Doctor Who: The Enemy of the World (6 page)

‘I might have known,’ Benik said acidly.

‘I’m honoured,’ Giles replied mildly. ‘I didn’t expect a visit from the Deputy Director himself. You have a warrant for this intrusion of course.’

‘Not necessary, Kent. You are on Research Centre territory,’ Benik retorted in a deliberately clipped voice.

Giles held up an ordnance map. ‘Just outs the boundary.

Check if you like.’

A stickler for regulations when it suited him, Benik simmered quietly. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded, snatching up the binoculars and wrenching open the curtains at one of the windows. ‘Bird-watching?’

Kent nodded. ‘It’s the best time to see needle-tailed swift, Pacific golden plover and Arctic tern,’ he said coolly.

‘If you’re interested in such things.’

Benik turned. ‘I am interested in whatever you are interested in, Kent. An excellent view of the Centre from here.’

‘Not bad,’ Giles agreed.

Benik attempted a broad smile, with hideous results.

‘You won’t be staying in the area, will you?’

‘I’ll stay as long as I like, Benik.’

At a glance from Benik, the security guard started to smash up the interior of the caravan with the butt of his high-velocity rifle. Crockery, kitchen utensils, jars and packets of food were sent flying in all directions. When Kent tried to intervene he was tossed aside.

The assault was brief but devastating. As the guard marched to the door and stood at attention, Benik gloated over his handiwork with a crazed smile. ‘No sense in complaining to the authorities,’ he hissed. ‘No one will believe you, will they?’

Benik and the guard went out. Doors slammed and the hovercar screamed away into the distance, its siren droning.

Kent opened up the divan and helped the Doctor out of his hiding place. After surveying the shambles in dismay, the Doctor picked up some fragments of crockery and tried to fit them together. ‘Isn’t it a pity, Kent,’ he murmured sadly. ‘People spend their time creating beautiful things and other people come along and simply destroy them.’

Giles grasped the Doctor firmly by the arm. ‘Look around you,’ he cried fervently. ‘Surely you understand now. Surely you can see what kind of man Salamander is.’

The Doctor held up the broken pieces of china. ‘This is exactly what we need, Kent. More evidence. More facts.

And that is precisely what I hope Jamie and Victoria are going to bring us.’

In the basement kitchen Jamie was eating heartily at the huge scrubbed table, while Victoria busied herself laying a small trolley with cutlery and plates. Suddenly Astrid slipped in.

‘You got through!’ Jamie cried admiringly with his mouth full. ‘Och, that’s ma we lassie! What’s next?’

Astrid explained in a low, urgent voice, ‘Salamander is impatient, but he won’t act until he has dealt with Denes once and for all. At the moment he’s tied up with the emergency in the mountains so we must get Alexander out of here as soon as possible.’

‘There are guards everywhere,’ Jamie pointed out.

‘Exactly. All you have to do is to cause a distraction Jamie, anything you like, but it must happen at precisely 23.00 hours. I shall try to get Alexander out of the Palace and take him with me to Australia on the night flight. It’s vital he meets your friend the Doctor now.’

Jamie nodded. ‘I’ll raise hell at eleven,’ he promised, taking a mighty bite out of the sandwich Victoria had made for him.

At that moment Griffin came shuffling in with two bottles of claret in each hand.

‘Down the passage and third on the right. Thank you,’

Astrid said loudly to Jamie, sweeping past the little chef and out of the kitchen.

As Victoria backed out of the antiquated lift with the trolley bearing Denes’ supper, a man with a full black beard and heavy horn-rimmed glasses suddenly appeared behind her. In the dim light from the small chandeliers strung along the corridor the figure was momentarily terrifying.

The little man bowed, his uneasily shifty eyes enlarged grotesquely by the thick lenses. His forehead was beaded with sweat. ‘I am Nicholas Fedorin,’ he replied formally. ‘I am... I was Alexander Denes’ Deputy. Is this for Mr Denes?’

‘I’m just taking it to him,’ Victoria said, now more wary than frightened.

Fedorin lifted one of the heavy silver dishcovers.

‘Delicious,’ he murmured. He scanned the trolley. ‘Fresh bread!’ he exclaimed. Victoria glanced at the generous slices and as she did so, Fedorin’s hand closed unnoticed round the saltcellar. ‘Ah, you must be new here, you have forgotten the salt!’ he cried.

Victoria stared at the trolley with a puzzled frown. ‘Oh, but I’m quite sure I...’

‘Please run down and bring the salt. Mr Denes is most particular,’ Fedorin interrupted her, pressing the lift button.

As soon as the doors had closed behind Victoria, he slipped the saltcellar into his pocket and after glancing furtively up and down the seemingly endless corridor he took out the small box which Salamander had given him earlier.

With violently trembling fingers, he opened it and stared at the pale green crystals for a moment. Then he lifted the lid of the soup tureen and held the box over the steaming liquid. Immediately his spectacles misted over.

Dropping the lid with an echoing clatter, he whipped them off and peered at the poison crystals, shaking the box slightly. The crystals seemed to have got stuck together in a mass. With a whimper of frustration, Fedorin shook the box and the congealed green substance fell out onto the tray, splitting into several smaller lumps.

Just then a door slammed loudly nearby. Uttering strangled little cries of terror like a trapped child, Fedorin hastily tried to pick up the solidified lumps and put them back in the box, while peering blindly around him in the semi-darkness...

In the salon Salamander walked slowly round and round his victim, speaking in a voice hushed with menace and contempt.

‘I give you the chance to become somebody at last and you let it slip out of your boneless fingers. I create this golden chance for you, and you come whimpering back to me like an infant,’ he murmured. ‘I think you do not understand what is at stake, amigo.’

Fedorin mopped his face and replaced his spectacles.

‘There must be another way,’ he gasped, shielding his eyes from the intense glare of the lamps. ‘These crystals, I could not do it. I stood there with Alexander’s life in my hands and I could not do it.’

Salamander took the small box from Fedorin’s clammy hand and went over to a side table in the shadows. ‘Of course I understand, amigo,’ he said in a suddenly soothing tone. ‘Try not to reproach yourself. We try, we fail. So, the moon does not fall out of the sky.’ Keeping his back turned, Salamander poured two drinks.

The helpless Deputy screwed up his eyes, trying to follow Salamander’s movements round the dim edges of his vision. ‘We... we will find another way?’ he faltered.

‘Later, later,’ Salamander cried, bringing over two glasses. ‘Cheer up and have a drink, Nicholas. We can discuss some other strategy tomorrow.’

Fedorin eagerly accepted the proffered glass.

‘Your health,’ Salamander said encouragingly, drinking from his glass.

Fedorin took a sip and gave a sickly smile. He took another sip. Suddenly he stared at Salamander in horror.

His glass fell to the floor and he lurched forward, grabbing at the back of a chair for support. His spectacles slipped off his nose and his knees buckled.

With a spine-chilling gurgling sound, he shuddered and slid to his knees with his arms over the back of the chair.

For a few seconds Salamander looked at the broken figure kneeling there with splayed arms and open-mouthed stare like a discarded puppet. ‘I warned you, amigo,’ he breathed, ‘only one chance.’ Then he picked up the almost empty box of crystals from the drinks table, snapped the lid shut and stuffed it into the dead man’s pocket. He nudged Fedorin’s shoulder and the corpse toppled sideways, dragging the chair on top of itself.

There was a sharp knock at the door and the Captain entered. ‘Excuse me, Leader. An incident in the grounds.

Lieutenant McCrimmon reports seeing an intruder near...’

He broke off as he noticed Fedorin’s crooked body at Salamander’s feet.

‘Get Bruce!’ Salamander snapped, moving swiftly towards the door. ‘And get that cleared up!’ he added.

‘Very sad. Such a waste.’ And he was gone.

5

Jamie was hunched in the alcove of an open window in the basement kitchen, aiming his high-velocity rifle through the bars at something in the darkness outside. Griffin was peering over his shoulder looking sceptical.

‘You’ve bin drinkin’, my lad. There’s nobody out there,’

he muttered.

‘Look. Over there by the trees,’ Jamie insisted. ‘He’s armed too. Get away from the window, Griff. I’m going out there.’ Jamie ran to the small door leading out into the paddock, slid back the rusting bolts and eased his way through.

There was a sharp crack outside as Jamie fired deliberately into the air. Griffin scampered across to the window.

There was a second crack as Jamie fired into the air again. Griffin ducked beneath the sill. ‘Why did I ever leave the Old Kent Road?’ he grumbled, covering his ears.

A third shot was followed by a whining ricochet and fragments of window-frame flew across the kitchen.

Immediately afterwards a dozen armed guards from the Security Corps crashed into the kitchen from the inside door and raced out through the door leading into the grounds.

Out in the paddock Jamie was lurking near the trees, keeping a watchful eye on the Palace and anxiously wondering whether his desperate ruse could possibly succeed. Suddenly a group of guards appeared through the door below the terrace and a powerful searchlight cut through the darkness from somewhere up on the roof of the Palace. It raked the area around the trees until it picked him out.

Yelling to the approaching guards to keep down, Jamie flung himself into the damp grass and trained his rifle on the trees. But the searchlight beam stayed on him. In a few moments he found himself looking up the barrels of a dozen assorted guns.

Getting slowly to his feet Jamie nodded towards the trees. ‘I think he got away,’ he muttered lamely.

In the gloomy lobby where Alexander Denes was awaiting transfer to prison, Victoria was growing more and more apprehensive as she glanced out of the corner of her eye at the seconds blinking away on the prisoner’s wristwatch.

She was desperate to warn him about the rescue attempt planned for 23.00 hours, but she could not think of a way to distract the two WZO police officers who stood watching Denes quietly eating his supper with dignified calm.

All at once several armed guards came sprinting through the lobby. Victoria took advantage of the brief distraction to whisper rapidly to Denes, ‘Astrid’s trying to get you away from here,’ but before she could say more, Astrid appeared suddenly round a corner and ran lightly up to them.

‘Quick. An attempt is being made to rescue this man,’

she rapped at the two startled policemen. ‘The Leader instructs us to transfer him at once!’

As the officers glanced at each other in confusion, Astrid hit one of them expertly on the back of the neck and pushed his collapsing body hard against the other one.

Then she grabbed Denes by the arm and started to propel him along the corridor leading to the main entrance of the Palace. Scarcely aware of what she was doing, Victoria seized the heavy soup tureen from the tray and flung it with all her might at the sprawling policemen, knocking the second one out cold.

Just then the Security Corps Captain came racing down the long corridor towards the lobby. ‘Stop, Denes! Stop!’

he shouted, raising his machine pistol as he ran. Before Astrid could drag Denes round the corner into the entrance hall, he was hit in the back by a short burst from the Captain’s gun. He threw up his arms with a gasp, but he managed to stagger out of sight as Astrid caught him round the waist and half carried him along, moaning with agony.

Other guards appeared in the corridor behind the Captain and joined the pursuit. As they reached the lobby, Victoria gave the trolley an almighty shove and sent it careering straight into the leading pursuers. Those following behind tripped over their tumbling colleagues in a tangle of rifles, plates, pistols and cutlery.

For a moment Victoria stood rooted to the spot, almost hypnotised by the devastating effect of her action and deafened by the noise.

Scrambling to his feet, the Captain kicked at the heap of struggling guards surrounding him. ‘Get after them, you incompetent buffoons,’ he screamed from behind his fogged-up vizor. As they obeyed, Victoria found herself starting to giggle hysterically at the pantomime. But her hysteria died at once as the Captain strode towards her, his pistol pointing between her eyes.

‘You are under arrest, Miss Waterfield,’ he hissed, grabbing her brutally by the arm. ‘You have a lot of questions to answer.’

As the two fugitives struggled along the short corridor into the entrance hall, Denes staggered and fell against the wall.

‘I can’t... you run... leave me...’ he gasped, blood frothing from his mouth and a bright red stain spreading rapidly over the back of his tunic.

Astrid fought to help him to his feet. ‘Try, Alexander, you must try,’ she cried desperately. But Denes was too heavy for her and too weak to move himself.

‘Run, my dear, run,’ Denes panted, the faintest shadow of a smile flickering on his deathly pale cheeks. ‘It is finished for me now. You must win, you and Giles must...’

Denes was gripped in a final agonised convulsion and then lay still.

Astrid hesitated for a second longer, blinking back tears of frustration and sadness. An instant later the guards hurtled round the corner and Astrid spun round and ran for her life through the elegant hallway of the Tisza Palace.

When Victoria was marched into the salon by the Captain, she found Jamie already facing Salamander and Donald Bruce across the vast banqueting table, which had been cleared except for a solitary rifle lying in the centre.