Doctor Who_ Combat Rock - Mick Lewis [15]
It was so hot, he could barely think.
He staggered towards a cafe where a bright-red awning promised some little relief from the evil sun. It looked private enough as well: he was the only customer. He ordered a beer from the Indoni waiter and when the little man had disappeared back inside the dark bowels of the cafe, he took a small device from his pocket and thumbed a stud on the side.
A small screen blinked up, a repeated message rolling across the surface. He grunted softly, but he had been expecting this. It had only ever been a matter of time.
Locate and terminate.
No problem, he grinned to himself and killed the message.
‘You’re late. Sabit the Rabbit’s got a brief for us.’
Pan frowned at his colleague as he entered the stationary cruiser. He swung himself into a cabin seat and lit a cigarette.
He didn’t bother answering Clown, who really didn’t care either way and merely stepped towards the cabin console and flicked the intercom on.
A monitor popped into life and the face of the Indoni President appeared. The image flicked with recorded abstractions, but the voice was clear.
‘Special operations on Papul are urgently required.’ There was no greeting, but then not one of the seven men seated in the sweaty cruiser had expected one. ‘An incident has occurred involving an expedition of tourists,’ the President continued, his moustache lifting slightly as he sniffed. His was a face you could easily dislike, and if Pan had been a stupider man, he would have wondered how such an eminently untrustworthy-looking man as Sabit could ever have been elected President of Indoni. But then Pan was certainly not stupid, and well versed in the corruption of Jenggel’s biggest superpower. Election? Democracy? Not today, thank you.
Something for which Pan was not a little grateful; it helped him fill his boots nicely.
President Sabit’s eyes were black and very small, made to look smaller by the predatory beak of a nose that hooked down towards a lizard mouth. He was every inch the picture of an evil dictator. He was a living cliché; but a very dangerous one, and one Pan and his colleagues had learned not to underestimate. Pan exhaled smoke towards the screen while the rest of his wild bunch listened with casual interest.
The Wild Bunch. The Dogs. The Kill Crew. The Pack.
They went under many names.
There was Clown: the right side of his mouth curled up into a permanent smile by the knife scar that gave him his name. The scholar of the bunch, he tended to distance himself from his colleagues by immersing himself in philosophical texts. Rimless eyeglasses gave him a distinctly demented appearance.
There was Pretty Boy: bisexual, deadly, always wore black lace over his shining black leather; eyes underscored with just a little touch of liner. But call him effeminate and it would be the last thing you ever did. And yes, he was pretty. Dyed black hair thick and wavy, cheekbones raw but sleek, a sensuous mouth, and not a scar on him.
There was Bass: light-brown hair slicked back with oil, cigarette tucked behind one ear, always wore dated sleeveless army shirts; quiet, polite, could take a man’s head off with one slice of his Bowie knife.
There was Twist: psychedelia and psychosis were his thang. The least stable of the bunch, thanks to his predilection for every psychoactive drug he could get his fingers on. He was a liability, and he was the only one not to know it. His hair was falling out on top, lank and long around this warning sign of baldness. When he wasn’t babbling incoherently, he took to staring vacantly. But he could kill, so he was still useful. For now.
That left Saw and Grave. Saw was a big monster of a man, bearded, face a mask of scars. One of his eyes had been dislocated by a Burster, and thanks to what was obviously the cruel humour of a plastic surgeon, it was now situated halfway down his cheek. Of course the surgeon had not lived long to enjoy his little joke. This Dog’s weapon of choice was a chainsaw.
Grave was always in black.
‘The expedition was apparently attacked while visiting Akima village,