scended the ladder, didn't really think about the fact that there weren't any bells tolling. He smiled at her… and then felt his heart sink, understanding that their trial wasn't over yet.
'There's a gear missing from the bell mechanism,'she said, 'and we have to have it to make them ring.The good news is, I'm willing to bet that it's some-where in the building.'Carlos arched an eyebrow. 'How do you figure?'I found this next to one of the other gears,' Jill saidand handed him a tattered postcard.The picture on the front was of three paintings hung
in a row, each piece incorporating a clock. Carlos flipped the card over and saw 'St. Michael Clock Tower, Raccoon City' in fine print on the upper left corner. Below that was a printed line of verse, which Jill said out loud.
' 'Give your soul to the goddess. Put your hands to-gether to pray before her.' 'Carlos stared at her. 'Are you suggesting that wepray for the missing gear?'Ha ha. I'm suggesting that the gear is whereverthese clocks are.'Carlos handed the card back. 'You said that was thegood news – what's the bad?'
Jill smiled sourly, an entirely humorless expression.
'I doubt that the gear is going to be laying out in plain sight. It's some kind of puzzle, like the ones I ran across at the Spencer estate – and a few of those almost got me killed.'
Carlos didn't ask. For the moment, at least, he didn't want to know.
SEVENTEEN
AFTER TRACKING HIM FOR NEARLY HALF AN hour, Nicholai found Dr. Richard Aquino on the fourth floor of Raccoon City's largest hospital. Seeing the Watchdog made Nicholai happy in a way he couldn't ex-plain, not even to himself. A sense that all was right with the world, that things were unfolding as they should…… with me on top, making the decisions. In a mo-ment there will only be three left, three little doggies for me to hunt in the land of the walking dead, he thought dreamily. Does it get any better than this? Aquino was just locking a door behind him, a look of sweaty fear on his pallid face as his gaze darted around nervously. He pocketed his keys and turned to-ward the hallway that led back to the elevator, pushing his smudged glasses to the bridge of his nose. Nicholai was amused to note that he wasn't even armed. Nicholai stepped half out of the shadows, planning to enjoy himself. After Nicholai had spent over an hour getting to the hospital, jogging most of the way, the mousy Dr. Aquino had had the nerve to try and hide from him – although looking at him now, Nicholai thought it was more likely that the scientist hadn't even known that he was being hunted and had eluded Nicholai by pure accident. Aquino looked like the kind of man who could get lost in his own backyard; even now, the 'watchdog' didn't realize that he wasn't alone anymore, that Nicholai was only three meters
away. 'Doctor!' Nicholai called loudly, and Aquino jumped around, gasping, involuntarily waving his hands in front of him; his surprise was absolute. Nicholai couldn't help a slight smile. 'Who, who are you?' Aquino stammered. He had watery blue eyes and a bad haircut. Nicholai stepped closer, deliberately intimidating the scientist with his size. 'I'm with Umbrella. I came to see how you were progressing with the vaccine among other things.' 'With Umbrella? I didn't – what vaccine, I don't know what you're talking about.' No weapon, no physical skills, and he can't tell a lie without blushing. He must be brilliant. Nicholai lowered his voice conspiratorially. 'Opera-tion Watchdog sent me, Doctor. You haven't filed a de-tails report lately. They've been worried about you.'
Aquino seemed on the verge of collapsing with re-lief. 'Oh, if you know about… I thought you were…… yes, the vaccine, I've been very busy; my, ah, contact wanted the initial synthesis broken down into stages, so there isn't an actual mixed sample cultivated, but I can assure you that it's only a matter of combining ele-ments, everything's ready.' The doctor practically bab-bled in his effort to submit. Nicholai shook his head in mock wonder, playing his part. 'And you've done this all yourself?' Aquino smiled weakly. 'With help from my assis-tant, Douglas, God rest his soul. I'm afraid that I've been running a bit ragged since his death, day before yesterday. That's why I've been remiss in my re-ports…'
He trailed off, then attempted another smile.
'So… you're the one they sent to pick up the sam-ple – Franklin, isn't it?'
Nicholai couldn't believe his own luck, or Aquino's naivete; the man was about to turn over the only TGViral antidote in existence, and all because Nicholai had said that Umbrella sent him. And now another one of his targets would be showing up… 'Yes, that's right,' Nicholai said smoothly. 'Ken Franklin. Where is the vaccine, Doctor?' Aquino rumbled for his keys. 'In here. I was just hiding it – the vaccine base, I mean, we've kept the medium separate – I hid it in here for safekeeping, until you arrived. I thought you were supposed to come in tomorrow night… no, the night after, you're much earlier than I expected.' He opened the door and gestured inside. 'There's a refrigerated wall safe behind that rather tacky land-scape – a recent addition by a wealthy patient, an ec-centric as I understand it, not that that's important…'
Nicholai stepped past the driveling doctor, tuning him out, still feeling dumbfounded that Aquino had been selected as a Watchdog, when he suddenly real-ized that he'd allowed the scientist to get behind him. It all came together in that instant, a complete sce-nario in Nicholai's mind – the stupid, gossiping science nerd, putting his enemies at ease, capitalizing on their underestimation of his abilities… The awareness took only a fraction of a second, and then Nicholai was moving. He dropped to his knees and swung his arms around, grabbing Aquino's calves and following through, liter-ally sweeping him off his feet. Aquino yelped and collapsed on top of Nicholai. A syringe clattered to the floor and Aquino lunged after it, but Nicholai still held his bony legs. The doctor had no muscle to speak of. In fact, Nicholai found it quite easy to hold the flailing doctor with one arm while reaching for the knife sheathed in his boot with his other. Nicholai sat up, jerked Aquino closer, and stabbed him in the throat. Aquino put his hands to his neck as Nicholai with-drew the blade, staring at his killer with wide, shocked eyes, blood pouring over his fingers as his heart contin-ued its work. Nicholai stared back at him, grinning and pitiless. Aquino had been slated to die, anyway, and that he'd attacked Nicholai only made his death a pleasure, in addition to its being a necessity. The scientist finally fell over, still clutching his bub-bling throat, and lost consciousness. He died quickly after that, a final spasm and he was gone. 'Better you than me,' Nicholai said. He searched the cooling body and found several more syringes and a four-digit code on a slip of paper – undoubtedly the wall safe's combination. Aquino obviously hadn't ex-pected Nicholai to be around to steal the vaccine. Nicholai stood and walked to the safe, revising his plans as he always tried to do after any unexpected oc-currence. Aquino had been expecting Ken Franklin to pick up the sample, which meant that Franklin would be putting in an appearance, unless the doctor had been lying. Nicholai didn't think so. Aquino had been so convincing because he had been telling the truth, an ex- cellent technique to distract one's opponent…… so I synthesize the vaccine, maybe enjoy some hunting while I wait for Sergeant Franklin to show up, get rid of him – and then destroy the hospital, Aquino's research along with it. If Umbrella's watching, they'll think everything is going according to plan. After that, there's only Chan and the factory worker, Terence Fos-ter… To hell with Mikhail and the other two, they weren't important anymore. As the soon-to- be only surviving Watchdog with information to sell, Nicholai would be worth millions. But with the TG vaccine in hand, there was no limit to what Umbrella might pay.
By the time they reached the building's back rooms, Jill was almost ready to admit defeat. They'd been everywhere, picking locks, slogging through each taste-fully furnished room, stepping over corpses and creat-ing a few new ones. A broken picture window outside the tower's chapel had allowed several carriers to get in, and they'd come across another viral spider in the hallway just past the library. Along the way, she told Carlos a little about the mansion and grounds of the Spencer estate, history that she had dug up after the S.T.A.R.S.'s disastrous mis-sion. Old man Spencer, one of Umbrella's founders, had been a fanatic for secret hiding places and hidden passages and had hired George Trevor, an architect renowned for his creativity, to design the mansion and to help renovate a few of the town's historical land-marks, tying parts of Raccoon to Spencer's spy fan-tasies. 'This was all thirty years ago,' Jill said, 'and the old man was completely crazy by then, so the story goes. As soon as everything was finished, he boarded up the mansion and moved Umbrella's headquarters to Eu-rope.' 'What happened to George Trevor?' Carlos asked. They stopped outside yet another door, what had to be one of the last rooms. 'Oh, that's the best part,' Jill said. 'He disappeared just before Spencer skipped town. No one ever saw him again.' Carlos shook his head slowly. 'This is one nut job of a place to live, you know that?'
Jill nodded, pushing open the door and stepping back, revolver up. 'Yeah, I've been thinking that my-self.'
Nothing was moving. Stacks of chairs to the right. Three statues, busts of women, straight in front of them. There were two corpses huddled together to the left of the door, a couple, holding each other, making Jill wince and look away – and there, hanging on the southern wall in heavy gold frames, were the three clock paintings. They walked into the room, Jill nervously studying their surroundings. It seemed normal…… but so did that room in the mansion that turned out to be a giant trash compactor. On impulse, Jill stepped back and used one of the chairs to
