Doctor Who_ Attack of the Cybermen - Eric Saward [4]
When it came to the more temporal consideration of Lytton’s criminal activities, commonsense, along with normal police procedure, was again abandoned, especially when they learned that he was no longer stealing electronic equipment but was now attempting to buy it. Instead of arresting and forcing the truth out of him (or even increasing surveillance) the police, in the hope it would speed up their inquiries, provided him with a supplier of their own, Vincent Russell. This only confused matters further: from the first moment of contact, Lytton seemed to know who Russell was and why Russell was there.
Neither did it help their investigation when Lytton started to make outrageous demands, which both Russell and his back-up team were hard-pushed to satisfy.
It was only the news of the impending robbery which alleviated the police’s sense of panic. They needed to arrest Lytton soon. Deputy Assistant Commissioners were demanding it. But they still hadn’t solved the mystery of who he was. With this urgency in mind, and against the earnest advice of the Bomb Squad, it was agreed to supply Lytton with seven kilos of plastic explosives. Such was their desperation, it was provided without even knowing the venue of the robbery. At long last, they thought, the mystery of the ‘Unknown Man’ would be solved.
Instead, when everything went wrong, all it initiated was the biggest internal investigation the Metropolitan Police had ever known.
The car carrying Payne and Grifiths pulled up outside Fulham Broadway Underground station. As it did so, Vincent Russell stepped from its portals and climbed inside. A moment later the vehicle rejoined the main stream of traffic, this time on its way to collect Mr Lytton.
Commander Gustave Lytton came from the planet Vita Fifteen, in the star system Tempest Dine. He had been trapped on Earth for two years and was now desperate to escape. Lytton hated London with its teeming population, dreadful weather, dull conversation and awful food. As a mercenary soldier, he continually craved excitment.
Robbing banks, with their ridiculously simple security systems, was not a satisfactory substitute for the bone-crushing rough and tumble of a good intergalactic war. But escape was impossible from a planet which had yet to invent the warp engine. The primitive spacecraft of Earth was useless. Even with his advanced technical knowledge, there was little he could do to improve the performance of such a craft. Not that it would have mattered if he could: Earth was too far from the main space lines. Without warp power it would take a thousand years to reach the nearest.
It had all seemed hopeless, until Lytton had hit on the idea of building a distress beacon. If he couldn’t reach the space lanes, his signal might bring someone in search of him.
To use a conventional Earth transmitter, with its signal restricted to the speed of light, would have been as pointless as trying to escape from the planet. But with the adapted use of the stolen laser machine, and some half-remembered lectures on the structure of time, it was just possible to transmit a signal through the gaps in the space/time continuum. This would allow his transmission to speed across the Universe and, hopefully, into the receiver of a friendly listener.
This Lytton had done. What was more, he had had a reply.
Spots of rain began to pepper its windscreen as the Granada turned into Great Russell Street. Ahead stood the British Museum, its colonnaded front crowded with people.
‘This is where we pick up Mr Lytton,’ muttered Joe nervously. And as though to emphasise the drama of the situation, he drove his finger into the dashboard lighter and lit another cigarette.
As the car approached the entrance to the British Museum, an earnest-looking school teacher, hand erect in the ‘Halt’ position, stepped onto the pedestrian crossing.
The Granada braked gently and the trio watched a gaggle of young school children, like so many nervous ducklings, scurry across the road.