Doctor Who_ The Dying Days - Lance Parkin [62]
She nodded. 'As you wish.'
'Have you raided the UNIT Offices yet?' the Home Secretary demanded.
'Sir, we need everyone at our disposal here. Besides, it's complicated. UNIT facilities have special status, we can't just wade in.'
'Director General, they have Alexander Christian in there. They are harbouring a multiple-murderer. Criminal acts don't get much more clear-cut than that. Now, I want you to raid their office, and I want you to do it now.'
'Sir!' a young soldier was running over with a radiophone. 'It's Washington, Home Secretary.'
Greyhaven leant over the soldier and unplugged the telephone's battery. 'Oops, we seem to be having technical difficulties. It must be interference from the Martian ship. Are you coming, Staines?'
'Yes, I suppose so.'
Greyhaven walked over to his car, and unlocked the boot. He pul ed out an Adidas sports bag.
'Are you going to challenge them to a game of squash?' Halliwel asked witheringly.
Greyhaven didn't reply.
'Get Christian,' Staines ordered her sternly, before he followed Greyhaven across.
***
'What's going on?' Benny asked.
A hatch was dilating open on the underside of the craft. The light inside wasn't that bright, but it stood in stark contrast to the gloomy metalwork of the rest of the ship. The crowd were getting agitated, perhaps thinking that it was a weapon of some kind. A black disc appeared in the hatchway, and it began descending in a perfectly straight line.
The Doctor stared up. 'They are sending down a platform. A lift car, I would imagine.' He checked his pocket watch. 'Dead on time. The message said that they wanted the British leader to surrender in person.' The crowd were pointing and muttering.
Benny was looking down at the ground. 'I don't see the Queen or Mr - Hang on, that's the Home Secretary. And that rocket man, er... '
'Lord Edward Greyhaven,' the Doctor supplied.
'Who died and made him boss?'
The Doctor considered Bernice's question for a moment, before he remembered that it was a figure of speech.
'This is no time for flippancy, Bernice,' he chided her.
The disc had reached the ground. Lord Greyhaven and the Home Secretary walked over and stepped onto it.
Before they had stopped moving, the disc was rising steadily into the air. There were appreciative gasps from the crowd.
The floor closed underneath them, like the iris behind a camera lens, shutting off the dizzying aerial view of Central London. Greyhaven and Staines stepped down from the magnetic disc.
59
The chamber they were in was quite pleasant, bland almost. It was large. The high ceiling was the first thing that Staines noted. That and the lighting, which was a sort of diffuse pink. The room reminded the Home Secretary of the Commons Chamber. It was about the same size, and great swathes of a green tarpaulin-like material lay neatly folded along the walls. The colour was almost the same shade as the benches that lined the Commons.
'This isn't too bad, is it?' He called over to Greyhaven nervously. Teddy's attention was fixed on the only door.
Slowly he began walking towards it, that sports bag of his in his hand. Staines followed. Around them the air was filled with the whirring of mechanisms, the rattling of pipes. The door was almost the size of a garage door, and it was made from frosted glass.
A deathly red light was glowing on the other side, almost like firelight at the end of the evening, when only the embers remained.
Something shifted behind the glass, a great, square shape moving slowly through the gloom. A machine of some kind, he thought. It was impossible to see it clearly.
'Do they know we are here, do you think?' Staines felt nervous again.
The door retracted.
Standing framed in the doorway, bathed in red light, was the worst thing that Staines had ever seen.
It looked like a barnacle encrusted deep-sea creature, a monster from the depths. It hissed, struggling for breath as it dragged itself forwards out from a bank of mist.
It was well over seven feet high and was as broad as Staines was tall, with