Doctor Who_ Loving The Alien Part 21

'Who's that?'

'McBride. Cody.'

'Cody McBride? b.l.o.o.d.y Nora, that's a turn-up! Can you get me out?' 'Just give me a minute...'

He edged his way along the wall, searching by torchlight for a door.

He found one by accident, set back in the wall, out of the way down a short flight of steps which were almost wholly hidden by long gra.s.s. In fact it was the steps he found first, when the ground suddenly vanished from under him. He picked himself up and looked at the grey double doors. Once again he hefted his jemmy.

The door gave easily He was in a low-ceilinged stone corridor, windowless, with doors at regular intervals.

106.

'Ace !' he called.

'McBride!'

He was at a crossroads. It was difficult to tell exactly where Ace was calling from. Left, he was pretty sure.

'Keep talking, Ace!'

'I don't know what to say.'

McBride grinned.

'Tell me how you come to be locked up in a monkey-house.'

'A bloke locked me in here. He's... well, I suppose you could say he's my bloke.'

'I thought that was me, babe.

Ace laughed. McBride could hear her clearly through the door. He'd found her.

'Stand back,' he said. 'I'm gonna force the door.' McBride had no time for the subtler arts of burglary.

The door splintered and swung. And there was Ace, exactly the same as the last time they'd met. Nineteen years ago. Unchanged.

She rushed from the room, arms and grin wide, then stopped.

Her smile slipped a bit.

'Cody,' she said with forced lightness.

Nineteen years...

'I know,' grunted McBride. 'I got old. Whaddaya expect? It's what people do around here.'

Ace smiled warmly now, and hugged him.

'It's good to see you again, Cody, she said with genuine emotion.

'Did the Doctor send you?'

'Kinda,' said McBride. 'He reckons you're in big trouble.

Someone's out to shoot you.'

'Me?' spluttered Ace. 'Why?'

'Let's just get out of here, shall we?' said McBride. 'This place always gives me the creeps.'

'You ain't going anywhere!'

A lazy Texan drawl echoed down the stone pa.s.sageway.

'What's this, the Seventh Cavalry?'

A man was strolling up to them. He looked tough. He was carrying a machete.

He looked familiar. Fresh, open face, dirty blond tousled hair... he looked American.

'Jimmy you can't keep us here!' Ace yelled. 'What do you want anyway?'

'I'm just doin' my job,' the newcomer said.

He was American. Jimmy...

107.

Then it dawned on McBride.

'You're James Dean,' said McBride. 'The movie star. You're supposed to be dead.'

'Wrong, fella,' said the matinee idol with the machete. 'You're the one's supposed to be dead.'

Suddenly he swung the machete in a broad, swift, lethal arc.

McBride lurched out of its path, feeling it slice the air beside him. He swung again, and again. McBride could do nothing but dance unevenly backwards, hoping to keep his footing.

At least he was leading this psycho away from Ace.

His attacker James Dean, or whoever the h.e.l.l he was was playing with him, grinning and jibing.

'This what you like is it, Joe? They train you up for this, Russkie-boy?'

The blade sliced through McBride's coat.

Worse he'd hit a dead end. He'd run out of corridor. His back was against a brick wall.

His mind raced the blade swung down McBride fumbled, raised a flailing arm, his jemmy clutched in a white fist. Metal kranged on metal. Blade and jemmy shuddered with the impact. McBride felt the shock wave judder through him, down his spine. A shard flew from the blade past McBride's face and sliced into the wall...

His attacker raised the blade again.

There was a sort of raucous bellow.

And from nowhere a chair a heavy, metal-framed waiting-room chair arced overhead and came cras.h.i.+ng down on the handsome blond head.

Ace.

'You're out of your tree, Jimmy,' Ace snarled as the attacker crumpled. 'You should be locked up.'

Neatly she kicked the dropped machete under a big wooden cabinet that stood against the wall.

'Oh, and you're dumped.'

The hunched figure looked up at them both with something dark and red oozing between his teeth.

'Tough break, Jimmy,' McBride sneered.

Then Jimmy made his move.

He surged upward, a fist pistoning out, not at McBride, but Ace.

'b.i.t.c.h!' he spat as he connected with her face. McBride winced he could hear bone breaking. He saw Ace go down, senseless, Before he could react Jimmy had turned and was charging him like an enraged elephant, slamming him into a wall, pus.h.i.+ng the breath from him.

108.

Jimmy grabbed at McBride's wrist, pinning his jemmy arm uselessly, twisting, bending, working the iron lever from his grip. With his free hand McBride pounded his a.s.sailant's face and torso, but to little effect. This guy was tough, and McBride was forty-seven.

He still knew a few good moves though...

He pushed away from the wall, bringing his knee up hard between Jimmy's legs. Jimmy let out a groan and staggered back, doubled up.

'Mister, you're a dead man,' he hissed.

McBride needed to get his breath back, and needed to make sure Ace was all right. She hadn't moved from where she had fallen.

He shouldn't have taken his attention off Jimmy. He felt the b.u.t.t of his own jemmy driving into his guts. He struggled for breath. A punch to the face. Again he was staggering backwards. His vision blurred and clouded with blood.

He turned and tried to run, to lead the maniac away from Ace.

Clutching at the wall, he skidded into an unlit corridor which ended in a set of double doors. He yanked at them please...

They opened freely, towards him. Behind them, he was facing the bars of a cage.

The end of the corridor, immediately beyond the doors, was caged off.

He turned. Jimmy slammed into him, iron jemmy held in both hands, pressing on McBride's throat, crus.h.i.+ng him against the bars.

He couldn't breathe. His arms flailed uselessly, clutching at Jimmy clutching at the bars, the doors, anything.

They closed on a b.u.t.ton. A big, wall-mounted, bakelite b.u.t.ton, which sank beneath McBride's hand. There was a rattling, whirring sound, and McBride felt the bars juddering against his back. They were moving. They were being raised.

He staggered back into the darkness beyond and fell.

Jimmy was still in the doorway. He hit the b.u.t.ton again, and the cage wall crashed back down, trapping McBride.

He was laughing now 'Well?' demanded McBride. 'What's so G.o.dd.a.m.n funny?'

'You'll see,' said Jimmy, grinning. 'You'll see.'

And with that he turned and sauntered off down the corridor, whistling.

'Hey, wait ' He couldn't just go. 'Hey, bud... Jimmy, whatever your name is '

Jimmy rounded a corner, vanis.h.i.+ng from McBride's sight.

'Jimmy!' the prisoner yelled. Then, 'Ace?'

He couldn't see her from his cage. There was no sound to break the silence.

109.

The Doctor had to hand it to the troops, British and American, they seemed to be holding their own the attackers had yet to penetrate the hangar. The air was thick with smoke. Gunfire punctured the night.

A group of four soldiers had holed up inside, succeeding in closing the vast hangar doors under heavy fire. Three privates and a young lieutenant. Hotly they debated what to do, whilst taking pot-shots through the windows.

'Right,' said Major Collins aboard the wrecked Waverider, 'everybody off the s.h.i.+p. Down into the hangar.'

n.o.body moved. Drakefell was on his knees next to the Doctor, trying to help him safely uncouple the dimension stabiliser. O'Brien hovered uncertainly between the Doctor and Collins.

'Didn't you hear what I said?'

'Bill,' said O'Brien. 'Sir I'm no d.a.m.ned Commie. You know that.

And if we're under attack, I'm not going to stand by just because I'm supposed to be under arrest. I'm a soldier, sir.'

Collins stared hard at him, smiled grimly and patted O'Brien roughly on the shoulder.

'OK, you two '

'Major,' the Doctor cut in, 'might I suggest you go and fight your battle and leave us to do this intricate and frankly rather dangerous work in peace?'

Collins looked as if he was ready to shoot the Doctor there and then.

'Watch them,' he said to O'Brien. 'Don't let them take anything off the s.h.i.+p. I'm going to find out what's happening.'