Chapter Two

When Alan went upstairs for lunch, he passed along Gordon's message to Grandma.

"Well, I've already got plans for dinner," she replied. "Could you please call him back after lunch, dear, and tell him that I don't need any fish tonight?"

"Sure, Grandma," Alan said.

Over lunch, Alan told the family about Gordon's excitement at spotting the galleon. "If he doesn't come home, we'll know he's joined the crew in sailing around the world, or something," he said dryly.

"I wouldn't put it past him," Virgil agreed.

Scott looked thoughtful. "What'd you say the ship's name was?"

"The Sea Gull, or Sea Bird, or something like that," Alan said. "Why?"

Scott shrugged. "I'm not sure. I just thought it sounded familiar, like I'd read the name sometime recently. I'll look it up after lunch."

"Well, I just hope he doesn't decide he wants to add a galleon to his boat collection," Jeff said.

Alan laughed. "We'd have to build a bigger boat shed, that's for sure!"

After lunch, Scott headed straight to the computer in the lounge. Alan trailed after him, trying to raise Gordon on the wrist comm. He used a discreet tone signal first – if Gordon was still aboard the galleon, he would acknowledge the communication by sending a tone back. Then, as soon as Gordon was alone, he would call for a real conversation. Gordon didn't respond to the tone, though.

Frowning, Alan tried again – and again, still with no response. Finally, he tried speaking. "Gordon, come in. Gords? You there?"

Scott was frowning too as he worked on the computer. He looked over the top of the screen at Alan. "He's not answering?"

Alan shook his head and tried something different. "Thunderbird Five, come in."

John's response was immediate. "Yeah, Al, what's up?"

"John, can you tell me where Gordon is right now? He's not responding to my calls."

"Sure, just give me a sec…uh, okay, it looks like he's out fishing. He's in his favorite spot by that little island, and he must be just sitting in his boat – the signal's not moving. Why? Is something wrong?"

Alan said, "No," just as Scott said, "Maybe."

Alan looked over at Scott, confused. "What? What did you find?"

"Come see this." Scott pointed to the screen, his face grim. "The Sea Bird, right? Here's where I heard her name – I saw this report a couple weeks ago about a replica galleon that had been stolen. I was going to tell Gordon, but we got a rescue call right afterward and I completely forgot about it until you mentioned it today." His eyes hardened as he skimmed the article. "Two of the crew were killed, and several more were injured in the attack. The survivors were left to drift in one of the lifeboats; it's a miracle that they ended up in a shipping lane and were rescued."

Alan read over Scott's shoulder, "Thought to be an act of piracy…if spotted, call the police…avoid contact with the crew, as they may be armed and dangerous." He groaned. "Gordon said they were flying the Jolly Roger. He thought it was a joke."

Scott shoved back his chair. "All right, let's go. John, keep trying to contact Gordon."

"FAB," John replied.

Jeff had entered the room at some point. "Keep me posted, Scott," he said, his face calm except for a telltale crease between his eyebrows.

"Will do," Scott called back over his shoulder as he hurried down the hall, Alan hot on his heels.

Virgil spotted them and tagged along; they filled him in on the details on the way down to the boat shed.

They chose the fastest boat in the fleet, a sleek, modern speedboat. Even in the fast boat, though, it took them ten minutes before they were drawing close to Gordon's fishing spot.

John chimed in then. "He's still not responding," he told them. He sounded matter-of-fact, but his brothers knew him well enough to catch the hint of worry in his voice. "The tracker signal hasn't moved at all."

Scott chose a course that would keep them out of sight until the last possible minute in case the galleon was nearby. When they pulled around the end of the island, though, Gordon's boat was the only one in sight – and it appeared to be empty.

"Maybe he's diving?" Alan suggested, although even as he said it, he knew there was no reason that Gordon would take off his watch to dive.

Scott didn't reply, his entire focus on the wooden speedboat. He pulled alongside and vaulted over into Gordon's boat. Virgil followed close behind, leaving Alan to hold the two boats together. Alan rolled his eyes but didn't protest, long accustomed to older brothers taking charge.

Virgil glanced in the ice chest. "He didn't eat his lunch," he announced.

"Or put away his rod," Scott replied.

Alan winced – Gordon loved his rod, and would never leave it unattended. "What about his diving gear?" he asked.

Scott looked in a cupboard. "Nope, still here," he said, his voice grim. He opened another cupboard – and froze.

"Scott?" Virgil asked, hurrying to his older brother's side. He too stiffened at what he saw.

"What?" Alan demanded, craning his neck, trying to see. "What is it?" He felt an odd sense of déjà vu, and realized that he'd said that same phrase or something similar a couple times already that day.

Scott seemed stuck in place. With a glance at him, Virgil reached into the cupboard and pulled out something colorful – it was one of Gordon's loud Hawaiian shirts, and more specifically, the one he had been wearing that morning. A few of the buttons had been torn off, and it had several dark spots of blood down the front. Something clattered to the deck, and Scott bent down to pick it up. It was Gordon's watch.

Alan recovered his voice first, his eyes going back to the shirt. "What's that in the pocket?" he asked, pointing to something white sticking out of the chest pocket of the shirt.

Scott reached for it.

"Fingerprints, Scott!" Virgil snapped.

Scott grimaced. "You really think we'll get the police in on this instead of handling it ourselves?" he asked. But he heeded Virgil's warning anyway, cautiously gripping the slip of paper by the edge and shaking it to open it.

Virgil grabbed the bottom edge of the note to hold it open. "'Jeff Tracy,'" he read out loud. "'We have your son Gordon. We'll be contacting you within a few days to tell you how you can get him back. In the meantime, I suggest you get some money ready – five million U.S. dollars, to be exact. Don't call the police, or this mouthy kid will get more than just a split lip.'"

By the end of the note, Virgil's voice sounded strained and Scott's free hand had clenched into a fist.

Alan was worried too, but despite that, he couldn't help but hide a smirk. Yeah, the crew of the Sea Bird was in for a rude surprise if they thought that a bit of mouthiness was all they would deal with from Gordon. "So what do we do now?" he asked.

Scott raised his watch to his lips. "John, did you get all that?"

"Yeah, Scott," John replied, his voice low with anger. "I've been checking for ships in your area, but it's weird...Alan, what time did you talk to Gordon?"

"Uh, maybe eight thirty or nine."

"And you said this was a galleon, right? My research indicates that galleons had a top speed of seven or eight knots, which would put her at no more than forty miles out after four hours of travel…but the only ships showing on my scanners are more like one hundred forty miles out."

"She must have engines," Virgil said. "That's the only possible explanation."

"Well, this speedboat can do, what, seventy knots?" Scott asked. "So if we leave now, we can catch up with the galleon in a couple hours."

"If your gas lasts that long," John pointed out. "And if I can figure out which boat it is – we don't know which way they sailed. Anyway, what exactly would you do when you got there? It's a big ship, and they've probably got a crew of at least a dozen." His voice dropped in pitch. "And besides, they've got Gordy. If they spotted you coming and figured out who you were, they would undoubtedly use him as a hostage."

Scott growled, looking like he wanted to punch something.

"Here's what I suggest," John said. "You guys head home. Have Dad work on getting the money together, just in case. I've noted the signal of each of the boats within a two-hundred-mile radius of Tracy Island, and I'll see if I can use satellite images and radio transmissions to shorten the list a little."

"How many are in that radius?" Scott asked.

"Several dozen," John replied.

Scott sighed. "All right. Keep us posted."

"FAB!" John signed off.

They pulled up Gordon's anchor and carefully packed his rod away before heading back to the island in the two boats. They rode in tense silence, none of them looking forward to showing their father the note.

As they put the boats away, Scott looked thoughtful. "Alan," he said. "Could you make sure the speedboat is gassed up and ready to go? Just in case?"

Alan shrugged and agreed, knowing that his oldest brother's mind was undoubtedly working at a hundred miles an hour, thinking through dozens of plans and ideas. It was why he was the Field Commander, after all – he had the ability to see the big picture and know what people and equipment to use in various situations.

He watched Scott and Virgil disappear with the shirt, watch and note, and suddenly the gravity of the situation hit him like a brick, leaving his hands shaking and his knees wobbly. His older brother – his best friend – was in the hands of men who had made him bleed. Suddenly Alan wished he had gone fishing with Gordon that morning after all. If there had been two of them there, maybe they would have been able to fight their way free. And even if they'd still been kidnapped, at least they would have had each other for moral support. Instead, Gordon was alone, in the clutches of modern-day pirates who hadn't hesitated to kill while stealing the galleon.

Alan hurried through his task, eager to get upstairs and see if Scott or his father had come up with some sort of a brilliant rescue plan.

Hang in there, Gordon, he thought. We'll find you…somehow…

All the rest of the day and well into the night, the residents of Tracy Island discussed the situation, making and scrapping plans, interrupted occasionally as John updated them on his work.

Throughout the course of the day, John had been able to eliminate most of the ships from his scanners through a variety of means – hacking into satellites, listening in on the ships' radio transmissions and even using on-shore security cameras to view a couple ships that had come within sight of inhabited land.

At the same time, he tried to keep an eye on other traffic that came close to the suspect ships, in case Gordon was transferred to another boat.

It was nearing midnight, and John was down to the final two ships on his scanners.

Alan watched his older brother on the screen, marveling at John's composure – he was clearly exhausted, his face lined with weariness and his eyes bloodshot, but his voice remained level and calm whenever he spoke.

Feeling the suspense, the family had grown quiet a few minutes earlier, and were simply watching John work, waiting with bated breath for his instruments to reveal the location of the galleon.

"All right," John said after a minute, sounding optimistic. "This one's a private yacht. That means, by default, that the last one must be the Sea Bird. Hang on – I'll try her on the radio to double check."

He turned off his screen for a minute – he hadn't told them what he was saying when he checked in with ships over the radio, and clearly he didn't want them to know. Jeff had frowned slightly each time John's screen went black, but he let it slide.

They waited in tense silence, trying not to fidget.

"No!"

John's uncharacteristically outraged shout startled them all; they leapt to their feet, clamoring for answers as the screen came back to life, revealing John's flushed face.

"It's not the Sea Bird!" John shouted, his voice suddenly tinged with panic. "But how is that even possible – how could I have missed it?" He slammed his fist down on the console, and then melted back into his seat, covering his face with his hands. His voice dropped down to a low murmur. "Guys, I'm sorry," he said. "I don't know what happened – I guess I must have made some sort of stupid mistake. This whole time – it's just been a wild goose chase. We've lost Gordon's trail completely, and it's all my fault." His shoulders slumped, and he reached toward the button that would cut the connection.

His father's sharp voice stopped him short.

"John!" Jeff snapped. "Look at me."

John reluctantly lifted his head and stared into the camera, his eyes dull with defeat.

"John," Jeff said softly. "This wasn't your fault. You did the best you could." He gave John a gentle smile. "Don't let yourself get discouraged. This is in Gordon's hands now, and you know how resourceful he is. I'm sure he'll figure out some way to let us know where he is. Barring that, we'll be ready when the kidnappers contact us – they have no idea of the technology we have on hand."

John's shoulders were a little straighter by the time Jeff finished. "You're right, Dad. I'm sorry for blowing up."

"There's nothing to be sorry for," Jeff said. "Now, I want everyone to go to bed – including you, John. There's nothing more we can do tonight. We're all exhausted; we'll think much more clearly in the morning."

The family dispersed reluctantly. They all slept fitfully that night, their dreams troubled.