Hornet's Nest

By Spense

CHAPTER FIVE

When John hear the distinct sounds of frogs, he knew it was late evening or even well into night. It was definitely time to get out of here. All he wanted to do was get Alan and get the two of them home.

He had managed to discover that he was cuffed around a post of some kind, and with some maneuvers on his part, he had ascertained it was a type of bench. Moving his shoulders up and back, he worked to see if he could shift it. Maybe he could lean it back against the wall and slide the cuffs underneath. Working as quickly and silently as he could, he first tried one position, then another, trying to get the leverage to shift the bench.

Finally, he was successful. Sliding the cuffs under, he relaxed his body and let the bench crash the inch of so back to earth. Jumping at the sound it made, John listened carefully. Nothing. Just rain and frogs. Geez he was jumpy. He was sure getting paranoid. John suddenly wondered why, because that wasn't really his normal personality. Sighing, he let it go, figuring he'd worry about it later. Right now they needed to get as far away from here as possible.

The next step was to get his hands in front of him. This he did fairly easily. After that, the first thing he did was whip the blindfold off, stand up and finally look around. It was night. It would be really nice to see the true light of day sometime, he thought ruefully. The light of a single floodlight outside threw brightness into his prison, giving him enough to see by. He was in a workshop of some kind all right, just like he'd surmised. Full of old car parts, farming tools, rusting nails and all kinds of other odds and ends.

Eyeing the workbench that he'd been cuffed to, he gazed at it in disbelief. How on earth had he ever budged that thing? He stared at it in awe for a moment, then shook himself into action. He had to get these cuffs off, and find Alan.

Picking the handcuffs took just seconds. Obviously not professional issue, and with all the crap lying around, it was just a second to find something to work. Pocketing the thin nail he'd used on the cuffs, he turned his attention to locating Alan.

He had been right. There were really in the middle of absolutely nowhere. The small house in front of him was lit up like a Christmas tree. Two stories, it looked like maybe two bedrooms upstairs, and a simple design below. Since there were no other outbuildings besides the one he was in, by process of elimination, Alan had to be in the house.

A gloomy light rain penetrated everything. The heavily wooded area was made up of evergreen trees, maples and alders. Okay, they were somewhere in the North. Mountains or foothills from the looks of it.

Trees grew close to the house. John decided that his best bet was the roof. Check the upstairs for Alan, then go from there.

Putting his thoughts into action, in no time John had scouted for guards, and seeing none, scooted across the yard, staying in the shadows, out of range of the single floodlight. He shinnied up the nearest tree to the upstairs window.

He hit the jackpot the first time out. In the sparse upstairs bedroom he found his brother – blindfolded and handcuffed to an old, but solid looking iron bedstead. Because of the mild temperatures, the window was open just enough for John to speak to Alan.

"Alan!" John hissed.

Alan froze from where he was apparently trying to work the cuffs free. "John?" he whispered in disbelief.

"Yeah, it's me. Where are they?"

"Don't know, but not upstairs. Heard 'em all go down."

"Great, then I'm coming in." John slowly edged the window up, trying to avoid any noise. He was soon inside and had Alan's blindfold off. Alan blinked owl like at him in the sudden light.

"You all right?" John asked as he took a quick visual once over of his little brother. He looked okay.

"Fine. Get me out of here!"

"Okay, okay. Just quit squirming, will ya?" John commented as he bent to pick the lock on Alan's handcuffs.

Quickly freed, Alan bounced up from the bed, rubbing his wrists. "How'd you get the key?" He began to ask, then noted the slim nail in John's hand. "Oh. Wow. Man, you picked the cuffs," he commented, clearly impressed. "I've never learned to pick those," he finished absently, starting to look around.

John was a little afraid to think about what kind of locks that meant he 'had' learned to pick, and what that meant for the future of his brothers' privacy, but that was for another time. Quickly grabbing his brother, he hugged him hard. "You're sure you're okay? Last time I saw you there was a gun to your head."

Alan returned the embrace tightly, and said, muffled, into his brother's shoulder, "And the last time I saw you, they had bashed you in the back of the head and were dragging you out of the room. I'm fine."

John laughed. "Me too. How about we get out of here?"

"All for that!" Alan agreed as they separated.

Carefully, John and Alan made their way back out the way John had come in. Pausing at the base of the tree, John tapped Alan's chest to get his attention, and motioned him towards the window that had caught his attention. Silently, they crept towards it, and peeked inside. Voices floated out from the cracked window.

"Terrific! This time tomorrow we'll be in clover!" One man, about John's own age tilted back in a chair, obviously in high spirits.

His buddy, out of sight, made a jovial sound of agreement.

"We're not done yet!" The deep voice John was familiar with said. The two brothers looked at each other quickly and ducked back down, the voice following them. "Two more transmissions to go still tomorrow, so don't get cocky."

John slithered back out of sight and silently made his was across the yard towards the shop. Alan followed closely in his wake. Once inside, Alan looked around incredulously. "Who are these bozos?"

John shook the rain from his face. "No clue. What did they make you say?"

Alan repeated a verbatim of what John had said the first time. The second, however, was more interesting. "Basically, instructions for the ransom drop. A canyon in the Cascade Mountains in Washington State. They are to helijet in at five pm. They gave the coordinates." Alan rattled them off. "What did you say?"

John told him absently, thinking hard. "Two transmissions, huh. Well, they'll probably send mine tomorrow morning, and yours just late enough that they'll have to hurry to get here."

Alan looked disgusted. "They are so stupid. I mean, Dad'll wipe the floor with them once they trace the transmissions. Virgil will have it done in two seconds flat!"

John's grin resembled that of a shark. "I know that. You know that. But International Rescue is a secret organization, remember? They don't know that!"

Alan laughed. "I'd love to see their faces when Thunderbird One shows up!" His face fell immediately. "But Dad can't do that, can he?" he commented dejectedly.

"No." John shook his head. "No, he can't. So our first priority is to get well out of here." It suddenly occurred to him once again that this was a paranoia speaking that was abnormal for him. He still felt like he was trying to think through molasses.

"Way, way away," Alan said firmly.

John looked at him in surprise. Usually Alan would be begging to stay around, hiding in the woods or some such thing. He'd definitely want to join in the fun when their brothers, or the police, or whoever was going to come save the day finally showed up.

"What did you say?" John said, wanting to make sure he'd heard correctly.

"I want to get out of here," Alan replied, looking at John as though he'd grown two heads. "I just want to go home."

A sound outside from the woods made them both jump nervously. At least Alan was as paranoid as he was, John thought. "I'm all for that. Let's get out of here and as far away from here as possible." He was beginning to think this was some kind of repercussion of the drug they'd taken, but unfortunately, it didn't make the aftereffects any less real.

"Take a car?" Alan suggested.

"No . . ." John said thoughtfully. "Hit the woods I think. They'd notice a car gone quicker than us. I got the feeling that they are done with us for the night. And I don't know about you, but my wallet and wristcomm are gone."

He saw Alan's grimace as he said that, and knew Alan's was gone as well. "At least they probably just thought the wristcomms were cool watches," was Alan's comment.

There was some truth to that, John thought. But before he could reply, Alan's face brightened. "I can fix the cars," he volunteered suddenly, and then was gone before John could stop him.

"Crap," John muttered, running a hand through his hair. That kid just never stopped moving. He paced for a few moments, then took a couple of minutes to scan the work bench. Just junk. Nothing worth taking. He listened carefully. Still hearing nothing, he was about to slip out and track Alan down, when said brother appeared panting beside him.

"What the hell were you doing?" John hissed at him.

Alan smiled broadly at him, completely unrepentant. He held up a handle of 'something' in his hands. "Distributor caps!" he stated proudly. Dumping these unceremoniously on the work bench, he told his open-mouthed brother, "and I got a map and the car registrations. Maybe we can figure out where we are!"

John grinned in spite of himself. His father hadn't been wrong that day they were trapped on Thunderbird Five. Alan was a Tracy through and through. His quick thinking was just like Scott's, and he was eerily like Gordon in his cleverness (probably from hanging around the known prankster so much). However, his cheekiness was all his own.

"Excellent. Nice work!" He commented, smiling as Alan's young face lit up, basking in the approval. "Chuck those into the woods somewhere, and let's get out of here.

Alan hesitated a second, looking at the odds and ends in the shop. "You know there might be a spare in here," he ventured.

John shrugged it off. "Can't be helped. Besides, they'd have to find it."

Alan snickered as he gathered up the caps once again. "Good luck in all this crap." He looked at the workbench again. "Oh, this might come in handy!" He pocketed a slim file. John once again decided he was probably safer not knowing.

"Let's get going," John stated, and the two brothers carefully made their way out of the shop and down the night-black driveway.