'Do not move!'  The stock of the machine gun rested against the Doctor's side.  Two more men appeared, hands on pistols concealed inside tweed jackets.

'Honestly,' said the Doctor, more irritated than surprised.  'There was a time when nobody could get in here without either a lot of money or proof of genealogical descent from royalty.  Or preferably both.'  He paused and cast a quick glance at his three assailants, realising for the first time that they were the three men who had attacked him and Benton the previous day.  'You are persistent, aren't you?' he noted drily.  With a mixture of resignation and genuine curiosity he raised his hands and smiled warmly.  'I'm aware of the protocol in these situations, gentlemen.  In my time I have been threatened by experts.  So...  Take me to your leader!'

The Doctor was marched along the corridor to the staircase and literally carried down to the back door by his two burly guards.  The man with the machine gun gave a few curt orders in Russian, which the Doctor understood to mean they should wait until he had checked that their escape route had not been compromised.  Then the Doctor was forced out into the sunlight, and bundled into the back of an unmarked van before he could take stock of his surroundings.  A blindfold was slipped over his eyes by what seemed to be female hands and his arms were tied behind his back.  The van moved off at an inconspicuous pace.  The entire kidnap operation had taken only three minutes to execute.

At first everything was silent. Then he heard a woman's voice asking one of his guards if they had encountered any difficulties.  The man began to reply that the mission orders had been carried out with precision when the Doctor chose his moment to ask the most obvious question that occurred to him.

'Excuse me?' he said in flawless Russian.  'Do you mind taking off this blindfold?  My skin is very delicate and I bruise rather easily.'

His only reply was a brief grunt of what he took to be surprise.  And then silence.  After a pause he tried again.

'Hello,' he said brightly.  'I trust, since you've gone to all this trouble, that you want something from me.  I should advise you that I can prove to be very uncooperative if I'm trussed up like a sack of potatoes'

Again there was no reply, although the Doctor thought he could detect a small ripple of ironic laughter from the other side of the van.

He stretched out his feet and felt them come into contact with something solid.  He sniffed the air, detecting a faint odour of oil and an even fainter smell of soap.  When he next spoke his voice was light and chatty in a way that belied his situation.

'I expect the Progressive Club will have reported my abduction to UNIT by now.  They're a snobbish crowd, but hardly unobservant.  Three clodhopping chaps can't walk in off the street and snatch a member in broad daylight without somebody noticing.'  The Doctor's voice levelled out.  He was attempting the same steady, regular speech pattern as he had used during the Soviets' first attack.  Hypnotic suggestion, a way of extracting oneself from potential harm with merely the power of the spoken word.