Doctor Who_ Atom Bomb Blues - Andrew Cartmel [51]
‘No way, man. I wouldn’t bring my music out here in the savage splendour of New Mexico. Dust is the enemy of the LP, baby.’ Then Ray hastily corrected himself. ‘I mean of 78s, I mean of shellac discs. Records.’
‘I’ll remember that.’ Ace leaned back in her seat and took a deep breath of the racing wind. It smelled of a mixture of petrol from the jeep and wild desert sage. The sun shone benignly down on her face. Despite the bruising brutality of the jeep ride, she was enjoying herself. Or at least she would be if her hair didn’t keep getting in her eyes, swaying with the motion of the vehicle. She brushed it aside and turned to the Doctor. ‘This is all very nice, getting away from Los Alamos and all that. But I thought you were supposed to be busy arguing with Teller.’
‘Apparently our last discussion gave him so much to think about that he wants all day to ponder it.’
91
‘Good for you,’ said Ace. She took a rubber band out of the pocket of her denim jacket and used it to secure her hair.
The Doctor peered out over the steering wheel. He hardly seemed to move the wheel, but he was keeping them clear of obstacles despite their high speed.
He was obviously enjoying the drive. ‘In fact it probably just means he’s sick of me and wanted to avoid seeing me.’
‘That Teller is one anti-social cat, man,’ said Ray from the back seat.
‘Nevertheless, tomorrow I shall renew my attack.’
‘Attack?’
The Doctor smiled. He peered into the distance. ‘Just a figure of speech.’
Events seemed to conspire to prevent Butcher getting away from the Hill. Receiving official permission had been the least of his problems. What should have been the simple business of delegating to his sergeants, for what after all promised to be only a few hours’ absence, took a few hours in itself. And then, just when he was about to set off, he was ambushed by some last-minute additional paperwork concerning release of Rosalita’s body to a civilian coroner.
More hours proceeded to grind slowly by as he unravelled the necessary red tape.
Then, when he finally managed to get changed and get to the motor pool, he had endless problems with vehicles. The first jeep he chose had a flat tyre, the second a ruptured fan belt, the third some kind of untraceable blockage in the exhaust system. ‘Don’t any of your jeeps work?’ demanded Butcher of Lisetti, the motorpool chief, a greasy grinning Buddha of a man, who had a monkey wrench in one shirt pocket and a bar of Red Indian brand chewing tobacco in the other.
‘They tend to the temperamental, that’s for sure. They’re supposed to be built for desert work, but I find they never really perform good in all this dust and fine sand. But there’s one vehicle that always runs real sweet. Never had a single problem with her.’
‘Then give me that one,’ said Butcher.
Lisetti smiled and spat a stream of tobacco juice. ‘Sorry. No can do. Already signed her out. To a little English gent called Dr Smith. Had a girl with him and that big Chinese fellow.’
‘Japanese,’ said Butcher.
‘Hey, really. You don’t say. Why isn’t he behind bars?’
‘You might well ask,’ said Butcher. He waited another half an hour on the endless business of the first jeep having it’s tyre changed, only to have it taken away from him at the last instant for use by General Groves’ staff. That left Butcher with either the broken fan belt vehicle, or the one with the mystery exhaust problem. Two fan belts later he was finally driving down the Hill.
∗ ∗ ∗
92
Ace’s predictions about her bruised buttocks proved to be amply fulfilled by the time the Doctor announced that they were finally approaching their destination. He was steering the jeep towards a range of low hills that looked, to Ace, no different from the many other ranges of hills they had already passed in the repetitive desert landscape. The sun was now sinking behind the mountains in the west and the sky was painted with bright, garish, sunset colours.
The Doctor skirted the base of the hills until he found a narrow track leading upwards that