16.
"There was no sign of her anywhere, I even checked that shop she liked, they said she'd never even been in. I searched up and down the entire street. She just vanished!" Yates smacked a hand into the Brigadier's desk with frustration.
The Brigadier frowned at him. "And quickly."
"Yes! She was there. If she never got into that shop, it must have been within two minutes at most, probably half that."
"No clues of any kind?" the Doctor interjected. "No sign of a struggle, strange men?"
"Of course not, or I would have said!" Yates snapped, then caught the Brigadier's eye. "Sorry. I mean no, there wasn't…sir."
The phone rang and the Brigadier picked it up. "Lethbridge-Stewart. Hm. Yes. Under the circumstances I want it opened outside the building, take it to the back lot. Yes. Bomb procedures." He hung it up.
"Bomb procedures?" the Doctor asked.
"Unmarked package left at the gate. Not making any unusual sounds, but caution seems the better approach in light of Miss Grant's recent abduction."
The Doctor was already heading out the door. "Well, let's see what it is then!"
At the back lot, the soldier in bomb-proof gear waved his hand at them from where he stood by the metal container. All clear. He reached in to lift the box out. The Brigadier gave a nod, but the Doctor had already gone ahead of them, striding up to kneel and carefully pull back the wrapping.
"What…!" he exclaimed, pulling Bessie's steering wheel from the box. He looked stricken. "They're taking her apart! Those hamfisted blaggards! They're taking my car apart!"
The Brigadier took a tag of plain paper from beneath it. "Look at this," he said, handing it to his distracted advisor. "A ransom demand. Of sorts."
The Doctor tucked the forlorn wheel carefully beneath his arm and read the tag. His eyes went cold. He looked up at the Brigadier. "I'm to help them after all?"
"Or we shan't see Miss Grant again," the Brigadier finished grimly.
--
"Here," the Doctor said, putting a small box into Alistair's hands.
The Brigadier looked at it with surprise. "It looks like a tin of throat-drops. With a gauge thingummy."
"It is a tin of throat-drops, but you won't find any drops inside. It's soldered shut anyway; happened to be the right size to rig up on short notice. That 'gauge thingummy' is a directional indicator. It will point you to where Bessie is."
"You have a homing beacon on her?"
"No, but I do have a simple TL device onboard."
"TL?"
"Temporal Locator. It maps her temporal position. Sort of a time-compass, you could say. Tells when she is."
The Brigadier considered this and just had to ask. "Why?"
The Doctor shook his head at him. "You can never assume things will be when they should be. It's rather like a boy's compass. You give it to him before he goes into the woods, not after he's lost. You could say Gallifreyan children would carry these instead."
"Ah," said the Brigadier, deciding to not inquire about it further.
"Certainly preferable to having them wander off only to be lost in some simplistic time-eddy, believe me. Our car-thieving friends most likely want me wherever Bessie is, and that," he tapped the small box in the Brigadier's hands, "will lead you to her. Unless she's caught in an unexpected time vortex, but that doesn't seem too likely in this part of London. Hopefully Jo will be there as well. Of course the signal from Bessie assumes no one else in the near vicinity also has a TL device, it isn't fine-tuned."
"A reasonable assumption, I should think."
"Yes, well." He patted his pockets, checked the small tool-kit he was taking and stuffed a wad of wiring into it. "They'll no doubt be watching to assure my being alone at first. You can set up your own surveillance and such at your leisure, once their suspicions ebb."
"Are you armed?" the Brigadier asked.
"Me? Only with these," he waggled his fingers and gathered up his cloak. "I trust you to also be subtle. No heavy artillery set up right across the street, for instance."
The Brigadier pocketed the tin. "I shan't bother to answer that." He looked at his watch. "That taxi they're sending should be outside the gate in…"
"Four-and-a-half minutes," the Doctor finished acerbically. "You forget, if anyone is properly aware of the passage of time around this place, it's me."
--
The Doctor sighed, running his hands over the rents in the yellow roadster's formerly immaculate seats. The warehouse location had been predictable, the personalities of the men involved a typical mix of bluster, misguided loyalty and proud uncertainty. They'd brought out Jo briefly, but hadn't let them speak to one another. Once the job was done, was the demand, then she would be released.
At least his assistant was unharmed. He wished he could say the same for his beloved car.
"The force-field thing is in the seats? I thought so," Higgs said at his elbow.
"What? In the seats? Have you quite lost your senses? Why would it be in the seats? No one puts a force-field generator in a car seat."
"Oh."
"I note you've been none too gentle with her, have you?"
He shrugged apologetically. "Sorry. Didn't know. But you know, Blick an' Hodges are right bright with cars and machines. Now that you're here, we'll get it right."
"What made you find out about it?"
"The force-field? We…" he caught a look from Hodges across the bonnet.
"Can't tell you that," Hodges put in. "But we know it can be done and this car was where it was generated from. Don't try to pretend ignorance, Doctor Smith."
"Just 'Doctor', thank you. And I wasn't." He took off his burgundy jacket and laid it aside, then set about rolling up his sleeves. "Well, let's get to work then, shall we? I'm afraid you've rather made a mess of her, so we'll have to do come restoration first."
--
The tiny windows on the warehouse had long ago faded to dark and Hodges rubbed at his eyes. "He's got a lot of energy for an old codger," he muttered to his companion.
"Cor, he works like one o' those bloomin' wind-up toys," Blick agreed in a low voice. "An' I don't know half of what I'm doing. Put this here, tighten that. You think he's bein' jake with us?"
Hodges considered their supposed black-mailee, his white hair fluffing as he pulled his head back out of the boot, pulling a long wire up from where he was feeding it through from underneath the car. "Yeah, I think so. He wants that girl, right? And he's one of those inventor types. I know about them; give 'em any project to do and they'll see it through just to see it work."
Blick raised his voice slightly. "You tired, Smith?"
The Doctor looked at them with what appeared to be surprise. "Not really. Is it late?"
Hodges pointed at a plastic clock on the wall. "See for yourself."
"Well, we've still quite a lot to do. I'll make you some tea," he said charitably, wiping his hands on a cloth. "Unless you'd rather have coffee? I seemed to notice both in the kitchen."
Higgs looked up at him from where he was filling a small tube with brown liquid, only one drop at a time as the Doctor had firmly instructed. "Coffee," he said. "Black."
Blick reached through the engine and adjusted a bolt from above and then scooted underneath on the dolly to try getting at it from below. "The tin is in the bottom cupboard," he called. "Black. No, better put in some sugar."
"Mr. Gorringe," the Doctor called towards the office. "Do you also prefer coffee?"
"Tea!" the man called back after a pause. "Can't drink that black swill. Do they have you waiting on them now, Smith?" He half-chuckled, gave a snort and went back to his papers under the glare of the small cantilevered lamp.
--
"About time," Hodges said as the Doctor finally reappeared from the kitchen, steaming drinks in hand. "I'd half a mind to come after you."
"Where would I go, down the sink-pipes? I apologize for the delay," he said smoothly, handing plastic coffee mugs around. "Deuced time finding the sugar, and the first batch was a complete loss. You have an inordinate amount of that dried creamer back there, though. Too bad no-one wanted cream."
"It was already here," Higgs said, blowing on his. "Most of it's so old, who'd want it anyway. I only use real cream."
"Hoity-toity, Higgs!" Blick said in a high voice from underneath the carriage. "I only use creeeam!"
"Hey now," Higgs said, kicking at him down on the dolly. It promptly rolled, knocking over Blick's mug.
"Hey!"
The Doctor scooped up the emptied mug. "Not a problem, old chap, let me just fetch you a new one." He went back to the kitchen.
"You know, he's really not a bad old bloke," Blick said. "Mebbe he used to be a butler."
"Would explain the fancy dress," Hodges said with a grunt, "Come here and help me lift this."
--
The clock read 3:25. In the morning.
Hodges looked around. Higgs was asleep on a ratty orange couch in the corner, holding a pair of pliers snuggled against one ear. Blick was on the car dolly underneath the carriage, but he hadn't made any sounds for a while and Hodges suspected he'd also drifted off. Gorringe had been snoring in his chair in the office for the past hour.
"It's getting late," he said. "You tired?"
"Not at all," the Doctor said, carefully twisting wires together at the workbench. "Have you any more alligator clips? Or an oscilloscope? This should be tested before being reinstalled."
"Now look here, we need to call it a night. And I can't just leave you here with no one watching."
"You can't? Why ever not? Do you think I would sabotage my own car? How about I make us some good, strong coffee?"
"You did."
"Did I?" He glanced up at him and went back to the wiring.
"Twice. That's why it's almost dawn."
"Is it really? I have so little sense of time passing," the Doctor said casually. "Well, you go ahead and sleep if you need to. Don't mind me."
Hodges stared at him a moment. "Come on, now! You're not to be fooling me. You'll skip out the minute I go under."
"And leave my car? Don't be ridiculous."
"You're an odd bird, Mr. Smith."
"Doctor."
"Oh yeah. Doctor," he yawned. "Smith. Now come on, Mr. Gorringe and them wanted you locked up at night."
"Locked up?" the Doctors brows went up.
Hodges glowered at him then fumbled in his jacket, pulling out his pistol. "Yeah."
"Now, no need to be discourteous," the Doctor said chidingly. "Put that thing away before you hurt yourself. Are you sure you wouldn't rather have more coffee? No? Oh, all right. I'll come."
--
It was a tall, heavy metal door, the sort that might normally lead to an industrial freezer.
Hodges unlocked and opened it, but no frigid air came out to greet them. The Doctor was nudged inside and the door closed behind him.
He stood in the dimness, listening to the sound of the bolt being slammed back into place and looked around.
The dormant warehouse freezer was large, a single row of lights from the high ceiling giving it a shadowy look. The coolant system had apparently been turned off for some time; the air was stuffy and musty from disuse. The whole thing smelled faintly of old cardboard and aging vegetables, but the only contents were an assorted scattering of slatted wooden palettes and crates.
"Doctor!" Jo's voice called, echoing, and then she was there, running for him from the other side of the room. She slammed into him with an enthusiastic embrace and then just held on.
"Hullo, Jo," he said with relief, smoothing her flyaway hair and then holding her out at arm's length to look her over. "You look well enough."
"I'm fine," she said. "But what about you? They said they were going to make you get that force-field running. "
"Yes …"
"But it was just beastly of them, they made me come, and then there was poor old Mike probably wondering what in the world ever happened to me, and the Brig would've been so very peeved, and he does get peeved you know, and I do hope you didn't really do it for them did you?"
"Well…"
"They're the ones who took Bessie, but you probably already knew that part, I was so worried that they might make you think something just awful had happened to me and really I've been fine, one of them isn't a bad sort, and there was the most …"
"Jo!" He put a finger to her lips, stopping her. "I'm pleased to see you too. Now let's talk about it, but away from this door?"
"Oh. Right," she said. She shrugged apologetically and took his arm to tow him across the room.
With nothing else to do, she'd creatively stacked up crates to wall off a corner, so it wouldn't seem to big and empty and cold she said. Some sturdier palettes had been pushed together to make a platform off of the concrete floor with more crates to make a seat, which she'd covered with blankets that had been left for her. They settled onto them, side by side.
"I should think your escapology skills would have made you difficult to hold onto," he said conversationally.
"I did slip out. twice in fact. But they told me, oh, never mind that..."
"Never mind?"
"Probably wasn't really true. I shouldn't have listened to them. Now, what have…"
"Told you what?" he tilted his head at her and frowned, querying. He lowered his voice. "Did they threaten you?"
She didn't meet his eyes. "They said that…that they'd kill you if I left."
"Me?"
"Yes, though I know they needed you to even make it run, right? So of course they wouldn't really. Still, didn't seem worth risking it, right?"
He gave her a small smile and patted her hand reassuringly. "Of course not. Kind of you to want me kept alive. And I suppose the accommodations are certainly roomy enough." He looked up at the ceiling beams, some 35 feet above them. "Naturally, they told us something of the same thing."
"That they'd kill you?" Jo asked, wide-eyed.
"No, that honor was reserved for you in our version," he said. "But the Brigadier has things in hand, I'm sure."
"Why those…! How dare they go around threatening people like that!" she said. "I've a mind to be quite cross."
He had to chuckle at that. "Yes, you would. But I think they're planning on doing a lot more than just threatening the likes of us. Have you seen much?"
"No. Only that they've been taking your poor old Bessie apart. I told them you wouldn't like that. One of them, Mr. Higgs, seems like a decent fellow - he's the one who usually remembers to bring me something to eat - he said it was for a good cause, and they were doing it for the good of Britain."
"Did he? I wonder what manner of good he's referring to. I've been doing a little exploring in the name of making tea, and you want to know what I found?"
"What?"
"All the ingredients one might want to construct explosives."
"You mean they're making bombs?"
"Yes. Which may explain why they're so keen on generating a small force-field. One of the drawbacks to bombing anything is the difficulty of having sufficient distance from your own explosives. They could detonate anything with impunity if they were protected themselves."
"But what do they want to blow up?"
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Judging by what I could see of the papers, added to their general paranoia regarding the British government and aristocracy in particular, I would suppose Parliament."
"Parliament?" Jo said. "But they can't just go blowing up Parliament!"
"Wouldn't be the first time, Jo. You're forgetting your own history. What's that day the British observe in November?"
"Oh. Guy Fawkes Day. Because he…"
"Tried to blow up Parliament with kegs of gunpowder. Thirty-six kegs, in fact."
"But he didn't really get it to blow up."
"No," the Doctor smiled. "He didn't. We'll just have to make sure history properly repeats itself then, won't we?"
--