Heero was alerted by the beep from his laptop indicating mail again. He glared at it across the room as he was flipping through the mission specs. He had been holed up in the apartment on the L3 colony planning for, ordering supplies for and waiting for his mission to begin. He was focused and ready to go. It allowed him to not think about...things and rest a little more then he would otherwise.

The beep was probably Quatre again telling him to take it easy and that he didn't need to go out on a mission again so soon despite the raging riots and rebellion groups attempting to shatter the fragile peace that they all attained. It seemed to be a never ending surge against them, especially when certain heads within the ESUN government had been bought by some of the sieging groups they were fighting against.

Obligation of the possibility of it being mission related drew Heero from his spot by the window over to the open laptop on the desk. Heero felt his heart stop in his chest. It wasn't from Quatre. It was a news alert that was picked up by his program. There had been a jail break. From the initial jail that Wufei had been imprisoned in. Heero clicked quickly to open the article.

No news on which inmates were missing, two security officers within the prison were dead, many were injured. No mention of which prisoners escaped. His phone rang and he lifted it to his ear while still scanning the article.

-Did you see?- It was Quatre.

"Hn." Heero was still scanning hoping for more details to rise out of the text on the page. Although he felt it, he wanted proof. No one would devise a breakout on this scale and succeed, except a Gundam pilot. Except Wufei.

-You are being pulled off of your mission effective immediately. You are expected earth-side a.s.a.p. Rendezvous outside of Detroit, in the new order sector.-

Heero paused, "You have confirmation he was there?"

-Negative. But Trowa was infiltrating and is now missing. We're going to find him. I'll let you know if we hear anything.-

Heero hung up quickly. That was the mission that they sent Trowa out on. Une and Quatre should have told him. He sent a quick email to Duo about the prison break and plans to go to earth closed his laptop grabbed his bag and files. Re-armed the apartment and shut the door quickly.

The apartment was silent and dark again.

The pick-up was by another Preventer agent at the shuttle port outside of Detroit. Detroit had once again fallen to ruin post-war. It had a boom of sorts when colony manufacturing was at its height then as production was moved to space to make it cheaper it had fallen to dereliction again. It appeared that this giant meca of a city on the North American continent would be hard to find good times. Especially since it had been bombed out so many times during the war. The new order sector was a walled in city filled with police force, Preventer operations and some headquarters for certain government branches for area. It was a military base established by the Alliance that had been converted into a new pocket of law.

Heero looked out the window as they drove along. The driver had stopped trying to talk to him after the first, "Hn." and glare. At least he was not dumb enough to prattle. It was run down cold and grey outside. A light snow dusting covered the road, while the dark greying snow was piled up along the road way. As they approached the walls of the base, Heero saw the Preventers logo mounted. This was one of the most heavily military looking bases and he was not surprised.

The Preventers did not have big budgets to spend on décor and shiny new buildings. They preferred to spend the money on armored vehicles and vests. It was a better allocation of funds. Heero agreed. Some politicians did not. But what they wanted did not matter nearly as much, because at the end of the day the person that was protecting them needed better equipment to do the protecting then the looks of the organization.

As the vehicle pulled up to the front of the building Heero scanned his badge quickly at the door to let himself in. It was near the four hundred hour mark, about fifteen hours since he had been alerted to the incident. He made his way quickly to the elevator badged in and placed his thumb on the fingerprint scanner and pressed floor eight.

Une and Quatre would be waiting for him with all the details they knew ready to go. Hopefully information on Wufei would be there. He needed to find Wufei for his own sanity. To talk with him, to tell him he was wrong to have planned that arrest against him.

The doors opened and Heero headed straight to Une's office, where both Quatre and Une would be. They looked up and Quatre spoke, "I'm glad you made it to the shuttle port alright. We've been waiting to hear from Trowa, but nothing has come down the lines yet. It is unknown at this time what his status is."

Une nodded. "So far all of the inmates that have been rounded up did not include Wufei. There appeared to be several groups within the prison that were organized enough to get out easily and away quickly. We have word of cars evacuating the area, so prisoners could have left via that route. But we also had word of helicopters leaving from the area. So there is a strong possibility of not finding them. I doubt they would stay in the helicopters very long. It draws too much attention."

Heero nodded, "Prisoner list?"

Une shook her head. "Not yet. We've requested it as I have been monthly for the last nine months, but it is not there. It is possible that he wasn't there, but we don't know. I am more concerned that Trowa is not checking in."

"Why was I not informed of this move to have Trowa infiltrate the facility?" Heero glowered at both of them, waiting for the answer.

Quatre looked at him as Une looked at the papers on her desk. He finally said, "We felt that you were too close to the subject matter to remain informed. Plus this was a matter of great secrecy. To have a government agent infiltrated a government facility… it doesn't look good. It looks more like a possible interference in the system. We had people on a need to know basis."

Heero frowned, "I could have done the infiltration."

Une shook her head. "No. We all know that Trowa is much better at these operations out of the group of you. You all have your strong suits. And like Quatre said… I think you are too invested in the outcome of the infiltration."

"I could have done it."

Quatre shook his head, "Heero. Look at yourself. You haven't been sleeping or eating properly. Anytime you are not on a mission you've been attempting to find him in the prison system. You have your watch programs for news, which I'm sure is how you seemed unsurprised that there was a prison break when I called. You cannot maintain objectiveness which is why you were not assigned to the case."

Heero let his shoulder relax a little from the tense stance he held. He did draw the same conclusions that they did. He was not fully functional by any means. He would not have been a plausible recruit for an infiltration mission. "Now what?"

Quatre nodded, knowing that he now had accepted the truth of the statement. "Now we wait and if Trowa doesn't check in by the twenty-four hour mark we will assume he's compromised somehow. Either via abduction, injury or a blown cover and he will need extract."

Heero nodded at that. He could handle this. "Where are the schematics for the surrounding terrain of the prison?"

Une nodded to the table behind him. "We have the guards that have been found. We have had Trowa's identity folder pulled for this mission. So far his name has not come up as a found prison guard. We believe he is not in the facility and is now outside of it somewhere. Via helicopter he couldn't have been moved anywhere outside a fifty mile radius in the first half hour. I don't think they would want to keep him. In the car, they would be more likely to keep him as a hostage in case of pick up. One of the vans has been picked up, but there were no hostages inside."

Heero nodded and began pulling out the maps to the lands. Mainly flat some woods, some lakes. "Do we have a direction the helicopters went?"

"North, northwest." The swat team saw them as they were flying over."

Heero nodded and looked in that direction. Two lakes some woods. More woods further on. He brought the map over to the desk. "I think he would have been dropped here or here." He said pointing at the two lakes.

Quatre looked it over and nodded. Une frowned, "Why would you say that?"

Heero looked up at her. He forgot sometimes that she was not as well versed in operations strategy. She was the organizer, not the one that carried out the mission. "If the helicopters took him they would look for a place to drop him without having to land and a lake would be a good enough option for survival for Wufei to use as a drop point for his prisoner."

Une nodded, "That's assuming that Trowa was taken prisoner by Wufei. That he was at the prison."

Heero nodded, "The only person that could take Trowa prisoner would be Wufei. And Wufei would know that it is too risky to go by car. Therefore if by helicopter he would have dropped him in the lake. He could not have commandeered the helicopters on his own. So bringing Trowa would be a poor choice. The other inmates would be opposed to having a guard on their flight out. They would want to kill him. So Wufei would drop him at the lakes for safety."

Quatre nodded agreeing with the statement and went about looking at the prison lists. No one had been transferred out of that prison for about ten months. Many had been transferred in but none had been transferred out. The prison had given them the lists of prisoners that were there, but Wufei's name was never on it. Not since the first prison roster.

Heero sat at an available space and pulled out his laptop to see if any other information could be pulled about the prison. He had all the schematics on it that he could pull from his earlier research into the facilities and the possible locations that they would have put Wufei. "When is the twenty four hour horizon?"

Quatre answered, "Noon today."

Heero nodded and turned back to his computer. The news reports were vague, just going over a list of prisoners that were captured so far. Telling locals to not answer doors during this time as these were highly dangerous criminals. They said not be concerned as local authorities were already on site and conducting a plan to obtain the remaining loose prisoners that were freed during the break out. This was not informative. The news branches were just trying to assist in the minimizing of damages from the sudden outbreak that occurred.

The minutes ticked by. New reports were brought to Une's office on the incident. Updates on those that had been recaptured and guards that had been found dead. Quatre did the analysis for it and so far no sign of Trowa or Wufei. Heero kept going over the prison security and what they knew. It had Wufei's marks all over it. Most people that had been in that prison were not organized enough to set up such an effort. He had to have been in there. The government had been lying to him this entire time.

Heero glared and felt his jaw tighten. Whoever was behind this was going to be brought down. It had to happen. There was no way that this level of deception would be allowed in a peacetime government that he worked so hard to build with the other pilots. With one of the ones who was ripped away and hidden.

As they approached the four hour horizon time point Heero looked over at Une who nodded tightly to him. He called to transport in the facilities and requested a helicopter be prepped on the pad for takeoff and immediate departure clearance. He asked for weapons, cuffs, ammunition and guns. Along with basic field prep and a pilot prepped on location coordinates. He could have flown the helicopter himself, but he wanted to be free in case of any need for quick action and gun fire.

In case they found Wufei.

As they approached the two hour mark Heero slammed his laptop shut and looked at Quatre and Une who looked up startled. "I think we should go."

Une began with, "He still has two hour till check time. It is possible that he will still reach a means of communication."

Heero glared at Quatre who stepped in saying, "Lady Une, I think this may be one of the few times that we throw protocol out the window and go now. He would have checked in by now if he could. It simply has not happened."

Une sighed and then nodded quickly, "Let's get going."

They all left the building and headed for the black tarmac where a helicopter was ready to go engine on already. They ducked in and Heero surveyed the equipment that was ready for them inside and nodded to the pilot to give him the go ahead. They were ascending quickly and the pilot headed towards the first destination. The lake that was closest to the prison. If Trowa wasn't there they would check out the second lake and then head back to the prison and check the area themselves.

Thirty minutes later they arrived at the lake and touched down. Heero jumped out first and looked around. No one in immediate sight. He nodded for Une to come down and Quatre hopped out behind her. They moved away from the blades and were moving quietly towards the banks of the sands. Scanning, there did appear to be unusual patterns in the bank, but no foot prints. Something had been dragged away though, so perhaps the prints were disrupted.

Heero looked at the tree line and waited. Quatre was looking where Heero was to. He had come to the same conclusion. They both walked towards the trees and began spreading across. Heero froze as he saw a hand on the ground from behind a tree. Raising his gun he motioned to Quatre to follow in his direction. He looped around. It was a prisoner by uniform and unconscious. Quatre exclaimed, "Trowa!" And leapt past a group of bushes. Heero cuffed the prisoner first and then came around to Trowa.

He was awake and his eyes were tracking and he seemed to be getting up on his own. His hands were cuffed together and the right hand side of his face was purple-blue colored bruise. It looked like his cheek bone had been broken.

Heero came over and helped lift him to his feet. He was wet and looked tired. They moved him over to the helicopter and Heero came back for the prisoner and tied him to a chair in the back of the copter for transport. He returned to Trowa who was being checked over by Quatre and Une when they lifted off the ground heading back to the Preventer office. Une placed an ice pack to Trowa's face and held it there while he closed his eyes and leaned back. "What happened?" She asked. It was a tone that was attempting to be soothing. It was strange coming from their commander.

Trowa cracked open his green eye on the side of his face that wasn't swollen and whispered, "He was there. Wufei was there all along."