Chapter 5
A/N: You know, don't own, just write.
The next morning when Mit woke up, he saw that he had an email from Heero. It simply said meet with him at Quatre's at 1700 (5pm military time). It also said that they would meet publicly at the office to discuss the change of command at 0900, and to also look at the photos sent to him. He saw that there was a file attached to the email, so he opened it and began looking through them.
"What the hell?" Mit asked to the air and himself.
What he saw made no sense. There were a couple of photos that looked like robberies gone wrong and some looked like bad accidents. Then he saw the names attached to the files. They were all the former Preventer commanders that were replaced.
"This is not good," Mit said.
He showered quickly, got dressed, and headed to the office for his first day on this tour of duty. When he arrived, he saw that even though the former boss was a bad cookie, these agents were actually squared away, even though the office was relatively small compared to main headquarters on Earth. He approached his new office and saw his new secretary. Mit immediately recognized her from his files as Bethany Heart.
"Good morning, Miss Heart, I'm the new commander, Mit Rath."
"Welcome sir, I usually prepare the coffee, but I don't know how you like it."
Mit smiled.
"That's OK, I usually like to make it myself. You don't need to worry about it anymore. Thank you, though."
"Yes, sir."
"I'm having a guest come in an hour. See that he is admitted quickly."
"Will do sir," she replied smartly.
Mit entered his new, spacious office and walked to his desk. The first order of business was to go through the office and check for bugs and plant some of his own. He spent the next 15 minutes searching and found no bugs. 'Huh,' he thought to himself. The guy must have never planted any. He then planted about 4 bugs, as well as two mini cams. He went back to his desk, synced all of the equipment to his laptop, and began reviewing the two files he had found on his desk. They contained admin documents to help smooth the command change. He filled them out, and having nothing else to do, decided to pull up a couple of personnel files. These files belonged to Mikel Harper and Tom Arguile, the two agents with spotty files. Mit also wanted to find out if there were any other connections to Mikel and the former c.o., since they both had the same last name. He didn't voice this to Heero because he didn't have enough info on it to verify his suspicions. About 15 minutes later, his intercom beeped.
"Commander Rath, your 0900 appointment is here."
"Thanks Miss Heart. Please send him in."
At that, the door opened and in walked Heero.
"Hey boss. Welcome to Preventer HQ, L4 division," Mit said with a grin on his face.
Heero just simply nodded.
"Is everything in place?"
"OK, down to business, yes, 6, overall, properly placed in strategic locations. I was unable to locate any." Mit replied with the voice of an experienced operator.
"They were removed by my own team before you arrived on L4." Heero replied simply.
"Ah. Well, have you guys had any luck tracking the source of the bugs?" Mit asked, dropping the code talk.
"Not yet, but we're working on it. Shall we get on with our meeting."
"Sure thing. Have you reviewed the files of the agents I mentioned?" Mit asked knowing the answer already.
"Yes. They hold themselves in high esteem and integrity." Heero said simply.
"You've been following them, haven't you?" Mit asked with a smirk
"No, I've been busy on some other things. A trusted associate has been watching them. They don't even take free lunches like many of the local PD and some of the agents in this office." Heero didn't mention that the reason he wasn't doing the surveillance was because of obvious reasons, he was watching over his own angel, Relena.
"Right. Well, shall we begin this little interview?" Mit asked with a hint of excitement in his eyes.
Mit knew that this was his interview and that Heero would only interject if needed, which hopefully wouldn't happen.
"Go for it," Heero said simply.
Mit reached for his intercom button.
"Miss Heart, please send me Agent Harper and Agent Arguile. I want them in my office immediatly."
"Yes, sir."
Three minutes later, the agents knocked on the door and waited for permission to enter.
"What do you think the new boss wants bro?" Mikel asked Tom.
"You got me bro, but I got your back."
"Same here partner." Mikel responded.
"Enter," came the response on the other side of the door.
The two agents entered the office and came to the front of the desk, immediately saluting the man behind the desk, Commander/ Special Agent Mit Rath. They had been informed of the command change just this morning by their shift commander, so they were curious why the new commander had called them.
"At ease; please take a seat, gentlemen," Rath said.
As they sat down, they saw a man in the back corner watching them intensely.
Rath cleared his throat and began.
"Gentlemen, as you're aware, I am the new commander and it's my job to find out as much about my men as possible. Before I do, I am going to tell you about my history, since I know most of yours. I am prior Alliance and was with OZ and flew mobile suits as well, until Treize was removed from power. My career flying mobile suits was temporary, simply because on my first combat run out, I was up against Gundam 02. Let's just say I lost, and was pretty much ass-raped by a beam scythe. Then I was part of the rebel factions until the fighting went to space, so I went too. I joined forces with the Gundam pilots and fought. Somehow, I survived the Eves War. While on earth, and before flying suits, I was a recon sniper with the Alliance. I was a part of Alliance Special Forces, specifically the navy. I was a counter-sniper with Preventer until reassigned here. I... I was the one who shot the assassin of the VFM. That is my history, so now you two know my qualifications. Any questions yet?"
Neither one of them said anything.
"OK, first question. You two are the only agents in this detachment with reprimands. Why?"
Mikel spoke up. "Sir, it has to do with the former commander. He was angry with a man for messing up his personal vehicle, so instead of talking to the locals, he tried to use his authority and have us force the man to pay for it. When the scene was described to us, we determined it was actually the commander's fault, and refused. So, he reprimanded us. He was about to violate this man's freedoms for an accident he caused. We don't work like that sir."
Mit looked them over and decided to continue
"What about the second reprimand?" the man in the rear of the room piped in.
"That was for not arresting a man for a crime that we knew was not guilty. The Commander would not listen to us. We had hard proof that the man was innocent. It was later proven by the Assistant District Attorney," Tom answered.
"My next question is this: Harper, you have the same last name as the former commander. Are you related or is it just a coincidence?"
"Thankfully, a coincidence. After I was assigned here, I did a background on the commander, and didn't find any relation. If I was related, I would disown him."
"I see. Well, let's continue..."
Mit interviewed the two men for another ten minutes as both he and Heero scrutinized their answers. When he finally finished, Rath stood up. The two agents followed suit and the three men headed to the door.
"Gentlemen, I look forward to working with you, but for now, return to your duties. Also, this interview is classified, so do not discuss this with anyone, not even your supervisors. Understood?"
"Yes, sir," they both replied as they walked out the door.
When the door closed, Rath turned to Heero.
"Well, what do you think? From what I could tell, they were being truthful. Their body language confirmed it."
"I agree. Right now, these men are the only ones we can trust at this moment."
"Now, about these files-" Mit began.
Before he could finish, Heero's comm unit went off. When he got off, he turned to Rath.
"We're gonna have to review those pictures tonight, I have something I have to do."
"Sure thing boss. Anything I can do to help?"
"No, I have it under control." Heero replied.
What he had to do was important. Relena was going to start walking today and she requested that Heero be there. Heero was more than willing to oblige his love's request.
"See you tonight," Heero said as he left.
"OK boss," Mit replied as the door closed.
'I wonder what that was all about,' Mit thought as he began his work. His work was pretty tedious, but he was able to handle it. When lunch came around, Mit walked to a little corner deli and had a sandwich and chips. As he was walking to the deli, he thought he saw a person following him, but he wasn't sure. As he walked back, he confirmed his theory. He was being followed!
When he walked into his office, he ran another sweep to look for bugs. He didn't find any, but he still didn't feel it was secured. He sent a message to Heero saying he had a tail. Heero simply replied 'Don't worry, it will be discussed at the meeting'. At that moment, his intercom beeped.
"Commander Rath, you have a call on line 3," Miss Heart's voice said over the unit.
"Thank you, Miss Heart. This is Commander Rath, can I help you?"
"Commander Rath, This Quatre Rebarbra Winner. I wish to invite you for dinner tonight, if that is ok with you. It's a kind of welcome to the area thing."
'Thank you, Quatre' Mitt thought.
"Thank you, Mr. Winner. I would be delighted to join you this evening. What time would you like me to be there?"
"Please come by at 5:00 this evening."
"5:00 it is. I will see you then. Thank you again, Mr. Winner."
Mit hung up the phone and sighed with relief. To anyone listening in and hopefully his tail, it would sound like the big businessman was inviting the new head honcho of the local government agency to dinner, when in reality it was actually an Intel conference in disguise.
'I wonder if I should wear a tux.' Mit thought with a slight chuckle.
Meanwhile in a small alley outside Mit's office, Arnold Marks watched from the shadows. He had been assigned to tail Rath, a simple luck of the draw. The leader of the Brotherhood had warned Marks to be careful around Rath because he was not who he seemed. Unfortunately, his boss hadn't been forthcoming with any other info. Luckily, Marks had been able to tap the main office phone in Rath's office, and was able to hear the conversation between Winner and Rath.
"Well, well, aren't we making friends in high places," Marks said to himself.
He thought that Rath had spotted him following him at lunch, but couldn't confirm it. So he would proceed as originally ordered: tail him, and only if absolutely, kill him. To make matters more interesting, Marks could have sworn he saw Yuy meet with him, but the man in question was very adept at disappearing in the crowd, so Marks was unable to confirm it.
'Oh, well. We shall see if Yuy is at this dinner. If he is, then the night may get very interesting' Marks thought with an evil grin.