for the rear wheels to come up on them than it should have.”
“Long axle vehicle model. High-value individual target, then - possibly a diplomat or business mogul. Construction on Brompton coincides with your route and time. That means you more than likely picked up the target at The Ritz. Now, what exit from the circle did you take? And where are the closest churches?”
The final two questions were muttered seemingly to himself, so Lestrade didn’t bother to try and answer.
As he watched the timer count down ever closer to the five minute mark, Lestrade, for the first time, began to doubt the survivability of this situation. Even if they had an idea where he was, could they identify the right car and get a bomb squad to him in time? And what if Sherlock was wrong in his estimation? What if he picked the wrong route, and sent everyone off in the wrong direction?
“Sherlock, listen,” he began, hesitantly. “I may not make it out of this. I just want you to know…”
“You will. I will find you. Just give me data!”
“Will you shut it for a minute? I just want you to know…that…I’m proud of you. I’m proud of the work you’ve done, and I’m not the only one at Scotland Yard what feels that way. And,” Lestrade continued, his throat tightening with emotion, “I’ll tell you something else - if you do by some miracle or genius get me out of this, there’s not a man - or woman - on my team that wouldn’t be glad to shake you by the hand.”
“Of course!” Sherlock exclaimed.
Lestrade blinked.
“Humble bugger, aren’t you?”
“How could I be so blind?”
“Oh well, don’t be so hard on yourself. I’ve never exactly been forthcoming with the praise and all.”
“No, you idiot. The car! The axles of the car!”
Then, silence.
“Sherlock?”
No answer.
“Shit! Sherlock? Sherlock!”
Lestrade glanced at the mobile’s screen.
Disconnected.
Redialing only got him voicemail again.
“Fuck!” he shouted, banging his fist against the metal over his head.
The car took a hard right turn, and out of habit he noted the timer at 00:05:30. Lestrade had certainly known the ache of loneliness before, but he had never felt as desolately alone as he did at that moment. He wondered what it would be like to be blown to bits. Would he feel anything? The pressure of the blast? The fire charring his skin down to his bones? Tears welled up in his eyes and he gave himself over to panic, shouting and kicking and punching wildly at the steel encasing him.
The car rolled to a stop and he went still, listening as well as he could over his rasping breath. He could hear one of the car doors open, and then shouting and feet scuffling on the pavement nearby. Then another door opened.
He heard a dull pop and then a long, thin sliver of light opened up in front of him. He pushed the lid up and open, and felt Sherlock’s hands grab for him as he tumbled out onto the damp asphalt, blinking against the light from cars and streetlamps. One glance around told him where they were: right outside 221b.
“Give me the key!” he barked, grabbing for the glint of silver and black in Sherlock’s hand. He barely registered Sherlock’s protests, or John crouching over the limp forms of Mycroft and his PA, as he dodged past. He ducked into the driver’s seat, hit the ignition button, and accelerated into traffic, headless of the screeching tires and irate honking that followed.
00:04:26
That’s what the counter had said when he last glimpsed it. The numbers were seared into his mind like a brand. Maybe he could get the car to Regent’s Park in that time…maybe not, if the lights were against him. He accelerated, dodging traffic up Baker Street and then Marylebone, riding the horn and praying hard the entire way. Time ticked down in his mind. He was vaguely aware that he was gasping hard; between each breath came a high-pitched whining noise - the sound of primal fear, unrestrained by an audience and completely beyond his control - that was getting louder the closer he got to the park.
Once inside the park, he made an immediate right turn, cutting across the oncoming lane and jumping the pavement onto an empty footpath. Hoping the line of trees ahead of him on the right would offer some protection from the blast to the Outer Circle traffic, he gunned the car forward, then braked hard and skidded to a stop. He opened the door and pelted toward another stand of trees on his left, getting only about twenty feet before the blast knocked him flat on his face. From there it was all smoke and lights and sirens, until his consciousness faded, and he knew no more.
***
The first thing Lestrade noticed when he awoke was the ringing in his ears, filling his head with a din like the inside of a bell tower.
Angelus bell, he thought dully, and opened his eyes. Blearily, he could see his own hand lying on the coverlet, festooned with tape and tubes. Must be in hospital, then. He looked up to take in the rest of his surroundings, and was surprised to see Mycroft’s beaming face looking down at him.
“Welcome back, Detective Inspector Lestrade!”
“Happy to be here,” Lestrade rasped. His throat felt like he’d swallowed a handful of gravel. Mycroft reached over to the nightstand and poured him a glass of water, which he gratefully accepted.
“I’m sorry my brother couldn’t be here. You, of all people, know how he is.”
“Yeah. More important things to do, no doubt. Glad to see you’re no worse for wear. Thought maybe you were dead.”
“No, no. Very much alive, and I have you to thank for that, in no small part.”
Lestrade waved him away. “It was Sherlock’s doing, not mine.”
“Nonsense! It was nothing short of a team effort. He wouldn’t have been there to meet my car if it hadn’t been for you. Well done, indeed.” Mycroft straightened his back and offered his hand, smiling when Lestrade grasped it and shook it warmly.
“All right then,” Lestrade said, smiling back. “So what happened? How did he know where to meet you?”
“He had originally assumed the target would be a building or public gathering space - not an unreasonable assumption, and one I would have probably made myself. But when he realized it was a long axle vehicle, the focus shifted to an individual. While my brother has certainly become acquainted with various VIPs through his work, I’m the only one close to him - relatively speaking, of course. When he got off the line with you, he tried calling me to either rule me out as the target or warn me. But by then I and my PA had been heavily drugged and were unconscious. Since I was the target and Moriarty was the perpetrator, the likeliest destination was Baker Street, so that Moriarty’s handiwork would have the proper audience if he were successful.
Sherlock and John were there to meet the car when it pulled up. John tackled the driver when he exited the vehicle, then pulled the two of us out of the car while Sherlock saw to you. You may not have realized it, but Donovan and the bomb squad were right behind you, and followed you into the park. That was a very brave thing you did, Lestrade.”
Lestrade snorted. “Yeah, brave or stupid.”
“Often they are one and the same,” Mycroft replied.
“And now he’s off on the trail again, is he?”
“Quite. His obsession with Moriarty has redoubled, of course. You see, he does care in his own, unique way. He won’t rest until the fiend is neutralized. I don’t think he sees it as a game, anymore.”
Lestrade nodded, but as much as he wanted Mycroft’s words to be true, he would still take some convincing. He took another sip of water, then leaned back against the pillow and closed his eyes.
Mycroft’s mobile buzzed a few moments later, causing Lestrade to startle. Mycroft removed it from his pocket, glancing at it only briefly before handing it to Lestrade.
“Oh, speak of the devil. Message for you from my brother.”
Lestrade accepted the mobile with a heavy sigh, steeling himself to read a curt demand for case files or a complaint about Donovan.
No miracle required. Only genius. SH
Lestrade grinned in spite of himself and typed back.
I consider us even now, you bastard. GL
The mobile buzzed almost immediately in response.
You’re welcome. SH
****
Author: gloria_scott
Fandom(s): Sherlock (BBC)
Characters: Lestrade, Sherlock, Mycroft
Genre: Gen
Rating: R
Word Count: ~4280
Warnings: Violence - not too graphic
Summary: Lestrade wakes up handcuffed in the boot of a car, which would be bad enough if he didn’t also have to worry about the bomb sitting next to his head.
Notes: (1) Originally written for bwblack for the holmestice exchange.
(2) Much thanks to catchoo152 for the beta!
(3) A helpful commenter on the original post to this pointed out a discrepancy that I can't really fix without re-writing pretty much the entire thing, so...for anyone actually familiar with the Battersea area, let's just say this is an AU in which the railway lines are not on a raised viaduct.
****
It was cold, wet, and dark when Lestrade came to, lying on the damp ground with his arms bound behind him. There was a slight drizzle of rain, and the wind kicked up and made him shiver. He could see nothing, though his eyes were open, and it took him a few seconds to realize he had a hood over his head. His nose was filled with the copper smell of blood, mixed with the salty, briny scent of the Thames and dirty burlap. He put up a brief fight against the restraints, hearing the dull clink of metal on metal.
My bloody handcuffs, he thought, ruefully.
The pain in his head made him nauseous and weak and he soon gave up his struggle. He lay still again, trying to piece together what had happened. Last he could recall, he’d been parked around back of a block of flats in Vauxhall, just off Clapham Road. Sherlock had texted him and asked him to meet there at five; said he had a tip that a couple of the higher-ups in a counterfeiting and drug-running gang they’d been looking for would be there. Someone other than Sherlock must have been waiting for him, though - he’d barely made it half a dozen steps from his car when something struck him on the side of the head, and he went down hard.
And now here he was, trussed up and bleeding with no idea who his captors were or what they wanted.
Before long, he heard a car drive up and stop not far from him, then footsteps on gravel. A voice he didn’t recognize spoke quickly and low.
“Do you have the package?”
“Yeah, it’s right here,” a second voice answered.
“A bit small, don’t you think?”
“Enough to do the job. Boss says no need for overkill on this one.”
“Well, hurry up and get it in there.”
He heard the sound of a car boot opening, and then a few moments later, footsteps drawing closer.
“Right, Detective Inspector, your turn now,” said the first voice.
Two sets of hands grabbed him and hauled him to his feet. He wasn’t in any kind of shape to put up much of a fight as they half carried, half dragged him to the car and then lifted him in. The boot lid clicked shut, and he heard the muted sound of footsteps before a car door opened and closed. The engine started and the car began to move, with the crunch of gravel beneath the tires quickly giving way to a paved road.
Lestrade took a few deep breaths and tried to clear his head, which would have been easier without the damn hood. When he’d steadied himself a bit, he realized his first order of business was to get the handcuffs off. He bent his knees, trying to draw his ankles up closer to his hands, but a sharp cramp in his thigh made him howl and back off. He cursed and shook his leg out as much as he could within the limited space, then tried again. This time he hooked his fingers under the leg of his trousers and pulled until he could reach his right shoe. Slipping his fingers into the side of the shoe, he searched for the tiny piece of metal tucked away there - the spare key. It was a little trick he had picked up from Sherlock during the early days of their acquaintance, after the third time the man had inexplicably escaped his handcuffs while in custody. He pressed the key between his first two fingers and carefully drew it out. Working it around, he tried to find the key hole on the right cuff, but his hands were shaking and his fingers were slippery with sweat, and he lost his grip on the key.
“Fuck!” he muttered. He rolled onto his back slightly, searching the carpet behind him with his fingertips. When the key was safely in his possession once again, he took a deep breath and tried to will his hands to steady.
“Come on, Greg, you stupid git. Just calm down and do this already,” he said aloud to himself.
He startled and almost dropped the key again when he felt an insistent buzzing coming from his front trouser pocket. So they hadn’t taken his mobile - that was something. Heartened by this stroke of luck, he quickly managed to loose first one cuff, then the other. Once free, he pulled the hood from his head and took a few deep breaths of fresh air. He could feel the dried blood caked to the side of his head and face from where he had been struck.
Well, he thought, rubbing his face on the carpet and shaking his head vigorously, if I don’t make it out of this, I’ll at least leave some evidence for the forensics team.
As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he gradually became aware of a dim light, green hued and flickering, coming from somewhere behind his head. He rolled over to investigate, and there it was - the package - a digital timer neatly done up with a couple of blocks of Semtex. The numbers 00:56:57 burned into his retinas. Less than an hour.
Shit.
He fished the mobile out of his pocket and hesitated, momentarily confused by an unfamiliar screen and buttons.
Not my mobile, he thought. He scanned the screen and found the tiny envelope icon indicating one unread text message. He selected it, and the message from ‘Unknown Number’ popped up.
My Darling Greg,
May I call you Greg? Of course I may! My game, my rules, my lovely. So Greg it is, then. Since I’m the sporting type, you get to phone a friend. You-know-who’s # is programmed into this phone - perhaps he can help you find a way out of this delicious predicament. Pero, cuidado! Call any other # = BOOM! Try to kick out the back seats = BOOM! Open the boot without the key fob = BOOM! Well, you get the idea. Good luck! (Not really) Ta!
Fucking brilliant, Lestrade thought. He had known after the incident at the pool that it was only a matter of time before he became a pawn in Moriarty’s demented little games. Today was his lucky day, then. There wasn’t enough light to see whether the bomb was, in fact, booby trapped, and he didn’t know if it was even technologically possible to rig a cell signal detonator by exclusion that way. Regardless, he wasn’t about to risk it.
Lestrade navigated to the mobile’s contact list, which contained only a single name: Sherlock Holmes. His first try rang through to voicemail.
“Damn it, Sherlock! Answer your fucking phone!” he shouted.
While he rarely answered calls directly, Sherlock tended to give texts priority. Lestrade’s hands shook violently as he punched in a quick message, forgoing all attempts at punctuation or proper grammar. Under the circumstances, Sherlock had better not be a prick about it.
For gods sake sherlock pick up gl
He waited only a few seconds before trying the call again.
“Sherlock Holmes.”
In the five years of their acquaintance, Lestrade had never been so happy to hear that dulcet, haughty voice.
“Sherlock, it’s me,” he started, breathlessly.
“Yes, Lestrade, I gathered that from…”
“Shut up and listen!” Lestrade cut him off. “I’m stuck in the boot of a car going God knows where, and there’s a bomb. Moriarty’s doing. I need you to call Donovan and let her know what’s happened.”
“Do you know where you are?” Sherlock asked, as calmly as someone preparing to give directions to a tourist.
“No, no idea.”
“Then it hardly makes sense to call Donovan until I have something to tell her about your location.”
“Look, Sherlock, I don’t have time to argue. Call Donovan…”
“How is the bomb rigged to detonate?”
“What? Er, it’s a timer.”
“How long?”
“Less than an hour.”
“Precisely how long, Lestrade?”
Lestrade looked behind him at the bright green numbers counting inexorably down. “Fifty four minutes, twenty-seven seconds. Call Donovan now!”
“Pointless. She can’t do anything until we know where you are and what the target is.”
“Well obviously the target is stuffed in the boot of the bloody fucking car!” Lestrade bellowed.
“Unlikely,” Sherlock replied, his tone even and unruffled. “If you were the primary target, you would already be dead. Choosing a vehicle to deliver the bomb could mean an individual target, but more likely a building or other public space.”
“Fine, whatever. Call…”
“The average traffic speed in London is twelve miles per hour. It’s a simple calculation of distance related to time. I can figure out where you are, and possibly where you are heading, but I need anchor points - as many as you can give me. From where did you start?”
“Where you told me to meet you - that block of flats off of Clapham. Thanks for standing me up, by the way,” Lestrade chided.
“I never asked you to meet me anywhere. Obviously it was a setup,” Sherlock tersely replied.
“It came from your mobile.”
“Moriarty must have spoofed my number. So we have one data point. What else?”
“Well, after they bashed me on the head they must have taken me to a different location. It was closer to the river; I know that much at least - I could smell it. Beyond that, I couldn’t tell you - they’d put a hood on me. Then they put me in the car. There were at least two of them, South London accents…” Lestrade prepared to search his mind for more details about his captors, but Sherlock interrupted him.
“They’re not important now,” he snapped. “What else did you hear? What about road conditions?”
“I heard dogs barking before they put me in the car. Then there was a bridge.”
“How much time had elapsed from start to bridge?”
“Don’t know exactly. I was busy trying to get the handcuffs off. Not long - couple of minutes.”
Sherlock hummed a bit as if thinking. “We can’t know for sure, but it’s probably safe to assume you started south of the river, and are heading into the heart of the city. It’s more of a target-rich environment. I need to know where you crossed. What else can you tell me? Right after the bridge, what then?”
Lestrade shook his head. “Sorry, no idea, mate. I was otherwise occupied, like I said, trying to get free and messing about with the mobile. Then arguing with you, of course.”
Sherlock sighed heavily into his ear. “You must tell me every time the vehicle takes a turn from here on out. Also, anything you can hear that stands out from normal traffic and road sounds. Do you understand?”
“Yeah, I get it. I’m not an idiot.” He was used to Sherlock’s superior attitude, but his nerves were frayed at the moment, and the raw, tattered ends were showing up in his voice.
“Of course you are. How fast are you going?”
“How should I know?” Lestrade snapped. As soon as the words were out of his mouth he took a deep breath and held it. Being angry wasn’t going to help matters. Slowly, he released the air from his lungs. “Fairly standard speed, I suppose,” he continued, his voice more even.
“Tell me if that changes, either faster or slower.”
“Will do. Okay, we just made a right turn.”
“Timer reading?”
Lestrade glanced quickly behind him again. He didn’t much like thinking about his little traveling companion, let alone looking at the damn thing. “Fifty minutes, three seconds.”
He was met with silence on the other end, making his heart skitter in his chest at the thought of losing his one tenuous connection to the outside world.
“Sherlock, you there?”
“Yes, Lestrade,” Sherlock responded coolly. “Don’t distract me unless you have more data.”
Lestrade did his best to remain quiet, fighting his natural inclination to be overly chatty when nervous. He tried to occupy himself with listening, but there was nothing more than the sound of cars passing, and an occasional horn. Finally, he picked up something new- a sort of dull rumbling and metallic hammering.
“I can hear construction or something,” Lestrade said, happy to finally have something to report.
“Time?”
“Forty-two fifteen.”
“Roadworks or building?”
“How the hell should I know? Sounds like heavy machinery, is all.”
“Did traffic slow down?”
“Yeah, now that you mention it, we’ve been stop and go the past five minutes or so.”
“Lestrade!” Sherlock’s voiced seethed with exasperation. “If I am to help you, you must tell me these things.”
“Sorry.”
A few more minutes passed before Lestrade piped up again. “We’ve turned in somewhere - right turn - bit of a bump - maybe off the road. We’re stopped. Engine’s off now.”
“Time.”
“Thirty-nine forty seven.”
“Can you hear anything?”
“No, nothing. Maybe a parking lot or garage? Look, this is it. This is the place. Call Donovan now.”
“There’s nothing to tell her yet. Did the driver exit the vehicle?”
“No, I didn’t hear the door.”
“Then it isn’t the target. You might try calling for help. Low probability, but someone might hear.”
“Hello! Help! In here!” Lestrade bellowed.
“Not in my ear, you cretin!”
“Sorry!”
Lestrade put the mobile down and called out again, kicking at the side panel with the bottoms of his feet. He couldn’t get his legs untangled enough to kick with any real force, so he tried banging on the boot lid with his fist. The noise of his voice and the banging all seemed muted; he doubted it was carrying far outside, if at all. After a few minutes, he gave it up and picked up the phone again.
“Can you please call Donovan now?” he pleaded.
“Oh, all right. John is here with me now. He’ll call her.”
Lestrade strained his ears, listening for any sound of people or vehicles close by. There was nothing. He forced himself not to keep obsessively glancing at the timer. Every so often, he would lay the phone down and shout and bang, but to no avail. Finally, the engine came alive and the car started to move.
“Engine’s started up again. We’re moving. No wait, we’ve stopped again. Driver’s door opened. Now rear passenger side opened. Now closed. We’ve picked someone up.”
“Time.”
“Twenty-five eleven. Moving now. We’ve turned left back into traffic.”
A few minutes later, Lestrade felt a slight pull of g-force. “Okay, feels like we’re going round a circle - it’s twenty-two twenty-two,” he added before Sherlock could demand the time.
Sherlock hummed in acknowledgement. It occurred to Lestrade that, while sounds from inside the boot might not carry outside, they just might carry inside. He dropped the mobile and started banging his fists on the lid again.
“Oi! You in there! If you can hear me, there’s a bomb here. Get the fuck out if you can. Get help. Oi!”
He repeated the litany twice more, before falling silent again. He listened for any response, but heard none.
“Ah well,” he said, picking up the mobile again. “It was worth a try.”
“Indeed,” Sherlock agreed.
Lestrade slumped forward, dejected. After a few minutes, he perked up.
“We’re a bit stop and go again.”
“What can you hear?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Lestrade! I need more data points. Really listen!”
“That’s what I’ve been doing!” Lestrade countered. He bit back a curse and closed his eyes, angling his head so that his ear was pressed up against the side panel of the car. It was very faint, but after a few moments he started to discern the melodic chiming of bells.
“I can hear bells - church bells.”
“How many chimes?”
“Three. No, wait, they started up again. Three again. Chiming the hour, I suppose. It must be about six o’clock, yeah? No, there’s more - chiming like mad. Wedding?”
“Angelus bell. Catholic church. Only about twenty of them in the city - a dozen or so with working bell towers, ten north of the river. That’s good Lestrade. What else?”
“We’ve turned left - eleven forty.” Lestrade resumed his turn-by-turn accounting. “Right turn - eleven oh three.” After another minute or so, “Left again - ten thirty-two.”
“This is no good - too many possible routes,” Sherlock complained. “I need to pinpoint your starting location. Go back to the beginning.”
“I told you everything already.”
“There must be something else. Think, Lestrade, think!”
“Easier said than done, mate. I do have a head injury, you know.”
“You said you heard a dog barking? What else?”
“Not a dog - dogs. Lots of them - like the noise you’d hear coming from a kennel or something.”
“Good. That’s good,” Sherlock actually sounded encouraging. “Give me more.”
“Er…oh! Railroad tracks. We went over some tracks almost immediately after setting out.”
“Aha! Battersea,” Sherlock shouted triumphantly. “There’s an animal shelter near the power station. Explains the railroad tracks as well. I’m sure of it. You came over the Chelsea Bridge.”
“Something else about the tracks, now that I think about it,” Lestrade said. “The sound was a bit off.”
“Off how?”
“I don’t know - like it took longer for the rear wheels to come up on them than it should have.”
“Long axle vehicle model. High-value individual target, then - possibly a diplomat or business mogul. Construction on Brompton coincides with your route and time. That means you more than likely picked up the target at The Ritz. Now, what exit from the circle did you take? And where are the closest churches?”
The final two questions were muttered seemingly to himself, so Lestrade didn’t bother to try and answer.
As he watched the timer count down ever closer to the five minute mark, Lestrade, for the first time, began to doubt the survivability of this situation. Even if they had an idea where he was, could they identify the right car and get a bomb squad to him in time? And what if Sherlock was wrong in his estimation? What if he picked the wrong route, and sent everyone off in the wrong direction?
“Sherlock, listen,” he began, hesitantly. “I may not make it out of this. I just want you to know…”
“You will. I will find you. Just give me data!”
“Will you shut it for a minute? I just want you to know…that…I’m proud of you. I’m proud of the work you’ve done, and I’m not the only one at Scotland Yard what feels that way. And,” Lestrade continued, his throat tightening with emotion, “I’ll tell you something else - if you do by some miracle or genius get me out of this, there’s not a man - or woman - on my team that wouldn’t be glad to shake you by the hand.”
“Of course!” Sherlock exclaimed.
Lestrade blinked.
“Humble bugger, aren’t you?”
“How could I be so blind?”
“Oh well, don’t be so hard on yourself. I’ve never exactly been forthcoming with the praise and all.”
“No, you idiot. The car! The axles of the car!”
Then, silence.
“Sherlock?”
No answer.
“Shit! Sherlock? Sherlock!”
Lestrade glanced at the mobile’s screen.
Disconnected.
Redialing only got him voicemail again.
“Fuck!” he shouted, banging his fist against the metal over his head.
The car took a hard right turn, and out of habit he noted the timer at 00:05:30. Lestrade had certainly known the ache of loneliness before, but he had never felt as desolately alone as he did at that moment. He wondered what it would be like to be blown to bits. Would he feel anything? The pressure of the blast? The fire charring his skin down to his bones? Tears welled up in his eyes and he gave himself over to panic, shouting and kicking and punching wildly at the steel encasing him.
The car rolled to a stop and he went still, listening as well as he could over his rasping breath. He could hear one of the car doors open, and then shouting and feet scuffling on the pavement nearby. Then another door opened.
He heard a dull pop and then a long, thin sliver of light opened up in front of him. He pushed the lid up and open, and felt Sherlock’s hands grab for him as he tumbled out onto the damp asphalt, blinking against the light from cars and streetlamps. One glance around told him where they were: right outside 221b.
“Give me the key!” he barked, grabbing for the glint of silver and black in Sherlock’s hand. He barely registered Sherlock’s protests, or John crouching over the limp forms of Mycroft and his PA, as he dodged past. He ducked into the driver’s seat, hit the ignition button, and accelerated into traffic, headless of the screeching tires and irate honking that followed.
00:04:26
That’s what the counter had said when he last glimpsed it. The numbers were seared into his mind like a brand. Maybe he could get the car to Regent’s Park in that time…maybe not, if the lights were against him. He accelerated, dodging traffic up Baker Street and then Marylebone, riding the horn and praying hard the entire way. Time ticked down in his mind. He was vaguely aware that he was gasping hard; between each breath came a high-pitched whining noise - the sound of primal fear, unrestrained by an audience and completely beyond his control - that was getting louder the closer he got to the park.
Once inside the park, he made an immediate right turn, cutting across the oncoming lane and jumping the pavement onto an empty footpath. Hoping the line of trees ahead of him on the right would offer some protection from the blast to the Outer Circle traffic, he gunned the car forward, then braked hard and skidded to a stop. He opened the door and pelted toward another stand of trees on his left, getting only about twenty feet before the blast knocked him flat on his face. From there it was all smoke and lights and sirens, until his consciousness faded, and he knew no more.
***
The first thing Lestrade noticed when he awoke was the ringing in his ears, filling his head with a din like the inside of a bell tower.
Angelus bell, he thought dully, and opened his eyes. Blearily, he could see his own hand lying on the coverlet, festooned with tape and tubes. Must be in hospital, then. He looked up to take in the rest of his surroundings, and was surprised to see Mycroft’s beaming face looking down at him.
“Welcome back, Detective Inspector Lestrade!”
“Happy to be here,” Lestrade rasped. His throat felt like he’d swallowed a handful of gravel. Mycroft reached over to the nightstand and poured him a glass of water, which he gratefully accepted.
“I’m sorry my brother couldn’t be here. You, of all people, know how he is.”
“Yeah. More important things to do, no doubt. Glad to see you’re no worse for wear. Thought maybe you were dead.”
“No, no. Very much alive, and I have you to thank for that, in no small part.”
Lestrade waved him away. “It was Sherlock’s doing, not mine.”
“Nonsense! It was nothing short of a team effort. He wouldn’t have been there to meet my car if it hadn’t been for you. Well done, indeed.” Mycroft straightened his back and offered his hand, smiling when Lestrade grasped it and shook it warmly.
“All right then,” Lestrade said, smiling back. “So what happened? How did he know where to meet you?”
“He had originally assumed the target would be a building or public gathering space - not an unreasonable assumption, and one I would have probably made myself. But when he realized it was a long axle vehicle, the focus shifted to an individual. While my brother has certainly become acquainted with various VIPs through his work, I’m the only one close to him - relatively speaking, of course. When he got off the line with you, he tried calling me to either rule me out as the target or warn me. But by then I and my PA had been heavily drugged and were unconscious. Since I was the target and Moriarty was the perpetrator, the likeliest destination was Baker Street, so that Moriarty’s handiwork would have the proper audience if he were successful.
Sherlock and John were there to meet the car when it pulled up. John tackled the driver when he exited the vehicle, then pulled the two of us out of the car while Sherlock saw to you. You may not have realized it, but Donovan and the bomb squad were right behind you, and followed you into the park. That was a very brave thing you did, Lestrade.”
Lestrade snorted. “Yeah, brave or stupid.”
“Often they are one and the same,” Mycroft replied.
“And now he’s off on the trail again, is he?”
“Quite. His obsession with Moriarty has redoubled, of course. You see, he does care in his own, unique way. He won’t rest until the fiend is neutralized. I don’t think he sees it as a game, anymore.”
Lestrade nodded, but as much as he wanted Mycroft’s words to be true, he would still take some convincing. He took another sip of water, then leaned back against the pillow and closed his eyes.
Mycroft’s mobile buzzed a few moments later, causing Lestrade to startle. Mycroft removed it from his pocket, glancing at it only briefly before handing it to Lestrade.
“Oh, speak of the devil. Message for you from my brother.”
Lestrade accepted the mobile with a heavy sigh, steeling himself to read a curt demand for case files or a complaint about Donovan.
No miracle required. Only genius. SH
Lestrade grinned in spite of himself and typed back.
I consider us even now, you bastard. GL
The mobile buzzed almost immediately in response.
You’re welcome. SH
****