Thank you so much for staying with me on this thrilling ride. Ready for some more drama?

Chapter 8

Time was going by way to slow for Jeff as they rushed Gordon upstairs. By this point Virgil had taken off Gordon's bloody sash and cut apart the top half of his uniform around the knife, exposing the extent of the damage. His entire chest and stomach was soaked in red. They couldn't do CPR with the knife in the way, which gave the two of them a fright when Gordon closed his eyes and went limp for a few minutes. When he came to again, he was gasping. "Alan!" the blond repeated, struggling to call out for his little brother, but he couldn't manage more than a whisper.

"Alan's fine Gordon. He'll be here soon. Just keep your eyes open." Jeff tried to reassure him as they rushed him on the stretcher down the corridor towards the infirmary. The infirmary was sealed from the inside, it was the safest place to be besides Thunderbird 5 at the moment. When they got there, Virgil hammered on the door calling for Brains to let them in!

"Oh m..my g..goodness!" Temporary lighting set up, the engineer got a clear view of the bloody sight greeting him.

"Brains we need the scanner. We need to know how deep the knife is before we go in there!" Virgil instructed him trying to keep his voice somewhere between calm, but urgent as they steered him in. On three, they all carefully lifted the young aquanaut onto what was to become an operating table. At the sudden movement, Gordon blinked, looking up into his father's face above him. Jeff tried to keep his smile warm and positive as Virgil held the device over the wound. A holographic image of Gordon appeared in the air behind the medic. The two quickly went to work examining the injury. To their relief, it was clear that the knife had missed Gordon's heart and his lungs, but to their horror, it had punctured the aortic arch. The artery that fed the blood to the heart organ. The knife hadn't gone so deep, but it would explain why there was so much bleeding.

"H-heart rate is 160... His b-blood pressure 80!" A paler Brains informed them. The medic and the engineer went to go and wash their hands getting ready to operate. If they had any chance of saving Gordon's life, they would have to cut him open and locate the bleed inside before they could deal with the surface wound. That meant they would need a chest spreader and bone saw to remove some of his chest plate, just while they fix the bleed. Brains looked over Virgil's face. Both he and Jeff were looking almost as pale as Gordon. "Virgil... are you sure you want to d-do this? H-he is your brother... and neither of us are s-surgeons.

"We don't have a choice. There's still a killer loose on the island and we don't know where he is hiding or what his objective is. The virus knocked out the power, we can't fly Gordon out of here yet... and I don't think he will last that long if we don't stop the bleed... We have to do this now!" He said but he couldn't stop shaking as he picked up the scalpel knowing what he was going to have to do with it...

"Then we w-will do it! Just until w-we get him t-to a hospital." Brains placed a reassuring hand on the medic's shoulder in an attempt to calm him. He knew he had to get Virgil to stop thinking of Gordon as his little brother, just for the moment, but as a patient, or he wouldn't be able to handle cutting him open.

While the two scrubbed up, Jeff had remained by his son trying to keep him awake. "Gordon look at me. Please, son, keep your eyes open." Jeff was holding his attention but his eyes were drooping, struggling to stay awake. "Please just stay with me." Fear growing as he watched him slip further and further away. At first, Jeff was so caught up with trying to keep his eyes open, he didn't notice that his lips were moving. Gordon was trying to tell him something. Jeff had to bring his ear down to his mouth in order to hear him.

"B..Ben..t!" Was all he could make out. Who was Ben? Jeff looked at him with a confused expression. Gordon's eyes then glazed over a little. As Gordon silently mouthed his next words, Jeff understood completely. "I'm sorry dad" he whispered. Right then, Jeff's heart just broke. Why was he saying that? But it was suddenly forgotten when he heard an alarm sounding from Gordon's hologram, showing that his blood pressure was dropping at an alarming rate. Where is Virgil and Brains? They have to do this now! Again Jeff tried to keep Gordon awake... but with one last gasp that seemed to fill the room, Gordon's eyes finally closed and his head fell to the side, and the next thing Jeff heard was the second alarm telling him that his heart had stopped...

Jeff wasn't aware of anything more other than that alarm telling him that his son was dead. He hadn't seen Virgil and Brain's rushing over forcing the oxygen mask onto his son's face. He hadn't noticed John's image appear in the room just in time to see his little brother's flat line. He hadn't even seen Scott and Alan re-enter the infirmary to see Gordon fall limp. He was barely aware of Virgil begging him to move aside, not until he felt Scott trying to steer him away from the operating table. Only then Jeff manage to find himself again, and with that, he found his voice.

"Gordon Cooper Tracy! You Get Back Here Right Now!" The man yelled not able to control himself. He couldn't lose him! The father was positively breathless with emotion.

"Please, Dad! Everybody needs to leave!" Virgil yelled not taking his attention from his brother on the table. This was going to be hard enough working under poor lighting. They needed to start doing compressions, but not with the knife in the way.

For a moment Jeff wasn't aware of where he was going. Physically he was still walking, but his brain had shut off! By the time things started to come out of a daze, he was standing just outside the infirmary with only the wall holding him up and his forehead resting against his hands. How could this have happened? Gordon couldn't be dead! Please, his family couldn't go through this again! He didn't realise until he heard the sniffs from behind him that he wasn't alone. His eldest was there, resting his forehead on the back of his shoulder after shoving him out of the room. Still in his grip, he could feel Scott shaking. Jeff quickly turned around to hold him. "He... he's got to be alright Dad." Scott tried to say. "Virgil won't let anything happened to him." He said, but he looked to be on the verge of breaking down himself. It was only then Jeff noticed the swelling on his face. With his hands still shaking, the father looked over his son. The shiner coming up under Scott's eye was very fresh. He then noticed Alan standing not too far away looking helpless. With new bruising coming up around his neck, he was somewhere between tears and terror!

"Scott, Alan are you alright? What happened?" He had to compose himself for the sake of his other boys. Jeff was busy checking over the bruises around his youngest neck while Scott relayed the details of their run-in with the intruder. When he heard that Alan had a gun to his head, however, he wasn't able to keep his anger at bay. The only good news to come from this story was that there only appeared to be one intruder on the island. The bad news was that this one intruder had information on them no one should have and to make matters worse, he had intelligence they thought only Brains had.

"Wait, backtrack a moment!" Jeff interrupted. "He was looking for Gordon's room?"

"That's what he said," Alan confirmed looking down. "And I may have led him to it, Dad I'm so sorry."

"He had a gun, Alan. You did the right thing!" Jeff reassured him."But why Gordon's room?"

"Yeah. Whatever he wants, he thinks Gordon has it."

"Did he say what it was?"

"Just a file... I assumed it's something to do with Thunderbird 4, but I don't know why he would think we keep the files in our rooms? I thought he would be looking for the Lab. Seriously, Dad, this guy is off his head!"

Jeff rubbed the back of his head trying to process all the clues. Gordon's paranoid behaviour only to suddenly get attacked and have his room searched couldn't be a coincidence. He looked up at Scott who seemed to be thinking on the same lines. Then there was what Gordon said?... Was it possible he knew who stabbed him? Wasn't the intruder just after their technology?"

"I don't think this was about the Thunderbirds. I think this has been about Gordon from the beginning."

His sons looked at him confused. "If it was just about getting him out the way to steal the submarine, or just wanted to use him as bait to spread the virus, but there are so many more efficient and less messy ways of doing it than stabbing him in the chest. Why not just force Gordon to hand over whatever he was looking for first? Surely that would be better than searching a strange place in the dark? No. He wanted Gordon to suffer no matter what." Now Jeff had a moment to put all the pieces together, the final picture was starting to look quite different. "If he wanted one of the ships, then why disable them so they can't move? This was calculated. Anyone smart enough to take down our entire network, clearly knows what they want. They did all this to get at Gordon and then take something he thinks only Gordon has!" And there was only one thing Gordon had that Jeff could think of that would be worth all this.

By this point Scott had both his hands on the back of his head, telling himself to take calming breaths while resisting the urge to slap himself in the face. They had all been caught up in the madness, none of them had taken a moment to ask why this could be happening. "So that would mean Gordon is the one still in danger if he's..." Scott trailed off realising that they didn't even know if Gordon was dead or alive.

Jeff urgently activated his communicator knowing his space-bound son had been watching everything inside the operating room. "John!"

The red head's holographic image appeared with the matching sickly expression that fitted the mood of Tracy island today. "He's alive." He said before been asked. "They got him back... They cut him open but he's not stable enough... More like Stable-ish." John sounded breathless like he was currently running a marathon. This was not the normal calm and in control brother, they knew, but in all fairness, this wasn't exactly an everyday life-threatening emergency or natural disaster situation either.

"But he's alive?" Alan almost cried with relief, but the tension hadn't disappeared.

"He isn't out of the woods yet. They're doing their best, but he has lost a lot of blood."

"He has to be alright." Jeff had to allow some relief to put his focus elsewhere. Like the intruder! He was so glad that John was back online. With their eye in the sky taken out, the intruder had given them the run around like a scene from a horror movie and they never would have found Gordon in time.

John, however, didn't seem to be sharing his father's feelings at the moment. Being a hologram at present was useful for watching over everything without getting in the way, but it also meant he couldn't intervene when any of his family members were getting hurt. Right now John felt about as useful as a ghost. "Dad I'm coming down there!" He declared. "I don't care if I have to get a parachute and jump out of Thunderbird 5. I can't just float around up here while a psychopath invades our home -!"

"No John!" Jeff said firmly. "Brains needs to take care of Gordon. So I need you and EOS, and MAX to get around this virus and get the system up and working again. Just me and Scott will track down this bastard!"

"But Dad!" Alan started to protest. He felt he owed a few more punches to this man.

Jeff put up a hand before his youngest could start. "Someone needs to protect Virgil and Brains whilst they're watching over Gordon."

Alan went to argue some more but instead sighed irritated. His dad was right. They didn't know where this guy was on the island and if he was after Gordon, someone had to watch the lines. The teen agreed, hugging his dad before heading back towards the infirmary and locking himself in from the inside. "You two better kick this guys ass for me!" He muttered before shutting the door.

"John, Gordon said the name, Ben... I think it was Ben. If he knows who attacked him, then he will know why he is here and what he is looking for." Jeff relayed.

"How do you know what he is looking for?" Scott had been watching his father put the pieces together and judging by his face, he knew something they didn't. Gordon would never put any of them in danger if he knew about it. But then who was Ben? They needed answers but they clearly couldn't get them from Gordon at the moment.

John cleared his throat. "Well I don't know if this is even connected, but Gordon's strange behaviour started after he got that call from WASP yesterday."

"What? John, you knew what was upsetting him and you didn't tell us?" Scott couldn't keep the anger from his voice.

John shook his head, but he did have a guilty expression. "I don't know why he was upset. I just screened the call to see who was contacting Gordon on a level one priority message, non-traceable frequency. But Gordon didn't want to be overheard and after the call ended he was hell-bent on keeping it to himself."

Again Scott and John were brought back by the look on their fathers face as he put the pieces together. WASP hadn't spoken to Gordon ever since the hydrofoil crash – ohmygod! Jeff suddenly went even paler as his suspicions began to fall into place. This had been so long ago and being trapped in space for years in-between, this had shamefully gone to the back of his mind. Now Jeff remembered the heartbreaking information Gordon had told him at only 18 years old!

It had been difficult but he had agreed with Alice and advised Gordon not to tell his brothers that the crash was on purpose. Not until they had the engineer responsible that is. Gordon was sure this situation was much bigger than just him, but with all the classified information involved, what choice had they had? Jeff only knew what Gordon's Sargent had said but he had missed a few updates since then. But if it was about all this, why would Gordon keep it from him now? He had clearance.

"Dad, what's going on? What are you not telling us?"

If it was the same engineer, was his name Ben? Jeff didn't think so. Wasn't it Will or something? He had only seen this man once on the TV years ago being interviewed about the craft before the crash. A very large man considering he spent most of his time in a lab instead of a gym. He was also very smart, if not a little egotistical for an engineer... Would an engineer be smart enough to come onto his island and do all this?! Jeff closed his eyes accepting the terrible possibility. But he had to make sure before making assumptions.

"John as soon as the system is up and running, call the GDF and tell them to get down here! Then get on the phone to WASP. Ask for Sargent Taylor. Tell her Gordon's cover is blown and is in trouble. I don't care what you have to do, but you find out what the hell is going on! Then report everything back to me!"

"Yes Sir." John vanished with a new goal in mind.

"Cover is blown! What cover? Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on first?" Scott demanded, not liking to be out of the loop.

"Not yet. I'm sorry son, but we need to be sure who we are dealing with and I don't want your anger getting in the way..."Or mine. They went to leave to hunt down the intruder but Jeff had another thought. "We'll stop by my office. If this is who I think it is..." Jeff was picturing the crash. Gordon in a coma. The wheelchair, all to find out that it had been deliberate. Whether it was because Gordon was his son, or who Gordon worked for, it didn't matter. This guy was not getting away this time. "We are going to need some backup! Go grab the infra-red binoculars, and make sure your communicator is working."

Daddy is home and he has a plan. I would be getting worried ;)