He awoke in the middle of the night to the soft sound of Miguel snoring. He got up and got a drink of water. Luckily the table with the pitcher was right there and he didn't need his crutch. He didn't want to wake anyone in the house. After his drink he lay back down and he thought about the evening when Teresa sponged his back. He had a smile on his face; he was definitely becoming attracted to her. When his mind drifted from thoughts of Teresa to thoughts about his unknown past, his mood went from pleasant to sour. No one has an inkling of what it was like to not remember unless they had been through it themselves. Does he have a family? Are his mother and father fretting about his whereabouts? Are they alive? Does he have brothers and sisters? What about a wife? And kids? The people he will be meeting in the future, will they know him? Will they be friend or enemy? And what was with those silly blue pants and boots with the yellow band? There was so much information that he needed to fill the big void inside his head.
As Victor lay there, overtired from all the hard work during the day, and mentally stressing out, he was trying to form a plan for his future. He would need to go searching for his past. Should he leave Teresa and Miguel, the only family he knows? Should he bring them with him? Would they come with him if asked? Should he stay and just start life over? That may be a good idea, for he had no idea if his past life was a good one or not. He could be a wanted man. That would mean going back would bring jail time. But, if that was the case, he should do the time and get it over with and start his life anew with Teresa and Miguel. But how could he start a new life not knowing his past life? Besides all he had to go on was the blue outfit. Neither Teresa nor Miguel seemed to know much about the people who wore these uniforms.
Victor finally fell into an exhausted sleep in the wee hours of the morning. It was a dreamless sleep, void and black like his memory.
Lady Penelope was sitting having tea with her guest, Lady Deirdre. They were chatting on about world matters when Lady Deirdre remarked, "I wonder what happened to International Rescue. They disappeared off the face of the earth as quickly as they appeared." Penny slightly startled at the mention of their name, asked, "What makes you say that?" Lady Deirdre answered, "Why Penelope, my dear, haven't you been taking in of the news? There have been several catastrophes where it was known that a distress signal was sent to International Rescue, but they never showed up. According to NTBS, they haven't been sighted in over a week now. In fact the last known rescue they went on was down in Cumaguay, saving little children from a collapsed church. Rumors abound that they were taken captive down there, even though the government denies it. If you think about it, it makes sense. Here is a war torn country and a band of people go in with remarkable planes and machinery to do a rescue, and they never return. I would bet one side or the other has captured them all."
Penny, not wanting to discuss it any further, as she was still quite depressed at the loss of Virgil, replied, "It sounds very logical Deirdre, I would bet that your are correct. By the way, did you know that there is a new art exhibit opening up in London this week? The opening night is a charity event. I have been invited. Would you care to join me?"
Lady Deirdre's eyes lit up, "Why I would love to my dear."
Penny was successful in changing the subject matter away from such painful memories. Now hopefully Deirdre didn't notice the slight shimmer to Penny's eyes as she fought back the tears.
"I am going and no one is going to stop me!" yelled Alan.
"And just what do you plan to do when you get there? Are you going as International Rescue or Alan Tracy?" Tin-tin asked with a hint of sarcasm mixed in with a great deal of concern.
"I don't know yet. I will figure it out when I get there."
"How are you getting there?" Tin-tin asked. These are the same questions whenever they had this argument. He gets fired up to leave but doesn't have any plans, she argues with him, pointing out all the flaws until they are both exhausted and end up going in different directions.
But this time, Scott heard the argument and entered the game room where they were.
"Alan, give it up already, will ya?" he snapped. "Virgil is gone. Now let him be in peace. You going down to Cumaguay is just going to get yourself killed. Never mind the fact that losing another son will probably kill father. He won't even let anyone go up to TB5 because he's afraid something will happen."
Alan went up to Scott and standing on the balls of his feet to come up to Scott's height, was within an inch of Scott's nose. His face was beet red. Stating slowing, through gritted teeth, he said, "I am going to look for Virgil and no one is going to stop me."
Not liking anyone in his face, Scott pushed Alan away who ended up falling on his butt. This sent Alan over the edge and he launched himself at Scott. Tin-tin stepped in to try to break up the fight before it got out of hand and she was shoved away hard and fell on her backside as well. She just screamed "Stopit! Stopit! The two of you, just stop your fighting!" Gordon came running in at the sounds of a fight and attempted to break up his two brothers. He didn't know who hit him, but he was sent flying across the pool table after a solid right cross to his face. He landed on the floor on the other side of the table. Rubbing his jaw, he looked up at the wall and saw that he was right underneath the intercom. Luckily he knew which room John was in and called for help being careful that he didn't use the house wide channel to alert his father.
By the time John got to the game room, it was a three-for-all melee on the floor. He grabbed for the nearest shirt to pull the top brother off the other two but ended up with an elbow in the solar plexus. He sat down with a thud. Holding his chest, he kicked the nearest brother, who was sent flying out of the arena. He yelled, "Knock it off!"
Unaccustomed to John ever raising his voice, the last two combatants stopped fighting. He continued in a softer voice, "Why don't we talk about it? Let's see if we can iron out all the problems and try to bring Virgil's body back."
The three brothers looked at John as if he had 2 heads. Still rubbing his chest, he said, "At least if we all put our heads together, we can come to the concrete solution of either going down to retrieve his body or not. It may not be feasible, but we can at least discuss it in detail which none of us have done at all. Even if we decide going down in not workable, I think we still need to talk it out."
Tin-tin added her own two cents, "When you discuss this, I hope you finally come to the conclusion that it is not going to work and that there is nothing to go back to Cumaguay for." She got up and left the room in tears.
"So when do we leave?" piped Alan.
Jorge was already up before the dawn and kicked the closest man awake. "C'mon, let's get moving" he growled. "I want to be home by tonight." Jorge had found several new recruits during his foray, but lost a regular member due to his temper. Giraldo left quietly in the middle of the night knowing that if he tried to leave in front of Jorge, he would be shot in the back. The remaining followers were too afraid of Jorge to do anything including leaving in the middle of the night. The odds were against them staying alive if they did that. They started walking in the direction of San Pablo de los Angeles and his casa.
They were hungry, dirty, tired but most of all frustrated. They had attempted several times to hijack a vehicle but were unable to succeed for one reason or another. There was a firefight with government troops and they ended up scattering throughout the woods leaving what food and possessions behind for the government soldiers to abscond. Once he gathered up his men again, Jorge was ready to start his private little war with anybody. And his mind was made up that he was getting rid of that little brat Miguel. If he didn't leave willingly, he would simply shoot him.
Although for all intents and purposes, International Rescue was no more, Jeff just could not bring himself to reveal their identities. It was hard enough receiving condolences from friends and family, but he couldn't deal with the whole world knowing. Aside from the enormous number of cards, flowers and whatever else the world would feel obligated to send, the reporters would not stop harassing the mourning family in their quest for a story. So, much to his disdain, he concocted a story to cover Virgil's death. Virgil died while scuba diving alone just off the island. They found parts of his wetsuit and BC with shark bite damage.
The family had sat down and discussed this at length. Alan was of no help as he kept insisting that Virgil was still alive. They toyed with the idea of a plane crash in the ocean, but the FAA would need to get involved. A car accident would yield a body. A kidnapping or lost persons report would involve the police. The best scenario they could come up with was a shark attack, especially since they live in the South Pacific in shark infested waters. They developed the details and even used real shark attacked objects from the boys' close encounter in Gordon's underwater garden a while back.*
Now with 'evidence' in hand, Jeff needed to have another meeting with authorities and insurance adjusters to close the book on Virgil. Although he was procrastinating, he knew he needed to take care of this duty within the next few days.
*Thanks to Seaviewrosie for her "Damned Shark Story"