– not to mention their extremely narrow escape from explosive death when Umbrella's secret facilities blew up – compared to all that, a simple car wreck was like a Sunday picnic. Yeah, just keep telling yourself that, her mind whis– pered, and then she didn't think anything at all, because the van was swerving around a corner and John was pumping the brakes and they were about to get hit by about a ton and a half of fast moving metal and glass. David inhaled and exhaled deeply, relaxing his muscles as best he could, the squeal of brakes coming up fast from behind…… and wham, violent motion, a sense of incredible vibration, a second that seemed to stretch for an endless and silent eternity…… and the noise coming immediately after – break– ing glass and the sound of a tin can being crushed amplified a million times. David was jerked forward and back, heard Rebecca emit a strangled gasp -
– and it was over, and John was already hitting the gas as David rolled to his knees, raising his Beretta. He shot a look out the back and saw that the sedan was motionless, skewed across the dark street, the front grill and headlamps smashed all to hell. The slumped, shadowy figures behind the spidered glass were as still as the ruined car.
Not that we fared much better…
The inexpensive green minivan he'd bought specifi– cally for their ride to the airfield no longer had a bumper, tail lights, a rear license plate – or, he imag– ined, any possible method for opening the back gate; the door was a warped and crunched-up mass of useless metal. No great loss. David Trapp despised minivans, and it wasn't as though they'd planned on taking it to Europe. The important thing was that they were still alive – and that – for the moment at least – they'd managed to avoid the infinitely long arm of Umbrel– la's wrath. As they sped away from the wrecked car, David turned and regarded the others, reflexively putting a hand out to help Rebecca up. Since the ill-fated mission to the Umbrella lab on the coast, he'd grown quite attached to the young woman, as had John. The rest of his team hadn't survived… He shook off the thought before it could take hold, and called up to John that they should circle back toward their original destination, staying away from major streets. A bad break that they'd been spotted just as they were leaving, but not all that surprising, however. Umbrella had staked Exeter out two months earlier, right after they'd returned from Caliban Cove. It had only been a matter of time. 'Nice trick, David,' Leon said. 'I'll have to re– member that next time I get chased by Umbrella goons.'
David nodded uncomfortably. He liked Leon and Claire, but wasn't so sure how he felt about two more people looking to him for leadership. He could under– stand it with John and Rebecca, they'd at least been part of the S.T.A.R.S. before – but Leon was a rookie cop from Raccoon and Claire was a college student who just happened to be Chris Redfield's little sister. When he'd made the decision to break from the
S.T.A.R.S. after finding out about their connection to Umbrella, he hadn't expected to continue leading, hadn't wanted to -
–but it wasn't my decision to make, was it… he hadn't asked for their allegiance, or offered himself up as decision maker and it didn't matter, that was just the way things had turned out. In war, one didn't always have the luxury of choice. David glanced around at the others before staring out the back, watching the homes and buildings slip past in the cold dark. Everyone seemed a bit subdued, always the aftermath of an adrenaline rush. Rebecca was unloading clips and repacking the weapons, Leon and Claire sitting close together across from her, not talking. Those two were usually joined at the hip, and were still as tight as they'd been since David, John, and Rebecca had picked them up just outside of Raccoon less than a month earlier, dirty and damaged and reeling from their run-in with Umbrella. David didn't think there was a romantic connection there, at least not yet; it was more likely their shared night– mare. Nearly dying together could be quite a bonding experience. As far as David knew, Leon and Claire were the only survivors of the Raccoon disaster who knew about Umbrella's T-Virus spill. The child they'd had with them had only had the faintest idea, although Claire had been very careful to shield the little girl from the truth. Sherry Birkin didn't need to know that her parents had been responsible for the creation of Umbrella's most powerful bioweapons; better that she remember her mother and father as decent people…
'David? Anything wrong?'
He shook himself out of his mental wanderings and nodded at Claire. 'I'm sorry. Yes, I'm fine. Actually, I was thinking about Sherry; how is she?'
Claire smiled, and David was struck again by how she brightened when Sherry's name came up. 'She's good, she's settling in. Kate is nothing like her sister, a definite plus. And Sherry likes her.'
David nodded again. Sherry's aunt had seemed nice, but beyond that, she'd be able to protect Sherry if Umbrella decided to track the girl down; Kate Boyd was a fiercely competent criminal lawyer, one of the best in California. Umbrella would do well to stay away from the Birkins' only child.
Too bad the same doesn't apply to us; wouldn't that make things quite a lot easier…
Rebecca had finished reorganizing their rather im– pressive cache of weapons. She scooted over to sit next to him, brushing a loose strand of hair off her forehead. Her eyes much older than the rest of her face; barely nineteen, she'd already lived through two Umbrella incidents. Technically, she had more expe– rience than any of them as far as the pharmaceutical company went. Rebecca didn't speak for a moment, staring out at the passing streets. When she finally spoke, she kept her voice low, her sharp gaze studying him intently.
'Do you think they're still alive?'
He wouldn't bother feeding her a sunny picture; young as she was, the girl had a knack for seeing through people. 'I don't know,' he said, careful not to let the others overhear. Claire wanted desperately to reunite with her brother. 'I doubt it. We should have heard from
them. Either they're afraid of being traced, or…'
Rebecca sighed. Not surprised, but not happy.
'Yeah. Even if they couldn't get through to us – Texas still has the scrambler up, don't they?'
David nodded. Texas, Oregon, Montana – all open channels with S.T.A.R.S. members who could still be trusted, and they hadn't gotten a call in over a month. The last message had been from Jill; David knew it by heart. In fact, it had been haunting him daily for weeks.
'Safe and sound in Austria. Barry and Chris track-ing lead at UHQ, looks promising. Get ready.'
Ready to join them, to call in the few waiting troops that he and John had managed to network. Ready to storm Umbrella's real headquarters, the power be– hind it all. Ready to strike against the evil at its source. Jill and Barry and Chris had gone to Europe to find out where the true leaders of Umbrella's hidden purpose were secreted, starting at internation-al HQ in Austria – and had promptly disappeared. 'Heads up, kids,' John called from the front, and David looked away from Rebecca's unsmiling face, looked out to see they were already at the airfield. Whatever had happened to their friends, they'd find out soon enough.
TWO
REBECCA STRAPPED HERSELF INTO THE TINY seat of the tiny plane and looked out the window, wishing that David had chartered a jet. A giant, solid, can't-possibly-be-unsafe-'cause-it's-so-damned-big jet. From where she sat, she could see the propellers on the wing of the aircraft – propellers, like on a kid's toy.
Bet this puppy will sink like a rock, though, once it falls out of the sky at a few hundred miles an hour and slams into the ocean… 'Just so you know, this is the kind of plane that's always killing rock stars and the like. Just as they make it off the ground, a big gust of wind knocks them right back down.'
Rebecca looked up to see John's grinning face; he was hanging over the seats in front of her, his massive arms folded across the headrests. He probably needed two seats to himself; John wasn't just big, he was body-builder huge, two hundred forty pounds of mus– cle packed into his six-foot-six frame.
'We'll be lucky to get off at all, dragging your fat ass up there,' Rebecca shot back, and was rewarded with a flash of concern in John's dark eyes. He'd broken a couple of ribs and punctured a lung on his last mission, less than three months before, and still wasn't up to pumping iron. For as burly and macho as John was, she knew he was vain about his looks, and had absolutely hated not being able to work out. John grinned wider, the deep brown of his skin crinkling. 'Yeah, you're probably right; a few hun-dred feet off the ground and wham, that's all she wrote.'
She never should have told him that this was only the second flight she'd ever been on (the first was when she accompanied David to Exeter for the mis– sion to Caliban Cove). It was exactly the kind of thing on which John got off cracking jokes… The plane started to rumble all around them, the engine whining up into a deep hum that made Rebecca grit her teeth. Damned if she was going to let John see how nervous she was; she looked back out the window and saw Leon and Claire walking toward the metal steps. Apparently, the weapons were all loaded up. 'Where's David?' Rebecca asked, and John shrugged.
'Talking to the pilot. We've only got the one, you know, some friend of a friend of some guy in Arkan– sas. Not
