Doctor Who_ Trading Futures Part 21

The Doctor shrugged. 'Possibly.'

'I'm Felix Mather, Doctor.'

The Doctor racked his brains. 'Ah yes. 1989. I stole your s.p.a.ce shuttle.'

'That's right.'

Malady looked at the Doctor. He must have been about ten at the time.

The Doctor smiled. 'Remember afterwards, when we landed at Edwards? The look on the face of the '

'Sir, Doctor, I'm sorry to interrupt, but if we could save this for another time?'

A hesitation at the other end, then. 'OK, Malady, what have you got?'

'If we could deal with the impostor first. You know who it is?' she asked the Doctor.

'I strongly suspect that it's Anji Kapoor, a young companion of mine. What did she tell you, Felix?'

Malady winced. Even the First Lady referred to him as 'Mr President' in public.

The President outlined what they already knew that Baskerville had a time machine, he was willing to hand over blueprints in return for access to the ULTRA computer.

The President was to deal face*to*face with Baskerville in Istanbul, and he was in Air Force One, heading that way for a meeting in just a few hours.

Malady waited for her new instructions.

'I think we can handle it from here, Malady. Stand down, and get back to Station E for a debrief. But take your time you've earned a rest.'

'Felix,' the Doctor interrupted. 'To prove he has time travel, Baskerville made four prophecies to Cosgrove. Three of them have come true, the third was the Athens tidal wave. We need to know what the fourth was.'

'I'm not sure how I could '

'You've got the whole CIA and FBI at your disposal, you're the leader of the free world and you're meeting Baskerville in a couple of hours. I'm sure a man of your resourcefulness can find a way.'

Malady could almost hear the President glaring at the Doctor.

'I'll do it,' he said finally.

'How did you know?' Anji asked, tucking her hair back behind her ear.

They could see Istanbul on the horizon, now. The pilot (Anji had finally learnt that his name was Leo), had anch.o.r.ed the yacht, and started to prepare the helicopter. Dee had gone to her cabin to pack.

'How did I know what?' Baskerville asked her.

'You made those prophecies. But your time machine can only go into the past. So how can you see the future?'

'Ah yes. Well, being the richest man in the world has its advantages. Fixing a soccer match is really not as difficult as you'd think.'

'The young actress who died...'

'Really should have paid more attention to biosecurity.'

'And Athens?'

Baskerville took a deep breath. 'Yes, Athens.'

'Four thousand dead or missing. A million people homeless.'

'Yes. I've killed more people in my time, directly and indirectly. But I have to admit I'm not proud of myself.'

Anji found it difficult to look at him. 'How?' she heard herself saying.

'A large bomb, placed in exactly the right place on the seabed. It dislodged just the right amount of material to create a localised tidal wave... and just enough to bury all the evidence. Quite a feat of engineering. The people who arranged it were worth every penny.'

She couldn't think of anything to say. Nothing that would express how she was feeling.

He was an old man, sixty if he was a day. He was quite slight. She could break his neck, throw him overboard. She was sure she could do it physically. She was d.a.m.n sure she could justify it morally.

But a minute pa.s.sed, and she still hadn't done it. It wasn't fear that Dee and Leo would kill her when they discovered what she'd done. They probably would, but she didn't care about that.

The reason she hadn't killed him, she realised, was that she still wanted some questions answered, and if she killed him, she'd never know.

'You think it's a crime,' Baskerville said softly.

'Don't you?' she asked, angry.

'I suppose it is. But what's wrong with crime? I've always thought the world should be run along Mafia lines. When the Soviet Union fell, the Mafia took over. As a soldier. I hated to see gangsters and pimps running the country. But they paid good money, at a time when the government couldn't even pay its own workers, let alone provide for anyone else.'

He suddenly seemed quite tired.

'Areas controlled by criminals have far lower crime rates, that's the irony.'

'They rule by terror. They charge protection money.'

'And governments rule by default, and charge taxes. I tell you what, my dear, if a gang tried demanding forty or fifty percent of people's income, they wouldn't last very long.'

'There would be anarchy. Who would be in charge?'

'Whoever made the streets the safest, whoever could supply the most of what people demanded. It's the free market, you should appreciate that.'

'It's not what the majority want.'

'Yes it is. You don't vote for someone who looks good on the datanet and who isn't quite as awful as the other chap. But you do get someone who knows the local area, someone who wants to look after it, someone who's got an interest in keeping the local businesses running. Not like the Eurozone, where someone who's never even been to your country decides to close the factory that's your town's only employer because he needs to tidy up a balance sheet or reduce a subsidy budget.'

'Those people are accountable.'

Baskerville shook his head. 'No. They're elected, but that's hardly the same thing. Do you think they have the real real power? Do you know who controls the world, Anji? Do you know who it is who guides the markets, regulates supply and demand? Follow the money, follow the flow of capital.' power? Do you know who controls the world, Anji? Do you know who it is who guides the markets, regulates supply and demand? Follow the money, follow the flow of capital.'

Anji readied herself for some racist bile. If Baskerville or whatever his real name was really had grown up in post*Soviet Russia, she could excuse him it, she supposed. Their civilisation had literally collapsed, a superpower that put the first man into s.p.a.ce had been reduced to lawlessness in a very few years. She didn't know how long it had taken to rebuild. It would have been many years after her native 2001, and they weren't that many years after 2001.

So, he'd blame the 'international financiers', or the 'Western Bankers', or maybe he'd come right out and just say 'Jews'. Or he'd blame some other immigrants, or dole scroungers, or single mothers. He'd blame someone who was manifestly doing even worse, getting even less, out of the system.

'No one,' Baskerville said quietly. 'That's the most frightening thing. There are all those conspiracy theories about secret cabals running the world. My conspiracy theory is that they're a myth, put about by people who desperately don't want their citizens to realise that there's no one in charge. There's no one flying the plane, and no one knows where it's heading.'

'The market '

'The "market" is a myth. No... it's just a cosy way of saying "the situation we're in". It's a way of talking about the flow of capital, the trading of shares and commodities, the IFEC computers and traders pressing a b.u.t.ton or running a program that sells a trillion euros worth of shares because the President Minister of the UK is looking a bit peaky.'

Anji shuffled a little on her feet. There was a bit more to it than that. Admittedly not much more than that, though.

'It's not a perfect system. You have an alternative, I suppose?'

Baskerville nodded.

'Actually, yes I do.'

The Turkish government was a little surprised to receive word that the President of the United States wanted to meet the Turkish President to discuss the North African situation, and wanted to meet him at barely a day's notice.

They apologised profusely the Turkish President would need to fly back from the Far East, where he was heading a trade delegation, and the earliest they could arrange a secure venue would be that evening.

And the White House told them not to worry about it, and asked them to clear a floor of the Green Hotel for them to wait at.

Just as they'd planned.

Air Force One landed just before midday. The limousine and motorcycle outriders were waiting. President Mather made a short speech, expressed his desire to see the 'international situation' resolved, pledged support to the victims of the Athens disaster, and then stepped from the podium to the limousine.

There was a small anti*American demonstration, but nothing that would make the news back home that evening. Just the usual sort of people blaming him personally for all the troubles of the world.

It was about fifteen miles from the airport to the hotel, but the roads were cleared for the Presidential party.

At the hotel, the President was ushered upstairs, then into the suite that had been cleared for him. An aide told him that an American teletroop had hacked the system, managed to disable the safety overrides and had attacked a school bus in Tripoli. It required an urgent response, so before that he needed briefing.

A matter of greater urgency was that he needed to use the men's room.

Mather was surprised just how opulent the bathroom was there was an ornate carving on the ceiling, the floor was marble, inlaid with gold.

And Jonah Cosgrove was standing there.

'Felix,' he beamed, his Scots burr unchanged from the last time they'd met. 'How very good to see you.'

The President knew better than to call for his security. 'I know back in your day America and Britain had a special relationship, but I can unzip my own fly.'

Cosgrove grinned. 'Just get some intern to do it. You've got traditions to uphold, old chap.'

Mather sighed. 'How can I help an old friend?'

'Baskerville,' Cosgrove said simply.

'Uh*huh?'

'He's playing us off each other.'

'Is that right?'

'He'll raise his price.'

'As I understand it, it's a price worth paying.'

'As I understand it, the whole of eternity is big enough to share between us.'

'You think the Eurozone and the United States should both get time travel?'

'That wasn't the "us" I had in mind. Look, Mr President, we both know that whoever doesn't doesn't get time travel will just steal it from the other side. They'd get the blueprints the same day. You've got access to ULTRA, we've got access to every computer at the Octagon. So let's just split the costs down the middle, eh?' get time travel will just steal it from the other side. They'd get the blueprints the same day. You've got access to ULTRA, we've got access to every computer at the Octagon. So let's just split the costs down the middle, eh?'

Mather considered the offer for a moment. Cosgrove glanced up at the ceiling, tapped his foot against the marble floor.

'We don't tell Baskerville,' Mather said finally.

'Why not?'

'Because there are things he doesn't need to know. We go in separately, we play along with whatever he's got in mind. Make him waste a lot of effort trying to play us off against each other.'

Cosgrove nodded. 'Yes.'

'Now, can I please go to the bathroom?'

'I was just leaving. Be seeing you.'

'Wait. Do you know what the Fourth Prophecy is?'

Cosgrove hesitated.

Mather smiled. 'Let me rephrase that. You know what the Fourth Prophecy is. Please tell me.'

Cosgrove thought about it for a moment. 'OK, you have done me a good turn today so I shall do you one back. Do not go into Toronto town centre today.'

'You have to give me more than that.'

'An atomic device is going to detonate in ' he checked his watch 'four hours. Not a bomb. Apparently it's a civil nuclear device, one that was going to be used for some engineering project.'

'If a nuclear bomb went off... in this political climate, we'd a.s.sume it was the Eurozone, and launch a counterattack.'

'In the circ.u.mstances, best if you don't,' Cosgrove said. 'You tell your people to expect it.'