Rainbow Over Sunnydale Chapter 12
by Joe Black
Disclaimer: Red Storm and Tom Clancy own Rainbow and Characters. Joss Whedon owns Buffy and Characters. Anyone else belongs to me. I make no profit of the following except to have a little fun.
Spoilers: Buffy to present. Rainbow to Bear and the Dragon.
Authors note 1: I am adjusting the Buffy time line slightly, this fic starts just after "Never Leave Me", moving things back about a month.
Authors note 2: I am starting to do things a little differently this chapter. I can't get Fanfic to except my special formatting so from now on if you see * the character is speaking in a foreign language. If you see [*] it is the characters thoughts. If I have to add more I'll let you know before I do.
Authors note 3: I am still working a full time job and going to school three nights a week. However I sat down in front of my computer and this chapter just sort of wrote itself. I can't guarantee that the rest will come this quick but I'll do my best.
Notes to reviewers.
Thanks to Catlimere, denaumo, and JA Baker for reviewing.
Dorothy: I have to keep people coming back don't I?
Sam: You raise some good points. I probably have done a little too much backstorying. However part of the reason I do it is that I assume with how wide apart the genres that I am putting together are, everyone might not understand why stuff is happening if I don't. I also use it so I can get into the characters heads and see where they are going. When I have some one report I prefer to have them do the fuller report because I feel that the reader will then review the story mentally at the same time. I think you are right though, I have abused the privilege so I will try to cut back a little on it.
Direwolf757: Yeah I caught that after I had posted. Yet another thing I must correct when I go back over the story in the future. Thanks for pointing it out though.
Fastpilot: Once again I have enjoyed reading your review as much, hopefully as you have enjoyed reading my story. One thing though, remember what happens when you assume. It happens sometimes when you presume too.
Harriet: Your welcome.
Mountain William: I always thought that the most unrealistic part of the Buffy saga, (Well that's probably the wrong word.) was that after season 4 no one offered her a job. I find it difficult to believe that none of the members of the oversight committee would have sold Buffy to a political sponsor either for campaign contributions or brownie points. At the very least I would have expected either one of the intelligence agencies or the secret service to make the offer.
Marcus Rowland: No Marcus, the potentials are on their way. The nice thing about being an author as opposed to a producer is that I don't have to pay salaries.
Thanks to all that reviewed. Constructive criticisms always welcomed. Flames cheerfully ignored.
Fic starts here--à --à
1630 Revello Dr.
Sunnydale Ca.
26Oct2002
0740 Hours
Ding Chavez exploded out of his chair grabbing his MPK as he went. John Clark was starting to turn to get his gun when he noticed that Willow was still making food, Buffy calmly put another fork of her breakfast into her mouth, and Riley was taking a drink of coffee. He cocked an eyebrow at them in question.
Buffy smiled, "There is only one thing in the world that Anya is that scared of that would be in my front yard at this time of the morning."
"What?" Clark asked. He could not imagine what could scare an ex-vengeance demon that much yet not be a threat.
Ding dived out of the front door. It was stupid and he knew it, if someone were waiting in ambush he would be easy meat. So he kept low, and rolled so he was below the banister and bushes in front of the house. Anya was shimming up a column; she looked like she was trying to get on to the roof. Movement out on the lawn caught his eye as several tiny brown forms went ripping around the hedge. "Shoot them!" Anya was screaming, "Turn them into hasenpfeffer!"
"The rabbits?" Ding asked.
"Yes! The Rabbits!!" Anya screamed.
"Those were demon bunnies?" Ding asked very confused. Anya looked at him like he had grown a second head.
"Bunnies?" Clark asked not believing it.
"Yep," Buffy confirmed.
"Do you know why?" Clark wondered.
"There are things that man was not meant to know," was all Buffy would say.
As Ding helped Anya down off the porch railing neither noticed that across the street a slim black-gloved hand pushed a curtain aside. "What is it Mistress?" a voice asked in Egyptian.
"Nothing," a female voice answered in the same tongue, "Something seems to have frightened the vengeance demon. It seems our target has acquired some armed retainers though."
"Will that alter our plans?" The first voice asked, concerned.
"Not in the least. I failed our master once; I will not do it again. Return to your work." The females voice ordered. Once she was alone again, she said, "Soon my love, soon." The hand was removed, and the curtain fell back into place.
Back in the Summer's house, "Could you keep it down? Some of us are still trying to sleep." A tired voice said from upstairs.
"Yeah," Another voice agreed from the living room.
"You be quiet," Buffy told Andrew. "And it's time that you are up anyway Dawn. Remember we are running today," Buffy then told her sister.
"Ugh!" Dawn grunted with feeling," I was trying to forget."
Ding was helping Anya back into the house as this exchange was going on. He helped her into a chair and took a proffered glass of orange juice from Willow to give to Anya.
"I'll go and get my PT gear on too," he said heading for his stuff. As he was leaving the kitchen he said quietly to himself, "Rabbits, who would of thought."
John set down at the table too. Willow put a plate of eggs and a couple of pieces of toast down in front of him. "You want some too Anya?" She asked the ex-vengeance demon.
"Please," Anya said shakily. Then to the others she said, "You can laugh, but you don't know bunnies the way I do." She said to the others.
The others for their part concentrated on eating.
Once they were mostly done Clark said to Buffy, "I talked to my contact last night about your salary."
"He wanted you to cut it down didn't he," Buffy asked. She knew that had been too good to be true.
'No, he had no problem with it," he said. Buffy just blinked. "In fact he authorized me to put you on retainer."
"Isn't that what you did last night?" Buffy questioned.
"No I hired you for a job last night. Retainer means that we have first call on your services if we need you." Clark explained.
"How much will this retainer be?" Buffy asked.
"One thousand dollars a week," Clark told her.
Buffy just blinked at him again.
"Buffy?" Clark asked concerned.
"You want to pay me a thousand a week just to be available?" Really not believing what she was being told.
"See?" Anya told Buffy, "I told you that you should charge for your services. But does anyone ever listen to me?"
"Buffy," Riley said after Anya finished, "Lawyers and such often get huge retainers just so they are available if someone needs them."
"I'm not a lawyer," Buffy protested.
"But you provide a unique service," Clark told her.
"What would I have to do to get this money?" Buffy asked him.
"Just be available if we need you," Clark told her.
"I can't guarantee that I'll be able to drop everything and come," Buffy told Clark.
"I understand, but since we will both be operating around The Hellmouth for the foreseeable future I think that any problem that would be big enough that you couldn't answer a call we would already be involved with it."
"Okay, so I'll get a thousand a week for helping train your guys." Buffy agreed.
"Uh no Buffy," Riley corrected her, "You will still get paid your normal hourly rate when ever you actually do anything."
Buffy looked nonplused, Anya only looked smug.
For the next couple of minutes the group ate. While they were eating they exchange what part of their life stories they felt comfortable in sharing. Willow eventually sitting down and enjoying her own breakfast after putting a plate down in front of Anya.
Clark finished up his eggs and said to Willow, "That was a great breakfast."
Willow blushed, "Thanks."
"When Willow screws up she apologizes with food," Buffy explained. "It used to be just baked goods but Willow has expanded her repertoire."
Clark nodded. Privately he hoped that Willow would stick her foot in her mouth a couple of more times before they had to leave.
Dawn came bouncing into the kitchen. She was dressed in a Sunnydale High School gym outfit in maroon and gold. "What's for breakfast?" She asked.
"Eggs, salsa, and sausage," Willow told the teenager as she got up.
"Great!" Dawn replied sitting down.
Ding came down wearing a pair of olive drab gym shorts, a green T-shirt that said 'US Army' on it, and a pair of sneakers. He leaned against the door jam of the kitchen and watched Dawn demolish her eggs with the gusto of a teenager that hadn't eaten in a couple of hours.
Once Dawn was done Buffy got up and Ding saw that she was already dressed wearing a white tank top, blue shorts and sneakers. "Okay, we'll give Dawn a couple of minutes to digest what she just inhaled then we'll go."
Ding nodded, "Would it be possible to take a run by the High School? I'd like to take a look at it."
Buffy agreed, "Sure. It's a little farther than I usually run with Dawn, but the extra distance will do her some good."
Dawn just muttered something about sadists.
They were just heading for the door when the bell rang. Buffy, being closest opened the door and found and Indian on the front porch in a Forest Ranger uniform.
"Yes?" She asked him.
"I'm looking for Buffy Summers," He returned.
"You found her," Buffy replied, "Can I help you?"
"You can if you really are The Slayer," was the answer.
Rick's Sports Bar
Annapolis MA
26Oct2002
1105 Hours
Bob Holtzman walked into the bar and spotted whom he was meeting with immediately. The man was large, both in height and girth. He had thinning sandy hair, and had not shaved that morning. He was sitting at the bar with a ½ empty mug of beer and an empty shot glass in front of him. Also in font of him was a plate with a large bacon cheeseburger, dripping with mayo, ketchup, and mustard. Next to the burger plate was a saucer with a ½ dozen pickled eggs. A plate of buffalo wings and another of french fries covered with gravy completed the gastronomic feast. Holtzman's cholesterol went up just from being in proximity to the food.
The seat next to the man was open and Holtzman sat down on it. The man looked over and a smile came to his face, "Hey Mr. H good to see yah. Can you stay for the game? The Academy is playing today."
"'Fraid not Pete," Holtzman told him. "Have some stuff I still need to do at the paper."
"You should get a better union," Pete said, shaking his head.
"I'll see what I can do that way," Bob assured him. "What do you have for me?"
The Bartender came over then and Holtzman ordered a ginger ale.
"I was at work last night and I spotted two of the guy's you wanted me to look out for," Pete told him. Pete Cruvell worked at Andrews AFB as a baggage handler. He was a disgusting and disagreeable person. He did have one talent though, you could show him a photo and he would be able to spot that person every time. Holtzman used him to keep track of who was using Andrews.
"Which ones?" Holtzman asked.
The bartender returned with Holtzman's drink and placed it down in front of him.
"The big one with the spic partner," was the reply as he finished the beer and waved to the bartender for another.
Holtzman didn't bother to correct the slur, as far he knew there wasn't an ethnic group that Pete did like. "Were where they heading?"
"California. They were in a VC-20. They sat on the tarmac for something like two hours waiting though." He told the reporter.
"What were they waiting for?" Holtzman questioned.
"Two people, a blond guy and a red headed woman," Cruvell said as he picked up a wing and stripped the flesh off of it with one slurp.
Bob Holtzman, never a big believer in coincidence opened up his briefcase and took out a copy of the picture that he had snapped the day before. "Is this them?" He asked.
Pete wiped off his hand and took the picture, "Yeah, that could be him, but it's definitely her. Oh yeah there was something delivered to them while they were waiting. I went over to help but the delivery person said they didn't need any. The car had a Quantico sticker on it. They were putting silver suitcases into the hold of the plane."
"Good job Pete," Holtzman told him. He opened his wallet and pulled four fifty-dollar bills out of it and put them on the bar next to Pete. Motioning to the bartender he took a fifth fifty out and waving over Pete's feast he laid that on the bar too. The barkeep nodded that he understood and came over and picked up the bill.
"Sure you don't want to watch the game Mr. H? Going to be a good one."
"Thanks Pete but I got to get going," He told the informant.
"Okay Mr. H, pleasure doing business with you," Cruvell said, already turning back to the TV, hand reaching for a pickled egg.
Holtzman left the bar and returned to his car. As he waited for the car to warm up he pulled the picture out and looked at it, "All right Mr. Finn, lets find out who your lovely companion is."
Holtzman had found the blond easily enough. Riley Finn was when in the West Point '96 yearbook, were 2nd Lieutenant Riley Finn had graduated number 4 in his class. He had then gone on to Ranger School, then to Special Forces School. Both of which he had graduated at the top of his class. Riley Finn had then disappeared off the face of The Earth. Which told Holtzman that Lieutenant Finn had been gobbled up by one of the various black-ops units that existed inside the US Military.
He had been unable to place the red head at all though. Fortunately the Post had recently installed some face recognition technology. He hoped that when he scanned in the picture he had that he would get a name to go with the face.
He pulled into The Post's parking garage a little over an hour later and parked in his space. Being a featured columnist had its perks. He rode the elevator up to the floor his office was on. He picked up his mail and headed for it. Sitting down he logged onto his computer and warmed up the scanner. He scanned the picture he had snapped into the computer. He cropped the mystery woman out of the photo and fed it into the face recognition software.
He decided to check out what was new with the London Bombing so he headed down to the duty desk. It was manned twenty-four hours a day and the person who sat there's sole job was to check the wire services.
"Anything new on the London bombing?" He asked the intern at the desk.
"Not much Mr. Holtzman, They finally got the fires out, and they are starting to look for bodies.
"I did some research on the club though. Exclusive isn't the word for it. As far as I can tell the only way to join is to be born into a members family. It was old too. Founded back in the 1690's.
Holtzman considered a moment of the death of something that was older than the US. "Anything interesting about the club itself? Like why someone would want to blow it up?"
"Interesting that you should mention that. I did a net search and got a couple hits on a site check it out," So saying he hit a couple of keys on his computer and displayed a page.
Holtzman read the page as it opened, "Bernie's Truth, What they wished you didn't know.
"A conspiracy page?" Holtzman asked, "Please tell me you don't take that crap seriously."
"Ordinarily no. In this case I would consider it. This guy called it right a bunch of times. A couple of those stories he had out before Drudge," The intern replied.
"Okay," Holtzman replied, "But it better be worth my time."
"It will be, read this."
Holtzman took the proffered page and began to read. According to this source the club actually was a front for an Illuminanti organization called 'The Watchers Council'. While no one was quite sure what they did, it was agreed they were some kind of hidden organization. The last posting was one that claimed that one of the authors contacts worked at LAX and spotted several of the senior Council members going through the airport just weeks before Sato crashed his 747 into the capitol. To the author's mind this proved that The Council was behind Jack Ryan's rise to the presidency, making him their guy.
Holtzman snorted. He knew Jack Ryan, he doubted that anyone could control him like that. Then he noticed a post authored by one lttleredWtch that was titled 'You have got to be kidding me!!!!' Holtzman opened the post and read it,
' If you think that those clowns on the council could have come up with this kind of Machiavellian plot you guys are bigger losers than they are. They would be lucky to be able to plot their way out of a one room building that had an exit sign!'
Holtzman smiled he just might like this person. It also acured to him that it sounded like Ms. red might actually know these Watchers. "Can I have that web address?" He asked the intern.
"Sure," The intern said, giving it to him.
Holtzman thanked the intern and headed up to the IT department.
"Bob!" The long hair type that ran the department for the Post greeted Holtzman as he came in the door.
"Hi Tom, I'd like to ask Matilda something," Holtzman told Tom Messinger, the IT guy.
"Well Matilda isn't currently doing anything so I'm sure that she would be delighted to help," Messinger replied cheerfully. Matilda was a homegrown search engine that Messinger had wrote in his spare time. Last Holtzman had heard Yahoo was up to 25 Mill for the rights to it but Tom wasn't interested in selling.
Bob showed him the web page and asked him to find out what he could about llltlredWtch. Tom Messinger readily agreed and feed in the parameters. "I'll bring anything I get up to you as soon as I get it."
"Thanks, owe you one," Holtzman told him.
"Pizza, large, feta cheese and we are even," Tom told Bob.
"Done." Holtzman replied as he walked out of the door.
Holtzman went back to his office. The FRS had gotten a hit. It was only rated at 75% but he decided to check it out. Opening the file he saw the resemblance, but this women had brown hair, not red. Holtzman printed out the picture and looked at it. The headline that went with the photo said, 'One survivor of attack on village', the story went on to describe how Samantha Weber had survived an attack by the local drug gang on the village that her Peace Corp group had been helping. Ms. Weber had been on the edge of the village when the attack started and had been able to flee into the jungle and hide. There was another picture that showed the same woman being wheeled into a hospital on a gurney. He couldn't tell if this was Finn's red-haired companion or not. So he printed out the cropped photo that he had fed into the FRS and blew it up. It wasn't the clearest picture but except for the hair color it could be the same woman.
Holtzman saw that the FRS was still chewing through The Post's picture archive so he decided he would piss his editor off and do a Nexus/Lexus search on Samantha Weber and see what he got.
He ended up getting a spate of hits around her rescue. Then nothing for 4 months or so, then there was a single notice of her getting married. Holtzman got excited when he saw that the name of her husband was Riley Finn. Reading further he found that Riley Finn had been on leave from the Army in Mexico and had agreed to escort Ms. Weber back to the states.
"Gotcha!" Holtzman gloated.
Holtzman sat back and thought. There was something missing. He stared at the list of headlines in front of him and thought. It hit him suddenly that there were few mentions of any entertainment contracts. Normally in a situation like this screenwriters would be all over someone like Samantha Weber to secure the screen rights to the story. In this case there were two, both reporting that a screenwriter had been shot down.
Holtzman reached over and grabbed his Rolodex, thumbing through he found the card he wanted and dialed the number.
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Post Script
X-lander and LMiC2001, you guessed right.