Well, and don’t forget that you stood a good chance of ending up in prison if you hadn’t changed your occupation. . . .
“Jill. I see that you managed to find the time to come in. Illuminate us with your brilliant insight. What have you got for us?”
Jill met Wesker’s sharp gaze evenly, trying to seem as cool and composed as he was. “Nothing new, I’m afraid. The only obvious pattern is location. . . ” She looked down at the notes she had on the stack of files in front of her, scanning them for reference. “Uh, the tissue samples from underneath both Becky McGee’s and Chris Smith’s fingernails were an exact match, we got that yesterday . . . and Tonya Lipton, the third victim, had definitely been hiking in the foothills, that’d be sector—seven-B. . . ” She looked back up at Wesker and made her pitch. “My theory at this point is that there’s a possible ritualistic cult hiding in the mountains, four to eleven members strong, with guard dogs trained to attack intruders in their territory.”
“Extrapolate.” Wesker folded his arms, waiting. At least no one had laughed. Jill plunged forward, warming to the material. “The cannibalism and dis-memberment suggest ritualistic behavior, as does the presence of decomposed flesh found on some of the victims—like the killers are carrying parts of previ-ous unknown victims to their attacks. We’ve got saliva and tissue samples from four separate human assail-ants, though eye-witness reports suggest up to ten or eleven people. And those killed by animals were all found or found to be attacked in the same vicinity, suggesting that they wandered into some kind of off-limits area. The saliva traces appear to be canine, though there’s still some disagreement. . . ” She trailed off, finished.
Wesker’s face betrayed nothing, but he nodded slowly. “Not bad, not bad at all. Disprove?” Jill sighed. She hated having to shoot her own theory down, but that was part of the job—and in all honesty, the part that most encouraged clear, rational thinking. The S.T.A.R.S. trained their people not to fixate on any single path to the truth. She glanced at her notes again. “It’s highly unlikely that a cult that big would move around much, and the murders started too recently to be local; the RPD would’ve seen signs before now, some escalation to this kind of behavior. Also, the level of post-mortem violence indicates disorganized offenders, and they usually work solo.”
Joseph Frost, the Alpha vehicle specialist, piped up from the back of the room. “The animal attack part works, though, protecting their territory and all that.” Wesker scooped up a pen and walked to the dry-erase board next to his desk, talking as he moved. “I agree.”
He wrote territoriality on the board and then turned back to face her. “Anything else?”
Jill shook her head, but felt good that she’d contrib-uted something. She knew the cult aspect was reach-ing, but it had been all she could come up with. The police certainly hadn’t come up with anything better. Wesker turned his attention to Brad Vickers, who suggested that it was a new strain of terrorism, and that demands would be made soon. Wesker put terror-ism on the board, but didn’t seem enthusiastic about the idea. Neither did anyone else. Brad quickly went back to his headset, checking on Bravo team’s status. Both Joseph and Barry passed on theorizing, and Chris’s views on the killings were already well known, if vague; he believed that there was an organized assault going on, and that external
influences were involved somehow. Wesker asked if he had anything new to add (stressing new, Jill noticed), and Chris shook his head, looking depressed.
Wesker capped the black pen and sat on the edge of his desk, gazing thoughtfully at the blank expanse of board. “It’s a start,” he said. “I know you’ve all read the police and coroner reports, and listened to the eyewitness accounts—“ “Vickers here, over.” From the back of the room, Brad spoke quietly into his headset, interrupting Wesker. The captain lowered his voice and continued. “Now at this point, we don’t know what we’re dealing with and I know that all of us have some . . . concerns with how the RPD has been dealing with the situation. But now that we’re on the case, I—“ “What?”
At the sound of Brad’s raised voice, Jill turned toward the back of the room along with everyone else. He was standing up, agitated, one hand pressed to the ear piece of his set.
“Bravo team, report. Repeat, Bravo team, report!”
Wesker stood up. “Vickers, put it on ‘com!” Brad hit the switch on his console and the bright, crackling sound of static filled the room. Jill strained to hear a human voice amidst the fuzz, but for several tense seconds, there was nothing.
Then. “... you copy? Malfunction, we’re going to have to . . ”
The rest was lost in a burst of static. It sounded like Enrico Marini, the Bravo team leader. Jill chewed at her lower lip and exchanged a worried glance with Chris. Enrico had seemed . . . frantic. They all lis-tened for another moment but there was nothing more than the sound of open air.
“Position?” Wesker snapped.
Brad’s face was pale. “They’re in the, uh, sector twenty-two, tail end of C ... except I’ve lost the signal. The transmitter is off-line.”
Jill felt stunned, saw the feeling reflected in the faces of the others. The helicopter’s transmitter was designed to keep working no matter what; the only way it would shut down was if something big hap-pened—the entire system blanking out or being seri-ously damaged.
Something like a crash.
Chris felt his stomach knot as he recognized the coordinates.
The Spencer estate.
Marini had said something about a malfunction, it had to be a coincidence—but it didn’t feel like one. The Bravos were in trouble, and practically on top of the old Umbrella mansion.
All of this went through his head in a split-second, and then he was standing, ready to move. Whatever happened, the S.T.A.R.S. took care of their own. Wesker was already in action. He addressed the team even as he reached for his keys, heading for the gun safe.
“Joseph, take over the board and keep trying to raise them. Vickers, warm up the ‘copter and get clearance, I want us ready to fly in five.” The captain unlocked the safe as Brad handed the headset to Joseph and hurried out of the room. The reinforced metal door swung open, revealing an arse-nal of rifles and handguns shelved above boxes of ammo. Wesker turned to the rest of them, his expres-sion as
bland as ever but his voice brisk with au-thority.
“Barry, Chris—I want you to get the weapons into the ‘copter, loaded and secured. Jill, get the vests and packs and meet us on the roof.” He clipped a key off his ring and tossed it to her.
“I’m going to put a call in to Irons, make sure he gets us some backup and EMTs down at the barri-cade,” Wesker said, then blew out sharply. “Five minutes or less, folks. Let’s move.”
Jill left for the locker room and Barry grabbed one of the empty duffel bags from the bottom of the gun safe, nodding at Chris. Chris scooped up a second bag and started loading boxes of shells, cartridges, and clips as Barry carefully handled the weapons, check-ing each one. Behind them, Joseph again tried hailing the Bravo team to no avail.
Chris wondered again about the proximity of the Bravo team’s last reported position to the Spencer estate. Was there a connection? And if so, how? Billy worked for Umbrella, they own the estate—
“Chief? Wesker. We just lost contact with Bravo;
I’m taking us in.”
Chris felt a sudden rush of adrenaline and worked faster, aware that every second counted—could mean the difference between life and death for his friends and teammates. A serious crash was unlikely, the Bravos would have been flying low and Forest was a decent pilot. . . but what about after they’d gone down?