"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 many pilots willing to smuggle people into Europe, I guess…"
John leaned closer, dropping his voice to a fake whisper, his grin fading. "I hear he drinks. We got him cheap 'cause he crashed some soccer team into the side of a mountain." Rebecca laughed, shaking her head. "You win. I'm terrified, okay?" "Okay. That's all I wanted," John said mildly, and turned around as Leon and Claire walked into the small cabin. They moved back to the middle of the plane, taking the two seats across the aisle from where Rebecca was sitting. David had mentioned that the area over the wings was the most stable, although it wasn't like there was that much of a choice – there were only twenty seats. "Ever flown before?" Claire asked, leaning out into the aisle, looking a little nervous herself. Rebecca shrugged. "Once. You?" "Couple of times, but always on big airliners, DC 747s or -27s, I forgot. I don't even know what this thing is." "It's a DHC 8 Turbo," Leon said. "I think. David mentioned it at some point…" "It's a killer, is what it is." John's deep voice floated over the seats. "A rock with wings." "John, sweetie… shut up," Claire said amiably.
John cackled, obviously pleased to have somebody new to play with. David appeared at the front of the cabin, stepping through the curtained area that led to the cockpit, and John broke off, their collective attention turning to-ward him. "It seems that we're ready to go," David said. "Our pilot, Captain Evans, has assured me that all systems are fully functional and we'll be taking off in just a moment. He's asked that we remain seated until he's given us leave to do otherwise. Um – the restroom is just back of the cockpit, and there's a small refrigera– tor at the rear of the plane with sandwiches and drinks…"
His voice trailed off, and he looked as if there was something else he wanted to say but wasn't sure what it was. It was a look that Rebecca had seen often enough in the past few weeks, a kind of uneasy uncertainty. Since the day that Raccoon had been blown to shit, she supposed they'd all had that look at one time or another…… because they shouldn't have been able to do it. That should have been the end, and it wasn 't, and now we're all more freaked out than any of us wants to admit.
When news of the disaster first hit the papers, they had all been so certain that this time Umbrella wouldn't be able to cover its tracks. The spill at the Spencer estate had been small, easy enough to write off after fire gutted the mansion and surrounding buildings; the facility at Caliban Cove had been on private land and was too isolated for anyone to know about – again, Umbrella had swept up the broken pieces and kept it quiet. Raccoon City, though. Thousands of people dead and Umbrella had walked away from it smell– ing like a rose, after planting false evidence and getting their scientists to lie for them. It should have been impossible; it had disheartened them all. What chance did a handful of fugitives have against a multi billion-dollar conglomerate that could kill an entire city and get away with it? David had decided not to say anything at all. He nodded briskly and then walked back to join them, pausing next to Rebecca's seat.
"Do you need some company?"
She could see that he was trying to be supportive and she could also see that he was tired. He'd been up late the night before, doublechecking every detail of their trip. "Nah, I'm okay," she said, smiling up at him, "and
I've always got John to talk me through it." "You know it, baby," John called loudly, and David nodded, giving her shoulder a light squeeze before moving to the seats behind her. He needs the rest. We all do, and it's a long flight -
–so why do I have the feeling that we're not going to get any?
Nerves, that was all. The engine sound got louder, higher, and with a stuttering jerk, the plane started to move forward. Rebecca clutched the arm rests on either side and closed her eyes, thinking that if she had the guts to go up against Umbrella, she could certainly survive a plane ride. Even if she couldn't, it was too late to change her mind; they were on their way, no turning back. They'd been in the air for only twenty minutes, and already Claire was nodding off, half-leaning against Leon's shoulder. Leon was tired, too, but knew he wasn't going to get to sleep so easily. He was hungry, for one thing – and then there was the fact that he still wasn't sure if he was doing the right thing.