Doctor Who_ The King of Terror - Keith Topping [18]
Before the men could get any closer to the train, it took off at speed. Inside, Kyla breathed slowly. She felt dizzy and sick, and noticed for the first time 34
the bloodied and grazed knees and palms that her desperate leap for freedom had cost.
She tried to stand but her legs turned to jelly and she flopped down again, hard on to the carriage floor. A middle-aged Japanese man was talking to her excitedly, but she waved him away with a steady shake of her hand. She crawled a few feet into a luggage space between the seats, where she allowed herself to collapse – laughing – on to her back. She was oblivious to everything around her now. Nothing else mattered. Reaching into the pocket of her skirt she pulled out a computer disk. She cradled it in her bleeding hands, still laughing.
There was a gleeful look on her face, despite the pain. She had won.
‘Got them,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘Got the bastards at last!’
The haulage truck slowed, almost to a snail’s pace, and the roller shutter opened.
‘Mr Bulyjin?’
‘Who wants to know?’ asked Bulyjin angrily, shielding his eyes from the fierce sunlight that streamed into the dark interior.
The man, silhouetted in the harsh light, seemed to take an eternity to answer such a simple question. ‘My name is Stephen Joyce, I’m president of InterCom’s research and development division. Welcome to America.’
Bulyjin gestured around him. ‘A truck with no windows,’ he said loudly. ‘I expected something better than this.’
‘Understandable,’ replied Joyce as the vehicle stopped completely. ‘I believe we have arrived.’
Bulyjin looked at Joyce closely. He was a small man with close-set eyes and a thin, bird-like face. ‘ Where have we arrived?’ asked Bulyjin nervously.
‘InterCom headquarters. Where the action is! Come with me.’ Joyce led the way from the truck down a short ramp to the cool blackness of a concrete tunnel. Behind him, his metal suitcase still clamped tightly to his chest, Bulyjin tried to get used to the sudden change in his surroundings. Set into the tunnel wall was an elevator head and they arrived there just as the doors clanked open.
‘I’ll take you straight to Dr Lewis’s lab,’ said Joyce, stepping into the elevator.
‘He’ll be very keen to see what you’ve brought us today.’
‘When do I get to see Sanger?’ demanded Bulyjin, putting a confirming foot on the floor of the elevator cage before he entered.
‘ Mr Sanger? Presently,’ replied Joyce pushing the button marked S3. ‘First, we’re going underground.’
‘I don’t deal with subordinates,’ continued Bulyjin contemptuously. ‘I was a regional commander in the KGB.’
35
‘Yes,’ replied Joyce. ‘And now, you’re a courier. It’s an ill wind, as they say.’
On the third lower level Bulyjin found himself in a lengthy, white-brick corridor.
‘As I’m sure you’ll agree,’ noted Joyce, proudly, ‘our internal security is second to none. A fly couldn’t get into this place without us knowing about it.
Ah, here we are.’
Bulyjin and Joyce approached a sparsely furnished laboratory with two armed guards in the dark green InterCom uniforms standing on either side of the door. Bulyjin cast an ominous glance at them but they stared straight ahead, not even acknowledging his presence as he and Joyce entered the lab.
The room itself was dull and ordinary, undecorated and inconsequential, and there were two men standing inside it.
‘Mr Bulyjin, allow me to introduce our head of security, Shaun Ryman. And our chief research scientist in the US, Richard Lewis.’ Bulyjin arrogantly ignored the pair. He placed his briefcase on the work surface.
‘You will wish to view the merchandise, yes?’
‘I’d say that would be mutually beneficial,’ noted Ryman, indicating that Lewis should be the one to open the case.
The scientist, a tall, balding man wearing wire-framed spectacles and a pair of thick padded radiation gloves,