Doctor Who_ Trading Futures Part 24

'I a.s.sume you're the woman who I talked to yesterday?'

Anji nodded. 'Sorry about this '

He was shaking his head. 'Wouldn't have missed this for the world.' He leant in a little closer. Anji could barely hear the next thing he said, so there was no chance Baskerville could.

'You're with the Doctor, right?'

She nodded. 'You know him?'

'I knew him, yeah. More than twenty years ago. He must be getting on a bit now?'

Anji smiled. 'He doesn't act his age.'

'Did he see his daughter again, do you know?'

Anji blinked. 'He's never mentioned a daughter.'

'I bet he never mentioned hijacking the s.p.a.ce shuttle, either?'

Anji laughed. 'He's mentioned it once or twice. I think he's proud of that.' She paused. 'You'd think he'd be proud of his daughter, too.'

'He is, miss, don't worry about that.'

The helicopter was coming in to land by a small hangar, covered in logos and signs in Russian. Or Cyrillic script, at any rate.

Baskerville had radioed ahead. There were three men on the tarmac, with a large medical*style gurney. Anji got down from the helicopter, and the three of them set to work covering the alien in a tarpaulin and lifting it out.

Baskerville and Dee ushered Cosgrove, Mather and Anji herself towards the hangar. The main doors were inching open.

'Where are we going?' the President asked.

'Somewhere we won't be disturbed,' Baskerville said. He was carrying the silver case containing the coffee machine. Dee had a bag that looked like it had that laptop of hers in it.

'Baskerville, I'm the President of the United States, you can't just '

'Mr President, if all goes to plan, then by this evening you'll be the President of Time. It's worth the risk.'

Cosgrove watched the exchange, looking amused. 'Don't worry, Felix, I've told you: I'll look after you.'

Anji looked ahead. The hangar doors were open enough to see inside now.

A black Concorde sat there, a set of steps set up alongside it.

'What the h.e.l.l?' Cosgrove asked.

'Isn't she a beauty?' Baskerville said.

'I flew on Concorde plenty of times, but '

'But you thought the last one went out of service when BA went bust? Well, it did. But I bought one, and made certain modifications.'

Cosgrove watched him carefully. 'How long is it since you arrived from the future?'

'My time machine landed several years ago. Making money is not that difficult with the knowledge and science of the future at your disposal.'

Anji couldn't help but admire Baskerville's ability as a liar. Or his taste in aircraft. She'd never ridden on Concorde before. She'd seen it sitting on the runway at Heathrow a couple of times. The matt*black colour scheme he'd picked made it look even more like some designer item like the Porsches and hi*fis Anji had grown up wanting in the eighties.

They headed up, inside the plane.

It wasn't the tallest building in the world any more.

If you cast your net a little wider, it was practically a stump the Lunar Tower, built in lower gravity, was four times taller. But the tourists still flocked to the CN tower.

The Doctor and Malady joined them. It was as good a place as any to start searching Toronto for a nuclear bomb.

The CN Tower might have been designed as aversion therapy for those suffering from vertigo. You got to the lookout level via gla.s.s*sided elevators... and the floor of the observation deck was also made of gla.s.s.

Malady didn't have a hint of vertigo. She'd climbed mountains, abseiled, flown in hang*gliders. But the gla.s.s floor was enough to make anyone a bit nervous.

Except the Doctor, who apparently hadn't noticed the floor was transparent. They'd gone outside on to the observation gallery.

'Ah... Toronto in the summer,' the Doctor sighed.

It was a beautiful city. From up here it looked like a giant Lego set. They were looking out over the new lakeside development. The lake itself was dark, flat.

'Where would you hide the atom bomb?' the Doctor asked.

'It's a civil nuclear device,' Malady explained. 'A clean nuke.'

The Doctor snorted.

'Relatively clean,' Malady conceded. 'Safer than traffic fumes or industrial waste.'

The Doctor was shaking his head, clearly not impressed by that line of logic. 'So... what are they used for?'

'Well, their use is still relatively rare. Big engineering projects, mainly. If there's a mountain in the way of a new road, that sort of thing.'

The Doctor looked around.

'No mountains,' he noted quietly. 'Perhaps they've all been levelled. Haven't the CIA told the Canadian authorities about the Prophecy?'

'They have, and they've had a security clampdown and run a whole set of safety checks on the device, to make sure it's functioning normally.'

'But they won't tell us where it is.'

'Nope. Because there's a security clampdown, they aren't telling anyone.'

The Doctor sighed. 'I suppose there's a logic to that.'

'They've told us, not in so many words, that there's only one nuke in the city. We also know they're using this one to clear the harbour.'

'That they know of,' the Doctor said. 'Still... the odds are it's the one mentioned in the Prophecy. The only one we're likely to find, anyway.'

'The Prophecy specifically said it was a civilian device.'

The Doctor nodded. 'Not a terrorist attack or a military blunder. Well, that settles it, it's got to be the one. So, how do we find it?'

Malady handed over her binoculars. 'Large warehouse, about four miles to the north.'

The Doctor peered out over the city. 'What am I looking for... ah yes.'

'We know the name of the building contractors working on the harbour project. That's a local warehouse of theirs. The only one being guarded by RealWar robots.'

They were keeping out of sight of the road, but from up here, it was easy to spot them marching around the builders' yard.

'We've got enough charge for one more time jump,' the Doctor said. 'From here, it's easy to pick precise co*ordinates.' He was already starting to fiddle with the controls on the time machine.

Malady took the binoculars back. 'We don't know what the security there is like.'

'No,' the Doctor replied patiently, 'but we do know what the consequences will be if we don't stop that nuclear device from going off.'

Malady thought about that. 'Perhaps, by warning the authorities, we've done all we needed to do?'

'I wish it was that easy. Put it this way: if the bomb... if the nuclear device nuclear device... goes off, will you be happy you did all you could?'

Malady shook her head. 'Baskerville's seen the future, can we change that?'

'We have to try. I'll put us just inside that warehouse.'

Baskerville pa.s.sed down the cabin, a bottle of champagne in hand.

Dee Gordon, Baskerville's a.s.sistant, dozed on one of the leather seats. Anji Kapoor... the enigma... was sat opposite him, sipping at her champagne.

Of those awake, only Mather abstained. It wasn't Cosgrove's idea of a stiff drink, but it was a drink and that was near enough.

'Louis Roederer Cristal,' Cosgrove told her, after his first sip. 'Not the best year, but most years are like each other, nowadays.'

'Is that because you're getting on?' Mather joked.

Cosgrove failed to see the funny side, and if Anji was amused it was only faintly. 'It's because vineyards are micro*irrigated, climate controlled and the picking is done by robots.'

Mather laughed.

The Concorde was levelling out. From the position of the sun, it looked like they were heading north*east. Over the Black Sea, then. Into Russian territory.

Cosgrove didn't like this at all. He grabbed Baskerville's arm as their host made another pa.s.s with the champagne. 'Where are we heading?'

Baskerville looked him in the eye. 'Somewhere safe. Would you rather be in Toronto?'

Anji looked up. 'Toronto's all right,' she said. 'It's a bit like New York built by the Swiss, but '

'The guide books will need updating shortly,' Baskerville told her coldly.

She was looking at him accusingly. Cosgrove frowned. What was going on there?

Who was this girl?

'Anji, why don't you and Mr Cosgrove here examine the alien?'

Fitz edged out of the control gallery.

The Onihr deputy leader had warmed to his theme of revenge and organising the destruction of the Earth.

Which was a bit annoying, because Fitz now had the teleportation device to get back down there. If it was going to be atomised a few minutes later, it hardly seemed worth it.

The couple of Onihrs he pa.s.sed barely seemed to notice him as he made his way down the transparent corridor. He wasn't entirely sure where he was heading, and it was hard work in the alien gravity.

He'd have to stop the Onihrs. That was obvious. Rather less obvious was how.

As soon as he found a quiet spot, he took the Onihr control box out. It was simple enough there were only four controls, as far as he could make out. One of them controlled the holographic disguises they wore on Earth. Another one controlled the teleportation. What the other two did was a complete mystery.

Baskerville entered the code that allowed him access to the c.o.c.kpit. Leo was there, managing the autopilot software.

'Can they catch us?' Baskerville asked.

'Impossible. Baskerville, they can't even see us.'

'Stealth technology... it's not all it's cracked up to be, you know. I've sold enough of it in my time. Any country with a mobile phone network can detect a stealth plane.'

'We're well into unmonitored territory here. Neither the Americans or the Eurozone have hypersonic jets in intercept range, and they won't launch them in the current climate, because the other side will think they've just launched a world war.'

Baskerville took his place in the co*pilot's chair. This was exactly as they'd planned. He checked the news feeds on the datanet. Tension over the Tripoli shootings. There was pressure on the Americans for the President to make a statement. But he was 'holed up in his hotel room in Istanbul'. They weren't telling anyone he'd been kidnapped. Maybe they didn't even know the Americans might think he was still at his mysterious meeting. Still, the news agenda was about to change.

'Time to deal with Toronto,' Baskerville decided. He reconfigured the co*pilot's controls for RealWar interface.

He entered the 'back door' codes that, unbeknownst to even a single one of his customers, enabled him to take any RealWar robot in the world and see through its eyes, control its every action.

He entered the unique registration code for one of the robots in Toronto.

And, on the screen in front of him, he saw the nuclear device.