Doctor Who_ Battlefield - Marc Platt [15]
Peter broke into a smile that was almost possessive.
‘There you are. Vortigern’s Lake!’ he announced proudly.
Aha, thought the Doctor and checked that he still had the copy of Malory in his pocket.
Ahead they could see the military car that had ignored them earlier. It was slowly negotiating its way down a lower road.
‘What the blazes?’ Peter brought his Range Rover sharply to a halt. He climbed out of the car and stared angrily down the hill towards the lake edge.
The Doctor and Ace heard a string of undefined expletives as they joined him.
The road running down to the edge of Vortigern’s Lake rapidly turned into a rough track. A number of military vehicles the colour of muddy khaki were grouped on the edge of the bank: several jeeps, a heavy-duty lorry and a large van which the Doctor recognized as a Command Trailer.
Close by, cut into the green turf running inland from the lake, was an earth-brown rectangle. In its shape, small methodically-worked areas had filled with rainwater to form square puddles. They could see a group of squaddies working around the lorry under arc lamps, apparently trying to dig its back wheels out of the mud. As the UNIT
car approached, an officer broke from the group and went to meet its occupants.
Without a word, Peter Warmsly turned, walked back to his car and climbed inside.
‘We’ll walk down from here,’ called the Doctor, but the Range Rover was already heading away down the hill. ‘I think he’s worried about his dig,’ he said apologetically to Ace.
She ignored him. The squaddies by the lake had briefly lifted the tarpaulin which covered the heavy lorry. The tail fin she had glimpsed underneath gave her a cold chill.
‘Professor, it’s a missile convoy.’
The Doctor aimed the tracker down the hill and squinted with one eye through a small glass sight. ‘It’s a nuclear missile convoy.’
‘How do you know?’
‘It has a graveyard stench.’
At first he aimed the tracker directly at the convoy: the source of the signal was there. But that was ridiculous.
Typical soldiers, he thought, always getting in the way. He wondered how far UNIT had come since the days of Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart. Probably coldly technological and characterless without the Brigadier’s inimitable personality. Yet they should certainly be above playing with out-dated nuclear missiles.
He stabbed irritably at the scanner keys and tried again: no difference. In a sudden flash, he realized that the source of the signal was located beyond the convoy. The transmissions were coming from the lake itself.
The sense of relief with which Lieutenant Richards, seconded from the Royal Welch Fusiliers, greeted the Brigadier was tainted with foreboding. Bambera had the reputation of a martinet. Twice as hard because she was a black woman with twice as much to prove. He saluted sharply, praying that his mudcaked uniform might work in his favour.
Bambera made a brief inspection of the damage, noting the smashed sign marked Carbury Trust. ‘That’ll be trouble,’ she said.
The smell of diesel was strong. Eleven of the sixteen wheels on the missile launch vehicle were buried in the mud at the lake’s edge. The two rear axles were smashed.
‘Oh, very good. Why not drive it right into the lake?’
Richards glanced at Sergeant Zbrigniev, who had been following in the Brigadier’s tracks. He kept a fixed stare on the ground.
‘All right, Richards,’ said Bambera. ‘Extreme circumstances. We nearly landed in a ditch too.’
‘Sir,’ he said with relief.
‘Let’s just get this thing out of here before the ratpack gets wind of it.’
She mounted the steps of the command trailer. The interior was comfortably functional. The walls lined with Panybko-Mishkin communication stations and missile control decks. A Japanese sparks was at work on one of the panels.
Bambera pulled off her beret and sank into a deep leather swivel chair. ‘What I need, Richards, is a large shot of coffee.’
‘No sugar, no milk, sir.’ He nodded to the soldier on brew up duty.
Good man, she thought, he’s been talking to Zbrigniev.
From overhead, there