The Turn of the Screw (audio story)

 was the third story of the eighth season of Big Finish Productions' Short Trips series. It featured the Eighth Doctor and UNIT.

Publisher's summary
Charlie Sato has been chasing a bit of alien junk from England to Puerto Rico. He's finally got his hands on it - but now he's got to get it safely off the island. The aliens he stole it from want it back, and someone else has hired a group of thugs to get hold of it. And then there's the original owner - he might come looking too.

All this for a screwdriver? Someone, somewhere must want to unscrew some pretty important screws.

Plot
After tracing it from a village in England to San Juan, Charlie Sato has stolen the Doctor's broken sonic screwdriver, although he is unaware of what it is, and is under orders to take it to the Vault. He waits to be smuggled to Miami on a cargo ship and overhears those he stole the device from telling a police officer about how he had stolen something from them. He hides the screwdriver and his gun, puts on an orange tabard he had stolen and, after claiming to speak only Cantonese and being frisked by the police officer, departs.

Sato is knocked unconscious and wakes up tied to a chair in a garage, surrounded by two men and a woman. They know his name and that he works for UNIT and beat him up when he claims he no longer has the screwdriver. After a while, they bring in the Doctor, whom they believe to be a specialist. He gives Sato a drug which heals his wounds and removes his pain before taking a payment from the woman and discreetly releasing him from his bonds. The Doctor holds one of the men at gunpoint and Sato takes another of their guns. They leave in a Volkswagen Beetle.

to be completed

Characters

 * Charlie Sato
 * Eighth Doctor
 * Ruth Matheson

Continuity

 * The Doctor drives his Volkswagen Beetle. (PROSE: Vampire Science)
 * The damaged sonic screwdriver is first found in Leadworth, where a future incarnation of the Doctor lost it. (TV: The Eleventh Hour)
 * There is a programme running on the damaged screwdriver (TV: The Day of the Doctor), but the Eighth Doctor is not sure what it is for and does not plan to abort it.