Crossed Paths

Author's note: Watching through the 90's Adventures of Tintin series, it occurred to me there were a few similarities between Tintin and Jonny Quest, and I decided to do a story that brought both universes together. Hope everybody enjoys, please read and review.

"Well, Snowy," Tintin addressed his dog as the two of them made their way through a very busy and very crowded public square, "It looks like for once we just might get to have a vacation where nothing extraordinary happens to us."

The little white dog barked cheerfully in what seemed to be agreement as his little legs galloped along to stay ahead of his master.

Given the last vacation Tintin had taken had almost ended with a firing squad at dawn, there certainly was something to be said about an uneventful vacation, he could almost get bored, and the idea made him smile. As he made his way past all the people doing business left and right at small sale stands, he kept his hands deep in his pockets just to make sure no passerby who just happened to bump into him decided to relieve him of his wallet. He looked at the vendors selling all kinds of merchandise for the big festival that was going on today and bringing out all kinds of tourists and customers: from souvenirs to clothes to food to handmade crafts, in the midst of it all there was one that didn't seem to quite belong, but nonetheless was a refreshing sight.

"Ah, a newspaper stand," Tintin walked over to the vendor and took some money out of his wallet and said to the man selling newspapers, "One, please."

"A pleasure, sir," the man took his money and gave him a copy of the morning paper.

Just as Tintin began to unfold the paper to see what the story of the day was, he heard two familiar voices.

"Good morning, Tintin."

He turned around and saw the two identical lawmen and replied, "Thomson and Thompson, what're you doing here?"

The two men in matching black suits and bowler hats came up to him, each with the hand gripping their canes raised up towards their mouths as they shushed the young reporter and answered, "We are incognito."

"To be precise," Thompson added, "We are blending in with the street folk."

Thomson told Tintin, "We're here on an official assignment."

"Oh, another pickpocket?" Tintin asked.

"No," Thompson replied, and added in a hushed vice, "We are working in undercover security."

"Security?" Tintin repeated, and looked around, "Security for what?"

"To be precise, for who," Thompson said, "Our presence was requested to keep an eye on a visiting scientist and his family while they're staying in the country."

"It is of popular belief," Thomson added, "That they are at risk of being kidnapped."

"Kidnapped?" Tintin's eyebrows raised, "By who?"

"That's why we're blending in," Thompson answered, "We're to keep an eye out for anybody acting suspicious."

"I see," Tintin replied.

"Well, we must be off," the two detectives said, and gave a small gesture of farewell with their canes as they walked off and called back to their friend, "So long, Tintin."

"Goodbye, detectives," Tintin waved to them, "And good…"

The two detectives let out identically startled yelps as they unknowingly backed into a vendor and fell down and took most of his sales display with them.

"Luck," Tintin got his final word out.

"Gosh, Snowy," Tintin said as he and his dog continued to walk through the active streets, "Just think, we travel 3,000 miles to get away from it all, and there could be a kidnapping going on right under our noses."

Snowy sniffed and snorted and let out a small disapproving bark.

Tintin stopped walking and realized, "The newspaper, I forgot all about it." He took the paper from under his arm and unfolded it, "I wonder if there's something in here about that scientist."

And indeed there was, right on the first page, complete with a photo of Dr. Benton C. Quest, his 11-year-old son Jonny, their bodyguard, Roger "Race" Bannon, and Quest's adopted son, equally 11-years-old, Hadji from India.

"Well, they're certainly an interesting looking bunch," Tintin noted as he skimmed over the article. His overall mood seemed to change from indifferent to disappointed as he realized, "Every reporter in the country's going to be attending the doctor's lecture."

Snowy was able to pick up on what wasn't said, that with every reporter there vying to be the first one to send off their story, there wouldn't be much point in Tintin trying to get in on the action at the last minute.

Then something else occurred to Tintin, and he said to his dog with a trace of suspicion in his voice, "You know, Snowy, nothing against the Thompsons, but maybe they could use another person to help with security."

Snowy seemed to bark in agreement.

Tintin got the location where Dr. Quest would be that day from the newspaper and took off running, "Come on, Snowy."

Snowy followed behind him, barking excitedly.

The newspaper article had mentioned that Dr. Quest would be lecturing on the advances being made in space travel, something the entire world seemed to be in a race to be the first to perfect. No doubt it would be a very full lecture, and no doubt there would be some people in the midst of it all who weren't in favor of the doctor's findings and theories. That was always the case, if one side found out the other side was further ahead in making a discovery, they had to get rid of the other side and claim the findings as their own. Science certainly was a competitive field…but then again so was journalism.

Before Tintin even arrived on the scene where the lecture was being held, he knew something was wrong, he just couldn't tell what yet. He found out as he came upon the scene, the building being used for the doctor's lecture had its windows smashed and black smoke pouring out of them.

"Great snakes!" he exclaimed.

Too late, there had already been an attack. There were people all around, some of them had escaped from inside the burning building, others just looked like large parts of the day's crowd of passersby and tourists, a few police were in the mix trying to make sense of what was going on; but based on everyone's reactions coupled with the absence of four people in particular and he noted there was no rush made to send anybody back inside the building to bring anyone else out, Tintin could guess that the kidnap attempt had been made, and a success, and that Dr. Quest and his family were already gone.

"We're too late, Snowy," he said in despair, "Now what do we do?"

Snowy was barking frantically and grabbing Tintin's pant leg with his teeth, Tintin looked to see what his dog was so excited about and saw Snowy putting his nose to the ground, revealing large tire tracks heading away from the lecture hall.

"That must be how the kidnappers got out of here," Tintin said, and looked out as far as the eye could see, to follow where the tracks went, "We're going to follow them and see what we can find."