Chapter Nine

When he had finally broken cover, and walked down Whitehall, he realised that something was missing. It took a couple of seconds for him to register that it was the Martian spaceship. If only it had all been a dream, he thought, before wondering where the ship was now.

The burnt-out shell of the police mobile HQ was the only remaining police or army vehicle in Trafalgar Square. The corpses had all been removed, but the ground was littered with patches of blood and spent cartridges. A copy of the Evening Standard blew past.

He wondered when Bambera had noticed that he'd gone. Her plan was that he would head to Windsor with a group of the UNIT boys. Christian preferred to stay in London. He'd never been one to run away from a fight.

He'd expected more troops on the ground, but he soon realised why the area was so deserted - the whole of Whitehall, the Square and the Strand had been sealed off, along with a few of the back streets. The manpower was concentrated on keeping people away from the area. Even so, it was short work to find a gap in the defences and make a way out. Within ten minutes, he was in Covent Garden.

There couldn't have been many, Alexander mused, who had stolen the petty cash box of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. It had about seventy pounds in it - a fortune twenty years ago, barely enough to live on now. He didn't have any jewellery or even a watch to barter with. He'd be able to buy food and travel around the Tube if it was operating, but not buy any new clothes or items of kit.

Apart from a couple of sugar cubes, he hadn't eaten since yesterday afternoon at the Lethbridge-Stewart place, so the first order of business was breakfast. Covent Garden had gone upmarket since his day, but he still managed to find a greasy spoon cafe without too much difficulty. Radio One was playing the latest music - Christian hadn't been 'with it' twenty years ago, so it came as no surprise that the music now was louder and more unpleasant now than ever before. Two burly young men were discussing the form guide in their newspaper at one table, a young girl was sitting by herself at another. The proprietor was a lanky Greek chap, who took Christian's money and disappeared into the back to make his fry-up without saying a single word.

'You got a light?' the girl asked. She had an East End accent, long dyed-blonde hair that she kept loose.