There was no sound but the gentle clank of the fence, no movement in the black– ness. He glanced back as John thumped to the cold and dusty ground, then nodded toward the front struc– ture, 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 Um– brella 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 mechan– ics 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 meteoro– logical 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'dbe dead within half an hour.
SEVEN
THE BUILDING WAS COLD AND DARK, BUT there was the soft hum of working machinery to break the silence, to listen to over the pounding of her heart. It wasn't too big, maybe thirty feet by twenty, but it was a single room, big enough to feel unsafe, vulnera– ble. Small lights blinked randomly all around it, like dozens of eyes watching them from the shadows.
Man, I hate this.
Rebecca trailed the tight beam from her flashlight over the west wall of the building, looking for any-thing out of the ordinary and trying not to feel sick at the same time. In movies, private detectives and cops who had just crashed someone's house were always strolling calmly around, looking for evidence, as if they owned the place; in real life, breaking in some– where you were absolutely not supposed to be was terrifying. She knew they were in the right, that they were the good guys, but still her palms were damp, her heart hammering, and she wished desperately there were a bathroom she could get to. Her bladder had apparently shrunk to the size of a walnut.
And it'll have to wait, unless I want to go wet the dirt in enemy territory… Rebecca didn't. She leaned in to take a closer look at the machine in front of her, a stand-up device the size of a refrigera-tor and covered with buttons; the label on the front read, "OGO Relay," whatever that was. As far as she could tell, the room was full of big, clunky machines awash in switches; if all of the other buildings were similarly equipped, finding Trent's hidden code panel was going to be an all-night operation. Each of them had taken a wall, and John was going over the tables in the middle of the room. There was probably a surveillance camera set up somewhere in the building, which made the need to hurry even greater – although they were all hoping that the mini– mal staff meant no one would be watching. If they were very lucky, the security system wouldn't even be hooked up yet.
No, that would be a miracle. Lucky will be if we get in and out of this alive and unhurt, with or without that book…
Since they'd walked away from the van, Rebecca's internal alarms had been ticking down to a full-blown case of the nerves. From her short time with the
S.T.A.R.S. she'd learned that trusting her gut feelings was important, maybe even more important than having a weapon; instinct told people to duck bullets, to hide when the enemy was near, to know when to wait and when to act.
The problem is, how do you know if it's instinct or if you're just scared shitless? She didn't know. What she knew was that she wasn't feeling good about their late-night raid; she was cold and jumpy, her stomach hurt, and she couldn't shake the belief that something bad was going to happen. On the other hand, she should be scared – they all should be; what they were doing was dangerous. Something bad might actually happen, acknowledg– ing it wasn't paranoid, it was realistic -
– Hello. What's that?
Just to the right of the OGO machine was some– thing that looked like a water heater, a tall, rounded device with a window in the front. Behind the small square of glass was a spool of graph paper, covered with thready black lines, nothing she recognized, what had caught her eye was the dust on the glass. It was the same finely powdered dirt that seemed to be on everything in the room… except it wasn't. There was a smudge across the dirt, a damp streak that may have been caused by someone's finger.
A smudge on dirt?
If someone had run their hand over the dusty glass, they would have cleared a path. Rebecca touched it, frowning – and felt the pebbled surface of the dust, the tiny ridges and whorls like sandpaper beneath her fingers. It was painted or sprayed on – that is, fake. "Might have something," she whispered, and touched the window where the smudge was. The window popped open, swinging out and there was a sparkling metal square behind it, a ten-key set into an extremely undusty-looking panel; the graph paper was also fake, just a part of the glass. "Bingo," John whispered from behind her, and Rebecca stepped back, feeling a flush of excitement as the others gathered around, feeling the tension com-ing from all of them. The mist of their combined breath made a small cloud in the freezing room, reminding her of how cold she was.
Too cold… we should go back to the van, back to the hotel for a hot bath. She could hear the desper-ation in her inner voice. It wasn't the cold, it was this place. "Brilliant," David said softly, and stepped forward, holding his flashlight up. He'd memorized Trent's codes, eleven in all, each eight digits long. "It'll be the last one, watch," John whispered. Rebecca might have laughed if she wasn't so scared. John fell silent as they watched him plug in the first numbers, Rebecca thinking that if they didn't work she wouldn't be all that disappointed. Jackson had called, informing Reston in his cool, cultured tones that two four-man teams were on their way by helicopter from Salt Lake City. "It so happens that our branch office was entertaining a few of the troops," he'd said. "We have Trent to thank for that; he suggested that we start relocating some of our security in advance of the grand opening, so to speak."
Reston had been glad to hear it, but wasn't so happy about the fact that they were there, three armed men and two women poking around the Planet's entrance in the middle of the night… "They can't get in, Jay," he'd interrupted, gently, soothingly. "They don't have access." Reston had swallowed his knee-jerk response to that, thanking him instead. Jackson Cortlandt was probably the most patronizing and arrogant son of a bitch Reston had ever known, but he was also ex-tremely competent and extremely savage if need be; the last man who'd crossed Jackson had been mailed to his family in pieces. Saying "No shit" to the senior member was akin to walking off a tall building. Jackson had then made it quite clear that while he appreciated the call, it would be best for Jay to handle such matters himself in the future – that if he'd bothered to keep himself apprised of internal shift– ings, he would have known about the teams in SLC. There was no explicit wrist-slapping, but Reston got the message all the same; he hung up feeling as though he'd been severely chastised; watching the five inter– lopers search the entry building only added to his mounting tension.
No codes, no access, even if they find the controls.
Twenty minutes. All he had to do was wait for twenty minutes, half an hour at the outside. Reston took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly…… and forgot to inhale again as he saw one of them, a girl, push on the window to the keypad. They'd found it, and he still didn't know who they were or how they knew about the Planet – but the way one of the men stepped forward and started punching keys suggested that twenty minutes could be too long to wait for help. He's guessing, random numbers, it's not possible… Reston watched the tall, dark-haired man continue to tap in numbers and thought about what Trent had said at their last gathering. That White Umbrella might have a leak.
An information leak, from someone high up. Some-one who might know the entry codes.
He reached for the phone again and then stopped, Jackson's subtle warning making him break out in a light sweat. He had to handle it, he had to keep them from getting in, but everyone was asleep and there wasn't an intercom, there was a gun in his room, but if they had the code, he didn't have time to…
… override.
Reston turned away from the screen and started for the door, kicking himself as he hurried out of control. There was a manual override switch in a hidden panel next to the elevator, he could keep the lift down even if they had the entrance numbers…
… and the teams will come and collect our little pack of invaders, and I will have handled it.
He smiled, a smile entirely without humor, and broke into a run. Leon watched anxiously as David typed in another string of numbers, hoping their presence hadn't been detected yet. He hadn't seen a camera, but that didn't mean there wasn't one; if Umbrella could build massive underground laboratories and create mon– sters, they could hide a video camera. David hit a final key – and there was sound and movement at once, the low hiss of hidden hydraulics, the distant hum of an engine. A giant piece of the wall to the right of the keypad slid upward. As one, all five of them raised weapons – and lowered them again when they saw the thick mesh gate and the black and empty elevator shaft behind it. "Damn," John said, a tone of awe in his voice, and Leon had to agree. The panel was ten feet across, thick and heavy with machinery, and had completely disappeared into the ceiling in two seconds. Whatever mechanism was operating it was exceptionally pow– erful. "What's that?" Rebecca whispered, and Leon heard it a second later, a distant hum. Apparently the entry code had also recalled the elevator; they could hear it rising, hear the growing echo of well-oiled sound in the freezing darkness of the shaft. It was rising fast, but was still a long way down. Leon wondered, not for the first time, how the hell Um– brella had managed to build such a thing; the Rac– coon lab had also been massive, with God-knew– how-many floors of laboratory, all of it deep beneath the surface of the city.
They must have more money than God. And one hell of an architect. "We may have triggered a warning device or alarm," David said quietly. "It might not be empty." Leon nodded along with everyone else; they were all silent and tense as they waited, John pointing his rifle at the mesh gate. Reston found the flat, seamless panel, and pried it open without any trouble -
– but there was a lock on the switch, a thin metal rod hooked through the top, keeping it from being pushed down. It wasn't until he saw the lock that he recalled it; yet another of Umbrella's precautions, one that suddenly seemed monumentally stupid.
The keys, the workers all have them, I got a set before I came… Reston ran his hands through his hair, wracking his brain, feeling desperate and harried.
Where'd I put the goddamn security keys?
When he heard the lift being recalled to the surface only seconds later, it was all he could do to keep from screaming. They had the code. They had guns and there were five of them and they had the code.
Takes two minutes to get to the top, I've still got time and the keys are…
Blank. His mind was blank, and the seconds were ticking past. He'd already hit the recall button, but it wouldn't bring the elevator back down if someone opened the gate on the surface. For all he knew, the assassins or saboteurs or whatever the hell they were had already pried opened the gate, were now watching the lift on its way up, waiting…
… or maybe throwing a few pounds of plastique into
the shaft… or…
… control, they're in control!
Reston turned and ran, across the wide corridor and ten feet to the right, down the small offshoot outside of control. His first day at the Planet, one of the construction people had shown him all of the internal locks – backup generator, drug cabinet in surgical… manual override for the lift. He'd yawned his way through that particular tour, then tossed the keys into a drawer in the control room, knowing that he wouldn't be needing them.
He hurried through the door, deciding that he could berate himself for forgetting the keys later, wondering how things had gone so out of control in such a short period of time. Only ten minutes ago he'd been sipping brandy, relaxing…
… and ten minutes from now, you could be dead.
Reston hurried.
The elevator was big, at least ten feet across and twelve deep. John squinted as it rose into view, the harsh light from a naked bulb in the ceiling nearly blinding after their long stint in darkness.
At least it's empty. Now all we gotta do is avoid getting ambushed and murdered when we hit the bottom.
The elevator came to a smooth stop. The latch on the mesh gate unlocked and the gate slid into the wall. John was closest. He glanced at David, who nodded a go-ahead.
"First floor, shoes, menswear, Umbrella assholes,"
John said, not particularly bothered that he didn't get a laugh. Everyone had their own preferred method for dealing with tension. Besides, his sense of humor was more fully developed. Right over their heads, he thought, scanning the walls of the elevator car for anything unusual. Well, maybe not over their heads; it was more that they just didn't appreciate his fine wit. He kept himself amused, that was the important thing, it kept him from freezing up or turning into a basket case. The elevator looked okay, dusty but solid. John stepped carefully inside, Leon right behind -
–then John heard a noise, just as a red light started to blink on the lift's control panel. "Be still," John hissed, holding his hand up, not wanting anyone else to get on until he saw what the light was for -
– and the mesh gate closed behind him, the latch snapping shut. He spun, saw that Leon was on board, saw Claire and Rebecca lunging for the gate from the other side and David running for the keypad. There was a rasping click from overhead and Leon, closer to the front, shouted at Claire and Rebecca -
"Get back!"
– because the wall panel was coming down, slam– ming down, and the girls were stumbling back. John caught a final glimpse of their shocked and pale faces in the gloom -
– and the door had closed, and although he hadn't touched a thing, the elevator was going down. John crouched by the controls, punching at the buttons,
and saw what the flashing red light was for. "Manual override," he said, and stood up, looking at the young cop, not sure what to say. Their simple plan had just been totally screwed. "Shit," Leon said, and John nodded, thinking he'dsummed it up perfectly.
EIGHT
"SHIT." CLAIRE HISSED, FEELING HELPLESS and afraid, wanting to beat against the wall panel until it released the two men.
Trap, it was a trap, a setup. "Listen… it's going down," Rebecca said, and Claire heard it, too. She turned, saw David tapping the keypad with one hand, flashlight in the other, his face grim. "David," Claire started, and stopped as David spared her a pointed glance, a look that told her to wait. He barely paused in his number punching, returning his entire attention back to the controls. She turned to Rebecca, saw that Rebecca was chewing at her lip nervously, watching David. "He must be trying all the codes," she whispered to Claire, and Claire nodded, feeling sick with worry, wanting to talk action but realizing that David needed to concentrate. She compromised, leaning in to whis– per back to Rebecca; if she just stood there quietly in the freezing dark, she'd lose her mind.
"Think it was Trent?" Rebecca frowned, then shook her head. "No. I think we hit a silent alarm or something. I saw a light flashing in the elevator before the gate closed."
Rebecca sounded just as scared as she was, just as terrified, and Claire thought about how close she and John must have gotten. As close as Leon and herself, maybe. Claire instinctively reached for her hand and Rebecca took it, squeezing it tightly, both of them watching David.
Come on, one of them has to open it, to bring it back…
A few tense seconds passed, and David stopped hitting keys. He pointed the flashlight up, the reflec– tion just enough light to see each other by.
"Seems that the numbers don't work if the lift is in use," he said. His voice was calm and easy, but Claire could see that his jaw was clenched, the muscles in his cheeks twitching.
"I'll try them all again in a moment, and then again, but since someone else seems to have access to the lift's master control, we should start consider-ing other options. Rebecca – start looking for a cam-era, check the corners and ceiling; if we're going to be here awhile, we'll need privacy. Claire, see if you can find any tools we might use to get through the wall -
– tire iron, screwdriver, anything. If the codes won't work, we'll see if we can't force our way in. Ques– tions?" "No," Rebecca said, and Claire shook her head. "Good. Take a deep breath and get to it."
David went back to the keypad and Rebecca walked to the corner, turning her flashlight to the ceiling. Claire took a deep breath and turned, looking at the dusty table in the middle of the room. It had stacked drawers on either side; she opened the first, pushing aside papers and clutter, thinking that David really kicked ass under pressure.
Tire iron, screwdriver, anything… be careful, please be careful and don't get killed…
Claire forced herself to take another deep breath; then she opened the next drawer, continuing her search. John took the lead, which Leon was only too happy to follow. He may have survived Raccoon, but the ex-
S.T.A.R.S. soldier had been in and out of combat situations for something like nine years; he won. "Get down," John said, crouching himself, then lying down on his stomach and wrapping the M-16 strap tightly around his muscular arm. "If it's an ambush, they'll be aiming high when the door opens; we take out their knees. Works like a charm."
Leon lay down next to him, propping his right arm up with his left hand, his nine-millimeter pointed loosely at the gate. Outside, the darkness slid past, nothing to see but metal-lined shaft. "And if it's not?" "Stand up, you take the right, I'll take left, stay in the car if you can. If you find yourself aiming at a wall, turn around and shoot low."
John glanced over at him – incredibly, a wide grin was spreading across his face. "Think of all the fun they're going to miss. We get to blow some Umbrella guys all to shit, and they're stuck in the cold dark with nothing to do."
Leon was a little too tense to smile back, although he made an effort. "Yeah, some guys get all the luck,"he said. John shook his head, his grin fading. "Nothing we can do but go for the ride," he said, and Leon nodded, swallowing. John might be crazy, but he was right about that much. They were where they were, wishing otherwise wouldn't make it so.
Doesn't hurt to try, though. Christ, I wish we hadn't stepped on this thing…
The elevator kept going down, and they both fell silent, waiting. Leon was glad that John wasn't the chatty type; he liked to crack jokes, but it was obvious that he didn't take a dangerous situation lightly. Leon saw that he was breathing deeply, sighting the M-16, preparing for whatever was going to happen. Leon took a few deep breaths himself, trying to relax into the prone position -
–and the elevator stopped. There was a soft ping sound, a chime, and the mesh gate was moving, disappearing into its designated hole in the wall. A windowless outer door rose at the same time, mellow light spilled across them -
– and there was nobody. A polished concrete wall twenty feet away, a polished concrete floor. Gray emptiness.
Get up, go!
Leon scrambled to his feet, heart beating too fast, John silent and even faster to his left. An exchanged glance and they both took one step out of the elevator, Leon whipping his VP70 around right, ready to fire and there was nothing. Again. A wide corridor that seemed a mile long, the faint, mingled scents of dust and some industrial disinfectant in the cool air. Cool, but not at all cold; compared to the surface, it was summer. The hall was a hundred and fifty yards easy, maybe more; there were a few offshoots, rounded lights spaced at regular intervals along the ceiling, no signs posted and no sign of life either.
So who brought us down? And why, if they weren't planning on meeting us with a few bullets?"Maybe they're all playing bingo," John said softly, and Leon looked back, saw that except for the place-ment of a few side halls, John's side was identical to his. And just as empty.They both stepped back into the elevator. John reached for the controls, tapped the "Up" button, and nothing happened. "What now?" Leon asked. "Don't ask me, David's the brains behind our outfit," John said. "Though I got the looks."Jesus, John," Leon said, frustrated. "You've got seniority here; give me a break, will ya?"John shrugged. "Okay. Here's what I'm thinking. Maybe it wasn't a trap. Maybe… if it was a trap, they would've tried to get all of us. And we'd be in the middle of a firefight right now." And the timing. The elevator was only there for a few seconds – as if someone realized we'd called it up…"Someone was trying to keep us from getting on,
weren't they?" Leon said, not really asking. "To keep us from coming down." John nodded. "Give that man a cigar. And if that's right, it means they're scared of us. I mean, there's no security, right? Whoever brought us down probably hightailed it to a room with a lock." "As to what we do now," he continued, "I'm open to suggestions. It'd be nice to rejoin our group, but if we can't figure out how to get the elevator going…"
Leon frowned, thinking, remembering that before Raccoon had pretty much blown his career choice, he had been trained as a cop.
Use the tools you've got… "Secure the area," he said slowly. "Same plan as before, at least the first part. Get the employees secured, then worry about the elevator. Dealing with Reston will just have to wait."
John held up his hand suddenly, cutting him off, his head cocked to one side. Leon listened, but didn't hear anything. A few seconds passed and then John lowered his hand. He shrugged dismissively, but his dark eyes were wary and he held the automatic rifle close. "Good call," he said finally. "If we can find the damn employees. You wanna go left or right?"
Leon smiled faintly, suddenly remembering the last time he'd had to pick a direction. He'd taken a left in the subbasement of Umbrella's Raccoon lab and run into a dead end; having to backtrack had almost cost him his life. "Right," he said. "Left has some bad associations for me."
John cocked an eyebrow, but didn't say anything; oddly enough, he seemed satisfied with Leon's rea– soning.
Maybe because he's crazy. Crazy enough to make bad jokes in the midst of situations like this, anyway.
Together, they stepped out into the long, empty corridor and turned right, moving slowly, John watch– ing their back and Leon scanning every offshoot's opening for a sign of movement. The first side hall was to their left, not fifteen feet from the elevator. "Hang on," John said, and ducked into the short hall, walking quickly to a single door at the back. He rattled the handle, then hurried back out, shaking his head. "Thought I heard something before," he said, and Leon nodded, thinking about how easy it would be for someone to kill them.
Hide in a locked room, wait 'til we're past, step out and pow…
Bad thinking. Leon let it go and they continued their slow trek down the passage, sweeping every inch with their weapons, Leon realizing that the thermal under– wear'd been a bad idea, as sweat started to trickle down his body – and wondering, quite abruptly, how things had gone so wrong so fast.
Reston had an idea. He'd almost panicked after he'd heard them saying things that they shouldn't have known, hiding in control with the door cracked open. When he'd heard one of them say his name, he'd felt the panic rise into his throat like bile, coloring his mind with visions of his own horrible death. He'd closed the door then, locking it, sagging against it as he tried to think, to sort through his options. When one of them had rattled the door, he'd very nearly screamed, but had managed to hold still, to make no sound at all until the interloper had moved on. It took him a few moments to collect himself after that, to remember that this was something he could handle; strangely enough, it was the thought of Trent that did it for him. Trent wouldn't panic. Trent would know exactly what to do – and he most certainly wouldn't run crying to Jackson for help. In spite of that, he'd almost picked up the phone several times as he watched the monitors, watched the two men terrorizing his employees. They were effi– cient, unlike their rumbling counterparts still working to figure out the elevator on the surface. It had taken the two men all of five minutes once they'd reached the living area to get the workers together; it helped that five of them were still awake and playing cards in the cafeteria, three of the construction crew and both mechanics. The young white man watched them as the other one went to the dorm and roused the rest, marching them back to the cafeteria, crowding them with his automatic weapon. Reston was disappointed with the lackluster perfor-mance of his people, not one fighter among them, and was still very afraid. Once the teams from the city came in he'd have something to work with, but until then, all sorts of bad things might happen.
"Dealing with Reston will just have to wait…"What happens when they realize I'm not in their hostage group? What do they want? What could they want, except to hold me for ransom or kill me?
He'd been on the verge of calling Sidney, in spite of the fact that Jackson would certainly find out about it – but he'd risk his colleague's disapproval, he'd risk losing his place in the inner circle if it meant he could survive this invasion. He was actually reaching for the phone when he realized that someone was missing. Reston leaned closer to the cafeteria monitor, frowning, forgetting the phone. There were fourteen people grouped to-gether in the middle of the room, the two gunmen standing some distance away.
Where's the other one? Who's the other one?
Reston reached out and touched the screen, mark– ing off the faces of the bleary-eyed hostages. The five construction workers. Two mechanics. The cook, the specimen handlers, all six of them… "Cole," he muttered, pursing his lips. The electri– cian, Henry Cole. He wasn't there. An idea began to form, but it depended on where Cole actually was.
