TITLE:  From L.A. With Love

AUTHOR:  Eloise

RATING: PG13

DISCLAIMER: Joss and ME own Wes, and all things Angel. I'm only playing with them. I promise not to hurt them. Honestly. I also do not own Bond, and still wish I did.

SPOILERS: through episode 4.2 – Ground State

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Chapter 3 of 8. Title from Ian Fleming. Quoted dialogue from 'Deep Down'. And the plot thickens…

Chapter 3: The Man with Golden Gunn

He closed the door carefully behind him and looked again at the woman for whom he had once harboured an illicit desire. Of course, these days she was more like a sister, but still…

'Cordelia, when did you start wearing glasses? And your hair… looks… um… rather formal…'

His voice tailed off as she fixed him with a stern glare.

'Oh, please, Wesley. I'm not one of your little groupies from the steno pool. You can't take off my glasses and shake out my hair and then start with the 'My God, Chasepenny, but you're gorgeous!' crap. I'm not buying it.'

She stood up and strode over to the walnut filing cabinet that stood in the corner of the office. Pulled open the top drawer and began flicking through the contents with an efficiency which was uncharacteristic in the extreme.

'Ah, here they are. She held aloft a small grey leather box which Wesley recognized as a spectacles case. 'G said to make sure you got these. They're part of your persona this mission.' She nodded to the file which dangled uselessly in his hand. 'And you'll need to shave, Wesley. The hospital didn't give you a razor?'

Truth be told, he had been having a bit of an odd reaction to razors since the accident. The morning after he had woken up in St Thomas', an orderly had arrived with the necessary accoutrements for a shave. Wesley had just undergone a rather vigorous bed bath, which he felt could better be described as an intimate personal assault, but Sister had tutted at his protests and told him not to be such a baby. So it was in a weakened state that he perceived the orderly approaching him, razor poised at his throat.

When he had come to, he had been distressed to see the orderly crouching against the wall in abject terror, clutching his hand to a reddening bruise on his cheek, the shaving supplies scattered randomly on the grey linoleum.

Sister had appeared on the scene almost immediately; Wesley had welcomed his former tormentor with desperate relief, glad to abdicate responsibility to her no-nonsense attitude and practicality. She had ensured that the orderly was not badly hurt; had listened to his trembling description of the incident with a calm ear and a soothing word; sent him off duty for a cup of tea and a cold compress. Then had gathered the instruments from the floor and placed them back on the tray with cool detachment, before returning to his bedside and pulling the covers over him.

'Now, then, Mr Pryce. There'll be no more of that sort of behaviour, do I make myself clear?'

He had simply stared incredulously at her, wondering what the hell she was on about.

'You'll not be punching any more of my staff, and they'll not be attempting to approach you with sharp objects.'

'I don't know what you mean…' he had begun, but she put her finger to her own lips.

'That's enough. You've been through an awful ordeal, there are bound to be some psychological after-effects.' She spoke gently now, cool hands swishing the bedclothes efficiently around his chest. Wesley had not understood her words, but he had raised his fingers to trace a jagged line that ran the length of his jaw.

His fingers played there now, unconsciously, the sharp scar edge prominent even under the bristle.

'Wesley!'

He blinked and looked at her. She was standing in front of him, arms folded over her chest in tight frustration.

'Sorry, Cordelia. My mind was…elsewhere.'

'Yeah, well you better get your mind herewhere pretty damn quick. He's not going to be happy if you stuff this one up. We all know the incident in L.A. wasn't your fault, but still…'

She let the unspoken words hang between them, and handed him the glasses.

'Now. You're Peregrine Wyndham, second son of the Earl of Midwich. And before you get any ideas about the high life and casinos and fancy restaurants, the family's broke. Elder brother gambled away the family estate and you now eke out a living as an antiquities and weaponry expert for the British museum. Not the most glamorous cover ever, but G thought it would suit you well.'

Well, it appeared that even in this lunatic mirrorverse some things made sense. He took the proffered glasses and slipped them onto his nose.

They felt odd; uncomfortable, as if he hadn't worn them in a long time. Which was ridiculous, as the accident had only occurred a few weeks ago. Cordelia gave him an appraising look

'Just the thing, Wesley. You should wear glasses more. Really.'

She smiled broadly and gave his cheek a sisterly pat.

'Now get your ass down to Q Section ASAP,' she paused, looking over at Giles' office. 'Or he'll have it tanned for you.'

Wesley honestly wasn't sure if she was joking.

*~*~*~*

The axe flew past his head as he side-stepped to the right, narrowly avoiding a Van Gogh incident.

'Oh, Wesley, you almost got hacked to pieces!'

He turned to see a white-coated bespectacled Fred emerge from behind a spring loaded firing mechanism, oversized clipboard in hand. Her hair was gathered in a loose bun at the top of her head, from which stray strands had managed to escape, snaking down the sides of her face in loose corkscrew curls. He would have said that she looked beautiful, except that she wore an angry scowl which he was unaccustomed to seeing. At least on her face.

'You should pay more attention! No wonder you're always breaking things!'

He thought that this was a bit unfair, as he had no idea to what she was referring, but he judged that perhaps discretion here was indeed the better part of valour.

'Hello, Fred.'

'Don't you hello Fred me! All innocence and devilish charm. Don't think that's going to get round me!'

She was blushing furiously, the rosy hue spreading from high cheekbones to her whole face.

'Do you have any idea of how the cost of equipment nowadays, Wesley? I mean, that car was worth over a hundred thousand pounds. Money out of my budget that I won't be getting back.'

She was clearly furious with him, and he had no notion why. The hapless smile he offered in an attempt to defuse her anger simply increased her exasperation.

'You really don't care anymore, do you?'

(and suddenly an ache is in his arm, sharp and new and in his heart a dark despairing sadness)

He blinked hard, and looked down at his arm, convinced the blade of the axe had somehow managed to wing him, slicing the flesh of his forearm with surgical sharpness. There was nothing but a faint line, a thin scar barely worth bothering about. One of the many he had received over his years with Angel Investigations. Only he couldn't quite remember getting this one.

'Wesley, will you please pay attention!'

'Wha… I'm sorry, Fred, what were you saying?' He looked up again at her.

'G says you're not to have any more cars, after last time. But you'll need a few other things. Come on.'

She pulled his arm and he trailed after her obediently. Over to an area where various white-coated technicians were fiddling about with concealed firearms and producing deadly looking blades from innocuous places.

'Now. First of all, we have this. She handed him a strange contraption which looked like an arm brace. Or indeed a medieval instrument of torture. He held out his arm and she snapped it closed at the elbow and wrist.

'Hold your arm out in front of you,' she ordered, and he did as he was told. 'And flex the muscles of your upper arm… carefully,' she cautioned. 'It's only a proto-type.'

As he contracted the muscle, he heard a quiet click, and a blade shot out of the brace at his wrist. It was a foot long, and made of a gun metal grey element that had been polished to a high sheen.

'It's titanium,' Fred explained. 'One of the hardest elements. It will cut through steel, iron, any of the usual materials that restraints are made from.'

Wesley didn't really want to imagine why he would be needing to cut through restraints, but wisely kept these thoughts to himself. Fred was unstrapping the device and already demonstrating a second gadget, which appeared to be a cigarette case.

'It's silver, polished to make it highly reflective.' She flicked it open and deftly removed the black inner section to reveal a small microchip. 'Homing device. We're not going to make the same mistake twice.'

Again, he was lost, but faked a sage nod.

'And this,' she said as she handed the slim barrelled steel pen to him, 'doubles as an incredibly powerful laser beam, with a range of up to one hundred yards. Of course, it will be more powerful at a closer range.'

'And its other use?' Wesley encouraged her gently. She fixed him with an exasperated glare.

'It's a pen, Wesley. You write with it.'

'Oh.'

She shook her head as if despairing of him, then produced another item, about the size of a small Christmas cracker. 'We've been working on this for a while now. It's a mini aqualung; it will allow you enough oxygen to stay underwater for two hours. Now, be careful with this one, Wesley, the container is pressurized.'

He was looking at a small box on the table beside her. It was flat black matte, and was so streamlined that it was positively aerodynamic. Wesley wondered how it would feel to the touch, as it looked almost frictionless. He stretched out an inquisitive finger, feeling the heat that radiated from the object.

'Wesley!' The slap he received on the back of his hand from her clipboard made him yelp in an embarrassingly high-pitched voice. 'Don't touch!'

He drew his hand back, and rubbed the reddened skin tenderly. 'Sorry. Was it something dangerous? Did I almost set it off?'

She shook her head and lifted the box off the table, flipping the top back with one flick of her forefinger.

'No. It's my lunch.'

He peered into the lunchbox and saw the tacos, hot sauce still steaming. Some things never change. She snapped the lid shut, and pursed her lips determinedly. 'You'll need to go up to the armoury to collect your gun. You'll take the Walther PPK 7.65. It's heavier than the Beretta, and it's best worn at the waist rather than in a shoulder holster. But it doesn't stick. Not like the Beretta.' And here she shook her head, as if in disbelief. Then gave him a brief encouraging pat on his shoulder.

'Well, that's the best we can do for you.' Her voice softened a little, and she smiled that startlingly bright smile that he loved to see on her face. 'Do try to be a bit more careful this time, 007.'

He was starting to piece it together. Something had happened to him on his last 'mission', which apparently had been in L.A., and must have involved his gun sticking, his car getting wrecked or stolen, and him ending up in hospital. And from the way everyone kept saying that it wasn't his fault, it was becoming very clear to him that they all thought it was.

*~*~*~*

Obviously MI5, 6, or whatever number they had currently reached treated their employees with a bit more respect than the Watcher's Council ever had. He remembered his first flight to the USA, travelling in economy class, wedged between a huge Hawaiian-shirted tourist and his equally enormous wife.

A somewhat disgruntled air steward, who clearly held a deep-seated grudge against the English in general and Wesley in particular, had placed what might have been a week old ham sandwich and a square of lime jelly in front of him as some sort of unspoken challenge.

The heat and turbulence were already affecting his system quite considerably, and he had stared at the delicately curling edge of the sandwich and the shuddering green congealed mass with barely controlled horror. Enormous Tourist Wife had eyed his tray with anxious greed and leaned over to him.

'Are you going to eat that, hon?' she had enquired, then helped herself to his portion, just as the plane hit a particularly spectacular patch of turbulence, and her extraneous rolls of flesh had flopped onto him as the plane banked sharply. He had turned the colour of the jelly dessert and made an undignified dash for the loo, where he had filled the thoughtfully provided sick bag. He had arrived in Los Angeles in a state of rumpled dishevelment that had taken an hour of grooming to correct.

This time, however, he was travelling in style. First class, fully reclining seat; sylph-like hostesses wafting by on up draughts of L'air Du Temps, offering him smoked salmon, caviar and chilled champagne. It was 'Are you comfortable, Mr Wyndam? Another pillow? Can I bring you more pate de fois gras, hot lemon-scented towels; a shiatsu massage, perhaps?'

The utter luxury of the flight only served to emphasise the hell that was the Arrivals area of Miami International Airport.

Someone had omitted to inform him that the airport was actually a small totalitarian state, run by Kafkaesque clerks and guards. In the line for Immigration, he learned to his cost the foolishness of disobeying a sign. 'Do not cross line until called' it read, and as he stepped over the line to enquire whether he could move to an unoccupied booth, an unholy shriek stayed his foot in mid-air.

'Get behind line!'

A grey uniformed person of indistinguishable sex marched over and waved its finger at the sign. Wesley stepped back, and began to apologize. The clerk simply pushed him back over the line. After a moment had passed there was another apoplectic screech.

'You! Now! Booth 3! Move!'

Wesley fought the urge to raise his right arm in a Nazi salute, guessing that it probably would not be taken as a joke. He made his way to the correct booth, and spent the next half hour convincing the clerk that he was neither a drugs smuggler nor indeed a member of a terrorist organization.

Finally, and somewhat grudgingly they let him through to the luggage collection area, where he was overjoyed to see a familiar face in the crowd. He raised him arm high into the air and waved cheerily.

'Gunn!' The man did not react. 'Over here!' He still didn't hear him. Wesley shouted as loud as he could. 'Gunn!'

Three hours and a narrowly avoided body cavity search later, Wesley realized it hadn't been such a good idea to shout the name of a lethal weapon across a crowded airport. The reaction would have been quite entertaining if he hadn't been immediately seized by security guards. Everyone had dropped to the floor, apart from Gunn himself, who had shaken his head in patent disbelief.

He had spent quite a bit of time persuading them that Peregrine Wyndham did indeed have diplomatic immunity, and any attempt to search his luggage would have serious repercussions for the continued amicability of Anglo-American foreign affairs.

He did not speak as he led Wesley from the airport, remained stoically silent until they were installed in the back of the dark grey sedan.

'What the hell were you thinking, English! Have you lost it completely?'

Wesley so wanted to answer yes to that, but instead shrugged his shoulders non-committally. 

'You know the routine – we do the code before you go screaming my real name at the top of your voice.'

'The…code?' He knew he should have read Giles' notes.

'Dammit, man, you used to be sharper than this! What the hell happened to you?' Immediately he stopped, put his hand over his mouth as if to pull back the words he'd already spoken. 'Ah, Wes, man, forget it, okay? Let's just start over.' He held out his hand and Wesley slid into their little routine without thinking.

'I am sorry, Gunn, I'm still not feeling quite myself. But Giles seems to think I'm the only one who can handle this situation with Angel.'

The other man turned away to gaze out the window. 'You know him better than anyone. You guys have a lot of history together.' There was something in his tone that made Wesley pause. It wasn't exactly sadness, or anger, or even exasperation. But it made him think that Gunn knew more about the previous operation than he was letting on. Gunn blinked and turned back to face Wesley.

'There's a nightclub down on South Beach. Soul Music. Owned by a man we believe is one of SPURT's top agents. We haven't been able to pin anything on him yet, but we know he's been involved in most of the rackets going on in this town. Drug smuggling, money laundering, prostitution, you name it, he's got a...' here Gunn paused, and gave a little quirk of a smile. '…finger in every pie.'

'Now our nasty little agent has a rich man's hobby, collecting rare antique weaponry. Swords, daggers, any sort of blade. You could say it's kind of an obsession with him.' Again came the knowing little smile. 'We received intelligence that he has recently acquired a ceremonial scythe on the black market. An item that he is keen to have investigated. Your cover was chosen for a reason, Peregrine.' Gunn emphasized his name with badly suppressed laughter, and Wesley drew himself up straight in his chair.

'It's not like I had a choice, you know,' he retorted hotly.

'Hey, man, I'm saying nothing.' He held up his palms in mock defeat.

'What is your codename, by the way?' Wesley looked at his companion pointedly, and the other man shifted in the leather upholstery, then muttered something indistinguishable.

'I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that. Could you repeat it?'

'Golden Gunn.' He curled his lip and dared Wesley to laugh.

'Well, that's really quite impressive, Charles,' he answered, trying desperately to keep a straight face.

'Go to hell, English,' Gunn growled, but Wesley could tell his heart wasn't in the insult. He leaned over and patted his friend's shoulder in commiseration.

'Now, then. Speaking of names, this agent, the one who owns the club. What's he called?'

Gunn looked over at him and smiled.

'Steelfinger. Mac Steelfinger.'