Prologue

The job has been pretty tough the past few weeks with murders all around New York city and no evidence to be found. The crime scenes were cleaned of properly and even the bullets who had been the death of those poor men and women had been taken out of their lifeless bodies. The police had no clue whatsoever to who the murder could be but one thing was for sure; the killer only targeted people who had a foot in shady businesses. The Russian Maffia seemed to be pretty popular. Three out of five victims had something to do with them. So that's why NYPD called us in and I was assigned the case. Nothing has bugged me so much as this one. The murderer didn't leave anything behind. Either he or she was very disturbed with a touch of some kind of perfectionist-mania or this was a professional.

Chapter 1 The clue

I woke up by a buzzing sound nearby. I jerked up from my bed hysterically in a sitting position looking all around me in the dark room, just waiting to see some kind of disturbed, rotten and deformed human being launching at me out from the shadows. A zombie. Raccoon City still held deep concern in me. The nights hasn't been so much better even if it happened seventeen years ago. I was a grown woman now. Fully capable of defending myself and I was really good with firearms.

I was an agent for god sake!

But still, it didn't matter. Whenever Raccoon came into mind I become the scared little Sherry I were that night.

My phone was ringing and the clock showed itself to be 2:11am.

I grabbed my phone and cleared my throat.

"Birkin." I answered and were greeted by my partner's low pitched voice.

"Sorry to wake you, but there is a man here who thinks he knows something that could be of use to us. According the maffia murders." he paused for a while.

"I thought you maybe wanted to be informed." he finished and I could almost hear him smile at the other end.

"Thank you, Richie. This is really good. Keep him warm, I'll be there in ten minutes." I chimed, full of hope and put my phone back on the nightstand. I yawned loudly and got out of bed immediately.

I picked up a blue tank top and put it on and then I searched for my black jeans and my midnight blue blazer.

Coffee would be great right now but I'll have to wait for it until I get to work. This is too important.

I grabbed my bag and hurried down to my white Volvo v40. The night was cold, it was early September so it shouldn't be that cold. I shrugged and opened my car and got in. The car was pretty new, I got it last year for my 28th birthday from one of my closest friends Claire Redfield. She was like a sister to me and has been ever since Raccoon. Without her, and without Leon of course, I wouldn't have gotten through all this alive. It sounds cliché but in my case it was the truth.

Richie greeted me in the hall which was positioned along the heart of NYPD's building. We were going to take left to get to the interrogation room but Richie led me to the right. I stopped in my tracks and stared at his back.

"Umm.. Richie?" I asked and pointed to the left which also had a plate on the wall in black who said 'interrogation rooms 1-10'.

He shook his head.

I followed him trough the corridor and he opened the door on the left of it.

I entered first and locked eyes with a man in his late 60's with grey slicked back hair and a navy blue suit. He smiled and showed of a pair of yellowing teeth and in between them where his right canine tooth should've been was a gold tooth.

His brown eyes wasn't warm and welcoming as my first thought was, the longer I stared the colder they became. I recognized this man somehow but I couldn't put my finger on it.

Richie cleared his throat as he closed the door and turned to us.

"This is our man." He whispered. The man gave him an irritated look.

"I think she can see perfectly who I am, mr Klimer." the man answered. I stared with my mouth agape. This was one of the presidents' old bodyguards. Yuri Olivar. The one that the president came closest with, but when he shattered his knee when he was on vacation with his wife he was useless to the president. But every performing he did back then, Olivar was always there. Why the hell had he come here and how come he knew anything about this?

Richie pulled out a notepad and a pen and I knew I was going to be the one to do the interrogation. That was how it was mostly of the time. According to Richie, we had more success when I did the talk than when he did. He was best at noticing small details which I usually miss. We make the perfect team.

I sat down in the chair across from Olivar and but my bag on the table between us and then I smiled at him warmly. It was kind of a procedure for me. The smile was there to put the people at ease so they just could spill the beans without any complications. I worked in three out of ten cases.

"What do you know?" I asked.

He smiled back hastily and inhaled deeply only to exhale very slowly.

"Just a little bit. But maybe it could help. Do you know anything about a man named Renko? Piotr Renko?"

I nodded a bit too greedy I realized, but I really wanted some answers especially when Oliver mentioned one of my fathers companions. Renko was just like dad, a slave to Umbrellas cruelty and who died in Raccoon just like my father.

"Renko?" Richie asked looking up from his notepad at me.

"A scientist who worked with my father, he is buried beneath the ruins of Raccoon City with him too."

Olivar shook his head slowly making me glare at him in confusion.

"Renko isn't dead. Who told you that?" I glared at him even more, incapable to answer his question even if I knew the answer to it. I have come to known that every scientist working in the Umbrella lab during the outbreak was either dead because of the virus that got out or dead by trying to fight one of the zombies or the other creatures that they created. Karma, if you ask me.

Richie was still peeking at us behind his notepad, he searched my features for any vulnerability. He knew what talking about Raccoon did to me.

I must've been looking terrified or at least giving my feelings up a bit because Olivar was now talking in a very low tone, almost like you do to children when something bad has happened.

"Should I continue?"

I nodded, sitting up straight in my chair and deciding that whatever Olivar was going to tell us it was more important than my feelings.

"He is here. In New York. He is working on something, and god bless me that I don't know what because if I did I would end up just like them."

My mouth was agape again. I couldn't believe what he just had been telling us. I had thought that Renko was dead for at least fifteen years.

"Them?" Richie asked behind his notepad.

"The victims. All shot but the bodies didn't had any bullets in them, right?" he sounded a bit scared.

"That is classified." Richie answered.

"Classified my ass!" Olivar exclaimed angrily.

"Calm down, sir." Richie warned, putting away his notepad in his back pocket.

Olivar snorted offendedly.

"Do you people know how much I risk by coming here at all? Even if I don't know exactly what that nutjob is doing? All you people can do is at least be open to me as I am to you."

I nodded ignoring Richie's irritated gaze when he picked up his notepad.

"That is true. Do you know who the killer is?"

Olivar laughed loudly, the laugh booming between the walls making it even more mockingly.

"Of course I do."

I stared, shocked by his honesty. Interrogations were never this easy.

"Give me his name." I demanded, my fists clenched.

"I have some demands before I am going to tell you anything."

I was so happy to have him cooperating so I nodded fast, locking eyes with him.

"Get my wife, my children and grandchildren out of America."

"That is some demands there, mr Olivar. How about you tell us the name of the killer and then we will see if it is something we can work with?" Richie said interrupting.

"I am not going to tell you anything before they are out of the states. These guys are not anyone you play with, do you understand? They are dangerous. They would kill everyone I love just to see me suffer. And when they have had their fun with watching me suffer they would come, torturing me physically to death."

"We'll do it." I said without thinking, I just wanted these murders to stop. I wanted everyone in this city to feel safe. And I wanted to be the one to make them safe.

"Birkin, a word?" Richie asked, opening the door.

"Of course." I said, excused us and followed Richie out in the corridor closing the door behind me.

He was tense. You could tell, because he always got red in the face when he was. He scratched himself in the head, his black locks bouncing a bit. Then he locked eyes with me warily, his black eyes filled with worries.

"You are taking things to far, Sherry. Are you sure you can handle this? Because I am not. Things like this needs to be talked over with our boss. You know that. We can't decide this on our own, we can get fired." he was serious and I felt a bit ashamed. He always talked so highly of how good I was in the interrogation room and now I just took things over my head. But that was because it was kind of personal now. I didn't want men like Renko (and my father..) walking the streets of New York. Not any streets for that matter. They need to be locked up in a nut house. Not even a prison would do it for them.

"I can do this. I am sorry, I know I took water over my head. But how about you make the call and I try to get something more out of him, like how the Russian maffia is involved?" he smiled a toothy smile.

"That's my girl. But don't get your hopes up. We don't make everyones demands. He can be a freud."

"I know that, Richie. I know that." I finished and opened the door to return to my interrogation.

"Take it easy, Sher." Richie said disappearing to his office.

Of course I would take it easy from now on. This was just a one time thing.

I sat down on the chair I sat on earlier giving Olivar a smile before I started talking.

"My colleague is making the call. We'll see what they say. But now I would like to know if you know something more except for the name of the murderer. It would be of great help to us. For example, how exactly is the Russian maffia involved?"

"Involved? How do you mean?" he asked.

"There are five victims but three of them has connections to the Russian maffia, the other two has at least some drug possession on them so my conclusion was that this murderer only went for people with shady businesses."

Olivar laughed again, but this time it was more of a cry of desperation.

"Haven't you listen to me at all, girl? These people got killed because they knew something they shouldn't know about Renko's work. This has nothing to do with money, drugs or weapons."

I nodded, processing the information. I thought from the beginning that this had something to do with drugs or money. I could've bet on it. But I trusted Olivar's words. He seemed so scared.

"How exactly do you know this?"

I catched him of guard. He probably wasn't thinking that I would ask about his involvement. He nervously drummed his fingers on his fat knees. Yeah, I totally hit a spot.

"Mr Olivar, please answer my question." he leaned in close to the table, looking at me a bit jumpy.

"Ms Birkin, please. I am willing to give you priceless information. I am putting myself in grave danger, my family too! So please, whatever I might've done I am paying the price now."

I was willing to let that go for now. His information was very important to us, to me. If I would come under my radar once again, then I wouldn't be so sure I would play the good cop part.

Richie came in with our superior, mr Tyler. Richie looked a bit nervous, Tyler looked tense and irritated as always. A man in his fifties who thought dying his hair would make him look younger but it most definitely did not. His jet black hair wasn't even his real color, I knew that because of the photos I've seen of him when he was in his twenties when red brown hair draped his head. He was skinny too, a little bit too skinny and the years didn't do him good on the weight part either.

"Mr Klimer here told me that you are willing to exchange information on the city murders for safety for your family, is that right mr Olivar?" Tyler asked him suspiciously.

He nodded and cleared his throat nervously.

"Your demand will be filled. We have a squad who will take you to the safe house. Another squad will pick up your wife, daughters and grandchildren."

Olivar looked relaxed for once now. He exhaled and closed his eyes for a while. When he opened them he looked at me, not Tyler but at me.

"Rosa Terrence. She is a hired gun. She has an apartment in Queens."

I got on my feet, thanked Olivar and then hurried down the corridor down to the computer room to find this Rosa's exact address. This foul woman would soon be behind bars and it felt so good. It made me feel complete somehow, catching bad guys.