Doctor Who_ Drift Part 7

He was shuffling up on his gut, bringing his voice too close.

'Listen to yourself. This is nuts, no matter how you dress it up.'

Then the real accusation: 'You just packed Crayford off like some decoy in hunting season.'

'Don't forget,' Jacks snorted, 'I also gave him our trophy. If the Army can't manage to track him, their Psi is going to make sure that stays square in their sights.'

'You sold him out!'

Jacks grabbed at Lagoy's collar. 'You're getting loud, Lagoy,' she bared her teeth. 'Crayford sold us out, he gave it up. The sooner you get it through that concrete skull of yours the better for all of us. And all of us means you and me.

We're it. Whether you or I like it or not.'

She was satisfied to see some of the flame fade from Lagoy's glare. He said, 'Listen, I get that Crayford lost his nerve. I just don't get that the Army scared him like that.

What if something did come through? Something we couldn't handle? What if it's in there waiting?'

'Waiting for what?' Jacks jerked her head to indicate the patrol. 'Say Crayford was right? Say our devotions brought some invader through from the other world. D'you think they're going to let the United States Army walk around their new territory unchecked?'

She watched Lagoy watching the soldiers.

'Say there's a bunch of ETs in there, lying low until their main invasion force arrives. They're not going to be bothering anyone much longer.' She laughed, enjoying the man's dense look for a moment. 'When we get inside that building, we are going to take care of everyone and everything in one go. Wipe the slate clean.'

Jacks enjoyed the man's look of fear that little bit more.

The way ahead was wide open, but Crayford Boyle didn't trust it. A basin of white, tainted with enemies. He guessed the soldiers were somewhere out there, but he felt her her watcher and hunter, a shadow on his mind, waiting for him across that bleached plain. He fancied he could even see the men in their foxholes. Enemies everywhere. watcher and hunter, a shadow on his mind, waiting for him across that bleached plain. He fancied he could even see the men in their foxholes. Enemies everywhere.

The Army's pet Psi and her little troop of soldiers.

Crayford whimpered and tried to remember where Emilie had gone. Why did she desert him? Why would she? Watch me ran, then. Watch me run in empty s.p.a.ce.

He broke right, haring along the brow of the hill and he laughed when he thought about the surprise on all those Army faces. Especially the Psi's. The thing in his embrace beat against his chest like a second heart, and Crayford felt the alien energies pumping Into his bloodstream. He wanted to throw it away, but he couldn't let it go. Not now.

He tripped. He clasped the pack tighter as he fought his way up, glanced back as he ran on.

'd.a.m.n it!' Kristal had her radio up in an instant. 'Marotta, he made us.'

'Yeah, I see. Lieutenant,' the set crackled in response. 'I swear he never saw us. We're packed tighter than the snow here.'

'He made me, I think.' Kristal was on her feet and trotting for the snowmobile. She signalled with her free hand and the other troops were running for their vehicles. 'Saddle up and follow us. We're never going to catch him on foot.'

Leela ran to catch up both with Kristal and what had gone wrong. 'We were well concealed here. How could he have seen us?'

Kristal grimaced, seeming abashed, as she reached her vehicle. 'Our man sees the same way I can, Leela. I should have antic.i.p.ated the possibility. We knew the cult were interested in recruiting psychics. Come on. He won't get far.'

Leela moved behind her, ready to hop on. This was not her idea of hunting, but she was almost looking forward to her second ride.

The trees, if he could just reach the trees. He could lose them, lose them all. Except the Psi, but he could kill her, couldn't he?

If he couldn't take on a woman then there truly was nothing left of Crayford Boyle. Nothing left.

He sprinted, lifting his legs high and pumping them down hard. Time and distance stretched the faster he pushed himself on. Coa.r.s.e breath raked the walls of his lungs.

Then he was across the finish line and starting down the slope, brushing snow from silver tree-trunks. Bare twigs clawed at his hood.

Something snagged on his sleeve.

Crayford turned. His right foot landed wrong.

As he gave in to the tumble, Crayford realised he was crying.

He was crying because his run was over. It was the only thought he had time for as he completed a clumsy roll and thumped into the base of a stout tree. A few dumplings of snow spattered on his coat and something shifted above him.

Crayford whimpered and thrust the pack out in front of him. It was useless as a shield but he prayed it was all they wanted.

Leela leaned hard to her right, sensing the vehicle's desire to topple as it cut along the slope at a frightening angle. Even as they levelled off, Leela's b.u.t.terflies refused to settle. The snowmobile chewed ravenously at the snow, spitting clouds of soft crumbs in their wake.

They raced full pelt across the basin floor, powering up for the climb ahead. Kristal glanced aft to check on her team and gestured insistently with one hand. Two of the snowmobiles broke left and upped their speed to draw level.

Goggles down, her hood pulled up to keep her hat in place, it was impossible to read anything of the real Kristal under these circ.u.mstances. And yet, Leela's arms detected a sudden tension possessing the woman's every muscle.

Something more than the effort of driving.

Kristal wrenched their snowmobile round in an abrupt curve, like the slice of an attacker's blade. Leela braced herself for a tumble. But no, they were upright and unharmed - but perfectly still. Kristal's raised hand called a halt. To everything.

The other snowmobiles coasted to a stop and sputtered into silence close by.

For a moment, the loudest thing on the mountain was Leela's own heartbeat.

Then fear found substance.

Crashing over and through the trees like a mighty breaker striking a white sh.o.r.e. Spilling over the far far ridge, where the hunted man had disappeared: a broiling ma.s.s, exploding and reforming in a relentless drive across the land. In a few seconds it had advanced enough to blot out the treetops. The brow of the hill was engulfed soon after. ridge, where the hunted man had disappeared: a broiling ma.s.s, exploding and reforming in a relentless drive across the land. In a few seconds it had advanced enough to blot out the treetops. The brow of the hill was engulfed soon after.

The sight of it left Leela hollow. 'What is that?'

'Death's pale horse,' managed Kristal, without a breath.

The tidal-wave blizzard crashed onwards, erasing the landscape as it came.

Chapter Six.

In any creepy old house, the last place you want to head is the cellar. But, following a brisk sweep upstairs and down, Joanna knew she was going to wind up down there sooner or later. She had covered all the ground the platoon had cleared, testing for loose boards, knocking at the backs of closets, and crawling around on all fours up in the roof-s.p.a.ce. Just to be sure.

By now she was past sure and the bas.e.m.e.nt was the last stop on her itinerary.

Descending the stairwell, barely one person wide, Joanna laughed soundlessly at herself. That was the trouble when you were reminded of what it was like to be a little girl: the reminiscence wasn't limited to the good stuff.

Her nerves weren't purely childish. She didn't expect to find anything in the bas.e.m.e.nt, be it clue or danger, but the cultists hadn't expected whatever they'd found. Even if they really had managed to summon extraterrestrial forces into their rundown country commune, they hadn't got the brand of salvation they'd wanted.

The briefing had told her next to nothing on the cult's principles, other than their alleged promotion of psychic experimentation and the baptism of the soul in the fire of the inner mind - whatever that meant. But Joanna had read the profiles on known individuals, and these guys were all survivalists. Which implied they wanted to survive.

The electrics were out, so Joanna had armed herself with a flashlight and, despite the platoon having p.r.o.nounced the bas.e.m.e.nt as clear, collected her H&K from where she'd propped it up in the hall. It wasn't big enough to enc.u.mber and she felt a whole lot safer with its weight close to her side.

Shadows generally went unarmed and were a deal less scary for the fact.

The door at the foot of the stairs was wide open and the darkness beyond looked empty enough. The stairs were positively geriatric though, and if anything was lying in wait for her down there it surely would have heard her coming.

Joanna allowed herself a sense of relief when she touched bottom. She advanced out to her left, sweeping her beam over the room in a steady arc.

Darkness clung to the walls like moss and lichen, drinking up the torchlight.

Details bounced back in glimpses: dusty shelves, some sloping dangerously, others warped with the damp; the greens and browns of old bottles; a large table in the centre of the room, its surface a mess, standing on bare and rotting boards. Directly opposite there was a sink, a dripping faucet and greening copper pipes running a gauntlet of cobwebs along the wall above; the bench top stacked with plastic containers, weapons parts, heaps of other tools and clutter that the platoon had seen fit to leave behind.

There was a slim chance the junk had been stored neatly before the platoon had done sifting through it all. but she strongly doubted it. For survivalists, maintenance and basic hygiene didn't look to be one of this group's fortes.

There was a doorway, the remnant of a wooden frame, leading into another room at the far end. A faint promise of daylight hung in the air in there and Joanna could see snow blowing in. The stench of mould was the only thing to jump out at her. That, and the cold.

No danger of condensation on her weapon in here. This house was like an icebox.

Literally. As she moved, there were occasional patches of ice underfoot, and her flashlight was finding clumps of crystal white in the corners of the floor and ceiling, or clinging to some of the fittings. Give it time, this place could end up looking like that house in Doctor Zhivago. Doctor Zhivago. Omar Sharif and Julie Christie, arriving in a sleigh to find a regular winter palace. Omar Sharif and Julie Christie, arriving in a sleigh to find a regular winter palace.

Relocated to this New Hampshire derelict, the romance of that scene would be stillborn.

Joanna circled the room, scanning the labels on the bottles and containers: developers and fixatives, inks and toners, paint strippers, lubricants and cleaning fluids, domestic and photographic chemicals, plus a few for cleaning and maintaining firearms. Plus zoom leases and other apparatus.

If there'd been any other photographic equipment lying around, then Morgan had certainty ordered it taken along with the aircraft debris. Cameras might have film in them.

A necklace of starlight slithered across the corner of her eye. She swung around, heart set to gallop. But there was nothing.

Only the random reflections of her flash in water. Depthless puddles patched the floor, old spillages diluted with the ice brought in on the boots of White Shadow troopers.

Joanna sighed. What more did Morgan expect her to find?

Her torch alighted on the table, where a few home-printed pamphlets lay strewn to one side and, under a thin scattering of automatic weapons parts and mechanical components, a sprawling map of the Granite State had been pasted.

A few marker-pen scrawls drew Joanna closer. Flashlight held at shoulder height, she brought the White Mountain range under a spotlight. Mount Washington was marked for special attention, a small collection of red rings with scribbled annotations in black obscuring some of the surrounding terrain. The scribbles might have been hieroglyphs, but Joanna knew a file reference when she saw one.

A beam swept over the map and it wasn't hers. She jumped out of her skin.

'Hey, sorry. Didn't mean to scare you.'

Ben McKim. right at the foot of the stairs. Jesus. 'You didn't - not exactly. This house gives me the creeps, is all.'

'Yeah, well, you're not alone there.' Ben's eyes roved the expanse of ceiling, coming quickly back down to the table and the map.

'Here, come and take a look.' Joanna's finger stabbed the ring around Mount Washington. 'I think these are references to other doc.u.ments, other maps. The Captain didn't mention any being found. We might be onto something here.'

'You might be,' conceded McKim. 'Unless that fugitive gabbed it all when he ran.'

Joanna licked her lip, shook her head. 'Uh-uh. They'd be somewhere close by. He went out through the parlour window.'

She started her flashlight dancing about. 'If you're not busy right now, Ben-'

'Everyone's alert, I got the patrols set for the next thirty minutes, and if you ask me, nothing's going to be heading our way.' Ben rounded the table slowly. 'You know how it is, these squads run themselves most of the time. I'm all yours.'

Joanna nodded, 'In that case, you can give me a hand.

There are two rooms to go over down here.' She met him head-on. 'By the way, I've never known anyone move as quiet as you.'

'Thanks, Hmieleski'

As Joanna turned, she smiled for herself. She hadn't meant it as a compliment.

Leela had stared this death in the face once before. It was death exploded into countless tiny fragments, but it was death nonetheless; each splinter as vicious and merciless as its monstrous parent. That time before, Leela had stood in the mouth of a metal giant constructed by men to battle with death in its cloud form. The giant was called the Sandminer, and that storm had glimmered with the promise of untold riches. The storm that bore down on them now shone in a way that threatened to blind long before it fell upon them to tear them apart.

On any world, nature crafted foes that could not be fought.

And faced with enemies of nature's making, honour was never an issue. To run or to hide: those were the only choices.

And yet Kristal chose to run and fight.

Breaking away, she drove them flat out back across the level plain. The other snowmobiles followed, digging riverine furrows in the snow. The white fury poured into the basin after them: death as a cloud, too heavily laden to reach the sky.

There was no shame in this hasty retreat, only dire uncertainty. Kristal strained Leela's trust to the limit, driving one-handed while she shouted into her radio. Marotta, give us all the covering fire you can, then fall back after as!'

A moment's static seemed to scoff at her. 'You want me to 'You want me to shout at the storm?' shout at the storm?'

'Save your questions! Have Landers drop some sh.e.l.ls in there for good measure! Now!' Now!'

Leela fancied she had many more questions than the Sergeant, but she took Kristal's command to include herself.

She held on in dread silence, prepared to endure the chaos of her thoughts so long as the chaos behind them was determined to give chase.

'Typical: playing with dynamite before you've discovered fire.

A few decades attempting to turn out psionic James Bonds and they think they can command the weather?'

Morgan Shaw had been trained to withstand interrogation, but the Doc's interview technique was relentless and curiously wearing. Still, the guy had summed up the essence of Operation Grill Flame pretty accurately: it had all been about psi spies back then.

This convoy was taking its own sweet time. There were two-thousand-and-one things he'd rather be thinking about instead of arguing ethics with some mad-professor-type from UNIT who'd wandered into his investigation unsolicited.

Whether McKim had been the right choice for watching the house, whether he'd been right to take Kristal's sixth-sense report at face value, for a couple of instances.