Hour Six
The following takes place between 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. on the day Washington, D.C. was destroyed.
05:00:02
Jeff and Ruth raced into the hospital, leaving Scott and Penny waiting in Thunderbird 1. Their inquiries as to the International Rescue member brought in led them to a fourth-floor operating ward. Jeff recognized Dr. Crawford immediately. She was speaking with a physician in full surgical gear. Ruth stood by the viewing window, where she could see nurses dressing Alan's wounds and taping down various needles and tubes inserted into his body. Tears sprang to her eyes.
The surgeon turned away from Megan and stepped back into the operating room as Jeff strode over. "Dr. Crawford. Thank you for being here for Alan."
Megan turned and smiled when she saw who was speaking. "Hi, Mr. Tracy. Good to see you again," she said, shaking his hand. "Although I do wish it were under better circumstances."
"As do I. And please, call me Jeff. That way I can pretend I'm not old enough to be your father."
Megan laughed. She'd forgotten what a decent sense of humor this man had. The three days she'd spent in his company two years ago in Brazil had been enjoyable. They'd met by chance at a restaurant, where she'd recognized him from his mission to the Moon. They'd gotten to chatting that evening and had spent several hours over the next two days together, talking about what Megan did, about her family, her background. It was only on the afternoon of the third day, right before he was due to leave Brazil that she found out why he'd been grilling her so much. He wanted her to become an agent for International Rescue. She had never been more pleased or honored, and had readily agreed.
And now, even in the least pleasant of circumstances, he maintained the charming persona she remembered so well. She turned toward the surgeon, who was just returning. "All right, then. Jeff, this is Dr. Gray. He's the one who saved Alan's life."
Jeff stuck his hand out to the fifty-ish salt-and-pepper-haired man standing before him as Megan headed for the ladies room. "I can't thank you enough for what you've done, Doctor. Could you please give me the details?"
It wasn't really a question. It was more like an order. Dr. Gray cocked his head in surprise. Whoever this man standing before him was, he guessed it was a man used to being in command. And since the life he'd just saved belonged to a member of International Rescue...well, the good doctor was no dummy. Still and all, there were rules to be followed.
"I need to know your relationship to the patient. I can't disclose confidential information to just anyone."
Jeff closed his eyes. Damn. Damn, damn, damn. The doctor probably already had an idea as to his involvement with International Rescue at this point, but if he so much as had an inkling about his true relationship to Alan, it could pose problems. He turned to his mother. She understood immediately and pulled her wallet from her purse.
"Dr. Gray, my name is Ruth Tracy. Your patient's name is Alan Tracy. I'm his grandmother."
The doctor looked at Ruth's ID card and nodded before turning to Jeff. "And you, Sir?"
His face like stone, Jeff said, "I'll wait here."
Dr. Gray nodded. "Yes, of course. Mrs. Tracy, if you'll follow me to the waiting room just down the hall, we can discuss the patient's condition."
When they'd reached the security of the glass-walled waiting room, Ruth asked, "What are they doing to him now?"
"They're preparing him to be moved to Intensive Care, ma'am."
Jeff waited near the OR. Megan soon emerged from the ladies room and approached him. "Where'd everybody go?"
"The doctor is speaking to..." Jeff hesitated. Megan knew his full name, but not Ruth's or Alan's last names. "He's speaking to my companion regarding Alan's condition."
Megan frowned as she looked down the hall toward the waiting room. Why on Earth would Jeff have sent the woman to speak with the doctor and not gone himself?
"Please have a seat," Dr. Gray said, doing the same. "Now, whatever it was that happened to this man out there, it caused severe 3rd degree burns, but only over about 5% of his body. Luckily for him, the uniform he wore took the brunt of the heat. Must be some kind of special material. At any rate, I cannot be certain why his blood pressure dropped and his heart stopped earlier, but there is one possibility."
"Alan's heart...stopped?" Ruth asked, biting her lower lip.
"Yes, I'm afraid it did. We had to intubate him to get him breathing, and we had to use the atrial fibrillator to restart his heart."
"What's the possibility you spoke of?" she asked.
"Well, to be frank, I think young Alan took a severe blow to the head. It's possible that affected the automatic functions of his body, things like breathing and heartbeat. We'll go ahead and do some brain scans to determine if there is any damage."
Ruth came to her feet. "Can I see him?"
"Five minutes. And don't get in the nurses' ways."
She nodded and headed back to where Alan was still being prepared for the ICU. Noting that the doctor had gone the opposite direction, she motioned for Jeff to join her.
He entered the room musing that it wasn't the first time he'd been to a hospital to visit an injured son. Gordon had by far suffered the most frightening and severe injury to date, but it never failed to make his heart skip several beats when any of his boys were injured. Ruth quietly explained what the doctor had told her.
He was relieved to see that, as Dr. Gray had said, the terrible burns Alan had received were few and far between. His chest seemed to be rising and falling normally, and a look at the heart rate monitor told him something he already knew: his son was a fighter. He reached down and grabbed one of Alan's hands, swallowing the lump in his throat.
Then he bent down so that his lips were near Alan's ear and said, "I can't be here for you right now, son. But Grandma is here. She'll stay with you until you're better. Don't worry about anything. We'll find Gordon and Tin-Tin and we'll see they're brought home safe and sound. You concentrate on getting better so you can be there when they return." He drew back and stared at his unconscious son's face. Then he spoke once more. "I love you, Alan."
Standing in the doorway to keep watch for Dr. Gray, Ruth couldn't help the tears that escaped her eyes as she listened to her son's words. When the doctor rounded the far corner, she hurried to Alan's bedside.
"Jeff, you have to leave."
He nodded. "Take care of him for me, Mother." Taking one last look at his son, he turned walked out of the room.
05:13:59
"Dammit, there has to be a way outta this!" Gordon's frustration was more than apparent. Tin-Tin had never quite heard her unflappable housemate sound so...annoyed.
"If we're underwater, that probably means we're in a submarine. And judging by the pressure on my eardrums, I'd say we're fairly deep."
"Right," replied Gordon, who'd given up pacing and now sat against the far wall, knees tucked under his chin. "And that's the problem. We can't just escape through a hatch. If we're deep enough, the pressure would kill us as soon as we hit the water."
Still unwilling to let him stay out of her personal space for too long, Tin-Tin inched her way over and leaned on the wall next to him. "Depressurization Diving Suits."
"DDS's? But how do we know if they have 'em?"
"We don't," she sighed. "We also don't know where they'd keep them if they do."
"I know," he replied confidently. "I know exactly where they'd keep them."
"There's still the door," she reminded him gently.
"Tin-Tin?" he said, a smile on his face. "Prepare yourself. I'm about to play magician." Halfway across the room, Gordon nearly jumped out of his skin when she gasped. He whirled around to face the sound and said her name. When she didn't reply, he retraced his steps, hands low in front of him to feel for her so he wouldn't step on her. "Tin-Tin?"
"Gordon...Gordon..." Her breath was uneven and her voice made it sound like she was in pain.
He knelt next to her, one hand on her shoulder, the other on her leg. "What is it?"
"Oh, Gordon, it's Father!" she cried, unable to keep the tears at bay.
"What about him?"
"He's...he's dying!"
05:20:00
"Have you heard from Kyrano?"
"No, Father, I haven't been able to raise him."
"All right, Scott, I'm strapped in. Let's get back to Base."
"F.A.B. Here we go."
Thunderbird One's VTOL rocket fired and she lifted effortlessly into the air. Scott increased speed until he was doing well over 7,500 miles per hour. When at last she was cruising along, he decided it was time to ask.
"Father? How's Al?"
"I was just telling Penny. He's stable for now, son. They...they almost lost him. His heart stopped." Scott shook his head. He could hear the pain in his father's voice.
"He's intubated and on a ventilator. IV's, feeding lines, the usual. They were about to move him to Intensive Care when I left. Grandma's not allowed to stay in there with him, but she's going to hover outside."
Scott chuckled. "That sounds like Grandma. What about Dr. Crawford? Did she get off to the lab okay?"
"Yes. When I explained the situation to Dr. Gray, the doctor who saved Alan's life, he insisted on the hospital transporting her there in an ambulance so she could arrive as quickly as possible."
"All right. I'll radio Brains and let him know. They think they've got a line on how to stop those UH-3's. But from the sounds of it, Thunderbird 3's gonna have to launch."
"Thunderbird 3?"
"Yes. Whatever they want to make has to be dropped into the atmosphere."
"Scott? Patch me through to Brains."
"F.A.B. This is Thunderbird One calling Brains. Come in, Brains."
05:24:04
"This is, uh, Brains. Go ahead."
"Brains, this is Jeff."
"Hello, Mr. Tracy. Uh, how's A-Alan?"
"They're moving him to the ICU. He gave us a bit of a scare, but they've stabilized him."
"That's, uh, good news."
"Now what's this Scott's telling me about Thunderbird 3 and Southern California?"
"Well, Sir, uh, we may have discovered a method by which the outer layer o-of the devices can be kept from dissolving, which would mean the, uh, UH-3 would still be too protected to e-explode upon impact."
"How's the device work?"
"Y-You see, the UH-3 is kept protected within a thin shell made o-of polystelenium. Rate o-of descent e-ensures the shell will, uh, buckle a-as soon as it makes contact with a, uh, solid o-object."
"And what about this outer layer?"
"That's the, uh, most difficult part of the whole thing. Doctors Godfrey, Otayuki, Payne and I think we may have determined how the protective outer layers of the devices are shed during their descent through the, uh, rarified a-atmosphere."
"What's the problem?"
"We don't have the, uh, necessary ingredients to create what Thunderbird 3 will need to drop on them as they descend."
"Right, Brains. Where can you get what you need?"
There was a moment's hesitation before he replied, "My laboratory."
"Dammit!" Jeff swore.
"And, uh, it's not something I can do alone. I-I'll need extra hands and know-how."
Jeff took a deep breath. No matter what happened, things just got more and more complicated. "Scott, how far have we come?"
"We're ten minutes out."
"All right. Turn around and pick up Brains and the other scientists."
"F.A.B."
"Brains, Thunderbird One's turning around. We'll be with you in about ten minutes. Make sure Dr. Crawford's with you. It'll be cramped in the cargo space, but it's the fastest way to get you home."
"Yes, Sir, uh, Mr. Tracy. We'll be ready."
"Jeff, do you think it's wise to bring the other scientists to Tracy Island?"
"I don't know if it's wise, Penny, but at this point I see very little in the way of alternatives."
Penny nodded silently as she watched Jeff out the corner of her eye. His fists clenched and unclenched in barely concealed irritation. "Jeff?" she said softly.
He turned to look at her, his expression unreadable.
"Are you all right?"
"Honestly?"
"Always."
"No. I'm not. I swear, Penny, if anything else goes wrong, I don't know what I'm going to do."
Penny unbuckled herself and rose gracefully to her feet. She crossed to Jeff and crouched down to be eye-level with him. Laying her delicate hands over his, she said, "It will be all right, Jeff. You must believe that."
He knew she was trying to encourage him, but Jeff was starting to doubt the possibility of success. Sure, Alan was okay...at least for the moment. But they still didn't know exactly where Tin-Tin and Gordon were, or how they were. Then there was Kyrano, for whose life he feared. Thunderbird 3 having to launch meant Scott wouldn't be on the ground to help. With Brains winding up back at Base lab, that left Virgil as the only senior International Rescue operative in the field.
Full of doubt, Jeff squeezed her hands, looked into her eyes and said, "I wish I could believe that right now, Penny. I wish I could."
05:38:57
"Father! No!"
"Tin-Tin!" Not knowing what else to do, Gordon allowed himself to hold her as she launched into his arms, sobbing uncontrollably. He smoothed her hair with one hand and rocked back and forth slowly. "Oh...Gor-Gordon...he's...oh, Father!"
"Is he alone? What's happened to him?"
"I...I don't...know!" she cried. "His heart...his heart...I can feel it...it's so slow. Gordon...it's barely beating!"
Think, Gordo, think! There has to be something! And just like that, it came to him. "Tin-Tin...you said you didn't have your father's capabilities."
She just shook her head, soaking his sweatshirt with her tears.
"How do you know that? Have you ever...have you ever tried?"
Lifting her head, she sniffled as she thought about that. Well, truthfully, she'd never really tried to do what her father could do. She'd given it half-hearted attempts in the past, but had inherited her mother's impatience, or so Kyrano always told her. This meant that she couldn't sit still long enough to even try and bring her mind to the level that Kyrano insisted she must in order to reach out over distances, over time and space, over the very fabric of the universe.
"Not really," she finally replied.
"Try it."
"Try what?"
"I don't know. I don't know how it works. But maybe...maybe if you, well, if you think about his heart beating faster, maybe it'll happen?"
She wiped the tears from her face. "I'm not sure I can."
"You have to try. He's your father. You have to try!"
Nodding, she moved out of Gordon's arms and seated herself cross-legged on the floor. Folding her hands palm-to-palm in front of her, she took several deep breaths.
"What can I do?"
"I don't know. Stay here with me. Right here. I may need to draw from your energy."
"Okay." Gordon moved to sit in front of her. He crossed his legs Indian-style and laid his hands on his thighs. "Now what?"
"Close your eyes," she commanded, her voice suddenly steady. "Take a deep breath in through your nose. Hold it to the count of eight and release through your mouth."
He did as requested.
"Do it again. With each count of eight, with each breath you release, picture all your cares escaping your body. Feel yourself relax."
He nodded and continued to inhale, count to eight and exhale. Inhale. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8. Exhale. To his surprise, it was actually working. In spite of the fact that they were being held hostage, in spite of the fact that there seemed to be no escape, in spite of everything, Gordon felt himself relaxing.
"Yes, that's it," Tin-Tin said softly. "Now we must think of Father. We must concentrate on finding his mind. It will be difficult, Gordon. He is almost gone." On that last word, she choked back a sob. But she knew she had to keep her mind on what she was doing. She could only pray she and Gordon together would be strong enough to keep Kyrano alive until he could get help.
05:44:27
Things were going much more smoothly for Ned Cook than he'd anticipated. Over one thousand members of International Rescuees and their families had arrived. He'd already sent three planeloads of people to Barstow, Palm Springs and San Diego. A message from Jeff Tracy had advised him to appoint one or two people in each group as leaders. Before too much time had passed, Mr. Tracy said, those leaders would need to take charge of each group and explain instructions that would come after a few hours.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles International Airport was bursting at the seams with panicked Southern Californians who were trying anything they could to get out of the state. There had even been two attempted hijackings by overly desperate individuals, but those had been stopped thanks to the Airport Police. Ned just shook his head sadly as one of the monitors in the Horizon Club showed the chaos beyond. People were getting hurt, being trampled by others, doing things that they would never do under normal circumstances.
Unable to stand the self-imposed carnage of these people any longer, Ned did something he wasn't sure he should do. But that had never stopped him before, he thought, as he recalled that first run-in he'd had with Thunderbird One so long ago. He'd wanted his story, and footage of the great ship taking off. In spite of its pilot's insistence that he not take pictures, Ned went ahead and tried it anyway. He nearly laughed out loud as he remembered how Joe's film had been electromagnetically erased, and how incensed he himself had been. And now, here he was doing everything he could to help them keep their secrets.
"It's ironic," he whispered as he brought a microphone up to his mouth. Pressing a button, he rang Unity Airlines' central office. "This is Ned Cook in the Horizon Club."
"Reading you, Cook."
"I want you to patch me through to the general PA."
"I don't think we can do that."
"Don't think you can or don't think you will?"
"Why do you want widespread public address?" Before Ned even had a chance to respond, he heard another voice on Unity's end. After a short conversation, the person he'd been speaking to came back on the line. "All right, Mr. Cook. I'm patching you through now."
God bless Ray Archer, Ned thought. It really did pay to know the head of Unity's management. Okay, Ned. You need to save peoples' lives out there. Make this speech your best ever.
05:50:05
"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Ned Cook. Could I please have your attention?" He watched the monitor and was pleased that his voice still had this effect on folks after so many years in the business. For they were stopping, and they were shutting their mouths. "You may know me from my long-running television show. You may also know me from my association with NTBS. Or, you may be familiar with the fact that my life was saved ten years ago by International Rescue."
Mentioning the world's most famous...and right now somewhat infamous...heroes stopped the public cold in their tracks. Their faces turned up toward the ceiling as they waited to hear what he had to say. "Since you're all here trying to get out of Southern California, I will assume you're aware of what's happened. Aware of the fact that International Rescue is facing complete ruin as we speak. Aware that Washington, D.C. has been laid to waste and that the same has been threatened upon this area."
Several heads nodded.
"I want you to listen to me, and I want you listen carefully. The more out of control you get, the more you risk taking your own lives without the help of the madman behind all this. Don't do his work for him. Don't let him change you from sensible people into people as crazy as he is. Now, I know you want to get out of here. But if you do so in a calm and orderly fashion, you're more likely to get your wish than if you kill each other. Look at the person next to you. Do you know them? No? It doesn't matter. They have lives and families just like you do. They don't want to die any more than you do. They have a right to get out of here as much as you do. Would you kill your brother, your sister, your father, your mother, your children just to save your own life? Well all those around you are your brothers and sisters. We are all members of the human race. And we're facing a crisis. Let's work together to get out of it. Let's respect each other as fellow human beings. It isn't over 'til it's over."
Ned took a deep breath. He knew he couldn't say anything about what International Rescue was trying to do, for surely it would get back to Acronym somehow. So he decided to finish rather mysteriously, hoping it would be enough.
"And don't forget, Ladies and Gentlemen: there's always hope."
05:53:43
"Mole calling Mobile Control."
"Mobile Control here. Agent Fifty-Three speaking."
"53, I've just emerged from the White House. Or what's left of it, anyway. We found two survivors. One of them is the president."
"He's alive?"
"Yes. He's pretty beat up. They're loading him into the ambulance now. The other survivor is an as-yet unidentified female. She's unconscious, but not too bad off, I don't think. I'm gonna check out the caterpillars on The Mole, I thought one of 'em sounded funny. Work out where you need me next."
"Roger that, Mole. Contact me as soon as you're ready for deployment."
"F.A.B." Virgil exited the drilling machine and watched as the paramedics and firemen loaded President Grable and the woman into an ambulance and sped away. He was covered in soot and grime. "What I wouldn't give right now for a shower," he mumbled as he headed back to The Mole. He stopped for a moment and looked up at the wall of fire not twenty yards in front of him. While inside it, they'd discovered that a gas line had ruptured, apparently in a nearly perfect circle, around the perimeter of the White House grounds.
That's why they couldn't get the fire to go out. There were a handful of firemen trying to shut the gas off about a hundred yards due west, but so far they'd been unsuccessful. Virgil took his hat off and used it to wipe the sweat from his brow. First thing he'd do when he got back into The Mole was call up Scott in Thunderbird One. He desperately wanted to know how Alan was, and what was going on beyond the Danger Zone.
As he turned to head for the other side of the gigantic machine, six firefighters came running by, screaming and yelling at the top of their lungs. "Get back! Get back! It's gonna go! It's gonna blow!"
Virgil whirled around to look at the ring of fire. He heard a telltale hiss that turned quickly into a whine. He knew what that meant. "Oh, shit!" he yelled, turning tail. But before he could even lift a leg to run, it happened.
An entire ten-foot section of gas line in front of The Mole ripped apart. Gas whooshed through and, ignited by the already-burning fire, exploded in a deafening roar, sending forth a shockwave that slammed into Virgil's back like a speeding Mack truck. His feet left the ground instantly. Arms and legs flailing, he sailed through the air. Time moved in slow motion as he watched himself come nearer and nearer the ground...nearer and nearer to what was left of a torn up car. He cried out and tried to curl himself into a ball as he hurtled toward his destination.
As the flames behind him licked the tip of The Mole's massive bore, Virgil crashed into the cracked windshield of the car, smashing right through it. By the time the firemen who'd been running picked themselves up off the ground and made their way to the man from International Rescue, there was blood everywhere.
Virgil Tracy did not move.
05:59:58
05:59:59
06:00:00