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Chapter 33: Reactions

“What’ve you got?” Spike asked sharply as he entered his office.

“Stupid bitch downloaded the pictures on her home computer. I’ve still got a tap into it. She sent a copy of both ledgers to a guy with the unlikely name of Rupert Giles. I’m still checking on him to see how he fits into all this.”

“Good. Keep me informed. But didn’t we decide that there were three notebooks? What about the other file? The…the journal?”

“It’s not there. Maybe I was wrong about her photographing it. But I don’t think so.”

“Re-run the recording. I want to be sure. And if she did take the pictures, I want to know where the hell they are. In the meantime, dig up everything you can about this Rupert Giles. I want to know what he’s looking for – why he’s interested. And if there’s any way we can scare him off. And check out Buffy’s angle as well. I want to know why she’s involved. Whether or not she’s being forced somehow. Let me know what you find out. And tell Gunn I need to see him.”

“No problem.”

Hours later, his lawyer, Charles Gunn, was just leaving, and Spike felt marginally better. He had assured Spike that there was very little evidence that could be used in an American court, should Buffy want to testify against him. Even if he had confessed to the murder in China, the United States had no jurisdiction over something that had happened on foreign soil. Spike hadn’t even been an American citizen at the time. And paintings containing possible images of the dead were not at all the same as photographs. The former could easily be dismissed as twisted fantasies, while the latter tended to provide more solid evidence that real people and events were in fact involved. Without any identification, without some other evidence connecting Spike to a particular crime, all they were was morbid pictures.

Gunn was more concerned about the documents that Buffy had photographed. Spike had patently refused to give him more than a general guideline of what each notebook contained, so Gunn took the three ledgers home with him to study so that he could assess their vulnerability. Of course a lot depended on who exactly had this information, and what their aims were. For example, a corporate spy might want the secret formula, but it was more likely they were after something else. A rival corporation would still have to bottle and market the drink as a new product, and it would be almost as easy just to come out with their own similar drink than to go to such elaborate lengths to steal the formula. So chances were good that whoever was behind this was after something else.

~*~

Across town, Giles stood while he explained how he saw the night’s work. For her part, Buffy thought it was best to sit quietly and not argue while she was being berated by her boss. There was no way he would even listen to what she had to say until he was finished with his own recitation.

“That was unbelievably stupid of you Buffy. Even though you had backup waiting in the van, there was no need for you to go wandering around his house in the middle of the night like you were a character in a James Bond movie! What were you thinking? He could have easily caught you before you could signal for help.”

Buffy hadn’t told him the fact that she had left the transceiver behind during her nocturnal wanderings. She figured that she was in enough trouble that she didn’t need any more. And Giles was no where near finished ranting. He was normally calm and quite rational, but once he got a good harangue going, he was hard to stop.

“If nothing else, if you’d been caught that would have forced us into moving precipitously and revealing our hand. Your cover would be compromised, Spike would know he was being investigated, and you’d be of no further use to us as an Agent! And for what? A handful of documents about the founding of his soft drink empire and the disposition of some medical supplies! Hardly worth risking your cover for! And if you’d been caught, anything could have happened. Even three minutes is a long time to wait for help when you’re in fear for your life, Ms. Summers.” He stopped for a breath and held the bridge of his nose. “But I suppose it’s my own fault. I knew you weren’t really ready for this type of assignment.”

Finally Buffy thought it was safe to speak. “But it totally worked out okay. Plus, I was able to meet Dawn and get her out of there. And what about his confession, and all those freaky paintings? We can do something with those, can’t we? So it’s all good.” After the lecture she’d just received she wasn’t sure that she should mention Tara’s idea that Spike’s security would have a record of her tampering. If she was ever going to volunteer to do anything like this again, which she wasn’t, she would have to get more training first. She had done too many things wrong. She should have known that it wasn’t that easy.

“Even if we had it signed and notarized, Spike’s confession is worthless. Since I talked to you this morning, I've been in contact with some Chinese government officials. The consensus over there is that they don’t want any publicity about the nation’s legal system so close to the Olympics. This is a big event for them, and they hope to convince the world that they are ready to become a major international player. They don’t want to spark any protests about their record on human rights, or their system of government. A big name case like this would just serve to focus the world’s attention on things they don’t want to remind them of. So we may as well drop that angle entirely, because nothing will ever come of it, whether he’s guilty or not.”

~*~

By the following morning, Warren had everything on Rupert Giles that there was to know. And the most damaging piece of news was that he didn’t work for Angelus or a corporate rival – he worked for a government agency that investigated crimes involving forgery and counterfeiting. Part of a larger network that covered everything from narcotics to homeland security. And Buffy was one of his employees.

Spike called Warren back in. He had more work for the spy techie. “I want to know what the Feds are planning on doing with this information. I need to know what or who started this investigation in the first place, and why. What they’re looking for, what they hoped to find. I’ve been in LA for years now – if anyone was really interested in my affairs, I’d expect to have learned of it sooner.”

He leaned his desk chair back as he thought out loud. “I suppose that it’s barely possible that Angelus has a contact inside the Agency. Someone that he put up to it. It seems unlikely, but I want you to check it out anyway. I’m trusting you to find out Warren. I’ve no idea what they thought they were after, and less of an idea why.” Spike leaned forward in his office chair and rested both elbows on the desk. “But if I’ve got an enemy out there – I need to know who it is.”

Angelus was the only enemy he knew of, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was behind it all. He and Angelus had hated one another ever since their confrontation in England, when Spike had used the legal system to his benefit and tricked Angelus out of stealing his inheritance. But that was water under the bridge now. What could have gotten him riled up against him now, prompting this new assault? What had changed?

After Warren left Spike sighed and sat back, running his hands through his hair, and finally covering his face with both hands. It had been a hell of a few days. Everything had changed so quickly. Things had been going great - and now he felt like the world had fallen apart beneath him. Nothing was solid anymore. Nothing was sure. He trusted Gunn to do his job, but even the whisper of a thought that he might wind up in jail made him tremble, although he wasn’t entirely sure whether it was with rage or fear. What made it even worse was the knowledge that if he were convicted of something, it would be because he had been betrayed by one or both of the two people he loved most in the world; Dawn and Buffy.

Privately he admitted that finding out that Buffy was involved in this plot against him was the worst part of the whole thing. He had little doubt that the official investigation would come to nothing in the end – they obviously had no real idea what they were looking for, and Gunn thought it was unlikely that they could prove anything really damaging. But the harm had already been done. His relationship with Buffy was ruined, and she had taken Dawn with her. If he never was allowed to see Dawn again, that would be punishment enough for all his sins. Nothing would ever be the same again. As for Buffy, well, she had made her choice. The only real friend he had left in the world was Tara.





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