Doctor Who_ The King of Terror - Keith Topping [77]
Even though everything Newton had ever believed in (which wasn’t much, if truth be told) had just been smashed before his eyes, a question still managed to make its way through the swirling maelstrom of thoughts in his mind.
‘But what do you want with Earth?’ he asked.
Ryman’s reply was chillingly simple. ‘Want? Want? We want to destroy it.’
146
Chapter Sixteen
Naked Eye
It was an old wooden construction. A rickety timber shack built by desert settlers who had got left behind on the way to the Californian gold rush.
Tegan collapsed on the floor, panting for breaths that came in short, painful bursts.
Paynter, after checking the grimy window, sat down heavily next to her and began to load his gun.
‘Nine bullets left,’ he said. ‘It’s not going to be enough.’
Tegan sat up and coughed through the dust that coated her throat. ‘There’s optimism for you.’
Paynter gave her a withering look. ‘May I remind you what the man at the garage said before he died . . . ’
‘You mean before you killed him?’
‘If you prefer,’ Paynter agreed. ‘They’ve called in the heavy mob.’
‘I don’t understand,’ admitted Tegan. ‘As usual.’
Again Geoff Paynter suppressed the urge to scream obscenities. ‘That murdering scumbag told me that he was a freelance assassin, hired by “some guy called Steve”. He also said that there is another team in the area, and they are still out there.’
‘Do you know who they are?’ asked Tegan.
‘Oh yes,’ announced Paynter. ‘And it’s not good. They’re a pair of memorably dodgy hypocritical gangsters. A big ugly git called Perico, full of his own self-importance. He’s dangerous. The other one’s called Heldos, a nasty little gnome. Supposedly the brains of the organisation, but in reality he’s just a wannabe.’
Tegan was impressed. ‘You’ve met them before?’
‘Twice,’ said Paynter with a touch of pride. ‘In Helsinki when I put a bullet in Heldos’s leg. Another time in Hull of all places. Perico seems to believe he owes me one because last time I biffed him in the conk, didn’t I? They’re nowhere near as good as they think they are, but they’ve got a reasonable hit record. If it was me and Mark against them, two on two, I wouldn’t be sweating, let’s put it that way.’
‘But,’ noted Tegan. ‘Unfortunately . . . ’
147
Paynter looked at her closely. She was tired and frightened. ‘No sense in moaning about it,’ he said at last. ‘If you’re going to die, a shack in the middle of a desert is as good a place as any.’
‘This is hopeless,’ said Tegan angrily. ‘I’m sick of being chased from pillar to post.’
Paynter muttered something about it hardly being a barrel of laughs for him either, and Tegan’s fragile grip on her temper was finally lost. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she exploded.
‘Well,’ began Paynter slowly, ‘I suppose, from their point of view, you know, the more narcissistic superficial bimbos they can kill, the better. Just looking at it from the other side of the coin you understand . . . ?’
‘That’s preferable, I’d have said, to being an intellectual dwarf with the social graces of a mollusc.’
Paynter began to laugh. Then he stopped. ‘ Soy un perdidor. I’m a loser, baby, so why don’t you kill me?!’
Tegan stamped her foot, much to Paynter’s obvious amusement. He was winning the argument through humour and she wasn’t enjoying the experience of being patronised and outwitted by this . . .
‘Coward,’ she continued. ‘When your friend was in the burning car the Brigadier said you should have seen your face. “Mr crap himself and run a mile.”’
She was lying, of course. The Brigadier would never have said that, or anything like it. And she regretted it almost as soon as she’d said it. Tegan Jovanka was a lot of things and she would freely admit to most of them. But she wasn’t anything like the spiteful nasty girl who was operating her mouth right now.
For the first time Paynter became really angry. His face reddened and his