The Man With The Umbrella

- 36 -

In Tibilisi, Georgia, six years ago, ornate lights hang from the ceiling. Pedestals stand both sides of a room with bronze lions sat atop of them. The room stood in a manner of chaos, items scattered haphazardly.

Several people sat at the foot of each pedestal, wrapped in blankets whilst others sat beside the windows in exposed despair. A few armed men in military uniform are prowling around the room watching the others.

In between the pedestals is a large table and a man and woman sit in chairs at one end. They too have blankets wrapped around them. A chess set is on the table. The woman looks up at an approaching soldier. "What do you think? Mate in two?" The soldier aims his rifle at the couple. "I will shoot you." He speaks in his native language.

The ambassador cringes away from the gun and her husband speaks quietly to her. "Don't antagonise them, darling." The soldier walks away. "Oh, what else is there to do? Chess palls after three months." She makes a move on the chess board. The soldiers talk amongst themselves nearby. "Everything palls."

"They'll send someone soon."

"They? Who are they? Seems to me we've put an awful lot of faith in they. Well, I've got something they would dearly love if only we could get out of here." She looks at her husband smugly. "I've got Ammo."

"Ammo?"

At that moment glass shatters above them. The Georgian soldiers shout out and everyone dives for cover as two black-clad operatives with balaclavas over their faces rappel down into the room on ropes, firing as they go.

At the same time two more operatives kick their way through a door which had been held closed with an axe through the handles and begin to pick off the soldiers with accurate single shots from their rifles. With all the soldiers apparently terminated, the operatives move through the room checking in all directions.

The ambassador kneels up from where she had taken cover under the table. The operative agent labelled 'R.' holds out a hand towards her and speaks in a very recognisable female voice, "Madam Ambassador." She takes the woman's hand and pulls her to her feet. "What took you so long?"

"Can't get the staff." Agent 'R' responds. She firmly pushes the ambassador towards the door. One of the other operatives yells at the other hostages, "Everyone out! Now!" The hostages begin to get to their feet and head for the door.

Shortly afterwards, the AGRA team are leading the hostages through the building. They reach a junction and the team checks in all directions. One of them shouts, "To your left!" The hostages turn that way. The team moves on but Georgian soldiers suddenly come into view in front of them and the one in the lead fires upwards, blowing out all the lights in the already-dark corridor.

The hostages scream and duck, and AGRA turn and realise that there are armed civilians behind them. AGRA pause, weighing their options as they calculate how many people they are up against, and then another Georgian soldier steps into view with his hand on the neck of a female hostage and his pistol pointed at her head.

As he grins and chuckles, revealing a set of gold teeth, one of the AGRA team, wearing a silver A.G.R.A memory stick round his neck on a chain, pulls up his balaclava to reveal his face. "What now? What do we do?"

Agent 'R', known as Mary pulls up her own balaclava and takes one more look at the armed men surrounding them. "We die." She pulls the pin from a device and hurls the object to the floor in front of her and turns her face away as a massive white light explodes in front of them.

The hostages scream as gunfire begins.

***

Sherlock stands in front of his chair holding the memory stick by one end and repeatedly tapping it against the fingers of his other hand while he frowns in concentration. He has a dark bruise under his left eye. The door opens and Greg comes in. Sherlock turns to look at him. "Well?"