Chapter Seven
When Gordon woke up unable to see, he panicked for a split second before he felt the roll of the ship and remembered where he was. With a groan, he slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position, leaning against a rough wooden barrel. He winced as the movement made his sore shoulder throb, and he carefully reached up to explore the injury.
He had a deep gash on his shoulder and upper arm; he could feel dried blood that had run all down his arm. The skin around the injury was bruised and swollen.
"Note to self," he muttered, his voice sounding strange in the darkness. "An oar makes a pretty good weapon."
He sat quietly for a while, just resting, aware that as soon as he tried to stand, he was going to feel a dozen other smaller injuries. His stomach growled and he sighed sadly – but then brightened as he remembered that he still had a couple granola bars stashed in his pockets. He didn't have any water, but he was generally a fan of taking things one problem at a time.
He ate one granola bar and saved the other one for later. "I wonder if it's still Wednesday," he said out loud. There was no way to tell whether it was day or night.
Finally, he decided to quit dawdling and cautiously pushed himself up to his feet. He stood still for a minute, not caring much for the dizzy feeling of blindness. He wished he'd gotten a better look around the hold before they had shut the hatch. Virgil probably could have produced a detailed sketch from that split-second glance, but Gordon just had a vague impression of narrow steps and shapes that were probably barrels or crates.
Left hand outstretched, Gordon carefully began shuffling along, determined to explore his prison. What he most wanted to find out was whether there was a second hatch, and if so, whether it was locked.
Using the motion of the ship to guide himself, he managed to walk in a relatively straight line toward the stern, occasionally stubbing his toes on barrels and tripping over coils of rope.
Suddenly his head hit something, sending him stumbling back a step, stars flashing in front of his eyes. As the pain subsided, though, Gordon realized what he must have run into and groped forward. To his excitement, he felt evenly spaced pieces of wood – stairs. He scrambled up the narrow steps, keeping his hand over his head so he wouldn't run into the hatch covering the entrance.
His hand hit the hatch, and he felt around it, identifying the hinges on one end and a latch of some sort on the other. His mouth was suddenly dry as he tried the latch – if they had locked this one too, then there was really nothing else he could do.
It opened, though, and Gordon felt the air rush from his lungs in a sigh of relief as dim light spilled into the hold.
Opening the hatch just an inch, he paused to listen and to look around as much as possible through the narrow gap – to rush now would be to invite disaster. If he were caught, Bloom would probably have him bound before putting him back in the hold.
No one seemed to be around, though. After waiting a couple minutes, Gordon pushed the hatch open a little higher and slithered out onto the deck.
He quietly dropped the hatch back down into place and looked around, trying to figure out where he was – it was just an empty, dimly-lit hallway. He thought about it and decided that he was probably two levels below the main deck, so he needed to get up one level in order to find the radio room.
He crept along the hallway, starting at every creak and groan of the ship. Things seemed unusually quiet, and he wondered where everyone was.
Finding a set of stairs, he ascended to the next level and was happy to find himself near the galley – now he knew where he was. He stopped briefly for some water, but regretfully decided that food would have to wait for the time being – as hungry as he was, he had more important things to do first.
Noticing a small flashlight hanging on a hook near the door of the galley, he pocketed it, not eager to experience total darkness again anytime soon if he could help it.
Gordon headed back into the hall, moving stealthily. He heard snoring behind the door that he'd discovered to be a cabin the day before…or had that been two days earlier? He shook his head, confused. He felt like falling asleep in the hold had totally messed up his sense of time. In any case, he was pretty sure that it must be the middle of the night, which would make it late Wednesday or perhaps early Thursday.
His heart beat faster as he approached the radio room. He stood outside the door for several minutes, just listening. There was some sort of constant, murmuring voice that he eventually decided was a TV. Nothing else stirred in the room for a full five minutes, though, and finally Gordon reached slowly for the doorknob.
He carefully turned the knob and eased the door open an inch at a time, all his senses on full alert for any sight, sound or movement that would indicate that he had been spotted.
It was rather anticlimactic to discover that the room was unattended. An empty chair sat by the computer desk, and a TV flickered in the corner.
Gordon still entered the room warily, though – the lights were on, which made him think that perhaps the radio man had simply gone up to the deck for a breath of fresh air – or for a breath of smoky air, as the case may be. He'd have to work fast, just to be on the safe side.
First things first…he glanced around the room and saw a metal cabinet conveniently labeled "Cloaking Device." He opened the cabinet, and there was a big, obvious "On/Off" switch. Mentally cheering, Gordon flipped the switch to "Off," and then cringed, waiting for alarms to sound.
Nothing happened.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Gordon dropped into the chair and scooted over to the radio set.
Suddenly familiar words from the TV caught his attention, and he paused to listen.
"In other news, the whole world is abuzz with the mysterious behavior of International Rescue this week. On Monday, the famous rescue organization announced that they were going offline for an undetermined length of time due to circumstances beyond their control. Today, Thunderbirds One and Two were spotted over the Pacific by multiple individuals, who report that the rescue ships seemed to be searching for something…"
A torrent of conflicting emotions rushed through Gordon – he wanted to pull his hair out in frustration even as a grin threatened to spread across his face. So they were attempting to search the whole Pacific for him, huh? That was awesome…but it also meant that his family had been unsuccessful in tracking him down any other way. Gordon could read between the lines, and knew that his father and brothers were desperate and discouraged.
"Okay, guys," he murmured. "Let's see if I can help you out here."
He flicked the radio on and held the microphone close to his mouth. "Calling International Rescue," he said in a low tone. "Calling International Rescue!" He covered his mouth to stifle a laugh, suddenly feeling giddy – he'd always wanted to call John like that.
There was a clicking sound, and Gordon's heart dropped into his stomach as a mechanical voice replied, telling him that International Rescue was offline. It clicked again and began cycling through the same message in other languages.
"No, no, no!" he cried, grabbing the microphone again. "Calling International Rescue! John, are you listening? It's me, Gordon!"
He held his breath, waiting. He honestly wasn't sure if John would be listening, since he'd put the system on auto, and considering that it was one in the morning, according to the clock on the wall.
It felt like minutes had passed, but it was really only a couple seconds before the recorded message – now speaking in French – halted abruptly, and John's breathless voice came on the line.
"Gordon?" he gasped. "Gordon, come in! Are you still there?"
Gordon closed his eyes in relief. "Yeah, I'm here." So much for his plan to act like a random kidnapped person, he thought wryly.
"Gordon," John breathed, all the warmth in the world filling his voice. "You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice. Are you okay? Where are you?"
"I'm still on the Sea Bird," Gordon replied. "Listen, John, I'm not sure how long I'll have before someone comes back, so I've gotta make this quick. Can you track this signal? They had a cloaking device, but I turned it off, so there shouldn't be any interference."
"I've got you on my scanners right now," John said, his tone satisfied. "You're only two hundred fifty miles from home, so it shouldn't take the guys long to get there."
Gordon frowned. "They'll use the helijet or something, won't they? Remember, these guys know who I am. If the Thunderbirds show up, they might be able to put two and two together."
"What about the speedboat?" John asked. "Seems to me it'd be more stealthy than the helijet."
"Yeah, that'd work," Gordon agreed. "If they run her at seventy knots, they'd be here in a little over three hours, so that would still be before dawn. If they cut the engines a little ways out – and if I can figure out how to disable the scanners here – they should be able to approach undetected and get me out of here before the pirates wake up. Hey, are the police going to be in on this?"
"We'll schedule them to arrive a little bit after the guys get there," John said.
Gordon hit a few switches on the scanner, adjusting the parameters so that vessels the size of his family's speedboat would be excluded from its sensors. "All right, I've adjusted the scanners. Listen, John, I'm going to go find somewhere to hide until they get here. If possible, I'll try to meet them on the deck."
"Okay, Gords," John said softly. "Hang in there just a bit longer, okay? The others will be on their way in just a couple minutes." His voice turned dry. "Oh, and I wouldn't count on Scott restraining himself to a mere seventy knots, so if I were you, I'd plan on them arriving in less than three hours."
Gordon grinned. "Yeah, you're probably right. Okay, I'll talk to you soon, John – hopefully in person!"
"FAB!" John signed off.
Gordon stood up, stifling a groan. He looked ruefully down at his bare, bruised torso and arms, then shrugged – his family had seen him looking far worse.
He crept from the room and made his way up to the deck, pausing every few steps to listen in case anyone was coming. Just as he was about to go up the companionway steps to the deck, he finally heard movement overhead. He quickly ducked behind the steps and crouched down in a dark corner.
The hatch opened and a man clumped down the steps. The air wafting over Gordon smelled of cigarette smoke, confirming Gordon's guess as to what the man had been doing.
The man walked out of sight, and a moment later, Gordon heard a door close further down the hall.
Gordon waited another couple minutes, then continued up onto the deck, pushing the hatch open as little as possible in case there was anyone else outside who might see the light.
He climbed up onto the deck and glided into the shadows near the gunwale, watching and listening for movement. At the same time, he kept an eye open for a good hiding spot.
He considered climbing up to the crow's nest and hiding there – he could potentially spot his family coming from a distance and signal them with the flashlight – but dismissed that idea after a moment. He'd be too easy to see while climbing up or down, suspended in the shroud lines.
Eventually he decided to hide under the overturned lifeboat on the main deck, mostly because it was near the rope ladder.
Slipping under the edge of the tarp, he settled in to wait.