Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Family Ties ❯ Chapter 23 ( Chapter 23 )

Disclaimer: I don't own the G Boys, I just borrow them from time to time and return them a whole lot happier. I do own the plot line and any other characters that appear here that are not in the Gundam Wing Universe; please do not take them without permission. Written for pleasure not profit.

 

Warnings: Angst, sap, fluff, violence, Mpreg.

 

Rating: NC 17

 

Pairings: 1x2x1, 3x4x3, 5xS, HxOC

 

Summary: Sequel to Chimaera. Life in the Maxwell -Yuy household has undergone some big changes when Duo brings Keitaro home from the hospital. Hilde's wedding is approaching and the guys find there's more to this baby business than they thought. Struggling to raise a child, work at Preventer and keep the home happy is certainly a trial for both guys. Add an assassin's threats to prominent government officials' lives and both men find their lives are suddenly changed. Just how far will one go to protect the ones he loves?

 

Dedication: to all my lovely readers out there who enjoyed Chimaera and have since begged, threatened, pleaded, bribed and blackmailed me for a sequel. ^_^

 

 

"Family Ties"

 

January. 2007 ShenLong

 

Chapter 23

 

The following morning saw both Heero and Duo heading for the ESUN building once again, Wufei at the wheel of the Preventer vehicle. The ride was a much more sedate one than Heero had last encountered with Wufei driving an official vehicle; the hijacked cop car was still fresh in his memory and he had no wish to repeat that performance any time soon.

 

They were greeted at the reception area by the internal security and after sighting their badges and clearing it with the security head, the trio was free to conduct their test. They arrived in the basement are where the mainframe was housed and synchronized their watches. Duo was playing the role of bad guy, Heero the fictitious third person whilst Wufei did the timing and observed.

 

Having spent the previous afternoon memorizing the tape and what occurred immediately before and then after the blank section, they began their reconstruction.

 

Duo stepped from in front of the elevator doors and strode to the desk where he had a brief 'conversation' with the amused guard there. Noting the time frame, Duo headed for the mainframe room and pulled up a chair, trusting Wufei to begin timing from the correct place.

 

He'd brought a carry bag with his supposed equipment in it and proceeded to set it up. They had no idea of the exact equipment the perp had brought or used, but the tape and Duo's eagle eye for detail had confirmed the perp was definitely carrying something, and Duo didn't think it was his lunch, which left his own gear; so they improvised.

 

Heero had suggested the most likely equipment based on the hacking attempt and Duo had duly 'borrowed' that equipment from Preventer and now began to go through the motions of setting it up. Once all was set, he acted as if he was hacking into the database.

 

Heero waited patiently until a reasonable time for the hacker to be noticed had passed and then entered the scene. He paused at the desk as if to shoot the guard, then quickly entered the mainframe section and 'disposed' of Duo and cleaned up the equipment.

 

Wufei stopped the clock and checked the time. It was close enough to the blank time on the tape to be a logical theory.

 

“I'd say we have enough of a time match to say there was a third person involved,” Wufei said as he compared his data.

 

“Hn. I agree,” Heero stated as he checked the time Wufei had come out with.

 

“There's one thing I'd like to check if you all agree,” Duo said as he approached his partner and the senior agent.

 

“And that would be?” Wufei questioned.

 

“As I said before, the body position didn't look quite right to me for a suicide. I'd like to check my theory on that. If I'm correct, then it's pretty much concrete proof that this guy was murdered.”

 

“And just how do you plan to do that?” Wufei asked with a raise of one eyebrow.

 

“Simple, my dear Wuffy. Observe.”

 

“It's Wufei!”

 

“Geeze, you sure have a bark on you,” Duo snickered as he ignored the Chinese agent's complaint. “Right. I'm sitting here hacking away.” Duo sat and pretended to type. “I've finished, I pack all my gear up as I don't want anyone knowing exactly what it was I was doing and then make it disappear into thin air. Something like Heero's spandex space.”

 

“Baka!” Heero rolled his eyes.

 

“Maxwell,” Wufei warned.

 

“Yeah, yeah, don't get your knickers in a twist, Wu-man. Then I pull out my gun, put it under my jaw and pull the trigger.” Duo went to demonstrate.

 

“Duo!!” Heero was about to lunge forward as he watched his husband position his gun. His heart rate went through the roof.

 

“Don't worry, Heero. I've removed the magazine, see?” Duo realized his mistake in not letting his partner know he had an empty gun in his hand. “Sorry.”

 

Heero gave the braid a sharp tug. “Don't you ever do that to me again,” he growled.

 

Duo could see the fear and anguish in Heero's eyes and felt really guilty. “I'm sorry, Hee-chan. I should have told you it was empty before I started. Forgive me?”

 

“Hn.” Heero was still trembling.

 

“I promise to make it up to you later.”

 

“You'll be making it up to me for quite some time,” Heero growled.

 

Wufei heaved a sigh of relief, then unleashed his own wrath. “Maxwell! You ever pull a stunt like that again and I'll personally dismember you.” Wufei turned his attention to Heero. “Yuy, you over your cardiac arrest?”

 

“Hai.”

 

“Good. Now, do you think we can proceed without the drama?”

 

Duo looked suitably subdued, Heero's color began to return.

 

“Okay, where were we? Ah, right. I positioned the gun like so and then pull the trigger. The force of the gun recoil would, in theory, cause my hand and arm to go this way,” Duo demonstrated, “whilst my body would be falling this way.”

 

Duo let himself go completely limp and topple out of the chair to the floor. “The body should hit the ground pretty much in this sort of a position with the trigger arm back here and the gun there.”

 

“Hn. Feasible.”

 

“If you guys remember from when we arrived here, the body was more in this sort of position,” Duo rearranged himself, “which would be impossible if the guy shot himself. There's no way under the laws of physics that his arm could end up here given his seated position, what he was doing at the time and the way he would have pulled the trigger. Trust me, I've seen enough suicides and murders in my time to know the difference between the two.” Duo got up. “Heero, you play the part of third person and shoot me. When you do, I'll fall out and hit the floor as one would if they were sprung doing something they shouldn't be.”

 

Duo took up position again only this time he was typing away on the laptop. Heero walked over with the intent of shooting his partner. Duo spun around, Heero positioned the gun under Duo's jaw as per the fatal wound, and Duo crumpled to the floor.

 

“See what I mean?” Duo asked from where he was positioned.

 

“It's a valid point,” Wufei conceded.

 

Heero extended a hand, which Duo took and he hauled his partner from the floor. Duo dusted himself off before turning back to his fellow agents.

 

“I think it's a safe bet that there was certainly another person involved here,” Duo stated.

 

“Which means we now not only have to find out who this perpetrator was and what he was doing with the database, but we now have a double murderer at large too.” Wufei frowned.

 

“I never said it was going to be easy,” Duo snickered.

 

“Someone had to know who this guy was,” Heero thought aloud. “I wonder...”

 

“What are you thinking, Yuy?” Wufei questioned.

 

“I'd like to speak with the guard that found the bodies and also interview a few other people here. They may shed some light on who this guy was and why someone would want him dead.”

 

“I want to know why the police didn't name him in their report,” Duo said.

 

“Hai. I'd like to know that too. Maybe I can get some answers this way. You still have a copy of the report, Chang?”

 

“Yes.” Wufei handed over the report.

 

“Thank you. I'll start with the list of people the police interviewed and go from there.”

 

“Right. We will leave you here then to carry on with that. Maxwell and I will return to headquarters. I'll inform Une of where we are up to. Maxwell, you can put all your findings thus far into a logical report.”

 

Duo groaned. “More paperwork,” he muttered.

 

* * *

 

Arriving back at headquarters, Duo went to his and Heero's office, leaving Wufei to visit Une and bring her up to speed on their findings. Grabbing a coffee on the way, Duo sat down behind his desk and booted up the computer. Once the computer was up and running, Duo checked his email and noted a message in his inbox from Quatre and one from Relena. Whilst he waited for the report program to load up, he checked the messages.

 

A wide grin broke over his face as he read. “Yes!” he crowed and then took a much closer look at the main body of both messages.

 

It was the information he'd been waiting for. Copies of all the donations that Winner Enterprises and the Sanq Foundation had made to the Colony rebuilding fund. “Finally, something to work with,” Duo muttered.

 

Completely forgetting all about the report he was supposed to be typing up, he began to download the information in readiness to compare with the copy of the expenditure he'd gotten a while ago from Relena.

 

* * *

 

Duric had passed the message on to Murphy and sat patiently waiting in an old, abandoned warehouse. Glancing at his watch once more, he calculated Murphy should be close to attaining his goal. He didn't dare use the communicator, lest he disturb the other man whilst he was in the middle of achieving their objective. No, if Murphy needed back up, he'd contact Duric.

 

Meanwhile, Murphy had purchased another newspaper, and several other small items, before heading for the park, silently tailing a woman pushing a baby in a stroller.

 

* * *

 

Nurse Brown had finished bathing and feeding Keitaro, now the infant sat in his pusher waiting for the nurse to collect her handbag and shopping list. With everything she needed, Margaret checked the baby bag that hung on the stroller arm one last time, noting the change of diapers and bottles inside should the infant need such things whilst they were out.

 

Miracle gave a soft whine and turned her liquid, brown eyes on the nurse.

 

“Sorry, Miracle. You can't come this time. I need to do a little shopping whilst I'm out and I won't have enough hands to push the stroller, carry the shopping and hold onto your lead as well. “

 

The dog's tail and ears drooped.

 

“Tough luck, tough luck,” screeched Barney.

 

“And that's enough out of you,” the nurse scolded the bird.

 

Barney cocked his head and watched through beady eyes.

 

“I'll take you out for a walk later once your masters are back home to watch the little one,” the nurse offered the dog in apology.

 

Miracle thumped her tail against the floor.

 

“Right, let's get going, young man.” The nurse took a firm hold of the stroller handles and began to push the thing outside to her waiting car.

 

Barney sat on his perch and watched them leave. “Going shopping, have fun, have fun,” he chirped. He spotted the dog watching him. “Oh fuck!”

 

* * *

 

Heero gave a small grunt and looked over his notes. He'd made a little progress with his interviews of the various staff members and had managed to discover that the deceased man had been an employee of the ESUN. He'd been allowed access to the man's personal file, but hadn't discovered anything from it. Heero could tell the file had been doctored, something similar to how they had doctored the files at the many schools they had enrolled in during the war. The other employees didn't have a lot to say about him either, apparently he'd kept pretty much to himself, during work hours and afterwards. He'd never socialized with any of the others and no one had managed to befriend him either. He was pretty much an unknown entity.

 

His job at the ESUN was that of computer tech, responsible mainly for fixing glitches in the system if and when needed. That would have explained the ease with which he could access the mainframe. It was obvious he was working for someone outside, but whom? And what was his objective? Then there was the third person. Who were they and why would they want the man known as Cropp, dead?

 

To find the answers to those questions, Heero needed to track down where the guy had been living. Hopefully he would be able to find something amongst the man's belongings that would give him a clue. He tried the listed contact number and wasn't surprised when the call couldn't be connected as the 'phone had been disconnected. With another grunt, He grabbed his notes and jacket, calling Chang to let him know what he was doing and catching a cab to the listed address.

 

Heero looked around as the cab came to a stop. “Are you sure this is it?' he asked the cabbie.

 

“This is the address you gave me, buddy.”

 

Heero took in the pet shop before him. “Hn. Wait here, I'll only be a few minutes.”

 

“Sure thing. As long as the meter's running, it's your money you're wastin'.”

 

With another grunt, Heero exited the cab and went inside the shop. Moments later he was back outside and getting into the cab again. As he'd thought, the owner of the pet shop had never heard of Cropp and didn't recognize the picture Heero had shown him. The owner did let slip that Heero had been the second person looking for this guy though. Heero filed that information away for later analysis; it had most likely been the police in the course of their investigation. He gave the cabbie the address to Preventer headquarters and sat back to mull over his findings.

 

As Duo had said earlier on in their investigation, there were too many holes, things just didn't add up. Why would the police say they were using dental records and fingerprints to identify the man when a simple questioning of the ESUN staff would have given them the answer? Why was the man's personal file doctored? What was he up to and why?

 

Heero knew the only way he would be able to get some answers was to hack the database himself. The ESUN had refused Preventer access to the mainframe and without that access, Heero didn't think they would be getting any answers soon.

 

He gave a long suffering sigh. If he was going to do this he would need to be very secretive about it and no doubt it would take all his skills to get through the beefed up security now in place.

 

But Heero hadn't been a master hacker during the war for nothing. A feral grin came over his face as he thought about the challenge ahead.

 

* * *

 

Duo's eyes widened as he scrolled through the information on his screen. He matched it back to the inventories he'd gotten from Relena, then did a cross check against the building allocations for the other colonies. Pulling the pencil from behind his ear, he jotted down a couple of things and then proceeded to delve a little further.

 

Another hour passed without Duo noticing, so caught up in his own personal investigation was he. The report he was supposed to be typing up for Wufei had completely slipped aside with the new information Duo was discovering.

 

The more he dug, the more he found until he was convinced he had the proof right here in front of him. As he'd suspected, funding had been allocated; it just hadn't been delivered. What records he did have thus far, matched up for the L1, L3 and L4 clusters. The L2 cluster... That was a completely different story.

 

From what Duo could decipher, somewhere between the donation of monies, allocation of funds and the purchase of goods, a lot of funding had gone missing.

 

The actual allocation matched the purchases for the L2 cluster. It was the amount of funds donated that didn't. Somewhere between the donated figure and the allocated figure, several thousands of credits had disappeared.

 

Now all Duo needed to do was find out where and why.

 

His sixth sense tingled. Somehow, his sense was telling him this was all related to the ESUN investigation. It was the how and why he didn't know.

 

At this stage, he really didn't have enough evidence to present to Une to warrant the joining of the two investigations, hell, he only had enough to present Une with a case for further investigation into where the missing funds were.

 

Instinctively, he knew the answer lay in the ESUN's database. And it wouldn't surprise him if the murdered man had been onto a similar thing.

 

Again, it was all pure hearsay and without concrete evidence, Une's hands were tied.

 

Looked like he would have to get that evidence then.

 

He needed to hack the ESUN database.

 

Saving the information he had to a secure file, Duo shut down his computer with the intent of leaving early and going home to do a little hacking. When it came to computers, Heero wasn't the only one who could hack a system. Duo had also learnt quite a lot from his partner over the years and it was time to put those skills to use.

 

Walking over to Heero's desk, he quickly scribbled his husband a note, letting him know he'd discovered something that might help with the case and had gone home to look into it further.

 

Grabbing his jacket, Duo left Preventer headquarters.

 

* * *

 

Nurse Brown had put the shopping in the trunk of the car and was now walking along the familiar path in the park. With the day being a little overcast, there weren't a lot of people around. Spying an empty bench up ahead, the nurse began to walk towards it.

 

Murphy watched his target and waited patiently. Once the area was relatively clear, he made his move. Folding the newspaper, he tucked it under his arm and began to walk towards the woman and child.

 

Nurse Brown was fishing around for the couple of crusts she'd brought with her for the ducks when a shadow loomed over her. She paused and looked up. “Can I help you?” she asked the man standing to the side.

 

“Lovely baby,” Murphy commented.

 

“Thank you,” the nurse replied.

 

“Grandson?”

 

“No, not mine. I'm just the nanny.” Margaret began to get an uneasy feeling as she watched the man openly staring at Keitaro.

 

“Unusual eyes.”

 

“Yes, he has coloring from both parents.” Nurse Brown was short in her reply, her instincts telling her to get moving - now.

 

“If you will excuse me,” she began and stood up, taking a firm hold of the stroller handles.

 

Keitaro began to whimper, he could sense something bad in the air.

 

Murphy moved slightly to the side to let the nurse pass. Once she did, he came up behind her and pulled a gun from inside his jacket and pressed the muzzle in the nurse's back.

 

“Do not cry out, do not try to run and do not attract any attention.”

 

Feeling the press of the metal in the small of her back, Nurse Brown froze

 

“Good. Do exactly as I say and neither you nor the baby will be hurt. Walk on along this path and take the second fork to the right. Follow it to the road and walk along the sidewalk until you come to a red sedan. Understood?” Murphy pushed the muzzle a little harder against the nurse's back to emphasize his point.

 

Margaret nodded and began to walk. “Who are you and what do you want?” she hissed.

 

Murphy smiled at a couple that passed them, keeping himself to the side and just a touch back from the nurse, gun concealed, but ready. “You do not ask the questions, you follow orders.”

 

The nurse snorted but continued to walk. Her mind was going a mile a minute, desperately trying to find a way out of this, preferably with both herself and the baby alive.

 

They came to the fork and Margaret turned right as instructed. Following the path to the road, she walked along until they came to the red sedan.

 

“Take the child out and get in the car.”

 

With no choice but to obey, Margaret released Keitaro from his stroller and climbed into the back seat of the car. Once she was inside, the man proceeded to tie her hands together at the wrist, the baby in her arms. The ankles were next and then Murphy secured the seatbelt around the pair.

 

“Now we're going to take a short drive.”

 

Getting into the driver's seat, Murphy started the car up and pulled out into the traffic, leaving the stroller sitting on the sidewalk.

 

~ * ~

 

tbc...