SIX
THERE WAS A HALF-MOON IN THE CLEAR
night sky, casting a pallid blue light across the vast,
open stretch of plain and making it seem even colder
than it was.
And that's pretty goddamn cold, Claire thought,
shivering in spite of the rental's blasting heater. It was
another minivan, and even with the three of them
moving around in the back, checking weapons and
loading clips, they didn't seem to be generating nearly
enough heat to ward off the icy air that seeped in
through the thin metal shell.
"Do you have the 380s?" John asked Leon, who
handed over the box of rounds before going back to
loading up their hip packs. David was driving,
Rebecca checking their position on a GPS. If Trent's
coordinates were correct, they'd be getting close.
Claire looked out at the pale landscape passing by
the dirt track, the seemingly endless miles of nothing
beneath the wide open sky, and shivered again. It was
a barren, forsaken place, the road they were on
scarcely more than a dirt track leading in from nowhere;
a perfect setting for Umbrella.
The plan was simple. Park the van a half mile or so
from Trent's coordinates, load up with every weapon
they had, and slip into the compound as quietly as
they could manage...
"... we'll find this entry keypad of Trent's, run the
codes through, and go in strong," David had said,
"well after dark. With any luck, the majority of the
workers will be asleep; just a matter of finding the
staff quarters and rounding them up. We'll confine
them and have a check around for this book of Mr.
Reston's; John, you and Claire will keep watch over
our captives, while the rest of us search. It would
probably be in their operations room, or in Reston's
private quarters. If we haven't found it within, say,
twenty minutes, we'll have to ask Mr. Reston directly
- a last resort, to avoid implicating Trent. Book in
hand, we go back out the way we came in. Questions?"
Their planning session at the hotel had made it
sound easy enough and with as little information as
they had, the questions had been few. Now, though,
driving through an endless, freezing waste and trying
to get psyched up for a confrontation - now it didn't
seem so simple. It was a scary prospect, going into a
place none of them had ever been before and try to
find an item no bigger than a paperback novel.
Plus it's Umbrella, plus we'll have to intimidate the
crap out of a bunch of technicians and possibly end up
having to strong-arm one of the big boys.
At least they were going in well armed; it seemed
that they had learned something about dealing with
Umbrella, after all - that taking in a shitload of
firepower was a very good idea. In addition to the
nine-millimeter handguns and multiple clips that
each of them would carry, they had two M-16 A Is,
automatic rifles - one for John, one for David - and
a half-dozen fragmentation hand grenades. Just in
case, David said.
In case everything falls apart. In case we have to
blow up some bizarre, murderous creature - or a hundred
of them. . .
"Cold?" Leon asked.
Claire turned away from the window, looking at
him. He'd finished with the packs, and was holding
one out to her. She took it, nodding in response to his
question. "Aren't you?"
He shook his head, grinning. "Thermal underwear.
Could have used these in Raccoon. . ."
Claire smiled. "How could I have used them? I was
running around in a pair of shorts, you at least had
your uniform."
"Which was covered with lizard guts before I was
halfway through the sewers," he said, and she was
glad to hear him at least try to joke about it.
He's getting better; we both are.
"Now, children," John said sternly. "If you don't
stop, we're turning this car around..."
"Slow down," Rebecca said from the front, her
quiet voice stilling them. David let up on the gas, the
van slowing to a crawl.
"It looks like it's about a half-mile southeast from
our current position," Rebecca said.
Claire took a deep breath, saw John pick up one of
the rifles, and saw Leon's mouth press into a thin line
as David brought the van to a stop. It was time. John
opened the side door and the air was ice, dry and
bitterly cold.
"Hope they got the coffee on," John breathed, and
hopped out into the darkness, reaching back in to
grab his pack. Rebecca loaded up a few medical
supplies, and as she and David climbed out, Leon put
his hand on Claire's shoulder.
"You up for this?" he asked softly, and Claire
smiled inwardly, thinking of how sweet he was; she'd
been thinking of asking him the same thing. In the
days since Raccoon, they'd gotten pretty close - and
although she wasn't positive, she'd picked up on a
few signals that suggested he wouldn't mind getting
closer. She still wasn't sure if that was a good idea -
- and now's not the time to be deciding. The sooner
we get this code book, the sooner we get to Europe. To
Chris.
"As up as I'm gonna be," she said, and Leon
nodded, and they climbed out into the freezing night
to join the others.
David put John at the rear and took the lead
himself, forcing all negative thoughts out of his mind
as they struck out for where Trent said the test site
would be. It wasn't easy; they were going in cold with
less than a day's planning, no layout, no idea what
Reston looked like or what kind of security they'd be
facing -
- the list is endless, isn't it, and I'm still taking
them in. Because if we're successful, I can step down.
Umbrella will be as good as dead and no one will have
to look to me for anything, ever again.
That was a thought he could hold on to; a peaceful
retirement. Once the monsters behind White Umbrella
had been brought to justice, vigilante or otherwise,
he'd have no greater responsibility than keeping himself
fed and bathed. Perhaps he'd work up to a houseplant.
. .
"I think veer left a few degrees," Rebecca said
from behind him, startling him, bringing his focus
back around. She'd barely spoken above a whisper,
but the night was so cold and crisp, the air so perfectly
still that every step taken, every breath exhaled
seemed to fill the world.
David led them through the darkness, wishing they
could use their lights; they should be getting quite
close. But even dressed all in black, he was worried
they'd be spotted before they could get inside - whatever
that meant exactly; Trent had given them no idea
of what the facility would look like. In any case, with
barely a half moon they wouldn't see it until they were
right on top...
There.
A thickening of shadow, straight ahead. David held
up his hand, slowing the others as they moved closer,
as he saw a dented metal roof reflecting moonlight.
And then a fence, and then a handful of buildings, all
of them dark and silent.
David dropped into a walking crouch, motioning
for the rest to follow suit, holding the automatic rifle
tight against his chest. They crept closer, close enough
to see the lonely group of tall one-story structures
behind a low fence.
Five, six buildings, no lights, no movement - a front,
surely...
"Underground," Rebecca whispered, and David
nodded. Probably; they'd discussed several possibilities,
and it seemed the most likely. Even in the wan
light he could see that the buildings were old, dusty
and worn. There was a smallish structure in the front,
five long, low buildings in a row behind it, all with
sloping metal roofs. It was certainly big enough to be
some kind of a testing ground, the larger buildings as
big as aircraft hangars, but between the site's placement
- alone, out in the open in the middle of a
desert - and the wear and tear, he'd guess underground.
Good and bad. Good, because they should be able
to get into the compound without much trouble; bad
because God only knew what kind of surveillance
system had been set up. They would have to go in fast.
David turned, still in a crouch, and faced the team.
"We'll need to double-time," he said softly, "and stay
low. We scale the fence, head for the structure closest
to the front gate, same order - I'm on point, John's in
back. We have to find the entry ASAP. Watch for
cameras, and everyone's armed as soon as we're in the
compound."
Nods all around, faces grim and set. David turned
and started for the fence, head down, his muscles
tight and jumping. Twenty meters, the air biting into
his lungs, freezing the light sweat on his skin. Ten
meters. Five, and he could see the "No Trespassing"
signs posted on the fence, and as they reached the
gate, David saw the sign telling them that they were at
the privately owned "Weather Monitoring and Survey
#7." He looked up and saw the rounded silhouettes of
what had to be satellite dishes on two of the buildings,
plus the multiple thin lines of antennae stretching up
from one of them.
David touched the fence with the barrel of the M-16,
then with his hand. Nothing, and there was no
barbed wire either, no sensor lines that he could see,
no alarm trips.
Obviously, no weather station would have those;
trust Umbrella to be as concise in their fronts as with
anything else.
He slung the rifle over his shoulder, grabbed the
thick wire and pulled himself up. It was only seven
feet; he was at the top in five seconds, flipping himself
over and jumping to the dusty ground inside the
compound.
Rebecca was next, climbing quickly and easily, a
lithe shadow in the dark. David reached up to help
her, but she leapt nimbly to the ground next to him
with hardly a stumble. She drew her weapon, an H&K
VP70, and turned to cover the darkness as David
looked back to the fence.
Leon almost tripped off the top, but David managed
to steady him, grabbing the younger man's hand;
once he was down, he nodded his thanks at David and
turned to help Claire over.
So far, so good. . .
David scanned the shadows around them as John
scaled the outside, his heart pounding, all of his
senses on high alert. There was no sound but the
gentle clank of the fence, no movement in the blackness.
He glanced back as John thumped to the cold and
dusty ground, then nodded toward the front structure,
the smaller one. If he were to design a false
cover, he'd hide the real entrance somewhere no one
would look - in a broom closet at the back of the last
building, through a trap door in the dirt, but Umbrella
was cocky, too smug to worry about such
simple precautions.
It will be in the first building, because they'll believe
they've hidden it so cleverly that no one will find it.
Because if there's one thing we can count on, it's that
Umbrella thinks they're too smart to be caught out...
He hoped. Staying down, David started for the
building, praying that if there were cameras watching
them, there was no one watching the cameras.
It was late, but Reston wasn't tired. He sat in the
control room, sipping brandy from a ceramic mug
and idly thinking about the next day's agenda.
He'd make his report, of course; Cole still hadn't
managed to fix the intercom system, although the
video cameras all seemed to be in working order; the
Ca6 handler, Les Duvall, wanted one of the mechanics
to see about a sticking lock on the release cage -
- and there was still the city. The MaSKs couldn't
exactly shine if the only colors were tan and brick . . .
. . . have to get the construction people into Four
tomorrow. And see how the Avis do with the perches.
A red light flashed on the panel in front of him,
accompanied by a soft mechanical bleat. It was the
sixth or seventh time in the last week; he'd have to get
Cole to fix that, too. The winds sweeping off the plain
could be vicious; on a bad day, they rattled the doors
to the surface structures hard enough to set off all of
the sensors.
Still, good thing I was here... once the Planet was
fully staffed, there'd always be someone in control to
reset the sensors, but for the time being, he was the
only one with access to the control room. If he'd been
in bed, the soft but insistent alarm currently going off
in his private room would have forced him to get up.
Reston reached for the switch, glancing at the row
of monitors to his left more for form's sake than
because he expected to see anything...
... and froze, staring at a screen that showed him
the entry room nearly a quarter mile above where he
sat, in a view from the ceiling cam in the southeast
corner. Four, five people, turning on flashlights, all of
them dressed in black. The thin beams of light
roamed over the dusty consoles, the walls of meteorological
equipment - and illuminated the weapons
they were holding in flashes of metal. Guns and rifles.
Oh, no.
Reston felt almost a full second of fear and despair
before he remembered who he was. Jay Reston had
not become one of the most powerful men in the
country, perhaps in the world, by panicking.
He reached beneath the console, reached for the
slender handset tucked into the slot next to the chair
that would connect him directly to White Umbrella's
private offices. As soon as he picked it up, the line
went through.
"This is Reston," he said, and could hear the steel
in his voice, hear it and feel it. "We have a problem. I
want a call put in to Trent, I want Jackson to call me
immediately - and send out a team, now, I want
them here twenty minutes ago."
He stared at the screen as he spoke, at the intruders,
and clenched his jaw, his initial fear turning to anger.
The fugitive S.T.A.R.S., surely...
It didn't matter. Even if they found the entrance,
they didn't have the codes - and whoever they were,
they would pay for causing him even a second of
distress.
Reston slid the phone back into its slot, folded his
arms, and watched the strangers move silently across
the screen, wondering if they had any idea that they'd
be dead within half an hour.
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