Doctor Who_ Illegal Alien - Mike Tucker [4]
The two men stared at each other, preparing for one of their inevitable and longwinded confrontations, when an army staff car burst into view from a side alley. It pulled up on the road and several soldiers sprang out, joining the police and pushing the crowds back, setting up a cordon around the bomb site.
A young, thin man with a young, thin moustache and an immaculate uniform strode through the squaddies, barking orders. Satisfied that the crowd were being kept under control, he crossed to McBride and Mullen.
'Ah, Chief Inspector.'
Mullen caught McBride's eye and muttered under his breath. 'Saints preserve us from Military Intelligence.' He spun round with a smile. 'Good morning, sir.'
The young man nodded, curtly. 'Major Lazonby. Military Intelligence. I'm afraid that this is out of your hands now Military jurisdiction and all that. I needn't say it's a classified matter, of course.' He peered past Mullen at the open sphere.
'We'll have this thing on a lorry and out of here within the hour.' He glanced at McBride. 'Is this the man who found the bomb?'
'Yes, sir. Cody McBride...' Mullen paused and smiled.
'Private eye.'
McBride shuffled awkwardly. His eyes were red, his hair dishevelled, he was covered in mud and he reeked of whisky He tried to summon up some dignity. 'It's not a bomb. If it was I'd be dead by now I was right next to it when '
A shout from the road cut McBride dead. The commotion building up in the crowd had reached a head and, spurred on by the press, the pitiful cordon of police and soldiers had been broken by people eager to see the mysterious sphere.
Mullen and Lazonby were suddenly shouting for their men to restore some kind of order. The press were swarming around taking notes and photographs. Someone with a camera pressed right up in front of McBride and, for the second time in twelve hours, he was blinded by a bright white glare.
***
By midafternoon, the bomb site was empty, save for a lone policeman. The only indication that the sphere had ever been there at all was a smooth indentation in the soil. Soldiers had hoisted the halves on to a low truck and sped off into the depths of London, pursued by the storyhungry press.
McBride had been loaded into a car by Mullen and driven over to the station in Spitalfields. There he had been bundled into an interrogation room and given a cup of foultasting coffee. He had now drunk three cups and had lit up one of his remaining cigarettes. He had been there for seven hours.
Mullen looked over the notebook in front of him and leaned back in his chair with a deep sigh. 'Is that all you've got to say for yourself?'
McBride stayed silent, flicking his ash into the empty coffee cup.
Mullen dumped a gun on the table. A 9mm Browning automatic. 'Know anything about this?' McBride just took another drag of his cigarette. 'We could go on all day like this.
We will if we have to!' His tone softened.
'Look, I don't care about the gun. Military Intelligence are dying to get their hands on you. They won't be as easygoing as me. All I want is a statement.'
McBride looked at the chief inspector through weary eyes. 'I've said what I've got to say. If you don't believe me then that's your problem.'
Mullen sighed and turned to the young policeman who had been standing at the doorway. 'Dixon, ring my wife and tell her that I'm going to be late home.'
The frightened businessman from the bomb site was still frightened. He had watched as the hapless American private eye had been bundled into the back of a police car and whisked away. He had stayed on as the army had arrived in force and loaded the two halves of the sphere on to their truck, covered it with tarpaulins and driven off with it. Some of the press had tried to get his version of events, but he had brushed them angrily aside, becoming almost violent when one of them had taken his picture.
He had hurried through the slowly gathering bustle of London to a large, secure building lurking in the shadow of Southwark power station. The sign across the top of the building proclaimed it to be