I'll go out front and head west, see if I can find a sign or something… Trent had also said something about the hospital not being there for much longer; Carlos hoped he wasn't too late. "Try and get back to sleep," Carlos said. "I'm going to take off for a while, to try and find something that might help you. I won't be gone long."
Jill already seemed to be half asleep, but she raised her head and made an effort to be clear, enunciating carefully. "If you come back and I'm – sicker, I want you to help me. I'm asking you now, I may not be able to ask you later. Do you understand?"
Carlos wanted to protest but knew that he'd want the same thing if he had the disease. Being dead sucked, but Raccoon was proof that there were worse things.
Like having to shoot someone you care about."I understand," he said. "You rest now. I'll be backsoon."
Jill slept, and Carlos started to load up. Just before he left, he gazed into her sleeping face for a long mo-ment, silently praying that she'd still be Jill when he got back. The hospital turned out to be much closer than he thought, less than two blocks away. Nicholai waited for Ken Franklin eagerly, knowing that the Watchdog's death would mark the beginning of the end game. Nicholai's growing frustration was about to come to an end. If the bastard ever shows up… But no, he was com-ing, and then Nicholai would be on track again. He checked the corner window of the office he'd chosen, overlooking the dark, empty street – also his escape route, if the sergeant turned out to be troublesome – fra-me tenth time in half as many minutes, willing the er-rant Watchdog to hurry. Nothing had gone as he'd planned, and although he'd made the best of it, Nicholai was losing his patience. The search for Davis Chan had been spectacularly un-successful; Nicholai hadn't even caught a glimpse of him during the two days he'd stayed in the city – and twice more the elusive soldier had managed to avoid a confrontation after filing his reports, sending Nicholai running all over town. Nicholai had also been planning to head to Um-brella's "water treatment" facility to get rid of Terence Foster earlier in the day, but he'd been further side-tracked in a wild-goose chase – he'd seen an uninfected woman near the RPD building, a tall, Asian-American woman wearing a tight, sleeveless red dress and hold-ing a gun like she knew what to do with it. She'd slipped into the building and was gone. Nicholai had searched for nearly four hours but hadn't seen the mys-tery woman again. So, all three of his targets, still alive. He'd been able to collect some Watchdog information, at least, uncov-ering a couple of private lab reports on the strength of the average zombie, but he'd had enough, enough eat-ing cold beans out of cans, enough sleeping with one eye open, enough playing big game hunter. By his count, he'd killed four Beta Hunters, three giant spi-ders, and three brain suckers. And dozens of zombies, of course, although he didn't really count those as wor-thy of note, not anymore. They just kept getting slower and stickier; Raccoon already smelled like a giant cesspool, and it was only going to get worse as the virus carriers continued to decay, turning into great sludgy piles of malodorous stew.
I'll be gone by then. After all, Franklin will be here any minute.
After two days of unmet objectives, Nicholai had come to see Franklin's appointment at the hospital as something solid, something he could hold on to – a sure kill. And as he'd passed long, solitary hours im-mersed in the growing chaos of uncertainty, the death of Ken Franklin had become extremely important. Once he was dead, Nicholai could blow up the hospital; once the hospital was destroyed, Nicholai could hunt down Chan and Foster, and then he could leave. Every-thing would fall into place as soon as he killed Franklin. Even as Nicholai embraced that thought, he heard footsteps out in the hall. Heart swelling with pleasure, Nicholai took his position by the window and waited for Franklin to find him. The cluttered office/supply room was on the fourth floor, not far from where he'd killed and hidden Dr. Aquino.
Come along, Sergeant…
When the Watchdog opened the door, Nicholai was leaning casually in the corner, arms folded. Franklin was carrying top of the line, a 9mm VP70, and he had it trained on Nicholai's face in the blink of an eye. Nicholai didn't move. "You're not supposed to be here," Franklin said coolly, his voice deep and deadly. He stepped further into the room, not taking his gaze – or the semiauto-matic – off of Nicholai. Time for him to find out who's smarter. Anyone could stage an ambush, but it took a certain amount of intelligence and skill to make one's opponent willingly walk into one. Nicholai feigned a mildly surly nervous-ness.
"You're right, I'm not. Aquino should be here, but he stopped filing reports yesterday. They thought he was too busy, working on the antiviral, but I've been looking since last night and can't find him." Nicholai had actu-ally filed several status reports with Dr. Aquino's name on them since killing him, to keep up appearances. "Who are you?" Franklin asked. He was tall and well muscled, with very dark skin and rather delicate-look-ing wire rimmed glasses. There was nothing delicate in the way he looked at Nicholai, however. Nicholai uncrossed his arms and lowered them very slowly. "Nicholai Ginovaef, U.B.C.S… and Watch-dog. I was tapped to check things out when the doctor went AWOL. You're Franklin, right? Have you had any contact with Aquino since your arrival? Did he talk to you about where he was going to secure the sample, or give you a combination, or a key?"
Franklin didn't lower his weapon, but he was obvi-ously confused. "Nobody told me about any change in plans. Who did you say sent you?"
This part was a risk. Nicholai knew the names of four men important enough to have made changes to Umbrella's agenda, and chances were good that one of them was Franklin's contact and would already have
informed Franklin."I didn't say," Nicholai said. "But I guess it's okay totell you… Trent called me in on this."
He'd chosen the man he knew least about, even after all of his careful research, in the hope that Franklin wouldn't know anything about him, either. Trent was an enigma, skulking around the other top brass like some cryptic shadow. Nicholai didn't even know his first name. It worked for the sergeant. Franklin lowered his weapon, still wary but obviously willing to believe.
"So, you couldn't find Aquino? What about the vac-cine?"
Nicholai sighed, shaking his head and then deliber-ately looking to his left, a space hidden from Franklin's view by an overstuffed shelf. "No sign of the doc… but this was his office, and there's a wall safe back here. Do you know anything about getting one of these things open?"
Nicholai knew that Franklin did – on his personnel file, safecracking was listed among his skills. Nicholai didn't give a shit whether or not Franklin could open the safe; what mattered was that to get to the safe, the sergeant would have to turn his back on Nicholai.
I'm better, better at this than Aquino or Chan or this fool, and this will prove it. I'd never turn my back on anyone, ever. Yes, that would be unworthy of him… Franklin nodded, bolstering the VP70 and walking toward the corner where Nicholai stood. "Yeah, I know a little. I can take a look at it, anyway." Nicholai nodded briskly. "Good. I was starting to think that I was going to be stuck here for a while." "Maybe that's for the best," Franklin said, stepping past Nicholai to a small safe inset behind the shelf.
"With the way things are going out there, I've been thinking about holing up someplace for a while, wait-ing until things die down a little."
Nicholai took a silent step closer to Franklin, eyeingthe VP70's unsnapped holster. "Not a bad idea."Franklin nodded, frowning at the keypad. "Chan isdoing it, he says the info will still be there tomorrow sowhy not, right?"Davis Chan!
Nicholai held very still, deciding – and then he darted forward and snatched up the 9mm, not willing to dance for what he wanted. He shoved Franklin at the same time, pushing him off balance, using the split sec-ond of his recovery time to sight the heavy handgun.