Doctor Who: Drift (19 page)

‘What were you thinking? An assault on Mount Washington Observatory? What was that supposed to achieve?’ There wasn’t any useful objective she could determine, but then she realised she was thinking like a sane person. ‘Or was it one of those end of the world things, where you go climb the nearest hill and sing hymns?’

Actually, it was the weather maps that concerned her most: something in those radar pictures that didn’t look right even to her untrained eye. Unnatural patterns, which she was convinced the Doctor would be able to decipher the moment he saw them.
If
he saw them.

Jacks had already stopped hearing her. She marched right up and swung her AK. The wooden butt clubbed Joanna in the chest and she dropped in the snow, the pain hardening like concrete in her lungs.

‘That was Crayford’s idea. Something about spreading the word.’ She had the ball and she was walking away with it.

‘Now we’re going with my plan. So get up and get moving.’

Joanna struggled up from the ground. She watched Jacks heading into the landscape. There was a woman who could teach the winter a thing or two about being cold.

Leela was impressed with how smoothly Kristal had returned to practicalities. From the moment she had spoken with Captain Shaw, the scout had apparently put the storm out of her mind. It was a forgotten monster, a demon from a nightmare that vanished on waking.

Leela wanted to know more about how enemies might have used the storm to cover their advance or perhaps herd them over a precipice like Kristal had described. She knew more than she liked to admit of god-like beings wielding the forces of nature to their own ends. The invisible beasts that stalked the forest beyond the perimeter, for instance. No more than spears in the hands of the Evil One. Deadly powerful spears.

Puny, it seemed to her, in the face of the forces from which she and Kristal had just fled.

The snowmobiles lay scattered, flung against trees, or buried, their metal hides looking battered and scarred with frost. What damage it might have inflicted on her skin or even the hardy clothing she wore she could only wonder. And again she found herself thinking back to those inside walls of the scoops on board the Sandminer.

‘A soldier - a warrior,’ Kristal had told her, ‘faces two opponents in cold weather combat. One, the enemy, must be defeated, while the other, nature, should be made an ally. I’m afraid our enemy has made the weather his ally and now that too is our enemy.’

Contact with the Captain had allocated them another enemy, and Kristal believed the opposition were as much at the mercy of supernatural forces as everyone else. She declared that in pursuing the kidnappers they would at least be back on a level playing field. Leela thought she understood her meaning.

‘Marotta, how fit are you feeling?’ Kristal had most of her squad assembled in front of her, while the two exceptions unearthed the last of the snowmobiles and checked it over.

‘Fit to drop the sons of bitches who took Lieutenant Hmieleski. Ma’am.’

Ray Landers chuckled.

Along the slope, a soldier pulled on the cord that was supposed to bring Kristal’s snowmobile to life. The engine gave a mechanical gargle and died.

‘Leave it,’ Kristal ordered.

She summoned them over to hear the rest of her briefing.

Leela imagined this would be like the speeches given by a tribe’s leader to prepare the warriors for battle. But Kristal made no attempt to stir her soldiers’ spirits or fire their lust for blood.

She informed them, ‘We’re lucky. We’re down the one snowmobile. It’s probably a minor repair job, but we won’t waste time. Everybody doubles up. Sergeant Marotta will take command of the main body of the squad.’ She looked to the rugged-faced sergeant.

‘They have a head start on us, but it won’t be much.

They’ve a wounded man, according to McKim. They won’t be making more than a klick an hour.’

Marotta nodded, looking satisfied with the estimate.

‘Their heading will take them over the mountain as far as the nearest town, where they’ll probably try to get transport.

Dorrs Corner is closest, or Moultonville. There’s not a lot In it.’

‘Maybe not a lot, Lieutenant, but enough. How is a squad going to find two - three people on a mountainside? In this?’

He held up a big hand to the snow, blowing wild although without the violence of the blizzard ‘Give me a battalion. I might do it.’

‘If I had a battalion, Marotta,’ answered Kristal, ‘would I be putting you in charge?’ Leela wasn’t sure if she was joking; and neither was Marotta, by all appearances. ‘Take your men north east, cut in front of their escape path. Spread the squad in a line, say fifty yards apart. Leela and I will be making sure they come to you.’

‘We will be herding them?’ Leela jumped in. ‘Like the buffalo?’

‘Like the buffalo,’ confirmed Kristal, and Leela was pleased she’d got it right. The Doctor would have been proud of her.

Only Marotta is the precipice.’

‘I never been called that before,’ laughed Marotta, sharing it with the squad.

‘If nature has been turned against us,’ Kristal confided to Leela, as she led the way to their replacement snowmobile,

‘we can at least borrow its tactics.’

But Leela was puzzling over how they might scare their prey ahead of them. The unnatural storm had had the distinct advantage of being utterly terrifying.

* * *

Although there was nothing to see, Falvi kept hurting himself trying to look. His neck couldn’t cope with the angles, and his ruined stomach sure couldn’t. Each attempt had him collapsing back like he’d run a marathon.

McKim came marching back into view. His face was - bleak.

‘All right,’ he was shouting, ‘everyone stay where you are!

Sound off!’

‘Who was with Lester?’ Falvi needed to know.

‘Cory,’ Barnes told him quietly.

‘Sturgeon!’

‘Danciewicz!’

More nothing.

And that was it. Falvi realised: the only names to come out of the woods, up the trail to the rear. Bederman, Pelham.

Barnes and Eastman added their names to the roll call, even though McKim could see everybody here. Falvi thought about throwing his own in, but was in danger of cracking up at the idea. At the same time, notional ghosts were haunting his head.

McKim stood there letting the snow blow around him. The moment stretched. Falvi saw the Lieutenant’s grip tighten around his SMG. ‘Danciewicz, Sturgeon,’ he called into the storm, ‘get down here!’ Then he turned to the stretcher party.

‘Pelham. you’re with me. Bederman. take Eastman.’ Buddy system. ‘We have to find them.’

‘Sir.’ Pelham moved up with McKim.

Eastman and Barnes lowered Falvi gently to the ground.

Inside, he was hearing the timid voice of a frightened little boy.
Don’t go, don’t leave us,
it was begging.
Don’t leave me
alone.
He wasn’t cocooned in the sleeping bag any more, he was trapped. It was all he could do to stop himself saying the words out loud.
Don’t go!

Stupid, crazy. Don’t lose it now, Paul. Now is not the time.

McKim was looking at him. Falvi fixed on his eyes.

If he tells me to sit tight. I’ll get up and flatten him, Falvi swore. But another silent oath was sworn in the Lieutenant’s gaze. Falvi knew he’d do everything for his squad.

Determination drove the man’s every step as he turned away, taking Pelham with him. Eastman glanced over her patient, and purged her concerns with a bitten lip. She was a mouse-haired girl, didn’t have Barnes’ exotic looks. She was out of her depth and she was most likely grateful to he going, to keep herself from giving anything away to Falvi. She shouldn’t have bothered They were all out of their depth here.

Bederman gave Eastman a pat and steered her off to the right. Falvi strained his neck, intent on watching until their outlines had broken completely in the swirling snow.

He was sweating.

Ghosts come out at night.

Well, if they did they were dumb. This, here and now, up on this mountain, was their natural environment Perfect camouflage. No way you’d ever see them coming. White was hell and night would be a blessing, a release even.

Falvi tried to feel the cross at his throat. But there was hardly any weight to it and either he was as cold as the metal or his sweating had warmed it up. Was a cross any good against ghosts? He didn’t know. He guessed it depended on what the ghosts wanted.

‘Barnes,’ he spoke to snap himself out of it. She was crouching down at his feet, the rifle off her shoulder and cradled in her lap. She said. ‘Yeah?’

‘You love that husband of yours?’

‘I don’t think I see him enough to know.’

‘But he treats you right? He doesn’t cheat on you or anything?’

She looked his way, an arch smile in the making. ‘We have a policy: don’t ask, don’t tell.’

‘You ask me, that’s no kind of serious relationship.’

The smile grew by the smallest degree. ‘Get some rest, Falvi.’

Falvi tensed, spoiling the mood he’d worked so hard to generate. ‘Danciewicz and Sturgeon should have been through here by now.’

‘Don’t
create
threats,’ Barnes warned, faintly edgy. ‘They could have passed down twenty yards thataway,’ she jerked her thumb aft, ‘and we wouldn’t have seen them even if we’d been looking in that direction.’

Falvi stared straight up. The wind blew screens of static across his vision.

‘Lieutenant! Sir!’ The voice rode up the mountain on the same wind.

Pelham?

Whoever’s voice it was, a burst of automatic fire came right after it.

The Doctor passed along the street almost unnoticed, taking enormous strides as handfuls of locals watched elite troops laying siege to their village shop.

He saw little point in running. What with the Army, the Central Intelligence Agency and the local Police Chief, this town was overflowing with official bodies capable of respond-ing to a shooting incident. Still, given that there had been no more shots following the first two, it was exceedingly unlikely there would be any lives to be saved.

No, far better to postpone his arrival till Captain Shaw finished capturing the building, or whatever it was he hoped to achieve with all those soldiers. Hm.

The Doctor glanced around, trying to pick out what he could between the buildings and trees.

His intuition hadn’t betrayed him: the storm was thickening, like thick soup poured down the mountainside around the outskirts of the town. The winds were blowing harder, sweeping great plumes of snowflakes into the streets.

Leela would be finding her adaptability and survival instincts tested to the limit up there. At least she was in safe hands.

White Shadow troops were on guard at the store, keeping a small group of civilians at bay while Lieutenant Beard offered them reassurances that everything was perfectly okay and there was nothing to see. The Doctor had his doubts. For now though, he was alone in finding something of interest opposite the store.

A brisk jaunt across the street took him to the lone truck, a civilian four-wheel drive affair, conspicuous only in that it had not been there when he had arrived with the Army.

Unlikely that government agents would have left anything too informative lying around in an unguarded vehicle. Still, the opportunity to find more details of the CIA operation here -

without the need for all that verbal duelling with Captain Shaw - was simply too good to pass up. Especially as the agents’ arrival was such a surprise to the Captain.

That the vehicle was locked was a very minor deterrent, given all that the Doctor could see through the lace-curtain of frost drawn over the windows.

Making sure Lieutenant Beard and his troops were properly focused on their job, the Doctor tried not to look too furtive as he picked the lock on the rear door. Within moments he was clambering inside and pulling the door closed.

Settling hack, he cast his gaze over the treasures littering the seat beside him.

He riffled through some of the documents, quietly absorbing the top few pages of each; but most appeared to be dossiers on members or suspected members of the cult. He turned over a few of the gadgets, examining each with expert indifference.

Amongst all the leading edge surveillance and communications equipment, there was a graviton distortion sensor that was definitely not standard CIA issue.

As well as a raised brow, it prompted the Doctor to wonder unhappily about the number of spacecraft the authorities mast have plundered. The Doctor considered confiscating it: the device was a possible - if imprecise - means of locating the TARDIS.

He returned it to the pile for now, and turned instead to the genuine prize of the cache, lifting it onto his lap and flipping back the screen. He wouldn’t have a lot of time.

Rummaging through his pockets, he wondered if he happened to be carrying any kind of power cell he could readily adapt. He imagined CIA agents were the sort of people who might monitor battery usage on their laptop computers fairly closely Even if they were relatively careless with their storage arrangements.