Doctor Who_ Just War Part 18

'Er, no,' said Chris, unsure whether the Doctor was joking. He had a suggestion, but wasn't sure how the Doctor would take it. 'I do have a plan,' he began tentatively.

At ten to five, just as they were beginning to pack up for the night, Kendrick had phoned from Downing Street, and requested that Reed and Forrester remain at the SID until he returned. He had left no indication how long that would be, so they decided to sit and talk at their empty desks.

'What do you think that Hoogin and Mooning are, George?'

'Kendrick has told us to concentrate on finding von Wer,'

he warned.

'Yes, but we're not getting anywhere with that, are we?'

'I was talking to Davis at lunchtime, and he's not got anywhere with Hoogin and Mooning. Perhaps both are red herrings: it wouldn't be the first time.' George seemed entirely uninterested. The problem fascinated Roz, however. It seemed to be the only firm piece of evidence that the SID had. She needed to talk to someone about this suspicion.

'Let's a.s.sume they are code names for whatever Hartung is building,' she began.

'Reasonable enough,' Reed conceded. He didn't want to talk about this. He looked anxious, now, like a young boy who thought he was about to be caught scrumping apples.

Kendrick had ordered him to think about other matters, and he didn't want to disobey.

'What do we know about other German codenames?'

Roz continued, keeping her tone businesslike.

'I'm not sure I can tell you.' Despite his reticence, she was managing to draw Reed into the problem.

'Why not?'

'Well, I'd have to give you a list of top secret German projects, then their codenames, then exactly why those names matched up with what the project was.' She could see the problem. Most intelligence organizations encountered the same difficulty: by definition they were dealing with secrets, and by definition, you couldn't go around telling too many people exactly what you did and didn't know. It led to compartmentalization. Small groups dealing with small problems, and no one able to see the big picture.

Unfortunately, real life wasn't broken up into neat compartments. They knew that Hartung's group, officially a part of the Luftwaffe zbV, actually included members of the SS and regular army as well as the Luftwaffe itself. Reed obviously knew more than he was saying, here, and it might be important.

'Can you give me one example?' she asked reasonably.

George looked furtive. 'Don't you dare tell anyone about this: last year, one of the first jobs the SID had was to try and a.s.sess the German radar network. We knew that the Germans called a new system "Wotan", but we had no idea what it was, or even if it had anything to do with radar. Well, would could work out from the name that it was something important, so - '

'Hang on a second, you've lost me.'

George grinned, a pleasing sight. 'Wotan, or Odin, was the king of the Norse G.o.ds. The top n.a.z.i bra.s.s are obsessed with the Norse myths, believe it or not. Anyway, the very first piece of equipment the SID bought was a reference book about the Norse myths. And lo and behold, we found out that one of Wotan the G.o.d's characteristics was that he only had one eye. We managed to match up that with a single-beam radar guidance system we knew they were developing. One eye, one radar beam. So we found out what Wotan the Weapon was, just from the codename.'

Roz and Reed looked at each other for a second. The same idea had just occurred to them both. Reed hurried over to the bookcase, and pulled the book down. It was a handsome, leather-bound edition, and hadn't been touched for a year, since the Wotan incident he had just related. Reed thumbed his way through the index.

'I don't believe it...' he breathed, flicking his way through the book. He opened up the book, and handed it across to Roz.

There was a full-page engraving of Odin, seated on a magnificent throne. Odin was a man in his fifties, bearded, wearing an elaborate eagle helmet. He had an eyepatch over one eye, a spear in his hand, a magnificent ring on his finger. At his feet were two wolves, at his shoulders two black birds.

Roz read out some of the text. "Odin also commanded Hugin and Munin, two ravens perched upon his shoulders.

Their names mean 'Thought' and 'Memory'. Every morning Odin sent them out, and they returned at nightfall, when they whispered the news of the whole earth to him. No one could catch these birds, and they could come and go as they pleased, as swift and as silent as their name might indicate.

Through them, the All-father knew of all earthly happenings."

Roz sat back. 'OK. So we have a clue. Next question: what does it mean?'

'Well, Hugin and Munin are birds. Aerial weapon. It's the superbomber.'

'They don't say "superbomber" to me, George. "Thought"

and "Memory"? Why have two names?'

'Two types of bomber: heavy and light, long or short range,' George offered.

'What if this is a double bluff?' Roz said, suddenly suspicious.

'What do you mean?'

'Isn't it just a bit hokey that this German codename gives us this clue?'

'No, Roz. The beauty of working in counter-intelligence against the Germans is that they never learn from their mistakes. During our standard training we are told about a system the Germans had for pa.s.sing messages at the last war. In 1916, there was a woman - I forget her name - but every day she'd cross a checkpoint. She said she was visiting her brother, and every single day she was searched, and no one ever found anything. The guards befriended her, and the search became a formality. One day, the officer in charge was talking to her and, conversationally, he asked what she had in her basket. "Just a few boiled eggs and some bread and b.u.t.ter," she said. He reached in, and plucked out one of the eggs.'

'I take it that this story is going somewhere?' murmured Roz irritably. Was George trying to lead her off the subject?

'Of course. Here's the point: the woman looked utterly terrified, and the officer couldn't work out why: all he'd done is pick up an egg. He checked it in his hand: not a mark on it.

But she had made the man suspicious, so he examined the egg more thoroughly. He picked off the sh.e.l.l, and discovered little brown dots on the egg white. When these were magnified, they turned out to be a plan of the troop movements in the whole sector. The Germans had discovered that if they wrote in - oh, what's the name? - acetic acid on the sh.e.l.l of a soft-boiled egg, let it dry and then boiled it, then the message would get absorbed, leaving no trace of it on the surface. acid on the sh.e.l.l of a soft-boiled egg, let it dry and then boiled it, then the message would get absorbed, leaving no trace of it on the surface.

'Now the Germans knew that we discovered this, but they still carried on using the exact same method, without even the slightest variation. It seems to be a quirk of the German character: either a love of routine, or an unwillingness to admit they've been bettered. In the end, it was almost embarra.s.sing: the army would constantly be arresting and executing these poor women, just because their superiors wouldn't change their system. And do you know what? They are still still doing it! We've discovered German agents doing exactly the same thing three times already in this war.' doing it! We've discovered German agents doing exactly the same thing three times already in this war.'

Roz frowned. 'OK. So it's a clue. So let's see what it means. What properties do Hugin and Munin have?'

'They are birds. There are two of them. They are fast and long-range. They have something to do with Odin, or Wotan.

That's it. Powerful birds: a superbomber,' Reed concluded.

'They fly by day. They're used for spying. Thought and memory. They have magical properties,' Roz continued.

'Ah, the codenames are still a bit cryptic. Don't read too much into them,' Reed warned gently.

'George, this is not a bomber. Kendrick is wrong.

Hartung has built two of them, and they are something new, something unique. And we have no idea what they might be.'

'Excuse me, sister, have you seen anyone suspicious? Two men, one dressed as a German officer; the other an older, smaller man in a linen suit?'

'Oh, no, Major,' the nun chuckled. 'You really are a big lad, aren't you? Not as big as my Kristian, here.' The nun giggled.

The major peered at her. The nun was short and middle-aged. She had a bulbous nose and thick eyebrows. Although plain, her eyes and mouth were kindly. There was a German officer escorting her, a man in his early twenties. He was tall, blond, with piercing blue eyes. He was heavily built, like an athlete and he had a thick moustache.

'I do not recognize you, Leutnant. May I see your papers?' The nun leaned forward. 'Young man, this is Kristian. I teach music at the local school, and Kristian looks after me.' She giggled again, then batted her eyelids at him.

Hastily, the Leutnant decided that the nun must be telling the truth. The Leutnant moved them on. It was getting dark.

In this light, Steinmann looked like the incarnation of evil. He was lit from beneath, the way that Dracula always was in horror films. It emphasized the arch of his eyebrows and the curve of his forehead. His distinguished nose became hooked, and his mouth even more cruel. His skin became grey and lifeless. The shadows made the sockets of his eyes look sunken, and his grey eyes glinted malevolently.

He lit himself a cigarette. He offered Benny one, but she refused.

'My right hand,' she said. 'I have no feeling there.'

Steinmann bent over to examine her hand. Delicately, he unwrapped the bandage and gently stroked the back of her hand. Finally, he took his cigarette from his mouth and stabbed it down just behind the knuckle of her middle finger.

Benny screamed.

'The feeling seems to have returned,' Steinmann observed.

When she had finished sobbing, he continued. 'Fraulein Summerfield, it's late in the day, and I have to get back to Granville tonight. Events are moving on. You are not a time traveller. That is a lie. Tell me the truth.' The shadows exaggerated every move of his face, distorting his features still further as he spoke. What he was saying was true. Her memories all seemed so real, but Steinmann must be right. If this Doctor existed, he would have rescued her by now. She wasn't sure that he could exist. What was he meant to be?

An immortal being who was capable of travelling through time and s.p.a.ce. He didn't look the part. Actually, she found it difficult to remember what he looked like. She remembered that his voice was distinctive, but couldn't remember whether he was meant to have a Scottish or an Irish accent. It wasn't true, was it? None of it was true. She didn't live in a police box and she certainly couldn't speak Martian.

'I have told you everything that I know,' she insisted. Her hand was still throbbing.

She had retreated into a fantasy world, and now Steinmann was stripping away all the fantasy, all the science fiction, peeling away every one of her lies. She still had clear memories. Dreams of men goose-stepping, the drone of planes. n.a.z.is in the bathroom. New Year's Eve: that German private who'd come into her room. She remembered his hot breath on her neck, his hand on her face. If it hadn't been for Gerhard and Kurt, then who knows what would have happened. Her bed at home was cold, cold and hard. There was a constant tang of cigarette smoke and rotten food in the air. The meat she ate was fatty, stringy, laced with salt so you couldn't tell it had gone off. The Royal Hotel was running out of soap, but still had plenty of carpet cleaner. Those were facts, facts that she could remember from real life. Her name wasn't Bernice, it was Celia. She remembered people calling her Celia. She couldn't remember anyone ever calling her Benny. It was such a ridiculous name anyway.

'Another injection.'

'You will kill her,' stated the nurse. Was that concern, or glee? Celia wasn't sure of anything any longer.

'That is of no concern. Perhaps we will learn the truth before she dies.'

Celia felt the jab, and thought that she could feel the drug flowing through her bloodstream, rooting out the truth. All the lies that had built up were dissolving away now. How much nicer it would be if she really was Benny, intrepid explorer and archaeologist. Someone who'd stand up to all this, quipping with supervillains. Someone special, who'd travelled further than anyone else, visited all those exciting ages in history. Battling evil, slaying the monster, but always back home by teatime. But it wasn't true. Her name was Celia and her job was to clean up after the n.a.z.is, to beat their carpets and to scrub their toilets.

Another agonizing stab on the back of her hand.

'I hate you!' she heard herself shouting.

Celia had lived on Guernsey all her life. That explained why she couldn't picture London without her mind painting in gla.s.s skysc.r.a.pers on the skyline. She hadn't got a degree in archaeology. Deep down, she knew that much, and now she admitted it. Her whole life was a lie, it had been a lie ever since the day that her mother had died. What was her mother's name? What was her father called? What was her surname? She had no recollection, but she knew that her mother had been killed in an air-raid... killed by the... the word was a far and distant thing. Two syllables, harsh in the mouth. She couldn't recall the name, only what it symbolized.

Evil. Something that had been there as long as she could remember. It was a byword for hatred and destruction. Death.

They exterminated everything that wasn't like them.

Indestructible monsters. Opportunists who attacked without warning, who ignored diplomacy. Divide and conquer.

Invasion. They killed millions: they didn't distinguish between the military and civilians. Rows and rows of headstones. A planet full of graves. Remembrance Day. Lest we forget.

Chanting their boastful slogans. Advance and attack, attack and destroy. Their right arms stiff, extended in a permanent salute.

Power. Conquer and destroy. Genesis: an insane genius, wounded in the last war. Wanting the best for his people, knowing that they must change in this hostile environment, become harsher, more disciplined, more loyal. Change their very genetic make-up. Round up and destroy the enemy within. Their Nation must return to its former glory.

Resurrection. War machines pouring from production lines.

Advancing, guns blazing. Technical achievement. Scientists, working in laboratories, conceiving new terrors. They built all those weapons. Germ warfare. Powerful explosives. Their supreme ruler barking orders. I obey. Total war. Buildings shattering, bricks and concrete cracking and splintering.

Racial purity. They ran slave camps, killed their prisoners for sport. Experimenting on the inmates. Twisted science.

Permanent warfare. Master Plan. The future, with London in ruins. Destiny. Blond supermen, brutish subhuman servants.

Their rightful place: the supreme beings of the universe.

Planet, Doctor, not universe. Revelation. Halt! Stay where you are!

'I know! I know who you really are!' Bernice bawled, her throat dry. Darkness falling. She couldn't hear herself; she couldn't see where she was. Her hand was still burning with pain, but it seemed so far away, now. She knew the nurse was there, feeling for her pulse.

She slumped in her seat, her head lolling.

Kendrick entered the room. Reed and Forrester stood and saluted. It was just after six o'clock.