Doctor Who_ The King of Terror - Keith Topping [104]
‘I thought you said no vehicle could get up here,’ the Doctor panted, before adding, ‘I should like a hat like that.’
Control shrugged, ignoring the flippancy. ‘I lied,’ he admitted simply. ‘You’re very prompt.’
Despite his lack of breath, Lethbridge-Stewart found the energy to tell him,
‘We didn’t expect to see you at all.’
As the Doctor and the Brigadier sat themselves in the back seat of the car, Control handed them a hip flask. The Doctor declined, but Lethbridge-Stewart gladly accepted and gulped the whisky deeply, grimacing as the stinging alcohol kissed his throat. ‘Thank you,’ he gasped. ‘So, why are you here?’
‘Like your alien friend said,’ Control noted, pointing to the Doctor. ‘Everybody needs somebody . . . ’
‘Or words to that effect,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘But let’s drop all the kiddology.
You and I both know why we’re here and the Brigadier’s smart enough to work it out as we go along.’
‘I am?’ asked Lethbridge-Stewart, rather surprised by this revelation.
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‘Of course you are,’ snapped the Doctor. ‘So . . . ’
Control still looked like an aged cat that had sat in the dark too long, overfed and content with its lot in the world. But his eyes told another story, of predatory days in the sun, catching and killing and indulging in deadly, multilayered games. ‘Confession is good for the soul,’ he said, with a cynical smile.
The Doctor was surprised. ‘You actually believe in the soul?’
‘The CIA’s collective mind is not yet made up on that matter,’ Control replied enigmatically. ‘However, I would like you to extend an official apology from the agency to your young friend Turlough for surrendering him to the Jex and putting him, I understand, through a week of not-very-pleasant medieval-style torture.’
‘I’m sure you’ll understand when I tell you I’m fairly certain Turlough wishes he were here personally so that he could spit your apology back in your face,’
replied the Doctor.
‘Yes, and beat me to death with a poker if what went on in that downtown apartment is anything to go by,’ Control said. ‘How’d you ever get him away from the police without even a charge of second-degree murder? Diplomatic immunity?’
‘Something like that,’ replied the Doctor.
Lethbridge-Stewart was, as usual, becoming irritated by the meandering nature of the conversation. Again, it seemed to be crawling into colliding circles.
‘Do you have any more confessions to make?’ he asked. ‘Particularly some that have a relevance to where we go from here?’
Control looked out of the window at a deer standing stock-still on the hill-side, framed in perfect harmony with nature against the pink-grey sky of early evening. For several seconds the creature was like a porcelain statue, its breathing barely discernible. And then, sensing movement, it turned and bolted away down the hill towards the Los Angeles reservoir. ‘We also helped get the Canavitchi spy inside the Japanese complex to steal the Jex’s DNA research,’ he said at last. ‘That’s the one aspect of this mess that always troubled me. It was a suicide mission and she knew it. She knew what would happen if they captured her, and she knew that capture was likely, maybe even inevitable. But she didn’t seem to care.’
There was a similarly distant look in the Doctor’s eyes. ‘Indeed. Fanaticism often brings with it a queue of martyrs several miles long. I imagine there’ll be a monument to her on Canavitch, somewhere. They’ll name a public holiday after her. If they celebrate public holidays of course . . . ’
‘Doctor,’ exploded the Brigadier. To the point, please . . . ’
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Control cast a disgusted glance at the soldier and then turned