Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ In the City at Night ❯ Findings ( Chapter 36 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Findings

"We're ready," Raul informed Jordan in a low growl as he moved into the room where the man was sitting.

Jordan looked up to his man, then considered the information as the person he was talking to gave him a confused look. "How far away?"

"A few blocks," Raul hesitated, looking to the person.

"Let me tie this up," Jordan noted, gesturing to the person as he shifted forward in his seat, "then you can show me."

"Sir," Raul saluted, then turned and started back into the hall.

"So," Jordan muttered, focusing on the person again, "how may people live in your household?"

X x X x X

"Shot sweet as honey," Jordan whispered, looking down his scope at the head of Matthew Corringer. "Single shot to solve one problem..."

"But opening an entire can of worms," Riley noted.

"Mm, but I could take him out," Jordan muttered, drumming his fingertips on the trigger-guard.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Judas muttered, "but isn't that illegal?"

"If a tree falls in the woods," Jordan returned, "and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?"

"You're not in the woods, there are no trees, and there are things there to hear it," Raul muttered. "Come on, Jor."

Jordan's finger twitched and he sighed, un-cocking the weapon. "What do we know?"

"We know...that there's some sort of wheelin' and dealin' going on in there," Danielle replied easily. "Shouldn't their sanctuary have ended by now?"

"That was a partial assumption that can be disregarded," Jordan muttered, still staring at the man through the scope. "I want our facts."

"He's worked out a deal with whoever replaced Lamb," Judas supplied. "His sanctuary will continue as long as he does something for the man."

"The man?"

"I haven't caught his name."

"Bet ya it's Allen," Jordan noted, glancing sidelong to them. "I bet you its Ray Allen."

They shrugged, committing the name to memory and looking to each other.

"What's this something, then?" Jordan asked, kicking himself vaguely that he couldn't do this job himself. He wanted to see his people in action, not just have to rely on their results. It wasn't like he minded helping out at the Rest, but he wanted the cloud out from above all of their heads.

Rain started to fall.

"I think it's another assassination," Judas muttered, thinking. "It's hard to tell, though. I mean...they don't talk about it in front of people. Actually, as far as I've gathered, all of the base-guys that he was relying on before are reduced to menial duty."

"Seeing as they left Baits his cell phone, I don't think I'd trust them so much either. Are they keeping up any semblance of order and rank?"

"Some of them are, some of them are just flunkies."

"How far in are you?" Jordan asked, focusing on the guy.

"Judas kiss," Judas returned with a slight smirk. "I'm going as far as I can make it."

"Don't push it too hard," Jordan cautioned him. "You don't need to get to the top ranks. I just want to know what's going on in there. If they're more apt to rip each other to shreds we might just wait them out until it's conducive to raze them."

"Raze?" Danielle asked blankly. "Have you been reading again?"

Jordan smirked and shook his head, looking back through the crosshairs as a man he really wouldn't mind removing. "It's something that Tro pointed out to me," he explained, fingering the trigger. "There are slavers, oppressed peasantry, revolutionists," he clicked his tongue slightly, mimicking pulling the trigger. "They were trying to figure out where the catapults were."

"Mortars?" Raul asked with a sick note in his voice. "God, I hope they don't have those."

"I do what I can, but my attention is split," Jordan muttered.

Danielle groaned a bit as Riley giggled and Judas smacked his hand to his forehead.

"Yeah...remind me not to say the lord's name in vain anymore," Raul suggested to Riley.

Jordan grinned at him.

X x X x X

Xane frowned as he looked around the building, tucking his hands into his pockets. He wasn't sure if it was just him, but there didn't seem to be any of the pilots around. He'd heard Jordan leaving beforehand, but he'd heard a comment saying he should wait. He'd done so for a good twenty minutes, but he didn't want to sit on his haunches while everyone else did stuff...and now he was alone?

"I was told he was here," someone was muttering down a side-hall. "He's gotta be here somewhere. The others aren't here, you saw'em all down at the mission..."

"He's probably up in the royal apartment," another man snapped.

Xane froze, then darted across the hall into an open door. He ducked into someone's room, his heart starting to beat wildly.

"We can't get up there," the guy noticed. "Or I'd say we should just go knock on the door."

"Dictate," Xane whispered into his phone's mic, noting that it turned on in whisper mode.

"I don't know, they might let us by," the second noticed. "Just say we're here for green-eyes and call it good?"

Xane closed his eyes, running a hand down his face.

"No, we just can't do it right now," the first snapped. "We can get him when they walk to the shelter...he's usually only got one person with him..."

"Listen," the second muttered from almost just outside the door. "I hear someone."

Xane set his phone down, loosening his gun in its holster. The fact that he knew they were looking for him had sent his blood to alternately boiling or freezing, and the single-minded focus seemed based around Heero sending him flying against the wall.

"In here," the guy whispered.

Two men darted into the same room as Xane, closing the door behind themselves, then turned to look at Xane. There was a moment where they stared at each other in shock...then the taller one slammed the butt of his pistol against Xane's temple...and everything went black.

X x X x X

"He's not with you?" Jordan demanded of Heero, his voice raising a few octaves. "What do you mean, he's not with you?"

"He was sleeping in the apartment when I left," Heero returned, hitting the autodial on his cell that he'd assigned the boy.

He felt like he was going to be sick.

"Heero!" Jordan started.

Heero ended the call at the recorded voice message, staring at his phone in horror a long moment before meeting Jordan's eyes.

"What?" Jordan asked, instantly noticing guilt.

"I...heard...Corringer talking...you know?"

"Yeah?" Jordan demanded, staring at his friend.

"He...said...they'd grab Xane...perform some atrocities on him to keep you docile."

Jordan went cold. Everything but his anger dripped away as he stared into Heero's guilty blue eyes. "That's what's been going on," he noted, turning his focus toward the building he'd seen Corringer in. "I wondered why you kept pulling him aside...why he was so upset. You did tell him, didn't you?"

"I had to," Heero explained. "I didn't want this to happen."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"It's been a bit more than an hour now, I think," Heero returned. "You guys had been gone for a while." He offered Jordan his phone, and this time the satellite image of the area had a red blinking dot.

"You got a tracker on him?"

Heero nodded, looking away.

Jordan turned, his mind instantly going to how many weapons he had readily available...and his cell phone started to vibrate.

"Talk to me," he muttered, noting that Heero was tagging along a few feet behind him as he started for the building they were staying in.

"Maxwell, hi," Corringer sounded pleased. "I was starting to wonder if this was a wrong number. We can skip the pleasantries, though," he added. "I have something you rather want, I think."

Xane cried out in the background and Jordan stopped walking completely as the coldness was replace with a sort of agitated heat.

"He's such a pretty little thing," Corringer noted. Xane cried out again.

"You're a Dead man, Corringer," Jordan informed him quietly. "You won't see the sun set."

"Oh, I will," Corringer purred. "If you want to see your boy again, I will."

"What do you want?"

"You'll hear about it when I need it," Corringer noted...and Xane cried out again. "In the meantime, just try not to piss me off, huh?" The call ended and Jordan lowered his cell phone, noting that his hand was shaking.

"You can't kill them all," Heero whispered, moving up to his side. "You can't...not all of them."

Jordan focused on him, narrowing his eyes. "If you'd have told me about the atrocity part," Jordan spat, "I wouldn't have let him out of my sight...so I'm kinda thinkin' you don't have much say I what I do right now."

"What's wrong?" Trowa asked, moving out of the apartment building and blinking at Jordan. "Why are you shaking?"

Jordan met his eyes, "They have Xane."

Trowa straightened.

"Jordan?" Quatre was moving from the building with slightly shaking hands. He offered up something, his eyes wide. He'd heard the ringing phone...and gone to investigate the opened door.

Jordan took the cell phone, pulling it open to see a digital read-out of time. The phone was Xane's, and he knew it because there was a single loop of green thread around the base of the antenna.

"One hour, twenty minutes," he noted aloud, ending the timer and looking around to Heero.

"I'm sorry," Heero looked away.

"Get your men," Jordan spat at them. "It's time to move."

Quatre convulsed in shivers as Jordan disappeared into the building, rubbing his arms.

"Hey!" Wufei muttered, darting in to notice the look of eminent action as Morgan moved up with him. "What's wrong? Q?"

"They have Xane," Quatre half-whispered, not looking at him. "He's so...scared," Quatre added, looking around to his brethren. "He's terrified."

"Terrified?" Heero asked blankly. "Don't you mean pissed?"

"No," Quatre muttered, hugging himself tighter, "No...Jordan...is scared."

X x X x X

The pilots moved into the building shouting orders. The disciplined soldiers were sent scurrying from their tasks as a cold force of sheer anger washed through the entire building...and no one else had any idea what was going on.

Relena watched Heero shouting down the hall in a crisp tone of clear command, then watched as his crew started taking actual machine guns down the hall from the supply area. There was an outcry from the populace of Angels, and they scurried out of the way as more and more weapons appeared.

"I knew it!" Zia crowed, moving into the hall and snatching her own set of weapons up. "I knew there was more to this!"

"Noin!" Heero's tone was icy.

"Sir," she shouted back instantly, then blinked.

"Get the Prince and Princess to safety, now."

"Affirmative," Noin agreed, turning and starting to tug Relena toward the doors.

"Marquise!" Wufei's voice absolutely thundered from his mouth. In moments, Zechs was spilling down the stairs. "With Noin, now!"

"Sir," Zechs agreed, looking around in confusion as he noted the hubbub. "What's going on?" He asked Zia when they got nearer. Trowa tossed him one of the rifles, then pointed at the door commandingly.

"I don't know," Relena muttered as she was rushed out of the building. "They came in shouting orders."

"With Noin, now!" Wufei's voice sounded highly pissed off, and a moment later Riley and Danielle were joining them, both absolutely bawling.

"They've got Mouthy, don't they?" Zia breathed, staring at the girls in dawning horror.

Riley nodded.

"What? Who? What's going on?" Relena demanded as Zechs shoved her forcefully to the inside—which was when she realized that Danielle and Riley were crying, but she was the only one without a weapon.

"The people who tried to kill me," Zechs noted, his eyes moving around everywhere.

Relena would have stopped if she didn't have Riley pushing her forward. "Oh god..."

X x X x X

Jordan stormed down the silent alleys as he heard the men start moving in the proper sort of direction. He had the three phones silenced on him, and wondered briefly if he should have given Heero his own phone, but at the same time, he didn't care.

He'd seen the building...Judas was in the building, and had given him a layout. Further, the satellite image on Heero's phone indicated that his tracker, at least, was on the backside of the building and probably three stories up.

Jordan wasn't quite sure what he was going to do when he got there...if they opened fire on him, though...well, hopefully he wouldn't be covered in blood this time.

X x X x X

Xane noted Judas vaguely as his eyes came back into focus, then stared at his feet without acknowledging his friend. Corringer wasn't the only man in the room. There were several. There was no way in hell the other could take them all down, get Xane unlocked, and get them out, so they had to wait for Jordan.

Fuck it hurt.

He'd known that being beaten wouldn't feel good, and Heero'd seriously made his point on the street...but...god Heero was right.

Judas nodded slightly questioningly at him, asking if he were all right. Xane returned a shrug, assuming no one was looking.

"You fucking idiot!" a man shouted, storming into the room and making them all jump. "Are you in-fucking-sane? Do you realize what Maxwell is doing as we speak?"

"He won't be doing anything with his pretty boy here," Corringer noted, nonplussed by the man's demeanor. The man moved up to smile slightly into Xane's face, "Will he, sweet-cheeks?"

Xane looked away.

Matthew grinned slightly, looking to the other man again...and stumbled backwards as the man backhanded him.

"You're a fucking moron!"

"What could he do?" Corringer spat. "They're all so tangled in that mission..."

"That front!" the other man was shocked. "He got all those soldiers down here to take care of you! And what do you do?" the man moved up and pulled Xane roughly off the chair. "You take his precious?" He shoved Xane against a counter, starting to pat him down. He was snarling under his breath as he did so, and Xane wondered briefly what he actually had in his pockets. "Where is it, fucker?" the guy snapped. "Where's the tracker?"

"Huh?" Xane returned, deciding to play stupid.

The man sent him flying on his ass so his head slammed into the floor. Stars exploded across his vision and he groaned, wishing his hands had been free. If his hands had been free he could have kept the impact from being so hard.

"Tracker?" Corringer demanded.

"You're fucking stupid," the man snapped, pointing at Corringer and moving back to be in his face. "Do you have any idea what resources the Gundam pilots have at their disposal? The absolute access they have to every military secret?"

Corringer blinked.

"They saved the fucking world, imbecile," the man muttered. "They saved the world and you think taking some pretty boy they love won't send them at our throats?" He turned and gestured toward the men standing around the room. "Battle-stations..." he laughed a bit. "Jesus..." he turned back to Xane as the group scurried out and Judas hesitated in the door. He didn't want to leave Xane behind...not to their clutches...but...

"Venga," someone snapped in his general direction.

Judas wasn't sure if it was supposed to be a name or a different language, but he turned to follow obediently.

There was nothing he could do.

X x X x X

The swat vans went down first, lining the road at the halfway point as the soldiers on hand fanned out to secure the perimeter. Heero was in pace with the men themselves as he wondered where Jordan had gone. He hadn't seen hide nor hair of the other pilot since he'd disappeared into the apartment building, and the extent of the damage he'd been known to cause...

"North quarter is stabilized," Wufei's voice came to them over the radio. "Copy that, over?"

"Copy," Heero agreed with the other pilots.

"West side is secure," Quatre agreed, "Over."

"Copy," they repeated as Heero made the gestures that would clear out the civilians in the area as well as close off the roads. They were within about a block of the building Raul had pointed out to Heero, and the man was tensely standing in the ranks. His eyes showed nothing, though his knuckles were white as they gripped his weapon, and his movements were crisp.

So the girls broke down, Judas was infiltrating in a Trowa-fashion, and no one knew where to look for Jordan.

This was wonderful.

"South side," Trowa noted, "Where are you, Yuy?"

"We're getting in position now," Heero returned promptly. "Any signs of our broken arrow?"

"Nothing," they confirmed almost in unison.

"What do you think...what do you think he'll do?" Heero asked, swallowing slightly. He would have felt bad for the men who'd been sent on a helpful mission and ended up in full armor, but there was something about a radio screaming about a massacre of twenty-seven men that just wasn't letting him think of the current situation.

"Click, boom, ah," Trowa retorted. "Don't ask stupid questions, Yuy."

"Is this my fault?"

"Yes."

"No."

The blame seemed broken in half.

"It'll be your fault if any of those atrocities you mentioned come up," Raul noted, looking around to the guy.

"All clear!" someone shouted from the very front of the line as the call was echoed back behind them.

"We've got the east," Heero noted.

X x X x X

Jordan slid through a window and instantly started swinging. Outside he could hear the soldiers moving into position. The first of the three men was out cold before he even realized there was danger. The second had an ounce more of warning, and the third was staring at Jordan with huge eyes that stated very well that he knew what came next.

Jordan knocked him out, then went about gathering their weapons as he listened intently. The building was breaking into chaos, and he knew it was only a matter of time before someone popped into the room to gather those men.

He moved to the door, listening intently a moment, then slid out and moved with the hustle as unobtrusively as he could. The men around him were covered in about as much weaponry as he himself, and no one really paid him any mind...at first.

Then someone from the base saw him and froze.

"Say it," Jordan whispered in his ear, pulling out one of his pistols as he moved in closer to the man. "Announce it. I've got a semiautomatic with more than enough rounds than this rabble will take. Announce who I am."

The man swallowed hard.

"Come on, pretty," Jordan added, looking toward a room with an open door.

"What are you gonna do to me?" the man asked in a scared tone.

"Knock you out a little," he noted. "Can't have you making a scene when my back is turned."

"What's going on?" the guy asked with fearful eyes as Jordan shut the door behind them. "No one knows what's going on."

"Corringer decided he had a death wish, and as the god of death, I'm obliged to comply."

The guy swallowed.

"Have a wonderful nap," Jordan muttered...and knocked him out.

X x X x X

"He won't do anything with pretty here, huh?" Allen demanded of Corringer in disgust as he looked out at the swat vans that were lining the streets and the soldiers that went along with it.

"I'll just kill him, then," Corringer noted, turning back to Xane.

Allen grabbed his upper-arm, "You sure you want to do it like that? You know about Maxwell, don't you? You kill him, you won't make it out of this alive no matter what strings you pull."

"How do you even know?"

"Everyone knows about Duo Maxwell," Allen retorted.

"You could just...I dunno, let me go," Xane suggested.

That got him a look from both of them.

"If I'm not in here, he won't come in here to find you, and I'm not so stupid as to stay put once untied."

"You're funny," Allen noted to the boy. "Now shut up before I do something permanent."

Xane looked away, having no intentions to question that order. Corringer went about things in odd ways that seemed half-baked, but this other man looked like he knew what he was doing.

"Why aren't you begging or something?" Corringer demanded, moving around to him and forcing his chin up. "You should like...be admitting secrets or something."

"If you don't mind, I'd rather just sit pretty," Xane returned, attempting to lower his head. "There's nothing I could say to you to make you let me go, so why offer something?"

Corringer backhanded him.

"You get off on that, don't you?" Allen muttered to the guy in mild amusement. "You sick fucker..."

Corringer narrowed his eyes at the man.

"Listen, I don't know what Lamb saw in you, but I have an obligation to work under his plans until they find his body..."

"What makes you think he's dead?" Corringer snapped.

"Shit, you kidding me? Breer's wanted him dead since an incident about four years ago. The timing of the deals had to be just right before it would go down, or he'd have gotten his...braided..." Allen focused on Xane as several facts clicked in his mind at once, and he stared at Xane in disbelief.

Xane spat a mouthful of blood past Corringer's pants.

"That's Maxwell," he whispered, staring at Xane, then looking to Corringer. "Oh my god..."

"What?" Corringer asked, moving away from Xane.

"Maxwell...was working for Breer the entire time," Allen muttered, sitting back against a table as he weighed the political meaning there. "Maxwell...was Breer's little toady."

"On an amusing note," Xane muttered, "Breer likes me."

They blinked at him again as he realized it'd have been smarter if he'd kept his mouth shut.

"You annoy me," Corringer noted, moving toward Xane again. "I just want to let you know that."

"I'll wear black to your funeral," Xane returned.

Corringer hit him.

X x X x
E/n: I'd like to submit a massive apology at this point, because I got busy when initially writing this and neglected to post here...and then when I did come back to do it, the site was down or something. That's why it's been so long since the last posting, and why I'm doing 33 of 37 chapters in one night. If you actually waded through the bull...well, this story isn't too bad. Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you had as much fun as I did...hit the 'next' button...and welcome the end.