Doctor Who_ Illegal Alien - Mike Tucker [68]
McBride raised an eyebrow. 'You checked his ass?' he drawled, deadpan.
Mullen glared at him and continued. 'But believe me, Doctor, he's respected right across the London underworld.
Respected and feared.'
The Doctor tutted and scratched his head.
'I can go one better,' said McBride. 'You don't get to be a detective without learning to keep your ears open, Doc. I've been listening to what goes on in this building. Limb was here this morning, chatting with our military buddy. He's no fool.
He could see who it was useful to get pally with and didn't waste any time introducing himself. Lazonby said that they had another scientist who was willing to help my bet is he meant Limb.'
The Doctor was speechless.
'I knew there was something funny right from the start,'
the detective continued. 'All the streets around his house were deserted. Bomb damage. Rich streets, easy pickings for looters. And yet none of them had been touched.'
'I'm not surprised,' Mullen interjected. 'No criminal in London would pull a stunt like that in George Limb's manor.'
The Doctor was grimfaced.
'I've been used, gentlemen. I think I've just been another how did you put it, Inspector? intellectual challenge. I'm a fool. I've been the manipulator for too long, moving the pawns, the chessmaster. I've spent so much time formulating my own schemes that I've missed the fact that there are others better versed in the art of deception and deceit. You have to get us out of here!'
Mullen chewed on his cigarette.
'Wilkins!'
Wilkins started as the voice hissed at him from the darkness. 'Wilkins!
Come on, man.'
He looked around, peering into the gloom, trying to find the source of the whispered voice. 'Down here, man.' Potter was on the floor, crawling in the trench between the tracks.
Wilkins looked around in panic, trying to see if the two silver giants had seen them.
'What the hell are you doing, Potter? They'll kill you!'
Potter shook his head. 'We've got to get out of here. If we're quick we can get away now. Come back with reinforcements. Jump to it man!'
Wilkins shook his head. 'You're mad, Potter. You saw what those things did to Frank.'
Potter was silent for a moment. Frank had been a good man. One of the younger men in his small army of followers, excused active service because of asthma. When the Cybermen had emerged from the tunnel he had been at the far end of the platform, closest to the stairs. When the screams had started, Frank had made a vain attempt to get people out of the way, ushering them towards the emergency exit. Potter, hanging helpless in the grasp of one of the monsters, had only been able to watch as its partner had unclipped a stubby silver tube from the mass of instruments on its chest and levelled it along the platform.
Potter closed his eyes, recalling the rattlesnake noise of the gun, the smell of charring flesh and the screams that had echoed around the tube station. no one had dared disobey the silver giants after that. Not that anyone was in a fit state to. A motley collection of old couples, middleaged women and a young woman with a baby. They had all clustered protectively around the young woman as the Cybermen had herded the twenty or so frightened Londoners off the platform and into the tunnels, pushing them ever deeper into the maze that wound its way under the streets of London.
Now they had stopped. The Cybermen were pulling bricks from the wall, widening a hole that led even deeper, probably into the sewers. Potter had realised that once they were in the sewers, they were lost. Someone had to go for help, and as the senior officer it was his duty to try.
Moving as quietly as his old frame would allow him, he had crawled through the