Chapter 4
To keep a very low profile, he had not left the safe house since his arrival four days earlier. Normally, Xander would have been a bit stir crazy being trapped inside for this duration. Rage kept him focused , anger kept him company, and hate kept him warm. Excluding one visit per day, just after dawn by Oz, he had no contact with the outside world. Other than checking the equipment in the basement, and the weapons he had picked up from his uncle, all of his efforts were directed toward his long term goal.
In the week since his 'death', Xander had been reading and planning. No works of literature were on the menu, however. Sitting in the small study, Xander had at least three dozen file folders, each full of information he would need to make his plans for punishment. Oz had been very busy. Each morning he had dropped off new information about the Council. While much information could be acquired legally through public information, Xander knew quite a bit of the information he had in front of him was not. Property listings, corporate holdings, phone records, and several hundred pages of financial records took up half the folders.
Eight folders contained all of the information on his friends and their families, including police and autopsy files. It had sickened him to have to look through them. Seeing those he cared about most dead on a table had almost been too much. The Autopsy photos of Buffy and Joyce had made him puke. Joyce had received two bullets to the back of her head, two small holes, but most of her face was missing from the exit of the two hollow point rounds. Buffy was worse. Half her head was gone, and her body had been torn apart into multiple pieces by the high powered weapons. Most of the other photos gave sobering testimony as to why only the Rosenbergs would have been able to have open casket funerals.
The next folder was a report on the small dart with attached wire that he had found in Faith's hotel room. From what Oz had been able to find out, it had been part of a taser. Oz had included pictures from the manufacturer's web site concerning a prototype less-than-lethal weapon that was currently being tested by several police departments in the United States. With only one hundred supposedly being used in the trial, and none available on the market yet, Oz was still attempting to track down how one had been used to subdue Faith. Using the information Xander already knew, plus what Oz had provided, it painted a sickening tableau. Someone had fired it at her, and once she was down she had been doped with enough ketamine to knock out a horse. The autopsy report showed bruising where she was held face down on the floor while someone drugged her, stripped her clothing off, and raped her. She had then been dragged into the bathtub, held down, and slaughtered. Yet Sunnydale PD still had the case listed as 'suicide'.
Half of the folders held information on individual people who were part of the council, including the nine surviving members of the wetworks team. These nine folders were Xander's main concern for the moment. Based on the dental records identification of the three dead bodies found in Xander's former home, combined with video surveillance from various places around Sunnydale, Oz had found names for all twelve of the killers. Three of the men were ex-military, having been dishonorably discharged for various offenses. Four more were foreign nationals, specifically former SAS, living in the United states. The last two would be the biggest problem, since they were active duty US Marines. The only good part was that they were all living in or around San Diego. The three dead assassins were similar in background. Two were former SAS, with the last being a active duty Sergeant in the US Army. From the information Oz had collected, all twelve had advanced combat training.
There was no way Xander would be able to take them all at once in a fair fight, so Xander had been thinking of ways to remove the remaining nine permanently. Picking them off one at a time was possible, and likely the easiest at first. Unfortunately, that would give too much warning to the rest as they started dying one by one. Phone records showed they made four check calls per day to a mobile phone that Oz had yet to be able to trace. Since all twelve had been checking in, that meant there was a handler somewhere. Based on the time tables, he would have at best six hours before the handler would realize something was wrong.
Six hours was too little time to take out all nine, and possibly the handler, if Xander were to pick them off one by one. Removing all of them at once, while much more dangerous, would also be the best way. He would have to make sure they were all in one location, preferably away from bystanders. Oz had suggested he could fake a message from their handler, since their orders seemed to be in a code via text message. Taking this into account, he could make his plan work. From the coded messages, Oz had been able to locate their safe house where their weapons and vehicles were stored, about thirty miles outside Los Angeles on Interstate 10.
Opening one of the other folders, he located the information on the safe house. It had been purchased eight years ago by a holding corporation based out of Italy, which was owned by another corporation in the Cayman Islands. Traced far enough back, the actual owner was an British company called Vigil LTD. Oh there were about twenty or so shell companies between the feed to the property and the actual owners, but all of it was traceable through public records. Considering 'vigil' was Latin for 'watcher', Xander was surprised they hadn't just named it 'Peeping Tom LTD'.
Looking over the pictures from the sale of the house years before, Xander looked for likely approaches and entry points. This wasn't some rich actor's mansion, it was too small for that. It was a fairly robust location designed to survive in an area where earthquakes were fairly common. The first hurdle was the location, being halfway up a decent sized hill with almost zero cover. Attacking during the daytime would be suicide, so night would be better. Approaching from the top of the hill would likely be the only way to remain undetected. The next obstacle was the rather solid construction. Instead of being on stilts, as many hillside homes and mansion were, someone had carved out a small section of the hillside. Thinking back to some of the movies Xander had seen, it would have been nice to just blow the stilts and drop the entire house. This did open up new avenues of approach though, and just as many escape routes. It would be impossible for him to cover all the escape routes, and impossible for him to escape if they counter attacked. This left few options.
Feeling the pieces fall together, a smile formed on Xander's face. Glancing at the clock, he saw it was not yet noon. Quickly he picked up the phone and called Oz. "Question for you. Can you get the entire wetworks team to their safe house at seven pm tomorrow?... Perfect. Want to take a trip to LA?...Ditch school and meet me here. Tomorrow is Saturday and we are going to be busy today. Oh. And we will need your van."
Finishing his first call, he placed a second. "Uncle Rory. You still in Oxnard?... Good. Getting a lift down there. Oz is coming with me... You can trust him, Willow was his girlfriend. You might say he is a little pissed off... Gonna need both of you to help me put on a show. It's time we sent a message to the pricks in England."
Oz was driving more sedately than normal to avoid bumps and potholes in the road. It was probably a good idea considering what was in the back of his van. Not for the first time he glanced toward Xander, who was riding shotgun, and wondered if Xander had gone insane. Xander was staring ahead with a grin on his face, one that would likely be compared with cartoon depictions of the Joker. Checking the rear view mirror again, Oz decided insane may have been understating it a bit.
After Oz pulled to a stop halfway up the driveway to the council safe house, Xander immediately jumped out and grabbed his toolbox from behind the front seat. Quickly he jogged up the driveway while keeping an eye out for external cameras. Not seeing any, he opened his toolbox. Donning a pair of new leather gloves, he checked the back door of the house for alarms or booby traps. A simple magnetic sensor at the top of the door was easily dealt with as Xander opened the door slowly. He froze instantly, seeing a thin wire attached to a hook near the floor. Using a dental mirror, Xander was able to see the wire tied on one end to a pull ring of a Mk-2 hand grenade. Closing the door as much as possible, Xander used needle nosed pliers to carefully release the wire from the hook three inches from the bottom of the door. Muttering to himself, "Well that was dumb. Almost got myself killed, by an amateur tripwire."
Xander made a careful sweep of the house, after checking the alarm system. He chuckled to himself, this had been almost too easy. No motion detectors or cameras, and only a cheap alarm system. Each exterior door had been set up the same way, with a grenade tripwire. Returning outside, he signaled Oz to bring the van up to the back door, then began looking for places to leave his surprises.
The main floor was remarkably barren. Cheap folding chairs and card tables were about the largest items in most of the rooms. The second floor was similar with a dozen simple box frame beds and no other furniture. The basement was a different story, containing a mini-armory as well as a small medical station. One entire wall was taken up by maps and filing cabinets. Considering his options, Xander had to make some changes to his plan. There was no place to hide his packages inside the house, at least not any place that was not blatantly obvious.
Returning to the main floor, he exited the back door. Oz and Rory were unloading the unstable cargo from the back of Oz's van. Xander assisted until everything was on the ground behind the house.
"Hey Unc, this area that was carved out of the hill, doesn't it look kinda concave?"
"Yeah, kid. Looks like they carved it out and never did anything with it. Only that storage shed set in the very back."
"I had an idea. We put the surprises all in that shed, so when the show starts, everything is focused this way. Instead of blowing the house up, we blow it down on top of them. Plus I am pretty sure most of the weapons they have in the basement are illegal here in California, and probably in most parts of the US as well. They have explosives down there, mines, grenades, C4." Xander added.
Oz, using his patented speech method, asked a simple question. "Terrorists?"
Xander turned toward him."And more. How good are you at conspiracy theories?"
Oz nodded, then looked down at the party favors.
"Watch and learn." Rory stated. "Xander, unless you want them knowing we were here, you may want to close up the house. Then we can stow the party favors in that shed. Oz, give me a hand setting these up."
Xander quickly rearmed the booby-trap before closing the door completely. Once he verified everything was correct, he removed his bypass of the magnetic sensor over the door. He then grabbed the items he would need and helped move them to the shed nearly a hundred feet deep into the hillside. As he set the items down, he watched as Rory did his own checks on the shed door, before opening it to reveal rusted lawn equipment. Between the three of them, said equipment was pushed back to leave room in the front of the shed for Xander's fireworks. Within ten minutes, they were assembling a dozen homemade fuel air explosive bombs. It was easy work, and in the end, it took less than an hour total to set up and return to the van.
Oz, having listened as Xander and Rory described how the bombs would work, was more than ready to get as far away as he could from what would likely scare the crap out of eastern LA the next day.
Oz and Xander arrived at the safe house just after dark, having dropped Rory off in Oxnard. Taking no chances, they had driven around the block twice to verify no vampires or demons were in the area before entering the driveway to the back of the safe house. Once inside, Xander and Oz sat down in the living room.
"How good are you at puzzles?"
Oz shrugged. "Fair."
"Do you think you could build a complete organizational chart of the council? Like the FBI did with the mob back in the seventies? I want to put these guys down hard, but I know I cant get rid of them faster than they can recruit, bribe, blackmail, or threaten people to work for them. Don't get me wrong, I want them gone, mostly dead. I have the basis for a plan on how to take em down, and scare the crap out of them at the same time. They will do everything they can to stop us, so we need leverage to keep them from putting every law enforcement agency in the world from coming after us. I want a file on every person the council employs, complete bio. Including bank records to show payoffs, because there is always a money trail. If we can link all of them together, proving there is a massive international organization guilty of murder, extortion, kidnapping, bribery, espionage, anything we can find on them we can send to the feds or Interpol once the bodies are found."
Oz contemplated the idea for a few moments. "Distraction."
"Exactly. We need one. We don't want the feds chasing us with everything they have, so we give them a trail they will have to investigate. I was thinking, the wetworks team, we have enough information already to prove they are guilty of murder, plus the active military guys are guilty of treason. They accepted money from a foreign entity while in service to the US Government. Any money received over about $300 dollars is illegal to accept, and all of these guys have been accepting tens of thousands per year for at least five years. Hell, they make more from the council than they make from Uncle Sam. Considering half of them are only here on green cards, the ATF probably would love to take em down for weapons trafficking and possession." Xander paused a moment.
"Can you set up a completely untraceable email account? I mean one so hidden even the NSA can't track it?" Xander asked.
"Probably. When?" Oz replied.
"The fireworks go off at seven fifteen, so seven thirty. Send a copy of their files to the FBI, ATF, ICE, Interpol, and Scotland Yard if you can. And I think probably Army CID and NCIS since this involves three active military. Just make sure you include the entire police reports from here in Sunnydale plus the autopsy reports. May help bring down some heat on SPD as well. We want to prove all twelve of these guys were here, and were responsible for what happened, no doubt whatsoever."
Oz nodded as his eyes hardened.
Xander stood and headed to the basement, and waved Oz to follow. "Want to show you something. I think I figured out a way to get my point across, as well as generate some fear among the council fucks. Tell me what you think"
Xander opened the door to the armory room in the basement to let Oz look inside. Upon seeing the room, Oz focused on the six foot tall armor stand. Steel toe boots sat in front, with a dozen metal spikes protruding an inch from the steel toe caps. The black denim pants were heavily reinforced with Kevlar and metal trauma plates. The long black leather coat also appeared to be reinforced with Kevlar. Framed by the opening of the trench coat was the black tactical body armor Not covered by the equipment harness attached to it, the Kevlar body armor had a single emblem. It was a stylized white skull.
