Chapter 524

The working conditions Tony Stark had at his disposal made Holmes more than a little envious.

If Holmes wanted to investigate a case, he had to visit the crime scene himself, no matter how terrible the conditions were. If the proper equipment wasn’t available, he improvised. Sometimes that meant picking locks and sneaking into places he wasn’t supposed to be.

Need information?

He had a police workstation and stacks of case files piled high enough to qualify as furniture.

Tony Stark, meanwhile, could sit comfortably in his own home, move a finger, and reconstruct the entire crime scene in three dimensions. Move another finger, and JARVIS could sift through databases belonging to the CIA, SHIELD, and God knew how many other organizations, filtering the useful information and placing it directly in front of him.

There was nothing quite like watching someone else play the game with cheat codes.

Holmes couldn’t help wondering why two men investigating the same case could have such dramatically different working conditions.

Yet rather than discouraging him, the disparity only sharpened his competitive spirit.

If he could beat Tony Stark while working with such inferior resources, it would prove just how much better his deductive abilities were.

And Holmes was feeling particularly confident because he had already spotted something Tony hadn’t.

Tony’s collection of evidence was remarkably comprehensive.

But Tony was still only looking at the evidence.

He hadn’t started thinking about what it meant.

"Terrorism exists to spread fear."

Holmes paced slowly around the room as he spoke, his mind already dissecting the case.

"So naturally, the more horrific the attack, the better. A gruesome crime scene creates a stronger psychological impact and spreads fear more effectively."

"You think yesterday’s attack wasn’t horrific enough?"

Tony frowned.

With a gesture, the holographic room changed. Security-camera footage from the square appeared around them, showing the final moments captured before the cameras were destroyed or retrieved.

"People died," Tony said. "A lot of them. Some were blown apart. People close to the center of the explosion were practically vaporized by the heat."

"That only tells us the explosion was powerful."

Holmes barely glanced at the footage.

"A powerful explosion is merely one of the requirements for a successful terrorist attack."

Tony stared at him.

Holmes’s expression remained remarkably detached.

When he entered the process of deduction, he seemed to become almost completely analytical. Emotion was something he deliberately kept separate from logic.

What was the point of looking upon mutilated bodies and drowning in grief?

And if suppressing that grief allowed him to find the truth more quickly, was that somehow disrespectful to the dead?

Holmes had never been entirely certain of the answer.

But he knew that sentiment could not be allowed to interfere with deduction.

"Mandarin could have caused a far more devastating attack," Holmes continued. "He simply didn’t."

He turned toward Tony.

"First, the square wasn’t an ideal target. It’s an open area. Yes, there are plenty of people there, but most of them are moving around."

Holmes raised one finger.

"Then there’s the timing."

A second finger joined it.

"If he’d detonated the bomb twenty minutes earlier, or waited another ten minutes, the result would have been completely different."

Tony’s eyebrow twitched.

"What kind of different?"

Holmes didn’t answer immediately.

Watson did.

"The theater is less than three hundred meters from the explosion site."

Her voice was controlled, but her expression had gone grim.

The theater could hold five thousand people.

More importantly, it was enclosed.

"When the explosion occurred, the theater was between performances," Watson continued. "People were coming and going."

She swallowed.

"But imagine if the attack had happened during a performance."

Her voice became colder as she forced herself to finish the thought.

"Five thousand people sitting in a packed theater. Everyone confined to their seats. Then someone detonates a bomb inside."

She looked at Tony.

"What do you think would happen?"

Holmes picked up the thought.

"Have you ever played with firecrackers, Mr. Stark?"

Tony glanced at him.

Holmes held up one hand.

"Light one while it’s resting on your palm and you might suffer nothing worse than pain and burns."

He slowly curled his fingers into a fist.

"Put the same firecracker inside your closed hand, and you’ll probably be scheduling an amputation."

"Thanks for the warning."

Tony grimaced.

"Next time I play with firecrackers, I’ll remember to wear the armor."

The joke came automatically, but the shock in his eyes didn’t.

Because the scenario Watson and Holmes had described was horrifyingly plausible.

An explosion of that magnitude inside a theater packed with five thousand people wouldn’t merely kill those caught near the blast.

The casualties could easily be ten times higher than those from the actual attack.

And then came the panic.

People wouldn’t calmly form a line and walk outside.

They would shove.

They would run.

They would trample one another.

The resulting stampede could kill as many people as the explosion itself, perhaps more.

And if the blast damaged the theater badly enough to trigger a structural collapse?

How many of those five thousand would survive then?

"The ideal location was less than three hundred meters away," Holmes said, gesturing toward Watson. "The ideal timing required waiting another ten minutes."

He looked at Tony.

"Even an unfinished detective apprentice like Watson can see that. Are you really suggesting Mandarin couldn’t?"

"So you’re saying..."

Tony poured himself a drink, then handed the glass to Holmes.

"Mandarin simply screwed up?"

"Possibly."

Holmes accepted the glass but didn’t drink. Instead, he set it aside.

"But there’s another possibility."

His eyes narrowed.

"Perhaps Mandarin isn’t actually a terrorist."

The room went quiet.

"And perhaps yesterday’s explosion wasn’t a terrorist attack at all."

Evenson stiffened.

He had come to Holmes precisely because he wanted someone capable of uncovering the truth.

He hadn’t expected the man to get this close this quickly.

"Not a terrorist attack?" Tony’s mind raced. "Then what was it?"

He hated admitting it, but when it came to investigation and deduction, Holmes was clearly the more gifted of the two.

"There are many reasons an explosion might occur," Holmes said. "It doesn’t automatically mean terrorism."

He pulled out his phone.

"Perhaps the terrorist attack was merely cover for something else."

Holmes opened a video he had saved earlier.

It was the recording of Mandarin claiming responsibility for the attack.

"Watch this."

The video began.

Mandarin was standing behind a table covered with fortune cookies.

"Fortune cookies," Holmes said. "They look Chinese. The name sounds Chinese. But they were actually invented in America."

He skipped past the opening and paused the recording at the moment Mandarin began smashing the cookies with his fist.

"So they’re hollow," Holmes continued. "Filled with lies."

Then he froze the image.

"Wait."

Holmes enlarged the footage.

Again.

And again.

Behind the bowl of cookies on Mandarin’s table, something small and silver had been partially obscured from view.

A packet.

Holmes zoomed in until the image became blurry.

Numbers gradually emerged from the grainy footage.

"A production date," he said.

The numbers indicated the precise hour the cookies had been manufactured.

Holmes looked around the room.

And the date made no sense.

The cookies had supposedly been produced...

one hour after the explosion.