The Ransom (Part 21)
By Jenny Taylor
When Scott arrived at Thunderbird 2's cockpit, Alan was sitting in the co-pilot's seat, not daring to sit in Virgil's driver seat while doing the vital checks, the youngster turned around to look at his eldest brother.
"What kept you Scott?" He asked worryingly as he saw the expression on the said brother's face.
"I'll tell you in a minute." The eldest replied exhausted and worried as he went to sit in Virgil's seat and activated the green behemoth's comms to both Brains's lab and Thunderbird 5. "Thunderbird 2 to Thunderbird 5 and lab. John, Brains are you both receiving me?"
"Reading you loud and clear Scott. Everything ok?" John replied looking concerned upon hearing his older brother's voice as his hologram appeared on the dashboard, which a second later Brains's hologram appeared.
"Y-yes Scott?" The scientist quizzed the said person. Scott took a deep breath and spoke to Brains.
"Brains, can you help Grandma with the med bay please?" It sounded more like a please rather an order, but he breathed a sigh of relief as Brains acknowledged the pilot and his hologram disappeared. Scott then switched on the comms. channel to Thunderbird 4.
"What's wrong Scott? You look like someone who's about to run into the hills." The fish of the family commented. Scott shook his head at his brother's remark and starts to speak worryingly.
"I'm afraid that both Grandma and Colonel Casey had figured out that we didn't make the plan to rescue Virgil." The others looked at him in shock and worry as silence fell for a moment until the youngest astronaut spoke.
"What are we going to do Scott?" Panicked Alan.
"We're going to follow the plan that Jaycee told us, even if it is amended to accommodate the GDF. Rescue Virgil and then face the music when we get him home." Scott looked at him with confidence and determination.
Even mentioning the name of an old friend had brought back the sparks of life and hope not only in himself, but also in his brothers too.
"Are we going to tell them about her?" Gordon asked, frowning. Scott knew what his younger brother is going to say and replied with determination.
"No!" He snapped. "Not until we've have spoken to her properly about the whole event involving the GDF. Next I'll have a chat with the colonel to get her side of the story and we go on from there."
"15 minutes until launch Scott." The red-head astronaut informed his earth-bound brothers. Scott nodded in acceptance.
"Thanks John. Right everyone let's get these checks and preparations done before take-off." He ordered which was responded with the chorus of 'F.A.B.s' from the others and then started to help his baby brother on checking the big green flying machine.
15 minutes later, with all the required Thunderbirds in tip-top condition and had given the triple checks, Scott, Gordon and Alan changed from their civilian clothing and into their uniforms and entered Thunderbird 2, while Kayo did the same and entered Thunderbird Shadow.
15 minutes before deadline.
Virgil has been trying to sleep in his shackled and chain cell bed for what felt like hours, but given the fact that his bed, chains and shackles are uncomfortable and restrictive, making it almost impossible to move his limbs and the restrictiveness is making them stiff and numb.
Virgil sighs. As much as he wants to sleep in order to save as much energy as he could, the cell bed is nowhere near as comfortable as his own bed back at home. Although, given some credit to his captor, he had a lot of sleep when he was in the villain's med bay, mainly because it was warm and 50% more comfortable than his cell bed.
Well, the percentage of comfortableness would have been higher if he wasn't wrapped up tightly and had restraints pinning him to the bed. And due to that fact he couldn't move at all, apart from his exposed head minus the bandage blindfold, which meant his limbs were even more stiff, painful and numb at the same time.
Even so, his cell bed, chains, shackles and the small dark room, except for the lowly, dim light bulb in the ceiling, he felt very cold and weak and given the fact that he was denied any food from his captor and lack of sleep since he was dumped back into the cell, has made him even colder and weaker.
Suddenly, Virgil was brought into reality when the sound of his cell door opens, revealing 3 faceless minions, one is carrying some rope, another is holding what Virgil suspects another blindfold and the last minion stands inside the door, arms crossed with a taser in his right hand.
Virgil looked at them, clearly showing signs of fatigue, hunger, tiredness and sadness. He knows what's going to happen next and given that due to his state of condition he won't be able to resist them. Therefore he doesn't speak and lets the mastermind's minions do what they need to do and waits for the next move.
The minions grinned and chuckled evilly behind their black helmets as they blind-fold the weak and helpless Tracy brother. Next they unshackled his wrists then one of them grabs the prisoner's hair and yanked him forward, which made the victim gasp in pain. The other minion grabs his left arm and yanked it behind the owner's back, which again causes more gasps of pain.
The first minion releases Virgil's hair, grabs his other arm and yanks it behind him, which gave the minions more pleasure of hearing more of the vocal pain emitting from their victim as the first minion gets a hold of the victim's left arm, while he's still holding his right.
This action frees the second minion so that he can pick up the rope and starts to tie Virgil's wrists together, tightly. This action made Virgil wince in pain and he's almost on the point of bursting into tears of pain and sadness.
After the second minion did his job, both he and his first comrade-in-crime shove Virgil back into the bed, causing him to yelp in pain as his lower back had landed on his tightly-bound wrists with such force that the rope dug into both his spine and wrists.
What made the pain more uncomfortable is that he was held back by a minion, while the other unchains his waist and unshackles his ankles. The third minion just stands in the doorway and watches as his comrades-in-crime inflicted pain after pain on the prisoner while they were doing their required tasks, grinning evilly and chuckling at the same level of evilness as his comrades.
As soon as Virgil is released from his shackles, the first two minions grabs his arms, pulls him off the bed and then half dragged, half led the blind Tracy out of the cell, by then the 3 man party was joined by the third minion armed with a taser, into the cold metal corridor.
At the end of the corridor, they went up 4 flights of metal staircases, which Virgil struggles to get a foot hold a number of times, but ended up with his feet hitting the metal stairs, which he knows for sure that he's going to get a heck load of bruises when this is over.
This continuous dragging up the stairs had taken what Virgil thought hours until the staircase ended with a stop, a minion opens another metal door, filling the space with a fresh scent of the ocean air.
The light of day had flooded the stairwell; Virgil would have blinked if he wasn't blind-folded, because having being stuck in a very dim-lit cell his eyes had been adjusted to the light condition in his cell, so having now exposed (almost) to natural daylight is hurting his eyes.
The minions dragged him onto the lower of the 2 top outside platforms. Virgil can hear the engines of the Hood's ship, he can feel the wind blowing gently onto his tired face and he can smell the salt of the sea air. The smells of the sea and the feeling of the sea breeze is reminding him of home.
But sadly, this isn't home. He's on a platform of the Hood's ship. Suddenly, he was forced to stand up straight and then came this horrible touching feeling of someone pulling his legs together.
Unbeknown to Virgil, another minion is using another length of rope in order to tie the victim's ankles together, tightly and strongly. Then he grabs a cable and hooks and locks it onto the rope which is preventing Virgil from standing straight, let alone walking.
Also unknown to Virgil is that he's standing near the open edge of the platform whilst the henchmen holding him are being attached to the safety lines, to prevent them from following Virgil down into the ocean below.
Watching the procedure is one of the world's most wanted criminal, The Hood. He stands behind the outer controls to his ship on the top of the 2 outer platforms. He smiles evilly towards his soon-to-be slave.
Soon Virgil Grissom Tracy…Soon the life that you once knew will be gone, like a pod of Killer Whales hunting down the calf of a Humpback Whale and taking it away from its family…Never to be seen nor heard of again.
He walks from his outdoor control centre of his ship and down towards the young man. As he approaches, he can see that the young Tracy is slouching forward despite being held in his upper arms by the flanking minions, trying to make him stand up straight. The villain smiled and made a signal ordering his minions to turn the young Tracy around to face him.
"The time has come, Virgil Tracy." He said darkly as he uses his right hand to grab and hold Virgil's jaw, making the blind victim to face him squarely in the face. No matter how much Virgil wants to resist, he couldn't due to his weakened state and having to feel the pressure of his captor's hand on his jaw hurts.
"This will be your last and final act as a Tracy AND as a member of International Rescue!" The Hood scathed the young Tracy as he dug his nails into the young man's skin, which was responded with a painful hiss. "AND…the start of your new chapter…as my slave!" The nemesis of the Tracys spoke slowly and menacingly at the end as he releases Virgil's jaw but not before shoving he head upwards.
And then he returns to his ship's outdoor control console, while the 2 minions pulled Virgil back into his starting position which at the same time another set of minions are placing the required cameras into their retrospective positions. As soon as the evil master of disguise is behind the console, he clicks his fingers which aloud the minions to remove the blindfold.
Virgil had to blink several times so that his eyes can grow accustom to the natural light and then he did the worst thing that he'll live to regret, he looked down. Below the platform that he's standing on is the multiple colours of the deep ocean blue rising up and down gently like a person breathing in and out on a warm summer's day.
Virgil froze in fear, the height from where he's standing to the ocean surface is very high, at least 50 meters, has scared him to death. He knows that even though he'll probably survive the fall, he won't be able to survive another hypothermia attack. The Hood then flicks the comms switch on Virgil's personal and stolen communicator into life and makes that fateful call.
"Calling International Rescue!"