Chapter 23: Slipping Between the Cracks

7:30 PM CET

The sun has well set on Sanc's usually glistening shores. But tonight, Sanc was not shining as the small beam of light it was. The masked men guarding its tall, stately front entrance, wearing darkened sunglasses, were certainly obscuring the light from within the glimmering palace.

Dark men with dark purposes, though the darkness of night itself did not aid them tonight. Against the dusky skyline where no sane man would think to look, an agile acrobat, minus his own signature mask, makes his way across a "tight rope" he and his trusty speargun had expertly fashioned, silently unseen right over the terrorists' heads.

Trowa Barton always had an uncanny sense of balance. Yes, his tall, thin frame and muscular lean body were perfect conduits for such feats of nature. But for one so young, it wasn't years upon years of training that made him the star acrobat he had become. It was something inside, something that, though this No-Name boy had no idea from whence he came--he certainly knew where he was going.

And he was good at walking that tight rope. Delicate, expedient fingers and precise placement of a diamond cutting tool, make the glass circle he had so deftly carved, fall out into his hands like putty. His other ambidextrous limb snaked inside the sharp hole and unlatched the window with ease.

Inside the empty room, Trowa Barton stealithy makes his way down the hallways and stairs. He had the schematic of the Sanc palace's main communication control room in his head. That was where he was banking on that the terrorists had no doubt set up their video camera systems through the already in place, com unit installed in several checkpoints throughout the castle.

And once again, this fortuitous boy is correct. The three masked and bespectacled guards stationed in the Sanc Communication's room were not just watching the ball game on these several monitored view screens before them. Three of them with AK-27 high calibre machine rifles slung around their burly shoulders.

Trowa peers around the corner with the air of a professional spy on his every soundless and sightless entry move into the cordoned off room.

After all, three is my lucky number or so they say...

POW! PUNCH! KICK!!

Without so much as a scream, nor a warning sound, the three guards go down. Trowa knew instinctively just how to hit someone enough to go down and stay out for the duration--without being dead. Now that's where the true skill lies.

Any man can kill another...

Trowa lets his mind wander ever so slightly as he watches and waits for his prime moment to switch a few monitor screens to the dummy image embedded on his computer zip disk.

Any man can save another's life....

The commotion of the masked men downstairs all converging with their machine guns upon the front door of the palace told this fellow mercenary that his fellow teammates were right on time.

Trowa quickly checks his timed watch, pausing half a moment, seeing Cathrine's pretty face in his mind. And then he pushes the dummy disk in, which immediately blips a false image onto every terminal monitor being watched in the entire castle. So smoothly in the confusion of the guests at the front door, not a single guard watching had noticed the switch from real time to the recorded security checks in each area's now false vid-screens.

I'm getting pretty good at that, too.

Trowa muses to himself, false information being spread falsely by a man with a false name.

Then fine, laugh at me.

His mind considers this as his hands drag the three unconscious terrorists to an unlocked palace storage room nearby. He swiftly and nimbly gags and binds all three miscreants to some iron pillars inside the room. Switching the lights off, he simply locks the door behind him.

I'll be home soon, Cathy...

Trowa smiles at the thought of her innocence as he slinks down the hallway into the shadows once again. The guards in the second corridor hallway didn't see him once.

"Epyon de Telos?" A low, female voice calls from the outside of Sanc's large, double doored entrance.

"By the book..." Sally mouths wordlessly to Wufei. She knew all too well that Chang Wufei understood both her and their mission that Quatre Winner had conjured up completely---but that didn't mean he'd listen to either of them.

Well, I can dream, can't I?

Sally almost loses that dream, when out of the corner of her eye she catches that flat, elongated bulge peeking at her from inside Wufei's pants.

No way!! You didn't bring your sword!! I confiscated that back at the---

It occurs to Sally just then that the sneaky Chinese boy had doubled back without explanation just as they were leaving the Preventers' complex she had taken his naughty blade away in.

I thought it was strange that you had to go back, Mr. Iron Kidneys....

But before Sally could wipe that "ha ha, I won this round" smirk off Wufei's face, the cacophony of machine guns cocking and loaded ready just behind the door takes all their attention.

"You have the ransom money?!" An angry male voice calls back to her through the still closed doors.

"Yes, we do!" Sally yells back.

"How many are you?!" Another anxious terrorist screams out.

"Just two!" Sally answers, looking to Wufei. After all, as anxious and as nervous she herself was going into a situation such as this, she did find some kind of....reassurance...in Chang Wufei's unwavering black eyes.

They weren't exactly there to give her strength or anything romantic like that. It was for himself and himself alone that Chang Wufei lived--and survived.

"One big woman. One small boy." Yet another voice from further inside calls. He was obviously their watchman on the outside closed circuit screen camera aimed right over Sally and Wufei's heads out front.

Oh, great start...

Sally starts, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Not for the remark of her being "big", though to a woman that was by no means a compliment. But the crack about Wufei being a "small boy"....ouch! That hurt Wufei's big, manly pride.

But to Sally's surprise as the door opens, that perpetual smirk remains fixed to Wufei's face, as if he were plotting something instead. Payback, for instance, for later on.

Whatever, Chang. Just don't mess this one up. A lot of people's lives are at stake here.

Sally nods. There was an all-business look on her face as she scans the faces of the sea of uglies crowding around as the one dark one, leading the front, ushers them in.

His open machine gun never left his hand as he closes the door behind the pair.

Plan A. Set into action now.

"We have your ransom money." Wufei states what's inside and takes a step forward fearlessly towards the crowd of a dozen or so armed welcome committee members.

Calmly enough, the members of Epyon de Telos look the pair of Preventers up and down. Very calmly, until---

"HEY!! That's not all of it!! That CAN'T be all of it! That much money wouldn't fit in those four small suitcases! You're lying!!!"

An insane, crazed voice rings out of the nameless, faceless crowd of masked men in scarfs and fatigues. A crazed voice that normally Sally Po and Wufei Chang would be frustrated to hear in such a surprisingly, convincingly, unbalanced state.

But today, it was music to their ears.

"Well, yes. This is only the first paymen---" Sally takes her cue and begins to explain, walking boldy forward towards the "berserk" soldier causing all the ruckus from the sidelines.

"No CODS, lady!! We want it all NOW!!!" And with that, the berserk terrorist lets his machine gun rip. Sally Po gets peppered with several rounds of bullet hits and she goes face down on the ground before a bunch of his fellow terrorists grab Duo Maxwell and yank the smoking gun from his hand.

Sally's blood was oozing out from her all over the front hall.

"What are you doing?! Are you nuts?! This isn't in our plan!!! You fool!!!" The man who had told Sally and Wufei to come in screams at Duo. He had played the "fool" rather well, though. Well enough, in his mumblings and rantings of "Epyon de Telos taking over the world!" and "We will be victorious, brothers!" and "Go 'de Telos'" stuff to confuse the group assembled into believing he was really one of them. So intense and over excited, it seems his marbles had just come loose and were cracked.

Just long enough for one Chinese boy to slip through his own cracks, unseen.....