Funeral Games – Chapter 11

By the time Sherry made it to the Moscow airport, she had been travelling for nearly 72 hours straight. She'd caught connecting flights on three continents, an itinerary laid out for her by her mysterious connection, presumably to shake anyone who might be tailing her.

In Seoul-Incheon, some actors in Korean period clothing had been walking around. Sherry joined a bunch of other tourists and got her picture taken with them. All she could think about was how much Jake would have loved it; he got a real kick out of stuff like that. But Jake would have to wait to see it.

She wondered, not for the first time, if Jake was even going to want to speak to her after this. He certainly had a right to be angry, but, try as she might, Sherry couldn't work up any real concern at the prospect. Jake had been sullen around her before, and cranky. She had certainly seen him lose his temper, but he had never been really furious with her before, and she could not imagine that he ever would be.

All of that might just be her sunny optimism talking, or jetlagged fuzzy thinking for that matter, but Sherry couldn't waste a lot of time preoccupied with Jake right now. She had a job to do.

In the pocket of her blazer was a key she'd been carrying with her since DC. She found the bank of airport lockers it belonged to and opened one of the doors. There was a single white envelope inside. Sherry tore it open and shook out the piece of paper, but the words typed on it blurred and swam before her eyes.

Sherry pressed her temples hard with her fingertips, and when she looked again she could finally make some sense out of the note. It gave her the coordinates of a private airfield outside the city, and the number of a private plane that would be taking off from there in three hours.

She'd been planning to check into a hotel and get a few hours of real sleep before moving on, but when it started to look like that wasn't going to be possible Sherry didn't curse under her breath, or even pause to feel frustrated. She walked out to the curb and hailed a cab to take her out to the airstrip. It was a long drive, and she dozed a little in the backseat, but she kept jolting awake every time they went over a pothole.

There were about a million potholes on the way.

The airstrip was just a couple of metal hangers, glittering coldly in the winter sun, bright and colorless and seeming to evince no heat at all. A woman in a red pea coat and a pair of black woolen leggings was waiting out front of one of the maintenance bays. Sherry made an effort to pat her hair back into place and smooth some of the wrinkles out of her clothing before she approached. This woman was her employer of sorts, and this was something like a job interview.

The woman came forward to meet her. She was no longer blond as she had been when Sherry had first met her, but the way she held herself was unmistakable. She was wearing stilettos, Sherry noticed, though she looked like she was as comfortable in them as Sherry was in her old hiking boots.

Sherry could be sure it was the same woman who had approached in the park because there couldn't have been more than a handful like her on earth. Sherry lifted an arm to wave as she came close, but then a gust of wind lifted the woman's hair away from her face and Sherry froze. One hand was still at the level of her shoulder, frozen in an unconvincing salute, while the other slid into the lip of her shoulderbag, brushing against the switchblade hidden in it.

The woman's smooth brow furrowed momentarily in confusion. "What's gotten into you?"

"Carla Redames" Sherry managed to gasp, jerking the knife free. "I'm taking you into custody."

Briefly, the lines on the woman's forehead deepened, and then they disappeared completely. She laughed a little, huskily. "I've been trying to run damage control, but I suppose that's going to be haunting me for a while still. I know how it looks, but Carla and I are nothing alike."

She held out a gloved hand. "Ada Wong."

"Oh…" Sherry felt herself blushing, and she shoved the knife back into her bag, out of sight, before taking Ada's hand. "Of course you are."

"I don't recall us having met formally before."

"I've heard your name around," Sherry said.

"From Leon?"

The question took Sherry off-guard, and she couldn't hide the slight frown that tugged at her lips. "No. I don't think so."

"That's a shame," Ada said briskly, but if she was disappointed by the news, she didn't show it in the slightest. "Come inside, out of the cold. It's time you met your partner."

"Wait…" Sherry said, but Ada had already turned to go into the hanger, moving briskly and efficiently, even in those improbable heels. She got such a lead on her that Sherry had to jog a few steps to catch up. "Why do I need a partner? You haven't even told me why you called me out here."

"Yes," Ada said. "I know. But we had to make sure you were serious about this first."

She went through the open door in the side of the maintenance shed. It was dark inside and it took Sherry's eyes a long time to adjust. She was still seeing little more than shapes when Ada launched into an introduction.

"Sherry Birkin, meet Manuela Hidalgo. Manuela and I have been working on this project for about six months now. It was her idea to invite you in."

Sherry finally managed to blink back some of the shadows and get a good look at the young woman next to Ada. She was a few years older than Sherry, though not a hardened veteran or anything. She looked nice enough, if not a little aloof. The kind of person who made bad first impressions.

"Me?" Sherry said. "Why?"

She was looking at Manuela when she said it, but she didn't make a move to answer. After a couple seconds of awkward silence, Ada picked up the slack. "You two have a lot in common, and I think you'll find a lot to talk about. At least the trip out there won't be boring."

Sherry's first impulse was to be pleased. No matter how strange the context, it was nice to be told that people had been saying good things about her. However, her second impulse, an overwhelming one, was to be suspicious.

"I didn't come along to take the place of an in-flight movie," she said.

Ada smiled indulgently, the kind of smile that might have been reserved for baby's first word if she were more inclined towards motherhood. "We were also very impressed with your track record at the NSA."

"I also didn't come along so you could have the NSA's rubber stamp on your operation here."

This time, Ada laughed in genuine and pleasant surprise. "You've got answers for everything today, don't you?"

"Our intelligence tells us that Umbrella used to have an engineering lab in Chita, past the end of the commercial rail line." Manuela spoke for the first time. Though her tone was clipped and professional, there was a hint of something childlike in her voice, as if she were much younger than her looks might suggest.

"We have reason to believe that it was one of the bases of operation for their old satellite network. One of the few, if not the only one, to escape repurposing in the company's last days. I know gaining the satellite system has been one of your primary projects with the NSA. Would you be more comfortable if I pretended ignorance?"

"No…" Sherry said quietly. "I guess that makes sense."

"Manuela and I both have our own reasons for wanting to get a peek at the data that might be stored on that network," Ada said. "But we're operating as free agents. No offence, but we both have our reasons for not wanting to trust the NSA, or any other acronym for that matter."

"I understand," Sherry said. And then, "Okay. I'm in."

She felt like Manuela was looking at her strangely, though she couldn't figure out exactly what had changed about her smooth, impassive, doll-like face. Sherry thrust out a hand towards her to seal the deal.

Manuela gave her the tips of her fingers. She was wearing a black leather glove on her right hand, but she had taken its pair off her left and thrust it into her pocket.

"Are we like Charlie's Angels now?" Sherry asked.

"Not quite," Ada said. "I won't be joining you save as support."

Sherry couldn't keep her lips from tightening into a disapproving line. It was a subtle shift in her expression, but Ada picked up on it.

"Don't give me that look," she laughed. "I've done my time in the field. One of the perks of getting to be my age is that you don't have to jet off to Siberia at a moment's notice. Besides, I have some things to tend to back in the civilized world."

"We'll be fine on our own," Manuela said shortly.

"Of course you will be."

Manuela touched Sherry's arm with her gloved hand. Sherry couldn't say for sure if it was intentional or not, but she only got the sleeve of her coat, missing the skin underneath entirely.

"Let's get moving," she said.

Sherry glanced once more at Ada, who was watching them closely but not making any move to offer assistance. If she was going to get ordered around, she would much rather it have come from the older woman, but Ada didn't seem like she was going to go along with it any time soon.

Manuela took her out the back of the hangar. There was a single-engine plane sitting on the frosty runway. The pilot, gruff and taciturn and bundled-up, was hosing down the wings with a de-icing compound.

He glanced at them when they came out. "Pyatnadtsat minut," he said. Fifteen minutes.

They stood around on the ice for what felt to Sherry like a lot longer than that, watching him work, steady and unhurried.

Eventually, Sherry said, "So, how did you get into this line of work?"

"The usual way, I suppose," Manuela replied. "I was scouted young by several agencies, but only three approached me directly. I could already speak some English, so I accepted the Americans' offer. At the time, I was only fifteen so they wouldn't put me on field work, but they enrolled me in one of their accelerated programs for future agents."

"I don't think that's the usual way," Sherry said.

"No?" Manuela said. She seemed genuinely, albeit only mildly, surprised.

"I think it usually involves more college internships and having well-connected parents."

"Then perhaps my case is exceptional," Manuela said.

"Yeah, I'd say so. You must be—" Sherry hesitated. "Sorry. I don't mean to pry."

"It's all right," Manuela said. "I was infected with T-Veronica when I was eight years old. I'm an asymptomatic carrier. I don't mind talking about it. I don't think there should be a stigma surrounding such things."

"No, there shouldn't," Sherry said, but she didn't volunteer anything more, and she didn't intend to. Manuela may have been some kind of new, enlightened, self-actualized T-virus survivor, but that didn't mean Sherry was about to let herself be guilt-tripped into airing all her dirty laundry.

She glanced towards the hangar, but Ada was gone, leaving behind nothing but a smattering of high-heeled tracks in the snow. When she looked back, the pilot was beckoning them over. It wasn't exactly too late to turn back, but it was too late to spend a lot of time worrying about whether she should turn back.

Sherry hefted her bag onto her shoulder. Manuela was already ahead of her, moving quickly, decisively, but without hurrying, to climb on board the plane. Sherry followed her. It was warm in the cabin, almost stifling. Sherry shifted in her seat, slipping out of her winter clothes, while the pilot ran the pre-flight diagnostics.

He didn't give them any warning; he didn't say a single word. The plane pulled away from the hangar and taxied down the empty runway. It took flight swiftly, smoothly, silently without a single jolt or whisper.