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'It doesn't mean anything, he said softly 'Birds must fly at night all the time.'

'Not in a group like that. It's bad luck.' She stared closer.

'They look like ravens, she said in a low voice.

Franklin laughed, but his mirth was hollow. He pulled his arms tighter around his wife and they huddled together, watching as the twilight was engulfed by the black cloud.

PART 4:

WAY OUT

CHAPTER 11

Shuskin ran forward, torch light glinting off her pistol in the darkness. She quickly found the soldier, face down in the cold soil. She flipped the body over with her boot, continually glancing back to the trees and burnt-out vehicles around her.

His pale throat had been cut in a ragged arc. Splashes of blood, ink-black in the moonlight, covered the man's uniform.

His eyes were staring. He hadn't even fired a shot.

Shuskin picked up the fallen machine gun, her eyes fixed on the dark undergrowth. She could hear the other soldiers, blundering in her direction, blotting out any sounds made by the killer.

'Quiet!' she snapped. 'This thing is still close by!'

She turned away from the dead soldier, flicking the safety catch off the Kalashnikov as she scanned her surroundings again. Trees and stunted bushes grumbled in the arctic wind, the barren darkness revealing deeper shadows.

There was a sudden sound of movement to her left. She swung round, saw only the Doctor, his hands instinctively rising above his head. 'Let me have a look at the poor fellow,'

he said.

Shuskin nodded, and was about to turn away when she saw something. She squeezed the trigger, letting off twenty rounds. There was a shocked look on the Doctor's face as the bullets flew around him.

Shuskin ran past the Doctor. Slumped against a fallen tree trunk lay a creature, almost ripped in two by the machine-gun fire. It was a goblin, a kobold, a legend given form in the modern world. Artificial wings, seemingly made of steel and plastic, lay under its body in tatters. Shuskin remembered tales from childhood, and how every scratch against the window pane at night could have been a creature such as this. It was sneering even now, as if it knew what she was thinking - parental threats, beasts under the bed. The mouth below the hooked nose opened, and Shuskin heard high-pitched laughter.

She smashed the butt of the gun into the creature's face, breaking teeth and bone in the process. It stared back at her through shuttered eyes, spitting out blood. And began laughing again.

Bruce stood over the Xerox 914 copier, flashes of light illuminating his face. It was like taking candy from a baby. He had been challenged only once, and the dumb grunt who'd come into the office had only wanted to check that everything was working.

Anything else I can do for you?' the soldier had asked.

Not unless you could persuade Corporal Bell to sit on this machine with her pants around her ankles. 'No, no,'

replied Bruce. 'I'11 be finished here soon.'

Bruce placed the Photostats in a large envelope, returned the originals to a manila folder, and set off for the Brigadier's office. Much of the information he wanted had been kept there, stuck in a pair of filing cabinets, locked up with a key so tiny it resembled something from a Christmas cracker. Bruce had seen tighter security at a kindergarten.

Time to go. You could only put so many lies in place, and eventually somebody would find out that in reality Bruce was about as committed to UNIT as Martin Luther King had been to the Ku Klux Klan.

He closed the door on the Brigadier's office, and strolled towards the science wing. One corridor - leading to the Doctor's laboratory - was still partly cordoned off with yellow tape. The computer room that adjoined the Doctor's workshop had been slightly damaged, and much of the equipment had been moved. Bruce turned the corner, and saw a light on. Damn. He hadn't expected company.

He strolled in, smiling casually at the technician who was busy working at one of the terminals. 'Hi, I'm Davis, from the States.'

'Hello.' said