"Knowing" - 3/4

[calic0cat]

***

I slipped silently - despite the damn cane that I didn't dare discard quite yet - through the darkened halls of Preventers HQ. Dispatch and Holding were the only departments open at this time of night. Getting into the building without being spotted had been easy. Breaking into the Armoury and Medical had been even easier. The pack on my back now contained all the supplies that I needed except the bulletproof vest. I was wearing that because it was too bulky to squeeze in the backpack. Now the only thing I still needed was transportation. And for that, I was heading out to the Service Hangar.

I knew damn well that I'd be through at Preventers when this was done; hell, I'd count myself lucky if all Une did was yank my badge. But the longer I could delay them finding out what I was up to, the better. I didn't want to take the chance that they would somehow manage to stop me. So I was taking every possible precaution to hide my actions as long as possible.

I'd managed to "trip" over Rain's purse before the afternoon was over and had spent what little remained of the workday complaining about how much my leg hurt. No one would be the least bit suspicious to discover that I'd called Human Resources late in the evening and left a message that I wouldn't be in because I had to go get my knee checked. If I was lucky, no one would even realize that I was missing, let alone that I'd "requisitioned" a whole shitload of supplies without going through proper channels. I'd been careful not to leave visible gaps when I'd grabbed those supplies; with any kind of semi-decent luck their absence wouldn't be noted until the next inventory.

The tricky part of keeping things quiet till it was too late for anyone to stop me, however, was the transportation. If I took a shuttle from the fleet, the lack of proper authorization would turn up right away in the morning. A missing shuttle was a little hard to overlook.

Unless, that is, the shuttle was one that they *expected* to be missing. Such as one that had been sent over to the Service Hangar.

I'd searched the Service database for shuttles that needed really minor repairs. Things that I could repair myself, quickly. There weren't any. But there *was* one that only had a dead radio. Since I had no intention of *using* the radio even if it had worked, that wasn't a problem for me. That repair hadn't been assigned to a mechanic yet, so I simply deleted it from the repair queue. Now the shuttle was essentially non-existent. Service had no electronic record of it but the fleet scheduling database had it logged out to Service. It could be days before anyone realized it was gone. I only needed *one* day.

Picking the lock to the Service office took seconds. Grabbing the shuttle's passcard and paperwork took a few more. I was out of the office and had the door relocked in under a minute. Now there was no physical record of the shuttle being in Service either. Another few minutes had me onboard and running systems checks. Other than the radio, everything passed.

I smiled grimly and prepared to take off. No need to worry about air traffic control; with no flights scheduled, the Preventers airfield was shut down for the night. Airstrip lights remained on in case of emergencies but the control tower was unmanned. One more reason that I'd waited till after midnight to get the hell out of here. With the flick of a few switches and a pull on the control yoke, I was in the air.

Hang on Heero, I'm on my way...

***

"Preventer Shade?"

I nodded in acknowledgement and closed the shuttle door before holding out one hand in greeting. "Detective Jackson?" I inquired.

"Yes," he replied as he shook my hand. He eyed the cane in my other hand with a certain degree of surprise.

I met his questioning look calmly. Shrugging slightly, I told him, "I can get by without the cane when I have to but the doctor made me promise to use it as much as I could." And he had. Except that he'd meant to use it instead of the crutches, not instead of doing without entirely.

The very best bullshit inevitably contained at least a kernel of truth. It sounded a hell of a lot more convincing that way.

Except that it evidently wasn't enough to convince Jackson. Damn. Okay, time for Plan B.

I sighed heavily and admitted, "Okay, so I'm really not supposed to be on field duty yet. But it's *my* damn partner that Preventer Stone left behind. And the only reason he was stuck with Stone in the first place was *this*." I gestured disparagingly at the cane. "If I'd been back on duty, things would've gone down a hell of a lot differently."

Jackson nodded warily. "You mentioned on the phone that Stone had blown the case and you were going to have to fix his mess." He cleared his throat and observed, "I suppose that I shouldn't ask if he's officially off the case or whether you're officially here."

I could see why Jackson had been Officer of the Year in his district for the past three years running. And why he had the best goddamn solve rate in the region.

"Probably not," I said blandly.

He took a deep breath and held it for a moment, then blew it out slowly, looking off into the distance. I waited patiently. If he decided that he didn't want to get involved, there wasn't a damn thing he could do to stop me from going ahead with the rescue alone. I could take him down without causing any serious damage and be back on the shuttle in ten seconds or less.

But if I was reading him right, that wasn't the way things would go down. He wanted that narcotics operation shut down and he wanted it to happen *now*. If his department was going to get credit for it, so much the better.

I really couldn't fault him on that. This operation was producing a damn nasty designer drug that was addictive from the first hit but took a long time to show its ugly side effects. Its users would truly be "feeling no pain" while high yet they could function *almost* normally. It was virtually impossible to overdose on it. In short, it *seemed* the ideal drug. And from a seller's standpoint, it was. "Freebies" resulted in virtually guaranteed repeat buyers. And buyers could keep taking the drug for a very long time with no immediately apparent negative effects. They would gradually build up a slight resistance to its effects and would need larger and larger hits but that was about it.

But tests had proven that as the addict's liver worked to breakdown the drug, the liver itself was damaged. Not to the point of immediate failure - but enough that it couldn't repair itself as quickly as the damage was being done, especially as the size of the hits increased. And as liver function deteriorated, the kidneys were inevitably affected too. Eventually, equally inevitably, one or both would fail.

This was *not* the sort of operation that any law enforcement operation wanted in their backyard. And we had enough evidence to shut them down. What Une was still digging for was proof of something beyond the narcotics operation. Despite all evidence that this was strictly drug-related, she kept looking for ties to rebel groups or weapon smuggling. After reviewing everything that the Preventers had on the case, I honestly didn't think there was anything there to find.

Jackson sighed heavily and turned his gaze towards me. "So, what's the plan?"

I couldn't stop the grin from spreading across my face. "The plan is simple. You tell me *your* plan, then I make suggestions."

He gave me a decidedly startled look.

"I told you on the phone, Stone and I don't do things the same way. I've got a plan if you don't have one ready but I'd rather see yours.

"You're the locals. You're the ones with the knowledge of the area and the way these people operate. You're the ones who can tell me where they're probably holding my partner. I'll help you as much as I can but getting him out is my primary objective." Assuming, of course, that Heero was in any condition to *get* out. All I had to base that assumption on was a gut feeling that he was alive and the knowledge that he was the most damn stubborn, hard-to-kill man I'd ever known.

Jackson gave me one last considering look before starting towards a blocky van parked at the edge of the landing field. "Follow me. There's a map of the area in our mobile command unit. I'll show you what we had in mind."

***

Given an excuse to move and move fast, Jackson wasted no time getting an operation underway. He had the respect of his superiors and that meant that what he asked for, he got. Not without a certain amount of bitching and moaning, but he got it. Watching him interact with his superiors - and his fellow officers - made it more than clear just how fucked up a situation Heero and I had been putting up with. Our solve rate was just as damn impressive as his but in our case, we didn't get either the support or the respect that should have warranted. Not from our fellow officers and sure as hell not from our superiors.

Commander Une had no compunctions whatsoever about using our abilities but that was the only value she placed on us and every other agent. She still thought in military terms. Black Ops terms, at that. Everyone under her command was just another soldier, all equally expendable in the course of achieving whatever goal was being pursued. Every case, every mission, no matter how nonthreatening, was equally critical. Be it gunrunning or gambling, if it was of sufficiently wide scope to be handled by Preventers, each and every case was treated as a threat to peace. That was the kind of thinking that had led to Une's decision not to send a rescue mission after Heero immediately. A full investigation of the narcotics operation was more important to her, despite the fact that there had been no evidence that the key suspects were using their ill-gotten fortune for anything other than the personal indulgence of living in the lap of luxury.

I made up my mind. The Preventers was, by and large, a good agency. They fulfilled an important role. But with so much ex-military brass at the top, it was less of a paramilitary organization and more of a military one. One that was in danger of perhaps becoming a bit - overzealous - in its fulfilment of its purpose. "Quis Custodiet Custodes Ipsos?" I murmured softly as I pulled three sealed and addressed envelopes from my pack of supplies. The age-old question. Who guards the guardians...

"Detective Jackson?" I handed the envelopes to him. "Just... in case," I shrugged in response to his questioning look. He leafed through them, his eyebrows rising higher at each successive address revealed. Not surprising. While Chang Wufei wasn't exactly a household name, he *was* in the news occasionally thanks to his role in the L5 revitalization project. And it would be tough to find any reasonably well-informed adult in the Earth Sphere who didn't know who Quatre Winner and Relena Darlian were.

"If I don't reclaim them - mail'em," I told Jackson simply. If Heero and I didn't make it, someone was going to have to make sure that Preventers came under some careful scrutiny. We might not be close to any of those three personally at this point but I knew where they would stand on the less-than-ideal conditions at Preventers. The agency needed someone to take a serious look at its priorities. It wasn't a case of actual *corruption* - not yet, anyway - but this last incident - Une's decision to treat Heero's mission as if it were Black Ops and essentially abandon him based on Sorenson's opinion that he was either dead or dying - was one hell of a warning flag. Preventers needed some long, hard looks directed at it and its daily operations; those three had both the position and the drive to make damn sure that it came under that kind of scrutiny.

Jackson nodded slowly and turned to place the envelopes somewhere safe. I finished reorganizing my pack, shifting the first aid kit to the bottom and placing the smoke and gas grenades on top. I rechecked my bandaged knee, making sure that it had enough support, then downed a precautionary painkiller. I knew damn well that my leg was going to hurt like hell in no time flat; there was no fucking way that I could use even the cane once we started to move in.

"The last units are moving into position now. You ready, Shade?"

I gave Jackson a rather grim Shinigami grin in response. "Let's get this fucking show on the road."

Apparently, the winery we were moving in on was producing something other than wine. It had been a legitimate business up until a few years ago when the owner died and his son inherited the place. Now, there was no way that the vineyards produced enough grapes to be responsible for the heir's income. Nor did the vats produce nearly enough wine to fill the extensive underground cellars. They would make an ideal location for a drug lab.

I was hoping that they also made a virtually ideal location to hold a prisoner.

"We move in fifteen minutes," Jackson told me. "Make the most of it."

I nodded once, sharply, and adjusted the headset he'd provided me with. Jackson had offered one of his men to partner me on this but, even with my bad leg, I'd move far faster alone than with a partner unused to working with me. So while they were busy presenting warrants and starting the official search in the winery's main building, I would be searching the cellars for any sign of Heero. They were giving me a fifteen minute headstart to get in position and start my search before they made their move. Other cops would be watching the perimeter to stop any escape attempts - or attempts to dispose of an inconvenient prisoner.

Slipping out of the command van, I froze in mid-step as a quiet, "Good luck, Shade," came over the com channel. It had been a long time since anyone other than Heero had directed those words in my direction. Just as long since anyone other than I had directed them in Heero's. It brought home to me yet again just how fucked up of a situation we had been living in for far too long. Something was going to have to change. Heero and I deserved a better life than the one we'd been living.

But first, I had to get Heero back.

***

The loading dock in back of the facility provided my way in. I headed straight for the access door alongside of the big bay doors. It was locked but only with a standard commercial passcard-based lock and alarm, nothing that provided even a modicum of challenge. I had the cover off, wires yanked and shorted, and door open in under a minute. I then spent a few more precious seconds cramming the wires back inside and wedging the cover in place again. It would pass a casual glance and with the raid beginning in less than fifteen minutes, I wasn't worried about it holding up to a more careful examination.

The winery accepted deliveries and loaded trucks in the early morning hours only. *Very* early morning. That meant that at this point in the late afternoon - almost early evening - there was no one in the loading area. Just stacks of boxes waiting for tomorrow morning's shipping schedule. Probably at least some of the cartons contained more than the bottles of wine that they appeared to. I didn't waste my time checking; that would be up to the local cops.

Slipping through the access doors leading towards the wine cellars, I visualized the blueprints I'd memorized of the winery's interior. They dated back to the previous owner's time so there would doubtless be some discrepancies. It was highly likely that a portion of the cellars had been sealed off to prevent visitors from stumbling across the winery's real primary operations. Health inspectors and buyers from various stores and restaurants would be in and out on a fairly regular basis; the public areas would have to be kept completely innocent in appearance.

Once I was within the cellars themselves, I had to keep a careful ear open for any indication of workers. The vats themselves were aboveground, thank god, or I would be dealing with a *lot* of employees since there were grapes being processed right now and that involved constant monitoring. That did not rule out the presence of workers - legitimate winery employees - in the cellars entirely but it reduced the probability of encountering very many this late in the day.

Though there were certainly a *few* people around... I ducked quickly into one of the storage rooms and hid in the shadow of a rack of casks as I heard footsteps approaching. I held my breath as the individual passed the doorway, the light from the hallway momentarily darkened as it was blocked. I waited while the footsteps receded before cautiously peeking around the corner of the doorway. A brief glimpse of a coverall-clad back was all I saw as the worker headed back the way that I had came in. Despite my impatience and sense of urgency - my lead-time was slipping away rapidly - I forced myself to wait a few more moments before resuming my search.

There had been considerable debate over the timing of the raid. In theory, it would have been better to hit the place either in the early morning hours while a pickup or delivery of questionable nature was being made or right in the middle of the day, while the maximum possible number of employees were onsite and could be detained for questioning. Both times were ultimately ruled out due to one simple fact: the probable imprisonment of a Preventers agent, one who was believed to be injured, possibly critically. Instead of delaying the raid until the next day in order to hit at one of the optimum times, the operation went into action absolutely as fast as the necessary units and equipment and warrants could be scrambled.

A distinctly different decision from Une's. And even more proof that the Preventers agency was seriously overdue for a reality check.

Glancing at my watch, I grimaced. Nearly two thirds of my lead-time was gone and I hadn't even located the drug lab. I was certain that Heero would be held in its general vicinity, well away from the possibility of casual discovery.

I picked up my pace, ignoring the immediate protest from my knee. Once the raid began, Heero would become a major liability. Hell, the whole lab would be and the quickest way to destroy the evidence would be to blow it. There would be more than enough chemicals in there to incinerate the actual lab equipment and any existing stock of drugs as well. If an inconvenient prisoner were to be taken care of in the process - well, there wouldn't be anything left to prove it.

Five minutes left. I pushed myself into a run, gun in one hand and smoke grenade in the other. Caution wasn't an option now. I had too much ground left to cover. Best guess said that the drug lab would be in the furthest portion of the wine cellars. Rather than wasting time checking the rooms opening off of the corridor I was running through, I headed straight down it. Abruptly, the corridor ended. Considerably sooner than it should have according to the blueprints.

I swiftly checked the wall for any sign of a hidden switch or release. Nothing.

Reviewing the blueprints in my mind, I realized that there should be wine storage rooms on both sides of the hall here. There weren't. One side had a closet labelled "Cleaning Supplies". I gave the closet door a cursory check for alarms, found one, and shorted it. An instant later, I was inside and searching for a way out.

Finding the latch for the concealed door was easy. Too easy. I couldn't find any sign of an alarm but the inconveniently located broom holder - no one would ever hang a broom or mop or anything else in that corner, it was too awkward to reach - was just too damn obvious. I didn't much like the fact that I had no way to know what was on the other side of the door either.

No choice. I had to trigger the latch and hope that Shinigami's luck hadn't quite deserted me.

Before I could do so, however, there was a sound and the door began to move. Crap. Nowhere to hide.

I stepped back as far out of sight as I could get and waited. I didn't want to use the smoke grenade then find out there was only one person there; the smoke would undoubtedly set off detectors and draw a whole lot of attention that I really didn't need. On the other hand, if there were more than two or three people coming through... I was going to regret not having already tossed the damn thing.

As the door slowly opened, voices became audible. Three for sure. Fuck.

I yanked the pin on the smoke grenade, counted, tossed, counted, then sucked in a last deep breath and dove through the narrow opening, door jamb scraping shoulder and hip painfully. I didn't care, I'd overcompensated to make sure that the opposite knee *didn't* hit anything; it was giving me enough trouble already.

Rolling to my feet, I came up with one shoulder blade pressed against the wall and kept moving forward. I had to get clear of the smoke before I ended up handicapping myself as much as my opponents by getting too much of it in my eyes or inhaling it. I caught a split-second, hazy glimpse of motion before one of the men was on me.

This was where being a Preventer really sucked. I couldn't shoot the guy except in defense of myself or an innocent and even then, I couldn't do so until he indisputably proved he deserved it. And if I *did* shoot him, I was still supposed to try to keep him alive for questioning. Things had been a hell of a lot simpler during the war.

It was a foregone conclusion that when the guy slammed into me, my bad knee would twist and give out. I knew that. Was prepared for it.

It still hurt like hell.

I decided that as far as I was concerned, having his hands around my neck and trying to throttle me was pretty indisputable proof that the guy was indeed trying to kill me and I was therefore entitled to use deadly force to stop him. By some miracle I had *not* dropped my gun in the scuffle and I managed to bring it up against his side. I don't think he even registered its muzzle pressing into his gut. I couldn't afford to wait for him to notice it; I was already seeing spots. I pulled the trigger. His hands tightened for an instant in reaction then slackened and I managed to shove him off of me.

Before I could drag myself to my feet, another gun went off. I instinctively rolled even as it fired and the shot ploughed along the surface of the Kevlar vest before striking the wooden floor of the cellar. I kept rolling until I was facing the shot's source, then returned fire without taking the time to aim. While the woman was ducking in reaction to my first wild shot, I took aim and fired again, a solid heart shot that dropped her instantly. I looked for the third person but the door back into the closet was closing.

Suspect number three had gotten away. Crap. And after all of this noise, any chance of sneaking through the place was shot to hell.

A glance at my watch confirmed that sneaking wasn't going to do much good anyway. The raid had started by now. I was certain that it wouldn't take long for word to get down here and then all bets would be off as to how things would go down. I didn't know whether it was just paranoia that made me so sure they'd decide to blow the lab or if that was a legitimate evaluation of the situation but I was pretty damn certain this place would be going up in a fireball.

I switched my headset mike on and warned, "Shade to Command. Come in Command. Over."

"Command to Shade. Go ahead. Over."

"Shots fired. Two suspects down, one at large, headed into main winery. Drug lab entrance through cleaning closet at end of hallway in wine cellars. Broom hanger in northeast corner probable latch release. No sign of Sky. Continuing search. Over."

"Acknowledged. Primary team sweeping main building. Secondary entering cellars in two. Over."

"Acknowledged. Shade over and out."

Two minutes before the team would be entering the wine cellars. It would be another five to ten, depending on resistance, before they reached my position. That was too long; I couldn't wait.

Gathering my nerve, I cautiously tried to rise. It hurt. A lot. And I could feel the swelling puffing out around the edges of the support bandage which was definitely *not* a good sign. But despite the pain, the knee bore my weight. Speed and agility had definitely taken a nosedive but I was mobile. Though I intended to keep that side next to the wall if at all possible; I doubted that the knee would handle another fall. Best to keep support in easy reach.