Doctor Who_ Trading Futures Part 5

The Doctor entered, smiled at the duty sergeant. There was another officer, filing some screenwork. He didn't look Mediterranean. He looked more like a soldier than a policeman.

'There was something on television about a briefcase?'

The duty sergeant and the soldier made an effort not to look at each other.

The Doctor plonked the silver briefcase on the counter.

'There was a reward, wasn't there? The television said something about 10,000 Euros? What's that in pounds, please?'

The soldier stood. 'You're English?'

'Not exactly,' the Doctor replied, carefully.

'We're all Europeans now,' the policeman reminded his colleague.

The Doctor kept quiet.

The soldier was running some sort of scanner over the case.

'Where did you find it?'

'I was on the beach with some friends, it just washed up.'

'It doesn't look dirty.'

'Well, it's just been in the sea.'

'It doesn't look particularly wet.'

'It was when we found it. It must have dried off in the sun.'

'You're in the habit of picking up strange briefcases?'

'If there's a reward.'

The soldier had put his scanner away and was taking out a wallet. 'We'll need a name and ID.'

The Doctor handed over his pa.s.sport. Well, a a pa.s.sport. pa.s.sport.

The soldier had lost interest in him, now. The policeman gave the picture something that barely qualified as a glance, then handed it back.

'Thank you,' the soldier said, although he clearly meant to tell him to get lost.

The Doctor was happy to do so.

Chapter Four.

Never Say Neverland Again Two hours later, the briefcase had arrived in London. An hour after that, the forensics people handed Cosgrove back his case and told him there wasn't any evidence that it had been tampered with. That might have sounded rea.s.suring, but it only meant what it said. The case could very well have been opened, by someone expert enough to leave no trace that he'd done so. Another team of experts told him that as the arrowhead was metal, it was impossible to carbon date it, but it was consistent with an eleventh*century Scottish design.

Still, he had his case back now.

Cosgrove took it back to his office, laid it on the desk and opened it, with some difficulty. His left arm was still badly bruised.

He reached for the bottle of painkillers in his jacket pocket.

The plan was to take a scientist along for the next meeting with Baskerville. There weren't exactly many people who specialised in the necessary field. He needed someone broad*minded.

He smiled. Professor Lik. Penelope Lik, the daughter of Korean immigrants, who'd joined the Service straight after completing her thesis. An imaginative young woman, and quite a travelling companion. But where were they travelling to?

He checked the case. The arrowhead was there, along with a handwritten invitation GPS co*ordinates and a time to be there. He checked the co*ordinates in the atlas he kept on his desk. Even here, he couldn't be sure that his computers weren't being monitored or hacked. The atlas, complete with its sigil on the cover, was more secure than any piece of electronic equipment on the planet.

The leather*bound book was an anachronism. Books weren't, of course in this day and age, the printed word was the only form of entertainment that wasn't easily pirated. Even theatre productions and operas could be covertly recorded and turned into vrooms. The entertainment corporations either factored piracy into their costings, or paid for a pinpoint smart missile strike on known pirate factories. Books and comics thrived. Magazines, of course, were ractive now.

No, the atlas was an anachronism because of its contents. All the countries, fitting together like colourful jigsaw pieces. Clearly defined boundaries. Individual states. Countries grouped together geographically, rather than economically, or by travel times.

The world just didn't work like that any more.

Cosgrove wasn't sure the world worked at all.

The meeting was going to be in the United States.

California.

Enemy territory.

Cosgrove wondered if it was Baskerville's joke at his expense.

He had twelve hours to get there with his scientist if he was going to travel by commercial airline, as was the usual practice, then he would barely make it. Even travelling hypersonic, he'd have to get a move on.

He told his autosec to ready the royal airliner, but the autosec complained that it wasn't authorised to do that. So Cosgrove had to make the phone calls himself. Convincing the people he needed to convince took almost as long as the trans*Atlantic flight would. By then, Penny Lik was downstairs in his car, with a packed suitcase.

There were formalities before he left. Cosgrove didn't believe in ritual blessings, but it was procedure, a tradition dating back to the late eighteenth century, and these things were audited. He p.r.i.c.ked his thumb, let a drop of blood fall on to the map, then drew a sign of power over Los Olivos. That done, he wiped the blood off the page, before it had a chance to congeal.

The secret signs of power, as determined by the men in secret societies, who thought they were the secret masters of the world. That's what the sigil on the front of the Atlas was meant to mean. 'Ours.' The conspiracy theorists had been saying it for decades there was a group of people, small enough to fit around one table, who controlled the flow of capital, who manipulated the economies of the world.

Cosgrove knew of at least nine organisations, six of which were still active, who thought they were the ones in charge, that they were the secret masters of the world.

Only one of them needed to be right, of course. But Cosgrove had thought for years that if there had been a small cabal of people running the world then it would be a lot better run than it actually was.

He had been in the Secret Service for sixty years. He knew a lot of secrets. There were things out there, beyond the normal, human, world. The truly ancient, the ones for whom this mere world would not be enough. There was a grand scheme of things. If there was a master of the world, he wouldn't waste his time with mere national economies, or local stock markets.

An instinct, and he realised that this was what he was dealing with. Something not of this Earth, not of this time. Something alien to humanity. Something that had to be fought.

He headed downstairs, to Professor Lik, and his car.

Anji came back into the control room, b.u.t.toning up the silk shirt she'd found in the TARDIS wardrobe. It might not be the height of fashion where they were going, but it suited her. It felt odd to be wearing her bikini underneath instead of proper underwear. It felt more odd than being in a time machine en route to Athens airport some years in her future.

She was sure that should have told her something very profound about her psychology and lifestyle, but wasn't quite sure what. She remembered that Fitz had warned her about that, told her that you get swept up in all the weirdness, that the ordinary stuff would start to feel odd.

'Where's Fitz?' she asked.

'The invitation to Athens was for two people a scientist and his a.s.sistant. So I've sent Fitz on an errand. I've just dropped him off at Neverland.'

'Neverland?'

'That's right.'

The Doctor was leaning over the console, looking relaxed.

'You're not going to explain, are you? Are you going to explain why you can fly the TARDIS to, er, Neverland and Athens, but you won't take me home?'

'We're not going to Athens. We're on the way to London. It's important we take a flight from Heathrow.'

'I've never been to Athens,' Anji noted. 'You have, I suppose?'

'I would have thought so. Yes... yes. I remember attending the Olympics.' He hesitated for a moment, relaxed, let the memory wash over him. 'All the athletes were naked.'

'Oh, right I remember reading about that. In Ancient Greece all the compet.i.tors went naked.'

The Doctor frowned. 'No, I think this was the future. Something to do with flagging TV ratings, I believe.'

Anji had spotted a sc.r.a.p piece of paper the Doctor had written down some plans.

'"Lax security",' she read.

'What? No LAX. Los Angeles... er... X. Airport. I was wondering how Fitz would get back from the West Coast of America without the money for a ticket.'

'And without a valid pa.s.sport.'

The Doctor nodded.

'And the answer?'

The Doctor shrugged. 'You've not asked me why I gave the case back to its original owner.'

He waited for her to do just that, until it became obvious he would have to skip that bit and just go straight to answering his own question. He took a small card out of his jacket pocket. 'This is the invitation to Athens. I wrote out an invitation of my own which has just sent its rightful owner off somewhere else.'

'Where?'

'Out of harm's way.'

'The implication being that we're going to be in in harm's way.' harm's way.'

The Doctor nodded happily.

Anji had taken the note from him. 'It's a very roundabout way to pa.s.s on a message, isn't it? Why not just send an email?'

'Because the message is too important. It's the only explanation. And it's got something to do with those time particles. There's a larger picture. We're being shown tiny bits of it.'

'Like that Chinese girl.'

'Ms Chang was American.'

'Fitz said...'

'I know what he said. Her ethnic origin is Chinese, but she was American. And that note was meant for a European. The man I took it from had a Scottish accent.'

'You think it's got something to do with the war that's brewing?'

The Doctor looked up, puzzled. 'No. Do you?'

'Well, it's part of the larger picture, isn't it? If there's rivalry between the EZ and the Americans, and the EZ are doing something secret that the Americans are interested in, then that's got to be significant, hasn't it?'

The Doctor nodded, conceding the point. 'I wonder how much the two sides know.'

'I already feel like I ought to be taking notes.' She tried to keep track. 'The American woman, Malady... is she going to show up in Athens?'

The Doctor checked his watch, surely nothing more than an affectation. Anji's own watch was set to... well, she wasn't sure any more. She set it to 6.30 every time she woke up, because she always woke up at six*thirty. That seemed like circular logic, but it meant she had some idea of how long it would be before she'd want to eat and sleep.

'We have to a.s.sume that she'll be on the way.'

'And she might have backup there?'

The Doctor looked a little uncomfortable. 'Well, yes, I hadn't thought of that.'

'We can't outrun a phone call, can we?'

'No.' His mouth dropped. 'Well, we could always set the...' he stopped. 'No. No, we can't outrun a phone call.'

Anji was sure she hadn't had the answer to one of her questions, but she couldn't remember which one.

'Where's Neverland?' Anji asked finally.

'Oh come on, Anji, you must know. You must have heard of him.'

The Doctor smiled.

Well, Fitz had never heard of him.