attention to David, watching him pull out Trent's information and lay it on the table. It was good to know that they were pros… … but will it matter? her mind whispered softly. The S.T.A.R.S. in Raccoon were professionals, too. And even knowing the kind of research Umbrella's been doing, will it make any difference at all? What if the virus mutated and is still infectious? What if the place is crawling with Tyrants… or something worse?
Rebecca had no answer for the insistent little whis-per. She focused on David instead, silently telling herself that her anxieties wouldn't get in the way of her doing her job. And that her second mission wouldn't be her last. For Rebecca's sake, David started the briefing as he would have with an entirely new team. As bright as she was, and with her previous experience at an Umbrella facility, he didn't want her to hold back for fear of speaking out of turn.
'Our objective is to get into the compound, collect evidence on Umbrella and their research, and get out again with as little trouble as possible. I'll go over every step thoroughly, and if any of you have ques-tions or ideas about how to proceed, no matter how trifling, I want to hear them. Understood?'
There were nods all around. David continued, comfortable that his point was made.
'We've already discussed a few of the possibilities as to what may have happened, and you've all read the articles. I submit that we're dealing once again with some kind of accident. Umbrella's put a lot of effort into covering up the problem in Raccoon City, and while we could assume that they've been abduct-ing or killing fishermen who've wandered across their territory, it seems unlikely that they'd want to draw that kind of attention to themselves.' 'Why hasn't Umbrella sent anyone in to clean it up?' John asked. David shook his head. 'Who's to say they haven't? We may find that they've already cleared the site of evidence – in which case, we group together with the Raccoon people and our own contacts and start over.'
Again, everyone nodded. He didn't bother stating the obvious, that the virus could still be contagious. They all knew that it was a possibility, though he planned to have Rebecca address the matter before the briefing was through. David looked down at the map and sighed inwardly before moving on to the next point. 'Point of entry,' he said. 'If this were an open assault, we could go in by helicopter or just hop the fence. But if there are still people there and we trigger an alarm, it's over before we even start. Since we don't want to risk discovery, our best option is to go in by boat. We can use one of the rafts from the tanker operation last year.'
Karen piped up, frowning slightly.
'Wouldn't they have an alarm for the pier?'
David touched the map, putting his finger just below the notched line of the fence, south of the
compound. 'Actually, I don't recommend using the pier at all. If we go in here, go past the pier…' He traced upward, running the length of the cove. '… we can get a look at the layout of the entire compound, and hide the raft in one of the caves beneath the lighthouse. According to what I read, there's a natural path from the base of the cliff to the lighthouse itself. If the path has been blocked, we'll backtrack and come up with an alternative route.' 'Won't the raft attract attention if anyone's outside watching?' Rebecca asked. David shook his head. The Exeter S.T.A.R.S. had used the rafts the previous summer to approach an oil tanker that had been hijacked by terrorists who had threatened to spill the cargo unless their demands were met. It had been a night operation.
'It's black, and has an underwater motor. If we go in just past dusk, we should be invisible. The other benefit to this approach is that if the facility looks unhealthy, we can abort until a later time.'
He waited as they thought it over, not wanting to rush them. They were good soldiers, his team, but this was a volunteer assignment. If any one of them had serious doubts, it was better to address them now. Besides which, he was open to other suggestions. His gaze fell across Rebecca's youthful face, taking in the steady willingness of a good S.T.A.R.S. opera– tive in the quick brown eyes, the thoughtful consider– ation of his plan. He was beginning to like her, for more than just her usefulness to the mission. There was a kind of matter-of-fact openness about her that appealed to him, particularly with all of his recent turmoil over emotional awkwardness. She seemed quite comfortable with herself… David pushed the thoughts aside, suddenly realiz– ing how much stress he'd been under, how tired he continued to be; his focus was suffering for it. Keep it together, man. This isn't the time to wander. 'On to specifics,' he said. 'Once we get inside, we move in a staggered line through the compound, sticking to shadows. John will take point with Karen at his back, scouting the area for the lab and looking for some idea as to what's happened. Steve and Rebecca will follow, and I'll bring up the rear. When we find the lab, we go in together. Rebecca will know what to look for in terms of materials, and if they have a computer system still running, Steve can get into the files. The rest of us will provide cover. Once we retrieve the information, we get back out the way we came.'
He picked up the poem that Trent had given him,
tapping it with his other hand. 'One of Rebecca's teammates has already had dealings with Mr. Trent. She thinks that this might be relevant to what we need to find, so I want all of you to take another look before we go in. It may be important.' 'So we can trust him?' Karen asked. 'This Trent's okay?' David frowned, not sure how to answer. 'It seems that for whatever reason, he's on our side in all of this, yes,' he said slowly. 'And Rebecca recognized one of the names on the list as a man who has worked with viruses before. The information looks solid.' It wasn't a straight answer, but it would have to do.
'Any idea on what the chances are that we'll contract the virus?' Steve asked quietly. David tilted his head toward Rebecca. 'If you could give us some insight about what we may see, perhaps a bit of background…'
She nodded, turning toward the rest of the team.
'I can't tell you exactly what we're dealing with. When our team got kicked off the case, I lost access to the tissue and saliva samples, so I didn't get to run any tests. But from looking at the effects, it's pretty obvious that the T-Virus is a mutagen, altering the host's chromosome structure on a cellular level. It's an interspecies infective, capable of amplifying in plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, you name it. In some creatures, it promotes incredible growth; in all of them, violent behavior. From some of the reports we came across at the estate, I can tell you that it affects brain chemistry, at least in humans-inducing something like a schizophrenic psychosis through extremely high levels of D2 receptors. It also inhibits pain. The human victims we came across hardly reacted to gunshot wounds, and though they were decaying physically, they didn't seem to feel it…'
The young chemist paused, perhaps remembering. She suddenly looked much older than her years. 'The spill at the estate looked like an airborne, but I don't think that's its designed or preferred form. The scien– tists were almost certainly injecting it in conjunction with genetic experimentation. And since none of us contracted it and it didn't spread, I don't think we have to worry about breathing it in. ' 'What we do have to watch for is contact with a host, and I mean any contact, I can't stress that enough, this thing is incredibly virulent once it enters the bloodstream, and even a single drop of blood from a host could hold hundreds of millions of virus particles. We'd need a fully equipped hot suite and a trained biohazard virologist to pin down its replication strategy for certain, but direct contact of any kind should be avoided at all costs. With any luck, they'll have died by now… or at least deterio-rated past mobility. The humans, anyway.'
There was a moment of strained silence as they all considered the implications of what she'd told them. David could see that they were shaken, and felt a bit shaken himself. Knowing that the virus was toxic wasn't the same thing as actually hearing the specifics.
My God, what were those people thinking? How could they live with themselves, deliberately infecting anything with something like that?
On the tail of that thought, another occurred to him: how would he live with himself if one of his team contracted the virus? He'd led missions before in which people under his command had been hurt and twice, before he made captain, he'd been on operations in which S.T.A.R.S. had been killed. But taking a team into an area on his own initiative, where a silent, terrible disease could infect them, where they could die at the claws of some inhuman monster…
… it would be on my head. This isn't an authorized mission, the responsibility stops with me. Can I truly ask them to do this? 'Well, it pretty much sounds like a shit job,' John said finally. 'And if we wanna get there on time, we better head out soon.' He smiled at David, an un– characteristically subdued one but a smile all the same. 'You know me, I love a good fight. And somebody's gotta stop these assholes from spreading this stuff around, right?'
Steve and Karen were both nodding, their faces as set and determined as John's, and even knowing what they would encounter, Rebecca had made her deci– sion back in Raccoon. David felt a sudden rush of emotion for all of them, a strange, uncomfortable mix of pride and fear and warmth that he wasn't sure what to do with. After a few seconds of uncertain silence, he nodded briskly, glancing at his watch. It would take them a few hours to get to the launch site. 'Right,' he said. 'We'd best get to storage and load up. We can go through the rest of it on our way.'
