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bowed to Catriona and Jo.
'Come on,' said Vincent.
They ran.
A guard lay dead at a junction in the corridor, blood pumping from
his head. Jo stopped, stared. For the first time it really came home to
her: these were people, people, not Autons or Daleks or Ogrons. And
they would still be alive if she hadn't insisted on escaping from that
cell 
Someone grabbed at her arm, pulled her along. Jo looked up, saw
Catriona. Their eyes met for a moment.
'Time for regrets later,' said the older woman quietly.
Jo swallowed, nodded. They ran on.
Vincent seemed to know the layout of the prison well. They
descended some steps, came to a locked door. Jo got her bunch of
keys ready, but Vincent didn't wait for that. He pushed his gun up to
the lock, fired. It took several seconds for Jo's ears to recover
sufficiently to realize that another alarm had gone off. By then they
were running along a darkened passage past something that looked
like an office.
They came to another door, this one protected by a coded lock.
'Only trusted prisoners in here,' said Vincent, looking round with a
grin. 'We're all trustworthy, aren't we?'
Belquassim laughed.
Vincent punched in the code and opened the door, gun at the ready.
'Empty,' he said, beckoning them forward. 'It shouldn't be. We get
lucky. Which one of you is it has the luck, eh?'
Jo stepped through, found herself in a large room lined with books,
evidently the prison library. Vincent was already clambering up a set
of steps intended to fetch down books from the shelves. When he
reached the top, he jumped, hung by his hands from something on the
ceiling.
Jo heard the sound of a bolt sliding back. Then a second bolt. By
this time, Belquassim had climbed the steps, grasped hold of
Vincent's legs. He pushed, and Vincent disappeared into a hole in the
ceiling.
Abdelsalam now climbed the steps, was lifted by Belquassim. The
steps tottered dangerously, and Abdelsalam was gone. Catriona
glanced at Jo.
'Go on.'
Jo clambered up, felt Belquassim grasp her under the arms. He
almost threw her up. Someone caught her hands. She thought her
arms would pop out of their sockets, but within a moment she was
scrambling out into the open.
She found herself on a low, flat roof. Rather to her surprise, it was
raining: big, isolated drops. The sky glowed with the reflection of
street lights. Vincent and Abdelsalam helped Catriona up, then
Belquassim jumped, gripped the edge of the trapdoor and was hauled
to safety. A loud crash from below told Jo that the ladder had fallen
down. She slammed the trapdoor, then looked up, saw Vincent
peering over the edge of the roof. Catriona was by his side. 'Come
on!' he called, in a stage whisper.
Jo realized that Belquassim was already gone, that Abdelsalam was
in the act of lowering Catriona over the edge. She trotted up, saw
Belquassim standing on a wide pavement ten feet below, saw
Catriona drop into his arms. He swung her round like a partner in a
waltz. Catriona winced, and gave him a nasty glance.
Jo grinned to herself, took a couple of steps sideways and jumped
on her own. Ten feet was no worse than landing with a parachute, and
she'd done that loads of times.
She landed easily, rolled, jumped up, and grinned at Belquassim
from a safe distance. He smiled broadly in return, and winked.
Vincent landed behind her, patted her on the shoulder.
'You know how to jump, eh? As well as having the luck. You are
good to have around.'
A siren began to sound, horrifyingly loud, from the direction of the
prison. Vincent ran down the street like a sprinter. Jo and the others
followed, but only Belquassim could keep up with him. After a
moment she saw what he had been running towards: the dark blob of
a car parked against the side of the road.
'Can you break into this?' asked Vincent, as they approached it.
'Got a piece of wire?' asked Jo.
'No need,' said Belquassim from the passenger side. 'They left the
window down.'
There was a click, and after a moment the driver's door swung
open. Abdelsalam  still out of breath from the run  got in.
Vincent opened the back door, ushered Jo and Catriona in, then got
in himself. In front of them Abdelsalam was fiddling with the wires
beneath the dash. Abruptly the engine fired, and Jo was jolted back in
her seat as they accelerated wildly along the road.
'Where are we going?' she asked.
They took a corner, bearing right, tyres screeching.
'Vincent?' asked Catriona. 'Where are we going?'
Vincent laughed, and said something in Arabic. Abdelsalam
laughed. Belquassim looked over his shoulder and winked at
Catriona.
'He says we ought to blindfold you,' said Belquassim. 'We are
taking you to our safe house.'
Vincent laughed again. 'Which only the entire Kebirian Secret
Police, and the Army, Air Force and probably the Navy too know
about!' He looked across at Jo. 'You know who I am, eh? Vincent
Tayid, world-famous Arab campaigner for revolutionary justice? You
have heard of me?' The last question had an almost pleading note.
Jo opened her mouth to say, No, you must be kidding  then
closed it again. Now that he mentioned it, the name did seem awfully
familiar. She just hadn't had a chance to think about it in the last ten
minutes or so.
She looked at Catriona. The older woman glanced at her sidelong;
her lips curled in a small, ironic smile. 'Sorry, Jo,' she said. 'But you
make the strangest friends when you're a foreign correspondent.'
Eight
When the Brigadier got to the hangar, the Superhawks were ready
to go. The first plane was already hitched to the guide truck, its RAF
roundels standing out clearly in the glare of the floodlights. The pilot,
his helmet on, was in his seat in the open cockpit. The Brigadier
strode across the concrete floor, feeling slightly embarrassed and
more than slightly hot in his flight suit, hastily put on over a still-
damp uniform. He wondered where the Doctor was.
The pilot stood up, waved, pulled off his helmet, thus revealing
himself to be the Doctor. The Brigadier noticed for the first time
another man in a flight suit standing under the wing of the plane,
inspecting one of the engines.
'Hurry up, man,' shouted the Doctor. 'There's not a moment to lose!'
The Brigadier shook his head. 'We still haven't got permission from
the Kebirians. I don't know about this, Doctor. We might have to turn
back, you know.'
'Nonsense, Brigadier. This young man says the Superhawk can
outpace anything that the Kebirians have got.'
The Brigadier felt the familiar impatience growing inside him. 'It
can't outpace a missile, Doctor. And we're not going in there armed.'
This wasn't, strictly speaking, true: the bomb bays were empty, but
the Brigadier had made sure that the wing guns were loaded.
'Brigadier, I really must insist that we leave as soon as possible. If
I'm right, Jo and the others could be in considerable danger.'
The Brigadier ignored him, instead walked up to the flight-suited
young man and tapped him on the shoulder. 'Flight-Lieutenant Butler,
isn't it?'
The young man ducked out from under the wing and saluted. 'Sir.'
'You'll be taking your orders from me, young man. I'll be in the
rear plane, but I'll contact you by radio if there are any developments.
If I say turn back, we turn back. Don't take any notice of the Doctor,
whatever he says.'
About half way through this speech, an expression of consternation [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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