Dancing the Code Part 5

'She saw his uniform ID, and he was driving a UNIT jeep.' He paused. 'I've put someone on to the family.'

'I'm sorry. Deveraux was a good man.' The Brigadier stood up, walked past Captain Yates and looked at the map on the wall. Kebiria was there, stretched out between the Mediterranean and the Sahel, coloured in the pale green reserved for Francophone countries. Giltat was a tiny dot on the map, not even rating the square-with-a-dot accorded to 'major population centres'; Gilf Hatar wasn't marked. The Brigadier hadn't expected it to be. An unmarked grave. Again.

He turned back to the captain. 'Look, Yates, are you certain this justifies sending in a whole team? The Kebirian situation's pretty unstable you know. We have to stay inside our mandate - no provocation, no incidents. And for that, the fewer people we send, the better.'

'The satellite photos indicate that the anomaly is a fair size, sir. We may need the back up.'

The captain's voice had an edge of impatience in it. The Brigadier realized he was sounding bureaucratic, officious, restrictive. He remembered what it had been like when he'd been a captain - when he hadn't been responsible for things like budgets, when he hadn't had ministers peering over one shoulder, accountants peering over the other, civil servants expecting him to dance like a puppet between them.

'How many were you thinking of?'

'Myself and Benton; Benton's squad. And the Doctor. Eleven altogether, twelve if Miss Grant comes with us.' He paused. 'Though I'd rather she didn't, in the circ.u.mstances.'

The Brigadier glanced sharply at Yates. 'The Doctor, eh? That's if you can find him. If he hasn't gone flitting off in that contraption of his.' He walked back to his desk, sat down, unlocked a drawer and pulled out a grey form marked EXTRANATIONAL AUTHORITY - C/O ONLY. He filled it in with the details of Yates's request, signed it, stamped it, handed it over.

'By the way, did you speak to Miss Grant?'

Yates nodded. 'She said she'd have a word with the Doctor. I gave her the Kebirian stuff too - the photos and so on. She was going to show them to him.'

There was a knock at the door. The Brigadier nodded at Yates, who opened it, revealing Jo Grant herself. She stepped inside, glanced at Yates, stepped back.

'Sorry, Brigadier, I didn't realize you were busy - '

'That's all right, Miss Grant, we were just talking about you,' said the Brigadier. 'Yates needs the Doctor's help with an investigation.'

Jo hesitated, her face colouring. The Brigadier had a sudden vision of her body lying by the lab door, of himself calmly, coldly, turning the gun on the Doctor.

It was the coldness coldness of his own expression that had got to him. He would never kill Jo Grant with a look like that on his face. of his own expression that had got to him. He would never kill Jo Grant with a look like that on his face.

Would he?

Captain Yates was talking. 'What's the matter, Jo?'

'The Doctor's gone off in the TARDIS somewhere.'

But she sounded a good deal more upset than that fact alone could explain. The Brigadier half-rose from his seat, frowned. 'Gone off, Miss Grant? Gone off to where?'

Jo shrugged, glanced at Mike Yates. 'He didn't say.'

'I hope he's coming back again.'

'Of course he'll be back.'

But the Brigadier noticed the catch in her voice, and knew that she wasn't sure either. He remembered again the Prognosticator's images, decided that he didn't really blame the Doctor. In the circ.u.mstances he'd probably have beaten a hasty retreat himself.

'Well, I'd better make some arrangements for the transport -'

began Yates, turning to leave.

'Transport?' asked Jo. 'Where are you going?'

'Kebiria.'

The Brigadier listened whilst the captain again explained the circ.u.mstances of Anton Deveraux's death.

'That's why I was hoping the Doctor would be able to help,' he finished. 'But if he's gone - '

Jo bounced forward, took his hands, her face suddenly a picture of eagerness. 'I could still come with you, couldn't I?'

Mike Yates shook his head. 'No, Jo. It's too dangerous.'

Jo directed an appealing look in the Brigadier's direction, as he had known she would. He sighed. Jo had no business going anywhere without the Doctor - and he ought to keep her here in case the Doctor showed up - but - 'Please,' said Jo. 'I've never been to Africa.'

It occurred to the Brigadier that if he sent Jo away, then she was safe from him. He wouldn't shoot her, with that cold expression on his face. She would be somewhere else. It wouldn't be possible.

'Well, I suppose Captain Yates could do with someone to stay in Kebir City, for liaison with the local UN team. Couldn't you, Yates?'

The captain looked from Jo to the Brigadier and back again.

'Yates?' said the Brigadier again.

'Well, it wouldn't do any harm, sir.' He turned to Jo. 'If you really want to go, that is.'

'Big game, rolling savannah and all the sun a girl could want!' Jo grinned. 'When do we start?'

But the Brigadier noticed the nervous little glance in his direction and knew that he wasn't the only one who thought that a visit to Kebiria might break the Prognosticator's spell.

'I'll go and tell Benton to get his men together,' Yates was saying.

The Brigadier nodded. Yates and Jo left, Jo chattering loudly, eagerly.

He ought to make some phone calls, he realized. Make sure the Secretariat was informed. And the Defence Ministry in London, who would have to bill the UN for the job.

But he just stared blankly at the telephone, tapping his pen on the desk blotter. After a while he unlocked a drawer on the right-hand side of his desk and pulled out the spare .38 revolver he kept there.

He looked at the gun for a long time, checked it was loaded, then carefully put it away again and relocked the drawer.

Then he spent some time pulling the key off his ring. Holding it in his hand, he walked out of the building, past the salute of the desk sergeant, into the dull grey light of a spring evening. He found the kitchen waste bin - which he knew was collected daily, and wouldn't be checked - and dumped the key in it.

It didn't make much difference. The drawer could be forced. He could collect a weapon from the armoury any time he liked.

But he was fairly sure it had been that weapon - his own, slightly outdated .38 - which had been in his hand in the Prognosticator image. Which meant that he might have gained himself a few minutes. A few minutes in which to think. Remember. Realize.

Whatever.

'Just in case,' he muttered, looking around in the fading light at the parked cars, the high fence with its barbed wire, the scudding clouds above. 'Just in case it's true.'

Jo stood in the empty laboratory, looked around her, looked down at the small recording device on the bench.

'I don't know when I'm going to be back from Kebiria,' she said to it. 'But whenever it is, I'll come to the lab at six o'clock and leave a message. If the machine's still here. If not, I'll leave a note. I hope you're all right. I hope I'm doing the right thing.'

She became aware that her voice was quavering a little. She swallowed, with an effort, then said, 'Goodbye, Doctor.'

Perhaps he won't be back, she thought. Perhaps I won't see him ever again.

She picked up the photographs and the guide to Kebiria from the bench and left the lab, locking the door behind her.

Five.

'The number - where did you obtain it?' asked the interrogator in her strangely accented French.

Catriona looked around the whitewashed walls of the interrogation room, her eyes involuntarily stopping at the pockmarks that might be bullet holes, the faint brownish stains that might once have been blood.

'Answer me!' The interrogator was a woman, but she would have pa.s.sed for a man at a distance. Her shoulders were broad, her arms thick and heavy. Her face was hard, leathery, deeply lined. Her eyes had less sympathy than a hawk's. And there was a gun in her hand, pointing at Catriona across the wooden surface of the table.

So much for Arab countries being backward in matters of women's liberation, thought Catriona. Not true: they were bang up to date here.

In all the ways that mattered to them.

She licked her lips, tried to swallow; but her mouth was too dry.

Finally she croaked, 'He was a United Nations officer on United Nations business. It took me over two hours to get through to his superiors. I didn't have time to inform the authorities here before I went to the press conference.'

'So you informed foreigners before informing us. Why?'

The screaming started again as the interrogator spoke: a horrible, insane, panicky howling, mixed with gabbled pleas for mercy in Arabic. It had been going on at intervals ever since she had arrived.

Neither the guards nor the interrogator had explained it, indeed they didn't even appear to notice it. Catriona wondered how many others were being 'interrogated'. Wondered what they were doing to the woman who was howling. What they would do to her if she didn't cooperate.

She tried desperately not to think about it.

'Why?' repeated the woman, emphasizing the question with little jolts of the gun in her hand.

'I've told you,' said Catriona. Her throat was dry to the point of soreness, and it was an effort to keep her voice audible. 'I wasn't thinking clearly. I was in shock. The thing was horrible. It wasn't - it isn't anything to do with the terrorists.' She'd learned better than to call them 'Giltaz' or even 'separatists'. 'They're just as frightened of it as you are. Anyway,' she added desperately, 'until he cancelled on me, I thought I was going to interview the Prime Minister at two- thirty.'

'You were not! Monsieur Benari is seeing no press reporters today!

You will tell the truth or it will be worse for you!' She jolted the gun again, moved the lamp by her left hand so that it shone directly in Catriona's face. 'You will tell me how the United Nations people and the terrorists destroyed our army. You will tell me within one minute or I will kill you.'

The woman looked at her watch: a man's watch, huge and gold-plated. She isn't going to kill you, Catriona told herself. She's probably got strict instructions not to lay a finger on you. You're a b.l.o.o.d.y reporter reporter, for Christ's sake. They can't hurt you. But somehow the argument didn't feel as convincing as it had an hour ago.

The screaming was still going on outside, but it was a little fainter now.

With difficulty, Catriona controlled a mounting feeling of panic.

She said, 'Look, can't we just stop this rubbish and talk some sense? I don't know anything about the Gi - about the terrorists, except where they were camped last night and that won't do you any good because they've moved. I know d.a.m.n all about this whatever-it-is that turns people into smudges of sweet-smelling goo except that it's probably done it to half your Army already and if you're not careful it'll probably do it to the rest of you. Now I've told you everything I know so will you b.l.o.o.d.y well let me out of here!' By the last sentence her voice was shaking with hysteria. She bit her lip, aware of the sound of her own breathing, of the interrogator's hard, brown eyes looking into hers.

The lamp snapped off. For a moment Catriona, dazzled, could scarcely see anything; then the walls of the room slowly became distinct again. She stared for a moment at the grey paint on the steel door, at the tiny, barred window in the top part of it, then returned her gaze to the heavy, sweat-stained uniform of the figure sitting opposite her.

The interrogator put her gun away, settled forward on her elbows, pus.h.i.+ng her face to within six inches of Catriona's. Her breath smelled of mint tea and chewing gum.

'Very well,' she said, in her low, hoa.r.s.e voice. 'We will talk sense.

We will let you go, if you tell us everything about your connections with the English MI5, this so-called UNIT organization, and the Giltaz terrorists.'

Catriona closed her eyes, near to despair. For a moment she'd really thought that the woman was going to start acting like a normal human being. But evidently that behaviour wasn't in her repertoire. Not when she was on duty anyway.

'I will help you to help us,' the woman was saying. 'According to our telephone operator, you requested Captain Yates to send in a team. How many will be in this team? What are their objectives?

What excuse will they make for entering our country?'

'How many times have I got to tell you, I don't know? I'm a reporter. I don't order in troops.' The hawk-like eyes watched her steadily. Catriona felt her voice quavering as she spoke again. 'All I know is that they'll be investigating this - incident, that I've reported. They're bound to ask your government for permission anyway, so I don't know what all the fuss is about. You've only got to say no and they won't bother you.'

The woman nodded, smiled. 'So you say.'

A pause. The screaming had stopped. Something sc.r.a.ped against the outside of the metal door. Catriona had the bizarre notion that it was Anton Deveraux, enormous and sweet-smelling, come to rescue her by turning the entire staff of the prison into globes of honey. Then they would float away, oozing out into the streets - A fist crashed down on the table in front of her, jolting her back to reality.

'Now! You will tell us their secret entry route into our country!'

Outside, the screaming started again, turned into a horrible gurgling sound. There was a thud, and silence.