Bishi Pile Challenge:

Major challenge response: Tradition, Conspiracy, Stronghold.

Minor challenge response: Wind, Water, Information

Word count:

Series: Friends 2: Friends and Enemies

Author: Karina

Pairings: Zechs + Duo, Trowa x Quatre

Ratings: M 15+ [In Australia] Rated in the event of bad language and violence.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the characters.

Warnings: No apology given for Aussie spelling, but fair warning given.

Character Challenge:

Chapter 19

He had been told they were heading for a cabin in the woods, but with all things Quatre, especially where the Magunacs were involved, nothing could be that simple. Experience had taught him that what you saw on the surface would invariably be no fair assessment of what actually awaited you. He was tired, bone aching tired, and all he wanted to do was sleep. At the moment, that was impossible.

The semi trailer crept along the narrow road, twisting and turning around tight corners, every third or fourth turn, seeming, from the feel of it, to be turning back in a tight hairpin almost on itself. Duo braced himself, wedging his aching body firmly into place, wondering just what he would find at the end of the drive. Quatre's safe houses were generally what he would prefer to call palaces, and the blonde had had quite a few years to establish himself in Sanc. Duo was hardly expecting a simple cabin in the woods, though he would personally have preferred such a low profile building.

Quatre really did not do 'low profile' in the way Duo thought of it, so it came as a surprise when the semi rolled to a stop and he made his way out of the trailer to survey his new surroundings.

What he could see of the building was nothing as glamorous as he had expected, rather it was a single level structure of clean classic lines with a high pitched roof, constructed of rough hewn logs and stone, with a wide veranda and 'wild' garden mostly shielding it from sight. It looked peaceful, a holiday cabin away from the hustle and bustle and grime of the city. The air smelt divine, clean and crisp and there was just the hint of the promise of snow on the breeze. It was a winter wonderland beneath the layer of snow dumped by the recent blizzard. The walkway to the cabin had been shovelled clear and salted, and a cluster of men stood on the veranda dressed warmly and seeming not to notice the icy air. Quatre's advance party, sent to prepare the cabin for occupation, he assumed.

"Everything should be ready for you to simply go to bed if you wish, Duo."

He glanced at Quatre and shrugged, the barest lift of his shoulders. He was tired, yes, but not tired enough to throw caution to the wind and trust in others to guard his arse. He would not relax until he had at least a fundamental knowledge of the lay of the land and the floor plan of the cabin. Looking at the amount of people now moving around he guessed there was more to the cabin than this view allowed, as it appeared far too small to house that number of people.

He looked up at the high peaks that reared majestically so close to the cabin, a breathtaking, awe inspiring view. In the foothills, Quatre had said, but he hadn't said how far into the foothills. The mountain peaks towered over him and he could hear the wind howling though where he stood now was sheltered and almost eerily still, given that distant howling. The crunch of booted feet on snow drew his attention to a two man team clad in snow camouflage gear walking through low snowdrifts back along the roadside.

/Just how many people does Quatre have out here?/

"Duo?"

He glanced briefly at Quatre and inclined his head slightly. "Yeah. Coming. We gotta talk, man."

"I know, but you are tired and so am I. I've been up all night arranging things and I could do with a break. I can leave most of this to Rashid, but I think a tour is in order, if you don't want to go to bed immediately."

Oh God, he wanted to go to bed immediately. Sooner than immediately, but there was no way he could until he knew the lay of the land. Priorities had to be followed and whilst it was not the war now, he had survived to this day by being careful. He was not about to make mistakes. He would never settle comfortably if he did not know the escape routes and how many people would be moving around him.

He was not alive now by being a trusting soul. The men standing around on the veranda were laughing quietly amongst themselves, but the sound of their voices carried clearly on the still air. They stood to attention as Quatre neared the cabin, all sign of their mirth gone now, wiped away by serious expressions and respect. He had no idea how Quatre did it, but when he walked on scene something in the atmosphere changed and no one, not even he, could ignore it.

"We have a lot of information to exchange, but it will have to wait. It has been a long night and I had a long day before it. I'm dead on my feet, but we need to check out the facilities. Old habits die hard and, personally, I would like to die from old age after having led a very full and productive life."

There was nothing Duo could say to that, or rather, he would prefer not to say what flashed through his mind. Personally he did not care if he died young, so long as he died free, doing what he wished to do. He had had enough of being manipulated by others, of being expected to perform to another's direction, and being held accountable for events that honestly had nothing to do with him. But it was all water under a very old bridge and he was all for moving on.

The lock was electronic, he noted, and before they entered his fingerprints were taken and his right eye scanned. This was no low tech hunting cabin in the woods or holiday home. What more could he have expected from Quatre though? This hideaway in the woods would probably turn out to be a fortress, and wouldn't the Sancian nobility be pissed to think of something like this on their doorstep?

It was, on entering, the epitome of a high class hunting lodge. Certainly not rustic but comfortably furnished with an open plan design and a huge roaring fireplace in the centre of the main living area. The full circle stone fire pit radiated welcome heat, the smoke rising up through a low hood and Duo suspected there might just be a well concealed ventilation system in the house as there seemed to be very little in the way of smoke.

It was comfortable, there was no denying that, with couches gathered around the fire pit, bookshelves lining the walls, trophy heads mounted in just the right places and potted plants in abundance. Sort of modernistic rustic... but not quite, he mused. Designer rustic, perhaps would be a better description. The main room boasted plenty of windows and he had not gone three steps before he realised that the largest pair of windows on the South and West walls were actually double doors that would open out onto the wide veranda that appeared to encircle the entire cabin. They had entered by the north door which had been solid wood and of a standard size, but there was nothing that suggested a security feature about the other points of entry to the cabin.

Quatre looked about him with a great deal of satisfaction and inclined his head to the huge man who overshadowed them. "It has come up wonderfully, Rashid. The last time I was here it was little more than a shell, Duo."

"So what do you call this place, a hunting lodge?"

Quatre pursed his lips for a moment before shrugging. "I brought it in a sorry state of disrepair, and the title deeds do say hunting lodge, but I was more inclined to think of it as an escape from work. A weekend retreat, I suppose, for when Trowa and I just want to leave it all behind us for a bit. I purchased basically the entire valley to ensure privacy, but it was not purchased under my name, or through Winner Corp. I have been careful to keep the repair and redesign work here as unrelated to Winner Corporation as possible. For a while, at least, we should be safe enough working from here."

"So how do you fit everyone in? There are other buildings here?"

"Just a couple of small cabins, to give the appearance of accommodations for the security staff who patrol the area. The real accommodations area is down below. That's the business end of the building. The nerve centre."

Duo eyed Quatre for a long moment and sighed. No help for it, he had to ask. "The business centre... for what, exactly?"

Quatre did not so much as blink. "For monitoring certain people's activities. A number of people in high places recently have made surprising moves, and I don't like surprises. To succeed one has to know what others are doing, particularly people in the government who can make or break a deal. I have my fingers in many pies, Duo, and I haven't liked the way the pies feel lately. This business with Marquise... Well, I think it's all a part of what I have been trying to monitor for the last year and a half."

Duo moved closer to the fire, appreciating the heat it was generating, and glanced at his friend. "You haven't said anything before."

"I haven't felt the need to say anything until now. I was uncertain what was going on, and I am still uncertain, but I am hoping you and Marquise, when we find him, can tell me."

"Me? Shit, Quatre, I know nothing. I have no idea what Zechs is caught up in, but I think I can be pretty sure it's nasty business. Given the little bit he revealed, very nasty."

"When your own people turn on you, you can be sure it is a nasty situation, and I don't think there is much doubt that for Zechs to be taken by surprise, he has had to be betrayed by someone he trusts. And that man does not trust easily."

Duo rubbed his hands, palms suddenly clammy, down the front of his trousers and sighed. "You got that right, but I can't blame him. I don't trust any more easily than he does, especially not with watch dogs haunting me day and night. The man was angry, Quatre, coldly angry. Where I'd have blown up and said some nasty things, he was ice cold and calculating when I tried to talk to him about what happened. I think he has a fair idea of where to look for answers and I think he is expecting to deal with some pretty nasty shit, but he would not hear of me offering to help. After I pulled that asshole's butt out of the fire, well, the ice actually, he would not hear of me getting involved. And I'm already involved simply by being there when I was."

Quatre sighed and motioned behind them, to the eastern side of the main living area, past the eight seater rustic wooden table to the ultra modern kitchen.

"Kitchen. It should have everything we need and if you want something in particular, just ask someone to get it for you and we will have it by the next day. Otherwise, we can always eat in the mess hall with the others. Come with me."

Mess hall. Others. There it was again, the suggestion that things were far from a retreat in the foothills of a very picturesque area of Sanc. He'd already noted too many people for the amount of buildings Quatre had mentioned, but mess hall, that suggested a larger scale than he was thinking. But Quatre, being Quatre, had to introduce things in his own way and it was generally faster to let him do his thing, rather than try to push.

Quatre led the way into a passage at the north side of the kitchen to a door on the left which he opened, revealing a sparsely but comfortably furnished study, the west wall lined with a massive bookcase.

"We have internet access in all rooms. I'll give you the codes for the network and everything else that needs a key code later. Zechs is a cautious man, so I expect it took some planning to successfully take him down. You need to tell me what he told you about what happened. I have seen the Preventer report, which by the way, will now be shredded and everyone involved will be told to zip their lip." Blue eyes had a hard, cold glint as he glanced at Duo. "It never happened. It's relatively easy to deny the abduction of a man who is already dead."

Duo snorted, hardly amused, and followed Quatre along the southern hallway to the foot of a narrow steep staircase. Quatre flicked a finger upstairs and moved on, absently rubbing at his temples. He was tired and he wanted desperately to sleep, but like Duo he wanted to gain some sense of security in their surroundings. He was well aware of just who was handling security, and he trusted his people, particularly these men who had been with him during the war, but this tour would familiarise himself with how things now stood, the work completed and ready for habitation.

"The downstairs bathroom is the last door on the right. The door on the left, under the stairs, leads to a storage room and houses the secondary switchboard for the cabin." Quatre turned around and took the stair up, his stride not as springy as it usually was, revealing how tired he was. "Bedrooms are up here, three of them. Just pick which one you prefer, if you want to sleep up here, that is. There is a shared bathroom for all three rooms."

Quatre paused at the head of the stairs and indicated three doors, naming each a bedroom and then indicating the bathroom. The upper level was smaller than the lower, the roof line steep, rather obvious given the shape of the ceilings in the individual rooms and the low walls on the outer walls of the cabin. Windows let in adequate light and Duo grunted softly as he was shown each bedroom, opting to take one of the two southern rooms after admiring the view from the small balcony.

"I'll have your things moved in whilst I show you the rest of the set up. I had most of your stuff packed up and brought here when I figured out what was going on."

"Just what do you think is going on, Quatre?"

"Games, Duo. Very, very dangerous games."

He led the way back down the stairs and to the main living area, turning across the front of the kitchen to a door tucked between the kitchen and the sliding glass doors leading to the southern veranda. Duo was more than a little surprised when Quatre pressed his thumb print to a cleverly disguised pad which produced a click and Quatre swung the door wide to reveal a set of stone stairs leading down.

"The cold cellar." He explained. "Great for storing wine down here and some of the rooms are literally cold rooms, only in the hottest months will they require artificial refrigeration. This hunting lodge is something like three hundred or so years old, but during the renovation we discovered that it was built over a previous building. More than half of the cellar is the older construction, and has been tentatively dated to around seven hundred years. Feel free to browse at will, it's full of nooks and crannies. Some days I wish I was a kid and given licence to let my imagination run rampant. I could imagine this place as everything from a wine cellar to a dungeon, monsters and prisoners included."

It was bitterly cold, Duo was unhappy to discover, but Quatre ignored the temperature and slipped easily through the dimly lighted space, ignoring the wine racks, the neatly stacks of barrels, containers and machinery stored here. Stone constructed pillars supported the vaulted ceiling that screamed of age and Duo mused it would not be at all difficult to imagine another age.

Duo glanced around him with interest, marking everything for future reference, getting a bit tetchy over Quatre's continued refusal to explain what this place was and why he had felt the need to have it constructed. He just knew, deep in his bones, that this place was far more than it seemed.

"Quatre..."

"I had to make it believable, Duo. I am watched, so we had to do this slowly with as few people knowing about it as possible. There were less than a handful of people who know what I am doing here, and they don't actually know all of it. Even Trowa does not know about what you are about to see. He won't be happy with me, in fact he will be beyond angry, but I can't help that. He does work for Preventer, and I could not compromise him by having him know about this and not report it."

He scowled, but followed in silence as Quatre fidgeted, fingers knotting together before he caught himself and drew a deeper breath, becoming once again the confident business executive.

"At some point in the past this area was used as a quarry by the locals. We found the quarry pits and we have used them for our own purposes. It took a lot of work and a great deal of fiddling the books and acquiring the permits, but we managed. You'll find a lot of dry stone walls around here, as it is a basic and reasonably cheap building material. The locals use it a lot and it was convenient for us. It helped hide just how much we have cleaned out the quarries and extended them. I've had winter holdings constructed for the animals here, something that is traditionally done, but behind the cave pens we have the real heart of the complex."

Quatre pressed his full palm to a reader concealed in a wall cabinet, then leaned forward slightly to have his retina scanned. He motioned to Duo to do the same and a soft voice informed Duo his identity was confirmed. The wall to one side of the cabinet moved aside slowly and he found himself looking a very modern elevator, the open door inviting entry.

"Welcome, Duo, to what I hope I can safely call Sanctuary."

End

Karina Robertson 2013