Doctor Who_ Combat Rock - Mick Lewis [52]
An eye for an eye, you might say.’
‘It’s obscene!’ Victoria shrieked, trying one last time to wriggle free.
‘It’s war,’ Agus said, and dragged her across the courtyard towards the officers’ mess.
And this time he locked her in.
Smoke from the burning village was curling through the jungle. Tigus halted the group. When the Doctor tried to ask what the matter was, the guerrilla leader ignored him. Then he was running, apparently forgetting his hostages, galloping along the jungle trail ahead until the foliage swallowed him.
The other guerrillas urged their captives forward from behind.
‘What’s rattled his cage?’ Drew asked. Nobody knew, and even if they did they weren’t going to bother answering the obnoxious offworlder.
The jungle fell away to reveal a large clearing. A village compound had once taken pride of place in the centre of the clearing. Now only a large bonfire and a heap of bodies stuffed in the narrow gateway of the burning wall remained.
Tigus was kneeling beside one of the blistered corpses littered around the outside of the gateway.
The Doctor turned to Wemus and Kepennis who were waiting silently at the fringe of the clearing, the guerrillas guarding them distracted and silent too.
‘What has happened here?’ he asked them. ‘Is this the work of the army again?’
Wemus shrugged unhappily. He was probably wondering what consequences this new atrocity would have for them.
Ussman and Budi were obviously thinking the same, judging from their worried expressions. Santi finally stopped cursing and grumbling. Wina rubbed her bare arms agitatedly, although this time the action had nothing to do with jungle insect irritation. Drew sighed, as if this whole scene were extremely tiresome.
Kepennis answered the Doctor, examining his hands as he did so.
“This Tigus village. This work of mercenary.’
The Doctor advanced towards the smoking, crackling compound. The smell of burning flesh made his eyes run.
He put out a hand to touch the guerrilla’s shoulder. Then turned away from the close-up he was afforded of a woman’s face, a face of ash.
The guerrilla stood, turned to face the Doctor. He was smiling. The Doctor didn’t like the look of that smile. It was a wavering, insubstantial thing that threatened to break at any moment.
Slowly, Tigus withdrew his machete, as if he were intending to clean it. He looked down at it, turned it to let the sunlight bounce from its blade. He smiled up at the Doctor.
‘You see what they do to our people?’ he said quietly. And the Doctor didn’t like the quietness of his voice either. He hung his head in sympathy and feebly tapped the knuckles of both hands together.
‘You see what they do?’
Then the Doctor was down on his knees, shoved there by the guerrilla leader, and the machete was sliding under his throat. The Doctor emitted a series of woeful sounds and his eyes rolled, but the blade pressed tighter.
‘Perhaps I kill you all now. We can pretend to Indoni you still live. What we have to lose?’ The crazy smile was still there.
‘Leave him!’ Willa called, and Kepennis was stepping forward, hands raised in an attempt at mediation.
‘Sabit will never believe you – he will want proof they live!’ the guide insisted bravely.
Tigus didn’t even answer. He raised the machete over his head.
Chapter Eight
‘Why are we back here?’
The Dogs’ cruiser was banking over familiar territory. The smoke from the village they had burned earlier hung in the sky, confusing their view of the ground below.
Pretty Boy repeated his question when Twist failed to respond.
‘Signal came then; weak, but it’s our man.’ The balding, long-haired pilot hunched over an instrument bank, a spliff drooping from his lips, nodding at a faint blip on a radar. ‘He hasn’t sent the positive frequency yet though so...’
‘So we’re wasting our time,’ Pan cut in. It was the first time he had spoken