Chapter Text
“Pardon me, ma’am?” Greg asked, flabbergasted and only just catching himself before ‘what the bloody fuck?’ spilled from his mouth. He’d never been a fan of Monday mornings, but this one was drizzly, cold, and off to a really fucking weird start even by his standards. He could count the number of times he had spoken to the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis in one-to-one on the fingers of one hand, so sitting in her office before seven AM being told that he was, apparently, going to the Caribbean in the name of national security, was probably his weirdest Monday yet. There was a suited man with thinning hair sitting in the corner of the room behind the commissioner, one leg crossed over the other and an air of superiority that told Greg that the Metropolitan Police was having its strings pulled by either the security or intelligence service, and that was always enough to raise his hackles.
The commissioner visibly restrained her irritation, seemingly no happier to be having her strings pulled than Greg was. "White-collar war crimes. Very highly classified papers. Stolen treasures. With me so far?" She did not wait for a response. "The Duke of Windsor was appointed Governor of the Bahamas in 1940. The Duke of Windsor," she went on with a sour look in the direction of the trouble sitting silently in the corner of the office, "had a 'less than entirely straightforward' attitude towards the other side. There has been chatter for some time about just how far that went. It went a long way. Current information indicates that there are caches throughout the Caribbean, but because it was masterminded - and I'm informed that the word is used very loosely indeed, here - in the Bahamas, which remain part of the Commonwealth, Britain is leading the project. Quite a lot of criminality is involved and I am informed,” she shot another look at the trouble in the corner, who was evidently utterly unmoved “that arrests are likely to be needed, and that will be a great deal easier to arrange with the support of a police liaison. Who apparently absolutely has to be a serving senior officer. It's MI5, so it has to be a serving senior officer with a good level of clearance. Because the Bahamas are no longer under British governance and several other nations have interests, it’s also MI6, so it has to be a serving senior officer with a very good level of clearance." She narrowed her eyes at Greg as if he had somehow set all of this up to inconvenience her. "Your history with Sherlock Holmes and that little trip you took to the North Sea for the other one qualify you for the job."
Greg took a moment to process that and watched the commissioner grow more and more annoyed with each second he needed. He did not want this to be happening. For the first time in years, he felt that his life was in a good place and he absolutely did not want to be sent halfway around the world at what was quite clearly the whim of a very well connected spook. Greg had met more than his fair share of shady government fucks in his time as a detective, and had even managed to become friends with Mycroft Holmes, who had to be one of the shadiest of the lot, but that did not mean that he was just going to allow himself to be attached to an operation that was guaranteed to turn his life upside down. “With all due respect, ma’am, I’m not the only senior officer with high clearance, and I’m not exactly good at the political stuff.”
"No, you aren't,” the commissioner snapped. “And you wouldn't be my choice, but you've been requested. Holmes refuses to work with anyone else.”
Greg’s stomach sank like the Titanic. After the mess with the mad sister locked away in an island prison Greg hadn’t thought that the Holmes boys could still surprise him, but Sherlock involving himself in something as politically sensitive as this came close. He knew the futility of arguing against anything that involved either Holmes, but Greg just couldn’t help himself: the thought of being stuck halfway around the world with just Sherlock and a battalion of international spooks for company was un-fucking-bearable. "Don’t I get any say in this?”
The commissioner levelled at him the kind of look that told Greg his pension was currently under threat, and the trouble in the corner’s lips twitched. "No. Your plane leaves in ninety minutes. Go home and pack, Lestrade."
Recognising defeat, Greg rose stiffly from his seat. “Yes, ma’am.” He crossed the panelled office, a world away from his grey cube on the major crimes floor, making no attempt to mask his annoyance.
The only silver lining Greg could see was that, as it turned out, the commissioner was as pissed off about it as he was, a fact which only fully revealed itself as he closed the door. "I hope you're satisfied with that, Mr Tanner, because that's all the enthusiasm you're getting.”
Greg could hear the glare that accompanied her growl through the mostly-closed door, and didn’t even try to restrain his smirk.