Doctor Who: The Invasion (8 page)

Vaughn's face darkened. 'I don't understand his motive,' he pondered, 'Unless he's just playing for time.'

Packer seized the receiver and punched a few digits with his gloved knuckle. 'Packer. Cover all lift doors. Two men on each floor.

Now. Move,' he rapped.

Vaughn shaded his eyes, his sensibilities offended by his Deputy's hysterical behaviour. 'Calm clown, Packer, our birds can't fly away,' he protested quietly.

They waited, Vaughn expressionless and unblinking, Packer tense and fidgetting. Eventually the service telephone buzzed. Packer answered.

'Right. Send it down to the basement,' he instructed.

Two armed and visored security guards came clattering down the concrete emergency stairs next to the elevator shaft just as the indicator light lit up. They levelled their machine pistols as the lift doors opened.

Packer stared open-mouthed into the empty car. 'They've vanished... just vanished!' he whined. 'Did it stop anywhere on the way down?' he rapped into the telephone. 'No? You sure?' he demanded shrilly.

'Come here, Packer,' Vaughn called wearily from inside the lift.

Dry-throated and sweating, Packer obeyed. Vaughn was pointing to the trapdoor. Packer's eyes narrowed to slits of glittering malice.

'I'll get them, sir... I'll get them,' Packer vowed, dabbing his cheese-coloured forehead with his sleeve.

'Call me when you do. I'll he in my office,' Vaughn ordered, walking despairingly out of the lift. 'And try not to lose them...'

Smarting from his master's sarcastic taunt in front of the two guards, Packer pulled back his cuff and viciously spat orders into his miniature radio. 'Packer. They're in the shaft. Get men onto the roof immediately.' He hesitated a moment, his nose slowly puckering into a sneer of malicious anticipation. 'And tell the engineer to take the lift right to the top. Now!' he added, beckoning the two guards into the car with him.

Furiously clambering up through the dusty, greasy darkness, Jamie and the Doctor desperately redoubled their efforts when they heard the terrifying clanks and whirrings as the lift became operational again and the cables started whipping and clattering only a few centimetres away from them. Above them the electric motor whined inexorably and below them the grinding of wheels and the shrieking of bearings rose relentlessly towards them.

'Quick, Jamie... Quick...' the Doctor gasped feebly from the rickety ladder beneath him. 'It's catching us up.'

At last Jamie reached the metal gantry supporting the winding gear. 'McCrimmons for ever...' he whooped, wrenching open the steel door in the concrete housing and bursting onto the flat roof. The Doctor struggled out after him and they lay on their backs for a few seconds, gratefully gulping the cool fresh air. Suddenly the harsh whining ceased abruptly and there was a final numbing clang as the lift hit its buffer-stops, sending a red-hot shiver through their exhausted bodies.

Then the Doctor jumped up. 'Come on, Jamie,' he panted, stumbling across to the parapet and looking over the edge at the dizzying drop below.

'Och, just a wee minute...' Jamie pleaded, moaning with fatigue.

'No time to lose,' yelled the Doctor, climbing over the parapet and disappearing.

Jamie sat bolt upright, a stifled scream blocking his throat.

Dumb with horror, he limped across the roof, scarcely daring to look down. To his relief he saw that the Doctor was running down a fire-escape fitted in the angle of the L-shaped building.

'Come on, Jamie, they'll be up there any minute.'

Jamie shut his eyes and dragged himself over the parapet. As he started slithering down the metal staircase a blood-curdling chorus of howling sirens broke out all around the complex...

Packer stood dejectedly in front of Vaughn's desk, his uniform torn and his face streaked with dirt. 'They must have gone down the fire escape, sir...' he mumbled, concluding his pathetic report.

Vaughn shook his head very, very slowly, rising to his feet and gazing out over his empire spread before him. Suddenly he punched a fist into his open palm and rounded on his Deputy. 'I want the Doctor and the boy,' he said in an awful, hushed voice.

There was silence. Then Packer swallowed. 'The whole compound's on alert, sir. It's only a matter of time.' Vaughn uttered a short derisive laugh.

Packer's bottled up frustration suddenly erupted. 'You should have let me deal with them properly right at the start,' he snarled accusingly. 'And if you'd only obey our allies' orders...'

'Orders, Packer?' Vaughn echoed, moving up to him. 'I told you before; I don't obey orders, I give them.'

Packer stared at him like a mesmerised animal. 'But you can't fight
them
!' he spluttered.

Vaughn smiled blandly. 'The invasion will be under my control and when it is successfully accomplished I shall remain supreme,' he declared confidently. 'Why do you suppose I keep that senile old fool Watkins alive?'

'To work on his machine.'

'Our allies are extremely disturbed by the Professor's machine,'

Vaughn revealed. 'They ordered me to destroy the prototype.'

Packer gazed at his Director in astonishment. 'They are afraid of it?'

'Oh, its teaching function doesn't worry them, but when we generated some emotion pulses...' Vaughn paused dramatically, savouring Packer's bewilderment. 'I am convinced that the emotional pulses could be used to destroy our allies,' he concluded.

Packer looked thoroughly rattled. 'That's just a guess,' he muttered.

Vaughn shook his head slyly. 'No, it's a reasonable gamble,' he argued, 'and we're playing for very high stakes, are we not?'

Packer licked his tacky lips. 'You're taking too big a chance,'

he croaked.

Vaughn moved even closer to him, his pale eyes boring like lasers. 'Do you want to be totally converted, Packer?' he whispered hoarsely. 'Do you want to become inhuman? One of them?'

Packer tried to step back but his legs were like jelly.

Vaughn pursued his fear relentlessly. 'That's what will happen to us if they take over. We shall cease to be human. However, we can make use of their force to conquer the world and then discard them at our leisure,' he proposed, as casually as if he were describing a parlour game.

After a pause Packer grinned faintly. 'You're sure Watkins's device can do it?'

Vaughn shrugged indifferently. 'If we obtain the Doctor's travel machine we can escape if necessary.'

'Insurance?'

'Precisely, Packer,' Vaughn grinned, patting his arm. 'And speaking of insurance, have the two girls arrived?'

Packer informed him that they should be on their way over to the Administration Building.

'Excellent,' Vaughn approved. 'When they are safely tucked away we shall flush out our clever Doctor.'

All at once a high-pitched bleeping sounded from Packer's wrist. He held the minute radio to his ear. As he listened, his face quickly twisted with apprehension and anger.

'There's an unidentified helicopter in the area and Perimeter Security report strangers sighted near the compound,' he informed his master, shifting uneasily in anticipation of Vaughn's reaction. 'I think the Doctor may be connected to the UNIT organisation. What are we going to do, sir?'

Vaughn went to the window and scanned the skies. 'Nothing,'

he snapped.

Packer was astounded. 'Nothing at all, sir?'

'They cannot hurt us, Packer,' Vaughn assured him in an almost unnatural voice. 'Just leave this to me...'

Thanks to their memory of the layout of the complex seen from Vaughn's office window, Jamie and the Doctor managed to reach the railway sidings very quickly without being spotted. They shut themselves inside a freight wagon and flopped down between the containers to recover their breath. All around them sirens droned their eerie alert and they soon heard the tramping of boots outside as Packet's men searched the yard.

'D'ye think this could be the train Zoe and Isobel were on?'

Jamie whispered.

The Doctor considered a moment. 'If it is then these crates should be empty, Jamie.'

Jamie knelt up. 'Soon see,' he grunted, heaving at the lid of the nearest container. Slowly it swung open. He could just distinguish a bulky outline in a kind of plastic material surrounded by dense cobweb filaments, like a cocoon lying in the darkness. 'Och, these are full,' he said, disappointed.

The Doctor crawled over and peered into the crate. His face went rigid and he bit his lip uncertainly. 'I wonder what it is...'

Sudden voices outside silenced him. 'Search these wagons!'

someone shouted and they heard the ominous sound of wagon doors opening.

'Quick, Jamie, hide,' warned the Doctor, jamming himself into a tiny niche between the stacks of containers. Jamie searched around feverishly for somewhere for himself. All at once the handle of the door was wrenched back and the heavy door started to slide open. In sheer desperation Jamie clambered into the open container and pulled down the lid in the nick of time. There was just room for him squeezed betwen the lid and the strange object underneath. He lay motionless, scracely breathing while the guards searched the wagon.

Suddenly he felt a slight movement beneath him and heard a faint brittle rustling, like dead leaves in a breeze. Instantly a clammy cold sweat broke out all over his body and tiny hot needles seemed to prick his neck and scalp. He fought to stifle a scream of terror and the urge to jump out of the crate. In the end he hardly knew whether it was his own quaking or something else that was really moving underneath him. The nightmare seemed eternal, but eventually he heard the wagon door slide shut and all was quiet again.

The Doctor crept out and opened the lid.

'Doctor..

'Ssssh, Jamie, the guards are still outside.'

Jamie climbed out, his teeth chattering with fright. 'That thing in there... it moved!' he whispered.

The Doctor stared at the cocoon thing and shook his head.

'Imagination. Jamie. Darkness plays strange tricks.'

'But I
felt
it, Doctor.'

The Doctor looked sceptical. 'Are you sure? Then we'd better take a look.'

At that moment there was a commotion outside. 'Sangster and Graves, get those girls over to Administration pronto...' someone shouted.

'The lassies!' Jamie hissed, forgetting the horror of the last few minutes and making for the door.

The Doctor grabbed his sleeve. 'Wait. Jamie. Let things quieten down out there, then we'll go and find them.'

Reluctantly Jamie obeyed, but his blood was up and his blue eyes sparkled with aggressive determination.

As soon as the guards had gone, they emerged cautiously from the freight wagon and then sprinted hell-for-leather along the narrow alleyways between the huge factory buildings towards the Administration Block. The sirens had stopped wailing, but they had to dodge and dive for cover whenever patrols or personnel appeared.

Eventually they rounded a corner of the generating plant and flattened themselves behind an empty skip to watch Packer supervising the opening of two containers which had just been deposited on the steps of the entrance to the Administration Building by a small forklift truck.

Zoe and Isobel were hauled roughly out of the crates and bundled through the glass doors at the base of the tower. Jamie and the Doctor just managed to overhear Packer order the girls to he taken up to the tenth floor. While the Doctor twiddled his thumbs with profound concentration, working out a way to get to the prisoners, Jamie screwed up his eyes and watched a helicopter chattering across the sky some distance away from the complex.

'Must be some of the Brigadier's mob, Doctor. Let's call him up,' he suggested impatiently.

But the Doctor said that it was too soon for that. First they must rescue Zoe and Isobel. And as soon as the coast was clear, he led Jamie in a desperate sprint across the open concrete yard and round to the back of the tower. 'Sorry, Jarnie, but I'm afraid I abhor lifts...' he grinned, leading the way hack up the fire-escape in the angle between the tower and the adjoining buildings.

Gritting his teeth, Jarnie scowled and clambered reluctantly up the metal spiral behind him.

Inside the busy, cramped Operations Room, Lethbridge-Stewart stirred a fresh mug of tea as he listened intently to Captain Turner's muffled report from the helicopter.

'Lot of unusual activity down in the compound, sir. Looks like some kind of alert.'

'Any sign of the Doctor and the boy?'

'None, sir.'

The Brigadier nibbled thoughtfully at a digestive biscuit.

'Right, Jimmy. Pull out and stand by,' he ordered crisply.

He swung round in his chair and studied the Situation Map for a few minutes, tugging the ends of his moustache. 'All units please,'

he requested.

The Signals Sergeant flicked a bank of switches. 'Go ahead, sir.'

The Brigadier picked up his handset. 'Lethbridge-Stewart to all Red units. Penetration of Red Sector imminent. Report readiness.'

He dunked the remains of the biscuit impatiently while he waited for the situation reports. It fell apart and floated on the top.

'Red Victor One mustering to standby. Ten minutes, sir... Red Victor Two standing by, sir... Red Victor Three...'

As the brisk responses buzzed in his ear the Brigadier picked up his beret, breathed on the UNIT badge and proudly polished it against his chest. 'Right, Doctor. We're ready when you are,' he murmured.

At that moment, the Doctor was leading Jamie precariously along a narrow ledge leading from one of the landings on the fire-escape to a vertical maintenance ladder which ran up the side of the connecting building, linking the step-like series of flat roofs at the rear of the Administration Building. They shinned recklessly up the shuddering rungs to the first roof and dropped down behind the parapet to rest a moment.

'That'll be the tenth floor up there,' gasped the Doctor, pointing to the sheer wall of glass rising like a cliff above the next roof.