Doctor Who_ Illegal Alien - Mike Tucker [14]
Lazonby placed the report into his 'pending' tray and glanced at the name tag on the man's coat. B. Harkness. 'So what success have you had?'
Harkness took another slurp of his tea, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and wiping that in turn on the grimy front of his coat. 'Nothing. We've tried everything. We can't pierce it, we can't melt it, it doesn't conduct. We can't even begin to analyse it.'
Lazonby stared straight into Harkness's face. The technician had mismatched eyes. One brown, one blue. More disorder. Everywhere that Lazonby looked there was disorder. 'Are you telling me that the Germans have developed an impenetrable metal?'
The technician shrugged. 'I'm not sure what I'm telling you, Major Lazonby.'
'It simply doesn't add up. Jerry isn't stupid. Why should he develop a bomb casing that won't shatter? And why should he dump it on our doorstep?'
The phone on Lazonby's desk rang. He answered it and, as he listened to the voice on the other end, he felt his face flush with rage. 'Dr Peddler? Why wasn't I told sooner?' His grip on the receiver turned the knuckles on his hand white. 'I want this place sealed off completely. Now! Do you understand?'
He replaced the receiver with barely controlled anger, took a deep breath and then picked it up again. He spoke in slow, measured tones, but the thinly veiled threat in his voice made Harkness shudder.
'I want to see Chief Inspector Mullen. I want to see him here and I want to see him now.'
McBride unlocked the door of his office and let Ace and the Doctor in. He would have to take more care about security if crazy strangers were going to walk in every time he left his door unlocked. He didn't quite know what he'd got himself into but he was starting to enjoy it. The Doctor was weird, but he believed the story about the sphere and he'd managed to shut Mullen up. That was good enough for McBride. The kid was cute, too. Odd taste in clothes, and sometimes she lost him with her slang, but she was bright and sassy.
She was dancing around the Doctor. 'Aren't you glad that we came now, Professor?' He waved his umbrella at her.
'Well, I still don't like the motive behind it. You're a barbarian, Ace.' 'But it's history. The pensioners in Perivale were always droning on about the Blitz.' The Doctor nodded wearily. 'So you had to come and see it.' McBride shook his head in disbelief. Perhaps 'weird' wasn't the right word... The Doctor tossed his duffel coat in a heap in the corner and sat at McBride's desk. He pulled the set of jeweller's screwdrivers out of his pocket and, to McBride's astonishment, placed Wall's calling card on the centre of the desk. 'Hey, I thought you gave that thing to Mullen.' The Doctor had already sprung the card open and was poking and prodding in its interior, trying to keep Ace out of his light. 'No. I gave him an Arcturan gambling chip. They look very similar.' McBride was both amused and impressed.'Sonofagun...' The phone on McBride's desk rang and he reached for it. But Ace got to it first and dropped into her best American drawl. 'Mr Bogart's out of the office at the moment...' She stopped. 'Oh, right...'
She passed the receiver over to the Doctor. 'Mullen.' The Doctor gripped the receiver beneath his shoulder and chin and continued his investigation of the inside of the card.
'Hello, Inspector... The card. What card would that be? A Christmas card? Birthday, perhaps? Oh... that card. No, I thought that you had it. No? Well, now, let me think. Ah! I gave it to that nice young policeman. What was his name?
Swallow? Swift?... Quick!' His eye's opened wide in surprise.
'Really, Inspector, I'm sure that isn't language fitting for a police officer.'
He let the receiver fall back on to the phone. 'McBride, would you do something for me?'
'Sure.'
'I take it that you've made certain contacts with the seedier strata of London society.'