Sympathy for the Devil (audio story)

Publisher's Summary
1997... and a lone exile arrives on Earth, years later than planned.

On the eve of the Handover, an advanced Chinese stealth bomber crashes in the hills above Hong Kong. The discredited United Nations Intelligence Taskforce has just 24 hours to steal the technology, rescue the passenger and flee to international waters.

Down by the harbour, there’s big trouble in Little England -- a bar owned by an old soldier who simply wants to forget the past. But an ancient evil is stirring in a place of peace.

The Doctor finds a world on the brink of terror. A world that has lived without him for years. A world that is frighteningly like our own...

Cast

 * The Doctor - David Warner
 * Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - Nicholas Courtney
 * Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood - David Tennant
 * Ke Le / The Master - Sam Kisgart
 * Ling - Liz Sutherland
 * The Abbot - Trevor Littledale
 * Marcus - Mark Wright
 * Captain Zerdin - Peter Griffiths
 * Adam - Stuart Piper

Continuity

 * The events of DW: The War Games have just taken place with the Doctor being exiled to Earth.
 * Alternate versions of Third Doctor stories include: the Autons resulting in the "plastic purges", an economically damaging action; the Invasion of the Dinosaurs was an attack by the Silurians ("the lizards"), stopped by Mike Yates travelling back in time to nuke the Silurians before they awoke in the 70s (at the cost of a crater in the middle of London); the events of The Ambassadors of Death lead to a line of mile-wide craters across America; Stahlman Gas (Inferno) is still an ongoing project.
 * Wood states that lives were lost whenever UNIT handled a peace conference this could be a reference to either (or both) DW: The Mind of Evil or Day of the Daleks.
 * Clements has stated DW: The Mind of Evil is "the critical moment" in the alternate timeline. The Master defected to China after the (alternate) events of this story, the Mind parasites are the same creatures used in the Keller Machine, and the Master's alias (Ke Le) is a Chinese version of his "Emil Keller" one.
 * The Master briefly worked as a United Nations advisor before defecting to China.
 * The defection, along with UNIT trying to seize Chinese technology, imply China has left the UN.
 * A character refers to watching Professor X.
 * As established The Mind of Evil, the Doctor once knew Chairman Mao. There, while talking to a Chinese ambassador, the Doctor claims he was with Mao on the Long March in 1936; here, the Doctor says he only knew Mao as a librarian, indicating he was lying in Mind of Evil to get into the ambassador's good graces. The Master informs the Doctor that Mao "spoke ever so highly of you", and it's indicated the Doctor knew of Mao's future when he met him.
 * Every alien attack has been repulsed by more draconian and destructive methods than in the show, leaving the Brigadier disgraced due to the lack of evidence of alien threats.

Timeline

 * Sympathy for the Devil occurs (potentially) after: (the events of an alternate) DW: Invasion of the Dinosaurs
 * Sympathy for the Devil occurs before: DWU: Masters of War