In light of recent events, I hesitated to post, but this scenario is coming to a close, and my prayers and thoughts are with those experiencing something entirely too similar, in London.
34
Spain: remains of the World Unity Complex-
In the end, they saved almost twelve-hundred people, some of whom remained firmly convinced that International Rescue had authored the problem, in the first place. But, when the tunnels finally collapsed, days later, everyone yet alive had made it to safety. Scott had kept his promise.
The last trauma patch was used on Parker, who rejoined the team, bleeding heavily from a messy gut wound. Grim and quiet, the driver submitted to Gordon's ministrations, giving Lady Penelope a certain, coded gesture before losing consciousness.
Parker recovered, Tania disappeared, and Penny opened a new World Gov surveillance office, several weeks later. In the meantime, her modeling career went on stronger than ever, her face being the one chosen to launch an entire clothing line and an unspeakably elegant parfumerie.
Amid smoke and debris, Cindy Taylor helped set up and broadcast Lady Murasaki's 'Address to the Nations'. In halting Spanish, Cindy instructed the local camera crew to focus on the Vice President's calm face and her vigilant Marine guards, rather than the truncated leg. The impromptu press conference was seen around the world and beyond it, and did, indeed, restore some order. It also saved International Rescue much of the trouble they'd been headed for, though not all.
As the team (Scott, Virgil, Gordon and Alan; Penelope had to distance herself, for security reasons) emerged into a sullen dawn from the mangled wreckage, an over-zealous police sergeant attempted to arrest them. Brandishing his service revolver, the sergeant-at-arms ordered them out of the collapsed structure, with their hands up.
Exhausted, battered and extremely sore after two-and-a-half days of non-stop digging, the boys were in no condition to resist. Fortunately, they didn't have to.
Cindy walked up to the sergeant, trailing a WNN-Espana camera crew. Smiling sweetly, she said,
"Hey there, Sergeant... Reyes, is it? Right. How would you like to become the modern face of police brutality?"
The cameras were off, and the crew not fluent in English, or her strategy might have backfired. Things were going her way, though, and Cindy was able to flex every fibre of that media muscle.
"Maybe you're just trying to make a name for yourself, mister; or maybe you're just stupid. I don't know. But, the Veep's already exonerated IR of all charges. They're heroes, Bright Boy..., and, if you slap a cuff on any one of these guys, I'll doctor up some footage showing you abusing them, the refugees... Hell, even the dog, there. Amazing, isn't it, what you can do with digital images?"
As Scott and the others looked back and forth from smudged and grubby reporter to bewildered victim, Cindy continued,
"Oh, sure... I'll get found out and reprimanded, eventually. But, so what? I wait two months, then write a tell-all book, cry my eyes out on a few talk shows, and I'm back in, stronger than ever. You, on the other hand, will be under suspicion for the rest of your damn life. Pictures are much stronger than words, Fella, and once I'm through with your reputation, you won't be able to get a job guarding a portable crapper. Now...,"
Reyes, his chubby face pink and flustered, looked wildly around, brown eyes darting this way and that as though seeking help from rock and twisted steel. Cindy almost felt sorry for him.
"...if I was you, I'd let these guys go, and if I was you," she turned to wink at Scott, "I'd make tracks. Quick-like."
Scott thanked her, later.
'Toreador', President Carlo Moreira, had been lost, together with all but one of the Swiss Guard. Lady Murasaki served out the rest of his term, but refused to seek re-election. After the worst of the chaos had ended, she had a new leg grown from stem cells and grafted into place, and was remembered for many years afterward as one of the World Government's most dynamic and capable leaders.
But, as Tania had indicated, it wasn't over. The senator had learned from his failed experiment. Still at large, his identity secure, he meant to try again. Speaking to a hard-eyed lieutenant from the confines of his DC office, he said,
"You don't kill the snake by attacking its body. You have to find and cut off the head. WorldGov is being protected by International Rescue... and International Rescue has a leader."
Looking up, suddenly, his tone shifted like a whip crack from musing to flinty.
"I want him, whoever he is. I want him found, captured, and brought to me. And then, when they're floundering around leaderless... and we've got IR by the short hairs... we strike again, and we finish the job."
Idly spinning his desk globe, letting his finger track across ocean and continent until it came to rest on the Republic of Texas, the senator remarked,
"Technology and heroism are no match for a man with a vision, Vargas..., not when he's willing to die for it. Let's see just how far they're willing to go for theirs, shall we?"
Spain-
'They' at the moment, had other things on their mind. Ready to depart the ruins, they were not, at first, too keen on bringing home a dog.
"His former owners probably have family," Scott objected, reasonably enough, after Gordon tried to sneak Scout aboard Thunderbird 3. "They'll want their dog back, Gordon. You know that."
The teenager scowled. With a brief, unwilling nod, he shifted his grip on the small dog, saying,
"So, I'll poke about, Scott; post a few computer hand bills, or somethin'... but if no one claims him...," He had to leave off talking, for a bit, as the terrier had begun licking his face. "...if no one speaks up, then we're still best mates, an' he stays with me."
Virgil was biting his lip, trying hard not to laugh.
'Thanks, pal.'
"Fine," Scott gave in at last, because he was tired, they'd been away long enough, and he didn't really feel like arguing. "But I'm not cleaning up after him."
Then, rubbing at the back of his aching neck, as Gordon and Alan hurried off with Scout,
"C'mon, Virge... I'll give you a lift back to the Mole." Or, to its tunnel, anyhow. Thunderbird 1 could no more dig than the Mole could soar.
At any rate, by their various means, the boys returned to the Island, having gained one small, bold recruit, and several new operatives. They were welcomed with relief and hugs, and (from TinTin and Gennine, at least) tears.
Brains saw to the healing of Scott, Virgil and Alan, while TinTin patched Gordon up, laser-sealing his stitches and slashed chest. She quite liked the dog, allowing Scout to curl up close beside Gordon while he slept off his treatment.
Three days later, they said goodbye.