Doctor Who_ Trading Futures Part 1

Trading Futures.

by Lance Parkin.

Prologue.

The Banquo Legacy.

Now Baskerville mentioned it, the night was getting cold.

They stood at the side of the road. Cosgrove took in the scene, savoured it like an '07 Tattinger. The water in the loch was glittering, almost purple. The scent of heather filled the air. It was so quiet no cars and lorries trundling in the distance, no aircraft scoring a line through the sky. Everything was so sharp, so well*defined. He didn't know what he was expecting, but this felt almost more than real. Hyper*real.

Baskerville looked distinctly bored. He was leaning against a tree, checking his nails. He was the younger man here, in his sixties, with thin white hair. He had an aquiline nose, a high forehead. Cosgrove studied the face, for future reference.

'Have you seen enough yet, Mr Cosgrove?' Baskerville asked.

'Don't use my name,' he snapped. They'd agreed that from the start. No names.

'My dear Cosgrove, no one is listening in.'

It was a liberating thought. When was the last time Cosgrove had known for certain that he was having a private conversation? He'd almost forgotten what it felt like to speak without a.s.suming that someone, somewhere, was recording it and filing it away. No concealed microphones, or phone or data taps, no lasers on his windows, registering every vibration in the air. He was in unmonitored territory here, for the first time in years.

There was more, though. He was beyond the law here. He could kill Baskerville where he stood, leave him lying at the side of the road. And no one would ever know. The thought of killing someone without having to do any paperwork was a refreshing one.

'Can I walk around?' Cosgrove asked, looking back at the loch.

'You can do what you want. How about you walk towards the forest, there?'

He hadn't noticed the forest. Cosgrove found himself nodding, then decided against it, in case it was a trick. 'No the other way.'

Baskerville smiled. 'Of course. Lead on.'

Cosgrove stepped back up on to the road. 'And this is the year...?'

'1040, as requested.'

'You can prove that?'

'I'm not sure I can. Look around, though, there could be some evidence. Judging by the hoof prints, this road is a busy one.'

Cosgrove found something after a few minutes. An arrowhead, dropped in the mud. He examined it.

'Keep it,' Baskerville suggested. 'Give it to your people for a.n.a.lysis. That should be your proof. Wait! Can you hear the horses?' He could, but only just. Baskerville had keen senses.

'Do you think it's them?'

'Yes. We're in the right time and place. It's why we are here, after all.'

'But the witches should be here '

'They aren't. You remember what the witches said?'

'Of course. Don't you?'

'I don't have the benefit of a cla.s.sical education. If you remember what was said, then say it.'

'But we're not witches. There aren't even three of us.'

'My dear fellow, Shakespeare was a writer, a maker of fictions. You don't think he let his research get in the way of a good story, do you? You think when he said a man "takes off his helmet" that he'd have found an old book and thought, "yes, the helmet would be similar to those of Norman design, but with a nasal reinforce bar integral with the skull, cheek plates, and a nape plate"?'

'No.'

'No he thought of a nice dramatic opening, something to intrigue his audience. Nothing like this. I suggest that there are no witches here because there's no such thing as witches. So it falls to you to understudy.'

There were two of them, they were exactly how Cosgrove pictured them.

'Terrible weather,' the taller of the two said, in an accent so thick it was practically another language.

'How far is it, now? Wait! Who are you?'

Cosgrove took a deep breath.

'Speak, if you can.'

'All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter.'

The smaller man pushed his way forward while his master absorbed that announcement.

'You have the sight? You can see the seeds of the future in the here and now? You've told mac*Bethad. Now tell me my fate.'

'Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. Not so happy, yet much happier. Thou shall get kings, though thou be none. Banquo and Macbeth all hail!'

The two men leant in to confer.

Baskerville took a step towards Cosgrove. 'Excellent. Now, I suggest we get going, before there are too many awkward supplementary questions.'

Cosgrove clutched the arrowhead.

'I think you've made your case, Baskerville. But next time, I want to bring a scientist to look at the machine.'

The mists were growing thick. Reality was swirling away. Baskerville's voice persisted, seemed to echo.

'Very well. But no more than two of you, unarmed, no recording devices or communications equipment. I'll arrange the meeting. You know my price. Tell your masters that it is non*negotiable, tell them that they must decide quickly. And tell them that it is no exaggeration to say that if they don't listen to my warnings, then this whole planet will be destroyed.'

Chapter One.

Friendly Fire.

The hydrofoil was something secret, something not of the everyday world. Its design embodied a contradiction, revelled in it.

The boat was invisible, with camouflage that went far deeper than its black paintwork. The hull was coated in rounded and smoothed thermoplastic, so radar beams just slid off it. The hydroplanes themselves were designed so that the boat barely disturbed the water it was slicing through. The motors were electric, all but silent, but were m.u.f.fled anyway. On a night like this, you could stand twenty feet from the hydrofoil as it pa.s.sed you and you couldn't be sure that it had.

Despite being invisible, it was also evil*looking. That was the contradiction. It glistened, it looked more like an ocean predator such as a ray or a shark than a piece of military hardware. The fact that the gun ports and missile tubes were hidden behind radar shielding just made it look more sinister who knew what weapons it had, where they were concealed? If you did happen to see it, you'd rather wish you hadn't.

The incursion began at 23:11.

Unaware of it for the moment, Cosgrove sat at the back of the cabin. It was three hours since he'd left Baskerville. He still felt dizzy a little lagged from his journey. He refused to believe it was his age: he was as fit as most men half as old. He felt excited, too a thrill and antic.i.p.ation that he'd not felt for far too long. That may have been because he was out here in the field again. He'd missed this. It had been too long, he'd begun to grow soft. Out here anything could happen. The boat could be in someone's sights, there could be a bomb on board.

At least he could trust the two others here, they were both men he'd hand*picked. Even so, they didn't know why he was here, they thought they were taking him to a rendezvous, not away from one. For the moment, all three of them sat in comfortable padded seats, facing forward. The boat didn't have a windscreen or portholes, although there was a plasma screen pasted round the front bulkhead which simulated one. The picture enhanced the available light, extrapolated colour, made it look like midday outside.

The soldier, King, was alert, the pilot was busy managing her navigation software. Neither spoke, or had brought anything to read. Cosgrove found himself growing steadily more bored. The briefcase was heavy on his lap. There was little engine noise, barely a hum.

Cosgrove took two painkillers. There had been a time when he'd had nothing to do with them. They dull the senses, as well as the pain. They blunt a man's edge. But the nagging headache, the one that hadn't gone away for weeks, the dizziness, the ache in his shoulder that was there all the time, now... the edge was already a little blunt. He remembered the words of Churchill's doctor he'd inherited good health, but by now much of that was spent.

They all heard something drop on to the deck, then footsteps above them.

King looked up, puzzled.

'What is it?'

'A wave?'

'The sea's flat.'

'Go and check,' Cosgrove ordered King.

'It's nothing.'

'Go and check.'

There was a man standing on the deck. He watched King clamber out through the hatch with nothing more than mild curiosity.

King raised his gun, aimed a shot at him, but the pistol's software overrode him. The man was unarmed, and tagged as a civilian. You couldn't shoot civilians without special orders.

'Could you help me with this?' the man asked. He was holding a great bundle of white material a parachute, King realised.

'Wait, I...'

'Here,' the man said, pushing the parachute into his arms.

'You can't...'

The man yanked the material up, until it was a hood over the soldier's head.

The heads*up display in King's helmet was flashing a number of warnings now. One advised that the civilian had been recla.s.sified as a threat. The second warned him not to take another step back. The last told him of an imminent physical contact. It came moments before he was gently tipped over the rail that ran along the side of the boat.

His life jacket automatically inflated on contact with the water, restricting his arms and legs, swathing him in bullet*proof fabric. His pistol was floating just out of reach.

By the time King had pulled himself free of the parachute, and he'd splashed around to face the boat, it was several hundred yards away. There was no sign of the civilian, and the hatch had been shut.

Cosgrove had put his helmet on, and it had already told him about the intruder.

The briefcase remained cuffed to his wrist. It was an obvious enc.u.mbrance, so Cosgrove opted for the element of surprise. He took his position behind the hatch, lodged in place, waiting until the intruder was on board. The intruder took his time. Cosgrove got a good look at him. He was a Caucasian male, about forty, not moving like he was combat trained. Not moving with any urgency at all.

He had something in his hand. A grenade? No, a rubber ball.

The pilot turned in her chair, covered the intruder with her pistol.

'h.e.l.lo there,' the intruder said.

'Drop that,' the pilot ordered.

The ball slipped from his hand, bounced and hit the control panel.

The roof blew off, and the pilot's ejector seat fired. The idiot squealed as she flew off, up and over the boat. The boat was already powering down.

'As a security precaution, the auto destruct sequence has been engaged. Sixty seconds.' The voice was synthesised, disjointed. Cosgrove could override it, but he'd need to get to the controls.

It didn't trouble the intruder, who retrieved the rubber ball, before stopping at the water cooler that sat opposite the hatch and pouring himself a drink of water. His hair flapped in the breeze.

There was plenty of time for Cosgrove to target him the crosshairs in the helmet display narrowed over the intruder's back. One through the heart.

'Stay where you are,' Cosgrove ordered.

The intruder did as he was told.

'Are you armed?' The helmet's display had already given him the answer, but he liked to hear it from the intruder himself.

'I have a gla.s.s of water. Well, not a gla.s.s. Plastic. I have a plastic of water.'

'Hardly a weapon.'

'Well... no. But it's enough to overpower you. If that's all right.'