Chapter Text
John glanced in the front doors of the surgery Moran had mentioned, surveying this small corner of his dominion. At first glance, it looked perfectly innocuous, but a second glance revealed cameras hidden in the corners of the ceiling, and a few on the waiting area chairs and fake plants. The nurse at the reception desk also glanced up and about a little bit too regularly to be anything but trained in threat containment, and one of the patients had a butterfly knife stuffed down the side of his boot as he idly flipped through a magazine. Not a normal surgery in the least, though it seemed to have a decent queue of average persons.
The fact that it laundered money for and was owned by the Organization was nearly completely unknown. As far Mycroft or anyone else could tell, the surgery was perfectly average.
Thankfully for John though, things wouldn't be too boring while he was on shift, and even if it did get a bit dull, at least he'd be getting a healthy paycheque.
John took a moment to straighten his tie and check his Curriculum Vitae, as well as the letter of recommendation Moran had thoughtfully written to make sure that John wouldn't have any trouble finding locum work while a few of their doctors were otherwise indisposed.
The nurse glanced up from his station as John entered, and called out a professionally cheery, "Welcome, how can I help you?"
Before John could reply a red-haired doctor popped her head out of her office, took one look at John and his folder of papers, and said warmly, "Doctor Watson, I presume. You must be here for your interview."
"Yes," John agreed, entering the woman's office as she held the door open wider. "Lovely waiting area."
She quirked an amused brow, and he was quick to hand over his Curriculum Vitae and Moran's recommendation before she decided to laugh him out the door.
"I suppose it is. Now I must ask, how did you hear about this job opening, Doctor Watson? I hadn't even had time to put an ad out in the paper."
John pulled up his best service smile for Doctor Sawyer—at this point, the woman was unlikely to be anyone but the manager and head of the surgery herself. "An old friend from my army days mentioned there was an opening. There's a letter from him on the bottom."
She was quiet for several moments as she found, opened, and read the letter. Her brows furrowed the tiniest bit and her mouth tightened with worry at the corners, but there were no other indications that the letter unsettled her. John had to mentally applaud Moran's taste in employees, even if Jim left something to be desired. After a moment, Doctor Sawyer set the letter aside. "Well, I suppose you're a bit overqualified. It's just some locum work with two away on holiday and another on maternity leave. Quite," she paused for a moment of thought before settling on, "mundane, for a soldier such as yourself."
"Just a doctor now," John intoned lightly, one corner of his smile kicking up to make his expression seem a bit self-deprecating.
Her expression softened around the edges, but not enough to indicate pity or an overabundance of sympathy. Both of which John hated with a passion rivalled only by the most zealous serial killers.
She glanced through his Curriculum Vitae briefly, and asked, "Anything else you can do?"
Fill the Yard's evidence locker with tea and biscuits, shoot a killer cabbie, cause a massacre by going AWOL..."I learned the clarinet at school."
Doctor Sawyer laughed, which had been his intention, and leaned a little closer, which hadn't been John's intention really; but it had been a while since he'd had some feminine company, let alone a date, so he wasn't at all adverse to playing up his charm and snagging a date, even if she was, technically, his employee.
He figured since she didn't know it, and he wasn't about to use it against her, it wasn't a big enough deal to worry about.
John had just finished the interview, reasonably sure of a date in the near future, when his work mobile rang. His footsteps faltered for a moment, and he glanced around before darting down an alley. "XO" flashed on the screen, and John swore under his breath as he answered, "I swear to god, if someone important isn't dead or dying, or a major project is not about to implode and destroy the Organization, I don't care how useful you are, I will kill you."
"Jim's gone."
John froze. "Say that again."
Moran growled, "Jim's gone. I left for ten minutes to grab food, and when I got back the hotel room was empty. He left everything except the bankcards, and some of his street clothes. I've already called J.J.; the accounts were emptied five minutes ago. More than enough for a fake passport or to be smuggled out of the country."
"You were supposed to watch him," John snapped, forcing himself to keep his voice low as he monitored the foot traffic at the mouths of the alley. "The whole point of sending you off on a bloody holiday was to keep Jim out of the country, and away from the Organization. It was meant to distract him from whatever plot he had to cause anarchy in Britain, Sebby. You had one job, goddamn it, and you managed to screw even that up!"
"I'll find him, Boss, and—"
"No," John stated firmly. "He's so damn close to that line, Moran, and I'm not having him take you with him. You are going to stay in Sydney, and you are going to stay there until Reid's team finds that little shit. Then you're going to go to a safe house in Dublin, and we are going to have words once I can find the opportunity to arrive without undue scrutiny."
"Yes, sir," Moran gritted out reluctantly.
John sighed, rubbing at his temples in an attempt to sooth his latest headache. "It's not personal, Moran. I'm not doing this because I like to force my employees into line. I do this because if Jim is acting outside of the command structure—a command structure that took years of careful planning and concise shows of force to implement—others will attempt to follow his example. I will not allow all my hard work and careful planning to descend into anarchy."
"I know, Boss," Moran said plaintively. "But I know Jim better than anyone in the Organization—"
"And he knows you just as well, Moran. I understand; you want to be involved because you're already emotionally involved. But the moment you get involved, Jim knows every move in our playbook."
Moran sighed heavily, no doubt weary and worried over Jim's antics. "It's my fault he's running wild. He should've worked his way up through the ranks, but I insisted he start out on top. He thinks he's so fucking clever and special in that big head of his, and I let him go on thinking like that."
"You fucked up," John agreed. "But so did I. I never imagined I would ever say this, and I hope to god I never have to say it again: Hale was right, and we should've listened to his opinion. I should've fought you, but I let myself be distracted by RAMC and Afghanistan."
Moran snorted tiredly. "Well, I think we can be forgiven for that since within five minutes of meeting Jim, Hale started wailing on him out of nowhere."
John sighed, rubbing tiredly at his brow as he complained, "We've already had this conversation. Hale is unstable on the best of days, and Jim is an instigator of the highest order. Putting them in a room together is like putting matches next to a powder keg, which is why we make sure they're never within more than thirty feet of each other, a mile when either is armed."
"Let's just hope Jim doesn't decide to try his luck with Hale."
John scrubbed at his face. "He should be smarter than that, but the last few weeks have me doubting how smart he actually is."
"Not as smart as he thinks he is, that's for sure," Moran replied.
"Damn right. Now if that's all, I need to get back to Baker Street."
Moran hung up without any sort of goodbye, and with a world-weary sigh, John stuffed his work mobile back into the pocket of his coat, but not before shooting a quick update to Reid on the Jim situation. She'd handle finding Jim, and adjust his punishment accordingly.
Hopefully, they would manage to sequester him before he did something vastly stupid.
)
Sherlock was once again laid out on the couch, eyes closed and hands steepled under his chin, when John arrived back at the flat. John shucked his jacket and, as he laid it over the arm of his chair, Sherlock spoke up, "I said, 'Could you pass me a pen?'"
John glanced around, making sure he was the only one who was in the flat and Sherlock wasn't talking to some ninja or something hiding in the curtains. "What? When?"
"'Bout an hour ago."
John shook his head and sighed, unsurprised that Sherlock seemed to have completely ignored what John had told him just that morning. It was like dealing with a child, honestly. He wondered how Moran had ever seen past the immaturity and pouting to find any sort of attractive human being in Jim. Seriously, some days John wondered how Jim had survived in the Irish mob with that kind of entitled attitude.
Still, John picked up a pen and tossed it towards Sherlock absently. He didn't look to see if Sherlock caught it, but Sherlock's reflexes had proven to be nearly as fast as his mind so John wasn't particularly worried about hitting an eye.
"I went for that job at the surgery, remember?" John asked, fitting himself into his arm chair and getting his laptop. He had date ideas to research after all.
"How was it?"
John glanced at his flatmate, and contemplated his answer. It had been somewhat entertaining to compare interesting or odd past patients with Doctor Sawyer—Sarah, really—and the surgery's locum work would be more beneficial professionally speaking, than if John worked at a different surgery. And getting fired would probably take some kind of act from God, considering John owned the surgery. The only blight had been the phone call afterwards. "It's great."
Sherlock eyed him suspiciously, but directed the conversation towards the photos on the wall. "Come have a look."
John considered briefly staying right here in his chair, forcefully exorcising his rage through covert meditation, but figured if it had anything to do with the case, it was worth looking at, if only briefly.
Christ, John wanted this to be over already and it had only barely begun.
)
John was more than happy to fade into the background as Sherlock made DI Dimmock look like an idiot for not taking Sherlock's word as gospel in front of the entire Yard, and then again when they arrived at the flat of the dead journalist. He wondered absently, as Sherlock poked around with Dimmock dogging at his heels, what the purpose of this death had been. Admittedly, Lukis hadn't been a fairly renowned reporter, but the death of anyone related to the media was enough to spark a dark glee that there had been some story floating about that someone thought was worth killing for. And if it was worth killing for, well, wouldn't the story be wonderfully juicy and scandalous? John wondered briefly if the Black Lotus had any idea of the sort of hornet nest they'd inadvertently disturbed.
With a quiet snort, John valiantly resisted the urge to crush the small, delicately folded black lotus under his heel, and let himself be mildly amused by Dimmock's incredibility and naivety. After twenty years in a criminal syndicate, thirteen of which he'd spent running the damn thing, there was very little that still surprised John, as far as the methods criminals used went. It probably didn't hurt that he had a few gymnasts on his Theft Taskforce in his White Collar division, at least half of which had been recruited away from Olympic teams worldwide and had never even entertained the idea of crime until John presented it on a shiny silver platter of enticing thrills.
He missed going out into the field to give his personal picks the recruitment spiel actually. (Jim didn't count because a) John hadn't wanted to pick him in the first place and b) it's nowhere near as fun when the recruit was already a criminal.) Maybe he'd look into doing that again once he was off Big Brother's radar, though he'd have to leave most of the psychopaths off the roster until the Organization's fame in certain circles died down a bit.
John shelved the thought for later consideration as Sherlock led the way downstairs into a cab.
)
John had his mind occupied with the logistics of arranging Jim's punishment, the cipher he hoped to decode before Sherlock so he could do some damage control (if that was even possible this late in the game), evaluating Jim's motives for letting the Black Lotus run wild without supervision, and strategies to minimize the exposure of the Organization, so he could be forgiven for staring dumbly at the can of spray paint Raz had shoved into his hand. Getting caught by the Community Support Officer was just embarrassing, especially for a man like John, and he'd gotten a bloody ASBO too. Normally, John wouldn't have gotten worked up over that last little fact as J.J was more than willing to work his computer magic so it was as though the ASBO had never happened in the first place. But with Mycroft lurking around, John had to play the good little citizen and actually go to court.
A waste of time if there ever was one.
So John was a little cranky when he got back to the flat, just a smidgen really, and felt perfectly justified to slam the street door closed behind him, because he did, on occasion, believe in giving people a warning when he was having a bad day. (He was relieved though that Mrs. Hudson appeared to be out as her thunderous expression would've compromised his furious momentum.) Sherlock—surprise, surprise—was unconcerned when John stomped up to the flat, nose stuck in a book.
"You've been gone a while," Sherlock observed absently, not even bothering to glance up.
John bit back a snarl, flexing his hands in and out of fists to work off some of his tension. "Yeah, well, you know how it is. Custody sergeants don't like to be hurried, do they?" he said, smiling tightly as he started to pace. Working off his anger with a little movement was much safer than allowing it to simmer too long. John didn't exactly have the luxury of jetting off to faraway lands riddled with an unruly criminal class anymore. (Mostly because Big Brother was watching, but also because John had had enough temper tantrums over the past decade to put most of the unruly scum of the world's underbelly in their place.)
"Just formalities really: fingerprints, charge sheet," John continued sardonically cheery, even as he appreciated the irony. "I've got to be in Magistrates Court on Tuesday."
"What?" asked Sherlock inattentively.
John ground his teeth, repeating carefully, "Me, Sherlock, in court on Tuesday. They're giving me an ASBO!" Which was beyond unbelievable, seeing as he hadn't actually vandalized anything. Some deity or incarnation of fate somewhere was laughing like a bloody hyena over this no doubt. Framed for a misdemeanour was not what John had expected when he imagined being on trial. He'd expected something a little less...boring. Like murder or grand larceny. Maybe even extortion if the prosecutors were desperate.
And here John was, outwitted by a bloody child. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to murder this "Raz" for his audacity, or try to tempt the boy into his network of misguided youths. At the moment, neither option was safe enough to risk it, but he stored the thought away for a rainy day after Sherlock Holmes was nothing more than a memory.
Sherlock, who John had realized rather quickly wasn't listening in the least, replied, "Good. Fine."
Still, John couldn't help but add, "You want to tell your little pal he's welcome to go and own up any time." Assuming Mycroft didn't intervene in an attempt to gain leverage for a later favour, of course.
He started to shrug off his jacket, intent on getting off his feet and settling in for a nice afternoon of watching cat videos interspersed with virtual walkthroughs of a few museums, casinos, foreign military bases, and mansions so he could start laying the groundwork for heists three or four years in the making. Sherlock, in a manner John was becoming distressfully familiar with, pulled the jacket back up John's arms.
"What are you doing?" John demanded as his mad flatmate steered him back towards the door.
Sherlock replied calmly, "I need you to go to the police station."
John stared at Sherlock. "I was just at the police station, you mad bugger." He'd also rather never go back because every time he walked in, there was a part of him convinced he wasn't going to walk back out, not on his own two feet.
"Ask about the journalist," Sherlock continued as if John had never spoken.
John swore under his breath, wondering why the hell he'd ever thought this flat arrangement was a good idea. Really, it would've been easier just to win the lottery a couple of times, or go vacation in the Cayman Islands for a while. He was getting mad in his old age. That was the only plausible reason he could think of.
Sherlock grabbed his coat from the back of the door, shrugging it on as he explained, "His personal effects will have been impounded. Get hold of his diary, or something that will tell us his movements." He steered them downstairs, and out onto the street. "Gonna go see Van Coon's P.A. If we retrace their steps, somehow they'll coincide." Without further ado, Sherlock walked off down the street.
No shit, Sherlock, John grumbled internally. He'd bet a pretty penny it was somewhere in Chinatown as the Black Lotus, while often reckless, were quite predictable in the locations of their drop sites and bases. For a smuggling ring, they were awful sloppy, and John had only ever used them as a last resort or for a cheap job he wouldn't mind seeing go south.
A taxi turned the corner, and John stretched out a hand to hail it. As it pulled to the kerb, he noticed a woman on the other side of the street, taking a picture. She was an older Chinese woman, petite and wearing dark sunglasses even though it was overcast. He watched her from the corner of his eye as he bent down level to the taxi's window.
"Scotland Yard," John told the cabbie, climbing into the back of the taxi. He glanced furtively at the other side of the street, but the woman was gone.
John flexed his left hand, wary as a brief burst of adrenaline tingled along his nerves. It seemed that General Shan had decided to come in person, and that boded well for no one. The Organization and Sherlock especially.
)
John peered at the rows of porcelain cats and wondered if this was what the first circle of hell looked like. The figurines were eerie, painted eyes staring directly into your soul with one paw raised. He politely declined, several times, when the shopkeeper asked if he was interested in one.
He'd rather have a severed headache in the fridge in all honesty.
The dainty cups were better, though perhaps a bit dull. He picked one up to examine the design, and turned it over to check the price. Harry's birthday was coming up soon, and she liked knickknacks. Not to mention she already had a mismatch of set cups so one more wouldn't make much of a difference.
John stilled for a moment as he recognized the symbol stuck on the bottom of the cup, a near carbon copy of the one painted in Sir William's office. "Sherlock," John called evenly.
Once Sherlock had come close enough, John showed him the bottom of the cup. "That's the symbol. Exactly the same as the cipher."
He had no idea what it meant, though it was presumably a number, but it was one step closer to unlocking the cipher, which was one step closer to stopping the Black Lotus. It was unfortunate Sherlock now had that information as well, but John could probably use that brilliant mind to stay one step ahead. This flatmate arrangement might even be profitable for once.
John trailed after Sherlock as he walked through China town, examining the signs printed in Chinese and English to decipher the exact numbers represented by the Chinese symbols. John listened with half an ear as Sherlock relayed the numbers corresponding to the graffiti in Sir William's office, sweeping the area for surveillance. He spotted Shan a few feet away, phone raised again, but she disappeared back into the crowd before he could determine who exactly she was surveying: him or Sherlock.
If Sherlock, that was worrisome but nothing John needed to deal with just yet. But if she was watching and taking picture of him, then he would need to make a few calls, at least one to an assassin.
Unravelling Jim's plans was second to remaining anonymous.