Sherlock: Lover Mine [Book II]

Confrontations

"Lieutenant Forge."

The man jolted around and a scowl overtook his features. Susanna held a straight face as he shook his fist at her, "I knew you agents would come out!"

"Agents? Puh-lease!" She chuckled, "If I was an agent, then I wouldn't be here."

"Then what are you?"

"No one of consequence," Susanna and Forge stared each other down for a few minutes, "Well you're terribly boring. Mind telling me what you've been up to dowm here, Mister Machinist?"

"Doing a service- that's what!" He hollered back, taking out a gun and aiming it at her forehead, "I might tell you if you come quietly and don't raise any alarms. I'll try not to bore you anymore." Susanna nodded and stepped slowly towards him.

"My partner found out you injected six crewmen with a virus. How do you manage to come by such a noxious specimen when you're a machinist?"

"Machinists know how things work. We're ignored, but boy we can do things that could screw the entire fleet."

"Indeed. Never underestimate because of rank and designation," Susanna hummed and finally was shoulder-to-shoulder with him, "You were on a bomb squad before you joined the ship. You were removed and reassigned because of issues."

"How'd you know that?"

"Files."

He grunted and opened the engine room doors before shoving her inside. As she stumbled to a stop he pressed the gun to the back of her head, "Don't get any ideas."

"Of course not." Her eyes darted around the boiling hot, humid, and dim chamber and located a table laid with wires, computer chips, and explosives. Then she saw the big one. A 5x5x5 cube of homemade bombs next to the main power generator. Multi-colored wires came out and wound around it in dizzying patterns.

"I'm going to wait until your people come to quarantine the ship because of the little virus I set loose, and then- BOOM!!" He nudged me sharply with the gun, "Why destroy one boat when you could take out a second boat and a couple helicopters?"

"You've been in league with hostiles."

"Aren't America and England hostiles too? Isn't the playing field level?"

"Not quite," Susanna refuted and whipped around, planting both of her elbows deep into his liver and stomach. This incapacitated him long enough for her to disarm him and throw him to the floor, "Now we are, turncoat."

Sherlock huffed as he found Popovitz. He'd raced the whole way down from the lab, "Okay, which way did she go?"

"This way." Popovitz weakly replied. He nodded and pushed forward, followed by the Sergeant. Within several minutes they too had found the engine room.

The first thing they heard was loud thumps and bumps coming from inside. Sherlock immediately raced to the window and slammed himself against the heavy firedoor, "Susanna!"

She was grappling and wrestling full-on with Forge, who dwarfed her in every way, and was miraculously not a pancake or a grease stain on the floor. Sherlock yanked the door open and rushed in, shedding his coat, blazer and scarf. The detective tackled Forge and wrangled him off of Susanna. The two men fell back to the ground, brawling intensely.

This gave her the chance to stand up and run to the giant bomb. She took out her blade and approached it carefully, looking through the wires and circling about to get a good mental map of it.

"Susanna!" Sherlock gasped for breath, having been put in a chokehold. Susanna turned back to the two men and bent over Forge, kneeing him in the stomach and groin and rolling him off of Sherlock. Then she returned to the explosive device, bouncing on her feet.

Finally she figured out where to sever the connections and as Sherlock toppled Forge to the floor with his hands behind his back, Susanna snipped the wires in eight different places. The screen showing the countdown time froze and she immediately dismantled the rest.

Sherlock heaved a breath as Popovitz entered the room, gun raised. He told her to retrieve the handcuffs from his coat and she did, tossing them to him. Once Sherlock had cuffed him tightly to a pole and had searched for any more devices, he turned towards Susanna.

"Good timing." She applauded. Sherlock glowered.

"You headstrong, foolhardy, obstinate IDIOT! You could have gotten yourself killed with this stunt!" He scolded hotly. Susanna simpered as he marched across the chamber, his footsteps hard and powerful, "Why!? You thought you could just waltz down here and confront Forge?!"

"I was trusting myself, Sherlock. I knew I could defuse the bomb if I could get down here and I trusted that you would come after me." Sherlock exhaled a shaky breath.

"Idiot."

She smiled and grabbed his hand, putting it on her cheek, "We're both idiots."

"There's no room for hanky panky on this boat!" Popovitz chided playfully. She had the gun trained on Forge, who had given up.

"That woman is crazy." He groaned.

"I have many brothers. I grew up having to wrestle, box and grapple." Susanna explained. Sherlock almost smiled.

An hour and a half later the first of three helicopters arrived. It took Forge off the vessel and then the next one took the corpses, Popovitz and Overstreet. The third arrived for Susanna and Sherlock, who had performed tests and assured they had not been infected with the virus. As they were boarding the aircraft they saw a cruiser pulling up to the starboard side with a replacement crew and teams for decontamination and bomb disposal.

At that point it was dawn, with the sun's amber gleam illuminating the channel and the sky. Susanna leaned against Sherlock who placed his arm around her shoulders, "Love?"

"Mmm?"

"Please tell me you feel you've proved enough already." He begged. She smiled sleepily and reached up to brush a kiss on his jawline.

"Yes, Sherlock. I'm satisfied." He smiled in return and brought her head to rest more so on his chest, lowering his arm to her waist.

Another adventure completed, a new one to come! Thank you for reading!!