Doctor Who_ Last of the Gaderene - Mark Gatiss [21]
‘ When I become Home Secretary,’ he muttered aloud.
He would hand over the money and they would give him the negatives. Then he could back to doing his job. And he’d never stray again. Ever.
The address he’d been given turned out to be a warehouse of some kind. Gantries crisscrossed the buildings above him and there were huge iron hooks projecting from the brickwork.
He walked down a dark, narrow alley. A drain was overflowing, pooling filthy water on to the cobbles.
Cochrane found a narrow door painted in peeling green and pushed at it. The door opened soundlessly, as though freshly oiled. He stepped through.
The room beyond was clearly vast. Despite the darkness, Cochrane could make out rafters high up, fitfully illuminated by dirty skylights. The whole place stank of turpentine.
He lifted the bag up to chest height. ‘I’ve brought the money,’ he said in as clear and steady a voice as he could muster.
There was no response.
Somewhere a tap was dripping.
Cochrane lowered the bag and placed it carefully on the floor in front of him. He unzipped it and felt inside until he found the butt of the gun.
‘And I’ve ordered the Culverton aerodrome out of bounds.
Just as you ordered.’
He lifted the gun clear of the wads of bank notes and slipped it into the waistband of his trousers.
‘So...’
He held up one hand in what he hoped was a conciliatory fashion.
‘Do we have a deal?’
Something moved far back in the shadows.
Cochrane steadied himself. His hand moved to touch the gun. The tap dripped steadily in the silence.
Then there was a deafening noise, somewhere between a scream and a howl of rage, and whatever was in the room with Cochrane came powering through the pitch darkness and overwhelmed him.
He scrabbled for the gun but it fell down the inside of his baggy trousers and clattered to the floor.
And when he tried to yell, something slithered inside his mouth.
Chapter Nine
The Control Room
She felt its agony as though it were her own.
Out there, out of sight, it lay. Blood thumping through its massive body, bringing life and energy to the great sinews and muscles. But the brain... the mind...
She felt it reaching out to her and a wave of terrible regret flooded through her body.
She had been lucky. The other had not, succumbing to the instabilities of their passage through the darkness. And now he was lost, an insensible, monstrous thing.
Almost insensible.
Somewhere in the dark pit of his brain, he knew. He knew what he had become and he screamed his pain and resentment into her mind.
She sank back into her chair and closed her huge, dark eyes. Blood dripped from her palms where she had sunk her fingernails into the flesh.
Wing Commander Whistler crouched down behind an oil drum and rubbed his tired eyes.
Just ahead of him, the gates of the aerodrome had been opened and pushed back as far as they would go. The familiar convoy of lorries was rattling through and, from his hiding place, Whistler could see they all had the same tightly covered black tarpaulins over their hidden cargo.
As the latest lorry roared past in a cloud of dust, he looked over to where Noah Bishop had concealed himself. The boy held up his hand, signalling for Whistler to wait, as two Legion International troopers pulled the aerodrome gates closed behind them.
When all was clear, Noah slipped out from behind a pile of packing crates and joined Whistler.
‘Did you get a closer look?’ asked the old man.
Noah shook his head. ‘They’re not going to make another mistake like that.’
Whistler pulled a small pair of binoculars from his jacket and squinted through them. ‘Might get a better view – ah!’
‘What is it?’ Noah sprang up, peering into the distance.
Whistler handed him the binoculars. ‘They’re starting to unload. Can you see?’
Noah fiddled with the focus. ‘Yes. They’ve pulled up...
about... three hundred yards down the airstrip.’
Whistler shielded his eyes. ‘Can you see what they