Part One

Wufei scaled the wall and dropped soundlessly to the kneaded topsoil of OZ's French Headquarters' front lawn. A wide expanse opened before him; if he were going to get caught anywhere, this would be the place.

Gripping his sword tightly so as to keep it from clacking in its sheath, he began to run.

It is a well-known fact that birds, if domestic, will often return to their owners when released. The reality that there are not food and water cups everywhere in the world was often enough to ensure this reversion, and in any case, these birds had once belonged to Treize Kushrenada, so their arrival was guaranteed. He had long ago learned that the addictions of comfort and a gentle hand could be enough to overturn freedom's call.

"Why do you do that, Treize-sama?" Une had asked him one time.

"Do what, Lady Une?"

"Set them free. The birds."

Treize had smiled to himself, thinking over the deep and half-karmic instinct the act fulfilled; to be the type of man who could stand still for hours just for the chance to shoot a few wild birds... and then at the same time be the type of man to be able to release his own domesticated pets. It was a kind of justice; a balance in the circle of life and death.

He had looked at Une and known he could never tell her that.

"Because I like to see what they will do," he said - which was not entirely untrue. "I like to see them come back to me; if they do, then perhaps I was not as bad a master as I could have been...?"

An old trick of his, ending his statements as questions, guaranteed to garner response and support. From Une, no other result could be forthcoming.

After dismissing her, he had waited out on the balcony for the return of his birds. He was mildly surprised that they had not come back to him yet, but certainly not horrified; Treize was a man who understood patience and control. The two worked together hand in hand.

As it happened, his pets failed to return that evening; however, something else he had previously released did - and because he was standing on the balcony with the lights of the room behind him switched off, he was privileged to see it coming.

It appeared he was about to have a visitor.

In. Out. Wufei's steady breath seemed very loud in his own ears, simply because it was the only sound he could hear in the stillness of this balmy night. He had already made the mistake of being caught twice during his present stint of espionage; both soldiers had, of course, been done away with, but that meant that there were already widening gaps in the layer of secrecy he'd been hoping to leave behind. More and more it seemed he was not going to be able to get out after he'd done what he came to do.

Moving quickly, he slipped past the last hedge opening and to the wall, avoiding all lights and keeping low to the ground. Scaling the trellis was a work of a moment, and then he was inside.

Okay - balcony, parlor, billiards room, office, another parlor.... so many rooms and so many chances to be waylaid before he reached Kushrenada. It did not matter; he was going to win and die - or win OR die. Either choice was acceptable. He moved forward smoothly; Wufei had memorized the floor plans last night and hardly needed lights to navigate.

Treize Kushrenada, however, preferred them; and besides - the element of surprise added a delicious flavor to almost any incident. Absolutely silent, he turned on the lights and smiled. Wufei stiffened.

"Well, well," Treize said, eyeing Wufei with wary interest and thinking of interesting correlations between birds and Gundam pilots. "Wufei. And to think I believed the next time we would meet it would be mobile suit to mobile suit. I suppose you have a reason for this intrusion?"

Wufei loosened his sword in its sheath, keeping his breath slow and even and resisting the nervous impulse to swallow. "Hai," he answered quietly. "To kill you." He drew his sword.

Treize almost seemed disappointed. "Ah," he answered, and brought his own blade up to battle position.

Duo was watching cartoons when Wufei finally returned that night. He lay on his stomach, expression rapt in childlike fascination toward the television set, knees bent and feet bobbing lazily above his back. He seemed not to notice initially when Wufei hung up his coat and came into the room.

"The Wu-man," he said with mock reverence, never taking his eyes off the screen.

Wufei looked around. "Where are the others?" he said.

"Oh, here. There. Food. Missions." Duo grinned as his mind raced with possibilities. "Dance clubs. Brothels. Whore houses..."

"There is little difference between a brothel and a whore house, Duo," Wufei said distractedly, sitting down with a little more stiffness than usual. He seemed to be trying to keep his movements to a minimum.

"And you'd know that HOW?" Duo challenged.

Wufei merely looked at him.

Duo sighed. Some people were simply no fun to tease."Well, I think it'd be a matter of class, myself," he said, arguing happily, "seeing as even the WORD 'brothel' is definitely more upper-level than - "

"The others, Duo," Wufei repeated, ever patient.

Duo rolled his eyes. "I told you, they're OUT. Mostly shopping for supplies, but one or two of them have missions and things. They're all supposed to be back soon, anyway, so keep your shirt on." He smiled sweetly and batted his eyelashes. "Afraid to sleep alone?"

Wufei didn't even deign to answer. Instead he stretched out on the sofa, sighed as if with the release of a great weight, and threw one arm over his face to block out the light.

Duo looked at him more closely, noting the bits of dried blood on his clothes, the bruises.... "You look like you went a couple of rounds with a gorilla, Wu," he said evenly. "What happened out there?"

"I lost," Wufei replied, and was silent for the rest of the night.

Over the next several weeks, there was a strange twisting of fortunes in the OZ/Colony balance of power that the strategists found difficult to explain. OZ troops were suddenly and irrationally ordered to pull out in the middle of fights they practically had in their pockets; and at the same time, the Gundams found themselves being unexpectedly sabotaged and/or ambushed in skirmishes they had previously thought impossible to lose.

"...so then the general says to me, he says, 'You in there! You give up or, or we'll... we'll blow you up or something!' I shit you not, man, that is WHAT he said, and..."

The sounds of the other pilots talking, eating, and moving around did not interrupt Heero's train of thought in the least. Spies could not be forgiven... and he himself could not be forgiven for having allowed them to slip through. There seemed to be no pattern to this weirdness at all, and if it were not for the uncalculated victories that DID take place, Heero would have gone after said spy with a with an efficient and cool vengeance . However, those wins cleanly punctured through the neat theory of espionage; if there were a spy, then that spy was definitely a double agent.

"...and then, I just SLAMMED in there and sliced the top of the tower off, and..."

Nevertheless, Heero kept his eyes open; there were, after all, only a few people who had access to the type of information that was obviously being leaked.

"...then out of the blue these Tauruses came out of NOwhere and... and..."

...and all of those people were pilots.

"...and... I lost. I got totally surrounded, and I KNOW there wasn't supposed to be any way they could have scrambled that many soldiers on time, but... they did. The mission was totally blown. I couldn't GET to the rest of their base, and I barely got out of there with my hide intact, and..."

"They knew you were coming," Heero said, standing as he interrupted Duo's waning but still enthusiastic monologue.

"Yeah. Sure seems that way, doesn't it?" Duo's volume lowered with bitterness. "That's gotta be the fourth time this month."

"And the third we've won that we didn't expect to," Heero said, indicating Quatre with a nod. Quatre had just come back victorious from a battle that had had trappings of a suicide mission; he certainly wasn't complaining.

"Either way, it's gone on for too long," Heero said, finishing his thought patterns of the last hour or so. "I don't like it."

The others stared at him blankly.

"Um... huh?" Duo added.

Heero walked out of the room.

Duo sighed, staring after him. "You know, sometimes I wonder why I even TRY to make him human. I work and I slave, and all I ever get out of it is a 'un, Duo' or maybe a 'whatever, Duo' - and then he goes and actually breaks INTO a conversation like that and I don't know whether to be PROUD or - hey! I'm talking here!" The others had scattered around the room.

Quatre looked up helpfully. "I'm still listening, Duo-san," he said, smiling his brightest smile as he rearranged blueprints on his desk.

Duo sighed. "Never mind," he said, pouting, and got to work on his next mission.

Wufei ignored them both and instead followed Heero down the unlit hall. "I have a theory, Yuy-san," he said as soon as they were far enough away to avoid eavesdropping.

"Un," was the reply. Duo would have been disappointed.

"Whoever the leak is must also have access only to the upper echelons of the OZ forces," Wufei continued.

Heero stopped dead in the hall. "What makes you say that?" he asked softly, not turning around.

"Because the OZ soldiers themselves are just as surprised as we are in these things. I have seen it in their faces. Whatever is going on, it is happening above the level of the grunt soldier."

Heero remained silent for a moment. His silhouetted face didn't seem to move at all as he spoke. "I'll take it into consideration," he replied, and continued on his way down the hall.

Wufei's expression twitched with something like regret only once, too late, after Heero was gone. "And I hope you catch him quickly," he added quietly, and with that, returned to his own duties.

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