Dancing the Code Part 3

He turned a dial. The apparatus bleeped a few times, with a steadily rising pitch, then gave a loud pop and issued a cloud of smoke and sparks.

The Doctor retreated, coughing.

Jo and the Brigadier glanced at each other.

'Look, Doctor,' Jo began again. 'Don't you think it's more likely that there's something wrong with that - that device, whatever it was, than that the Brigadier's going to shoot us?'

The Doctor stared at Jo, then at the Brigadier, slowly shook his head.

'That "device",' he said, 'is a Personal Time-line Prognosticator.

The projection is based on a formula given to me by a friend of mine on Venus, many years ago. It's always worked before - there's no possibility of error. What we saw, however improbable it might seem, actually has a probability considerably greater than ninety-nine per cent. The Brigadier is going to shoot you, Jo, and then he's going to shoot me. Both of us are going to die.' He turned on his heel, opened the TARDIS door. 'Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to try and find out why.'

He stepped into the TARDIS and closed the door behind him.

Three.

The press conference was crowded - but then it would be, thought Catriona. It's not every day that a country loses half its army in the desert. She peered around the big, white-roofed hall of the Ministry of Information Press Room, saw only a crush of heads and jackets and s.h.i.+rts. Somewhere in the middle of it loomed the tall frame and sticky-out ears of Gordon Hamill, the Scottish Daily Record Scottish Daily Record correspondent. He was already waving his press pa.s.s in the air even though no one had appeared on the platform as yet, let alone said they were ready for questions. correspondent. He was already waving his press pa.s.s in the air even though no one had appeared on the platform as yet, let alone said they were ready for questions.

She pressed herself further into the sweaty crush, was rewarded by not being able to see at all. She cursed herself for being late, but she hadn't had much choice. It had taken over two hours to set up the call to UNIT, being pa.s.sed from one operator to another, waiting to be phoned back, finally shouting at that poor English captain, 'Captain Deveraux is dead dead and this is a b.l.o.o.d.y emergency!' But at least once he'd realized what the situation was he'd seemed to know what he was doing. She hadn't meant to shout at him, but she was still shaken up by the events of the previous night. Christ, anyone would be, she thought. She remembered the smell of roses and cloves, felt her stomach heave. and this is a b.l.o.o.d.y emergency!' But at least once he'd realized what the situation was he'd seemed to know what he was doing. She hadn't meant to shout at him, but she was still shaken up by the events of the previous night. Christ, anyone would be, she thought. She remembered the smell of roses and cloves, felt her stomach heave.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned, rather faster than was necessary, smiled when she saw the broad, rea.s.suring figure of Bernard Silvers. The BBC's Man On The Spot smiled back, put a steering hand on her arm.

'Saved you a seat,' he said. 'Thought you looked a bit hara.s.sed.'

'Hara.s.sed wasn't half of it,' said Catriona, making a conscious decision as she spoke not to mention Anton Deveraux or UNIT.

'Benari cancelled my b.l.o.o.d.y interview, of course; and then my revered Editor was out to lunch when I rang and the only person in the office was Andy Skeonard, who left school about last month and probably thinks Kebiria is a sort of Greek salad dressing. G.o.d help him if he gets my story wrong.'

They began to edge around the crowd. To Catriona's amus.e.m.e.nt, Bernard said 'excuse me' to every person they came within about three feet of, instead of just using his elbows like everyone else.

Amazingly, it worked. It must be the BBC manner, she thought; I'd never get away with it in a million years.

Bernard's reserved seats were at the front. His cameraman and sound tech were occupying them, but got up when Bernard and Catriona arrived, muttering something about exterior shots.

'Won't let them film in the building,' explained Bernard. 'Suppose they think we might point the camera to the right, or something.'

Catriona decided that this was supposed to be a joke; the Kebirian government was, theoretically at least, left-wing. She managed a slightly forced grin.

Above them, a figure had walked on to the platform and was fiddling with the microphone. A dull booming sounded from the speakers at the back of the room. The man nodded to himself and walked off again.

There was a long interval, during which Catriona checked out her ca.s.sette recorder for the fourth or fifth time. It seemed to be okay.

Voices rose once more behind her, then abruptly fell silent.

Catriona looked up, saw a man in a suit standing on the platform. His face - smooth, round, with large round spectacles - looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn't immediately put a name to it. She glanced at Bernard, frowned.

'Sadeq Zalloua,' he muttered. 'Benari's science man.'

Zalloua stood there, biting at his fingers like a nervous child. Then he nodded suddenly, half sat in a chair, then got up again, glancing into the wings. Catriona followed his glance, saw the Information Minister Seeman Al-Azzem and the Prime Minister's spokesman Abdallah Haj walking on to the stage to join Zalloua. All three of them remained standing, which was odd.

Then Catriona saw the familiar stern face and thin black moustache of Khalil Benari, the Prime Minister himself. He glanced around the hall, his expression impa.s.sive, his eyes sharp, then stepped on to the platform. A speculative whisper ran through the gathered reporters.

Catriona felt her own heart quickening; Benari's presence meant that there might be some real news, not just Al-Azzem's standard evasions.

But the Prime Minister only walked slowly to a chair and sat down.

Haj and Zalloua sat down beside their Prime Minister, but Al-Azzem remained standing, arms folded, until there was silence in the hall.

When he was satisfied, he began speaking into the microphone.

'Many of you will have heard rumours of a grave defeat by our forces in the Hatar-Sud district yesterday.' He paused, grinned widely, showing white, even teeth. 'Well, it is not true.'

There were some snorts of derision in the hall; of course, no one had expected him to admit the full extent of the disaster, even though the Defence Ministry had as good as confirmed it that morning by admitting that several brigades were missing.

Al-Azzem held up his hand, still grinning. 'However, we have lost some men.' A pause: silence. 'It is why we lost the men that is important.' Another pause. 'The twenty-fifth brigade were engaged on anti-terrorist duty in the Hatar-Sud district yesterday when they were attacked and destroyed by an unknown weapon. We are reasonably sure that this weapon was provided by the Libyans, since its capacities are clearly beyond those of anything possessed by the terrorists. The Libyan amba.s.sador has been summoned - '

It went on, in a rather predictable fas.h.i.+on, but Catriona wasn't listening. The Libyans Libyans? It didn't make any sense. It was true that the Libyans gave some a.s.sistance to the Giltean Arab Front in the east, but that was pretty minimal and only in the hope that a GAF government would turn out to be pro-Libyan. The FLNG - the Al-Naemis' group - would have nothing to do with the Libyans, regarding them as even more anti-democratic than Benari.

And anyway, Catriona knew that the Al-Naemis knew nothing about the mysterious weapon. Unless - Unless Mohammad had made up that legend on the spot, to cover the fact that he knew exactly what was happening to Anton Deveraux, and exactly why his body had to be burned.

Catriona remembered the honey-like substance, streaked with blood, flowing over her boots. Germ warfare, she thought. Or chemical. I nearly became a test case for the latest version of Agent Orange. Jesus, I could still be a test case if Mohammad's precautions didn't work.

Suddenly the air in the hall, which had seemed hotter than comfortable up till now, felt cold. Goose b.u.mps rose on Catriona's skin. She looked around at the ranks of faces staring at the platform, the microphones on clips, the potted palms growing against the walls.

I shouldn't even be here, she thought. I should be in a hospital being checked out, Christ why didn't I ask that UNIT guy something about it, why didn't I make him tell me what I should do - She noticed that there was a silence on the platform. She knew she must have missed something, wasn't sure what, suddenly didn't care.

She got up. 'Talliser, the Journal Journal, London. I have a question.'

Al-Azzem stared down at her. 'You always have questions, Miss Talliser. Go ahead.' He gave another of his broad grins. There was some laughter in the hall. Ordinarily Catriona would have been angry, because she knew that Al-Azzem was implying that she was curious because she was a woman, and that some of the male journalists in the hall agreed with that view. But at the moment she was too frightened to care.

She swallowed, made a conscious effort to control her panic. 'Is there any evidence that this unknown weapon may have been bacteriological or chemical in nature?'

There was a muttering in the hall. Catriona heard the word 'bacteriological' being echoed in whispers all around her.

Al-Azzem frowned, looked round at Zalloua. The science advisor bit at his fingers again, then leaned over to Benari and muttered something. The Prime Minister frowned, then got up and walked slowly to the microphone. His eyes flashed from the hall to his advisors, lingered on Zalloua.

Catriona tried to meet his eyes but Benari avoided her gaze, staring instead at some point in mid-air towards the back of the hall.

'Yes, Miss Talliser,' he said. 'There is a suggestion that such -' he hesitated '- unorthodox weapons have been used. We cannot say anything further at the moment, in the absence of any definite evidence.'

'You say you don't have any evidence? What about the report of the UNIT North Africa representative, Anton Deveraux?' It was a long shot; she had no idea whether such a report existed. But the Captain had to have been investigating something - and had been killed for his pains.

Benari frowned and glanced once more at Zalloua, who shook his head. 'No comment,' said the Prime Minister briskly.

They know something they don't want to tell us, thought Catriona.

From the rising murmurs around her in the hall, she knew that she wasn't the only one who'd spotted that.

Benari stepped back from the microphone, gestured fiercely at Al-Azzem who shuffled forward and took his place, still smiling broadly.

There were shouts from the hall. Catriona heard the words 'cover up'.

Maybe, she thought.

'Yes, Mr Hamill?' said Al-Azzem at last.

Wrong reporter, thought Catriona. Gordon Hamill won't let it drop.

Sure enough, the Scotsman didn't.

'What precisely does Monsieur Benari mean when he says "a suggestion", Monsieur Al-Azzem? Either the weapons have been used or they haven't. Surely that's obvious.'

Al-Azzem glanced at Benari, gave his usual grin. 'We're really not ready to comment on that at the moment, Mr Hamill,' he said, politely enough - but Catriona could hear the edge of anger in his voice, and knew that this Press Conference was likely to be wrapped up quickly without any further revelations.

Right, she thought, let's really throw the pigeon amongst the cats.

She stood up, shouted over the growing uproar in the hall: 'Monsieur Zalloua - if I could ask you please -' She was gratified to see the science advisor jump nervously. '- I'd like to know if you know of anything that could kill someone by swelling their body to twice the normal size -' as the noise grew around her, she repeated the last words, at the top of her voice '- twice normal size, and turning their flesh into something like honey.'

Zalloua stood up. 'And where exactly have you heard of such an agent, Miss Talliser?' he asked. His voice was quavery, weak: he sounded genuinely worried, almost frightened.

'I saw Mr Deveraux killed by it last night!' bawled Catriona.

There was sudden, absolute silence in the hall. Into it, someone shouted, 'Deveraux -' Then silence again.

Zalloua glanced at Al-Azzem, got up and walked off the platform very quickly.

Al-Azzem forgot to grin this time. 'I don't think we can comment on that one.'

Uproar in the hall. Catriona heard fragments of shouted questions.

'But if they're using - '

'- Geneva convention - '

'- Libya would not countenance any such - '

Catriona saw Benari stand up, wave a hand dismissively at the audience.

'I'm afraid that's all for today.' Al-Azzem's voice boomed from the speakers: someone had clearly turned the volume up. 'We will give you more information as soon as we have it.'

Catriona knew that was it. She got up, turned and walked out of the hall. She was conscious of the hundreds of pairs of eyes on her, the shouted questions now directed at herself, of Bernard's hand on her arm. She ignored it all, shook Bernard off in the lobby, ran out through the huge bra.s.s doors, across the wide lawns and into the street.

She took three deep breaths, looked from side to side. People were going about their ordinary business, hurrying up and down the pavement under the orange trees. A big car with CD plates and darkened windows swished past her. Bernard's film crew were chatting to a French crew in a mixture of languages beneath the marble statue of Khalil Benari that stood in the middle of the lawn.

Catriona took a good look at it, at all of it, at the grey sky, and wondered if she were seeing it for the last time. If she had unwittingly killed everyone in the Press Room, was infecting everyone here in the street, in the city, just by breathing - Hospital, she thought. I need to get to a hospital. But what will they know about germ warfare? I'd only be putting them at risk. Perhaps I could contact specialists - but who the h.e.l.l would know anything about it? The MoD in London? I should get to the emba.s.sy, explain the situation - But she did nothing, just walked on, following the long curve of the boulevard as the sun gradually broke through the clouds. Slowly, her panic subsided.

That stuff killed a thousand men and it must have killed them quickly, she thought. If I'm still standing twelve hours on, I'm okay.

I've got to be b.l.o.o.d.y okay. Besides, Tahir didn't look too worried.

Not as if he thought I was going to die - certainly not as if he thought that he was going to die. And he knew all about it. He must have done.

She was sure of that much: the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Tallies elaborate denial that the FLNG had anything to do with the missing men. Mohammad's 'legend', so contrived, so improbable. The Kebirian government's evident confusion at being struck from so unexpected a quarter.

'- dancing the code dancing the code - ' - '

She remembered the voice as she had heard it on the ca.s.sette recorder, played back several times in her hotel room that afternoon.

Faint, scratchy, almost inaudible under the tape hiss.

Anton Deveraux couldn't have known what Mohammad was going to say. Which meant that - Catriona shook her head. She couldn't work out what it meant, except that it was all more complicated than she'd first imagined.

Perhaps the UN were in on it. Perhaps the man hadn't been Deveraux at all, but had been wearing his uniform. Perhaps he had been a spy for Benari's government. Or for someone else. Pieces of theories chased each other round in her head, argued with each other.

With a start she realized that she'd walked all the way back to the concrete tower of the Hotel du Capital, where most of the press corps in Kebir City stayed. Rather to her surprise there was no one outside the porch except a company of Kebirian soldiers. A gold-braided captain stood in front of them, looking around him as if he owned the place. She walked up to him, past him - 'Catriona Talliser?'