System Shock Part 5

'Oh, well that's a pity.' The Doctor's voice was suddenly quieter. 'I really would have liked to help, you know.'

'You have been a great help,' she said flatly as she turned to the a.s.sembled crowd. 'All of you have. My thanks. At least now we can be sure my friend did not leave it in here.'

Disappointed by their failure to find the CD, people began to resume their places at the tables, the excitement over.

'Perhaps we could help you search elsewhere?' The Doctor's eyes gleamed keenly.

'No, really. You have been very helpful.' She made to leave, then turned back as if she had just remembered something.

'Can I get you a drink?' she asked. She said the word 'drink'

with ill-disguised disdain. Almost disgust.

'That's very kind,' replied the Doctor. 'But I already have one. Perhaps I can get you a drink drink?' He mimicked her p.r.o.nunciation.

'No,' she said hastily. Then in a more measured tone she said: 'No thank you,' and walked quickly to the door.

'Till we meet again,' the Doctor called after her. She paused for a moment in the doorway. But she did not look back, and in a second she was gone.

It had been a strange day. Not just because of the extraordinary events. He settled into his favourite armchair, slightly uncomfortable that he needed such familiarity, such 45 comforts. He was hungry but did not feel like eating had not eaten all day.

He had not put on any of his usual music, but opted instead for Bach's Musical Offering Musical Offering. A part of his mind was worried that he never listened to Bach. Too regular, too scientific in his construction. This CD had been a present, unplayed until now.

He found it oddly rea.s.suring to pick out the notes of the fugue with its complex, apparently irregular King's Theme brought into mathematical precision by the hidden canons.

With the Canon per Tonos Canon per Tonos rising endlessly, modulating up the keys to the next octave, he fell asleep. rising endlessly, modulating up the keys to the next octave, he fell asleep.

And the nightmares came.

Sarah crept along the dark street keeping the Doctor's distinctive silhouette a couple of paces ahead of her. At first she had been interested, but now she was rapidly becoming bored with trailing the woman through a seemingly random maze of London streets. She was just wondering how much longer it would go on when she b.u.mped heavily into the Doctor's back as he halted suddenly.

She muttered a quiet apology, but he brushed it off and pulled her forward so she could join him peering round the corner of a wall into the adjoining street.

The woman was standing across the road, apparently unsure what to do next. She had stopped her detailed examination of every step along the pavement and every opening and hidey-hole within reach along her route. Instead she was staring ahead of her.

Sarah could see her problem, and at the same time felt a sense of vindication. They were at a junction with the road where the man had been killed, and the woman was watching the police as they finished cordoning off the area.

When she moved it was sudden, like a cat springing. She was off, walking briskly but almost silently down the street away from the police activity. Her hands were in her jacket pockets, her head down. The Doctor took Sarah's hand and together they dashed across the road, hoping the woman would not look back, would not see them mid-way - caught by the street light or strobed in blue.

46.She did not look back. She did not so much as break step on the whole journey. This time the route was more direct she was going home, the Doctor whispered to Sarah.

It was spotting with rain when they reached her destination.

It was a large office block, not very far from The Green Man The Green Man.

A large sign outside was engraved I2, the rain drops trickling into the relief and lipping out again before splashing to the ground. They watched her across the road, reflected first in the shiny wetness of the tarmac, then in the opaque darkness of the windows. She stopped at the door, and this time she did look back.

The Doctor and Sarah were in the dense shadows under a tree quite a way down the street. Even so, Sarah drew back as the woman's head turned their way.

But she did not seem interested in their hiding place. Instead she stared for a moment at a Ford Granada parked across the road from the office. Then she turned to a keypad set in the wall by the door, deliberately putting herself between the keypad and the car. She pushed several b.u.t.tons and the main doors slid open. She stepped through, and as the darkness of the entrance lobby swallowed her up the doors shut behind her.

'What now?' asked Sarah.

'What do you think?' The Doctor's eyes were full of mischief.

'We follow her inside?'

He thumped her lightly on the shoulder. 'Right. Come on.

They got halfway across the road, going slowly and carefully, hoping they weren't being watched, trying to keep quiet. Then the Granada's lights came on full, catching them like startled rabbits.

Sarah's retinas still retained the smear of the headlights when the car drew level with them, the window already wound down.

'I wonder if you'd join us for a moment,' the driver asked. It was not a question, the back door of the car was already open, another man leaning across the back seat beckoning them in.

'Why should we? Who are you?' Sarah was at once on her guard.

47.'Oh come on, Sarah,' the Doctor chided. 'Be reasonable.

After all, he's asked us nicely and he probably has a gun.' His voice dropped in both pitch and volume. 'People usually do in these circ.u.mstances, I've found.'

'Very true,' the driver agreed, although he made no move to produce it.

'And the only thing worse than being shot,' said the Doctor as he bundled himself into the back of the car, motioning for the other man to budge up and give them room to squeeze in, 'is being shot in the rain.'

With a sigh Sarah followed him into the car, pulling the door shut behind her.

'Now isn't this cosy.' The Doctor was rolling his shoulders and wriggling into the seat. 'We'd like the scenic route please if you could pause at Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, and drop us off at any surviving police telephone box we happen across that would be extremely useful.'

Neither man answered as the car gathered speed and headed off into the London night.

48.

04.

Hubway

Stabfield had not been surprised that the CD was still missing.

But with luck Sutcliffe had hidden it away, and he could no longer tell anyone where it was. In any case, the chance of anyone managing to work out its content, let alone its significance, was virtually nil.

But the low risk a.s.sessment did not stop him being angry both with Marc Lewis and with Johanna Slake. He was already on his way back in the shuttle, and he had taken the precaution of downloading a back-up copy of the data on to another CD.

They needed the CD for the phase two exit gate, and phase three was about to begin.

It was nearly midnight when the Granada drew up and the Doctor and Sarah found themselves escorted into a nondescript building. Their escorts said nothing, despite the Doctor's comments on the apparent age of the building, the merits of the original, and the discomfort of being kidnapped and rushed through London in the dead of night and in the rain.

The driver typed his name and business into the computer at reception and showed a security pa.s.s before the large security guard allowed them inside. Then they were taken up in a lift and led down numerous featureless corridors before arriving in a spa.r.s.ely furnished office. The walls were painted a grimy, peeling magnolia. In the middle of the room, standing on the bare floorboards, was a large conference table. Its surface was scarred and pitted and someone had carved Fred loves Ginge Fred loves Ginge on the edge with a sharp implement. The table was bare apart from a telephone, which was positioned so that its cord was strategically placed to trip up anyone crossing the room. The 49 on the edge with a sharp implement. The table was bare apart from a telephone, which was positioned so that its cord was strategically placed to trip up anyone crossing the room. The 49 half dozen hard, upright chairs grouped round the table were just too low to be comfortable, and looked like rejects from a secondary school.

The Doctor immediately slumped down on one of the chairs, tilted his hat over his eyes and said: 'So you don't come here often.'

The second man from the car had left, but the driver was standing in the doorway, watching them silently. When he did not respond, the Doctor pushed his hat back and fixed him with a stare. 'If you did,' he said, 'you'd realize that there is a more direct route to this room. I imagine that when you were first shown here you stopped at another office on the way, hmmm?'

The driver still said nothing, but Sarah could see that he was listening, interested. Perhaps even impressed.

'Ergo, you don't work here.' The Doctor stood up suddenly and walked up to the man, standing almost on his toes and looking him straight in the eye. 'Doing a little moonlighting for friends, eh Inspector Ashby?'

The driver took a step back, his dispa.s.sionate demeanour broken. 'What? How did ' He broke off, unwilling to say more.

The Doctor snorted. 'It seemed likely. You get to drive and do the talking, so obviously there's a rank attached. Since you don't work here you're obviously not native to MI5. No, I'd say Special Branch. Your name's the easy part. You typed it into the computer log when we came in.' He sat down again, pleased with his diagnosis. 'Am I right?' he asked with a wink and a tap of the nose.

Sarah had watched the rather one-sided exchange with interest. When Ashby refused to be drawn further she sat down in a chair next to the Doctor. 'How do you know this is MI5?'

'Came here a couple of times with the Brigadier, back in my "establishment" days. Interminable meetings to try to justify UNIT's existence and budget.' He leaned back on the chair and crashed his feet down on the table top, making the telephone receiver jump in its cradle. 'Boring!' was his final verdict.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. The man in the doorway shuffled his weight from one foot to another a couple of times, and the Doctor practised back-flips on his yo-yo.

50.Sarah looked round the room hoping to find something of interest or a clue as to why they were there, but she was disappointed.

They heard footsteps from along the corridor and Ashby stood more self-consciously upright. He stepped aside for a man to enter the room a tall man in his mid thirties with strikingly fair hair. He was wearing a suit, but looked comfortable rather than smart in it. His tie, like his suit, was plain and dark. He dismissed Ashby with a nod of the head and took a seat opposite the Doctor and Sarah, laying a manila folder on the table in front of him. He squared up the folder against the edge of the table, then folded his hands on top of it.

'I do apologize for the inconvenience,' he said in a well-cultured voice, 'but one of my people was killed this evening and I need to ask you a few questions.'

'The man we saw?' suggested Sarah.

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. 'Thin man with a thin beard?

Neck crushed outside a building site?'

The fair-haired man frowned. 'I thought Special Branch picked you up outside I2, not at the scene of the crime.'

'They did. But perhaps they confused cause and effect.'

'I'm sorry?'

'We were at the office because we saw the murder or at least, the victim. Not vice versa.'

The man considered this a while. 'You didn't kill him.' It was an observation rather than a question.

'No,' Sarah was emphatic. 'But we know who did. It was a woman. We followed her to the office building, Eye Squared, or whatever you said.'

'Are you intending to continue in this singularly interrogatory vein,' the Doctor inquired, 'or shall we introduce ourselves and have tea?'

The man lifted the phone and muttered into it. Then he smiled. 'Tea is on the way.'

'Good. In that case, I'm the Doctor and this is Miss Smith.'

'Robert Gibson, MI5.'

The Doctor nodded. 'Then you'll have heard of UNIT'

'Indeed. May I ask how you you come to have heard of it?' come to have heard of it?'

51.'Oh I've done some work for them on occasion freelance sort of thing. Consultancy.'

'You mean wet jobs?'

The Doctor grimaced. 'I mean advice.'

Gibson did not look convinced. 'I wouldn't have thought you were the UNIT type, to be frank. Can you prove it?'

Sarah sighed and watched as the Doctor mentioned pa.s.ses he could not immediately put his hands on (and which might perhaps be out of date). He also dropped names of people Gibson had either not heard of or who had retired years earlier.

Eventually Gibson suggested they drop the subject, hinting that he could check the Doctor's credentials later. Then he made another muttered phone call.

'Right then,' Gibson said at last, 'shall we compare notes on this evening's events? It seems you can fill in a few blanks we have.'

'Tell us first why you were watching I2,' the Doctor challenged.

'Very well. We suspect that it's a front of some sort for the Little Brothers Little Brothers.'

'You mean, like Big Brother?' Sarah asked.

'Yes, Miss Smith.' Gibson seemed surprised she had to ask.

'A terrorist group opposed to all forms of government intervention or regulation Big Brother, in their terms. They were behind the Pullen Tower thing which came to its conclusion this evening.'

'If you mean the tower block we saw being stormed, I'd say it came to a rather loud and b.l.o.o.d.y conclusion,' Sarah said.

'But why would I2 be behind them? Who are they anyway?'

'You are out of touch, aren't you?'

The Doctor leaned across the table. 'We've been travelling,'

he said quietly. 'Tell us about it.'

So Gibson told them.

'It's run by Lionel Stabfield. You must have heard of him.

Rumoured to be the fifth richest man in the world. Only forty-three as well. He came from nowhere and set up I2. The press alternately call him a genius and a bore. His compet.i.tors keep their thoughts largely to themselves. Except Ashley Chapel, but he's big enough in his own right not to be scared.'