It was still well before dawn on Tracy Island – the deep black velvet of the sky not yet ready to betray even the slightest hint of pink at the horizon. Scott Tracy, the eldest of billionaire former astronaut Jeff Tracy's five sons, stood on the balcony outside his quarters with glass in hand – feeling the warmth of the twelve-year-old single malt as it trailed down into his stomach. The sweet-smelling tropical breezes were balmy even at this hour, the silence broken only by the soft slap of waves against the shore below. This must be the most peaceful place on Earth, he thought. How ironic that International Rescue lives here.
He glanced back at the bed he had spent barely three hours in that night. Most people knew he was a light sleeper, but the truth was, he honestly couldn't remember the last time he had slept, voluntarily, through an entire night. It was often assumed it was a habit he'd picked up during his military service. But his family knew differently – they were all used to him roaming around the house at odd hours of the morning in the grip of an insomniac fit. They shrugged their shoulders at guests' questions, as if to say, What? It's just Scott. He's always been like that.
He leaned on the balcony railing, staring out into the night with unfocused eyes. He'd had the nightmare again. It had been a while since its last nocturnal visit, and he'd hoped this time it was finally gone for good. Part of the trouble was, try as he might, he could never remember it well enough to get a good handle on it. All he knew was that he always woke up covered in icy sweat, heart hammering as if he'd just run a four minute mile, a sick feeling of dread deep in his guts that sometimes took hours to go away.
Scott took another swallow of the whisky, needing its bite and fire inside him. Why was he doing this now? He had to snap out of this funk. Tracy, what you need is a good, solid rescue operation, he told himself irritably, running a hand through his thick dark brown hair. Tire you out until you can't stand up – then you'll sleep.
A sudden shout from the interior of the house jolted him out of his contemplations. He quickly pulled on the pair of shorts he'd been wearing before he went to bed, and headed toward the sound, glad to have something to do.
In the lounge, Gordon, the fourth Tracy son and only aquanaut in the family, was planted in front of the vidscreen. "Hey, Gordo, what are you doing up?"
Gordon waved at him to shut up, turning up the volume on his chair's touch-pad. Curious, Scott looked at the screen.
A grim-faced news anchor was talking. "…Once again, we're now receiving confirmation that disaster has struck for the crews of at least three of the yachts competing in this year's Southern Oceans Cup. Billed as the world's most dangerous ocean race, the competition involves fifteen yachts, each with a crew of eleven, traversing what can be the most treacherous stretches of water on our globe."
A map of Antarctica appeared on the screen, a dotted red line tracing a course around the continent, beginning and ending at the tip of Western Australia.
"The pressure just took a nose dive," Gordon said, eyes glued to the screen. "That's really bad news, especially down there in the roaring forties."
"Roaring forties?" Scott asked, not as well versed in the terminology of the seas as his brother. But the anchor was talking again, as a red X appeared on the map, close to the Antarctic coast, south-south-east of Cape Horn. "Two hours ago, the leading competitors were halfway through the notorious Drake Passage, between Cape Horn and the northern coast of Antarctica, when they encountered an alarming drop in barometric pressure. The weather, it seems, is living up to its worst potential. This was the last transmission from the Canadian yacht, Snowbird, before we lost satellite contact with the race participants."
"Hey, what's going on?" second-eldest brother Virgil asked sleepily, wandering out into the lounge in his pajama bottoms, tufts of chestnut-colored hair sticking straight up on end.
Scott and Gordon both shushed him as the newscast on the vidscreen cut to grainy, low-light footage of what could have been anywhere to Scott's untrained eyes, but was evidently the cabin of Snowbird. Several men and women in foul-weather gear huddled around the spokesperson, a bearded man in his forties. "It's not an iceberg," he was saying hurriedly into the camera, the strain clear in his voice. "It's a wave. I wish you could see this sonofabitch – it's gotta be eight stories high. It's like the side of a cliff."
The man glanced over his shoulder briefly, then back at the camera. "If we're really lucky, we might be able to – "
There was a sudden crash, and the sound of splintering wood. The cabin on the screen reeled sideways, oilskin-clad bodies flying everywhere in a dark blur of arms and legs. Somebody screamed – and the monitor went dark.
"Jeez," Virgil said, sitting down heavily on the couch. "That's not good."
Scott couldn't suppress a smile. Virgil was well-known for waking up more slowly than his brothers, and they never knew what odd utterances they were going to get out of him until his brain was back on-line again. Under normal circumstances, Scott would have considered it his familial duty to hold up three fingers and make his brother count them. But right now, he was too caught up in the news story. No matter how many rescues he'd been a part of, he never became immune to the fear of people in real distress.
The anchor was back on. "As far as we can ascertain at this hour, at least two of the competitors, Snowbird and one of the American ships, Spirit of Nantucket, have capsized in mountainous seas and gale force winds reaching sustained speeds of sixty knots and above. A third yacht, the Australian Melbourne Melody, is reported to be in serious trouble, possibly having lost her mast after being struck by lightning. The Royal Australian Air Force is mounting a search and rescue attempt, but the yachts are well out of helijet range, and even in calm seas it would take thirty-six hours to reach them by sea. The men and women on board those vessels out there may not have that long."
Scott stood up and went across to his father's desk. He hit the comlink. "International Rescue calling Thunderbird 5."
The Nordic blond features of John, the third Tracy brother, appeared on the vidscreen that instantly replaced his portrait on the wall. "Thunderbird 5, go ahead, Scott."
"John, have you been monitoring the Southern Oceans Cup race?"
"Affirmative." John's grey-blue eyes were somber. "It sounds like they're in pretty bad shape down there."
"That's what I thought. Keep an eye on it, John. Let us know right away if they start asking for help."
"F.A.B., Scott."
"Son, this is one time we shouldn't wait to be asked." Jeff Tracy strode into the room, somehow managing a fittingly commanding presence despite his paisley silk dressing gown and slippers. "Gordon, you've sailed the Drake passage a couple of times. Am I right?"
"Yes, father. Those capsized yachts don't have thirty-six hours. With waves like that, they could be smashed to pieces at any time. And once they're in the water, at those temperatures…"
Jeff nodded, coming around Scott to sit at his desk. "John, contact the local authorities and tell them we're on our way. Thunderbirds are go!"
Scott felt the familiar rush of adrenaline as he headed straight across to his familiar spot on the wall. He turned, raising his hands to grip the two fake light fixtures that hid his entry controls. As the section of wall began its 180-degree revolve, he heard his father issuing orders. "Virgil, Gordon, Pod 4. You'd better take Alan, too – we're talking about eleven people per yacht, that means more than thirty people are in trouble out there. And Virgil…take some coffee with you."
The wall section completed its turn and thunked into place, blotting out the sounds of the lounge behind him. Straight across from Scott now was a sight he never tired of – the sleek silvery tower of Thunderbird One, waiting on her pad just for him. It suddenly occurred to him that this beautiful machine was the closest thing to a full-time mistress he had, and he smiled despite himself. Tracy, you have got to get a life before it's too late…
Once the bridge had extended to the open entry hatch, Scott was into his uniform and taking his seat at the controls in less than two minutes. "Base from Thunderbird One. Beginning descent to launch position."
"F.A.B., Thunderbird One." His father's voice crackled in his ears.
As the ship began its way down the long ramp from her hangar to her launch position, Virgil's chute had reached the cockpit of Thunderbird Two, depositing him in the pilot's seat. Yawning, he pulled back on the lever that brought the wheel forward into position, flipped on the lights, and watched the instrument panels hum into life. He was climbing into his uniform by the time Gordon slid into the cockpit via the passenger entrance, and his eyes lit up as he saw the thermos in his younger brother's hands. "Oooh. Caffeine. I might not hit anything on launch today."
Gordon grinned, handing it over and moving to the uniform rack. Virgil could joke all he liked – but in reality he was the most precise pilot of them all, and the only time he had ever hit anything was when the USS Sentinel had accidentally shot him out of the air. Even then, he'd managed to make it back home to crash on the runway at Tracy Island, where it was easy to clean up the mess. Very convenient. Very Virgil.
Already sipping the coffee, Virgil sat back down in the pilot's seat and started the conveyor belt under Thunderbird Two. As soon as he'd picked up Pod 4, they would be on their way to the rescue zone. "Base from Thunderbird Two. Tell Alan if he doesn't get his ass down here in the next two minutes, he's going to miss the bus."
Back in Thunderbird One, Scott had finished the pre-flight check by the time his craft reached level ground at the bottom of her ramp. He pushed forward on the control levers, guiding her into launch position. "Base from Thunderbird One, request permission to launch."
Directly above him now, the swimming pool finished its sideways slide. He watched the indicator until the blinking red light changed to a steady green. "Thunderbird One, you are clear to launch."
"F.A.B. Thunderbird One is go." Scott hit the ignition switch, and the adrenaline surged back as Thunderbird One's massive rocket boosters roared to life beneath him. He pulled back on the controls, feeling the hard push against his back as she lifted off, climbing swiftly and steadily up into the night. Tracy Island shrank rapidly behind him until it was nothing but a tiny dot against the moonlit silver-black of the ocean. "Base from Thunderbird One, I'm on my way. Estimate arrival at rescue zone in approximately fifty minutes."
"F.A.B., Scott. Thunderbird Two is right behind you."
It wasn't until that moment that Scott suddenly wondered where he was going to land when he got there.
There was a voice, coming from somewhere, and it wouldn't leave her alone. She struggled to separate it from the other noises that swam around inside her head, failing at first. Crying…someone was crying, somewhere, and there were other voices, pitched low. Muffled, as if from far away, there was something else she recognized with a jolt that brought her to awareness – the scream of an angry wind.
"Tally," the voice was saying again, right beside her ear. "Tally, can you hear me?"
Michael. Tally Somerville finally realized the person talking to her was her brother.
Very slowly, she managed to get her eyes to open. There was a dim source of illumination coming from somewhere, like a flashlight with a very weak battery. It was unbelievably cold. Tally had to try her voice a few times before she could get out more than a salt-water-dried croak. "Mike…where are we…?"
"Are you hurt?" He was brushing her sodden hair away from her face, peering at her in the gloom.
"My head…I think…so cold…" Awareness was leaching back bit by bit. She was draped forward over something hard, maybe a table. Most of her lower body was freezing.
"You're in the water, Tally," he said. "Can't get above it any more…too high now."
"The water…" Tally gasped as memory flooded back – the pressure dropping, the wind and rain, the wall of water eight stories high that had smashed them into oblivion.
She stared at the man who was not only her brother but also the captain of the Spirit of Nantucket. "Oh, God, Mike – we're upside down! We're under the boat!"
Thick, claustrophobic panic rose up in her throat, threatening to choke her. Michael gripped her shoulder so hard she flinched from the pain. "Tally, please," he begged, voice low and edged with despair. "Some of us…didn't make it."
That stopped her. Tally dragged in a huge breath, staring around the cabin – and then trying not to. "Who?" she said, finally.
"Bob. I think he was knocked out when we went over. He was face down when I...found him. Cathy…her neck was broken."
The tears stung her eyes. "What about the others?"
"Some broken bones. I think they're going to be okay. It's just so damn cold, it's hard to tell…"
Thank God for the survival gear Michael had insisted they all put on before entering the Drake Passage, she thought. They had all griped about it at the time, but without its protection they would all be dead or dying from hypothermia by now. "Mike," she said, asking the question he'd been dreading. "What are we going to do?"
"They'll get us out. They have our position. By now search and rescue is on the way. We just have to hang on."
He was trying his best to hide it, but she knew him. He was afraid. "Search and rescue from where, Mike?" she asked, her voice very quiet now. "We were two days out, and helijets can't fly in sixty-knot winds."
He answered her only with his silence. She took another deep, shaky breath. "Can we at least help the others?"
"Can you move?"
"I think so."
"Come on, then. I found the first aid kit – it's over here."
With thirty minutes of Scott's flight still to go, Jeff Tracy's voice crackled over the comlink. "Thunderbird One from Base."
"Thunderbird One – go ahead, father," Scott acknowledged.
"John and I have been in touch with the race officials. They had taken the precaution of stationing helijets on the Antarctic mainland, but even if they were within range of the rescue zone, they still couldn't take off in this weather. The RAAF is still thirty-five hours away." He paused. "I bet you've been wondering where you're going to establish mobile control."
The corners of Scott's mouth twitched. "Well, let's just say I've been doing some pretty fancy calculations on hovering at high wind speeds."
His father laughed. "It's not as bad as that, son – not yet, at least. There's a Nimitz class aircraft carrier in the area – the USS Colin Powell. She's been on maneuvers with the Chilean Navy and she was on her way back home to Norfolk, Virginia. The American government has diverted her to assist in the rescue."
That's great, father – I can put down on her deck. Do we have rendezvous coordinates?"
"John's working on it with the commander of the Colin Powell. Stand by."
"F.A.B." Scott glanced down at his radar scope, clearly able to see the very bad weather he was flying into. This one wasn't going to cut them much slack.
Captain Andrew Howard of the USS Colin Powell stared out over the heaving deck of his ship as she ploughed her way at maximum speed through the ever-roughening seas south of Cape Horn. Heading into sustained winds of sixty knots and worsening, gusting to over 150 knots, with sheets of icy rain driving almost vertically across a deck that had become slick as glass, he had ordered all aircraft secured below and all non-essential personnel to shelter. In all his years sailing the oceans, he had never encountered a storm this savage. "Ted," he said to his executive officer, "What's the latest word on those capsized yachts?"
Before Commander Ted Lawrence could answer him, the communications officer was signaling them. "Sir, it's International Rescue requesting permission to land."
"Tell him he's clear. And get a team out there to secure him as soon as he's on deck – we don't want to go down in history as the ship that let a Thunderbird slide off into the drink."
Commander Lawrence allowed himself a smile. Captain Howard stared upwards through the darkness and rain, trying to make out the incoming lights of a craft they had all heard about, but never seen. "Those International Rescue guys must be crazy," Lawrence muttered under his breath. "I wouldn't even try to land in this. I hope he's good."
"I hope he's lucky," Howard answered brusquely.
"There!" Lawrence had spotted Thunderbird One's running lights, lowering out of the sky toward them.
Howard glanced back over at his communications officer. "Give him windspeed and direction – it's gusting to 150 knots out there, and if he doesn't watch it he's going to slide like a duck on pack ice. Ask him if we can be of any assistance."
In the cockpit of Thunderbird One, beads of sweat had broken out on Scott's forehead as he fought to keep his descent steady in the driving winds. "Thank the Captain for me," he grunted, "But unless he can control the weather, I don't think there's much he can do."
"Thunderbird One, this is Thunderbird Two," Virgil's voice came over the comlink. He sounded worried. "We're still an hour behind you, Scott. These headwinds are killing us. It looks very bad on the radar – are you going to be able to put down on that carrier?"
"Piece of cake," Scott grinned tightly. "It's only sixty knots without the wind shear, after all."
"Sixty knots?" Virgil sounded incredulous. "Scott, that's impossible! You'll put her in the drink."
"Oh, now you've gone and made it a challenge, Virg." Scott switched frequencies back to the Colin Powell. "USS Colin Powell from Thunderbird One. Give me all the lights you've got – I'm coming in."
Swinging around toward final approach, he could see the carrier below him now, the deck lit up like a Christmas tree to guide him in. Carrier landings were something he had never encountered during his military service – not many ships in the Air Force, after all. But they were well known as the acid test of a pilot's skill, even in calm seas.
Christ, he thought, looking down at the moving target that was steaming away from him at upwards of thirty knots. It's like landing on a postage stamp. A postage stamp that was also heaving up and down in the dark, with savage winds trying everything within their power to blow him sideways off his approach. His only plan was to make the opposite of a normal landing run – keeping the wings close to the fuselage, waiting until the last possible moment to lower the struts – and maybe, just maybe, the reduced surface area of the Thunderbird would cut down the wind drag enough to tip the odds in his favor. He hoped.
The only problem was, she was a beast to control at this altitude and these speeds without her wings. "Come on, baby," he muttered under his breath as she yawed sickeningly underneath him. "Don't fight me now, or we'll all end up going for a swim…"
"Scott," Virgil was in his ears again, voice edged with anxiety. "What's happening?"
"Can't talk now, Virgil. I'm a little busy." Scott was still struggling to lower the nose, but the winds kept buffeting her sideways and up. The carrier was close below him now – too close, he suddenly realized. His airspeed was still too high – he wasn't going to make it on this pass.
The microburst warning clamored in his ears. Before he could do anything about it, a mighty gust of wind caught the Thunderbird in its fist, throwing the craft hard to starboard as if it weighed no more than a kid's toy. Without wings to stabilize her, she rolled through forty degrees, Scott fighting desperately to get back control. He saw something very big flash past the corner of his vision and twisted his head around – realizing with horror that he was headed straight for the bridge island.
"Pull up, son, pull up!" the Captain shouted into the radio link. He and the rest of the bridge crew howled and covered their eyes as the Thunderbird's landing jet fired straight at them, scorching the metal of the bridge structure dangerously close to the observation glass. But it did the trick, blasting her up and over the island with inches to spare.
It took Scott almost another minute to bring the charging Thunderbird back under control, sweating from every pore in his body and hurling invective at the wind the whole way. God, that had been close – he'd almost killed himself and the entire bridge crew of the Colin Powell. Wiping that thought from his mind with an effort, he concentrated on the problem at hand. Somehow, he still had to land this bird.
Maybe Virgil was right. Maybe it couldn't be done.
And then a crazy thought struck him. Very dangerous – completely insane, in fact – but it just might work. Virgil, I'm real glad you can't see this…
The booster rockets flared as he swung the Thunderbird wide around the bridge structure, coming in as low as he could. There came the wind again, showing its teeth, trying its best to sweep him sideways. Okay, Tracy, just like you're landing back at the island. The carrier directly below him again, he throttled back on the thrusters, firing the landing jet in a controlled burst. Thunderbird One's heavy tail section swung down through ninety degrees, her nose cone now pointing straight up into the stormy sky. Scott allowed himself one glance down at the very hard deck underneath him. Then he cut the engines.
It felt like dropping off a cliff. Thunderbird One literally fell out of the sky, plunging tail-first like a stone. Every nerve in his body screaming, Scott forced himself to look only at the altimeter, counting off the seconds. "Four, three, two, one…" At the last possible moment his hands moved in a blur of speed, firing the thrusters, giving her just enough of a burst from her landing retro and the pitch-yaw jets in her nose cone to knock her descent out of vertical. Thunderbird One's nose scythed down, wings swinging out, landing struts dropping into place. She smacked into the deck of the Colin Powell with bruising force, bounced, and hit again. But this time she stayed down.
He could hear the cheers of the bridge crew over the comlink. "Son," the Captain said, "That is probably the worst landing I have ever witnessed in my entire career. Welcome aboard."
The forward mess hall of the Colin Powell was sparsely inhabited at this pre-dawn hour, but several Navy personnel were scattered throughout the tables, doing their best to eat despite the unusually severe pitching and rolling caused by the storm. One young seaman raced into the mess at top speed, skidding to a halt at a table occupied by two of his friends. An older man, seated nearby in heavy weather gear nursing a cup of coffee, glanced over with a frown of annoyance.
"I'm telling you, it was wild!" the young seaman was saying, voice pitched high with excitement. "I've never seen a landing like it!"
"Now come on, Hicks," one of the others shook his head. "Quit yanking my chain. Nothing could put down in this weather. It's gotta be blowing fifty at least out there."
"Sixty," Hicks said. "I mean, I heard International Rescue were the best, but you should have seen this baby hit the deck."
The man sitting nearby didn't move, only a slight tilt of his head in their direction betraying his sudden interest.
"International Rescue?" That had got the attention of the young seaman's friends.
"Yep. The pilot's up with the Captain in the bridge right now. Come on!"
All three men scrambled to their feet and hurried out of the Mess Hall. The man sitting nearby watched them go. Then he finished his coffee and stood up. Disguised he might be, but there was no hiding the look of unholy joy that burned in the eyes of the Hood.