CHAPTER 29: THE FIRST BOMB
Nathan's Office, Clerkenwell — October 15, 2010, 6:48 AM
The call came before the news.
Charlie, at quarter to seven, which meant something had woken him that couldn't wait. Charlie slept rough most nights, but he had a schedule — up at eight, first cup of tea from the Salvation Army van by half past — and deviation meant trouble.
"Nathan. There's been an explosion."
I set down the toast I'd been eating at the office desk — breakfast at the workplace, the habit I'd promised myself I'd break. "Where?"
"Baker Street area. Last night, or early this morning. Gas leak, they're saying on the news. But Rosa's contact at the fire brigade says it wasn't gas. The damage pattern's wrong."
Rosa's contact at the fire brigade. Six months ago, my intelligence network had consisted of Charlie and a bacon sandwich. Now it had tentacles in half of London's emergency services.
I pulled the ThinkPad across the desk and refreshed BBC News. The headline was already up: GAS EXPLOSION DESTROYS BAKER STREET FLAT — ONE CASUALTY FEARED. The accompanying photograph showed a gutted building face — windows blown out, brick scorched, the particular violence of internal pressure finding external release.
12 Greville Terrace. Mrs. Hudson's neighbourhood. Close enough to 221B that Sherlock would have felt the blast.
"Is it linked?" Charlie asked. "To your corkboard man?"
My corkboard man. Charlie's name for the single red index card that had occupied the centre of the office board for three weeks.
"Too early to tell," I said, which was a lie. I knew exactly what this was. The opening move. Moriarty's pièce de résistance — not a crime, but a performance. Bombs strapped to innocent people, forced to relay puzzles to Sherlock Holmes through a pink phone. Solve the puzzle in time, the hostage lives. Fail, and—
The photograph on the screen showed what failure looked like.
"Keep your ears open," I said. "Any unusual activity — vehicles, people, anything that doesn't fit the normal pattern. Especially near residential areas. And Charlie — tell the network to be careful. Whatever this is, it's bigger than the Black Lotus."
I hung up and ate the rest of the toast without tasting it. My left arm — the one with the scar — itched. It did that sometimes when I was stressed. Phantom nerve memory, the body remembering the knife even after the wound had healed.
---
By noon, the "gas explosion" narrative had collapsed. The BBC updated their coverage: POLICE INVESTIGATING POSSIBLE DELIBERATE CAUSE OF BAKER STREET BLAST. Scotland Yard issued a statement confirming "an active investigation." No mention of puzzles. No mention of hostages. Not yet.
But Marcus called at 2 PM with information the news didn't have.
"That flat that blew up. A woman lived there — alone, mid-thirties, worked in admin at a college. She had a mobile phone that wasn't hers. Someone saw her crying outside the building thirty minutes before the explosion, talking into it."
"A phone that wasn't hers?"
"Pink. Old model. Not the kind anyone carries on purpose."
The pink phone. Moriarty's calling card. He gave each hostage the same phone — an echo of Jennifer Wilson's pink phone from the cabbie case. A message to Sherlock: I was there all along.
"Get me the timeline. When she was last seen at work, when she got home, when neighbours noticed anything unusual. And Marcus — was anyone else seen near the building? Anyone who didn't belong?"
"I'll ask."
I spent the afternoon mapping what I knew against what the news was reporting. The first puzzle — the one the dead woman had been forced to relay — had involved a cold case. An unsolved murder or accidental death, presented as a challenge. Sherlock would solve it. He always solved them.
The problem was what happened between the puzzles. The gaps. The quiet hours when Moriarty selected the next hostage, placed the next bomb, designed the next challenge. Those gaps were where the infrastructure lived — the van, the bomb-maker, the surveillance team that identified vulnerable targets.
That was what I could investigate.
[Great Game: Active. Hostage protocol confirmed. Working logistics.]
At 6 PM, I turned on the office radio — a cheap Roberts model I'd found at a market stall — and listened to the evening news. A second hostage had been released. A man, elderly, found wandering near Vauxhall Bridge wearing a bomb vest with a disconnected detonator. He was incoherent, couldn't describe his captor. The bomb squad had disarmed the device.
Two down. Three more puzzles. Then the pool.
The radio played an interview with a Metropolitan Police spokesman who used the word "ongoing" fourteen times and said nothing useful. Behind the careful language, I could hear the institutional panic — Scotland Yard didn't know what they were dealing with. A serial bomber who didn't want money, territory, or political change. A bomber who wanted Sherlock Holmes to play a game.
I opened the Moriarty file — a manila folder that had grown from a single index card to thirty pages in three weeks. Network restructuring data from Charlie. Forger acquisition notes from Marcus. A list of criminal enterprises across London that had suddenly become more efficient, more coordinated, more professional in the past two months.
And now, bombs.
He's been building this for months. The network, the reputation, the control. The bombs aren't the beginning — they're the opening night. Everything before was rehearsal.
I added a new section to the file: GREAT GAME — OPERATIONAL LOGISTICS.
Under it, I wrote: Question: Where do the bombs come from?
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