Doctor Who_ Trading Futures - Lance Parkin [61]
‘At the airport?’ The President was looking over at his bodyguard.
‘We can’t allow the President to go there without a full complement of –’
Baskerville held up his hand. ‘He can take you. Or he can stay here, and I’ll just negotiate with the Eurozone. It’s entirely up to him.’
‘The President’s security would be at risk,’ the bodyguard objected.
‘That’s why you have a Vice President,’ Cosgrove murmured. ‘I’m sure Ben Russ is champing at the bit.’
Mather gave him a withering look.
Baskerville checked his watch. ‘If we could reach a decision.’
‘I’m going,’ the President said.
‘Sir, I –’
‘I’m going,’ he repeated, and that was that.
Baskerville stood, straightened his tie. ‘Good. My helicopter is waiting. If we could –’
But he didn’t finish the sentence, because the aliens arrived.
* * *
Anji had been watching the proceedings carefully.
The President was a distinguished‐looking African‐American in a telegenic blue suit. He was in his sixties, she guessed, but healthy. His bodyguard was straight from the CIA brochure – blond, and no doubt blue‐eyed behind the sunglasses.
Cosgrove was ancient, decades older than Mather or Baskerville, but in absurdly good physical condition. His assistant, despite all that protesting about her credentials, clearly had a crush on him, at the very least.
Baskerville was in one of his sharp suits, Dee was in smart businesswear.
Anji didn’t feel as out of place or out of her depth as she had assumed she was going to. She was a bit vague on who Cosgrove was, but he was the head of MI5, or the SAS, or something. He was a soldier, not a politician. But he was senior, and clearly powerful.
And the Doctor was alive, and had teamed up with the Chinese girl Fitz had met. No one had mentioned Fitz. He was probably sunning himself on a Californian beach.
Now what? Events were clearly moving on, and Anji was clearly in the thick of it. She’d have to play it by ear.
But she didn’t get a chance, because the aliens arrived.
* * *
It wasn’t the same as when the two time travellers had appeared out of thin air in the museum, but it was close enough for Cosgrove to recognise it, and give himself a couple of seconds to prepare for it.
The air by the back wall rippled, and three shapes stepped from it.
They were enormous, as wide as they were tall, and only roughly the shape of men.
They were hunchbacked, with small legs, long arms. Their heads were elongated, and ended with a vicious‐looking horn. They looked like rhinoceroses. Half‐men, half‐rhinos. They wore spiky armour that looked like wrought iron. Each carried a metal object that could only be a gun of some kind.
Cosgrove moved out of the way.
Dimly, he registered that Anji had done the same. Interesting. He’d had her down as a civilian, but not even the White House bodyguard had her reactions.
The bodyguard had drawn his pistol.
Cosgrove did the same, but kept it down, out of sight.
The bodyguard fired, at virtually point blank range, but it didn’t do any good.
The creature nearest to the bodyguard raised his weapon, fired, and a white line of light bisected the bodyguard.
Penny Lik screamed, and was the next to die. Cosgrove was surprised how angry he felt.
One of the creatures was grabbing for the Asian girl, Kapoor, but she was managing to duck and weave out of its way. They were almost too large for the room, they were having to bend down to avoid scraping against the ceiling, and Kapoor was taking advantage of that.
One snatched her handbag, parted the leather with its claw, as if it was Clingfilm.
It rummaged through the contents, found what looked like an old‐fashioned mobile phone, and growled something.
Cosgrove had hunted rhinos.
It wasn’t something he could admit anywhere these days, of course, even at his club. It had been sixty years ago, in Africa, and he’d bagged one, gaining a lot of admiration from the hunter who’d been leading the party.
Rhinos were extinct in the wild and in zoos, now, he’d seen that reported on the news