Loving the Alien by Mike Tucker

Author:Mike Tucker [Tucker, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Science Fiction, Juvenile Fiction, Science Fiction; English, Comics & Graphic Novels, Doctor Who (Fictitious Character)
ISBN: 9780563486046
Google: q-9mAAAACAAJ
Amazon: 056348604X
Publisher: Random House UK
Published: 2003-05-04T07:00:00+00:00

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165

A knotted rope hung down the shaft. O’Brien (the able-bodied one), McBride and the Doctor had little difficulty making the ascent. The first thing that the Doctor saw was a hulking figure silhouetted in the moonlight, a pair of bolt-cutters slung over one shoulder. The grille that had covered the top of the stack was now peeled back like the lid of a tin.

‘Careful, the roofs slippery,’ said McBride as the Doctor steadied himself.

‘Here,’ said the stranger, extending an arm to the Doctor. The moonlight caught his face, and the Doctor recognised him.

‘Mr Dean, I believe,’ he said dryly. ‘A truly immortal actor.’

He swept aside the proffered arm.

‘I can manage, thank you,’ he said.

Then, ‘Cody, what’s going on?’

‘Let’s get off this roof first, Doc, then I’ll explain everything, OK?’

One by one, using the knotted rope, they lowered themselves over the edge of the roof.

‘Now just drop down onto that there fire escape,’ said the late James Dean.

From there it was easy – down the steep metal stairs and landings to the ground.

A car was waiting there, its lights off, its engine running.

‘Cody –’

‘All right.’

The Doctor squeezed into the back seat with McBride, O’Brien and James Dean.

The car roared away.

There was a woman at the wheel.

‘Right, back to Harley Street,’ she said. The Doctor recognised her voice – Drakefell’s companion in the maze.

‘You again. This is a surprise.’

‘Oh, I love an adventure,’ she beamed at him in her rear-view mirror. ‘And I’ll do anything for Uncle George!’

The sixth figure in the car, the front-seat passenger, a man in a worn-out tweed hat, craned his neck around.

‘You can’t imagine how much I have looked forward to this, Doctor,’

he said, ‘or how I have enjoyed our little game of cat and mouse.’

‘Limb,’ the Doctor snarled.

He looked accusingly from one to another of them, then fixed on McBride, who was staring into his lap.

‘Cody?’

‘Sorry, Doc,’ McBride mumbled. ‘The way he explained it to me it didn’t seem like I had any choice.’

166

Chapter Eighteen

‘Well?’ demanded the Doctor. ‘Grateful as I am to you, I feel I require an explanation. Cody?’

The car was bearing them swiftly and powerfully north through the darkness of London.

‘Well, he got you out, didn’t he?’ McBride knew he sounded defensive. Guilty. ‘After they took you and my head stopped spinning, I went back to the office. Those two were waiting for me – Limb and the girl. He offered to help me free you. What was I supposed to say?

He came up with the plan, got hold of the building blueprints, he even thought of a greased magnet for unlatching those iron furnace doors from the inside.

‘But why? This is the question.’

‘I think you should listen to him, Doc,’ said McBride.

‘Thank you, Mr McBride,’ George Limb cut in. ‘Please let me assure you of my good faith and noble purpose. I want your help to stop a nuclear war.’

They eventually stopped outside a big house in Islington, long since turned into flats. The Doctor marched up to the front door, flanked by limb and Jimmy.

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