TB Live Journal

Fandom: GW
Pairing: 6x4
Rating: M15/Rish (who really knows)


'There's no way Bauds got here before we did,' Sally said. She pulled her head in from leaning out the window and fumbled through her belt pack for fresh batteries for the faltering hand-torch she held. 'Not if they were on commercial flights, landing at Manchester, having to rent a vehicle--'

'Steal a vehicle.'

'It still puts him at least two hours behind us, which means Beito's people had to be the ones to get Quatre.'

'Who's Quatre?' Rhis interrupted them.

Zechs ignored him, as he'd ignored the last three questions Rhis had tried to ask since they'd commandeered his truck. He drove as slow as he could bear to, as fast as he dared without risking losing the tracks left by the SUV. It hadn't gone back toward town, but was keeping to the country roads. It argued for someone who knew their way about, or had a very detailed map. 'We know Bauds is working for the Colonials. He obviously had more contacts, maybe someone who was close enough to get here before us. But Beito said his men checked in and that they have Quatre safe.'

'Unless Beito lied.'

They shared grim silence, then. It took no imagination at all to know how that possibility would play out. There had been a leak; accepted. If it were as high in the ranks as Beito, who knew everything and indeed more than either Zechs or Sally... And if Beito were a traitor, that meant Noin, who was with him, was as good as dead. And so was Quatre.

'Stop,' Sally ordered. He braked immediately, and before he'd skidded to a halt she was out her door, dropping down into the snow. Rhis leant over the back of her seat, straining to see. He had to jump back again when Sally returned to the cab.

'The tracks are gone,' she told Zechs. 'They turn off into the field and then they're gone.'

'That's impossible,' he said flatly. 'What happened to the SUV?'

'I'm telling you it's not there.'

'They could have buried it.' Both the Preventers swung about to face Rhis, who stammered in the face of their stares. 'I-- that is--'

'No, tell us,' Sally urged. 'Buried it?'

'We used to do that to my mates at college. The snow gets high enough, you can drive it into a drift and bury it under the snow. It's a great prank.'

Zechs turned his eyes to his partner. Her expression told him what he already thought; if the SUV had been buried, they weren't likely to find it, not in the dark with only two hand-torches, even with an approximate idea of where to find it.

But then just as quickly something else occurred to him. 'Noin and Beito,' he said.

'They might still be in the car.' Sally grabbed her bag from the floor and slung it over her back, dropped her night-goggles over her face. 'Come on, Rhis, you're coming with us.' She slapped the front seat down and waved Rhis toward her. He clambered out awkwardly on his lanky limbs and slid to a stop in the deep crust of the road. 'Should we split up?' she asked Zechs.

He turned the car off so he could take the keys with him, the quickest precaution against someone stealing the truck, too. He locked the doors as he vacated, pulling his own goggles down and toggling them to heat-detection. Rhis lit up like a torch in his vision, but only a strip of Sally's face showed to him. That disappeared too when she zipped the hood of her stealth uniform up to her nose. Zechs remembered this time to follow her lead, watching for her nod of confirmation that he, too, was invisible to any sinister watching eyes. There was nothing to do about Rhis, however, except warn him he could be a target.

Sally explained it all to him in a calm low tone, her hand on his elbow. 'Agent Merquise and I are both wearing anti-detection gear,' she told him. His eyes were wide as he nodded. 'But you're not, which means that if anyone is still out here, they might see you. The good news is that they'll immediately know that because you're not protected, you're a civilian, and that's a pretty good assurance that they won't start shooting until they can confirm if there's one of us with you. So I want you to act as if you were out here alone. You'll use one of our torches. Don't try to stay with us, don't try to look for us. Just go out there looking for an SUV, buried or otherwise, okay? Listen for people trying to yell for help. We think two of our people may be still in it, unable to get out.'

To his credit, Rhis absorbed it all with admirable self-possession. 'And this will help find Gwyn?' he said then.

'The man who might be in the SUV is the only one who can get in contact with Gwyn.' Sally gave his arm a squeeze, and handed him her torch. 'You have to trust us now.'

Rhis led the way into the field. Sally followed next, and Zechs brought up the rear, popping the snap on his weapon holster and freeing for a quick draw. There was little enough to see, goggles or no. They climbed a low stone fence, and the ground rose sharply. Sally had been right; the tracks led up the hill, but disappeared. No-- they'd been brushed away. There was some disturbance, and the snow hadn't been falling fast enough to cover it yet. Zechs went left, Sally and Rhis went right.

Then suddenly Rhis broke into an awkward run, tripping his way through the knee-high drifts. Sally, the lightest of them all, managed somewhat better, and Zechs was able to use their footprints to speed his own passage. They caught Rhis up beside a chest-high mound.

'Too small,' Sally whispered.

'Not if there's a depression in the hill.' Rhis looked at neither of them, but began taking broad swipes at the mound, flinging thick bricks of ice aside. 'The tree hasn't got any snow on it. If they drove it up to the tree and shook down the branches, it would barely have taken five minutes.'

Rhis was right. Soon it was clear there was something solid under the white blanket. Rhis had gloves, but he had to work essentially alone, with both Zechs and Sally sweeping the perimetre for enemies; soon he was shivering, his teeth clacking audibly, but he worked in grim, uncomplaining silence, his body slowly glowing cooler in Zechs' heat-sensitive vision. When he struck the windscreen, he uttered a little cry of triumph, and climbed onto the hood of the vehicle to scrape at the frost with his fingers. Zechs tossed him a little knife from his belt, and Rhis scraped until he'd cleared a large enough hole to beam the torch through.

'There's people in there!' he called to them, his excitement carrying even through a frozen tongue. 'They're not moving!' He rapped hard on the glass, before Sally shushed him. 'I can try to clear through to the door—' he said, and scrambled off into the drift.

Sally was invisible to Zechs even in normal eyesight, the moonless night hiding her as effectively as her kit. He felt her near him, sliding her way back down the hill to him, the dim outline of her head all he could gather. But he knew what she would say. Zechs agreed. Rhis could probably eventually get to a door, and even open it wide enough for Noin and Beito to be pulled free, but that would waste up to an hour, maybe even more. Every minute wasted was a precious loss.

'We break the screen,' Sally decided quietly. 'Rhis. Rhis, listen up. Knock on the screen and see if you can get them to respond.'

'They're not moving.' Rhis' head swung back to them before he remembered not to look at them. 'Are they dead?'

'Sally, guard us.' Zechs tore open his gear and found the little hard peg of the glass breaker. 'Rhis, help me up.' He thrust out his hand. Rhis grabbed him by the wrist, and Zechs was hauled up through the loose skittering crumbs and onto the snowy hood. It was the front of the car, he saw, as if whoever had driven had backed into this spot by the tree. He didn't ponder it. He knelt as best he could, freed his arm from the strap of his back pack, and stabbed the breaker down onto the screen.

It shattered and caved in. Zechs kicked out the last hanging bits, and bent to peer in. His heart, already high in his throat, jumped a little more when he saw his two friends sprawled in the backseat. It was too dark to do more than distinguish their forms, outlined in the same dangerous blue as Rhis.

'I can crawl in,' Rhis said. 'Try to--'

No point in logistics. It would be difficult no matter what they did. 'Go,' Zechs answered.

It seemed to take forever. Rhis managed his way over the broken glass and snow and into the back seat. He was too chilled to feel for pulses. But it was indeed a man and a woman, and the woman had short hair, so that at least was answered. They wore handcuffs, which didn't aid their manoeuverability. Zechs edged as far into the SUV as he could, throwing his legs over the dash and planting one foot on the steering wheel for leverage. Rhis finally managed to push Noin's limp body at him between the front bucket seats, and Zechs grabbed her shoulders to pull her toward him. He almost dropped her when he felt her breath on his neck, faint but real. She was alive.

He laid her in the snow at Sally's feet and climbed back into the car for the second go. Beito was harder: he was a tall, well-built man, and his limp weight didn't move anywhere fast. The best that could be said was that if someone were watching them, they weren't taking the opportunity to make a move. It took them at least fifteen minutes to get Beito through the screen. Both he and Rhis were panting with the exertion, and Zechs had muscles shaking in his arms when they finally lowered Beito to the ground. Sally freed a hand from her glove to take pulses, while Zechs drank from his water bottle.

'Are they Preventers too?' Rhis asked him.

'Yes.' Zechs passed him the water. 'You all right?'

'Yes.' Rhis sipped, and his eyes slid up to Zechs'. 'Does Gwyn know who you are?'

'Gwyn...' But faced with the moment, he couldn't make that decision for Quatre. 'Gwyn has some baggage,' was all he said. 'It's possible he's in trouble. Sally, how are they?'

She had risked her own torch to study their friends. 'Noin's got no sign of trauma. Breixo's bleeding, I can't tell from where.'

The worst possible news. Zechs shook his numb hands to warm them and helped her with Beito. There was indeed blood, and when they'd stripped his uniform away from his chest, they finally traced it to a flesh wound in the shoulder. There was no exit wound in his back, but neither was it a bad enough bleed to account for his deep unconsciousness. He hadn't stirred at all during the manhandling, and if Noin had no injury at all, what could explain it? He couldn't think of any conventional weapon that would account for it, but there could certainly be something, something new or something black market, a weapon that could do this. 'Taser shock would have worn off by now. A sonic weapon, maybe?'

'It's a possibility,' Sally agreed. 'But do you smell that? It's almost like-- like--'

Rhis crouched by her side. 'Toasted almonds,' he supplied. 'You can smell it in the car too.'

'Almonds.' Zechs was baffled. 'What would make them scent like...'

Sally's head shot up. 'Like that CNS-inhibiting teargas we confiscated from the rebels in Jordan. It smelled like almonds.'

'Is there anything you can do for it?'

'It's supposed to have a limited affect. No more than an hour.'

'So if it was used to incapacitate them and get them into the SUV, they ought to wake soon.' If it had been used to keep them quiet right before whoever had taken them had buried the car, though, they could be out for another forty minutes. Another forty minutes for their enemies to get away with forty minutes of whatever information they'd taken out of Beito while shooting him.

Sally holstered her gun and pulled Noin upright by the arm, then set her shoulder to Noin's belly and stood, the other woman dangling over her shoulder. 'The two of you try to keep Beito level between you, the feet a little higher. I want to get them into the truck, get them warm. All we can do is wait this out.'

If not for what happened the very second she decided that, they might have been taken by surprise, or been bypassed completely and lost their chance. It was complete fate. Zechs was looking in the right direction for it: a flash of heat just caught at the edge of his goggles. He dropped Beito back to the snow without a second thought and dashed down the hill back to the little stone fence with its overhang of brittle hedge. He'd gone no more than three metres when the little flame he'd seen burst out into the night as a full-grown man, flaming red as a coat slipped to the ground behind him. Zechs fired a shot with no thought at all for who it might be; it hit, and the man stumbled, but for a quick scramble was back on his feet and running for the road. Zechs was right behind him, pumping his legs as fast as he ever had in his life, flying over the snow as if it didn't even exist. His second shot went wide, so he careened to a stop and took the time to aim. He took the man square in the back, right where he anticipated the spine plate of a kevlar vest to rest. The force of the bullet sent the man in a sprawl. This time he didn't get up.

Zechs made the approach with caution, though the pained wheezing he heard was real enough. The man lay face down until Zechs kicked him onto his back. Kevlar indeed, and a sleek helmet of the flex-shell that Colonials preferred. His identity was confirmed when Zechs pulled the helmet off by the chin strap, and the man swore at him with an L2 accent.

Zechs levelled his weapon at the colonist's head. 'Take me to Quatre Winner,' he said, flat and clear. 'This is not a negotiation.'

'Zechs!' Sally shouted. 'They're waking up!'


**


Wodobinski roused him with the bucket of water set under the ceiling drip. Quatre flinched and strained at his bonds.

Armand Benat said, 'I would very much like to not have to do that again.'

Quatre stared blankly at him.

'Come, my friend.' Benat's classic Oxford shoe landed in the puddle spreading from Quatre's chair. 'We've been playing this game for hours. I'm quite ready to bring it to a close.' His most gracious smile spread his lips, and then he tucked into a crouch beside Quatre, his hand resting gently over Quatre's wrist. 'It troubles me to cause you any pain. It troubles me that you apparently felt no like difficulty. I thought we were close, my dear. I made your sorrows mine.'

Quatre's mouth moved slowly, before the words could form. 'You made my sorrows,' he mumbled. His whisper echoed in the little basement, like the wind blowing outside. 'You killed my sister.'

'A professional embarrassment. I admit.' Benat was solicitous, then, shaking a kerchief from his pocket and wiping the water from Quatre's bruised face. 'A crude method. But, you'll note, effective.'

Zechs felt his blood burn. Beito gripped his arm. It was nothing to the grip Zechs had on his gun.

Quatre's eyes roamed without direction. Benat recalled him with another tender touch. 'Come, Quatre. These are friendly questions.'

'No friendly questions.' Quatre drew a deep breath. 'I told them everything I know.'

'But of course you did. They would hardly rescue you for less than your absolute worth.' It was Benat who breathed, then, in and out with great solemnity. He said, 'Will you give me the statements I need?'

Quatre's head fell back. 'I'll never give you anything you need ever again.'

Benat rose. He gave a single nod to Wodobinski. The woman's thin face was twisted in hatred. She stepped close and gripped Quatre by the hair, and then she set the cattle prod she held to his chest. Zechs closed his eyes as she shocked Quatre, but he still heard the choked groan, the stamp of the shaking chair on the concrete floor.

'Hold,' Beito breathed in his ear. 'We need him to say it. Quatre can take it.'

Quatre's ragged gasps were the only noise for several minutes. Then Benat spoke again. 'How many times do you think we can do that to you before we cause permanent harm? Even death?'

'Dead,' Quatre rasped, 'anyway.'

'It was always the plan for you, as I'm sure you determined long ago. You're essentially an honest man, my dear, and that's really very bad policy when you're trying to trick people into going to war with you. No, Quatre, I'm talking about a life I know you hold more precious than your own.'

Quatre's eyes came up wildly.

'He's a fine young man, your nephew. He's taken up the violin, you know. Even if he is too old for it, they say he's a remarkable talent.' Zechs risked a glance. Benat curved his hand to Quatre's sweating brow. 'Come now, Quatre. Don't make me go through with these base threats. It embarrasses us both.' He smoothed Quatre's hair. 'I even really believed you were dead, you know,' he said thoughtfully. 'I thought you'd finally done what you threatened so many times, taken your own life. You have no idea how delighted I was to learn otherwise. You can be quite pragmatic when the situation requires. I admire you for it. You very nearly had it all-- your family protected, you free from us. But this preposterous case in the Court. We really might have let you go if you hadn't gone running to the Court, Quatre.'

There was no struggle. There couldn't be. Zechs knew it, even as he mourned for Quatre, and the cost.

'I'll say anything,' Quatre answered soundlessly. 'Just leave Søren alone.'

Beito squeezed Zechs by the elbow. 'That's everything we need. Let's take the bastards down.'