Part Twenty

Travis was on the edge of the valley, staring in awe at the steel construction towering above him, when he heard a boy's cracked, hoarse voice pleading for time to get his brother to the ground. He started to skirt the radio dish and its supporting structure as quickly and quietly as he knew how, following the ever-moving shadows cast by the metal latticework. He froze, uncertain, when he saw Villacana, face cold and revolver raised. The man stood in the deep shadow at the base of the dish's main support, silhouetted against a door into the hill from which red smoke was pouring in a gradually thinning stream. There was a flush on the man's face that betrayed more anger than Travis had ever seen on it. Without being able to see Scott and Gordon Tracy, hidden for just a few heartbeats behind a girder, Travis knew they were in serious, most likely deadly, danger.

He raised his rifle desperately, knowing he didn't have time to aim and fire before the boys re-emerged into open view. When they were in full sight, it would be too late. There would be no way he could be sure of taking out Villacana without him getting a lethal shot, voluntary or involuntary, off first.

He didn't know who was more astonished, him or Villacana, when a wild-looking boy swung around the steel frame of the radio dish and fired a flare into the ground at point blank range. The effect was immediate, flooding the valley with choking smoke, a violent, actinic light that burnt even through closed eyelids, and a roaring hiss of reacting chemicals. As quickly as light had flooded the shadows below the dish, thick smoke cut visibility down to nothing. The sharp report of a gunshot was almost lost in the chaos, but even so Travis' heart ran cold, knowing there was only one possible source and wondering just how high a price Scott Tracy had paid for his courage. Swinging his rifle back over his shoulder, he dropped to his hands and knees, taking a deep breath. He crawled forward into the smoke, coughing hard, but determined to find out what was happening.

There was movement, a sharp sound, and suddenly the air was clearing. Travis was back on his feet in an instant, brushing the gritty soil from his hands. His rifle swung up towards where he'd last seen Villacana, aiming as an indistinct shape swam out of the fog.

The island's petty dictator stood in the narrow strip of cleared ground between the carved-away hillside and the metal structure it sheltered. His gun was still in his hand, but his eyes were streaming, his chest wracked with coughs. Beyond him, standing in a doorway where the last hints of red smoke mingled with a fog of green, Vaughan was aiming his own weapon at Villacana, the man caught in the crossfire between the two detectives. What no one was expecting was the gun in Scott Tracy's hands, the young teenager aiming its short, wide barrel unwaveringly at his captor's chest.

Still coughing, Villacana took one look at the circle of firearms pointing in his direction and then down at the revolver in his own hand. For a split second, the barrel jerked upwards, and three fingers tightened on their triggers. Then Villacana seemed to think again. The gun fell from limp fingers and he kicked it aside, just as he had the flare seconds before.

Travis gasped, the last of the smoke tickling the back of his throat and leaving a chemical taste in his mouth. He flicked the safety onto the rifle, letting it swing back on its strap. He was vaguely aware of Vaughan handling Villacana. The older man strode forward, knocking their prisoner to the ground, hauling his hands behind his back and securing them quickly. Villacana lay passive, letting himself be manhandled, his eyes now as blank and empty as the rest of his expression. Travis was aware of it happening, storing the images for later analysis. For the moment, he simply didn't care. His attention was firmly elsewhere.

The taller of the two boys was pale, his cheeks flushed and his chest shuddering as he panted in the pale green mist. Dark brown hair, the same shade as his father's, hung limply around bloodshot and deeply sunken cobalt-blue eyes. The boy looked as if he could barely stand, and there was a worrying fever-sheen to his eyes. Despite that, he was watching Vaughan, Travis and Villacana with intense concentration and uncertainty. One hand held the flare gun, still raised. The other held a much younger boy behind his back, his eyes throwing down a challenge to anyone who might want to get to his little brother.

The smaller child was peering around his brother, clinging to the back of his shirt as if to a lifeline. The boy's amber eyes were red from crying, his face sun-burned and flushed under an unruly thatch of his mother's copper hair. His expression oscillated between relief, uncertainty and sheer exhaustion, his lips trembling. The six-year-old met Travis's eyes with a look of helpless defiance that made the detective's heart ache.

Travis had been gazing at these faces for two days. Even now, he carried a photocopy of their brother's picture, folded up in his breast pocket. They had been shipwrecked, lost and stumbled across a criminal enterprise so huge that even Travis was still getting his head around its implications. They were clearly on the last of their reserves, burning energy they didn't have to spare. Even so, Travis would recognise Scott and Gordon Tracy, recognise the spirit their brother had captured in their images, anywhere.

He took a step forward, overwhelmingly relieved, and froze when Scott swung the flare gun around to face him, swaying dangerously himself in the process. The boy wheezed, his little brother's hand on his back now as much for support as their mutual comfort.

"Scott, it's all right. I'm Inspector Travis. I know your father."

Scott flinched and Gordon shifted uncertainly, the reaction confusing Travis for a moment. He wondered how many times someone had approached Jeff Tracy's sons with that sort of comment and how often they'd been warned against it.

"I'm with the Domingan Police," he tried again. "I'm here to take you back to your mother."

"Jim Dale sent us, Scott." Vaughan's intervention was welcome.

Scott's flare gun wavered and he blinked, coughed and then squinted, blinking again to clear his watering eyes. Gordon started to step out from behind him, and Scott held the small boy back with a hand against his chest. "I want to see some ID," he gasped. "Both of you."

There was something surreal and a touch ludicrous about searching his jacket for his formal ID card, holding it out for a swaying teenaged boy to see, with the whirring motors of the radio telescope above them, and the silence of the jungle all around. He and Vaughan edged forward through the moving shadows, cards held out in front of them, leaving an apparently unconscious Villacana to be dealt with by the uniformed officer who'd followed Vaughan.

Scott Tracy let them get almost within arm's length as he peered at the small cards. They both froze when he looked up, an expression of total exhaustion on his face.

"Mr Vaughan?" he ventured, the raw sound to his voice and the wheeze that followed it making Travis wince.

Vaughan smiled, relief and satisfaction obvious in his eyes. "Yes, Scott, your mother…"

"You'll get Gordy home to Mom?" the boy asked, voice barely above a whisper.

"We'll get you both home," Travis promised. "Your family are waiting…"

Scott gave a small sigh as he folded up, slumping bonelessly. Travis dived forward, catching the boy's head and shoulders, while Vaughan dived for the primed flare gun slipping from his limp fingers. Gordon managed to slip between them, calling out his brother's name and shaking his shoulder as Travis lowered the older boy carefully the ground.

"Scott!"

The little boy was crying now in earnest, and Vaughan caught him up awkwardly, putting the flare gun carefully down by his side and standing as he tried to deal with the squirming child in his arms.

"Gordon! Gordon, it's okay. We're going to take Scott to a doctor," Vaughan promised softly. He glanced down, catching Travis' worried eyes as the detective looked up from a quick assessment.

"I'm not sure what's wrong, but he's having trouble breathing, not to mention burning up. We ought to get him back to Dominga. A.S.A.P."

Both men felt a surge of relief as a second helijet flew overhead, circling the radio dish for a few seconds before moving off to find a landing spot. Their reinforcements had finally arrived. Gordon took advantage of their distraction. He squirmed free, landing on the ground at Vaughan's feet with a wince and kicking the flare gun to one side as he hurried to get to Scott's side.

Vaughan yelped, scrambling to pick the gun back up. "Gordon! Be careful with that!"

One hand stroking Scott's hair back from his flushed face, Gordon looked up with a puzzled frown.

"Why? It's not loaded."

The detectives shared an incredulous look that faded into mingled amusement and exasperation.

"Now he tells us." Travis shook his head, reaching down to gather Scott into his arms. He stood, straight-backed, pushing upwards with his legs and resting the tall boy's head against his shoulder. Small hands steadied him as he adjusted to the weight and he looked down, meeting bright, worried eyes with a grateful smile.

"You said you'd bring us to Mom. She'll make Scotty better," Gordon insisted, pulling urgently at Travis' dusty brown slacks.

Vaughan nodded gravely, and Travis felt the same urgency as Scott gasped in each unsteady breath, cradled against his chest.

"Up through the house would be fastest," Vaughan suggested, leading the way.

They moved quickly into the narrow rock-cut corridor, Gordon following Vaughan but glancing frequently behind him. Travis carried Scott after them, ducking slightly to avoid the last lingering wisps of red smoke. Gordon frowned as they came out into a room filled with flashing lights and complex electronics, ignoring the light show and looking instead at the non-descript wall panel they were entering through.

"Gordon?" Vaughan asked, pausing as the boy stopped.

"We didn't know that was there," the small boy commented. He turned to look around the room and his frown deepened. "Shouldn't we turn the override off? Uncle Jim didn't like it."

Vaughan and Travis exchanged cautious looks, Vaughan squatting down in front of the child.

"You know, Gordy, I think that would be a very good idea, but I'm not sure how."

Gordon nodded, throwing his brother a quick, worried look, and then ran across to the control chair, stabbing a button there before Vaughan could stop him. The red light illuminating the button faded, leaving nothing but orange plastic and a transparent cover that Gordon lowered carefully across it. The two detectives let out a shared sigh, relieved that nothing more catastrophic had happened.

"Thought… thought I told you… not to push any buttons."

Travis looked down, startled by a glimpse of heavy-lidded blue eyes and the wheeze from the boy in his arms.

"Scotty!" Gordon ran back to his side, looking up anxiously and sighing in disappointment when Scott's eyes drifted closed once again. This time, Gordon didn't linger, taking Vaughan's arm and practically dragging him across the room to the way out, looking back to be sure Travis and Scott were following behind him.

"Scott? Scott! I want you to wake up because we're nearly there. We're going to Dominga, Mr Vaughan says, and Mom will be there and the doctors will make you all well again and everything will be okay and Inspector Travis says we're going as fast as we can, and you'll be okay when we get to the hospital."

Gordon's stream of words dragged Scott to consciousness. There was a worryingly hysterical tone to the little boy's voice, and when Scott opened his eyes, very wide amber irises met his dark blue. Scott was lying on his side, the familiar vibrations of a helijet all around him. Gordon was crouched beside the seats he was lying across, wiping his older brother's face with a damp cloth and talking non-stop.

Scott drew in a shallow breath, and even that made his chest tighten, the banked fire in his lungs flaring up again. Gordon heard his gasp and leaned forward.

"Scotty!" he cried happily. Scott could hear the voice of an adult in the background, a man asking how he was feeling. He only had ears for his little brother. "Scott, it's okay. Mr Vaughan and Inspector Travis caught the bad guys and everything's fine now, and Mr Vaughan is sending someone to tell Uncle Jim we're okay, and we're almost there, and John and Allie are there too, Mr Vaughan says, and we'll be back with Mom just like you said."

Weak, feverish, Scott's spirit faltered. Gordon had said Mom and Alan and John were all waiting. How long had they been waiting for news? They must have realised the Santa Anna had been lost in the typhoon, but had they given up, or kept hoping – desperately wanting not just Scott and Gordon but also Dad and Virgil back? How could he tell them that his father and closest brother had been swept away by the storm? How could he face them, giving them back Gordon, but admitting that he'd watched Virgil fall into the water and done nothing?

"Scotty!" Gordon was still shouting at him, but he felt other, larger fingers pressing at his neck, feeling for his pulse. Gordon was safe now. That was all that mattered. Scott slumped back into oblivion not sure if he wanted to wake up.

Virgil sat pensively in his wheelchair, one arm around Alan's waist, trying to keep the little boy still in his lap, and to resist holding the arms of the chair too obviously as Johnny attempted to steer them in a straight line. Doctor Mina said he still had to use the chair for getting from his own ward to his Dad's room and back again. Virgil thought he could probably walk it, but after the struggle it had taken just to get to the bathroom and back again, ribs aching every step of the way, he wasn't all that keen to try.

He sighed, gritting his teeth as the wheelchair bounced off a bumper rail presumably there for that very purpose. He was pretty sure that the orderly walking behind them and letting John do his work for him was really an undercover cop keeping an eye on the three boys. He was also fairly sure that John had worked that out too, hence his sudden need to make sure Virgil and Alan were being pushed 'properly'. He was certain though that Alan, curled happily in Virgil's lap and making 'wheeee' noises whenever the walls got close, had no idea. With John as quiet as he had been since Mom arrived, a little noise from Alan didn't go amiss.

The three boys had been alone in the paediatrics ward for the last hour, Alan being fussed over by the two little girls under the nurse's watchful eye, while Virgil and John read the newspaper that Virgil's bright younger brother had smuggled in from the hotel. Virgil had winced at the paragraph about his own heroism. If it hadn't been for his conversation with Dad earlier, he might have struck out, even at John, when his little brother read the section on how he should be awarded for his bravery out loud. Instead he sighed deeply, telling Johnny the papers had got it wrong and leaving it at that.

They'd both been quiet for a while after reading about the storm and the search. John hadn't needed the words 'hopes are fading' explained to him. They seemed to define the life the two boys were living. In the end, the silence had lasted too long, growing too much for either boy to cope with without comfort. Virgil didn't object when John asked the nurse if they could go see Mom and Dad now. He knew he was being selfish. He'd started learning to recognise when his parents needed some of their rare and precious 'together time' without the boys underfoot. Even so, he couldn't help feeling that they'd had long enough.

The orderly had guided them along a corridor and down one floor in an elevator. He was directing them past the wide rear doors of the hospital when a helijet landed just outside with a roar of engine noise and a cloud of dust that billowed in through the open doorway.

"I want to see!" Alan's high-pitched cry rang out above the deep rumbling.

"Stop for a minute, Johnny." John was already stopping the chair before Virgil threw a look over his shoulder.

They were just ten yards or so up the corridor from their Dad's room. Really, Virgil knew, he should tell John to push them there and get out of sight of any reporters who might be wandering the hallways, but John was already at the window, lifting Alan onto his hip to see. The two watched, John looking inquisitively towards where Doctor Evans was waiting and Alan staring wide-eyed at the big, noisy machine. Giving in to his own curiosity, Virgil pushed himself out of the chair and stepped up behind them, leaning to one side to see around John's head and only able to catch the briefest glimpse of the patient that someone was lifting down.

Alan frowned. "Who it is?" he asked.

Virgil reached out to pat his little brother's head, sighing. "I don't know, Allie. Someone sick. They're bringing him here so the doctors can make him all better."

"Keep back, boys!"

Virgil didn't have time to see more. The orderly – or possibly police officer – stepped in front of them, herding them away from the windows and back against the wall. Virgil and John, acting on an unspoken agreement, each grabbed one of Alan's hands, holding him firmly out of the way as the door burst open to admit a gaggle of worried people surrounding a trolley.

The patient had been unconscious when they carried him from the helijet. Now whoever was on the trolley was fighting weakly against the hands trying to hold him down. Dark blue eyes searched desperately through the noise and confusion, looking for something, and not relaxing until another small form was lifted up to perch on the edge of the narrow metal bed. Virgil didn't need to see his younger brother's shock of copper hair, or the wide amber eyes in the pale face. He didn't need to identify Gordon before his mind pulled together the flashes of brown hair and blue eyes into an unmistakeable, unbelievable conclusion.

"Scott!" his choked cry was soft, barely audible above the bustle of the doctors and policemen talking over his brothers' heads. It didn't need to be loud to reach ears more attuned to his voice than any other.

Scott had been relaxing back onto the bed, eyes closed, Gordon holding his hand. He sat bolt upright, face flushed, fever-bright eyes searching. Virgil's chestnut eyes locked with his, both pairs wide with disbelief, both flushed with joy and relief and heavy with sudden tears. This time the hands couldn't hold Scott down and weren't moving quick enough to stop him from tumbling off the moving trolley, half-staggering, half-hauling himself through the maze of adults until he fell into Virgil's waiting arms.

Virgil didn't care that his ribs were flaring in agony, or that his tall brother's weight had pushed him hard against the wall. He squeezed Scott's back with as much strength as he could muster, feeling Scott's weak embrace tighten in return. Gordy's head was buried against John's chest, only his dusty copper hair visible, but then the small face looked up at Virgil and Gordon burst into tears. He threw his arms around both his eldest two brothers, sobbing hysterically and clinging to their waists. Virgil swayed, John moving quickly to his brothers' side to help guide them as all four sank to the ground.

"Scott! Gordy!" Alan's squeal as he threw himself on top of the pile probably woke half the hospital. Certainly it only seemed like seconds before Mom was there, lifting Gordon away, and Dad was pulling Scott up with his good arm, easing him away from three brothers who didn't want to let him go.

"He's burning up!" Virgil managed, concern overwhelming the pain from his bruised ribs as he saw Scott's eyes closed once again and realised his brother's body had gone limp.

"Pneumonia." Dr Evans was by Dad's side, helping him, and then Mr Vaughan appeared too, lifting Scott back onto the stretcher while the doctor settled an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. "We need to get him to intensive care."

Virgil staggered to his feet, John lending him a shoulder. People were bustling all around, but Inspector Travis was there, gathering up Virgil's wheelchair while John forced him into it. They followed the rapidly moving trolley, Gordy still in Mom's arms, Dad scooping up Alan. Inspector Travis pushed Virgil after them, until Scott was hurried through a pair of white doors and a couple of the nurses turned to urge the family to stay in the waiting room until Scott's condition had been assessed.

Predictably, Dad protested, raising his voice and arguing loudly until Alan's sudden descent into shocked tears undermined his ire. He stopped, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. Mr Vaughan stepped forward to guide Dad and Allie into a chair beside the one Virgil's mother already occupied. Gordy was nestled in her arms, talking nineteen to the dozen, the little boy apparently too high on adrenaline and relief to stop. Feeling dazed and confused, his own eyes burning with glad tears, Virgil leaned back in his wheelchair, hand reaching up to grasp Inspector Travis's sleeve.

"Can you find another doctor?" he asked anxiously. "Gordy's not well either."

Gordon was filthy, mud and tears streaking his face, his jeans stiff and worn, his T-shirt little more than a crumpled rag. He stopped speaking abruptly, watching Virgil climb stiffly out of his chair, and raised his arms wordlessly to his second-eldest brother. Mom held out her other arm, helping Virgil onto her lap beside Gordon. Virgil let his suddenly-silent brother snuggle against him, feeling the younger boy shake with emotion.

"Gordon, it's okay, now," he said simply. "I'm fine and Scotty got you home."

"He said he would," Gordon murmured, finally sounding as tired as he looked.

Mom leaned down, kissing her small son's forehead.

"I do love you, Gordy," she told him softly. Gordon's eyes had been drifting closed. He opened them again, looking up at her and then searching out John with an urgent look.

"And that's okay and doesn't mean anyone's going to make a baby brother or die or anything," he explained earnestly. He closed his eyes, snuggling happily against his mother and Virgil. "Because grown ups can love each other in lots of different ways. Scott said so."

John was flushing bright scarlet, subject to incredulous stares not only from his family, but also from Vaughan and Travis and the doctor who had just joined them to check Gordon over. Virgil looked down at his little brother, safely asleep in his arms, and then up at the door through which Scott had been taken. His big brother was sick, yes, but Virgil had seen the renewed determination and passion for life in the single look they'd exchanged, the one look that made everything right again in both their worlds. For the first time in three days, when he drifted to sleep in his mother's arms, he was sure that everything was going to work out just fine.