Security Breach

Scott Tracy wearily flipped the last switch to shut down Thunderbird One and sat back for a moment. The mission to rescue tourists caught in a capsized boat under Niagara Falls had been fairly routine but also wet, cold and very, very noisy.

Fortunately, it has also been successful, with all twenty aboard safely returned to land, albeit with scrapes, bruises, and in two cases, broken bones.

Shrugging his shoulders to ease a kink, Scott slid out of his seat and headed for the hatch. A hot shower would take care of the lingering chill in his bones and with any luck, he could score some of the cookies his grandmother had been baking before he left.

He crossed the gantry to the hidden entrance into the lounge of his home. As he spun around into the room, his father looked up from his reading. "Everything all right?"

"Everything's fine, Dad. Virgil and Gordon should be home in about an hour or so."

Jeff Tracy responded with an approving smile. "Good enough. We'll debrief after lunch."

Scott glanced at his chronometer and nodded. That would give his brothers a chance to get cleaned up. He grinned an acknowledgement to his father and headed for his bedroom.

An hour later, he stood clean and blessedly dry, munching on a cookie, waiting for his brothers. Virgil appeared from the elevator and smiled tiredly. Scott grinned in return and tossed his brother a cookie. "Where's Gordon?"

"I dunno. Probably left him behind."

Scott chuckled at the old joke. "You look like something not even a cat would drag in."

"That's about how I feel. God, there's nothing worse than flying two hours with damp drawers."

"Aw, do you need Grandma to bring the diaper rash cream?"

"Oh, ha-ha. Very funny."

"Just trying to help."

"You want to help, just don't stand between me and the shower."

"I hear you. Debrief's after lunch, so take your time."

"Okay, great." Virgil trudged away.

Scott loitered for a while, waiting for Gordon, but the younger man didn't put in an appearance. Knowing his brother occasionally headed straight for the swimming pool after a rescue, Scott eventually wandered back to the lounge to talk to his father.

Scott had barely seated himself when an automated alarm went off causing him to practically jump out of his skin. "What?"

"It's the intruder alert in the hangar bay."

Scott felt a tickle of annoyance. "Gordon."

Jeff frowned the question at his eldest.

"He didn't come up with Virg. I thought he went swimming, but he's obviously still in the hangar."

Jeff's frown deepened as he hit a switch on his desk. "Gordon, report."

Both men waited, expecting an apology and explanation. When the expectation wasn't met promptly, Scott shifted in his seat, not wanting to catch any misplaced anger from his father.

When it was apparent that his errant son was not going to answer, Jeff hit a few more switches, then looked up at a screen that replaced his son Alan's portrait. A schematic of the Tracy Villa appeared. It rotated momentarily before zooming in to display a glowing dot positioned in an area marked Thunderbird Two Hangar Bay.

With a disturbed glance at Scott, Jeff said, "Computer, bring up the security cameras in Thunderbird Two Hangar Bay."

Scott looked on with interest. John and Brains had recently installed voice recognition software and it was still in the fine-tuning stage. Just the previous day, his father had asked for the games room and had a virtual tour of the entire villa before the computer got it right.

Today, it got it right in one, and Scott felt his stomach tighten at the sight. "Shit."

Without another word, Scott leapt up and headed for the arms locker at an all-out run. He heard his father behind him ordering Alan and Virgil to head for the corridor outside the cavernous hangar bay and everyone else into hiding.

Scott's mouth was dry as he armed himself. The man in the hangar bay was definitely not his brother. He was dressed in a blue International Rescue uniform complete with orange sash that he could only have gotten from Gordon. And he obviously had taken Gordon's wrist comm, which had allowed them to locate him.

Grabbing extra weapons, Scott raced to meet up with his brothers. He reached the corridor and found his father bringing Virgil and Alan up to date. As he came up, he saw the color drain from Virgil's face. "No, I didn't talk to him the entire flight home. I know he was aboard, Dad. I mean, I saw him securing the gear when we wrapped up."

Scott laid a hand on Virgil's shoulder. "Easy, Virg. We'll figure it out."

Scott unslung the rifles he had brought, passing them out to his father and brothers. "For now, let's just concentrate on taking this guy down."

"Boys, I want him alive if possible, but under no circumstances are you to put yourselves at risk." Jeff stated grimly.

"Is it just one guy? What if there's more than one? They could be holding Gordon hostage." Alan's voice shook as he spoke, but his movements in checking his rifle were sure and professional.

Scott lifted his wrist comm and pushed a button on the side. "Computer, determine number of lifesigns in Thunderbird Two Hangar Bay."

After a moment, the computer delivered devastating news in a clear mechanical tone. "One lifesign."

Scott heard little more over the rush of fury that nearly overwhelmed him. Until that moment, he hadn't allowed himself to think about what could have happened to his brother.

The sudden harsh breathing around him said his family was quick to understand the implications. When his father spoke, his voice was husky and strained. "Computer, pinpoint lifesign location in Thunderbird Two Hangar Bay."

"Lifesign is located two meters left, seven point three meters forward from entrance A, Thunderbird Two Hangar Bay."

The four Tracys arranged themselves at the entrance, a grim and determined group. Scott looked at the deployment and with a sharp nod of his head, hit the door control.

Like all the doors in the villa, this one operated on hydraulics, and there was a clear swooshing sound as it opened. The small dark-skinned man in Gordon's uniform looked up sharply at the sound, and seeing the raised rifles, bolted for the open ramp of the pod.

Scott shouted angrily, "Freeze!"

The man never paused, instead diving for the safety of the pod. Alan and Virgil headed for the rear of the pod, intending to flank the intruder. Scott and Jeff advanced, taking advantage of every scrap of cover, Jeff calling out, "Give it up. There's no way out of here."

The two men paused to give Virgil and Alan a chance to get into position. With an abrupt flash, gunfire rang out. Scott threw himself forward, making it to the outer wall of the pod. He rolled and frantically looked around for his father.

His eyes found Jeff hunkered down behind a workbench. The two men shared a look of absolute wrath. Scott started to signal his advance, when the cacophonous chatter of an automatic rifle echoed throughout the vast area.

The chatter multiplied as a second gun replied, and then a third. Scott moved quickly to peer around the corner of the pod. As he did so, his brother Alan called out in grim triumph. "He's down!"

Scott felt a mixture of relief and anger. With the intruder down, his family was safe, but he really had wanted a piece of the guy. He moved cautiously forward, gun to the fore. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his father moving likewise. From across the wide ramp, Alan gestured toward the side of Thunderbird Four, sitting patiently on its launching rack.

Scott felt a sudden intense pang of grief upon seeing the evidence of bullet damage to the little sub. Ruthlessly, he buried the thoughts of his brother that tried to crowd his mind.

Alan indicated the intruder had fallen in the shadows to the left. Scott knew that 'down' did not necessarily mean 'out'. He signaled caution to his team, and the four men advanced quietly, Virgil appearing from behind another workbench.

Scott took the lead, making sure that if the bastard needed a target, it would be him and not one of his family. As he approached, he realized his caution was unnecessary. The intruder was clearly dead, several gunshot wounds sluggishly spreading a red stain across the stolen blue uniform. Scott ruthlessly suppressed the bite of nausea that the sight of his brother's uniform so defiled raised in him.

"I wanted this bastard alive." Jeff's voice was cold.

"Sorry." Alan responded, his stance and tone indicating he was anything but.

"How could this have happened?" Virgil's despair drew every eye in the room. Scott moved to stand next to his brother.

"This was not your fault, son." Like his sons, Jeff was standing stiffly, as if by holding themselves still they could change what had happened.

Scott recognized the need to get things moving. Giving Virgil a comforting pat on the shoulder, he moved to the body. "Alan needs to go get John. We're going to need him. Dad, you'd better go tell Grandma, and send Brains down. I can check for any obvious tracking devices, but I'll want a scan of the body to be sure we're secure. Virgil, I want the security tapes from Thunderbird Two. All of them."

There was a pause, then Jeff started to move toward the elevator. As if a spell had been broken, Virgil and Alan both moved to their respective tasks. Scott took on the distasteful job of searching the body.

The man was weathered, brown. His hands showed the calluses of a life of labor. Scott felt a muscle in his jaw work as he realized this man looked no different from a hundred different men he had rescued over the years. There was nothing in the slack features that would have pointed him out as a murderer.

But it seemed very clear that the man was in fact a murderer. Upon close examination, he was sure the uniform was actually Gordon's and not some copy meant to get him by. Scott couldn't conceive of any circumstance in which Gordon would have surrendered his clothes willingly.

At a clatter behind him, Scott looked up over his shoulder. Brains stood there, white-faced, staring at the body. The engineer looked as devastated as Scott felt. Determined not to give into his feelings, Scott nodded. "Good, you brought the gurney. Help me get him up. You take his legs."

Brains started, then without a word, moved to do as he was told. Together, the men got the body loaded. As Brains was covering the man with a sheet, a deep rumble echoed through the pod.

Scott felt a grim relief as the roar of Thunderbird Three taking off slowly faded. As a commander, he knew the value of keeping busy when disaster struck. He knew Alan in particular was going to have a hard time coming to grips with the death of their brother.

As Brains pushed the gurney toward the freight elevator that would take him to the laboratory, Scott turned to Thunderbird Two. He gritted his teeth as his mind supplied a memory of Gordon carrying a can of florescent orange paint, threatening to splash it on Thunderbird Two if Virgil didn't stop working and come to dinner.

He started toward the big ship, then paused, looking back at Pod Four sitting so innocently on the conveyor. It occurred to Scott that a search for Gordon's body would have to be made. Deciding that he didn't want to subject his family to that gruesome discovery, he turned back to the pod, and began a search.

He had been at it for twenty minutes without success when he heard Virgil calling his name. Stepping out from behind Thunderbird Four, he called out, "I'm in here, Virg."

Virgil appeared from around the edge of the pod, a look of grim fury on his face. "He compromised the security systems."

Scott's eyebrows shot up. "What do you mean?"

Virgil held up a grayish lump of metal, barely recognizable as an infrared sensor. "As far as I can tell, it was some kind of acid. Somehow he got close enough to spray the anti-personnel sensors. He got the security cameras, too. I don't know if any of it is salvageable."

"Damn it. Were you able to get anything?"

"I'm not sure. I found part of the memory intact, but it won't play. We need Brains or John to take a look at it."

"Okay. Listen, you go take what you've got up to the lab. Get Brains on it. Then you'd better help Dad with Grandma."

"What will you be doing?"

Scott grimaced. He needed to search Thunderbird Two for Gordon's body, and the last person he wanted there was Virgil. "That asshole was running around here for at least twenty minutes before we discovered him. I'm going to run a sweep, make sure he didn't leave us any surprises," he dissembled.

Virgil took a steadying breath. "Okay. Let me get this up to Brains, and I'll come back and help."

Scott shook his head, "I'd rather you helped Grandma. This could kill her."

Scott felt a rush of grief as he realized what he said was true. The sudden moisture in his brother's eyes told him that Virgil realized the truth of his statement also. Without another word, the younger man turned and headed for the elevator.

Knowing Virgil would only stay away as long as necessary, Scott turned again to the grisly task of locating his brother's body. He was finally running out of places to check, when to his shock, he heard the bass roar that signified the return of Thunderbird Three. A glance at his chronometer showed he'd been at it for almost four hours.

Coming to the reluctant conclusion that he wasn't going to find anything without help, he headed for the lounge. As he rode the elevator up to the house level, a muscle in his jaw twitched. It bothered him that he'd been left alone for as long as he had. It indicated that his father and brother had their hands full with other issues.

Scott reached the lounge at the same time as the sofa conveyor from Thunderbird Three. He noted that both John and Alan looked unnaturally pale, but determined. Upon spying his brother Alan leapt up. "Scott, we've got to get back to Niagara Falls. John thinks Gordy's probably there."

Scott frowned and turned his attention to John. "You know something I don't?"

With a curt shake of his head, John responded. "No, but it stands to reason, doesn't it? Gordon's tough. There's no way this guy could have taken him alone. He had to have help. That means someone's got Gordon prisoner somewhere."

John wouldn't look him in the eye, and Scott sensed the underlying desperate denial. He wished he could believe it, but it struck Scott as unlikely. The intruder had defeated their most sophisticated security system. It didn't strike Scott as all that great a stretch to think he could take out an unsuspecting operative. Still, he couldn't bring himself to destroy his brothers' hopes.

"Well, Virg pulled the security tapes. He says they were compromised, but between you and Brains, I reckon you'll find something. When we see what happened, we'll know what we need to do."

John nodded, still not looking up. "I'd better head for the lab then."

"I'm coming with you." Alan said firmly.

Scott stopped his youngest brother with a hand on his sleeve. "We need to go talk to Grandma, first."

Alan paused, a stricken look on his face. His hands came together in a washing motion, an old childhood habit when he was worried. When he saw Scott glance down at his hands, he self-consciously stopped the motion instead rubbing his hands on his pants. "Yeah, okay."

Together, the brothers headed for the bedroom wing of the house. As they approached their grandmother's room, Scott could hear soft voices. With a perfunctory knock, he opened the door and stopped dead in his tracks, his stomach bottoming out.

Instead of the expected scene of his father comforting his grandmother, he found something that shook him to his core. His brother Virgil sat on the edge of his grandma's four poster bed, his head in his hands. Scott's grandma and father were flanking him, speaking in low comforting tones.

Behind him, Alan made a soft inarticulate cry and pushed past Scott, hurrying to crouch in front of his older brother. "Virg, it's okay. We're gonna find him. Johnny and me are gonna go to Niagara Falls. We'll find him, you'll see."

Scott felt frozen. He'd rarely admitted, even to himself, that he relied on Virgil's steady calm to see him through all manner of crises. Seeing his brother so upset felt like his own personal earthquake. He couldn't move for fear of falling.

He stood in the doorway, staring at the tableau before him, unable to act. Then his grandmother looked up at him, the simple compassion on her face thawing the incipient ice in his heart. He moved to stand by her, and she reached up, taking his hand in her soft comforting grasp. The warmth of her touch almost undid him, but he once again refused to let grief overcome him.

"Virg, this isn't your fault. You didn't do anything wrong." Scott was surprised that his voice didn't shake.

His brother shook his head, never raising his eyes, and in an anguished tone, whispered, "I never checked on him. I should have checked on him."

Jeff ran one hand over his face, while the other continued rubbing his son's back. "It probably would not have made a difference if you had, son. Checking on your brother would have simply revealed this sorry mess quicker. It wouldn't have saved Gordon."

Scott heard the crack in his father's voice, but before he could respond, Alan was there, saying, "No, guys, listen. Johnny figured out that Gordy's been taken prisoner. We just have to go find him. He'll be okay. Honest."

Although Alan spoke with conviction, Scott could hear the plea. It brought home to Scott how young his baby brother really was. Since International Rescue had started, Alan had shown a great deal of maturity in handling his responsibilities. But the truth was, he was still a very young man, who in different circumstances would still be in school, worrying about girls and playing video games all night.

Scott was saved from having to reply by a tone from the intercom. "Scott? Can you and Dad come down to the lab, please?"

Punching a button on the wall, he replied, "On our way."

Scott looked back to find not only his father, but both brothers and his grandmother were standing in preparation to follow. Alarmed at what they might find, Scott held up his hand, "Uh, Grandma, why don't you stay here with Virg? We'll let you know if they've found anything."

Despite eyes reddened by grief, Virgil glared at his brother. He opened his mouth for a retort, but was stopped by his grandmother's sharp voice. "I understand your desire to protect your family from harsh reality, Scott, but I will not sit tamely by like some porcelain doll. If I've lost a grandson today, I'll see exactly how it happened, and the likes of you will not stop me."

The tiny woman marched out of the room, her head held high, the four men staring after here. After a moment, Alan broke the spell by moving past Scott, glancing at his eldest brother, and shrugging his shoulders.

Jeff followed and for a moment, Virgil and Scott just looked at each other. Clearing his throat, Scott asked, "You gonna hold up?"

The anger drained from Virgil's face to be replaced by sadness. "Yeah."

Scott looked away to keep from being overwhelmed. "Good. Let's go."

The two brothers followed Jeff down the hallway to an elevator that would deliver them to the laboratory. Alan had held the door for them and they all crowded aboard, their grandmother moving to stand between her son and oldest grandchild. Despite her brave words, Scott could feel her trembling beside him.

"Mom, you don't have to do this," Jeff ventured.

"I know, son. But I learned long ago that reality is seldom worse than imagination. I need to see what happened for myself, or I'll go insane thinking about it."

The elevator door opened, and Scott offered his arm. Ruth grasped it thankfully, leaning a bit on her tall grandson. As they entered the lab, Scott's eyes sought out John, and without a word being spoken, he knew that there would be no rescue of a kidnapped brother.

It was Brains who spoke. "Uh, we were able to access p-p-part of the damaged memory core. I'm, uh, afraid it is not good."

The scientist was looking at Ruth as he spoke, his concern clear on his face. "It… perhaps, uh… maybe you should wait upstairs, Mrs. Tracy…"

"No, Brains, that won't be necessary. Just show us what happened." Jeff spoke softly, and Scott swallowed hard. This was not going to be easy on any of them.

Brains turned back to a device hitting a switch that simultaneously lowered the lights and started a projector. He supplied a commentary to what they saw on the screen. "Well, as you uh, can see, the picture quality has been uh, seriously degraded. There is no, uh, timestamp, so we can't uh, be sure when this took place."

Brains paused the playback of the seemingly empty pod. "There is no shot of the uh, intruder entering, but if you'll look to the lower left, you'll see a shadow behind the number two pump." Here the scientist used a laser pointer to indicate the shadow. Scott raised an eyebrow. There was nothing to indicate it was the intruder.

"Okay, Brains, we see it." Jeff commented with a touch of impatience.

The scientist hesitated for a moment, then continued the playback. The view deteriorated for a moment, showing patches of white, then came back suddenly, only this time both Virgil and Gordon were visible. Virgil had paused at something Gordon was saying, then he nodded and headed for the elevator leading to the cockpit. Gordon continued folding and storing the rescue harnesses that they had utilized.

Brains again paused the playback. "Please let me warn you, the uh, attack is d-d-difficult to watch."

"Just get on with it." Virgil said in a dull flat tone.

Scott looked over at his brother, but his father had things in hand, standing next to Virgil, his arm wrapped around his shoulders. Brains nodded and started the playback again.

Scott watched as the shadow detached itself from the pump, becoming the man they had found in the hangar bay. Scott's jaw tightened as he realized the man was carrying a short black rod, like a tire iron. The man snuck up on Gordon, who apparently never heard a thing, and raising the rod, brought it down hard. Gordon dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The intruder kicked the downed aquanaut, but Gordon never twitched. The film eroded again just as the man reached down and started removing Gordon's sash.

Scott felt cold all over. The blow to Gordon's head had been a killing one, he was sure. He looked down at his grandmother, who stood, a hand to her mouth, tears streaming down her face. He pulled the diminutive woman into a hard embrace, not sure if it was for her or himself. He saw white faces all around the room.

He wasn't quite sure what to do next, but found he didn't have to say anything, as Brains spoke again. "Without the timestamp, and with the degradation of the uh, recording, it's impossible to say how much time passed before this next part. Uh, I've skipped over small, uh, bits of film that uh, don't show anything of uh, interest." Brains hesitated, not looking anyone in the eye. "I will say that, uh, Gordon never moves at any point, and I believe that he m-m-may have been killed instantly."

After another hesitation, Brains reached out suddenly and flipped a switch starting the playback once again. This time the scene showed Gordon lying on the deck clad only in his underwear. The intruder could be seen at the top of the frame, now wearing Gordon's uniform, working at a control panel. After a moment, one of the small hatches in the pod abruptly opened.

Virgil gasped. "Sonofabitch! I never got any alarm!"

Scott spared no glance at his brother, his eyes were glued on the scene playing out on the screen. He could tell that Thunderbird Two was in flight by the ruffling of the blue uniform as the man stared out the hatch. After a moment, the man moved over to Gordon's body, and picking it up, unceremoniously dumped it out the hatch.

"No!" Alan cried in true anguish. His legs gave out and he sat down hard on a nearby stool. Scott looked around for someone to help his youngest brother, but he had his hands full with his grandma, and his father was still holding onto Virgil. John was beyond helping anyone. Scott realized his middle brother had been sitting in a corner mute, never once looking up at the screen.

It was Ruth who spoke. She put a hand on Brains' sleeve. "Thank you, Brains." Turning to her son, she said, "Jeff, I don't want my grandbaby left alone out there. How will you find him?"

Scott's father turned a face tight with grief toward his family. "We'll find him. Brains, is there anyway to determine where Gordon would have fallen?"

Brains shrugged helplessly. "Uh, there is no, t-t-timestamp, Mr. Tracy. Without it, it's impossible to tell if… it… happened a minute or an hour into the uh, flight."

John suddenly sat up, a look of determination on his face. "We know the flight path. I can run a program to look for any mention of any John Does found."

"But what if Thunderbird Two was already over the ocean?" Alan's voice was barely above a whisper.

The question stopped everybody dead in their tracks. Working his jaw to relieve the ache, Scott finally replied, "Then he'll be where he'd want to be." Turning to Brains, he said, "Brains, listen, there isn't any timestamp on the security tape, but what about the flight recorder? That's a different system, right? Won't it show when that hatch opened?"

Both Brains and Virgil perked up, Virgil nodding. "Good thought. Come on, Brains, let's go check it out."

"Brains, before you go… Did you find any homing devices or communicators on the body?"

"No, uh, Scott."

Scott nodded, then turned to his father. "Dad, we have to figure this out. What the hell was this guy doing? What did he want?"

Jeff nodded. "I agree. You and Alan get to work. Find out who this man was, who he was working for."

"No." Scott and Jeff looked over at Alan. The young man wouldn't meet their eyes. "I'm going to Niagara Falls."

"Son, there's nothing there. We're going to need your help here."

"I don't care. I'm going to Niagara Falls." Without ever looking up, the young blond left the room.

Scott started to go after him, but was stopped by his grandmother. "Leave him be for now, honey."

"Grandma, if I leave him be, he's going to take a plane and cut out on us."

The gray-haired Tracy matriarch thought for a moment, then came to a decision. "I'll go with him."

"What? No, mother!"

"Jeff… dear one… Alan is going to go whether he has your approval or not. It's something he obviously feels he needs to do. Now, by the time we get there, he may realize that it won't do any good, or he may not, but either way he's going to need someone there with him. There is little enough I can do at a time like this, but I can be there for him. Let me do this."

Scott frowned. He wished he could say that he needed his grandma to be here for him and screw his little brother. He wished he could just break down and bawl like a baby and have her hold him in her arms like she had when he was a child. He sighed. He wished for a lot of things, but what he said was, "Don't be gone long, okay, Grandma?"

Ruth patted his hand, and headed out the door. Scott saw a fleeting glimpse of pain on his father's face and realized he wasn't the only one with wishes. Scott looked around the lab, and spied his brother John, hunched over his laptop, working at setting up his search program.

Walking over, he put his hand on his brother's shoulder, saying, "Come on, Johnny, we'll go work on this up in the roundhouse."

John flinched at the touch, and looked up with guilt-ridden eyes. "I'm sorry, Scott. I should never have told Alan that Gordon might be a prisoner. I mean, I knew that he…um…"

"Hey, it's okay. We're going to get through this. Alan will be all right. We'll let Grandma take care of him. But you and I, we're going to figure out who this guy was, and who he was working for, and then we're going to take care of business."

John's eyes widened at bit at the hardness that had entered Scott's tone, but all he did was nod, and close up his laptop. Scott led his brother and father out of the lab. While Jeff headed for the lounge, Scott and John headed for John's computer set up in the roundhouse.

Scott sat for a moment staring blankly at the screen, then got to work, pulling up an image of the intruder, and connecting with a face recognition program. He could hear John tapping away at his own computer. He sighed, wondering how they would survive.