A Spectrum Story for Christmas
by Marion Woods
Chapter One
They say hard work never
hurt anybody, but I figure why take the chance.
Ronald Reagan
Des Moines, Iowa, USA – a few days before
Christmas Eve
Sergeant John Jacobs, second-in-command
of Spectrum’s terrestrial base in Des Moines, Iowa, checked his uniform once
more and took the opportunity to glance at his watch again. The weather had been bad and that had
delayed all the flights, incoming and outgoing; but he’d been waiting for over
an hour already and he was getting hungry.
The fast-food outlet across the concourse was beginning to look like a
good idea.
After another twenty minutes, he
surrendered to the lure of the aroma wafting from the burger joint and bought
himself the biggest burger they had on their predictable, standardised menu.
He was standing, leaning against a wall eating it, when an authoritative voice
said:
“Sergeant?
My apologies for keeping you waiting.”
Desperately swallowing his mouthful,
Jacobs gasped, “Doctor Giardello, sir – I was just…”
Giardello’s dark eyebrow rose in an
atypically tolerant amusement. “It’s
all right, sergeant, I know I’m very late.
However, if you would take me to the SSC, I’d be grateful.”
“Sir.” Jacobs pitched his burger into a
nearby waste bin and wiped his fingers and mouth on the paper napkin, before
tossing that away too. He had
studied the ID picture of the Doctor before he’d come to meet the man, but he
remembered to take a look at the proffered ID card even so.
Doctor Giardello was smaller than he’d
expected. His lugubrious face was etched with worry lines and his blue eyes were
cold behind his steel-rimmed glasses.
His abundant black hair was liberally scattered with grey and he was
wearing a sober charcoal-grey overcoat over a neat business suit. Not for the R&D staff the conspicuous
uniform of the Spectrum personnel; Spectrum Intelligence kept its existence
low-key.
Despite his unprepossessing appearance,
the Head of Spectrum Intelligence’s Research and Development Section – known by
the acronym SIRAD – had a formidable reputation and was renowned throughout the
organisation as the developer of the invaluable Mysteron detector and the
electron gun, both , however cumbersome, essential weapons in Spectrum’s arsenal
against the Mysterons. He was
certainly the most important person in Spectrum that Jacobs had ever met; apart
from Colonel White, of course, on the day he’d come to inaugurate the recently
established terrestrial base, here in Des Moines. That the colonel had come in person had been something
of a turn up for the books too and akin to a State visit, as far as Jacobs was
concerned.
He led the Doctor through to the car
park, where the impressive, red Spectrum Saloon Car stood in a reserved spot,
attracting plenty of attention from the curious public.
Jacobs opened the door for his charge
and ushered Giardello inside, before clambering into the driving seat.
“Where to, sir?” he asked as he buckled
up.
“Air Electronics Systems Corporation,”
Giardello replied, continuing, “it’s just outside of Cedar Rapids.”
“Yes, sir, I know it well. My brother works there,” Jacobs
volunteered as he steered the SSC out into the snow-bound streets and joined the
slow-moving traffic. “What do you
want to go there for, sir?” he asked without thinking.
“That,” said Giardello sharply, “is
none of your business, Sergeant.”
He saw a blush suffuse the young man’s face and added, less waspishly, “Spectrum
has some business to transact with them, but you need not concern yourself with
it.”
“S.I.G., sir,” Jacobs responded
crisply, cursing his absent-minded curiosity.
He was ambitious enough to know that he’d never get anywhere if he couldn’t keep
his mind open and his mouth shut in the presence of the high command.
Giardello gave a wry smile and turned
to watch the light show of the highway as they made what speed they could
through the traffic. He was not
used to having to deal with enthusiastic inquisitiveness from the terrestrial
support staff. The R&D section’s
staff were all used to keeping quiet about their work and habitually suppressed
whatever curiosity they might have about their superior’s activities as well.
He settled back in the comfortable
seat. It was snowing again he noticed, as he allowed his mind to drift.
He hadn’t expected to get the summons
to AESC so quickly and he’d have preferred to have stayed at home this close to
Christmas – but there were important issues at stake. If the new system was as good as they expected, it would be
an invaluable tool for Spectrum to use against their implacable foes - the
Mysterons.
Robert Giardello was absolutely
dedicated to his work, so much so that he rarely got enthusiastic about mundane
things. His private life was run on
well-designed and predictable lines.
His wife, Teresa, ran an orderly and efficient home, keeping precise and
accurate financial records which they checked over together, once a quarter,
deciding where to invest the surplus money; Teresa prided herself on always
coming in ‘under budget’. Their
three children – the youngest a rare example of failure to adhere to their
agreed life-plan – were performing well at school, and he looked forward to
seeing them all in useful and lucrative careers, before they settled down to
just such orderly lives as their parents enjoyed.
What did excite him was innovation at
the cutting edge of applied science and technology. He had almost declined the invitation to attend last year’s
World Science summit, but Colonel White had urged him to be there. Wisely, as it had happened, for at the
conference in Bonn, he had met and conversed with Dr Vernon Catesby – a
well-respected physicist working in the field of advanced aviation electronics.
What had resulted from that discussion
– and had absorbed a fraction under 28% of his department’s annual budget – was
what was bringing him to AESC this close to Christmas; and causing him such
unusual excitement.
“It
is, “Giardello thought with uncharacteristic whimsy, “as if Christmas has come early…”
Vernon Catesby was waiting for his
guest in the lobby of the AESC offices. He swept Dr Giardello through the
administration block without a moment’s delay and into the inner sanctum of his
workroom-cum-office, in the separate building that housed the high security
research block.
“I’m so pleased you were able to come
at such short notice, Doctor,” Catesby said with barely suppressed excitement.
He was younger than Giardello, taller and rapier-thin, with an untidy head of
brown hair and intelligent brown eyes, framed by his wire-rimmed glasses, which,
Giardello noted, were held together by a small roll of sticking plaster in the
best ‘mad scientist’ tradition.
Catesby was still young enough to ignore the fact that a sober outward
appearance could lend gravitas and authority to a scientist’s theories.
“You sounded very positive about your
latest work, Doctor,” Giardello replied, placing his briefcase on the workbench.
“I am naturally eager to see what progress has been made and to evaluate its
applications for Spectrum.”
Catesby almost bounced with excitement.
“I’m sure I can make your day, Doctor… we’re making great strides and are within
a hair’s breadth of success. I was
sure you’d want to know and with your help - and the assistance of your team –
we can nail this thing!”
Giardello smiled broadly, infected by
Catesby’s enthusiasm. “Well, let’s get started, Doctor. I’m all yours…”
Cloudbase
Colonel White put his toothbrush into his sponge bag, slid it into the suitcase
on the bed and snapped the locks closed.
A quick glance around his room reassured him that he hadn’t forgotten anything
important. He put on his tweed
jacket, draped his winter overcoat over his arm, picked up his trilby in one
hand and his suitcase in the other.
Outside of his quarters he found Captain Scarlet and Captain Blue lounging with
apparent casualness against the wall, some way down the corridor. They gave a credible appearance of
surprise to see him emerge and fell in, one on either side and one pace behind
him, as he walked to the escalators.
“I am capable of finding the hangar
deck, Captains,” White said with dry humour.
“Well, of course you are, sir…” Scarlet
began.
“We just thought we’d be around just in
case you…errmm…”
“Needed anything – yes, in case we
could be of any assistance…” Scarlet rescued his partner from his dilemma.
“That is uncommonly helpful of you,
gentlemen. For a brief moment I
thought it might have to do with your wanting to make sure I was actually
leaving the base…”
Scarlet’s laugh didn’t sound even
remotely genuine. “Why would we do
that?”
“That’s what’s worrying me, Captain.”
The two officers exchanged wary grimaces. “We’re merely concerned that you have a wonderful vacation, sir,” Blue ventured to say. “Things have been pretty hectic lately and you’re due for some ground time...”
“Did Doctor Fawn send you?” White asked
abruptly.
“No.”
“Of course not.”
The answers were just a little too
quick. White’s eyebrows rose and he
said, “Well, you can assure him that I am
going on leave, and put your own minds at rest that I intend to have a wonderful
time.”
“Have you decided where you’re going to
go, sir?” Scarlet asked with a grin.
There wasn’t much escaped ‘the old man’.
“Oh, I thought I’d go to a favourite
place of mine, Captain. It’s called
‘none-of-your-business’, and it’s about as restful as it gets.”
“You did log it with Lieutenant Green’s
location database, didn’t you, sir?” Blue asked. “We need to know where you are
– just in case…”
White stopped suddenly and the two
younger men cannoned into each other whilst attempting to avoid barging into
their commanding officer.
“That’s rich, that is, coming from one
of you two! Yes, I have logged it,
Captain Blue, so you don’t have to worry that protocol has been breached. And if I find out that Lieutenant Green
has let either of you – or anyone else on the base – go nosing through my
records in my absence, I’ll bust everyone concerned down to ensign and send one
of you to Archives and the other to a training base as a junior instructor. Do I
make myself clear?”
“As crystal…” Scarlet confirmed with a
warning frown at his companion.
The Colonel walked on, smiling at the
frantic whispers coming from his ‘escort’.
Scarlet was obviously not amused by Blue’s heavy-handed comments. He was rather surprised himself – Blue
was usually the more diplomatic of the two – but maybe it was a hangover from
the fact that the last couple of holidays his officers had taken had been
interrupted by Mysteron activity which had placed them in some danger.
He reached the hangar bay and looked
across at the two SPJs being prepared for the morning shuttle runs down to the
main terrestrial bases. The far one
was for London and the closer one for New York.
He turned to his companions.
“Well, thank you for your company,
Captains. I’m sure you have plenty
to do, so don’t let me detain you further.”
“Oh, it’s all right, sir, we’re not
that busy,” Scarlet replied. As
Blue looked daggers at him, he hastened to cover his gaffe. “That is, we’re ahead of schedule on what we have to do…”
Colonel White’s expression showed that he was not fooled for one minute.
A technician came towards them. “May I stow your luggage, Colonel?” he
asked. White handed the suitcase over. “Where to, sir?”
“New York.” White noticed Scarlet’s
dark eyebrows shoot upwards.
“I hope you have a good time, sir.”
“Thank you, Captain Blue. I intend to.”
They watched him walk towards the
shuttle and climb aboard.
“New York?” Scarlet commented dryly as
the plane’s doors were closed and the Klaxon sounded to warn people to leave the
hangar before depressurisation. “I never thought he’d go there.”
“Why not?
New York’s all right…” the Boston-born American conceded with a distinct
lack of enthusiasm.
Scarlet grinned at him and then said
more soberly, “Well, I thought he’d spend Christmas in England, with family or
something… “
“Maybe he doesn’t have anybody in England anymore?” Blue suggested,
his tone openly compassionate,
Scarlet sniffed and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“Could be, I guess. Strange
we don’t even know that much about him, even after all this time. I’d hate to think we’ve talked him into
going and he’s got nowhere to go… if you follow me?”
“Not even Fawn could have talked him into leaving Cloudbase if he didn’t want to
go,” Blue reasoned.
“That’s true… but New York? Ah
well, I bet you he won’t stay there for long…”
“Hmmm,” Blue agreed. “I wouldn’t…”
Scarlet sniggered and punched his
friend’s arm as he turned to lead the way off the deck.
“Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?” he asked rhetorically. “Come on; let’s go tell Doc Fawn that
we’ve waved him off, as instructed.” From then safety of the entry lock, he
watched the plane as it rose on the hydraulic platform to the launch pad.
“Anyway, I hope he has a good time.
Mind you, this place never seems the same when he’s away…”
“Yeah, people get nervous,”
Blue agreed. “Can’t imagine why…”
Scarlet grinned. “Did you notice the
collective sigh of relief that wafted over Cloudbase when the colonel named Grey
as his deputy?” he teased.
“Everyone was dreading it might’ve been you.”
Blue gave a look of outraged innocence.
“I don’t know where this reputation I have for being a terrible commander has
come from,” he protested.
“Yes you do! Talks about monkeys, indeed…you’ll never live that down,
Adam.” He laughed at his friend’s
embarrassed scowl. “Come on; let’s see Fawn and then we can wander down to the
Amber Room… I happen to know that Rhapsody and Symphony are on standby together
this morning, and they’ve invited us to help with putting up some of the
Christmas decorations.” He paused
and gave a rueful grimace before admitting, “Well, what Dianne actually said
was: ‘you can both put your long, lazy carcases to some good use, for once’ –
but I prefer to think it was meant as an
invitation… ”
It was less than an hour after Colonel
White had left when the familiar opening burst of static, over the communication
tannoy, warned every Spectrum Cloudbase operative of an incoming message from
the Mysterons. In the Amber Room,
Scarlet and Blue, occupied with stringing brightly-coloured garlands across the
central space, glanced across the room at each other. Symphony and Rhapsody
stopped giving their peremptory – and often contradictory – orders to their
willing assistants and unconsciously moved closer together in solidarity.
Scarlet clambered down from the step-ladder and Blue slid off the table-top he’d
been standing on.
The voice of the Mysterons,
unemotional, harsh and threatening, issued over the speakers, reverberating
along the stark metallic corridors of the base.
THIS IS THE VOICE OF THE MYSTERONS.
WE KNOW YOU CAN HEAR US, EARTHMEN.
YOU WILL NEVER DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE
MYSTERONS. WE WILL DESTROY YOUR HORIZION TECHNOLOGY AND ENSURE YOUR
PRIMITIVE EYES REMAIN BLIND. OUR
RETALIATION WILL CONTINUE…
Scarlet dropped the end of the garland
he was holding and wordlessly collected his radio cap from Rhapsody’s
outstretched hand as he crossed to join his partner at the door; just as
Lieutenant Green’s voice ordered all senior captains to the control room.
The Angels watched the door slide close
behind the officers.
“Here we go again,” Rhapsody said her
words less concerned than her tone. Symphony nodded and her friend mused, “I
wonder what it’ll be this time.” She started to roll up the garland, finding
comfort in the mundane task.
“I don’t know,” the American replied
anxiously, “but I’d lay odds those two will be up to their necks in it… whatever
it is.”
“No takers,” Rhapsody said. She looked at her friend with a wry
smile. “We couldn’t stop them if we tried, and… would they really be the men we
know and love if they let us stop them?”
Symphony shook her head and pulled
herself together. “No, but they’d
be safe… and… alive.”
Rhapsody fumbled the garland which
dropped to the floor and rolled away across the open space, leaving a ribbon of
colour on the plain carpet.
Mechanically she bent and started the task again.
It never gets
any easier, watching them start another mission, she
thought, and I doubt it ever will…
“That doesn’t make any sense; it can’t
be what they’re on about,” Captain Scarlet said and sighed; they’d already spent
some considerable time without being able to solve the puzzle of the threat.
“Okay, genius, do you have any better
ideas?” Captain Ochre asked rather belligerently.
Captain Grey gave him a sharp, warning
glance; he couldn’t afford to allow bickering to break out amongst the officers
and Ochre was rapidly losing his patience.
Captain Magenta’s suggestion had more chance of being right than Scarlet
seemed prepared to admit; but, all the same, it was a rather forced explanation
of the threat.
Scarlet threw his radio cap onto the
edge of the circular command desk and scratched his head. “They don’t make idle threats; it has to mean something.” He
glanced at his partner. “Come on,
Adam, you’re the king of the cryptic clues, what do you think it means?”
Blue looked up from the notepad he was
doodling on and shrugged. “Well, it
seems to me that they’re worried about something. They’ve used that taunt of our never being able to gain any
insight or understanding of them several times before. The best example is when
we went to the moon to investigate the complex they were constructing in the
Humboldt Sea, but they used similar words when we launched the spy satellite to
Phobos, and when we created the
Mysteron Detector and the Electron gun.
They seem to think we’re about to make another discovery with similar
potential.”
“Hmm,” Grey gave the idea some thought
and then said, “that could be the case; but we’ve heard nothing about anything
that suggests we might be on to something significant. I think it is more prosaic than that, Blue. What I’m thinking is – this
reference to ‘primitive eyes’ and to ‘horizon technology’ – could it be radar?”
Blue gave a sceptical tilt of his head.
“Yes, it could be. If something disabled our radar systems,
that’d ground every plane - even ours - and certainly affect our ability to stop
their future threats succeeding.
But, Grey, that’s a helluva big
target. Every plane and ship has radar
installed. Mind you,” he said thoughtfully as an
idea struck him, “it might be a threat to the air traffic control towers. That’s what we can’t know: how and where
they’ll strike.”
“Satellite navigation,” Ochre chipped
in. “Just about every car on the
road has that. Take it away and
half the population would be lost in minutes – no one seems to look where
they’re going these days -”
Blue nodded. “Yes… the possibilities
for disruption are endless. But,
you know, I can’t help feeling that this might be a decoy for some other target
they have in mind. I can’t help
coming back to this jibe about our never understanding them - something has them
worried – as much as they ever get worried by what we do, I mean.”
Lieutenant Green had heard the way the
conversation was developing and he’d already started a search for any likely
targets. He called across from his research console.
“I have an all airlines press release here, from the World Aeronautical Society,
dated yesterday. They’re
announcing a new generation of radar tracking technology for air-traffic control
systems; it’s about to go into parallel testing - at Atlantic Airport.”
“Hmm, that’s a distinct possibility then. We should get someone down to check that out,” Scarlet
suggested; he’d had enough of sitting still and he was itching to get into
action. “It’s the only lead we have at the moment, anyway.”
“What I want to know is why they chose
to run trials on this thing at one of the world’s busiest airports – at its
busiest time of year! I mean,
doesn’t the WAS realise that if it goes ‘kaboom’ at Atlantic, the repercussions
will be felt internationally? Why not start with a little place
somewhere?” Ochre asked, shaking
his head.
Blue looked up again from his complex
artwork. “They’ll have done that
already. If it’s going into trial at Atlantic
it’s because it’s proved itself at some provincial airfields.”
Ochre nodded in understanding. “Ah, I guess it also spreads the misery
if it fails…?”
Blue grimaced. “Oh no, someone will be in for a whole truckload of misery if Atlantic goes down. That sort of thing means you end up in some God-forsaken, two-bit airfield, in the middle of nowhere, shortly after your next annual performance review. I’ve seen it happen…”
“Well, that gives us all the confirmation we need
that you can’t go and check out Atlantic,
Blue, you’ve got too many contacts in the organisation for it to be safe,”
Captain Grey said. As acting commander of Cloudbase he had the task of assigning
the duties. “I think you’d better go to Atlantic, Magenta… and Ochre can go with
you – as the security expert.
Check out the installation, the system, and their security procedures and
report back.”
“S.I.G, Captain.” Magenta smiled. The job sounded right up his street; he
liked tinkering with computers.
“What about the rest of us?” Scarlet
said sharply. It hadn’t occurred to
him before that with Blue sidelined, he might not get to participate in the
mission.
Grey sucked his teeth. “I think you and Lieutenant Green had
better go and check out London. The
transatlantic routes are the busiest and – as I understand it – transatlantic
traffic that isn’t covered by Atlantic itself is covered by London -”
“Swanwick,” Blue corrected absently
“Huh?”
Grey was baffled.
“UK Air Traffic Control HQ is in
Swanwick,” their WAS expert said, as he contemplated his completed design.
“I beg your pardon,” Grey said with a
wry grin. “Scarlet, you had better take Green to…Swanwick and check that everything is okay there.”
“S.I.G.” Scarlet laughed. “Looks like you’re confined to base,
Blue-boy.”
“Seems so,” Blue said with a shrug. He pushed the pad away from him and
replaced the cap on his pen.
“Should we tell the colonel?” Ochre
asked as he started to pack up his folder.
“No, he’s only just gone on furlough,
for Pete’s sake!” Grey snapped. “We
can manage this by ourselves. We’re
big boys now…” He resented the implied suggestion that he might not be up to the
task of organising the response to a Mysteron threat.
“Just a thought,” Ochre replied
apologetically, realising how his innocent, yet thoughtless, question must have
sounded to his friend. “Don’t jump
down my throat.”
Magenta picked up the discarded notepad and tore Blue’s artwork from the top.
“Nice picture,” he said, surveying the detailed image of a Christmas
angel with more than a passing resemblance to Symphony. “It’d be a real treat to
find that on your Christmas tree…”
“You get your own decorations…” Blue said, reaching for the paper and colouring
slightly as he slipped it into his pocket.
Military Airfield, north-eastern USA
Charles Gray collected his luggage and walked
briskly across to the civilian part of the airfield.
He queued patiently and bought his ticket on the next flight to the East Iowa
Airport, Cedar Rapids. Then he
found a public call box and rang the number he’d long ago committed to memory.
A woman’s voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Amanda? It’s Charles.
I’m at New York and the first flight I could get arrives at East Iowa in about
four hours.”
He could hear her smile in her voice as
she said, “Charles! How wonderful. I’ll be there to meet you. Sure you can remember what I look like,
or shall I carry one of those notices with your name written on?” she teased
him.
“No need, Amanda. I have your image imprinted on my mind…”
Amanda laughed. “Charles Gray, you old flatterer! I’ll see you soon, then. Have a pleasant flight.”
He hung up and went towards the
garishly decorated shops in search of some small gifts, and something to read,
whilst he waited. He sincerely
hoped the arrival at East Iowa would be much better than the flight there could
possibly be. He knew full well the butterflies in his stomach had nothing to do
with any fear of flying, but they were the promise of an uncomfortable journey.
He was conscious that this was a big
step forward in his relationship with Amanda Wainwright. It had all started a couple of years ago, after she’d sent
him a Christmas card with a personal message inside, to thank him for his
kindness to her and her daughter – the Angel pilot codenamed Symphony – since
the recent death of her husband.
He’d been surprised and pleased to receive it.
He had retained a clear recollection of the charming Mrs Wainwright from
the one occasion he’d met her, and he’d drawn the encouragement to think she
might like to get to know him.
A
few months later – whilst he was spending a few days conducting promotion
interviews and performing commissioning ceremonies for the mid-western division,
at the Spectrum base in Des Moines – he had contacted her with a tentative
invitation to dine with him, on a thin pretext of speaking to her about her
daughter. Amanda had accepted
with every show of pleasure and by the end of the evening they had both known
that they’d be seeing more of each other.
Since then, they’d met up several times
for weekend visits to various cities; doing tours of tourist venues and museums
during the day, followed by a show and a meal out somewhere glamorous in the
evening. He was acutely
conscious that it was still only a few years since she’d been widowed by her
husband’s tragic death in a road accident – something they had in common, as his
own wife and baby son had been killed that way, many years ago – and he’d been
careful not to press her into getting more involved than she was happy to do.
They’d enjoyed the time they spent in each other’s company; found that
they had a liking for a great many things in common and, in his case, that he
could relax with her in a way he found it difficult to do with anyone else.
He’d been delighted, yet a little apprehensive, when Amanda sent him an
invitation to spend Christmas at her home in Iowa, at the ranch her family had
owned for well over a century, it seemed.
This was, he knew, the possible start of a much closer relationship between
them, because they’d always met on ‘neutral ground’ before. He’d thought long and hard about the consequences of
accepting her invitation before he’d done so.
He knew that he couldn’t be content with the platonic nature of their
relationship for ever. Sometime he
would have to test the water and see if Amanda felt the same – and this seemed
as good a time as any.
Iowa, USA
Amanda Wainwright was also trying to
ignore the nervous fluttering of the butterflies in her stomach, as she turned
her car out of the ranch gate, the tyres scrunching on the icy, snow-crusted
surface, and headed towards Cedar Rapids.
As she drove she considered her guest
and the strange way their lives had become inter-twined.
She’d first met Charles Grey in London
when she and Sam had flown over, at Spectrum’s invitation, to attend their
daughter’s commissioning ceremony.
They had both been slightly over-awed; partly by the grandeur of the venue,
partly by the pomp of the ceremony, but mostly by the unexpected emotion of the
occasion.
During the course of the reception that
followed the official oath-taking, Colonel White had made it his business to
meet and greet the family members of every Spectrum officer. Every guest had already received a
detailed dossier, explaining why it was imperative that the true identity of the
elite officers of Spectrum be kept confidential, and this had also been the
tenor of his conversation with them both.
She could tell from Sam’s body language
that he was as excited as she about Karen’s new career, and as ready to agree to
keeping it a secret as anyone there. The colonel had made a great impression on
them both, with his upright military bearing and authoritative voice, and,
although she doubted if Sam had noticed either his good-looking face, or the
twinkle in his china-blue eyes, or the more than adequate way he filled his
pristine, white dress uniform, the combination had created a very favourable
impression on her and -she’d noted with some pleasure – the Englishman’d enjoyed
looking at her too.
Not that she’d ever thought any more of
it.
Sam Wainwright might not have been about
to set the Great Lakes on fire, but he was the man she loved.
She sighed, and as she changed lanes to take the
exit to the airport, she allowed her thoughts to drift back over the familiar
memories of her relationship with her much-loved and greatly-missed husband.
Eighteen year old Amanda Hoffman was studying
business management at college, with a view to helping her parents run their
ranch, when she met Sam Wainwright. Working in a summer job as an
office administrator at the AESC plant, just outside Cedar Rapids, Amanda had
quickly settled in and made several new friends. She knew she was a pretty young
woman – and as such she was used to the attentions of the young – and the not so
young – men around her; some of these ‘attentions’ she welcomed, and some she
rejected. There was no false
modesty about her, but thankfully there was no vanity either, and a suitor soon
learned where he stood with the feisty Miss Hoffman.
Sam Wainwright was a recent MIT graduate, who had been taken on as a
researcher for the new programs development department. They’d hit it off straight away.
Wainwright was tall and rather slender in build,
with reddish-brown hair and mossy-green eyes, flecked with brown.
He was rather diffident, and spoke with the pinched nasal tones of a New England
accent that made him stand out a mile amongst the mid-western voices of his
co-workers. He’d been born and raised in
Massachusetts, where his father was an engineer and his mother a Math teacher. The youngest of three sons, Sam was
none-too confident around young women – especially pretty ones.
Amanda, who had no shortage of potential suitors
from amongst the local population of eligible young men, thought he was cute and
Sam Wainwright had been smitten from the moment she’d smiled at him, and
willingly became her devoted acolyte.
As far as both of them were concerned it was a perfect match.
When Sam asked Amanda to marry him, she’d been
happy to say ‘yes’; despite the reservations expressed by her parents about
their youth, the comparative speed of their commitment to each other and the
fact that Amanda had not yet completed her college course. They advised the
couple to have a long engagement, but Amanda had other ideas and the wedding was
held one pleasant autumnal day, little more than a year after they’d met.
Sam’s family had travelled over from Massachusetts
and they’d been won over by the beautiful young bride and welcomed her into
their family. There was, however, no likelihood that
the newly-weds would accept the invitation to return to the East Coast, despite
Sam’s recent offer of a job at his old college. The Hoffman family had been farming in the area for almost
two hundred years and it was unthinkable that their only daughter might leave
the neighbourhood. So, as Sam had
an apartment in Cedar Rapids, it made sense for the newly-married couple to live
there. They planned for Amanda to
complete her studies, and then find a decent house before starting a family.
Things had not gone exactly according to plan,
however, but when Amanda gave birth to a healthy baby girl – christened Karen
Amanda – the child had been adored by the entire family and the beautiful baby
grew into a bright, vivacious child with red-gold hair and hazel-green eyes.
As she’d grown, Karen had spent most of her time
at the ranch – her parents, both still working in Cedar Rapids, lived in their
small apartment, and rushed home at weekends to be with their daughter.
It was a happy childhood, and as the centre of a loving family, Karen
blossomed into a popular and fairly happy-go-lucky personality.
But it was becoming obvious that the ranch no
longer provided the secure livelihood it had once done. Both Amanda’s
grandfather and great-grandfather had sold land and, in so doing, had
compromised the economic viability of the farm. To combat this decline, Willis
Hoffman was investigating alternative ways of producing income and had even
seriously considered becoming a component of the ever-growing leisure industry
by turning part of his property into a holiday venue – a kind of ‘Dude Ranch’.
Once Karen started school, it quickly became
apparent that she was an extremely intelligent child and her parents and
grandparents had scrimped and saved to provide her with the best education they
could. For a time she’d been sent to stay with her Wainwright
relatives, and study at a school in Boston, with a view to entering Harvard. But, with Karen’s usual perversity, she
had, at sixteen, won a scholarship to Yale University, which Sam had accepted
with a sigh of resignation that only a Massachusetts-born scholar could have
produced.
Amanda had gone to Connecticut with her daughter,
working in the administration department of one of the colleges to be close at
hand and keep an eye on her, until Karen felt confident to cope alone.
The relationship between mother and daughter had always been affable, but
they were rather too alike to get on well for long. In addition, Karen was the apple of her
father’s eye and her grandparents’ pride and joy, which favoured status Amanda
rather resented; whilst, in her turn, Karen was competitive enough to dislike
having a mother young and attractive enough to pass for her older sister. When Karen turned eighteen she insisted
her mother return home.
It had taken some time for that breach to heal,
but as usual, Sam Wainwright had kept the peace between the women in his family.
He told Amanda that they should be pleased their daughter had grown into an
attractive, self-assured and intelligent young woman, who did not need their
help to make a success of her life.
It was true that there remained a touch of the country-bred tomboy about her,
but she could, when she wanted to, act like a ‘real lady’.
She was forthright and could be wilful, but she was also passionate,
enthusiastic, honest and devoted to her family and friends. Amanda had agreed
with everything he said – only adding ‘spoiled’ to the list, even in the face of
Sam’s exasperation.
Karen had done extremely well at college –
graduating near the top of her class with excellent grades and a handful of
awards.
Then she’d taken a government job – about which she said very little to
her parents, except that it involved a great deal of travelling – and they had
not seen much of her for the next few years.
Sam missed her desperately, and spoiled her all the more as a consequence
when he saw her.
They knew that Karen was ambitious to do well, and
so it came as a surprise when she quit the government job and started working as
a pilot for a company of air taxis.
Her mother had argued against it, as had her grandparents, even though they knew
there was no real point; Karen had her father’s stubbornness and she wasn’t used
to opposition from her family, so it was far too late to start trying to talk
her out of anything now… and, of course, her father stood by her – as always.
Yet that humble pilot’s job had been her
introduction to Spectrum, and the astonishment amongst her family had been
spectacular when Karen had confessed that that the ‘government job’ she’d been
doing was with a security agency and that she had – in fact – been a secret
agent.
It amazed her mother that her garrulous daughter had managed to keep
anything a secret, but her father had been fit to burst with pride when Karen
told him why she had been accepted into the world’s newest and best-equipped
security force. These
revelations came as less of a welcome surprise to the rest of the family, and
the worry of it had probably contributed towards the death of her grandfather,
in the months after Karen received her commission as Symphony Angel. Devastated, she’d come home and clung to
her parents – as if everything in Iowa was suddenly infinitely more precious.
When Karen returned to Cloudbase her family had
resorted to watching the TV rolling news channels for any information they could
glean. They had learnt from the newscasts that Spectrum was actively
waging a campaign against the terrorist forces known as ‘the Mysterons’ and
watched in apprehension whenever footage of Spectrum’s Angel Interceptors was
shown – wondering if their daughter was flying one of them.
Very occasionally Karen came home for short visits
and, on one such occasion, the blue-clad officer who arrived to escort her back
to Cloudbase was a tall, blond-haired man, with an accent that – to Sam’s expert
ear – declared him to be a native of Boston.
He shook their visitor’s hand warmly, challenging him to deny his origins. The young man acknowledged his
birthplace with a broad grin, and slid easily into a far broader drawl – much to
Sam’s delight – as he introduced himself as Captain Blue.
Amanda, chuckling at her husband’s innocent
pleasure, smiled into the young man’s vaguely familiar, handsome face, with its
pale-blue, ‘bedroom-eyes’ and wondered where she’d seen him before. From the
corners of her memory came the realisation that it had been at the same
commissioning ceremony where she’d first seen Colonel White – only there, her
daughter had been avoiding the captain with an off-hand casualness that was, in
retrospect, very revealing.
Obviously, Karen’s apparent indifference had not lasted.
Watching the couple together, Amanda
told Sam that he’d just met his future son-in-law and Sam laughed; but Amanda
was convinced Karen was very much in love, as, she suspected, was Captain Blue –
only she wasn’t sure the young man was aware of the fact yet.
Amanda navigated the last junction and
mused to herself, ‘That
was our last happy time together. A
few months later, Sam was dead. At
least he got to know that Karen was enjoying her new job and looked set to make
a success of it. How he loved to
talk to me about ‘our daughter – Symphony Angel’…’
Indeed, Karen’s happiness and success
had been just about the only bright spot on the family’s horizon; the ranch was
not doing well, and despite his finest endeavours, Sam Wainwright was not the
best man to run the place. He’d
revived his father-in-law’s idea of creating a Dude Ranch and had
enthusiastically entered into business deals and financial commitments that – if
successful – would have solved their financial problems, but Amanda had quickly
discovered it was a big IF.
Sam’s death in a highway pile-up,
during terrible weather in the spring of 2069, had come as a great shock to
everyone, and for the first time since her marriage, Amanda had felt vulnerable. Her mother, who was no longer in
the best of health, had on the death of her husband retired to live with her
sister in the milder climate of Florida, Karen was on Cloudbase, and
consequently Amanda had never felt so alone.
It had been a great relief to her when Colonel White had allowed Karen special
leave to come home again. She’d
been brought back to the ranch by a solicitous Captain Blue and had reached for
her mother from the comfort of his supportive arm.
Even from the depths of her misery Amanda could see the bond between him and her
daughter had grown and she’d drawn comfort from knowing that Karen was not
facing this second blow alone.
Captain Blue had seen to it that
everything was unloaded from the car and very thoughtfully made some coffee for
them as they sat consoling each other, before he took his leave. Karen had walked with him to the car,
and from the kitchen sink window – where she was disposing of the truly abysmal
beverage – Amanda had seen him kiss her daughter with such tenderness it had
brought a lump to her throat. It
confirmed what she’s suspected; Karen was clearly head-over-heels in love with
this man, and – unless she was losing her insight into the male psyche – he was
very much in love with her.
Amanda changed down a gear and turned
onto the airport approach road. Even this car was a present two Christmases
ago to Karen- and me- from the man I now know is Adam Svenson. She smiled.
I wish Sam had lived long enough to get to know him. He’s a
fine young man, and they’d have got on
like a house on fire; typical native-born New Englanders to their fingertips,
both of them, she mused.
It had been a stroke of good fortune
too, Amanda conceded, that Adam turned out to be from a family of successful
bankers and financiers. He’d grown
up in a culture where business deals and money-management were considered
everyday topics of conversation and had breathed in financial acumen whilst
still in diapers. During a
visit home with Karen, he’d tried to persuade her mother to allow him to take a
look at the ranch’s account books.
At first, Amanda had been unwilling, partly from pride and partly through a
sense of not wanting him to know just how much of a muddle they were in; she
didn’t want him to think poorly of Sam.
But Adam wasn’t the kind of man whose
courteously expressed requests you could deny, and, once she’d handed over the
relevant documents, he had retired to his bedroom early one evening and had –
she thought – stayed there, for once.
By the morning he had dark rings beneath his pale-blue eyes, and a whole
series of proposals drawn up, with a list of names for her to contact for
further advice.
Once the young couple had left, Amanda
had done as Adam suggested and found, to her delight, that she was likely to be
entitled to considerable compensation for the ineptitude of Sam’s financial
adviser. She’d taken the liberty of contacting Adam personally by phone, in
order to thank him; she was well aware that he didn’t want Karen to know of his
familiarity with their financial situation and she respected him for it.
He’d been delighted to hear her news and then – much to her
surprise – he’d proceeded to try to sweet-talk her into the idea of accepting a
car from him: as a gift for them both, he’d cleverly insisted. She’d been genuinely reluctant to become
even more beholden to this young man, but her arguments had failed to change his
mind; not surprisingly, for she knew now that it would take a virtual act of God
to make Adam shift from his considered decisions. It was not that she thought he might
ever use his generosity towards them as leverage, to pressure them into doing
something they didn’t want to do, that would have breached the distinctive code
of good manners Adam lived by. She’d recognised that in him almost straight
away, as Sam had been of much the same turn of mind.
However, the young man had persisted in his persuasive reasoning until
she’d run out of objections and had agreed to his proposal – with certain strict
provisos.
Several months later when the car had arrived - with a long letter from Adam, explaining that he liked both of them too much to suffer the torments of knowing they were driving around in the worn-out wrecks the Ranch possessed – she’d taken the impulsive step of contacting him by video-link to remonstrate with him over the extravagant nature of the gift. She’d agreed to a good quality, second-hand car, at best, and what had turned up was a brand-new, top-of-the-range model. But even as she attempted to reprimand him, she knew from the expression on his face – as much as from his unpretentious admission that he didn’t ‘do’ second-hand - that she wasn’t going to get anywhere. Karen was not the only one used to getting her own way, it seemed, and she’d wondered how the pair of them dealt with their equal propensity to be stubborn at times.
Now, of course, she knew: Adam gave in, more often than not, and
far too often for it to be good for Karen.
Still, she concluded as she drove into the
multi-storey car park,
it’s always easier to judge other people’s
relationships from the outside; the chances are it doesn’t seem like that to
either of them.
Cloudbase
Captain Grey listened to his
communication officer’s latest report with an ashen face.
“Are they sure, Lieutenant?” he asked.
“Doctor Giardello might’ve just forgotten to let anyone know where he was going
to be.”
Lieutenant Claret nodded his dark head
and gave a rueful grimace. “The Assistant Director at SIRAD is not aware of
where Doctor Giardello has gone.
The Doctor’s wife is most anxious that we trace her husband; apparently Doctor
Giardello follows a rigid pattern of behaviour and he was supposed to be on
leave from now until after Christmas.
Mrs Giardello is very anxious, sir.”
Grey sighed. “Put me through to Doctor Kelly, Claret.”
The Assistant Director of SIRAD looked
rather younger than Grey expected.
She was a serene looking woman, with close-cropped brown hair and a round face
with a fresh complexion. She gave
Captain Grey a calm smile.
“Good
of you to speak to me, Acting Commander,” she said.
“How may we be of help, Doctor Kelly?”
“I’ve
had a call from Mrs Giardello; asking where her husband is. The fact is, Acting Commander, that
according to our records, Doctor Giardello is at home - I’m concerned,
naturally.”
“When was he last seen?”
“Yesterday
lunchtime… he took a phone call and then told his assistant that he was leaving
early. Mrs Giardello says he rang
to say something urgent had come up and he would be late home – so not to wait
dinner. She didn’t worry until this
morning when he didn’t call and so she rang here… we, of course, haven’t seen
him.”
“Don’t the members of SIRAD log their
whereabouts into a register?”
Doctor Kelly nodded. “Of
course, it is standard practise.”
She frowned slightly adding, “Doctor
Giardello merely wrote – Christmas has come early – have a nice break…” Her glance at Grey was apologetic. “He
will have his little joke from time to time.”
“Hilarious,” Grey muttered. “We’ll
start a search from here, Doctor Kelly; please advise us if you have any contact
with Doctor Giardello in the meantime.”
“Of
course, Acting Commander; but I ought to warn you, the labs close tonight –
apart from an emergency skeleton crew – we’re all off over Christmas.”
“Well, make sure they know to contact
us,” Grey advised patiently.
“Of
course,” Doctor Kelly suddenly gave a bright smile that animated her face
and gave her an impish look. “And a very merry Christmas to all our
colleagues on Cloudbase,” she concluded as she terminated the call.
“Fat chance,” Grey muttered.
There had hardly been time for Gray to
give the orders for the standard search procedures to get underway for Doctor
Giardello, when Captain Magenta called through to give his initial analysis of
the situation regarding the new air traffic control system at Atlantic Airport.
What he told Grey confirmed that things were far more complicated than they’d
hoped.
“The new system is
controlling the traffic,”
Magenta explained. “But, at the moment, the system
isn’t fully installed and the main system over-ride controls are still at the
Air Electronics Systems Corporation headquarters. We could manage to block an
attempted take-over of the computers that was launched from Atlantic; but the
system is vulnerable to an attack through the HQ. In my opinion, you need to get the
security checked out there, Captain Grey.
Someone needs to ensure the automatic and manual over-rides are
encrypted, for example. It has to be done with care; if it’s bungled, it would
close the system down here, which would cause chaos and the result of that would
be to cause chaos everywhere in the commercial airlines system. Air Electronics Systems have a good
reputation for tight security, but that won’t save them from becoming the target
of a Mysteron attack, of course.”
“So, where’s their HQ exactly?” Grey
asked, rubbing his chin with his hand.
“Cedar
Rapids, Iowa,” said Captain Magenta’s voice in concert with the voice of
Captain Blue, who, having been summoned immediately after Doctor Kelly’s call
ended, had arrived soon after Magenta’s report started and was perched on a
stool across the central control room desk from Grey, listening intently.
“That rings a bell,” Grey said with a
raised eyebrow at his colleague.
“It’s where Symphony Angel lives,” Blue
admitted with a dismissive shrug. He focused on what relevant facts he knew.
“AESC is one of the most significant companies in this field; they’d be a
potential Mysteron target for attack even without the new computer system.”
“Does Spectrum keep any security staff
on the site?” Grey asked Claret who scanned the database and shook his head.
“There is no record of any, sir. Of course, it may be administered on an
informal basis from the local Spectrum Agency in Des Moines. We would not necessarily have a record
here, unless we’d asked for it.”
“Right, well, there’s no option then. Someone better check it out,” Grey
declared. He glanced at Captain Blue.
“Someone who knows about air-traffic control systems and computers would be the
best person to send. You don’t know everyone there too, do you?” he asked warily.
Blue shook his head with a slight
smile. “I’ve only been there a
couple of times – once as a very unimportant WAS cadet - they won’t remember
me.”
Grey nodded thankfully. “Okay, Captain Magenta, I’ll send
Captain Blue down to Cedar Rapids to check them out.”
“S.I.G., Captain Grey.
In the meantime, I’ll keep track of events here, and Captain Ochre’s gonna put
their security team through hell in an effort to wake them up to potential
threats.”
“Carry on, Captains, and keep me
informed.” Grey cut the link and
glanced at Blue, who was scratching his head with the air of someone wondering
if he dare push his luck. “How soon
can you be ready to leave?”
“Twenty minutes?”
“Good, as soon as possible then.” Grey waited, but Blue said nothing and
made no effort to leave. “Is there
something else, Captain?”
“I could do with some help,” Blue said.
“It’ll be a tricky job for one man to do alone.” He glanced at Grey with a
thoughtful expression.
Grey nodded and quickly thought through
his available officers. “Why don’t
you take Lieutenant Cerulean,” he said in a tone that was part suggestion, part
order. “He’s a computer-type and
supposedly a good man, but inexperienced in field work.
He’ll benefit from the experience of working with you and I’m sure he’ll
be able to do some of the technical stuff as well…”
Blue gave a short nod of agreement. “Good idea.
Get him to meet me in hangar two; I’ll update him on the way.” He stood, making ready to leave. “I hope we can nail this one quickly. I have to admit, I’m worried about what
might happen if Atlantic goes down, Brad.”
Grey sucked his teeth thoughtfully.
“So am I,” he confessed, his dark eyes rising to meet Blue’s pale ones. With the merest brooding tone of
uncertainty he added, “Maybe I should alert the colonel?”
Sensing his colleague’s uncertainty, Blue’s response was reassuring, “What could
he have done that we haven’t? We’re
capable men and he trusts us to manage without him. Let him have his vacation in peace.” He turned and then added, “Wherever he is, I just hope he
isn’t planning to do any flying…”
It was only after Blue’d left that Grey
realised he hadn’t told him that Doctor Giardello was missing… still, Blue’d
have enough to keep him occupied without worrying about the errant scientist….
Grey turned back to his console and
continued with his mountain of paperwork.
Captain Blue was already in the cockpit
going through the pre-flight checks when Lieutenant Cerulean clambered aboard
the SPJ, stowed his bag in the lockers provided and slipped into the co-pilot’s
seat with a salute at his superior officer.
Blue, preoccupied with what he was
doing, barely acknowledged his arrival, but Cerulean knew better than to feel
aggrieved. It was well known that
attempts to divert Captain Blue from doing something he considered important
never got you anywhere.
The control panel speaker announced
they were clear to go and the klaxon sounded as the hangar decompressed and the
plane was elevated to the runways that formed the bulk of the vast floating
base.
Blue waited for permission to take off
and the silver and blue jet slid forward and out into the empty sky with barely
a lurch. Lieutenant Claret gave
them their coordinates and radio frequency, followed by the mission codeword. Blue acknowledged the information, set
the coordinates, engaged the auto-pilot and turned to the silent lieutenant at
his side.
“Welcome aboard, Lieutenant. In that folder you’ll find the
background to the mission. Once
you’ve familiarised yourself with it, I’ll endeavour to answer any questions you
might have,” Blue said with a genial smile.
“S.I.G, Captain,” Cerulean gave a bright smile in response and reached for the dossier. He fully intended to make a glorious success of this mission.
Chapter Two
Love is like the measles
– all the worse when it comes late in life.
Douglas William Jerrold
Iowa, USA
Amanda Wainwright had arrived at the
airport before the plane was due and spent five minutes or so in the ladies’
room, checking her make-up and carefully arranging her clothes to obtain the
optimum look of casual chic. She
glanced at herself in the mirror with a wry smile; her golden-blonde hair was
expertly designed to frame her oval face, her tawny-brown eyes were subtly
highlighted by the expert application of make-up, her lips defined by a warm
pink lip-gloss. She knew she
looked good – younger than she was – and she was used to turning men’s heads as
they walked by… Sam had always been proud of her looks and encouraged her to
look her best at all times.
Right now, she felt as nervous as a
schoolgirl on her first date; she’d never expected to be going through the
roller-coaster ride of a new love affair again – especially at her age.
She wondered what Charles Gray really
thought of her; a middle-aged widow, ripe for a little romancing?
Please heaven, he doesn’t think I’m desperate… Amanda sniffed.
Actually, there are two or three local men who’d
gladly lay all they possess at my elegantly shod feet, if I so much as asked….
Poor Greg Schwartz for one… he’s had the hots for me since high school and he’s
never married either. Well, looks like Greg’s going to
be unlucky again…
She gave her reflection an excited
little wink and marched out towards the arrivals gate.
Charles Gray pocketed his ID papers and
collected his luggage from the carousel.
He looked around the airport and saw the arrow pointing the way to the
arrivals lounge. Before he went
across the hallway, he stepped into the gents’ and combed his hair, brushed the
creases from his trousers and straightened his tie.
He wiped his hands on a paper towel and
hoped they wouldn’t get sweaty again. I’m nervous. Yes, that’s what it is… if I was given even half a chance I’d
get on the next plane out of here and sit on it until it was time to go back to
Cloudbase. I hope Amanda
won’t think I’m just a middle-aged widower, desperate for a little feminine
company.
He opened his hand-luggage for the
umpteenth time and checked that he still had the expensive box of hand-made
chocolates he’d got Spectrum: Brussels to send him, and the flamboyantly wrapped
perfume he’d bought in New York, as a Christmas gift for his hostess.
He hoped it was the right kind – the kind she liked. The shop assistant at the
airport shop had been helpful enough to let him sniff at a sampler, so that he
could see if it matched the memory he had of the fragrance she’d worn on their
last meeting, and had then wrapped the small – and incredibly expensive – box in
this confection of ribbon and tinsel.
He marched out onto the concourse and
drew a sharp breath before he strode through the automatic doors.
Amanda saw him approaching before the
opaque glass doors opened; there was no mistaking that upright military figure.
She smiled and moved towards the exit. Charles saw her moving towards him, a
smile on her face and her hands held out in welcome.
His heart flipped and he felt himself
blushing like a schoolboy. My God – every time I see her she’s even more
beautiful than I remember….
“Hello, Charles,” she placed her hand
on his sleeve and tiptoed to reach his cheek with a welcoming kiss.
“Amanda, how wonderful to see you
again… you look so…perfectly charming...I mean…”
She slipped her arm through his. “You don’t have to flatter me, Charles,”
she assured him, and she meant every word, the expression in his eyes had
resolved all her doubts.
“I’m not flattering you, my
dear… you are a welcome sight for old
eyes…”
“But what about your eyes, Charles?” She smiled at him. “They’re not old eyes… not by a long shot… am I still a
welcome sight to your eyes?”
Charles Gray smiled back at her. He’d forgotten just how naturally she
flirted. “Yes, Amanda, you are the most welcome sight I could wish to see.”
She laughed gaily and led him through
the main doors and out into the freezing cold, towards the car park where she’d
left the off-roader.
The air was bitingly cold and, as they
stepped out of the sheltered concourse and crossed to the car, Gray felt his
face growing numb. He sniffed in
the icy, dry air and wished he hadn’t as the inside of his nose froze. Even
huddled in the warmest overcoat he had, his hand carrying his suitcase was
already starting to feel numb, when they arrived at the car. The temperature on
Cloudbase remained at an even level all year round, and he was finding the
experience of the winter cold of the North American continent something of a
shock.
Amanda clicked the key fob and the sidelights blinked a welcome. As she opened the back door for him to
stow his case away, he studied the car – a
sturdy, if rather surprisingly bright yellow, four-wheel drive – with a detached interest.
The car had been a subject of much speculative gossip on Cloudbase for a
time and he had finally asked Lieutenant Green – his oracle when it came to
verifying such gossip – just exactly what the truth was. Green had been able to
give him surprisingly few hard facts – which meant, the colonel knew, that
Captain Blue wasn’t talking about it – beyond that it was a top of the range
model and the captain had got it at a substantial discount. It was only because
he’d overheard Symphony, one lunchtime in the officer’s restaurant, complaining
to Melody about the fact that her insurance had gone up, and revealing that
she’d had to ask Adam for the receipt to confirm what he paid for the car – and
exactly how much that was and that he’d paid cash – that he’d any idea what Blue had paid for it.
“So this is the car Captain Blue gave
you?” he said reflectively.
“It is the car Adam gave us, yes,” Amanda said with a wary glance at him.
He ignored her gentle rebuke. “Hmm, he was right… he did tell me that
he’d got a good deal on it,” he commented as he climbed into the passenger seat.
“He’s a Svenson – no-one fleeces them.”
She laughed.
“Not twice, anyway,” he agreed and
fastened the seat belt.
“I hope you’re not a back-seat driver,
Charles?”
“No; I have plenty of experience of
being chauffeured around.”
“Good, the last time Adam dropped by I
thought he was going to be sick when I drove him to the airport….”
And just when had Captain
Blue managed to ‘drop by’?
he
wondered before replying, “He’s a notoriously bad passenger.”
“So Karen tells me.
Still, let’s go shall we?
I have so much to show you before we get back to the house. I thought we’d eat in tonight… I hope you don’t mind?”
“Sounds idyllic…” he said with genuine
enthusiasm; the thought of venturing out in this weather was not an appealing
one.
“We’re going to have so much fun,
Charles… trust me.”
“So, all of this is part of the ranch?”
Charles waved his hand to cover the surrounding countryside as they drove along
a single-track roadway towards a large, comfortable-looking house. There wasn’t
that much to see beneath the blanket of snow.
“Yes.
Of course, it was bigger in my grandfather’s day, but with one thing and
another, land got sold. I think it
passed the optimum size to be profitable some years before Sam took over, to be
honest. My father sold a piece of
land over on the west side to finance part of Karen’s education. That was why Sam decided to go into this
leisure-ranch project… a sort of dude ranch.
The ‘bunk house’ over there and some of the facilities, like the indoor
swimming pool, were built before his death; but, unfortunately, we’ve never had
the resources to run the place properly, and now the infrastructure’s in danger
of deteriorating, so that the place will become uninhabitable if the work isn’t
completed and money found to keep the buildings warm in this bad weather. Still, thanks to Adam’s help, we should
have enough money to finish the project and then open for business – hopefully
the year after.”
“He’s lending you the money?”
“Oh no – I only mean he advised me
about some of the financial deals Sam signed up to.”
She smiled across at him.
“He’s a sweet boy, but I couldn’t let him bail us out; although, I expect he
would, if we asked him.”
Colonel White raised his dark eyebrows
as he contemplated the idea that the Captain Blue he knew was a ‘sweet boy’…
something didn’t quite compute. “Very wise of you, Amanda; besides everything
else, it would be in contravention of Spectrum’s regulations. He could lose his job.”
“But that would be down to you,
wouldn’t it? I didn’t think you’d
be so petty, Charles.”
He bristled slightly. “The regulations are not optional, I’m
afraid. I’m already turning more of
a blind eye to his relationship with your daughter than I ought to.”
“See, I knew you were just a romantic
at heart,” Amanda patted his thigh.
“Hummph.” Charles tilted his head in
doubt. “They sail pretty close to
the wind on occasion, I can tell you.”
“But they cannot be the only ones, surely?”
He gave a deep sigh. “No, I don’t
expect they are, but I have less evidence of the other… romantically involved
couples. I’m afraid Karen isn’t all
that discreet, at times.”
Amanda gave a trill of laughter. “Oh, when my daughter falls in love she
does it one hundred percent; and she can’t keep it hidden for long. Unfortunately – until now – she seems to
have fallen for guys who aren’t worth one hundred percent of her time, effort or
enthusiasm. This time I think she
may have got it right. Time will tell. But, Spectrum cannot really expect its
operatives to embrace total celibacy?
Can it?” She glanced at him, one elegantly slim eyebrow raised in
enquiry.
“No, but relationships between
colleagues can lead to complications.
It’s hard, I know, for them to have a terrestrial-based relationship… which is
why I don’t enforce the regulations with too much draconian force. I’m well
aware of human frailties and - despite what my senior staff members appear to
think – I can sympathise with their situation.
I … err... I might even admit to a few frailties of my own – in the strictest
confidence, of course… ” He smiled at her and she grinned back.
“But terrestrial based relationships
are… approved of?” she asked, turning her eyes back to the road.
“As long as the officer concerned
continues to work well, it isn’t forbidden for them to have … close friends… on
the ground…”
She beamed at him and patted his thigh
again. “Good,” she said.
“Amanda…”
“Yes, Charles?”
“I… well, I want to say, how pleased I
was when you invited me to visit here.
I… I had been hoping for an opportunity to…to get to know you a little better.”
“A
little
better? I was hoping that,
before you leave, we’ll know each other rather better than that…”
He smiled and patted her arm. “So was I…”
Drawing up before a double garage, she
pressed a remote control and the door opened automatically. She drove the car in and switched off the
headlights. Automatic lights came
on in the garage, revealing a solid door, which obviously connected to the main
part of the building. She led the
way through into the warmth of a large, well-equipped modern kitchen-diner.
The tantalising aroma of cooking
assaulted his nostrils and, as he divested himself of his overcoat and jacket,
he realised he was extremely hungry.
Amanda gave him a quick guided tour of the house, and after depositing
his suitcase in an upstairs room, she suggested he sit and talk to her, whilst
she finished the dinner she’d been preparing.
Gray sat contentedly at the kitchen table across from her, sipping the
beer she’d poured him from a supply in the enormous fridge.
As she busied herself with vegetables,
she chatted to him about the ranch and other more inconsequential matters. She asked if he was happy to eat there
at the kitchen table, or did he want to use the dining room?
“This is fine; don’t go to too
much trouble…”
“No trouble, I enjoy having someone to
cook for. I find it hard to
motivate myself to cook much when I’m alone… and I have a freezer full of what’s
left after I do cook for myself as proof.”
She handed him a corkscrew and a bottle of red wine. “I keep threatening to send Adam food parcels… he‘s kind
enough to say he likes my cooking so much… sweet-talking charmer that he is,”
she added brightly, failing to catch the slight glower that crossed her guest’s
face.
Air Electronics Systems Corporation
The SPJ landed at East Iowa Airport and taxied to the far side of the airfield, where the occupants of the craft disembarked. Sergeant Jacobs met them with an SSC and, acknowledging receipt of the vehicle with a thumbprint on the officer’s electronic pad, Captain Blue slid into the driver’s seat, as Cerulean buckled himself into the passenger seat.
“Next stop: AESC, Cedar Rapids.” Blue smiled as he turned on the red
car’s powerful engines and slid out of the airport gates onto the highway and
hit the gas.
As the snow-blanketed Iowan landscape slid past the windows, Cerulean’s
adrenalin levels began to rise.
He’d never been so involved with a field mission before; never worked with one
of the elite colour captains, and – even if this was merely a back-up for the
main mission at Atlantic – it was a chance to prove himself in action. He vowed to be efficient and thorough so
that even a perfectionist, which Captain Blue had the reputation for being,
wouldn’t be able to find fault.
He surreptitiously glanced at the older man.
Blue’s face was expressionless as he concentrated on his driving, dodging
through the traffic with a skill that made the sleek car look even more
graceful. His eyes flickered down
to the GPS navigation computer on the dashboard occasionally, but Cerulean got
the impression it was merely perfunctory; Blue was driving like a man who knew
the way.
It wasn’t long before a collection of buildings appeared on the horizon and Blue
took the next slip road off the highway and headed towards them. AESC was a large complex and two
security guards manned the main gate.
They regarded the SSC with suspicion, until Captain Blue showed his Spectrum ID
pass. The guards raised the
barrier, directing them towards a four-storey building away on their left.
Blue swung the SSC into a vacant parking bay close to the main reception
entrance before he glanced at Cerulean.
A friendly smile spread over his wide mouth as he said, “Bring the Mysteron
detector with you, Lieutenant; let's start as we mean to go on.
We have to ensure this place is not only secure enough, but also that the staff
can pose no threat to the trial system at Atlantic, and, quite frankly, it’s
going to be a long and largely routine job."
"S.I.G, Captain." Cerulean dragged the bulky MD from its
secure compartment and checked the batteries were fully charged. He followed the American into the
reception area with as much seriousness as he could muster, but it was hard to
keep the excited smile off his face.
The attractive brunette woman at the reception desk studied the two Spectrum
officers as they approached. They were both tall and good-looking; both dressed
in uniforms of arresting sky-blue, with only a subtle difference in hue and they
made a welcome treat after the usual visual diet of boring businessmen and surly
delivery drivers, who made the bulk of the plant's visitors.
"Can I help you, officers?" she asked with a
welcoming smile.
The
blond officer, slightly taller and, now they were closer, she could see, the
elder of the two, replied, “Captain Blue and Lieutenant Cerulean of Spectrum;
we’re here to see Mr. Calvin Hansford.
He is expecting us," Blue replied, returning the warm smile.
She checked her ‘visitors schedule’, nodded and alerted Mr. Hansford’s secretary
that her guests had arrived, before giving them detailed instructions how to
reach his office.
Blue
tipped his cap politely and Cerulean followed suit, falling in alongside his
companion by the lift door. He let
Blue walk in first and then pushed the button for the second floor.
“Did you notice the CCTV cameras?” Blue commented as the lift slid upwards.
“The place is at least well protected.
We ought to check that they’re wired up to a permanently manned
observation post. That could be
useful if we need backup at any time.”
“S.I.G,” Cerulean nodded. He hadn’t noticed the cameras at all and
he was kicking himself for his error.
As the lift door opened they were met by a petite woman with a shapely figure
and a wonderful mane of curling red hair.
As she raised her face to bid them welcome, Cerulean did a double-take – she was
not only plain, but her complexion was ravaged by acne and noticing his start of
distaste, she turned away quickly.
“This way, gentlemen,” she requested, leading them through an open plan office
towards a partitioned room with smoked glass walls.
Cerulean dragged his eyes away from her swaying hips and surveyed the room in
which about a dozen desks, most manned by pre-occupied young men and women, were
crammed close together.
The secretary ushered them into the office and closed the door behind them.
Calvin Hansford, the manager of the
research facility, glanced across his desk as the Spectrum officers entered.
He stood and extended his hand to the tall, impressively-built, blond officer,
who was slightly ahead of his darker-haired companion.
Blue saluted and then shook the proffered hand, accepting a seat opposite
Hansford across the tubular-steel framed desk.
Cerulean snapped off a text-book salute
and sat slightly further away, to enable him to deploy the MD camera with ease.
He proffered Blue the results of the Mysteron detector test of the secretary and
her boss – both showed clear X-ray pictures.
Blue nodded his satisfaction as Hansford got down to business with commendable
speed.
“We
were informed by the commander of Cloudbase to expect you, Captain Blue, but he
was rather vague as to what your visit would entail. Naturally we are only too willing to co-operate with Spectrum
on any project whatsoever. I speak for all the senior management here when I
say; we wish to do all we can to assist Spectrum.”
Blue thanked him and went on to
explain,” We are here to perform an extensive security vetting, Mr Hansford. Some of AESC’s activities have attracted
the interest of hostile elements.
This, naturally, causes Spectrum some concern.”
Hansford pursed his lips doubtfully and replied with a hint of
patronisation in his voice, “We’ve worked in secure partnerships for many years
now, and I can assure you, Captain Blue, that our security is top notch here –
we can’t afford to risk having anyone muscling in on our work. Our client
confidentiality is of paramount importance to us and we have a deservedly high
reputation for protecting that confidentiality. If there’s been any indication of a security leak, I feel
confident that it isn’t going to be from AESC.
Not every link in the chain is as strong as ours, of course, and there
have been regrettable instances in the past.
Between you and me, not so many years ago any problem in that department
would have been with the World Aeronautical Society, which in all honesty,
leaked like a sieve; but they got some whizz-kid in and he cleaned things up
pretty well, so between them and us we run a tight ship now. Nothing sensitive is going to get out of
either organisation; not that we allow our most secure research programs to
overlap in any way – you understand – even when they may cover similar ground.”
Blue’s frown had lifted slightly when he heard himself described as a
‘whizz-kid’; it had been his mission, while he worked for the WAS to cleanse the
Augean stables of their security division.
He suppressed a smile and gave a brisk nod of his head as he said, “Yes, so I
understand, Mr Hansford, but I’m sure you
understand that Spectrum cannot afford to risk any terrorists using the plant
here as a launch for any threatened attacks?”
Hansford frowned and looked a little
hesitant. “We’re only too happy to
have Spectrum take a look over our security procedures. I assumed you were already happy with them – but you know
best, of course. We know you can never be too careful where sabotage and
industrial espionage is concerned. We always take great care, as you know.”
Blue noted that, once more, Hansford seemed to imply that Spectrum and AESC were
partners of long standing and squirreled the fact away for future investigation. As far as he was aware, Spectrum had
never worked in partnership with the company – for anything – but it might, of
course, refer to the time when the construction of Cloudbase or the advanced
equipment the Spectrum machines used, was underway. Out loud he said, “Thank you, Mr Hansford, I appreciate your
co-operation. Spectrum’s primary
concern is with the new air-traffic control system you are parallel testing at
Atlantic…”
“Really? I’m surprised to hear you mention that,”
Hansford interrupted and went on, “At the moment that’s restricted to commercial
flights, but I guess I can tell you
that we’ve had interest in it from the WAAF as well.” His pride in the company’s achievement was obvious. “The
system – we call it ‘The Horizon-i’, you know, as if it was horizon and eye, but
it’s written like Horizon with an ‘I’ after it…?
That ‘I’ stands for intelligence…”
“I’m sure it does,” Blue said remembering the Mysterons’ threat had referred to
both ‘Horizon technology’ and ‘eyes’ and feeling slightly more confident that
they were on the right lines with this investigation. “We understand that during
the parallel testing, you retain the master over-ride control, here – at this
site?”
“We do,” Hansford affirmed, going on to defend the situation. “This is our
standard procedure when testing at a large airport facility. You see, our system shadows every move the Atlantic system
makes, allowing us to make a detailed and accurate analysis of its performance. We can correct any false moves from our
computer room, and correct any faults that may arise in our programming. Of course, we have every confidence in
our back-up arrangements; the system’s been thoroughly tested on a local
airfield with our own test pilots and then at regional airports like here, at
East Iowa, and across the country at a field in California and one down in
Texas. Atlantic is the biggest challenge yet;
but we are confident our system will deal with the large amount of traffic with
ease.”
“Have there been any teething troubles?” Blue asked. Hansford shook his head
promptly and Blue continued, “I have always had my doubts about the value of
‘blind over-ride’ testing. The air
traffic controllers on the site must surely have a better idea of what the
situation in their airspace really is. I thought the WAS discouraged it?”
Hansford gave Blue a frowning examination.
Unperturbed, the Spectrum officer returned the stare without reacting,
until Hansford became unsettled and, flustered, began to defend his company.
“Look, we aren’t going to risk any outsider getting their hands on our latest
system, Captain Blue, and every eventuality has been catered for...” He dropped
his gaze and drew a calming breath before he said,
“I have been authorised by the board to let
you
see the reports, but… well, they are highly confidential… I mean, you’d have to
agree that nothing would go any further than Spectrum - our clients’
confidentiality is important to us – as you’ll appreciate.”
“Rest assured, Mr Hansford, Spectrum has no interest in your system beyond the
concerns we have based on its current use at Atlantic.” Blue gave a slight shrug
and added, “If you got the WAS to agree to your testing schedule, who am I to
argue?”
“Sure… I mean, why would you?
Spectrum can’t overrule a WAS decision anyway, I reckon.” He stood up and walked
across to the window of his office and looked out over the various buildings
that formed the site. He seemed to
come to a decision and turned towards the younger man with every appearance of
laying his cards on the table.
“In all confidence, Captain Blue, this project means a lot to everyone here. We can’t afford to have it fail and we’ve made it the best
damned system we could.” He became vehement and Blue realised the cause of some
of his frustration was the delays AESC had encountered. “It hasn’t been easy getting the backing to get this project
off the ground – the damn banks won’t cough up until they can see a guaranteed
profit in something and the military wanted so many security clauses in the
contract we couldn’t have sneezed without permission! But, of course, they’ll all want their cut if – when – it becomes the new standard system
for all air traffic control systems internationally.” Hansford bit back his ire and said in a
calmer voice, “AESC would welcome Spectrum’s help to make the trial successful.”
“I can’t promise that we’ll have any influence on the outcome, Mr Hansford; but
if the system is as good as you suggest – it won’t need any help,” Blue said
reassuringly.
"Right," Hansford smiled. “But a clean
bill of health endorsed by Spectrum would be the publicity coup to beat them
all. All the money in the world
couldn’t buy a product that kind of promotional boost.”
“Mr. Hansford, I’m afraid that you won’t be allowed to mention that Spectrum has
vetted the system. We’re not here
to evaluate your product – but to prevent a major act of terrorism, that might
cost thousands of lives.” Blue’s
tone was stern and his expression implacable.
Hansford shrugged. “Yeah, I guess I
knew that, Captain, but you can’t blame us for hoping, can you?”
With a friendly smile Blue shook his head.
“We should get to work, sir,” he reminded their host gently.
“Sure, sure. What’s the best for
you, Captain? I can give you a tour of the computer
rooms, so you can see the dual control system in action, and you have
carte-blanche to see any documentation you require.”
“Thank you. We’d better see the computer room and check out the
specifications and the analysis of the performance so far. That will enable my colleagues at
Atlantic to identify any deviations from normal operating procedures. Would it be possible for
Lieutenant Cerulean to have access to the CCTV system in the plant and a monitor
to keep an eye on the computer room?”
“Shouldn’t be too difficult to arrange,” Hansford agreed.
“I’ll tell my secretary to get a technician onto it while I show you
around.” He paused momentarily. “You sure you’ll be able to make head or
tails of the specifications, Captain?
I mean, they’re pretty technical documents and the WAS specifications alone are
not light reading…” his voice trailed into silence as Blue gave him a sharp
glance. It was hard to read this
man.
“Leave that to me, Mr. Hansford. I
can assure you, I know what I’m doing.”
They were shown a small office along the corridor that ran from Hansford’s
office to the computer block, and, after agreeing that it suited their needs,
they left with Hansford to examine the dual control system. Cerulean checked the operatives with the MD; whilst Captain
Blue assessed the security of the department and familiarised himself with the
basic details of the program; so that by the time they returned to the office,
the technician had set up a CCTV monitor on a small, somewhat rickety, desk and
Hansford’s secretary – who, they’d discovered, rejoiced in the name of Celeste –
had brought in a large, wheeled metal cabinet housing technical files and
blueprints.
Once the Spectrum officers had settled
themselves in, she opened the cabinet’s combination lock, and explained the
layout of the filing system. Her
instructions were clear and concise, and Blue – who’d learned the value of an
efficient PA to over-worked executives at his father’s knee – complimented her
by name, with a genuine appreciation of her efficiency. The young woman blushed, her skin
turning an unattractive mottled red and white.
Suddenly embarrassed at being the centre of attention from two
good-looking young men, she pointed out where what she, rather coyly, called
‘the facilities’ were, smiled shyly at Captain Blue and sidled out.
Cerulean added his latest MD shots to the ones of Hansford and Celeste, and
waited to hear what Blue wanted him to do next.
The Captain removed his radio cap and ran a hand through his hair. He sighed as he surveyed the mountain of
paperwork he had to negotiate. “I
just love spending my time trawling through the fine print of the specs for
air-traffic control systems,” he confessed ruefully.
“You sound as if you’ve done it before, sir,” Cerulean remarked.
“I have, during my WAS days.”
The door opened again and Celeste re-entered with a trolley bearing a thermos
jug of coffee, cream and sugar and a plate of cookies. She gave another shy smile and left them alone again.
“Nice girl that,” Cerulean remarked, biting into a chocolate-chip cookie. “It’s
a real shame about her face – you’d think she’d do something about it, wouldn’t
you? I mean, she has a great body, don’t you thi…”
Blue interrupted, openly expressing the disapproval he felt, “That is none of
our business – get to work, Lieutenant.
You’d better check that the CCTV coverage is adequate and then there are
a few files that you can check for me… they don’t look all that technical. Check them through for any
practical indicators that can be used as monitors by our team at Atlantic, to
reveal an attempt to gain remote control of the Horizon-I system, or interfere
with the efficiency of the operations.”
Blue tossed a thick file towards Cerulean.
“You’ll find a breakdown of the system parameters in there. It shouldn’t take you too long – if you concentrate – and by
the end you’ll know all there is to know about the standard WAS requirements for
all air-traffic control systems; which is always useful to know.” He indicated a pile of buff coloured
folders on the desk. “I’ll do
these. I want to find out just what it is
Hansford believes Spectrum’s using AESC for. That might give us a lead on the
Mysterons’ intentions.”
Slightly chastened, Cerulean still
ventured to mutter a protest. “I thought we’d decided that they were threatening
Atlantic airport… sir?”
Blue looked up at this and saw his
companion pouring himself a cup of coffee; his back was turned towards his
commanding officer and his shoulders hunched mutinously.
“Black, no sugar for me, Lieutenant,”
he said evenly. There was no point
letting the youngster brood about being rebuked.
Cerulean nodded and poured a second
cup. There really was no point in
sulking; Captain Blue had a reputation for playing by the rules, but he wasn’t
known for his sarcasm and the lieutenant realised he’d got off on the wrong foot
with his superior officer, and regretted it. When he placed the cup beside the heap of files Blue
was already flicking through the American officer smiled his thanks.
“You know, Lieutenant, with the
Mysterons you can never be sure, and it always pays to keep an open mind. Remember that, and the fact that you can never trust anyone you are not sure of one
hundred percent.”
“S.I.G., sir,” Cerulean muttered and
went to the other desk to check the CCTV monitor.
The Hoffman Ranch
The meal had been superb. Food on Cloudbase was necessarily rather
bland and monotonous, as most institutional cooking tends to be, and it was a
real treat to eat well-prepared home cooking.
“Amanda,” Gray said as he laid his
knife and fork down, “I can honestly say that was the most delicious meal I’ve
eaten in months – possibly years!”
“Why, thank you. It’s so nice to have an appreciative man to cook for. Adam always complains I over-feed him.”
“Does he, indeed?” Gray’s tone was surprisingly surly.
She smiled at him. “Why, Charles, are you jealous? I’ll send a doggy bag with him, next
time he calls in.”
“Does he call in often?”
“He’s turned up once or twice…all very
above board, I can assure you. Usually, he’s either fetching Karen or delivering
Karen, but once, when he was on leave,
he flew himself across from Boston to deliver some birthday presents from Karen
and him. I invited him to stay and he took me out to dinner at my favourite
restaurant in Cedar Rapids.
I was pleased to have an opportunity of getting to know him better,
without Karen butting in all the time.
We spent the next day, riding around the ranch and I managed to get a
little out of him about himself and his family. Had to work for it though, he doesn’t let much slip. Still, he’s good company, and I like him, Charles. I doubt there are many men of
his age that’d be so considerate with regard to winning over their future
mother-in-law.” She gave him a look that dared him to object to such innocent
pastimes.
Gray noted her innocent confirmation
that his officers were intending to marry.
He wasn’t surprised; it was in the character of both to think along such
predictable lines when it came to their personal lives. Blue came from a traditionalist – if not
exactly puritan – background and
despite his having rejected some of his family’s conventional values and
aspirations, his whole upbringing – as much as his quiet, but deeply held
personal faith – would reinforce the ideal of marriage to the woman he loved.
And however much Symphony championed women’s rights, and insisted on her ability
to do any job the male officers were given just as well, she remained a
conventional young woman in many ways, and exhibited a broadly similar mindset
to her more urbane lover.
I just hope they don’t plan anything without
going through the correct channels, he thought, they’d leave me no choice but to
cashier them both, otherwise. I suppose I’ll have to trust to Blue’s good sense
overcoming Symphony’s romantic enthusiasm…
As he mulled over the situation he
realised that he envied, beyond words, this casual friendliness that allowed
Captain Blue to be seen as ‘one of the family’.
He knew, deep inside, that it was this aspect of a private life which he
missed more than anything: the honest and open acceptance of you for yourself
and your unquestioned right to be considered as one of a tightly-knit group. He
sipped his wine to hide the embarrassment his jealousy was causing him.
Amanda watched her companion carefully;
weighing the significance of his supposition that Adam was sneaking unauthorised
visits, and his reaction to it.
She realised that it was going to take longer than she’d thought for her
to really get to know this man. She knew he was a widower – and Karen’d
told her what she knew about how he’d lost his wife – but even the people he
worked with knew little enough about his private life, and she suspected he
aimed to keep it that way. She very
much doubted that he’d asked Karen if she had any message for her mother before
he left Cloudbase and she’d have to remember not to speak to her daughter about
her Christmas visitor.
It wasn’t that she wanted to hide their
relationship from her daughter, but she knew that Charles had reservations about
revealing their affair to his Spectrum subordinates. She already suspected, from what her
daughter had said, that there was already a significant minority of the
Cloudbase personnel who believed their colonel had a soft spot for Symphony
Angel, and that this almost amounted to favouritism. Letting it be known that he was involved with Symphony’s
mother, would play right into the hands of these malcontents, making his – and
Karen’s – life more difficult.
She also knew from her private
conversations with Adam, that that perceptive young man already had his own
suspicions regarding the extent of the relationship between herself and his
commanding officer. Surprisingly,
these dated from the time he had been reprimanded by the colonel – over his gift
of the car – which was even before she and Charles had had their first ‘date’.
Adam had admitted that he’d detected a ‘partiality’ towards her – and her
daughter – in his commander’s attitude.
He’d been careful not to suggest that he assumed he was right, and had asked no
questions of her, but she knew that whatever evidence Adam had gleaned since
then, would’ve merely confirmed his initial suspicions.
Despite this, she had still decided to
make the move towards raising the fledgling relationship on to a more intimate
level; mostly because the opportunity had presented itself. She doubted ‘the colonel’ ever
took a proper Christmas break; and with Karen – and Adam – working over the
holiday period, it had left her free to do as she pleased. Karen hoped, if circumstances allowed, to visit her around
the date of her birthday – January 6th – but Charles would be back on
Cloudbase by then, and they would both know if what they felt for each other was
real and could last; even under the difficult circumstances the responsibilities
of his job created.
And so, she had invited Charles Gray to share the seasonal festivities
with her, although she now wondered as she saw the bleak expression on his face,
if it had been a good idea; she had never intended that his visit should be a
catalyst for getting Karen or Adam into trouble. With a sigh she contemplated the expertly decorated
Christmas tree in the lounge, beneath which was a carefully selected pile of
presents, including a few for Charles, which she hoped he’d appreciate. They’d never given each other gifts
before and she was unsure of just what his reaction would be; yet she felt she
knew him well enough now to know that he would be touched and – hopefully – he
would like what she’d selected for him.
“Would you care for a brandy?” she
asked before the silence between them stretched beyond the bounds of comfort. “I’ve got a log fire in the lounge, and
we could sit by the fireside and turn the Christmas tree lights on – if you’d
like? It’s a rather nice Armagnac,”
she added.
“Did
Adam
give you that, as well?” Charles muttered.
“Good heavens, of course not!
I am perfectly able to buy my own alcohol, Charles Gray.” Amanda’s exasperation was obvious in her
voice and he glanced up at her in some surprise. She glared at him with open impatience, then catching
his eye; she smiled and said in a far more reasonable tone, “Now, would you like
some?”
He grimaced apologetically at his own
bad temper and nodded. “I’m sorry, Amanda, please forgive me. I’m out of
practise at being a good ‘Christmas-spirited’ guest.
I would like a glass… very much.
And sitting by the fireside in the light of the Christmas tree sounds the
most wonderful way to spend an evening.
After such a sumptuous meal I‘ve got a feeling that remaining sedentary
is the wisest option…at least, for awhile.”
“Not for too long, I hope?” she said
more cheerfully. “I’m sure you
realise that there is no such thing as a free meal, Charles, and I have plenty
of things for you to do to earn your keep…”
His eyebrows rose. “Such as?”
“Well,” she busied herself getting two
glasses and bringing the bottle to the table. “There is a dripping tap in the
bathroom that’s driving me crazy…”
He laughed. “You have a tool-kit, I suppose?”
“Sam’s is in the garage.”
“I’ll look at it tomorrow… will that
do?”
She handed him a generous slug of
brandy. “Splendid – and how are you with blocked drains?”
“I thought I was on holiday…”
She smiled and touched her wine glass
to his. “You are… for now anyway.”
Air Electronics Systems Corporation
Cerulean smothered a yawn and closed
his file. He glanced across at his
companion, and seeing that he was still deeply caught up in the file he was
currently working on, he stood up and, without speaking, went to gaze out of the
window; pausing to glance at the CCTV monitor on the way.
They’d been studying the files for hours and it seemed as if Captain Blue had
finally found something interesting in the mountains of mind-boggling dull
paperwork he’d been working through.
He’d certainly gathered quite a paper trail of files from the cabinet and was
cross-referencing them with a thoroughness that bordered on obsession – in
Cerulean’s opinion. He’d had his
subordinate rifling through more and more obscure information, cursing under his
breath when Cerulean had failed to turn up what he’d apparently expected to
find.
Cerulean’s patience was rapidly coming
to an end. He’d not expected to
spend his first terrestrial mission ploughing through dreary paperwork; nor had
he expected to play such an insignificant part in the proceedings. When Captain Blue had had a long
conversation with Captain Grey and Captain Magenta, Cerulean had not been
included in the discussions, even though they resulted in Blue requesting that
the research team on Cloudbase do a sweep for the details of some technique or
other that Cerulean had just spent several hours scanning the files for –
although its relevance was a mystery to him.
He was generally thought of as a ‘bright lad’ by his superiors on
Cloudbase; he’d even been allowed to help Lieutenants Green and Flaxen do urgent
information research for Captains on away missions – and now he felt slighted by
Blue’s apparent ignoring of him.
The consensus was that of all the elite captains, Blue was the brainiest
– the intellectual one, if you liked – but Cerulean was coming to the conclusion
that Blue wasn’t as bright as everyone thought; he was too easily distracted
away from the obvious aim of the mission and sidetracked into research for the
sake of it.
They were still waiting for the results
of the search Blue had requested, but, as his own researches had not proved as
fascinating as his commander’s, Cerulean was bored. A glance at the clock told him that it was approaching 7pm. He frowned to himself – surely he can’t mean us to wait here all night?
He gazed out through the window and noticed the windows were still alight in a
large, low building, set slightly apart from the ‘clean zone’ that housed the
production plant. As he stared, the door opened and a group of men came out,
laughing and calling to each other as they crossed to their respective
workplaces. It’s the canteen, he realised with a jolt of envy. He could almost imagine that the
tantalising aroma of cooked food was wafting towards him on the cold night air.
His stomach rumbled and he crossed his arms across his midriff with a wry
grimace towards the officer at the desk.
Biscuits were all very well, but it had been a long time since he’d eaten
breakfast on Cloudbase. He wondered
if he could find a way to get something from the canteen; Celeste, the
secretary, had popped back for the last time to replenish the coffee and the
cookies, before she left, but that had been hours ago.
His glance flickered back to Captain Blue – his fair head still bent over
the paperwork – he hadn’t eaten any of the cookies, despite drinking most of the
coffee. Cerulean gave a silent
chuckle – the rumour on Cloudbase was that Captain Blue ran on black coffee and
from today’s evidence, it was true.
He sighed. They’d barely spoken for
some time and he was not sure if he was in favour with the surprisingly strict
Captain.
But even Blue has to eat sometime…maybe we could go together? he
thought wistfully.
Cerulean turned to stare longingly out
at the canteen and was so busy with his own thoughts that he didn’t see Captain
Blue raise his head and study him thoughtfully from his vantage point at the
desk. He knew that Colonel
White had high hopes for this young officer; a high-achiever at University,
Spectrum had not been the only organisation interested in the young man. He was as tall as Blue himself, but of a
different build, being slight and lanky. His face had retained its boyish,
rounded contours, which made him look younger than he actually was; his unruly
mop of hair – largely untamed, even by a regulation haircut – was a rich
mahogany-brown and combined with his deep-set brown eyes, could make him look like a friendly puppy.
Blue frowned slightly as he recalled
details from his capacious memory: Jake… Jake Askew…that’s his name…. and he
comes from somewhere in Britain that sounds like a dessert… Bakewell, was it?
Quite a popular guy – especially with the ladies, if the base gossip is to be
believed – I seem to remember Karen saying he was romancing a couple of
technicians at the same time… let’s hope neither one finds out…
Blue’s eyebrow twitched slightly at the
recollection – Cerulean barely looked old enough to be out alone. I
must be getting old, he thought, if
the new lieutenants are starting to look this young…. “A penny for your
thoughts, Lieutenant,” he said aloud.
Cerulean spun around in alarm at the words, annoyed at having been caught
day-dreaming. “I was just wondering
what the Mysterons have planned for us, sir,” he replied, “and if we’ll find out
how to stop them before they manage to hurt anyone.”
“Yeah, it’s the million-dollar question isn’t it? Will we be good enough to stop
them this time?” Blue sighed and gave a rueful shrug.
Cerulean looked at his companion.
Captain Blue was one of the few Spectrum officers to have been involved in
almost every Mysteron threat since the war of nerves started. His successful
partnership with Captain Scarlet was fast becoming something of a legend amongst
the newer officers and – of the two – Blue was deemed the most approachable… Bloody glad I haven’t got Scarlet to contend
with then… this one’s bad enough.
“We don’t do so badly, sir,” he ventured to say.
Blue’s reply was startling in its vehemence. “Yeah, but they only have to get
lucky once – we have to win every time.”
“We do all we can,” Cerulean reasoned,
coming back to the table. He
frowned slightly at the weariness in his commander’s pale-blue eyes. It was rare to see Captain Blue looking
anything apart from confident.
“Surely, we’ve safeguarded the over-ride control for the Atlantic system,
Captain? And that’s what we were supposed to do,
after all.”
Blue’s vague nod suggested that aspect
of the job was a mere trifle. He studied the younger man thoughtfully and said,
“It’s a Spectrum officer’s duty to make sure he doesn’t overlook anything that
might give the Mysterons an edge, Cerulean.
Something tells me we haven’t finished here – not yet.”
“But there’s been no news from Cloudbase, or Captain Magenta, yet,”
Cerulean pressed. “We must’ve prevented their attack.”
Blue shook his head. “No.” He
heaved a deep sigh. “I might be
wrong, Cerulean, but something still doesn’t strike me as right about all this…
oh, I think we’re in the right place; but there is something else here that’s
the key to this threat – only I’m damned if I can pin it down.
Still, no news is good news, I guess.
And at least nothing’s gone wrong.”
Cerulean nodded in agreement and took
his courage in both hands. “Look, I
don’t know about you, sir, but I could do with a break. Didn’t Mr. Hansford say he’s given orders for us to be
allowed full access to the plant?
I’m sure there’s a staff canteen across the way where we could get something to
eat, and we’d feel better for the chance to stretch our legs and get a breath of
fresh air.”
“You
want
to eat canteen food?” Blue’s pale eyebrows rose in surprise.
Those were the days – when the idea of a canteen meal was as welcome as haute
cuisine... he thought in
amusement; too many indifferent meals in canteens around the world had trained
his palate to steer clear of the experience.
Cerulean thought he’d seen him gazing
at the canteen – maybe even heard his stomach rumble. “I ... I
just thought that maybe you could do
with a break...” he stammered, his embarrassment increasing by the moment in the
face of his commanding officer’s mildly amused expression.
Blue shrugged. “Maybe I could eat
something, if it comes to that. You
go and have something at the canteen - if you want – just bring me a couple of
sandwiches, or some fruit and bottle of mineral water, if they have such a
thing.”
Cerulean squirmed uneasily and admitted, “I’m afraid I don’t have any money,
sir. I just have my ID and my Spectracard – I
never thought to bring cash.”
Blue chuckled to himself. On Cloudbase everyone used their Spectracard to swipe
through payment terminals, with the money being deducted at source from their
salaries. This was Cerulean’s first
away mission and it was a common mistake not to bring any cash to use in the
‘real world’. He fished out his
wallet and handed over a selection of notes.
“Use this, Lieutenant,” he said without further comment. Cerulean reached
out to pocket the cash and as he walked towards the door, Blue added helpfully,
“I usually claim it back through expenses after the mission.” In point of fact,
Captain Blue rarely bothered to indent for such small amounts, but he assumed
the younger and less well-off officers would do so.
Cerulean nodded his thanks. “S.I.G, Captain, I won’t be long, sir.”
“Take your time, Lieutenant; we’ve still got a long night ahead of us…” Blue turned his attention back to the open file on his desk as his colleague slipped out of the office as quietly as he could.
The Hoffman Ranch
Amanda’s hand lay comfortably on
Charles’s arm as they sat side by side on a couch beside the fireplace, sipping
their brandies and watching the flames dance up into the darkness of the
chimney. They’d been talking over a
variety of topics, neutral and non-contentious ones that skirted the decision
they knew they must soon confront.
The
room, decorated with few garlands and dominated by a majestic tree, was warm and
comfortable; the atmosphere intimate and convivial, but they each knew that this
was a delicate state of affairs and that it would not take much to shatter the
fragile accord between them.
“Are you getting tired, my dear?” Gray
asked as she gave a little shiver and ran a hand through her golden hair.
“No; well, maybe just a little. It has been a rather long day – but a
very pleasant one, for me at least.
I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself?”
“I cannot remember a day I
have enjoyed more for many years…”
Amanda smiled, gratified by his words. She shook her head and confessed, “It
was just like someone walked over my grave, just then. I hope Karen’s okay…”
“I’m sure she is – why shouldn’t she
be?”
“You
ask me that?” she shook her head, smiling at him. “I still find it difficult to imagine my baby as a Spectrum
Angel. Every time I hear what’s
been happening on the news, I panic… it’s all I can do to stop myself calling up
and demanding to speak to her! I
know she’d hate that; but since I lost Sam…” she dropped her head and fought a
sudden surge of emotion, “she’s all I have, Charles… “
He put his arm around her. “Amanda, your daughter is one of the
most capable women I‘ve ever met - believe me – added to which she has a charmed
hide…”
“That’s what I’m afraid of –
one day her luck will run out and then… “
“…Then she’ll use her skill, her brains
and her tenacity, to haul herself back to you…” he reassured her quickly, adding
in a jovial tone,”and to her young man, of course.”
Amanda gave a slight chuckle. “Yes; even if her love for me isn’t
enough to give her the motivation to survive, I’m sure her love for Adam - and
his for her - is.”
“You do yourself an injustice, my dear.
She’s very fond of you – I’ve heard her talking about you a great deal…”
“Oh dear – you don’t believe a word of
it, do you?”
He laughed. “I’d be sorry to have to disbelieve it all… your daughter’s
very complimentary about you.”
Amanda looked genuinely taken aback.
“You surprise me. I sometimes think we are a little too alike to get on well and
Karen was always her ‘daddy’s girl’ – Sam adored her, not that I don’t, of
course.”
Charles gave her a hug. “I envy you
your daughter, Amanda, and the relationship you have with her; however … stormy
it might get. I lost my only child
when he was just a baby; he and his mother were killed by a drunken driver who
crashed into their car at a junction….” She gave a compassionate moan, and
squeezed his arm. He acknowledged
her sympathy with a smile and added ruefully,
“Sometimes, it seems like I’m making up for it with a vengeance now, with five daughters and six sons – as
you might say – not to mention countless nephews, nieces and god-children, to
worry about.”
“And you do worry about them all, don’t you?” She smiled at him and reached out
to touch his cheek with her hand.
“Karen always says you’re an old softie underneath…”
“Does she indeed?” He raised an ironic eyebrow.
“Maybe I’m too soft with them?
I shall have to stop being so indulgent…”
“You don’t fool me, Charles Gray.” Gently she reached across and kissed him on
the lips. His arms tightened around
her. “Not one little bit…” she
added contentedly.
Air Electronics Systems Corporation
Cerulean walked into the steamy,
pungent atmosphere of the staff canteen and undid the pale-blue, leather uniform
coat that he’d worn even to go this short distance outside. The canteen was decorated with garlands
and had fairy lights at the windows, tinny-sounding Christmas musak was being
broadcast over the tannoy, and an artificial Christmas tree with threadbare
branches stood in one corner. He
was surprised to see just how many people were in there. It had never occurred to him that the plant ran 24:7
programmes of shifts. Nevertheless,
he queued contentedly and selected meatloaf and mashed potato. At the end of the counter were chilled cabinets full of
sandwiches, from which he selected two and a crisp, shiny – and almost certainly
tasteless – red apple, along with a bottle of mineral water for Captain Blue.
He paid at the checkout and looked for a place to sit. The canteen was almost full – there wasn’t an empty table. He caught the eye of an attractive
blonde woman who invited him over with a bold smile.
Sitting with her was the dark-haired receptionist they had met on their
arrival and he was rather surprised to see her still at work, but when she too
smiled at him, Cerulean, always overconfident about his ability to charm young
women, went and joined them.
The brunette introduced herself as Gail
and her friend as Darlene.
“You have come here alone?” Gail asked, glancing around looking for
Captain Blue. “Why is your partner
hiding away?”
Cerulean gave a depreciating smile.
“The captain stayed in the office we’re using; he sent me for supplies. I’m taking the chance to grab a
bite to eat before I take these sandwiches back for him.”
“Is he as good looking as you?” the
bottle-blonde asked with her bold smile.
“Either way, I bet his accent ain’t as cute…”
Cerulean’s smile became winsome; he was
absurdly flattered by their interest.
“Oh, I believe Captain Blue is considered amongst the best looking of the
senior personnel,” he replied, unintentionally damning Blue with faint praise.
“Captain Blue? Seems to me I’ve heard about him on the TV newscasts. You’re not him, then? I mean, you’re in blue too…” Darlene
purred.
“No, I’m Lieutenant Cerulean. I’m sure you will have heard of Captain
Blue – he’s one of our most experienced officers.
I’m his partner on this mission.”
“How romantic it all sounds.” Darlene
sighed. “Do you think that I could
meet him, Lieutenant? I mean - just
to take a peek? You can never see
much on the newscasts…the pictures are always so blurry and it’d be a real coup
to be able to say to my girlfriends that I’d met two Spectrum officers and one
was Captain Blue.” Her blue eyes
raked up and down Cerulean and she grinned, “Besides, I bet he isn’t as good
looking as you, even though they say Spectrum only employs the best…”
Gail gave a warm chuckle. “Darlene, honey, they don’t mean they
employ the best looking – although, like the Lieutenant here, the Captain sure
was a looker, I’ll vouch for that – Spectrum only take the best men for the job;
I’m right aren’t I, Lieutenant?”
Cerulean nodded and smiled in
affirmation. Darlene winked at him.
“So what are you good at, Lieutenant?”
“Computers. I work with computers…
mostly,” he replied as soon as he had swallowed his mouthful of food.
“Boring,” Darlene said disappointment
obvious in her voice. “I kinda
hoped you’d be an expert in more personal
matters…” Her pink tongue flicked around her bold red lips. Cerulean felt his pulse racing
uncomfortably. Darlene continued,
“Surely you’re not taking your good-looking captain nothing more than a couple
of sandwiches and some mineral water?
No red-blooded man can function on such meagre rations. I mean, I wouldn’t expect a man to put
in a good night’s… performance, unless he’d had a decent meal…”
“Honestly, Darlene, you’re making the
lieutenant blush…” her friend chided with a merry laugh. “Please don’t worry, Lieutenant, she’s
only teasing. We know you Spectrum
types are all work and no play – darn shame though it is.”
“But, Gail, not even Spectrum officers
can work all day and all night – I bet they need a little R&R from time to time
– I never met a man who didn’t,” Darlene said with an inviting smile. “I’ll tell you what, Lieutenant,” she
added, “why don’t Gail and I buy you and your captain a cup of coffee and a
couple of doughnuts – as a friendly gesture?
We can carry them over and I can take a little peek at the famous Captain Blue
at the same time. Maybe he’ll welcome the distraction for a time… and we can
both be… very distracting, if the time
is right….”
Cerulean began to refuse her
astonishing offer, but Darlene had no intention of letting him leave alone. “It’s a crying shame. Here we are, as close to some of the
most macho men on the planet as we’ll ever get, and you won’t let us even say
‘hi’ in a friendly manner. I
thought Spectrum was supposed to be nice to people and we’ll be quiet as church
mice – won’t we, Gail?”
Gail glanced sympathetically at the
confused young officer. “You might
as well let us do as Darlene suggests, Lieutenant – she’ll only pester you
otherwise. We’ll be in and out in a
trice and we’ll make sure your captain won’t be able to blame you…”
Like most of the young and
inexperienced officers posted to Cloudbase, Cerulean had an exaggerated idea of
just what ‘perks’ going on a mission presented.
Although the World Government was careful to play down the threat the
Mysterons represented to the Earth, media conjecture kept Spectrum and its
dedicated personnel in the public gaze.
He had seen the magazine articles, and heard the chat shows, that
speculated about just what the organisation was up to and a recent TV show was
broadly based on Spectrum.
The incredibly unlikely, but universally popular, adventures of ‘Captain
Starlight’, and his comrades in the security agency known as ‘PRISM’, were a
source of embarrassment to the upper echelons, and a source of much merriment to
everyone else in Spectrum.
Surely these women were confusing him
with the ‘PRISM’ officers who thought nothing of romancing a new woman every
week.
Mind you,
Cerulean mused, who am I to disappoint the public? Who’d ever
know, after all? In answer to
his unspoken thought the image of a disapproving Captain Blue and a stern
Colonel White flashed before his mind’s eye, effectively cooling his enthusiasm
for the scheme once more and, with a sigh of regret, he continued to try to talk
them out of the scheme. But,
as he finished his meal, Darlene stood and sashayed over to the counter,
ordering two cappuccinos ’to go’.
She came back to the table, holding two large thermos mugs, one of which she handed to Gail. “Come on, Lieutenant… you don’t want the coffee to get cold, now do you? Lead the way…”
Captain Blue had been busy in
Cerulean’s absence. Captain Grey
had called back with the results of Lieutenant Flaxen’s research on the topics
he’d suggested.
“It
looks as if there is something going on, Blue,” Grey confirmed in a worried
voice. “And you were right – it does have
SIRAD’s thumbprints all over it.”
“I knew there had to be something
underlying what Hansford was hinting at...” Blue said.
“Mind
you, “Grey continued, “the evidence is
at best patchy.”
“I’m
still trying to gain access to the SIRAD accounts, sir,” Flaxen volunteered,
“I
feel sure they will throw some light on the matter; but without a prism class
clearance, it isn’t easy.”
“What did you turn up on Terahertz,
Flaxen?” Blue asked. The references he’d seen in the files he’d been examining
were cryptic, but frequent enough to suggest a possible line of enquiry. Blue conscientiously kept himself
abreast of new thinking in any field that might impinge on his own area of
expertise; and he was aware that Terahertz had been around for a while, as a
method of high-altitude communication between aircraft and satellites, for
example; but their value in other areas had only recently started being
investigated with any diligence.
“That
looks promising, sir,” the lieutenant confirmed. “The aeronautical uses are fairly well
established and new, improved systems are in the offing.
Some medical uses are being pioneered in the UK and the US, but those are not so
far advanced.”
“Does anything in the records suggest
any kind of project that SIRAD might possibly get involved with?”
Flaxen hesitated. “I couldn’t speculate on that, but there is
a report from Doctor Giardello concerning a contact he made with a Doctor Vernon
Catesby of AESC – at a conference last year – and Dr Catesby is an expert on
Terahertz applications. Apart from
that basic information, sir, the rest is ‘senior clearance level only’ and then
only on a on a ‘need to know’ basis.
We’d need the colonel’s passwords to get to see it.”
“I
have tried to contact the colonel, Blue,” Grey informed him.
“I’m worried, as this mission is tying up most of our available
resources. But, with Lieutenant
Green away, there is no one here with the key to his confidential memos and I
don’t know where he is. I know you
and Scarlet said he’d got on the New York shuttle, but New York is a pretty big
place and I can’t trace him there.
I finally tried his personal pager, but there was no response; it simply isn’t
working.” Grey explained gloomily.
“Could it be switched off?” Blue
hazarded.
“Hard
to tell,” Grey said. “It might be
malfunctioning – that would be in keeping with my current run of luck.”
“I shouldn’t worry too much about it,
Captain; after all, by the time he got back to Cloudbase it might be too late
anyway. The Mysterons have got
ahead of us and they are unlikely to give us a chance to catch up.” Blue thought quickly. “Giardello knows a researcher here…? Check with Des Moines, Flaxen, and see
if they have any records of the doctor visiting the place. He’d be sure to
register with them if he came here.”
There was a pause while Flaxen carried
out the suggestion. “Sir,” her voice
was tense with excitement, “Sergeant
Jacobs of Des Moines, posted a report that he gave Doctor Giardello a lift to
the AESC plant yesterday – he has not received a request for him to return to
the airport, so he assumes that Doctor Giardello got a lift from his contact at
AESC.”
“What?
They’re making a pretty big assumption there, aren’t they? What if he’s still here?” Blue’s concern
caused his voice to soar. “Jeez, I’d call it a red alert if the head
of SIRAD goes AWOL. Why wasn’t his absence reported?”
“Well,
it was…” Grey admitted. “That
is, Mrs Giardello asked SIRAD where he was, but they didn’t know and they
informed me, but I didn’t mention it because, although I’d intended you to
conduct the search, the Cedar Rapids thing took priority and I couldn’t have
known he’d have gone to AESC, could I?”
“Why didn’t SIRAD do something?” Blue
snapped.
“They
weren’t unduly concerned because…well,
because…”
“SIRAD
has him on leave, sir, until after Christmas,” Flaxen explained succinctly,
taking pity on her acting commander’s embarrassment.
“Wonderful; between SIRAD and Spectrum:
Des Moines, the head of our research team has been missing for about 48 hours
and no one’s done anything. The
colonel will go postal, Brad, and you know it.” Blue began to snap out demands. “I need people here; we have to track him down – and Doctor Vernon
Catesby – and quickly! They are
both prime targets for the Mysterons.
I think whatever those two are up to has more to do with the Mysteron threat
than the new system at Atlantic. I
said I thought that the Mysterons were worried about something… if Catesby is an
expert in Terahertz – that might
explain it.”
“Why?”
Grey asked. “I don’t see what all this fuss about Terahertz is about.”
Blue sighed; Grey could picture those
pale-blue eyes rolling heavenward in exasperation. The crisp voice began to explain, the New England accent
coming to the fore as Blue went into ‘tutorial-mode’, as Ochre had once so
accurately dubbed it.
“Terahertz radiation is non-ionising –
it is not likely to damage human DNA – unlike conventional X-rays. Some frequencies can penetrate tissue
and reflect back; so the latest ideas seem to be that they could be an accurate
and safe alternative to X-rays in medicine and dentistry. Think, Brad – Giardello developed the Mysteron Detector using
X-rays, but maybe he and Vernon are looking to replace that with a safer system
– based on Terahertz.”
“That’s
pure speculation,” Grey responded.
“Everything about every Mysteron threat
is,” Blue reasoned. “It doesn’t alter the fact that we have to find Giardello. Then he can tell us what he’s
doing; I may be wildly off target – but either way - we still have to find him.”
Grey acquiesced.
“Okay, you do have a point; I’ll send some of the
guys from Des Moines to give you a hand…”
“On recent past performance I wouldn’t
trust that crew to find their own asses with a map,” Blue complained, “but
still, beggars can’t be choosers and I’ll take whoever you’ve got -” he broke off and looked up as a very
shame-faced Cerulean opened the office door.
Standing on either side of him were two women.
Blue recognised the receptionist
immediately and wondered what she was still doing at the plant this late – then
he realised with a sigh that they were dealing with ‘Spectrafans’ – which was
the term Captain Ochre had adopted to describe the star-struck females – well mostly females – who would dog the
footsteps of any senior officer they spotted, even when they were on a mission.
This fascination applied to every colour captain and had always been there to
some extent, but it had got much worse as a consequence of the ‘Captain
Starlight’ show – which programme Blue deplored. He had no doubt these two women were examples of the trend –
which would explain why the receptionist was still here, of course – and they
must have run rings round a novice like Cerulean. However much self-confidence that young man had in his
skill as a lady-killer, he had no experience of brushing off determined ‘fans’.
Blue stood up at his desk, carefully
covering the documents he was studying with the blotter, resentful of the
interruption.
“Captain Blue,” Cerulean began to explain apologetically, “these ladies were
kind enough to help me in the canteen and they’ve bought us both a cup of
coffee…”
Before Blue could respond, Gail produced a gun, with a silencer attached, from
the pocket of her padded fleece and fired directly at him. Darlene pushed Cerulean aside,
tripping him as he staggered and shoving him to the floor to prevent him from
going to assist his stricken captain. Both coffee cups were thrown down, one of
them striking the lieutenant as he lay, stunned by his fall. The lid flew off, spewing scalding
coffee over the surprised young man.
“Cerulean,” Blue gasped, as the bullet in his shoulder began to cause enough
pain to cloud his consciousness, “you forgot rule one – never trust a stranger
until they’ve passed the Mysteron Detector test…”
Even as he was speaking, the tall
captain had started to fold up over the desk and the last words he heard were
Captain Grey’s frantic calls over his radio as, with a despairing sigh, he
passed out. His radio cap rolled clear, the mic returning to the peak, severing
the connection to Cloudbase.
Gazing up at the two women, Cerulean cursed under his breath and then screwed up
his eyes in terror as Gail pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger.
Friendship often ends in
love: but love in friendship – never.
Charles Caleb Coltan
Captains Magenta and Ochre were in
conference with Cloudbase.
“I
was just talking to him and what I heard definitely sounded like shots…”
Grey was explaining. “Blue
was complaining that Cerulean had allowed someone in without doing a Mysteron
Detector test and then – BHAM! I
don’t like it; I’m worried.”
“I agree that doesn’t sound good,”
Magenta said, sharing a concerned look with Captain Ochre. The pair were in a glass-fronted office on a mezzanine floor
at Atlantic airport, watching the air-traffic controllers at work in the large
open-plan office below them. “Have you heard anything from either of them
since?”
“No,”
Grey said. “I want you to get over there, Magenta. I’m sending Lieutenant Flaxen down to Swanwick, and Green
over to Atlantic to replace you.
Ochre can keep tabs on the security there, but I want you to go and ensure the
computer set-up at AESC remains secure.
See if you can find out what’s happened to Blue and Cerulean – and maybe link up
with them to discover if Doctor Giardello is still there,” Grey instructed.
“Alone?” Ochre chipped in, his cap mic snapping into place as he
joined the conversation.
“No,”
Grey said with a touch of asperity.
“I wish you’d
let me finish, Captain Ochre. I’ll
send Angel One as back-up for Magenta, until Scarlet arrives.”
“Why send Scarlet to Cedar Rapids?”
Magenta asked with a slight frown.
“I can manage with the Angel as back-up.”
“Oh,
I won’t send him,” Grey said with
a glimmer of amusement, “but
I doubt I’ll be able to keep him away once he learns Blue’s missing and a
possible casualty. Putting the
mission before his Spectrum colleagues is a regulation that’s never carried much
weight with Paul Metcalfe. He’ll go
to Cedar Rapids as fast as is humanly possible – whether I let him or not.”
Magenta grinned. “I agree with that.
Even a direct order from the colonel doesn’t stop him, once he has the bit
between his teeth!”
Grey signed off and Magenta started to
prepare for his departure.
“The duty Angel should arrive about the same time as you, with
luck. I think it’s better we work in pairs,”
Ochre commented, watching his friend.
“What about you, working here all
alone, until Green arrives?” Magenta asked as he walked to the door.
“My
sixth-sense tells me that there ain’t nothing going to happen here that I can’t
handle,” Ochre smiled, waving farewell. “Good luck, Pat.”
Cloudbase
“Launch Angel One,” Captain Grey ordered.
“Angel One – immediate launch!” Claret
obeyed the order with alacrity.
The sleek, white, jet sprang off the
runway in a roar of powerful engines.
As soon as the plane had cleared the immediate environs of the base, Claret
entered the destination co-ordinates and the pilot watched them come up on her
navigation computer.
“Cedar Rapids? What the hell am I going there for?” she murmured.
The Hoffman Ranch
In the warmth of the comfortable double
bed, Charles Gray was lying staring at the ceiling in a state of relaxed
contentment. Beside him, Amanda
Wainwright lay dozing; her arm still wrapped through his, her corn-gold hair
tumbled across the pillow.
Charles glanced at her and smiled. He was not, and never had been, the curmudgeonly automaton his officers imagined and the feelings he had for this beautiful woman were growing and becoming more deeply entrenched in his very being with every moment they were together.
Amanda had been open about her
expectation that they would spend the night together; but she had, however,
given him the option of a room of his own – effectively leaving the decision to
him. Not that he’d had to give it much
thought. She was everything he’d
ever hoped for; everything he’d missed in the long years since Annabel had died,
even during the encounters he’d had with other women. With her he felt relaxed and able to be himself without
fear of exposing his all too human weaknesses to the world. She could make him feel good about himself, simply by her
admiration for him. Their
love-making had been tender and unhurried – comfortable, and yet, exciting - and
she had given of herself with generosity and open affection.
She’s that rare kind of
woman whose simple presence can make a man feel so…
masculine… he thought affectionately. If this is the kind of buzz Blue – Adam,
I mean – gets from being with Karen, then
I can certainly understand why he feels as he does about her. It’s like a drug… you could easily get
addicted to having this much self-confidence sloshing around your psyche… Never
since Annabel’s death has any woman affected me as profoundly as Amanda does.
He acknowledged to himself that he’d
admired and wanted her for months, but now, with a growing certainty he knew it
was more than that.
I’m in love with her, he realised with a
surge of excited happiness.
I only hope
she’s found such certainty as well.
He wanted her to open her eyes – he wanted to see
what he could read in them.
Almost as if she could read his mind,
she half-turned her head towards him, a slight smile on her lips as she nestled
against his shoulder. “You sleepy?” she murmured.
“Not really,” he admitted softly.
Her eyes opened and he saw a bright sparkle in them; amusement, expectation and
– undoubtedly – happiness. He
smiled in response and she gave a merry laugh.
“Well, it is still early, I guess...” she said softly.
“I’m not used to going to bed this early,” he confessed. “On Cloudbase there is always something to do and never
enough time to do it all.”
“You’re not on Cloudbase now, Charles, and we have the time to do everything we
want to,” she mused. “And we don’t
have to get up in the morning either,” she concluded as if that was the clincher
in her argument.
He put his arm around her and brushed her hair back from her beautiful face. “Perfect,” he said and she wondered if
he meant the prospect of a lie-in, or her.
“I have plenty of imagination… and for once, the time to make good use of
it.”
“Perfect,” she echoed, stretching to press her lips to his.
He returned her kiss and banished all conscious thought from his mind as he gave
his attention to the woman lying beside him.
East Iowa Airport, USA
Magenta’s SPJ landed and taxied to a halt beside the plane left by Blue and
Cerulean. Sergeant Jacobs, back at the airport for the
second time in twenty-four hours, saluted and handed over the keys for the SSC.
“Do we have an e.t.a. on Angel One?” Magenta asked.
“Yes sir, e.t.a. in five minutes,” Jacobs replied. He was a little subdued. Captain Grey – in his capacity as
Commander-in-chief – had read the riot act to the Des Moines base over
neglecting to keep track of Doctor Giardello.
Yet, despite that, Jacobs couldn’t help feeling a thrill of excitement at
meeting another of the Cloudbase elite officers. He was hoping that Captain Magenta would invite his
participation in whatever was going on at the AESC plant and debated whether he
should point out that his local knowledge might be useful…
Magenta nodded and glanced at his watch.
What seemed mere seconds later he saw the graceful, delta-wing Angel jet overfly
the airfield, bank sharply and come in to land close to the two SPJs.
He couldn’t disguise his shock as the pilot disembarked and walked into the
circle of light created by the floodlights overhead, before removing her helmet.
“Captain Magenta, what the hell’s going on here?” Symphony called
across to him.
His heart sank. Why the blazes didn’t Grey check exactly which Angel was on duty before
he dispatched Angel One on this mission? There was no avoiding Symphony’s direct question, however, and as
he escorted her to the SSC, Magenta began to explain what had happened.
“So, Blue and Cerulean are both missing?” she demanded crisply as she took the
driver’s seat and navigated the SSC towards the same gates Blue had used
earlier.
“Both uncontactable,” Magenta corrected precisely. “There might be nothing wrong except some technical fault, after all.”
She gave him a sour glance. “You
don’t have to try to shield me from the truth, Captain.
We both know that Blue would never willingly omit to send his regular
check-in. Something’s seriously
wrong, Pat,” she asserted. “We have
to find him – them…”
He smiled to himself at her unconscious slip and prompt correction. “We will, Karen; never fear.”
“I’m not afraid,” she said quietly, “but I am worried. Let’s get a move on…” The car slid into the highway traffic
and raced towards AESC.
Air Electronics Systems Corporation
Captain Blue frowned to squeeze his
eyelids tighter shut and prevent any light seeping in and further pulverising
his already aching head. Even that
slight movement set the sledgehammers thumping in his brain again and,
reluctantly, he eased the frown, risking the light.
His mouth was dry with a lingering aftertaste of vomit, the acrid smell of which
was assaulting his nostrils and making him want to retch again. He dreaded to imagine what kind of state
he was in and briefly wished himself unconscious once more.
Knowing he had to face the worst, he
tentatively opened one eye, wincing at the expected protest from his throbbing
head. Thankfully there was less light than he’d expected and he ventured to try
and open his other eye, but found it too swollen to see through. He’d have to rely on examining his
surroundings with one good eye.
He took in as much as he could without
moving his head, but braced himself for another bout of pain when he had to look
beyond the current limited range of his vision. He was lying on his back, on the
floor of what looked like an office, partitioned off from what appeared to be a
warehouse.
It was an office: a small, dingy, cold
and unimpressive office – none too clean, either.
There was a battered desk and a chair with a faded and worn padded seat.
On the desk was an old computer and a small desk-lamp and it was that which was
supplying the dim light; mercifully the overhead fluorescent strip light was
switched off – or not working…
Swallowing bile, Blue ventured to try
to sit up, grimacing with the effort.
It took him some time to manage it; his right arm was next to useless and his
shoulder was on fire with pain.
A damp, red patch of blood had soaked into the fabric around the bullet wound. He was splattered with blood and vomit
and couldn’t repress a shudder of distaste as he examined himself. He was acutely aware of, and
rather resentful about, his reputation on Cloudbase for always being
‘well-turned-out’ – ‘dapper’ is what Scarlet called it – a reputation that was
probably enhanced by comparisons with his partner, whose uniform tunics bore
witness to the hazards he routinely faced and the multitude of injuries he
received as a consequence. Yet,
here he was, as filthy and grimy as Scarlet consistently got and his first
reactions were dismay and disgust.
Maybe I am just a soft little rich kid
addicted to my creature comforts, after all… he reflected.
He moved his head a fraction to examine
the rest of the room and saw the body of another man, lying some feet away from
him. It took him several seconds to
recall who the lanky, dark-haired Spectrum Officer was… Lieutenant Cerulean.
The young man’s eyes were closed, his complexion was drained of colour and the
vibrant sky-blue of his tunic was stained with a large, unhealthy patch of red.
The kid’s bleeding to death,
Blue realised with a jolt. Painfully, he edged over to his partner,
unsure if he could do anything to help, or even if he was already too late.
He placed a finger against the man’s throat, relieved and concerned at the same
moment to feel the weak, erratic pulse that fluttered there.
Blue had witnessed many critical, and
indeed fatal, wounds, but under normal circumstances the victim was Captain
Scarlet and however much he regretted the fact that his partner had to suffer –
knowing, as he did, that the pain would scourge and torture his friend – he also
knew that Scarlet would rise, phoenix-like, from his wounds or even from the
coldness of death.
But Cerulean would not.
Desperately trying to concentrate, Blue
examined the youngster. The bullet
was in his chest cavity; it might even have nicked his lung…he needed medical
treatment and soon.
Without holding out much hope, Blue
shuffled back to the desk and tried to reach his radio cap, which lay discarded
in the centre. The jolt of pain
that shot through him as he thoughtlessly raised his right arm brought on
another wave of nausea and left him trembling and fighting back the hot tears
that sprang unbidden to his eyes.
Sweating, he glanced again at his own wound; it had almost certainly damaged his
shoulder. Cradling his arm against
his chest and hunching his shoulder against the movement, he shifted position
and reached out with his left hand.
His fingers were crawling agonisingly
towards the cap as the door swung open and the overhead light snapped on;
blinding him with its brilliance and making him jerk his head down to avoid it,
which sent fresh needles of pain through him.
The two women who’d come with Cerulean
walked in and Blue’s memory was jolted into supplying the missing details of how
he’d got here.
He remembered them coming into the
office and shooting him. When they’d brought him round from his faint – and he
had no idea how long he’d been unconscious for – they were in this room, which
could be anywhere. He’d seen that
Cerulean had also been shot, and that he was in a far worse condition. Then the blonde woman had
single-handedly thrown him – no lightweight – across the office, with a strength
that was out of all proportion to her build and that was enough in itself to
tell him that she, at least – and probably both of them – was a Mysteron
reconstruct.
What had followed had been a period of
sustained agony such as he hoped never to encounter again. The two women had tortured him in
an effort to force him to tell them what Doctor Giardello was working on – and
where. They hadn’t believed him when he’d said he didn’t have a clue and their
revenge had been particularly unpleasant.
He doubted he would ever look at a stiletto heel in the same way again; always
assuming he lived long enough to see another one.
Seeing him at the desk and realising
what he was trying to do, the blonde woman strode across and with a well-aimed
kick of her stiletto-shod foot sent him sprawling to the floor, rolling away
from the desk.
“Welcome back to the land of the
living, Captain,” the brunette said.
She was carrying a litre bottle of water and Blue could hardly tear his gaze
from it – such was his thirst. She
noticed his longing and smiled ruefully.
“Your luck is definitely out, today.
I was going to rouse you with this, but you managed all by yourself, so there is
no need for this now…” She opened
the bottle and began to pour the contents onto the floor.
Blue looked away, suppressing the groan
that rose in his throat.
Gail stopped. “The rest is yours,
Captain Blue; in return for your co-operation.”
“Go to Hell,” Blue croaked.
Darlene’s foot lashed out again, making
contact with his damaged shoulder.
Blue’s body exploded with shards of pain and as a second kick impacted on
his lower spine, he vomited the remaining meagre contents of his stomach onto
the floor.
“You dirty boy…” she mocked.
Blue retched once more, spat what he could from his dehydrated
mouth and strove to wipe his chin clean with a shaking hand. “At least I can clean myself up,” he
gasped. “You’ll always be filth.”
Darlene kicked again, drawing a groan
of pain from between Blue’s tightly compressed lips.
“Careful, Darlene, we need him awake,”
Gail ordered. “We’ve wasted too
much time waiting for him to co-operate already.”
She walked across and bent over the semi-conscious man, her disgust
apparent in her expression, even as she dribbled water over his face.
Blue’s tongue lapped greedily at the
moisture and he opened his eye again.
“Now, Captain, we’ll have better
manners from you,” Gail said warningly.
“Darlene’s not as forgiving as I am – understand me?”
Blue nodded, biding his time. He’d no idea what these Harpies
intended, and besides, there was little chance of his taking them both on until
he was stronger. It’d be touch and
go if he managed it before Cerulean died.
Gail moved to the chair and invited
Blue to sit. With agonising
slowness he clambered onto the seat, cradling his damaged arm.
“We want your help, Captain,” Gail
said. She bent to put her face
close to Blue’s forcing him to back away to keep her in focus. “We want to gain access to the secure research facility and
you’re going to provide us with that access.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking
about,” he mumbled, through swollen lips.
“Spectrum has been using AESC’s
facilities to work on a new device – which they believe will help them thwart
the Mysterons’ aims. However
mistaken that belief may be, we do not intend to allow them to gain even that
much satisfaction. The device will
be destroyed; and we are here to destroy it.”
Having had his worst suspicions
confirmed Blue temporised, playing for time. “Why should I help you?”
Gail snapped, “If you don’t – your
young lieutenant will die, and then – so will you.”
Blue shook his head, and immediately
regretted it. “Cerulean can’t help
you,” he murmured. “Get him to a
doctor and I’ll do what I can to help you…”
“You have nothing to bargain with,
Earthman,” Darlene snarled. “We
don’t care if you both die. The
Mysterons will succeed in destroying the device whatever you do.”
Gail gave her companion an angry
glance. “The choice is yours,
Captain. Little boy-blue here can
bleed to death before your eyes and then you’ll have the comfort of knowing that
you’ll join him – eventually.
I’ve already warned you that Darlene’s not patient or forgiving – if you
disappoint her, she’ll take her time extracting her revenge.”
Blue rolled his eyes. “Spare me the melodramatic threats;
you’re really not that good at them.”
This time Darlene’s fist cannoned into his
shoulder, sending him writhing across the desk as his collarbone took the
impact.
“Enough of these pleasantries,
Captain,” Gail said with a heavy sigh. “Understand that we know Spectrum has
been using the secure facilities here and we also know these facilities are
protected by one of your so-called Mysteron Detectors – which would set off
alarms. You
will
access the facility and then disable the alarm, using the cipher codes…so that
we may carry out the Mysterons’ instructions. You do not have a choice, Captain… so don’t make the mistake of saying you
won’t co-operate again. You haven’t
even started to feel the full extent of the pain we can inflict. Get ready to
start work.”
“What makes you think I know the
ciphers used here?” he asked with some boldness. “Our agent didn’t tell me which
encryption he was using.” It was true, up to a point; although anyone would have
had to use approved codes.
“We’re not dumb, Captain Blue. Whoever installed those codes had to make sure
they were standardised – or what’s the point? You’d better hope he stuck to the rule book; because you’re
going to have to work the codes out.
You can use this computer,” Gail snapped.
“We reckon you’re our best bet, but we’ll get in there without you, if we have
to. You’re not indispensable,
Captain. And, if you don’t co-operate, your young companion will die and then –
so will you.”
“Which would be a shame,” Darlene added, squeezing Blue’s wounded
shoulder with a vice-like grip.
“’Cause you’re kinda cute, and I like playing with cute toys…mind you, they
ain’t so cute when I’ve done with ‘em. It’d be a shame to take the sparkle out
of those lovely blue eyes permanently, or mar that perfect profile with a broken
nose – or no nose at all…
Still, I’m sure your mother would still love you...“ She released him with a
shove, banging him hard against the desk.
Knowing that he couldn’t take much more
physical punishment without passing out again, Blue struggled to sit up,
fighting the urge to simply close his eyes and sleep. The faint comfort that they were obviously still on the AESC
site and that Cloudbase knew of his plight and would send a back-up team, was
the only hope he had to sustain him.
There was no chance that his partner would revive to assist him. It was a surprise to realise how used
he’d become to factoring Scarlet’s constant recoveries into the evaluation of
every situation. But this time his
life, and Cerulean’s, were dependent on his own skills and very little else.
He switched on the computer and
swallowed several gulps from the water bottle Gail handed him as he waited for
it to boot up.
With luck, I won’t discover which code was used
straight away or I can disguise it, if I do.
I hope these Mysterons don’t know that much about computers and encryptions -
even more than that – I hope someone broke the rules and used one of his own
ciphers….
Atlantic Airport, Massachusetts
Lieutenant Green sat staring anxiously
out of the SPJ as Captain Scarlet squeezed every last ounce of speed from the
plane. When Lieutenants Flaxen and
Viridian had arrived in Swanwick to relieve them, Scarlet had almost begrudged
him the time it took to bring Flaxen up to speed on the computers, then he’d
hustled him into the SPJ and flown like a mad man over to Atlantic. Green half expected to be ordered to
parachute down to the airfield so that Scarlet could press on to Iowa.
It wasn’t that his companion’s attitude
surprised him; Scarlet and Blue were as close as any brothers and, whatever the
regulations said, everyone knew they watched each other’s back when on a
mission. Green smiled as he
remembered Scarlet’s belligerent tone when he told Captain Grey – who was, after
all, the commanding officer in the colonel’s absence – that he was going to Iowa
once Grey’d finished giving them an update on the situation.
Grey had wisely forborne to dispute this, and
merely said that he’d already decided that was the best course of action. ‘We
need to find Doctor Giardello, Scarlet,’ he’d explained.
Scarlet had agreed and fretted
impatiently until their replacements arrived.
Once airborne he had clarified his understanding of his orders to his field
partner thus: We find Giardello
immediately after we’ve found Blue.
And Green had instinctively known that this was the right thing to do; Spectrum
agents had no one else to rely on but each other.
The trust and certainty that their colleagues would back them up, provided a
secure base for every operative facing the dangers of a Mysteron threat.
When Scarlet brought the SPJ to a halt
at Atlantic and opened the automatic doors for Green’s departure, the lieutenant
had barely had time to salute Captain Ochre - who’d come down to meet him -
before the jet was taxiing back to the runway and getting airborne again.
“Spectrum personnel will always put
their mission before themselves or the safety of any Spectrum officer,” Ochre
said blandly, watching the jet‘s taillights disappear into the night sky.
“And if it was your partner,” Lieutenant Green asked evenly, “if it was Captain Magenta who had gone missing?”
“I’d be doing exactly the same as
Scarlet’s doing now,” Ochre replied honestly.
“We all work this way – whatever the regulations say. I can trust my buddies and they can trust me. How else do you imagine we manage all
that we do accomplish?”
Air Electronics Systems Corporation
Symphony drew the SSC up at the
security barrier before the AESC plant and showed her Spectrum pass to the
guard. “Tell me, buddy, are the other Spectrum
officers still on the site?” she asked with a charming smile.
The guard responded easily enough.
“Sure ma’am. Their car’s over at
the main admin building. I guess
they’re busy about the place somewhere.
Everyone except the night shift will have gone home. The plant’s still working,
of course and the computer department’s on an all night trial – so there’ll be
people over there, I guess. Maybe your friends are there?”
“Thanks, we’ll find them,” Symphony
answered.
Magenta leant across her to ask,
“Where’s the main computer offices?”
“In the next building over from the
admin offices; but you can’t get into them at this time of night, except by the
corridor from the administration building.
I can let one of the security team there know you wanna get through…?” he
offered.
“Thanks…” Symphony started the car
moving slowly forward. It crept
over the security humps and accelerated towards the administration block.
“We’ll check out the office they were
using first; see if that can tell us anything about where they’ve gone. Then we’ll try the computer offices,
they might have an idea about what’s been going on or even where Blue and
Cerulean are,” Magenta said as she parked the SSC and turned off the lights.
“S.I.G,” she agreed, adding, “I have a
bad feeling about all this, Pat. It
isn’t like Adam to be out of touch for so long.
Grey heard shots, and we know someone who should not have been there was
in the office. What if…?”
“The shots may have been from Adam’s
gun,” Magenta interrupted quickly. “Don’t torture yourself thinking that he was
shot, Karen. It’d take a good man
to get the drop on Blue.”
“Yes, you’re right.” Symphony gave a shaky smile and gathered
herself. “This place is vast – they
might be anywhere. I hope we find
them quickly. “
“Hey – we will. Trust me.” He placed a hand on her arm and she reached her
other hand over to grip his fingers.
“I’m glad you’re with me,” she
admitted, before letting go and turning to open the door.
Magenta climbed out of the car. He looked across at Symphony with the
rueful mental observation that it was ironic how she expected him, of all
people, to rescue the very man who stood between him and the woman he wanted. Of
course, he mused, she’s come to expect
that I’ll do whatever I can to help her; and I’ve skated pretty close to the
edge a time or two to do so, because I can never bear to disappoint her.
One pleading look from those beautiful eyes and I’m putty in her hands.
It’s a double irony, really, I mean, Blue’s a decent guy; he’s never
thrown my past at me and has always been perfectly affable, even though there is
a slight
restraint between us. I can’t hate him for winning her love –
I wish I could, it’d make me feel better in some perverse way – but either way,
I couldn’t risk his life just because I’m jealous. My life’s never that straightforward.
With a shrug he followed her into the main building.
The AESC Security Guard led them to the
office Blue and Cerulean had been assigned.
The door was locked and the light switched off inside. He opened it for them with his pass key
and switched on the light. Asking
the guard to remain outside, they went in, careful not to disturb anything.
There was
a strong residual smell of coffee and a pool of cold liquid by the door. Two
thermos cups lay discarded on the floor. The monitor Cerulean had been watching
was still functioning and Magenta’s quick glance at the files on the desk told
him that Blue had been pursuing the line of investigation they’d discussed. He couldn’t see a reason why they’d have
willingly left the room – although the spilt coffee might be indicative of a
struggle. He went to the window to
look out across the plant.
Symphony came to the desk.
She gave a slight frown to see that Adam had left his wallet behind. She reached out to pick it up, sliding
her thumb between the folds to open it.
As expected, she saw the small photograph of herself in the front section, and
smiled; it was nice to think that he must have been looking at it…
She moved one of the files, intending
to perch on the desk and wait for Magenta to finish his examination of the view.
“Pat!”
she cried in alarm.
He came to her side and followed the
direction of her fearful gaze. On
the blotter, originally hidden by the open file, was a bloodstain.
“Damn,” he hissed. He examined the desk
and in an effort to reassure her said, “We can’t know who was at this desk;
after all, the blood was hidden, so someone tidied the desk after whoever was
here was shot. Maybe Blue disturbed
someone rifling the files?”
“Grey heard someone enter the room and Captain
Blue reprimand Cerulean for allowing them in… then he heard a shot.
Chances are, Blue was at this desk and he was shot.” She held out the wallet. “He left
this behind.” Magenta met her
frightened glance as she added, “I’m thinking that maybe this is the work of the
Mysterons…?”
He nodded.
“And if they have Blue it’s more than likely that they have Cerulean too,
and that one of them has been shot.
We need to find them, Symphony – and soon.” He shook his head and added, “It’s not rocket science to
figure out that these trigger-happy Mysterons may kill Doctor Giardello as well
– if they haven’t already.”
The Security Guard, surprised at the
sudden urgency the Spectrum officer displayed, led them through a maze of dim
corridors to the main computer room, where the night shift was busy monitoring
the performance of the system at Atlantic.
In one corner was the video link and Magenta could see Captain Ochre’s
image quite clearly.
The night shift supervisor – a
different man from the one Magenta had been in conversation with over the video
link for several hours earlier – came over to them, a broad smile on his face as
he reached out a hand towards the officer.
“Captain Magenta, so nice to meet you! I’m Al Wetmore, I’m in charge
here. Your colleague at Atlantic told me you were on your way,” he explained. He
greeted Symphony with a smile and held on to her hand for just a moment too
long. “What can we do for you?” he asked as he reluctantly let go of the Angel’s
hand.
“Mr. Wetmore, we’re here to rendezvous
with our colleagues, Captain Blue and Lieutenant Cerulean,” Magenta explained. “They don’t seem to be in the office
they were allocated; we hoped they might be here…”
Wetmore gave him a perplexed glance. “I haven’t met Captain Blue; neither he,
nor his colleague, has been in here while I’ve been on duty. The day shift supervisor told me they
spent some time familiarising themselves with the system earlier, but they
haven’t been back.”
“Do you have any ideas where they might’ve gone?”
Symphony asked as casually as she could.
They both knew instinctively that it was better to play their situation down. Panic amongst the AESC staff wouldn’t
help matters at all.
Wetmore shook his head. “I can ask
if anyone’s seen them,” he offered.
“Please do,” Magenta replied.
Wetmore turned to his fellow workers, many of whom were watching the Spectrum
officers with blatant interest rather than their computer monitors. “Has anyone seen Spectrum’s Captain Blue
or Lieutenant Cerulean – or know where they are?” he called.
There was a rumble of negative replies.
Symphony’s arched brows sank into a frown. “They have to be on the base; they’d have told us if they
intended to leave…” she remarked.
One young man ventured to say, “I saw one of them in the canteen; a tall,
brown-haired guy, dressed in a blue tunic.
He was talking to two of the women from the admin building. Only that was some time ago, now.”
“The canteen? Thanks,” Magenta said
with a glance at Symphony.
“Do you know the women’s names?” she asked the young man.
“Not as such; I’ve seen them around the place, one of them is the day shift
receptionist – Gail something – the other one works in the admin building,
that’s all I know.”
“What do they look like?” Magenta probed.
“A blonde and a brunette – good looking gals with… nice figures.” He traced a
shapely curve in the air with both of his hands, winking at Magenta as he did
so.
Beside him Magenta heard Symphony draw a sharp, angry intake of breath. “Thanks, Buddy,” he said before she
could respond. “We’ll stroll over
and check out the canteen.”
Wetmore gave them directions and ushered them from the computer room. As they walked along the corridor
Magenta said, “It’s fishy… It was obviously Cerulean in the canteen with the two
women… so where was Blue?” When she didn’t answer he added, “If we find the
women they might be able to tell us what Cerulean was doing and where Blue was…”
He glanced at her. Symphony’s face
was a mixture of emotion: annoyance and irritation mostly, overlaid with
concern. They reached the canteen
before she finally spoke.
“My guess is because Blue wouldn’t leave their work unguarded, Cerulean was sent
to get coffee – Blue lives off the stuff, after all – while he was alone, he
might have been attacked and… taken from the office, his disappearance covered
by leaving everything neat and tidy.
Cerulean could be looking for him.”
“Surely, he’d have reported an incident like that to Cloudbase?” Magenta
reasoned cautiously.
She turned her worried eyes on him.
“Yes, unless he’s been wounded too… but I was trying not to think of that,” she
admitted.
Scarlet contacted Captain Magenta for the latest news as soon as he landed at
East Iowa.
“We still haven’t found either of them,” Magenta admitted with some reluctance.
“We did find some blood stains in the office they were using – it confirms that
they’ve been attacked and are not merely AWOL or out of contact for some
technical reason.”
“Any leads on who might’ve attacked them?”
“One reported sighting of Cerulean talking to two women in the canteen earlier…
we’re following that up right now.”
“Symphony is with you?” Scarlet’s voice
was concerned.
“Yes; she’s here to do a job – the same as we all are.” Magenta could sense what was coming.
“But… what if … I mean – if Blue’s been hurt?”
“She knows first aid,” Magenta said curtly.
“Look, Scarlet, she wouldn’t stay behind even if I told her to, and
frankly, I’m not in the mood to try.”
“S.I.G,” Scarlet acknowledged. He paused and said quietly, “Take care of her, Pat.”
“Yeah, you got it…”
Magenta and Symphony were not having
much luck in tracking down the women Cerulean had been seen talking to. They had names for both of them now –
Gail North and Darlene McGinty – but none of the other technicians working in
the plant, remembered seeing them recently, and no one had any ideas where they
might be.
The security guard came up to where
they were conferring, in the supervisor’s office on a gantry overlooking the
main production area, and informed them that another Spectrum officer had
arrived at the base. Magenta turned
to Symphony.
“You stay here; see if you can jog
anyone’s memory about the women – they remain our best lead. I’ll go and fetch Scarlet and we’ll meet you here. Don’t go wandering about alone, Symphony – we can’t spare the
time to go searching for you too.”
She nodded and watched him stride out
after the guard.
Symphony glanced around the production
building. There were dozens of
people working at making components and whatever else the system needed and
dozens of places, in addition to those they’d already checked, where two men
might be held captive. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack, she thought.
Where are you, Adam?
She walked back to the shop floor,
determined to leave no stone unturned in her search. As she passed one section a grey-haired man looked up and
reached out a hand to stop her.
“Karen?
Karen Wainwright – Sam Wainwright’s daughter?”
She looked down at him as he smiled up
at her, and from the depths of her memory came his face and a name. “Mr. Erhardt?“
“I thought it was you. You have a look of your mother about
you, my girl. What’re you doing
here with that Spectrum guy?”
Symphony gave a rueful smile. There’d always been a chance she might
meet someone she knew – or who knew her parents.
She glanced nervously at the other workers and Erhardt rose and walked
away with her out of earshot.
“I do some work for them, now and
again,” she admitted.
Erhardt nodded. “Okay, you don’t have to say any more. Sam told me you’d got a government job and I guess they can
ask you to do anything, can’t they?”
She nodded. “Yes, they can.
Right now I’m helping them search for the two Spectrum officers who were
here earlier today. They’ve gone
missing. Last we know, one of them was talking to
two women – Gail North and Darlene McGinty.
They’re missing too.”
Erhardt gave the matter some thought.
“When was this? Those two shouldn’t
be working now, Karen; they work the day shift over in reception and petty cash.
Mind you, Darlene is…‘friendly’ with several of the men who work the night
shifts… and probably with the day shift guys too. Not that Gail has that kind of
reputation, but I don’t know her all that well.
If their usual beaux were too busy to ‘entertain’ them, I imagine they’ve lured
your officers away for a little hanky-panky in their place,” he snorted.
“No,” she replied fiercely. “Spectrum
officers would never do anything like that.”
“You seem sure of that, Karen. Most men wouldn’t think twice.”
“Not these – at least, not one of them.”
Erhardt looked at her long and hard
until she felt herself starting to colour.
“Oh, I see – it’s like that, is it?” he said with a smile. “Well, I hope he’s good enough for you –
your dad was pretty certain there’d never be a man born who would be…” he
teased.
“Mr Erhardt, please, I have a job to
do.”
“And maybe I can help you. One guy from my section fell in with
Darlene a couple of months ago… kept vanishing in work hours… I finally tracked
him down. There’s an old warehouse
building, across the plant – part of it used to be used for testing programs
that couldn’t be done on the local networks…
its not used much now – since they built the new secure unit. But Darlene and her boyfriends were
using it… for a little … rest and relaxation…if you follow me?”
“You mean; they might’ve taken the
Spectrum officers there?”
“It’s a possibility; if they haven’t
left the plant altogether.”
“We
do know - that is – we found traces of blood in the office they were using in
the admin building.”
“I’ve never heard that either woman
ever got physical… but maybe someone else learned of the place from one of them
and took your Spectrum guys there.
Some punks will mug anyone for their loose change these days, Karen.”
“Will you tell me how to get there, Mr
Erhardt?”
“Well, I don’t know that you should go
there, especially not alone, young lady.
If there is something going on…” He frowned at her.
“I’m a grown woman, Mr Erhardt; I can
take care of myself. Besides, my
Spectrum colleague’s gone to fetch reinforcements; I won’t be alone for long.” She laid a hand on his arm. “Please, it
means a lot to me…”
Erhardt pursed his lips in
consideration, then said, “He must,” with a kindly smile and the emphasis on the
pronoun. “Okay, honey, just let me tell my deputy
I’ll be away awhile. I’m coming with you, at least until these Spectrum heavies
arrive. Your dad’d never have forgiven me if I’d let anything happen to his
girl.”
Symphony gave a grateful nod of
agreement; she knew it would be useless arguing and she felt sure that once they
met up with Magenta and Scarlet, they’d send Erhardt packing. The last thing they’d want was a witness
to a tussle with Mysteron agents.
She watched as Erhardt walked across to the closest desk to his own and
whispered something to the man sitting there.
He looked back at the young woman waiting and nodded.
Erhardt fetched his heavy parka and
Symphony slipped back into her fur-collared coat and they stepped from the warm,
sterile conditions of the production plant into the biting cold of the night
air. Their breath formed a hazy
curtain of steam as they crunched across the snow-covered courtyard, heading in
the direction of the canteen.
Beyond that brightly-lit area was the dark wall of a long building with a few
smaller structures, clustered around it.
They were almost all in total darkness and even the floodlights were wide apart
and dimmer than those by the newer buildings. The whole section had the sorry
atmosphere of dilapidation.
“They’re talking about demolishing it
next year…” Erhardt told her as they approached.
It was almost as if he felt he had to apologise for the place.
Symphony smiled. “You know, I think I remember parts of this place. I came here with my dad a few times as a
kid. Odd how things come back to
you, isn’t it?”
“Sure you came here. You came to every kids’ Christmas party
in the canteen and social club until you were about 9 or 10 years old… I can
remember you; you and my girl, Maggie used to play together.”
“I remember Maggie Erhardt,” Symphony
said cheerfully. “How’s she doing
these days?”
“Fine, thank you – she married Les
McKinley and they’re living in Des Moines – got two kids and another on the
way.”
“Wonderful,” she said, suppressing a
slight shudder at the mundanity of it all.
That’s the life I’d have had if I hadn’t got out of here. I’d never have joined Spectrum, never have met Adam….
Aloud she said, “Say ‘Hi’ to her from me, when you see her, will you?”
“Sure; but she isn’t going to believe
what you’re up to now.”
She stopped suddenly. “Mr Erhardt,
please, you must realise that the fewer people know about my job, the better for
me. I have to ask you not to tell Maggie – or
anyone else.”
He turned to look at her, seeing the
earnest appeal in her beautiful eyes.
She did look a lot like her mother, but he could see Sam Wainwright in
her serious expression, and the way she carried herself.
“Sure, Karen; I won’t say a word – I
swear.” Her grateful smile was
reward enough – she always was a charmer,
he reflected.
They were walking briskly across the open
courtyard again when Magenta and Scarlet caught up with them.
“Symphony, what’s happened? I told you
to wait in the production building,” Magenta said, eyeing Erhardt with some
hostility.
Captain Scarlet came to her side and
laid a hand on her shoulder in solidarity and support. She smiled into the Englishman’s face, acknowledging his
concern for her before answering Magenta’s query. “Captain Magenta, Captain
Scarlet, this is Mr Erhardt – he knew my father when he worked here. He thinks he might know a place where
the women might’ve taken Blue and Cerulean – if they were involved in their
disappearances. He was taking me there.”
“Martin Erhardt,” the older man said
crisply. “You can trust me,
gentlemen; I knew Sam Wainwright before this girl was even born. He was a good friend of mine.”
“I’m sure we can, Mr Erhardt, which is
why you won’t mind if we take your picture,” Magenta said, pointing the MD at
the stranger. Moments later the
result emerged showing an X-ray.
“Neat gadget,” Erhardt remarked.
“It’s purely for identification,”
Magenta said, pocketing the picture.
“Lead on, Mr Erhardt,” Scarlet said
impatiently. “We have to find our
colleagues as soon as we can.”
Erhardt strode on quickly around the
side of the canteen block with the Spectrum officers in his wake. A few hundred yards away a single-storey
building stood in solitary splendour.
“It’s an old warehouse – used to store
junk now, mostly – but there’s an office at the far end; with a night watchman’s
room beyond that.” Erhardt led them on around the corner. There was a small door built into the
wall, and a barred window. A dim
light showed under the door and at the edges of the drawn window blinds.
“Right; it looks like there is someone
in there,” Scarlet said.
“Might not be your friends though,”
Erhardt commented with a wary glance at Symphony.
“I was telling Karen here, that some of the …err...the wilder elements
among the staff, use it for illicit ‘get-togethers’. She didn’t think your guys
would join in with that sort of activity.”
“No, she’s quite right – they wouldn’t.” Scarlet grinned. “Don’t worry, Mr Erhardt, we won’t hurt
anyone who might be … taking a little breather in there. Thank you for your
assistance, but you can leave this to us now. You’d better get back to your own
office,” he ordered.
But Erhardt seemed reluctant to leave
and watched as Scarlet advanced on the building, his gun in his hand. Magenta handed Symphony the MD and
followed as back-up, his own weapon at the ready.
Scarlet’s hand reached down towards the
door handle and he turned it as quietly as he could – to his relief, it opened
noiselessly. He peered through the
slight gap for a moment and then stepped away to confer in whispers with
Magenta. Symphony joined them.
“Blue’s in there with two women; they
have a gun on him and their backs to the door.
He’s looking pale, but he’s conscious. “
“Thank God,” Symphony murmured.
Scarlet laid a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll deal with this, you wait here.”
He turned to Magenta. “I’ll go in
and draw their fire; you take them out – both of them.”
“Wait a minute,” Magenta protested,
“what if they’re not Mysterons?”
“That’s not very likely,” Scarlet said,
raising a surprised eyebrow.
“Anyway, they’ve kidnapped a Spectrum officer – maybe two – I couldn’t see
Cerulean. And, if they resist, as
I’m sure they will, you’ll have to kill them – Mysterons or not.”
Realising that his surprise at this
demonstration of Scarlet’s perfect military ruthlessness was incongruous,
Magenta gave a nod. After all, he
could always just wound the women – he didn’t
have
to kill them…
Scarlet strode quickly back to the door and kicked it in, so that it ricocheted
on the wall and bounced back as he sprang through the entrance. Captain Blue slithered behind the desk
as a gun went off and the women turned to face their assailant.
“Earthmen,” Darlene snarled, launching
herself at Scarlet, her nails scratching his face and trying to reach his eyes.
Gail fired at him, and then seeing
Magenta approach with his gun aimed at her, she fired at him and then back at
Scarlet who was struggling to disentangle himself from the wildcat Mysteronised
woman. The second bullet caught him
in the neck and with a groan he fell to his knees, blood pumping from his wound
in the rhythm of a heartbeat to apparently vanish as it was absorbed by the
scarlet tunic.
Magenta fired twice; the first shot
took out Gail, who fell to the floor, with a bullet between her eyes, and then
Darlene was blown aside by a bullet that shattered her breastbone. Immediately, Symphony rushed in, passed
Magenta and Scarlet to where Blue was lying, semi-conscious behind the desk.
His face was a mess, his lower lip badly cut and one eye firmly closed and
turning a worrying shade of purple.
“Karen?” he whispered as she bent over
him.
“You’re safe now, we’ll get you seen
to…where’s Cerulean? Adam, where’s the lieutenant?”
Another shot reverberated around the
office as Magenta made sure he’d successfully despatched the second Mysteronised
woman. He then went to see what he
could do for Captain Scarlet.
Blue tried to focus his mind. “They
shot him; he was bleeding to death… they told me if I showed them the cipher
codes and found Giardello for them, they’d get him help…but I couldn’t do that –
it would have cost many more lives… I wouldn’t decrypt it and they weren’t
pleased. They’ve hurt him, Karen –
hurt him bad… ”
“They haven’t exactly treated you with
any kindness,” she muttered, surveying his pitiful state. “Where is he?
We’ll get him some help.”
Blue’s head slightly moved towards a
door behind them. “In there, they
took him in there.”
“Okay; take it easy, honey. I’ll be right back.”
Symphony kissed his filthy cheek,
settling him as comfortably as she could against the office wall before she went
to push the door of the storeroom open and peer inside. Lying on the floor was a body.
She knelt down and reached out towards the hand lying closest to her. It was cold – no point in even looking
for a pulse. Sadly, she closed the
door and went to Magenta, who was kneeling beside Scarlet.
“Where’s Erhardt?” she asked him.
Magenta glanced around. “He must’ve gone to get help – come to
think of it, he shouted something about ‘fetching a doctor’ earlier.”
“Well, Adam will need a doctor, sure
enough, but Cerulean won’t. We’re
too late – he’d dead.”
“Damn,” Magenta‘s head drooped with
frustration. His glance fell on the
ashen face of Captain Scarlet and he grimaced.
“We mustn’t let a doctor see Scarlet; we have to get him away from here.
Can you take him to the airfield?”
Before she could answer there was a
deafening explosion from the direction of the plant. “Oh my God,” Magenta breathed.
“The Mysterons have struck and we still don’t know where Giardello is -
he could’ve been in there…” He glanced at her.
“Karen, it’s up to you now – you have to get Paul and Adam away from here
– Paul mustn’t be seen by a doctor and in the chaos out there, no one will have
time to check Adam. They’ll both
have to go back to Cloudbase… can you do that, if I help you move them to an
SSC? Then I have to go and do what I can to help at the plant.”
“Of course; I’ll take them to my mom’s
place and get a medical helijet to come pick them up from there; it’s closer
than the airfield and I can always come back to help.”
“What about your mom?”
“She knows enough about Spectrum not to
be fazed by anything anymore… and she can make Adam comfortable, while I look
after Paul.”
“Okay, let’s get them to an SSC… and
drive carefully.”
“I always do. You’ve been listening to Adam, haven’t you?” she said with a
wry smile.
Magenta grinned. “Only occasionally…”
It wasn’t difficult to get the two Spectrum agents back to the SSCs in the car park. In the confused aftermath of the explosion, the AESC staff were more concerned with helping their colleagues and fighting the fire than keeping tabs on their visitors. Magenta strapped Scarlet into the rear passenger seats as Symphony eased Blue into the front seat. Then, seeing her take the wheel of the vehicle, he bade farewell to his friends and ran back towards the inferno of the blaze, determined to do all he could to help.
Symphony turned out of the plant,
through the abandoned security posts and onto the highway before she contacted
Cloudbase and ordered the communications lieutenant to send a medical helijet
from Cloudbase to her family ranch and reported what had happened to the shocked
Captain Grey.
“I’ll
get what help I can over to the plant,” Grey assured her.
“I think it might be better to leave
that to the local emergency services, although, maybe Magenta could do with a
hand…” she mused. Glancing at the
injured man beside her she continued, “Blue won’t be fit to go back on duty for
some days - at best – and Scarlet will need some time to recover too.”
Blue opened his good eye and asked in a
croak, “What’s happened at Atlantic – to the traffic control?”
Symphony passed on the question and
Grey answered, “The
Horizon-i system crashed – obviously – when the explosion wrecked the plant. But, Ochre says that because Magenta had insisted the old
system be reactivated and used as a back-up during the dual running, the staff
at Atlantic were able to prevent total chaos – with the assistance of the
Swanwick Controllers – although, they have planes stacked up all over the place,
while they sort out the mess.”
Blue gave a relieved sigh and closed his eye again; he should have
trusted to Magenta’s consummate professionalism.
Grey continued, “I’ll
see if there’s anything I do to help Magenta – I suppose we’ll need to test
everyone with the Mysteron Detector – there must’ve been a sleeper in the plant…” His voice trailed away and dropped a
tone as he almost whispered, “Symphony,
you’d better test Blue as well when you get to the ranch… just in case.”
Automatically she glanced at the captain, and the protest she’d been about to
make died on her lips as she saw an amused smile tug at the corner of his
bruised mouth. “S.I.G, Captain Grey,” she said as much as for Blue’s benefit as
Grey’s. “I’ll check him over all
right…”
The smile broadened until Blue gave a wince of pain as his cut lip started to
ooze blood once more. He regained control his features and composed his face
into a semblance of innocent slumber.
The rest of the journey to the ranch was accomplished in silence and with
minimum delay.
Chapter Four
Nothing takes the taste
out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.
Charlie Brown in
‘Peanuts’ (Charles Schulz)
The Hoffman Ranch
The sweep of car headlights across the curtained window was enough to make
Amanda stir from her sleep.
It was a rare enough occurrence, this far from the main highway. She half-opened an eye and strained to hear any noise. The engine sound died away, to be
followed by the muffled sound of car doors and the rattle of a key in the
kitchen lock.
By now she was wide awake and slipped from the bed and into her robe, with a
wary glance at the man still sleeping in the bed, beside her. She walked quietly from the room and out
onto the landing to peer over the banister.
As the bedroom door swung close behind her, Charles Gray opened his eyes and sat
up, straining to hear what was happening.
“Mom? You awake?
Mom? We need a hand…”
“Karen? What are
you
doing here?” Amanda raced down the stairs to her daughter’s side. “Adam?
Oh my God, you’ve been hurt!
What’s happened?”
“It’s okay, Mom, really it is.
We’ve been on a mission - at the AESC plant – Adam got beaten up pretty badly
and he was shot but, he’ll be okay.
I’ve requested a Spectrum medical helijet to come and pick him up – him and
another captain…”
Amanda had gone to the captain’s side and eased him into a chair. She insisted on his removing his tunic
and assisted in the removal of the black polo-neck sweater underneath that. With a sharp intake of breath she
surveyed the bullet wound in his shoulder. The flesh around it was bruising as
they watched, turning sickly shades of grey and purple; there were also several
puncture wounds obviously made with something sharp.
“There’s not much I can do, Adam, except to clean you up a little…” she walked
to the kettle, filled it and snapped the switch on. “Are you all right, Karen? You weren’t hurt?”
“I’m fine, Mom. Really – I wasn’t
there when the shooting started.”
“What about this other captain? Is
he as badly hurt as Adam?”
Karen met Adam’s eyes and with some hesitation said, “Yes, he is… we can’t move
him. I need a blanket to keep him
warm until the medical team can take care of him.
He’s comfortable enough in the SSC for now…” It occurred to her that it
was an odd thing to be saying about a man already dead, but on the other hand
she knew Scarlet would recover, eventually.
“You can’t leave him in there, not if he’s hurt!” Amanda protested.
“We can’t move him, Amanda,” Adam mumbled.
“Let Karen do what she can for him – the medical team will be here soon.
If you don’t mind, please, I’d like a drink of water…?”
“Of course, Adam – what am I thinking of?
I’m sorry…” Amanda moved to
get a glass – the stranger banished from her mind in the face of the immediate
needs of the young man she knew and liked.
Symphony turned to give Blue a relieved smile as she raced towards the stairs to
fetch a blanket. She was about half
way up, just where the stairs turned, when, in her haste, she ran smack-bang
into a man making his way down.
“Who the hell are you?” she blazed, raking angry and embarrassed eyes up to the
man’s face.
Her mouth fell open in astonishment as the colonel said, “I’d have thought that
was perfectly obvious to anyone who took the trouble to watch where they were
going…Symphony Angel.”
Blue staggered to his feet as Colonel White, looking surprisingly magisterial in
a pair of striped pyjamas and bedroom slippers, walked into the kitchen. The colonel noted to his officer’s
credit that Blue’s expression remained politely neutral; but he could not have
guessed that the captain’s surprise was tempered by a sudden realisation that
he’d been half-expecting something of the kind for a while. Even as he stood there, several unresolved incidents that had
been niggling at his sub-conscious mind suddenly clarified – odd remarks, made
by both the colonel and Amanda, clicked into focus and Blue struggled to
suppress a satisfied grin.
“At ease, Captain,” White said, seeing only the condition of his officer’s face
and the seriousness of his wound.
“I heard you speak of another wounded officer – Captain Scarlet, I presume?”
“Yes, sir,” Blue confirmed, adding, “condition red, sir.”
White acknowledged the codeword for the fact that Scarlet was dead with a sharp
nod of his head. That was why it
was imperative that Amanda be kept busy with the needs of the living officer. “The medical team will be here when?”
“Their e.t.a. is about another ten minutes, Sir.”
“Time enough for you to bring me up to speed, then, Captain Blue.”
“S.I.G., Colonel.”
Amanda came and put a hand on the younger man’s uninjured shoulder. “Charles Gray, have a heart – can’t you
see he’s hurt, he can hardly speak – and this isn’t the time for you to be
quizzing him?”
“Amanda, please - keep out of this.
Captain Blue, I’m waiting…”
As Blue struggled to tell the story of the Mysteron threat and the attack on the
officers at the AESC plant and then on the plant itself, Amanda insisted in
cleaning his face and the area around his bullet wound.
She glanced up from her ministrations only when her daughter stomped down the
stairs and, with her proud head held high, walked through the kitchen and out
into the night without a word.
Karen had a blanket over her arm and a pillow in her hand, and it was then that
Amanda remembered the other injured officer.
“Maybe I should help Karen with the other man?” she asked, cutting across Blue’s
report.
“No,” White answered sharply.
“Please, my dear, leave Captain Scarlet to Spectrum.”
“Captain Scarlet is your partner, isn’t he, Adam?
Surely you don’t want to risk his life by leaving him out there?”
“Amanda, I must insist you stay out of this,” White reiterated his demand.
With a snort of disgust, Amanda Wainwright took the bowl of hot, bloody water to
the sink and tipped it away. She
found a clean towel, folded it sideways to make a pad and slid it over Blue’s
wound, and then lifted a fleece from the back of the cupboard door, and placed
that over his shoulders. “Keep
warm, Adam,” she instructed him before she turned and busied herself making hot
coffee, paying little attention to the subdued conversation between the two men
as White resumed his interrogation.
“Why wasn’t I kept
informed of the Mysteron threat, Captain?”
Blue swallowed with some difficulty.
“Sir, we believed you deserved a holiday and we also believed,” he raised his
voice as much as he could to continue over the colonel’s ‘harrumph’ of
disapproval, “that we had solved the threat.
Captain Grey did suggest contacting you,” he added in defence of his colleague.
White continued to
grumble. He sometimes found it hard to accept that his officers could manage
well enough without him, although his reason told him that as experienced and
capable men, they were perfectly able to cope alone.
However, in this case, he was also aware that he knew more of the
extenuating circumstances around the matter than they could have.
“You believed this threat concerned the
air traffic control system?” he asked impatiently.
It was slow going as Blue struggled to make himself understood through
lips that felt numb and a throat that was sore from retching. He drank the hot
coffee Amanda gave him thirstily.
Blue considered his reply. “Initially,
sir, we all did; but subsequently I began to have doubts; which I shared with
Captain Grey once I felt they were plausible.
Hansford, the plant’s manager and some of the documents I had access to,
suggested that AESC may well have been working on a project for SIRAD, possibly
on applications for Terahertz technology.
But, you’d know all about that, sir, I assume. We now think it’s likely that this project was fronted by
Doctor Giardello.” He hesitated and
then ploughed on with the worst of the news, “I also have to tell you, Colonel,
that we have reason to believe Doctor Giardello has disappeared on a visit to
the plant. I don’t know if Magenta
or Symphony have any further news on that – it had just been verified that he
was missing when Cerulean and I were shot by the Mysteron agents.”
White’s face grew dark with anger and
he stuttered, “I…I should’ve been informed the moment you realised he was
missing! It is bad enough that you
neglected to tell me of the extent of this problem in the first place…”
Captain Blue sighed. He was tired and aching and in no mood
to deal with the colonel’s wrath; besides which he felt he and his colleagues
were being criticised unfairly. His
normally well-restrained temper flared and he interrupted his commanding
officer, “By the time we’d learned of the extent of the problem, and of the
possible disappearance of Giardello, it was too late to do much about it. We were concerned that the Mysterons
were about to strike against us and we couldn’t risk withdrawing support from
the air traffic control networks – we didn’t know enough to discount that
possibility completely! I know Captain Grey did try to contact you
– he mentioned it several times – but no
one knew where you were. Green
had been sent with Scarlet on a terrestrial mission and he’s the only person
with the key to your confidential files… Grey even tried your personal pager –
but maybe it wasn’t switched on - sir? That would be perfectly understandable,
if you wished to keep Mrs Wainwright’s identity a secret from us all… although
why Spectrum personnel feel the need to keep their personal and private lives
shrouded in mystery has always been something you’ve never comprehended – sir.”
Colonel White glared at the younger
man, but he knew the last jibe was merited, and he bit back his angry retort as
he saw Blue’s head sag under the strain of his injuries. “You are wounded,
Captain, and are no doubt feeling the strain.
I’ll ignore your last remarks –
this time.”
Blue did not respond and White knew his
officer was still angry; that in itself was an indication of the stress and
resentment Blue was experiencing, for he, of all the senior staff, was the most
even-tempered.
White made himself calm down and then
continued in a far more reasonable tone, “You say these women, who were both
Mysteronised, had been with you ever since they took you prisoner at the
administration office? And both
were killed by Magenta and Scarlet.
From what you’re saying they had no intention of destroying the plant so crudely
– or why would they have been interested in the cipher codes?”
Blue raised his head as Amanda placed a
second cup of black coffee close to him.
He took a sip from the cup before he answered the colonel. “In all honesty, Colonel, the women
could have gone anywhere or done anything while I was unconscious – either time
– I have no idea how long I was out for. They spoke about a secure facility on
the site, protected by Mysteron Detectors. I knew then that whatever it was they
were looking for must’ve been potentially important to Spectrum; SIRAD would
never install Mysteron detectors in anywhere they weren’t using on a regular
basis. The Mysterons believed
Giardello was in there and they wanted me to crack the cipher codes, go in and
disable the alarms, so they could go in and get the doctor. That’s probably why they didn’t kill me
– as a Mysteron reconstruct I’d have been no use to them. It’s my belief the Mysterons are worried about something
Giardello’s working on – working on with people at AESC – something we don’t
know about.”
“Nothing Spectrum Intelligence’s
Research and development division does is kept from me, Captain,” White
admitted. “But the information is only disseminated on a need to know basis…”
Blue’s anger flared again. “Well we
damn well needed to know this time! Sir.”
White raised a hand. “That is enough. This affair has been handled badly from the start – but I
accept that no one person is to blame for that,” he conceded, as Blue gave an
angry gasp of protest, “circumstances have conspired against us…”
“And cost one young man his life,” Blue
muttered, averting his face from the colonel’s gaze by drinking deeply from his
cup of coffee.
White said nothing. There was nothing he could say. Blue was used to seeing men die – well,
one man in particular – but he was also used to seeing that man recover.
This is going to be hard for him to deal with. He’s had to decide to forfeit a colleague’s life rather than be party to
a Mysteron threat. He’s made the
right choice, of course, White reasoned, but no one has ever said it’s an easy choice.
He waited until Blue, unable to drink
any more coffee without taking a breath, put the cup down and glanced
resentfully under his fair brows at his commanding officer. Then in a neutral tone – as if nothing contentious had been
said between them, White said, “It is most probable that there are other
Mysteronised subjects at the plant.
Maybe this man, Erhardt, you heard Magenta and Scarlet speaking about?”
Blue nodded. “S’ possible, sir,” he slurred. He had no way of knowing if the
stranger had been tested with an MD.
White looked at him in concern – the younger man was visibly
sinking under the bludgeons of exhaustion and pain. Even Blue’s strong body could only take so much punishment at
once. “Very good, Captain. You
should rest for now. Once Scarlet
is aboard the helijet, I’ll take the SSC and return to the plant myself, to help
Captain Magenta.”
Blue’s one good eye widened and he raised his head in alarm. “Is that wise, sir?”
“Maybe not, but it is expedient, Captain.”
He stopped and cocked an ear. “I
think I hear the helijet approaching.
I’ll go and get dressed...” he paused.
“They should have a spare uniform tunic aboard and I didn’t bring my uniform
with me. I think I’ll forgo borrowing your tunic;
it needs cleaning at the very least…”
Blue’s grimace of disgust was a clear
sign of his agreement with that assessment.
White smiled. “Ask them to leave one behind, Captain, if you would.”
“S.I.G...”
Gray turned and marched upstairs.
He was busily rummaging in his suitcase for clean underwear when Amanda came in.
“You’re going with them?” she asked a little hesitantly.
“Not exactly; I can be of more use at the AESC plant. With Blue and Scarlet out of action, they’ll be at full
stretch.” He gazed into the vague mid-distance, almost forgetting he had
company. Amanda’s touch on his arm made him jump.
“Take care, Charles; I don’t want to lose you so soon…”
He smiled and bent to kiss her lips with tenderness. “Never fear, my dear, I
have more than enough to live for… now.”
Amanda smiled and laid her head against his shoulder.
“We’ll have to deal with Karen, of course, rather sooner than I
imagined…”
“Deal with Karen? In what way?”
“Didn’t you see her stalking about the place?
We are not approved of, Charles… well, I am not approved of…” she amended.
“Nonsense; Karen would do well to remember that she’s not exactly above
reproach… I’m sure you’re worrying unduly.”
Amanda gave a rueful smile. “I hope
you’re right, Charles.”
They heard Captain Blue’s shaky voice calling farewell from the kitchen. Amanda left the room and hurried
downstairs, arriving just in time to wave goodbye to them.
Throwing a coat over her robe, she joined her daughter standing on the
porch watching the helijet swirl away into the dark sky. Karen was holding a charcoal-grey cap
and uniform tunic, and when Amanda reached to take it from her, she saw the
glint of tears in her daughter’s eyes.
“He’ll be okay; he’s made of granite, your young man,” she soothed. “I only hope Captain Scarlet is too…”
“Scarlet?” Karen said shakily, “Oh, he’s made of whatever’s stronger than
granite… but, it’s still hard to see them both – in pain.”
“Yes, that’s what love can do to your detachment, Sunny.”
At the sound of her childhood nickname, Karen turned tearful eyes on her mother
seeking the familiar solace in her comforting presence and reassurance from her
words. She opened her mouth to
speak, but before she could utter a word, she saw her commanding officer
emerging from the house, wearing plain black trousers and shoes, with a white
shirt.
Her eyes flicked back to her mother,
whose heart lurched to see the sudden coldness in them. “What would you know
about true love between two people?” she asked in a fierce whisper.
Dumbfounded, Amanda watched as her daughter slid into the driver’s seat of the
SSC and switched on the engine.
Brought back to reality by Charles’ hand on her arm, she handed him the tunic
and whispered, “Please… go easy on Karen, Charles.
I’m afraid our… relationship has come as a shock to her – and she isn’t taking
it very well…”
“Amanda?”
“I need to talk to her – before she goes back to Cloudbase - or it’ll be even
worse next time I see her. Please,
can you bring her back with you?”
“I won’t let her upset you…” he began.
“I know my daughter, Charles; far better than you do. Just bring her back that’s all I ask of you.”
Colonel White gave a brisk nod, kissed her cheek and slid into the passenger’s
seat. He gave Symphony the order to drive off.
Amanda watched the tail lights until they vanished
in the darkness. She sighed. This
isn’t going to be easy… I only hope I can make her accept it.
Oh, Sam – why can’t I get on with our daughter as well as you used to?
The atmosphere inside the speeding SSC was not a comfortable one. Symphony kept her eyes fixed on the road
and said nothing beyond acknowledging her Commander-in-Chief’s presence,
answering all of his questions in curt monosyllables. Eventually White gave up
trying to make headway in the one-sided conversation and sat in silence himself.
He realised that her reticence was only partly to do with the difficult driving
conditions and that the discovery of his presence in her family home had been
even more of a complete shock to her than he’d expected. He had thought that Amanda would have
said something to her daughter about their weekend meetings at least, but
apparently she had said nothing that might have forewarned her daughter of their
growing friendship.
With an internal sigh, he pushed that problem aside and turned his thoughts to
the more immediate problem of the situation at the AESC plant.
He had no communicator – the spare
tunics carried in every Spectrum vehicle were not wired for direct communication
through Cloudbase – and didn’t have a radio cap, just the basic uniform one.
Symphony, although her usual pilot’s uniform was covered by her regulation
cream-leather, fur-collared overcoat, would still have the capability of
contacting any one of the officers logged into the mission loop.
These communication networks were created by the powerful computers on Cloudbase
specifically for the use of all of the operatives working together on a given
mission. He would have to make use
of her to direct operations, if he needed to.
He didn’t want to make it seem as if he
was muscling in on the mission, but he expected that once he was at the scene,
decisions would automatically be deferred to him. Things may not have gone as smoothly as they might have; but
all of his officers had done their best and he intended to make sure Captains
Grey, Magenta and Ochre, all knew he approved of their endeavours.
As they turned into the plant’s entrance they encountered police security
guards, and the colonel allowed Symphony to deal with their questions, nodding
in satisfaction when she gained entry.
She drove slowly to the administration block and they got out of the car.
The scene that confronted them was
surreal. A major part of the plant
was ablaze, the flames leaping high into the inky-black sky; sparks, blown by
the increasing wind, danced across the rooftops, threatening to set further
buildings alight. Fire tenders,
ambulances and police cars added to the hellish glow with the silent flashing of
their emergency lights. Men ran
back and forth, dragging hoses or pushing gurneys towards the paramedic station
– set up in a small tent close to the admin block. Radio messages crackled in the air, mingling with the snap
and rustle of the fire.
Such was the confusion and the concentration of the rescuers, that no one took
any notice of the SSC or its occupants.
Colonel White snapped out an order to Symphony Angel, “Contact Captain Magenta. Find out where he is and who else from
Spectrum is here. I want to know
exactly what’s happening.”
“S.I.G,” Symphony put her flight helmet on and activated the mic. “Captain Magenta…” she began, waiting
the mere seconds it took for her call to be routed via the mission communication
link.
“Go
ahead, Symphony.”
“I’ve arrived back at the plant.
Scarlet and Blue are safely on a medi-jet back to Cloudbase. I have Colonel White with me, Captain. He wants a situation report, but, as he has no communications
facility at present – he’s in an auxiliary uniform – you’d better tell me and
I’ll pass it on.”
“The colonel? Where did he spring from?” Magenta wondered aloud; he
sounded harassed. “Tell him: we got most people out of the
main production building. The fire is more or less under control;
although they doubt they’ll be able to save the secondary building closest to
the canteen.”
Symphony relayed the information and forwarded the colonel’s response. “Are you any further forward with
ascertaining the cause of the conflagration?”
She heard Magenta chuckle at the incongruity of
hearing such words coming from her.
“Not really,” he replied. “Where
are you? I’ll come over. There isn’t much more I can do here at
the moment.”
“The administration building’s parking lot,” she told him.
“Wait there; Grey’s been on to me and he’s sending back-up from Des Moines.”
“S.I.G.”
Once she’d informed White of the nature of the conversation, they stood side by
side in silence – with Symphony refusing even to glance at her commander. White found it difficult to assess her
mood. Was she embarrassed or angry?
If she was angry – and knowing Symphony as he did, he suspected the latter – was
she angry at him, or at her mother?
He found himself staring at the blaze and wishing women were as – comparatively
– easy to deal with as infernos.
He felt a surge of relief as he saw
Magenta sprinting towards them.
“Colonel, I hadn’t expected to see you, sir,” the captain gasped as he came to a
halt close by and rested momentarily to catch his breath, doubled-up, his hands
on his knees.
“Serendipity, Captain, nothing more.
How many men is Grey sending?”
“Four, sir; Des Moines isn’t a big station.”
Magenta straightened up again and gave a wry smile at Symphony. His face was dirty with sooty streaks
and rivulets of sweat dripped from his hair and off his chin. His uniform tunic – he’d long since
discarded his fur-collared coat in the heat of the blaze – was also grimy and
slightly scorched; the clear panel of one of the shoulder epaulettes had been
crazed by the heat. It was obvious
that he’d had been as close to the fire as he’d been permitted to go by the
emergency services.
White was focussing single-mindedly on the main problem facing Spectrum. “There
is no hope now that we’ll be able to check the workers here with Mysteron
Detectors, to ascertain if any of them are Mysteron agents. Is it feasible to have the ground staff diverted to the
hospital and have them check the injured there?
Of course, if any of the people die as a result of this incident, I’d
feel better knowing Spectrum had a presence at the hospital to detect any
retrometabolism – and prevent any replicated individuals leaving,” he said.
“I’ll tell Grey to change their orders,” Magenta said with a nod. “There’s nothing much we can do here now
until the fire’s died down and the embers have cooled. The police are treating it as arson, by
the way,” he added. “Apparently,
AESC have been in a trade war with a rival firm for the past couple of years and
I thought it best not to enlighten them as to what the probable cause was…”
“Very wise, Captain; we must not spread undue fear amongst the general public
concerning the extent of the powers the Mysterons possess,” White agreed.
Magenta got on the radio to Cloudbase and instructed Captain Grey in what the
colonel wanted done.
“Colonel White is with you?” Grey sounded
confused.
“Yes, it’s him all right,” Magenta replied with a wry twitch of an eyebrow. “Lord knows what he’s doing here… but
he’s here.”
“Very well, I’ll get the Des Moines crew to turn back to the hospital.
What are you going to do?”
“Whatever the colonel wants,” Magenta replied. “Left to myself, I’d collapse
into a nice big armchair with a cold beer and sleep the night away…”
Grey’s voice sounded amused but admiring of his friend’s hard work as he
commented, “I guess you’d have deserved it at that.”
Colonel White had been gathering information from the police and the fire chiefs
about the condition and safety of the site.
He quickly came to the conclusion that no one would be allowed to enter
the site tonight and possibly into the next morning. The wind was getting up and flurries of snow were starting to
fall, sizzling as they encountered the red-hot ruins of the plant. The last ambulance had just crunched
away towards the highway, its siren starting to wail as it disappeared from view
and everyone that could be, had been evacuated.
The police chief was treating the plant as a crime scene, and White knew
that with the reduced manpower he had available, he might as well let the local
police do their job. Any
Mysteron agents that might have been on the site were as likely to have been
killed by their own bombs as the poor souls who had borne the brunt of the
blast.
He turned to look at Magenta, dirty, tired and looking definitely the worse for
wear, and ran a hand over his chin thoughtfully. He had his mobile phone in his pocket and on an impulse rang
the first speed-dial number. A few
moments later he heard Amanda’s voice at the other end.
“Amanda, it’s me, Charles. Don’t worry
everything is okay; no one’s been hurt, but I need a favour.”
“Of course, Charles; whatever I can do to
help, I will do, gladly.”
“Karen and I will be coming back for the night – there is nothing we can do here
now – but we’ll need to come back tomorrow.
We have a colleague with us – Captain Magenta – who has been helping with
the rescue attempts. He needs a
shower and a bed for the night… I was wonder…”
“Bring him here!
The poor man! Charles, how could you even imagine I’d
say no? Bring him here now – I’ll
put some food on for him… and make up a bed.
You’ll be here in about thirty minutes – right?”
“It’s very good of you, Amanda.”
“No, it’s the least I can do,” she
retorted, adding,
“Maybe it’ll make Karen behave a little too – with
a guest here.”
White gave a quiet groan. “I hope
so,” he conceded.
The Hoffman Ranch
Captain Magenta fell asleep in the back of the SSC and didn’t wake until
Symphony shook him gently and explained that they had arrived at her home.
Still slightly fuzzy from sleep,
Magenta smiled at her and murmured, “I like waking up to the sight of you,
Angel.”
Symphony coloured slightly and removed her hand from his shoulder. As she backed away Magenta cursed to
himself, but as he emerged from the car he saw Colonel White disappearing
through the door to the house, and only then did he see Symphony smile at him.
Yet, as they approached the connecting
door she stopped and said, with a sweet, melancholy expression on her face, “You
know, Pat, you are a really sweet guy…”
“Yeah, so I’ve been told,” he said
wryly.
“And we’re friends, aren’t we?” she
asked. Magenta agreed that they
were. “Only sometimes,” she continued, “I get the impression that you’d like us
to be more than friends.” He could see the blush on her cheeks.
“Karen,” he said, putting a hand on her
arm.
She rushed on before he could say
anything else. “I am very fond of you, Pat – you know that, don’t you? – but
well, I’m in love with someone else; you understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”
He nodded. “Yeah, it’s not exactly news
to me, honey.” He smiled at her and she blushed again. He continued, “Are you trying to tell me that there, but for
a blond from Boston go I, Karen?”
“Maybe; I… I don’t know –
but-”
“Hey, Angel, It doesn’t take a genius
to see that you two are a matched pair. We’re friends, Karen – good friends –
and that’ll do me. Besides, I like
being fancy-free; you don’t have to worry.”
“But I
do
worry, and I do appreciate your
kindness to me, Patrick. But you understand that we’re just friends… don’t you?”
“Sure, we’re just friends.
Don’t give it a second thought…”
She gave him a warm smile and continued into the house.
And I can live with that; after all, I have no choice, he added to himself as
he followed her into the warm.
As he was ushered into the kitchen, a slender woman,
with rich blonde hair, a clear complexion and honey-coloured
eyes, dressed
in a fleecy, cherry–red robe, swept him
into a seat and put a bowl of steaming hot stew in front of him, with a hunk of
crusty bread, still warm from the oven.
He began to devour it without speaking – realising he was famished.
Amanda Wainwright placed a similar bowl
in front of her daughter and made Colonel White a sandwich. She sat looking at the stranger at her
table with concerned eyes, seeing the scratches and bruises appearing on his
face and hands. “I’ve made
you a bed in the guest room on the second floor, Captain,” she said with a
smile. “Just as soon as you’re ready after your
meal – feel free to go to bed. You look like you could do with the sleep.”
Magenta swallowed and replied, “That’s
true enough, ma’am; but I should shower first, I’m all over dirt from the fire…”
“Nonsense, don’t let it bother you,
young man, you just take yourself off when you need to.” Amanda smiled at him, adding, “I’ve left a pair of clean
pyjamas on the bed – if you want to use them - I doubt that they’ve ever been
worn; Adam certainly never uses them, so I don’t really know why he’s left them
here…unless he just likes the idea of me laundering them after his every visit…”
she added with a surreptitious glance at her daughter. Karen refused to meet her eye.
Magenta gave a forced smile and made himself the promise that he’d not use them
either; but then he thought – it is
bitterly cold and, presumably, Blue has someone to cuddle up to in bed and
doesn’t need pyjamas to keep him warm. He ducked his head and concentrated
on the last of his food, hoping no one would notice his blush.
White broke the lengthening silence to say, “Captain, we’ll need to make the
most of the daylight tomorrow and get over to the site as soon as we can. It is possible the police forensic teams
will have some answers about how the blast was caused – and, maybe - have
recovered more bodies…”
“More bodies…?” Amanda interrupted. “How many people were killed?”
“Not many, Mom,” Karen replied. “At least – not as many as might’ve been. We know of three who may not have been
counted in the death toll, Colonel: the two women and Lieutenant Cerulean.”
“Another of your Spectrum colleagues?
Oh, Charles – this is far worse than I thought.”
“Amanda, I think you’d better go up to bed.
I’m afraid this is confidential information,” he replied with a fleeting look at
her. She returned his glance with a wry grimace, but she made her
farewells and went up the stairs obediently enough.
Karen watched her go with a discontented face. Her mother had never been one to
do what she didn’t want to without arguing, but it seemed that the colonel’s
habit of ordering people about was pervasive.
She turned to her commander and said, “Can’t we discuss this tomorrow,
Colonel? Magenta’s falling asleep
where he’s sitting… and I’m tired too.”
White could see that Magenta was indeed on the verge of falling asleep again, so
he agreed to her request and extended a hand to help his officer to stand. Symphony led the exhausted captain up
the stairs and along to the guest room.
She delivered him to the side of the bed, watching as he slumped on to it. With a shake of her head, she dragged
his boots off for him, divested him of his sooty tunic, then his polo-neck top
and trousers before deciding that was enough. She swivelled him round so that he
was lying on the bed and, as his eyelashes fluttered down over his deep-brown
eyes, she covered him with a patchwork quilt.
“Goodnight, Pat,” she whispered as she switched off the light and fled up the
stairs to her attic rooms – not wanting to know where the colonel planned to
spend what was left of this disturbed night.
Cloudbase
Captain Scarlet half-opened one eye and
squinted into the distance. He gave
a relieved sigh as he recognised the familiar ceiling of his usual recovery room
in Cloudbase medical. He’d woken so
many times in this same recovery room – and complained so often about having to
stare at that same anonymous stretch of ceiling whilst he struggled to work out
where he was – that Blue had, in defiance of Doctor Fawn’s objections, pinned a
notice up there, saying ‘welcome back’ in large, multi-coloured, handwritten
letters – of which everyone had done at least one – he’d assured his friend.
Fawn was always threatening to take it down, but so far he hadn’t bothered,
sensing, perhaps, the reassurance it gave his patient at a difficult time in his
retrometabolic cycle.
His raging thirst told Scarlet that
he’d died – again – and his throbbing head told him it’d been an unpleasant
death.
I have no desire to remember any more about
it, right now.
Blue can tell me all about it later – as usual.
He opened both eyes completely and glanced towards where the armchair was always
placed. It wasn’t there this time –
but further back against the wall and it was an unpleasant surprise to see it
empty. Normally Blue’s there, keeping vigil and doing one of the nurses out of
a job… as I’m wont to remind him.
He concentrated; trying to remember where he’d
been and what he’d been doing to earn himself this death. His memory always took
a while to come back after a serious incident. He became aware of the deep
breathing of someone on the other side of the room, and turned his head slightly
to see who it was.
Captain Blue was lying asleep on a gurney, his arm and shoulder bandaged and his
face pale beneath – what Scarlet always referred to as – his ‘perma-tan’
complexion. The memories flooded
back: Blue had been shot – then he’d been shot… so Magenta sent them here.
He tried to sit up and the movement brought a nurse rushing in from the ward
outside.
“Captain Scarlet, lie down this minute,” Nurse Ingram instructed in a stage
whisper, designed to be forceful and yet not wake her other patient. “You have a serious wound in your neck.”
“How’s Blue?” he asked gratefully accepting the water she offered him, and her
help to drink it. Every gulp made
his throat ache like the devil, but the water soothed him and he started to feel
better. He knew he’d start feeling hungry soon.
“Captain Blue is fine – he’s had a bullet taken from his shoulder and he’s
sedated to keep him still. I wish
we could find something that would keep you still…” she added sternly, but with
a friendly wink.
“I’m fine, Bill,” he reasoned. “I
just need a drink and something to eat.”
“That’s Nurse Ingram to you or, at the very least – and then only when I’m satisfied that you’re going to do as you’re told –
Belinda, if you please.” She fussed
around him, not fooling him at all by her tough, professional nurse act.
“Belinda – a beautiful name for the most wonderful nurse in the world – let me
get up, beautiful Belinda… pretty please?”
“Certainly not; but I will tell Doctor Fawn you’re back with us, and no doubt
he’ll be along to see you shortly.
Now, promise me you will stay put
until then, won’t you, Paul?”
“For you, anything…” he promised with a charming smile. The effort made him wince.
Tutting, she bustled away and Scarlet closed his eyes again. Nice of them to put
Blue in here… so I’d know he was okay…” he thought groggily, as fresh waves
of sleep washed over him and he drifted off once more, long before Fawn came in
to check him over.
The Hoffman Ranch
Captain Magenta woke to the tantalizing smell of fried bacon and hot coffee. He rubbed his eyes and turned his head
to see a cup of coffee on the bedside table.
He heaved himself upright and rubbed his chin, grimacing at the rough
stubble. His watch said 9.34. He gulped down the drink, savouring the
freshly made taste as much as the aroma, then he slid from the bed and looked
around the room. He didn’t recall going to bed and he wondered who, exactly, had
undressed him last night. His
uniform lay piled on the floor and on a straight-backed chair near the wall was
a pile of towels and a handwritten note saying: bathroom is down the hall – on the right. He didn’t recognise the writing and guessed it must have been
left by his hostess – probably when she brought him the coffee.
He ventured out and found the room, discovering a disposable razor, shaving
cream– presumably courtesy of either Blue or the colonel – and a wrapped bar of soap on the sink top. He showered, shaved and felt much
better, even though he had to get back into his grubby, smoke-scented uniform.
He went downstairs.
Colonel White and Symphony were eating breakfast and the woman from last night –
Karen’s mother – was busy at the stove still cooking. She looked up at the sound of his tread on the stairs and
smiled a welcome.
“Your breakfast is nearly ready, Captain.
How do you like your eggs?”
“Over easy, thank you, ma’am.” He slipped next to Symphony at the table and
nodded a greeting at her and the colonel.
“Did you sleep okay, Pat?” Symphony asked quietly.
“Like a log,” he confessed. “I hope
I haven’t delayed our departure, sir?”
“No, Captain. I’ve been in touch
with the chief of police. He was
reluctant to grant us access at all, but with a little persuasion, he’s
compromised on ‘late morning’.”
Mrs. Wainwright placed a plate of food before him, and poured him another
coffee, before refilling the others’ cups.
Once she had finished her meal, Symphony disappeared upstairs again, and Colonel
White excused himself shortly after that, leaving Magenta alone with Mrs
Wainwright.
“I have to thank you, Ma’am…”
“Amanda,” she said firmly.
“Thank you, Amanda, for all your kindness.
I’m afraid your bed sheets reek of smoke.”
“Not to worry, it’s what washing machines are for, after all… Pat, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “Patrick Donaghue.”
“I’m pleased to meet you.” Amanda held out a hand and Magenta shook it.
“I can see why Captain Blue values his
visits here so much,” he said eating his breakfast with relish.
She laughed. “Oh, he tells me I
spoil him – but then - I so rarely get visited by good-looking men, it’s kinda
nice for me to have someone to spoil.”
Magenta joined in with her amused chuckle and then sobered up as the colonel
came back downstairs. He was once
more wearing the grey auxiliary tunic and cap, but to Magenta’s eyes he still
looked every inch the commander-in-chief.
He permitted himself to muse on just what the colonel had been doing at the
Wainwright ranch, but on catching the look Amanda gave the older man he guessed
it wasn’t that hard to figure out. There’s
life in the old devil yet, the captain thought, hiding his amusement by
sipping at the remainder of his coffee.
He saw the colonel donning his overcoat and struggled to his feet to do the same. Amanda went to the bottom of the stairs and bellowed: “Karen – they’re leaving without you!”
Symphony clattered down stairs and followed the men out to the SSC, annoyed to
find that Magenta was in the driving seat and she was relegated to the
backseats.
On the journey back to AESC, the
colonel bought them both up to date with what he’d learned from Captain Blue’s
report and the latest information from Cloudbase.
Captain Grey had used the Wainwrights’ video-phone to report back earlier
that morning; it seemed that he was taking no more risks that his commanding
officer was less than fully informed.
Air Electronics Systems Corporation
The Fire Chief was too pre-occupied to
do more than issue the Spectrum agents with the compulsory hard-hats and give
them a strict lecture on site safety.
Then he bustled away to deal with more important problems.
“Where do we start, Colonel?” Magenta
asked.
“There are two priorities, Captain. We must find Doctor Giardello and
determine what the Mysterons are really after.
I have to agree with Captain Blue that the air-traffic control threat may have
been a red herring, or least a secondary part of their scheme. I think the key to this lies with Doctor
Giardello.”
“We know he was here, Colonel, but not
what’s happened to him. We didn’t
really have time to search before the plant was hit.”
“Cloudbase confirms that none of the
bodies – or the injured – at the hospital can be identified as the doctor, so we
can assume he was not caught in the blast.
Blue mentioned a secure facility – separated from the main plant complex
and guarded by Mysteron detectors. We’ll start there.”
Magenta had learned quite a lot about
the layout of the site and he led the way to the new block, which was set some
way away from the more established buildings.
It had not been damaged much by the fire, and was being largely ignored
by the rescue and investigation workers, who still combed the burnt-out
buildings for bodies and evidence of what had happened.
“How are we going to get in?” Symphony
asked. The door had an impressive
key-pad lock and bore the standard notice to the effect that as all entrants
would be scanned by X-ray anybody who was – or thought they might be – pregnant
was advised to think twice about entering.
Colonel White glanced at Captain
Magenta. “Do you know the cipher code?”
Magenta shook his head. “I could work it out, given time. I expect Blue had worked it out – it’s
merely a matter of trying the standard codes until you find the one that works,
after all.”
“We don’t have time for that.” Colonel
White sighed and strode to the door.
He reached across and jabbed in a series of numbers. The keypad gave a chirpy ‘bleep’ and the colonel entered a
second series of numbers. The
keypad lights flickered and then they heard the whirring of the electronic locks
as they slid open.
Magenta and Symphony shared expressive glances.
“That must’ve been the master code,” he whispered to her.
“It over-rides all Spectrum security protocols.
I’ve never been able to crack that one…”
Colonel White turned and looked at him,
his dark eyebrow raised. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said sharply.
Magenta’s face radiated innocence and
Symphony smothered a giggle as they followed the colonel into a small vestibule.
Ahead of them was another set of locked doors.
An automatic voice asked them to
identify themselves.
“Colonel White, Spectrum,” White said,
quoting his service number.
“Captain Magenta, Spectrum,” Magenta
did the same.
“Symphony Angel, Spectrum,” Symphony
recited her number.
They passed through a metal archway
that hummed and clicked as they were scanned by the Mysteron detector. Green
lights flashed on an indicator board and the inner door locks clicked open.
The building consisted of one large
room, divided into several cubicles, most of them sterilised working
environments. Computers hummed and
a CCTV camera followed their movement as they walked deeper into the room,
looking for signs of life, or clues as to the whereabouts of Doctor Giardello.
The place was deserted.
Symphony wandered over towards a small
area around a coffee machine where there were a few comfortable chairs. She looked around, noticing the pile of
scientific magazines and the discarded coffee cups. There was nothing to say who had been here, nor how long ago.
Magenta gravitated towards the
computers, flicking the pieces of paper beside the first terminal and wondering
if it was worth switching it on.
Colonel White headed for the cluttered
workbench at the far end of the building.
It was obviously used as a desk – or at least a repository for documents
and equipment.
They were about as far apart as the
room allowed them to be when suddenly there was a gunshot, the alarm system
whooped into life, and the inner doors burst open.
Magenta wheeled round, pulling his gun
from his holster, as the figure of Lieutenant Cerulean burst through the door,
firing in his direction. His initial shock at seeing the man was tempered by the
realisation that he’d half been expecting this to happen. He dived behind a desk
and peered around. The colonel had
also dodged under cover behind the workbench, whilst Symphony was sprinting
towards one of the offices in the hope of taking refuge. Cerulean fired at her,
bringing her down with a bullet in her thigh.
She rolled on the floor, her hands
reaching to cover her wound and staunch the bleeding.
Then she struggled to keep moving, gasping as she pulled herself along
the floor towards the nearest office, leaving a trail of blood in her wake.
Magenta’s line of fire was hampered by
equipment and the possibility of hitting Symphony, so Cerulean easily caught her
up before she reached the safety of the office partition. Straddling her, he snapped, “keep still, earthwoman.” He turned
towards Magenta and ordered, “You will
stop the alarms – or I will kill her.”
Colonel White saw the captain’s face
blanch. According to the
regulations he should refuse to carry out this demand, but he was not surprised
when Magenta called back,
“Very well, don’t hurt her…”
Risking putting himself in the line of
fire, Magenta stood and laid his gun on the desk top before walking to the
control panel. A quick examination
showed him how to silence the alarm and he jabbed in the code.
It’s unlikely anyone will respond to it anyway, he reasoned to himself, and I’m not
going to risk Cerulean carrying out his threat just over an alarm.
The wailing siren stopped and an
un-natural silence fell on the room, broken only by Symphony’s barely suppressed
sobs.
Cerulean nodded in approval. His dark eyes roamed around the room, a
frown appearing between his dark brows.
“Where is Doctor Giardello?”
he demanded.
Magenta shrugged. “We were asking ourselves the same question, Lieutenant. We
expected him to be here too – dead or alive.”
Cerulean wasn’t impressed with this
answer. “Earthmen, Spectrum is trying to
learn the secrets of the Mysterons, you will not succeed,” he said in
echo of the original Mysteron threat.
“We will find
Doctor Giardello, and the Horizon-I device will be destroyed.”
Magenta glanced at Colonel White at
this, wondering how his commander would react to the apparent confirmation that
the Mysteron target was the air traffic control system after all. The colonel’s
face remained impassive. He had not moved or spoken since Cerulean entered the
room, but the Mysteron noticed Captain Magenta’s referential glance and he
finally studied the other Spectrum agent.
A slow, lupine smile came over his boyish features. “Colonel
White,” he said, “you will come
with me.”
“I will not.” White’s face remained as impassive as his words.
Cerulean shifted the gun from Symphony
to point at the colonel and was intrigued to see the older man’s expression
almost relax. Swiftly the gun went
back to target the wounded Angel. “You value the Earthwoman’s life, it seems.
If you wish to save it, obey me.
Now.” He cocked the trigger.
Symphony’s head came up in a brave
defiance at those words, but White could see her chin was trembling and tears
were sparkling on her long lashes.
He did not doubt that she was as prepared to give her life for Spectrum as any
agent, but she was already in pain and that devastating tremble and the little
suppressed sob she could not prevent, tore at his heart. He saw Amanda in the pout of her lower
lip, the way her hair swung to her shoulders and the proud tilt of her head – he
could not allow this woman to die – whatever the regulations said.
“Wait,” he snapped. “I do
not
know where Giardello is – I expected to find him here.”
“Come
here,” Cerulean ordered and as White walked over to surrender himself to
the Mysteron, Cerulean relaxed slightly.
He took hold of White’s arm and twisted it behind his back, forcing the
colonel into a bent posture and pushing him towards the office partition, away
from the Angel pilot. He glanced at
Magenta. “Spectrum has four hours to find
the Doctor and bring him here. If
you do not succeed within that time, I will kill Colonel White. Any attempt to storm this building will
also result in the death of the colonel. Understood, Captain Magenta?”
Magenta nodded. “What about Symphony?”
Cerulean looked at the young woman. “She
is no further use to us – you may take her.”
With what he hoped was a reassuring
glance at his commanding officer, Magenta moved to help the young woman to her
feet. Hobbling beside him, her
weight against his sturdy body, Symphony looked at the colonel as they made
their way to the door.
“We’ll be back, sir,” she promised.
“S.I.G.,” White responded, his blue
eyes meeting her hazel ones. On
impulse he added, “Please reassure your mother that I am perfectly at ease with
my situation.” It was as close as he could come to revealing to Symphony that he
both valued her life and that his feelings for her mother were beyond the
commonplace.
“Colonel…” Symphony’s impulsive emotions overcame her, her voice
broke and tears slipped down her cheeks.
“Get her out of here, Captain Magenta,
and get a search underway immediately. Spectrum is red,” White said with as much composure as he could
muster.
“S.I.G., Colonel…” Magenta acknowledged
his orders and half-carried the weeping Angel from the building.
Once clear of the secure facility,
Magenta radioed Captain Grey and informed him of the situation.
“Get Symphony back to her
mother’s ranch – I’ll send another helijet down for her,”
Grey ordered. Captain Ochre will be on his way from
Atlantic shortly and Captain Scarlet will be on the helijet… Fawn’s told me he’s
conscious again. He’ll have to get what rest he can on
the journey – we’re going to need every man we have on this mission.”
“S.I.G.,” Magenta said. “We
don’t have much time, Brad…”
“Every available man will be
with you as soon as humanly possible…”
Grey promised.
“Let’s hope we find Giardello sooner rather than
later…”
“You don’t mean you intend to hand him
over?” Magenta gasped.
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it… right
now; I just want to know where he is and what the hell he’s been doing…”
The Hoffman Ranch
Despite her pain and current emotional
turmoil, Symphony was able to call her mother on her personal cell phone. She struggled to keep her voice under
control as she told Amanda what had happened to the colonel and to herself,
warning her of their imminent arrival to await the Spectrum medical helijet.
Amanda’s reaction was surprisingly calm, and sensing Karen’s nervous strain she
was able to offer her daughter some reassurance.
As she closed the call Amanda placed a
hand against her brow and gave way to a sigh of unutterable melancholy. With her daughter and the man she loved
wounded, and her own lover held hostage – her very worst fears were realised.
Yet, after a few moments assimilating the news, she pulled herself together and
made preparations for the arrival of the Spectrum pair – boiling some water and
laying out clean cloths and the few remaining bandages she had left in the
house. Karen had not been able to tell her too
much about the nature of her wound and she sincerely hoped the helijet would
arrive quickly.
She was waiting by the screen door as
the SSC swept up to the house. She
opened it and watched Captain Magenta carry Karen indoors directing him to place
her on the couch. She moved across
and stared down at her daughter, her love and concern mirrored in her eyes. Karen looked up at her mother and, with
a slight tremble of her lower lip, reached out towards her. Amanda sank onto her knees and enfolded
her only child in her arms. “I
thought I had lost you too. I
thought I had lost you… my little girl…my darling…” she crooned as Symphony’s
flimsy composure broke down and she wept against her mother’s shoulder.
Magenta watched the women for a moment,
until he felt like an intruder in this loving family relationship. He had never
had the luxury of sharing his emotions with his family – even as a youngster -
and once they had learned of his career in crime, they had, more or less,
excluded him from their company.
Even though he had assured them he was ‘reformed’ they were often less than
welcoming on his rare visits home.
He knew that Captain Blue was also considered something of a ‘black sheep’ in
his family, and mused that that was another thing they had in common…
Shrugging off his tired introspection, he determined to make
himself useful and went to fetch a bowl of water to bathe the wound. He saw the neat pile of cloths and
carried them back to where Amanda was still comforting Symphony. She gave him a grateful smile and
quietly asked him to go upstairs and fetch a blanket to keep Karen warm. As he climbed the stairs he heard the
sounds of the boot zips being undone and Amanda encouraging her daughter to ease
herself out of her flying suit, so she could clean the wound.
These Wainwright women are
certainly tough,
he thought glancing over the banister to where
Karen was struggling from her uniform trousers.
He averted his eyes and strode with as much haste as he could to find the
blanket.
Some time later, Magenta was sitting in
the living room, across from the sofa where Symphony lay wrapped in a warm
blanket, her tired eyes closed, her face pale and her glorious hair, for once, a
mare’s nest of tangles. Her mother
had cleaned the bullet wound which, luckily – although it had bled copiously –
appeared to be a simple flesh wound.
Magenta had hovered around in a state of uselessness. He didn’t want to
embarrass mother or daughter by trying to help with the first aid and he was
exhausted – mentally, emotionally and physically – by the recent turn of events. Once Karen was settled and as
comfortable as possible, her mother, recognising the symptoms of his exhaustion,
had guided him into an armchair and bustled off to make coffee, leaving him with
nothing to do but brood; something he always took great pains to avoid,
preferring to watch the 24 hour news channels or read newspapers rather than be
left with his own thoughts.
He stared at the sleeping
woman on the sofa, his mind a jumble of longing and self-imposed restraint.
Unnoticed, Amanda came back into the
room. She looked thoughtfully at the
exhausted man for a long moment, watching him watch her daughter. Then she stepped closer and handed him a
cup of hot coffee. He took it with a grateful smile, although his gaze soon
reverted back to the younger woman.
Amanda fetched her own coffee and sat
some feet away from him on the second chair. “Does she know?” she said gently.
“Know what?” Magenta asked sharply,
dragging his gaze from the sleeping Symphony.
“How you feel about her?” Amanda said
quietly. “Mind you, I think she’d
have to be far more foolish than I can imagine her to be if she didn’t,” she
added.
Magenta sipped his coffee, noticing
that there was a slug of brandy in there too, and turned his dark-brown eyes on
the older woman, marvelling again at the beauty of her face that was, at the
same time, like and yet, unlike her daughter’s. There was no avoiding those
discerning eyes, however. With a sigh he replied, “I guess she knows how I used
to feel about her, yes.”
“Used to?” it was obvious Amanda did
not believe him.
“She’s in love with another man – as
you well know – and he loves her and they are my friends… I’d never knowingly
hurt either of them. Besides,” he
said with another sigh, “I’m over her.
It was a passing phase.”
“Was it?”
“Yes – what else could it be, Mrs
Wainwright?”
“You tell me, Patrick Donaghue.”
There was a long silence; the type of silence which seemed to invite
confidences and offered a chance of baring his soul to a friendly and
non-judgmental listener. He fought against the temptation, but his need to
confide in someone after keeping his own counsel for so long was too great.
He began, “Somehow – when you think you’ve found the one love that will surpass
anything you’ve ever known – you never imagine it won’t be the same for the
person you‘ve chosen. But, love IS blind; and when the one you
love, loves someone else, what else can you do, but get over it?”
“A wise philosophy, Patrick.” Amanda
laid a hand on his arm with an understanding smile.
As if a floodgate had opened he
continued in a rush, “So, I can tell you, in all honesty, that I’m over her. Really…really over her. I mean, I barely
notice the way her perfume lingers in a room after she’s left anymore. I can
hear her wonderful laughter – Hell, I
can even see the way her nose wrinkles when she laughs – without feeling as if
someone is twisting a knife in my heart.
I can see how she binds a man to her without his realising it; or, if he
does realise, he believes it was his own idea in the first place and welcomes
his captivity.” He looked across at Karen and then added, “I can see her
everyday; see how much she loves the man I am proud to call my friend, and how much he loves her. I can witness all that and not even wish
the man she wants to share her life with was me, not anymore.…. It took a while,
but I managed it.”
Amanda looked down to hide the pity in
her eyes. Magenta gave a wry smile.
“Not very convincing, am I?
I’ve told myself that time is a great healer, but sometimes I wish it’d get a
move on. I don’t know how much
longer I can conceal my feelings and pretend what I feel isn’t real for me any
more. To do less than hide would risk losing the friendships I have come to
value. But, so far, I think only Heaven knows for sure what an unmitigated fool
I am - in loving someone who cannot love me - Heaven,
and you, of course.”
“And Karen – how does she feel?”
“She’s my friend; she treats me as she
treats all her friends – and I wouldn’t have it any other way, Mrs Wainwright.
Believe me, she’s never given me any cause to think of her as anything other
than a friend – she’s never led me on or promised me anything.
She’s a lady – especially in matters of the heart – however much she acts
the tough little tomboy at times.
She is… altogether wonderful; but I doubt I have to tell you that? It isn’t her fault that I’m crazy about
everything she does or that I’m in love with her, and yet, if I could choose, I
would have it no other way.”
“And does Adam know of this… state of
affairs?”
“He knows; I think. I would, if the case was reversed.” He
looked at her. “He’s a decent,
honest guy; I like him. Besides,
Karen loves him – that much was obvious since day one of their acquaintance and
it’s enough for me; I wouldn’t interfere. However much it might hurt me to say
it – that pair were made for each other.”
Amanda reached across and planted a
kiss on the unshaven cheek.
“Patrick Donaghue – you are a rare man.
My girl’s lucky that she can inspire such feelings in
two
such remarkable men. I’m just sorry
it has to be that way.”
“Don’t be.
It’s no one’s problem but mine.
Besides, I’m thoroughly convinced that one day I’ll walk around a corner
and meet a woman the equal of that sleeping beauty over there. And then I’ll invite you to the wedding…”
“And I’ll come, too,” Amanda said with
a cheerful nod.
They exchanged warm smiles and Amanda
saw, buried in the depths of those intense, world-weary eyes, just the merest
wisp of sadness that told her this young man didn’t believe a word of his
hopeful prediction. She fervently
hoped that he would find someone – one day – who would appreciate him for what
he was: a generous and courageous man, with a wealth of love for the right
woman.
Chapter Five
No personal consideration
should stand in the way of performing a public duty.
Ulysses S. Grant
The Hoffman Ranch
The medical helijet dropped Captain
Scarlet off and whisked Symphony Angel away into the gathering gloom of the
afternoon. Amanda looked at
the darkly handsome Englishman and wondered if she’d been right in thinking that
he’d been severely injured when Karen and Adam had brought him to the ranch – he
was certainly pale - yet he looked fit enough.
Captain Scarlet had been warned that he might have to explain what had
happened, and he was not intending to say any more than he had to. Pre-empting
any enquiry he volunteered the information that Captain Blue was conscious and
Cloudbase’s medical team were predicting a full recovery.
“Well, I’m sure pleased to hear that. It looked like a nasty wound to me; not
that I am any expert, Captain,” she replied, adding with some concern, “I
understood that you were also wounded…”
“Only in my pride, Mrs Wainwright…I
wasn’t paying enough attention and it was a rather unfortunate place to get
knee’d by an opponent … I definitely thought I might end up as a soprano for a
time…” he gave her a rather bashful smile and Amanda fought the urge to chuckle.
“You boys ought to be more careful and
watch what you’re doing,” she advised him with a friendly pat on his arm.
Scarlet rolled his eyes, pleased that she wasn’t going to pursue the topic for
fear of embarrassing him. “Now,
tell me what you propose to do about rescuing Charles – I mean – Colonel White?”
Magenta suppressed his grin and spoke
up, “How many men do we have, Scarlet?”
Captain Scarlet gave Amanda a wary
glance and replied, “Grey’s sent Cerise and Gentian with me to lend a hand;
we’re short staffed on Cloudbase, with so many people already off on their
Christmas leave. I understand we can expect four men from the base at Des
Moines?” Magenta gave a brisk confirming nod. “So, that’s the lot. With Symphony off duty, the Angels are
picking up the extra shift between them, but we can call on them, if we have a
need.”
“Let me help,” Amanda said into the
sudden silence that fell between the two men as they considered the task before
them.
“No,” they both replied and Magenta went on to
explain, “It’s very good of you to offer, Mrs Wainwright, but we’d only worry
about you and that’d make what we have to do more difficult…”
Scarlet nodded vehemently.
“You’ll be more help staying here, Mrs Wainwright; then we’ll know there
is a ‘safe house’ we can use, if the need arises. We may need to evacuate the colonel somewhere – when we get
him out of the plant.”
She looked from one man to the other
and realised that she didn’t stand a chance of convincing them otherwise. They had the same stubborn glint in
their eyes that she recognised from both Karen’s and Adam’s, when they’d been
determined to exclude her from Spectrum business.
“Very well, but on one
condition…”
Scarlet and Magenta shared a
mistrustful glance and Scarlet said, “And that is?”
“You boys both call me Amanda and
someone tells me what’s going on every so often?” she pleaded.
“Done,” Magenta said briskly. “Now, we’d better get out of here… Amanda. There’s work to do.”
She smiled and watched them leave,
staring after the SSC until it was no longer visible.
Air Electronics Systems Corporation
Colonel White glanced surreptitiously
at his watch. The movement was barely discernable but Cerulean snapped, “Sit still.”
Taking the opportunity presented to him
by this, White responded, “You don’t imagine my men will obey your orders, do
you? When they find Giardello – and
find him they will – they’ll never hand him over to you, just to save me.”
”For
your sake, I hope you are wrong, Earthman.
If they do not find Doctor Giardello, and bring him here, you will die.
The Mysterons’ orders will be carried out.”
“Don’t you imagine they’ll assume that
if they do hand Giardello over, you’ll kill me and as many of them as you can?”
Cerulean gave him a dark stare, but did
not respond.
White continued, “This research really
has got the Mysterons worried, hasn’t it?
I’m assuming you know all about it, Cerulean, so maybe you can tell me:
why do they fear Terahertz?”
“The
Mysterons fear nothing, Earthman.
They merely see that you gain encouragement from your puny triumphs against us. Such triumphs avail you nothing. Our retaliation will be slow but
nonetheless effective.”
“Yes, so you keep telling us.” Colonel White
shifted his position slightly.
“Surely the Mysterons are intelligent enough to realise that what happened on
Mars was the action of one frightened and all too fallible human being?
It had never been our intention to attack your city; Captain Black acted
from a rash, yet understandable, fear.”
“Captain
Black acts as we instruct him.
Resistance is futile,” Cerulean’s hollow voice intoned flatly.
“Resistance is a fundamental part of
the human condition,” White reasoned.
“We don’t accept defeat easily.
Spectrum will never surrender. We
will fight until the last man falls – you must know that?” His voice had taken
on a pleading note of reasonableness; such was his eagerness to use this
unexpected dialogue with the Mysterons to argue his point. Never before had he had a chance to extend an olive branch
towards them; they’d never listened; or rather, on the one occasion they had
appeared to be ready to listen, they’d used the opportunity to attack Cloudbase
and try to destroy Spectrum. In his
earnestness he reached out with one hand towards Cerulean.
As if his touch had fired a reflex
response, Cerulean’s fist swung out and the butt of his pistol impacted on
White’s face, leaving a jagged cut down the strong-boned cheek. Blood flowed copiously from the wound
and White cursed, rummaging through the charcoal tunic’s pockets for a
handkerchief. Finally, he reached
out for a box of tissues on the workbench and clasped a handful against his
face. Cerulean watched him with interest, as if he had never seen such a thing. White stared back and seeing nothing
even remotely human in those dark eyes, sat back with a dry sigh – defeated by
the sheer implacable hostility of the aliens’ mind.
“Resistance
is futile,” Cerulean said, almost conversationally. “The Mysterons’
orders will be carried out.”
“Futile or not, that’s what you face
and will continue to face,” White muttered, “until you leave us alone or destroy
every one of us.”
“The
Mysterons’ orders will be carried out.”
“Oh, give it a rest…” Colonel White sighed.
Lieutenants
Cerise and Gentian arrived to report back to Captain Scarlet at the appointed
time, although he could already deduce by the look on their faces that they’d
had no luck in finding any sign of Giardello.
He reported back to Captain Grey and then the three captains discussed what to
do next.
“There’s no record of Giardello having returned to SIRAD,” Grey
informed them.
“We’ve checked every possibility within Spectrum for sightings or contact with
him. He has to be at the plant.”
“Not
necessarily,” Magenta said quietly.
“In fact we know with almost 100 per cent certainty that he isn’t here.”
“So where is
he?” Scarlet asked. “Cerulean doesn’t know – which means the Mysterons don’t
know. It’s like he’s vanished off the face of the earth!”
“Do we have an
address for Vernon Catesby?” Magenta remarked, “And has anyone checked with him
where Giardello went?”
Grey’s voice
answered that no one had checked as far as he was aware “We
all assumed Giardello and Catesby would be at the plant.”
“Just as the
Mysterons have done…” Scarlet’s voice trailed away. He sighed. This mission was fated to go down in the annals as ‘how not
to do it’. He turned to Gentian.
“Lieutenant, please would you get the details of Catesby’s address and drive
over there yourself – with one of the Des Moines men – and speak to Dr Catesby?
See if he has any information about where Giardello went after they met. The
Mysterons don’t have him, and we must get to him first; I don’t think they’d
keep the colonel alive for a moment longer than necessary and once they have
Giardello, from us or by their own methods, he is no longer of use to them.”
The taciturn
Scotsman saluted. “S.I.G., sir.”
“And,
Gentian…” Scarlet added.
“Yes, sir?”
“Be careful.”
“S.I.G,
Captain Scarlet.”
Magenta
glanced at his colleague. Possibly
unfairly, Captain Scarlet had a reputation for rarely considering the well-being
of his co-workers. Cloudbase wisdom puts
it down to his own invulnerability tending to make him too rash in his actions,
he mused.
But then,
he so rarely works with any one except Blue
that how can we really know what he’s like? I mean, Blue’s no one’s fool and
he’s happy to work alongside Scarlet. There’s no doubt they’d both stick
their necks on the line for the other…which suggests Blue feels confident
Scarlet’s not likely to get them both killed.
He glanced
away quickly as Scarlet’s sharp blue eyes met his. “What do you think we should
do about Colonel White?” he asked to cover his true thoughts.
Scarlet
sighed. “Even if we find Giardello we can’t hand
him over; that’s a given. We have
to get the colonel out of there – the sooner the better, I’d say.”
“If we attack
the offices, Cerulean will kill him,” Magenta said bleakly.
“Then we have
to do it without him knowing we’re about to attack,” Scarlet explained.
“He’s a
Mysteron, Paul – and he could have accomplices – they’d let him know, however
careful we are.”
“Do you think
I don’t know that? We have to find
a way to neutralise the threat Cerulean represents – before he gets chance to
fire at the colonel. It’d be easier
if we knew what the situation was in there.
If the colonel is some distance from his captor, we stand a better chance…”
“The whole
plant has CCTV security,” Magenta broke in eagerly.
I bet that department does too.”
Scarlet’s
jet-black brows rose so high they were almost lost in his fringe. “Oh, for
crying out loud! Why didn’t
somebody mention this before?
Where’s the control room?”
Magenta
gestured over his shoulder. “I can
show you,” he offered.
“Come on then
– we don’t have time to waste…”
Inside the
security control room, there were several signs of the damage done by the fire. Initially it looked as if they wouldn’t
be able to view the secure unit, but Magenta spent a busy half-hour tinkering
with the electronics and managed to get a fuzzy, but recognisable picture of the
room where White was being held. He
called to Scarlet who was pacing impatiently up and down behind him and they
peered at the small screen intently.
Colonel White
was sitting on the floor, his back against the large workbench at the far end of
the room. His head was back,
resting against the wooden panels of the desk and his eyes were closed. It was possible to make out a dark
smudge on his cheekbone. Scarlet
frowned, concerned that the colonel had been seriously hurt, but the dismay only
lasted for a few minutes, until White shifted slightly and glanced at his watch.
Magenta heaved
a sigh of relief and Scarlet placed a hand on his shoulder. “The old man’s okay
for now, it seems. Can you find
Cerulean?”
“I can try to
move the camera… it might still work.”
Scarlet nodded
and Magenta tapped instructions into the battered keyboard. The picture went blank for a moment and then refocused. Cerulean was standing about half way
down the room, staring fixedly at the colonel.
In his hand he held his Spectrum issue gun.
“We need a
distraction,” Scarlet mused.
“Something, or someone, that will draw Cerulean’s attention from the colonel and
keep him occupied whilst someone else shoots him with the Mysteron rifle before
he has time to shoot the colonel.”
“And what if
we miss? Those rifles are not the most accurate
of weapons at a distance, as you well know.
He could just as easily shoot both of us and then shoot the colonel,”
Magenta responded. “Personally
speaking, I don’t like the survival odds on that scheme.”
“Do you have
any alternative suggestion then?” Scarlet asked with considerable hauteur.
Lieutenant
Cerise ventured to speak. “We have an SPV out in the car park; I suggest we use
the rockets on the place.”
“And bring the
building down on top of Colonel White, I suppose? We need a diversion, not a
demolition job, Lieutenant,” Scarlet exclaimed. “We might as well just let
Cerulean shoot him if our only other option is to blast him to smithereens.” Cerise looked abashed and the silence
dragged on for some time until Scarlet said, “If we could warn the colonel, it
might be safer to risk an attack; but, you say the colonel has no Spectrum
communication devices with him?”
“Nothing, except his cell phone – I saw him use that…”
They shared an
understanding glance as the same idea flashed into their minds simultaneously.
“Do you know
the number?” Scarlet asked.
”No, but I
know a woman who does.” Magenta
spoke to Grey over his cap mic, “Can you get in touch with Symphony’s mother and
ask her what the colonel’s phone number is?”
“Symphony’s mother?” Grey
repeated incredulously.
“Just do it,”
Scarlet snapped impatiently.
They waited
for what seemed an age and then heard Grey’s voice reciting a number. Magenta scribbled it down on the nearest
scrap of paper and reached for the phone.
“Let’s hope it’s working…”
But the phone
lines to the site were dead and they wasted precious minutes getting hold of a
mobile phone from one of the rescue workers. Then Magenta dialled the number.
“It’s ringing…
I just hope it doesn’t revert to an answering service,” he said, handing the
slim device to Captain Scarlet.
In the secure
workroom, Cerulean frowned at the persistent ringing of the colonel’s phone.
“Make it stop,” he ordered.
“I’ll need to
answer it,” White explained and saw the Mysteron agent incline his head in
permission.
“Do not try to trick me, I will be listening,” he warned.
White grabbed
the phone from his pocket and flicked it open.
He didn’t recognise the number and prayed it wasn’t someone trying to sell him
insurance.
“Charles
Grey,” he said sharply.
“Colonel – it’s Scarlet.
We can see you
on CCTV and we have a scheme to rescue you.
Keep as far away from Cerulean as you can, and be ready to get under cover….”
“Amanda, I’m far too busy to talk to you now…”
Scarlet
ignored the comment and continued, “We
haven’t found Giardello and time’s running out.
An attempt to
free you is our best bet. Be ready.”
Cerulean moved
towards White with an angry frown.
“Amanda, it’s
quite all right… don’t wait lunch for me…I’ll call you back.” White snapped the
phone off and gave Cerulean a wry smile. “That woman could talk for America…”
Cerulean held
out his hand for the phone and White handed it over, wincing as the Mysteron
crushed it beneath his foot. “I
wonder if I can claim for a new one on expenses,” the colonel muttered dryly.
“You got
through to him?” Magenta asked as Scarlet closed the phone and handed it back to
its owner.
“Yes, I’m sure
he understood. My guess is Cerulean was threatening him.”
“Yeah, look.”
Magenta pointed to the CCTV screen and they saw Cerulean crush the phone
underfoot.
“It’s a good
job he’s a Mysteron, or the colonel would’ve had him scrubbing decks for a year
for that,” the Englishman remarked.
Magenta
chuckled. “You’d get two years at least for
trampling your commanding officer’s cell phone,” he corrected.
“Let’s hope the colonel’ll be around long enough to hand out such implausible
punishments,”
Grey
added sombrely.
“You said we
had a plan,” Magenta said to Scarlet.
“Would you care to tell the rest of us what it is?”
Scarlet rubbed
a hand over his chin and drew a sharp breath.
“I don’t think you’re going to like it; but this is what I think we should do…”
Grey and
Magenta heard him out in silence and both of them had severe doubts about the
efficacy of the scheme; but Scarlet was on a roll and he wasn’t listening to
doubts – well, that is, he wasn’t admitting to listening to doubts – but even as
he shook his dark head at the voicing of another possible flaw, he was adapting
his scheme to lessen the likelihood of failure.
As Grey’s voice came to a halt and there were no further difficulties worth
mentioning, he grinned.
“Magenta, I
want you to drive – I’m depending on your skill not to bring the entire bloody
building down on us all at the first go.
Cerise, you’ll move in after me and you’ll get the colonel out. I don’t care what else happens – your
only task is to get the old man out and to safety.
Understand me, Lieutenant?”
Cerise nodded. Scarlet only knew him slightly; he was a
tall, athletic Australian with boundless energy and enthusiasm and a love of
surfing that rivalled Captain Blue’s.
Whenever the pair got together in the canteen, they bored everyone rigid
with the topic over lunch. Despite
that, Cerise had a reputation as being a good, solid worker and sociable with
it. “S.I.G., Captain Scarlet, sir,”
he answered now, with barely suppressed excitement.
“And what
about you?” Magenta asked Scarlet.
“I’m going
after Cerulean, of course. I’m betting he’ll go for me
before
he goes for the colonel.”
“You can’t
know that for certain,” Magenta reasoned with more than a hint of anxiety in his
voice.
“No,” Scarlet
agreed, reaching his gun from its holster and checking it over. “But let’s just say that – whenever
they’ve had the chance – they’ve gone for me.
Blue’d tell you; if he was here.
It’s given us the edge more than once when we’ve needed to occupy the
Mysterons’ attention.” Scarlet put his gun back and paused, a vagueness flooding
into his sapphire-blue eyes and a weariness settling on his handsome face.
“I guess they really don’t like me…” He raised his eyes to Magenta’s incredulous
face and a boyish grin lit his face.
He thumped his colleague’s arm.
“Don’t let it worry, you, Captain.
I’m used to it and - believe me, the feeling’s mutual - I don’t like them
either.”
Magenta shook
his head in a mixture of exasperated defeat and amusement. “Whatever you say,
Paul; we’re running out of time and we don’t have another plan. We have to get the colonel out of there.”
Scarlet
nodded. “Let’s do it; and, Pat – I mean this most sincerely –
drive carefully.”
Conscious of
the impending attempt at rescue, Colonel White shuffled his position and when
Cerulean glared at him, he said, “I need to stand up.
This floor is cold and I’m not as young as I once was…I take it your
masters don’t want me dead from hypothermia before the exchange is made?”
Cerulean’s
head inclined carelessly, and White eased himself upright.
He slapped his arms around himself in a show of trying to warm up, and
paced up and down for a few feet, his eyes searching for somewhere to hide.
He couldn’t imagine what Scarlet had in mind, but he suspected it was going to
be short, sharp and explosive. From
where he was pacing up and down, the best place to hide was under the workbench
itself. He started to march in a circuit around
the long structure, aware of Cerulean’s disparaging stare; but the Mysteron gave
no order for him to stop, even though his watch became more intense as he
guarded against the possibility that White might grab something as a weapon, or
try some crazy attack.
White saw
Cerulean stiffen; his head going back as he strained to listen. In the distance, just on the edge of his
hearing, White could hear – or rather feel the vibrations of – an approaching
vehicle. A large vehicle. In a flash of conviction he knew that it
was an SPV and the full import of Scarlet’s plan became apparent. Cerulean, far less experienced than his
prisoner, turned towards the noise and White took the opportunity to duck out of
sight under the workbench – almost as he did so the nose of the SPV gave the
building a glancing blow, taking out the corner, so that the structure shuddered
and a large section of wall crumbled. From where he had been riding on the nosecone of the vehicle,
Captain Scarlet leapt to the ground, stumbling for a second under the impact of
his arrival. The SPV started to
reverse –with the obvious intention of ramming the building again.
Cerulean spun
to where the colonel should have been.
Scarlet
shouted, “Deal with me – you treacherous bastard!” And fired a blast with the
electron gun he held. It missed,
burying the discharge in a work table.
The fake wood smouldered, the acrid smoke of the chemicals adding to the
dust-laden atmosphere. Cursing, Scarlet advanced towards the Mysteron.
Cerulean edged
away from the irate man approaching him over the rubble of the demolition and
scrambled for the cover of one of the research cubicles.
Scarlet fired
his Spectrum pistol, taking out the transparent partition wall, and Cerulean
returned fire, before spinning to clamber over the desk, making his way
remorselessly to where he’d last seen Colonel White.
Scarlet easily
evaded the shot and fired again, his bullet catching the Mysteron in the leg. Hampered, but not halted, Cerulean
ploughed on; diving through the next partition, rolling clear of Scarlet’s
fusillade of shots.
The SPV
returned, taking out another portion of wall, the building creaked ominously and
a large section of concrete collapsed bringing down the ceiling at the far end
of the room. The dust intensified.
Scarlet
bawled, “Colonel…?” There was no response. It was impossible to tell where the
commander might be or if he was in any state to respond to the call. That last
cave-in might well have trapped him, leaving him at the mercy of the Mysteron
assassin. He activated his cap
mike. “Magenta, stop! You’ll have this jerry-built box down on us! Cerise, find Colonel White – get him to
safety -”
Across the
destruction, Scarlet could see that Cerulean’s face wore an almost triumphant
smile. He was advancing towards the workbench and Scarlet immediately guessed
that was where the colonel must be. He raced across the floor, stumbling over
debris and upended furniture, yelling defiance and taunts at his adversary. Cerise was clambering after him, but
Cerulean had already reached the workbench and, with a triumphant smirk at
Scarlet, he prepared to execute his prisoner.
“NO!” Scarlet
screamed.
As Cerulean
started to pull the trigger, he was jabbed in the stomach by the metal legs of
an office stool, and staggered slightly. The shot went wild and ricocheted into
a computer monitor, causing a flash of electrical light. Momentarily distracted, Cerulean
didn’t see the next attack: a well-placed kick that swung upwards from beneath
the bench. It made forceful
contact; winding him and making him bend double.
Scarlet winced in an instinctive surge of masculine solidarity, and then
watched in surprise as the colonel emerged from his hiding place and dealt his
assailant a sharp, right upper cut.
Cerulean collapsed.
White glanced
at his officer; Scarlet’s face left little doubt of the surprise his
street-fighting skills had provoked. How
persistently they underestimate me, he thought wryly and snapped at his
speechless officer, “Do you have an electron rifle, Captain?”
Scarlet shook
himself back to alertness. “Yes, sir.”
He raced over and after a slight hesitation handed the gun to his commander.
“It’s almost recharged.”
White took the
weapon, glanced at the meter and said, “Jake Askew was a good man. He deserves to rest in peace.” He aimed and pulled the trigger. “Now, he’ll be able to do just that,” he
said as the Mysteron’s body writhed under the blast of the gun.
Cerise and
Magenta came running up. “Colonel,
are you all right, sir?”
White handed
the electron rifle to Cerise and nodded. “Yes, thank you, Captain. I owe you all
my thanks.”
Magenta
glanced at Scarlet and grinned.
“Hey, what do you know – you pulled it off without having someone use you for
target practise…”
Scarlet
couldn’t help grinning in response. “So I did.
You know, maybe there’s something in what Blue said to me once, and I do only
get shot up when he’s around.” His
companions chuckled, and even the colonel found what passed for a smile. “Mind
you,” Scarlet explained with a shrug, “he was just peeved at the time about
having to carry me back to the SPV – again.”
“Well, this
time you can walk back unaided,” Magenta said.
“We’ve still got another job to do, remember? We’ve still got to find Giardello. There may be other Mysteron agents out there looking for
him…”
They clambered
out of the wreckage of the secure laboratory and started walking back to the
SPV. Magenta was reporting back to Captain
Grey, reassuring him that the colonel was once more safe and secure. Captain
Scarlet strode along beside his commanding officer, answering questions about
his last ‘death’ and how fit he was feeling.
Cerise walked behind them, carrying the electron rifle.
Scarlet’s
epaulettes flashed blue, and he activated his mic, half-expecting to hear the
familiar tones of his partner, but instead he heard the lilting Scottish tones
of Lieutenant Gentian.
“Captain Scarlet, is everything all right? I can’t raise Captain Magenta…”
“Yes, Gentian;
we have the colonel. He’s safe and well. Magenta’s reporting to Cloudbase. Where are you and what do you have to
report?”
“I’m at the
address of Doctor Vernon Catesby. The place is deserted, Captain, I can’t raise
anyone. There’s no car in the drive
and the neighbour told me she hadn’t seen the doctor for a few days – but it
seems that is not unusual. She said
Mrs Catesby went out early this morning.”
Scarlet paused
a moment and glanced at the colonel.
He gave White a précis of what Gentian had told him and then, taking his
commander’s agreement for granted, he said, “Break in, Gentian.
Search the place thoroughly.
Check things like the answer-phone; see if there’s been any messages
demanding a ransom or that might be a Mysteron threat. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“S.I.G.,
Captain.” Gentian closed the link.
“I’d better
get over there,” Scarlet said, “I don’t like the sound of this. Maybe the Mysterons have used the threat
to you, Colonel, as a decoy… they might have taken Giardello and Catesby both.”
“Agreed,”
White said briskly. “But you’re not
going alone, Captain.” He glanced
at Magenta and said, “Take control here, Captain Magenta, get the back-up teams
in to clear up. I’m going with
Captain Scarlet.”
“Sir!”
Scarlet’s voice rose in disbelief.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, after what you’ve been through…” He laid a
restraining hand on his commander’s arm.
“I am not an
invalid, Captain,” White snapped as he shrugged off the offending hand. “If there is evidence concerning
Giardello’s disappearance, I want to see it for myself.
I am perfectly capable of carrying out an investigation – don’t consign
me to my dotage too soon.”
Scarlet
dropped his hand and muttered an apology as White strode ahead towards the car
park. He gave Magenta an astonished glance.
The
dark-haired, Irish-American laughed. “Hey, the old man’s feeling his oats… I
should just go with the flow, if I were you.”
“You won’t
have to work with him,” Scarlet complained.
He rolled his eyes as the colonel’s barking order for him to get a move on,
reached them. He sprinted after his
commander.
“Sometimes,”
Magenta said to no one in particular, “life can be so sweet…” He watched the SSC pull away from the plant and it occurred
to him that Amanda Wainwright would be worrying and waiting for news. With a smile he borrowed a cell phone
and dialled the number Grey gave him…
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA
Vernon
Catesby’s house was in a tidy, well-to-do suburb of Cedar Rapids and the SSC
already parked outside of the house was attracting considerable attention from
the local residents, a small crowd of whom had wrapped up warm and come out to
watch the fun – despite the biting cold.
They stood aside as Scarlet pulled up and parked behind Gentian’s vehicle. As Colonel White slammed the door and began to stride
towards the partially open front door, a woman stepped in front of him and
demanded to know what the Catesbys were guilty of.
“Absolutely
nothing – that we know of – we are simply
looking for Doctor Catesby.” He
raised his voice to address the gathered spectators.
“Has anyone seen Doctor Catesby recently?”
There was a
muttering of negatives and a general shaking of heads.
As Scarlet followed his commander into the building, he called for
Gentian and the Lieutenant emerged from the kitchen down the hall, saluting when
he saw his superior officers. White stepped into the living room, noticing the
detritus of normal family life – discarded magazines, children’s toys in a box
in the corner and a large Christmas tree resplendent with gaudy decorations and
fairy lights, near the window. His
heart sank as he contemplated the anguish he’d cause this unknown family, if he
had to tell them their father was dead.
Gentian arrived and began his report, not that he was able to tell
them much more than they already knew.
Scarlet’s
sensitive hearing picked up the commotion outside before anyone else. He moved
to the window and saw a battered station wagon pull up at the kerbside and a
woman emerge, advancing at a run towards the house.
“What’s
happened?” she called to the crowd as they parted to let her through.
Scarlet turned
to White. “Sir, I think Mrs Catesby
might’ve returned home,” he said without expression.
“Ah, good,
maybe now we’ll learn something,” White said, moving towards the door, all
politeness and suavity, to deal with the lady of the house.
But Mrs
Catesby was in no mood to be charmed.
She stormed into her house, slamming the front door behind her and advanced on
Spectrum’s commander-in-chief, with rage etched onto her face. Before the colonel could speak she shouted, “Who the hell do
you think you are, bursting into my house like this? Leaving dirty boot marks all over my carpets and leaving the door open to let the heat out – what’s more! Were you raised in a barn, the whole lot
of you? How dare you search my
home, or touch my possessions!
You’re getting out right now…and I’m calling the cops…” She pushed passed the
startled colonel and reached for her phone handset.
Scarlet
stepped forward and took the phone from her hand as she started to dial. “That
won’t be necessary, Mrs Catesby,” he said levelly.
“Spectrum
can’t just walk in and help themselves to people’s property!”
“We haven’t
taken anything,” White snapped and then sought to recover his poise. “We are looking for your husband,
madam.”
“Vernon? Why?
Where’s he gone?”
“He’s
missing,” Scarlet explained gently.
“No he isn’t –
well, he wasn’t when I went out to get the shopping.
He’s in his workroom, down in the basement – him and the other guy –
Giardello…”
“Doctor
Giardello is here?” White exploded.
“When did he get here?”
“Vernon
brought him back here the other day.
He said they had some experiments to do on a new project and he’d be staying
over. I cooked them dinner, and they stopped
working just long enough to eat it.
I don’t think either of them went to bed last night – I know Vernon didn’t.”
“They ate
dinner?” Scarlet repeated. He
glanced at the colonel – Mysteron agents were not known to waste time eating.
“Sure they did
– although they hardly stopped talking the whole time about some guy called
Terry Hurst, or something. What’s
it to do with Spectrum?” she asked suddenly wary again.
“Madam, we
have spent considerable time and resources trying to find Doctor Giardello and
your husband,” the colonel explained.
“Why didn’t they let anyone know where they were?”
She shrugged
and said, “I guess they forgot.” She gave Scarlet a rather charming smile and
explained, “Vernon’s terrible once he gets working on a project – my guess is
that your man Giardello’s the same?”
Scarlet nodded in affirmation and she rolled her eyes and then glanced at White,
her smile fading. “It still doesn’t
give you the right to bust into my house, mister.”
“Sir,” Gentian
interrupted, “Why hasn’t the noise attracted the attention of Doctor Catesby?
We weren’t exactly quiet when we gained entry.”
“Did you guys
bust my door locks?” Mrs Catesby glared fiercely at the unfortunate Lieutenant.
“True,” White
said, ignoring her angry question.
“Captain Scarlet, you’d better investigate the basement. I’m sure you’ll be able to
detect
any problems…”
Scarlet
nodded. His ‘sixth sense’ reacted to the
presence of Mysteron reconstructs.
Mrs Catesby
seemed less perturbed about any potential threat to her husband, and more
concerned with the state of her home’s security.
She marched towards the front door, Scarlet following in her wake. “Vernon wouldn’t notice a nuclear war
when he’s down there…” she remarked. “But, I guess if it is so very important,
you can go and speak to him. Don’t
expect to be welcomed though – he doesn’t like to be interrupted.”
She led
Scarlet to a heavy door set along the hallway towards the kitchen. “We had the place padded up – Vernon’s worried that any
explosions might do damage. Actually, you can’t hear much when you’re down there
– like I said – even if he’d be likely to notice the noise – he couldn’t have
heard it…” She gave a wry grimace at the conclusion of her sentence and added,
“If that makes sense…”
Scarlet
smiled. “Yes, I follow you, Mrs Catesby. Please
wait here while I go down to see the doctors.”
“Oh, I’m not
coming with you.” She turned to Gentian and the colonel.
“One of you two can make yourselves useful and give me a hand with
fetching in the shopping, and the other one can make sure my locks are working –
you’re not leaving this place till it is as it should be! Then,
maybe, I won’t call the cops and lodge a complaint…”
White sighed
and gestured for Gentian to accompany her back to her car.
Scarlet made
his way cautiously down the staircase to the basement.
There was another padded ‘blast’ door at the foot of the staircase. He waited momentarily wondering if his
sixth sense would be able to detect Mysterons even through this barrier. He could feel nothing: no dizziness, no
sweating, no waves of nausea.
Warily he reached out and turned the door handle.
The door swung open and from within the brightly lit room he could hear a
male voice.
“…but it
should be possible to build it into the front of the cap.
This prototype is bulky, but I’m sure we could streamline it further.”
Scarlet
recognised the second speaker as Doctor Giardello. “True, but even so, it’s
going to require a substantial outlay to adapt every cap to take the equipment. I mean, it might even be necessary to
provide every officer with a new cap – to account for the space taken up by the
adaptation – otherwise the caps are likely to sit on their heads like coconuts…
and the microphones would end half-way
up their noses rather than at their mouths…”
“I think
you’re exaggerating the problem, Bob.”
Scarlet
stepped into the basement workroom, his gun in his hand. Doctor Giardello looked
up and said, without any sort of surprise at the sudden appearance of Spectrum’s
top security agent, “Ah, Captain Scarlet – the very person I most wanted to see!
How fortuitous that you dropped by…”
“Dropped by? Doctor, the cream of Spectrum’s officers
have been out looking for you!”
“Whatever
for?” Giardello asked. “I’ve been here all the time.
Now, Captain, if you would be so good as to stand over there… Vernon, we
should be able to test the device’s effectiveness on Captain Scarlet.”
“I don’t understand,” Doctor Catesby said, frowning at the
intruder, who was looking none too pleased with them and not in the least
co-operative.
Scarlet moved
back to the stairs and called, “Colonel, I have found Doctor Giardello and
Doctor Catesby. I don’t think
either of them are Mysterons, but could you please send a Mysteron detector
down?”
Colonel White
went one better; he brought the detector himself. Giardello seemed delighted to
see him and cried, “Colonel – what luck!
Now we can give you a demonstration of our proto-type, cap-mounted, Terahertz
Mysteron detector: the TMD for short.”
“What?”
Scarlet and White asked simultaneously, in bewilderment.
Giardello
pounced on Captain Scarlet and moved him into the brighter glare of the overhead
fluorescent strip-lights. “Doctor
Catesby and I have been working on a new, improved and far safer Mysteron
Detector. This utilizes the science
of Terahertz radiation, and, as such, it is not harmful to humans. We envisage a device which could be
fitted into the front of the uniform caps, allowing a visor to swing down before
the officer’s eyes, giving instant verification on the question of whether the
subject under surveillance has been Mysteronised or not.” He produced an odd-looking device
attached to a baseball cap and peered through it at the colonel. Then he handed
it to the commander-in-chief and said excitedly, “Look at Captain Scarlet…”
Warily White
held the Perspex visor before his eyes and peered through it at the rather
nonplussed Captain Scarlet. He saw
a perfect image of the younger Englishman.
Scarlet stared back at his commanding officer, the merest hint of a smile
tugging at the corner of his expressive lips; suddenly he raised his hand and
waved. Colonel White spluttered and lowered the device.
“What was I
supposed to see – apart from Scarlet acting the goat?”
“A perfect
image,” Giardello said. “Now look
at me.”
With a sigh of
resignation, White humoured the doctor and this time he saw a far less well
defined image – Giardello’s skeletal outline was clearly visible beneath his
skin. White lowered the
device with far more reverence. “I
see, Doctor; most impressive.”
“Of course,
this is a proto-type… there is still a lot of work to do on it, at the moment
you have to reset the visor by hand, using that little lever – which also makes
it drop into place; of course, in the final design that will automated, much as
the cap mics are now. But you see
the implications this could have, Colonel?
It could solve Spectrum’s problem of delays in identifying a Mysteron…”
“Indeed; if it
proves practical,” White agreed. He was weighing the bulky cap in his hand and
his doubts were obvious. No one
would be able to wear such a heavy piece of headgear for very long. He handed it
to Captain Scarlet, who with a wary grimace slipped the baseball cap onto his
head in place of his uniform cap.
“Of course
it’s practical,” Giardello cried, wiping his glasses on his tie.
Scarlet
activated the lever and the visor swung down with such force that it smashed
into his nose, causing it to bleed profusely.
Scarlet moaned and rummaged for a handkerchief.
Giardello
barely missed a beat in his explanation, “Or it will be with some more
adaptations – miniaturisation and the use of lighter materials, for example.
That’s what Doctor Catesby and I have been working on for the past…” he restored
his glasses and glanced at his watch.
His heavy eyebrows rose… “My goodness, is that the time? We’ve been working so hard, we didn’t realise what time it
was…”
“Doctor
Giardello,” Scarlet interrupted somewhat indistinctly, as he was now pinching
his nose with his pocket handkerchief in an effort to stem the blood flow,
“you’ve been working so hard you haven’t realised what DAY it is…”
Giardello
turned at looked at the young man and had the grace to blush slightly. “But,
we’ve been here since we left the plant,” he asserted.
“Why did you
leave the plant?” White asked removing the baseball cap from his officer’s head
and handing back to its proud designer.
“Oh, that was
my idea,” Catesby interrupted. “I had several innovative ideas I’d been working
on and I wanted Doctor Giardello to see them for himself. Once we arrived we set to work on improving the cap-mounted
Mysteron detector immediately, and I must say Doctor Giardello is the finest
scientist I have ever worked with; why, do you know….?”
“Did you
notify anyone of your departure?” Colonel White interrupted.
The two
scientists shared bemused glances.
“No,” Catesby said, “should we have?”
“Doctor
Giardello, we have been dealing with a Mysteron threat at AESC and we were
concerned for your welfare – especially after the plant was fire-bombed,”
Scarlet explained thickly as Colonel White seemed to be having difficulty making
an intelligible sound.
“Fire-bombed?”
Catesby gasped his astonishment obvious.
“Was any damage done to my secure workroom?”
“I’m afraid it
has been partly demolished,” Scarlet replied, feeling justified in deliberately
leaving the details vague.
“Oh no! I must go over there at once, and
investigate – some of the research was at a crucial stage -” Catesby made a dash
for the stairs, and was stopped by the colonel.
“I don’t think
that’s a good idea, Doctor Catesby.
The police wouldn’t let you in anyway.
Doctor Giardello, we should get you back to SIRAD, or your family. Your wife is
concerned about you.”
“SIRAD,”
Giardello said briskly. “There’s
still time for us to do some further work on the cap adaptation before
Christmas… Catesby, you must accompany me; I have some equipment there that
should help us overcome that minor operational glitch Captain Scarlet has
identified. Oh, and of course, my wife would be
delighted if you and your family spent Christmas with us…”
“Somehow,” Captain Scarlet muttered to the colonel as they ushered
the scientists out of the basement some time later, “I don’t think we’re going
to be very popular with either Mrs Catesby or Mrs Giardello…”
Chapter
Six
‘Home’ is any four walls that enclose the right
person.
Helen Rowland
The Hoffman Ranch
By Christmas
Eve the situation had returned to what could pass as normal.
Dr Giardello
and Doctor Catesby – with his entire family, their luggage, Christmas presents
and the pet dog – had been delivered to the Giardello household by a somewhat
frazzled Captain Ochre; Captain Scarlet and the Lieutenants had returned to
Cloudbase – after fixing Mrs Catesby’s front door – and the welcome news that
Symphony and Blue were both on the road to a complete recovery had been received
by all and sundry. Colonel White
had spent a few minutes giving Captain Grey permission to carry on in command
and resumed his holiday without a qualm.
Amanda and
Charles had spent last night alone together and whatever doubts they had had
about the validity of the rapport between them, had been banished by a
passionate encounter that had lasted long into the early hours of the morning.
Perfectly comfortable with each other, and reassured about the strength of their
feelings, they spent the day relaxing, with the phone off the hook.
Towards
mid-afternoon, Amanda noticed a car’s headlights swinging along the track
towards the house. They waited on
the porch, with a less than enthusiastic welcome for the intruders and, as the
car drew up and Adam and Karen got out – he with his arm in a sling and she on
crutches – Gray gave a low groan.
Captain
Scarlet, who was acting as their chauffeur – and whose acute hearing caught the
colonel’s reaction – saluted, tipped his hat to Amanda, unloaded the luggage
with great dexterity and speed and high-tailed it out of there.
“Doctor Fawn
gave us sick leave,” Karen explained to her mother over a cup of coffee, “so we
thought we’d come here.” She had not, as yet, acknowledged Gray’s presence, but
as he had been busy stowing their luggage away, it didn’t seemed too pointed an
omission.
“How nice of
him,” Gray muttered as he came back to rejoin the three of them. “I don’t suppose you considered a Christmas in Boston, did
you, by any chance?”
“They are
always welcome here, they know that,” Amanda said, with a sharp glance at him.
“Karen wanted
to see her mother,” Adam explained with an exaggerated air of innocence, which
only served to remind the colonel that his officer normally had to be dragged
home to Boston at Christmastime by a team of wild horses.
“That’s as it
should be,” Amanda said, reaching across the table to take Adam’s good hand
whilst her other one held Karen’s.
“And it’s entirely natural that you should want to come with her. I’m delighted to see you too, Adam. Are you sure your mother won’t mind,
though? She might’ve liked you to
go home…?”
“She wasn’t
expecting me, and so I don’t think it’ll make any difference where I spend
Christmas,” he said, a dull flush staining his tanned face. “Besides, with this
crop of bruises she’d have only worried herself silly about what I was getting
up to. Best she never sees me
looking like this,” he admitted revealing a concern for his mother’s peace of
mind that had Amanda smiling and squeezing his hand in approval. “We tried to
let you know we were coming, but the phone seems to be out of order...” he
added, quickly changing the subject.
“Oh, It’s off
the hook, I couldn’t be doing with people calling to speak to Charles all day
and all night,” Amanda confessed.
“I’m just so glad you are both here!
We’ll have a wonderful family
Christmas – won’t we, Charles?”
“I’m sure
you’ll do us all proud, Amanda,” Gray responded dourly.
He was not looking forward to spending the first holiday he’d had with
the woman he was in love with, in the company of the younger couple.
“Please don’t
go to any bother, Amanda,” Adam said.
“Our last intention was to cause you extra work.” Karen nodded in agreement.
“It’s no
bother, Adam, honey,” Amanda reassured him.
“There’s nothing I like better than a house full at Christmas! Karen, we must call your grandmother tomorrow…she’ll be
surprised and delighted to hear from you!”
Karen smiled.
“Sure, I would’ve found time to call her anyway.
It just won’t seem like a real family Christmas without her… and…”
Amanda
squeezed her daughter’s hand. “I
know – it’s hardest at the times we remember being all together.
But your father and your grandfather wouldn’t have wanted us to mourn
them when we have such good friends around us.”
Karen’s head
dipped as she struggled to contain the sadness she felt.
She’d been badly scared recently and was still a little shocked and
emotional. Adam loosened his hold
of Amanda’s hand to reach across and place his hand on her shoulder. She tilted her head to rest her cheek
against his fingers, as if she was drawing strength from him.
“You know,”
she muttered more to him than anyone else, “I had this wonderful dream that one
Christmas we’d all be together – Mom and Dad and you and me, Adam. It’ll never
happen now. I just wish you
could’ve known him…” she broke down and Adam reached over to enfold her clumsily
in his good arm. She rested her
head against his shoulder and clung to the lapels of his jacket.
Amanda looked
across at Charles and shook her head sadly, her own eyes bright with tears. She knew Karen had got upset every
Christmas since her grandfather died, but this was the first time she’d actually
been home for the holiday since her father’s death.
She was not surprised her daughter’s thoughts were of her missing loved
ones.
“Come on, älskling,” Adam murmured. “Its okay, your
mom’s here and me and … the colonel…” as soon as he said it he knew that was a
mistake. He felt her stiffen in his
embrace, she drew a deep breath and her head came up.
She stared at
her mother, hurt and anger beginning to glow in the mossy-green of her eyes. Momentarily, Amanda was taken aback,
seeing an echo of Sam in the tilt of her head and her reddish-blonde colouring.
“Yes,” Karen
said, barely above a whisper, “I meant to ask you what
he
was still doing here…”
“Karen,” Adam
said sternly, trying to warn and calm her at the same time.
“Charles is here because I
invited him to stay. This is my
house, young lady, and don’t you forget it.”
“It wasn’t
just your house; it wasn’t just your bed!” Karen’s eyes blazed with a
green fire.
Charles Gray
shifted uneasily. “I can understand
that you might be a little surprised to see me here, but you shouldn’t speak
like that to your mother, Symph…”
She
interrupted him, crying vehemently, “Karen
– my name is Karen – I’m not Symphony
Angel here – I’m a person and this is my home!
I’m not on duty, so my name is Karen and you have no right to tell me
what to do or say in my own home!”
“No,” Amanda
snapped back, “but I do. How dare you speak to me and my guest like this, in my own home? You will apologise to Charles…”
“I’ll see hell
freeze over first!”
“Karen, I know
I should’ve told you about it before now…” Amanda said, struggling to keep her
own temper.
“I expect you
were too ashamed of yourself!”
The silence
fell like a pall after that remark. Amanda looked horrified, the colonel
embarrassed and even Karen’s face paled slightly.
She kept her head high, meeting her mother’s stare with a bravado she did not
feel.
What finally
cracked her stubborn defiance was Adam’s voice saying levelly, “That was totally
uncalled for, Karen.”
She turned on
him, her rage mingled now with shame and self-pity. “What do you know about it,
Adam? You don’t allow yourself to feel
real
emotions anymore!” She spun round to face the others. “Well, I loved my father
and I don’t care who knows it – he was the most wonderful man – and I won’t
stand by in silence and see him supplanted in his own home…”
“Karen, that’s
enough!” Amanda drew herself up and shook off the solicitous hand Charles laid
on her arm. “You will apologise, or
you and I will come to a reckoning, and you won’t like it, young lady, I can
promise you.”
“I won’t
apologise for loving my father… I have nothing else to apologise for.”
Gray drew a
breath and said, “I’m sorry you feel this way about your mother and me, Karen;
but I care very much for her and I don’t intend to stop seeing her – unless she
herself wishes it. I’d expect
someone with your service experience to behave with slightly more reasonableness
than you have shown this afternoon.”
“On Cloudbase
you’re my commanding officer, on Cloudbase I’ll do as you tell me and respect
you for who you are. Here, you’re
just the man my mother’s throwing herself at… the man who’s taken advantage of
her. I don’t owe you any respect at all…”
“Karen!”
Amanda was horrified.
“I have not
‘taken advantage’ of Amanda, nor has she ‘thrown herself’ at me,” Gray insisted,
his voice bleakly dispassionate
“Well, you
would say that, wouldn’t you?” Karen sniped.
Gray’s
expression hardened. He knew Symphony could over-react at times, but this was
worse than anything he’d expected.
He’d had little – or rather, no – experience of dealing with family arguments
for decades and he hoped Amanda could sort this one out without his help.
As it
happened, help came from a rather unexpected quarter.
“That’s enough,” Adam said sharply. “You’re out of order, Karen. I think you’d better go and get
some rest – Doctor Fawn said you’d need to rest after the journey – your leg is
still not healed properly.”
“Don’t patronise me, Adam.”
“I’m not. I’m
trying to make you see sense, before you dig yourself such a hole you’ll never
get out of it with your self-respect intact!
And if you can’t behave rationally in this room with us now, you’d better go and
rest upstairs until you can.”
She gave him a
beseeching look; surprised and upset by what she saw as his desertion of her. Seeing hostility in her mother’s face
and nothing but unrelenting disapproval in Adam’s, Karen knew it was wisest to
withdraw. She began to hobble
across the room to the stairs and slowly, painfully, drag herself up them; her
head held high and her face stony as she fought the tears that threatened to
fall.
As she
disappeared from sight, Amanda sank back onto her chair, her head in her hands.
“I should’ve told her, Charles, I shouldn’t have left it for her to find out
about us like this…”
“My dear, what
was there to tell until now? You mustn’t blame yourself for Karen’s outburst.”
“She was
always so close to her father,” Amanda moaned. “I should have known she’d be
upset. If I’d told her before, I’d have spared you this ugliness.
I’m so sorry, Charles.”
“Well, from
what I’ve heard of Sam Wainwright,” Adam said firmly, “he wouldn’t be very pleased with her now, either.”
Amanda glanced
up at him and fought the urge to smile.
Adam’s face might be set in a stern expression, but his eyes, staring up the
staircase after Karen, were full of concern.
“Will you go up to her?” she asked.
“No,” he said
emphatically. “And I don’t think anyone of us should – not for a while, anyway.
She does need to rest and she needs to think about what she’s done and said.” He
glanced at the colonel. “I’m sorry,
sir; I feel I brought that outburst on.
I knew she’d been bottling things up and letting them rankle ever since
we came here from the plant, that night.
I tried to get her to talk about it when we were in sickbay, but she
wouldn’t. It’s been building for
awhile – I’m afraid – and I had to go and provide the ignition for the
explosion.”
“It wasn’t
your fault, Captain. I think we
both suspected there might be some… opposition from Sym…Karen, to our
relationship.” Gray smiled apologetically at Amanda. “Perhaps I should’ve gone back to Cloudbase with Captain Scarlet?”
he suggested.
Amanda
responded quickly to that suggestion. “No, you shouldn’t – you shouldn’t even
have to imagine that you should’ve.
Karen’s over-wrought. This is her
first Christmas at home since Sam died – and I guess she’s not feeling too good
with her bad leg; but I will make her apologise. She can’t speak to us like
that.”
“I don’t need
you to get me an apology, Amanda.”
“Never mind you!” she responded with vim, “I want an apology. ‘Throwing myself at you’ – indeed! I ought to tan her hide.”
“Oh, you know
Karen,” Adam said with a gentle smile. “She’ll be so sorry tomorrow; she won’t
be able to do enough to make it up to you. She just has a habit of letting rip
and – like a badly made firework – it’s impressive and potentially dangerous,
but only for a short time. Believe me, I’d rather have the sound and the fury
and move on into calmer waters, than have someone who holds a grudge for ever,
and indulges in a life-long war of attrition over imagined slights.”
“There’s
someone in your family like that?” Amanda asked intrigued by this rare insight
into the young man’s home life. It wasn’t often he volunteered information.
“My father and
my brother – at the last count,” Adam replied with a shrug. “They’re experts at it – makes Karen’s tantrums kinda restful
– in a strange way…” he added and laughed at their stunned expressions.
“Well, I’ll
cook us some dinner, and maybe she’ll come and eat with us,” Amanda said. “Why don’t you two have a beer and watch
TV while I’m busy?”
Charles and
Adam exchanged wary glances.
Fraternising with his subordinates was not something the colonel did much of;
although he knew and liked all of his officers.
Thrown together in an informal setting, neither man felt that comfortable.
“I won’t have
a drink, thanks, Amanda,” Adam said.
“I’m still taking painkillers and I don’t want to go completely loopy; but don’t
let that stop you, Colonel.”
“Under the
circumstances, I think you can dispense with calling me colonel, don’t you? My name’s Charles and you have my
permission to use it.”
Amanda smiled at them and suddenly leant over and kissed Gray’s
uninjured cheek. “That’s good,” she
smiled, standing and moving to Adam’s side.
She bent and kissed him too. “Play nice, like good boys…”
They could
hear her chuckling as she walked into the kitchen.
Karen did not
come down to dinner and the tray her mother took and left outside her door,
remained there untouched. Amanda
took it away with a sigh. She’d
hoped Karen would have come to her senses and joined them.
Consequently, the atmosphere around the table had been sombre; it was
obvious that Charles had been upset by the outburst, and that Adam found it hard
to relax completely in the company of his commanding officer; given that he was
also probably feeling like a bit of a gooseberry. She did her best to make
cheerful conversation, but gave up about halfway through the evening when both
men were sitting across the room from each other in armchairs, in what amounted
to a morose silence.
“Well, I don’t
know about you two, but I’m going to bed,” she announced, gratified to see the
way both men’s heads turned to look at her.
“Do you want me to make you up a bed, Adam?” She turned to Gray and asked, “Or
you, Charles?”
She couldn’t
help smirking at the wave of embarrassment that suffused both faces.
These two are more alike than they realise, she thought.
“Don’t worry,
Amanda, I’ll sort myself out,” Adam finally managed to say.
Amanda’s brain
translated that as – I’ll be sleeping with
Karen…there are some things we have to get sorted
out. She looked at Charles with
a raised eyebrow.
“No, unless
you’d prefer otherwise…?” he said.
His blue eyes meet hers and he instinctively knew that, if she asked him to
sleep in a guest room, he would have lost some elemental battle, and Karen would
have won. Her answer gladdened his heart.
“I’m not
afraid of my daughter’s censure and I have no desire to pander to her tantrums.
Come up when you’re ready, Charles….”
The two men
sat in silence for some time after their hostess had left them. The colonel drained his glass of brandy and looked across at
the younger man with concern.
Captain Blue’s face was drawn, his bruises emphasised by a pallor that was not
often seen on his face. His injured
eye was bloodshot and White doubted he could see clearly from it, even now.
“You look
tired, Captain,” he said solicitously and reverting to the formality they were
both more comfortable with.
“I am starting
to flag, sir. If you’ll excuse me,
I think I’ll turn in too?”
“Of course.” White watched him struggle to his feet
and as he started to move to the stairs he said, “Don’t be too hard on her,
Adam; it can take a while to come to terms with the consequences of a death in
your family.”
Captain Blue
turned and looked straight into his commander’s eyes.
“I know. I have lost people
who were very dear to me, too. I
guess we all have our own ways of coming to terms with death, and the way life
flows on around you, even after you think you can’t cope with another day.” He gave a silent sigh of resignation and
concluded, “But besides that, however used I am to seeing Karen behaving badly,
sir, I don’t have to like it.”
White watched
him climb the stairs and concluded that it was his persistent miscalculation to
underestimate that young man. In
the face of the miracle that was Captain Scarlet’s continuing bravery and
sacrifice, Captain Blue was easy to overlook, but it was a mistake to do so. Adam Svenson was a redoubtable man in
his own right – as his close friend and ally, Captain Scarlet, would avow.
He took his
empty glass back to the kitchen and rinsed it.
Then switching out the lights he climbed the stairs and slipped quietly into the
master bedroom, where Amanda was sitting reading in bed.
She looked up
as he entered, closed her book and smiled.
Lying rigid and silent in bed with Adam
at her side, Karen could sense his continuing disapproval.
She’d been rather surprised when he’d walked into the room and,
without speaking to her, stripped off before going to the bathroom and emerging,
minutes later, to slip under the covers beside her. At first she’d thought it was a sign
that he had reconsidered the situation, and was offering her his support; but
his silence, and that fact that he made no move to embrace her, soon disabused
her of that idea.
He still disapproved.
He was unhappy with her.
He was ashamed of her.
She was ashamed of herself…
With each increasingly censorious thought she grew more defensive, and yet
perversely, more anxious to win him over – to regain his good opinion. She may have behaved badly – she could
acknowledge that now – but it was shock; surely he ought to be able to see that?
Tentatively she moved so that she could roll onto her side, her damaged leg
resting against his thigh, and slide her arm across his muscular chest, careful
to avoid his wounded shoulder, still covered in Fawn’s discreet bandaging. He did not respond to her touch, even
though she could see by the pale moonlight striking the bed through the
partially open curtains, that he was awake.
She raised herself on her elbow, so that she could look at his face. “Adam,
honey?” she whispered somewhat apologetically.
“Hmm.”
“Hold me,” she pleaded. Slowly his arm came around her, circling her shoulders,
yet failing to pull her closer to him. She sighed, that hadn’t worked… “Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”
“No.” The brevity of his reply made it clear that what he really meant was
‘yes’. She laid her cheek against
his chest and kissed the smooth skin.
She felt his chest rise and fall in a deep sigh.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
His sigh was almost a snort of laughter. “You don’t owe me an apology, Karen.”
She frowned and wanted to cry out – to plead with
him, ‘don’t make me do this – don’t make me
crawl… can’t you just forgive me and accept that I have realised I was in the
wrong?’
Biting back her misery she said, “I shouldn’t have
said what I did, I shouldn’t have acted like I did… I know that.
But, Adam… he was my daddy… and she’s forgotten him in no time at all – much sooner than
I have…”
She could feel the tears stealing down the side of her nose and dropping onto
his chest. She sniffed and rubbed
her nose. Then she gave up the
struggle and began to cry.
Then, and only then, did his arm tighten around her.
He held her for a long moment and then brought his free hand to stroke
her hair. After a few moments she
managed to regain her self -control.
He drew a short breath and his voice echoed slightly, as her ear lay pressed to
his chest. “Falling in love again
doesn’t mean you cease to love the one you’ve lost…”
It wasn’t what she expected to hear and she pushed herself away from him,
sitting upright in the bed, pulling the covers after her.
“She’s already forgotten my father… the man she said she loved – the man who
gave up everything for her!” Her anger made her eloquent. “She’s slept with another man in their bed! In their house!
My dad would never have forgotten her so soon!”
“Is that all you object to? If
she’d waited until they were both much older – would you have cared so much
then?”
Karen shook her head. “She’s
betrayed my father’s memory – and what is worse – she expects me to approve!”
“And am I as bad?”
She glanced over her shoulder at him; his arm was resting across his forehead,
casting a shadow on his face so that she couldn’t make out his expression.
“You?”
“You’re angry with your mother because she has a new man in her life. You’re saying she should have respected
your father’s memory enough to remain celibate for some indefinite period that
you’d determine – eventually. Do
you consider me as worthy of your anger and disapproval too?”
She squirmed round towards him, confused by his words.
He continued, “I had a fiancée, she died.
I met you; I fell in love.
Now we’re lovers – in fact we’re engaged – so, am I as worthy of your contempt
as your mother, for failing to live up to your exacting standards?”
“That’s different,” she snapped, drawing a sharp breath as he shook his head.
“You were not married to her for decades…”
“Ah,” he said, removing his arm and tilting his head in a mocking acceptance of
her argument. “So, the depth of the feeling, and the pain of being separated,
count for less than the length of time you spent together? I never realised.
I thought love was measured by the feelings you shared, not by a chronological
yardstick.”
“You’re twisting my words!”
“You’re twisting your own logic, Karen.”
She leant back towards him, resting her
weight on her arm, so that she could confront him directly. “How would you feel
if it was your mother? If you walked into your home and found
your mother … making out with a man
who wasn’t your father?”
He shrugged and pursed his lips as he gave the matter what seemed to be genuine
thought. “I’d probably say – what
took you so long? I’ve never
understood why she stays with my father anyway…”
With an exasperated gasp she flounced away from him, hugging her knees and
protesting, “You’re not taking this seriously.
It matters to me, Adam – or don’t
my feelings count?”
“Sure they do – I consider them paramount in almost every case – but not this one.”
She glared angrily at him over her shoulder and had opened her mouth to pursue
her argument when he suddenly sat up, grabbing her shoulder and turning her to
face him.
“For once in your life, Karen
Wainwright, think about someone other than yourself first!
Why shouldn’t your mother expect to have a life of her own? Why shouldn’t she build a relationship
with someone she likes? She’s here
alone – in this mausoleum to her
parents and her husband – I don’t see you coming back to keep her company. She’s an attractive woman – maybe
you don’t realise just how attractive? – and by some marvellous chance – some
gift of Fate – she’s met a man she likes and who likes her – shut up and listen to me; you can have your say when I’m finished!
– She’s met a good and a decent man.
Why should she deny herself what happiness she can find? I
know
you’re upset, I know you loved
your father – so did your mother and she would not have done what she has done
lightly. I know how hard it can be to find yourself falling in love again
after you’ve lost someone. If you
condemn her for it, you might as well condemn me. And if you condemn me for loving you, then you don’t love me
as much as I thought you did, or as much as you say you do…”
She broke his hold on her shoulder and spat venomously, “This has nothing to do
with us – don’t cloud the issue, Adam.
I know only too well how easily you can wrong-foot me with your sophistry, but
this time I won’t fall for it… the fact remains that my mother’s having an
affair – not just any garden-variety affair either; she was in bed – my father’s bed – with…with… the colonel, for goodness sake!”
He had stretched out on the pillows again and was watching her with an
unyielding sternness, but her final words brought a mischievous grin to his
lips.
“Boy, when we get into hot water we do it with a vengeance,” he said; the
vehemence had evaporated from his voice, which resumed its usual good-humour. “When we’re back on Cloudbase, do you
think we’ll get court-martialed for going AWOL?”
By now she could feel the bed shaking slightly with his silent laughter and she
turned to see him grinning.
Fighting the urge to respond to his amusement she turned away again. But, as his laughter became audible she
adapted to his change of mood, and threw herself down beside him, wrapping her
arms around him and cuddling close, so that she could nibble his neck, before
she answered his hypothetical question.
“I think we might manage to avoid
it…after all, Fawn signed us off on the sick register and he didn’t want us cluttering up his nice clean wards over
Christmas. Captain Grey didn’t
object – and he’s in command – so I think we can say we’re here with permission. But, if the colonel disputes it – we’ll
still be okay – if we’re prepared to use a little blackmail…” she teased.
His amusement vanished. “Karen, this can’t go any further…”
“You’re damn right – d’you think I want everyone knowing my mother is the
colonel’s holiday squeeze?”
He shook his head. “I think it is more than a ‘holiday
fling’… I don’t think either of them is that kind of person, to be honest. You have to realise that Amanda has the
right to live her life, as you do yours, as I do mine – as Scarlet, Rhapsody and
every one of our friends does.
We don’t have the right to expose the colonel’s private life to public scrutiny. God knows, it’s bad enough having
everyone speculating about you and me… I wouldn’t wish it on any one else. We say nothing – to anyone.”
“We
might agree not to, but we weren’t the only ones here, remember? Scarlet was here; he saw the colonel –
and Magenta too – he was here when we discovered him, don’t forget.”
“Paul’s indestructible – not
insensitive – and he’s much less of a gossip than he used to be… or hadn’t you
noticed? And Patrick won’t say a word.”
“What makes you so sure? He can be as devilish as Ochre in the
pursuit of a joke. He might make
something of this.”
“No, Patrick has a respect for
people’s… emotions – something Ochre could do with considering occasionally.”
She was tracing a pattern on his chest
with her finger. He caught her hand
and gave her a forbidding frown. She smirked at him; the fact that he was so
unexpectedly ticklish had always amused her.
She was thoughtful for a moment and
then glanced warily at him. “Did
you know…?” She paused. “That is…
Patrick… well… he was talking to my mom – I think he thought I was asleep – and
he told her – my mom… well, that is… he said to her… that he… he had – he was…”
“That he’s in love with you.”
“You know?” She was genuinely
surprised.
“It isn’t that hard to recognise – once
you know what signs to look for.”
“Don’t you mind?”
“You mean – am I jealous? No, I’m not. If you loved him, I would be – insanely jealous.”
“He’s a nice guy…”
“He is.”
“I might fancy him…”
“You might,” he conceded, adding, “but
you don’t.”
“You sound certain of that.”
“I am.
I happen to know that you love me… and it’s a damn good thing too –
because I love you…
“You don’t…” she pouted. “You’re
horrible to me.”
He gave a derisory snort.
“Oh right, of course I am. Mean,
horrible Mr Svenson, that’s me…”
“If you weren’t horrible to
me, you wouldn’t get cross with me all the time…”
“If I was horrible, I’d have packed my
bag and left tonight… you were quite unjustifiably hurtful – and you know it – or you wouldn’t be trying to worm your way back
into my good graces by doing that…”
“Wouldn’t I?” she asked with a
tantalising smile. “If you disapprove you can always tell me to stop…”
He reached for her and kissed her
hungrily. “Uh-uh,” He shook his
head. “Now you’ve really started something and you’ll have to show me just how
eager you are to regain my favour…” he teased.
“Regain
your favour? Oh, as if – that’s
just in your dreams, Harvard…” she
responded, returning his kiss with enthusiasm. “But I might just let you prove to me that you can be very nice to me… sometimes.”
In the master bedroom situated below
Karen’s attic apartment, Amanda smiled and snuggled a little closer to Charles.
“What’s that noise?” he asked drowsily.
“Air in the heating pipes?”
“That is my daughter and her boyfriend enthusiastically resolving their differences… You can’t complain either; it’s just that it’s taken them a little longer to get round to it than it took us, but then, they’ve had more to talk about…”
“Is it always like this?” Gray asked. Amanda nodded. “And they think you don’t notice?” She nodded again, her smile broadening. “They’re delusional,” he concluded.
“Well, maybe they don’t realise how
loud it sounds down here; I mean I’ve never had the courage to mention it to
them.”
“They should get those
bedsprings oiled…”
She chuckled and kissed him. “Well, maybe you could suggest it to
them – or do it yourself before you go?”
“I had to make the suggestion, didn’t
I?” He smiled and kissed her. “I
just hope they don’t have the stamina to go on all night. I’d like to get some
sleep…”
No one woke
early on Christmas Day.
When Adam did
surface, he discovered Karen was already missing, so he dressed in some boxer
shorts and a T-shirt to pad downstairs in search of a cup of coffee. He found Amanda and Karen in the
kitchen already, and stood for a moment watching them.
They’d obviously patched up their differences and Karen had a huge box of
her favourite chocolates unwrapped before her and was chewing happily, whilst he
recognised the wrapping paper from one of the presents they’d brought with them
lying beside Amanda’s cup. Suddenly, over the sound system came the rousing
sound of Rogers and Hammerstein – which was one of the music discs Karen had
bought her mother.
Amanda joined
in the song, and Karen, hastily swallowing her chocolate, followed suit.
“O…..klahoma! Where the wind comes sweepin’
down the plain…
And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain.
O….klahoma…”
“I hate to
tell you this, Ladies, but you’re in the wrong State,” Adam said teasingly. They both jumped at the sound of
his voice and laughed as he came towards them.
Amanda stood
and embraced him, kissing his unshaven cheek.
“Merry Christmas, Adam, honey.
You’ll be needing some coffee…”
“Merry
Christmas, ‘my honey-lamb’,” Karen said as he came and kissed her cheek.
He sat down
next to her and gratefully sipped the coffee Amanda placed before him. “Maybe I should make Charles a cup of
tea?” she mused and was answered by his voice from the staircase saying,
“Tea would be
most welcome, but I’ll take coffee, if it’s a bother.”
“No bother,
come and sit with us while I make it… I think Karen has something she wants to
say to you.”
He came down
the rest of the stairs and across to the table to embrace Amanda.
Adam glanced
encouraging at Karen who looked up at her commanding officer with an apologetic
blush on her face. “Colonel, I am
very sorry for what I said yesterday – Adam was right - I was ‘well out of
order’ and I apologise, sir.”
Gray sat down
and studied her face in silence for a moment.
She held his gaze, even as her cheeks grew more crimson under his stare.
“Thank you,
Karen. I’m pleased that you and your mother are
seeing eye-to-eye again; and that you and Adam have also… resolved your
differences.” Amanda sniggered from
the direction of the kitchen work surface.
Gray continued, “I think I owe you an apology too, and perhaps we –
Amanda and I – should have told you of your growing relationship; but – in all
honesty – until this holiday, neither of us were sure there was anything to
tell. Now I can say, with
sincerity, that I am… extremely fond of your mother.”
“Extremely fond?” Amanda asked with wide-eyed
amazement.
“Extremely fond,” he confirmed.
Karen laughed. “Mom, you’re going to have a devil of a
job to get beyond ‘extremely fond’.
Spectrum officers are not given to making sweeping declarations of
affection; at least, not if Adam’s anything to go by, he has to work up to
saying ‘I love you’ for at least a day or two!”
“I do not,”
Adam protested amiably enough, amidst the sociable laughter.
After they had
finished their leisurely breakfast they all washed and dressed and met up once
more in the living room, where the presents, piled around the tree, were handed
out and opened and admired.
Amanda was
thrilled to receive a bottle of her favourite perfume from Charles and an
elaborate gift set of the same fragrance from Adam – rather to the mutual
embarrassment of both men.
Karen was
delighted with the variety of gifts she received from her mother; but her
greatest enthusiasm was reserved for one of the pile of parcels she received
from Adam, who’d really excelled himself this year by buying a selection of
gifts for her that included the new designer handbag she’d been mooning over for
weeks – so much so - that she’d even set the webpage it was displayed on, as the
homepage on Blue’s private computer in his quarters on Cloudbase.
She launched
herself at him, as they sat side by side and almost throttled him in gratitude.
“She’s
nothing, if not subtle,” he said with a boyish grin as he explained about the
hint he’d been given to Amanda.
“I’d have to
say you’d be better to call her ingenious,” Amanda teased her excited daughter,
“because she wouldn’t know subtlety, even if you’d wrapped it up as another
gift…”
Charles expressed his delight in the silk tie Amanda had bought him
and the selection of books she’d chosen, as well. She’d taken note of the leisure reading he’d done on
their weekends away, and tried hard to match the new titles with those she’d
seen him reading; it made her day to see his genuine pleasure at her
thoughtfulness.
Adam also
received several books he wanted from Karen, and Amanda, in a sudden burst of
inspiration, had bought him a Stetson.
“It’s meant for when we get to go riding together again,” she explained with a
chuckle, as he stood before the mirror admiring himself wearing it. He
acknowledged the fact, but made no attempt to remove it, even when he resumed
his seat beside Karen. Amanda shook
her head at his boyish delight with the gift and leant forward to promise, in
what was supposed to be a confidential, motherly whisper, to buy him ‘real
cowboy boots’ for his birthday…
Karen,
over-hearing the exchange, was inspired to start humming and suddenly burst into
an apposite refrain from ‘Oklahoma’:
“I’d like to say a word for the cowboy;
If he rides by and asks for food and water;
Don’t treat him like a louse,
Make him welcome in your house –
But be sure that you lock up yer wife and
daughter…”
At which, even
the colonel was heard to chuckle.
The turkey was
starting to smell tantalisingly good, and Amanda was considering preparing the
vegetables, when Adam suddenly frowned and tilted his head, straining to catch a
distant noise.
He glanced at
Karen. She concentrated. “A helicopter,” she confirmed.
Gray moved to
the window, and Amanda noticed how all three Spectrum officers were suddenly on
the alert. She felt a shiver of
apprehension as Adam removed his Stetson and joined his commander at the window.
Gray pointed in an easterly direction.
“I see it,”
Adam confirmed. “It’s too small for
a helijet – it’s not Spectrum.”
Amanda gasped
as both men suddenly drew Spectrum pistols from out of the discreet shoulder
holsters they were both wearing.
“We always
have to be careful, Mom,” Karen explained, reaching to take her mother’s hand.
“Even here there is always a possibility the Mysterons might try to attack us –
especially as the colonel’s with us.
We can’t be sure what they’re going to target in any new threat and their
threats often come as riddles which we have to try to analyse, and even when
they’re not proper riddles they’re usually cryptic or misleading. That’s what happened at AESC.”
Amanda said,
“But, Karen… I think it might be…” her voice trailed into silence as she
realised no one was listening to her; their training – and the habitual state of
wariness in which they lived their lives – had taken over and she watched
helplessly as three of Spectrum’s finest agents swung into defensive action.
Gray moved to
the door, and as the helicopter began its landing approach, he opened it
slightly to peer outside. Adam was
covering the approach to the house from the window and Karen was waiting, a gun
now in her hand as well, ready to move to assist either man, if necessary.
Amanda, excluded from this activity, moved away from them and wondered what on
earth she should do.
The tension in
the room was broken by the muted electronic bleep of Adam’s cell phone. He fumbled it open and clamped it
to his ear, after a moment he gasped, “What?
Why on earth did you do that?” and turned away from them to conduct the
rest of his conversation in vehement whispers. Karen moved to replace him by the
window, and Gray stared after him, annoyed that his officer should desert his
post. “Stay calm, Amanda, but keep away from the doors and windows,” he said to
her as she stood quietly watching them. “You’ll be safe enough with us here.”
“I have no
doubt that I’ll be safe, Charles…because, I think it’s…. ” she started to reply,
but Gray had turned back to watch the approach of the chopper once more. Amanda sighed and when he turned, to
glare at his subordinate officer who was now remonstrating volubly with his
caller, she ignored him.
When Adam
finally closed his phone he gave them all a look of apology.
“That was Captain Scarlet – Rhapsody had just convinced him that he ought
to warn us, it seems. Apparently,
my mother rang Cloudbase to speak to me and when she couldn’t get me, she
demanded to speak to Paul, and he told her Karen and I were here – convalescing
- because we’d both been injured.
My mother was, naturally, concerned and rather upset and to calm her down – he
says – Paul gave her your phone number here, because he couldn’t be sure I had
my cell phone with me and he knows my mother doesn’t have the number for it,
anyway - not that he thought to try - of course, until now. So, I’m sorry, Amanda, but my mother will probably call up to ask
to speak to me. I can’t imagine what Paul thought he was doing when he told her
what’s happened.”
Karen fought
the urge to giggle. “Well, your mother does have the knack of worming things out
of people – even people as well-trained as Captain Scarlet.”
“Perhaps I
should invite her to do some of our interrogation training?” the colonel
suggested dryly, smirking at the grimace that distorted Adam’s face at his
teasing.
“But she did call – your mother; she called this
morning – I’ve been trying to tell you,” Amanda said with a sigh of
exasperation. “I didn’t want to
spoil the surprise, but as you’ve all got so worked up about it, I guess I have
no choice but to come clean. You
were still asleep when I spoke to her, Adam, and we agreed that it wasn’t a good
idea to wake you; you need your rest, especially since you’ve been shot. We chatted for a while, and she asked my
permission to call again – or if I would let you call her – and I said, ‘why
don’t you come and visit him? We
have plenty of room, and I’d love to meet you’…”
“You did what?” Adam gasped.
“Well, I
thought it’d be a nice surprise for you to see your mom at Christmas; although,
as I told her, I know she has other family to consider… so I didn’t push it….”
“You wouldn’t
have to,” Adam muttered. ”That’d be more than enough of an excuse for my mother
to throw everyone into confusion and decamp to Iowa.
She just revels in doing ‘spontaneous’ things like that – says it’s what
keeps her young.” He paused, “But, maybe she won’t – after all - my dad won’t
want to leave Boston and he wouldn’t like it if she came alone.”
“Unless I’m mistaken that ‘copter is a SvenCorp machine,” Karen
announced from her post by the window.
“Don’t make
jokes like that,” Adam pleaded.
“No joke. It is a SvenCorp machine.”
They watched
the helicopter land on a flat piece of open ground across from the house and saw
a uniformed pilot spring from the cabin and turn to assist the elegant figure of
Sarah Svenson, impeccably dressed in a flawless white fur coat, with a matching
‘Cossack’ hat and boots, step onto the icy ground. She turned and waited until a
second figure, dressed in a dark fur coat, his fair head exposed to the
elements, followed her. She took
his arm and they advanced carefully across the open expanse of snow towards the
house. Behind them the pilot was unloading overnight bags and boxes of Christmas
parcels.
“Jeepers – it’s not just my mother – my father’s here too!” Adam exclaimed.
Amanda seemed
delighted at the news. “How wonderful!
I never expected she’d get your father to come with her; she said she’d try, but
she thought your father might dig his heels in and want to stay at home. Mind
you, she did say that if anything could tempt him away from Boston at Christmas,
it’d be seeing you… and Karen.” She
glanced at her daughter and smiled.
“Mrs Svenson said he was ‘quite taken’ with you, Karen – what have you
been doing, my girl?”
“I think he’s
impressed just because I don’t cower in the face of his bad temper,” her
daughter said with a bright smile.
“Well, I’m so glad they’ve decided to visit,” Amanda cried,
reaching to squeeze Adam’s hand. “I’ve been wanting to meet your folks for some
time. I do hope they can stay over for a day or two – and then we’ll have plenty
of time to really get to know each other – now wouldn’t that just make this a
perfect Christmas?” she asked rhetorically, as she moved to throw open her
front door. “Come on, Adam, come and introduce us…”
But, as Amanda
Wainwright stepped joyfully out into the snow to welcome her guests, Colonel
White could have sworn he heard Captain Blue – the man who had faced death
against the Mysterons many times – give a distraught whimper. As he passed the colonel he muttered, “A right busman’s
holiday this is turning out to be…” before trailing obediently after her.
Gray stepped
onto the porch and tried to suppress his amusement as Sarah Svenson threw
herself into her son’s awkward, one-armed embrace.
Her voice carried back to him as she chided and fussed over Adam before she
turned to embrace Amanda Wainwright, with barely a pause for breath in the
vociferous flow of words.
Karen came to
stand beside him, watching as Adam and his father shook hands self-consciously,
and then Amanda embraced John Svenson, while his wife returned to admonishing
her wayward son. Gray couldn’t help
but smile down at her and, to his delight, Karen met his gaze with a smile of
her own.
“It is a pity
my dad can’t be with us today,” she said to him, “but you know I think I have
the next best thing...” and she slipped her arm through his and squeezed it.
“We’ll make a pretty spectacular ‘family’; won’t we…Charles?”
The colonel
silently agreed that they would, and watched her as she limped forward to greet
the new arrivals in response to their enthusiastic calls of greeting. “A pretty spectacular family indeed…” he
murmured, as he too went to meet the Svensons when Amanda beckoned. He saw the
sparkle of recognition in Sarah’s bright eyes and she gave him just the merest
flicker of a conspiratorial wink as he shook her hand.
Sarah Svenson
was busy organising the safe transportation of their luggage into the house, and
John Svenson was chatting with surprising geniality to Karen and his son, when
Amanda slipped her arm through Charles’s and confessed, “I knew this Christmas
holiday was going to be special – and I was right!”
His happiness
was complete when she reached up and kissed his cheek.
And when she
led him back into the house after their guests and closed the door on the
snow-covered landscape, Charles Gray felt as if he had finally reached home.
Author’s notes:
I don’t own most of
the characters in this story. The
established characters from the TV show Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons,
including Doctor Giardello, belong to Carlton International and were created by
Gerry Anderson and his co-workers on the original TV show from the 1960s.
Amanda Wainwright
and John and Sarah Svenson, were created by Chris Bishop, and appear in her
story, ‘Symphony in Blue’ – one of my all time favourites and a constant source
of inspiration to me. What I have
done with them here is not in keeping with Chris’s story – the ‘contemporary’
events she depicts in ‘Symphony
in Blue’ do not occur in my narrative framework – and so, John Svenson
and Amanda Wainwright have not met before.
My thanks go to
Chris for letting me loose with her creations – and, as always – for her
wonderful website and her unstinting encouragement to me when I get stuck with
my plotlines – and her willingness to let me revise the text very late in the
proceedings.
Sam Wainwright, the
Catesbys, Sergeant Jacobs and the other incidental characters, including the
Lieutenants: Cerise, Cerulean, Claret, Flaxen, Gentian and Viridian, as they
appear in this story – and as some of them also occur in my other stories – are
my own creations; as is ‘Captain
Starlight’ and the TV show he inhabits, which is also mentioned in the
text.
Thanks to Caroline
Smith, for her helpful suggestions, especially about Iowan weather - I gather it
is pretty darn cold - and to Mary J Rudy for beta-reading this story and
correcting my ‘American’ dialogue.
It is true what they say: the English and the Americans are two nations
separated by a common language!
Any mistakes in the
text are my responsibility. I don’t
have a great deal of scientific knowledge and the hypothesis I have used here,
regarding Terahertz, is derived from my researches on the internet. If I have made any fundamental errors, I
apologise, and hope that they are not such terrific ‘howlers’ that they spoil
the story for those in the know.
This is, after all, meant as a ‘fiction with science in’ story and not ‘science
with fiction’!
Thank you for
reading – and I hope you enjoyed it.
I wish you all a
Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year,
Marion Woods
November 2005 - January 2006