The Ransom (Part 25)
By Jenny Taylor
On the GDF plane
In the cockpit of the GDF quad plane, the commander-in-chief of the Global Defence Force, Colonel Catherine Casey stands directly behind the pilot as her plane heads towards the location at top speed, looking hard as cold steel, full of anger and determination.
Her brows furrowed and glared towards the general direction that they are heading. To say that she is angry is an understatement, she is furious!
Furious at the fact that one of the world's most wanted criminal had not only taken away her best friend and the father of her 5 grown-up godsons, but he has kidnapped and tortured the friendliest, kindest and gentlest of her godsons.
"Target in sight colonel." The colonel is snapped out of her thoughts and back into reality as the pilot spoke.
"Don't lose him whatever you do pilot!" She ordered.
"Yes colonel."
"Colonel, there's a problem in the target area!" The colonel spun round on the spot, looking towards the comms. officer.
"What kind of problem officer?" She barked, clearly annoyed that there might be something that will throw the spanner in the works.
"The target had pushed the victim into the ocean and had just been attacked by a shark." He replied.
The colonel looked at him, opened mothed and wide-eyed in shock and disbelieve. Did she hear him right? Did the evil mastermind villain, The Hood, push Virgil off his ship and into the ocean to get attacked by a shark?
She shook herself from those feelings and looked squarely at the officer. "Are you sure officer?" She demanded, hoping that what she had just heard isn't true.
"Positive colonel."
"Thunderbird 2 approaching from the south at top speed and Thunderbird 4 is surfacing, colonel." The navigator informed her senior officer. The colonel spun around, first to the navigator and then to look through the windscreens.
Thunderbird 2 had screeched from top speed to hovering over the target area before it dropped its module into the ocean. And as it hit the surface, the splash from the impact was blue with a hint of red blood. That same mixture of coloured water can be seen as Thunderbird 4 surfaces next to its module.
Colonel Casey suddenly felt a lump of lead had fallen into her stomach at the sight as Thunderbird 4 had retracted backwards into its module as Thunderbird 2 launched and attached the magnetic cables to retrieve its payload. The colonel grabbed her radio to make a fateful call.
"Colonel Casey to Thunderbird 2, Colonel Casey to Thunderbird 2. Thunderbird 2 do you copy? Scott come in! What's happening?" She demanded, but there was no reply. She sensed from the lack of response from her godsons meant that something was really, really wrong and it had sadly involved Virgil.
"S-s-sorry colonel." Came the reply over the radio.
The colonel realises that voice didn't belong to the oldest of the Tracy brothers, it belonged to the youngest, but his tone, the hesitation, the quietness and the delay between the call and reply of 2 of the most important organisations on the planet, had given their military friend the ammunition she needed and sadly, not the good ones that she's hoping for.
She takes a deep breath to regain her composure and return to her 'military mode' slightly mixed with her instincts as a godmother, as she draws the radio in her left hand close to her face to speak to her youngest godson. "Alan? Where's Scott?"
"He's…(gulp) he's in the medical bay…"
"With Gordon and Virgil?" She asked cautiously, but calmly, knowing that any fear in her voice would set off the young and frightened astronaut.
"Yeah." He replied slowly and quietly.
"Alan. Are you flying Thunderbird 2?"
"No… It's on automatic pilot."
"Destination home?"
"I - I don't know…"
"Alan… Has something bad happened to Virgil?"
"Yes." He replied again, his breaking voice can be heard over the radio in the cockpit of the GDF quad-plane.
"How bad is he?"
"Very, very, VERY bad." Everyone in the cockpit can hear that the Tracy youngster is on the verge of crying.
"Alan…What happened?"
"The Hood… pushed Virgil into the ocean... and then…" Alan broke down sobbing.
The colonel paused her questioning to Alan.
She knows, being a close friend to the family, that the youngest will only cry if something or someone had caused harm to one of his brothers and sends them to hospital in a critical or life threatening conditions, which has happened on a couple of occasions with Virgil when he was a child.
The colonel gasped in shock at those memories and the realisation that Virgil will need those life-saving operations again. But, what has happened to Virgil that needs these vital treatments?
She needed to know, but she cannot get the info from Alan as he's too traumatised to talk about his older brother's injuries, she needs to get them from someone else and the only person who would know those answers is the eldest Tracy brother, Scott.
As if God had answered her prayers, the sound of a door opening in the radio background and footsteps echoed of someone entering Thunderbird 2's cockpit, made the young astronaut speaking out his brother's name.
"Scott…How is he?" The youngest asked, frightened as he voiced the same question that the colonel was asking earlier.
"I won't lie to you Alan…But Virgil has lost a lot of blood and needs life-saving treatment to save himself and his legs." The voice of the once calm and determined Field Commander of International Rescue, is now reduced to fear, sorrow and urgency.
"So…Where are we taking him, big bro?"
"Sydney Hospital."
"What!? Why there and not base?"
"His injuries are too severe for Brains to handle and will need specialist care and treatment, plus we don't have the equipment to deal with the injuries that Virgil's got now."
Colonel Casey stood and listened to the conversation between the 2 brothers with sadness and fear showing on her face. It has become clear that Virgil is injured so badly that only doctors at a main hospital can save him.
She can see from the window that the great green machine is turning away from the scene and headed off at top speed towards Australia. But there's still that nagging question that the brothers haven't answered yet, so she decided to enter the conversation.
"Scott!"
"What the…"
"What's happened to Virgil?" She demanded.
"Colonel Casey!" It was clear to the colonel that she startled him and the fact had fallen onto him that she had been listening to them, but didn't receive the full picture. "Alan, can you go and join Gordon in watching over Virgil please?"
There was a pause of silence and then footsteps of Alan leaving the cockpit until Scott called him. "Alan, can you inform John what's happening and have him alert the hospital of our coming?" There was a silent 'F.A.B.' from Alan, followed by a few more fading footsteps and then the sound of a door opening and after a few seconds the door closed.
The colonel can sense that Scott didn't want to tell her the details in front of Alan, so he sent him away to do something while he's flying his injured, intermediate younger brother's 'Bird' to its destination and informing her of his helpless brother's condition.
"Sorry Colonel Casey, I…"
"No need to apologise Scott. I know why you did it, but there's that one question that Alan partially told me and from over-hearing the conversation between the two of you is telling me that Virgil's in a life-threating condition and need specialist treatment. But there's one thing that no-one had told me is HOW did Virgil ended up so badly injured AFTER the Hood pushed him overboard?"
She can hear him clearing his throat before he begins his view on what happened to his brother, in more detail.
"When Virgil landed into the ocean, the impact had attracted unwanted attention, which sadly came in a form of a large shark and had bit Virgil in the legs. Gordon had to ram the shark in order to free Virgil, because the shark was shaking Virgil wildly and he was losing a lot of blood."
The colonel is grateful of her dark skin as she had become pale from the horror that Scott is picturing of the events that has happened as he continues on with detailed events. "When Gordon retrieved Virgil, he discovered that while Virgil's legs was bound together, there was a very long cable hooked to the bounds around his ankles."
This new information about a cable hooked to the bounds around Virgil's ankles had got the senior officer's attention and her mind begins to fill with curiosity as to why there's a cable hooked to her godson's ankles. "How long's that cable Scott?"
"I don't know colonel; we were too busy trying to save Virgil." Came a solemn reply, his voice filled with sadness at the last part of his sentence.
There was a pause of silence, which then broke by another faint voice which can be heard over the radio connecting the military plane to the Thunderbird. "Thunderbird 2 from Thunderbird 5. I have alerted the hospital and are waiting for our arrival."
"F.A.B John," Scott replied to his middle, space-bound brother. "What's our E.T.A with the hospital?"
"5 minutes Scott."
"John, put EOS in-charge of Thunderbird 5, place IR in temporary shutdown and come down, let the others back home know what has happened and then let Kayo take you in Thunderbird 1 and meet us there."
The was a pause until a weak reply of 'F.A.B.' from the ginger astronaut as he signed off his connection with his oldest brother. The colonel sighed. She knew from previous experience on how her godsons reacted when one of their own ends up in a major hospital, especially Virgil.
She takes a deep breath and addresses the Field Commander of International Rescue. "Scott, I know that this is the most difficult time for all of you and you all want to be by Virgil's side, but I'm going to require a written report from all of you as evidence against the Hood."
"F.A.B. Colonel." And with that, Scott signs off and leaving Colonel Casey filled with more determination than ever before to catch the world's most wanted villain, the Hood.