The rescue had taken forever, or so it felt at the time. A tower block in a small town in a remote part of Russia had collapsed because of a terrorist's bomb planted on the twelfth floor. The local emergency services had tried as best they could to deal with the situation but the devastation of 20 floors of concrete and steel had been too much and someone had called International Rescue.

It had been pretty much a straightforward rescue for the Tracy brothers with the Mole operated by Virgil and the Firefly under the care of Gordon. Fires were put out and Russians rescued from the rubble. Then someone told Scott at Mobile Control about the people in the basement or, more specifically, the children.

The building was part offices, part shops and also contained a crèche in the basement for the children of the office workers. The basement was buried under a lot of rubble and it took the Mole a while to get safe access to it. The Mole was an ingenious machine, not only drilling a route through the toughest of conditions but also sending a spray of concrete from its rear end to stabilise the passage it made. The thin, fast-setting concrete coating would not last long but long enough to enable the evacuation of victims and the return of the Mole to the surface.

Finally, the Mole broke through into the air pocket where its sensors indicated there were still people alive. Virgil got out and crawled into the narrow space hearing the demolished structure above him creak and groan frighteningly. He reported what he had found back to Scott and set about pulling people out.

Hearing the exhaustion in Virgil's voice, Scott had decided to abandon Mobile Control, where he had been spending several hours dealing with distressed, hurt and panicked people, and go and help. When he too crawled into what was left of the basement, he was shocked by the destruction. The rooms there had obviously been a bright and cheerful nursery. Pictures from artists as young as one year old were still stuck to the crumbling walls. He had to push toys and tiny chairs out of the way to get through. One room had been totally destroyed with no hope of survivors but where The Mole had ended up, there were several children and a couple of nursery nurses. The adults had suffered injuries in their attempts to shield the children from the collapse. The children were less physically hurt but were hysterical with shock and Virgil was having a tough time getting them to do what he wanted.

Between them, Scott and Virgil managed to get most of the victims to the surface. There were just a couple left when Scott became distracted by a section of the room to one side of the air pocket. It had obviously been some kind of home corner where a group of children had been playing at shops with pretend tills and plastic fruit. A steel beam had smashed down and 5 children had been killed, Scott suspected, more or less instantly. It was a horrible sight. The creaking of the remains of the building above was getting worse and Scott knew that he and Virgil had to get out soon. He also knew that this pile of rubble would be the final resting place for the 5 children. Something in the normally calm and rational Scott snapped. One day he hoped he would marry and have a large family of his own. He didn't think it was an impossible dream. How would he cope if something like this happened to his child? He couldn't bear the thought that these children's relatives would have no body to bury, no grave to grieve at. The children were just toddlers. One looked so like Alan when he was about three and the ginger-haired one with the whale picture on his t-shirt could easily have been....

"We help the living, not the dead," was one of Jeff Tracy's rules and Scott made a point of obeying his father's rules, especially when they related to International Rescue. It had been made plain to the boys that they would have to make difficult decisions on rescues but that the living were the priority. If someone was dead or about to die then International Rescue should ignore them and leave them to the local emergency teams. Usually Scott had no trouble with this but today was different.

"Virgil, get that last woman into the Mole. She'll never be able to walk up the tunnel. Then reverse up. We need to get out of here."

"F-A-B, Scott. Want a lift?" asked Virgil, wiping a sheen of dust from his face.

"No, you go on."

Virgil set about removing himself and the equipment from the area. As usual, he was constantly scanning the area, making sure he hadn't missed anything. From his seat in the Mole he suddenly spied his elder brother carrying a dead child in his arms, back up the tunnel. His eyes widened. He moved his arm, ready to contact Scott on his wrist communicator. Then he stopped. He had his orders and that was that.

Fifteen minutes later Virgil, the Mole and the last of the survivors were top side and being ferried away by ambulance. Virgil was trying to concentrate on the Chief of Emergency Services who was thanking him profusely but he couldn't help but be distracted by the sight of Scott, a few metres away, who was laying a fifth dead child, with infinite care, onto the ground next to his friends. He watched as Scott then found an old empty refuse sack, tore the seams, opened it out and covered the bodies to provide them with some sort of dignity. Virgil finally pulled away from the grateful Russian and went over to Scott who was motionless, staring down at his work. Virgil laid a hand on his brother's shoulder and Scott jumped slightly and looked at Virgil. Virgil was again about to remark on the breaking of the rule when he saw the expression in his brother's eyes and was silenced. Then he spoke gently.

"We need to check on Gordon. See how he's getting on with those fires." Scott nodded but didn't reply and the two walked away from the Mole towards where the Firefly was still at work on another side of what was left of the building.

It had taken another two hours to get away from the danger zone once they had established that the fires would not re-ignite and they had saved all the people they could. They finally loaded the equipment back into Thunderbird 2's pod and then headed for home.

Debrief