Brazil

by J. Ferguson a.k.a. Timeless A-Peel

Disclaimer: I don't own The New Avengers, nor the characters of Mike Gambit, Purdey, and John Steed. Sadly. They're the property of The Avengers (Film and TV) Enterprises, and this story is for entertainment purposes only.

Timeline: Sixth in a series. Takes place in late February/early March, 1977, near the start of the second season, probably shortly after the events of Hostage and the year-later bits of Gnaws and The Last of the Cybernauts...? It is strongly recommended, but not essential, that you go back and read the previous stories in the arc, Aftermath, Dance With Me, The Anniversary, and Merry Christmas, Mr. Gambit.

Author's Note: Inspired by one throwaway exchange in Angels of Death, this is the piece I completed most recently. Meant to explain a few things that went on in the show's second season, it also sets up the rest of the arc in terms of the characters. All the other fics have been fairly plot-light, more or less character studies. I have fun doing character sketches. What can I say? But this one's got a bit more going on in the background, and it sets the tone for the next few stories, a bit darker than I've been posting thus far (nothing too terrible though). Also, this one's long. Really long. Really, really long. And I'm trying to edit it with what little spare time I have. So expect to see this one to be updated for months as opposed to weeks. I hope you enjoy it.

For more information about the series, please see my profile.

It was hard to know how far they walked. Charlie and company's route was rife with twists and turns, but Purdey wasn't certain if the convoluted route was meant to confuse her, lose possible pursuers, or was just an unintended consequence of trudging through untamed wilderness. They were far enough away that the sounds of the gun battle were fading into the distance, and Purdey held onto the faint hope that she'd be able to take out Charlie and his friends and use the discord to guide her back to the camp. It was looking increasingly unlikely, though—neither man had loosened his grip on her arms, not even when she stumbled over roots and other debris in the darkness. She tried going limp once or twice, but that only made them drag her over the rough terrain, and that was even more painful. After the first dozen bruises, Purdey gave up and focused on saving her strength for the inevitable confrontation with Charlie's lord and master. Maybe he'd let his guard down—the masterminds always did.

The four of them eventually broke through the trees, and Purdey, blinking at the light of a newly uncovered moon, found herself looking over edge of what was a very steep drop. Between the forest floor and the edge an area had been cleared, maybe twenty feet in width. The drop itself wasn't sheer, but steeper than any rolling hill in England—hard work either uphill or down, and even harder if you tripped and let gravity take its course. Purdey wasn't certain which frightened her more—the idea of going over the edge, or the fact that she was feeling desperate enough to try it. Because she'd seen the 'boss' now, surveying the jungle below like a warlord tallying up his spoils. He had a pair of friends from the same high class as Charlie's restrainers, but Purdey wasn't nearly as concerned about them. The man, standing there, bathed in shadow and moonlight, looked like some sort of phantom, risen from a long dead past to haunt her. Purdey felt a chill run up her spine, and bit down hard to prevent her fears finding their way onto her face. Charlie was walking their little foursome over to join the others, and she took the time to gather her wits for the interrogation she was certain would come.

The phantom turned only when Purdey had been brought to stand before him. Purdey got her first good look at him, and wasn't certain if it made her feel better or worse. The man was blond, with blue eyes that shone brightly in Charlie's torchlight and a boyish, easy smile that spread across his face the minute he caught sight of Purdey. He looked as though he wouldn't hurt a fly, the good old boy who'd be the first to crack wise and buy you a drink. In Purdey's eyes, it only made things worse.

"So," her boyish phantom said to Charlie, eyes wandering over Purdey's frame, "this is her, is it?"

Charlie nodded in confirmation. "'S right. Just like you asked."

"Good, good," the blond man said thoughtfully. "Do you have any idea who I am?" he asked Purdey, eyes filled with genuine curiousity.

Purdey feigned deep thought. "Let's see," she mused, as though she were merely deciding between coffee or tea at a stylish restaurant. "As you've mounted an attack on the surveillance team, I'd say you were Jeremy Pym, or at the very least one of his inner circle."

"No, no," Pym assured with a smile. "You were right the first time. I'm Pym. You've heard of me then?"

Purdey shrugged unconcernedly. "Only from the others."

Pym cocked his head to one side. "Only from the others?" he queried. "Nowhere else?"

Purdey scowled. If there was one thing worse than a diabolical mastermind, it was a publicity-seeking diabolical mastermind. "You may have popped up in the papers once or twice years ago," she said casually, "but then I pay more attention to the crossword."

Pym's face split into a huge grin, and he chuckled contentedly to himself. "You disappoint me, my dear. You may only know me as a name and a headline, but I know you very, very well—Purdey Bryde."

Purdey didn't like the way he said her name, spat with a mixture of contempt and outright hatred. She squared her shoulders—a difficult task with her arms still held securely—and looked Pym in the eye. "You can't expect me to be impressed with your remarkable ability to read a passenger list," she said dryly. She'd used a fake identity to enter Brazil, but it was easy enough to figure out her real alias if one knew the right people, and there was no doubt in her mind that Pym did.

"No, I suppose not," Pym agreed with a slight nod of the head, "but I know you from much more than a plane trip."

Purdey snorted. "If this is about the delivery, you're wasting your time. I was only a courier. I don't have the slightest idea what was inside the case."

"Do you think I give a damn about the case?" Pym chortled. "Oh, my dear Miss Bryde, you're all I'm interested in. You and your admirable courage in taking up the family business."

Purdey really didn't like the way he said that, nor the implications. How did this man know about her family? The world lurched sickeningly. "What…?" she managed weakly.

"Jonathan Bryde," Pym elaborated, pacing back and forth like a caged animal. "Civil servant. Euphemism for agent, really, wasn't it?"

"You knew my father?" Purdey asked in a daze.

Pym smirked. "'Knew' is putting it mildly. He was a thorn in my side for years. Had his eye on me, tracked my every moment, and finally, one day, he uncovered my dealings while I was collaborating with another company on government business. Board of Directors let a spy into their midst, and I had to run. But he didn't give up." The anger was building up now.

Purdey smiled with pride. "He was stubborn," she said, knowing her father's hard-headed persistence was matched only by her own.

"Damnedly so," Pym agreed, meeting Purdey's eyes and returning the smile. "But it was his undoing in the end."

Purdey felt all the levity drain out of her. "I don't understand."

Pym walked right up to her, leaned in until his face was mere inches from hers. She could feel the warmth of his breath, even in the pleasant night. "He couldn't let me go," he hissed, "even after I'd fled the country. He tracked me. Here."

Purdey's jaw dropped, and if it weren't for the two men still clutching her arms, she might have collapsed. The pieces fell into place with sickening clarity. "You," she whispered, then again, with feeling. "You! You killed my father!"

Pym's smile widened. "There we are. I knew you'd come up with the answer eventually."

Purdey was struggling against the hands now, and for the first time her handlers were unsure of their ability to hold her. Purdey's face was a mask of hatred, angry tears sliding down her cheeks as she screamed at Pym's back. "You bastard! You killed him, all alone, out here! He didn't have his gun, and you shot him, like a coward! You ruined everything!"

"He ruined everything for me!" Pym yelled back. "It wasn't as though I didn't give him fair warning. I sent someone to your house, years ago, to take care of you and your mother."

Purdey's eyes widened, mind flashing back to the day the bullet had crashed through the window, and visions of her mother dragging the family's antique Purdey off the wall—and using it. "That was you?"

Pym shrugged. "I didn't particularly care if he did the job, just as long as he got the message across. But apparently daddy didn't love you enough to take up a desk job."

"Stop it!" Purdey screamed. "You didn't know him! If that's true, he did what he did to protect us!"

"Oh, I knew him," Pym said quietly. "Better than you ever did, because I was the only one there when he died. I know what he said, and how he looked. I can still see him, standing there, looking just as you do now. The resemblance is quite striking in places. The jaw's dead on, and the colour of the eyes." He reached out and ran a finger along Purdey's lower jaw, and she recoiled violently. "But I do agree with you—shooting him wasn't the honourable way to end things, but I couldn't risk getting any closer. But you—well, you're not going to do much of anything, are you? Charlie's men will make certain of that. Bryde cheated me with his death, but I think after this, I'll have finally settled the score. He would have done anything to protect his precious daughter, but as he's not here, I can do things properly this time. Intimately." As he spoke, he withdrew a very long, very wicked knife from his belt, and aimed it casually at her throat. "I had it made special," he said conversationally. "It's perfectly balanced."

Purdey resisted the urge to flinch away as the blade traced over her clavicle and started the slow journey toward her neck. She didn't dare swallow, so much as twitch, not when she could feel the cool metal's sharpness against her skin. Pym slid the tip under the fine gold chain she wore around her neck, turning it this way and that so he could watch it glint in the moonlight. "How long do you think you could last," he wondered aloud, "if I took my time?"

Despite her pounding heart, Purdey fixed him with a poisonous stare. "I'd be more worried about how long you'll last when my colleagues find you," she growled.

Pym snorted, and Purdey felt the blade nick her at the base of her throat. "That lot back at the camp? Anyone who survives will be evacuated within the next 24 hours. No one's going to come looking for you, Purdey. Not for a long, long time."

Purdey smiled madly. "You're behind on your reading," she mocked. "Otherwise you'd know who I meant. If you kill me, that'll only bring them here, and I can promise you that it won't be—"

She was cut off as a shot rang through the night, and Purdey looked over Pym's shoulder just in time to see Charlie's huge frame fold to the ground. There were voices coming from the forest, and Purdey realized that a small segment of the fight had drifted this far. That meant at least one reinforcement, maybe more. She wasn't the only one whose attention had been diverted—Pym, knife still in place, was glancing over his shoulder, riveted on Charlie's still form. The loosened grip of the other two men on her arms also spoke of broken concentration. Purdey knew she wouldn't get another chance.

She planted her foot in the middle of Pym's chest and pushed, using the leverage to pull free from the other two. Pym staggered back with such force that he lost control of his knife, and the blade swept down and across her clavicle, before arching back up and tangling up in her chain. Purdey felt the links dig into the back of her neck, even as she became painfully aware of the precariousness of her footing on the ledge. Time stopped, as Purdey, arms windmilling madly, felt gravity slowly take hold, and the chain tighten to breaking point. The metallic snap seemed deafeningly loud, and then the metal was no longer biting into her skin. Unfortunately, it was the only thing that had been keeping her on the right side of gravity. Purdey felt herself falling, tried desperately to right herself, hands grasping for a something, anything, even Pym, to cling to, but to no avail. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as her feet lost their purchase on the cliff and she started the long trip down into the darkness.

She didn't actually fall for very long, instead making contact with the side of the hill a few feet down. She hit it hard, and wrong, with no time to brace herself, and she cried out in pain as her right side took the full brunt of the impact. She heard bone crack, and knew she'd fractured both wrist and ribs, at the very least, but there was no time to think, to dwell, to do much of anything except protect her head as she rolled down, down, down.

Rocks added to a growing collection of bruises. Branches tore at her clothes and skin. Purdey could smell blood mixed with her sweat, felt the sting of a hundred cuts and gashes over her unprotected arms. Why hadn't she put her jacket back on before she'd left the tent? Another part of her brain pointed out that it wouldn't have done much good. Her trousers had already caught and torn on several types of Amazon foliage, and she could feel the cool breeze on the newly exposed skin. She tried her best not to make anymore noise, not to grunt as she clipped yet another tree trunk, lest Pym and his men decide to give chase, but she'd already stirred up enough birds to make the goal redundant. Besides, all Pym would have to do was follow the swath she was cutting through the jungle. On the other hand, she tried to tell herself, maybe Grieve's people can use it to find me.

I hope they know first-aid.

Until now, the slope had been steep, but short of a sheer drop. Purdey found herself missing it as it suddenly disappeared, and she was once again falling through the thin air. She screwed her eyes shut and prayed that the drop wasn't far, but the way her body felt from the trip, she wasn't certain if death-by-impact was such a terrible fate after all.

As it turned out, the drop was another short one. Purdey took the impact on her back this time, but some of the foliage took her side for a change and cushioned her fall. Nevertheless, she lay for a moment, dazed and disoriented, staring blankly up at the forest canopy. After a few minutes, she mustered the wherewithal to start taking a mental inventory of her injuries. Her ribs and wrist were definitely the worst off, but the rest was no more than cuts and bruises. Purdey breathed a tentative sigh of relief. The worst was over. All she needed to do now was find her way back to the camp. There was no sign of Pym's people, and she knew who to look out for. She'd be all right. After all, she'd survived worse than this, was always getting the stuffing knocked out of her, and she always managed to survive.

No, wait, that's Mike. Well, if Mike Gambit could do it, so could she.

Purdey shook off thoughts of him and home, and set about propping herself gently up on her elbows with the intention of getting her bearings. In the end her gaze didn't move much beyond her torso. Purdey felt her heart stop. There, illuminated by the light of the moon, was a tarantula, currently moving up her leg at a slow, leisurely crawl. A few inches up, on her thigh, Purdey could see a portion of exposed flesh where her trousers had torn away. And the tarantula, damn it, had just chosen this particular spot to have a rest.

Purdey lay very still, willing herself not to breathe, not to think, not to do anything that might disturb the creature. She didn't know for certain if it was poisonous, but she wasn't interested in finding out. At the very least, it seemed uninterested in this trespasser in its natural environment, content to crouch on what was no doubt a very warm and pleasant place to be.

Gambit would agree, at least, she thought to herself, settling in to wait the oversized arachnid out.

She might have done it, too, if the shooting hadn't started again, somewhere above. It was so sudden, Purdey couldn't help but start in surprise. And the tarantula, disturbed from its pleasant doze, took its revenge.

Purdey screamed in fear and agony as the fangs dug into her skin. The tarantula scuttled off with the satisfaction of a job well done. But Purdey was left gaping at a quickly swelling mass on her leg. This time there would be no Gambit to run a target range for antidote, no Steed to drive while Mike tended to her in the back seat. No one to come to her rescue. She was going to die here, alone, just as her father had eleven years before, a fate she was certain she'd avoid with two friends to share in the adventure. But even Mike Gambit and John Steed couldn't leap across oceans and continents. Not in time, anyway. Purdey felt a single tear trickle down her cheek. You were right, Mike. I shouldn't have come.

But as she slowly gave in to the blackness, she could have sworn that the shadows looming over her were human in shape…

Beside her, embedded in the ground blade first, was Pym's knife. As Purdey slipped away into unconsciousness, a hand dislodged it and lifted it, point first, over her body.

Someone screamed.