The Villain
Perhaps half an hour earlier, as the concealed door was being closed behind them, Jim leaned toward the Doctor and inquired softly, "Did you mean to do that?"
"Drop my sonic screwdriver?" the Doctor returned. "Of course not!"
"Then what did you have in mind?"
"Well, I was going to…"
"Hey! You two shut up an' git movin'!" Mace and Drury brandished their guns, herding the pair ahead of them down a long dark corridor.
Except that suddenly it wasn't as dark anymore. As they walked, the candles in the sconces along the walls sprang into life, only to go dark again after they passed.
Jim glanced at the lights. "Someone's trying to impress us."
"Someone's succeeding."
"Oh?"
The Doctor nodded. "There's no mechanism that I've been able to discern to account for the lights. They seem to be perfectly ordinary candles. If I could examine them, of course, I might find some explanation as to how they are igniting and then extinguishing themselves, but on the face of it so far, I would say…"
"Shut up!"
"Ah… No, actually I wouldn't have said that…"
Mace - unless it was Drury - gave the Doctor a hard shove in the back. "Shut up an' keep movin', Gordon!"
The Doctor gave Jim a sidelong look and a bit of a shrug. If the gunmen wanted to think he was Mr Gordon, he was willing to continue to go along with it. And so, apparently, was Mr West.
They came at length to a door. One of the gunmen opened it and the two captives were propelled inside. "My!" said the Doctor. "Somewhat more upscale than I had expected for an underground den in the desert!"
That was an understatement. They were standing in a gorgeous parlor with red flocked wallpaper and Louis Quinze furniture. A harpsichord flanked by a harp stood off to one side. In the corner was a tall lacquered cabinet, elaborately inlaid. A crystal chandelier depended from the ceiling, throwing lozenges of light over the walls and all things within them - including some exquisite paintings, busts, ceramics and other expensive curiosa. Jim and the Doctor exchanged glances. How on earth had all this finery come to be here in an underground lair?
"Siddown," one of the gunmen ordered, then said to his compadre, "You watch 'em while I go tell the Boss we got 'em."
"Sure, Mace," said the other. And as Mace left through the far door, Drury waved his gun at Jim and the Doctor, saying, "There. That little settee there. And keep yer hands where I kin see 'em!"
The two sat. West's eyes roamed the room, taking in all the details, making mental notes of all potential escape routes - including the air vent up by the ceiling above the cabinet - and all potential weapons. The Doctor too was checking out the room when a sudden movement drew his and West's attention back to their captor.
Drury, who had been carrying the saddlebags he'd confiscated from West all this time, now shrugged them off his shoulder and shook them at the pair on the settee. "Aw right, you two. Now yer gonna fess up. Jes' what'd you do to Bo Hansen? You stole these here saddlebags from him…" And he shook the bags at the men again, then started to slap them down emphatically onto the nearest table.
He never finished the gesture. West boiled up from the settee and snatched the bags from Drury with one hand while with the other cracking the gunman a single blow across the chops that sent the man to the floor out cold.
The Doctor leapt to his feet as well. "My word, Mr West! What did you do that for?"
West fished into one side of the bags and pulled out a familiar object. "We had two of Artie's little bombs left and I put them in here," he explained. He pocketed that one, then produced the second from the other side of the bag. He was about to pocket it as well when the Doctor held out his hand, so Jim passed it to him. He dropped the saddlebags now and glanced round the room. "This'll do," he said and, picking up the comatose Drury, Jim hauled him over to the lacquered cabinet and quickly shoved him inside.
"How do we account for his absence once Mr Mace returns with the Boss?"
Jim shrugged. "He wandered off." Glancing up at the cabinet, Jim gathered himself, then sprang up and caught the top edge of it. Lithesome as a cat, he swung himself up onto the tall piece of furniture and set about studying the covering of the air vent.
"And may I ask what you're doing now?" the Doctor inquired. "I had assumed you wished to meet the big boss. Isn't that why you permitted yourself to be captured?"
"Sure I want to meet him," said West. "But on my own terms. I'd prefer to eavesdrop from inside this vent first." He plucked the knife from the back of his jacket collar and used it to remove the cover from the vent. "And what about you, Doctor? What do you have in mind?"
"Hmm. I suppose I might have me a bit of an explore," he replied. "Our friend Mace went out that door, so I'll just take my leave through the one we came in by…" He opened the door. "Ah. Or not."
Mace was in the doorway, blocking the Doctor's exit. The gunman came on in and pointed his weapon at the skinny wild-haired fellow, then called up, "Hey, West! 'Less you want me to perforate yer buddy Gordon here, I suggest you git yer hide back down here!"
"Except," said a silvery voice from behind Mace, "that man is not Mr Gordon." It was a regal voice, aristocratic, highly accented, and as rich as Corinthian leather. And familiar, so very familiar! Jim stared at the doorway as a tall and powerful figure stepped in and the light of the chandelier fell across his lordly features - the dark wavy hair and deep piercing eyes, the high forehead and pain-lined visage, the powerful arms and expressive hands - and the legs; the man was standing tall upon two perfectly functional legs. West remembered so well the last time he had seen this man: he had been lying on the floor, pinned under a large beam which had fallen across him after a Union artillery blast had hit his house, his noble face contorted in pain as he laughed and laughed over the twist of irony that had taken his beautiful legs from him.
"Speak of the devil, and he shall appear," Jim whispered. Then, louder, "Why imagine meeting you here, Colonel! I thought you were dead."
"As did I, Captain West, as did I. And in the extremity of my condition, I was magnanimous enough to set you and Mr Gordon free, returning you home again. But as you can see, circumstances have… changed. And so, my mind having changed as well, I set up this ruse of a counterfeiting ring by which to lure and trap you and Mr Gordon anew. Except that…" Now the man in the doorway turned to Mace and frowned. "You confidently proclaimed to me that you and Mr Drury had taken captive Mr West and Mr Gordon."
Nervously Mace said, "Well, well… yes sir, we did! Least ways, we thought we did. You, uh, sure this ain't Gordon?"
"Mr Mace! Let me assure you that the faces of James West and Artemus Gordon are indelibly printed across my mind's eye, both now and forever! As for you…" And the tall man struck a pose, his eyes cold, as he spread his hands... spread them wide…
He now clapped them. And Mace… vanished.
...
"Now remember - you cannot use the name of Gordon, since that might very well put them on the alert."
"Yes, yes, you keep telling me that!"
"Good. And what name are you going to call yourself?"
"Abi Mackenzie, after my grandfather's middle name. Stop worrying, Artemus!"
"Stop worr… Abi, you know perfectly well that you are no actress."
"Yeah, I know. But at least in this case, me being nervous will be completely normal."
"Hmm - at least that. Now - never break character…"
"And never let down my guard. Right. Just let me make sure I've locked up the TARDIS properly…"
"Ok. And… well, Abi, here goes nothing."
"Or everything."
...
The Doctor started and gave a low whistle. "Well now! That's an impressive trick! And where did Mr Mace go?"
The man before him gave a small smile. "But Captain West! You have not introduced us."
"Ah… Of course," said Jim. He vaulted down from his perch atop the cabinet. "Colonel," he said as he crossed the room to where the two others stood, "what you and your men were apparently not aware of is that Mr Gordon retired from field work about a month ago. This man is my new partner, Dr John Smith."
"Ah, retired," said the regal man, nodding, his dark and flashing eyes fixed on West's.
"Yes," replied West evenly. "And, Doctor, this is that old acquaintance of mine about whom you have heard so much: Colonel Noel Bartley Vautrain."
The Doctor's eyes lit up. "Colonel Vautrain! What a pleasure to meet you! I have so much to ask you! Starting with: what did you do to Mr Mace?"
"And I might ask you what you have done with Mr Drury, hmm?"
"Just put him on ice for a while, Colonel," West replied with a small smile that did not reach his eyes.
"Did you? In fact, that is very likely for the best. As for Mr Mace, he is, ah, on ice in a different manner. So to speak." Vautrain's attention returned to the Doctor. "But how curious I find this, Captain West! I was not aware that the American Secret Service would accept as agents men who are, ah... foreigners."
"Exchange program," blurted the Doctor quickly. "I come over here, someone else goes over there. You know."
"Indeed, I do know, my dear Doctor. I know very well. Very, very well." Vautrain folded his arms, cupping one elbow as he rubbed at his chin and studied the Doctor briefly. Then, turning to West, he said, "But surely you and your, ah, new partner are parched from this desert climate, my dear Captain. Let us have some..." Vautrain bowed his head, drew in a deep breath, then abruptly sprang open the fingers of both hands. Instantly a table appeared before them, covered with a fine damask cloth and set with an elegant cut-glass carafe and three glasses.
"...refreshments," Vautrain concluded. He closed his eyes for a moment and let out a heavy sigh, then waved a hand at the table. "Gentlemen?"
The host poured, and the guests accepted the libations. "I should like to drink, dear friends," said Vautrain, and paused dramatically, "…to Time. Time, which wounds all, heals all, changes all... avenges all."
Jim took a brief delay between lifting the glass to his lips and drinking from it. For one thing, he wanted to take in the aroma first, lest it perhaps have the bouquet of bitter almonds. And for another - Vautrain's demeanor toward the Doctor was odd. Why was that? West wondered.
"But I'm sure," said Vautrain after savoring a sip of his wine, "that you have many questions for me, Captain West. Chief among them being the one with which you greeted me: how is it that I live? Is this not so, Captain?"
West nodded. "Of course, Colonel."
"And you, Doctor. Surely if Mr West has regaled you with the tale of our former meeting - and he has already indicated that this is the case - then you too know that when Mr West - and his former partner, of course - last left me, it was for dead." He smiled urbanely, even as his voice spat out that final word as if it were a curse.
"We left you at your insistence, Colonel," said West.
"To be sure, to be sure," said Vautrain easily. "Seeing my vengeance had turned as a serpent to bite me, I did in fact urge you to take your injured companion and depart." The Colonel stood for a moment, his hypnotic eyes focusing on the pains of that memory. "But then, you see, Captain, a most extraordinary thing happened - most extraordinary. As I lay there trapped beneath the beam of my own house, waiting for the explosives I had secreted within that house with which to assassinate General Grant to instead detonate and make an end of me, I began to hear… voices." His glittering eyes strayed to cast an amused glance toward the Doctor before returning to West's face. "Voices were calling to me, as if from a great distance, Captain West. Have you any idea from whence they came?"
"None at all," said West.
"Why, they had the most curious origin, my dear West. The voices were coming from…" He reached into a pocket and produced a flat round object. "…this."
"Your pocket watch?" said West.
Vautrain smiled. "Or, as your friend Dr Smith no doubt would term it, my fob watch. Yes indeed, Mr West. My watch. Voices were emanating from it. One of them quite distinctly bade me to open it." He leaned close. "So I did. Do you know what happened next, Captain West?"
"No, Colonel."
"But you do, don't you, Doctor?" cried Vautrain, rounding on the lanky fellow. "You know precisely of which I am speaking - do you not?"
"I had some inkling from the moment you walked into the room. In fact I had already asked Mist… ah… someone earlier when I was being told the tale of Vautrain the time-traveller whether you might have owned a fob watch."
"And here it is," said Vautrain. "Why don't you explain to your partner Mr West what my possession of this innocent little watch implies?"
The Doctor looked at the Colonel for a long moment, then shrugged and turned to West. "You know already that I am a time-traveller. What perhaps has not been made clear to you as well is that I, well, I'm not from your Earth. I'm an alien - what the Colonel was hinting at when he spoke of me as being a foreigner. I come from a different planet, one far far older than this little Earth. My people, the Time Lords, on occasion have found it, oh, prudent to hide themselves in plain sight, so to speak, by genetically modifying themselves to be human. When we do that, we transfer our memories, our persona, our essence…" He pointed to Vautrain's fob watch. "…into that. It's an effective hiding place, but with the disconcerting side effect that one forgets who one was."
Vautrain nodded. "Ah yes! If I had not been in that state of forgetfulness, I assure you, Captain West, our prior meeting would have gone very differently. And I would not have let you and Mr Gordon go, not under any circumstance."
"Why?"
Vautrain smiled. "I sent you away, you will remember, because, having lost my beautiful legs for a second time, I lost with them my will to live. And with that, my taste for vengeance. And so I made the passage by which to return you and Mr Gordon to the time and place from which I had plucked us three. But when the voices in my fob watch urged me to open it, I did - and found immediately both will to live and taste for vengeance anew. For I remembered who and what I was, and knew that I had within myself the means to renew myself, to be reborn in physical perfection once again."
His smile might have been termed beatific if it weren't for the evil madness gleaming in his eyes. "And so I focused my mind once again, opening the passage to the place and time I had just sent you and Mr Gordon, and flung after you the deposit of smoldering ammunition so that, rather than it detonate and kill me, it should, so I hoped, compass your deaths instead. I learned of course later - much later - that that had not been the case…"
"I had always wondered why the house blew up," remarked Jim.
"…but at the moment I had other matters occupying my mind. I next caused the heavy beam to vanish from off my crushed and dying lower body. And then - as your friend the Doctor well knows - I was enveloped in a magnificent golden glow as my body healed and renewed itself. Regeneration!"
"Ah - hang on there!" interjected the Doctor. "If you regenerated, how is it that Mr West here recognized you, hmm? Why didn't you get a new face to go with that new body, eh?"
"Why, it's quite simple, my dear Doctor. I wasn't done with this face yet. I wanted Mr West and the regrettably absent Mr Gordon to recognize me when once we should meet again."
"Oh. Well. Suppose that makes sense. Go on then."
Vautrain inclined his head graciously. "There's little more to tell. My house was unusable to me, as my former self would be occupying it. And I had seven long years of waiting until after my previous interactions with my two worthy opponents had transpired before I could make their acquaintance once again. In the meantime, I came here, excavated this new home for myself, furnishing it in exquisite taste, as you can see. And while I was waiting, I amused myself with little diversions, hobbies if you will, based upon my newly recalled memories of my profession back home on Gallifrey."
"Which was?"
"Genetic engineer."
"Ah! So the land squid…" The Doctor gestured vaguely toward the great outdoors.
"Then you met my little pet! Yes, I poured quite a bit of time and energy into developing my… pardon me, did you call it a land squid? It is a Hydra, my dear Doctor!"
"Or was…" muttered the Doctor softly, ruffling his fingers through the back of his hair. "But there's something else I wanted to ask you about, Colonel. How did you come to be here on Earth, playing human? Hiding out from the Time War, were you?"
Vautrain cast a cold look upon him. "Impugn my honor and bravery at your own risk, Doctor! I am no coward! I had come here following, shall we say, my own agenda and knew nothing of the Time War until after I had come to myself once more and gradually pieced together what must have happened to our beloved home world."
"Your own agenda, you say? And that begs the next question: who are you?"
"I? You do not know?"
"Well… no, not really."
Vautrain fixed the Doctor with his electric eyes and proclaimed, "I, my dear sir, am none other than Professor Harlequin!"
"Har… Harlequin!" cried the Doctor, a look of disgust on his face. "What? Mad Harlequin? The professor who was doing that brilliant cloning research, only to throw it all over to hound that poor lad? You nearly killed his mother, you know. And they clapped you in a loony bin for it!"
In a fury, Vautrain rejoined, "That 'poor lad' as you termed him murdered my wife!"
"Murder! That's a strong term for a laboratory accident. The apparatus blew up. Your wife was the instructor - the inquest team interviewed all the students - every one of them said she died heroically trying to quell the reaction before ordering them all to run - and the last thing she did was turn to the student closest to her and knock him to the floor just as everything exploded. If she hadn't…"
"If she hadn't, he would have died rather than she! He should have died! I tracked him to this blighted planet after I made my escape from that accursed mental ward. And one day - mark my words! - I shall find him again and do to him as he did to me. He bereaved me of my wife and our unborn child!" Vautrain was in a towering rage now, eyes glittering, face twisting. Suddenly he regained control of himself, pulled the hem of his elegant vest down straight, threw his chin up, and said, "But first I shall deal with Mr West and his new-found partner, hmm? I had in mind, my dear West, to take you and Mr Gordon far into the misty past and strand you there, looking in on you now and again, manipulating the circumstances you would find yourself in, amusing myself as a cat with a pair of very lively mice. But as Mr Gordon disappointingly is not here, I shall have to amend my plans. For now…" He spread his hands wide and clapped them.
And Mr Mace reappeared, wet from head to toe and smelling like a swamp.
Vautrain wrinkled his aristocratic nose and made a dismissive gesture with his hand. On the instant, Mace was dry again, his former aroma banished as well.
Again Vautrain clapped his hands, and now Mr Drury stood before them as well, his eyes bleary, his jaw purple and swollen. "Ow…" muttered Drury, then fixed his eyes on West with cold hatred.
Once more Vautrain clapped his hands. And this time - nothing happened. He frowned. Taking his stance again, he concentrated, then clapped again. And again nothing. "Curious," he told himself, glancing at his hands. "Where is Mr Hansen? Ah well, no matter. Mr Mace, Mr Drury, if you would take charge of our guests here and convey them to the holding cell…"
Just at that moment the door behind Vautrain sprang open and a girl was thrust through it. She all but fell; if not for Vautrain's quick reflexes in catching her, she would have sprawled full length on the oriental carpet.
"And where have you come from?" said Vautrain in surprise.
A well-mimicked voice replied from the doorway behind him. "Why, I done foun' that little filly out there in the desert, I did, an' figgered she might jes' lead us to West an' Gordon. 'Stead, she done led me on a wild goose chase all up an' down ever' canyon of the backside o' creation, so she did!"
Vautrain barely spared a glance at the scruffy character standing in the doorway. "You were not hired, Mr Hansen, to 'chase fillies,' as you put it, but to find Mr West and Mr Gordon. And as Captain West is here, and Mr Gordon apparently is retired, your services to me are nearly at their end. Still," he added, turning his full attention to the girl, "you have made a delightful discovery." Now Vautrain smiled, turning up the charm. "And what is your name, my dear?"
"Abi Go…" She winced and closed her eyes. Already she had messed up and nearly said exactly what Artemus had told her not to! Fluttering her eyes open again, she murmured in dismay, "Oh dear - so many guns! Doctor!" She squirmed free of Vautrain's grasp and flung herself into the Doctor's arms.
"Stop overacting," he whispered in her ear. At the same moment, she slipped a useful item into his hand, whispering back, "You lost this." But that was all the time they had to exchange anything before Vautrain reclaimed her.
"I was requesting your name, my dear young lady," he insisted, his charm beginning to slip.
"Abi, uh…" Great, now she would have to account for the first part of her last name that she'd blurted out earlier. With a flick to her nose, she made an extreme sacrifice and corrected herself to, "Abigail, that is. Abigail Mackenzie. I'm the Doctor's secretary."
"Companion," the Doctor was saying at the same moment.
"Secretary!" she declared.
"Ah. Secretary-companion," the Doctor amended. "Takes dictation. Does the typing. That sort of thing."
"I see," said Vautrain, eyes narrowing. "So it seems now that, not only does the American Secret Service accept foreign-exchange agents, but such agents have their own secretaries? Is that correct?"
"Wouldn't have it any other way," said the Doctor. "Can't get a decent cuppa over here on this side of the pond, you know. Well," he added, rubbing at the back of his neck, "not that Abi's all that capable of brewing tea properly either, but she does make a go of it. Only have to remind her twice to fetch out the milk most days. Well, and of course when she takes dictation, she does tend to misspell certain words, leaving out the U's, that sort of thing…" He babbled on, drawing all eyes to himself, having realized that the impossible Hansen in the doorway must of course be Mr Gordon, and having also made note of the way the two agents were managing to silently communicate with each other. Something was about to occur, and if the Doctor could distract Vautrain and his minions in the meantime, all the better, he reasoned. "It is a bit disconcerting, I must say, her system of filing things. Keep finding, oh, the adjustable spanner filed under M for monkey wrench, and…"
"Enough!" roared Vautrain. "Such verbosity cries out for a…" He gathered his focus, then flung out a hand. "…a muzzle!"
"Mrph!" objected the Doctor as a device of straps and buckles appeared suddenly surrounding his face.
Vautrain's face went slightly ashen from his recent exertions and he paused briefly to recover before continuing with, "And now, you my men will carry out my previous orders and conduct these two gentlemen off to their quarters."
"A few minutes ago you called it a holding cell," said West as Mace grabbed him by the arm.
Scrabbling the buckles of the muzzle loose, the Doctor gasped out, "And Abi comes with me!"
"Au contraire, my dear Doctor," said Vautrain, trailing the fingers of one hand over Abi's cheek, his other hand locked about her wrist in an iron grip, even as the girl grimaced and leaned away from him. "Miss Mackenzie shall be remaining with me, that we may become, ah, better acquainted. Won't you enjoy that, my dear Miss Mackenzie? Or is it perhaps… Miss Gordon?"
Abi gaped. "Wha…? What did you call me?"
Vautrain smiled exquisitely. "Ah, my dear young lady, what a thing habit is! Once upon a time, not so very long ago, I knew a man who had a habit of tapping the underside of his nose. Never have I met anyone else with that same mannerism - until you used it just now, my dear. Obviously you must have some connection with the absent Mr Gordon. All that remains is for me to discern precisely what that connection is…"
Dropping her eyes, Abi admitted, "Cousin - distant cousin, that is."
Vautrain shook his head, that infuriatingly pleased smile still on his handsome face. "Oh but not distant enough, my dear! I lured Mr West into my hands with a set of counterfeiting plates, but the bait for Mr Gordon - shall be you." And to his men, the Colonel said, "Remove them."
In the next moment, several things happened all at once.
Mace gave West's arm a yank, saying, "Come along" - and West came along so willingly that his elbow slammed into Mace's ribs, sending the minion into the refreshment table, which promptly disintegrated under him.
The Doctor, as Drury was reaching for his arm, switched on the sonic screwdriver and shone it into the gunman's face, temporarily blinding him just as he had done to Hansen previously.
From behind Vautrain's back a voice called out, "Five!" And as the Colonel pivoted to discover the source of that strangely familiar voice, Abi remembered her little stage fencing lesson from a few hours earlier and instantly wrenched her wrist into position five, breaking Vautrain's grip on her.
Well, she then also hiked the skirt of her period costume, exposing her blue jeans-clad legs long enough to give Vautrain a swift kick in the knee.
"Run!" cried the Doctor, shoving the squinting Drury into the reeling Vautrain. "This way!" Artie added as he directed Jim, Abi, and the Doctor back the way they'd all come in. Artie paused just long enough to slam the door shut behind them and block it from opening again by shoving against it a trunk he'd found in the hallway and dragged down here before sending Abi into the room. "Go!" he now hollered and the four of them tore up the corridor for the entrance.
"Ah!" the Doctor commented as the lights winked on then off again as they passed, "at least I've solved the mystery of these candles!"
"Like it matters?" called the girl.
"Never lose your sense of curiosity, Abi!" he countered, adding, "Electronic eyes. I wasn't taking into account the possibility of another time-traveller being present."
"Just run!" said Artie.
Jim was the only one of the four not talking as they ran. He accordingly reached the wall that had moved to admit them well ahead of the rest and immediately began feeling for a switch. "How do we get out?" he asked pragmatically.
"Allow me," said the Doctor, wielding the sonic screwdriver. He swept it back and forth till abruptly the wall began to swing open, And as it did, a peculiar wheezing sound filled the air, competing with the electronic device's usual whine.
"What's that?" said Artie.
"Doctor?" said Abi.
"How did that get there?" said Jim.
For just outside the exit, standing on the desert sands where nothing had been earlier, was the tall lacquered cabinet. And as the four watched, its door popped open and out came Vautrain and Mace - and after a pause, the still-squinting Drury as well.