Disclaimer: I don't own Angel the Series. I make no money off this, and as I am currently unemployed, suing me would serve no purpose.

Thanks to Starway Man, my beta-reader.

Exit Strategy

By Alkeni

Chapter 11: Knocking Over Dealers

Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles

May 16th, 2001

"Lilah has brought my attention to another aspect of the Soul Drop trade that previously, I hadn't anticipated being a factor." Wesley told Gunn and Cordelia.

Lilah was watching the three of them from upstairs, uninterested in this total rehash of what she already knew – but what she was interested in was the way that Angel's lackeys reacted to the idea she'd brought to their attention. Wesley seemed in favor of it, once he'd gotten a look at the info from the discs. It was a way to do good, hurt Wolfram and Hart and – most importantly, the way Lilah saw it – something that the white hats could most likely accomplish without that brooding, narcissistic, undead putz.

"I thought we took out that factory already. What else is there?" Gunn asked, frowning, "Another factory?"

"Not in Los Angeles, no. Presumably, Wolfram and Hart has other manufacturing centers in other cities where that evil law firm is based, but Lilah had no information on those." Wesley handed them both a picture – a demon, mostly human looking, save for the gill-like slits in the sides of his neck, the horns jutting from his chin and the slight yellowish-tinge to his face.

"This is Marvek Drosh." Wesley told them perfunctorily. "Wolfram and Hart was using him as their primary distributor for the Soul Drop drug trade – he's been in the pusher business for a long time, apparently. The firm even launders his ill-gotten gains for him, for an additional cut of the profits. Anyway, with the factory shut down, the price of that damnably addictive drug has increased significantly, making his remaining supply worth quite a lot of money. Given their nature, I've come to the conclusion that sooner or later, Wolfram & Hart will likely try to start up a new factory. So I think that it's best we make sure they need to find a new distributor, when that times comes."

Lilah knew that Wesley had made his own inquiries into the increased price of Soul Drops – including placing a call to Lorne. The Host didn't let crap like that anywhere near his club, just like with that drug called Orpheus, but he knew how the market worked – since they'd taken out that factory, the price of one dose of Soul Drops had increased by 150%. Well, that was the law of supply and demand for you.

"Can't say I'm against the idea." Gunn commented, after thinking things over. "But thing is, English – is knocking over drug dealers really what we want to get into?"

"Besides," Cordelia added, "We're here to help the hopeless. Not work on whatever Lilah tells us to."

"Well, you both have a point. Nonetheless – eliminating the supply of a highly addictive and sickeningly immoral mystical drug, and making it more difficult for Wolfram and Hart to begin dealing in that drug again, seems to me an excellent way to help the hopeless." Wesley countered, "Cordelia, I'm not suggesting we put aside our primary focus – addressing the issues the Powers inform us about via your visions, and helping clients that come to us with their problems – merely to take on Wolfram and Hart at every opportunity."

Lilah could hear what the British man wasn't saying – it was pretty much the elephant in the room, so to speak – and she suspected Cordelia and Gunn could hear it, too.

That's what Angel did, and look where it got him.

Wesley kept on going, "But in the absence of either visions or clients, and with a great deal of information to work with, Gunn – we can do the most good by stymieing Wolfram and Hart this way, at this juncture. As for doing what Lilah wants us to do, I'm engaging in this course of action because it's a good idea. The fact that she brought it to my attention is more or less irrelevant."

Cordelia looked like she was going to debate the point further – but then thought better of it. Lilah wondered what was going through the seer's head – but she only wondered idly, lacking anything better to think about at the moment. The ex-lawyer listened as the Vision Girl asked, "Alright. Fine. So who or what's going to be there?"

"By all accounts, Mr. Drosh maintains eight Kurntov demons as guards. Low-intelligence and high-strength. They're a common enough kind of demon muscle for work like this. They're easy enough to kill with the standard slice and dice, however, and they work in teams of two. Inside the warehouse itself, our target will have a few human employees and a handful of demons of his species. They're not exceptionally strong or fast, but they are surprisingly resilient when it comes to taking physical damage and surviving, so that's something to keep in mind."

"Not wanting to state the obvious; but numbers are definitely gonna be against us. There's just three of us, and what, twelve of them? That's kind of nasty odds to go up against." Gunn pointed out. "So what's the plan?"

"Actually, there will be four of us." Wesley told the black man. "Lilah, I know you're eavesdropping up there. Come down here at once." He went into his office, and Lilah stood there, wondering how to react – she didn't feel interested in obeying Wesley's orders, on general principles if nothing else. But like it or not, he was the one who effectively controlled her freedom of movement, unless she was willing to take risks she was not really in the mood for – like leave the Hyperion, and take her chances in L.A. all alone.

And there's always the chance he might just turn around and shoot me. Lilah didn't really like that thought, either, though she had to admit it made tweaking Pryce even more fun.

After only a moment, the brunette sighed and started walking, heading down the stairs, leaning against the railing when she got to the bottom. Cordelia sent her a brief glare, but Gunn just shrugged when he saw her.

Wesley came back out of the office with a revolver in his hand, and another pistol – one that offered more than six shots, that is – in the other hand. He looked at Lilah. "You know how to use this?" He held up the revolver.

"Naturally. I have a concealed carry permit and everything." Lilah nodded. She hadn't brought her gun with her to the firm on the day she'd been fired, and since it was at her apartment, she'd not had a chance to get it before putting to flight.

"Good." Wesley handed her the revolver. Lilah took a moment to get used to the balance, wondering why on earth the man would give her this weapon. She opened the Colt's chamber and spun it, confirming that Wes had indeed filled all the slots with ammunition.

"You're giving her a gun?" Cordelia's tone was halfway between disgust and confusion.

"Well, Lilah's not that capable with a sword – and given that we're not going up against vampires, a crossbow isn't that effective an option." Wesley explained reasonably, and Lilah smirked at the way he seemed to be purposefully missing Cordelia's point.

Cordelia transferred her glare from Lilah to Wesley, obviously grasping he was being deliberately obtuse. "Allow me to rephrase: You're giving her a gun?" The shift in emphasis was obvious.

"She sang for Lorne, and he assures us she's completely on the level." Wesley pointed out. "I won't lie and say I trust her, because I don't-"

"Good." Lilah cut in. "Because I don't trust any of you. It's fun being me."

Wesley gave her a look, one eyebrow raised, his entire expression saying 'are you quite finished yet?' Lilah rolled her eyes, and Wesley continued, looking back to Cordelia. "An extra hand in a fight like this is not something I intend to ignore, and without some kind of weapon, she's simply not going to be that useful in the upcoming battle." Wesley finished.

Cordelia took a breath, and again Lilah was curious exactly what was going through the other woman's head. She didn't think she had to worry much about Cordelia killing her, but she wouldn't put it past the seer to make an effort to hurt her badly, if the opportunity arose.

Lilah was fairly certain Cordelia knew, as well as anyone else here, how useful having Lilah Morgan around could be – she wasn't an idiot, after all – but of the three human white-hats working for Angel Investigations – the Texan girl didn't count there – Cordelia had the most black and white view of the world. Wesley had proved beyond a doubt his own willingness to dip into greyness with his plan in Pylea, and Gunn...

Well, Lilah wasn't entirely sure what to make of him. Gunn didn't like her hanging anymore than Cordelia did, judging from some of his reactions, but he seemed more inclined to take Wesley's lead on tolerating and using her, so there was that.

Not that either of them would go out of their way to save my life in a fight... Lilah shrugged. She wouldn't have expected them to, anyway.

"Fine." Cordelia said after a long moment, "But if she kills us all with that thing, Wes? I totally reserve the right to kick your ass and say 'I told you so' in the afterlife." Though she didn't deliver the words with much humor, there was a small note, and so Wesley smiled for a second at her words.

"So noted." the head of the detective agency agreed. He looked back to Gunn, "As for my plan? Well, given that we have a fairly good idea of the layout of the warehouse and where the Kurntov demons will be, I think it's safe to say we have an inside advantage when it comes to getting through."

Outside Marvek Drosh's Warehouse

May 16th, 2001

Getting into position to take on the Kurntov demons had been more difficult than it would have been if Angel were here, to act as the supernatural muscle.

But, Wesley reminded himself, Angel's not here, and this plan is sound enough.

The demons kept a watch at the three entrances to the warehouse – the sewer, the main door and a rear door. All from the inside. Another two did circuits around the warehouse, dressed in large trenchcoats and concealing hats, making them look like obvious criminals; but not like inhuman monsters. Well, unless someone got too close, anyway.

The great advantage of using Kurntov demons, apart from the fact that they worked cheap, was the fact that they only needed to sleep once a year.

Granted, they slept like the dead for a full week during that time, but it made them perfect twenty-four hour guards for the rest of the year. Summoning them took some doing, though, and they were dim-witted enough to need almost constant oversight for orders more complicated than 'no one comes through this door'.

And unfortunately for him, a man – well, demon – like Marvek Drosh couldn't give such blanket orders to the Kurntovs. He had a business to run.

And once we're inside, they won't join in the fighting from the doors they're guarding. Not without explicit orders from Drosh. That did make killing or otherwise incapacitating Drosh something of a priority.

Once they got inside.

Once they got inside, the guns could be used, but until then – well, they were rather loud, and using them could ruin the whole 'surprise attack' element of the plan.

Wesley had contemplated, more than once, getting a silencer for his sidearm for exactly these sorts of situations; but in the end, he had always decided against it. The United States may have had somewhat alarmingly liberal gun laws, and a culture that celebrated guns and owning them to a rather odd degree, but California was one of the states that made owning a sound suppressor for a gun illegal.

He wasn't inclined to break local gun laws at this particular juncture.

On the other hand, thanks to their advance knowledge of the building, they wouldn't need to go after the two demons on patrol around the building. Not if they timed it right.

And, not if the code for the electronic lock on the secondary entrance is still accurate. Wesley agreed with Lilah's assumption that the code wouldn't have been changed yet – over time, Wolfram and Hart passwords, numerical codes and mystical keys would change, and the information Lilah had on the disks would become useless. But at the moment, no one was sure just how much Lilah had. So they couldn't know what to change, and Marvek Drosh was low enough on the totem pole to be unlikely to have been given any sort of heads up or orders to change his codes.

The firm hardly wants to air its mistake and vulnerability to those that would take advantage of that, after all.

Wesley nodded to Gunn, who had an axe in his hands, plus a crossbow over his back, just in case. The bolts for this mission were tipped with barbed heads made of steel, designed for foes that could simply be killed the normal way.

Lilah and Cordelia were right behind them, waiting in the alley for them to check the door – Cordelia wasn't very thrilled about that part, but she'd made no verbal protest about it.

Wesley checked his watch. They'd scouted carefully. Assuming the pair of Kurntovs didn't suddenly pick up the pace, they had three minutes to enter the code, open the door, and get inside.

Carefully, Wesley entered the six-digit code into the keypad – 571494 – and watched with some relief as the door's lock clicked open.

Now, in theory, they won't automatically attack anyone who comes in through this door having entered the code...

Wesley wasn't sure just how ready he was to trust that theory, though, so he lowered his sword and placed his free hand on the handle of his gun.

And a few seconds later, all hell started to break loose...

Marvek Drosh's Warehouse

May 16th, 2001

"Hello, Marcus."

Lilah pulled back the hammer of her six-shooter, another bullet falling into the chamber as she walked into Drosh's vault, the battle with the drug-dealer and the minions of his own race raging behind her. She wasn't surprised to see Marcus Lott, the human second-in-command to Marvek Drosh there, stuffing bundles of twenties and fifties and hundreds into a bag.

"L-Lilah Morgan." Marcus stammered out after he turned and saw her – and saw the gun pointed at his face. They'd never met, but Lilah wasn't surprised that the man recognized her. Then he managed to stammer out a bit more: "I...I heard you got sacked."

"I prefer to think of it more of a mutual parting of ways, after irreconcilable differences." Lilah disagreed, "But yes. I don't work for the firm anymore. Which," She gestured back out of the vault with her free hand, "would be why Angel Investigations is currently chopping up your boss and his minions into little pieces."

"You-" Marcus had a gun at his belt, but everything Lilah could see about him 'screamed' coward. He didn't have the guts to go for it. He wasn't working in a particularly dangerous drug trade...and usually, he already had his gun out on other person first, rather than the other way around.

Still, better be sure.

"Touch it," Lilah interrupted, "and I'll kill you so fast, even the Senior Partners themselves will be surprised how quickly your soul comes into their possession."

Marcus's hand move as far from the gun as it could. "You- You'll kill me anyway."

Lilah shrugged. "Not necessarily. You tell me what I want to know, and I'll let you live. Hell, if you're really cooperative, I might even let you get away with all the money in that bag. Just what you've already got in the bag, though." She only had two shots left in the revolver. But he didn't know that. And odds were good she wouldn't need both.

"What do you want to know?" Marcus managed to get out with a surprising amount of firmness in his voice.

"Well, that's the thing. See, I know you really work for Lindsey. And, Lindsey's got something I want. Now, I don't think you know anything about where it is, but I think you know enough to help me figure out just where it's been hidden. First step, anyway. Ah, ah, ah." Lilah moved the gun back and forth a bit, tightening my finger menacingly.

Marcus stopped moving – he'd been fidgeting, his eyes on the other door of the vault, towards the sewer exit...

"So." Lilah smirked, "I figure, you're not important enough to report to Lindsey directly. Am I right? Just nod." Marcus closed his mouth and nodded. "Thought so. Then who is it you report to?"

"Linda- Linda Reisan." Marcus replied.

Ah, yes. That little overachieving paralegal that started work in Special Projects, year and a half ago. Lilah had tried to recruit her after Lee Mercer had been killed– she and Lindsey had fought over the slices of his corpse, as it were – but Lindsey had managed to win her loyalty. Damn shame, in some ways. "Interesting. And you wouldn't happen to know anything else interesting about Lindsey, would you? Safe houses, account numbers, that sort of thing."

Lilah wasn't surprised when Marcus shook his head, "No. He always had Resian contact me using blind drops."

Naturally. Pretty much how you have to handle spineless trash like this little fucker

.

"Well, then, Marcus...we have a problem. I told you I'd let you go if you told me what I wanted to know. But-" Lilah's voice was interrupted by the sound of her own gun – Marcus must have realized where she was going with this, because she'd seen his hand moving towards his own pistol – he'd even managed to get it half out of his belt when her bullet passed right through his chest. He staggered and fell.

Just to be sure, Lilah shot him again.

Never one to leave a resource untapped, Lilah reached into her own pocket and took out a silk monogrammed handkerchief, her initials in one corner. Leaning down, she carefully took the gun out of the dead man's belt and pulled it out.

Probably stolen or attached to at least one crime or two. May as well attach it to another before getting rid of it. She kept the handle and trigger covered by the handkerchief as she stepped out of the vault. The three white hats had done well for themselves in the fighting. Drosh plus three of his own kind and one human had been narrowed down to two dead demons, and the human moaning on the ground with a bullet in his kneecap.

Lilah aimed carefully, then – damn it. There really wasn't a clear shot this far away.

I wish I didn't need to keep these people alive for now. Would make things so much easier. Stepping towards the fray, Lilah drew close enough to the demon Gunn was fighting – the one that wasn't Drosh. "Gunn, get down!" She shouted, keeping her voice loud enough to be heard. Then as soon as the black man had obeyed orders, she opened fire.

Lilah watched the demon turn and take the bullet in his side, saw Gunn step away – though as it turned out, the bullet stayed in the demon's bulky frame. Charles took advantage of his falling foe and drove his axe into the demon's chest.

And, oddly enough, Drosh fell to the ground right after, a bolt from Cordelia's crossbow in his stomach. Of course, he wasn't dead yet.

"Anyone mind me killing him, before his moaning in pain starts bugging the crap out of me?" Lilah asked them all.

Cordelia just stared at her, "Just how do you get off on being such a vicious bitch, Lilah?"

"Probably the same way you did in High School, princess. Don't think I haven't heard the stories." Lilah shot back. Without further ado, she leveled Marcus' gun at Drosh and fired directly into his face. She then let the weapon drop, putting the handkerchief back into her pocket – after folding it up.

"Well," Wesley said after a moment, then he shook his head, "I suppose we're pretty much done here."

"Not quite. There's all those Soul Drops in the vault." Lilah pointed back over her shoulder. "Not to mention all the money just laying around."

"Money?" Cordelia immediately perked up at the sound of that, then, her expression fell. "Drug dealer money." She frowned in disgust, "We can't just take that!"

"Why not?" Lilah quirked an eyebrow. "Think about it, little girl. It's just going to sit there until some other low-life shows up and takes it, or else Wolfram and Hart will eventually reclaim it once they come to clean up the mess around here. Unless you're proposing we simply burn it, well...Pecunia non olet."

"You're going to have to run that by me in English, Lilah." Gunn cut in, pulling his axe out of the dead demon.

"It's Latin. Translated, the words mean 'money does not stink'. Not surprising you'd be fond of it, Lilah, given your previous employers." Wesley put his own gun back into its holster and made his way towards the vault.

Smirking, Lilah followed behind Gunn and Cordelia. She smirked again at the faint look of 'oooh, money!' on Cordelia's face, before the seer quashed it.

Wesley looked from the dead Marcus Lott back to Lilah. She shrugged innocently, "What? He was going for his gun, and I saw him do it. You may not be all in favor of killing humans, but I'm not going to risk my life letting a scumbag like that get a free shot at me!"

Wesley shrugged and looked away after meeting her eyes a moment, and while Cordelia and Gunn both looked unhappy...well...

They weren't exactly mourning the loss of a dead drug dealer, either.

"This is quite a lot of money," Wesley murmured. "It would be impractical to try and take it all with us, unfortunately. Not to mention somewhat suspicious to the authorities, if we all suddenly became several tens of thousands dollars richer. Still," Wesley took a half dozen bundles of fifties and gave them to Gunn, then did the same for Cordelia. Despite her earlier protest, the Seer didn't complain. Once Wesley had taken the same amount for himself, he stepped aside.

"You're going to simply leave the rest of it?" Lilah asked, raising her left eyebrow.

"I've taken as much as I can stomach." was the Englishman's curt, clipped reply.

Lilah could see the moral tight-rope he was putting himself on. Makes me glad I haven't got a conscience. The Morgan woman didn't limit herelf to only a half-dozen bundles, but practicality kept her to a little less than a hundred fifty thousand dollars, all told. "Alright. So what do we do with the rest, then?"

"Burning it and the entire drug supply sounds like a plan to me." Wesley suggested. "We are talking about something made from the souls of unborn and newborn babies, after all."

"All that?" Cordelia gestured to the pile of vials filled with glowing white liquid within. "Alright, that's something I'm all for."