9. Murder Ex Machina

Complete story — includes the ending

Morland asks Joan to dine with him at a restaurant opening. Maxim Zolotov, a Russian oligarch, is shot and killed, and the two shooters are killed immediately afterward when their car is hacked. An analysis of the hacked code leads to Pentillion, a company creating automated vehicles, who admit that they were hacked by a rival company with which Zolotov was conducting business. Sherlock speaks with a Russian spy, who says that Zolotov was supposed to be on a government mission, not business. At dinner, Morland mentions that he knows that Mycroft is alive. He also says that he has been banking his own blood and asks Joan if she will check on a blood bank in New York. The involvement of diplomatic negotiations between Russia and Ukraine causes the case to be taken over by federal agents, but Sherlock continues searching for the instigator of the shooting, with Joan asking Morland for information on arms dealers making money off the war. The only one who would profit from the war continuing is Pentillion, by selling rocket engines while the Russian ones were off the market. Joan suspects that Morland was shot once before and may still be a target.