Show: crossover – The Professionals and classic Doctor Who
Author: Llywela13
Characters: Ray Doyle, William Bodie, Dr Harry Sullivan, George Cowley, Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, Sergeant-Major Benton
Spoilers/Warnings: This story assumes all readers will be familiar with both CI5 and UNIT. It is set sometime after Doctor Who 13.01 Terror of the Zygons (Fourth Doctor era), and somewhere around season 2 of The Professionals. The Doctor himself does not appear in this story.
Wordcount: 31,345
Disclaimer: CI5 and all characters connected therein belong to Mark 1 Productions. UNIT and all characters connected therein belong to the BBC. I have borrowed them for this story and am making no profit from this.
Summary: CI5 and UNIT would have been around at about the same time in the late 1970s. CI5 weren't keen on other agencies treading over their perceived jurisdiction and UNIT were learning to cope without the Doctor after his departure. So what happened when they found their investigations overlapping?
Author's Note: Nothing deep or meaningful here, this is a straight-up case story. Being an intra-genre crossover, it is leaning toward crack fiction, from a Pros perspective, I know, but it's crack fiction that takes itself seriously, grounding UNIT within the Pros 'verse and playing the story completely straight. Just go with it, 'kay?
Acknowledgements: There is no one I can blame for this except me. But Sue egged me on.

If Found, Please Return

CI5CI5CI5

"Hang about, he's on the move." Doyle surreptitiously adjusted the wing mirror as he spoke, to get a better angle on the target.

Duty called. Bodie dropped from idle chit-chat back to business at once. "About time," he muttered, shifting position slightly ready to pull off in pursuit after sitting still just a little too long for comfort – surveillance was never a favourite assignment for the CI5 agents to pull, especially when the target was as boring as this one was turning out to be. He waited for Morley's car to pass before gently easing his own into gear and pulling out to follow, allowing a couple of other vehicles to slide between them as cover.

Morley turned left at the junction. Bodie followed. "So what went wrong?" he asked, picking up the threads of the conversation interrupted by Clive Morley's sudden burst of activity.

"What went wrong when?" Doyle nodded toward the target. "Left again up ahead."

"What do you mean, 'what went wrong when'?" Bodie took the turn. "At the weekend – I thought you were going out with what's-her-name?"

"Pat," said Doyle.

"Pat. I thought you were going out with Pat?"

"Yeah, I was."

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Doyle!"

"Yeah, all right, all right. She binned me, if you really want to know."

Bodie laughed. "She never did. I thought you had it all planned, big romantic weekend?"

"That's right, rub it in," Doyle grumbled. "Right at the lights."

"I have got eyes, you know." Bodie accelerated to make it through the junction and around the corner as amber became red, then slowed again to resume their steady, stealthy pursuit of the target, who so far had had a fairly unremarkable day, not even remotely worth their while tailing him. Rain began to splatter against the windscreen, a few drops at first that then settled into a more persistent shower. He flicked the wipers on and squinted at the road ahead to check that Morley was still in sight. "What's this bloke up to?" he wondered aloud.

Doyle snorted. "Your guess is as good as mine, mate."

"I mean, Cowley said –"

"Yeah, Cowley says a lot of things. Never anything useful, though, is it?"

"Well, he has his reasons," Bodie pointed out, although he shared his partner's frustration. They often had to work without much in the way of background information, especially in the early stages of an investigation, but Cowley had been even more close-mouthed than usual about this little fact-finding mission. 'Clive Morley: seek, find and follow' was about all he'd given them to be going on with, no details attached, maybe because there were details he didn't want them to know – but maybe because there were no real details to give.

"Be nice to have a bit more to go on, for once," said Doyle. "'S all I'm saying."

"Yeah, well, if wishes were horses, we'd be rolling in it, wouldn't we?" Bodie span the wheel to follow Morley's car around another corner. "Morley's connected to Stanton and Galbraith and that mob, isn't he?" he mused. "So if there is something in the wind, it's got to be big. And Cowley's just itching for something solid he can pin on that little lot and make stick."

"Isn't he just, the slippery devils," Doyle agreed. "Hang about, where's he going now?"

The traffic was getting heavier now – the rain, too – and Bodie had to concentrate to keep the target in sight. "If we're really lucky," he suggested, "he'll lead us right to – bloody hell!" He slammed on the brakes as a car unexpectedly reversed out of a drive right in front of him, then wound his window down and yelled at the idiot until he got out of the way again.

"Where'd he go?" Doyle was leaning forward, scanning the road ahead for any glimpse of Morley's car.

There was no sign of it. Just up ahead was a four-way junction and Morley was long gone. Bodie groaned. "No chance."

"Oh, brilliant." Doyle slumped back into his seat. "Cowley's gonna love this."

"Bags you to be the one to tell him!" Bodie promptly retorted.

UNITUNITUNIT

"No, sir. Same story as before. The signal had cut out by the time we got there and whoever was sending it had already cleared out," Regimental Sergeant-Major Benton reported, standing straight-backed before Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's desk at UNIT's London HQ, chin held high, knowing only too well how little his commanding officer would like what he was hearing.

"And the technical boys still can't tell us anything useful about the transmission," the Brigadier noted, frowning his exasperation.

"No, sir." Benton shared his frustration. "They won't even commit themselves to whether it's human or alien in origin." He hesitated slightly before adding, "The Doctor would have been able to tell us by now…"

"Yes, I'm sure he would, but the Doctor isn't here, is he?" the Brigadier tartly retorted, "Off gallivanting around the universe again with Miss Smith, no telling when he'll be back."

If ever.

The unspoken words hung between them for a moment, and Benton almost wished he hadn't brought it up – the Brigadier got so morose these days when reminded of the Doctor's continued absence. They'd come to rely heavily on their eccentric, enigmatic scientific advisor, over the years, but he'd had itchy feet from the start, and now that he'd got that old box of his working properly again and had given into his wanderlust once more, the intervals between his ever more infrequent returns to home base were growing longer and longer. The time would come, maybe already had, when he would stop coming back here altogether. So if extraterrestrials were going to insist on visiting Earth still, UNIT were going to have to find ways of dealing with them without the Doctor, or so the Brigadier kept saying…however ill-equipped for the task they felt, at times.

"It still seems too much of a coincidence that such an unusual transmission should have started up so soon after that ship came down," the Brigadier continued after a pause, almost as if the thorny issue of the Doctor had never been broached, "but I suppose it doesn't pay to jump to conclusions. The one thing that does seem clear is that whoever is sending the signal, they don't want to be found – they certainly don't seem to stay in any one place for longer than five minutes. You searched the site thoroughly, I take it."

"Yes, sir," Benton confirmed, relieved by the swift return to the business at hand. "We searched the premises and surrounding area, but the only evidence anyone had even been there was the corpse –"

"A human corpse, you say?" the Brigadier interjected.

"Yes, sir."

"And have we identified the man?"

"Not yet, sir. He wasn't carrying any ID. We might have to get on to the police to help establish his identity."

The Brigadier rolled his eyes. "Well, if you really must. I'd rather not involve them any more than strictly necessary, though – police are the last thing we need under our feet for this investigation."

"Yes, sir," Benton agreed. "Dr Sullivan is still examining the body to determine the exact cause of death, but believes he may have been shot with some kind of energy weapon."

The Brigadier perked up at once, predictably enough – it was only to be expected that he'd jump all over that little titbit, unconfirmed though it still was. It wasn't as if they had anything else to go on. "An energy weapon, eh? Well, if true, that would be a clear indication of extra-terrestrial involvement."

"It would, sir," Benton agreed again. "Dr Sullivan will confirm one way or another as soon as he's finished his examination. One other thing, sir. It rained earlier today, so the ground was muddy – we found tyre tracks that indicate a single vehicle entering the property and then leaving again at speed."

"The vehicle our victim was travelling in, I suppose," the Brigadier thoughtfully replied. "But if it left again without him, well, either our extra-terrestrials, if they exist, have learned how to drive – or someone else was there who saw what happened. I want to know who that person was, what they were doing there and what they know about a crashed alien spaceship, unexplained transmissions and a human corpse."

Not much to ask for, then, with little or no evidence to go on. Benton resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "I've ordered a full forensic examination, sir," he reported.

"Very well, Mr Benton." It was a dismissal. "Keep me informed."

CI5CI5CI5

"He's dead." Mr Cowley appeared around the door of his office just as Doyle was passing, almost as if he'd been lying in wait. He looked annoyed enough that he might well have been.

Doyle blinked. "Good morning to you, too, sir. Who's dead?"

"Clive Morley." Cowley jerked his head for Doyle to follow him into the office. Bodie was already there, and judging by the look on his face he'd already had an earful.

"Morley? Dead how?" Doyle asked, and fried under the glare his boss turned on him.

"If you two hadn't been incompetent enough to lose him, we might know how he died," Cowley snapped. "He might not have died."

"Well, he was alive and kicking last we saw of him, so –"

"When you lost him, you mean."

"So what did the police say?" Doyle continued, puzzled – when a person of interest turned up dead, the cause was usually straightforward enough even if the exact circumstances weren't.

The look on Cowley's face could have curdled milk. "The police have very little information to share. Clive Morley's death was reported by and is being investigated by the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce." He bit the words out as if they tasted rotten. They probably did.

"UNIT?" More confused than ever, Doyle looked to his partner for enlightenment of some kind, but Bodie simply shrugged and stayed out of it. "What have UNIT got to do with a lowlife like Morley?"

Cowley glowered at him in a way that could only be described as unfriendly. "Quite," he said. "That's what I'd like to know."

"Why were we interested in Morley?" Bodie chipped in at last. It was his turn to fry beneath Cowley's glare, and he added a hasty, "Sir."

"Specifically," Doyle added. "I mean, why now? Why in particular?"

Cowley glared at them both a moment longer before relenting, at least a little. "Something in the wind, you might say," he mused. "Morley was a trusted associate of Eddie Stanton, and Stanton's brewing something. I don't know what – I had hoped Morley might lead us to a few answers, but now we're back to square one with a day wasted." He was looking decidedly unfriendly again as he snapped, "Describe Morley's movements to me, there may be something –"

"We did submit our report, sir," Bodie protested, although Doyle privately thought he was wasting his breath there.

"Never mind your report," Cowley growled. "I'm asking you to tell me, every detail."

"There's not a lot to tell," said Bodie. "We picked him up coming out of the club, tailed him round a few shops –"

"What shops?"

"Newsagent and bookies," Doyle replied. "He bought some fags and a paper and placed a few bets. Stone The Crows at 8/2 in the 1.30. He lost."

"Then we followed him home," Bodie continued. "He was in the house for about…thirty, thirty-five minutes?" He looked at Doyle for confirmation.

Doyle nodded. "Then he went out again and we followed…and that's when we lost him in traffic. Sorry, sir."

"And a few hours later he was reported dead by UNIT," Cowley mused. "No other details forthcoming. So what happened – where did he go, what did he do, how were UNIT involved? That's what we need to find out."

"Have they told us anything at all, sir?" Bodie asked. "I mean, accident, murder, suicide, anything to be going on with, so we know what we're dealing with – natural causes, even? Did he stumble into something of theirs by accident? Or are we treading on their…"

His voice tailed off as Cowley shot him a look that should have drilled holes clean through him. Cowley had clashed with UNIT over jurisdictional demarcation a number of times in the past and hadn't got his way even once, which was unusual for him. So if this investigation was somehow crossing wires with a UNIT operation – or, rather, if a UNIT operation was crossing wires with their investigation…well, that was going to get right up Cowley's nose. Which meant Cowley would be getting up Doyle and Bodie's noses until it was over.

"No information has been released so far," Cowley brusquely confirmed, "Other than the fact that Morley is dead. However, UNIT have agreed to let us talk to their medical officer, who examined the body. That might give us a place to start."

UNITUNITUNIT

"Here's that autopsy report on Clive Morley, sir," Benton announced as he entered the Brigadier's office with the file.

"Morley?" The Brigadier frowned slightly as he glanced up from the sheaf of papers strewn across his desk. "Oh yes. The body at the farm."

"That's the one, sir. He was killed by an energy weapon of some kind, as Dr Sullivan suspected," Benton summarised.

"Which confirms that someone – or something – definitely survived that crash, then," the Brigadier mused, leafing through the report.

"Yes, sir, so it would seem – it's alien technology, at any rate." Not necessarily wielded by aliens, of course, but it was certainly looking that way.

"And there's been no further trace of that signal?"

"I'm afraid not, sir."

"Which rather leaves us back at square one, doesn't it," the Brigadier sighed. "But now we know that there are aliens on the loose, somewhere."

"Yes, sir," Benton agreed. Aliens on the loose, aliens who were apparently prepared to kill, and they had no idea what they were or where to look for them. Life with UNIT was never dull; you could say that for it. "But we know that humans are involved somehow as well."

"A dead human would seem to indicate that, yes," said the Brigadier, rather more sarcastically than Benton felt was entirely called for. "Have we had the forensic report back on those tyre tracks yet?"

"Yes, sir. Inconclusive," Benton reluctantly admitted. Every potential lead they'd found so far had turned out to be a dead end. "We've taken eye witness reports from the locals describing at least half a dozen different vehicles that may or may not have been heading to or from Elderbrook Farm yesterday afternoon, we're still checking those out. And don't forget we've got those CI5 agents due shortly to see Dr Sullivan about Morley's death."

The Brigadier expressed his feelings about that by rolling his eyes. "Blasted nuisance," he grumbled. "Still, I suppose we must – with any luck they might at least be able to tell us what the man was doing there."

"Yes, sir. I suppose that –"

"Sir!" Corporal Carol Bell, the Brigadier's assistant, came charging into the room at a run. "We've picked up that signal again, fifteen miles west-north-west of the previous location."

The Brigadier was on his feet at once. "Well, don't just stand there, man," he snapped at Benton – rather unfairly, Benton thought, since he was already heading for the door. "Let's move."

CI5CI5CI5

"I mean, what do UNIT do, exactly?" Bodie mused as he eased the car through the early morning traffic toward UNIT HQ. "Do you know?"

Doyle shrugged. "No one knows, do they? Except…"

"Except for the people who need to know," Bodie finished for him with an exasperated sigh. It was the standard by-line for UNIT, the response from on high that greeted every enquiry on the subject, no matter who that enquiry came from. "And I thought our business was hush-hush. I mean, even Cowley doesn't have security clearance on their operations. And he's got clearance on everything."

"They've been involved in some big stuff, though, haven't they?" Doyle had his thinking face on. "I mean, there was that flap over that weapons research centre – what was it called? Think Tank – it was UNIT dealt with that, wasn't it? And then again at that energy conference a while back. That was them, too."

"Yeah, I shouldn't remind Cowley about that one," Bodie told him. "Any of them, come to that – he still reckons they should have been ours."

"Yeah, but what actually happened?"

"Well, no one knows, do they?" Bodie obliged his partner by answering the rhetorical question. "Classified to the nth degree."

"So what makes us think they're going to tell us anything this time?"

"Well, they probably won't, will they?" Bodie shared a rueful eye-roll with Doyle. This trip was going to be a complete waste of time and they both knew it. "We still have to ask the questions, though, don't we – where else are we going to start?"

UNITCI5UNIT

"What exactly is CI5's interest in the deceased, if you don't mind my asking?"

Dr Harry Sullivan RN, UNIT's medical officer, was younger than Doyle had expected – early 30s at the most. Immaculately turned out in naval uniform, he spoke with the clipped tones of a public schoolboy, while his manner was polite, affable…and guarded. He'd been given the job of fobbing them off, Doyle guessed, and didn't seem entirely comfortable with it, but was going to follow orders and stone-wall them anyway. Well, two could play at that game. "We had hoped he might have information pertinent to an ongoing investigation," he said. Nice and vague and formal. "But he disappeared before we had the chance to talk to him."

"What was UNIT's interest in the deceased?" Bodie pointedly added.

Sullivan shrugged. "We had none," he said. "Until his body was discovered during the course of a UNIT operation."

"Don't suppose you'd like to tell us what kind of operation?" Bodie enquired, glancing at Doyle with a meaningful little eye roll; they both knew what the answer to that would be.

"That's classified, I'm afraid," Sullivan replied, predictably enough.

"How did he die?" Doyle asked.

"He was shot." Well, that was a straightforward enough answer, at least.

"By UNIT?" Bodie immediately asked.

Sullivan shook his head. "By a third party. He was already dead when we found him."

"So UNIT's interest was in the third party, then?" Doyle guessed, mulling over the implications. "Can we ask who that was? Might be relevant to our investigation."

"Also classified, I'm afraid." He did actually look as if he regretted not being able to answer the question, as well.

Doyle rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I thought it might be. Was the killer apprehended at the scene, can we at least ask that?"

Sullivan hesitated slightly before replying – probably weighing up whether or not that information fell under the heading of 'classified' as well. "No. No, they were gone by the time we got there."

"So, you lost yours and we lost ours," Bodie wryly remarked. "And since clearly none of us are prepared to tell each other anything, we're not likely to work out what the connection is anytime soon, are we?"

"Where was Morley found?" Doyle asked. "Or is that classified, too?"

Again Sullivan considered the question for a moment before replying, leaning slightly against a table to regard them both appraisingly and shoving his hands into his pockets as he did so – a gesture that completely spoiled the crisp, upright military bearing he'd been sporting up till then, but Doyle found he liked him a little bit better for it, even if his commanding officer probably wouldn't. "The body was found on derelict farmland just outside London," he said at last. "He had no known connection to the area that we've been able to establish – but you might know more about that than us."

"We'd be interested in seeing the location, then," said Doyle. It was worth asking – he'd been slightly more cooperative than expected, so far. "Might help us piece together Morley's movements in his last hours."

"Yeah, and that would help your investigation as well as ours, wouldn't it?" Bodie added. "Find out if he was there by coincidence or design, so to speak."

Sullivan looked dubious.

"Look, at least run it past your guv'nor," Doyle suggested. "Never know, he might say yes."

"He's out on manoeuvres," Sullivan rather vaguely replied. That was odd. What kind of manoeuvres might they be on, middle of a case like this? Doyle had thought the place seemed strangely empty as they came in. If almost the whole of UNIT HQ had cleared out on these 'manoeuvres', what did that imply?

Sullivan was still looking thoughtful – trying to decide whether or not he was authorised to agree to their request, no doubt, if there was no superior officer around to refer it to. If he said yes, it would mean he knew damn well that all evidence of anything 'classified' had already been removed from the scene, that much was certain, so the chances of actually learning anything useful from a site visit were remote – but a long shot was better than nothing. It wasn't as if they had anything else to go on.

At length, Sullivan nodded. "Right-o, then. I'll take you there."

CI5UNITCI5

"I say, where's the guard?" Lieutenant Sullivan asked, wearing a baffled frown. It was the first indication that this supposedly routine investigative visit to the derelict farm where Clive Morley's body had been found wasn't going to be quite as straightforward as anticipated.

Bodie snapped to alert at once, and a quick glance in Doyle's direction told him that his partner had reacted likewise. "UNIT left a soldier here?" he checked as they exited the car, eyes scouring every inch of the property he could see. It made sense to leave a man on guard detail, if UNIT wanted to protect the location and see if anyone returned to the scene of the crime, but Sullivan was right: there was no sign of him.

Sullivan nodded. "Look, there's the Land Rover. But no sign of the guard." He glanced around worriedly.

Doyle caught Bodie's eye, shrugged eloquently, and then said, "Could be patrolling the perimeter – or gone off to take a leak, or something."

"Maybe." Still frowning, Sullivan wandered over to the abandoned vehicle, as if to check that the missing soldier wasn't hiding inside.

Bodie looked at Doyle, who quietly asked, "What do you think?"

"I think he knows more than he's letting on."

"He's UNIT. Of course he knows more than he's letting on. Seems genuine about that missing guard, though."

Bodie nodded. The missing guard might still turn up – the farm wasn't small, plenty of land to get lost on – but wasn't a good sign. "Well, we'll see what turns up when we start poking around," he remarked, then turned to Sullivan as he returned from his fruitless examination of the Land Rover. "Where was Morley's body found?"

"Over there –" As Sullivan half-turned to point, a loud bang, like the slamming of a door somewhere, broke the stillness of the air, and he span around in the other direction looking alarmed. The noise had come from the direction of an outhouse, over near what had probably once been stables, a little way apart from the main farmhouse.

"The farm is abandoned, you said?" Bodie quickly checked with Sullivan, who nodded.

"Been derelict for years, according to the agent. Our men searched the property thoroughly. No sign of occupation."

"Could be your missing soldier," Doyle suggested, but the quick sideways glance he tossed in Bodie's direction said he wasn't convinced by that theory, any more than Bodie was.

"Or maybe the killer came back," Bodie dourly added, and watched Sullivan's worried face closely to see how he reacted to that suggestion. The anxious frown intensified – he looked as if he was deeply regretting agreeing to bring them here. Bodie couldn't honestly blame him for that. The identity of Morley's killer was highly classified, after all, presumably for a reason. And they were very exposed, out here in the open.

They approached the outhouse with extreme caution. A look and a couple of quick hand gestures were all it took to agree a course of action with Doyle, who headed for the door with Sullivan in tow while Bodie skirted around the outside in search of a back door, other possible means of exit, or any other signs of life – weapon in hand, just in case.

He'd just rounded a corner and noted the existence of a rear exit to the building – which meant the door slam could as easily have been someone exiting as entering, unseen from their previous position – when what looked like a bolt of lightning, a virtually horizontal bolt of lightning, from somewhere down low rather than the sky, came streaking out of nowhere and struck the wall just above his head. He flung himself to one side to escape the shower of bricks and mortar and then scrambled for cover, frantically scanning the surrounding terrain in search of the source of the lightning, because that wasn't natural, that couldn't be natural.

Another lightning bolt that took out the low wall he'd taken cover behind, sending him scurrying, confirmed beyond any shadow of doubt that it wasn't natural. It was aimed and deliberate. But what was it? Some kind of laser?

Bodie sprinted back behind the building, stumbling slightly over fallen bricks strewn across the loose gravel, blood pounding in his ears as he narrowly avoided a few more pot shots aimed in his direction, which exploded into the wall of the outhouse. He dived for cover, brambles scratching his skin and catching at his clothes as he fell, and then waited, poised ready to run again.

No more lightning bolts.

He allowed himself a moment to catch his breath, the sour aftertaste of adrenaline bitter at the back of his throat. Still no more lightning bolts. He risked a quick peek. No sign of movement. No sign of any more lightning. Whoever'd been shooting at him didn't seem to be pursuing, now he was out of sight.

Satisfied that he was no longer in immediate danger, Bodie turned to look at the outhouse that Doyle and Sullivan had entered just a few minutes earlier and felt the acid churn of renewed panic, deep in his gut. The building had taken several hits of those lightning bolts. It hadn't been in good repair to begin with, and now…the side wall had collapsed, bringing most of the roof down with it – and there was no sign of life.