Doctor Who: The Enemy of the World (7 page)

‘Ah. Our little party is almost complete!’ Salamander observed as Victoria was thrust next to Jamie. ‘We lack only your attractive lady accomplice.’

‘I dinna ken what you mean,’ exclaimed Jamie, doing his best to sound genuinely indignant.

‘Your accomplice in the abortive plot to free Denes,’

Salamander rapped in a staccato voice. ‘She has temporarily eluded us. But not for long.’

‘What’s all this about a plot?’ Jamie demanded.

Donald Bruce spoke in a quiet monotone, his flashing spectacles the only visible part of his features. ‘Your lunatic scheme to cause a diversion. We know there was no intruder in the grounds, McCrimmon.’

‘A saw somebody out there. Three shots were fired at me,’ he shouted.

Bruce nodded grimly and picked up the rifle from the table between them. ‘Yes, three shots have indeed been fired,’ he murmured. ‘From this weapon.
Your
gun, McCrimmon.’

Suddenly Salamander swung round on Donald Bruce. ‘I come here to this European Zone,’ he cried, ‘and a bogus attempt on my life is staged. The Zone Controller is exposed as criminally incompetent and his Deputy commits suicide because I confront him with his past crimes. I come into a madhouse infested with conspiracies—and all this time innocent people are suffering in their thousands in a terrible holocaust a few kilometres away. It is a farce. A nightmare. Bruce, you are responsible for world security. Just for once in your life, do your job!’

Donald Bruce stared at Jamie and Victoria as if he could scarcely wait to take revenge on them for being the cause of this humiliating outburst against him. He barked an order and they were marched roughly out of the salon, surrounded by the heavily armed guards.

‘None of this makes any sense at all,’ he complained wearily, as soon as he and Salamander were alone.

‘Yesterday I see you with McCrimmon, the Waterfield girl, Astrid Ferrier and Giles Kent in Kent’s office in Melville, all engaged on some secret business or other. And now today I find you...’

Bruce broke off abruptly. Salamander had seized his arm in an iron grip and was staring at him with fanatical intensity.

‘What are you saying, Bruce?’ he demanded hoarsely. ‘I have not seen Giles Kent for months. And yesterday I was here.’

‘But you were with him yesterday in his office. I spoke to you there,’ Bruce insisted. ‘In fact I thought it so extraordinary that I went to Kanowa and talked to Benik about it. Then I came straight here to Budapest to check that you...’

Bruce fell silent. Salamander was no longer listening.

‘But if it wasn’t you, Leader...’ Bruce began.

‘Who was it?’ Salamander whispered icily.

For the very first time since he had known Salamander Bruce suddenly saw him shaken and on the defensive. He knew that just as a cornered animal can become instantly ferocious, a man like Salamander could become a terrible threat once he was trapped. No one would be safe.

For several seconds neither of them moved. Then Salamander released Bruce’s arm and stabbed the button of the intercom on the table beside him. ‘I am returning to Kanowa immediately!’ he announced. ‘And you will accompany me, Bruce. Together we shall track down this imposter and unmask him...’

In the caravan Giles Kent went over and checked the aerial connection on the small videophone which he had taken from a concealed cupboard after Benik’s departure and set up ready for receiving Astrid’s progress reports from Europe.

‘Something’s gone wrong. We should’ve heard from her by now,’ he muttered fatalistically. ‘If only we could call her up somehow.’

The Doctor took the binoculars and scanned the Research Centre again. ‘I fear we shall have to sit it out here, Kent. But I doubt that our friend Mr Benik will allow us to perch here for much longer unmolested.’

At that moment the videophone warbled quietly. For a moment the Doctor and Giles simply looked at one another, then Giles lunged across the caravan and snapped a series of switches.

On the small screen a haze of static jerkily resolved into Astrid’s face. As the picture sharpened they were shocked to see that she looked tired and haggard, her face was streaked with sweat and her normally well-groomed hair was all over the place.

Before the Doctor could stop him, Giles greeted her with delighted relief. ‘Astrid, we’d almost given you up.

Where are you?’

The Doctor shoved him aside and spoke into the screen with quiet urgency. ‘Astrid, switch to
scramble
immediately. Do you hear me?
Scramble
.’

Astrid stared for a second and then suddenly pulled herself together. ‘Of course. Switching now,’ she murmured. Her face was replaced by a zigzag jumble of lines and the speaker emitted a meaningless buzzing.

‘I’m sorry. Sheer carelessness,’ Giles mumbled as he watched the Doctor tuning the decoder unit on the side of the videophone, ‘but I was getting so worried.’

The Doctor nodded sympathetically, but there was an uneasy frown on his face as he brought Astrid back onto the screen. ‘From now on none of us can be too careful, Mr Kent,’ he said without looking round.

Having engaged the scrambler circuit, Astrid sat wearily in Giles Kent’s swivel chair and, still trying to recover her breath, recounted the events of the last twenty-four hours into the videophone on the desk. She watched the Doctor’s face growing graver and graver and Giles Kent finally putting his head in his hands as she described Alexander Denes’ arrest and murder.

‘Alexander dead,’ Kent muttered, ‘Jeez, that’s tragic.’

‘Shot in the back,’ Astrid nodded, her voice slow and heavy with fatigue. ‘I’m so sorry, Giles, I’m afraid I haven’t done very well, have I?’

The Doctor tried to give a reassuring smile. ‘You are not to blame, my dear, you did your best,’ he said. His gentle face was deeply lined with anxiety. ‘So you have no news of Victoria and Jamie?’ he inquired after a long silence.

Astrid shook her head. There was another silence.

Suddenly Giles roused himself and with an effort snapped out of his depression. ‘Listen, Astrid, at least you’re safe. Stay where you are and we’ll meet you there in Melville as quickly as we can.’

Before Astrid could answer, the screen went blank. She switched off and lay back in the adjustable chair, no longer fighting the drowsiness which had been creeping over her since she had disembarked from the interzonal orbiter. She rapidly sank into a deep sleep.

After a while there was a noise out in the lobby as the lift doors opened and then shut again. Part of Astrid’s mind had remained alert and she jerked awake in time to see the handle of the outer office door starting to turn.

She was on her feet in a flash and she ran lightly across the office and positioned herself behind the slowly opening door. With a sudden wrench, she flung it wide and hurled someone bodily into the room. She threw herself onto the intruder and they crashed violently against the heavy desk.

To her astonishment Astrid found herself staring into the large startled eyes of Fariah, as she pinned her firmly down onto the desk top.

‘What are
you
doing here?’ she cried.

The black girl clawed frantically at Astrid’s hands which were clamped round her throat like a vice. ‘I can’t talk if you choke... me,’ she gasped.

Astrid manoeuvred her victim round the desk so that she could grab her small automatic from the bag slung over the chair. Then, covering Fariah with the gun, she backed across the office and flicked the door shut with her foot.

Fariah gazed back at Astrid with calm defiance. ‘You think Salamander sent me’ she said after a tense pause. ‘I came to see Giles Kent. I have information for him.

Something really big.’

Astrid laughed cynically, walking slowly forward until just the desk was between them. ‘It’s ridiculous. Why should you help Giles?’

‘Because I hate Salamander!’ Fariah spat the name out as if it were poisonous. ‘Because I hate Salamander more deeply than any of you. Because I have something which will help to destroy him. And I want to be there,’ she murmured fervently, ‘I want to be there to see the monster’s face when he realises he is finished for ever...’

Theodore Benik’s mean eyes had lit up with anticipation when the interceptor module connected to his videophone flashed up Astrid’s transmission to Giles Kent on the screen in his office at the Kanowa Research Centre. ‘Now perhaps we shall discover what our bird-watcher is really up to,’ he muttered. But his delight turned to rage when the screen suddenly went haywire and the speaker emitted a babble of nonsense.

‘Scrambled!’ he snarled, stabbing viciously at the switches in a fruitless attempt to restore the picture or at least to get back the sound signal. Eventually he gave up and called the Security Department. It took a few seconds for the image of the duty officer to flicker onto the screen.

‘Is everyone asleep over there?’ Benik snapped. ‘Listen, the girl Astrid Ferrier is somewhere in this Zone. There is an identiprint in Records. I want her traced. Top priority.

Inform me the moment she is located.’

The guard nodded and the screen went blank. While Benik waited, he tried to occupy himself with all the reports which Salamander would insist on examining the instant he returned to Kanowa. The Deputy Director was desperately anxious to get to the bottom of Giles Kent’s activities and to prevent any trouble occuring while he was temporarily in charge of the Centre. His impatience grew with every minute that passed without news from Security.

When at last the officer flashed back onto the screen, Benik was wound up like a tight spring.

‘What the hell have you all been doing?’ he screamed.

The officer remained impassive as he informed him that Astrid Ferrier had travelled to the Central European Zone and then returned that morning.

‘Central Europe,’ Benik murmured, his eyes narrowing.

For a moment he was silent. ‘Where is she now?’ he demanded abruptly.

‘A woman of her description was seen by one of our agents entering Giles Kent’s office in Melville, sir,’ the guard replied.

‘Was she alone?’

‘Yes, sir. But shortly afterwards someone else followed her into the building.’

‘Who?’ Benik screamed, almost beside himself. ‘Who was it?’

‘The Leader’s personal food-taster, sir.’

‘Fariah,’ Benik murmured, lingering over the name menacingly. ‘I want that place surrounded at once. No one must be permitted to leave do you understand? And I want a turbocar in two minutes.’

The guard looked confused. ‘Shall I contact the WZO

police, sir?’

‘Just do as I order. Take your best men,’ Benik snapped.

The officer nodded. ‘And excuse me, sir...’

Benik was already half out of his chair. ‘What is it?’

‘Leader Salamander is expected to arrive at the orbiter terminal in one hour, sir...’

Benik snapped off the videophone so that the officer would not see his startled reaction to this surprising piece of information. Then a slow malicious smile spread gradually over his emaciated features. He rubbed his hands together with mounting excitement as he thought about the scoop he was going to achieve behind Donald Bruce’s back. ‘Poor old, Bruce. Odd how he always manages to be out of the way when there are big fish to be caught,’ he muttered as he hurried out of the office.

When the Doctor and Giles Kent reached Melville after a hair-raising drive, Astrid introduced the Doctor to an astonished Fariah, who studied Salamander’s double with fascinated disbelief. The Doctor’s first concern was for news of Jamie and Victoria, and his kindly face hardened with worry as Astrid told him that they had almost certainly been caught and that they would probably be held in Europe by Salamander’s security forces until he found time to deal with them.

‘No, you’re wrong,’ Fariah butted in vehemently,

‘Salamander doesn’t care for loose ends. He’ll bring them back here.’

The Doctor’s face brightened with relief. ‘To the Research Centre?’ he asked hopefully.

Fariah nodded. ‘Oh yes, Doctor. He will want to interrogate your two friends very thoroughly. He has all the necessary facilities at Kanowa.’

Again the Doctor’ gentle face sank into deep furrows.

All this time Giles had been eyeing the black girl suspiciously. ‘What the hell are you doing here anyway?’

he demanded.

Fariah returned his gaze unflinchingly. It was clear that she disliked Kent, but she knew they had to work together now.

‘Yes, young lady, I gather you work very closely with our Salamander friend,’ the Doctor said suddenly, turning sharply.

‘I did work for him. I was forced to,’ Fariah retorted, her eyes blazing with resentment.

Kent laughed harshly. ‘Forced! Tell the Doctor what you had done.’

The Doctor put up his hands and shook his head mildly. ‘Does it matter?’ he said quietly. ‘We are none of us perfect, Mr Kent.’

Fariah seemed to relax a little. ‘Thank you, Doctor,’ she murmured, almost managing to smile at him.

The Doctor studied her for a moment. ‘Now you wish to betray your Leader, a man who blackmailed you. You want revenge.’

‘I wish to expose a monstrous tyrant.’

‘Well, you are certainly in a unique position to do so,’

the Doctor replied thoughtfully, rubbing the side of his nose.

Fariah came over to the chair and crouched cat-like beside him. ‘I needed real proof, Doctor. Without it I would have been wasting my time. Now I have what you want,’ she announced. ‘I have proof! It concerns Nicholas Fedorin.’

Astrid turned to the Doctor with a sceptical shrug. ‘A pathetic embezzler and racketeer who committed suicide yesterday,’ she explained.

Fariah reached into her white tunic and drew out a thick wad of papers. ‘Fedorin was a petty crook. But what none of you realise is that Salamander engineered most of the frauds himself,’ she cried, flourishing the documents,

‘and here’s the proof.’

Kent swung round on her. ‘How did you get your hands on that?’ he demanded.

Fariah explained how, while she was serving Salamander’s supper the previous evening, she noticed that the clock in the Leader’s room struck the wrong number of chimes on the hour. Salamander was well known for his obsession with punctuality and she had seen him fiddling with the clock earlier in the day. So when she found herself alone in the room clearing away some time later, she had investigated, and the clockface had simply swung forward in her hands, revealing the wall-safe behind it.