Chapter 4
Getting Quatre into the car was a struggle, but finally all 6 were piled in Heero’s hummer, which was hidden under a pile of snow. Heero was driving with Duo in the passenger seat to annoy him. Trowa was behind Duo and Wufei sat next to him. Sophia sat in the back with Quatre, his head in her lap and hot packs all over his body.
"Heero, do you know where you’re going? Because Duo drove here."
"No."
"Ok."
At that, Heero took off in the direction of the base. His hands clenched the wheel as he stared at Sophia through the rearview mirror.
"Can we spare half and hour?"
Sophia returned his gaze in the mirror. "I think so. As long as someone stays with him."
"I’ll stay," Wufei said. "Everyone else go with Heero."
Heero pulled up in front of the gates to the base and, drawing a gun out of the dashboard, shot out the lock. He then drove through the gate and parked in front of the main building.
"C’mon. We have 30 minutes. Find out why everyone left so suddenly, then get out."
"Got it."
They 4 hopped out of the hummer, and Wufei took Sophia’s spot. They went to the trunk and pulled out hand grenades and more guns for protection. Heero then pulled out a bomb and detonation device. Sophia’s eyes went wide at it.
"This is why you all have 30 minutes and that amount of time only. Understood?"
"Mission accepted," 3 voices responded.
All 4 of them took off in opposite directions, Sophia heading for the main building. Upon entering it, she took off down a long corridor where there was only one door at the very end.
/This has to be her room./
Sophia tried the door handle, but it wouldn’t turn. Grabbing her gun, she shot off the handle and kicked the door wide open. Trying to find evidence of the quick departure and adjusting her eyes to the minimal light at the same time was difficult. She hunted for a light switch on the sides of the walls, but couldn’t find any. Standing in the center of the room, Sophia noticed a chandelier dangling above her head. She pulled the cord hanging from it and instantly the room was filled with light.
It bounced off the crystals of the chandelier and flickered against the walls and furniture. The dust in the air danced through the shafts of light as Sophia glanced at the small bed. Still clutching her gun, she walked to the bed and knelt down next to it. She peeked under the mattress and under the bed as well.
/No paper or clothes. Nothing to tell us where they went./
Pushing herself up with the aid of the bed, Sophia heard a rattling noise from under the pillow. Bending closer to the bed, she lifted up the pillow to reveal a small orange bottle.
"A prescription?"
Turning the bottle so the label was readable, Sophia let out a soft whistle.
"Fentanyl." ***************************************************************************
Heero looked up from his handiwork in a small secluded corner of one of the barracks. All the bombs were in place around the buildings, 3 in the main one to make sure nothing remained to come back to. Checking the digital clock on the bomb told him he had 10 minutes to get out of the buildings before all the explosives went off.
Glancing outside, he saw the hummer with Duo already back holding a manila file folder in his hands. Deciding it was time to get out, Heero took one last look at the wiring and bolted out the door. ***************************************************************************
Wandering around the small room, Sophia clutched the bottle and began searching the bedside table. As she was closing one of the side table drawers again, she could feel an object bang against the inside of it.
/That’s odd. The drawer’s empty./
She moved the drawer around again and again felt the bump of an object.
"Hidden compartment."
Sophia ripped the drawer out of the dresser and tore off the bottom. It revealed to her a tiny, leather-bound book with the monogram ‘MK’ on it. Opening to the first page, she scanned the entry for a signature at the bottom. Scrawled there was a child’s signature: Mariemaia Khushrenada.
"Shit. Her diary."
Quickly reading through the entry, Sophia’s eyes locked on a sentence.
Father’s guns were the first thing I hid when I arrived at the base; 2nd drawer of the old writing table in the corner.
Leaping at the words on the page, Sophia rushed to the desk and tried opening the drawer. Unfortunately, the drawer was locked. Sophia searched the top of the desk for keys until she found a small skeleton key in a jar on top of the desk. Quickly, Sophia inserted the key and turned it easily, sliding the desk open.
A pair of sparkling clean ivory pistols shone at her in the light of the room. The carvings on the handle were intricate and detailed, and the silver barrel shone without so much as a fingerprint. Carefully picking them up, Sophia weighed them in her hands, turning them so they glinted.
A casual glance at her watch told Sophia she had 2 minutes to get out. Standing up, she put a gun in each pocket along with a few stray bullets she saw in the drawer. Clutching the diary and medication bottle, Sophia ran through the office door.
Just as she hit the snow outside the building, explosions erupted behind her from the building she had so recently vacated. A breathless Sophia piled into the hummer as Heero slammed on the gas. The pilots pulled away just as all the buildings exploded in a mass of burning shrapnel.
Sophia let out a breath and slumped against the back of her seat. She ran a hand through her hair and glanced at Trowa, who sat next to her. She grinned at him while he just shook his head and pointed at her findings.
"What did you find out. You certainly took long enough."
"Yeah," Duo interjected. "I found some last minute communicator recordings. They were taken about 20 minutes before you left to find Quatre. They were to a hospital on X18999."
Sophia held up the medication bottle. "Those and what I found could be connected." She shook the pills and tossed them at Trowa.
"Fentanyl," Trowa read, tossing it back to Sophia.
"What is that?" Duo asked.
"Fentanyl is a very powerful drug prescribed for pain," Sophia said, staring at the bottle.
Trowa flicked the handle of the gun on her left hip. "And these? I know they’re guns, but where’d you get them?"
"Mariemaia’s room. Along with the pills and this diary. There are two pistols, and I think I also grabbed about 10 bullets."
"A diary?" Duo said, suddenly interested. He picked the book nimbly out of her hands and flipped through a few pages. "Mariemaia’s?"
"Precisely. I read a page and that’s how I found the pistols." She paused and looked at Heero through the rearview mirror. "Apparently, they’re Treize’s."
Wufei’s hand clenched at the name and his eyes glazed over as if in pain. Coming out of the daze, Wufei looked down at his friend and remembered why they were speeding along.
Sophia looked back at Quatre and Wufei. She stroked Quatre’s hair and forehead, running her fingers across his cheek. She lingered there for a moment, then turned to Heero.
"Heero, he’s got really bad frostbite." Buckling her seat belt she once again met his eyes in the mirror. "Drive faster."