The Umbrella Conspiracy

Chapter Fourteen

 

  Jill stood at the edge of a yawning, open pit in the dank tunnel, staring helplessly at the door on the other side. The pit was too wide to safely jump and there was no way to climb down, at least none that she could see. She'd have to go back and try the door by the ladder.

  Her frustrated sigh turned into a shiver. The damp chill emanating from the stone walls would have been bad enough without her being dripping wet.

  Great secret passage. To use it, you have to catch pneumonia.

  A glint of metal caught her gaze as she turned, feet squelching in her boots. She peered down at it, brushing a wet strand of hair out of her eyes. It was a small iron plate set into the stone, a six-sided hole about the size of a quarter at the center. She looked back at the door thoughtfully.

  Maybe it works as a bridge, or lowers stairs. . . ?

  It didn't matter, since she didn't have whatever tool it required, it was as good as a dead end. Besides, it was unlikely that whoever she'd seen walking through the waterfall had managed to get across.

  Jill walked back through the twisting passage toward the entrance to the tunnel, still in awe of what she'd found behind the curtain of water. It appeared that there was a whole network of tunnels running beneath the estate. The walls were rough and uneven, chunks of sandy limestone protruding at odd angles-but the sheer amount of work that had gone into creating the underground path was mindboggling.

  She reached the metal door next to the ladder, having to make a conscious effort not to let her teeth chatter as a cold draft swept down from the courtyard above. The sound of the waterfall was strangely muted. The steady, echoing rhythm of water dripping to the rock floor was much louder, giving the tunnels a somewhat medieval feel. . .

  She pulled the door open and froze, feeling a rush of mixed emotions as Barry Burton whirled around to face her, revolver in hand. Surprise won.

  Barry?

  He quickly lowered his weapon, looking as shocked as she felt and just about as wet, too. His T-shirt clung to his broad shoulders, his short hair plastered to his skull.

  Jill! How did you get down here?

  Same way you did, apparently. But how did you know?

  He held up his hand, shushing her. Listen.

  They stood in tense silence, Jill looking up and down the stone corridor and failing to hear whatever Barry had heard. There were metal doors at either end, cast in shadow by the dim utility lights overhead.

  I thought I heard something, he said finally.

  Voices. . .

  Before she could ask any questions, he turned and faced her, smiling uneasily. Look, I'm sorry I didn't wait for you, but I heard somebody walking out in the garden and had to take a look. I found this place by accident, kind of tripped and fell in. . . anyway. I'm glad you're here. Let's check around, see what we can dig up.

  Jill nodded, but decided to keep a close eye on Barry for awhile. Maybe she was paranoid, but in spite of his words, he didn't seem all that happy to see her. . .

  Watch and wait, her mind whispered. For now, there was nothing else she could do.

  Barry led them toward the door to the right, holding his Colt up. He pulled the handle, revealing another gloomy tunnel.

  A few steps in to the right was another metal door and across from it, the passage veered sharply into almost complete darkness. Barry motioned at the door and Jill nodded. He pushed it open and the two of them moved in to another silent corridor.

  Jill sighed inwardly as she studied the bare rocky walls, wishing that she had a piece of chalk with her.

  The tunnel they were in now looked pretty much like all the rest of them, turning left up ahead. She already felt lost, and hoped that there weren't too many more twists and turns.

  Hello? Who's there! A deep, familiar voice shouted from somewhere ahead of them, the words echoing through the passage.

  Enrico? Jill called out.

  Jill? Is that you?

  Excited, Jill ran the last few steps to the corner and around, Barry right behind her. The Bravo team leader was still alive, had somehow ended up down here.

  Jill rounded the next corner and saw him sitting against the wall, the tunnel widening out and ending in a shadowy alcove.

  Hold it! Stop right there!

  She froze, staring at the Beretta he had pointed at her. He was injured, blood seeping from his leg and puddling on the floor.

  Are you with anyone, Jill? His dark eyes were narrowed with suspicion, the black bore of his semiautomatic unwavering.

  Barry's here, too - Enrico, what happened?

  What's this about?

  As Barry stepped out from behind the corner, Enrico stared at them both for a long moment, his gaze darting back and forth nervously and then he sagged, lowering his gun as he fell back against the stones. Barry and Jill hurried over, crouching down next to the wounded Bravo.

  I'm sorry, he said weakly. I had to make sure. . .

  It was as though defending himself had taken his last bit of strength. Jill took his hand gently, alarmed at how pale he was. Blood oozed from his thigh, his pants soaked with it.

  This whole thing was a set-up, he breathed, turning his watering gaze toward her. I got lost, I climbed the fence, saw the tunnels. . . found the paper. . . Umbrella knew, all along. . .

  Barry looked stricken, his face almost as white as Enrico's. Hang on, Rico. We'll get you out of here, you just have lie still.

  Enrico shook his head, still looking at Jill. There's a traitor in the S. T. A. R. S. , he whispered. He told me. . .

  Bam! Bam!

  Enrico's body jumped as two holes suddenly appeared in his chest, blood pulsing out of them in violent spurts. Through the resounding echo of the shots, running footsteps clattered away down the corridor behind them.

  Barry launched to his feet and sprinted around the corner as Jill helplessly squeezed Enrico's twitching hand, her heart pounding and sick. He slumped over, dead before he touched the cold stone floor.

  Her mind flooded with questions as Barry's pursuing footsteps faded away, silence settling once again over the deep shadows. What paper had the Bravo found? When Enrico had said traitor she'd immediately thought of Barry, acting so strangely, but he'd been right beside her when the shots had been fired.

  So who did this? Who was Trent talking about? Who did Enrico see?

  Feeling lost and alone, Jill held his cooling hand and waited for Barry to come back.

  Rebecca was going through an old trunk pushed against one wall of the room they'd entered, shuffling through stacks of papers and frowning while Chris checked out the rest of the room. A single, rumpled cot, a desk, and a towering, ancient bookshelf were the only other pieces of furniture. After the cold, alien splendor of the mansion, Chris was absurdly grateful to be in simpler surroundings.

  They'd come to a house at the end of the long, winding path from the courtyard, much smaller and infinitely less intimidating than the mansion. The hall they'd stepped into was plain, undecorated wood, as were the two small bedrooms they'd discovered just off the silent corridor. Chris figured they'd found a bunkhouse for some of the mansion's employees.

  He had noticed the thick, unmarked dust in the hallway on their way in with a sinking resignation, realizing that none of the other S. T. A. R. S. had made it out of the main house. With no way for him and Rebecca to get back, all they could do was try to find the back door and go for help. Chris didn't like it, but there weren't any other options.

  After a brief perusal of the shelves, Chris walked to the battered wooden desk and pulled at the top drawer; it was locked. He bent down and felt along the bottom of the drawer, grinning as his fingers touched a thick piece of tape.

  Don't people ever watch movies? The key's always stuck under the drawer.

  He peeled the tape away and came up with a tiny silver key. Still grinning, he unlocked the drawer and pulled it open.

&n
bsp; There was a deck of playing cards, a few pens and pencils, gum wrappers, a crumpled pack of cigarettes - junk, mostly, the kind of stuff that always seemed to accumulate in desk drawers. . .

  Bingo!

  Chris picked up the key ring by its leather tag, pleased with himself. If finding the exit was this easy, they'd be on their way back to Raccoon in no time.

  Looks like we just got a break, he said softly, holding up the keys. The leather tag had the word Alias burned into one side, the number 345 written on the back in smudged ball-point pen. Chris didn't know the significance of the number, but he remembered the nickname from the diary he'd found in the mansion.

  Thank you, Mr. Alias. Assuming the keys were for the bunkhouse, they were that much closer to getting off the estate.

  Rebecca was still sitting by the trunk, surrounded by papers, envelopes, even a few grainy photos that she'd pulled out. She seemed totally absorbed in whatever she was reading, and when Chris walked over to join her, she looked up at him with eyes clouded by worry.

  You find something?

  Rebecca held up the piece of paper she was reading.

  A couple of things. Listen to this: 'Four days since the accident and the plant at Point 42 is still growing and mutating at an incredible rate. . . '

  She skipped ahead, skimming the page with one finger as she spoke. It calls this thing Plant 42, and says its root is in the basement. . . here. 'Shortly after the accident, one of the infected members of the research team became violent and broke the water tank in the basement, flooding the entire section. We think some trace chemicals used in the T-virus tests contaminated the water and contributed to Plant 42's radical mutations. A number of shoots have already been traced to different parts of the building, but the main plant now hangs from the ceiling in the large conference room on the first floor. . . " 'We've determined that Plant 42 has become sensitive to movement and is now carnivorous. In close proximity to humans, it uses tentacular, prehensile vines to entrap its prey while leechlike adaptations latch onto exposed skin and draw fatal quantities of blood; several members of the staff have already fallen victim to this. ' It's dated May twenty-first, signed Henry Sarton.

  Chris shook his head, wondering again how someone could invent a virus like the one they had come across. It seemed to infect everything it touched with madness, transforming its carrier into a deadly carnivore, hungry for blood.

  God, now a man-eating plant. . .

  Chris shuddered, suddenly twice as glad that they'd be leaving soon.

  So it infects plants, too, he said. When we report this, we'll have to. . .

  No, that's not it, she said. She handed him a photo, her expression grim.

  It was a blurry snapshot of a middle-aged man wearing a lab coat. He was standing stiffly in front of a plain wooden door, and Chris realized that it was the very door they'd come through not ten minutes ago, the front entrance to the bunkhouse.

  He flipped the picture over, squinting at the tiny script on the back. H. Sarton, January '98, Point 42.

  He stared at Rebecca, finally understanding her fearful gaze. They were standing in Point 42. The carnivorous plant was here.

  Wesker stood in the darkness of the unlit tunnel, his irritation growing as he listened to Barry stumble through the echoing corridors. Jill wouldn't wait forever, and the raging Mr. Burton couldn't seem to grasp that Enrico's killer had simply slid into the shadows just around the corner, the most obvious place there was.

  Come on, come on. . .

  Since they'd left the house, he'd finally started to feel like things were going in his favor. He'd remembered the underground room near the entrance to the labs, and was almost certain that the wolf medal would be there. And the tunnels were clear. He had expected the 121s to be out, but apparently no one had messed with the passage mechanisms since the accident. They'd split up to search for the lever that worked the passages and it had been in plain sight, propped up next to the very mechanism that it controlled.

  Everything would have been perfect, except goddamned Enrico Marini had wandered along, happening across a very important paper that Wesker had accidentally dropped - his orders, straight from the head of White Umbrella. And then to complicate matters, Jill had blundered into the tunnels before Wesker could finish taking care of the problem.

  Wesker sighed inwardly. If it wasn't one thing, it was another. In truth, this whole aifair had been a massive headache from the beginning. At least the underground security hadn't been activated - though he'd had no way of knowing that until they'd reached the tunnels, and having dragged Barry along as insurance, he now had to deal with the consequences. If the money wasn't so good.

  He grinned. Who was he kidding? The money was great.

  After what felt like years, Barry huffed into the dark room, blindly waving his revolver around. Wesker tensed, waiting for him to walk past the generator's alcove. This part could be tricky - Barry and Enrico had been close.

  As Barry stormed past the small chamber, Wesker stepped out behind him and jammed the muzzle of his Beretta into Barry's lower back, hard. At the same time, he started talking, low and fast.

  I know you want to kill me, Barry, but I want you to think about what you're doing. I die, your family dies. And right now, it looks like Jill may have to die, too, but you can stop it. You can put a stop to all the killing.

  Barry had stopped moving as soon as the gun touched him, but Wesker could hear the barely contained rage in his voice, the pure, driving hatred.

  You killed Enrico, he snarled.

  Wesker pushed the gun deeper into his back. Yes.

  But I didn't want to. Enrico found some information he shouldn't have, he knew too much. And if he'd told Jill what he knew about Umbrella, I'd have had to kill her, too.

  You're going to kill her anyway. You're going to kill all of us.

  Wesker sighed, allowing a pleading note to creep into his voice. That's not true! Don't you get it - - I just want to get to the laboratory and get rid of the evidence before anyone finds it! Once that material is destroyed, there's no reason for anyone else to get hurt. We can all just. . . walk away.

  Barry was silent, and Wesker could tell that he wanted to believe him, wanted desperately to believe that things could be that simple. Wesker let him waver for a moment before pressing on.

  All I want you to do is keep Jill busy, keep her and anyone else you run into away from the labs, at least for a little while. You'll be saving her life and I swear to you that as soon as I get what I need, you and your family will never hear from me again.

  He waited. And when Barry finally spoke, Wesker knew he had him.

  Where are the labs?

  Good boy!

  Wesker lowered the gun, keeping his expression blank just in case Barry had good night vision. He pulled a folded paper out of his vest and slipped it into Barry's hand, a map from the tunnels to the first basement level.

  If for some reason you can't keep her away, at least go with her. There are a lot of doors with locks on the outside down there; worse comes to worst, you can lock her up until it's over. I mean it, Barry, no one else has to get hurt. It's all up to you.

  Wesker stepped back quickly, reaching for the lever with the six-sided tip that he'd left next to the generator. He watched Barry for a few seconds longer, saw the sag in the big man's shoulders, the submissive hang of his head. Satisfied, Wesker turned and walked out of the room. On the very slight chance that any of the S. T. A. R. S. made it to the lab, Mr. Burton would ensure that there wouldn't be any more trouble.

  He hurried back through the entrance tunnel, silently congratulating himself on getting things back under control as he headed toward the first passage mechanism. He'd have to move fast from here on out; there were a few things he'd neglected to mention to Barry - like the experimental security detachment that would be released into the tunnels once he turned that lever for the first time. . .
r />   Sorry, Barry. Slipped my mind.

  It would be interesting to see how his team fared with the 121s, the Hunters. Watching the S. T. A. R. S. pit their strength and agility against the creatures would be quite a show and sadly, one that he'd have to miss.

  It was too bad, really. The Hunters had been caged for a long time; they'd be very, very hungry.