Doctor Who_ Illegal Alien - Mike Tucker [5]
ENGINEERING TESTING AND EXPERIMENTATION.
The girl at the reception desk looked up in alarm as the shaken figure of her employer hurried in through the door.'Dr Peddler...'
He almost threw his coat at her. 'Not now, Rosemary. No callers today. I'll see nobody.' He had vanished into his office and pulled the heavy oak door to behind him.
Once inside his office he began to regain some of his composure. He pulled open the deep drawer in his desk and poured himself a large whisky. He began to sort through a variety of letters and electronics diagrams, putting his lighter to them and watching them burn one by one in the small metal litter bin that stood in the corner of his spacious office.
He opened the window to let the smoke clear, looking out over the tangle of buildings and railway lines that formed most of southeast London. At the end of the day there would be nothing left, nothing to connect him with those... things.
He pulled a cigar from his jacket and lit it, watching the tobacco smoke mingle with that of the burning documents.
He felt at ease for the first time in months. That ease left him as he looked down into the yard behind the factory. He choked on the cigar smoke. There in the yard was the truck that the army had used to transport the sphere. Before he could come to terms with this development there was a timid tap on his door and Rosemary's head appeared.
'I'm sorry, Dr Peddler, but they insisted...' The door was pushed open and a small, smartly dressed man oozed into the office, smiling unnervingly and rubbing his hands as if in anticipation. His skin was white, and glistened like unbaked dough; his eyes were invisible behind a pair of small, round, black glasses. Behind him two huge figures well over seven feet tall stood motionless and silent, swathed in trench coats with high collars, gloves, scarves, and huge fedoras, their features invisible.
'Thank you, my dear, you may go.'
The small man spoke with a high, squeaky voice that made the receptionist feel sick.
She looked at her employer for some assurance. Peddler nodded and she slid thankfully past the two huge figures as they lumbered into the room, shutting the door behind them.
She scurried back to the comfort of her reception desk.
Almost immediately she could hear her employer's voice, rapid, garbled, anxious. Every so often the other man's voice would cut across him, slow and high and revoltingly childlike.
She was worried. She had never seen her boss like this.
Quietly she left her desk and edged across to the door of his office, stooping until her eye was level with the keyhole.
She leapt back, frantically straightening her skirt as the door swung inward.
'Rosemary, call security to show Mr Wall and his...
colleagues... out of here.'
His voice was trembling.
'It's all right, Dr Peddler. I think we have said all we needed to say.' The little man pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to Peddler. 'Call me if you change your mind. I shouldn't take too long, though.'
He turned and strode past Rosemary. His two silent partners remained motionless.
'Come,' he said, clicking his fingers.
As one they turned and followed.
'Sir...' Rosemary sounded concerned.
Peddler interrupted: 'The extra guard detail. Are they in place?'
'Yes, sir, but '
'Good... good...'
He turned away from her and trudged back into his office. Allowing the door to swing shut behind him, he sank to the floor, his head in his hands.
By the time McBride finally escaped the interrogation room it was early evening. By the time he had walked back to his office in the shadow of St Paul's it was pitch black and freezing cold. He had definitely had enough of this city. He'd been knocked out, made a fool of, treated like a criminal treated like a Nazi and locked up all day in a police interrogation cell.
He pulled his packet of Lucky Strikes from his trench coat, feeling the comfortingly heavy shape of his gun. At least Mullen had had the good grace to let him keep that. He flipped open the packet of cigarettes. One left. He pulled