Chapter 10: Here comes John

Alan and Gordon finally made it to the house. "How are we going to get in dad's den?" wondered Gordon out loud.

"Follow me" said Alan. They snuck around the pool to one of the ventilation shafts. "This is how Tin-Tin, Fermat and I eavesdropped on the Hood last year."

They crawled through the vents and peeked into the den. There was nobody in sight. "John is there anybody around?" asked Gordon in the comlink.

"Negative, but I'll keep a watch out for you" he replied.

"FAB" said Gordon and he and Alan dropped in the den.

Alan started hacking into the system to shut down the security net, but soon after he realized he couldn't shut it down. "They seemed to put up some kind of complex firewall, I can't get in"

"Let me try" said Fermat over the comlink. After a couple of tense minutes Fermat got through. "I've hacked in so all you need to do now is shut it down manually"

"Thanks Fermat" said Alan.

Gordon and Alan proceeded to shut down the security net manually. The security system needed at least two of the Tracy's for retinol scans and voice recognition to shut it off. When that was done they put in a command that would prevent anyone to hack back into the system.

"Guys two guards are coming your way" said John.

Alan and Gordon bolted for the vent. Gordon boosted Alan up and was on his way up when one of the guards grabbed him and threw him away from the vent. Gordon landed with a thud as the wind was knocked out of him.

Alan, not leaving without Gordon, jumped down on the first guard knocking them both to the ground. The guard was rendered unconscious from the impact. The second guard called for back up, then attacked Alan with a punch in the kidneys. Alan hit the ground in pain. The guard pulled out his pistol and aimed it at Alan's head, but before he could pull the trigger he crumpled to the ground. Gordon was standing over him with one of their dad's paperweights in his hand.

"I knew it had to be good for something other than holding down paper" he shrugged.

"You are so weird" said Alan as Gordon helped him up.

"Guys more guards are coming after you. Get out of there!" said John.

"Too late" said Alan as he and Gordon saw laser sights pointed at their chests. The guards came in and tied up Gordon and Alan. Then they decided to bring them down to the hangar where the Hood would likely reward them for their capture.

When the group reached the hangar, Alan and Gordon saw the Hood standing in front of a wall with Mullion and Transom. They also noticed Scott and Brains tied up waiting with the Hood.

"What's going on?" asked Alan.

"I haven't a clue" replied Gordon.

"Look there's dad and is that Christine?" said Alan not believing what he was seeing. There against the wall Jeff was typing on a control panel with Christine behind him with a pistol pointed to his back.

"I can't believe Christine is working for the Hood" said Gordon in shock "I thought we were family to her." Then the wall started opening up which drew his attention away from Christine "I don't remember the wall ever doing that"

The wall opened up to an additional hangar and there in the hangar was a giant helicopter that was half the size of Thunderbird 2. The helicopter was mostly black with silver accents on the sides and wings and there was "Thunderbird 6" painted on the side in silver as well. The helicopter seemed to be designed for hauling extremely heavy objects but it appeared to have a cargo compartment too. Gordon and Alan were interrupted from their awe by being pushed over to the Hood.

Scott just stood there in amazement at Thunderbird 6. He turned to his father and wondered how he was able to keep this a secret for so long. He heard some people walking behind him and turned around to see Alan and Gordon clad in their wetsuits being pushed towards them by a few guards.

"Sir, we found these two in the den. They took out two of our men and I think that they were able to shut down the security net" said one guard.

Transom rushed off to go check on the damage the two Tracy's made to the security system. Five minutes later she called "Sir, they were able to shut down the security net around the island and they appeared to have activated a hidden subroutine that is denying me access back into the system"

"Blast it! How do we get back in?" demanded the Hood.

"You don't" answered Jeff "its shut down and it'll take days for it to come back online"

"It doesn't really matter. I have your Thunderbirds and that's all that counts" grinned the Hood. "Let's get ready to bring our plan into action." The Hood walked over to Thunderbird 6 and sat in the cockpit. "This time we'll see if this isn't sabotaged like last year." He started pre-flight and nothing happened.

"Oh…by the way the rightful pilot of Thunderbird 6 has to start it. I was able to put in a command that will only allow the pilot to activate it for its maiden voyage" said Jeff.

"Well then which one of your boys is the pilot?" asked the Hood with thinning patience.

"Actually that's the funny thing. I haven't recruited the pilot for this Thunderbird yet, so that means it's useless"

The Hood glared at him with his rage simmering just below the surface, but was still able to keep calm "Lt. Carter I want you to take them back up in the den."

Christine pointed her pistol at the Tracy's and motioned for them to walk in front of her. When she had them in the den Mullion came in "This is so you don't wake up on us again." He injected her arm with another needle then left to help pack up the Thunderbirds.

"Okay, I'm really confused. What is going on?" asked Alan.

"Christine is being controlled by the Hood. He said that he's using her worst fears against her" said Scott looking like he was miles away. They turned to Christine who was just standing there staring into nothing.

"He's going on with his previous plan of robbing the world banks" added Jeff.

"We have to stop him" said Alan.

"Thank you Captain Obvious" grunted Gordon "but how? Like you said dad, Thunderbird 6 doesn't have a pilot so it won't work"

"Well that's not the entire truth" said Jeff "Thunderbird 6 does have a pilot. It's just the pilot is a little…preoccupied at the moment"

Alan sat there thinking that it might be John because Christine was up on Thunderbird 5 being trained for awhile and she could be his replacement, that way he could stay on the island with everyone instead of being in space.

"Scott do you still have the pocket knife Christine gave you?" asked Jeff.

Scott's face lit up from realization "Yeah, I do."

"Well start cutting" ordered Alan.

After John lost contact with Alan and Gordon he decided it was time to take some action of his own. "Fermat I want you to stay up here and monitor everything. I'm going down"

"FAB" said Fermat "be careful"

"I always am" and he left for Thunderbird 3.

While on his way down to Earth, John called Virgil "Virgil, you there?"

"Yes, I'm already at the lagoon and on my way to the house. Fermat just got me up to speed on what's happening"

"I want you to contact Fermat so he can to guide you to the ventilation shaft that'll lead you to the hangar bay without being seen"

"FAB. What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to land right in the hangar" grinned John.

(TBC)