Doctor Who_ Illegal Alien - Mike Tucker [62]
The Doctor was bundled without ceremony into the back of an army truck which roared away in a rush of spray. He sat surrounded by half a dozen freshfaced soldiers. The Doctor sighed. The currency of war. He smiled at the soldier opposite him, but the lad remained stonyfaced.
'You do realise that your Major Lazonby is quite deranged?'
The young private shuffled uncomfortably in his seat.
The Doctor turned his attention to the soldier next to him.
'Is Lazonby a popular man?'
Another embarrassed shuffle. Despite his calm demeanour, the Doctor was becoming increasingly worried.
He had to get away from Lazonby, find Ace and get the Cybertechnology out of this time period and, at the moment, he didn't know quite how he was going to do it.
The journey wasn't a long one and the truck soon pulled to a juddering halt. The Doctor was prodded out into the evening air. A drab, faceless building loomed over him. He smiled, grimly. One of the many Military Intelligence buildings that were scattered over London. He had been in enough of them during his time as UNIT's scientific adviser to recognise the type.
A rifle butt prodded him in the small of the back and he was pushed through the double doors. He was shepherded through a maze of corridors to a small, plain room, empty save for a table and a scattering of chairs. 'Oh, dear. This doesn't look very inviting.'
The soldier behind him gestured with the muzzle of his rifle. 'Inside, please, sir.'
The Doctor stepped into the room and drew his finger over the top of the table. It came up thick with dust. 'You could have cleaned up a bit if you knew that you were expecting guests.'
The door slammed and the Doctor's temper finally broke.
'I haven't got time for this! You are all in terrible danger!' He slumped into one of the wooden chairs. 'And I still haven't found Ace.'
The Doctor looked at his pocket watch. It had been exactly twelve hours since he had been locked up. He had paced the cell for a while, then realised that no one was going to bother with him until the morning. He had pulled from his pocket the scrawled list of electronics factories Mullen had given him and looked at it until he feared he would stare a hole through the paper. Jocelyn & Co., Midlands Electric, Daniel International, Peddler Electronic Engineering, Lemur Engineering, Vital Systems Corporation.
To amuse himself he had read the list upside down, back to front. He had folded the paper into an aerodynamic shape not yet conceived of by engineers on this planet and tossed it about the cell, casually catching it as, invariably, it returned to him. He had played word games with the names.
Constructed elaborate anagrams. Simultaneously translated the names into five hundred languages.
Interesting.
The timing would have been about right. It would make perfect sense...
Perhaps he was getting somewhere after all. If only he could get out of this cell.
Ah, well...
Secreting the list carefully inside his hat, pulling the table into the centre of the room, he had clambered on to it, tucking his legs underneath him in the lotus position, and dropped into a deep sleep, letting his brain sift and assimilate all the events of the previous day.
He had snapped awake at the sound of boots in the hallway. If Lazonby was doing things by the book then...
A key ground into the lock. The Doctor snapped his watch shut, slipped it into his pocket, and hopped from the table, watching the door, expectantly. The door of his cell had opened and an officious little man in a pinstriped suit had entered. The Doctor had caught a glimpse of armed guards outside the door as it swung shut.
The suited man had opened a notebook, had insisted that the Doctor empty his pockets, and mumbled something to the effect that they really should have done this earlier, when he'd been brought in. Grinning broadly, the Doctor had proceeded to remove every apple core and sweet wrapper, every piece of string and useless bit of junk from the capacious pockets of his jacket, simultaneously slipping every bit of anachronistic