Chapter 23

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"Is there anybody in the room with you?"

"No, sir."

"Is the line secure?"

"Yes, sir."

There was a slight, deliberate, pause on the other end of the line.

"Simmons, how in the hell did you let this happen?"  He had known that the caller would not be pleased at the outcome of last night's attack, but his voice showed no trace of anger.  Instead, each of his words were carefully chosen, each phrase and action cold and calculated.  Simmons knew that these kind of men were the most dangerous of all…cold blooded killers.

"Sir, if you'll just let me explain.  She was being detained in the holding cells as I explained to you previously, but…well, she escaped."  Simmons cringed.  He could guess what the response would be.

"She escaped?  Weren't you supposed to be her guard?"

"Well, yes…but…" he stuttered, before being interrupted.

"I don't want to hear your sorry excuses.  You failed."

"I'm sorry, sir…it was Leonhart's fault, not mine."

"Don't try to blame anybody else for your mistake." 

"Yes, sir."  Simmons was seriously beginning to fear for his life.

"It sounds as if this Leonhart's becoming something of a problem.  One which needs eliminating.  Don't fail me again."  Simmons registered a click, followed by the dialling tone.  He had his orders, and his one, final chance to survive.

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"What have I done?" Caraway muttered to himself, stubbing out his cigar on the wooden railing of the balcony.  He studied the perfectly formed scorch mark that remained, hoping that any small, insignificant detail could distract him from the magnitude of the situation.  It was pointless. 

He sighed, gazing into the distance at the rolling parklands and ornamental pond that made up the grounds of his mansion.  This was what he had worked so hard to achieve for the last thirty years.

"And now it all means nothing," he thought wryly to himself. 

At one time, it was everything.  He lived for his job, and his job alone, but that all changed when he met Julia, a pianist at the Deling City hotel.  Caraway had never been one to believe in love at first sight.  That was something that was exclusive to unbelievably sappy romantic films, and children's fairy tales.  Even so, he had to admit that there was something very special about her, and he felt it from the very first moment that they met.  From then on, he had worked to provide for Julia, and the family that he hoped they would one day raise together.  He was determined to earn enough money to always give them the best in life, and that sometimes alienated him from the very woman he loved. 

When their daughter was born, he vowed that he would not let the same happen between them, but nothing ever goes to plan. 

After Julia's tragic death, Caraway thought that his world had fallen apart.  For months, he hardly touched his food, and he barely slept, but he pulled through, if only for the sake of his young daughter.  It was then that he made a promise to himself.  He promised that he would never abandon Rinoa like he felt he had abandoned Julia.  He watched her every move, no matter what she did, he was there, and that, in the end was what drove her away. 

"If I'd have given her some freedom, maybe this mess wouldn't be happening.  She left home, and now, just because she's my daughter, she's been caught up in all this political wrangling."

It had been several years now since Vinzer Deling had first approached Caraway concerning the elimination of SeeD, back when Deling was an unimportant government minister.  His proposal was easy enough to dismiss back then, but Caraway was now finding it impossible to do so now that Deling was president, and fully promoting his views on Galbadian supremacy.  Although the army wasn't completely under control of the government, it was almost unheard of to disobey a direct order from the president, but that was what Caraway did.  SeeD was the only neutral fighting force in the world, and the elimination of them would ensure that the Galbadian Army would go unchallenged in terms of military supremacy.  Caraway was well aware of what Deling would try to do with that kind of power at his disposal. 

Still, he had paid a high price for his refusal.  Three attempts had been made on his life in the past year, and there was the continued threat of uprisings from certain sections of the military.

"However," he thought, "It's nothing compared to the price that I may still have to pay."

It had only been a month since Deling had openly threatened Rinoa's life, but that month had been enough to completely destroy Caraway's nerves and composure.  He had been waiting patiently for the right time to talk to Rinoa, to rebuild the trust between them, but his hand had been forced.  He knew that, in Timber, she had no concept of the danger that she would be facing, and so he made the decision to bring her home by force.  He knew that Deling probably had her under surveillance, so using his own men would be out of the question.  The only choice he had left was to hire SeeD, and then, once Rinoa was safely away from Timber, have his own soldiers retrieve her from the mercenaries.  He couldn't risk being seen to be having dealings with the organisation.  If that happened, he would surely be removed from his position as general as soon as possible.

"If only things would go to plan," he thought wistfully.  "If only my men had been able to defeat the SeeDs in the woods, Deling might not have been any the wiser."

Caraway had long suspected that Deling had an inside man at SeeD.  This just confirmed it.

"He knew all about my part in it.  They've probably captured her by now.  Her execution will have already been ordered."

He knew from one of his most loyal men that one of the best squads in the army had left on a night ops mission the previous evening.  A mission that he himself had not authorised.  The order for that mission had come from someone else, and Caraway had a very good idea who that might have been.

"She's with them now.  My only daughter is with them now."

The staunch old soldier found himself weeping for the first time since the death of his beloved wife.  He could feel the sharp wind whipping against his face, brushing against the tears that were flowing freely.

"She's going to die, and there's nothing I can do about it."

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Simmons tried to regulate his breathing, desperately trying to calm himself.  Taking out Leonhart was something that he had always dreamed of doing, but never thought that he would get the opportunity to.  Now that that opportunity had arrived, he was nervous, and wracked with doubt.

"Leonhart's no easy target," he thought to himself.

To make his task even more difficult, he had to ensure that nobody would suspect him of murder.  He still had further jobs to do for his boss within Garden.  The best way to do this, he decided, would be to make his death seem like an accident.  The easiest way to do this would be to fake an accident in the training centre, but he knew that Squall was too good to fall for that.  Instead, he had to use a more risky plan of action.  One of the supplies that he had been given before coming to Garden was a small vial of poison.  Simmons knew that it had originally been intended for the headmaster, in order to make it seem as if he died from a heart attack, but it would suffice for the job he had to carry out.  He knew that Squall seemingly dying of a heart attack may seem slightly suspicious, but the poison did not remain in the blood stream long enough for it to be picked up by an autopsy.  There would be no way of tracing the death to him, that was the main thing.

Simmons took one last, deep breath before entering the cafeteria, clutching the vial tightly in his pocket.

"This is it."