It had taken HUNK the better part of two weeks to track down Kennedy and his little tag-along. After crossing the border into England the man had laid low, keeping quiet, paying in cash, and leaving no paper trail. HUNK had to give the kid credit; he was good at what he did, as well as an excellent marksman and hand-to-hand combatant. But he was also predictably loyal, having moved in the same closed circles for years. So instead of scouring the English countryside when Kennedy had gone underground, HUNK had staked out who he knew would be the contact Leon was waiting on: Claire Redfield.
Not that HUNK could blame the man, the younger Redfield was an intelligent, cunning, feisty little piece of ass that any red-blooded male would want to sink himself into. She hadn't been that much easier to track down, but eventually the convenience of setting up a permanent base of operations had been their undoing. It would be interesting to know how much Wesker would pay to know the location of the Redfields, but HUNK had a feeling that for a matter so personal Wesker would want no help from someone like him. The man was very particular when it came to revenge.
Two days prior, Claire had made a phone call to Leon arranging a meeting in the tourist sea-side town of Boulogne-sur-Mer in northern France. Kennedy and his counterpart had arrived three hours ago on a bus with a handful of other English and American tourists looking very much the part of the young couple on honeymoon. From his vantage point up on the old stone city wall HUNK had been watching their every move.
Leon felt nervous, his guts twisting in his belly, his eyes scanning every face for something too-familiar or out of place. Today was the day; he'd hand off Lise and the sample and his part in all of this would be over. There would be a lot of questions to be answered when he got back to the States, but he was still in pretty high favor with the higher-ups. He should have been ecstatic to get back, but his breakfast turned to a hard rock in his stomach when he thought of returning to his usual routine. It wasn't the Government interrogations that had him concerned either, it was the bleak prospect of the rest of his probably unnaturally short, lonely life.
Neither of them had slept the night before, too anxious about the day to come to even sit still for long, constantly bumping into each other in the enclosed space of the room. At 3 a.m. they had finally fallen into bed together, anxieties spilling over into a physical need.
He had peeled off each scrap of her clothing with reverence, burning the sight, the smell, the feel, the taste into his memory. He had worshipped her, tasting and stroking her everywhere, swallowing every moan deep into his chest.
She had cupped his face in her hands, her thin fingers sunk into his hair, their eyes locked, as he tortured her with slow, even movements inside her. She had pleaded him with her body, arching harder, faster against him until he'd had to grip her hips in his powerful hands to keep her still. He wanted her to remember this, to think of him as the man who had both saved and destroyed her life, to know him as the best fuck she ever had. She'd come with an agonized groan that had gone right through his lungs, into his blood, her muscles clenching so tightly she practically milked the jizz right out of him.
Neither of them had said anything for a long time afterwards, laying in the dark, just listening to the other breathe, Leon's head pillowed on her soft breasts. Eventually the sun had come up and they'd packed up the few things they had and made for the bus stop.
They still had two hours before the drop off, but the coach only ran twice a day from the small town they had been staying in. To kill some time they had walked up to the old city, separated from the more modern developments by an ancient stone wall, unconsciously making their way closer to HUNK's position. As they veered off onto one of the quiet residential streets HUNK made his move, he couldn't afford to wait much longer before Leon's contacts arrived.
Leon kept moving, pulling them deeper into the twisted labyrinth of the streets; his instincts, which had always done right by him in the past, were going haywire. A light-haired man was strolling down the street towards them, dressed too casual to be a resident, yet walking too quickly to be a tourist. Leon was trying to lead them back to the lower level of the city, where there would be more people around, but it was hard to navigate with so many dead-end streets.
They came to an intersection and Leon stopped a moment to look around. The man who was following them was gone, melted into the growing shadows of the evening. Leon was about to step out into the street when he felt a sudden, sharp, searing pain in his leg. He looked down and clamped a hand over the growing red stain on his thigh.
He'd been shot.