Chapter One: Out of Anderbad
The Anderbad Tunnel, Bern Canton, Switzerland
The train shot past above them, the air pushing them hard into the ground so that neither of them could move. It screamed, or maybe it was her inner voice screaming inside her head. The freezing wind dried the tears on her cheek, his hand heavy and warm as it lay almost over her eye as if to hide the deadly train from view.
Then the screaming was gone, only a rumble as the express sped on through the tunnel. Her ears rang, not letting go of the noise.
"Breath, Penelope," a soft low voice told her. She coughed then sucked in great gulps of air that flew straight back out again in undignified sobs. The warm hand wiped her tears away, pulling close to her so that her face was nestled in the blue fabric. "Shhh, it's okay. You're safe." Virgil slowly sat up and began to remove the ties. "You can get up, there won't be another train." He half-lifted half-helped her sit up. "Just breathe." Her back ached from the ladder's fall, strips of pain where the rungs had bruised her. She must have winced because he ran his fingers down her spine. "Careful, just go gently until we can get you checked out," he said. "Can you stand?" Only with a considerable amount of help from him she stood, legs shaking and her hands clutching at him in an undignified manner.
"The others," she whispered. "Gordon… Sir Jeremy?" Above them the control room was still lit but quiet, the shooting had ended.
"Gordon's got it covered." Virgil helped her to the side of the tunnel where a service shaft hid the Monobrake. It was only once she was safely seated inside that Virgil looked back at the control room. "Stay here. I'll go get the others." Almost as an afterthought he wrapped a woollen blanket around her. "I'll be right back." It would have been selfish to make him stay, when Sir Jeremy and Professor Borinder were still in danger, but she didn't want to be left alone in the tunnel. Her eyes were glued to his retreating back until he turned the corner and she only had her ragged breathing for company.
In the minutes, they could only have been minutes though they felt like hours, that Virgil was gone Penelope tried to pull herself together. She finally got her breathing under control and wiped her tears away.
"Why didn't you wear waterproof you stupid girl?" she asked her reflection in the windscreen. She salvaged her eyes as much as possible but had nothing to mask how pale her cheeks had become. Hopefully the others would think it was just the tunnel lighting. She almost laughed at herself for thinking of make-up when she had been seconds away from being hit by a train and her friends had been used as human shields. Yet it had calmed her down, wiping away the smudge from her eyes, and stopped her heart racing.
"Down here." Virgil's voice echoed around the corner. Without wanting to look too desperate and shaken Penelope stood up, leaning out of the vehicle. Professor Borinder came first, his short wobbly steps watched carefully by Virgil immediately behind. Sir Jeremy followed, smiling broadly with relief as he saw her.
"Penelope, dear girl! Thank god you're all right. You boys were cutting it a bit fine with the train." Virgil sat them both down next to her without answering.
"I'm quite all right, Sir Jeremy," she answered. "They did a marvellous job." Virgil's jaw was still set, not quite angry but overly focused. "Where's Godber?" Penelope didn't manage to keep the fear out of her voice.
"My teammate's keeping him here until the police arrive, we'll call them when we exit the tunnel." She couldn't help but worry about Gordon being left alone with someone like that. Virgil continued to frown at the controls as the Monobrake trundled along beneath the train line.
"None of you are hurt?" he asked them after a moment too long of shaken silence.
"Just a little bruised and shaken, my boy. We'll be fine once we're out of this damned tunnel," answered Sir Jeremy. Penelope had to remember that although Sir Jeremy had helped build the Thunderbirds, he was unaware of with whom he had been working and Professor Borinder was an outsider. She had to hold her tongue from offering too familiar reassurances to Virgil. He kept looking over his shoulder at them, each time she managed to give him the faintest hint of a smile.
The tunnel seemed to stretch on forever, more seventy miles than seventeen. Each ventilation shaft echoed with wind that messed her hair about, had she been a little more superstitious she would have begun to see ghosts in the shadows leading up through the mountain. Finally they emerged into the fresh air, a welcome sigh coming from the three passengers. Borinder looked slightly green and faint from his time in the tunnel, the short man turned smaller by his brief captivity. He had been brave though, perhaps not as brash as Sir Jeremy but quietly holding out all the same. Penelope admired him for that. At least Godber hadn't physically hurt him.
It was a relief to see first the enormous bulk of Thunderbird Two, then the tiny pink car next to it. The Rolls was too far away to make out the driver, Parker's familiar face was still out of sight. She caught herself before she got too sentimental about two days away from him. Two traumatic days, she decided and cut herself a little bit of slack.
"Monobrake to Thunderbird Two, come in Thunderbird Two."
"Thunderbird Two here, how'd it go?" Alan's overexcited voice was far too energetic to be appropriate.
"I've got the hostages to safety, the hostile is being held in the tunnel control centre seventeen miles from this entrance. Call the local police. They need to start a murder investigation. There was a shooting. One of the conspirators was killed." Virgil's voice dropped in pitch and Penelope could see the self-blame in the slight stoop of his shoulders. Someone had died, even if he had been for the most part against them. Roach's death was a failure in his eyes.
"FAB." Alan had sobered considerably within seconds. Another shiver ran up Penelope's spine as she tried not to think about how close they had come to a double murder investigation in the tunnel. Sir Jeremy patted her arm gently.
"There, there, old girl. It's all over."
Slowly the Monobrake neared Thunderbird Two and Penelope could make out Alan standing by his hover bike next to Parker.
"Are you h'all right, milady?" he asked immediately.
"Just a little shaken, thank you, Parker." Virgil was getting ready to turn the Monobrake around and fetch Gordon when the radio began to beep. Penelope had moved away, unable to hear. His frown deepened as the call ended. "Is something wrong...?" She stopped herself from adding his name quickly. Virgil stepped closer to her and dropped his voice.
"No, we've just got to wait for the police to get here before we can go back, they don't want us to mess up the scene anymore. Gordon's keeping Godber in a service tunnel tied up and out of the way. I just wish we could go back and get him sooner. Hey!" He held out a hand to take hers suddenly. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were cut." Adrenaline had kept the tiny welts caused by her pulling at the ropes secret from her as well and only when he pointed them out did they begin to sting. "Come up to the med bay and I'll get them bandaged up."
"Milady, we should be 'eading to the station," Parker called out from next to the Rolls. Alan appeared to still be talking to the local authorities.
"I'll just get her cuts seen to, we won't be a moment." Virgil's warm hand was laid on her shoulder and he steered her towards the giant hull of Thunderbird Two. It was only as she had to walk that he realised how shaky her legs were. "Easy, it's all right."
"I know, dear," she answered a little too curtly. All of their fussing was crowding her, Sir Jeremy holding out an arm as if he could catch her as she walked past. "I'm sorry..."
"Don't be. I'll patch your hands up and you can get out of here. We'll clear things up. You probably won't need to make a statement."
"I can face the police, Virgil." He stepped away as they entered the lift, giving her room to breathe at last. "I want Godber put away."
"Whatever you're happy with doing." The lift doors opened to reveal Two's pristine medical bay, a dozen beds neatly made. It was too small to remind her that strongly of hospitals, and smelled of metal. Virgil had made some attempt to make it look homely by putting up some abstract blue swirls, carefully bolted to the wall. "I'm sorry I couldn't get you down sooner, Penelope. I was looking for the winch release." Anything to avoid shooting her down, she guessed.
"But you did it," she managed to say. The bed was too hard and the sheets too tight to have any give beneath her as she sat down. It wasn't a place she would have liked to spend any length of time. Virgil pulled up a stool to sort her arms out. "Thank you." She knew it was what they did, day in day out they had chosen that and they received praise in every inch of the media. She had to say it anyway. Virgil just smiled briefly, his concentrated frown giving way for a moment.
"We'll always come," he answered. It wasn't quite as impersonal as 'it's what we do', she thought then admonished herself for reading too much into it. He would have done the same for anyone. She let herself think that his hands tying the bandages around her arm and hand were gentler than if she had been a stranger, his stool closer to her knees.
"What will you do now?"
"See you safely to Anderbad, or back to Paris I suppose. Whatever Dad says. This whole mystery's over now, you're safe. We've just got to deal with Godber and let the police charge him." Roach again made a shadow cross his face.
"That poor man's death wasn't your fault, or Gordon's. Godber will serve time for this." Delicately Virgil pulled her sleeves down over the bandages and began to put away the water bowl and iodine.
"We'll make sure of it. I should go back with the police and get Gordon."
"Thank you," she said as he held the lift. "If you hadn't-"
"Don't. Just don't think about what ifs. They'll keep you up all night. Don't let that moment replay itself, Penelope." He had turned touchingly serious, one arm almost out to hug her. Perhaps it was the shock, she had somehow kept the blanket on, that made her lean into his shoulder.
"I'll try." The lift pinged and she pulled away, Virgil's arm dropping down redundantly. "We'll stay until your colleague out and this whole thing is sorted." Her voice carried over to Parker and the scientists. "Unless you would rather go on to Anderbad immediately, Professor?" She didn't want them to go, not least because she saw the boys so little. It was as if they were a better shock blanket.
"No... No, I'm quite fine." Virgil pulled a flask of something hot out of thin air and handed it to the Professor.
"Here, you all look in need of coffee. Keep an eye on them, I'm going back into the tunnel. We'll get Godber and then go." Alan pouted at being left behind again, glaring at his brother's back. Virgil paid him no mind as he went to greet the police.
"Would you like some tea?" Alan asked her once it was clear he wasn't going to be taking part in fetching Gordon and Godber. "There're some biscuits too somewhere. You've all had a shock, sugar's what you need." Penelope smiled as the youngest Tracy broke into what was probably Virgil's personal stash of Oreos. Two's pilot should have come up with a better hiding place for his precious snacks.
"Milday, a call for you," Parker announced. She slid into the privacy of FAB1, away from the forced and shocked chatter of the others. For a moment she let the silence grow around her before flicking on the call screen.
"Hey, Penelope." Scott was in full mother hen mode she noted. Frustrated that he was the other side of the world just when she needed him. "Are you okay? I'm sorry-"
"I'm fine, Scott. Your brothers did an excellent job. It's not your fault that logistics put you flying back just as I had an adventure." She tried to look into the background of his picture to see if he was alone.
"Yeah. Well... Try and find something a little less dangerous next time you want an adventure?" Scott was still frowning, more at himself than her.
"Did I scare you?" she asked gently.
"You had me worried for a while. There was complete radio silence inside that tunnel, Penelope. We could have lost all of you and not have known about it." Whilst poor Scott was stuck at Base unable to do anything. Her heart went out to him, and to Jeff who had had to endure a tense and agitated son for the last few hours.
"Dad's still working things out with the local authorities and Virgil. You guys shouldn't have to hang around for too long, maybe they'll want a statement. Hopefully it'll be clear-cut, Gordon's a good enough shot, he won't get tangled up in this."
"He didn't shoot Roach. Godber did, to stop him from calling off the train." Again the closeness of it all, Virgil arriving with barely seconds to spare.
"Penelope? Breathe. You're still in shock, just take it easy." She should have been better at coping with shock, being a trained intelligence agent. Yet she had never been anywhere near danger, scanning documents, meeting people, talking, listening, nothing dramatic or violent. Scott had assured her, years ago, that she would not be in the firing line. A little drama and a feeling of doing something worthwhile was what she had wanted. A hostage situation and a near-encounter with the front end of a train was an unwelcome extra.
"I'd better go back to the others," she said with a sigh. She wished she could keep the boys with her for longer, just seeing Virgil moving around outside, his younger brothers beside her made her feel safer. "Oh... Actually, if your father was free I would like a word with him." Suddenly she had a plan to thank the boys for rescuing them.
"Uh... Okay, sure. Father, Penelope wants to talk to you." A rather bemused Scott linked Jeff's monitor into the call and then disappeared awkwardly.
"Good to see you, Penny." Unlike his sons Jeff was visibly pleased with how things had panned out. He had neither had to sit out nor judge his actions too harshly. "How are you doing?"
"Much better for being out of that tunnel. Jeff... I've had an idea. The boys have worked so hard these last few months. I was hoping you would give them a break and let them stay in Paris for a few days."
