Author's note: this is where it starts getting nasty. PG-13 rating now in full effect
Despair
Jeff looked with distaste at the button on the desk in front of him. Noises from various parts of the house, and from the pool below, indicated that his family were all going about their business without a care. Once he pressed this button that would all end. He reached out his finger and the klaxon sounded.
He was just putting through a call to Brains in Thunderbirds 5 as the last of his sons assembled. "What have you got for us, Father?" asked Scott, puzzled as to why Jeff was calling the space station. Usually it was the other way round.
Jeff turned to face his family, his expression grave. " Boys, there's no easy way to say this. It seems John has been abducted."
Amid a chorus of gasps, Jeff continued. "John didn't make his normal check-in this morning. I gave him a few hours, then I asked Brains to locate him through his watch. The watch was still registering at the same location in Paris, but there were no biosigns, so either he wasn't wearing it or…" he let the sentence hang.
"But John is a stickler for wearing his watch. He's the one who nags the rest of us about it!" exclaimed Virgil.
"Exactly," continued Jeff. "So I rang the hotel. They told me he had checked out of there late yesterday afternoon, Paris time. I contacted our agent in Paris. He went to the hotel and found John's watch tucked down behind the bed in his room. He also talked to the staff. The staff on reception told him that John walked out hand-in-hand with a girl. He didn't seem to be coerced in any way. The doorman heard the girl ask the taxi to take them to the airport."
"Did they catch a plane?" cut in Scott. "We should be able to trace them through airline records."
Jeff shook is head. "Here is where the mystery deepens. There is no record of either John or this girl, whose name is Phin Li Barak, on any flight. There is no record of either of them buying a plane ticket, or going through Customs."
"Maybe they had a private plane?" suggested Scott.
"They'd still have needed to go through passport control," put in Alan.
"However they did it, the trail ends at the airport." Jeff looked grim, " and if they were using false passports, and a false credit card, then a lot of planning has gone into this."
"How would anyone have known John would be there?" queried Virgil.
"John chats all the time with his astronomer friends on internet bulletin boards. You don't necessarily need to be an astronomer to sign on," replied Alan. "He only had to mention that he was attending the conference for someone to pick up on it."
"However they knew isn't the issue now," continued Jeff "I've just heard back from our agent in Malaysia. I asked her to find out all she could about this Phin Li, using the address in the hotel register. She told me that the girl was born in a small town, had a good education and became a teacher of English in a local school. She seems to have lived a perfectly normal life until three months ago, when she suddenly disappeared. The school were worried, as this was very unlike her, and contacted the police. She was listed as a missing person, though the police became less concerned when it was revealed she had taken a suitcase and some clothes. She has no known relatives, as her only relative, her mother, died several years ago. The police decided she had simply walked out of her old life, to begin a new one somewhere else."
"Either that, or someone abducted her as well, and is now using her identity," suggested Scott.
"Do you have a photograph of her?" asked Gordon. His father pressed a button and a photo appeared on the screen behind his desk Gordon looked closely. "Yes, that's definitely the girl I saw in John's room."
"You saw this girl?" asked Jeff, trying to keep the edge out of his voice.
"Yes, I called him yesterday morning, his time. At first I got the 'busy' signal, then he called back a little while later. He'd been with this Phin Li, but he called back while she was in the shower. Then when she came out he called her over to introduce her." He broke off, pounding the air with his clenched fists. "I knew there was something wrong when I talked to him, I just knew it. Why didn't I say anything? That girl has bewitched him!"
"What do you mean?" asked his father.
"Why else would John just walk out of there without telling us where he was going, without wearing his watch?"
Jeff turned to the screen behind him. "What do you think, Brains?"
"W-well, if it s-seems that he left the hotel apparently of his own f-free will, but behaving in such an unch-characteristic m-manner, then maybe we should consider s-some form of hypnosis m-might have been used."
"The question is," said Virgil, "has John been kidnapped by crooks wanting a ransom, or is this connected with International Rescue?"
"Dad," said Scott, "let me take off in Thunderbird One. I could be in Paris in just over an hour."
Jeff shook his head. "I don't see how that will help, son. We're pretty sure they have left Paris, we just don't know where they've gone. Until we hear from these kidnappers there's no way we can find out. I've alerted all our agents, but apart from that there's nothing we can do but wait." And if there was one thing Jeff hated, it was waiting.
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John stirred in his sleep, realising how hot he was. He must have dozed off in the sun. In a minute, when he'd woken up properly, he would take a dip in the pool. Maybe he would go and get a drink first. Yes, that sounded a good idea: iced tea perhaps, or some of his grandmother's home-made lemonade. He ran his tongue over his parched lips.
He tried to sit up, and found that he could not. Something poked him hard in the ribs.
"I see you are awake, my young friend," said a voice, giving an unpleasant laugh.
Reality came flooding back. John opened his eyes, then squinted against the bright glare of the sun. He looked round to see that he was lying spread-eagled in the courtyard of the fort, his wrists and ankles tied to stakes that had been hammered into the hard-packed sand. His captor was standing over him, with Phin Li a little way off.
John looked up. "Who are you?"
"That, my young friend is a good question, and one that has several answers. I am the master criminal known as the Hood. I am half-brother to that fool you knew as Kyrano. And to you, I am your nemesis!" He aimed another kick at John's side. "For years I have dreamed of having one of your accursed family at my mercy, and this time there is no lake full of treasure to distract me from my goal. The secrets of International Rescue will be mine!"
"Never," said John through gritted teeth as he received another kick. He was not going to give this man the satisfaction of crying out.
"Oh, but you will, my friend. I may not have the powers I once had, but I am sure a couple of days lying in the sun will weaken your resolve. I have been planning my revenge for a long time, for all the times your family has thwarted my schemes and for what my brother did to me. Let me show you what he did!"
The Hood pulled off his eye-patch, then, reaching under his chin, peeled back what John suddenly realised was a mask. John gasped at the sight of the face that was revealed. The Hood's head was smooth, and the eyebrow on the right side thick and bushy, but the left side of his face was hideously scarred, with an empty eye socket.
The Hood pointed to his face. "This is what your meek and gentle Kyrano did to me. I was trying to bend him to my will, and to escape he took his own life. In revenge, he tore through my mind, ripping it apart. I lay in a stupor for days while rats gnawed at my face and my servants, thinking me dead, made off with my wealth. If a party of back-packers had not come across my temple hide-out and decided to explore, I would have died. As it was, I lay in a hospital for a year, not knowing who I was. Eventually, I gained control of my mind again. I had lost my powers, and most of my wealth, but none of my hatred for International Rescue and the Tracy family." This was punctuated by another kick, causing John to jerk against his bonds.
"So I had to find another way to get my revenge. I tried to tap into my niece's mind, but failed – perhaps our relationship is too distant. Then I began to wonder. As a young man, I had had certain needs, needs which I had no trouble getting the girls in the nearby village to satisfy. I wondered if any of the seed I had spread had borne fruit, so I started to search. Eventually I found Phin Li. She had inherited from her paternal grandmother the same looks as her accursed cousin, Tin Tin, and had also inherited from me some of my powers, a fact of which she was totally unaware. I was able to draw on these powers for my own use and train her to do my bidding. When I found you would be attending that conference in Paris, I gave her a false set of memories and sent her there to meet you. Deep within her mind I implanted a second personality which would take over when the time was ripe and manipulate you, just as I was manipulating her."
John thought back over his actions of the last twenty-four hours. What a fool he had been! He looked at Phin Li, not knowing whether to hate her or pity her.
The Hood followed his gaze. "Yes, my daughter has proved to be very talented indeed, and now totally under my control. Allow me to demonstrate" He pulled the knife out of his belt and handed it to Phin Li, gesturing down to John. "Cut him," he ordered.
As Phin Li bent closer, John searched her face for any sign of expression, but her features were a blank. The pupils of her eyes that yesterday had been such deep pools were now shrunk to tiny pinpricks. She put the knife against his neck, just below his ear. "Phin Li, no!" he whispered, but he did not appear to hear him. He felt the prick of the knife, and a trickle of blood ran down his neck.
"You see, she will do whatever I ask. Maybe I should ask her to cut your eye out. 'An eye, for an eye', that is the saying, is it not?" The point of the blade moved across John's face. "Or she would take her own eye out, if I asked her. You would do that for me, would you not, my daughter?"
"Yes, Father," answered Phin Li, in a dull tone, turning the knife so it was pointing at her own eye.
"No!" cried John, jerking against his bonds. "Leave her alone! It's me you want, not her. Let her go!"
"Yes, I could let her go," said the Hood, musing. "I could open the gates and tell her to walk out of here. She could walk for a week before she found any human contact, but of course, she would be dead long before that. Vultures and jackals would feast on her flesh, and her bones would lie whitening in the sun, until they were covered by the sand." John could not repress a shudder at the thought. "But no, I shall keep her here. I have no other servants, so she can fetch and carry for me." He looked down at John. "Maybe she will have other uses, in persuading you. You seem to be fond of her. I am sure you would not want any harm to come to the girl you met in Paris."
Taking Phin Li by the shoulders, he turned her to face him, and stared at her for a minute, before turning her round again so she was looking down at John.
John saw her eyes widen and her face take on a look of horror. "John! What's going on? Who has done this to you?" She crouched beside him, her hands reaching for the ropes that tied him. A shadow fell across John's body from the other side. "Phin Li, look at me!"
"No, don't!" whispered John, but it was too late. He watched the emotion drain out of the girl's face as she climbed to her feet and stood back.
"What is it that you want?" asked John.
"I want the secrets of the Thunderbird machines, so I can sell them to the highest bidder. I want the location and security codes of your secret hideout so I can descend on it with an army and kill all of your detested family, in payment for the trouble they have given me in the past. My niece I shall kill last, and most painfully, in revenge for what her father did to me. Perhaps I shall get Phin Li to kill her for me. Yes, I think that would amuse me."
"I'll see you in hell first!" said John.
"We shall see, my young friend, we shall see. A couple of days will tell if your iron will can be melted with the heat of the sun. Farewell, my friend. We shall talk again at sunset." Gesturing for Phin Li to follow him, he entered one of the buildings, leaving John under the sun's relentless glare.
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Next instalment same time next week