Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book One - Lawrence Miles [34]
Llewis put the brochure down on the bed. Stood up. Sat down again. Reached for the telephone. Decided not to bother.
He could ring the office. There’d probably be someone there even on a Sunday, even if it was just Peter bloody Morgan, and he’d want to know about…
About what? What was it? What was this thing that just ate people away? A kind of riot foam? What?
‘Implications for the internal security market’, Guest had said. Good Christ! Llewis had seen two security guards vanish, before his eyes, chewed up by what looked like spray paint. How many people at COPEX would give their right arms for that kind of thing? The police would be gagging for it, for a start. The Home Office wouldn’t give them shock batons, even though everybody knew how much the Chief Constables wanted them. Political liability, the Home Office said. But the Cold? Who’d mind the police carrying around something that harmless‐looking? How many of their suspects could conveniently ‘disappear’ in police custody, never to be seen again?
And the Chinese would love it. If they’d had the Cold, all that flak about Tiananmen Square would never have happened, and the British would still be able to sell arms to them over the counter, without having to get the DTI’s help to go by the back door. With Cold, they could make their dissidents vanish completely. No bodies. No proof.
God almighty. And Guest was staying in this hotel as well. Up on the third floor, the boy Kode had said. Somewhere in this building, there was more of the stuff. More of the Cold, sticky and wet and hungry.
So if Guest was in the building…
Llewis stood up. Sat down. Stood up again. Started pacing up and down by the side of the bed. That was a thought. He could go and see Guest, make the man explain it to him, properly this time. He’d ask politely, make sure he wasn’t given another demonstration. The vial around the man’s neck would be empty anyway, so it wasn’t as if he had anything to be worried about. Was the stuff radioactive, though? Did it leave traces…?
No, this was stupid. Guest was a businessman. Llewis had to respect that. He had to do what Peter bloody Morgan would have done. Face the challenge. Get the details. Do the deal.
Even if he was crapping himself.
Llewis was out in the corridor before he could change his mind, leaving the door open behind him, not daring to turn round in case he lost his bottle. He headed for the lift, sweated himself dry while he was waiting, pressed the button for the third floor when it finally showed up.
The security guards had looked surprised when the Cold had eaten them. Llewis kept remembering looks of agony on their faces, but he was sure, absolutely sure, he was imagining that bit. They’d been surprised, not scared. Not hurt. Peter bloody Morgan wouldn’t have been scared, would he? Big, smug, slimy‐faced idiot.
The doors slid open. Llewis found himself facing the third‐floor corridor. It took him a few seconds to focus on the people in the passage, the red‐haired woman in the combat jacket, even the big black man in the suit.
Guest. Guest was standing out in the corridor, facing one of the doors. The redhead was standing by his side, looking up at him expectantly, waiting for instructions. They hadn’t noticed Llewis, didn’t even seem to have noticed the sound of the lift doors opening. Llewis realised he’d stopped breathing, but he didn’t want to risk starting again, in case anyone heard it. Guest and his companion looked like they were miles away, like they were listening to something other than the background noise of the hotel.
Guest nodded to the woman. The woman raised her hand, reached for the vial around her neck…
Oh no. Not again.
‘Won’t they want us to pay for the damage?’ the woman asked.
‘Not important,’ said Guest.
The woman popped the plastic stopper off the end of the vial. She made some kind of movement with her hand, like