Brazil

by J. Ferguson a.k.a. Timeless A-Peel

Disclaimer: I don't own The New Avengers, nor the characters of Mike Gambit, Purdey, and John Steed. Sadly. They're the property of The Avengers (Film and TV) Enterprises, and this story is for entertainment purposes only.

Timeline: Sixth in a series. Takes place in late February/early March, 1977, near the start of the second season, probably shortly after the events of Hostage and the year-later bits of Gnaws and The Last of the Cybernauts...? It is strongly recommended, but not essential, that you go back and read the previous stories in the arc, Aftermath, Dance With Me, The Anniversary, and Merry Christmas, Mr. Gambit.

For more information about the series, please see my profile.

Author's Note: Happy New Year! And to celebrate, a fresh chapter now that all the parties are over and work beckons. Steed and Gambit have a lot on their plate as well. Stay tuned for the next chapter, which will feature a major player in the rest of the story, one who also happens to be a familiar face from the past.


The call came a few minutes past three. Gambit was only half-asleep, jerked awake by nightmares every half hour or so. Nightmares that shouldn't have come this far from a certain significant day in November. Not that he didn't have a pretty damn good idea of what was causing them. Only these were different. Because here it was Purdey who was crumpled on the floor, blue eyes bright against the dirt and old blood streaking her face. And he was watching, standing by while it happened, unable to move as unseen foes held him back with steely grips.

Then Purdey was dragged upright, and Grey stepped forward, put a gun to her head, against the shorn blonde locks, and pulled the trigger.

That was when Gambit usually woke up.

He'd been halfway calm when the phone shrilled through the silent flat. Gambit crawled out of bed after a moment, made his way over to pick up the receiver. "Gambit." His voice was hoarse, his throat parched.

"Mike?" It took a few moments for him to recognize Steed's voice. It sounded too careworn, too deflated. Gambit felt his heart sink. Bad news was on the horizon.

"Steed? Is there news? Have you heard something?" Mike asked anxiously. Steed had sent him home to get some sleep, but had promised to alert him to any new developments.

"Someone's flown in from the search team," Steed told him evasively. "If you're up to it, you might want to drive in and hear what he has to say."

"Can't you be a bit more specific?" Gambit wanted to know, but Steed refused to divulge. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes," he said finally.

"We're in McKay's office," Steed informed. "I'll see you there."

Gambit dressed as quickly as he could. Steed had sent him home only a few hours earlier, ordering him to get some sleep. Even with Kendrick's sedatives, it was a tall order. He'd managed a few minutes here and there, perhaps an hour and a half in total, but restless sleep at best, thanks to the nightmares. He needed good news badly.

He doubted he'd get it.

He drove the Jag fast, but not as fast as he could. Part of him was anxious to hear the news, but another part was afraid. If there was good news, Steed would have told him over the phone. A delay could only mean bad tidings. The only question was: how bad?

Fifteen minutes later he was standing in front of McKay's door, working up the courage to knock. When he finally did, the man himself called for him to enter. Gambit took a deep breath, turned the knob, and stepped inside.

Steed, McKay, and a third man Gambit didn't recognize were all seated around McKay's desk, waiting. For him. Their eyes bore into Gambit, heavy with whatever they had to impart. Gambit didn't like the way they were looking at him. It took a strong dose of courage to close the door behind him instead of running. He managed to approach the trio, seated himself in the vacant chair beside Steed.

McKay spoke first. "Gambit, this is Manders. Ashley Manders. He's our Ministry man in Grey's clean-up operation."

Manders was dark and serious, with glasses that hid extremely observant eyes. Gambit reached over the desk and shook his hand. "Yes, of course. Hello."

Manders nodded in reply, looked to McKay, who continued. "Manders returned because things are more or less wrapped up in Brazil. Everything's been sorted between our two departments and the local authorities."

"Finished?" Gambit repeated, straightening in surprise. "It's only been ten days since they went over. Has the base been cleaned out? Any sign of Purdey?"

McKay nodded to Manders. The man looked uncomfortable as he met Gambit's gaze. Gambit felt his guts twist. Here it comes

"To answer your first question, Mr. Gambit: yes, the base has been thoroughly swept, all documents, substances, and other paraphernalia accounted for. Everyone found onsite was taken into custody. Unfortunately, there is no indication that Purdey was ever at the base. No record of her incarceration, and initial interrogations have revealed that no one on the premises saw her in the facility."

Gambit felt his heart sink. Purdey was still missing, and they were rapidly running out of places to find her. "That leaves the jungle," he said roughly, looking to Steed, who was impassively grim.

"I'm afraid so. But sweeps of the area surrounding the confrontation haven't been too successful. Samantha Grieve informs me that she last saw Purdey moving out of the clearing and into the jungle proper. We suspect she was taken to a second location, and that her party was met by a vehicle. There's no question she was taken by Pym's followers. They're dead, unfortunately, so we've no one to question on the particulars." He took a deep breath and plowed on, despite the fact that all the colour was draining from Gambit's face. "We did, however, recover this in the vicinity of her last known location." Manders slid a small envelope across the table toward Gambit. Mike eyed it warily. There was nothing good to be found inside. It sat innocently on the desk top, inviting him to explore its contents. Gambit could feel the gazes of the other three men on him as he eyed it. Nothing for it. He'd have to look inside and face up to whatever the contents implied. Slowly, tentatively, he picked it up and tipped it over, allowing its contents to spill onto the desk.

A fine gold chain slid out, arranging itself in a neat pile. Gambit sucked air in sharply. He recognized it immediately, knew which neck it was meant to adorn. It didn't take long for him to pick out the other details. The broken links, cut through, probably with a knife. He prodded the pile almost instinctively, the analytical part of his brain taking over. His fingers worked of their own accord, playing the chain out over the glossy surface of McKay's desk.

That was when he saw the blood staining the links, dried onto the metal along with the dirt from the jungle floor.

No.

Gambit felt his head spinning. It couldn't be. His brain struggled to make sense of it. Purdey. Blood. No sign. The jungle. Handful of men. Chain. Around her neck. Her throat. Oh, hell, had they cut her throat?

"It is Purdey's?" He heard Mander's voice through a haze, felt Steed's heavy hand on his shoulder.

"Yes," he croaked hoarsely, never taking his eyes off the thin piece of metal, the crimson highlights. "She wouldn't part with it easily. Her father gave it to her." He fingered it gently. "How much of the jungle have you searched?"

"More than we should have to, if she's to be found," Manders said quietly.

Gambit suddenly felt sick, suffocated, as though the walls were closing in. He stood without warning, knocking over his chair in the process, staggered back from the table. He needed out. Away from the eyes. Away from that chain and all it implied.

"'Scuse me," he managed, before bolting out the door.

Gambit felt his way blindly down the corridor, hands pressed against the wall, guiding him as he stumbled past what his eyes couldn't see for the images crashing through his mind. Purdey, all alone, throat slashed, abandoned in the Brazilian jungle, murdered and left for the local wildlife. He retched and barely avoided being sick right in the Ministry corridor, somehow managed to find the door to the men's, throw it open, and stagger inside. There was one other occupant, Terence, an agent Gambit knew vaguely, but hadn't worked any assignments with. His head whipped round at Gambit's violent entrance, jaw dropping.

"Bloody hell, Gambit. You okay?"

Gambit didn't answer, just thrust past the surprised man, lunging for one of the stalls. He dropped to his knees onto the cold tile just in time for the vomit to make the porcelain bowl instead of decorating the walls of the cubicle. It only took a couple of heaves to empty his stomach. He hadn't had much in the way of dinner the night before. His appetite had seen better days than when this whole mess began. He knelt there for a moment, hollow inside, feeling weak and helpless, too drained, too sick, to help Purdey, himself, anyone.

He vaguely remembered washing up in the sink while making unconvincing attempts at allaying Terence's fears, the agent repeatedly offering to fetch Dr. Kendrick. Presumably he'd succeeded in shaking the other agent off, although he couldn't recall how he'd done it, what he'd said. Then again, he couldn't remember leaving the Ministry, nor climbing into his car, making a trip, fumbling for keys at his destination. All he knew was he was suddenly sitting on Purdey's couch, staring at the same walls Purdey had told him only last month she was planning on repainting as part of her renovation. "Time for a change, don't you think?" had been her words. He'd made some smart remark about how he'd be happy to see her change, and while her reply wouldn't come to mind, it was a safe bet it had involved her pulling a face while uttering her famous "Mike Gambit…" Now she was gone, and he had no way of knowing how her changes would have looked, had she been given time to realise them.

There was a gentle tap on the door that Gambit suddenly recalled he'd left ajar. He turned in time to see Steed prod it open the rest of the way with his brolly. The senior agent looked grave, but Gambit knew John Steed well enough to know that most of what he was feeling was under tight control, and wouldn't bubble to the surface unless given express permission. "I thought I'd find you here," he murmured. "Although Purdey'd resent the assumption."

Gambit felt his mouth quirk up on one side almost automatically. "She'd be grateful I used a key for once, at least," he replied, then felt his face fall. "If she was here." Mike turned away. "Sorry for ducking out on you like that."

Steed made his way over to the couch, took a seat next to Gambit, setting bowler and brolly on top of Purdey's seemingly inexhaustible supply of fashion magazines, scattered over the coffee table. "If it's any consolation, I might have had a similar reaction if I hadn't had other things to attend to." His eyes ventured around the flat. "And you're not the only reason I stopped by, either."

"Know what you mean," Gambit said quietly. "I can feel her here, all over. And I half believe if I sit here long enough, she'll walk through that door and tell me to stop sulking, and that I'd feel better if I'd only take her out for lunch."

Steed smiled slightly. "Great minds…"

"That's another one of hers, least as far as I'm concerned," Gambit pointed out, scrubbing his face with anxious hands. "What are we going to do, John?"

"What we always do," Steed said firmly, well-aware that the moment Mike lapsed into using his Christian name, they were just friends now. Friends worrying over another friend, an absent entity, "when Purdey, or you, or I, go missing. Keep looking. Follow every lead to the end. Check and recheck."

"But we're not in the right hemisphere to follow half of them," Gambit pointed out. "And this isn't someone holding her for a few hours somewhere in England, although that's bad enough. It's been two weeks, John. And there've been search parties out who haven't found anything but her chain." He swallowed another round of nausea. "What if there's nothing left to find?"

"There is. Purdey's resourceful. I'm not saying she hasn't been hurt—I think that's expecting too much. But that chain doesn't prove anything other than that Purdey was there at some point. And she's been missing for days at a time before, remember. Just recently, in fact. Or have you forgotten the hostage incident last month?"

Gambit winced. "I'm still nursing the bruises," he said ruefully.

"But Purdey made it out all right, didn't she? Time doesn't necessarily equate with damage."

"I suppose," Gambit allowed. "But you mentioned last month. That's the other thing that's been bothering me."

Steed's ears perked up. "Yes?"

Gambit sighed. "Remember, I told you I called Purdey's mother to confirm your story? And I more or less hung up on her when she told me Purdey wasn't there. Because I realized—" He swallowed. "I realized, right then, that I didn't know--that I'd never know--how to tell her her daughter was gone, and explain how I'd let it happen, without the foggiest idea where she'd gone." He met Steed's gaze with his own, sea-green eyes intense. "What the hell am I supposed to tell her now? Purdey's disappeared the same place her father died." Something twigged in his brain, but Gambit was too distracted to stay with it. "She told me, once, about these men that came to tell her mother about what happened to her father. I don't know that I can be the one to sit there and give a repeat performance."

"No need to tell her anything yet," Steed tried to comfort. "There's still not much to tell—no real answers."

"But we'll have to tell her something, eventually. You know Purdey calls her regularly. We've got a little time since she just came back from her visit. But if it gets too long, he mother's going to worry." Gambit got up and paced rapidly. "I should've followed her, Grey be damned. I wouldn't have needed to be in on the assignment. Just there." He stopped in front of the mirror, braced himself against the barre, head down. "I promised myself I wouldn't let something like this happen to her. I failed her."

Steed rose. "No," he contradicted. "You didn't. She agreed to go. You didn't force her. Grey assigned it, not you. And McKay approved it—under duress, I'll admit, but he did. If Purdey's situation is on anyone's heads, it's there's, not yours. And you know as well as I that Purdey wouldn't have let you come along to baby-sit when she felt perfectly capable of completing the assignment herself. The only way you could have failed her was as a friend, and I can assure you that you played that role with aplomb."

Gambit shook his head, lifted his eyes. "Don't you ever felt guilty when something like this happens?" He asked Steed's reflection.

"Only when the guilt is justified," Steed allowed. "When I'm consciously pushing someone into the line of fire. You won't survive this job if you feel responsible for every person that falls dead at you feet. But if you're asking if I've ever felt the same way, I'm afraid the answer is yes."

Steed shifted in his seat so he could look out Purdey's window, at the early morning light was filtering into the flat.

"On our last assignment together, Mrs. Gale nearly burned to death in a boat fire. I was left to identify a body in the morgue. Luckily it wasn't hers, but I remember standing in the morgue. I remember the moment I realized the pen I'd loaned Mrs. Peel was a homing beacon for a Cybernaut. And the day Tara took me at my word and trusted a man named Jason. She ended up unconscious in a garden shed about to be set ablaze. If any of those situations had turned out differently, and they very easily could have, I'd have been feeling the way you do now, although much, much worse. But I was responsible for involving each of them, in one way or another. You didn't bring Purdey into this job, and you certainly didn't have a hand in what happened in Brazil. I know you feel responsible for her, but you'll serve her better if you focus on finding her and refuse to give up. You're not planning on giving up, I hope?"

Gambit turned to face him. "You know I'm not." There was a ghost of a smile in the sea-green eyes. "She'd kill me if I did. Or give me a scolding to remember. Something starting with 'Mike Gambit,' I'd hazard, only it'd come out 'Moke Gumbet' because her mouth would be full of marshmallows." They shared a brief laugh, and Gambit shook his head fondly. "Hard to imagine life B.P."

Steed's eyebrows shot up. "B.P.?"

" 'Before Purdey,'" Gambit said with a smirk. "But how are we going to get anything done here with Grey looking over our shoulders?"

Steed smiled knowingly. "I wasn't planning on continuing our investigation in England."

Gambit shook his head. "You know as well as I do that Grey won't let anyone outside his department take part in the Brazilian arm of the operation."

"True," Steed agreed. "But I wasn't going to suggest applying for a slot in Grey's team. I thought we'd take a holiday instead. You've got some time accumulated, haven't you?"

Gambit could feel his first real smile in weeks tugging at his lips. Good old Steed. "Weeks," he confirmed.

"Excellent. So have I. Anyplace you'd suggest?"

"I hear South America is nice," Gambit mused innocently. "Could use a little sun."

"Splendid idea. I'm sure McKay won't begrudge us taking it concurrently."

Gambit snorted. "He'll jump at the chance to do anything that'll stick in Grey's craw."

"And while we're there, if we happen to run across Purdey…"

"We'll just have to book an extra seat on the plane," Gambit finished. "Do you think we can manage it?"

"I'll pull some strings. We'll leave in the next day or two," Steed promised.

"We'll need a guide over there," Gambit pointed out. "I haven't been to South America since my Navy days, and I wasn't exactly hitting the usual tourist sights, if you catch my meaning."

"I've an idea in that direction, too," Steed assured. "An old friend of mine, whom I'm sure will be delighted to help us in exchange for trip to sunnier climes." He retrieved his bowler and umbrella and made for the door. "I'll start making calls."

"Steed." Gambit's voice halted him halfway to the door. "Purdey's chain. Do you think I could hang onto it? I'd like to be the one to give it back to her."

Steed smiled knowingly. "Of course." He dug in his pocket, extracted the envelope, placed it in Gambit's outstretched hand when the younger man reached him. "I know you'll look after it."