8. Leon and Ada
When we finally found Ada, for a few hopeful seconds it looked like her game was over. We had her where we wanted her and there was nowhere else to run for her unless she was willing to jump over the railing. That was not a good idea – we were on a catwalk beneath the ceiling of a very tall warehouse.
She was standing in one of the places where the catwalk made a curve while Chris and I approached her from different directions with raised guns, forcing her into a corner. We weren't alone in the building; we had heard footsteps and voices very recently. A man and a woman were somewhere near us.
Ada was dressed the same way as back in Edonia: a low-cut blue dress, a red scarf around her neck and black ankle boots. She was carrying a white suitcase this time that she was holding on to tightly with her left hand like she wouldn't give it to us voluntarily. I could imagine what was in there; something that had to do with the C-virus, and we would take it away from her when she was dead.
There were only a few seconds left at best. Now that she was standing right in front of me again, the suppressed feelings of hatred that had driven Chris insane during the last few hours made me sick again. She made an unbelieving, nearly innocent face as her eyes twitched back and forth between Chris and me, but I knew exactly that she had the blood of Finn and the others on her hands, and who knows how many other people she had killed. My index finger was bent around the trigger and itched me to pull it, but I would leave that to Chris.
He seemed to hesitate, but judging by the look on his face, he didn't scruple. I guess he was just considering which part of her body to shoot first, where it would hurt the most.
"Go to hell, Ada!" I heard him say, and then – bang!
But Ada didn't fall over. I was expecting to see her blood splattering the wall, but that's where the bullets from Chris's machine gun went instead. How could he miss from such a short distance?
I aimed my gun at Ada, just in case she would try to flee, which was completely out of the question. A look in Chris's direction and I saw what had prevented him from aiming better: A shadowy figure had kicked the gun out of his hand and was now fighting against him.
I resisted the urge to yank my gun around and back Chris up with firepower. First of all, I couldn't lose sight of that treacherous woman for one second, and secondly, he and the other guy were moving so fast that even a talented sharp shooter like me couldn't shoot without putting Chris in danger. The other man was considerably skinnier than him, though. If only Chris managed to deliver one proper punch...
The stranger grabbed Chris from behind. Chris pulled him over the shoulder and threw him to the floor. He rolled over, got his pistol out and turned around to Chris who was aiming a pistol at him too. A big window allowed for blinding neon lights from the streets of Lanshiang to brighten the hall, and now that he didn't move anymore, I realized who the other man was – and my jaw dropped. What was he doing here? And why was he attacking Chris?
"Leon?" Chris was just as surprised as I was, and Leon, too, didn't look like he had known before who his adversary was. But although they both knew now who they were facing, none of them wanted to be the first to lower his gun.
Then someone else emerged from the shadows: I noticed her red vest before her face came into the light and for a second I thought it was Claire, but that was, of course, ridiculous. When I fully saw her, I distinguished a woman of approximately my age, her hair brown and shoulder-length, a pistol in her hand too, although she seemed unsure who to aim at. No, that wasn't Claire. I'd never seen her before.
"Put your gun down, Chris. She's a key witness, we need her." It was obvious that Leon was referring to Ada and not to the other woman.
"A witness? Are you out of your mind?" Chris started yelling right away. "She's the one responsible for this whole mess! I've lost my whole team because of her, more than once!"
Leon stayed exceptionally calm when he replied. "And I lost over seventy thousand people, including President Benford, the major part of the civilians of Tall Oaks and Helena's sister." The brown-haired woman grimaced. "But Ada is not the one you're looking for. The man behind all this is Derek Simmons, National Security adviser."
National Security... That sounded familiar to me. I was sure I had heard about that organization before. Hadn't I even met someone who worked for it? Hadn't Sherry Moonface Birkin said...
"She's working for Neo-Umbrella!" Chris shouted. "And you were in Raccoon City with my sister when Umbrella was wielding power there. You of all people should know what that means!"
"Ada was in Raccoon City too..."
"Oh, what a coincidence!" Chris yelled at Leon, and for a short moment I feared he was going to shoot Claire's boyfriend in the face.
But now I understood why Leon was protecting Ada Wong – those two had known each other before.
I was distracted for just one second, but that was enough for Ada. The next time I looked at her, a grenade fell out of her hand, and everything happened very fast. I called Chris's name, Leon turned around, the grenade emitted a bright light and we all yanked our hands up to protect our eyes.
When I could see again, Ada was gone. At least she was no longer standing where I was aiming my gun. I looked over the railing and saw her down there, unable to explain how she had gotten there so fast. When she didn't react to my request to freeze, I no longer cared what she meant to Leon and opened fire. She jumped into a red convertible and I started running, looking for the quickest way down. There were steps behind me.
"Helena!" I heard Leon call, and the next voice I heard was of the woman I didn't know: "He's going to kill her!"
Oh yes, that's what I was planning. I didn't know what Leon and Ada had going on with each other, but I didn't care either. That guy must be mad to still defend her after all she had done...
This feels somehow familiar to me. And now, in the evening, sitting on my bed again and staring at the bleak walls of the sickroom, I understand. Claire thinks Leon does not love her anymore... Could Ada be the reason for it? Has he been in love with her ever since the Raccoon City incident? I know it's not an appropriate comparison, as global bioterrorism is much more serious than relationship problems, but today I defended Chris heavily against my brother even though certainly every impartial observer would have agreed with Philip.
This is where love ends up... And Leon's love ended up falling very deep during that fateful night in Lanshiang. Ada drove away in her convertible, we got on a vehicle as well and started a rapid car chase through the entire town. She tried to hide in a building by the harbor, but we followed her there, mercilessly continuing the game of cat-and-mouse. She seemed to enjoy giving us the run-around: Sometimes she lured us into one direction just to wave at us mischievously from the other direction afterward, or she took the elevator up right in front of us and as soon as we'd found our own way upstairs, we saw her run around a story below.
There was something uncanny about the situation, though. It seemed like Ada Wong not only was an expert at getting out of risky situations, but she must have worked as a runway model at some time in her past, considering how quickly she could change her clothes. Sometimes we saw her in the blue dress with the red scarf, next time she was suddenly wearing a red blouse and black leather pants, and another few minutes later she had changed back to the blue dress. I thought it was strange, but Chris didn't seem to notice and I didn't consider it important enough to be brought up. We would arrest her anyway, no matter what she was wearing.
Yes, arrest her, nothing more. While I had run off to stop her, Leon and that Helena woman had persuaded Chris to only take Ada into custody instead of killing her while they set out to catch Simmons who, or so they said, was the real mastermind behind the bioterrorist activities. So we weren't allowed to shoot at Ada anymore. I didn't care what happened to that snake, but Leon was Claire's boyfriend, and for the sake of peace in the house of Redfield I hoped Chris would be able to pull himself together when he faced her again.
An opportunity to find that out arose very soon. We found Ada – in the blue dress – on a balcony without railing where it looked like she had nowhere to go. But we'd already made the mistake of thinking that way and this time I would keep my eyes on her, no matter what happened around us.
"You still haven't had enough?" she asked, apparently talking to Chris, with that same smug grin her face had shown us in Edonia. Other than in the warehouse she didn't play the innocent anymore, but that might have been a ploy to deceive Leon right from the beginning. "You've lost all your men again... Astonishing! With your track records, one should be glad not to be on your team, Chris!"
Chris took a step in her direction with his finger bending dangerously around the trigger. But he could control himself – so far.
Now Ada turned to me. "Say... you appear to be your captain's favorite henchman, considering how long you've managed to stay alive, but don't you sometimes fear he might abandon you to save his own life? That would be so much like him."
I would have loved to shoot her for the way she talked about Chris. But as long as he was able to control his feelings, I would do the same. "I would die for my captain at any given time. And you? Do you have someone who would die for you too?"
The grin disappeared from her face. That had hit home. And I noticed that Chris was now looking at me too. Yes, I was serious.
"Well, if so..." said Ada. "From the look of things, you won't have to wait all that long for your chance to become a martyr."
With lightning speed she raised her pistol, aiming at Chris, the echo of a shot broke the silence of the night... and Ada dropped her gun and reached for her chest with blood coming out of it and dripping on the floor. At first I assumed Chris had shot, but he was just as puzzled as I was. We looked around, but couldn't find the shooter anywhere. Ada stumbled backwards and fell over the edge of the balcony where the railing should have been. When we got there to check on her, she was lying twenty meters below in a pool of her own blood, no longer moving.
"I guess this is it." I looked away from her dead body and examined what she'd left behind. The white suitcase she had been so protective of at the warehouse was still there. On opening it I found a syringe. "What's that?"
"Most likely a variant of the C-virus," Chris assumed. "Make sure you don't touch that stuff! We'll bring it to HQ and let our scientists take care of it."
"Yes, Sir." I put the syringe in one of my vest pockets and went in the direction of the door leading back into the building.
"Piers! Wait."
I stopped dead in my tracks. It was the first time Chris had said my name since I'd found him at that bar. My heart leaped. Now that Ada Wong was no longer a threat, our mission was as good as clear. Maybe Chris wanted to pick up from where we'd left off after that argument... or at least talk about it.
"When you said..." He hesitated. "I mean, when you said that you would die for me... Were you serious about that?"
I turned around slowly, thinking about a way to not make my answer sound too cheesy. I came to the conclusion that it was impossible – sometimes the truth just sounds cheesy, especially when it contains feelings.
"I'd do anything for you, Chris. All you have to do is ask," I muttered eventually. "And sometimes not even that. You can always count on me, I promise."
"Why?"
"Because I love you."
For some reason I didn't feel ashamed looking into his eyes this time. I couldn't read his expression, didn't know what he was thinking. But I knew I was telling the truth, and why should I be ashamed for that? There still was a possibility that he did not remember our time together, but why should that prevent me from calling a spade a spade? If I didn't do that, it might be too late sometime...
"Later, when this is over and we're allowed to leave..." Chris hesitated again. "Then we'll talk about everything, okay?"
I nodded. The thought gave me hope.
His radio rang. He ignored it and looked at me instead. Only when I told him several times to answer the call, he did so eventually.
"Leon, where are you?"
I turned away and breathed in the warm evening air, letting my glance wander about the other harbor buildings. I had a long night behind me and was tired, so I hoped Leon's call didn't mean anything serious. Considering that we were at war, this part of the town was amazingly quiet.
But then I saw something on one of the other buildings. A shadow swinging back and forth between the roofs on something that looked like a thin rope. I reached for my gun automatically, thinking it was a J'avo, but...
"There's something else, Leon." Chris's voice, louder now because he was standing right beside me, got me out of my thoughts. "Something you should know. Ada Wong... She is dead."
Then he hung up and turned to me. "Bad news. It looks like we'll have to postpone our quitting time. According to Leon, there's an antidote to the C-virus. It was found inside the blood of a man."
"But isn't that great?" I said.
"Yes, but Neo-Umbrella has captured that man to misuse his blood for their own purposes. We need to get him out of there first, and we even know him already." Chris took a deep breath like he was trying to kill time, as if there was something else he didn't want to say. "His name is Jake Muller and we met him in Edonia along with Sherry Birkin. He's Albert Wesker's son."
That truly took me by surprise. We ran off and Chris promised to explain everything on the way. I cast a last glance at the roofs of the other buildings once again, but the red blouse and the black leather pants I thought I had spotted were no longer in sight...
