Doctor Who_ History 101 - Mags L. Halliday [84]
She turned into another street, heading towards the post office. The crack of a rifle made her duck back into a deep doorway. Someone held a vantage point and was taking potshots at anyone who walked into view. Peering round, she spotted a church tower. Of course, Santa Maria del Pi. Held by Communists. Bastards.
Eleana tried to decide which route to take. She could do a big loop and end up two blocks beyond the church. Or change her plans and try the telephone exchange. She got a brief, sudden, mental image of the chaos at the exchange: faces whirling past, Anji cowering in a corner next to a corpse. She shook her head, dislodging the image with a burst of pain. Then she spotted movement beyond the tiny plaza. A flash of a scarlet coat. The Doctor was hurrying up a side street, intent on the strips of paper clutched in his arms, trailing in his wake like streamers. He could have no idea of the sniper in the tower. Idiot.
‘Doctor!’
He didn’t look up. Eleana wondered why she was bothering. She was still annoyed with Anji after the other night. The foreigners were dangerous, with their insane idea of gathering together the ‘truth’. The Doctor would be in the line of fire in a moment. She didn’t care.
‘Oh, fantastic,’ she said as she checked her rifle was loaded.
She took loose aim at the tower and fired off two rounds. Even as the recoil of the second shot was bruising her shoulder she was moving across the open ground, her boots slamming into the uneven ground. She almost cannoned into the Doctor, who was only just looking up from the reams of paper. She felt the velvet under her arm and dragged him sideways. The wall she’d used as shelter moments before splattered stone shrapnel as it was hit by bullets. She shoved the Doctor behind an abandoned car, roughly releasing his shoulder. Several bullets pinged off the radiator. She crouched down beside him, fumbling in her ammo belt for another couple of rounds.
‘Hello, Eleana. How are you? And thank you, by the way.’ He was chatting to her as if they had just run into each other at a café. He didn’t seem to regard the risks at all. She couldn’t believe he’d just been wandering through the streets. He was still looking cheerfully about, taking in their dire position. Or possibly admiring the architecture. She rammed a round into the chamber, angry that she had got sidetracked. That she’d got involved with this lot at all.
‘Are you a fool, Doctor? What are you doing out here?’
‘I was on my way to the telephone exchange, actually. Got a bit turned about by the new street configuration.’
‘Because Anji’s there, I suppose.’
‘Sorry?’
‘You’re going to the exchange because Anji is up there.’
The Doctor’s face, which had looked boyishly enthusiastic up to that point, fell.
‘Anji was there? Oh.’
Eleana crosschecked her rifle and rose slightly, glancing cautiously over the top of the car. No bullet came. Looking about, she saw they could get into a narrow alley that would lead them parallel to Las Rambles, up towards the telefonica. She ducked back down, glancing at the Doctor. He was skimming through the armfuls of what she now saw was ticker tape, reading far faster than she had ever seen anyone read.
‘We can get into Pi, then up Avenda Portal de L’Angel and up towards the exchange that way,’ she told him, ‘but the place is still besieged. They attacked there and our offices at the same time yesterday