Title: The Hellmouth is Not Enough (Chapter Eight)

Author: Randall Stone

Disclaimer: All characters are belong to someone else.

Summary: England's newest secret agent draws Sunnydale duty.

Notes:
Spoilers: S1-3

Changes: Hopefully everything will be explained in the text. Bug
me if anything is confusing.

Continuity notes:
- S3 proceeded as written (I'm assuming a 'self-healing' view of
history, rather than a 'step on a butterfly and change
everything' view)
- Bond notes: The Connery movies happened, and all the events
from the book happened. None of the Moore, Dalton, or Brosnan
movies have happened. Instead, Bond moved into gradually less
physically demanding roles, finally winding up in an advisory
position for a decade or so before retiring. Think of him as
looking physically the way Connery did in Entrapment.

This is a fun fic, so I'll be playing a little fast and loose with
the characters. They should be recognizable, but I'm not making
any effort to match up with S4 canon.

Category: B/X
Rating: PG-14- nothing worse than what's on the show.
Feedback: Yes please.

*****

"OK, so now what." Buffy whispered to Xander.

The two of them were in the hallway outside of the central control
room of the factory. They had found the place easily enough by
following signs scattered throughout the building, and Buffy had had
no problems dusting the guards outside the room.

Buffy and Xander were now crouching down under the windows
overlooking the control room. Xander risked sitting up to take a
quick peek inside.

"We're in luck- there's only one man inside. We still can't risk
having him raise the alarm." Xander looked at Buffy. "You think
you can pull off the little girl lost routine?"

Buffy reached up and pulled a few strands of hair out of her
ponytail then shook her head back and forth, giving her a slightly
disheveled appearance. She completed the look by lowering her eyes
slightly and giving Xander her best pout.

"I think I can manage."

Xander smiled at Buffy and gave her a thumbs up. He began counting
the time to himself when she entered the control room. He had
reached five when he heard a muffled thud from inside and made his
way in to see Buffy standing next to an unconscious staffer.

"Good work, Buffy. Let's see what we can dig up."

Xander sat at the terminal abandoned by the now unconscious man and
began his investigation. He was quickly rewarded with a map of the
entire facility that illustrated where they were in relation to
their cells and to the factory floor. With a little further
digging, Xander was able to pull up live video feeds from the
surveillance cameras. He could see Finn schmoozing with his guests.
They all seemed to be getting along, but judging from the number of
armed guards in the picture, Xander guessed that that state of
affairs wasn't going to last. He was about to tell Buffy of his
discoveries when she spoke first.

"Hey Xand, check this out."

Xander obidiently stood and walked over to look over Buffy's
shoulder. On the screen he saw what appeared to be a list of
phrases, each adjacent to two check boxes. Looking closer at the
phrases, he saw that each one described a behavior or action.

"I don't believe it. Is this really..."

"Yep. Looks like all those little mind control chips are controlled
by computer."

"Could we turn the vampires against him?"

"Nope." Buffy scrolled up to the directions at the top of the
screen. "All the greyed out commands are hard wired, and the red
ones are password protected. Most of the rest are pretty petty."

Buffy scrolled through the list again.

"I mean, we could set it so they get zapped when they pick their
noses, or when they swear... Really, the most useful part of the
program is over here." Buffy clicked on a tab, bringing up an map
of the facility. The map was overlaid with a number of dots, which
moved in real time.

"Tracking the vamps? That is handy. Let's take one more look at
those behavior modifications, though."

"I'm telling you, there's not much there." Buffy clicked back over
and started running through the list once again. "Cracking their
knuckles, scratching themselves inappropriately... ooh, this is a
good one."

Nestled in with all of the other unsecured option was the simple
phrase 'Fire projectile weapons'. Xander smiled when he saw it and
things clicked into place in his head.

"Great. Let me go make a phone call. I think I have a plan."

---

Xander looked at his watch. Thirty seconds until he needed to move.
He was currently leaning against the wall to the side of the doorway
leading to one of the catwalks that straddled the factory floor.
There were two catwalks crossing above the room horizontally and two
crossing vertically, forming a rectangle over the room.

One human sentry was stationed at each corner of the rectangle,
watching over the room. Xander and Buffy had determined that the
sentries were human by comparing the dots on the tracking program to
the number of creatures visible in the security video. The fact
that the sentries were human was a mixed blessing; while they did
not possess any supernatural strength or toughness, they also did
not have a chip in their heads that would prevent them from using
their firearms.

That was what Xander was there to do. He checked his watch again.
Go time.

Moving as silently as he could, Xander glided towards the sentry
closest to him. He was helped by the fact that all of the sentries
were focusing their attention on events taking place on the ground
below them. Xander took a quick glance to see what was happening-
apparently Finn had just told the governor of his plans, and was
having his party taken away under armed guard.

Warned by some instinct of danger, the sentry turned around when
Xander was about a pace away. Before the guard could cry out,
Xander struck him in the throat with the edge of his hand. The
guard was still trying to catch his breath and raise his weapon when
Xander grabbed his head and twisted, breaking his neck.

Without pausing, Xander grabbed a grenade off of the guard's belt,
pulled the pin, and tossed it at the guard diagonally across from
him. The explosion drew the attention of the remaining sentries,
along with that of the people on the ground. Xander smoothly drew
his pistol and shot the last two sentries while they were still
looking for the pieces of their companion.

Xander had already removed the clip from his gun and was slotting
home the vampire killer ammunition when the entire building was
rocked by an enormous explosion. Xander looked up to see a gaping
hole where the loading dock doors had been. He grinned.

"Felix really does know how to make an entrance."

---

Buffy waited patiently for the procession of prisoners to arrive.
She was standing in a small alcove, out of sight of the main
hallway. From her vantage point she could see the group stop when
they heard the explosion from the main room. Buffy waited for them
to move, but the vampires seemed involved in a heated discussion
amongst themselves. She finally decided to take matters into her
own hands and stepped in front of the group.

"Hey guys, going my way?"

"I really don't want to deal with this right now," the apparent
leader of the vampires commented as he leveled his assault rifle at
Buffy. He jerked with surprise as attempting to place his finger on
the trigger caused a familiar agony to course through his body.

"Now, now, let's not bring guns to a stake fight." Buffy smiled at
him, twirling her stake in her right hand.

The vampire growled at her as he threw his guns aside.

"I've never needed a gun to kill a little girl like you before."

"You know, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that... well,
I'd have a lot more nickels."

---

Meanwhile, the vampires in the main factory room were making the
same unpleasant discovery about their firearms as Riley screamed at
them to kill the CIA agents streaming into the room. The vampires
reacted to this in the same manner as their brethren, charging at
the agents with a roar of fury.

The stream of gunfire from the agents had little effect on the tide
of vampires. Xander picked off as many as he could from his vantage
point, but it was clear that the CIA men were going to be
overwhelmed.

Xander was just starting to worry when he saw a tanker truck backing
into the room, complete with two men manning the hose attached to
the tank. The charging vampires hardly had time to wonder at the
purpose of the truck before the men unleashed a stream of water in
their direction. The nature of the tank's contents was made clear
when it impacted the first wave of attackers and the room was filled
with pain filled screams and the sound of dusting vampires.

"You can never have too much holy water." Xander commented to
himself as he continued to pick off straggling vampires from his
perch on the catwalk. He tried to keep track of the number of
vampires killed, but it was hard to keep track as more and more were
hosed down.

Riley Finn was doing some calculations of his own as he emptied his
pistol firing at the men manning the hose. He was gratified to see
one go down, but cursed as another took his place without
interrupting the stream of death being sprayed on his guards. Riley
reached into his pocket and cursed again as he realized that that
was his last clip. He'd let himself go soft in civilian life,
counting on others to provide his firepower. Somehow his vampires
were now being hampered by the same chip that he had used to mold
them into an effective fighting unit, and Riley had a sinking
suspiscion that he knew who was behind it. That damned Xander
Harris.

No matter. The important thing now was that he get himself to his
office, and to the secret escape tunnel attached to it. From there
he could get to the plane he'd registered under a different name,
and he could be out of the country by sunset. There would be plenty
of time to get Harris later.

Riley climbed up the ladder to the catwalk, taking the most direct
route to his office. His planning for future revenge was derailed
when he swung up onto the catwalk and came face to face with the
target of his anger.

Xander attempted to bring his pistol to bear on Riley, but Finn was
too close. Riley blocked Xander's arm with his left arm before
chopping down with his right hand on a nerve cluster near Xander's
elbow, forcing him to drop his gun.

The gun fell to the ground far below as Xander focused on taking
Riley down hand to hand. He was able to catch Finn in the nose with
a quick jab, but Riley blocked the follow up left cross and Xander
barely ducked his powerful roundhose.

Xander dropped back a step and considered the situation. He knew
that he was well trained, and in good condition. But Finn was good
too, and had about three inches and fifty pounds on him. And he
knew that it was a law that might as well be written in stone: a
good big man will always beat a good little man. The only advantage
Xander had was that he didn't have to win- he just had to delay Finn
long enough for Felix to get control of the room.

All of this was passing through Xander's head as he blocked Riley's
next attack and drove him back with a quick front kick, jab
combination. None of his attacks were really hurting Finn, but
Xander could tell that the big man was getting increasingly
desperate, and decided to try to get under his skin.

"Aren't you going to make me another job offer?"

Riley responded by trying to get past Xander by simply rushing him.
Fortunately, Xander had anticipated this and smoothly sidestepped
him, flipping the charging man over his hip as he passed. Finn went
flying over the guard rail and crashed against the wall of the
factory. Somewhat to Xander's surprise, Riley crashed through the
wall and onto some kind of slide. Before Xander could react, he
had slid, screaming, out of sight.

---

Riley realized where he was as soon as he felt the slide underneath
him. The slide ended about ten feet up in the air, and Riley hit
the ground and performed a solid forward roll. When he popped up to
his feet he was holding onto the cross that he always kept in his
pocket as a last ditch safety measure.

Unfortunately, the cross offered scant protection against the five
starving vampires in the pit with him. As Riley manouvered to put
his back against a wall he looked for some way to escape, but he had
designed the room to well. A smooth sided pit with walls stretching
well over his head, the only way to get out was via the ladder that
was kept on the floor, ten feet above his head.

As he was desperately searching for a way out, Riley's eyes fell on
an unexpected figure standing above him.

"Maggie! What are you doing down here? Never mind that, get me out
of here."

Walsh simply stood there looking at him.

"Maggie, that's an order! Get the ladder down here!"

At this, Walsh simply threw back her head and laughed.

"What the hell is going on here? The chip-"

"Was never implanted in my head. You thought the shamans were
working for you?" Walsh looked at him and shook her head. "You're
more of a fool than I thought. But worse than that, you're a
failure. And the penalty for failure, Number Five, is death."

With that, Walsh turned and walked away. Riley stared after her for
a moment, before turning back to the vampires.

"No! Stay back, you! I've got a cross. I'll stake you, too, if
you - aargh."

---

Xander listened with some curiousity at the vent into which Finn had
disappeared. He thought he could make out some kind of
conversation, but that was soon replaced with the unmistakeable
scream of a man being torn apart by vampires.

Xander shook his head and climbed down to the main floor, where he
could see an older man barking orders at the CIA team securing the
area.

"Felix Leiter?" Xander called out as he approached.

"Yes." Felix turned to face him. "007?"

"How did you know?"

Felix gestured at the room around them. The factory room was a
mess, scarred by explosions and gunfire. Holy water was everywhere,
mostly mixed with vampire ashes to form a sort of sludge. Small
electrical fires were flickering in some of the equipment.

"The style seemed familiar."

The two men shared a smile, before Felix brought up the reason for
his intervention.

"Is the governor safe?"

"Right as rain, thanks to this young lady here." The governor
boomed out. He had followed Buffy back into the main room with his
entourage in tow.

"You should have seen it, Felix. She saved our lives. We're
definitely going to name a street after you, young lady. And an
awards ceremony- say next Tuesday?" The governor turned to one of
the men with him. "How's my Tuesday?"

"Actually sir," Xander interrupted, "we're going to be on a cruise
this week. In fact, I'm afraid we're going to have to get going
now."

Xander took Buffy by the arm and beat a hasty retreat, leaving Felix
to deal with the grateful governor. They weren't far away before
Buffy turned to him.

"A cruise? When did you schedule this?"

"Actually," Xander smiled, "I found the tickets on Finn's desk."

"You naughty boy." Buffy laughed. "Hey, whatever happened to him
anyways."

"Oh, I'm afraid he was eaten by somebody who disagreed with him."

---