Part 11 (1/2)

They slowed down, glided to the pavement, landed with quite a jolt.

Malady grabbed for her gun, but it wasn't there.

The Doctor handed it back to her. 'You'll need this,' he said, absent*mindedly examining the damage to the lining of his coat.

After a moment he looked up at her. 'Now, you've probably got a few questions, and I'd be happy to '

Malady knocked him unconscious with the b.u.t.t of her gun.

Baskerville was already leading Anji away.

'I had my suspicions about him, of course.'

'Of course you did.' She looked back over her shoulder at the jagged hole in the gla.s.s. Warm air was wafting in. She tried to control her breathing a bit, calm down before she had a heart attack. Somehow, although her body was in shock, she couldn't imagine that they'd killed the Doctor. They'd inconvenienced him, obviously, but she was wondering how he'd survived, not picturing him hitting the pavement.

Dee and Baskerville were leading her to the lift. The guy who'd thrown the Doctor out of the window was bringing up the rear, carrying a bulky carry case.

'You've drawn attention to yourself,' she warned Baskerville. The police will investigate the body.' She knew she looked worried, this way, they'd think she was worried about that, not the Doctor.

'And in a little under an hour and three quarters, the police will be caught in the tidal wave, and one more body won't make a difference.'

They were in the lift, now, heading upwards.

'You're going to get back in touch with the real EZ?'

He was staring at the roof of the lift, willing it to go faster. I'll worry about that when we're clear.'

'You don't have to,' she said flatly.

Baskerville looked at her.

'I'm sure the President would he happy to conduct unilateral negotiations.'

He and Dee glanced at each other. 'We need full access to the ULTRA computer,' Dee told her. 'It's unique. It is the only computer with the processing power we need.'

'America has powerful computers, Ms Gordon.'

'It has to be the ULTRA. And it's secure in an underground bunker below the headquarters of the European Secret Service in Brussels.'

'h.e.l.l, whose corporations do you think sold them the computer in the first place?' Anji said, almost swaggering as she said it. 'Do you think we did that without leaving a few back doors? We can get you the ULTRA. We're the richest nation on Earth, Baskerville, you can name your price and we'll match it.'

Baskerville rubbed his chin, lost in thought.

The lift doors slid smoothly open. They were on the roof. A small helicopter sat there, the East European guy in the pilot's seat, the case he'd been carrying stowed behind him. The rotors were already running.

Dee indicated the helicopter. 'We'll negotiate on the yacht.'

Penny Lik was dozing in the main stateroom of the royal airliner. This morning, on the way over to America, she'd been more self*conscious she told him it was hard to imagine the King and Queen had done what they were planning on doing in this very bed.

Cosgrove told her if she was having problems imagining it, he had covert surveillance videodiscs of them, and she'd laughed and relaxed, so he didn't tell her he wasn't joking. On the way back, she'd simply tried to make him forget about letting the young man escape, and for an hour or so, she'd succeeded. Now they were halfway to Athens, and Cosgrove had preparations to make, so he left Professor Lik to her rest.

They were alone on the plane, except for the three pilots, who were safely locked away in the c.o.c.kpit.

The hypersonic plane was a variation on the fastest commercial airliner, the Airbus IX. In actuality, there was very little difference between this royal transport and the one in regular service. There were a couple more first*cla.s.s cabins, the carpets were deeper, the dinner service was fine bone china, the European Airways planes didn't have Da Vinci sketches on the walls. But apart from a few well*furnished rooms, it was almost frugal. Professor Lik's reaction on looking around had been the same as everyone else's faint disappointment.

The President Minister's plane was quite another matter, but needs must.

He booted up his laptop, and checked the latest reports.

It was eleven o'clock in Athens. There was little doubt Baskerville's prophecies were coming to pa.s.s: Cosgrove had made a nice profit betting on the Europe*Brazil match, getting the score, those that scored and the time they scored exactly right simply by following Baskerville's prediction. The actress Bermuda Atkins had died too, suddenly, of some previously unsuspected virus. The Third Prophecy was the tidal wave in Athens entirely impossible, according to his scientific team. But it was going to happen, and Cosgrove was already utterly convinced that Baskerville had a time machine.

He contacted Station G in Athens, told them to evacuate, with the minimum fuss, and to get their helicopters into the air. There was a military airfield twenty miles inland from Athens that ought to be a safe base of operations. He found the intercom, and told the pilots to head there.

One of the reports waiting for him on the computer registered the CIA's confusion about why, when it looked for all the world as though the EZ and US were heading towards a shooting war, the royal jet had visited California for less than two hours. The lack of US data security (or their commitment to freedom of information), meant that the details of the flight were already on the datanet, fuelling a dozen conspiracy theories.

None of them mentioned the EZ government attempting to acquire a time machine. A quick search revealed that no one, from the seismology department at Berkeley to a single one of the net psychics, had predicted the tidal wave in Athens.

Baskerville still hadn't shown up anywhere in this ma.s.s of data. Cosgrove was worried that his own actions the exploding Manta, the public search for the case, the use of the royal jet might start to arouse suspicion. He had to a.s.sume the CIA were at least aware that something important was happening. And there was some third party some organisation that could get on board a military boat in the middle of the sea, and could operate on a world scale, one that had initiative. Both the man who'd stolen his case and blown up the Manta and the man who'd taken his photograph had English accents. Neither had military training. Both had run rings around him. This was worrying.

There was also his feeling that there was something more going on, something beyond the human.

Cosgrove sat back, resolved to take control of the situation.

The Doctor's eyes snapped open.

'A CIA safehouse,' he said.

Malady was standing beside a small video camera, adjusting some of the settings. This was a small room, windowless, like a police interview room.

He was handcuffed to the chair, his arms behind his back.

'What time is it?' the Doctor asked, slipping out of the handcuffs, dropping them in his pocket, then returning his hands behind his back.

'Does it matter?'

The Doctor laughed. 'I know it's before midday. But what time is it?'

'Do you really want me to say that it's me that asks the questions, because I will.'

'If you're going to ask me something, ask me why I'm so confident it's before midday. We're still in Athens, right? So it's before midday. So go on, ask me how I know.'

'We are still in Athens.' Malady turned her attention away from the camera and on to the Doctor.

'Tell me the time, and I'll tell you everything I know about Baskerville's time machine. Does that sound fair?'

'Whose what?'