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"Friends "Written By: Karina
Series: Friends Pairings: 2+6 Ratings: M 15+ [In Australia] Rated in the event of bad language and violence. Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing or the characters. That’s the way it is. Warnings: Not a death fic despite how it starts.
Aussie spelling and unbetaed. Summary: When Milliardo Peacecraft is abducted
and left to die a solitary death Duo Maxwell decides to take a hand
in the proceedings.
Besides, it was already too late. There was nothing certain in this life and people took chances whenever they left their homes and walked the streets. Not that their homes were necessarily safe. Against the likes of Black Opal nowhere was safe. He had mired himself and others in a mess and he would need to use all of the resources at his disposal to extricate everyone from the danger of collateral damage. It was uncomfortable to think that all of his resources, and they were legion, might not be sufficient to extricate himself, let alone anyone else, from the mess he had stepped into. Had he bitten off more than he could chew? No, he would not make the mistake of second guessing himself before he had even begun to fight. He had played his hand and revealed his knowledge to one who would report his entry into the scenario and it was a move fraught with danger. He did not know everything, indeed he knew little, but that little was dangerous in the extreme to those who sought to remain hidden. He had already crossed the point of no return and over thinking things before he received accurate information for assessment would serve no purpose. He had tipped his hand and now he must make a decisive move. This would put his opponents on notice and allow them to know he was serious and would not easily be removed from the picture. He need only survive until someone, somewhere down the track, realized the repercussions of wrecking Quatre Winner and, on understanding the implications, called off the hounds. There would come a point when they could negotiate and come to an understanding like civilized human beings. They would be able to smooth things over, but Quatre would ensure it was not to the detriment of Duo Maxwell or one Zechs Marquise. His interference was sure not to be appreciated by Duo or Marquise. He could expect Duo to call him all the names under the sun and invent a few new expletives, but he would not back down. Indeed, he could not back down now; he had taken the first steps and by the time they came down off the mountain he would undoubtedly be fighting off the hounds. He would deal with Duo and ultimately Zechs Marquise when the appropriate times came, but now, he needed to consider Lady Une. It would take Une only a few minutes to make the call and alert the organization controlling the Black Ops group of the breach in security, but first she would consider her standing, Preventers position in the scenario and the benefits of giving him a head start. The woman was nobody’s fool and was sure to take the necessary actions required to cover Preventers involvement. That she would report him was not in doubt, but how long exactly he had that was the question of importance. Preventers meant all to her, it had become her passion, her life. She would be sure to erase any and all possible leads from the organizations computer systems, but any decent hacker knew you could never truly remove all the data simply by deleting it. If you knew how you could recover deleted information. It was even possible that Une had no information on the unit stored on the Preventer database. The woman had sufficient resources at her disposal to have a completely separate computer system for any dubious practises that might be required to be performed in the name of peace. Pacifist politicians were notoriously squeamish about methods used to achieve their goals. Une would be smart enough to protect such information from all but the most determined hacker. The only way you could hide something in this day and age was not to have it written down… anywhere. The most likely scenario was Preventer Earth did operate a second sealed computer system and one of the first things Quatre would need to do would be to locate it. He would need the information contained on its hard drives. He would need to remember who he was dealing with. Anne Une, Preventer Earth, possessed the ability to mindlessly dedicate herself. She had dedicated herself to Treize Khushrenada and his goals, and Quatre honestly doubted she had shifted out of that mind set. She had, he was sure, merely substituted Preventers for Oz and was working for what she saw as Khushrenada’s goals. To keep the peace her precious Mr. Treize had died for, and to keep certain persons protected, she was more than capable of following unsavoury paths. //She could prove to be as much an ally as an obstacle in this. I will have to keep in mind from one minute to the next the changeable nature of the woman and her dedication to the peace. I would not wish for a recurrence of the Colonel Une persona.// Une had proven in the past she was more than capable of executing an assassination. In truth he was surprised those who controlled the Black Opal had not hired her to be another jewel in their necklace of tools. She had previously participated in such clandestine activities for Oz, or more specifically, for Khushrenada. She might have worked for them as easily as she now worked for Preventers and he could be thankful she would be inclined to take a back seat in this matter and keep the Preventers out of the melee. He stared out of the window, noting familiar landmarks and considering what his next action should be. There had been no questions from his driver, no surprise there. He was trained by Rashid after all and though not a member of the Maguanacs he was loyal to the Winner. Lifting the receiver beside him he pressed the button for the driver who, behind the raised partition, lifted his own handset. “Sir?” “Pull in behind that service station.” Here the shadows were deep enough to hide the dark coloured car for a time. He had chosen this position not for its shadows but because of the open car yard across the street. Quatre pulled his coat more tightly about him, knowing the cold was more a reflection of his emotions at the moment than it was a reaction to the weather. The car glided to a stop and Quatre was out of the back seat before his driver could react and was even faster to slip into the front of the car. At his drivers startled look Quatre could not help but grin. “I want you to go to the car yard across the street and purchase the most common looking car on the lot. It does not have to be the cheapest or the most expensive, just make sure it has a decent working heater and is generally unremarkable. Register it in the name on this card; you are acting as his agent.” Quatre slipped a credit card into the driver’s hand. “When you are done drive to Simms Coffee, do you know it?” At the quick nod Quatre pulled on a glove. “I’ll be waiting there. The credit card is usable by the barer; you will have no problem there and try to avoid questions.” “Sir.” The man was no fool and would know to keep his mouth shut. He looked like a business man himself, not a chauffeur and Quatre knew he would cause less of a stir than if he himself had gone to buy the car. Hopefully the owner of the establishment would just want to go home for the evening and accomplish the necessary paperwork quickly and with few questions. The last thing he wanted at the moment was a chatty sales rep. “I’ll wait for you at Simms, just honk the horn.” Quatre waited long enough to see the man stumble, slipping on ice and recover, bending into the wind as he crossed the road carefully to avoid further slips. Checking his pockets he drew a deep breath before sliding out of the car and braving the wind and cold. He slipped on the icy sidewalk more than once as he used the shadows to conceal his progress and he was thankful to turn the corner and gain some small protection from the wind. New Port City was liberally sprinkled with CCTV and he knew it would be impossible to avoid the cameras, but he did not have to make his identity obvious. His hat was pulled down low over his face, his collar was up and he held his hat with one gloved hand, the other clutching the lapels of his coat and exposed ends of his scarf to close out the cold from hitting him in the chest and face. Hoping he would not be frozen by the time he reached his destination, Quatre picked his way carefully toward a small cluster of stores open for late night business. He was not the only one walking the streets and they were just as intent on hurrying and huddling into their coats and hats as he. There was nothing to mark him as being different from the other people who had finished work and were intent on making a few necessary purchases before heading home to the comfort of a heater and family. He followed a woman who could have been mistaken for a Yeti, so bundled up in fur was she, into a department store. He found what he was looking for quickly, purchased four mobile phones, each one on the pre paid system and retired to the men’s toilet. The room was thankfully empty and he locked himself in a cubicle, dropped the lid on the seat and sat himself down, proceeding to activate each phone under an assumed name. The phones came with free credit, not much, but it would be enough for what he needed, and being on the pre paid system they were virtually untraceable. Exactly what he needed. The government might be able to trace and tap into his telephones but they would have a harder time monitoring any calls he made on these particular phones, making them his greatest resource for the moment. There was nothing, no paper work, no contracts of any kind, to link these four phones to Quatre Winner. Checking no one had entered while he had been busy Quatre grinned wickedly as he dialled a number far more secret than his personal phone numbers. There would be alarm bells ringing in certain halls, he knew. Only a select few people knew this number and the calling number would be registered and come up as unidentified. It rang twice before someone picked up on the other end and he recognized the deep rumbling voice demanding to know who was on the other end. “Rashid. Site four in six hours.” He did not doubt Rashid would recognize his voice. There was barely a pause before Rashid responded. “Understood.” “Lockdown?” “In progress.” Disconnecting the call he slipped the phone into his pocket and made proper use of the facilities before hunching himself up into his coat and hat again and braving the elements. He had a few other purchases to make before he could go to Simms Coffee and meet his driver. It was approaching an hour since he had fronted Une and the odds were she had made the call by now. Somewhere someone was deciding how best to deal with Quatre Winner’s unwelcome interference and he was not about to give them a head start. He paused in the restroom of another department store to place three calls, one to each of the managers placed directly beneath him in the Corporation hierarchy, informing them he was taking a week’s vacation, effective immediately, and to expect a move in the share market as wild rumours and speculation was bandied about. The final call he made was a particularly important one. He congratulated the Director on the birth of his new grandaughter; when one was The Winner there was always time to be polite, and then issued the immediate go ahead for the outright purchase of three companies he had been considering investing in. Three companies which would tip the scales in his favour if all worked as he wished it to. Settling into the coffee shop he ordered take away for two and waited for the car. A honk of the horn and he grinned at the dark coloured car pulling into the space directly in front of the shop, gathered his purchases and hastened himself out of the warmth of the shop and into the car. “Find an underground car park close by so we can eat while the food is hot.” t.b.c.
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