a/n: Many thanks to bittie752 for the beta.
Chapter Twenty-Six
"I see from the news reports you've been made head of UNIT," he said into his mobile.
"Yes." He could hear Keeling's smugness almost ooze over the phone. "I have the president's complete confidence and the power of the entire intelligence community behind me. And we have Pete Tyler in custody."
"Has he told you where Smith, I mean the Doctor, is?" he asked.
"Not yet. Now that I'm the head of UNIT, I'm in charge of Torchwood as well. I have access to all their resources directly. It's only a matter of time before Tyler tells me everything he knows."
"Did Simmonds talk?"
"No, but through monitoring his computer, we realized he knew about you. But our people got to him before he could tell anyone."
"You think," he said.
"I know," Keeling replied. "Because if Simmonds had told anyone about you, you wouldn't be there. And no one has made the connection between us yet."
"That's just a matter of time," he said.
"But by that time we will be firmly entrenched, and our plans will not be able to be stopped. Not with Pete Tyler and Jake Simmonds gone."
"What about Rose Tyler and the Doctor?" he asked.
"With no support from Torchwood and the entire government after them, there won't be anything they can do."
Hoping Keeling was right, he changed the subject. "I've been meaning to ask you, has construction begun?"
"Not yet, but the plans for it are on my desk. How about your little classification project?"
"We have found some suitable candidates, primarily in Cardiff, Wales, for some unknown reason. There are others in other locations, but far fewer as a percentage of the population, so we are keeping our eye out for people whose ancestors are from Cardiff. But we are not done with the DNA testing yet."
"My family was originally from south Wales," Keeling said. "It seems many of us are from that area. Aren't your family's roots in Cardiff?"
"On my mother's side."
"And wasn't it a happy coincidence that one of the president's main opponents, Margaret Blaine, was also from Cardiff? She's now one of us as well. Concentrate on Cardiff. Search their records carefully. Perhaps we will find enough candidates there. And I think it's time for you to come in. It has been too long since you've been one with our brothers."
~oOo~
Within minutes of Rose receiving the phone call from Ianto, she, Jackie and Tony were hiking through the trees that surrounded the Tyler property. Rose had warned of the necessity for silence, but for Tony's sake she had tried to make it sound like a game.
"We're secret agents for Torchwood, Tony," she told him as they left the mansion and crossed the garden. "Secret agents don't make a sound. Can you do that?"
Her little brother nodded.
"Good boy," she whispered to him.
Tony was wearing his favorite knapsack on his back, dark blue emblazoned with pictures of spaceships and stars. Inside he had a change of clothes, his favorite jimjams, a snack, his zeppelin, some small toy cars and his favorite soft toy. In addition to the contents of Pete's safe, Rose had filled hers with extra clothes for Tony and some energy bars. Jackie was also wearing a knapsack which she had filled with her own clothing, her jewelry and some extra food and bottled water.
As they walked, they tried to stick to the strips of trees that had been planted to separate the grounds of the palatial homes in the area. Between the cover of the trees and the fact that most of the homes were empty at this hour, save an occasional employee, Rose was reasonably certain they wouldn't be spotted.
Things went smoothly until the neighbor's dog started barking.
It was a Pomeranian: a four pound, fluffy, yappy burglar alarm.
They froze for a second, hearts racing, and then moved deeper into the shadows.
Tony thought it was just an exciting part of the game, but Rose and Jackie had a few long moments worrying if they would be spotted. When it became obvious no one was going to come check on the little dog, who had a habit of barking at her own shadow, they moved on.
Before they had left, Jackie had told her that Jeremy had agreed to both sell Rose his car and meet them at the Anglican church. The ancient edifice, constructed of large stones from local quarries, had not been used as a place of worship for years and had sat abandoned for more than a decade. These days it was only a minor tourist attraction, a building of slight interest for its cemetery that contained the burial plots of a few minor authors, poets and religious figures from Pete's World's history.
Due to Tony's short legs, it had taken them almost half an hour to walk the mile to St. Stephen's, with Rose finally carrying him the last ten minutes. As they approached the church, they could see it through the gaps between the trees. Once they had reached the border of the cemetery, which lay between them and the church, Rose put the boy back down on the ground.
"You two stay here," she said to her mother, quietly but firmly. "I'm going to make sure everything's okay. Alright?"
Jackie nodded tightly. It was the only evidence she had shown that this situation was frightening her, and for a moment Rose was unbelievably proud of her mum. Tony, for the first time sensing that this was more than a game, clung tightly to his mother.
Rose climbed over the low stone fence that surrounded the entire church property and jogged the short distance through the cemetery to the back of the church. Hiding in the relative cover of the shadow of the building, she looked out to the empty street in front of her. Two cars sat in the street in front of the building. A thin young man with a scraggly beard was leaning against one of the cars and looking down the road, presumably watching for them.
Rose turned and motioned to her mother for them to join her, and Jackie and Tony climbed the fence and quietly made their way through the gravestones.
"Is that him?" she asked her when her mother had reached her side.
"Yeah," Jackie answered. "And the other car is Mrs. McDonald's."
"So far, so good," she whispered and walked towards the street, her mother and brother following close behind.
"Are you Rose?" Jeremy called when he saw her approach. A short, middle-aged woman a bit older than Jackie got out of the other car, and she and Jeremy walked towards Rose, Jackie and Tony.
"Yeah," she answered.
Mrs. McDonald rushed forward and hugged them all in turn.
"Are you three alright?" she asked.
"Yeah, we're fine, Mrs. McDonald," Rose answered. She looked from the Tylers' housekeeper to her son and back. "Thank you both for doing this."
"Of course, Rose," she answered. "Your family has been very good to us over the years. And it's Lydia."
"Okay. Lydia." Rose smiled at her and pulled off her knapsack. She unzipped it, pulled out a wad of bills and peeled off some. Jeremy's eyes widened when she handed them to him.
"This is… way, way too much," he said, staring at the amount of money she had given him. "It's not worth a quarter of this." He gestured at his car, which Rose recognized as a decades old Ford Mondeo. Its paint was peeling, its undercarriage was beginning to rust, and one of the back fenders had a large dent. "It's got a couple hundred thousand miles on it."
"Does it run?" Rose asked.
"Yeah, runs great. It just looks like shite," he answered.
"Then it's perfect," she told him. She turned to her mum. "You and Tony get in the car and wait for me."
After Jackie and Tony had made their way to the car, Rose turned back to Jeremy and Lydia. She handed Lydia another handful of bills.
"The Doctor and I are going to try and sort this, but I don't know how long that's going to take. In the meantime, you two should take a little trip," she said. "France is very nice this time of year. Or maybe Italy would be good."
"Okay," Jeremy said slowly, not understanding, but Lydia nodded. She had worked many years for the Tylers. Lydia McDonald knew that if things were so bad in the country that the Tylers had to go on the run, whoever was after them might come after her as well, looking for them.
"And, you probably don't need to let anyone know you are going," Rose continued. "In fact, you could probably buy clothes and things when you get there."
Lydia looked at her somberly. "Stay safe, dearie," she said.
"You, too," Rose answered.
~oOo~
The Doctor met the Torchwood SUV when it pulled up in front of the old farmhouse, having heard it come up the gravel drive. Toshiko and Owen immediately got out, both carrying duffle bags.
"I'm going to need to use your computer," Toshiko told the Doctor after greeting him. "I need to hack into the Torchwood database to try and figure out what's going on, and if I use mine, they'd be able to track it back to me. And I still don't know how you managed to make yours untraceable."
He grinned at her. "I'm very clever," he said. He jerked his head towards the barn. "You know where it is. After all, you helped set it up." As she headed in that direction, he turned to Ianto, who was still seated behind the wheel of the car. "Pull around to the back and into the trees where it can't be seen from the road or from above." As Ianto drove behind the house, Gwen pulled up in her bright red Vectra.
The Doctor grimaced when he saw the color of her car. "We're gonna need to hide that thing," he told her. "With it being red like that, it's too visible."
"I figured that," she said.
"Where's Rhys?"
"Still on the road," she answered. "He said he'd get here quick as he can." She tried to get up but couldn't quite manage it. "Help me out, yeah? I'm a bit wedged in here."
The Doctor grabbed her hands and pulled, and she popped out of the car like a cork in a bottle.
"Thanks," she said. "I've got a knapsack in the back. Can you get it out for me?"
"What do you have in here?" he asked as he hefted it. "Lead pipes?"
Gwen shot him a look. "Now why would a woman who is almost ready to pop be carrying around lead pipes? They're copper, and I was planning on doing some plumbing while I was here," she said sarcastically. "Just bring it in the house, alright?"
He snorted and then became thoughtful as she reminded him of another woman in another universe who used to sass him and order him around. And then he realized that for just a second he had almost expected Gwen to call him Space Man. Missing Donna, and also feeling a wave of sadness for what had happened to her, he followed Gwen into the house.
~oOo~
"Where are we goin'? Aren't we goin' to your place?" Jackie asked as she stared out the passenger side window. Having just left the church, they were still not far from the mansion, but to her surprise, they were driving further into the neighborhood and in the opposite direction of the motorway.
"We need to get back to Cardiff," Rose answered quietly, "but even more than that we need to not get caught." She glanced in the rearview mirror at Tony. To her relief, he was playing with one of the toys he had brought with him and wasn't paying any attention to the adults. "Right now, the motorways are going to be the most closely watched. They had already begun to set up roadblocks on the M-4 on my way out here, and that was even before they were looking for us. We're gonna need to take some of the side roads." She suddenly pulled to the side to the side of the road and parked.
"Wha?" Jackie started.
"Look." A long line of police cars and black SUVs were driving through the intersection in front of them, heading in the direction of the mansion.
"Those look like the cars Torchwood has," Jackie said.
"Yeah, but they're not Torchwood. They're a bit different, armed differently."
"You can tell that from here?"
Rose nodded. "I've driven enough of them over the years. But they are from UNIT, though."
"Guess it's a good thing we got out of there when we did," Jackie's light tone couldn't completely disguise her nervousness.
Rose reached over, grabbed her mother's hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "We're gonna be okay, Mum. The Doctor and I are gonna get this sorted."
Jackie nodded.
Over the next half hour they drove around the outskirts of the city, generally but not entirely heading west, trying to get out of London. Everywhere they turned they seemed to see more police or more UNIT troops.
And much of the city was blocked off.
"It's for that thing tonight at Downing Street," Jackie told her.
"What thing at Downing Street?" Rose asked, turning to avoid a police car in front of them.
"Where all the leaders in Europe are comin' here for a meetin'?" When Rose looked blank, Jackie continued. "Honestly, Rose, it's been mentioned on telly for weeks. Don't you two ever get out of that bed of yours to catch up on world events?"
When it became obvious Rose was going to ignore that, Jackie continued.
"Before all of this happened, Pete was supposed to be there."
Rose wasn't really listening; instead she was concentrating on the cars around them. There was far too much of a police presence for the area they were in.
"I need you to get out my mobile and ring up Tosh for me. She's number 7 under speed dial."
Jackie dialed while Rose put a hands-free earpiece for the phone in her ear.
"Tosh," Rose said, "Where are you? Are you close to a computer?"
"Always," Toshiko answered. "You know me. And I'm at your place on the Doctor's computer."
"Oh," she said. "Is he… is he there?"
"No, he's not. He's in the house with Ianto, Gwen and Owen. Do you want me to get him for you?"
"No," Rose quickly said, not sure if she was ready to talk to him. "No, I'll talk to him later. I need you to look up something for me. You'll need to hack into the local police databases. I'm about a mile away from Heathrow, and I need you to find the best way from here to Wales, bypassing any checkpoints."
"I'll do you one better," the other woman replied. "I'll hack into UNIT's GPS visuals. Just give me a minute. Is there a place you can pull over without being noticed?"
Rose drove down the street, searching. There was parking available on the kerb, but nothing she could spot… There. She saw a car park located next to a restaurant. She pulled in and found a spot between two larger vehicles.
"Okay, I've parked. I'm in the car park of a restaurant called Guido's Pizzaria on the corner of," she craned her neck to look at the nearby street signs, "Placer and Oak Street."
"Rose, what are you driving?"
"A '94 Ford Mondeo. It's a muddy brown color with a few dents and the paint peeling off. I'm parked between a van and a pickup truck."
While Rose waited, she could hear the tap of Toshiko typing on the computer's keyboard.
"Ooo, the car park is rather full right now, isn't it?" she said.
"Yeah, it is."
"Rose, from this angle I can't tell the make or model of the cars very well to find yours specifically. You need to do something to help me see you."
Rose stuck her arm out the driver's side window and waved.
"Oh, that worked," Toshiko said, surprise evident in her voice. "I can see you. And I'll be able to see anything in front of you as well. What I'll do is this…."
~oOo~
Sitting at her desk in her office at Torchwood, Martha Jones was staring into her computer, completely unable to concentrate on the reports in front of her. Instead, her mind kept on returning to the gossip she had heard that morning. The news about Director Tyler's arrest had swirled through the building within minutes of its occurrence, and now, hours later, she still couldn't wrap her head around it. Pete Tyler, a traitor? It didn't seem possible. The idea that you never really knew anyone or what they were capable of was a truism, but based on her relationship to Jackie Tyler and what she knew about Pete Tyler's history, she just couldn't believe it of him.
In fact, no one she had spoken to could believe it of him. And no one they had spoken to could believe it of him either.
And no one seemed to know what the charges were based on.
Martha was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn't hear the UNIT soldiers enter the infirmary until they were standing in front of her desk.
"Dr. Jones," the tallest of the soldiers said, "would you please come with us?"