Chapter 6 2:15 P.M.
Locating Gerard was fairly easy. He was in the exact motel that Leonard had said he would be in. It hadn't been easy to convince the clerk that they needed to see him without telling the exact reason, but Wesley was still good at being persuasive.

The problem came when Gerard opened the door and asked what they wanted. Gunn realized that, despite everything Leonard had told them, they had expected to see 'Mike' when they opened the door. No one knew exactly what etiquette was required to ask a person about an alternate personality without sounding crazy. They were also unsure how exactly to bring the man along of his own free will.

"Um, I'm not exactly sure how to tell you this, Mr. Gerard," began Wesley awkwardly, "but we need to talk to you about Bob.

There was a brief pause as Gerard took in the sight of two white men, one young black one and an intense looking woman. "Oh my, something's happened to Bob Lydecker again? Did he get into another bar fight?" Gerard sounded distraught.

It seemed like a perfectly normal question to ask. But that pause at the beginning…there was something off about it.

Wesley tried again: "It's not Mr. Lydecker who we are concerned about. "Actually, this has more to do with… Mike."

Another pause. "You're not talking about Mike Blumenthal, are you? I knew that there was trouble between him and his wife, but I can't believe that he'd hurt her?"

That pause. Gunn didn't think that Gerard was even aware of them. It was like some part of his mind was leading him away from the relevant questions.

He looked at Wesley and could tell that he had noticed it too. "Mr. Gerard." Gunn asked "Do you know about anyone else named Bob?"

Again there was another one of those pauses. "Where did you say you came from again?" Gerard had made the assumption that they were in law enforcement and Wesley figured they would keep up this façade as long as they could.

"We're looking into some crimes involved and our records check came back saying that you know him." Gunn spoke in a tone that he hoped said 'detective' rather than 'have stake, will travel.'

He didn't think that it was working because Gerard began to edge away from the door. "I really don't think that I know who you're talking about, and its very late…" "Mr. Gerard. " Both Gunn and Wesley turned in surprise. Leonard, who had faded into the background, had moved up to the front. "We're sorry about this, but we need to talk to Mike."

Another one of those thinking pauses. "Well I don't understand why you would talk to me."

"I think you do." And then without any warning, Leonard put his hand on Gerard's shoulder.

No one was quite sure what happened next. When they asked Leonard about it later, he said that not only had he no idea what happened, he hadn't even been consciously aware that he was doing it. The only thing that they would all agree on was that, for a moment, there had been some kind of power surge that filled the air with electricity. But what it was, no one was sure.

All they knew for sure was that a second after the surge, Gerard was breathing very hard.

"Mr. Gerard? Are you OK?" said Wesley. He was about to move forward when Leonard stopped him.

"He's all right." "Are you sure?" said Faith. "He sounds…"

"I'm fine." Everybody whirled around, looking for the source of the new voice. Except Leonard. And a second later, Gunn realized that he had known where the voice had come from, he just wasn't sure he believed it. The voice did not sound like it came from the man who had said it.

"I was hoping you would come." Gerard was speaking. Except he wasn't. Somehow he had left the room and Mike was in the driver's seat.

"Bob has begun his work again," Mike said. "I had hoped the last time that he had been banished forever."

"Where did you think he had gone?" asked Faith.

"The black lodge," said Leonard. "He was sent there but he managed to fight his way free."

"I knew. He has a new host now. The FBI agent." Wesley nodded as Mike continued. "But I don't know how this is possible. I was certain that Cooper was an agent of the light." Mike exhaled forcefully.
"We're not entirely sure how this happened either," said Wesley. "All we know is that somehow Bob recently managed to gain control of him. He and the man who set him free have begun to carry out his work again."

"Bob is working with someone else? Besides his host?" Mike seemed surprised.
"He has never worked with an outsider for long… At least not without killing him.
"As far as we know that individual is still very much alive," said Leonard. "And Coopers been doing a good job of helping him hide too."

"Can you help us find him?" Wesley asked.
Mike exhaled so loudly that he nearly fell down.. If this had been a normal man, Gunn would have been concerned if Gerard was going to collapse.

"I need to be somewhere that he has been. " Gerard/Mike said. "I need to find his scent."

Wesley was a little surprised at this. He knew that other creatures in the world of the undead were often known for using scent to find their quarry. Vampires had been doing something like that for a while, according to Angel. But he hadn't thought that two spirits -- or whatever the hell Mike and Bob really were -- would use something like this to track each other across the dimensions.

Leonard turned to Wesley and asked him if he thought they could get Mike into the motel room. "Probably not. The police have cordoned it off. There's no way to get close enough without attracting attention." Wesley looked at Mike. "Does it have to be…"

"I do not need to visit his lair. Only where he has completed his latest work." Now Wesley glanced at Gunn. "The room where the shots came from. The place that they found the rifle."

"Well, we know that Earle was there but that doesn't mean that Bob was too."

"It's probably our best bet," said Faith. " 'Sides, it's a lot less likely to get attention from the wrong people." She glared towards Gerard/Mike. "You'll follow us?"

For a moment Mike remained still. At first they thought that he was just breathing. "You," he said pointing at Faith then at Wesley, "you were once both servants of the darkness."

. Wesley and Faith both appeared troubled for a moment, before they recovered. "We were once. We're not anymore," Wesley answered.

"Is this going to be a problem?" asked Faith.
For a heartbeat, Gunn thought that it might be. Then Mike turned to Leonard: "Lead the way." If Leonard was surprised that he had been designated the leader, he gave no sign of it. He merely turned to Wesley. "Do you know where we're going ?" "Yeah."

"Well then… What are we waiting for?"

And so they left the motel room, Mike bracing himself on Leonard's forearm like a man leading his aged father to his car. Gunn tried to convince himself that this was a step in the right direction and that they would be able to find Bob.
He couldn't escape the feeling that they were walking into a trap, however—one that they might not be able to get out of.

For Buffy, time had begun to stand still.

Though in her head she knew that this was a different hospital in a different town, she kept expecting one of the doctors from Sunnydale General to appear to tell her the same bad news. That they didn't know if Willow was going to regain consciousness. Or that the CAT scans had revealed that the anomaly was a tumor. . Or that Xander would never again see through his eye (even though she knew that this was wrong too, somehow). It was the same song, different city. Those good ol' "I'm The One Who Hunts The Monsters, But It's My Friends Who Keep Ending Up in the Hospital" blues.

Xander and Willow were here. So was Angel, but Buffy knew from past experience that he wasn't good at comforting people about death. And as always they had a pretty good sense of her mood. They weren't buoying her with optimism about Giles, nor were they blaming her for what had happened. They knew that sometimes you just had to be quiet and let things happen. Buffy knew that there was nothing that they could say to improve her mood or make her feel less guilty. Yet she wished someone would try.

It was all right for the others to tell her that this wasn't her fault and that Giles had come to the motel voluntarily. But all she could hear in her head was herself saying in that I'm-the Slayer-so-we're-doing-this voice that they were going after Bob. No argument that this was the police's job and not theirs, no saying that this kind of demon wasn't their problem. They were going after this madman and that was it. Thus spake Buffy.

And now Giles was under the knife with a very good possibility that he might never wake up. All part of --

"Miss Summers." She looked up. A doctor in a white coat had walked over.

"Yes, Doctor?" She managed to speak without quavering.

"You came in with…" He looked down at the clipboard he was holding. Giles"

"Yes. Is he all right?" asked Willow.
The doctor kept his face neutral. "He managed to get through the surgery all right, but its still going to be a tough battle. The next twenty-four hours will be critical."

Xander and Willow both exhaled. The doctor, however, looked at her in a way that might have made Buffy uncomfortable under other circumstances.
"Your name is Buffy?" he said.

"Yes."

"Before we put him under, he kept asking if you were all right." Buffy felt a mixture of grief and hope go through her.

"Can we see him?" asked Xander.
"They should be wheeling him into the ICU now. They probably won't let you all in right away but they might be able to let you look."

Willow and Xander were walking towards the ICU before the doctor could say the word 'able' Buffy held back for a moment, Angel waiting next to her.
"He must care about you an awful lot."

Buffy listened to the doctor. He seemed familiar for some reason, but she shrugged it off as a layover from her ruminations earlier. "Yes. Yes, he does." She got up. "Thank you, doctor." "You're welcome, I'm sure."

She walked past the doctor without looking back -- an action she would regret later.

She caught up with Xander and Willow just before they reached the ICU. A second before they walked through the doors, a nurse walked through them. Buffy recognized her as the woman who had taken Giles out of the ER and headed him to the elevator for surgery.
"Miss Summers, I was just coming to get you. Giles is out of surgery."

"We know that. Don't you people talk to each other?" said Xander.
The nurse stopped. "What are you talking about? " "The doctor. The one we just talked with…"

Buffy put her hand on Xander's shoulder. It had just come to her in a flash.
"Giles. Did you leave him alone upstairs?" The nurse recovered from her confusion. "No, there are a couple of nurses with him."

"Get a security guard to his bed. Someone you know." said Buffy.
Angel turned around. Buffy could tell that he had just gotten it too. "Take us to his room." When the nurse seemed to hesitate, he grabbed her: "Right now." Buffy was scarcely noticed as she started to run back to the waiting room. All she could think about was how the doctor had appeared strangely familiar somehow even though she had never seen him before. How could she have been so blind, so foolish…

She got back to the waiting room. There was no sign that the doctor had been there. Of course there wasn't. Why should he even be in the hospital any more? He'd done what he wanted to.

There was a woman who had been waiting as well. For a moment she considered asking her if she had seen a doctor with gray hair and blue eyes, but then rejected it. Not sure that she would find any trace of the man, she turned and headed towards the exit. Then she saw it.

There, draped over a wheelchair, was a white lab coat. It was undistinguished and no different from any other. There was no reason to believe it had been his. Yet Buffy knew that it was. She knew it even before she picked up the coat and checked the pockets. In the left front pocket was a piece of paper.

NEXT TIME I'LL FINISH WHAT I STARTED.
W.

It took all of her willpower to keep herself from ripping the note to shreds and thus taking any clues that there might be with them. The anger and fury within her reached such a level that, for a moment, she realized that she had forgotten about Giles She started walking back towards the ICU.

"I will get you, you son of a bitch." she said as she walked back to the others. All thoughts of guilt had left her mind.. In their place was a dull rage that seemed to come from everywhere. Some of the others -- Willow and Faith, for example -- could have told her that it was as dangerous as the guilt. But it wouldn't have mattered. She was locked on course.

And God help the man—or demon—that got in her way.

3:55 P.M.
For most of Andrew's life, people had made a special habit of ignoring him. His parents, though they tried to be fair, had a habit of preferring his brother Tucker to him. In school, his peers pretty much didn't notice him -- which may have led him down the path of trying to be a 'supervillain'. The Scoobies had then ignored him as a villain and had tried to do the same thing when he was a prisoner. And it had been nearly a month before they had allowed him into a board meeting.

Which is why he was floored when Fred had not only listened to his idea about tracking Earle, but suggested that he lead the effort. She even told him that she would put some of her team on the endeavor. For an instant, he had considered kissing Fred but immediately remembered some of the gossip surrounding her and decided not to complicate things further for either of them.

Now that he was here in one of the board rooms, he was beginning to wish that he hadn't been so exuberant. For one thing there was the fact that he had to talk to a group of more or less complete strangers. For another, before he could even open his mouth, Fred's cell phone rang. She had left the room but returned to it a moment later to say that there might be a snag in their operation.

"What happened?" he asked as Fred reentered the room. "Do you have a location of either Earle or Cooper?"

"Not quite. " She looked grim. "You're right about Earle being arrogant. Half an hour ago, he put on a doctor's uniform and some makeup and pretending that he was one of the doctors treating Giles."

Andrew shivered. "Is Giles all right?"

"Well, he's in recovery. According to the real doctors, he didn't do anything to hurt him. I think he just did what he did to mess with our heads."

Andrew took a deep breath. "The man is worse than I thought. To taunt someone hours after you tried to kill them, and a Slayer at that. There are demons who don't have that kind of nerve.." He swallowed. "Maybe we should forget my idea, concentrate on some house to house searches in the neighborhood."

"They're going to try that now, but there may still be some merit to your plan after all." "I'm not sure that I follow."

Fred turned to one of the strangers. "Nick, could you put the map that I gave you up there?" The man in question did some fiddling with a computer. A few moments later a map of downtown L.A. appeared on a big screen behind them. Andrew guessed he might have a look of surprise on his face because Fred responded with: "Beats crouching over a map, doesn't it?"

"I'll say." "All right. The motel is here." She drew an X with a laser pen on the approximate location and it appeared on the screen behind them.. "The building where Earle fired the shots from is here." She drew another X about an inch away. "The hospital where they took Giles is here." "So where's the buried treasure?" Fred looked up and finally drew a circle about an inch and a half away. "We don't know it for a certainty, but we think here."

Andrew looked at the map. "Ground Zero. A coffeehouse and teenage hangout." Fred nodded. "Aside from the fact that it's in the area where Earle and Cooper are staying, what makes you think that this is where we'll find him?"

Fred handed him a photograph. "This picture was taken from a traffic camera across the street yesterday evening. Look in the right-hand corner. "

For a moment Andrew didn't see anything. Then he didi: "How sure are we that's Windom Earle?"

"According to the computer there's an 85% match to Earle." Fred paused. "How do you want to handle it?"

For a split second Andrew reveled in his position of authority, then kicked himself for getting upbeat about chasing a psychotic madman. He looked at the people in the room. The only ones that he recognized, aside from Dawn and Fred, were Kennedy and Ida, a black Slayer. There were a couple of other Slayers around but since they had only recently come to L.A, he didn't know them by name. "I have a plan as to how we can track Earle. It's a little complicated, but I think if we work together we can pull it off." He looked at Kennedy. "You have proven yourself on the field of battle on numerous occasions so I think that you should be the key figure."

Fred and the people with Wolfram and Hart looked at him as if he had just spoken Klingon. Kennedy and Dawn took his talk as a matter of course."What do you want me to do?" she asked.
"Well, its actually a little beneath your talents… but it does have a fairly high danger level to make up for that." Kennedy was a smart girl. "You want me to act as bait for Earle."

"I wouldn't be as derivative as that, but that is the idea," said Andrew.

"That's your plan?" Fred sounded a little incredulous. "Setting up a girl as a lure for these guys? I thought there'd be more to it."

"First of all, we're not sending in a girl. We're sending a Slayer. Big difference. Second, she isn't going in alone." He glanced toward Kennedy. "No reason for you to have all the fun." He turned to Fred again. "According to Dawn, this firm has access to stuff like miniature cameras and microphones?"

"Yeah. We have a lot of stuff for corporate espionage."

"Good. Here's the setup. Kennedy, you will go in 'miked-up', as they say in the Bond movies." He tried to keep a serious face even as he did air quotes on 'miked up.'. We will put as inconspicuous and as a powerful microphone as we can find -- if the two terms aren't mutually exclusive."

"I think we can find something to fit the bill," said Fred.

"At the same time Ida and I will be in Ground Zero, hopefully looking as invisible as extras on a movie set." He turned to Fred again. "You will set us up with cameras so that we will be able to see as much of the coffee house as possible. If Earle or anyone who looks suspicious comes in, we'll be ready."

Some of the others were nodding. Good. Now to see if the rest was plausible.
"I'm assuming that along with all the technological gizmos that this place has, we also have a … mobile unit so that we can use them outside of these offices."

One of the men at the table -- not Nick -- answered this question. "It is within our capabilities to have a unit with the abilities that you require." "How long will it take to get everything ready -- wires, cameras everything?"

"Approximately ninety minutes." Andrew looked at his watch. Then in his best Patrick Stewart imitation, he said: "You have one hour."

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Then Nick spoke up: "Mr. Grusynzki, this is a fairly large operation. If you want this done successfully, you'll have to …."

Regretting that he didn't have time to appreciate being called 'Mister', he spoke: "Look, I know that this is a lot at once. But the fact of the matter is that we are on the clock. Earle has probably chosen his next victim by now. Which means that he will probably take the next opportunity he has to grab her. The second he does that, Bob is going to begin the process of assaulting, torturing and killing her. Our only chance is to be able to beat him to the punch. An hour is probably too long, but we need to do this fast and do it well."

Fred walked up behind him. "He's right. Do what needs to be done. At five p.m., we're getting out of Dodge."

Nick looked at Fred and then Andrew. Finally, he spoke: "All right. I'm going to need for you and Ida to come with me so we can get you set up. Kennedy, go with Ross, he'll get you wired for sound."

"Wait a minute." Dawn, who had been surprisingly quiet, spoke up. "I notice that you seem to have avoiding giving me anything."

"On the contrary, I have a very critical job for you," said Andrew.
Dawn smiled at this. For just a moment Andrew thought about how pretty a girl she would be someday She did look beautiful when she smiled.. "Really?"

"Yes. You will be in the mobile unit with Fred, monitoring all the audio and video."

"Oh." She seemed disappointed.

"Don't act that way. This is as important a job as mine or Ida's. Each of us is only going to have a limited visual and audio range. You are going to be in charge of overseeing everyone and making sure that everything is safe. If there is a problem, you've got to tell us to scrap the mission." "Really?" For a moment Dawn cheered. Then she sobered up. "And this position of power has nothing to do with the fact that I'm Buffy's little sister?

Andrew had hoped Dawn wouldn't think that far ahead. "I'll admit I'm trying to keep you out of harms way because your sister would probably rip me in half if something happened to you. But this is still a vital and important job. And I think that you are up to it." He started walking away.

"All right. Where do I go?" Dawn asked.

Fred walked to her. "The van that we're going to be using is downstairs in a special section of the garage. I'll show you where it is. Andrew, go get wired up. We'll be ready for you in thirty minutes."

"Make it so." Andrew said before he walked over to join Ross. He couldn't remember feeling more like he was part of the team ever in his brief life. He felt that he was going to make a difference.

A few hours later, he would be racked with guilt and agony for the same reasons.