Short one, this time, but kind of pivotal.
14: Deletion
You might look backward with longing many times, but eventually, what was left would fall behind and start to fade. So it is with memory, especially when distractions arise. Those there were in plenty, including what happened weeks later to Virgil.
He, too, had a life outside of IR; occasionally jetting away from the island for Tracy Aerospace business trips. Virgil was a good choice for these, being a handsome young man; personable and persuasive. Clients instinctively liked and trusted the former football player, leading to many sealed deals and signed contracts. Thus, the ersatz, Jeff-sanctioned vacation.
On this particular morning, while the scientific community debated John Tracy's core-scan data, his brother Virgil headed for the branch office in Rio de Janiero. The big pilot didn't fly himself there this time, because he had a stack of documents to read, local business plans to absorb, and several Portuguese language programs to complete (though he'd much rather have traded places with the pilot).
The weather was good, flying out of Kanaho, and it continued fair until they crossed over the sky-shredding Andes. Then the day grew violent and stormy, with contrary winds and spiteful, lashing squalls. Virgil wasn't troubled, however; he'd flown through much worse in Thunderbird 2. Instead of annoying the pilot or calling home, he simply raised his coffee mug for a refill and then returned to the challenge of Portuguese vowels.
As they shot later into the day, chasing afternoon, the weather grew wilder. The cabin windows by his swiveling leather seat turned grey and slashed with rain, while somewhere far below, the Amazon Jungle lay shrouded in dense cloud; hidden, along with Sao Paolo and Rio. IFR conditions, to say the least, because the world outside their jet was nothing but rumbling, roiling storm. Still, they made progress of sorts.
Virgil had to put away his laptop and coffee cup when the Lear Jet began to descend. At the flight crew's prompting, he also fastened his seatbelt. The ride grew increasingly bumpy. A blue-uniformed stewardess was strapped into a seat up front, in the small galley by the plane's cockpit. She had the intense, serious air of someone about to face their greatest test, and she'd spoken very little… But maybe having the boss's son aboard made her nervous.
No one minded ferrying Gordon or Alan, while John either flew himself or was so wrapped up in his work that he scarcely noticed when the plane touched down. A pet rock was more trouble to carry around.
Scott, the employees stood in awe of, as Jeff Tracy's strong-willed heir apparent. Brown-haired Virgil was somewhere in between; liked and respected, though not often hit on, romantically. (Hardly surprising, as Jeff's standing order held that whenever his sons flew in a company jet, the flight attendants were either to be male, or married. Safer, that way.)
Virgil was tugged from his reverie when the engines changed pitch to a low, throbbing drone. Wing and tail servomotors whined; altering their shape as the plane spiraled downward through shearing gales and hammering rain. The aircraft juddered and bounced, making a shuttle-cock's gradual headway through the clouds. Their pilot announced final approach after a series of hair-raising banks, but it took them awhile to land, even so.
Lightning flashed outside the window, briefly spotlighting Virgil's calm face and strong profile. His brown eyes were turned almost black by each flaring storm-glow, while the cabin shone bone-white, strobe-lit and eerie. All except for the flight attendant, that is. She sat perfectly erect in her seat, gazing at Virgil with strange yellow eyes.
That a landing took place was indisputable. At the right airport, even. Yet in all the rain and foul weather, with one dark limousine and rain-suited chauffeur looking pretty much like every other, Virgil Tracy was swiftly and quietly kidnapped.
Naturally, he'd stridden across the tarmac from boarding ladder to waiting car with his head down. The driver had a wind-rattled umbrella, but hard, pelting rain came in sideways despite it; making it difficult for Virgil to see. The man shouted something to him that might have been,
"Welcome to Rio, Mr. Tracy!"
…but the wind snatched his words clean away, together with Virgil's neutral,
"Thanks."
The lights from a cluster of low buildings were just visible to his left, but Virgil spent more time watching the slick, dark pavement at his feet. He couldn't see very well with water running into his eyes. Should've brought a hat, Virgil chided himself… except that he'd wanted to seem professional, and hadn't expected the weather to turn on him, like this.
Then the long, purring hulk of a car came into view; welcome as a Pacific island with an airstrip and water. Its headlights made twin amber beams through the rain, advertising dryness and warmth. The passenger door creaked opened for him then, pushed wide by someone inside. A body guard, he thought.
Stooping to swing himself into the limousine, Virgil exposed the back of his head and neck. Something struck him, hard, causing sudden hot pain like another lightning-flash. He staggered and slipped, rubber-legged, barely feeling the needle-jab which followed. Ice seemed to course through Virgil's body at the speed of his own surging blood. With no time for an outcry, he dropped like a stone; was shoved into the car and then tightly bound.
Working quickly, controlled from without by the will of another, Virgil's kidnappers searched his pockets and person. Anything that might be used to trace him was torn away. His smart-phone, watch, laptop and briefcase were discarded alongside a private hangar belonging to one of Brazil's wealthiest families. Then the limousine simply drove away through the storm, bearing an unconscious prisoner and three possessed agents.
Like the plane's unfortunate flight crew, these men would be discovered later, their minds scraped empty, hollow and raw. But of Virgil, there was no trace at all.