Very shortly after Sherlock had put his coat on and left Irene Adler behind in the flat, he found himself getting into the back of a black car parked outside the flat. The stranger got into the passenger seat and the car finally drove away into the cold midnight air.
Destination; Heathrow Airport.
''There's going to be a bomb on a passenger jet. The British and American governments knows about it but rather than expose the source of that information, they're going to let it happen.'' Sherlock began to tell the driver and the man what he had deduced, ''The plane will blow up. Coventry all over again. The wheel turns. Nothing is ever new.''
Neither the stranger nor the driver responded in any way. Some time later, the car arrived at Heathrow Airport and was driven past hangars to a 747 Jumbo Jet, parked on the tarmac. The car stopped near the plane and Sherlock got out, walking over to the steps with led up to the entry door. A familiar figure was standing at the bottom of the steps. Neilson, the American the detective had thrown out the window.
''Well, you're lookin' all better.'' Sherlock said nonchalantly and with a deliberately fake American accent, ''How ya feelin'?''
''Like putting a bullet in your brain... sir.'' Neilson replied as the other man let out a quiet snigger and started to walk up the steps, ''They'd pin a medal on me if I did... sir.''
Sherlock half-turned back towards him, then decided he couldn't be bothered and continued up the steps. Inside, he pulled back the curtain obscuring the passenger seating and walked into the aisle of the plane. The lighting was very low and it was hard for him to see clearly. There were people sitting in almost all the seats yet none of them were moving or speaking or even showing any signs of life at all. Frowning, he walked forward and looked more closely at the nearest passengers. An overhead light showed more clearly the faces of two men sitting beside each other, Sherlock now realised the truth:
They were dead.
They were all dead. Although they were not yet showing any signs of decomposition, their skin was grey and they had clearly been dead for a good amount of time. He turned and looked to the passengers on the other side of the aisle, turning on another overhead light to get a better view. The man and woman sitting there were also long dead. As he straightened up, realizing that everyone on board of the place must be in the same condition, the familiar voice of his brother spoke from the other end of the section.
''The Coventry conundrum.'' Mycroft said as he pushed back the curtain and stepped through into the cabin, ''What do you think of my solution?'' he continued as he talked softly, almost out of respect for the dead bodies around him, ''The flight of the dead.''
''The plane blows up mid-air.'' Sherlock muttered, ''Mission accomplished for the terrorists. Hundreds of casualties, but nobody dies...''
''Neat, don't you think?'' his brother asked as the detective smiled humourlessly, ''We ran a similar project with the Germans a while back, though I believe one of our passengers didn't make the flight.'' he continued, ''But that's the deceased for you... late, in every sense of the word.''
''How's the plane going to fly?'' the detective asked before answering himself immediately, ''Of course: unmanned aircraft. Hardly new.''
''It doesn't fly. It will never fly. This entire project is cancelled.'' Mycroft smiled sadly, ''The terrorist cells have been informed that we know about the bomb. We can't fool them now. We've lost everything. One fragment of one email, and months and years of planning finished.'' he continued, ''All it takes is one lonely naïve man desperate to show off and a woman clever enough to make him feel special.''
''Your MOD man that showed the email to Irene Adler.'' Sherlock mocked.
''I'm not talking about the MOD man, Sherlock; I'm talking about you!'' Mycroft said loudly, ''The damsel in distress... In the end, are you really so obvious? Because it was textbook: the promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption, then give him a puzzle... and watch him dance.''
YOU ARE READING
The Death Game
AdventureShe's lived a lot of different lives, been a lot of different people many times. She lives her life in bitterness and fills her heart with the emptiness that she craves. For the first time, she can see. She sees it. There's no crime in what she does...
