Doctor Who_ Just War Part 30

Benny rolled her eyes. 'So why didn't you tell us all this before we came here?'

The Doctor s.h.i.+fted slightly. 'I didn't want to admit what I had done. Above all, I wanted to tread carefully. This war is a particularly delicate period: everything interconnected, everything so carefully balanced. Take Guernsey. It seems so insignificant, it's just a backwater, with no strategic importance. But the n.a.z.is spent a great deal of time and effort fortifying the Channel Islands. They used resources that could have been used to defend the French coast, and perhaps if they hadn't then the Germans would have been able to ward off the Normandy landings.'

'Doctor,' Benny asked, 'will Ma and Anne be all right?

The Doctor nodded. 'They both survive the war, Anne's fiance comes back as a major, and they get married and have two daughters. I visited them once in 1960; Ma was in her eighties, and had just become a great-grandmother. I wondered then why Anne had called one of her children "Bernice".'

'So now it's all over, Hartung's dead, the Germans don't have the planes, and can't build any more. It's all tied up neatly,' Benny concluded. She seemed to accept the Doctor's explanation.

'Nothing ever ends, Bernice. Munin is still sitting there in St James's Park.'

'There is another loose end,' Roz reminded them. 'Wolff.'

The Doctor's head snapped up, and he looked Benny in the eye. 'Joachim Wolff did this to you? He is here?' She nodded.

The Doctor was standing. 'Roz, I'll need your pistol.' Roz drew it and pressed it into the little man's hand.

'I'll deal with Munin,' Roz concluded.

The Doctor weighed the gun, and bit his lip.

It's time to finish this.'

14 Endgame

Perhaps it happened this way: The Doctor pulled back the bolts of the cell door and stepped inside. Behind him, seemingly unbidden, the bolts slid back into place. Wolff sat in the corner, slumped on an iron bed, his hands clasped to the back of his head. Even though he was subdued, Wolff was still a huge man. In the forced perspective of the tiny room, the Doctor appeared to loom over him.

'Good evening, Standartenfuhrer.'

Wolff looked up. The Doctor c.o.c.ked his head, curious about the eyepatch.

'Your friend, the black witch did this.'

'If you're playing for sympathy, Herr Wolff, it won't work.

I've seen what you've done to Benny. I know all about what you did at Mallesan.' The Doctor's voice was low.

Wolff laughed.

The Doctor drew the pistol, his arm swinging in a wide arc until the gun was aiming at Wolff's forehead. Wolff paused for a moment, but there was still a grin on his face.

'You're no killer. I can see the fear in your eyes, the sweat on your brow. You're a pacifist degenerate, a coward,' the n.a.z.i concluded.

The gun stayed level and the Doctor gave a wry smile.

'Things have changed since the last time we met: Hugin and Munin have been destroyed, Hartung is dead. The scheme you cooked up with Herr Steinmann has backfired. Now you are, in a prison cell, awaiting a firing squad. The British don t have a complete set of plans, so they won't be building any stealth planes of their own. They do have enough information to detect any German planes built along the same lines, though.'

Wolff smiled. Have you come here to kill me or to keep me up to date with current affairs?'

'Neither. I've come here to prove that you were wrong, that you have lost. That there is an alternative.'

'Oh yes, Doctor. You've seen the alternative: that Forrester, the woman who took out my eye, she's from the future, isn't she?'

'Forrester is committed to justice and fairness.'

'"An eye for an eye"?' Wolff chuckled. 'She is a vicious animal, I saw the hatred in her eyes. Her kind will be eradicated, we'll protect decent people from creatures like her. I'll do it myself... unless you kill me.'

'Killing you would change nothing. It won't bring back the dead, it won't save a single life. There's worse to come in this war: crimes against the universe itself. For now, Auschwitz, Pearl Harbour, Stalingrad, Dresden, Coventry, Hiros.h.i.+ma, Kwai are just names on a map. This war will give the words new and terrible meaning, definitions that will resonate through history. Killing you wouldn't stop it. No, I've come here to reason with you.'

Wolff sneered. 'A very nice speech. It almost brought a tear to my... eye. But you won't stop me with reason, You won't talk me out of it, you'll have to use that gun. If you really do kill all the Fascists, drown out our shouts, avenge the murder of your civilians by bombing our cities into the dust, well then, Doctor, it will just mean that n.a.z.ism has triumphed.'

The Doctor spoke in German. '"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster... if you gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."'

Wolff paused, trying to put what he felt into words. 'If the word n.a.z.i fills you with revulsion, if you couldn't stand to be in the same room as anyone who calls themselves a n.a.z.i, then how is that different from my hating the word Bolshevik or Jew? You tell me that I can believe what I like, as long as it meets with your approval. You grant me free speech, yet you won't let me say what I truly believe? I would rather you killed me. You can make all the moralizing speeches you like, but when it comes down to it, all you are saying is that you are stronger than me. The only thing that gives you authority is that gun you are holding. The only thing that separates us is that I would use it without hesitation.'

The Doctor pulled back the gun.

'As I thought,' Wolff spat, '"If I killed you, I'd become as bad as the n.a.z.is." You haven't the stomach for the fight.

You'll be swept away, Doctor, you and all the weak. Do you really think Hartung was the only scientist at the Reich's disposal? There are a thousand more, all with their own secret weapons, all with their vision of n.a.z.i destiny.'

'Could you really live in a world built on foundations of human skulls? Cus.h.i.+ons stuffed with dead women's hair, candles made from human fat, lampshades with tattoos? A uniform world of concrete, perpetual war and hatred?' the Doctor said softly, looking down at the heavy black pistol.

'Yes,' Wolff said simply. Then, 'I challenge you to put that gun down and fight me like a man, with honour.'

'Hardly a fair contest, Herr Wolff; you demonstrated your fighting prowess on the beach, and again with my friend, Professor Summerfield. Thugs like you always find it easy to hurt those smaller and more vulnerable than themselves.

Your ability to gang up and kill unarmed civilians has never been in doubt. I do have a possible solution, though.'

The Doctor laid the gun on the bed beside Wolff.

The room seemed suddenly dark.

When the Doctor spoke again, his voice rumbled low as thunder in the mountains. 'I challenge you to a game, a contest of equals. Winner takes all.' The Doctor held out his hand; in it were three bullets. 'We'll take it in turns. I'll place the gun at my temple and I'll pull the trigger. a.s.suming that the chamber is empty, I then pa.s.s the gun to you. You do the same. One of us dies, one of us wins. There are three bullets in there, so it's fifty-fifty odds - I believe they call it Russian Roulette. We'll see what our destiny is, and who's the coward. The winner walks out...' the Doctor glanced at the cell door, which swung open '...of that door.'

Wolff glanced down at the gun.

'Do you want me to go first? Are you afraid?' the Doctor asked quietly, picking up the gun and pressing it to his temple. He squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the trigger.

Click.

The Doctor opened his right eye, then his left. He sighed, obviously relieved. The Doctor spun the barrel and offered the weapon to Wolff. The German shrank from it. 'This is not a test of skill, but of luck. A childish display - an activity for drunken degenerates, not an honourable soldier.'

'I agree. But by your own logic, if you don't take up the challenge then I win: you've proved that you are a coward. If you kill yourself you've won because you are brave. Lunacy.'

The Doctor spun the barrel and again placed the gun at his own temple and pulled the trigger. He kept his eyes open this time.

Click.

'This little game is a demonstration of destiny, of bravery, but above all it's a demonstration of futility. You can't create anything with a gun, Herr Wolff, let alone Utopia, authority or truth. You can dress up in a scary black uniform and talk about destiny. You can use the full power of the state to rewrite biology, mythology, genealogy, history and geography. Burn all the books that you disagree with, burn all the people that wrote them or read them. Hold a parade in every street, attend a thousand Party rallies. Gang up on the weak, persecute the minorities. Win the war. It still won't make you right.'

The Doctor nervously licked his lips as he pulled the trigger for the third time.

Click.

The Doctor spun the barrel and tossed the gun over to Wolff.

Wolff began to edge the gun up to his temple. Then his arm straightened and the pistol was pointing squarely at the Doctor's chest. The Doctor didn't try to move.

'You are a fool,' the German spat. He pulled the trigger.

Click.

'You're right, I am a fool. But you are a coward, Herr Wolff.'

Click.

'You've got the gun now. You've got the authority - that's what you said. Use it. Force me to obey you. Force me to agree with you.'

Click.

'You cheated me! This gun isn't loaded.'

'You're the one that cheated - if you remember I did stipulate that you pointed the gun at yourself, not me,' the Doctor reminded him.

Wolff checked the barrel.

'There are three bullets there,' the Doctor repeated.

Wolff looked up helplessly, his eye watery and pale. He was aiming the pistol at the Doctor once more, but his hand was shaking now.

'You're beaten,' the Doctor said wistfully. 'There are no more tomorrows for you, Joachim Wolff. You have no authority, you have no destiny. History is written by the winning side, and there's no part for you. You can keep the gun. Goodbye.'

As the Doctor closed the door behind him, there was a single shot from inside the cell.

Or perhaps it didn't happen like that at all.

Forrester stepped up to Munin, ran her hand along its rough underside. Reed had also returned to the plane. He stood peering up into the bomb bay, a shopping bag in his hand.

The church bells were still ringing, and now the air-raid sirens had started up, too.

'It's filled to the brim, Roz. There must be ten thousand pounds of explosives up there.'

'Yes,' she said simply.

Benny caught up with the Doctor as he strode through the park towards the TARDIS. She grabbed him by the shoulder.

'Doctor, what happened in there? I heard a shot.'

'I never discuss my patients,' the Doctor said darkly.

'That's not good enough this time, Doctor.'

'He's dead. He'll never do what he did to you again. Not to anyone.'

'Will you?'

The Doctor stopped in his tracks and whirled to face her.

'That was uncalled for.'

Benny was crying again. 'Doctor, one of these days you're going to leave it just a little too late and one of us is going to die.' She couldn't think of anything else to say, and instead she stepped over to Chris.

The Doctor stood for a moment, lost in thought. He looked up sharply, then joined his companions.

'What's Roz doing?' Chris asked, pointing over to Munin.

'I wouldn't stand there,' the Doctor said. He had pulled out his abacus, and after a second or two's calculation, he took nine steps back. 'Move behind me.'

Chris scampered across. 'Why mov-'

Munin exploded, a detonation in the bomb bay lifting the plane slightly, cracking its fuselage into an inverted V-shape.

The wings buckled and snapped, then the fuel tank erupted.