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Mycroft Holmes knew he wasn’t the most pleasant man to be around and he took a certain amount of pride in it. He was cold, direct and unemotional. And while that might have kept him from ever becoming a decent diplomat, it made him highly efficient at what he did. Pull strings backstage, controlling how things played out - that was where Mycroft thrived.
It also made him a target. There had been several attempts on his life and Mycroft dared say he was getting used to it. He usually didn’t worry about it too much; one of the many perks of working for the government and secret service was having discreet protection at his disposal at all times. All of the attempts had been foiled early on so far, leaving no room for concern that that should be any different in the future.
Only this time it was. This time Mycroft did worry. Because the threat came from within.
—
“How do ye like yer new assignment?”, Merlin asked, barely bothering to conceal a grin.
“I really don’t know why Arthur picked me for the job. I might be tempted to shoot the man myself.” Harry was leaning against the doorframe of Merlin’s office, clothed in his Kingsman suit and glasses, ready to go on his mission.
Merlin laughed. “Might be more of a loyalty test for ye than shooting yer dog. Ye made less of a fuss when ye had to foil Thatcher’s assassination.”
Harry sighed. He would never hear the end of this. “Thatcher’s death would have been a national crisis, especially in a cold war situation. Compared to that, Holmes’ assassination would be a minor inconvenience.”
“Certainly is for ye.” Merlin checked his watch. “Better go before the job is done before ye get there.”
Harry glanced at the clock on the wall behind Merlin and nodded. Almost five, he’d better hurry. “Stop me if I aim at the wrong man”, he said over his shoulder, already halfway through the door.
—
Mycroft was trapped. He had realised it way too late, realised that Sherlock had been right after all.
“Are you looking forward to your security convention?”, Sherlock asked, dressed in his old red dressing gown stretched out on his sofa. He was giddy about something and it irritated Mycroft even more than his brother’s usual presence.
“Not particularly. It’ll be just as dull as the last one.” Mycroft didn’t know why, but he was peeved by Sherlock’s interest in the convention. It was a small affair, just big enough to be familiar with the names of the people attending but not the faces.
“Oh, I don’t know”, Sherlock said, clearly getting to the point of his interest. He never did have a good poker face. “I don’t find assassinations terribly dull. "Do you?"
“Don’t be absurd, Sherlock!”, Mycroft snapped. “You can’t seriously think that anyone is going to be assassinated there. We’re all secret service or private contractors there, we know each other, have worked with each other for years. There has never been a break of trust. Besides, if there were any trouble, I would know about it.”
“Then you’re not very well informed, brother dearest”, Sherlock said smugly. “I know there is a plan to kill one of you.”
“Is that so?” Mycroft wasn’t trying to hide his annoyance. “And how do you know?”
Sherlock didn’t reply and his silence was enough for Mycroft to know.
“And you think something you overheard in a crack den is credible?”
“Opium”, Sherlock corrected him.
“Oh, I’m sorry”, Mycroft mocked. “Of course that makes it so much better.”
“My point still stands.”
“Does it really? Pray tell who is supposed to be assassinated, then.”
“I don’t know”, Sherlock said, clearly vexed. “They didn’t say.”
“How convenient”, Mycroft said with a patronising smile. “Believe me, if there were a plan to kill one of us, I’d know. We’re very good at what we do.”
“Unless it’s you they want to kill, of course.”
Mycroft scoffed, no intention of gracing that ridiculous notion with an answer. Sherlock enjoyed getting under his skin when he was bored - just as he was now - and Mycroft was determined to not let him this time.
In retrospect, it had been careless of Mycroft not to discreetly make enquiries in his department about any troubles preceding the convention. He knew it was down to his wounded pride, once again showing him that emotions were a dangerous weakness to have. After all those years, he really should have learned that lesson by now.
It had been Jim Morris who had made him see his fatal error. Cornering him in the bathroom just after arriving at the convention himself. He had worked with Mycroft for years and had reached some sort of understanding after a rocky start. Perhaps it was the nature of that relationship that prompted Morris to warn him of his impending doom, undoubtedly taking a great personal risk in doing so.
“You better leave while you still can” , he had muttered, brushing past Mycroft on his way to the sinks. And finally, but far, far too late had the penny dropped.
Sitting in his assigned seat, panic gradually set in as Mycroft watched more and more people enter the room, each of them his potential assassin. He knew most but not all of them personally but hardly mattered. Morris’ words had managed to drive more than one point home; the assassin might very well be someone known to him.
It was too late to run now, Mycroft was painfully aware of that. Whoever wanted him out of the way would have made sure that he wouldn’t be able to get away. Asking for help was equally undoable. There was just no telling who was in on the plan. All Mycroft could do was sit and wait for things to unfold.
Among those arriving fashionably late, one man caught Mycroft’s attention. His panic momentarily turned to annoyance when he saw Kingsman’s very own Harry Hart walk through the doors. As always, he was dressed impeccably in a bespoke suit, blending in perfectly with the others.
Mycroft knew for a fact that Harry was not on the guest list and him wearing his usual glasses that Mycroft reliably knew not to be corrective were all the clues he needed to know that Harry was there on official business. If things weren’t already bad enough. The last thing Mycroft needed was a Kingsman snooping around the many rattling skeletons in the secret service’s closets. It was almost soothing to think that probably very soon that would not be his problem anymore. Or anything else for that matter.
—
Harry had made it just in time to be arriving with the last group of people to enter the building where the convention was held. Undercover missions were not his favourite and the less individual attention he had, the better.
When entering the room, he felt a gaze on him and looked up to find Mycroft Holmes throwing him a less than thrilled look. Luckily only the people immediately around Mycroft seemed to take notice.
“Charming man”, Merlin commented dryly over the intercom.
Even from afar, Harry could see that Mycroft looked rather pale and tense, very unlike his usual cold façade. From the looks of things, he had every right to be.
Harry positioned himself in the far back of the room where he wouldn’t be noticed and scanned the room, making out all the possible exits. Trying to find out who was supposed to kill Mycroft, however, would be a near impossible task before things got hairy. Harry was certain that over half of the people in the room were carrying weapons just like he was and even that might not be an indicator as to who it was. For now, he could do nothing but wait.
—
Mycroft grew more agitated with every passing minute where nothing happened. When he made it to the first intermission, a tiny spark of hope flickered up that Sherlock and Morris had been wrong after all.
All around him, people got up from their seats to go to the buffet at the far end of the room. Mycroft didn’t join them, feeling like he couldn’t stomach anything for the time being.
Someone touched his arm and Mycroft involuntarily jumped, cursing himself right after. Tim Philips bent down to him, looking just as tense as Mycroft felt.
“I need to talk to you alone for a moment”, Philips said in a low voice, looking around to see if anyone had overheard them. “Now.”
Mycroft felt relief rush over him. He got up and made his way through the crowd towards the door, Philips following closely. Philips was a close friend of Morris and his being there could only mean one thing; the cavalry had finally arrived.
His relief was quickly replaced with horror by the time they had made their way through most of the crowd. Mycroft had slowed down for a moment to ask Philips where they should go and Philips had stepped up right behind him before he could even utter a single word. Mycroft felt something cold and hard pressed into his side; the barrel of a gun.
“Walk on”, Philips said quietly into his ear.
Mycroft slowly started to walk again, looking around to see if anyone had noticed Philips and him leaving. But no one was paying attention to them, no one caught his eye. Perhaps they were all in on it.
Clinging to one last bit of hope, Mycroft tried to locate Harry. Perhaps the presence of a Kingsman wasn’t that bad after all, perhaps he wasn’t in on it. His heart sank when he managed to locate him. Harry was standing at the buffet table, his back turned to Mycroft, just helping himself to another drink.
And Mycroft, finally fully accepting his fate, allowed himself to be led from the room. When had he gotten so slow?
—
“They have just left through the door to the hallway”, Merlin told Harry over the intercom. He had managed to hack into the security cameras of the building, allowing Harry to take his eyes off Mycroft every once in a while to divert suspicion.
“The security camera in that hallway turned off five minutes ago, seems like this is the place. Ye better hurry, I cannae see them anymore.”
Harry abandoned his drink and slipped through the door to his right. He followed Merlin’s directions blindly, running along different halls as quietly as possible. He retrieved his gun and a silencer from his jacket, not breaking stride while screwing the silencer to the barrel. Only when the hallways ended in a door did he slow down.
“Open carefully, it leads to where they should be”, Merlin instructed, calm as ever.
—
Mycroft was kneeling very uncomfortably on the stone-tiled floor. Opposite him, Philips was taking his sweet time screwing a silencer on his gun. Mycroft was no longer feeling panicked. He only felt a strange calmness that was slowly giving way to irritation and anger.
“For heaven’s sake, at least get on with it!”
Philips seemed oblivious to Mycroft’s irritation. Somewhere down the hall the hinges of a door creaked but he barely bothered to look up.
“No need to rush things”, he said calmly. “I don’t think we’ll be interrupted.”
Once he was satisfied with the state of his weapon, he aimed it right between Mycroft’s eyes. Mycroft didn’t give him the satisfaction of closing them, he continued staring right into Philips’ eyes. Some gratification came from the latter being visibly uncomfortable with this. Straightening his tie and squaring his shoulders, Mycroft prepared himself for what was about to come.
—
Harry stood in the shadow of the doorway, gun raised. He aimed carefully, knowing he would only have one shot at this. Despite the silencer, the gunshot sounded terribly loud in the silent hallway. Harry saw Mycroft flinch and Philips collapse. Gun still raised, he stepped out into the light.
—
Mycroft heard the shot and steeled himself for the impact of the bullet that never came. He watched Philips collapse on the floor where he remained, shot cleanly through the head. Blood slowly pooled around him. Feeling slightly sick, Mycroft averted his eyes.
When he heard footsteps, he turned just in time to see Harry Hart step from the shadows into the light of the hallway, gun still raised and aimed at Philips, slowly walking towards him.
Instead of relief, anger washed over Mycroft.
—
Harry approached Mycroft and the man he shot carefully but soon picked up his pace when he saw they were out of immediate danger. Mycroft was still kneeling when he reached them and Harry held out his hand to help him to his feet.
“You took your time”, Mycroft said irritably. He looked ever so slightly out of sorts, though he was trying hard to hide it.
“A little gratitude would be nice.”
Mycroft raised an eyebrow. “For you doing your job? Come off it, you would have loved to see him plant a bullet in my head.”
Before Harry could reply, Merlin interrupted him.
“Touching as this may be, perhaps the two of ye would like to discuss this somewhere else? There is a car waiting for you outside.”
—
“We’re getting you to one of our safehouses”, Harry told Mycroft even though he hadn’t asked. In fact, he hadn’t spoken at all ever since they had gotten into the car. “You should be able to sort your things out from there.”
“Was it really necessary to step in at the last minute?”, Mycroft finally said, breaking his silence. He looked less irritated than he had when Harry had gotten to him. Now he looked more pensive.
“We needed to know who was behind it”, Harry said carefully. “That is something we didn’t know before. And even now we only know of one person involved. For all we know, there could have been more.”
Mycroft only hummed in response. When he didn’t say anything else, Harry continued.
“I don’t suppose you are going to tell me why your own people want you dead?”
Mycroft didn’t reply at first. He had been wondering the same thing ever since his meeting Morris in the bathroom. Granted, the past few weeks had been political mayhem and Mycroft had been forced to make a few decisions that didn’t exactly make him popular, but surely that was no reason for such drastic measures.
“I don’t know”, he said truthfully.
They lapsed into silence that Mycroft eventually broke.
“How come you think more than one was behind this?”
“The security cameras in the hallway were turned off a few minutes before you left the room. It can’t have been the man taking you, he was in Merlin’s sight the whole time. I suppose they would have turned them on again in due time to discover your body.”
Mycroft groaned. “So, you mean to tell me that now the security footage shows me leaving the room with Philips and soon after his dead body turns up in the hallway and I am nowhere to be found? If I didn’t have problems before, I certainly have them now. I’m probably wanted for murder. Your murder.”
“That’s gratitude for ye”, Merlin murmured and Harry silently agreed.
“That’s not as much of a problem as you think”, he said to Mycroft. “The feed from my glasses will be more than conclusive in the matter.”
“And you will let me have that?” Mycroft was unimpressed.
“I’m sure Merlin or Arthur will be more than happy to hand it over to you.”
“At a high price, no doubt”, Mycroft said almost mockingly.
“You’ll have to speak to Arthur about it”, Harry said neutrally. “It’s up to him, not me. I doubt it will be much, if anything at all.”
“But if it were up to you?”, Mycroft asked with an unpleasant smile. “What would this… situation cost me?”
Harry considered for a moment. “A favour”, he finally said. “The nature of which is up to me, to be called upon when needed.”
Mycroft gave a humorless laugh. “A high price to pay.”
“It can be.”
—
The car came to a stop. Mycroft didn’t get out immediately but took a checkbook and a fountain pen from his pocket. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Harry open his mouth to protest and he held up a hand to stop him.
“Spare me the theatrics, I’m not writing you a check. This just happens to be the only paper I have on me at the moment.”
He took down a number, then carefully ripped the page from the checkbook, folded it and handed it to Harry.
“Your favour, conditions as told. Use it well.”
—
Harry looked down at the piece of paper in surprise. He opened it to reveal a mobile phone number, then folded it again and tucked it away in his pocket.
“I thought it was too much to ask?”, he said, unsure how to take this.
“It is”, Mycroft replied. He got out of the car without saying goodbye.