A/N: Finally found time to finish this chapter! Enjoy!

Chapter 55

Trowa frowned at his phone after Duo hung up. Something about this raid was off. No decent Head Agent would send a team into a hot lead without medical backup. He decided to go against Duo's wishes and contact Colonel Une.

"Yes, Agent Barton?"

"I wanted to speak to you about Preventer protocol."

"Oh?"

"If you know that an agent is investigating a hot lead…how many medical personnel should be assigned to their team?"

"Is this a hypothetical question, Barton?" Trowa could hear the frown in Colonel Une's voice.

"Not entirely, Ma'am."

"I think you should apprise me of the situation."

"Well…it has to do with our current case. Heero sent Duo to L2 to follow up on a questionable lead and he found something worth checking out. He contacted the L2 Preventers for backup as per Heero's instructions and what he was given was six agents and no medical backup. I'm concerned that the location he's checking out will end up with at least one witness in need of medical help since it's owned by Angus Carruthers, just like the location where we found the girl."

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

"Did Maxwell happen to mention which agent he spoke to in the L2 office?"

"He mentioned an Agent Cresswell and an Agent Larkspur. But I am not sure which one is higher ranking."

"Larkspur," Colonel Une said, disgust evident in her tone. "I knew he would let that position go to his head. Thank you for letting me know, Agent Barton. I will make sure that Agent Maxwell has the backup he needs for this assignment."

"Thank you, Colonel. Oh, and if you could keep this between us, I would appreciate it. Duo didn't want me to bother you with it but I would hate for him to run into trouble when it could have been avoided."

"Understood, Barton. You did the right thing. I've been getting some questionable reports about Agent Larkspur and it seems that it's time I looked into them a little more seriously. Please let me know if there's anything else I can do to assist in this investigation."

Trowa assured her that he would and hung up.

"Who were you talking to?" Heero came into the living room, dressed in pajamas and drying his hair with a towel.

"Colonel Une," Trowa told him. There was no point in lying about it.

"Why?"

"I asked her to have the L2 precinct send a few more agents with Duo tomorrow, just to be on the safe side."

Heero frowned. "Why?"

"Partially because he has a tendency to make do with what he's given instead of asking for help and partially to give you more peace of mind. Une said she'd make sure he had the help he needed for this raid." Trowa didn't want to worry Heero by telling him that Duo had been planning to go into a hot spot without medical backup. That would have stressed him out all over again.

"Thank you, Trowa."

Trowa nodded. "You should get some sleep, if you can. I'll be out here on the couch if you need me."

Heero nodded and went into his room. He curled up on the bed, missing the warmth of Duo's body and silently praying that his braided lover would stay safe.

Duo did not sleep well. He was worried about Heero and he was not looking forward to this raid. Part of him hoped they wouldn't find anything but most of him worried that they would. Maybe he should call Trowa and have him ask Colonel Une for more backup. But would that delay their raid? He didn't want to put it off and end up being away from Heero any longer than absolutely necessary. Besides, what if the brothel owners caught wind of the raid? He couldn't risk it.

After a night of tossing and turning, the colony's sleep cycle finally ended. Duo grabbed a quick breakfast in the hotel lobby and headed for the Preventer office to meet Agent Cresswell and her small team.

"Oh, Agent Maxwell…Sir!" the receptionist greeted him when he arrived. "Please come with me. Agent Cresswell is waiting for you in Briefing Room C."

Duo quirked an eyebrow but followed the woman. He wondered what she was up to. She certainly hadn't been this polite to him yesterday.

"Here it is, Sir."

The receptionist opened the door and Duo was surprised at what he saw. There must have been twenty agents listening to Agent Cresswell.

"Ah! Agent Maxwell, please join us!" Agent Cresswell greeted him with a beaming smile. "Agent Maxwell is the lead agent for this case. His instructions are to be followed without question," she told the other agents by way of introduction. She looked at him as he walked into the room. "I was just briefing our new additions on our mission this morning."

"New agents?" Duo asked. He wanted to pinch himself. Surely he was dreaming.

Agent Cresswell nodded. "We have sixteen more agents joining us for the raid and four medical teams of three agents each. I've filled them in on the background of the case and given them a rundown of the plan of action we came up with last time. Is there anything else you'd like to add?"

"Uh…yeah. I don't want to seem pessimistic, but you guys need to know that my team on Earth has had a lot of dead leads in this case so there's a chance that this one won't pan out. But…on the other hand…the hot lead we had…well…" Duo scratched the back of his head. He wasn't sure how to explain what happened. "We found one girl that was still alive and…and the forensics team pieced together another three hundred or so."

Several jaws dropped and there were audible gasps.

"It was pretty disturbing for the agent that found the pieces," Duo told them. "So please be careful and if possible, try to prepare your minds for anything we might find. Based on the information I was able to dig up, there's a good chance we'll be able to save a lot of girls from a nasty fate so keep that as your motivation to do a thorough job. All I know about the layout of the building is that there are four upper levels." He turned to Agent Cresswell. "Have you handed out assignments yet?"

"I wanted to wait for you to arrive. I figured since you are in charge of this raid, you should handle assignments."

Duo appreciated that and he nodded his approval. "Okay. Since there are four levels and twenty-two agents…then let's have four agents to each level and the remaining six will surround the building with the medical personnel to prevent anyone escaping and to treat injuries as necessary. I'll leave the assignment of which team to which floor with Agent Cresswell as she is more familiar with your skills. With any luck we'll be able to flush out the bad guys and get the girls to safety quickly. I want each girl we find to undergo an initial medical checkup before being transported to the hospital for thorough treatment. In the event that we find more girls than we can transport in one trip, the girls that are the worst off will be transported first. Any questions?"

"Where will you be, Agent Maxwell?" Agent Cresswell asked.

"I thought I'd see what the situation was before deciding that. Depending on what we find, I may position myself at the ground level in order to interrogate everyone we take into custody. The building may have hidden rooms and passageways and it might take a little persuading to get that information."

Agent Cresswell nodded and turned back to the room of agents. "Any other questions?"

There weren't any so she quickly gave each team their assignment and they headed for their vehicles.

Once inside a car with Agent Cresswell, Duo asked, "So what changed Larkspur's mind?"

"He isn't in charge anymore," Agent Cresswell told him.

"Really? What happened?"

"Colonel Une called me late last night. She said that she'd received some negative reports about Larkspur and that I had been mentioned as well, so she asked me to tell her what was going on. I didn't want to say anything to her, but she scares me, so I told her everything, including that Larkspur was making us go on this raid without any medical backup. Before she hung up she said that I should expect to assist you in this raid today and she would assign us other agents. When I got into the office this morning, all of those agents were waiting. They said that the Colonel had called them each personally to assign them to us."

Duo was surprised that Une had called all those agents. He wondered if Heero had talked to her. He'd been worried enough that Duo shouldn't have been surprised that he talked to Une. But how had Heero known?

"Trowa," Duo muttered.

"Hm?"

"Oh, sorry. I mentioned to a member of my team back home that I was doing this raid this morning. He may have said something to Colonel Une about it."

"Oh. What…what exactly did you tell him?"

"Just that Larkspur only gave us a few agents and I wasn't sure if we were going to find anything so I wasn't going to worry about not having medical backup. I promise I didn't say anything bad, but my team sometimes worries about me. I have a tendency to make do with whatever I've got," Duo told her with a shrug. "Comes from growin' up on the streets around here, I guess."

Agent Cresswell looked at him. "You grew up on L2?"

"Yeah…but that was a long time ago."

Agent Cresswell was curious but something in Duo's tone told her not to ask for details. "Hang on! Do you know Colonel Une personally?!"

"Uh…yeah. So?"

"You won't tell her that she scares me, will you?" Agent Cresswell was truly horrified at the thought.

Duo laughed. "No. And don't worry about it. She scares me, too."

They pulled into an empty parking lot half a block away from the brothel. Once all the agents were assembled, Duo asked once again if there were any questions. There weren't, so he gave the order to move out.

The group descended on the building. Duo kicked the front door down and led the charge. He frowned when he was greeted with silence.

"What's wrong, Agent Maxwell?" Agent Cresswell asked.

"Somethin' seems off. Proceed with caution." Duo signaled for the other agents to fan out through the building. He turned to Agent Cresswell, who was in charge of the group on the ground floor. "I'm gonna look around a bit down here. If you need me, call me on the radio, okay?"

Agent Cresswell nodded and Duo headed down the hall, knocking on the walls as he did so. He wasn't sure why but he had the feeling there was a hidden passage in the building. He opened every door he came across and knocked in the backs of closets.

"Hey! Did you guys find anything?" he asked the ground level team members when he met up with them.

"Nothing yet, sir."

"Keep up the good work," Duo said as he turned down another hallway. The place was like a labyrinth. He was beginning to wonder if they'd brought enough agents to fully search the building when he bumped a large tapestry on the wall and it fell, revealing a hidden door.

"Bingo!"

Duo opened the door and found a set of stairs descending into darkness. He grabbed his radio. "Agent Cresswell, I found a stairway into a basement. I'm going to check it out. My plan is to chase anyone I meet upstairs so be ready to intercept them."

"Yes, Sir! All possible exits are covered. We'll be waiting!"

Duo took a deep breath and went down the stairs. He hoped that he was wrong about this, but he had a hunch there was something down there. Duo found a light switch and turned it on. Only a dim bulb turned on. In truth, it didn't make much difference but he left it on anyway. Maybe it would provide hope for any girls unfortunate enough to be trapped down here. He crept through the dark corridors, checking each room. It was empty. He turned a corner and saw another long hallway, just like in the house where they'd found the girl. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down as he started checking the rooms.

He was about to open a door when he heard a small scuffling sound behind it. He opened the door quickly and announced, "PREVENTERS! FREEZE!"

He was met with a dark chuckle. Duo found a light switch on the wall and flipped it. The room was large and it looked like a jail block. Duo had to force his mind to refer to the enclosures as 'cells' instead of 'cages' because if he thought of them as cages, he was probably going to be sick. There were girls in every one of them. Some of the girls appeared to be sleeping, but some were convulsing. The central cell contained a man. He had a maniacal glint in his eye and he was laughing softly.

"So you finally showed up," he said.

"What's wrong with the girls?" Duo asked, aiming his gun at the man.

"Nothing much. They had a little poison that didn't agree with them."

"Where's the antidote?" Duo had to fight to keep his voice steady. Internally he was freaking out. He didn't want to lose any of these girls.

The man laughed again. "It's right behind you."

Duo turned to see a series of syringes on a shelf. He grabbed a handful of them and headed for the first cell. He tried to pull the door open but it was locked. He reached an arm through the bars, intending to grab a girl and stick her with the needle, but the girls were huddled against the far wall and he couldn't reach them. They weren't responsive enough to come closer to him for help.

He glared at the man. "Where's the key?"

The man laughed and coughed. "There's a key ring by the door. Try that."

Duo growled but got up and snatched the key ring. He tried the keys in the lock. They didn't work. He went to the next cell and tried that lock as well. They didn't work.

He threw himself at the bars protecting the man from his wrath. "Where are the right keys? Tell me or I'll kill you now!"

The man laughed again and coughed some more. "It doesn't matter. The poison is working on me now. The girls have no hope because you can't get to them and I have the keys." The man held up a key ring and swung it back and forth out of Duo's reach. "I'll give you a hint, though. The girls over there got the poison first. They're already dead. But the girls on that end," the man pointed to a cell where a girl was having some kind of fit, "got the poison just before I took mine. You might have had a chance to save them."

Duo couldn't force himself to listen to the man anymore. He made his way over to the last cell and pulled out his lock picks. He had the door open in no time, but the girls had all stopped moving. He desperately grabbed at wrists and necks, trying to find a pulse. He wanted to yell in triumph when he found a girl with a pulse. He jabbed the needle into her arm, praying he wasn't too late to save her. He pulled her into his arms while he waited for the antidote to take effect. The girl's eyes fluttered open and she looked at him. Her eyes were glassed over and Duo wasn't sure that her brain was registering what she was seeing. She took a shuddering breath and it escaped her with a soft whoosh of air. Then she was still.

"Hey! Hey, come on…don't do this!" Duo said, shaking her gently. "Come on! Wake up!"

Duo didn't want to believe that he was too late, but the maniacal laughter of the man in the cage confirmed his worst fears. The laughter died out and Duo sat there, cradling the dead girl as he tried to process the events of the last few minutes. He was pulled from his stupor by the sounds of L2 agents making their way into the room.

"Agent Maxwell? What happened?"

Duo's shocked mind slowly supplied the name of the agent. Agent Cresswell. She had decided to follow him with a team of agents because she felt he was taking too long and probably needed backup.

"I was…too late to save them," Duo whispered. "She died in my arms. I was right here and I still couldn't save her."

Agent Cresswell knelt beside him and gently moved the girl to the floor. She closed the girl's unseeing eyes before addressing Duo. "It's okay, Agent Maxwell. You did what you could. I want you to come with me now."

Duo nodded and numbly got up to follow her. She took him out to a medical transport and had one of the EMTs treat him for shock. Duo refused to go back to headquarters until the entire building was searched and cleared but he chose to remain outside and wait for the other agents to report to him.

Agent Cresswell brought him the final count. Three men, assumed to be part of the trafficking ring, had died from what appeared to be self-inflicted drug overdoses. All told there were 37 girls, tentatively placed between the ages of 12 and 18, that had been given lethal doses of poison. Duo took the information and tried not to react to it. Getting emotional was not what Preventer agents were trained to do in a situation like this, but Duo absolutely hated that he hadn't been able to save any of them.

Back at L2 Preventer Headquarters, Duo turned the investigation over to Agent Cresswell and her team. There was nothing more he could do here and he trusted her to track down any other leads that came up.

"If you need any help, don't hesitate to call me," Duo told her.

She nodded and gave him a gentle smile. "I will, Agent Maxwell. I hope I don't need to, though."

Duo nodded and smiled back. "Yeah. Don't take this the wrong way, but I hope you don't need me back, either."