Doctor Who_ The Dying Days - Lance Parkin [109]
'Are there any of the leaders?'
Simon flipped through the report. 'None. We've found the bodies of a couple of Admirals and Generals, but no sign of the resistance command staff. They must have been in one of the other strongholds.'
'A package for you, Prime Minister,' a man announced. He had come into the room without knocking.
When the Prime Minister looked up, he saw why. It was Alexander Christian, clean-shaven in a neat blue suit, holding a smal parcel.
Simon lunged for him, and then fell back, unconscious, dragging a tea service onto the carpet with him. The sound of the crash brought a quick response, but the large man who came through the door was dealt with equally swiftly, slumping to the floor with a gruff groan.
Christian had kept the parcel in his right hand the whole time. Now he handed it over to the Prime Minister.
Greyhaven didn't even try to reach for the pistol or panic button in his desk.
'Good morning, Lex. Is that an axe in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?'
'You deserve to die for what you did to my crew, and what you did to me.' Christian said curtly. 'I spent twenty years in a cell because you sold Britain out to the Martians. You're not the only one who's spent twenty years making plans.'
He pul ed out a handgun, held it up.
'Believe me, if I was going to kill you, you'd be dead by now. Open the envelope.'
Greyhaven tugged out the videotape that had been slotted snugly inside. There wasn't a label on it, or a note. It had come from Crawley, according to the postmark. The delivery address had been scrawled out, but it wouldn't take a forensics team long to uncover it.
'A picture speaks a thousand words, Prime Minister,' Christian said in a low voice.
Greyhaven moved over to the little television and VCR in the corner of the room. The television screen rippled with thick diagonal lines.
'The tape's blank,' he said. Then a thought occurred to him and he flicked a little switch on the back. It was a couple of seconds before the picture flashed up. When it did, it showed a flat expanse of concrete. The tape was an NTSC recording. He didn't look back over his shoulder.
Instead, Greyhaven concentrated on the tape, trying to work out what he was watching. There was a timecode along the bottom: 5/14/97 09.05. It had been taken the day before yesterday.
The picture was jerky, the cameraman was trying to move it around in a tight circle. He was probably undercover.
There wasn't a soundtrack. The Martian ship was drifting overhead, like a storm cloud. The cameraman kept it in shot for five or six seconds, then brought the camera around. Greyhaven could see now that the ship was floating over a runway. He glanced down at the envelope again. If it was sent from Crawley, it seemed logical that this was Gatwick Airport. But Gatwick had been closed since the Martians arrived. Al the airliners had been transferred over to Heathrow to help with the repatriation of the tourists.
The picture jerked again, and there was a disorientating zoom to a row of blue Transit vans parked by a hangar building. There were policemen there, opening up the back of the vans. It was blurred, a little too far for the camera to pick out many details.
The cameraman must have realised. The picture flickered, and now the timecode read 9.12. He had moved to within a hundred yards or so. There were about a hundred men lined up, all in blue and grey overalls. There must have been two dozen policeman watching over them, all of whom carried pistols or rifles.
There was another zoom. The front of one of the Transit vans now filled the screen. The white lettering was very clear: HM PRISON SERVICE. The first two letters had actually been scraped away, but their outlines were stil visible.
The picture now panned back up to the underside of the Martian craft, and it took