Triple Jeopardy – Chapter 34
Gordon was sliding closer to oblivion, and there was little that they could do.
Desperately, Alan and John tried to maintain some contact. Feeling his hands slip down theirs, the brothers knew that nothing would stop the inevitable. Willing the merest hint of friction to keep them bonded together and prevent that insidious, inexorable plunge, they attempted to cling on, but were powerless against the force of gravity.
Hands were clinging valiantly to wrists…
Hands were clinging to palms…
Hands clinging to fingers…
Fingers to fingers…
To fingertips…
And then Gordon was falling.
He made no sounds of panic as he fell towards the black, jagged rocks and pounding seas that would finally, after all these years, claim him.
If Gordon had to die, Alan would not let him die aware of his fate and in pain as he crashed against the rocks. As soon as all skin contact was lost, the younger man reached for his right hip. In one smooth motion, he withdrew his stun-gun, switched it on, pointed downwards and fired…
Alan blinked and gave himself a mental shake of his head to clear the image. As far as he was concerned, no Tracys were dying today. And besides, his mind was so fuzzy that he doubted he could even find his holster, let alone manage a quick draw.
"Spread your legs, Gordon."
Trying to resolve those words through his injury and stress-induced headache, Alan looked across at John, but his brother's focus was downwards.
The object of that focus appeared to be just as confused as Alan. "What?"
"Spread your legs!" John repeated urgently. "Sideways; like the breaststroke, but with straight legs. Do it now!"
Whatever the reasoning behind John's strange request, it had the welcome side effect of ensuring that Gordon gave up on his thoughts of honourable suicide and, perhaps now that his hands had time to recover and dry somewhat, had regained his grasp of his brothers' wrists with more vigour than before.
He spread his legs.
There was a 'thwack', a shower of dust and pebbles, and what appeared to be a long, thick spear embedded itself into the remains of the rock wall where Gordon's limbs had been dangling.
Giving himself no time to analyse what had happened, nor congratulate himself on his good luck, Gordon brought his feet together, launched himself off the spear and sprang upwards. His brothers, equally eager to get away from danger, grabbed him by the sash and belt, and pulled him up and over the crumbling lip of the concrete.
The three of them, with words of encouragement for each other, scrambled back towards solid, if wet, ground.
They lay there for a moment, trying to bring their heartrates back under control, allowing the adrenaline to ebb out of the bodies, and evaluating what had just happened.
Gordon was the first to sit up. "What was that?"
Wincing, John levered himself into a sitting position. "One of One's high velocity spears."
"Oh…" Gordon was silent for a moment. Then, with a choked "Thank you," he reached out, pulling both his brothers into a tight, emotional, salty, and damp embrace.
Alan and John let him cling to them, holding him and each other with an intensity that reflected the near horror they'd all experienced. They weren't prepared to let go then, and they weren't about to do so now… Not until Gordon was ready.
When he did release them, it was with a shaky, red-eyed, and somewhat embarrassed grin. "No one is to mention this again… Ever."
"Understood," John agreed. "We'll let you take the lead at the debriefing." He pulled his headset from where it had settled about his shoulders and replaced it on his head.
He immediately heard a demand to report.
"We're all good, Scott. Thanks to your sharp shooting."
Guessing what was coming, Gordon indicated to Alan that he should hand over his headset.
Neither he nor John, nor any of the eavesdroppers, were surprised by Scott's next question. "How's Gordon?"
"Still in one piece." Gordon winked at his brothers. "Thanks for not turning me into a eunuch."
Scott made no comment about the flippancy of the answer. Nor about every word that he'd overheard in the moments when he'd been lining Thunderbird One up for the one in a million shot. "You fellas ready to get out of there?"
Gordon got to his feet. "More than ready," he announced, rotating his shoulders gingerly, as he tried to relieve the pain of two wrenched joints. Neither arm appeared willing to move above the horizontal and he was surprised that both shoulders hadn't been dislocated. Checking his hands, he saw that this fingers and palms were scratched and bleeding.
John regained his feet as he reclaimed the airwaves. "Are you going to airlift the four of us out of here, Thunderbird One?"
"Four?"
"Whitney's still here. That's if he hasn't done another runner."
"If he has," Alan grumbled, "I vote we leave him."
"I'm with you." Gordon held out the headset to him.
With a grimace, and Gordon's assistance, Alan accepted his headset back and stood up. "Where's yours?"
"Polluting the Pacific."
"In that case we'd better get you out of here before Villallobona unleashes that weapon again."
Gordon regarded his kid brother closely. "Are you okay? You're looking a little pale."
Alan's hand went to where he'd lost his bandage and his blood was congealing on the side of his face. "Bit of a headache," he admitted.
John overheard the admission. "F.Y.I., Scott, Alan's head wound's still bleeding, and he says he's got a headache."
A headache that didn't slow down Alan's retort. "And John fell from the ceiling and can barely move."
Alarmed, Gordon turned to face his elder brother. "John?!"
"I'm okay, Gordon. Just a little stiff." To demonstrate that he was still mobile, John began to walk back to what remained of Mitch Satin's office.
To his brothers' eyes, his walk appeared to be more like a shuffle, and he was obviously favouring his right side.
With serious misgivings about each other's state of health, they returned to what remained of the office.
"Where have you been?"
Glad to stop walking, John stared up into the cavity in the ceiling, barely above his head height. "Working."
"Working?" Terrance Whitney pouted, as he sat with his legs dangling over the edge. "What about me? You left me here alone."
"I did suggest that you get down. We could have done with your assistance."
"Get down?" Whitney folded his arms in a huff. "By myself?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"Jump?"
"Jump? I could twist my ankle."
"Or you could have helped us."
"Helping people is your job. Not mine."
"Fine." John turned away. "Stay there then."
Whitney huffed. "You're International Rescue, aren't you? You're meant to get me out of trouble."
John turned back. "Trouble?"
"I'm stuck up here."
"Being stuck in a ceiling cavity, two metres off the ground, isn't being in trouble."
"Isn't it?! Don't International Rescue have some kind of hypocritic-type oath that says that you'll help anyone in need?"
"Not when we've got more important things to worry about."
"More important… Like what?!"
"Like saving a life."
Whitney gave an obviously fake laugh. "Hark at you. You save one man's life…"
"One man's life?"
"...and you wouldn't have done that if it wasn't for the nurse…"
An angry flush crept up John's face. "One man's life!?"
"You think you're such gods …"
"One man's life?!"
"…that everyone should get down on their hands and knees and kiss your feet to say thank you." Whitney folded his arms. "Well, I don't! I've seen what you do, and it's nothing special. You don't do anything that someone with a few dollars and a little mechanical knowhow couldn't do. International Rescue is nothing but a series of media releases telling the world how amazing you are, when all you are do is fly from A to B. You're nothing more than a bunch of aeroplane-happy flyboys… I hope you pay your PR people the big bucks for getting the world to believe your fairy tales."
"Fairy tales…? Fairy tales?!" John thundered. "Let me tell you…"
"Tell me what?!" Whitney taunted, pulling himself up to his full height. He bumped his head on the underside of the roof. "Tell me how great you are? Don't bother. I'm not going to listen to you."
"Of course, you wouldn't want to listen to me! Not when you're too much of a coward to even jump down a couple of metres."
"Coward!?"
"Yes! Coward!"
Gordon shuffled back until he was standing next to Alan and able to speak without the combatants overhearing. "The warning beacons are going to start flashing at any moment. Should we step in?"
In Alan's opinion, John looked livid enough to launch himself through the hole he'd just fallen out of. "Only if you're offering to go on a suicide mission again."
"No, thanks. Once a day is enough."
Whitney, his full focus on the International Rescue operative below him, was not about to give in. "I'm not a coward!"
"Then come down here prove it," John demanded. "Talk to me man to man!"
"Man to man?"
"Yes! Or aren't you man enough?!"
"You can't talk to me like that!" Whitney spluttered his indignation. "How dare..."
"I dare because I know what true bravery is. I dare because a man just offered to sacrifice himself so others wouldn't die…!"
Gordon cringed. "Geez, John," he muttered.
"And that wasn't the first time today! Today, I've witnessed two men, two brave men, who decided that other's lives were more valuable than their own…"
"Two?" Gordon leant closer to his other fair-haired brother. "Who was the other guy?"
"Virgil. He tried to eject you guys in the sickbay to safety, when he couldn't head back himself because someone was standing in front of the hatch."
"That would have been when one of the bodyguards was holding Tin-Tin captive."
It was Alan's turn to be alarmed. "What?!"
"Don't worry; she's totally fine. Gave him a taste of his own medicine…"
Not hearing his brothers' conversation, John was still on the warpath. "You've got no idea, Whitney, have you?! Both of those men are a million times braver than you: someone who's too scared to make a two-metre jump!"
"I'm brave!" Whitney reminded his antagonist."I've just spent six months enslaved by Generalar Villallobona."
John wasn't moved by the admission. "And whose fault is that?"
"Villallobona's."
"No. Yours!"
"My fault? Why's it my fault? I haven't done anything."
"Not done anything? Who designed that inhumane weapon?"
"I had no choice!"
"You had a choice! You could have said no! You could have said you didn't know how! You could have fudged things, so the final product didn't work! You don't care whose lives you ruin, do you, Whitney?! Just so long as nothing happens to upset your own little cosy world. You waltz through life with no thoughts about anyone except for yourself."
"At least I'm not like you lot. Gallivanting off somewhere…"
"Gallivanting?" John's jaw dropped.
"…Playing at being heroes."
"Playing at being heroes!? When we lay our lives on the line almost every day…!?" This was the final straw.
Alan and Gordon watched as John's flush reached his ears. These were what his brothers had termed "the warning beacons" and were a signal to those in the know that he was beyond furious. In that situation the safest option was to give the astronomer a wide berth until he had had a chance to commune with the stars and calm down.
If Whitney had known the International Rescue operative as John's brothers did, he would have realised that now was the time to take a step back into the shadows with a humble, and preferably grovelling, apology. The fact that Whitney didn't know all this, and didn't apologise, meant only one thing...
Time to take cover.
The last time John had got this riled up; and no one could remember what had exactly lit the fuse; his siblings had retreated to a reinforced room deep inside Tracy Island, well away from the fallout, and decided that they were all going to stay there until John had cooled down…
Or the sun imploded on itself. Whichever came first.
Their theory, formed that day, was that the Space Monitor, when on active duty in Thunderbird Five, spent so much time acting the part of the calm, in control, assured International Rescue operative, that he buried all his negative emotions someplace deep in his soul. Once in a very rare while, all that negativity would come exploding out in a volcanic eruption that threatened to obliterate everything in its path.
This was one of those times.
Alan fiddled with his microphone. "Perhaps we'd better warn Scott to stand clear?"
"No need."
"Scott?" Alan pulled his headset off, twisting it so that both he and Gordon could listen to Thunderbird One's pilot. "You can hear him?"
"He's still got his headset on so it's a bit hard not to. I had to turn the volume down."
Despite all of today's dramas, and John's continued ranting, Gordon chuckled. "I bet even Virgil would be able to hear him at the moment."
"I can."
"Virgil? How're you feeling?"
"Better now than when I heard you in trouble."
"Oh…" Gordon lost his good humour. "You were listening in?"
"We were." It was Scott. "And you did good… All of you."
"I'll second that."
"Well, I hope you're not expecting me to lay my life on the line a second time and rescue Whitney from Jo... ah... Glenn."
Alan chuckled. "My recommendation is that we leave them for a bit. It might make for a more comfortable trip if he gets it out of his system before we fly out. And I'd rather he exploded all over Whitney instead of us."
He heard Scott respond. "Understood. I'll keep well clear and Villallobona's men's attention away from you until we're ready to make a move."
"F-A-B."
While they were talking, Whitney, unaware that he'd not only lit a volatile fuse, but was in the process of kindling the resulting blaze, continued to berate John. "You walked away and left me. You don't care about anyone other than yourselves."
"We don't care…?!" Remembering their frantic search for the missing Gordon and the horror when he was found, John was flabbergasted. "It's you who only cares about yourself. Your own brother was in trouble and you just left him! Your brother! And you left him to die! How could you do that? Don't you realise how special brothers are?"
There was an ironic snort from the interior of the ceiling cavity. "My brother was special all right. Special needs…"
"Don't you realise how lucky you are to have a brother?! I'd happily lay down my life if it meant saving my brothers'! Any of them…!"
With a rueful shake of his head, Gordon looked at Alan. "Maybe it is time to look death in the face again." He took a step forward. "Glenn…"
"And I know they'd willingly die to save me! Let me tell you, Whitney…"
"That's Mister Whitney to you."
"Well, let me tell you, 'Mister Whitney'." John stabbed his left index finger at the inventor. "That, despite your egocentric view of the universe, it doesn't revolve around you. It doesn't even know that you exist. And… and you can take this from someone who's studied it, the universe doesn't even care that it doesn't know that you exist. You're no more than a speck of dust as far as the universe is concerned. Even less than a speck of dust. You are one billionth, billionth, billionth of a billionth, billionth of a speck of dust. You're just something that the universe would brush off its collar without even knowing you were there, if it had a collar. You're as much use to the universe as a collar, and the universe doesn't need a collar and it doesn't need you!"
Gordon stepped up onto the unstable remains of the roof, so he was able to lower his voice to a whisper. "John… Calm down, Johnny," he soothed. Unable to lift his arms high enough to place it around the tense shoulders, he rubbed his brother's back. "Virgil's all right and I'm all right…" He squeezed a rigid arm and felt the tense muscles beneath the grimy shirt. "Thanks to you…"
He was relieved when John turned to face him, his volume dropping to match Gordon's. "This… This… moron would rather let his own brother die than try to help him…"
"I know…"
"How could he do that? I would have died for you if it meant saving your life. We all would."
"I know, John. And I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate that you didn't let go."
"He doesn't care…"
"And that's why you're a better man than he is. Because you do care. You care about all of us, and you care about more than just us. But you don't need to worry about me, 'cos I'm all right. And so is Virgil. We've just been talking to him and he could hear us, so he's going to be all right. And Scott's going to be all right. And Alan's going to be all right, just like you and I will be. But none of us is one hundred percent, and we're all going to have to work together to get out of here… And, even though we'd all rather leave him behind, that means working with Whitney as well."
There was a growl and Gordon could almost see the daggers flashing out of John's eyes and towards the inventor…
"I know he's as irritating as sandpaper in a wetsuit, but you've got to calm down and be prepared to work with him… for all our sakes." Gordon waited to see if he'd just improved the situation or made himself a target.
John continued to glare up at the subdued figure in the cavity. Then after spitting out a: "Get yourself down," he turned and hobbled away, rubbing his right arm as he did so.
Taking his brother's place, Gordon looked up through the hole. "You heard the man. Get yourself down."
"What?" Whitney looked down at the two younger Tracys and then across at the still furious John; who'd retired to a quiet corner and propped himself against what had once been a table. The blond was muttering to himself; most of which they guessed was uncomplimentary and probably in a multitude of languages. "What's his problem?"
Alan and Gordon knew better than to respond.
Instead, Alan replaced his headset. "Saint Michael's to Thunderbird One."
"Thunderbird One."
"We're ready to get out of here."
"He's calmed down?"
"Not really, but I think he's going to be stewing longer than Grandma's chili con carne, and I don't want to stay here that long."
"You're making me hungry."
"You're always hungry."
"I'll drop a headset down for Leroy first. If Villallobona sees that Thunderbird One's working over here, he's likely to try to drown us all with the DAMP. I don't want to risk Gordon's neck again."
"We'd all appreciate that."
Even as Alan and Scott were completing their conversation, the room darkened as a shadow blocked out the light from the sun and a roar announced Thunderbird One's arrival. A small parcel fell through the hole in the ceiling and bounced off the roof's remains, coming to rest at Alan's feet. "This is yours, Leroy," he said, and bent down to pick it up.
When he straightened, the room spun.
Gordon caught him when he staggered backwards. "Hey! Steady…"
"Alan?" Once again, John allowed his anger to be subsumed by his concern for his brothers. "Come here…" He guided the younger man back to a chair that had somehow managed to survive several cataclysmic events. "Sit down."
"I'm… I'll be all right," Alan tried to say, and swallowed.
"Put your head between your knees… Do you feel nauseous?"
Alan took a deep breath. "A little."
Gordon ripped into the parcel and retrieved his headset. Theorising that it would be beneficial for both brothers if he left John to care for Alan, he got onto the radio. "Leroy calling Malcolm."
"Malcolm here."
"Shep's not in good shape."
"I'm all right," Alan mumbled into his folded arms.
"What's wrong with him?"
"Nausea… Dizziness…?" Gordon saw a small nod from his younger brother as the latter, taking care to take it slow, sat up. "I don't think a ground to air transfer's going to be an option. Especially if it goes into a spin."
"Can't you or Glenn guide the line?"
"Negative. I can't lift my arms, and Glenn's shuffling about like he's half your age."
He could hear the frown in Scott's voice. "We don't have any other options." Then: "Incoming! Some form of weapon is pointed in my direction." There was a louder roar, muffled by their headsets, and sunlight once again beamed in through the roof. "I'll clear out so you're not a target."
But his rapid escape didn't have the desired effect…
-F-A-B-
Generalar Villallobona was not having a good day. What little sanity he'd had at this morning was rapidly being replaced by a paranoid psychosis. When the rocket with the legend "Thunderbird 1" written down its flank had swung around until it was hovering over Saint Michael's, he almost started frothing at the mouth with rage. "Kill it!"
There were those of his gang who had always secretly admired the exploits and technology of International Rescue. "Killing" a Thunderbird was not something they had ambitions to do. But then Generalar Villallobona was Generalar Villallobona; and he was not a man to be denied.
For some, their reticence was not as deep seated as others. Four men, loyal to the name Generalar Villallobona, clambered into the dictator's silent aeroplane and removed a tried and true weapon.
Villallobona saw what was pointed in the direction of Thunderbird One and gave a maniacal laugh. "Fire!"
And fire they did.
Literally.
-F-A-B-
Scott's rapid evacuation of the area that concealed his brothers and the unlamented Terrance Whitney did nothing to stop the weapon's assault. He watched helplessly as fiery liquid shot out of the flamethrower and coated the roof between the airstrip and Mitch Satin's office.
The Tracys dove for cover, and even Terrance Whitney jumped down to floor level and ran when what appeared to be a waterfall of fire poured into the room. Some furnishings, those manufactured with a lower fire-resistance rating than others, burst into flame. Ceiling-mounted sprinklers rained water down onto everything below.
Adrenaline anaesthetising his aching shoulders, Gordon grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall and pointed it at the closest flash point. "We've got to get out of here!"
"How?" John had grabbed what appeared to be a woollen blanket from the neighbouring room and was attempting to smother smaller conflagrations. He threw the blanket in Alan's direction and went hunting for another extinguisher in the bedroom suite.
"Spraying retardant," Scott told them all, as the sun was once again shielded and the flames' intensity lessened. "But it's not enough. It looks like it's some kind of napalm. It's sticking to everything."
"Any chance you could go and get Thunderbird Two lift us out with her passenger elevator?"
"No chance. She's still under repair."
"Lavinia to Thunderbird One. It sounds as though you may be in a spot of bother. Is there anything that I can do to assist?"
"How far out are you?"
"It will be at least an hour before I am at Saint Michael's."
Those inside Mitch Satin's office seriously doubted that they had an hour.
"That's too long, Lavinia. Stand clear."
Another sheet of flame sprayed from the weapon and coated the roof. Now almost the entire medical wing was a raging inferno. There was a roar from the weakened structure and more cladding crashed down into the office, coating further furnishings with accelerant.
Doing what he could with the blanket, and coughing as the smoke swirled around them, Alan pulled a short-term respirator from out of his pocket and put it on. "Can you pick us up elsewhere in the complex, Thunderbird One?"
"Not an option," John coughed, trying to clear the fire away from beneath their only exit to the outside world. "The corridor's a dead end and the subsidence Gordon fell into has blocked the only way out."
Deciding that responding would waste necessary breathable air, Alan indicated that Gordon should free up his hands by giving him his extinguisher. Grateful for the opportunity to don his breathing kit, Gordon obeyed.
Then, having picked up Alan's blanket, he hurdled the debris to his elder brother's side. Any chance we could get out through the subsidence?" he asked his microphone as he claimed John's extinguisher; giving his brother time to put on his respirator.
"Negative. The ground around it's too unstable. The spear's already fallen, along with half the cliff."
"Can't see!" Whitney screamed, as the smoke stung his eyes and clogged his lungs. "Save me!"
The Tracys were too busy saving themselves.
There was another blast of napalm, but this time it wasn't aimed at the building.
"I'm on fire!" Scott announced, as he rolled clear of the stream of fiery fluid that clung to Thunderbird One's fuselage. "Going supersonic."
Villallobona let out a shout of triumph when he saw the flaming rocket streak out of Saint Michael's airspace. "Prepare the Decibel Amplitude Magnification Project. I'll crush Erikeep once and for all!"
Uttering a prayer to his god to keep his ship in one piece, the captain turned the Generalar Wass towards the flaming inferno…
To be continued…
