Doctor Who: Prime Time by Mike Tucker

Author:Mike Tucker
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Tags: Science-Fiction:Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780563555971
Publisher: BBC Worldwide Americas
Published: 2001-03-14T10:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

The spinner swept across the cornfields, whipping stalks of corn back in the wind. Ace sat in the front seat, scanning the endless sea of waving crops that shone in the morning sun.

Trasker gave her a sideways glance.

‘Your friend didn’t exactly land in the most accessible of places.’

‘Yeah, well the professor was concerned about someone nicking the TARDIS so he parked it out of the way. Looks as though he probably did the right thing.’ She gave a grim smile.

‘Anyway, the walk probably did me loads of good.’

‘Are you sure that you can find it?’

‘I told you,’ said Ace impatiently. ‘Next to a huge copse of berry trees, about three miles outside the city.’

Trasker smiled. ‘That’s right, you did say. Just checking.’

She flicked her eyes on to the dashboard of the spinner, edging the speed back. Lukos’s men should have had plenty of time by now, but she wanted to make sure. She glanced over at Ace. The girl was worried about her friend and that would make her careless. The more she was off her guard, the more her world was taken from under her piece by piece, the easier this deception would be.

Trasker had done this hundreds of times. Find someone at their lowest ebb and slip under their defences, make them see you as nothing other than a solution to problems, an ally in adversity. Then came the skilled part of her job, then came the slow, gradual chipping away at those defences – from the inside. Asking, pushing, working on fears and anxieties, using the situation to get people to trust her and never ask why they were trusting.

It was an art, and one at which Rennie Trasker was a grand master. It had taken her from the newsrooms of the smallest companies and propelled her to the top of her profession. Oh, there were some who didn’t like her methods, there were companies that had thrown her out for unethical conduct, but they were all in the past. Vogol Lukos had snapped her up. He didn’t care how she got results, only that she got them. Trasker studied Ace’s face. If the girl only knew...

‘There!’ Gatti pointed excitedly from the back window.

Ace followed her gaze. The com circle, standing out like a sign post. ‘That’s it.’

The spinner swooped lower. Ace frowned. This was definitely the place, but the TARDIS …

She hung her head in despair. ‘It’s gone.’

‘What?’ Gatti shook her shoulder. ‘It can’t have gone.

Who knows it’s here?’

‘Look I don’t know, all right!’ snapped Ace. ‘It was here, and now it’s gone.’

Trasker brought the spinner to a halt in the centre of the circle of flattened com. Ace clambered out. There was a square indentation in the ground and the crops were trampled.

‘Damn.’

Gatti squeezed her arm. ‘What now?’

Ace looked at her mournfully. ‘I don’t know, Gatti. I just don’t know.’

From the driver’s seat of the spinner Trasker watched the two girls, a smile twitching at the comers of her mouth.

Another chink in Ace’s armour. Another crack that she could use to get closer to the girl.

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