Chapter Two
"They're the biggest quakes ever measured, Father!" John exclaimed as alarms rang all about him. "Nine point eight and nine point nine, one right after the other!"
"I felt them, John, but I don't think anyone else was awake at the time," Jeff said, receiving nods from his other four sons who'd just joined him in the Lounge. "What are the results, who's been hit the hardest?"
"To be honest, I can't make heads or tails of it. I should be getting more signals than I am, but it's like everything west of the tectonic plate joint has gone dark!"
That's when they heard it. Or rather, them. Simultaneous with a distinct and ear-piercing warning siren to John's left came a voice crying out for help.
"TSUNAMI! Oh my GOD!"
John quickly silenced the alarm, his already pale face turning at least five shades whiter. "Father, hurricane shields. Now!"
It hit the five men standing in the villa living room like a ton of bricks.
"Where's Kyrano?"
"Where's Tin-Tin?"
"I haven't seen him!"
"She said she was going to the lookout point!"
"I have to hit the shields now!"
"Where's Grandma?"
"Let me get 1 in the air!"
"There's no time!"
Jeff jumped up from his desk and grabbed Scott by the shoulders. "I've put the shields on a timer, son. Whether I'm back or not, get to safety."
Scott's deep blue eyes met the steely grays of his father. He nodded almost imperceptibly before watching the elder Tracy disappear through the sliding glass doors.
"Where's he going?" Virgil asked, moving to run after him.
"No!" Scott exclaimed, physically blocking Virgil's path. "Alan, have you located Kyrano?"
"Yes, he's in Storage Alpha, Scott!"
"Get him to safety."
"But Tin-Tin!" Alan cried. "She's out on the beach! She'll be killed!"
"Dad won't let that happen, Alan," Scott said, a firm hand on his brother's arm. "I'll see to it they both get back. Now go!"
"What's going on, did I feel an earthquake?" came a voice from the hall.
"Virgil, take charge of Grandma!" Scott whirled to face Gordon. "Help him!" He stopped and looked toward the open door. "Of all times for Brains to be at a goddamn conference," he muttered.
All with their assignments, they ran for it. Virgil picked his grandmother up and cradled her against his chest as they made their way to the observation deck above Thunderbird 2's hangar. Scott sprinted across the living room and out onto the patio, straining to catch a glimpse of his father. Instead, he saw Tin-Tin high-tailing it up the stairs.
"Get to the observation deck!" he barked. "Where's Dad?"
She skidded to a halt and turned to look behind her. "He was right there!" she cried. "Right behind me!"
"Shit," Scott swore. "Get to safety, now!"
"Scott!" John's voice called through both his picture in the living room and his older brother's wristwatch. "One minute, that's all you have! It's almost on you!"
The hurricane shields were going up. He had just enough time to hurdle the one in front of the door that separated him from the relative safety of the villa. Scott turned to run, only then hearing the cry from behind him. He stopped as though some higher power had hit the pause button, and in the blink of an eye took in the gigantic five-story wave nearly upon them, and Jeff Tracy taking the steps three-at-a-time.
Scott glanced back to the shielding which had nearly blocked his escape, then to his father again. He would never make it. There was no way. "Dad!" he yelled, as a sound akin to a rushing freight train deafened him. Launching himself toward the staircase, Scott reached out and for a sweet, happy moment felt Jeff's fingertips touch his.
It had, he considered, been smart to approach his destination by air rather than boat. After all, who knew what ramifications his handiwork would have to the fault east of Tracy Island, and what that would mean for the placidity of the South Pacific?
But at this particular moment, he didn't care. All attention was focused on his infrared. It appeared the tidal wave had completely knocked out the island's power, and there were what looked like large metal sheets covering what had probably been windows. It was his first time here, and he drank everything in like a small child on his first trip to the toy store.
As his helicopter approached from the southeast, he directed his pilot to land on the tarmac located at the island's south side, which was fairly clear save for palm tree debris. He instructed the remaining three 'copter pilots to land close to him. Each PP-90L Pave Hawk, besides its pilot, contained a dozen men trained by the best assassins and military personnel in Eastern Asia. And each man, through an oath made before the Gates of Hell itself, had sworn his undying allegiance to the Hood.
The six men that rode with him disembarked and just as quickly their comrades joined them. Belah was no fool; he'd given them instructions to reconnoitre the entire island while he sat in the relative safety of his bulletproof 'copter, blades whirling, ready to take off. This island was the top secret headquarters of International Rescue, and with all the technology at their disposal it was easy to imagine their defensive systems were nothing less than equal to the task of defending that secret.
He listened intently for any signs of life as his men moved quickly around, over and through the sometimes rugged terrain. Each of the buildings was inaccessible due to the large metal sheets covering every possible inch of them. But he could at least tell that one was circular leaving a large opening in the middle; then there was what appeared to be nothing more than living quarters, and he'd also seen a kidney-shaped swimming pool littered with debris.
Knowing the kind of science at their disposal, the Hood had one more trick up his sleeve. There would be no calls for help from Tracy Island, power or no power. Once he'd discovered how International Rescue had blocked cameras and video equipment from "seeing" their Thunderbirds, it was not a very large leap devising a way to cripple their communications.
As he watched, a glow surrounded the schematic of the island he had pulled up on the screen in front of him. The shield placed by one of his teams was up. It was so thoroughly disruptive to the entire spectrum of frequencies that not even he and his men could use standard communications devices. His solution basically jammed every frequency, making them all 'busy' so that nothing else could get through. Even a cell phone was impotent under this field.
The Hood could never really be certain how, but he knew that International Rescue communicated amongst one another while in the field, communicated with their base, which he was now on, and were able to do so even from underground. Unless they were tapping into every communications tower on Earth, which he deemed highly unlikely due to the potential for security breaches, they had to have a very powerful satellite of some sort handling everything for them.
He'd deduced that satellite was the talked-of but never seen Thunderbird 5. But even that was useless to them now thanks to him. The Hood couldn't help but let his triumph show upon his face; a look that for once, instead of making him look more menacing, actually made him look almost happy.
He turned his attention back to the matter at hand. It had been nearly thirty minutes since the tsunami had decimated this former paradise, and thus far there had been no signs of activity. If even one of the Tracys, however, had made it behind the shields that now blocked entrance to the structures he could see, or into some structure he could not, there could still very well be danger for him and his team.
"Is everyone all right?"
Slowly they unfolded themselves from various self-protective positions around the observation deck. Before anything else, Virgil could tell the power was off simply due to the eerie silence surrounding them.
"Watches, everyone, we need some light." Each of them duly turned the blank white screen of their wristwatches on to enable sight. Virgil checked on his grandmother, who rose to her feet with Gordon's assistance.
"Tin-Tin, you okay?" Alan asked.
She nodded and looked around, shining her watch to every corner of the room they occupied. "Alan? Where are Scott and your father?"
Gordon, Virgil and Alan exchanged glances as Tin-Tin rushed to her father's side. He was just coming to his feet and shared a small smile with his daughter before turning to face his best friend's sons. "Yes, where are they?" he echoed.
"Well, I thought Dad went to get you," Alan replied. "Didn't you see him?"
She nodded. "Yes, he came and ordered me to get to…well, here. He yelled at me to run as fast as I could."
Gordon frowned. "He didn't run with you?"
This time she shook her head, then nodded, then shook it again. "Well, he did, and I thought he was right behind me. But when I reached the top of the steps, Scott was there and asked where Mr. Tracy was. When I turned, I didn't see him! Scott told me to get inside and I ran as fast as I could to meet all of you here."
"Virgil?"
"I don't know, Al. I'm sure they're safe." Virgil switched his wristwatch to transmit. "Virgil calling Thunderbird Five. John, are you there?" His only response was silence. Virgil thought for a moment. "Now why isn't that working?" He looked around them. "It's obvious the power's out, but we transmit through Five directly…Virgil to Dad." Nothing. "Scott, come in."
Alan whipped the cell phone out of his jeans pocket, turned it on and frowned at the display. "What? No signal? What do you mean no signal?"
Gordon pulled his own cell out of his pocket and flipped it open. "Same here. No signal. How can that be?"
"There's something not right about this," Virgil said to himself. He turned to the others. "All right, we've got to get the generators on; at least if we have power we can use the computers to communicate."
"But Virgil," came the quiet voice of Kyrano from across the room, "What if everything below ground is flooded?"
"Could be. But we're down two and unable to communicate with anybody; I'm not just going to sit here and imagine what might have happened to them."
Gordon and Alan nodded their agreement in unison. Virgil went to a narrow line of cabinets in the wall, popped it open and grabbed several flashlights strapped to wristbands. As he addressed each of the others, he handed them one. "All right, here's what we'll do. Gordon, you're with me. We're going to see how far down we can get, and if we can reach the set of generators in the supply tunnels then we'll get them on. If we have to go underwater, I want our aquanaut by my side."
Gordon nodded gravely.
"Al, nothing's going to get these hurricane shields up if the power's still off, so unless there's a breach somewhere, we can't get out of here. I want you and Tin-Tin to search every inch of every above-ground structure you can. If you find a way out, you come back here. Gordo and I will also meet everyone back here."
"And what about me?" Ruth Tracy asked. "You don't expect me to just sit here on my hands!"
"No, Grandma, I don't. Whatever the situation is or is not outside, we're all going to need to eat. And with the power out, chances are the food's going to start to spoil. Make whatever you can make without power, and bring it back here. I have a mind we're all going to be pretty hungry once we regroup."
Ruth narrowed her eyes. "If I didn't know any better, Virgil Tracy, I'd say you were sending me to the kitchen just to keep me busy."
"No, I'm sending you to the kitchen because I want food!"
He stared out of the window, straining to see any signs of life. There was nothing but a cliff in front of him, with some sort of outlook above it. It seemed odd to him that there would be a runway but no visible hangar.
"No visible hangar," he repeated the thought aloud. "If there's no visible hangar for the pilots of the Tracy family, then there must be an invisible hangar." He knew damn well that the Tracys flew their own jets. More than once he'd seen photos of Jeff Tracy arriving at London Airport for charity events, always accompanied by that maddening woman who always wore pink. He'd also heard stories of the oldest son flying and landing jets, and even managed to get the tail number of one of them. Sure enough, it had been registered to Tracy's corporation. They had to keep them somewhere.
"Sir, if I keep the helicopter running we won't have enough fuel to make it back," came the pilot's voice from beside him.
"Shut down, but remain in your seat on high alert. I'm going out."
The pilot nodded and soon the whirlybird was silent, its rotors slowly churning themselves to a halt. Belah pulled the multi-fire laser rifle from where it had been resting on the floor between his legs. Its readout told him it was fully charged.
As he stepped out and then closed the door behind him, he felt a strange tingling at the base of his skull. If he wasn't bald, his hair would've stood on end. Whipping to his left facing the tall cliff, he held the laser rifle ready. But nothing moved. In fact, the island was quieter than he would have expected. There were not even any birds, but then maybe they'd been scared off by the tsunami.
His sixth sense told a different story. He lowered the gun and closed his eyes, picturing the darkened bronze statue of his brother that sat upon a dais at his palace in Malaysia. In his mind the beaded curtain surrounding it slid slowly open and the flames encircling it grew brighter.
"Kyrano," he intoned, raising his right hand into the air, palm open. "You're alive." He heard a cry in his mind and smiled.
Ruth had just finished mixing the rest of the vanilla yogurt from the refrigerator with the fresh mix of berries Tin-Tin had brought back from Auckland only the day before. She kept her mind on her task, too afraid to let it wander to where her son and grandson were; confident that they were fine and holed up somewhere safe. Stopping a moment to wipe her hands on the apron that covered her torso and legs, she then began spooning the mixture into a large plastic container.
Kyrano had been digging the cheese and other dairy products out of the fridge, but suddenly the rustling sounds stopped. Stirring with her right hand, Ruth turned, shining her flashlight across the room, expecting to see him standing there holding more than he should be trying to at once. The small anticipatory smile on her face quickly faded as her jaw dropped. The wooden spoon clattered to the floor, bits of yogurt splattering the cabinets, the floor and her legs.
For rather than standing before her looking sheepish with all manner of food in his arms, Kyrano was lying on the floor motionless. Her instinct was to slap her wristwatch but then she remembered that it wasn't working.
Ruth knelt at his side. "Kyrano," she said quietly, as though afraid of startling him. "Kyrano, can you hear me?"
His head began rolling from side to side and a guttural moan escaped his lips.
"Not again," she whispered. She rose and headed for the tunnel that would take her back to the observation deck, moving as fast as her nearly 80 year old legs would allow.
"Dammit, it looks like at least half the tunnels are flooded," Virgil said as he and Gordon made their way along the monorail track.
So far they'd tried five of the sixteen staircases that led into various parts of the bowels of Tracy Island. The fifth had been the only one left that would take them to the southeast side of the island, beyond the edge of the pool. That was where the largest backup generator was, with enough power for the entirety of the island's systems. He and Gordon agreed to give the monorail track a try. If they could at least get close to the cavern that was Thunderbird 2's hangar, then Gordon could make the dive to Thunderbird 4.
Only that morning he'd moved her out of Pod 4, and had abandoned the small sub to 2's left when the klaxon sounded. If nothing else, 4 had plenty of SCUBA gear for the duo to make it through the connective tunnel that would take them to Thunderbird 1's silo, past its launch pad and to the generators.
They would have been sealed off when the hurricane shields went, and were supposed to come on automatically when power went out. Virgil wondered if that area had been flooded as well, but a whooping cry from his brother stopped his train of thought.
"It's free! I can get in!" Gordon crowed.
"Finally, some good news!" Virgil said as he raced after his brother.
"Alan, come here. I think I've found something," Tin-Tin said, stretching up on her tiptoes and wiping the index finger of her left hand along the wall. "Look."
He came to her side and shined his wrist light in her direction, stepping closer as she held her hand out. He reached for it and touched it, then looked into her eyes. "It's wet. Where is that from?"
Tin-Tin turned and pointed up and behind her. "I don't think this shield held as well as the others," she replied.
Alan stepped forward, reached up and felt the wetness as well. That's when he saw the sliver of light. "There!" he pointed. "We found it! Let's get something to pry it open!"
"Alan, your brother told us to regroup in the observation deck, not to actually try to get out."
"But Dad and Scott are out there!" Alan huffed, angrily searching the living room for something he could use.
"You don't know that," she replied matter-of-factly. "Besides, there isn't anything here to—"
He frowned. "Tin-Tin? What is it?"
"Did you hear that?" she asked, laying a hand on his arm. "Listen."
Alan's ears perked up. "Yes. It's coming from the kitchen. Isn't that where Grandma and your dad are?"
The two ran across the living room and skidded to a halt in the kitchen doorway. They shone their wrist-lights around and gasped at the same time.
"Kyrano!"
"Father!"
Alan looked around wildly as she went to her father's side. "Where's Grandma?" he cried, shining his light everywhere. "Where is she?" With that, he sped out of the kitchen, leaving Tin-Tin to tend to her father.
High-tailing it through the tunnel that led to the observation deck, Alan very nearly ran the little old woman over. "Goodness sakes, you'll kill me yet!" she exclaimed.
"Grandma!" he said in relief, pulling her into a hug. "Where are you going? What happened to Kyrano?"
"He's having another attack, Alan," she said into his chest, and he released her. "I was running back here for help but got winded and stopped for a moment." She looked behind him and shone her light there. "Where's Tin-Tin?"
"She stayed with Kyrano. Listen, Grandma, you go back to the kitchen and help them, okay? I've got to find Virgil and Gordon and see if we can get through the shield in the living room. Tin-Tin and I found a crack between two of them, I know it can be pried open, but I need help."
"All right, Alan, but please be careful," she pleaded as he disappeared down the corridor.
Belah Gaat stood at the base of the cliff and looked upwards. His half-brother had become more effective at blocking his attempts to get information out of him from a distance. But when he was in this close of proximity, Kyrano's far weaker mind was no match for his own.
But where…where was the opening Belah had seen through that mind? As if in divine response, that's when he heard the faintest of sounds to his right, like trickling water. He moved in that direction where the cliff jutted out beside the tarmac. There. Not in the large cliff face proper, but in the rock next to it. Water. He reached up and only when he placed his fingers over the spot did he realize there was a crack there.
He leaned closer. It wasn't a jagged crack made from water pressure. It was a straight man-made one. He'd found the way in. All those soldiers combing the island and only he, with his own private line to the mind of his half-brother, had been the one to discover what they sought. He sneered, stepping back several paces and bringing his laser rifle to bear. "Let's just see what's behind Door Number One."