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.‘Don’t tell me it’s morning already,’ he started to complain.‘Or is this one of those deals where you wake me up in the middle of the night to start questioning me again?’Fitz rubbed his eyes, tiredly.‘It’s me, Sa’Motta,’ whispered the alien.Fitz tried to shake his head back to wakefulness.‘What on earth are you doing here?’Sa’Motta looked a little coy.‘I’ve come to rescue you.Or, at least, that’s the plan.’The word rescue acted like a verbal bucket of cold water: suddenly Fitz was fully alert.‘Rescue? Brilliant.’Sa’Motta checked that the corridor was clear and then led Fitz back down towards the lift.* * *In the operations centre Control and Williams watched as the pair entered the lift and Sa’Motta pressed the button for the exit.‘Is everything prepared upstairs?’ asked Control.‘All in hand,’ assured Williams, confidently.* * *In the road that ran through the small cluster of buildings that lurked behind the monument, Murphy sat in one of the Agency’s many cars, waiting.He’d just had word from Williams in his ear that the escapees were on their way.Murphy looked up as a dented BMW pulled up outside the museum and its single occupant got out to look at the opening times, leaving the car engine running and the door open.Murphy looked over towards the monument enclosure and saw Sa’Motta and Fitz coming out.The driver of the BMW was now walking towards the large circular building that housed a massive 360-degree circular painting of the battle known as the Panorama de la Bataille.He passed Sa’Motta and Fitz just as they were emerging and didn’t give them a second glance.Fitz spotted the car with its engine running and looked to see where the driver was.He nodded to Sa’Motta and the pair of them ran across and jumped into the car.As they sped off, the driver turned and waved his fist at them.Murphy laughed to himself.‘I don’t think Carter’s Angry Motorist is going to win any Oscars,’ he reported to Control.‘Just get after them, Murphy, and make it look good,’ Control ordered, testily.Murphy sighed and started up his own car to begin the token pursuit.* * *Inside the BMW Fitz was elated.The automatic transmission made the car a breeze to drive and, despite its slightly battered appearance, it was quite luxurious inside.‘What a stroke of luck!’ he exclaimed, not stopping to think exactly how incredibly easy their escape had been.Sa’Motta agreed.‘It seems fate is with us.’Fitz guided the car on to the main route back towards the capital.‘We’ll get to the city, then abandon the car.’ Fitz concentrated on the road ahead.‘Is there any sign of anyone following us?’ he asked.Sa’Motta turned to study the road behind them.‘No.Wait, yes, there’s something coming really fast,’ he reported.‘Hold on to your seat, then,’ Fitz warned, as he floored the accelerator and the car shot forward.* * *Murphy increased his speed, looking for an opportunity to make the ‘mistake’ Control had ordered.The BMW suddenly pulled over without indicating and took an exit off to the left.Murphy didn’t have to do much in the way of play-acting – he yanked his wheel and shot off in the same direction, wobbling horrendously.Using every vestige of his excellent driving skills, Murphy contrived to make it look as if he had lost control while veering towards a concrete bridge support.Applying the brakes expertly, at the last possible moment, he let his car crash into the support.* * *Fitz saw everything in his rear-view mirror.‘Yes!’ he exclaimed, banging the steering wheel with the palm of his hands.‘Gotcha!’The BMW hurtled down the road towards the city and, once more, the Eurostar terminal.* * *Murphy managed to kick open his door and stagger away from the wreck of his car.Control was talking to him but he had a terrible headache and couldn’t concentrate.‘Well done.Excellent job.’ Control was saying.Murphy shook his head, trying to clear it.What kind of a stupid job asked you to crash cars for a living? He should have stayed in the Marines.At least there he just got shot at occasionally.Murphy sat down heavily at the side of the road and waited to be picked up.* * *Williams checked some readouts and reported to Control.‘All the devices, both audio and video, are fully functional.Currently our man is three kilometres from the Eurostar station.’‘Excellent,’ said Control, pleased with the operation.‘Perhaps this time we’ll get to the bottom of this alien incursion before damn UNIT gets its mucky fingers all over it.’ Control sat back in his seat.‘I’m not having another foul-up like that business with the Jex and the Canavitchi,’ he declared with passion.‘This time UNIT wear the red faces.’* * *Chapter FourteenShort CircuitDudoin was delighted.In a few short hours Christine had managed to bridge the gap between his team of top scientists and the alien technology of the Kulan.Only Christine had possessed the vision and imagination to take the possibilities offered by the Kulan and make them realities.‘If only you had been working here from the outset, we might already be in space,’ he said with an ironic grin.Christine couldn’t help but be flattered by his praise.It had been an incredible period of intensive work and the result – a rather bizarre looking device that looked like a rugby cap infected with electrodes – was no more than a working prototype which could and would be refined in due course.It was therefore understandable that she was rather taken aback when Dudoin announced that he would test it himself, in a real flight, within twenty-four hours.‘But it’s not nearly ready for that,’ she argued.‘This is really just a mock-up.’Dudoin insisted, however, pointing out that this was a race: a contest in which days could count.He immediately set his team the task of making duplicates of the device.Christine tried to dissuade him from what she considered to be a foolhardy course of action.‘It’s not safe, Pierre-Yves,’ she said, in the conciliatory tone she had used in the last desperate days of their marriage, in an attempt to prevent his savage bursts of unpredictable anger.He merely shrugged his shoulders, in that annoying and all-too‐familiar way he had.‘What is?’Despairing, Christine had turned to Fray’kon, the leader of the aliens, hoping that he might support her position.‘You tell him,’ she asked him.‘He won’t listen to me!’Fray’kon, however, completely let her down.‘I think if Pierre-Yves wishes to do this, he should.The Kulan do not believe in hesitating when the time for action is upon us.’God save me from aliens with high levels of machismo, she thought to herself.‘Well don’t come crying to me when it all goes wrong,’ she told them bluntly, shaking her head in disbelief.She stalked off to go over the helmet control system again.If Dudoin was determined to go ahead with a flight she had to make sure she had done everything she could to make her contribution work properly.* * *Fray’kon watched Christine go, his head on one side.‘Are all human females this irrational?’Dudoin nodded a little sadly.‘In my experience, yes.’Fray’kon felt his eyes narrow [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]