The Brotherhood (comic story)

The Brotherhood was a TV Comic story that featured the Second Doctor.

Summary
The Doctor is kidnapped by the mysterious Brotherhood and finds himself tangled in a plan to unearth Aztec treasure.

Plot
Exiled to Earth by the Time Lords, the Second Doctor is living in the Carlton Grange Hotel in London. A learned professor thereafter implores him to speak at the London University on the subject of advanced engineering techniques, which he does. Writing an equation on the classroom blackboard, the Doctor tells the students that he encountered a super race on the planet Ebor who used this explosive to move themselves nearer to the sun in order to improve their weather. Listening to the lecture, two people in particular are noting the Doctor's unparalleled knowledge, with one saying to the other that the Elder was right, "The Doctor is our man". Afterwards, outside the university, the Doctor is being congratulated on his lecture, as the two men tell their driver to get them to the meeting place fast. The Elder is holding a meeting with gangster types, in a dimly lit basement, by the time the two men arrive. He is saying that the Brotherhood, an international crime syndicate, needs funds to take control of the world's protection rackets and that he had planned the usual massive robbery before something far better had come to light. He asks Brother Carlos, one of the two men, to explain. Carlos then informs him, and the other brothers, that his story begins centuries ago in Mexico, when the Spanish conquistadors pillaged and slaughtered their way through the Aztec nation.

Detachments of Spanish soldiers were sent into the hills to strike at one of the most isolated Aztec settlements, but look outs warned the tribe, and they had time to hide their treasure by hurling it into a mountain lake, believing that their divers could retrieve it if they survive. Carlos tells the Brotherhood that the Aztecs didn't survive and their treasure laid on the lake bottom undisturbed for five centuries, until 1965, when American millionaires financed an attempt to drain the lake, but discovered the treasure had sunk deep into an oozing mud bed. Before any attempt could be organised to extract the treasure from the lake bottom, the blazing sun baked the mud harder than concrete. No drilling gear could penetrate the mud effectively enough to make the operation economical, but historians claim the Aztec treasure to be worth around ten million pounds. Carlos informs the gangsters that there is only one man capable of extracting it: The Doctor.

The Doctor is relaxing on a sun lounger on the roof garden of the Carlton Grange Hotel, asking to himself what could possibly be more pleasant on a sunny afternoon than a spot of sunbathing, and the feeling that it certainly beat dashing around the universe. A helicopter flies over the penthouses of London and lands on the roof garden, as two previously unseen men step out and walk over to the Doctor. Pretending that they are business friends, the two men kneel besides the Doctor, knocking his leg with a brief case that jabs him with a hidden syringe that renders him unconscious. The two men tell the onlookers that the Doctor has taken ill and they are going to use their helicopter to fly him to hospital. The helicopter then lifts skywards, flying to the Brotherhood's headquarters. In a dark room, the Elder explains what is required of the Doctor, saying that he will extract the Aztec gold for the Brotherhood or he will suffer a penalty of death.

The Doctor spends days in the Brotherhood's laboratory, eventually coming up with an explosive formula that he had previously used on the planet Eon. When the Doctor's experiments are complete, a plane leaves for a rough airstrip, twenty miles south of the dried up lake in Mexico. At ten o'clock the following morning, the Doctor is examining the solid mud bed at Lake Arkon, working out that the cracks in the ground will take his explosives perfectly. He is, however, secretly concerned that he is about to put the most valuable buried treasure on Earth into the deadliest of criminal minds. The Doctor's explosives work, detonating open the cracks in the lake bed, to create a hole large enough for a party of men to be lowered into. Two days later, after the mud had cooled sufficiently, the Doctor and his exploratory team begin the roped descent, unaware that a hundred feet below, a writhing creature noses up from the shadows, it is a gigantic earthworm, hundreds of feet long.

Treasures soon begin to be found, with Carlos finding an Aztec helmet encrusted with gems, and that of a dagger he estimates must be worth a hundred thousand pounds. The Doctor thinks to himself that finding stuff at this rate, the Brotherhood will be able to finance a criminal army that will terrorise the world, and that he will have helped them do it. Suddenly fate takes a hand, as the massive earthworm twists and curls its long body upward toward them, with the Doctor surmising that not only could the creature be prehistoric, but that there would be other creatures like it all around them. Carlos shoots at the monstrous being, as the Doctor tells everyone to climb for their lives. Back on the surface, the Elder also shoots at the towering earthworm, as the Doctor informs him that they'll never recover the Aztec valuables, as his explosives had roused these giant earthworms and the mud is infested with them.

Pulling his gun on the Doctor, and that of his own men, the Elder insists that they take their chances down below or die here and now. However, just as they agree, the monster rises up and grabs the Elder in a bone crushing grip that kills him. The Doctor sees his chance to get the drop on the thugs, and grabs their dead leader's gun, pointing it at them and convincing them he will shoot them if anyone tries to give him the slip. The Doctor tells them that he is sure the authorities will be glad to get their hands on a group of the Brotherhoods' top men, further stating that every country on Earth would like to see their organisation put out of action. The Mexican police are soon on the scene, saying that the Doctor had done the world a great favour, as rogues like them were a threat to peace everywhere. The Doctor concludes that the worms would keep scientists fascinated for months to come, and that, when they'd been destroyed, he would return to supervise the extraction of the treasure, provided it was donated to charity.

Characters

 * Second Doctor
 * The Elder
 * Brother Carlos
 * Brother 3
 * Brother 4

Continuity

 * The Doctor mentions the planet Ebor. (COMIC: Peril at 60 Fathoms)