It took Mycroft several minutes to scan over the area around the white van, but he saw nothing, not even a cigarette butt that might give him a clue. After glancing at the quiet car park to see if he was being watched, Mycroft tried to open the back of the van. Surprisingly, it was unlocked.
Not wanting to waste the few precious minutes he had to catch up, Mycroft got up inside and pulled a small torch from his pocket. After a few seconds he noticed the light glint off something small to the left. He reached forward and found one of the bugs he'd given Amelia to plant in the hotel room.
It had been pressed as if it had been activated and he nodded his satisfaction. She'd only put two of them in the room, and he'd been in such a hurry to get away from her when she'd been trying to seduce him, and almost succeeded, that he'd left her with the rest.
If she'd deliberately dropped one, or even had one taken off her, that meant there was a good chance the fourth and final one was now transmitting from either the Russians or her. He hoped it was the former, but even the later could be a useful result.
After the lack of skill she'd shown in allowing herself to be taken, for her to have managed to plant one of the bugs would go some way in restoring his faith in her abilities. She might yet lead them to her in time.
He pocketed the bug and scanned the rest of the interior of the van, but there was nothing else to provide him with a clue. Their shoes had been clean and there were no non-metal surfaces to give him any indents, scuff marks or other identifying features.
A little over three hours after Amelia was there, Mycroft got back into the car and looked to Sherlock for directions.
“Folkestone still makes the most sense,” he said, not looking up from the laptop screen. “The motorbike is still heading towards the channel tunnel.”
“If they do, they'll have changed cars again,” Mycroft replied as Daniels pulled off, not waiting for him to confirm the order.
“Certainly. They don't know how far behind we are.”
Mycroft nodded, despite his brother not even looking up. They'd expect him to figure out the car they were using before each checkpoint they reached. If they used the crossing, there was a good chance they were out of the country and in France, but only if they'd timed things well. There was a slim chance they were on the train still, but he needed to know what car they'd used to cross if he was going to get the authorities to do a stop and search. It was a legality he couldn't skirt outside of the UK.
Until then, he could at least try to see what Amelia had managed to do with the fourth bug. Leaving Sherlock to direct Daniels, he fetched his laptop again and pulled up the feeds for the bugs. Now more than ever, he felt grateful that he'd given her real equipment.
As he expected, three of them gave him nothing but static. The fourth had a dull droning in the background. Sherlock finally glanced up from watching the motorbike, the curiosity evident in his eyes.
“She's planted a bug,” he said. Sherlock only raised his eyebrow further, but didn't look up again. “It was part of a task.”
Sherlock nodded almost imperceptibly, but it was evident he still felt some curiosity about the situation. Before Mycroft could even consider the merit of explaining further, the sound coming from the bug changed. Immediately, he recognised the three short taps of the beginning of an SOS message.
“Amelia has it working somewhere, then,” Daniels said, also recognising the distress call.
When it repeated for the third time, Mycroft found himself wondering if it was going to give him any other information, but it started again with three short taps. Just as he was feeling frustration well in him Amelia tapped it again only once. There was another pause and then she tapped it twelve times, then another pause and a single tap. When the next set of taps added up to nine Mycroft rolled his eyes. Amelia evidently didn't know anything other than SOS in Morse code. Now she was spelling out Calais with a tap for every letter further down the alphabet. It was a rudimentary code at best.
Sherlock finally looked away from the camera feed on his screen. Neither Holmes brother said anything. Amelia wasn't in the UK anymore.
“What's she saying?” Daniels asked, picking up on the atmosphere change.
“They've taken her across the channel,” Sherlock explained when Mycroft didn't respond.
“I've got my passport on me.” Daniels gave Mycroft a quick glance, and he didn't fail to see the fiery look in his chauffeur's eyes. One of them, at least, was prepared to do whatever it took to get her back, but Mycroft had to consider what would happen if he stepped onto European soil unannounced.
Being such a big part of the UK government, he had always been careful about leaving the country. In his entire lifetime he'd only left twice before, and both times had been at the request of the British monarch at the time. Not even when his own brother had faked his death to elude Moriarty had Mycroft left British soil. Doing so now ran the risk of causing problems, and he was already in the bad graces of the current monarch because of Amelia. On top of that, he took little delight in leaving. It had been bad enough having to travel to Scotland.
“We can still catch them, especially with her feeding us her location,” Sherlock said, all too aware of the thoughts going on in Mycroft's head.
It took him less than three seconds to process all the ramifications of leaving the country. As long as he stayed in Western Europe he could follow Amelia and smooth over any awkward political situations after he had her safe. There would be several, but if he travelled under one of his aliases he would go undetected for a few days by most countries. The problems would arise when he reached Russia and her closest allies. There was too much history there for him to ignore.
“Shall I head to the airfield at Dover?” Daniels asked, breaking into Mycroft's thoughts.
“No. It won't be quicker to get a helicopter or plane than the channel tunnel.” Sherlock beat him to the response and shut down the man's attempt at help before it became annoying. He didn't have time for pointless questions. “The real question is are we going at all, brother of mine?”
He gave Sherlock a quick nod and immediately his younger brother pulled out his phone and bought the required tickets to get them into France. While he was doing this, Mycroft messaged his secretary for the appropriate paperwork for the three of them, making sure she would book them under the correct names.
Sherlock would be travelling as a Daniel Winters and himself as Mark Turner. Very few people in the UK government knew that was him, and nobody outside of his country would think he was anyone else. Only Daniels had no other name.
If he'd been given more time he'd have changed cars and provided Daniels with something other than his chauffeur uniform to wear, but it would waste precious time to do so now. They were going to have to go as they were and hope the car wasn't quickly traced back to him. It wasn't ideal but he had few options when caught by surprise like this.
Daniels drove towards the channel tunnel, breaking the speed limit in an attempt to make his way there in time for the train Sherlock had booked. All the while, Mycroft continued to listen to the tapping from Amelia, but it was always the same message, SOS in Morse code, followed by Calais. Given that she never spoke and the engine of the car she was in sounded muffled, Mycroft could safely assume she was being kept in the boot of a car, or some other small space out of sight.
Half an hour after he emailed his secretary, he turned down the volume of Amelia's feed and passed the laptop to Sherlock to monitor. A minute later his phone rang. Before he answered it, he knew who it would be.
“Good afternoon, Mr Holmes,” the familiar voice said. “Were you planning on getting permission to go abroad through the usual channels?”
Mycroft knew the palace butler would waste no time, but he wasn't going to be deterred.
“My assistance is needed in a very delicate matter and time is of the utmost importance. I assure you I know what I'm doing,” Mycroft replied, keeping his tone cool and letting the man know exactly how he felt.
“Her majesty would like me to remind you that you represent her, and as such shouldn't be doing anything that would reflect badly on her. She also wishes you to know that we have no desire to fight a war with Russia right now.”
“Of course. I'm well aware of the disaster that would cause. I did handle a significant amount of the details of that particular agreement. My restrictions have already been taken into account.”
“As long as we understand each other, Mr Holmes. We can't aid you in your current endeavour, and the usual resources will not be made available to you.”
“I assure you, I had no intention of breaching protocol. Give my best to her majesty.” Mycroft hung up before he could be told any more, and his brother chuckled.
“The royal family still causing you problems, brother of mine? I'm surprised you haven't sought to replace them with someone more compliant. After all, hundreds of years of ruling as a family does give people delusions of authority.”
Mycroft felt the corners of his mouth tilting up at the irony of the statement, and caught the twinkle of amusement in his brother's eyes as well.
They were still a little way out from the Channel when Amelia's regular tapped message changed. Sherlock turned the volume back up again and the entire car listened while she let them know she thought they'd gone through into Belgium. When it took several minutes, Mycroft decided he'd be teaching her Morse code at the next opportunity.
As soon as the message was over, Sherlock pulled up a map and worked out where she might have crossed the border. Mycroft pulled up the camera feeds the French had of the cars pulling off the Eurostar train and watched through the footage for the right sort of time. If any of the cars appeared in both this video and the ones at the border crossings Sherlock was finding, they'd hopefully know soon.
Several minutes away from Folkestone, a message from Mycroft's secretary came through detailing a police report of a car stolen from London and found less than a mile from the Folkestone departure gate. It matched the description of one of the cars leaving the car park two minutes after the van drove in.
Mycroft relayed the slight detour on to Daniels and only two minutes later the car was pulling up in front of a blue saloon car cordoned off with police tape. Two policemen were standing nearby, neither of them doing anything but waiting for instructions. One was talking on his radio, but stopped when Mycroft and Sherlock got out of the car and walked over to them.
Mycroft pulled out his ID and enjoyed the startled look on their faces as they processed how much he commanded.
“This isn't your average stolen car then?”
“No. Get forensics done on the car interior, but I need the boot open, now.”
The men nodded and hurried to the back of the car to do what he bid. Mycroft tried to look leisurely as he followed, but in truth they needed to hurry almost as badly. He had only four more minutes here if they were going to get on the next train.
Again, the car had been left unlocked, and using some flimsy plastic gloves to cover his fingers, the policeman pulled the lever by the driver's foot well to pop the boot open. Mycroft used a tissue to take hold of a corner of the metal lid and push it upwards. Sherlock came up beside him and both men glanced over the insides.
“There's blood here,” the policemen said, noticing the rust-coloured fabric very close to the lip of the boot on the right.
“Amelia's,” Mycroft and Sherlock said at the same time.
“She was tied, her feet at that end, where the scuff marks are. The heels have dug in as she's moved. She faced us and was on her side,” Sherlock continued, always having more patience to explain these things than he ever had. “This is where she tried to scrape through to the back or get to the possible tool box underneath her. It made her fingers bleed.”
“No, they were bleeding before that,” Mycroft said, interrupting. He pointed to the torn bit of bloody fingernail close to where her neck would have been. Near it were thin wispy strands of a black synthetic chord. “They've black-bagged her and she was trying to untie it.”
“She's not succeeded.” Sherlock gritted his teeth together, and Mycroft shared his younger brother's emotion. Despite their attempts at training her, Amelia just wasn't quite good enough.
“No, she'd be communicating with us properly if she had. She'll be gagged underneath,” Mycroft said as he walked back to his own car. There was little more they could learn at a glance.
“Should we be looking for this Amelia woman? Is she important?” one of the policeman asked as he hurried after them.
“No. We'll find her. Just have the Commissioner forward me the details from forensics when they're done.”
Mycroft got into the car with a minute to spare, and Sherlock was only a few seconds behind. Daniels had stayed behind the wheel and kept the car running, allowing them to pull off and get to the Eurostar with seconds to spare.
As they bypassed the waiting cars and drove onto the train, Mycroft settled back. For a little over half an hour they could do nothing but wait. His hands were tied in many ways and his only consolation was knowing that when they pulled off the train on the other side he would be only two hours and thirty-seven minutes behind Amelia.