"Base from Thunderbird One," Scott said into the comlink, watching the blip that was Tracy Island slide on to the edge of his radar screen. "What's the situation?"
Tin-Tin's voice came back in his ears. "We docked two hours ago, Scott. Penelope and Parker came with us. Elizabeth is with Alan and Mr. Tracy in the infirmary."
"How is he?"
"Doing just fine," she said. "You know Alan. He's already complaining about not being allowed to get out of bed."
"He's still on the morphine," Scott said. "That'll change, trust me." He glanced at the radar scope. "Tin-Tin, I'm ten minutes out and Virgil's thirty minutes behind me. We've got to come up with a way to land these birds without Elizabeth seeing us."
"All taken care of, Scott. Operation cover up is already in effect. Your father and Brains are going to take Elizabeth down to the engine testing bay and show her the USV3000."
Scott broke into a smile. "Brilliant," he said. "She'll never hear us with the noise-canceling headphones on, and she'll put down any vibrations she feels to the engine testing."
"Precisely," Tin-Tin said. "I'm going to run your landing from launch control. Take the monorail straight here when you land. When Virgil and Gordon are safely home we'll give Mr. Tracy the all-clear."
"F.A.B.," Scott acknowledged. "See you in eight point five minutes."
"F.A.B." Tin-Tin signed off. Scott switched frequencies to relay her instructions to his brothers.
Eight and a half minutes later, Thunderbird One arrived over the entrance to her launch bay, retros igniting to swing her gracefully through ninety degrees until her tail was pointing straight down. Scott fired the boosters, lowering her with smooth, split-second precision until the electromagnetic seals locked her back into place on her launch trolley. As the swimming pool slid back into place above him, he pushed forward on the controls and the sleek silver rocket began the trip back up the ramp to her hangar. He had changed into his civilian clothes before she came to a halt at the top.
"All clear?" he asked Tin-Tin.
"All clear," she confirmed. "Virgil is eighteen minutes out."
"F.A.B. Be there in five."
He ran swiftly through the post flight checks, watching as the gantry locked into place and the lights changed to a steady green. The last item on the list was initiating the routine diagnostics program – it would run for about twenty minutes after he was gone, checking every component under Thunderbird One's sophisticated hood. Anything that needed fixing or replacing would be identified instantly, sending a message to both central control and the inventory system. International Rescue simply couldn't afford for any of its machines to be running at less than one hundred percent efficiency, every time they went out. After all, as Brains had often said, it wasn't as if they could call AAA if they broke down by the side of the road.
Scott flipped the hatch control and exited his ship. Instead of extending the walkway bridge that would take him back into the villa's living room, he turned left and took the gantry elevator down to the monorail. In less than three minutes he had arrived at launch control, set into the cliff above Thunderbird Two's hangar, overlooking the runway.
Tin-Tin was waiting for him there. "Virgil sounded a little on edge when he called in. Did anything happen out there?"
Scott's eyes slid away, gazing out through the reinforced observation windows at the empty tropical sky, searching for signs of his brothers' return. "Nothing much. Same old same old, you know."
She watched him, knowing him well enough to realize that he was hiding something – but the same familiarity also making her realize that he wasn't going to tell her what it was. She had learned quickly that with Scott, what you saw wasn't necessarily what you got. On the surface he was always friendly, always easygoing, always ready with a piece of advice or a shoulder to cry on. Underneath he was sometimes as tightly wound as a coiled spring. He had black moods, she knew, that he did his best to hide from the rest of the family. Often he would take one of the Tracy jets and fly his heart out for hours, straining the plane to her limits, putting her through wild aerobatic maneuvers that nearly tore the wings off. He would always come back feeling better.
"Base from Thunderbird Two," Virgil's voice came over the comlink.
Scott hit the switch. "Go ahead, Thunderbird Two."
"Approaching the outer marker, Scott."
Scott glanced at Tin-Tin. She crossed to the launch control computer console, her fingers flying over the keys. "Thunderbird Two, this is launch control. I have you on my scope. Area is clear of traffic."
"F.A.B.," Virgil responded.
Listening as she fed Virgil wind speed and direction, Scott picked up field glasses from the table and trained them on the sky. He could finally see the approaching speck that was Thunderbird Two, growing steadily larger in the bright blue sky.
"Launch control from Thunderbird Two, turning on base leg."
"F.A.B., Thunderbird Two," Tin-Tin acknowledged automatically, eyes on the display in front of her. "You are clear to land."
Virgil had been uncharacteristically quiet on the way back from New Jersey. Normally Gordon could count on fairly lively conversation on some subject or other – with Virgil, you never knew whether you were going to wind up talking about turbochargers or Impressionist painters. But this time Gordon had spent much of the trip homejust watching the scenery, after a couple of abortive attempts to start the ball rolling. Virgil hadn't even been willing to discuss the biggest scoop of all – Scott and that woman he'd been talking to, the one he'd apparently met at the Southern Oceans Cup rescue and had never mentioned to anyone. When Gordon had brought up the subject, Virgil had simply shaken his head, saying that he didn't know anything, and they would have to ask Scott when they got back. Knowing how close his two eldest brothers were, Gordon wondered if he was telling him the truth. Either that, or Scott hadn't entrusted the information even to Virgil, which made it even more interesting.
He had no idea of what was really eating at Virgil's gut – Elizabeth Grant. Every mile closer to the Island meant a mile closer to a whole week spent in the same house as the woman he loved, and while that thought should have made him the happiest man on earth, this was the worst possible circumstance it could be happening under. She had no idea his family ran the most famous secret organization in the world – International Rescue. And his family had no idea that he and Elizabeth had been in love from the first moment they met.
He could still remember exactly how he had felt that day. She was paying her first visit to the Island, and he had been the one designated to go down to the jetty to meet her seaplane. He remembered being impressed by her landing, smooth as silk, the skids kicking up almost no spray at all. He knew nothing at all about her, only her name, and that she had bought the practice from their former doctor, whose own failing health had necessitated giving up a life of flying from island to island. And then, as she stepped out of the plane and accepted his help jumping from the skid to the jetty, he looked in her eyes and suddenly knew everything he needed to know. It wasn't until later that he found out that it had happened for her at exactly the same moment.
He had reacted with typical male confusion at first, not sure whether to follow her around the Island like a puppy or avoid her completely. But by the time she left later that day, he knew he was going to see her again.
He lasted two whole days before taking the Tracy jet and heading for her New Zealand home base. He didn't call ahead…he didn't want to know what she would say, and he had no idea how to explain himself to her. For once in his life, Virgil Tracy was completely lost for words.
Elizabeth was seeing patients when he arrived at her surgery, and he waited in the outer room, growing more and more nervous by the second – wondering what the hell he was doing there, but unable to leave. She came out after a while, talking to a departing patient. He stood up, she turned and saw him – and the way she looked at him instantly wiped all the anxiety from his mind. He crossed to the office and closed the door behind him, and then she was in his arms and they were kissing. He stayed with her that night, and by morning he knew he was in love like he'd never been before in his life.
Everything had gone smoothly for the first three months, Virgil fooling his family with the excuse that an old shoulder injury had flared up again, necessitating regular trips to the mainland for therapy. They had spent many lazy late afternoons together at her place on the beach, cooking, walking on the sand with Sampson, her ten year old Golden Retriever, and making love far into the night. Virgil was completely, utterly happy.
And then she was invited by his father to make another visit to the Island. At this point unable to even contemplate the idea of giving her up, Virgil knew he was in trouble. He couldn't tell his father they were involved, and he couldn't tell Elizabeth why he couldn't tell him. Because of his father's iron clad insistence on total secrecy and security for their organization, it was impossible to bring new people into the fold unless they already worked for the family in a capacity where they knew the score. Because strangers had family and friends, and sooner or later something was bound to slip out. Virgil assumed his brothers, like him, found ways to work around this problem. After all, it wasn't likely to become a big deal unless one of them became seriously involved and wanted to take a relationship to the next step.
Like now. Virgil winced as he thought about the night when he'd first outright lied to her, the day before her visit. He'd told her that he thought it was better that they not let his family know yet that they were an item. Hating himself for causing the look of hurt and confusion that had immediately come into her eyes, he had plunged on, explaining that his father was extremely paranoid about strangers (which, after all, was at least partly true), and that he didn't want to see her subjected to a painful and embarrassing background investigation. He had come up with the idea because he knew how important her privacy was to her, and she had seemed to accept the explanation easily enough. She was the model of discretion the next afternoon and evening at Tracy Island, even shaking his hand when she arrived and politely asking him how he was doing. And she'd only slapped his butt once, when no one was looking – grinning at his mock-scandalized expression.
It had taken him a long time to get to sleep that night. It was beginning to dawn on him what a tangled web of deception his life was becoming. But he knew he couldn't go back to living without her, so he would have to find a way to make it work, somehow.
"Uh, Virgil…" Gordon's voice penetrated his thoughts, bringing him back to the present.
"Yeah, Gordo?"
"You're about to overshoot the Island…"
Oh, shit. Virgil hastily checked his instruments and hauled the wheel over. "Ah…launch control from Thunderbird Two, turning on final approach."
"Little slow on the trigger today, Thunderbird Two," Scott's voice came back. "Everything okay up there, Virg?"
Virgil scowled, but he kept it out of his voice. "Everything's fine, Scott," he said. "Just a little tired."
Back at launch control, Scott watched the massive transport plane drop her port wing and bank toward him, floating down out of the sky as if her current payload was nowhere near the four hundred eighty seven tons he knew it to be. Something was up with his brother, and under normal circumstances he would have taken him aside later and tried to find out what it was. But right now he had secrets of his own, and he didn't want Virgil invoking the reciprocity rule they'd had with each other since they were children on their grandparents' farm in Kansas. Their words echoed down the years to him – I'll tell you mine if you'll tell me yours…
And they always had, until now. Scott felt a chill touch him, as if something had shifted, somewhere, and he was feeling the winds of change as they began to stir. He shook off the feeling with an effort, concentrating on watching Thunderbird Two sweep gracefully down toward him, mentally calling off the airspeed with his brother. Tin-Tin flipped a switch and the palm trees flattened outwards, clearing the space for the green giant's one hundred eighty foot wingspan. There was that moment when Scott always held his breath, when she seemed to stop, impossibly, in mid-air – right before her landing jets fired in a roar of smoke and flame. Then Virgil turned her until her tail was facing the cliffside, lowering her to the runway so smoothly that she seemed to sink to earth on a cloud. The cliff face opened behind her as she backed up toward it, and then she was gone from view beneath him. "Hangar doors closed," Tin-Tin announced after a moment. "We're all clear."
They headed for the hangar to rendezvous with Virgil and Gordon.
It was always hard for Virgil when Elizabeth was on the Island, especially when it had been several days since he had last seen her. She came into the lounge with Jeff and Lady Penelope, looking fresh and beautiful in mint green and white, and all he wanted to do was take her into his arms. But he couldn't, forced instead to play the game, smiling and going along with the jokes and enduring his brothers' insistent attempts at flirting with the woman they didn't know was already his. Every once in a while she would flick a glance his way, the look in her eyes telling him that this was just as difficult for her – only succeeding in making the torture worse. At least today, Scott wasn't joining in the fun as much as he usually did – and that made Virgil's thoughts turn instantly to what he had seen in the rubble field in New Jersey. He knew his brother inside out, and the look on his face when he saw that woman…what had her name been…Tally?…well, that had been a dead giveaway. Whether or not he was prepared to admit it, Scott had it bad for her.
Under normal circumstances, Virgil would have pursued it, tried to find out what was going on. But he had big problems of his own to deal with right now.
He glanced at the clock. Not even halfway through the afternoon yet. God, this was going to be a long day.
Tally swung through the New York offices of the World News Network bright and early that morning, dead tired yet strangely energized by the events of the previous night. Despite knowing with absolute certainty that the mysterious pilot from International Rescue who had affected her so profoundly was not planning on pursuing their connection, she wasn't worried – because she was definitely planning on pursuing it from her end. On the way home from New Jersey, she had been a little annoyed at herself at first for allowing their overwhelming chemistry to impair her ability to think like an investigative journalist. But gradually it began to dawn on her that this could be turned to an incredible advantage. If she could find a way to keep her head on straight and not let him affect her judgement again.
She thought about Richard, and the cold rage settled in her stomach, making it ache. Yes, she could find a way.
She reached the news floor and was instantly mobbed by a horde of coworkers, all asking her for details of her ordeal in the Southern Oceans Cup race. Joss appeared after a few minutes and responded to her pleading look, rescuing her from the crowd and leading her away. She gave him a big, grateful hug. "I'm so glad I'm back in New York," she said.
"I'm so glad you're back in my time zone," he said. "No more two a.m. vidphone calls."
"Especially not when you have such attractive company," she grinned. "I'm surprised at you, Joss. I didn't think you dated anything less than a 38D."
He gave her a look. "You'd better go see Mason," he said. "He's been wanting to see you as soon as you got back."
Tally made a face, looking across the office to the boss's door at the far end. "I guess I'd better get it over with," she said reluctantly.
Joss nodded. "Don't worry. We'll find a way to glue you back together."
"Gee, thanks." Tally squared her shoulders and headed to face the music.
"How did you wind up in New Jersey last night?"
The words broadsided her, driving her prepared speech from her mind. Tally stared at her bureau chief, stunned. "How did…"
"Ned Cook saw you there. Talking to one of the International Rescue pilots."
Tally backpedaled, looking for a way to turn this around. "Exactly."
Dan Mason frowned. He was an unimposing man physically, short and balding, with a wide gap between his front teeth – but the force of his personality more than made up for it. He wore gold rimmed glasses that hid the intensity in his dark eyes. "What does that mean, Tally? Don't play games with me."
"I'm not playing games," Tally said, wishing for the seven hundredth time that year that their awkward personal history had not thrown up such a wall of hostility between them. Mason was one of the best in the business and under other circumstances would have been an ideal mentor for her. She just hadn't wanted it under the terms he had. "Look, I know you're mad at me because I didn't want to do the ocean rescue story."
"Mad at you is an understatement," Mason said, his voice deceptively calm.
"And I know rescue stories are getting big ratings right now. So here's what I propose. You really like Bellamie, right? You think she's ready for a big story. Let her do the ocean rescue piece. I'll give her everything she needs."
Mason stared at her for a long moment, thoughtfully. He sat down behind his desk. "You're dying, right?" he asked at last. "What is it…a brain tumor? Cancer?"
Tally burst out laughing. "No…God, no. Look, I get that you might find this hard to believe, but I want her to do the story. I'll even help her get subjects to be interviewed on camera about it. I just can't go on the air myself."
"What – you've suddenly developed stage fright? Cut to the chase, Tally."
Tally took a deep breath. "I think I'm in a position to break one of the biggest stories of the century," she said slowly. "The men behind International Rescue."
There was a long silence. Mason's eyes narrowed just a little. "And what makes you think you can succeed at breaking a story that big, when so many better reporters than you have tried and failed?"
"Because I have an advantage they didn't have. They fished me out of the ocean. I met them, Dan. I know four of them by sight, I know the first names of three of them, and…"
She paused, something deep inside her stirring in protest at where she was going next. She pushed it down with an effort. "And the pilot of Thunderbird One has a thing for me. I think that could turn out to be really useful."
"Are you sure?" Mason asked. "How do you know?"
Tally gave a short, bitter laugh. "You should know better than anyone how I'd know."
His eyes turned hard. He said, "All right. But I still don't understand why you can't do the ocean rescue story. It would be so much more powerful told from the viewpoint of an actual survivor."
Tally shook her head. "I can't go on camera, Dan. If I do, International Rescue will ID me as a reporter. Then it's all over."
She thought she finally saw a flicker of something positive…maybe even actual respect, cross his face. "They don't know?" he said, incredulously. "They don't know you're a reporter?"
She shook her head. "No. And I want to keep it that way."
"Damn right," he said. "Jesus Christ, this could actually work…"
Tally began to relax a little as she saw his mind begin to go into action, sinking his teeth into the idea. "Okay," he said, "Go see Bellamie. And then I want you to get with Jay Lambourne and start going over…"
"No," she said.
He stopped in mid-sentence "What do you mean, no?"
"I know Jay is our resident star," Tally said. "And I know he has a ton of experience I don't have. But I'm working alone on this or I'm not doing it at all."
"Don't be ridiculous, Tally. Work with Jay. He can help you…"
"Uh-uh. I'm sorry, Dan, but I don't trust you. I'm not going to let you take this story away from me. If you don't let me fly my own ship on this one, I swear I'll quit and take it to another network. I mean it."
Another long silence. And then, unexpectedly, Mason chuckled. "Well, what do you know…you may have the makings of a journalist yet, Ms. Somerville."
Tally managed a smile, calming down the quaking inside her with an effort. He would never know what it had cost her to stand her ground like that against him. But it had worked – she was over the first hurdle.
And she had managed to keep hidden her biggest ace in the hole. She had something in her back pocket that the world believed was impossible to obtain – a photograph of one of International Rescue's crew.
How Virgil made it through dinner, he would never know. Calling on the same reserves that made him able to hold Thunderbird Two steady in hurricane force winds hour after hour on a rescue, he had put his head down and endured the afternoon – making small talk down by the pool, pretending to read, wishing he could go to the hangar and tear apart an engine instead. But his elder brother's uncharacteristic lack of conversation was putting even more of a burden on him than usual to appear normal, making it impossible for him to escape. At least this way he could look at her, he told himself. And they would find a place to be alone soon enough. The Island wasn't that small.
After dinner, Elizabeth announced that she was going down to the Infirmary to check on Alan. She caught Virgil's eyes briefly as she turned to leave, and his spirits lifted. He knew that look.
He left it a good fifteen minutes, feeling every second stretch into a year, before he finally got up from the table. He made a big show out of yawning, telling no one in particular that he was going to turn in for the evening. Well, he thought, at least that wasn't a lie. He just didn't plan on doing it in his own room. He avoided looking at Scott as he left, feeling his brother's eyes on his back. He had the distinct feeling that Scott knew something was going on with him…he just didn't know what, or why. But he also knew Scott was avoiding the third degree from him…so despite the weirdness of he and Scott having secrets from each other, at least they were both insuring each other safety from scrutiny, for now.
Alan was looking very pale, Virgil thought as he came into the Infirmary. "Hey, Sparky," he greeted him. "How're you doing?"
"Sparky?" Elizabeth raised her eyebrows.
"They used to call me that when I was a kid," Alan told her. "On account of my brilliant mind." He and Elizabeth were already working on weaning him off the morphine, and he was watching the clock across the room intently, taking shallow breaths, trying to endure the pain for another couple of minutes.
"On account of your always setting fire to everything," Virgil corrected him. "And you're still a kid."
"So you wanted to be an arsonist when you grew up?" Elizabeth said as she took Alan's wrist to check his pulse. "Interesting choice."
"No," Virgil smiled. "He was just a little too fond of his chemistry set."
Time. Thank God. Alan hit the morphine pump and relief flooded his body. "That rocket would have flown," he retorted. "If you and Scott had let me have enough gas to get it off the ground."
"That rocket wouldn't have flown if you'd had a tank the size of Greenland," Virgil said. "You just would have blown an even bigger hole in the front lawn."
"Oh dear," Elizabeth said, trying to suppress her laughter. "Did anyone get hurt?"
"No," Virgil said. "But he broke every window in the place, and the neighbors were picking Grandma's petunias out of their teeth for a couple of weeks."
"You know what's depressing about my life?" Alan said to no one in particular. "It's that no matter what happens, no matter what I do or where I go, I'm always going to have four brothers who are older than me."
"With long memories," Virgil grinned. "But look on the bright side, at least we won't let you kill yourself before your time."
"Hah, hah," Alan said. He was tiring now and the cotton wool cloud of the morphine was beginning to take over, slowing his speech.
Virgil glanced at Elizabeth, noticing the change. "He's okay, Virgil, really," she said reassuringly. "It'll just take him a while to get his strength back."
"Don't listen to her," Alan said, eyes closed now, head resting on the pillow. "I could take all of you right now, even without my ribs."
Virgil smiled at him. "Take it easy, kid. I'll come and see you in the morning."
"Uh-huh." Alan was nearly asleep. Virgil waited while Elizabeth finished up what she was doing, and they left the room together. They passed Tin-Tin in the corridor outside.
"How is he?" Tin-Tin asked.
"Resting," Elizabeth told her. "Don't keep him awake too long."
Tin-Tin blushed a little. "I just want to say goodnight."
Elizabeth grinned. "Go right ahead."
She nodded and passed them, going into the Infirmary.
"He's a good kid," Virgil said as they walked. "He gave us a real scare."
"He'll survive," she said. "Especially with a family like yours surrounding him. I've never seen so much love and support in one place in my life."
Virgil looked at her. The air was suddenly very thick. Elizabeth stared back at him. "Ah…Virgil…"
"Yeah?"
"Where are we going?"
"Who the hell cares…" Virgil yanked open the first door he saw, pulling Elizabeth with him.
It was a small room full of janitorial supplies. "Oh, Virgil, look…industrial toilet cleaner, and so much of it," Elizabeth said. "You sure know how to show a girl a good time."
"And don't you forget it." He kissed her hard, pressing her body up against the door. She made a soft moan in her throat and her arms came up to hold him tightly. When they finally broke the kiss they were both breathless. "God, I want you," he whispered into her hair. "I thought I'd never get you alone."
"Well, there won't be any "getting" in here," Elizabeth said. "I'm not making love to you in a closet full of Mr. Clean."
"Picky, picky," Virgil grinned, kissing her again. "Next you'll be wanting an actual bed."
"Oh, yes…if you want any actual sex tonight, that would be the first thing I'd look for."
"There's bound to be one of those somewhere on this Island," he said. "Even if I do have an embarrassingly large amount of brothers and other family members around here who seem to be occupying most of the furniture."
She laughed. "I love you."
He wrapped his arms around her again, capturing her mouth with his for a long time. "Virgil?" she said at last.
"Mmmm?" he was busy lifting her hair and kissing the side of her neck.
"I want to tell them."
"Tell who?" Virgil murmured, concentrating on raising goosebumps behind her ear with his tongue.
"Oh, that's good…" she shivered. "Your family, that's who. To hell with the background check. I just want to be able to hold your hand in front of your father."
Virgil froze. Suddenly making love was the furthest thing from his mind. "We can't," he said, straightening up slowly.
She smiled up at him. "Don't be silly. Of course we can. I don't care if he's paranoid – let him dig. I don't have anything to hide. Well, he's going to find out about that one episode in college, but honest, we were just good…"
She trailed off, suddenly aware of how serious his face was. "Virgil, what's going on?" she asked slowly.
He wanted to punch a wall. "We can't tell them," he said miserably. "And I can't tell you why."
She pushed away from him, wrapping her arms protectively across herself, the way she did when she was hurt and didn't want it to show. "That doesn't make any sense. What are you trying to say?"
"I'm trying to say that I can't tell you why I can't tell them," he said. "I know it sounds ridiculous…"
"It is ridiculous," she said. "Are you saying there's something wrong with me? That I'm not good enough for them?"
"God, no," Virgil said hastily. "It's not you. It's…it's us…"
"Well, that makes even less sense," she said. "What are you, some kind of mercenary outfit on the run from the law, or something?"
"Definitely 'or something,'" he said, trying desperately to make light of it, hoping to somehow salvage this before it went too far.
But she wasn't having any of it. "Virgil, I'm not going to skulk around behind your family's backs any more," she said firmly. "I suggest you give it some thought tonight. While you're sleeping alone."
"Liz…"
She held up her hand to indicate that the matter was no longer up for discussion. "We'll talk about this in the morning."
She left the room without a backward glance. Virgil snatched up the nearest can and hurled it away from him so hard it stuck fast in the drywall.
"Did you know International Rescue has fan clubs?"
Joss stared at her over his beer glass. "You're kidding."
"Scout's honor. Internet sites, everything. Unofficial, of course. And people write to them all the time – they're like Santa Claus."
"Or the Easter Bunny," Joss offered.
Tally rolled her eyes. "Nobody writes to the Easter Bunny, Joss."
He shrugged. "So it's a bad example. Where do all the letters go?"
They were having lunch at Molly's, a favorite hangout of the WNN reporters. "That's the interesting part. The post office delivers them to this company in London."
"London, England?"
"Uh-huh," she nodded. "And get this…some of the letters actually get answered."
He paused as the waitress set down plates of sandwiches and french fries in front of them both. "By International Rescue, or by the company?"
"Why would this company just answer letters on their own?" she pointed out. "My guess is, it's a fan mail service – just like actors have. They're being paid by International Rescue to go through the letters, weed out the crazies, send the good ones on. Then they tell them how to respond."
"The key phrase being 'send them on,'" Joss said thoughtfully.
"Hmmm," Tally nodded. "The big question is, to where?"
"Answer that, and you can name your price," Joss said. "No one has ever been able to figure out where their base is."
"Give me time," she said, taking a bite of her sandwich. "Give me time."
It was always the same…the faces staring, the white corridors that all looked exactly alike. And then the door…the door he couldn't avoid…the door that stood in front of him like the entrance to hell.
He didn't want to go in there. The feeling of dread was choking him, making his heart pound so hard his chest hurt. But he couldn't change his fate. Slowly the door pulled him toward it, step by reluctant, stumbling step, and he looked down at his hands and they were covered in blood all the way to the elbows, and there was blood all over his shirt and his…
"No!" Scott woke with the sound of his own shout ringing in his ears.
He sat up in bed, awareness returning, taking in his surroundings. It was all right. He was home.
Thank God his suite of rooms, like all of the suites on the Island, were soundproofed. It had been a solution to the obvious problem of privacy when so many adults – some of them, like himself, already long accustomed to independence – were living together in such a small area. Scott wiped the sweat from his forehead. He needed a drink.
He was all the way across to the cabinet in the living room of his suite when he remembered he had finished the last of his bottle of Scotch right before going out on the Southern Oceans Cup rescue. He pulled on a pair of shorts and headed out toward the villa's lounge to get a replacement.
He crossed behind the bar and opened up the drinks cabinet, reaching in to grab a promising looking bottle. As he withdrew it, he paused, suddenly becoming aware that there was someone else in the room. He turned quietly, scanning the shadows. "Hello? Is anybody there?"
"No."
"Virg?" Scott came around to the couch where his brother was sitting. "What are you doing out of bed?"
"My life sucks," Virgil said mournfully.
Scott picked up the half-empty bottle on the table in front of his brother. "Virg, was this full when you started?"
"It's all their fault," Virgil insisted, grabbing for the bottle in Scott's hand.
No glass, Scott noted…this must be serious. "Whose fault?"
Virgil scrutinized him carefully for a moment. Then he leaned over and answered in a conspiratorial whisper. "I can't tell you."
Scott sat down beside him. "You can't tell me? Why can't you tell me?"
"I can't tell you that, either." The mournful tone was back in Virgil's voice. "It really bites."
Scott shook his head, smiling. "Virg, you're not making any sense."
"Doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense. And I can't…"
"…Tell me why," Scott finished. "Yeah, I got that."
Virgil sighed, leaning back against the couch. "My life sucks."
Scott took the bottle from him and took a swig. He leaned back beside his brother and stared out through the French doors at the tropical night. "Yeah, Virg… You may be on to something there."
Virgil glanced around at him blearily. "Your life sucks too?'
Scott nodded, thinking about Tally Somerville for the hundredth time since seeing her again the day before. "Yep."
"Why?"
Scott smiled bleakly, reaching out and ruffling his brother's hair, the way he used to when Virgil was six and he was reading him bedtime stories. "I can't tell you."
This wasn't going to be easy, Tally told herself for the thousandth time that day as she hung up the phone. Tracking down people who had been saved from certain death by International Rescue was the easy part. Getting them to talk about it…well, it only went so far. They were more than eager to describe the rescue itself, but as soon as it got beyond that, to questions about International Rescue's operatives themselves, they suddenly dried up. Nobody wanted to tell what they knew.
"Tal, you can't blame them," Joss had said to her when she'd first broached the subject earlier that day. "They're just being protective. They know that outfit doesn't want to be found. They feel like you're asking them to turn in the guys who saved their lives. What kind of a person would do that?"
Realizing too late what he had said, he glanced up, meeting her eyes. She stared at him for a moment, then quickly looked back down at the desk again. By the time she lifted her head again, he was gone.
Tally sat there now, remembering his words – and also remembering her surprise at how bad she had suddenly felt. She ground down on the feelings again, angry with herself. She was never going to resurrect her career if she kept letting shit like this get to her. She had to be tougher than that. She just had to be.
Feeling someone watching her, she glanced up and saw Mason, standing in the doorway to his office. There was a man beside him, someone she didn't recognize.
Mason signaled to her to come over. She hesitated for a moment. Then she got up and went toward his office.
Mason waved her through the door, closing it behind her. He gestured to the stranger. "Tally, this is Stefan Andopoulos. He's on WNN's international board."
Tally reached out and shook the newcomer's hand. Nice, firm grip, she noted. He looked like a man who didn't fool around, too – there were solid muscles under the very expensive Italian suit. "Pleased to meet you."
"Likewise, Ms. Somerville."
Mason waved her to a seat. "Mr. Andopoulos flew in this morning from Europe. He wanted to meet you."
"Me? Why would a network executive want to meet me?"
Mason smiled. "I told you she was direct, Mr. Andopoulos."
"Stefan, please," he said. "Ms. Somerville…may I call you Tally..?"
She nodded. "Of course."
"Tally, I heard about the story you are working on."
Tally shot a quick, accusing glance at Mason. He spread his hands. "Didn't breathe a word. Honest."
Andopoulos smiled. It was a little predatory, she noted, the eyes black and hard like a shark's. "I have my own sources of information," he said. "But rest assured, your secret is safe with me."
"Look," Tally began, "I don't know what you want from me, but…"
"I do not want anything from you, except to see you succeed with this story," Andopoulos said. "I am only here to inform you that I am prepared to put my considerable resources behind your investigation. Whatever you need, no matter what it is, is yours with a simple vidphone call."
He handed her a plain white card with a vidphone number printed on it. "My private number. Any time of the day or night."
Tally took the card numbly, staring down at the number. She looked up again at him. "I don't know what to say."
"I am sure I do not need to explain to you what a story like this will mean to our network," Andopoulos said. "The business of news is growing more competitive every year. And pursuing an organization like International Rescue can become time consuming and very, very expensive." He paused, looking right into her eyes. "I would not want to hear that a lack of resources or information came between you and achieving this very worthwhile goal."
He stood up, offering his hand. "And now I will say good day, and leave you to your task."
Tally shook hands with him. "Thank you," she mumbled as he turned to Mason and said his farewells.
"No," he said, that predatory smile touching his mouth again. "It is I who should thank you. I know you will not let me down."
Tally stood watching him go. When he had crossed the outer office and turned out of sight towards the elevators, she finally let herself sink back into the chair. "What the hell was that?"
Mason gave a hard smile. "That, Ms. Somerville, was your career being made."
He would have been a great deal less sure of that fact if he could have been in the elevator going down into the basement of WNN with Mr. Stefan Andopoulos, member of the international board.
Otherwise known as the Hood.