Doctor Who_ Atom Bomb Blues - Andrew Cartmel [66]
And with no accusations there could be no charges brought.
So, the Doctor would have to wait.
‘All right,’ he told Oppy. ‘I’ll look into this matter with Morita.’
‘We have to get him back,’ said Oppenheimer. ‘He’s crucial to the whole project. We can’t afford to lose one of our best minds so close to Trinity.’
‘We haven’t lost him,’ said Butcher. ‘Not if I have anything to say in the matter.’ He glanced back at the school, then reluctantly turned away and set off to contact the MP post and find out if anyone had seen Morita leave.
Oppy continued into the ranch school and went around the classrooms asking if any of the physicists had any idea where Ray Morita might be. After he’d spoken to the Doctor and Ace, and left them alone, Ace turned to the Doctor and said, ‘He seems pretty upset.’
The Doctor nodded. He was standing holding a piece of chalk, studying his equations on the blackboard. ‘Not surprising. As he said, Ray is a key member of the team and crucial to the project. More importantly though, if he’s gone missing the immediate suspicion is that he might be a spy. That he might have been spying on the project all along, and that he’s gone to report to his masters.’
‘So there’s going to be a real stink about him vanishing?’
‘As you say, a real stink.’
‘So why didn’t we just bring him back with us in the TARDIS? We could have avoided all this.’
The Doctor smiled at her. ‘Think, Ace. We could have done what you said.
But think about the consequences.’
Ace frowned, considering. She took off her sunglasses and rubbed at the bruise on her cheekbone. ‘Let’s see. If we’d brought Ray back from LA with us, then he would have arrived here when we did, just after he left, and nobody would have ever known that he’d vanished.’
‘And. . . ?’
116
‘And that means there wouldn’t have been a stink, which is kind of my point.’
‘And. . . ?’
‘And Major Bulldog Butcher wouldn’t have gone off searching for him.’ Ace suddenly fell silent. ‘Oh.’ She put her sunglasses back on.
‘Indeed,’ said the Doctor. ‘Oh.’
‘I see what you mean now. If Butcher hadn’t gone off after him. . . ’
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘The consequences don’t really bear thinking about.’
He set down his piece of chalk and came over and sat beside Ace. ‘By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask. What’s that you’re holding in your hand? You covered it up as soon as Butcher stepped in and again when Oppy appeared.’
Ace opened her fist. She was holding a piece of paper inside it. The Doctor glanced down and said, ‘Ah yes. That could have been a bit tricky to explain.
I suggest you get rid of it right now, while we think about it, so that there’s no danger of it coming to the attention of Butcher later on.’
‘What should I do with it?’ Ace’s voice was weary. Her eyes were invisible behind the dark lenses of her sunglasses.
‘Burn it,’ said the Doctor, handing her a box of matches. Ace took them and used them to burn the paper in one of the many ashtrays available in the classroom. It curled and vanished in the flames, ceasing to be recognisable as a train ticket.
‘All tickets for Los Angeles, please. All tickets for Los Angeles.’ The inspector moved slowly down the length of the observation car. The car had a kind of giant glass bubble on top that allowed the passengers to peer out at the passing landscape. Smoking was permitted here; encouraged even, by the presence of an ashtray for every armchair-like leather seat. The chrome ashtrays stood on graceful stems, like miniature tables, and had clamshell lids, which at least sealed off the stink of the smouldering butts and old ash inside. And at this time of day, in the late morning, the place was sparsely occupied. Ace had found that she liked the observation bubble. It reminded her in an odd way of the cockpit in Zorg’s