The surf was epic. A howling gale had ripped across the South Pacific over the last few days, 180 mile-per-hour winds goading the ocean into producing some serious waves, much to the delight of two young men who now raced over ten-foot swells on a powerful jetski.
Alan couldn't resist throwing in a few hard turns, the blades of the ski cutting the sparkling aqua-marine water and throwing up huge sprays.
"Whoaaaaaa!" His brother yelled, almost thrown off the back by the speed of the machine. "Watch it, Alan! I want my board to stay in one piece!" A gleaming, sharp-nosed surfboard, the prize of Gordon's fairly sizeable collection, was strapped to the side of the ski.
"Relax!" His younger brother laughed back, words almost lost in the combined roar of the motor and the offshore reef break they were headed towards. "Have I ever dumped you yet?"
"More times than I can count!" Gordon retorted as they reached the reef that rose sharply from unfathomable depths to lie deviously hidden mere metres below the surface of the water. This sudden change in the topography of the seabed caused the far-travelling ocean swells to rear up suddenly into huge, perfectly formed surf. Alan throttled back and the brothers silently watched the waves for a few minutes. Even by Tracy Island's standards, it was a fantastic break, the huge storm swells rearing up and forming a smooth, glassy barrel as they rolled over the shallow reef and broke with a deafening thunder.
"It's pretty big, man," Alan remarked, glancing across at his brother. "Check out that one! Gotta be forty feet if it's an inch!"
"Lucky I've got you to tow me in then!" Gordon laughed, his eyes alight with the joy of being on the ocean. No matter how much he surfed, he never got tired of it. In most situations Alan was the reckless one, a seemingly inborn need for speed pushing him into all the most extreme sports. When it came to surfing, however, Gordon was fearless and would surf without batting an eyelid waves none of his brothers would even dare to contemplate. The reef they now watched was not just the best spot near Tracy Island to surf – it was also the most dangerous.
"Okay, I've got it," Gordon had observed the break and knew exactly where he wanted to be. Alan followed his directions and raced the jetski out behind the break. There, they quickly set up the tow rope that attached to the back of the ski and Gordon hopped onto the board, slotting his feet into the sturdy straps that kept him on the board while it was being towed and taking a firm hold of the grab handle. A tow-in was necessary for catching this kind of wave – the water moved so fast that the surfer couldn't paddle fast enough to get into the wave without something, be it a jetski, speedboat or helicopter, towing him in. Luckily for Gordon, Alan loved playing with the jetski almost as much as Gordon loved surfing.
"Let's do this!" Gordon whooped, and Alan ripped out in front of a monster swell that reared up behind them, dwarfing the ski and surfer as it towered above them. At the perfect moment, Gordon let go of the tow rope and shot across the wide rolling top of the swell as it began to rear up and form a vertical, forty-foot watery cliff. Turning to look behind, Alan checked his brother had gotten into the wave okay before gunning the motor and getting the hell out of the path of those hundreds of tons of water, spinning his craft around when he reached safety to watch Gordon's ride.
Gordon was an expert surfer, but Alan knew he had to keep his attention firmly fixed on his brother. When you were playing with nature, you could do everything right and still get into trouble. Unlike surfing the sandy beach break nearer the shore, if Gordon wiped out or couldn't pull out of the wave in time, there was practically no water to dive into. The shallow reef was deadly, for the pounding wave could break a surfer on the jagged coral-covered rocks, or drown him under churning masses of water. Alan had to be prepared to race into the danger zone if anything went wrong.
It didn't pay to dwell on these thoughts though, and Alan was never one to worry about what might happen. Instead he whooped as Gordon expertly took on this force of nature. The surfboard skimmed across the top of the wave as it reared up and up, moving from a thick roll of water into a towering peak over forty feet high. Gordon pulled into a 180 degree curve, plummeting down several stories of water and back towards Alan as the wave rolled over his head, forming a huge tube. The blast of pressurized water that shot through the barrel as it collapsed propelled him through a blinding mass of white spray as he pulled back over the shoulder.
The two boys surfed all morning, Alan taking a turn on the board when the tide turned and the swell dropped to a more manageable size. The sun beat down, bleaching Gordon's ginger hair to a light reddish gold and Alan's to almost pure white. Both had spent so much time on the water this summer that their skins were already burnt a deep brown. They stopped only when the sun was at its zenith and hunger became too strong to ignore.
"I could eat a pterodactyl!" Alan remarked feelingly as he pulled up to the jetty. There was a boathouse built into the side of the rocky cliff, and the boys left the ski inside and clambered over the rocky sea-wall that sheltered a golden beach from the worst of the swells. In the calm of the early afternoon the sea was flattening out, and Gordon could tell the best of the surf was over for the day.
"I think I'll take old Fishbait for a whirl later on," he mused as they headed up to the main house in search of lunch. "She needs a good blow-out, hasn't seen much action lately...want to come?" He grinned as Alan shook his head vehemently, salt-stiffened curls sticking up at all angles.
"No thank you! Give me a rocket any day! You know there is more than one reason why we call it "Fishbait"!" He teased.
"Aw, c'mon! Nobody appreciates poor Fishbait!" Gordon complained, punching his brother good-naturedly on the shoulder. "Just because all your rockets and ultrasonic jets are flashy, doesn't mean Fishbait's no use!"
"Brother, even you can't deny that thing has...well, shall we say a permeating odour?" Alan dodged away from the swing Gordon took at him for that one.
"You try keeping a submarine clean when people are constantly dripping salt water in the airlock! And might I remind you who it was that knocked those fish all over the co-pilot's seat?" Alan's blue eyes widened.
"Who told you about that? Did Virgil tell you? He swore he wouldn't, the rat!"
"Nobody told me anything, but I can spot your handiwork from a mile off! So Virgil was in on it too? You guys are just lucky I didn't tell Dad you took a Thunderbird out on a fishing trip! You would really have been in for it!" Alan groaned.
"It was only because the speedboat needed a filter change and you and Scott had taken the yacht out."
"Yeah, you would never have gotten away with it if I had been there! Fishbait may not be much called for on rescues, but that doesn't mean it's available as a fishing boat." Alan sobered at this, detecting some seriousness behind Gordon's light-hearted tone.
"I know mate, sorry," he said, slightly awkward. Gordon just grinned at him. It was not in his nature to dwell on unpleasant thoughts and the day was too perfect for anything less than cheerfulness.
"Well at least I have some good blackmail material on you now," he laughed as they walked through the open French doors into the lounge.
"Boys! Again, sand on the carpet!" an accented voice protested as they made a beeline for the kitchen. "How many times must I tell you: wash the sand from your feet before you enter..." he trailed off with a sigh as the two boys froze with their hands already on the refrigerator door, turning guilty eyes to the elderly Malaysian.
"Sorry, Kyrano," Gordon said, Alan nodding vigorously in agreement. "We forgot..."
"You are no longer children, please try to remember next time," Kyrano scolded gently, following them into the open-plan kitchen area. "You are hungry, yes? I saved you something from lunch, let me heat it for you," he chivvied them back into the lounge.
"Thanks!" they chorused with feeling, Alan flopping down onto a couch while Gordon cast about for a t-shirt, the air-conditioning made the room too cold for just board shorts.
"You're a gem, Kyrano," the red-head beamed winningly at the chef, causing the elderly man to break into a responding smile despite himself. "See, you're not really cross!" Satisfied he had broken the Malaysian's stern mood, he located a Hawaiian shirt he had discarded yesterday behind the couch and pulled it on before collapsing next to his brother on the couch. "So, you're not a child any more?" He teased his younger brother. "I think eighteen still counts as a child, why, you are still just a teenager!" Alan growled.
"And you're so much older! How long have you been twenty, about ten days?" He retorted, very much put out by being the only teenager left on the island. Tin-Tin, Kyrano's 19-year-old daughter, still qualified, but she was away at college on the mainland.
"No matter, I am still twenty baby brother!" He grinned as Alan shoved him hard enough to nearly push him off the couch. "Hey watch it!" he grabbed a cushion and pushed it into his brother's surprised face, knocking him into a lamp that wobbled dangerously.
"Both of you watch it," Kyrano said sternly as he brought out two plates piled high with a delicious-smelling concoction. Effectively distracted from teasing each other, the brothers were loud in their praise and sat cross-legged at the low table, barely glancing from their plates up when an inside door opened and a dreamy-eyed young man wandered in.
"Oh, hey guys," Virgil greeted his brothers vaguely, his eyes drifting over to the shaded spot where his beautiful grand piano awaited. "Surf good?"
"Epic!" Gordon mumbled, his mouth full. Alan swallowed.
"It was fantastic out there Virg, Gordon caught a couple that had to be near fifty feet, you should've seen it!"Virgil sat at the piano and spread his fingers lovingly over the antique ivory keys.
"Uh-huh..." he replied vaguely, his mind clearly miles away. Alan looked at Gordon and rolled his eyes.
"Then Gordon blew up the entire reef because he found a giant shark there with its head stuck down a hole." He continued in the same tone. Virgil nodded.
"That's good..." There was a few second's pause before their brother looked up in confusion, having obviously responded to Alan's cheerful tone rather than his actual words.
"...What?" Alan and Gordon started laughing. Virgil looked so bewildered.
"What's up Virgil, not another symphony coming on I hope?" Gordon grinned.
"Actually a sonata, in A minor..." Virgil wasn't even really speaking to him, music was flooding his thoughts and he took a sheaf of music paper from the top of the piano and began scribbling musical notes at top speed, stopping every now and then to sound out a few chords and bars of delicate melody.
"We won't be getting any sense out of him till this one's over," Alan sighed resignedly. Classical music was wasted on him; give him a rock band any day.
"Let's just hope there isn't a call this time. Remember what happened when we were doing that rescue in the Grand Canyon and he was writing that symphony?"
"How could I forget? It was alright for him, he was in Thunderbird Two the whole time, I was the one who had to fend off the local police and all the tourists, and explain to father why we had rescued those hikers from a rockslide only to cause another one ten times worse!" Alan exclaimed. He still couldn't believe his father had blamed him for that one. Gordon laughed.
"You should have seen dad's face when he saw that cliff come down on the satellite feed, I thought he was going to explode!"
"Well he did explode, all over me." Alan grumbled. "I tell you, that is the only time I have ever been glad to go on duty on Thunderbird 5."
The conversation was interrupted by the sudden commencement of a measured electronic beeping noise that was relayed through the room through hidden speakers. Blond, red and brown heads jerked up at the alarm, even Virgil pausing in his rapid scribbling.
"Speak of the devil," Gordon quipped as he sprang to his feet and dashed across the lounge. Alan was hot on his heels and Virgil reluctantly dragged himself away from the piano to follow his brothers into the next room, where the eyes of a large photograph on the wall were lighting up in time with the warning signal. Their father was not in the room, so Gordon opened the channel.
"Hey John, what's up?" he asked as the image on the wall was replaced by a high-definition video screen showing their brother in the space station. "Apart from you, that is!"
John rolled his eyes. It was only about the thousandth time Gordon had made that particular wisecrack.
"I've just picked up a distress call from outback Australia. Sudden bush fire, group of hikers cut off and trapped against a cliff wall. Emergency services inadequately equipped to perform any kind of rescue in the area." John's fingers flew over unseen controls and a set of coordinates flashed onto a set of monitors mounted on the walls, followed by satellite images of the blaze. The three boys glanced at each other as an older man strode into the room. Jeff Tracy's commanding presence was palpable and immediately drew their attention. His eldest son, Scott, was not far behind and in moments Jeff had sized up the situation and was giving his orders.
"Virgil, take Scott, Alan and the Komodo and get there at full speed, forest fires spread quickly and they don't have much time."
"Yes sir," All three boys immediately obeyed their father's command and within seconds had vanished from the room, using various hidden passages to access the huge aircraft. Jeff seated himself behind the desk and busied himself pulling up screens of relevant data and geographical information. He would brief his sons as they made the journey across the ocean. Thunderbird One had the greater speed, but they would probably need to airlift the trapped hikers out of there and Thunderbird Two was the obvious choice – and at its top speed of Mach 7 the flight time to Australia could be measured in minutes.
Gordon knew that as an underwater specialist he was the last choice to go on an air rescue, but it still irked him that he hardly ever got a chance to be out there in the action. He glanced up at the video screen showing John, wondering if he ever felt this way.
John caught sight of his younger brother watching him through the monitor, dressed in a bright Hawaiian shirt that clashed violently with his ginger hair, and gave him a brief, distracted smile as he collected data and fed it through to his father. Gordon opened his mouth but his words were drowned out by the rumbling noise of the cliff-disguised hangar door opening beneath the building.
"Thunderbird Two, permission for take-off," Virgil's voice came through the speakers. Jeff had already done the routine sweep of the local skies and granted permission instantly. Gordon was drawn to the windows as he watched the familiar sight of the huge, unwieldy-looking aircraft roar ponderously down the runway, the bizarre sight of palm trees falling back to allow its stubby forward-pointing wings to pass by. Not for the first time, he marveled at the genius of their engineer, the man they fondly called "Brains". Gordon could hardly believe the hefty cargo carrier could even get airborne, let alone reach the incredible speed of over 5,000 miles per hour and even have the ability to leave the earth's atmosphere.
"There she goes again," he muttered under his breath, watching Thunderbird Two blast off the runway ramp and disappear into the blue skies.
The whole operation, from receiving the distress call to take-off, had taken less than five minutes, so Gordon had to admit that the military precision and strictness their father insisted on paid off. He approached the control desk.
"Anything I can do, Father?" He asked. Jeff didn't look up.
"Watch that monitor will you Gordon, it shows the heat image of the fire. Let me know if it changes direction at all," he instructed. Gordon complied with an inward sigh. Yet again, here he was, stuck watching a stupid monitor while his brothers got to go out and have all the fun.
