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Part Eleven
Arms wrapped around her middle, her head still swathed in a scarf, the woman from the roof slowly steps into the room. Her heels sink infinitesimally into the plush carpet, but her knees beneath the hem of her skirt are firm and unshaking.
“No matter,” says Milverton, simpering and condescending and cruel. “You say you’ve come into some sensitive emails regarding some particularly wealthy men.” His smile broadens. “Don’t worry, I don’t care how you came to have them - only that you’re interested in selling.”
The woman says nothing, bowing her head in a demure gesture which entirely belies the pride in her step and the strength of the woman who’d been dropped off on the roof by helicopter.
“Quiet one, eh?” Milverton’s lip curls on one side, and John fights the urge to both retch, and punch him in the nose. “I like that. Shows reserve, a certain quality of - respect. Well, don’t worry - I’ll know just how to use your findings best, and I assure you, I pay handsomely to those kind enough to add to my store.” He leans forward in his chair, linking his fingers beneath his chin. “Now, if you’ll be so kind as to hand them over so I can have a bit of a look…”
But the woman does not comply. In lieu of an answer, she raises her head and, with two, composed flicks of her wrist, pushes away the scarf, revealing a proud face and short, coal-black hair, offset by a pair of dark eyes. Milverton’s smile slides off his face, replaced not by anger, but by a deep-seated, spine-chilling fear. The expression sits unfamiliar on his features, the fat lips downturned, the wiry rims of his glasses suddenly fragile with the loss of his usual composure.
“No,” he says simply, soft enough that it’s almost lost under the wind still scudding around the two men on the balcony. “It’s not you.”
“My husband is dead,” says the woman, her voice steady, if infused with rage and grief. “He overdosed last night.”
Belatedly, Milverton’s eyebrows jerk upwards, and a hint of resolve works its way into his cheeks and the line of his mouth. “Well, that’s hardly any business of mine,” he drawls. “All I did was encourage a few little rumours -”
“Rumours?” repeats the woman, cold and unruffled, an icy reflection of Milverton’s own cruelty. “You made them up with the explicit purpose of extorting money from me.”
“Money I never got, by the way, which I’m still a little cut by. And besides, if he was willing to believe them, he obviously thought they were a little more than -” His mocking retort is cut off by the discreet handgun the woman untucks from beneath her crossed arms, pointing it steadily at Milverton’s face. His expression turns sour, hardening. “So you’re going to shoot me then, is that it?” he says. “Entirely ignoring the fact that my security could get here a lot faster than you can get away.”
“I don’t care,” the woman replies, and she says it so simply, so calmly, that John can’t help but be impressed; she really doesn’t care.
“Oh, but think of your wonderful career!” Milverton sneers. “Isn’t that worth anything to you?”
“It’s worth almost everything,” she says. “Unfortunately for you - this is the only situation where that almost comes into play.”
Milverton’s expression falls back into fear-tinged resolve. “You won’t shoot me,” he says, less sure than she.
“Wanna bet?”
Though the voices from within the room have been muffled, the gunshots are anything but. As the first one rings out, practically shaking the glass of the windows, John can’t help but feel the instinctive urge to leap forward - to charge into battle, to inspect the wounded, to make use of the fresh burst of adrenaline suddenly leaping through his veins. Sherlock’s hand on his arm holds him back, though, both their gazes fixed on the woman currently putting bullet after bullet into the man behind the desk. After four to the face, she changes tact, waiting for the body to slide obliquely to the floor before emptying the final five rounds into his chest and stomach, each shot piercing the air even outside the brightly-lit room.
By the time she’s finished, Milverton is unrecognisable, his shattered glasses mingling with the rest of his simpering features and his wide torso a bloody, punctured mess. Sherlock’s grip on John’s arm goes tight, and in the sliver of light seeping from the room, his face has gone a little bit grey. As steady as ever, the woman strides up to the body and stands there for moment, looking down at the destroyed face with an expression of absolute repulsion. She lifts one foot, grinding the toe of her shoe into his forehead, then steps back with a satisfied sigh. As she turns to leave, she spares a glance for the gap in the curtain, her face stony and, in a roundabout way, strangely encouraging.
Then she tucks the gun in her pocket, winds the scarf back around her head, and leaves. Above, the thudding roar of the helicopter begins anew; from below, John thinks he can hear the rising clamour of a shouted alarm.
Without a word, Sherlock snatches up the violin and tears open the balcony door, sweeping the curtain out of the way and stepping gingerly around Milverton’s mangled body. John follows at his heels, the sound of voices suddenly a lot clearer now they’re back in the building.
“Get the doors,” Sherlock snaps, leaning over the computer. Without hesitation, John marches out into the waiting room and slams shut the door leading into the wide, empty hall. He retreats back to the office, likewise shutting them in, then spins on his heel to face the detective, studiously ignoring the dead body.
“Sherlock?” he asks; a request for orders.
“The safe,” says the detective, fumbling now with the violin case on the desk. “Don’t worry about finding the articles, just take everything and burn it, burn everything!”
More than happy to oblige, John plucks an empty wastepaper basket from behind Milverton’s desk and sets it next to the violin, catching a welcome glimpse of a cigarette lighter as Sherlock tosses it out of the same compartment from which he finally pulls the virus-laden USB. But when John tugs on the door of the safe, it resists, rattling in place and refusing to open. Apparently half-latched is as good as locked, and with the shouting of guards sounding ever closer, there’s no time for Sherlock to crack it again.
“Fair warning, Sherlock,” says John, voice low and calm, as he takes a step back from the safe and pulls out his gun. “I’m about to do something stupid.”
Sherlock looks up just in time to watch him switch off the safety and fire at the visible edge of the latch, causing the detective to flinch back at the noise and the sudden change in plan. Once, twice John shoots, the metal denting and caving beneath the heat and pressure; thrice, and with a higher-pitched clang, the door swings open and John darts forward once more, tucking away the gun. As Sherlock shakes himself and taps at the blood-spattered keyboard, John empties the shelves and drawers before him, throwing everything into the wastepaper basket, squashing it down to make room for more. By the time Sherlock’s ripped out the memory stick, more than half the documents have been crammed into the bin, and John still has plenty more to go. Sherlock, taking up the lighter, sets fire to what’s there, then throws both lighter and memory stick into the violin case before turning to John.
“Torches,” he says, holding out both hands. Hardly breaking stride, John slides both torches from his pockets and tosses them over to Sherlock, who once more stows them away under the violin. “And the digital backups?”
“In here somewhere, they must be…” John murmurs, still indiscriminately pouring the paper bundles into the small inferno contained within the basket. Sherlock tugs open the few drawers of Milverton’s desk, but finds nothing, just as a loud hammering sounds on the outer door of the waiting room. Sherlock and John freeze for just a second, catching each other’s eye and returning swiftly to work.
“Here!” John shouts, pulling a mid-sized velvet bag from one of the drawers of the safe. It rattles as he throws it to Sherlock, who deftly catches it and tugs open the drawstring to reveal a small collection of USBs and external hard drives. He tosses the bag into the violin case and looks up at John.
“Any more?”
“No, that’s it,” John pants, coughing as the smoke from the burning packets begins to fill the room. He pulls a last handful of papers from the safe, one arm pressed to his nose and mouth. “That’s it, it’s empty.”
“You’re sure?” asks Sherlock. The shouting and footsteps are closer now, voices resolving into intelligible calls for them to halt as the door handle rattles.
“‘Course I’m fucking sure!” John shouts into his elbow, throwing the final lot of papers into the fire and rounding the desk. “Now let’s go!”
Without hesitation, Sherlock zips shut the violin case and follows John back out on the balcony, slamming the door shut behind them. They stop there for a moment, leaning on their knees and coughing the smoke from their lungs before straightening and glancing at each other with determination in their eyes.
“The ladder?” says John.
“The ladder.”
Sherlock goes first, handing the violin case to John and jumping across the gap with far less preamble than before. He scrambles down the rungs, jumping the last half-dozen to the balcony below, then holds up his arms for the violin which John tosses down at the same time as the office door crashes open.
With a litany of curses, John mounts the railing and throws himself into the air, barely looking before he leaps. He crashes into the ladder, losing his grip momentarily and sliding halfway down before managing to slow his descent. Above them, the balcony door is ripped open, and John leaps the last few feet to the concrete below.
Instead of following the branch of fire escape ladder to the left, Sherlock has climbed over the railing on the right and is dropping down to the balcony below, leaving the violin case for John. Shouts and orders filter down to them through the pummelling wind, but John pays them no heed, again dropping the violin to Sherlock and clambering to jump down beside him.
A shrill, steady alarm pierces the air.
“How much further?” John shouts as Sherlock passes the violin to him and clears another railing.
“At least another few floors,” Sherlock pants in return, not meeting his eye before lowering himself to the edge of the balcony and dropping down. Once more, he’s followed by first the violin, then John, the staggered pattern of the balconies allowing them to clear the storeys with ease.
“And then?” John asks, continuing the conversation as if it hadn’t been interrupted by them both dropping down through several feet of nothing to a concrete balcony.
“Then we get back into the building and to the emergency stairs.”
“Won’t there be guards there?”
Again, Sherlock falls out of sight, and John throws first the violin, then himself, after him.
“Hopefully they’ll all be focusing on the lifts, the thirtieth floor, the roof,” Sherlock babbles, breathless. “We should be able to make it back to the ground almost unseen, they haven’t got that many people.”
They drop down another three floors, John’s knees and ankles jarring with every successive impact, before Sherlock tightens his grip on the violin and refuses to meet John’s eyes, pulling open the door before them and slipping into the dark room beyond. John follows, the room resolving into a wide, open space filled with rows and rows of desks, the alarm sounding even louder inside the building before it suddenly shuts off, and silence blankets them. Before Sherlock can make it more than a few steps, John drags him back, holding his arm tight and spinning him around as he pulls his gun out from under his jacket.
“Let me go first,” he whispers, and though his chest is heaving and his whole body is tense with fear, Sherlock can see the determination in his eyes behind the mask, and nods through his panting breaths. John slips his hand down to grip Sherlock’s, then moves smoothly into a half-crouch, darting between desks toward the far corner, leading with the gun, his left hand pulling Sherlock’s right. When they reach the entrance - a wide, empty doorway - John releases Sherlock’s hand and swiftly raises his gun, covering the darkened area without.
“Empty,” he breathes, stalking forward and immediately regretting it as the long, narrow hall floods with light, blinding him with its sudden severity. “Shit.”
A single shout rings out at the far end of the corridor, and a tall, black-clad security guard appears around the corner, alerted by the activated lights. He rushes forward, taking advantage of John’s momentary debilitation and throwing him to the floor, the gun skittering away across the linoleum. As John blinks and groans and pushes onto his elbows, the guard focuses instead on the more imposing length of Sherlock, darting out of the room after John. The violin case falls to the floor with a heavy thud; Sherlock manages to duck two punches and deflect a third, landing one of his own before the guard’s hands wrap around his long, pale throat, forcing him back against the wall.
“J-hn -”
Sherlock’s gloved fingers scrabble at the guard’s hands, his attempts to fight back growing steadily weaker. Within seconds, though, John is back on his feet and latching one elbow around the guard’s neck from behind, struggling to pull him away.
“Let him go -” he growls, fighting to ignore Sherlock’s panicked gaze.
“Or what?” snaps the guard, paying the doctor no heed.
As Sherlock’s head falls back against the wall, his breath coming in aborted, choked-off wheezes, John disengages from the guard and steps deftly to his left. With a single kick to the side of the guard’s knee, the man buckles, his hands falling from Sherlock’s throat as he tries and fails to stumble upright, his legs giving out beneath him and sending tumbling back onto the floor. John is on him in moments, and with three, perfunctory blows, exacts his revenge and knocks him out.
Silence falls, apart from Sherlock’s heaving, gasping, coughing breaths. John turns to him, glancing over his shoulder and half-turning away from the guard, one hand still planted on the unconscious man’s chest.
“Are you okay?” he pants.
Sherlock waves his hand, trying to dismiss him, but any words he tries to say only come out as meaningless chokes of air. John pushes himself to his feet and steps forward, gripping Sherlock by the arms and pulling him upright.
“Let me see,” he orders. Sherlock shakes his head, his long fingers cradling his neck.
“‘m fine,” he wheezes.
“Let me see,” John snaps, pushing away Sherlock’s hands. With a firm grip on his chin, John tilts Sherlock’s head from side to side, inspecting his abused neck. He pokes and prods at Sherlock’s throat, doctor’s fingers gentle and sure, as Sherlock swallows and gasps, but gives up his struggles.
After a moment, John lets out a small, relieved breath. “No serious damage,” he says, though his voice is still grave. “It’ll probably bruise though,” he continues, his eyes darting up to catch Sherlock’s gaze. “But I guess you’ve got your scarf for that.”
Sherlock wearily throws him off, swiping his hands away and ducking out of his grip. He leans against the wall as his breathing slows, swallowing again and pressing the backs of his fingers to his neck with a wince. John watches him carefully, but doesn’t intervene, as Sherlock picks up the violin and stares at the incapacitated guard.
“Thank you,” he mutters flatly as John turns away to retrieve his gun.
“My pleasure,” comes the deadpan reply. “Where to now?”
“This way,” Sherlock breathes, reaching for John’s hand and tugging him along. Past five locked doors and around a bend, the lights along the corridor flicker into life as they approach, throwing their shadows behind them. At the end of the hall, another empty doorway opens up on their left through which Sherlock drags them both, pulling John around the corner and into another of the large, desk-lined spaces.
“Forward, to that doorway,” says Sherlock between breaths, letting go of John’s hand to point out a shadow in the wall at the far end of the room, lost in various shades of darkness. They both run forward, parting around a row of desks, Sherlock pulling ahead on his long legs. Just as they reach the open doorway, muffled voices sound nearby, close enough to make John leap forward and physically drag Sherlock across the room until they’re flattened against the wall beside the entrance. He readies his weapon and darts forward, anticipating the bright sting of the lights and using it to scan the hall. To his surprise, they’re back at the lifts, the little T-shaped corridor devoid of life.
“Clear,” he whispers to Sherlock, glancing up at the ceiling through which he thinks the voices are reaching them. Sherlock flashes past him, tapping at his arm as he goes by and wrenching open the door to the emergency stairs.
In they go, no longer bothering with subtlety, the door crashing behind them and their clattering footsteps echoing back and forth between the empty, concrete walls. They make it down six flights of stairs before metal creaks far above them, accompanied by the clamour of shouting voices.
“I can hear them!” yells one, rising above the din of the rest and giving the mess of noise a direction, focusing it into one approaching mess of sound.
“Come on, come on,” John mutters, flying around another bend after Sherlock and not stopping to look or listen, focused only on the task of running, running, getting out.
Five floors later and the din from above, coming closer with every corner, is accompanied by a new wave of noise as, somewhere below, another door crashes open and emits a small swarm of guards, all shouting at once - “Can you see ‘em?” “That’s gotta be them!” “Just go!”
“Out, out, out!” Sherlock barks, grabbing John’s wrist and dragging him through the nearest door half a flight down, marked by a large, black ‘11’. He forces the door shut behind them, clearly hoping that the echoes of the concrete within will be enough to mask where they abandoned the path.
“This way,” says Sherlock, slipping his gloved hand into John’s and tugging him down a long, blank corridor, past the lifts, until they reach a door on the right, automatic lights flashing into life as they go. “This should be it,” Sherlock pants, releasing John and crouching down, fumbling with the violin case. “Come on, come on -”
Giving in to instinct, John moves so his back is to the wall beside Sherlock, his gun raised and his eyes raking from side to side, pricking his ears at the approaching echoes from the stairwell. Finally, Sherlock whips out the master key card and shuts the case, ripping the card through the reader beside the door and sagging with relief as the cheerful double-beep sounds and the door successfully unlocks. He barges through, tucking the card into his pocket and leaving John to slam the door behind them as Sherlock bounds across the room to a pair of familiar glass doors.
John turns to the room - a simple, modern office containing two working spaces and a sizeable corkboard covered in papers - at the same time as Sherlock curses, the balcony door resisting his harsh rattling. Glancing around, John tucks away his gun and picks up a heavy, metal chair from the corner.
“Out of the way,” he growls, lifting the chair to his shoulder and stalking forward. Sherlock glances once over his shoulder and leaps away, covering his face as John sends the chair legs crashing through the single glass pane of one door. He rummages around with the chair for a moment, scraping away the ragged edges of the glass, then tosses it lightly aside. “Give me the case,” he snaps, snatching the violin from Sherlock as he passes on his way to the balcony.
Outside, the wind seems to have lessened in force, though it’s no less cold, and glass crunches underfoot. To one side of the balcony is another branch of the fire escape ladder, and John feels grateful on behalf of his knees when Sherlock climbs over the railing and swings onto the metal rungs, scrambling to the balcony below. John drops the violin into Sherlock’s waiting arms and hurries after him, unsurprised to be greeted by only the violin and Sherlock’s flapping tails. As he again throws down the case, the faint glow of the interior lights reaches under the door of the room adjoining the balcony, and John scrabbles down the ladder in time to grab Sherlock’s arm before he can move away.
“They’re up there,” he gasps, nodding in the direction of the balcony above. “The lights came on, they’re looking there.”
“One more floor, then we’ll go back into the building,” Sherlock replies under his breath, swallowing. “Looks like they’ve checked these ones.” He tilts his head in the direction of the balcony doors, and John sees a faint light seeping into the room on the other side.
True to Sherlock’s word, they climb down one more floor before ducking back into the building, finding the balcony door mercifully unlocked. They’re admitted into a huge, L-shaped room that seems to take up almost the entire level, separated into dozens of cubicles, lined against each wall with one, narrow corridor running between them. The lights along the rows are already on, and there’s only one way forward. They set off at a sprint, skidding around two corners and out into the familiar T of the lift and perpendicular corridors, along with the requisite, welcoming sight of the emergency stairs. Sherlock stops before the door, holding his ear to the metal and listening to the muffled echoes beyond. After a moment, he steps back and wrenches open the door.
The minute they enter the stairwell, a cry rings out high above them - “Downstairs! I heard something!” - and the clamour from afar rises in volume, hammering footfalls and breathless shouts bouncing off the concrete and confusing all accurate estimations of distance.
“Go, go!” Sherlock shouts, leaping down the stairs two at a time, the violin swinging wildly from his hand. As he runs, John pulls out his gun again, the familiar weight serving to soothe his hammering heart and focus his gaze. As they go clattering down past the floors, John can feel the triumph building in his chest - nearly there, he repeats in his head, in time with his panting, searing breaths; nearly there, nearly there, nearly there.
When he sees a bold, black number two go flitting past, John skids to a halt halfway down the next flight of stairs and leans out over the railing. He checks above them, seeing hands on the banister only a few floors up but no heads peeking over the edges. Content with the relative lack of risk, John ignores Sherlock’s frenzied demands and raises his gun between the spiralling handrails, pointing up at the roof. He looses two, steady shots, and is rewarded with a loud, collective scream from above and the immediate ceasing of footfalls. Turning back to the stairs, he sprints down after Sherlock.
“Just buying us some time,” he mutters as he passes the detective and nearly falls over his own feet in the final rush for the ground floor.
“There’ll be someone waiting -” Sherlock pants, “at the bottom -”
“I’ll hold ’em back,” John returns, equally breathless. “You get the door.”
True to his word, John doesn’t hesitate as he reaches the final door, wrenching it open and darting out into corridor beyond, barely recognisable now that it’s no longer swathed in shadow. He takes stock of the situation in seconds - three guards, one by the service door, one lingering near the lifts, and the last at the other end of the hall, watching the lobby. Before they can react - before Sherlock has even followed him out of the stairwell - John latches onto the guard by the door and drags him out of the way, knocking him out with a single blow and throwing the limp body at the woman by the lifts. Behind him, Sherlock fumbles with the key card and punches in the PIN (oh-five-six-three-eight, John’s brain throws up, as he fends off the second guard and knocks her out with the butt of his gun). Then Sherlock is shouting, and there’s a draught at his back, and John takes aim just above the shoulder of the final, approaching guard and shoots. The man drops to the floor in fright and shock, leaving John to turn and scramble after Sherlock, out of the building and into the cold night air.
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