INTERLUDE: THE DYNO*
"Jeff? What's the matter?"
"Hm?" Jeff Tracy looks up from the laptop screen he's been staring at for the past…a glance at the time in the lower right-hand corner of the screen…two hours?
"You're troubled."
He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. "I suppose I am. It's everything John and Brains talked to me about," he confesses, leaning back in his chair and sighing again.
"You mean about Mt. McKinley, and that project where they shoot signals into the air?"
Jeff smiles at her recap of the portion of his conversation with John she'd overheard. "Yes, that's the thing."
Ruth Tracy perches on the settee in front of his desk. "What's troubling you about it?"
"Well, no sooner are those boys after me about this theory they have, than International Rescue gets called out to Alaska for the mother of all earthquakes. And now Scott's telling me Mount Foraker's showing signs of erupting. It's never erupted before in recorded history!"
She leans back, folding her arms across her chest. "So you think there's some truth to John's theory about another signal causing all these disasters."
"I don't know what to think. Colonel Hicks swears there's nothing up there other than HAARP, but…" Jeff's voice trails off, he runs a hand through his hair again and a worry line appears between his eyebrows.
Ruth leans forward. "What do you want to do, Jeff?"
He sighs yet again. "I may have to recall John from his leave, get him back here and see what we can do about ferreting out whether he and Brains are right. And if they are, what we can do about it."
Opening her mouth to speak, Ruth is cut off by the sound of Scott hailing them from his portrait on the wall. "Go ahead, Scott," Jeff says, opening the secure channel.
"Father, all the mountain climbers have been accounted for in the entirety of the central Alaska range. All the towns in the projected danger zone are in the process of being evacuated, and…hang on, getting a call from…RMI Expeditions? Hold on, Dad."
Jeff and Ruth watch, but are on mute, as Scott takes the call. Just from seeing the look on his face morph from serious Field Commander to Oh, shit tells them something's very wrong before he even gets back on the line with them.
"What?" Jeff asks immediately, rising to his feet and coming to stand next to his mother. Why did Scott's face appear two shades lighter?
"There's one small climbing group, it was a special charter that left for the West Buttress of Mt. McKinley five days ago."
"And?" Jeff asks, walking halfway to Scott's live feed, noting the tremor in his son's voice.
"Expert mountaineer by the name of Mike Talbot took two men up, and they haven't been able to raise him since the earthquake."
"Scott, talk to me."
Because Jeff knows there's more. When Scott glances to their grandmother, who's now standing next to her son, Jeff feels like he's turned stone cold. He can barely make himself breathe as the pieces start slotting together in his head and he knows before Scott utters another word.
"The men who chartered the special climb were Devrat Verma and John Tracy."
Ruth gasps, hand flying up to cover her mouth. Jeff simply stares at his eldest for what seems like an eternity. There are so many questions to ask, so many orders to give, so many things he should be saying, but…he can't.
Scott taps the console to his right several times, frown deepening. "I've been trying to raise John by sending our emergency signal to his communicator since I got off the line with RMI. He's not responding."
Jeff struggles to make himself breathe. "Can you get near the mountain?" he finally manages to ask.
"I'm headed there now, Father. ETA thirteen minutes. I'll have Thunderbird Two join me."
Jeff just nods and turns to wrap an arm around his mother. "He went to climb the mountain?" she whispers in disbelief, eyes begging Jeff to tell her it's not true, that they must all be mistaken.
He tries to smile, but it won't come. "He went to prove his theory, I guess," he says.
Ten minutes later, his own hails to John's watch are going unanswered. There's nothing from its GPS either. Gordon's having no better luck on Five, nor are Thunderbirds One or Two able to register any readings from the vast mountain John calls Denali.
None except the one at its peak that Thunderbird Two manages to catch.
"Dad," Virgil says, voice steady in spite of the turmoil Jeff knows he's got to be feeling, "that signature, it's…it's just like…"
"Like what?" Jeff asks, frowning at the look on Virgil's face.
"It's like the cloaking device we got our hands on from…from the Hood, Dad."
"What?" Jeff breathes in disbelief. "Are you telling me whatever's on top of that mountain was put there by the Hood?"
"There's, er, no other signature like it in the world that I'm a-aware of, Mr., er, Tracy," Brains says as he enters the Office. "I've read the, er, telemetry and a-as far as I'm concerned, whatever's on top of that mountain was put there by the, uh…Hood. O-or someone he shared his, er, cloaking technology with."
Virgil looks at Jeff, eyes gone big and round. Jeff looks at Brains. Brains bites his lip. "You're sure?" Jeff asks.
"U-Unfortunately, I am," Brains confirms.
"Oh, dear God," Jeff says, sinking into his chair. "John."
*Dyno: A dynamic move to grab a hold that would otherwise be out of reach. (Definition from Wikipedia Glossary of Climbing Terms at www DOT wikipedia DOT org.
