Rainbow over Sunnydale

by JoeB1451

(Complete)When the Initiative goes AWOL Buffy might need some help to stop them from opening the Hellmouth. (A Rainbow SixBuffy crossover.)

25. Chapter 25

 Rainbow Over Sunnydale Chapter 25

By Joseph 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 right after 'Never Leave Me'.

Authors Note 2:  If you see * then the speaker is speaking a foreign language.  If you see {*} then it is the persons thoughts.

Notes to reviewers:

martin woodhead:  That's okay I like fan letters.  I'll try to get them out as fast as I can.

JA Baker:  Oh come on JA, kids in Sunnydale always listen to their elders!

Dorothy:  Of course there is more to the press conference.  As soon as I am able.

jj:  Welcome aboard!

John:  Are you sure?

Catlimere: I'm still deciding what parts of Season 7 that I am going to keep, and which I'll be shelving, so no guarantees.  I always felt a little sorry

                              Riley. being Angels replacement, but at least he was a half-way likeable character, (Granted in that lost puppy dog kind of way.)

                              Kennedy didn't even have that going for her, she was set up right from the get go to be hated.

warren:  I would think that it would depend on the situation.  If she were standing post she would be in a suit.  If she was trying to melt into a

               crowd then probably her leathers.

liliaeth: I like writing Holtzman too.  It's a fun segment.

Marcus Rowland:  Well you know Marcus that they are the only papers that have the 'real' story.

Bolo:  Why does everyone like seeing Riley beat upon?  Poor guy.

 Thanks to all that reviewed. Constructive criticisms always welcomed. Flames cheerfully
 ignored.

On Board Air Force One

Over Virginia

26Oct2002

1722 hours

Andrea Price made sure that the door to the conference room was closed and locked before she nodded at Jack.  Jack looked at his Chief-of-Staff and said, "I know your pissed Arnie but there is reasons for what I did."

Arnie Van Damm shook his head, "Jack, I am beyond pissed.  We talked about this and I laid out why I thought that going after Kincaid wasn't a bright move politically.  What's got me ticked is that you said you agreed with me about helping Bursten rather than attacking Kincaid then you go around my back like this.

"I don't try and tell you how to do national security or intelligence issues.  When I disagree with you on something I tell you why I do and explain the ramifications if we take your actions, but if you say that we have to do it then I don't second guess you or go around behind your back to get what I want.  Call me old fashion but I expect the same courtesy.  If you really wanted to go after Kincaid you could have just told me, I would of set it in motion.  I don't like the guy; in fact he is beginning to scare me a little.  But when you are at this level you cannot let likes or dislikes motivate what you do."

Jack made a mental note to ask him why Kincaid was becoming a concern a little later and said, "Arnie I understand, but you were busy setting up the St. Louis stop when this came up and I didn't want to disturb you.  Andrea?"  He said to the head of his Secret Service detail, inviting her to speak.

Arnie looked over at Andrea wondering what she would have to do with it.

"Last night I informed The President that I would be seeking a witch or wizard to add to his detail to counter what we learned yesterday."

Arnie winced, "Andrea we have John Plumber, Bob Holtzman, and a bunch of the Washington Press Corp within a hundred feet of us.  Please don't say stuff like that in proximity to them.  The last thing we need is for the public to think that Jack is channeling the ghosts of past presidents."

Andrea looked at Arnie as if asking permission to continue, "He ordered me that once I did, the first thing he wanted them to do was investigate the crash that lead to him being President."

Arnie looked at Jack in shock, "You don't think Billingsly is right do you?"

Jack shook his head and gestured back at Andrea who was taking the interruptions in stride.

"It occurred to me last night as I was tucking the kids in that maybe if Sato's crash was engineered by magic then Jack wasn't who was supposed to be helped, maybe he was supposed to die that night too.  So when I came in this morning I started looking into the other people who were elevated that night.  I, of course, started with the Secretary of the Interior because he would have become President if Jack had been killed.  He however had done nothing overly suspicious immediately following the event.  I then looked at the Sec of Transportation, the only other cabinet secretary to survive, but since he resigned when The President declared Martial Law upon discovering the Ebola outbreak he didn't look like a likely candidate either.  I checked the logs around where the Sec of the Interior was just in case to see if there were any unusual events but nothing was reported. 

I then looked at the surviving members of Congress.  When I looked at Senator Kincaid some of his activities at first glance looked suspicious.  I don't think he had anything to do with Sato's crash, but once we started putting the Senate back together he started campaigning hard to get on the Senate Appropriations committee, a seat on which he has been trying to get since he became a Senator 11 years ago.  He burned a lot of political and personal favors for the first week and a half to get it, he probably would of gotten on, maybe even the chairmanship the way it was going when suddenly he hung a ninety-degree turn and started to try for the Chairmanship of the Senate Intelligence Committee.  He had burned too much capital, plus I think he pissed a lot of the people who said they would support him in Appropriations so he didn't even get on the committee, instead he ended up on the Armed Services Committee.  I talked to the Hill security; Senator Kincaid has been reprimanded twice for attempting to gain access to classified data that he is not eligible to receive.  Data on Black Operations."

Arnie Van Damm shook his head, "Okay that may seem suspicious, and I know the guy is a pain-in-the butt, so it might seem that it's a good excuse to go after him, but this kind of attack could boomerang, It could just make his position stronger."

"If that's all we had, I never would have done it," Jack told his chief political advisor.  "Andrea?"

"I looked into Senator Kincaid's history, his best friend in Congress was Rep. Charles Bellows who was killed in the crash."

Arnie nodded, "Bellows district included Sunnydale, he was the congressional rep on the Initiative right?"

"Yes he was," Andrea agreed.  "We don't think that Kincaid was clued in on that.  We think that he was an alternate incase something did happen.  It must have taken Billingsly a week to get a hold of him and convince him to get on The Intelligence Committee to monitor what the President was up too.  He started his Anti-Ryan stance at the same time.  He has been The Presidents most vocal opponent ever since."

"I don't get it," Arnie said finally.  "I can see why you want this guy gone but why give him almost a full day to get ready for you?  I could have gotten with Callie Weston and really did him for you."

"I wanted him to be warned," Ryan replied, "I had Callie dig out a speech that I had her do when I first brought the idea up to go after him. She didn't have to change it much."

Van Damm thought about it for a minute or so then said, "You want him to call in the cavalry don't you."

Jack smiled at the analogy, "Or at least circle the wagons.  I have Dan Murray's counter espionage people keeping track of The Senator, hopefully he will contact some people and we will be able to get a better handle on Billingsly's organization, or at least tell a little better how far the rot has spread.

I'm sorry Arnie, you were on the phone setting things up for this trip I didn't think that it was a good idea to disturb you with this.  Now why does Kincaid scare you?"

"I said he was beginning to, not that he does," Arnie retorted, "I'm not the only one either.  I got a call earlier in the week from an old friend, someone who belongs to the 'I hate Jack Ryan Club.'  He was at a party last week and Kincaid was one of the guests of honor.  He heard him telling some of his supporters that God saved him from Sato to oppose you.  The scary thing is my contact thinks that Kincaid believed every word he was saying."

Jack snorted, "Wasn't he at the Watergate with a hooker that night?"

Andrea nodded, "Every week, that night is his 'exercise' night.  He never misses it, he wasn't going to let a little thing about a Vice-Presidential swearing in break the tradition."

Ryan shook his head, "Okay Arnie are you good with this?"

Arnie nodded his head, "In the future Boss, please give me a heads up, this job is high stress enough, I don't need things to add to it."

Jack nodded seriously, "One more thing before we start bring in the others and start the meeting, Andrea we are going to be staying in San Bernardino tomorrow right?"

Andrea nodded thinking about were Jack was going with this, she thought about what was around San Bernardino that Jack might be interested in; suddenly she froze, "No!" She said forcefully, "You are not going into Sunnydale at night, at least not until I figure out what security would be needed."

Jack smiled, "Relax Andrea, I would like to go there sometime in the future but I am not stupid.  I would like to see if Buffy Summers and any of her people would be willing to meet with me after the hustings Sunday.  I figure that we can sneak them in while I'm doing the Meet and Greet after the press conference when everyone's interest will be inside."

Andrea nodded, "I'll see if they are willing to meet." Andrea left the meeting and ushered the rest of the staff in for the planning session, and began to think of how she was going to protect POTUS if The Slayer took him up on his offer and then for whatever reason decided to attack him.

Route 46

Outside Sunnydale CA

26Oct2002

1320 hrs

Alistair Stanley listened as Ding explained what was going on.  He had a look of disbelief on his face for most of the explanation.  "You are serious about this, right?"  He had finally asked.

"Have you seen any proof of the supernatural?"  Not wanting to believe.

"Alistair, I killed a vampire last night, it exploded into dust all over me," Ding told the Colonel.  Alistair sat back in the seat to absorb that.

Finally he said, "All right then, I think we have our work cut out for us then.  Are there any locals we can get some training from?"

"Willow here is part of a group that have been fighting the local night life for the last seven years or so.  John has arranged with their combat person to give us some training, she'll start tomorrow."

"She?"  Alistair asked surprised.

"Buffy has some special qualifications," Willow replied.

Stanley looked at her for her to continue.

Ding answered instead, "You have to see Buffy in action to believe it Colonel.  I saw her take out four vampires last night without working up a sweat.  Her senses are at a different order of magnitude than ours.  Early today she and I went on a rescue mission up to one of the local parks.  A family of three had been treed by what the mother called 'invisible wolves'.  We found out these things were actually chameleons, there was four of them, I got one, Ranger Robert Broadman who brought us in got another, the last two were taken out by Buffy.  She shot one dead center with a crossbow and flipped its companion breaking its back; she then did the same to its neck. Hand to Hand, I would bet Buffy could take both teams at the same time."

"What is she, Wonder Woman?"  Alistair asked.

"No, she's a Vampire Slayer," Willow told him.

"Vampire Slayer?"

"One girl in all the world with the strength and speed to hunt the vampire," Willow quoted.  "Except now there are two of them."

"This is a lot to accept," Alistair said slowly.

"Make up your mind quick Colonel," Willow told him grimly, "The last group of soldiers in Sunnydale didn't work it out and that got a lot of them killed."

"Okay," Alistair said thoughtfully, "What exactly am I doing here, John mentioned about getting some alternate places to stay tonight?"

"Riley Finn, the Initiative team leader, John, and I spent last night at Buffy's, but they already have four people living there, and they just got four more house guests so we need to find an alternate place to crash tonight.  So we are going to check out one of the local motels.  The problem is that vampires probably have access to the rooms so Willow, who is a witch, will perform a ceremony that will bar at least vampires from them."  Ding explained.

Colonel Stanley raised an eyebrow at the 'She's a witch' line, "What does this 'ceremony' entail?"

Willow responded, "It's not very demanding, most people could perform it.  The problem with it is that I have to nail crosses into the wall of the room by the doors and windows, so we need someone to run interference with the motel manager."

Seeing a sign for El Nino' Lumber Stanley asked, "Do the crosses have to be nailed to the wall?"

"When the ceremony was written that was the only way they could be attached," Willow said, "Why?"

"Pull in there," Alistair replied, indicating the home improvement store.  "Just be a minute," He told the pair in the car.  He was gone about ten and came out of the store carrying a medium size plastic bag.  Climbing back into the SUV he pulled what he bought out of the bag.

"This isn't the same stuff I use but it should work as well," He said, showing them what he had purchased.  It looked like some kind of blue putty.  "My wife loves to decorate, it got to the point that I was having to paint the walls about every three months or so because she had put up pictures then moved them, or put up things with different size frames.  I got this stuff for her and had her use this till she figured out the permanent placement for whatever she was hanging.  It won't hold up pounds, but unless the crosses you are going to be using are large it should keep them up, and it will be silent, and we can just pull them down when we are done, and no one will be the wiser."

Willow was impressed, "I can see why they made you a Colonel."

Alistair spent the rest of the trip to the motel quizzing Willow about what she had done in her fight against the local demons, and how she had become a witch.  Willow answered as truthfully as she could, just staying away from tender subjects. 

When they pulled into the parking lot of the Route 46 Inn Ding, for one, was under impressed.  He stayed in some worse dives in his career as a CIA agent but they had all been in third-world countries.  It needed painting badly; the front parking lot was in need of repaving with weeds growing out of the numerous cracks that covered the lot.  Ding noticed through a breezeway that the back lot wasn't paved at all.  None of the windows of the rooms seemed to be cracked surprisingly; but the curtains all seemed to be faded.  "This is the best in town?" He asked.

"The better motels are over by the USD.  This is the only one that is close to downtown," Willow replied.  "Sunnydale is close enough to San Bernardino and LA that most people just keep going rather than staying."

Alistair shrugged, "It's only for a couple of days.  I hope."

Ding and Willow waited by the SUV as Alistair went into the office.  The man behind the desk set of alarm bells in Alistair but he couldn't figure out why.  He was clean enough, with a bit of a paunch, he was wearing a plaid shirt with blue jeans, and his hair was a little ragged.  As he stood up and moved to the desk Alistair heard a bunch of keys jangling.

"Can I help you?"  The man, whose nametag said that he was Mike, the manager of the motel.

"I hope so," Allister said, "I'm the front man for a group of consultants that are coming to Sunnydale for a meeting and though I didn't reserve rooms I was wondering if it would be possible to rent eight for at least three days?"

"Let me check my register," Mike said, thumbing through a book on his desk.  "Looks like you're in luck mister, I can let you have eight through next Friday if you need it."

"Hopefully we won't need them that long."  Stanley provided, saying a prayer to himself that it was indeed true.

"Just let me make sure the rooms are ready," Mike said as he picked up a walky-talky on the desk and said, "Rosita?"

"Si Senior Mike?"  The accented young sounding voice said back.

"Are 210 through 217 ready?"

"Si Senior Mike," was the reply.

"Okay, anytime your group is ready they can check in," Mike told Allister.

"The rest of them will be along later tonight.  I thought that I would take a look through now though."

"Fine, I just need you to fill out these forms then I can give you keys.  Will that be cash or charge?"  Mike finished.

"Credit," Allister said fishing out his wallet and handing over a credit card.

About twenty minutes later Allister came out with a handful of keys and waved Ding and Willow to follow him.  Once they got up to the second floor the rooms started right off of the breezeway so they started with 210.  The rooms where shabby, the TV's where only 17", not that they would have time to watch it.  The blankets on the bed where faded from too many washings, the head boards where chipped and had burn marks where cigarettes had been left to burn down.  The chairs in the room fabric covers where frayed in several places and the table wasn't all that sturdy either when Ding pushed against it.  The bathroom was in about the same shape with several of the small tiles in the floor missing and the mirror had a corner cracked.  The room was clean though, the towels where white, there was no soap scum around the tub and the linen smelled fresh.

"Well at least it's clean," Ding said philosophically.

Willow meanwhile had opened up the toolbox and had taken a small book and a candle out.  She sat on the bed and pulled her legs up into a lotus position, "I'm going to need to center myself for a couple of minutes, if you two need to talk can you take it outside?"  Willow requested.

Neither Ding nor Allister left, instead they both watched with interest as Willow regulated her breathing to the point where she set up a rhythm.  After about two minutes Willow opened her eyes and said, "Okay lets get started."

About ninety minutes later Willow had finished all eight rooms.  Allister and Ding where both disappointed as there was no visual reaction from the spell, Willow would go into a room, go to the window and say something in Latin that neither the Major or the Colonel understood and put up a cross, the stick-it compound was working fine.  Then move onto the door and repeat what she had done to the window.  Once all the rooms where done the three of them returned to the car and loaded Willow's stuff and started back to downtown Sunnydale.

They hadn't gotten very far when Alistair's phone rang, it was Peter Covington, "Colonel, I've looked over the FBI office and don't think that it is a good defensive position.  Captain Finn just called and they got the warehouse that we will be using for a base.  General Clark agrees with my assessment of the FBI and wants us to set up at the warehouse.  The address is 814 Front Street.  Riley and a local contact will meet you there, we'll be over too just as soon as a local group gets back from a recon.

"Very well, meet you there."  Allister clicked off.

An open field

1245 Main Street

Sunnydale CA

26Oct2002

1420 hrs

Giles and Clark had talked for almost an hour when Buffy said that she had what she needed for the recon of the cave where she originally fought The First's Bringers.  Giles had found that Clark was intelligent and experienced.  He asked good questions, listened to the answers, then asked follow up questions that indicated that he understood much of what Giles was telling him.  After dealing with Maggie Walsh and the Initiative he found it refreshing; it also worried him more than a little.

Getting down to the cars Buffy asked Giles if he wanted to drive because he was always nervous when she drove.  Giles cringed and said, "You had best drive Buffy, I let my international drivers licenses lapse since I didn't think I would need it."

Buffy nodded and climbed into her SUV.  On the way to the lot Buffy and Giles discussed what had happened since the last time they had been together.  They had to park about three blocks from the old tree lot and started walking.

"You know it's funny," Buffy said.  "The last time The First showed up it was Christmas time too."

Giles looked confused, "Buffy it's October," he pointed out.

Buffy nodded toward a store window that had a couple of merrily blinking Christmas tree's in it.  Sharing the window was some gaily-wrapped presents sitting on some cotton bunting doing duty as snow.  A sign on the window said, "Only 59 more shopping days till Christmas!"

"Americans," Giles said, mildly disgusted.

"So are you going to come in any time but impending Apocalypses?"  Buffy asked her Watcher.

"I promise Buffy, that if we survive this then I will make time to come in for a vacation."

The Slayer and her Watcher walked about a block in comfortable silence, enjoying each other's company.  Giles finally broke the mood by asking, "These Rainbow people, what do you think about them?"

"They're competent enough, but so were the Initiative people.  I get a different vibe off of the General and Ding though."

"What do you mean?" Giles asked.

"That they are doing a job.  It isn't about the adventure.  They have a job to do, and they are going to do it."

Giles nodded, he got some of the same feelings from his meeting with Clark.  "We must be careful Buffy."

"What do you mean?" She asked, stopping and turning and looking up at Giles.

"The First is a master of manipulation, it could be in control of who ever dispatched them to Sunnydale."

"Why?"  Buffy asked, a skeptical look on her face.

"Perhaps to monitor us, to find out when all of the potentials arrive so they know when to strike."

Buffy thought about that for about a half a second, "Giles I've never really been strategy girl but if The First is invisible and you can't touch it," pointing at the ground five feet away from her she went on, "It could be standing right there, right now and we would never know.  If it had control of the government why not just wait for us to gather all the potentials that are left then get its friends in the government to drop a nuke on us?  That would get rid of the line of The Slayers pretty quick and we would never see it coming."

Giles nodded that he saw what Buffy was saying, but then said, "We must be careful Buffy with what's at stake we can't afford mistakes."

"We also can't afford to second guess ourselves into inactivity because we are scared that we are doing what The First wants us to do.  We are going to have to do what we think is right, then put our heads down and do it."  She told her mentor.

The conversation brought them to the edge of a vacant lot.  "Darn," Buffy said. "I hoped that the shack would be here at least.  Now we'll have to find the entrance the hard way."

So saying Buffy and Giles began pacing the lot.  They started in the area that Buffy thought the entranceway to The Firsts old lair was.  After going through the area Buffy and Giles stood facing each other.  Buffy put her fists on her hips and said, "I don't understand, I could of sworn it was around here somewheeerrrreeee!"  She yelled as the ground gave way beneath her.

Giles alarmed rushed to the lip of the hole, staying slightly back so he didn't come down on top of Buffy, and called down, "Buffy!  Buffy!  Are you hurt?"

"Just my pride," the reply came out of the dark.  "I don't see an easy way up though from here."

"All right.  I'll see if I can find some rope to help you get out."  He called down the hole.

"Thanks, I think I'll do what I came for though and look around."  She called back up.

"Be careful," Giles cautioned.  "Try to find and alternate route to the surface though."

"Get me more maps," Buffy called up.  "I'll be able to find it."

"I'll be right back Buffy," Giles said.

"'Kay," Buffy replied, already looking the cave over.  It was mostly as she had left it last time.  The artifacts that the Bringers had been using to hold the first lay as scattered as they had been when Buffy had fought them four Christmases' ago.  The map she had studied had indicated that there was only one exit from this cavern besides the one that she came down.  She did a quick look around to make sure that Clark's KH-12 had got it right.  Buffy was still a little amazed that you could now look through solid rock.  She had just finished the checking the rest of the room when she turned back toward the exit of the room and saw him looking at her.

It was a vampire of some sort obviously.  It stood in the entrance way with its hands behind its back obviously waiting for Buffy to notice it.  It was well over six feet tall, maybe even approaching seven feet.  Its head and face bore a marked resemblance to a classic nausferatu.  It had the tawny eyes that all vamps seem to have, though in this creature they looked almost golden.  It looked very muscular, with wide shoulders and a narrow waist.  It smiled at her removing any doubt to what it was; its teeth were long and canine.  Around its neck it wore some kind of metal color.  For clothing it wore an outfit very similar to what The Master use to wear, all black leather.

Once it was sure that Buffy had seen it, the vampire placed one of its hands on its chest and bowed from the waist never taking its eyes off of Buffy.  "Trifurcates," it said.

Buffy, not to be out done in politeness by a vampire put her own hand on her chest and similarly bowed from the waist without taking her eyes off of her opponent and said, "Buffy Summers."

Trifurcates shook his had and smiled, a truly hideous sight, "Occisor," it said.