Doctor Who_ Trading Futures Part 30

'Handy to know,' another voice chimed in.

An old man in an expensive, fas.h.i.+onable business suit. He looked about eighty, the lines and wrinkles in his face were an inch deep, his hair was neat, but thin. But his eyes were sharp and he seemed unaffected by the cold.

'Who?' Relker asked.

'Cosgrove. Jonah Cosgrove,' the old man replied, as he broke Oleson's neck.

Relker brought his gun up, aimed it and fired.

But Cosgrove had gone.

Chapter Eighteen.

Boom and Bust Mather and Anji had a grandstand seat.

The complex consisted of three areas. The nearest was the runway their Concorde sat on, hangars and what were other support buildings for the airstrip. Beyond that, larger, more industrial*looking buildings. A factory, or warehouses at the very least. Beyond that, smaller buildings office s.p.a.ce, accommodation blocks. It was a compact site, no more than a dozen buildings in total.

Anji tried to figure the place out. She couldn't see a road now she was looking, she couldn't see any car parks. So, you got here by air. Which fitted in with the isolation of the place. This really was the middle of nowhere. Almost all around was nondescript moorland. Flat, with a couple of lonely*looking trees in the middle distance. No sign of any other habitation, or even agriculture. Not even planes in the sky. Through the windows on the right side of the plane, they could see the runway had been built a short distance from a cliff edge, although it was difficult to see how high the cliffs were.

Although that side would be easy enough to defend, the complex looked more like a light industrial site than a military one. Now, somewhere there was clearly an anti*aircraft battery they had been shot at. But this wasn't a fortress. The buildings were made from corrugated metal and flimsy*looking concrete slabs. There wasn't even a perimeter fence. The men surrounding the plane weren't in uniform, they looked like mercenaries, or paramilitaries. Its best defence was its isolation.

Anji had watched as the tank the same type of s.h.i.+ny, egg*shaped vehicle she'd seen on the news back in that Ibiza restaurant came out of the hangar building. At first, both she and Mather had a.s.sumed it was simply reinforcing the men guarding their plane.

They'd been a little surprised to spot Cosgrove outside. Neither of them had seen him leave, or had any idea how he'd got down from the plane. He'd managed to find cover, and edge towards what looked like the command post, near the hangar door.

Then the tank had started firing at the soldiers on the runway.

It had three guns, which all operated independently, and found their targets. Anji was fascinated by the efficiency of the thing until she remembered she was watching men die.

Mather didn't understand what was going on. It was too soon for his air force to arrive, let alone for robots to be deployed.

Anji quickly worked out it must be Baskerville in control, working from a computer on board the Concorde.

Within a minute, Dee and Leo came into the cabin, carrying pistols. 'We're moving out once the runway is secured,' Dee announced.

Mather leant over to Anji. 'If we get a chance, we have to disable the AAA system here.'

She worked out he meant anti*aircraft artillery before she opened her mouth to ask. 'How would we go about that?'

'There will be a radar post somewhere close by. We should aim to disable that.'

Dee was opening up the front door on the left side of the plane. She had already c.o.c.ked her pistol. Now she was using the door as cover, waiting for her moment.

'What is this place?' Anji asked.

'It's a robot factory,' the Doctor whispered.

He and Malady were right on the edge of the factory floor. Mechanised production lines were a.s.sembling RealWar robots, conveyor belts stretching hundreds of feet. The line nearest to them was a.s.sembling the cla.s.s threes, the humanoid type. There was something compelling about the process it was perfect ch.o.r.eography, almost like a dance routine. Arm moves into place, welder emerges, welder welds, welder withdraws, robot moves on to next stage.

Malady was watching this with more practical things on her mind. 'It's the RealWar factory.'

'Does this mean you know where we are?'

'No. We knew RealWar was a Russian company, but the location of its offices and research centres are a closely guarded secret. Most of Russia is unmonitored. It's either too isolated or too poor for satellites to bother with. There are whole areas of the map without data presence.'

'And I imagine your governments don't want every inch of the planet under surveillance. Where would they hide their own little secrets, hmm?'

Malady didn't look back at the Doctor. 'The CIA have looked for the RealWar factories, but we've not had much luck.'

'This isn't the only factory?'

'No one knows, but I doubt it.'

'Any idea why Baskerville is here? Could he be supplying the technology?'

'Possibly. It would explain how he pays his bills.'

'A time traveller could find other ways to make money,' the Doctor insisted. 'Instead of prophesying the results of football matches to convince investors, he could just bet on them.'

The Doctor hesitated, watched the production lines again for a moment, got caught up in the rhythm and movement.

'He could have a more sinister purpose for travelling to the past,' he muttered.

'Sinister?'

'Well, from this vantage point he looks remarkably like an arms dealer. With the Americans and Europeans on the verge of war, this could be the best possible time to come back to and sell weapons.'

'RealWar robots aren't that advanced.'

'They don't need to be. It's state of the art, but you only need to be a year or two ahead of your enemy, particularly with something that changes the rules. The development of the dreadnought made all existing navies irrelevant, the development of the atomic bomb s.h.i.+fted strategy towards attacking civilian targets. Or rather not not attacking them. The whole emphasis s.h.i.+fted to preventing the start of a war no one could win. If you have teletroops and missile defence, it's a lot easier to fight a war.' attacking them. The whole emphasis s.h.i.+fted to preventing the start of a war no one could win. If you have teletroops and missile defence, it's a lot easier to fight a war.'

Malady looked at him, clearly disturbed. 'It looks like we have to stop him, whatever he's doing.'

'Agreed.'

They heard firing.

'The people on the Concorde are making a break for it.'

Relker was behind the hover tank, now, out of its sight. He edged back towards the main hangar. Once inside, he tucked himself behind a brick wall, and got his radio out. Three more cla.s.s twos sat motionless here. They were always there garaged along with the three helicopters and the two light planes. But Relker kept one eye on them, mindful now that they could come to life at any moment.

'Baskerville,' he hissed into the radio. 'Baskerville, what the h.e.l.l is going on?'

Outside, the hover tank was concentrating on a group of four men who'd dug in and were covering the main door of the aircraft.

A grenade arced over, bounced off the armoured sh.e.l.l, then clattered away. It exploded a few seconds later, blowing a chunk out of the tarmac.

The tank was the only thing firing bullets.

Relker changed channel. 'Keep under cover!' he ordered his men. 'There's a malfunction. I'm going to the teletroop control room. Everyone just keep their heads down.'

Malfunction. The tank was functioning fine. Making short work of his men. And if they hadn't realised they should be keeping their heads down without him telling them, then they didn't deserve to have heads in the first place.

He hurried further inside the building, heading for Baskerville's office. It wasn't far. To get there faster, he could cut past the production lines.

Relker headed that way, swiped his way past two security doors. Once the second of those was closed again, he could no longer hear the gunfire, all the other sounds were drowned out by the clatter of the factory floor.

He cut across them by climbing the metal stairs to the gantry. Down on the factory floor, he saw someone moving. Not one of his men Cosgrove, presumably. He'd have to be dealt with, but first things first.

Relker flung open the door to Baskerville's office, ready for anything.

What he found instead was nothing.

The RealWar booth in the corner, the only possible place in the complex from where the hover tank that was killing his men could be controlled. A cursory examination was enough to tell that it hadn't been on recently.

So what was controlling that tank? Was it just some malfunction, after all?

The office was empty. The light was on.

Baskerville and the Chinese girl, his a.s.sistant, weren't here.

So where were they?

No. First things first stop the tank. He moved over the terminal, switched it on, and while he waited a few seconds for it to boot up, he went back to the door and barricaded it with the filing cabinet and desk.

The booth was running. He set it to the simplest control interface, found the rogue hovertank.

Then he was hoisted out of the chair and slammed against the wall.

Cosgrove.

'A word to the wise,' he said, in Russian with a thick Scots accent, 'if you lock a door, what's on the side you're on is far more important than what's on the side you aren't.'

'I saw you down on the factory floor.'

He looked puzzled. 'I didn't even know this was a factory; I came in through the window. Is that thing working?' he indicated the RealWar booth.

'Yes.'

Cosgrove knocked him out.

Baskerville sat in the c.o.c.kpit of the Concorde, controlling the hovertank.

He paid for two dozen men to guard this facility. Which meant there were probably about fifteen. There were ten scientists, various a.s.sistants, a few support staff there to look after the autosecs, cleaning robots and food dispensers. He wouldn't expect any of those to put up a fight.

Even his mercenaries, who were meant to be there ready for the day the authorities discovered this place, were keeping down. They'd been hopeless against one cla.s.s two tank. The whole point about the RealWar armies was that the robots were expendable, and dropped on to a battlefield in great numbers. A girls' hockey team should be able to immobilise one one of them. of them.

So he had no regrets in gunning the men down. They were incompetents.

He turned the tank about twenty degrees. Now he was facing a couple of them, huddled behind a crate.

Crosshairs appeared on the screen, and Baskerville decided to fire a couple of shots to the left with the secondary cannon, before strafing the right with machine gun fire. His guess was that they'd instinctively dive out of the way of the first volley... and into the second.

A competent soldier would know to stay where they were. So this was simple Darwinism if these people really were soldiers, they would survive.

He pressed the switch that fired the secondary cannon.

Nothing happened.

The signal was lost. They'd finally got around to jamming him.

Time to move out.

Anji and Mather sat still, waiting to see what happened next.

Dee was still by the front door, unable to move for fear of sniper fire. Outside, they could hear the hovertank moving, but it was a few minutes now since it had fired a shot.

Anji stood up.

Dee was whispering something into her radio she sounded unhappy.

Anji strained to hear. 'It's not secure,' Dee insisted. 'We have twenty, thirty metres of runway, then a hangar then... well, who knows how far to the computer room?'

She paused, the radio hissed its response.

'We stay here,' she hissed.

Anji edged away.

Dee looked over. 'Where are you going?'

'Er... it was a long flight, and I had a lot of champagne and coffee.'

'OK. But be quick.'