A/N: Listen up. You know it and I know it. Jeff isn't dead. It takes more than an attack by The Hood to finish off Jefferson Grant Tracy. And I have a bunch of theories about what he's up to now he's off the Island and pretty much off the grid. Some are silly, some aren't quite so silly, and I can't promise to update too often, but I just hope that everyone who loves and misses Jeff as much as I do enjoys reading these little snippets of whatever-you-call-it.

For my Teebs, to cheer her up (even if this first one isn't too cheerful!)

Disclaimer: Thunderbirds was created by Mr & Mrs Anderson and I am not on the writing team for the new version created by other people. I'm just grabbing Jeff and using my imagination - as Lady Penelope has probably said once or twice.

The Secret Life of Jefferson Tracy

1. This Message Will Self-Destruct...

All was dark and silent.

Jeff opened his eyes slowly and tried to take in a deep breath. His mouth was instantly filled with thick acrylic wool. Why was his face covered? He started to panic and tried to move his arms but found these had been tied by his sides. The more he struggled, the tighter his bonds seemed to become. There was a dull ache at the back of his head.

He couldn't remember what had happened to him. One moment he had asked the air hostess if she could refill his empty bourbon glass, the next minute the entire plane started shaking violently and all he could hear was the sound of the air hostess screaming. The next moment, it all went dark - and he had woken up on a chair with a mask over his face.

With no warning, the cover was removed from his face and a brilliant, strong light shone directly into his eyes, dazzling him. He scrunched his eyes shut and turned his face away from the direct beam.

"What goes on here?" he demanded, struggling against the twine that bound him to the chair. 'Who the hell uses twine these days?' he wondered, angrily.

"Colonel Tracy," a dark, deep voice said. Jeff tried to turn his head to see who had spoken but couldn't see anything past the glare of the light in his eyes.

"Who are you?"

"I am Lieutenant General Woodcock of the Extreme Threat Division - an officially unknown branch of the NSA." Jeff was just glad that Gordon wasn't with him, there was no way his penultimate son would be able to contain his laughter at a name like Woodcock. The thought of Gordon's hysterical peals of laughter caused Jeff to smirk as he peered through the light to find the owner of the disembodied voice.

"You'll forgive me if I don't salute, son. I'm a little tied up right now," he said, dryly.

"That's quite all right," Lieutenant General Woodcock said. He had either missed or purposely ignored Jeff's pun, which disappointed Jeff a little. He thought it had been one of his best. "No doubt you have some questions."

"Existentially or with specific reference to this situation?" Jeff asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You keep a cool head and a steady nerve under pressure. That's good to know," Woodcock said.

"This isn't my first rodeo, kid."

"I know. I've read your file."

"So you'll know I don't take too kindly to this cloak and dagger nonsense?" Jeff asked, setting his jaw firmly, the mildly amused smile disappearing from his voice and eyes.

Instead of hearing a reply, the bright light was switched off and Jeff was plunged into a palpable darkness and an accompanying heavy silence. He closed his eyes and focussed on keeping his breathing and heart rate slow and steady. 'They're trying to scare you. Don't let 'em win.' He started counting slowly in his head - odd numbers on the inhale, even numbers on the exhale - to focus on the moment.

He had reached number 62 when the light came back on. This time it was a single bulb hanging from the ceiling and Jeff looked around the small cell. One door behind him. One window to his left. Too small for him to climb through. He tensed against his bonds again. For the moment, he was definitely trapped. His life didn't seem to be in immediate danger. Aside from the throbbing pain at the back of his head, had had sustained no other physical injury. He looked up at Woodcock, a large, thick-set man with large dark eyes that had seen so much war and horror that they no longer sparkled with life. He was battle-hardened, world-weary and Jeff knew not to underestimate him.

"We have a proposition for you, Colonel," Woodcock said. Jeff frowned.

"You guys never heard of e-mail?" he asked. "And you can quit with the formalities, I haven't been in the Air Force for a very long time. I'm a plain old 'Mister' and I like it that way."

"Very well, Mr Tracy," Woodcock said, emphasising the word 'mister' as if it was a profanity.

He reached into his pocket, and with an air of embellishment that didn't seem to match his persona, brandished a switchblade. Jeff sat back a little in his seat, unsure of what was going to happen next. He was relieved to discover that Woodcock's intention had only been to cut the twine which bound him to his chair.

"We have heard of e-mail. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that all electronic correspondence can be tracked, though," he said.

"What the hell kind of proposition could you have for me that you want to keep this level of secrecy over?" Jeff demanded. Woodcock's lips smiled, but the rest of his face remained stoic and emotionless.

"I'm sure you of all people know about secrets."

"I don't know what you mean," Jeff said, hoping his tone didn't reflect how nervous he suddenly felt.

"Of course you don't. Let me show you," Woodcock said, handing a paper file to Jeff. Jeff flicked through a few pages and his stomach started churning. Woodcock had a file on Tracy Island. There was a photograph of Thunderbird 1 launching from beneath the retracted swimming pool, of Thunderbird 4 taking a test voyage around the perimeter of the Island, of machinery being delivered to Tracy Island. There were surveillance pictures of his sons on Tracy Island. There was an extremely pixelated photograph of Kayo. Finally, Jeff looked up and slammed the file into Woodcock's chest.

"Are you gonna tell me exactly who I have to sue for breach of my sons' human rights? These are my children. I already have taken great pains and paid some extortionate legal fees to make sure their privacy is permanently protected," Jeff said, not bothering to hide his emotions, his blue eyes almost glowing with seething anger. "Alan is still in school. I'm sure your secret department wouldn't want to be brought to the public's attention for taking unauthorised pictures of schoolboys, would it?" Jeff's tone was low, clear and simmering with rage. He had been victim to blackmail attempts before, as had every other billionaire. It was part of the territory and Jeff had shrugged each of them off with a finite degree of disinterest. But a governmental department using his sons to come after him? That was a whole new level of low, and Jeff was not going to stand for it.

"I don't think you'd want to put your sons' lives in danger by anyone finding out exactly who the members of International Rescue are, and exactly where their base of operations is, would you?" Woodcock replied. If he was in any way unnerved by Jeff's reaction, he certainly didn't show it. Jeff knew what this was. He knew that Woodcock was trying to make Jeff angry so he would lose his temper. Jeff breathed in deeply and held it for a few moments before sitting back in his chair.

"You have nothing," he said. "You have a few blurry photos with no time or date stamp, no geographical location, nothing. If you've got real proof that International Rescue is anything to do with me, let me see it. But let me tell you something. If you want to negotiate working with me, you've gone the wrong way about it. You do not threaten my sons. You do not go near them."

"We aren't interested in your sons, Mr Tracy," Woodcock said, picking out a single picture and handing it to him. It was the picture of Kayo. "It's this girl. We have intelligence that leads us to believe that she is connected to a criminal known as The Hood."

"Where do you get your intelligence from?" Jeff asked.

"It's classified."

"So is mine," Jeff shot back at him.

"You don't seem to understand. We will expose you."

"That's gonna be a hardship to deal with. 'Billionaire philanthropist also secretly goes round saving people for grins'. Yeah, I'll take that, no matter who is in charge of International Rescue," Jeff said with a nonchalant shrug.

"We seem to be at an impasse," Woodcock said, blandly.

"No. We haven't even started," Jeff said, standing to his full height as he stood approximately two inches from Woodcock's nose. "You want help, I'll help. But you ask for it the right way. Don't fucking kidnap me and try to scare me or threaten me to help you. I'm too fucking old and too fucking angry to be threatened. I don't negotiate with blackmailers, I don't care who they work for."

"All right. So negotiate," Woodcock offered, a sardonic smile threatening at the right corner of his mouth.

"You don't want the girl. You want The Hood. I get it. He has to be stopped. I'll do what I can to help you get him. But if one more photograph of my sons is taken without our full knowledge or consent - I will find you, and you had best believe me, Buster - I will kill you," Jeff said, seriously, his voice cold and even. "You leave my boys alone, or you die. THAT is my proposition."

"You make a very convincing argument."

"Take it or leave it," Jeff said, stepping back and sitting back on the chair.

"Counter-proposal. Nobody dies. No more photographs are taken. But you work for us. You don't go home until this is over," Woodcock said. "Either way, you don't leave this facility until we've captured The Hood and made sure that this girl is no threat to US security." Jeff knew what that phrase meant. Kayo would be arrested and tortured to reveal what precious little she knew of her uncle. Jeff couldn't let that happen to her. She was now just as much a part of his family as any other Tracy.

"Why would I agree to that?" he asked, still refusing to back down until he was sure there was no other option.

"We have reason to believe that The Hood was responsible for the plane crash," Woodcock explained. "Official reports are sixty-three fatalities and forty-one missing."

"What about me?"

"You're one of the missing. The government have already contacted your family to confirm your status as missing."

Jeff's shoulders slumped forward as the weight of Woodcock's statement sank in. His sons had already lost their mother. Now they would think they had lost their father. Hadn't they been through enough? What about his mother? She had only come to live on the Island temporarily while she waited for her new bungalow at the Waikiki Retirement Village to be built. The boys were more than old enough to take care of themselves, of course. But his mother would insist on staying to keep an eye on them. He supposed someone needed to bully Alan into doing his homework now and again. She would need them, too. She was a tough, independent old battleaxe, but she had become more reliant on having contact with her family since his father had died. That was why she was moving from Kansas to Hawaii, to be a little closer to them while still maintaining her independence.

He would have to find some way to let the boys know he was alive. He couldn't let them go on grieving him.

The way Jeff saw it, he now had two options. Do as he had been asked and maybe get to go home at the end of it - or be thrown into an unknown prison by an officially unknown security department and be powerless to help when these people came to arrest Kayo. She was tough, all right. She was probably tougher than most, if not all, of his sons. But everyone had their limits, and organisations like this one could be very meticulous about finding those limits and would have no compunction about breaking them.

He couldn't let Kayo suffer for something that had absolutely nothing to do with her. After a long silence, he finally looked up at Woodcock and nodded once.

"I guess the sooner we get started, the sooner I can go home," he said. Woodcock smiled one of his emotionless smiles again.

"That's the spirit," he said, a false tone of encouragement in his voice. "Your country thanks you."

"My country can go fuck itself," Jeff growled, narrowing his eyes.