Vatican Cameos (A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction)

2. Serbia

SERBIA. NIGHT TIME.
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A man with long straggly hair is running through a forest. Above him, a helicopter is circling around, shining a searchlight into the trees while the crew watch their infrared camera, radioing instructions in Serbian to the ground crew. There is much shouting and running and chasing of the man through the woods and eventually some of the soldiers block the way in front of the man. One of them sends a burst of automatic gunfire towards his feet and he has no choice but to stop. The soldiers surround the man and aim their rifles at him. He slumps to the ground, exhausted.
Some time later, in an interrogation centre, a soldier wearing a thick coat and a furry hat is guarding the entrance to a room. He has earphones in his ears playing loud music. Behind the closed door, the prisoner cries out as he is struck for what is apparently the umpteenth time. Hearing the noise, the soldier takes out one of his ear buds and looks round to the door as the prisoner is struck again and groans. The soldier puts his ear bud back in and turns away. Inside the room, the torturer shouts repeatedly at the prisoner, who is naked from the waist up and whose arms are chained to opposite walls of the small room, forcing him to stay upright. The man is slumped forward as far as he can, apparently exhausted by the repeated blows and unable to support his own weight. In a dark corner of the room another soldier, well wrapped against the cold and with a furry hat on his head, sits with his feet up on a small table and watches while the torturer paces across the room.

"You broke in here for a reason." Says the torturer, in Serbian.

He picks up a large metal pipe and walks towards the prisoner again.

"Just tell us why and you can sleep. Remember sleep?" He says.

He draws back the pipe over his shoulder and prepares to strike the prisoner but the man quietly whispers something. The torturer stops, lowering the pipe and leaning forward.

"What?" He asks.

He reaches down and pulls the man's head back by the hair, leaning closer as the prisoner continues to whisper.

"Well? What did he say?" Says the soldier in the corner.

Straightening up and releasing the prisoner's head, the torturer looks down at him in puzzlement.

"He said that I used to work in the navy, where I had an unhappy love affair." Says the torturer.

The prisoner continues to whisper and the torturer relays his words to the other soldier.

"... that the electricity isn't working in my bathroom; and that my wife is sleeping with our next door neighbour!"

He reaches down and pulls up the prisoner's head by the hair again.

"And?"

The prisoner replies briefly and the man releases his head.

"The coffin maker!"

Once again he bends to the prisoner, lifting his head with a fist in his hair.

"And? And?"

The prisoner continues whispering, then the torturer drops his head and relays the words to the soldier.

"If I go home now, I'll catch them at it! I knew it! I knew there was something going on!"

He storms out of the room, leaving the prisoner slumped in his chains.

"So, my friend. Now it's just you and me." Says the soldier.

He takes his feet off the table and stands up.

"You have no idea the trouble it took to find you." He says.

He walks across the room to the prisoner, whose back is covered in blood and wounds from his beating. The soldier grabs a handful of the prisoner's hair and pulls his head up a little. Leaning close to the man's ear, he speaks in English and we hear the familiar voice of Mycroft Holmes.