The rescue team closes in, Brains overland, Gordon by river.

11

Brains drove for all he was worth, snow-bogging through the drifts like a teenager with too much horsepower until he reached the ragged edge of the woods. Here there wasn't cover enough for the humvee, so they'd have to abandon the vehicle and walk.

There wasn't far to go, at least. From their vantage, about halfway down a long, sloping hill, they could just make out the mine buildings, a long, greasy loop of river, and the iced-over hulk of Thunderbird 2. 1, he figured, was over on the other side somewhere, hidden from view by its sister's hefty tonnage... unless it had already been paid for and hauled off, that is...

Brains swallowed hard, suddenly. The Tracys might be his adopted family, but the Thunderbirds were his children, and the thought of his firstborn in the hands of a stranger made him almost physically ill. It wasn't just Scott and Virgil he was rescuing.

Striding over to the back of the humvee, Hackenbacker began silently rummaging through his equipment, trying to decide what was actually essential.

A short-range transmitter... yes, definitely. Broad-spectrum scanner... indispensable. Dish antenna, inert absorption gel, wire cutters... yes, yes and yes. Regretfully, he left behind the explosive de-naturing spray, on the grounds that it was an untested technology, and the canister was too heavy to lug through the snow. Maybe next time, though...

After locking up the humvee, Brains tapped his wrist comm, meaning to call in to John with a last status check before committing himself and the kids to a desperate mine raid. All he got was static. For some reason, John wasn't answering. Puzzled, Hackenbacker tried again. Still nothing. Almost, Brains made a move to reset the dial for Gordon, then stopped himself.

A wrist comm going off at the wrong moment might betray Gordon to the enemy, getting him captured or killed. Also..., if something else had gone wrong, if John, too, had been neutralized, Brains didn't want the others to know. Not yet, anyway. They were worried enough already. For that matter, so was he. Like everyone else on the team, Brains was accustomed to John being there at the touch of a comm button, ready always with exactly the right information and assistance to save the mission. To lose him now was dangerous, and scary. One thing at a time, though.

Giving Alan and TinTin each a rifle and ammunition, he told them sternly,

"K-keep to cover as best, ah... as best you c-can. R-remember, once y-you, ah... you start sh-shooting, you're c-committed. Y-you've, ah... you've given away y-your position."

"Gotcha, Brains," Alan responded with a grin, seeming to regard the whole thing as a rather elaborate game of paint ball, "sneak and peek, snoop and poop, always think before you shoot."

TinTin shoved him. "Be serious, Alan!" Then, turning back to the frowning engineer, "Don't worry, Brains. I'll keep a closeeye on him!"

"G-good! Somebody, ah... somebody needs to! You, ah... you can s-see the mine from h-here, and the 'Birds," he continued, abruptly changing the subject. "Stay t-together, and s-stick to the plan."

Then it was time to set off. Brains loaded himself down with as much electronic equipment as he could carry, bade farewell to the kids, and staggered off between sparse, acid-shriveled trees.

Not far away, Virgil was suddenly hauled upright and hurled through the door of his cage by a grinning thug. Unable to catch himself, he crashed to the floor at the Hood's feet.

"Good morning," his captor sneered, feigning civility. "You will forgive me, I trust, for my inattentiveness, yesterday? I was distracted, sadly, by the minutiae of secure financial transactions, and unable to see to your comfort. You will not, however, be so neglected today."

Virgil raised his head long enough to give the Hood a calm, level stare. "No loss."

The Hood smiled.

"It is always so gratifying to encounter bravado this early in the game. The pleasure of grinding it into utter, abject submission is all the more deeply rewarding, later. I thank you. Truly. But, enough small talk. Your little organization is due to make a payment on you before Greenwich noon. Time zones being what they are, we've some hours to wait. I have little doubt that they'll meet my asking price..., like most Americans, they've a foolish and easily manipulated tendency to focus on the individual, rather than the... 'big picture'... I think the phrase is? However, I also fully expect some form of ill-conceived rescue attempt. You see...," the Hood signaled his henchmen forward, "...people with morals are completely predictable. That, my young friend, is what makes being unprincipled such an advantage. Bit unfair, really... but amusing." At his word, the Hood's followers used handcuffs and leg-irons to fasten Virgil to the outside of the cage, facing the office entrance. Settling himself back against a desk, the Hood added, "Now, we have only to sit back and await the fireworks."

The river was all but devoid of life, more a chemical sump than a stretch of flowing water. Except for Gordon and a handful of pallid, cancerous-looking crustaceans, nothing moved at all. As far as he could see, which wasn't very, there was nothing much there but corroded metal, cement chunks and thick grey slime.

About halfway along, after that first eastward bend that John's map had predicted, Gordon's vision began to blur. Thinking that his mask had got mucked up somehow, he reached up to wipe it off. Instead of slime or dirt, though, his gloved fingers encountered pits and scratches. The glass of his face mask was being etched. More chillingly still, a swift inspection showed that his wetsuit had begun to blister and tear. All at once, Gordon redoubled his speed, deciding that it was better to be winded in the mine than dissolved in the river. Brains' gunk didn't seem so revolting, just then.

There were two more bends to traverse, and a steep-walled ravine, if he remembered correctly. After that a northerly tributary led to the bowl-shaped valley that held the copper mine and his brothers. Question was, would he live long enough to reach them?

Once or twice, Gordon considered leaving the river, but rejected the notion, knowing full well he'd never make it through the snow on foot, in a tattered, iced-over wetsuit. When he got down to bare skin he'd have no other choice, but for the time being, Gordon simply picked up the pace and took his chances.

Finally, he reached the tributary. This, Gordon knew, was the most dangerous part of his journey. Here the water was harshly contaminated with nitric acid and heavy metals; mercury, mostly. The less time spent there, the better. Pushing himself, he reached the end of the line ( an enormous effluent culvert) just as his mask became utterly useless.

He lunged blindly into the crusted pipe, located a set of ladder bars by feel, climbed about twenty meters, and heaved himself out onto wet, pitted concrete. Ripping off his face mask, Gordon thrust a hand into the waterproof storage bag for his sidearm. Still there, and undamaged. Panting a little, he thumbed off the safety catch and did a quick three-sixty; spotted nothing immediately dangerous.

He stood on the lip of a concrete and steel holding tank in a damp, low-ceilinged chamber. Rectangular... about 100 x 50 meters... deserted, but for him. There was a metal door in the nearest wall, painted a flaking battle-ship grey, with some sort of red-lettered warning sign in the dead center. Needing a translation, he nearly hit the wrist comm to John, then recalled that a signal could be traced, and that he was supposed to be stealthy.

"Well," Gordon murmured to himself, after a quick glance at the map, "no time like the present t' find out who's behind door number one."

He'd no time to lose, for his brothers' sake as well as his own. An all-over prickling sensation, like the beginnings of a really wretched sunburn, had just set up. Deciding that he'd better shower and change before things started dropping off, he strode to the door.

"Oh, look," he said sarcastically, "a padlock. That's s'posed to stop me, is it?"

Once again, he reached into the bag, this time withdrawing a laser cutting tool. Silent, but powerful, the tool made short work of the heavy steel padlock, and then Gordon was through.

He found himself in a long east-west corridor, dim and deserted. Another quick glance at the map decided his direction. There was an employees' shower and locker room not far off, and he had to get out of the now-gummy wet suit before it failed completely or the sheer chemical reek gave him away.

By the time he got to a shower the protective lotion had turned grey and begun to flake off. Beneath it, his skin was reddening, beginning to show signs of burning. The wetsuit looked a total loss, but he rinsed it out anyway; force of habit.

Then, a thorough scrub-down and clothing change later, he was ready to go on. Dressed in an ordinary-looking industrial coverall, Gordon hurried up toward the main building. Perhaps he moved too quickly, though, because less than ten minutes later he was seized from behind as he passed a T-junction. An arm like an iron bar wrapped itself around his neck, hauling him back into the shadows.

Gordon struggled to free himself, ducking his chin to prevent being strangled as he shoved upward with all his might against the prisoning arm. Then the burning-sharp point of a dagger touched his throat, just where the pulse thudded. All at once, Gordon became very still. A voice, American by the accent, said quietly,

"You've got to work on your stealth, Kid. Lack of attention to detail'll get you killed, every time. Now," and he shifted his grip just a bit, so that Gordon could breathe again. "I've got one question, and you've got five seconds to respond; what are you doing here?"

"Goin' after my br..., my teammates."

"International Rescue?"

Gordon nodded, as best he could under the circumstances, and hoped he hadn't just made a giant mistake.

"Good answer. You live." The knife point withdrew, followed by the arm. Angry and embarrassed at the ease with which he'd been caught, Gordon whirled to face the voice. A large man stood there, smiling slightly as he tapped the flat of a knife blade against his gloved palm. Dressed in black clothing and dark paint, he all but melted into the dimness around them.

"Murphy. US Navy Seals. A friend of yours requested our assistance." Then, frowning a little, "How old are you, anyway?"

"Um... nineteen," Gordon lied.

"Sure you are." Sliding his knife back into its sheath, Murphy said, "we're here on what you might call an unofficial basis, as a favor. Macedonia would prefer to handle their own security, so we're keeping a low profile. Back-up, you could say."

Made sense. Shaking off his pricked vanity, Gordon shared his map, more up-to-date and accurate than Murphy's stock CIA version.

"How certain are you of your source?" the Seal asked, examining the chart minutely.

"He's never been wrong yet, that I've heard of. Best satellite imaging gear in existence. Seriously."

Satisfied, Murphy turned his head slightly and began murmuring new instructions in a low, raspy voice to his scattered fire-team. Gordon could only assume they all wore some sort of receiving implant, because the man's voice was barely audible three feet away. When he'd finished briefing his men, Murphy said,

"Go on ahead. Our best intelligence suggests that the hostages are being held in the main office, above ground. Remote triggering devices for the aircraft seem to be there, too. We'll be around, but out of sight, trying not to set anything off. Try it your way, first. If things start to go wrong, we'll move in. Clear?"

"Clear, thanks. And... keep an eye out, would you, f'r a couple of kids comin' in through the front? They might need a bit of help."

"Kids? You mean, younger than you? Damn. You rescue guys must recruit heavily from the middle schools. Sure. I'll tell Recon to watch out for 'em. Take care your own self."

They parted with a handshake, Gordon now suspicious of each shadow and alcove, his pace just a bit more stealthy. Ten minutes later he'd reached a lift, at the top of which lay the main office building. He didn't trust it not to be guarded, though.

Coming to a sudden decision, Gordon reached into the open lift doors and pressed the 'up' button. There was a set of stairs nearby, for use during power failures. He'd take that, instead.

The lift began to rise, inching its way up in a series of rattling, rusty thumps. Gordon raced it to the ground floor landing, pistol in hand. Cautiously, he pushed the stairwell door open a crack, peering through just in time to see a trio of guards blast apart the lift doors in a roaring storm of automatic gunfire. Ouch. One of the gunmen flew backward, suddenly, felled by an unlucky ricochet. Unlucky for him, anyway.

Taking advantage of their distraction, Gordon slipped past the guards and into the main building. Once more, he consulted his map, pausing long enough to weld shut the lock on the door behind him. That would puzzle his would-be murderers, Gordon figured, without much slowing down the Seals. There would be no going out the way he came in. Not with two wounded brothers, plus Alan and TinTin to shepherd. No, the only way out lay forward, through the remaining gunmen, and the Hood.