Doctor Who_ Warchild - Andrew Cartmel [47]
These were among the most secure computers on the planet.
All of the screens were blank or displayed routine messages, except for the international link.
There on the screen of the supposedly unhackable computer, ignoring all normal communication protocols, was a simply worded message:
Creed.
Need your help urgently.
Come at once.
The Doctor.
It was midnight by the time the intrusion team arrived.
Violation of an Agency office called for a major security investigation. Amy had to act as cooperating local officer because Creed was busy arranging for an Agency chopper to jump him to the nearest international airport with an early scheduled flight to London.
The Doctor had used the word ‘urgently’.
Stanmer was writing the report for the intrusion team and he got Creed’s statement before he left. The senior investigating officer and Amy both sanctioned Creed’s departure after confirmation from Washington and the SIO
sanctioned Creed notifying his wife.
Justine had been worried sick since Creed had stormed out. But his phone-call didn’t do much to reassure her. All he could say was that there had been violent action, that he was all right, and that he had been called away on immediate assignment.
‘Can you tell me where?’
‘England.’
‘Is it something to do with the Doctor?’ said Justine.
Creed looked over at the SIO, who was listening on a headphone link. He looked at Creed and shook his head.
‘I can’t tell you that,’ said Creed.
‘Can I see you before you go?’
‘If you can get here before the chopper arrives. It will be landing to pick me up on the field behind the main building.’
‘I’ll come. I’ll bring the kids.’
Creed was on the verge of telling her not to. But she seemed to think it was important, so he let it ride. Who knows what sort of thoughts had been running through her head?
He’d just walked out on her and then she hadn’t heard from him in hours. What did she think had happened?
What would have happened if there had been no breakin, wondered Creed. What if there had been no Stanmer? No kid with a gun?
Creed found himself staring at the desk where Amy had been sitting when he’d come in. Where he’d kissed her and begun to undress her. He stared at the desk and then he sensed someone else’s attention on him and he looked up.
Amy had been helping one of the intrusion officers plot the dead kid’s movements across the carpet. They were marking his route with masking tape. But Amy had paused to gaze across the office and Creed realized that she had been staring thoughtfully at the desk, exactly as he had, at exactly the same moment.
Their eyes met and Amy looked away, her cheeks flushed with colour.
As it happened, Creed didn’t get to say goodbye to Justine. Not properly.
The helicopter came buzzing in, out of the grey dawn, sweeping low across the tops of the pines in Gaines Woods.
The SIO and Amy walked Creed out to the field behind the agency building. The SIO handed Creed an envelope full of faxed documents and initialled the fire-arms release as he gave Creed a weapon. Then he went back inside to join the investigation and left them waiting for the chopper.
Amy stood beside Creed, shivering in the early morning air. He wanted to put his arms around her but suddenly the helicopter was looming in the sky above them, the rising sun glinting off its bubbled hull, the pilot raising his hand in greeting.
Creed ran to the helicopter as its slowly sweeping blades whipped dew off the grass. Creed was soaked to the ankles by the time he scrambled on board.
He shook hands with the pilot as he strapped himself in and the engine throttled up. The blades above them spun more quickly and suddenly Creed was watching the ground drop away. He looked down at Amy as they rose into the air.
She waved and then wrapped her arms around her breasts, hugging herself against the cold. Her head suddenly angled away as she turned to look at something.
Creed followed her gaze and saw his old battered station-wagon roll on to the field, coming from the access-road that led to the car park.