Part 5 (1/2)

The Doctor entered, smiled at the duty sergeant. There was another officer, filing some screenwork. He didn't look Mediterranean. He looked more like a soldier than a policeman.

'There was something on television about a briefcase?'

The duty sergeant and the soldier made an effort not to look at each other.

The Doctor plonked the silver briefcase on the counter.

'There was a reward, wasn't there? The television said something about 10,000 Euros? What's that in pounds, please?'

The soldier stood. 'You're English?'

'Not exactly,' the Doctor replied, carefully.

'We're all Europeans now,' the policeman reminded his colleague.

The Doctor kept quiet.

The soldier was running some sort of scanner over the case.

'Where did you find it?'

'I was on the beach with some friends, it just washed up.'

'It doesn't look dirty.'

'Well, it's just been in the sea.'

'It doesn't look particularly wet.'

'It was when we found it. It must have dried off in the sun.'

'You're in the habit of picking up strange briefcases?'

'If there's a reward.'

The soldier had put his scanner away and was taking out a wallet. 'We'll need a name and ID.'

The Doctor handed over his pa.s.sport. Well, a a pa.s.sport. pa.s.sport.

The soldier had lost interest in him, now. The policeman gave the picture something that barely qualified as a glance, then handed it back.

'Thank you,' the soldier said, although he clearly meant to tell him to get lost.

The Doctor was happy to do so.

Chapter Four.

Never Say Neverland Again Two hours later, the briefcase had arrived in London. An hour after that, the forensics people handed Cosgrove back his case and told him there wasn't any evidence that it had been tampered with. That might have sounded rea.s.suring, but it only meant what it said. The case could very well have been opened, by someone expert enough to leave no trace that he'd done so. Another team of experts told him that as the arrowhead was metal, it was impossible to carbon date it, but it was consistent with an eleventh*century Scottish design.

Still, he had his case back now.

Cosgrove took it back to his office, laid it on the desk and opened it, with some difficulty. His left arm was still badly bruised.

He reached for the bottle of painkillers in his jacket pocket.

The plan was to take a scientist along for the next meeting with Baskerville. There weren't exactly many people who specialised in the necessary field. He needed someone broad*minded.

He smiled. Professor Lik. Penelope Lik, the daughter of Korean immigrants, who'd joined the Service straight after completing her thesis. An imaginative young woman, and quite a travelling companion. But where were they travelling to?

He checked the case. The arrowhead was there, along with a handwritten invitation GPS co*ordinates and a time to be there. He checked the co*ordinates in the atlas he kept on his desk. Even here, he couldn't be sure that his computers weren't being monitored or hacked. The atlas, complete with its sigil on the cover, was more secure than any piece of electronic equipment on the planet.

The leather*bound book was an anachronism. Books weren't, of course in this day and age, the printed word was the only form of entertainment that wasn't easily pirated. Even theatre productions and operas could be covertly recorded and turned into vrooms. The entertainment corporations either factored piracy into their costings, or paid for a pinpoint smart missile strike on known pirate factories. Books and comics thrived. Magazines, of course, were ractive now.

No, the atlas was an anachronism because of its contents. All the countries, fitting together like colourful jigsaw pieces. Clearly defined boundaries. Individual states. Countries grouped together geographically, rather than economically, or by travel times.

The world just didn't work like that any more.

Cosgrove wasn't sure the world worked at all.

The meeting was going to be in the United States.

California.

Enemy territory.

Cosgrove wondered if it was Baskerville's joke at his expense.

He had twelve hours to get there with his scientist if he was going to travel by commercial airline, as was the usual practice, then he would barely make it. Even travelling hypersonic, he'd have to get a move on.

He told his autosec to ready the royal airliner, but the autosec complained that it wasn't authorised to do that. So Cosgrove had to make the phone calls himself. Convincing the people he needed to convince took almost as long as the trans*Atlantic flight would. By then, Penny Lik was downstairs in his car, with a packed suitcase.

There were formalities before he left. Cosgrove didn't believe in ritual blessings, but it was procedure, a tradition dating back to the late eighteenth century, and these things were audited. He p.r.i.c.ked his thumb, let a drop of blood fall on to the map, then drew a sign of power over Los Olivos. That done, he wiped the blood off the page, before it had a chance to congeal.

The secret signs of power, as determined by the men in secret societies, who thought they were the secret masters of the world. That's what the sigil on the front of the Atlas was meant to mean. 'Ours.' The conspiracy theorists had been saying it for decades there was a group of people, small enough to fit around one table, who controlled the flow of capital, who manipulated the economies of the world.

Cosgrove knew of at least nine organisations, six of which were still active, who thought they were the ones in charge, that they were the secret masters of the world.

Only one of them needed to be right, of course. But Cosgrove had thought for years that if there had been a small cabal of people running the world then it would be a lot better run than it actually was.

He had been in the Secret Service for sixty years. He knew a lot of secrets. There were things out there, beyond the normal, human, world. The truly ancient, the ones for whom this mere world would not be enough. There was a grand scheme of things. If there was a master of the world, he wouldn't waste his time with mere national economies, or local stock markets.

An instinct, and he realised that this was what he was dealing with. Something not of this Earth, not of this time. Something alien to humanity. Something that had to be fought.

He headed downstairs, to Professor Lik, and his car.