Doctor Who_ The King of Terror - Keith Topping [29]
‘I mean she left the complex this afternoon and was last seen diving on to a bullet train.’
‘If there’s a point to all this, Chung, I’d really like to hear it within the next ten seconds, or I’m going to be very angry indeed.’
‘The files,’ said Chung after a slight hesitation. ‘She’s got the files. Copies of my work. The entire project.’
Sanger was silent. Chung had braced himself for an explosion of anger, of dire and over the top threats of retribution. Instead, Sanger stood up and moved away from the laptop looking out, once again, across the panoramic view of Los Angeles at night.
Chung stared at an empty seat for a long time before asking, ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘A moment,’ said Sanger offscreen.
But Chung couldn’t wait. ‘She’s got everything, layouts of the facility, the timetable for invasion . . . I don’t know why she wanted it or who she’s working for, but if that disk falls into the wrong hands, everything we’ve worked so hard for may be destroyed . . . ’
Sanger sat down in front the screen again. ‘And who, exactly, are “the wrong hands”?’ he asked calmly.
‘Well . . . ’
‘I’ll tell you. Everyone,’ Sanger continued. ‘Everyone but us.’
‘I’m sorry, I never suspected . . . ’
‘No one ever does suspect spies. That’s the whole point you cretin. She played with your hormones.’ For the first time there was a trace of menace in Sanger’s voice.
Chung looked away from the screen, unable to take any more of Sanger’s wounding sarcasm. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked again.
‘I want you to find the disk. And anybody who might have come into contact with it. Rip Japan apart if you have to, but find that disk. What you do with her, I’ll leave up to you.’
The knock on the door of his hotel room woke the Doctor from a light and troubled sleep.
It was Tegan. She looked tired and irritable.
So, no change there then.
55
‘Turlough hasn’t come back yet,’ she said. ‘I’ve checked his room, his bed hasn’t been slept in.’
‘I’m sure he’ll be all right,’ said the Doctor, but he didn’t look as though he was sure of that or anything like it.
‘Based on what, exactly?’
The Doctor accepted her scepticism. ‘Yes, he has been known to get himself captured on the odd occasion,’ he noted with a wry grin.
‘Doctor, this is serious,’ said Tegan. ‘You should never have let him go out on his own in a strange city. You know what he’s like when he starts yabbering.’
‘I know,’ replied the Doctor. ‘But we all make mistakes. Even me. We’re only human. Figuratively speaking, of course . . . ’ He picked up the telephone. ‘I think I need help,’ he admitted.
Forty-five minutes into the United National General Council seminar on the use of alien technology by Third World countries in their nuclear programmes, and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart was beginning to daydream about the little coffee shop opposite UNIT’s second (or was it third?) central London HQ in Marble Arch. It had been years since he’d been back to see if Signor Graziani still did those wonderful bacon and cheese rolls with a nice cup of tea, all for ninety-nine pence. Almost certainly not. That’s inflation for you. Always happens when there’s a Labour government . . .
He was vaguely aware of Sir Thomas Wonga, the UN’s senior expert in the field, talking about the rumours that a Waro propulsion device had been found during a routine examination of Angola’s fusion installations when an aide tapped him on the shoulder.
‘Telephone call for you, sir. From Los Angeles.’
‘Thank the Lord for that,’ said Lethbridge-Stewart, checking his watch and working out that it would be just after eight a.m. on the West Coast. ‘I expected this an hour ago.’
‘You’re late,’ he said, picking up the phone in the lobby of the UN building in New York.
‘Sorry, Brigadier,’ said the Doctor. ‘TARDIS lag . . . You know how it is?’
‘Doctor? I apologise,’ said the Brigadier, clearly embarrassed. ‘I thought you were one of my men. What can I do for you?’
The Doctor quickly explained that Turlough had gone missing.
‘Spotty little oick,’ muttered Lethbridge-Stewart in annoyance. ‘I always