Doctor Who_ Trading Futures - Lance Parkin [79]
Malady was watching this with more practical things on her mind. ‘It’s the RealWar factory.’
‘Does this mean you know where we are?’
‘No. We knew RealWar was a Russian company, but the location of its offices and research centres are a closely guarded secret. Most of Russia is unmonitored. It’s either too isolated or too poor for satellites to bother with. There are whole areas of the map without data presence.’
‘And I imagine your governments don’t want every inch of the planet under surveillance. Where would they hide their own little secrets, hmm?’
Malady didn’t look back at the Doctor. ‘The CIA have looked for the RealWar factories, but we’ve not had much luck.’
‘This isn’t the only factory?’
‘No one knows, but I doubt it.’
‘Any idea why Baskerville is here? Could he be supplying the technology?’
‘Possibly. It would explain how he pays his bills.’
‘A time traveller could find other ways to make money,’ the Doctor insisted. ‘Instead of prophesying the results of football matches to convince investors, he could just bet on them.’
The Doctor hesitated, watched the production lines again for a moment, got caught up in the rhythm and movement.
‘He could have a more sinister purpose for travelling to the past,’ he muttered.
‘Sinister?’
‘Well, from this vantage point he looks remarkably like an arms dealer. With the Americans and Europeans on the verge of war, this could be the best possible time to come back to and sell weapons.’
‘RealWar robots aren’t that advanced.’
‘They don’t need to be. It’s state of the art, but you only need to be a year or two ahead of your enemy, particularly with something that changes the rules. The development of the dreadnought made all existing navies irrelevant, the development of the atomic bomb shifted strategy towards attacking civilian targets. Or rather not attacking them. The whole emphasis shifted to preventing the start of a war no one could win. If you have teletroops and missile defence, it’s a lot easier to fight a war.’
Malady looked at him, clearly disturbed. ‘It looks like we have to stop him, whatever he’s doing.’
‘Agreed.’
They heard firing.
‘The people on the Concorde are making a break for it.’
* * *
Relker was behind the hover tank, now, out of its sight. He edged back towards the main hangar. Once inside, he tucked himself behind a brick wall, and got his radio out. Three more class twos sat motionless here. They were always there – garaged along with the three helicopters and the two light planes. But Relker kept one eye on them, mindful now that they could come to life at any moment.
‘Baskerville,’ he hissed into the radio. ‘Baskerville, what the hell is going on?’
Outside, the hover tank was concentrating on a group of four men who’d dug in and were covering the main door of the aircraft.
A grenade arced over, bounced off the armoured shell, then clattered away. It exploded a few seconds later, blowing a chunk out of the tarmac.
The tank was the only thing firing bullets.
Relker changed channel. ‘Keep under cover!’ he ordered his men. ‘There’s a malfunction. I’m going to the teletroop control room. Everyone just keep their heads down.’
Malfunction. The tank was functioning fine. Making short work of his men. And if they hadn’t realised they should be keeping their heads down without him telling them, then they didn’t deserve to have heads in the first place.
He hurried further inside the building, heading for Baskerville’s office. It wasn’t far. To get there faster, he could cut past the production lines.
Relker headed that way, swiped his way past two security doors. Once the second of those was closed again, he could no longer hear the gunfire, all the other sounds were drowned out by the clatter of the factory floor.
He cut across them by climbing the metal stairs