Doctor Who_ Just War Part 2

George apparently hadn't seen him. Her cigarette had disappeared, too. 'That's right. Looks like it was done by an...

Esau dropped from a Dornier. No one was injured - the firemen had to let the fire burn, though: St Kit's hospital and Paddington station were both hit, too. By the way, permission to call me Roz when there's no one else around.'

George grinned. 'You're billeted around here, aren't you?'

Roz glanced up at the TARDIS. 'I am, yes. Hardly recognize the place at the moment.'

Reed lowered his voice. 'It was heavy last night, Roz. A lot of the planes came from the Channel Islands according to radar. Jerry was d.a.m.ned lucky, too; virtually everything they dropped hit something important. There wasn't even a bomber's moon. We can't hit them back without hitting civilians too. Kendrick wants to brief us at 08.45, so you're coming back with us.' He moved away, wanting to inspect the damage for himself.

Chris stepped over. A week ago, when they had first arrived in London, he had been very taken with the fas.h.i.+ons of the time. Overnight, he had grown himself a thick handlebar moustache, which he a.s.sured Roz was 'just like they have in the air force'. Thanks to his body-bepple, Chris's teeth and nails were always distinctly sharper than human normal. The combined effect of his pointy teeth and new facial hair was to make him look like a gerbil. Roz hadn't the heart to break the news to him.

'It was quite a night, wasn't it?'

Forrester looked up at him. 'Yes, twenty-three dead, two hundred injured.'

'That's not what I meant,' Chris whispered.

'I know. I just met the Doctor.'

He perked up. 'Where?'

'Just here. Don't get too excited, he's off somewhere again. He'll be back tomorrow at the same time. He gave me this for you.' She handed over one of the TARDIS keys.

Chris held it up to the light and frowned. 'What's he playing at?'

Roz wished she knew.

The Scientific Intelligence Division Headquarters were part of the War Office, on the banks of the Thames. From the outside the building was imposing - a seven-storey building in white stone. Inside, the rooms were smaller, perhaps less impressive, but nevertheless Chris thought that the third-floor office he shared with Roz and Reed was wonderful. Oak panels, an antique (even relatively speaking) globe, a full drinks cabinet. There was a lovely musty smell that centuries of air-conditioning had erased by the thirtieth century, his and Roz's native time. A large oil-painting hung on one wall - Daedalus and Icarus soaring. Chris couldn't identify the artist, but could appreciate the skill that had gone into its crafting.

Although the windows had been taped over to stop the gla.s.s shattering during an air-raid, the room afforded a view of the rest of Whitehall. The office was cluttered with files and maps, the largest of which permanently filled a vast round table in the centre of the room.

Admiral Kendrick entered the room. They all stood, saluting. Kendrick acknowledged this, but marched straight over to a composite map of Northern France pinned to one wall. Kendrick was a large man, in his late fifties now. He had an almost regal bearing, and a heavily lined face. Chris had quickly learnt about his commander's military record.

Kendrick had proved himself escorting convoys across the Atlantic during the Great War, over a quarter of a century ago, where he had learnt to second-guess the U-boat commanders. He was respected throughout the armed forces. Kendrick glanced up.

'The Channel Islands.' He said nothing more. Chris grinned, and looked over to Roz, but his partner appeared not to recognize the name. She returned his glance with a mocking look that made him turn away.

Reed piped up, 'I thought we'd agreed that the Germans were holding them for propaganda value only, sir?'

Kendrick grunted. Chris watched Roz glancing between them, bemused.

'Yes, we did, but it doesn't mean we were right. Latest reports show heavy air and naval activity. I think there is something big going on. Cwej?'

Chris mulled it over, pretended to predict what might happen. When he finally spoke he was quoting from one of the books he'd found in the vast TARDIS library. 'The Germans would be foolish not to use the islands for training.

They could practise amphibious landings. How far is it from France?'

'About fourteen, fifteen miles to Jersey,' George answered automatically, his eyes still fixed on the map.

'About half the distance to the south coast of England.

They could iron out the bugs in the landing procedures, find out who gets seasick, which new landing craft don't work, what supplies they will need, that sort of thing.'

Kendrick looked enthusiastic, but Reed merely looked curious. ' "Iron out the bugs"?'

Chris bit his tongue. It was so difficult to know which phrases were being used and which weren't in any given year. In the end, he'd approached Benny - who after all was a seasoned time traveller as well as an archaeologist. She'd turned out to be quite an aficionado of the cinema of this time, and had recommended half a dozen war movies. They had given him as much insight as any academic textbook. It had been there that he had learnt that all officers had moustaches, something he hadn't found out about in any of the books. Kendrick had one, although it wasn't quite as magnificent as his own. 'A Canadian expression, George,' he said quickly, 'it means "to solve the little problems".' Reed seemed to accept that.

Kendrick was nodding thoughtfully. 'You could be right, Cwej. There's something else: they seem to be testing some totally new weapon there. One of our operatives on Guernsey thinks that Hartung was there last week.'

Kendrick handed Reed a buff folder, which he began examining. This time, Chris was puzzled. When the Doctor had told him that they were going to 1941, he'd spent quite some time researching the period - nothing he'd read had mentioned this Hartung person.

'I've not heard of him,' he heard Roz admitting.

Kendrick didn't look surprised; indeed he hardly seemed to notice she had spoken. Chris was baffled: he had noticed that for some reason, Kendrick often ignored what Roz had to say. As a result, his partner had become noticeably quieter in the last couple of days. He made a note to ask her about it when they had a spare moment. Kendrick certainly reacted when Chris also admitted he knew nothing about Hartung.

'The German avionics expert,' Kendrick offered.

They both shook their heads.

'Used to be a racing driver, built his own cars?'

Chris apologized, but still didn't recognize the name.

'I'm surprised. Perhaps he's a bit before your time. We're expecting a lot from Hartung in the future, though. He's an expert in all sorts of fields: aerodynamics, physics, rocketry, mathematics, metallurgy, even radio waves. A genius. They usually keep him very safe. Rechlin, is it, George?'

Reed looked up from the folder he had been flicking through. 'That's right, sir, on the Mueritzsee, north of Berlin.

He has his own team of boffins there. He's been there since November 1936 and the Luftwaffe give him anything he wants - men, materials, money. We're not even sure what he's working on these days. This is the first time he's left Rechlin since Christmas '39.'

'He could be taking part in the landing trials,' Forrester suggested. Kendrick didn't acknowledge her.

'It's not what I'd expected at all. Even with the number of paratroopers they have, the Germans couldn't possibly launch an aerial a.s.sault on the British mainland, it would have to be naval. Besides, there hasn't been anything like the build-up of planes they would need. George, show Lieutenant Cwej and Captain Forrester to the File Room. See what you can come up with. Hartung may be a red herring, but it can't hurt to check. You know what it might mean if it isn't.'

Chris watched George's reaction. The two men were keeping something from them. Hardly surprising; he and Roz had only been in the job for a week so he didn't really expect to be privy to the deepest secrets of British Intelligence straight away. Still, it was something to keep in mind. A glance at Roz confirmed that she was thinking the same thing.

The File Room was in the sub-bas.e.m.e.nt, far below the reach of any bomb. Reed knew that it was the first time that either Cwej or Forrester had been down there. He hoped they wouldn't be disappointed. Bare bulbs cast pools of harsh light across the large room. Row upon row of metal shelving strained under the weight of piles and piles of identical buff folders. Every so often the pattern was broken by a small box of index cards. A handful of men and women, some in uniform, some in neat dark blue suits, stood at strategic points, rummaging through boxes, sorting through reams of paper. The air smelled musty, and a thin layer of dust coated every surface. George effortlessly navigated his way through this colourless world. To the untrained eye, this might not have seemed like much, but this was one of the most important rooms in the world: a repository of knowledge about the enemy. Information from this room had saved thousands of lives, and it might yet turn the course of the war.

'How are things filed?' asked Cwej. Reed grinned; the Canadian lad seemed genuinely keen to learn.

'At the end of the day, someone brings the box down with all the papers in. Hopefully, it's in some kind of order.

a.n.a.lysis, reports written by someone here, aerial Photographs, that kind of thing, is in the grey files, information from the field is in the buff ones. It's not quite as crazy as it sounds. Normally Kendrick would fill in a docket for you, and one of the office girls would get the file you wanted, but they don't start until nine-thirty.'

'What a wild and wacky world you lead,' he heard Forrester mutter. Reed glanced over to her. The African woman was staring into s.p.a.ce, arms crossed. Forrester was an odd one, he thought. She was unlike any woman he had ever known, and was certainly very different from the few other negro women he had encountered. She was jolly civilized, and knew so much, but she seemed so distant. Roz was an African who knew as much physics as their own boffins. But it wasn't just that: Reed recognized something in her unique to those who had seen active service. Cwej was strong and well trained, but Reed instinctively knew that he'd hardly ever fired a shot in anger. Roz? Roz Forrester had seen friends die, she'd faced the enemy a dozen times, she'd led her troops over the top. Reed recognized a kindred spirit in this exotic creature. She was a riddle that he wanted to solve, and a woman he found profoundly attractive.

'Don't they have filing where you come from, Captain?'

'No. We've not used paper files for centuries,' she said casually. She gave one of her rare grins, her teeth so white against her ebony skin. George realized that he was staring at her, and looked away. They had reached the box he was looking for. It was on a high shelf, and together he and Cwej began to ease it down to the ground. They both turned down Forrester's offer to help. Sure enough, they soon managed to get the box down onto the floor. Now Cwej knelt down and helped Reed look through it. After a couple of fruitless minutes, George looked up.

'Found it.'

As Roz trudged back to the office behind George and Chris, it occurred to her that this job would be a lot easier with even a rudimentary computer terminal. In her time, police computers could collate all the surveillance and forensic information in a case and seven times out of ten they'd manage to name the culprit from just that. In 1941, and she supposed for a couple of decades still to come, the job still involved some physical effort. Soon this file room would be gone, replaced with one of those big antique processors. George's successors would simply tap their request into a terminal somewhere and reams of computer paper would spew out. A couple of decades after that, the computers would do most of the a.n.a.lysis, indeed most of the spying, for them. Paper would become a thing of the past and a whole new order of crimes would evolve: computer fraud, hacking, aggravated flaming, narcoware, blackemail, intermes.h.i.+ng.

They had arrived back at their office. Immediately, George moved over to the drinks cabinet and smiled. 'Too early in the morning for you, Cwej?'

Chris seemed momentarily confused by the question, so Forrester stepped into the breach. 'He doesn't drink, Lieutenant. I do, though.'

George handed her the folder, reaching into the drinks cabinet for a narrow-necked bottle.

'Is it OK if I look at this?' Forrester asked, resting the folder on her lap.

'I wouldn't have handed it to you if it wasn't.' George had located a couple of gla.s.ses.

Forrester nodded and opened the file. For Chris's benefit, George recited the details without needing to refer to it: 'Born June twenty-sixth 1898, his parents were a dentist and the daughter of a prominent industrialist. Served in the Luftwaffe in France during the Great War, then went on the Heidelberg. Worked on the design teams of all the major German automobile companies, was a racing driver from the late twenties until about five years ago. His first love was really aerodynamics - there are over two hundred individual patents in his name covering all aspects of planes: engines, guidance, construction. But the man has a secret.' He leant over. 'His grandmother was Jewish. Couple of people from the racing world remember talking to him in the 'thirties, and they say he's not that fond of the n.a.z.is. Kendrick reckons, and he's not usually wrong, that Hartung is ready to defect.'

George handed Roz a generous measure of brandy and took a sip from his own gla.s.s. She flipped through the file.

There were a couple of old press clippings, and a more recent photo that had been crudely torn from a newspaper.

The caption said it had been taken at a race meeting in January 1936. Hartung was a handsome devil, thick black hair slicked back, with dark eyes. In this picture he wore a very sharp suit and leather gloves. What remained of the caption read '(Photo M. Jarvis: Emil Hartung in Cairo with his latest travelling companion, Miss Bu-'. Miss Bu was missing from the picture, although Roz could make out that there were Arabs in the background.

'I can see why Scientific Intelligence would be interested,' she offered.

The Scientific Intelligence Division had been formed late the previous summer, on Kendrick's recommendation. Its job was to coordinate the various pieces of specialized technical information that came the way of British Intelligence. At this early stage, the Division consisted of around a dozen officers and half a dozen scientists. It was the first organization that linked the two groups (officially, at any rate). Military technology was becoming more and more advanced by the day: only a specialist could hope to really understand cryptography, radio technology and electromagnetism. Field operatives continued to radio in even the slightest thing they felt was important. The SID read everything that was picked up by radio operators in Bletchley, both intercepted German messages and information sent by field agents. Aerial reconnaissance was producing hundreds of photographs every day. Millions of pieces of information were being collected, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to understand what the Germans were developing, predict when it would be ready and work out a defence. The SID was designed to deal with the unknown weapon, the unexplained German radio signal and to report directly to the War Cabinet. The military officers came from all three services, the scientists only from the finest universities and private research labs, from all the Allied countries. Forrester and Cwej had been brought in from abroad, from South Africa and Canada respectively, or so the SID thought.

'Hartung's defection might in itself be enough to turn the tide of the war.'

Roz bit her lip. This was something big. Was this what the Doctor was looking for? She pondered this for a moment, then, 'Couldn't it be a bluff? He could be a double agent or might not want to defect at all.'

George shrugged. 'That, Roslyn, is the question.'

The phone rang, surprising Chris.

'It's only the telephone, Cwej. h.e.l.lo?' George listened intently for a second, then put the handset back. 'Kendrick wants a word, won't be long.'

George got up and left the room hurriedly.

'He seemed worried,' suggested Chris. Roz was having none of it.

'Will you please explain what is going on? What are these islands, who is this Hartung and what on Earth has his Jewish grandmother got to do with anything?'

Chris looked pleased with himself. 'You shouldn't skimp on your research, Roz, we learnt that last time. The Channel Islands are a small group of islands off the French mainland - they belonged to the Normans about two thousand years ago, the Great British held them for virtually the whole of the Second Millennium, although they were briefly held by the Germans, and that's the period we're in now. Later, they were captured by the Spanish in the Gibraltan War. They're part of the Undertown now, of course. s.p.a.ceport Seven, I think.'

'Thank you, Lieutenant Database. They're not exactly the centre of the universe, though, are they?'

'No.'

'Have you heard of Hartung?'

'Not at all. I mean, to be fair, I'd not heard of Franco, Mussolini or Stalin until we came here.'

Forrester only recognized two of the names. How could the Doctor leave them in such a temporal backwater? This was a full millennium before they were born, an age when radar and rockets were state of the art. There were still cavalry regiments, for G.o.ddess's sake. How could anything important happen here?

George came back through the door, and he looked fl.u.s.tered. Kendrick came in right behind him. Behind him was a pipe-smoking civilian, in a tweed jacket: Eric Lynch, the research scientist from Cambridge. Roz and Chris saluted.

'I have just received word from one of our top agents on Guernsey. Hartung is conducting tests there of a new aerial weapon. Our agent doesn't know what this weapon is, but has established that the tests involve the frigate Vidar.

Hartung has been seen a number of times on Guernsey, but we believe that he is based at the airfield just outside of Granville.'

George nodded thoughtfully. Kendrick continued. 'The team working on the problem, that's Davis and young Lynch here, suspect that the Germans have a new type of airborne weapon, a superbomber that could devastate our cities with minimal losses to their forces. We had a report of such a programme as long ago as 1939, but we never located the research site or had any confirmation of the weapon's existence.'

A superbomber?' Chris said curiously. 'What exactly do you mean?'

'I mean a bomber much larger and faster than anything else in the sky. It will be the Dreadnought all over again, only this time the Germans will have it first.' Kendrick could see that Roz was confused, so he explained, 'In 1906, the Navy put the HMS Dreadnought to sea: it was the fastest, most heavily armed s.h.i.+p that the world had ever seen. It was so powerful, in fact, that it could outcla.s.s any other s.h.i.+p on the oceans. Now, you'd think that this would have strengthened the British Navy, but instead -'

'- when the Germans built one, it made every other wars.h.i.+p in the Navy obsolete,' finished Roz. 'Whoever built the most dreadnoughts would win the arms race, regardless of how many centuries of naval tradition they had.'

Kendrick nodded. 'Well done. Thankfully, we could build more than the Germans, so we could keep control of the seas and win the last war. It's an open secret that the RAF are trying to develop a heavy bomber that will really be able to take the fight to the German cities, but we are still over a year away from seeing one of those in action. Until a couple of weeks ago, though, we thought that the Germans had other priorities. Now it looks as if Hartung is building a superbomber after all.' Kendrick paused, looking at Cwej in a way that made Roz feel distinctly uncomfortable. It was the sort of look that her superiors always used to give her before sending her offworld to adjudicate on a planet where the two sides were already holed up on different continents firing photon bombs at each other. Sure enough: 'This is our last chance to bring Hartung over before his project is complete. We need to s.n.a.t.c.h him from them. A commando raid is out of the question; we need something smaller to get through coastal defences. Likewise, Downing Street can't spare us any paratroopers, not without better evidence. Lieutenant Cwej, I want you to go over to France on your own and bring Hartung back to London. I've checked your file and you are the most qualified person in the SID for such an operation. I have arranged to get you down to Plymouth for this afternoon, there you will join the submarine Prometheus. Commander Hobson will take you to the French coast, and you'll receive a further briefing from MI5 on the way. Any questions?'

Roz stood. 'With respect, Admiral, I'm far more experienced than Cwej. I should go.'