Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Deadly Beautiful ❯ Teamwork ( Chapter 34 )

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, and I am making no money from this creative venture. If I was, I would have long since been fired....

 

 

Deadly Beautiful - Chapter 34

 

by danse

~*~

Marshal Noventa sat at his desk, staring at a picture of his wife and granddaughter, as he contemplated the next sentence of an e-mail. His office was spacious, with a large window behind the desk and double doors on the opposite wall. To the right of his desk, a wall-mounted display case held his old dress uniform jacket from his days as a peacekeeper, with three lines of ribbons over the breast pocket and two medals pinned around the collar, souvenirs of places where he'd served and awards he'd won in years past. Across the room from that, a blue UN flag was pinned to the wall, its world map symbol surrounded by over twenty small reproductions of flags that represented all of the countries he'd been to as a peacekeeper.

Someone knocked on his door, shaking him out of his daze. "Come in," he said loudly. The door opened to reveal an intern.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Noventa, sir," the young man said. "I've got a message for you from the Romefeller Corporation."

Noventa perked up. "Yes? What did they say?"

The intern cleared his throat. "A team has been permitted to go inspect the site in question tomorrow morning."

"Really." Noventa stood up and walked around his desk, strolling over to examine his flag as he scowled. "Tomorrow morning." He chuckled. "They must think I'm an idiot." He turned back to the confused intern. "Thank you. Please go and inform the rest of the committee that we'll be leaving promptly at 1900 hours this evening by helicopter. We should be in Georgia by 2200 hours."

The intern stared at him. "But..."

Noventa glared. "Just do as you're told, please. I should think that I know what I'm doing," he added sarcastically.

"Yes, sir. Sorry." The young man left the office quickly.

Noventa returned to his chair and started typing again. So Romefeller thinks they can play tricks on me, do they? They'll be in for a lovely surprise this evening when we show up unannounced, I think...

***

Zechs arrived at the Georgia Leo base just in time for a late supper. He sat in the mostly-empty mess hall, eating beef stew while the two commanding officers of the base, Derevko and Septem, filled in the blanks in his knowledge about the problem there.

Apparently, one night there had been a small party in one of the dorm rooms, celebrating a junior officer's birthday, and afterward three inebriated privates had taken a jeep from the base and gone to the closest town to continue their bender. After being kicked out of the only bar in town for disturbing a young woman working there, the three soldiers had been chased out of the city limits by a mob of angry citizens who were led by the girl's father, who owned both the bar and a shotgun.

Naturally, the townspeople had started wondering where these three young men had come from with an unfamiliar military jeep, and had started asking questions to everyone who would listen, until word eventually got to the UN of the situation. That was where Zechs came in. He sighed heavily and pushed away his empty bowl. "Well, gentlemen, we have until dawn, and there's no time to waste. Let's get started," he said. They got up and left the mess hall to round up some officers and begin what Treize had dubbed Operation Daybreak.

***

The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon as Trowa and Quatre trudged through a fallow field, dressed in black sweaters and khaki pants, and carrying backpacks full of equipment. Since they obviously couldn't just land their helicopter at the front door of the OZ base and waltz right in, they'd touched down on a hilltop several miles away, and now had to hoof it to their destination. Quatre led the expedition with a GPS in his hand, checking it every few minutes to make sure they were still on course. Their conversation was sparse and generally pointless for a while, until Quatre asked a question that had been bothering him.

"So, where are you going after this?" he ventured.

"Back with you, I suppose," Trowa answered, realizing that they'd already discussed that and wondering how Quatre could have such a short memory.

"No, I mean after that," Quatre clarified as he stopped briefly to look around and then directed them toward a windbreak of trees to their left. "You said you had a place to go."

"Oh, that," Trowa said with an air of sudden understanding. "That would be none of your business."

Quatre looked nonplussed, but his companion didn't notice. "You still don't trust me?" he asked, clipping the GPS to his belt.

"I don't trust anyone. It's nothing personal."

"That's not true," he argued. "You trust her, or you wouldn't be going to live with her." His words didn't even sink into his own head for a moment, until he realized that Trowa had frozen in mid-stride, staring at him. Quatre went a bit pale as he came to a stop and turned to face the other boy. He could see Trowa's hand poised in the air, ready to draw the Beretta handgun at his side. Quatre could feel the animalistic fear and wariness that exuded from Trowa in waves and could see fierce emerald eyes sizing him up.

"I never said anything about a 'her'," Trowa said very quietly. His voice had a razor edge.

Quatre swallowed, raising his hands slightly into the air, palms outward, as he met Trowa's gaze. Oh shit, good job, Quatre, he thought. What am I supposed to tell him? 'Oh, I know you never said anything. It's just that I can randomly pick up people's thought waves and emotions, and I caught a drift of thought about her from you without really noticing. Just like I'm nearly choking on your fear now...' Yes, that would go over quite well, he was sure. Trowa was already a flinch from putting three bullets in Quatre's face.

He cleared his throat unsuccessfully, and licked his dry lips with a tongue that had gone equally dry with nervousness. "I..." He laughed nervously, trying to defuse the situation. "I just assumed. Hell, Trowa, it's always about a girl. You're a good-looking guy; why wouldn't you have a girlfriend?" Stop babbling. Stop babbling now, he thought.

Trowa looked at Quatre's face, blinked, and visibly relaxed. His hand moved millimetres away from his gun, but it was enough to tell Quatre that he was not going to die. He stood stock-still until Trowa shook his head and started walking again, and then he exhaled the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and followed.

As he caught up, he heard Trowa mutter something, but he couldn't understand what it was. "What was that?" he asked warily.

Trowa looked up from his boots and said, "I said, `you tell me why I don't have a girlfriend'. She's not my girlfriend; she's my sister. I've never had a girlfriend." He looked back down at his feet.

Quatre was a little incredulous. "Never?"

Trowa shook his head.

Quatre checked the GPS again, looking at the satellite-produced local time on the screen, and said, "Let's stop for a food break when we get to that next stand of trees. We've got a few hours left; we're making good time."

They walked on quietly as the sky slowly stained with dark blue and purple and the dirt and leaves beneath their feet got harder to see.

***

Duo hid behind a parked Humvee as he peered around it at the side door of the Georgia OZ base. The armed guard was blinking a lot, shifting around, and starting to nod a little. Duo smiled evilly. After another minute or two, he made his move. He crept around the side of the vehicle and walked up very quietly as the guard's eyes slid closed and his chin sank toward his chest. Standing barely a foot away, he tapped the dozing man on the shoulder. The guard snapped awake instantly but a quick right hook to the jaw knocked him out again, before he had a chance to fight back. Duo caught him as he slumped toward the ground and dragged the lifeless-looking body back behind the Hummer.

After quickly putting on the guard's OZ uniform, tucking his braid down the back of the jacket, jamming the cap on his head, and slinging the unused Uzi over his shoulder, Duo looked around warily and walked back toward the now-unmanned door as naturally as possible, leaving the unconscious man on the ground. Just as he reached out to put his hand on the knob, the door opened and nearly hit him in the face. He stepped back just in time to avoid the blow and saw a pretty woman in her mid-twenties standing there, staring at him.

"Umm, hi," he said after a brief but awkward silence.

She nodded curtly. "I'm your relief. Where did you think you were going before I got here?" she growled.

Glad she didn't know he wasn't the actual guard, Duo gave her a winning smile. "I was just going to peek in the door to see if you were coming," he purred. "I really have to go to the bathroom."

She gave him a largely unimpressed look and stepped outside to her post. He slipped through the door. "Later, beautiful. Don't lose that lovely attitude!" As soon as the door shut behind him, he shifted the gun strap on his shoulder, looked left and right, and picked the left path, walking briskly.

***

Wufei stood in an empty corridor of the Georgia base, contemplating an emergency escape map on the wall in an effort to get his bearings. He was tracing the likeliest path from his current location, which was marked with a red blob of paint in the diagram of the corridor, to the generator room, when he suddenly heard the faint sound of someone whistling and the fainter sound of steady footsteps from somewhere behind him. He whipped around nervously and saw that this hallway ended and turned the corner a hundred metres away. The whistling was getting louder.

He looked around wildly as his heart started to thud loudly against his ribcage, as if it was trying to beat its way out of his body to escape the horror that would soon befall him. He had no weapons except for a short knife, and those footsteps more than likely belonged to a soldier with a submachine gun. There was also nowhere to hide in the long, empty corridor, not even a recessed doorway.

As a last resort, he glanced up. A corrugated metal beam and a pipe of about six inches in diameter, spaced several feet apart, greeted his eyes. It would do. He stood under the beam and leaped into the air, catching his fingertips on the bottom lip and hauling himself up as quietly as possible, hooking his feet quickly over the pipe as his hands gripped the beam and wincing at the soft clunking noises his boots made. The whistling never faltered as the soldier came around the corner, a green cap slung low over his eyes.

Fortune was smiling on Wufei, it seemed. Don't look up, don't look up, he chanted silently as the man passed underneath him. He could see down the barrel of the submachine gun that was slung over the guard's shoulder.

He was almost in the clear when a burning sensation came to his attention. His ankles felt like they were on fire. Hot water pipe! he thought in anguish as the burning feeling increased. It was unbearable. He shifted slightly, and bit his lip as the cuff of plastic on the tip of his shoelace hit the pipe, making a small but clear ting. The whistling stopped as the guard hesitated. Wufei probably would have gotten away with the tiny noise, but the thin, corrugated metal beam to which his hands clung, the sharp edge digging into the skin of his hands, chose that moment to give a tiny screech in protest to the extra weight it was forced to bear. He actually felt it bend a little bit.

The guard whipped around, holding his gun at the ready. He was about two feet in front of Wufei's hands and hadn't noticed him yet. Using the element of surprise to its fullest, Wufei kicked his feet down from the pipe and used his hands to swing forward, launching both feet squarely into his enemy's chest. The man was too surprised to make a sound louder than that of his lungs emptying as he hit the floor, hard. Wufei dropped lightly to the ground after him, landing on his feet.

The guard, despite the surprise attack, had clung to his gun, and now held it up in front of him as he gasped for breath, apparently seeing stars after smacking his head on the floor. A neat roundhouse kick knocked the gun away, and it skittered across the floor. Wufei cracked his knuckles and turned his attentions to the gun, which was lying a few feet to the side and behind the soldier's head. A weapon couldn't hurt, actually, he thought, moving towards it.

He felt pain in the backs of his knees and the next thing he knew, he was on the floor, the air whooshing out of his own lungs. He lay there blinking and gasping for a moment as the other man staggered to his feet, rubbing his chest where foot-shaped bruises would likely appear later. Not a person to tolerate being one-upped, the Chinese teen windmilled to his feet and assumed a Tiger Crane stance, aiming a jab at the other man's face.

Wufei's attack was dodged, barely, and he had to block a fast kick to his abdomen. He danced aside, chuckling, and then rushed at his opponent, throwing kicks, chops and jabs as fast as he could, landing one good shot on the side of the other man's neck. As the man's head spun to the side, a long rope of brown hair tumbled out of the back of his blue uniform jacket.

Wufei was floored. Look at that hair... is this a woman I'm fighting? Something else niggled at the back of his mind, but he snarled. No soft female was going to defeat him. He thought briefly of that woman from the other OZ base, the one with short hair like a man's. And of another, further back in time. Both had been made of tougher stuff than most, but there could only be so many exceptions to the rule. He jumped to land an axe kick against the soldier's ribcage, but two strong arms crossed in front of his target, absorbing the blow with a low grunt and grabbing his foot unexpectedly to twist it around. Wufei saved his face from hitting the floor by landing on his hands, but his foot was still pinioned. And being bent back towards his head. He growled with the pain as his opponent sat on his other leg, pushing his foot as far forward as it would go, and a little more. But his other knee wasn't covered; he could still move his other leg. He kicked up with his free foot and felt his heel connect with something hard. The pressure released immediately, but the whole fight soon turned into a wrestling match.

As the two people grappled around on the floor, alternately punching or kneeing each other and reaching for the gun that was too far away, the soldier's hat got knocked off, flying through the air to land near the gun, and Wufei suddenly got a good look at his opponent's face. It was familiar. And male. Wufei put his hand down on the chest, disguising his grope as an assault with the heel of his hand. He met a flat, muscular chest, nothing more. Definitely male... long hair... “Duo Maxwell!” he said out loud, putting the face to a name.

“Fucking right,” Maxwell grunted, pushing hard and throwing the suddenly vulnerable Wufei off of him. “Jesus, you're heavier than you look...” He groped around for his hat, plunked it back on his head, and finally got the chance to give his attacker a good look. Recognition dawned hazily on his face. “You're... something Chinese... Wong? No, Chang!” he said triumphantly. He pointed. “You're Wufei Chang!” He paused for a moment, running his tongue over his teeth, maybe checking to make sure they were all still there. “Why the fuck did you just try to take a round out of me, Chang?”

Wufei's hackles went up at the hostility. He snorted. “Try? I'd say I was doing a lot better than that. I would've succeeded if I hadn't realized who you were in time!”

Duo smirked. “Don't get all high-and-mighty. Just because you were on top doesn't mean that you were in control. And don't think I didn't feel that grope.” He winked.

Wufei turned scarlet. “I didn't grope you. Stop attempting to flatter yourself, you sick bastard. I saw the hair and thought you were a girl. I was just making sure you weren't just a really ugly girl,” he snapped. Somehow the remark struck a nerve, as he'd hoped it might.

“Alright,” Duo snarled, getting to his feet and tucking his braid back into his jacket as he straightened his clothes. “We're on the same side, aren't we? No point in fighting.” He extended a hand gallantly, which Wufei ignored as he stumbled to his feet. Duo shrugged and grabbed his gun instead. Shouldering it, he said, “We need to make it through this base without getting caught. I see one of us in a guard's uniform and one of us in stylish black stealth clothes that scream, `up to no good'. Can you see where I'm going with this?”

Wufei nodded curtly. “We go our separate ways, just like we were, and meet in the middle if it comes to that.”

“Not exactly what I had in mind,” said Duo, pulling a white plastic cable tie out of one of his pockets. “I have, like, five of these in my pocket. Must be standard operating procedure around here. Turn around and put your hands behind your back,” he commanded.

 

Wufei stuck out his jaw obstinately, but then he saw the gun and thought better of it. With a grudging sigh, he turned around and put his hands behind his back.

Duo grinned evilly. “Don't worry, I'll be gentle,” he whispered in Wufei's ear as he tied his hands with the cable tie. “Now come along,” he barked commandingly. “Cause any trouble and I'll blow your nuts off at fifty paces.”

Shit, here we go, Wufei thought morosely as he allowed himself to be pushed along the corridors, being sworn at occasionally. What have I gotten myself into?

 

***

 

Heero Yuy sat in the twilight in a tree at the edge of a farmer's windbreak, watching the Georgia base through high-powered digital binoculars at an absurd magnification. He was far enough away that the base was only a largish, white smudge on the horizon, but he could see the faces of people through his binoculars. He hadn't wanted to be this far away, but this windbreak was the closest natural cover to the base. These people were thoroughly paranoid, and well-prepared.

 

Right now they were busy, too. He watched as a flatbed truck pulled up to the loading bay of the base and soldiers marched out of the door carrying boxes and bits of furniture to stack onto the empty bed. Another truck pulled in behind it, waiting its turn. He saw two men standing just outside the doors, supervising the scene and occasionally issuing directions to the soldiers who were loading the truck. One of the men had extremely long, platinum blond hair gathered into a ponytail at his neck.

 

“What the fuck...” Heero murmured, pulling the binoculars away from his eyes as he continued staring at the base, although, of course, he couldn't see anything now; just the faint outlines that might have been the flatbed trucks outside the building. His mind raced, thinking of the implications of this. Growling quietly, he climbed down from the tree and broke into a run, heading for the base as the twilight faded into deeper night, providing cover for his advance.

 

About fifteen minutes later, he was creeping from shadow to shadow as he kept an eye on the woman on guard duty. She stood steadfastly at the door, looking around into the darkness occasionally and never showing signs of fatigue. Must be a fresh guard, he thought. I get all the breaks. He slipped behind a line of army vehicles and was surprised to find a man lying prone behind one of them, wearing only his underwear. Heero frowned, not really wanting to know why he was back here. It gave him an idea, though.

 

He peered around the other side of the line of vehicles and saw a ladder to the roof attached to the side of the building. The path to it was well-lit, and he would be spotted for certain if he attempted to get to it now. He crept back behind the vehicles and looked at the man, checking his breathing and pulse. Unconscious, he thought. Still quite warm; might wake soon. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed the man's ankles and dragged him in a crouch a few feet across the ground, closer to the end of the line, where the guard stood. He thought he was making too much noise, but she didn't appear behind him, so he exhaled softly in relief. Repositioning himself, he slapped the man across the face, hard, and then repeated the action. The man woke up, blinked, saw Heero's face upside down in his vision, and started yelling.

 

Hearing the ruckus, the guard jogged over to the line of Hummers, looking for the source of the noise, and pointed her gun at the lone soldier in his underwear, who was blubbering like an idiot. Heero had already sneaked around the other end of the line and made his way quickly to the ladder, climbing up it swiftly and smoothly to disappear over the lip of the roof.

 

After checking around the roof with his excellent night-vision to see that no one else was up there, Heero rose slowly to his feet and walked to the trapdoor toward his left. It was near another corner of the roof, directly opposite the side where the trucks were being loaded. He glanced up at the horizon before opening the door and caught sight of something approaching the base. Pulling out his binoculars again, he looked through them and saw a large, white van, completely unmarked as far as he could tell. Unconcerned, he opened the trapdoor and dropped through the hole into the generator room.

 

***

 

The unmarked, white van pulled up to the front entrance of the OZ base, the driver parking and cutting the engine as the sentry on duty jogged over to the vehicle to see what was going on. When the side door slid open to reveal eight men and women in khaki vests and blue baseball caps, the sentry backed up warily, suddenly not sure what to do with his gun, which he'd been holding at the ready.

 

Noventa got out with the group, adjusting his UN-issue cap on his head. “At ease, soldier,” he said sarcastically to the guard. “We're here on official business. Take us to your leader.” A woman in her late twenties beside Noventa made a note on her clipboard, and another member of the group muttered something into a tape recorder. Noventa turned to his group, ignoring the confused guard for a moment. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived. Now the nice, young man with the submachine gun will take us on a tour of this... what is it again? Oh yes; this machine tools factory. Take careful notes.” He grinned in an altogether malicious way as the guard held the door of the base open for them. After all, it was hard to say `no' to the United Nations.

 

***

 

Duo pushed Wufei irritably through the halls of the base, taking a somewhat roundabout route to the generator room. They were never challenged, although once they did pass right by two men in uniform who were engaged in an animated conversation. One of them stood out particularly, being extremely tall and handsome, with hair that was easily as long as Duo's and of such a light blond that it almost looked white. The man gave them a passing glance, but quickly lost interest and returned his attention to his companion, a shorter man with dark hair and a moustache. Both boys heaved a silent sigh of relief and moved on, Wufei giving a bit of a struggle for show.

 

Other than that encounter, the hallways they moved through were deathly quiet, with not a soul lurking anywhere they turned. “Wonder where everyone is,” Duo murmured. “Must be drill time or something, I guess.”

 

“At night?” Wufei asked skeptically. “I know they keep all kinds of hours, but this seems like an unlikely time for a total drill.”

 

“Well, I don't know!” Duo cried in exasperation, giving Wufei a shove that nearly put him on his face, tied up as he was. “It was just an idea!”

 

“All right, don't get your panties in a twist. I think we're nearly there.”

 

A few steps later, they reached a corner, and Duo's keen hearing caught the distinct sound of a safety turning off. “Duck,” was all he had time to say, yanking Wufei to the floor as a hail of bullets flew past where his midriff had just been. They came at an angle through the corner, passing from the opposite wall through just where the two boys would have been if they'd kept going. A few took bits of concrete block off of the corner, sprinkling them with dust and rock chips.

 

“Jesus Christ!” Wufei wailed, unable to do anything but lay on his stomach helplessly while Duo armed himself with the submachine gun.

 

Expelling a deep breath, Duo braced his booted foot against the floor and pushed himself past the corner and into the open hallway, his finger on the trigger as he skidded along on his side. A split second before he was about to open fire on his attackers' ankles, he looked at their faces and froze in disbelief. “Holy fuck,” was all he could say. Before him stood two people clothed in black, pointing guns at his head. They were undeniably Trowa and Quatre, who had dropped through a vent into the generator room of the last OZ base he'd infiltrated.

 

Quatre recognized him immediately, and shoved Trowa's weapon away from its mark. “Duo Maxwell!” he said happily, throwing away the AK-47 he'd commandeered from a guard and rushing over to help the boy to his feet. Trowa raised an eyebrow, putting the face and name together and holstering his Beretta as he joined the group.

 

Wufei struggled to his feet on his own and greeted Quatre as he gave Duo a kick. “Untie me,” he commanded, turning around and wiggling his secured hands for emphasis.

Duo snapped open a pocketknife that he'd pulled from his boot. “You see, Quatre's a nice guy. He knows the proper order of things. You're supposed to recognize people before you inflict bodily harm on them.” He released Wufei and quickly dodged a punch to the nose, laughing.

 

“So,” Quatre said, “what are you two doing here?”

 

“The same thing you are, I would assume,” Duo said. “We're destroying an OZ base.”

 

“But... how did you find out about it?” Quatre asked. “Why did you pick tonight to come?”

 

Duo frowned. “I can't speak for Wuffie here, but my boss got a communiqué that several high-ranking OZ officials would be here tonight, and I'm all about the two birds with one stone.”

 

Wufei nodded. “I received the same information. It must have been quite the leak.” He looked at Quatre. “That isn't why you're here, too?”

 

Quatre shook his head warily. “I planned this mission independently, and Trowa and I picked tonight to come out of sheer convenience. I have some information on locations of OZ facilities, and I picked this one from a list. I knew nothing about officials being here.”

 

“Well,” Duo said brightly, “maybe it's just a big coincidence. It was an auspicious date,” he said in a wispy, fortune-teller's voice. “So. Let's quit yapping and do this.”

 

Trowa shrugged and led the way down the hall to the generator room, followed by Duo and Wufei. Quatre brought up the rear, silent and pensive. He could be right; it could be a massive coincidence... but what if it isn't? he thought with worry. Something big is going on here. Something just over our heads. I have to figure it out. And who could my leak have been? He had a vague idea already.

 

***

 

When they got to the generator room, Duo jimmied the door open and they were immediately met with the unsmiling face of Heero Yuy, who was pointing a gun at them. When he saw who the intruders were, he merely tightened his grip on the weapon instead of lowering it.

 

“Put the gun down, buddy,” Duo said, holding his hands in the air, as he was the one in the front of the group.

 

“I'm not your buddy, you son of a bitch. Why do you keep popping out of the woodwork?”

 

“Actually, as there's no woodwork to be found; I keep popping through the front door.” He nodded behind him slightly, never taking his eyes from the gun.

 

Quatre's voice came from the back of the group, and he crept forward. “Heero,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

 

“That's an idiotic question,” Heero growled.

 

“Did it have something to do with OZ officials being here tonight?” Quatre asked.

 

“Maybe. Why?”

 

“Just curious,” Quatre said, satisfied with the answer. “So... I bet you know we're not going to do anything to you or to sabotage your mission, since it's the same as ours, so why don't you quit pointing the gun at Duo?”

 

Heero glared at Duo and Quatre in turn and then reluctantly lowered his weapon. Duo took this as an invitation of safety, and immediately relaxed, dropping his hands back to his sides. “Got it wired yet?” he asked, walking over to Heero's half-finished bomb, which was ready to be stuck to the side of the enormous generator in the middle of the room.

 

“Get away from that, idiot,” Heero said sharply, advancing on Duo, who was examining the explosive with a frown.

 

“You haven't got nearly enough stuff here, you know that? Do the job right. Here, I'll help.” He rolled up his pant legs to reveal small packages of C-4 and wire strapped to his thighs, and began adding his explosive to the mass, doubling its size. “I'll fix your shoddy wiring job, too, while I'm at it. You know, you can do this with half the wires you have. See this unnecessary redundancy? No one's going to find it before it goes, and it's such a basic technique that anyone with experience and training would catch it anyway, so what's the point? Waste of wire.” He snipped and rearranged the rigging quickly, and within five minutes was finished.

 

Heero raised his eyebrow at the mass and said, “You say I didn't have enough stuff, but you didn't have any more than I did.”

 

“Yes, well...” Duo puffed up. “I use a special, secret technique when wiring my explosives that requires only half of the firepower.”

 

“You mean you slash the gas lines,” Wufei said flatly. “Hence your pocketknife. Oldest trick in the book.”

 

Duo blushed.

 

“Well, let's get going before someone finds this powwow,” Trowa said. That snapped everyone back to attention, and they all went about climbing up onto the roof to leave as Duo set the timer for five minutes.

 

As a group, they jogged to the edge of the roof, and then slid one by one down the ladder that Heero had scaled to get in the building, stopping briefly at the bottom to wait for the last of them to descend. Duo looked around with interest as Wufei's feet touched the dark ground. “Hey,” he said suddenly. “Do you hear that? Oh hey, look, it's a van starting. It's leaving the base.” He pointed, and Heero saw the unmarked, white van from earlier following the bumpy, dirt road away from the compound.

 

He frowned and peered around the corner of the building, his gaze landing on one of the flatbed trucks full of equipment, parked in front of a loading bay. There was no one near the vehicle, so Heero crept closer, climbing silently up onto the flatbed and searching quickly through the dark jumble of equipment until he hit paydirt. Hefting a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher and scooping up a missile from a crate beside it, he eased himself down from the truck and returned to his group, which was sidling away as slowly as it could, trying to wait for him but also thinking of the bomb timer.

 

Stooping and placing the launcher butt-first on the ground, he efficiently loaded it and heaved it back over his shoulder as the other boys watched in interest. “Shall we?” he grunted finally, taking a few steps forward as he built up momentum with the heavy, but manageable weight on his back. The group started running in earnest, trotting about three-quarters of a kilometre away from the doomed building before Heero stopped, trailing slightly. The white van was about three times as far away as they were, clearly visible across the plain dotted with a few scraggly trees. Heero dropped to one knee and smoothly swung the launcher forward on his shoulder, peering through the built-in scope and aiming the massive weapon at the van. Leading his target a bit, he fired, the recoil nearly knocking him over. A stream of smoke tailed behind the missile as it whistled toward the van, connecting with an enormous boom that reached them a fraction of a second after they saw it explode.

 

Just as Heero got to his feet again, the base exploded, shaking the ground and coming even closer to knocking him over. He staggered upright and shaded his eyes as he watched the base being consumed by flames. The boys all stood in a loose group and stared at the carnage, exhausted by the events of the night and mesmerized by the fire in spite of themselves. They were so absorbed by it that the voice that suddenly came from their collective right startled every one of them, and everyone but Heero jumped guiltily.

 

“Five of you? All teenagers, too? You've done quite a lot of damage, boys,” the man with the long, blond hair said, his arms crossed. He looked them all over, his gaze lingering on Duo, who was still in the stolen OZ uniform. A faint smile crossed his face. “I must say, it was a marvelous job. I must commend you, because you have no idea how enormously you've helped me tonight.”

 

They all glared. “What the hell are you talking about? Who are you, anyway?” Heero demanded.

 

The man smirked. “Excuse me for not introducing myself. I am Lieutenant Zechs Merquise of OZ.” He bowed slightly, never taking his eyes from Heero. A smirk played with his lips.

 

“OZ?” Duo burst out. “How did we do an Ozzie a favour by blowing up your base?”

 

“Quite simply,” Zechs said, “my job here was to make it look like there wasn't a base here. And now there is no base here. Granted, the mess you've left will have to be covered up, but you've still greatly simplified the task I was sent to do. And that,” he gestured toward the remains of the escaping van, “was my biggest current problem. That van was full of people who knew exactly what was going on here and didn't like it. They were on their way to report the `illegal and aggressive' activities of our organization to the United Nations.”

 

The boys all whipped around to look at the van, except for Heero, who kept his eyes on Zechs, giving him his most violent glare. He was struggling to keep his concentration on glaring as the weight of Zechs' words sank in. Behind him, Quatre let out a strangled gasp. “You... mean... that van....”

 

Heero interrupted Quatre softly, his voice quavering ever so slightly. “That van... contained our best hope of bringing down OZ.” And I killed them. All of them. And all of the evidence. He clenched his hands into fists.

 

Zechs smiled. Wufei yelled something unintelligible and pulled Trowa's gun from its holster, pointing it in a shaking hand at Zechs as the arrogant officer smirked, looking like a cat with a mouse. Just as Wufei steeled himself to fill the arrogant man with bullets, a Jeep roared up from the direction of the base, slowing down just enough for Zechs to hop in before it sped away. “Thanks again, boys!” he called, his mocking voice carrying back to them.

 

Wufei fired off three shots in rapid succession at the retreating vehicle, swearing in Chinese as the rest of the boys just stood there with identical empty stares on their faces. Trowa absently put his hand on Wufei's arm, silently warning him to relax, and Wufei obeyed, slowly lowering the gun.

 

After a few minutes of awkward silence, during which they all felt somewhat sickened by the smell of smoke and burning, Quatre cleared his throat awkwardly. “It... we....” He sighed and started again. “It wasn't your fault, Heero. Any one of us would have done the same, I'm sure.” Continued silence was the other boys' agreement. Heero stood alone, head down and fists clenched at his sides, and suddenly sank to his knees, flopping down as if he was a marionette with his strings cut.

 

Quatre took a tentative step toward Heero, but decided against moving any closer. Instead he looked around at the others. “Okay, so it's not the end of the world, right? It's a hitch in our plans, but all that means is we have to fight a little harder to bring down OZ.” As he spoke, his head was clear; the words were all falling into place. He knew exactly what to say, and he knew what would come of this, and he was as pleased as he could possibly be with the situation. “I think we all know that OZ is a threat, and they need to be removed. But they are not to be underestimated, and it's going to take more than what we're doing to win. Our efforts lately have been what you could call redundant, and I think we could be a lot more dangerous to OZ together than we could ever be on our own.” He regarded all of them, and saw that everyone but Heero was watching him with interest, appraising his words. Heero hadn't moved, but sat so still that Quatre knew he had to be listening. He threw out his line, ready for the bite. “Who's with me?”

 

Duo and Trowa stepped forward at the same time. “I'm in,” Duo said. Trowa nodded, as Quatre had expected.

 

Wufei spun Trowa's Beretta around on his finger a bit, debating, and then stepped forward, too. “Your goals and mine are the same. We might as well combine our resources.”

 

That left Heero. Everyone looked at him. His shoulders heaved as he sighed, and he staggered back to his feet, turning to face them with a stony expression. “It's my fault that this happened, and you can't say otherwise. I need to set things right, and to do that, I need to take OZ down.”

 

Quatre clapped his hands. “All right, then. I have in my possession a list of OZ installations and resources worldwide, with their exact locations and purposes. I suggest you all give me some kind of contact information, and we can work out new missions from there.”

 

And that was that.

 

***

 

Zechs leaned back in the passenger seat of the Jeep as Septem sped away from the scene. Zechs had seen the five young agents leaving the building and had immediately ordered Septem to bring a Jeep around, recalling Noin's adventures at the South African base when it had been infiltrated and sabotaged. Now they fled the scene, heading for the proposed destination of all of the Georgia base's equipment.

 

Zechs pulled the satellite phone out from under his seat and dialed the secure number Treize had given him for contact during this operation. Treize himself picked up on the other side. “Yes, Zechs?” he said smoothly.

 

Zechs detailed the events of the evening, from the execution of Daybreak to its near-failure when Noventa had shown up early, to OZ's unexpected good fortune in having everything destroyed by five teenage boys. Treize listened patiently and then said, “Is Septem still with you?”

 

“Yes, sir,” Zechs answered. “He's right beside me.”

 

“Kill him.”

 

“Sir?” Zechs said, trying not to show surprise in his voice as he darted a glance at Septem, who was driving the Jeep, oblivious.

 

“You heard me. That's an order, Zechs. Do it now, I don't care how, and report back here ASAP.”

 

“Yes sir, understood.” Zechs disconnected the call and stowed the phone back under the seat before turning to Septem and sighing.

 

“What did Colonel Treize say, Lieutenant Zechs?” Septem asked, glancing over at him as he navigated the bumpy road.

 

“Stop the car, please, Septem. I need to get something from the back and don't feel like crawling over the seats.”

 

Septem obeyed, drumming his fingers lightly on the door as Zechs got out, went to the back, poked and prodded around, and came back with a box in his hands.

 

“What's in that, Lieutenant?” Septem asked, arching his neck and peering at it curiously.

 

Zechs said nothing, but opened the top flap, reached in, pulled out a gun equipped with a silencer, and shot the stunned Septem in the throat, twice. As the dying officer gurgled wetly and clutched at his throat, Zechs walked calmly around to the driver's side of the Jeep, opened the door, hauled the weakly struggling Septem out, and half-carried, half-dragged him to the ditch at the side of the road. Stripping off all of the man's bloodied clothes and military trappings, including his dog tags, Zechs balled up the lot and stuffed it into the box, dumping it in the back of the Jeep and driving away without a backward glance. “Mission accomplished,” he murmured to himself, enjoying the breeze riffling through his long, pale hair.

 

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