Free Doctor Who: The Invasion by Ian Marter Page B

the Doctor took out the polyvox unit the Brigadier had given him, deployed the stubby aerial and pressed the call button. 'Jamie, try to tell Zoe to keep away from the window, otherwise she'll give the game away,' he muttered urgently. 'And keep down.'
    'Hallo Doctor, come in...' buzzed the Brigadier.
    'Brigadier, I think we shall require your assistance in a few minutes. Do you have a helicopter in the vicinity?' said the Doctor hurriedly.
    'We do indeed, Doctor.'
    'Equipped with a rope ladder of some kind?' 'Naturally, Doctor.
    I'll order Captain Turner to find you immediately.'
    The Doctor glanced up at the roof of the Administration Building a dozen storeys above them. 'We'll be on the roof of the tower block, Brigadier. North East corner. That should give your helicopter cover from any ground fire.'
    'Excellent,' crackled the Brigadier appreciatively. 'Over and out.'
    'Oh yes... Out and... and about,' the Doctor signed off, trying to hide his uneasy expression from Jamie as he stared at the thin metal ladder running up the side of the tower. 'And all in one piece too, I trust!'
     
    Zoe had been staring clown at the grey concrete and metal buildings which formed the International Electromatix Factory Complex with an expression of hopeless gloom. 'I'm sorry, Isobel, this is all my fault,' she muttered. 'If I hadn't blown up that stupid computer...'
    Isobel still looked shocked after the ordeal inside the containers. 'Why didn't they just turn us over to the fuzz or something, Zoe?' she wondered. 'It was horrible inside those crate things. Why have they kidnapped us like this?'
    Zoe shrugged. 'I don't see any way out of here, Isobel. It's a sheer drop,' she said, turning to look round the bare featureless office where they were imprisoned. 'There's nothing to make any sort of ladder with either.'
    'Or a set of wings,' Isobel joked with a brave smile, pressing her pale face to the window. Suddenly she caught sight of Jamie waving frantically directly below them. 'Zoe, look, it's Jamie and the Doctor!' she cried, clapping her hands with delight.
    Zoe peered down, trying to interpret Jamie's wild gestures. 'I think Jamie's telling us to keep away from the window, Isobel.'
    Jamie was pointing to his eyes and then to the window and then doing an obscure little mime.
    The two girls glanced at each other in bewilderment. Then Zoe noticed that what appeared to be a spotlight bulb suspended from the ceiling was in fact a rotatable electronic eye.
    'Just act as if nothing was happening...' she murmured out of the side of her mouth. 'I think Big Brother is watching us.'
    They moved away from the window with affected casualness and sat down against the wall, as if giving up all thought of resistance. But inside, they were tense with excitement and expectation.
     
    Vaughn pressed a button on his desk and leaned towards the slim microphone. 'Doctor, you have just five minutes left,' he announced in an expressionless monotone. 'Do you hear me, Doctor?
    Five minutes...'
    Packer stood at the window, listening to his miniature VHF
    unit and scanning the sky over the complex. 'They won't give themselves up, Mr Vaughn. They'd be mad to,' he whined.
    'Not mad, Packer. Merely human,' Vaughn retorted mildly, selecting a different channel on one of the video screens in the wall opposite him. 'They won't want their charming little friends to come to any harm.'
    On the screen, Zoe and Isobel appeared sitting in disconsolate silence on the floor of their room. Packer turned and gazed at them, his lip curling in a cruel sadistic sneer.
    The sudden clattering whine of a helicopter made Packer spin round to the window again. 'The helicopter, Mr Vaughn. It's right overhead!' he warned.
    For a fleeting moment Vaughn looked slightly uneasy. He came to the window and looked up at the helicopter as it passed out of sight, hovering directly over the tower block. Then he looked back at the girls slumped in their prison. 'Perhaps the Doctor and the boy plan to