Doctor Who_ The Paradise of Death - Barry Letts [99]
They’d arrived behind a bank of control desks which were not in use at present, and were peeping over the top.
It was clear why the rest of the building was so deserted. A whole bunch of Security officers – getting on for fifty, Jeremy reckoned – were scattered round the duty area, nearly all wearing ER headsets.
‘The Games,’ the Brigadier breathed in Jeremy’s ear. He looked at his watch, seemed to do a countdown under his breath, and stood up. ‘Freeze!’ he shouted. ‘Hands above your heads!’ At his shout, the encircling assault troops stood up, stunguns at the ready, and Jeremy crouched down, as small as he could manage, and put his hands over his ears.
The noise was considerable. Most of the enemy chose to disregard the Brigadier’s instruction, and went for their guns. The raucous whine of the stunguns on both sides of the conflict was mingled with the swish and bang of the portable missile launchers carried by the more senior of the Security forces.
With such utter surprise, and with the enemy being blinded at first by their ER helmets – and, for that matter, by their absorption in the Games – there was no possibility of a real defence. In a matter of minutes, the Brigadier was calling for a cease-fire. The noise ceased.
In the incredible hush that followed, Jeremy peered over the desk again. A large number of the Security men were lying paralysed (but conscious) by the stunguns; the rest had their hands in the air. Nobody in the attacking force seemed to have been hit outright. Two had an arm dangling uselessly from a near miss, and Ungar was staring in surprise at his left hand, which had a finger missing.
‘Well done everybody,’ said the Brigadier. He looked down at Jeremy. ‘You can come out now,’ he added.
Jeremy rose slowly to his feet. ‘As it’s all over,’ he said tentatively, ‘does it matter if I let my teeth chatter a bit?’
What were they all laughing at? he thought bitterly. All very well for them, they were used to all this stun-gunnery stuff He was only a journalist, wasn’t he? He thrust down rising memories of war correspondents on the telly, flak jackets and all.
‘Quiet!’ called the Brigadier, and the relieved hubbub died away. Jeremy saw him pull out of his pocket one of the little mini-intercom thingies they’d all got (except him, of course!); it was quacking away like billyo.
Hang on a moment, he thought, that sounds like Sarah.
It was too; a mini-Sarah in a great old state. ‘Brigadier!’
she was saying. ‘Can you hear me? Over!’
‘Yes, Sarah, I can hear you. What is it? Over.’
‘Listen, I haven’t got much time. They’ve got us –
Tragan’s got us in the stadium – the Games place – in the security bit and they’re going to – ’
Her voice abruptly ceased. The Brigadier lifted the thing to his mouth, but stopped himself from speaking. He switched it off.
‘Ask her!’ said Jeremy urgently. ‘Find out what’s happened!’
‘That could place her in the gravest danger,’ snapped the Brigadier. ‘Ungar! Take us to the flycar area. At the double!’
As the door opened, she managed to slip the little button back into her pocket, just in time. Tragan, returning with a portable ER headset, looked at her suspiciously as if he might have heard her voice. He was evidently satisfied, however. He just told her to sit down.
It was only after the Doctor had left that she had realized that when he put his hand on her shoulder, he had slipped something into her side pocket with the other hand, the one hidden from Tragan and Freeth; and only when Tragan, after a look round the sparsely furnished room, followed Freeth and the Doctor out, had she been able to find out what it was.
The sound of his feet outside the door had warned her that he was coming back. Whether the Brigadier had understood her hurried message, she had no idea.
‘Can’t I at least go somewhere to watch the fight?’
‘And escape? And spoil all the Chairman’s plans? No, no, my dear. You must stay here in case we need you – or