Doctor Who_ The Forgotten Army - Brian Minchin [13]
Bursting out into daylight, the mammoth paused. It was built for arctic plains and vicious tussles with other bloodthirsty animals, but outside everything was concrete and brick and flashing lights. In that brief moment, the mammoth was hit with a barrage of tranquilliser darts.
'Will the tranquillisers work on it?' Amy asked.
There was no reply, and she twisted round to look behind her. The Doctor was sound asleep. He had been struck in the leg by a dart and had flopped onto the mammoth's back.
'Wake up!' Amy screamed at him in frustration.
The mammoth was about to tumble over and they were still on its back. Amy grabbed the Doctor and pulled him to one side as the mammoth staggered and then collapsed on the steps.
Surrounded by New Yorkers and live on TV, Amy stood beside the sleeping body of the mammoth, the Doctor in her arms - and heard a huge cheer. Smiling, Amy waved at the crowds. They'd only stopped off for a burger, but they'd managed to
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catch a mammoth. She slid down off the back of the beast, and several men clad in severe black clothes grabbed both of her arms.
Officer Oscar Henderson stepped up to her, a grim look on his face. He snapped a pair of cuffs around her wrists, and motioned for her to 'zip it' when Amy opened her mouth to complain.
'I think it's time you two came with us,' he said.
51
Chapter
5
Oscar Henderson had been working for Commander Strebbins for six months, and he'd never seen her like this before. He guessed that she was feeling out of her depth. He knew she had spent twenty years in the Baltimore City Police, working her way up from foot patrols on the roughest streets, to become Chief of the entire district.
A new unit was being set up to deal with Serious Civil Unrest.
They needed a hard nut to run it, someone who wouldn't be scared by whatever the city had to throw at her - and someone who'd stay calm, whatever was happening. In the last two years, Strebbins had coped with riots on the streets, striking taxi drivers and bomb threats. But the mammoth was something new, and Oscar could
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see that Strebbins was absolutely fuming. She paced up and down in front of her lieutenants, barking orders.
'I want every single person in the Museum interviewed.
I want names, I want backgrounds, I want witness statements. If one of them so much as farts out of turn, send them to me! And most of all, get me the Man in the White Jacket!'
The other officers filed out of Strebbins's office, their mission clear, but Oscar heard his name and stepped back inside her office. Strebbins shut the door behind him, conspiratorial.
'Now we're alone, I need to tell you something.'
Oscar sat down but, seeing that Strebbins stayed standing, he awkwardly got to his feet again and stood in the centre of the room while Strebbins paced her office.
'I'm going to tell you about the man with the silly hair we let into the Museum. What I have to say must remain top secret. I'm telling you as you're being assigned to deal with him and his friend.'
Oscar couldn't tell whether this was going to be a good or bad thing yet. 'She's called Amy Pond,' he confided. 'Scottish police force.'
'She's nothing of the sort,' Strebbins snapped back. 'The man is called the Doctor. The code he used to gain access has been on record since 1932. The origins are vague, but I'm instructed to step aside to the bearer of the code, and allow them to
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pursue their actions. However harebrained those actions might seem.'
Strebbins paused for a moment. This obviously wasn't the kind of conversation she wanted to be having with a junior officer. Oscar usually saw her barking direct orders at them and going home to her dogs.
'That was actually in the wording of the command.’
Strebbins went on. 'However harebrained those actions might seem. Now, I'm in charge of this city's response to major threats. And I consider the intrusion of a mammoth to be one of them. It was a mistake to let the man