Chapter Twenty One
Best Laid Plans
Jill and Barry leaned on either side of the doorway, watching Hunk swagger around Chris' living room like he owned the place. Twin expressions of disgust glimmered on their features, and they made no effort to hide their irritation. On the other side of the room, Chris and Leon perched on chairs and stared up at the mercenary with wide, admiring eyes, like children gaping at a much-beloved teacher.
"I've said it before and I'll say it again," Barry muttered too quietly for anyone but Jill to hear, "he's totally lost it."
Jill wished she had it in her to disagree. She understood how Chris felt – the frustration, the anger, the desperation to act. She'd felt it herself before. And Claire had been missing for months now, longer than anyone should have to worry about someone they loved. But Hunk? She couldn't help but feel Chris was pinning all his hopes on someone without a shred of decency (or, she reflected, staring at his gaudy Hawaiian shirt, good taste). If Wesker offered him more money halfway through a fight, she had no doubt Hunk would changed sides as easily as he changed underwear. More easily, in fact.
And that was another thing: how the hell was Chris paying for this, anyway? She'd kept a surreptitious eye out for missing items the last few days and hadn't seen any, but it continued to worry her. None of them were independently wealthy, and money was becoming a real problem. The only one with a steady source of income was Barry and, much to his disgust, that came from his wife.
Barry's wife wasn't too fond of any of them these days. Jill didn't like to consider what might happen if she learned she was lending Chris money – or better still, financing his entire operation.
"Now," Hunk announced loudly – far too loudly considering they were in a six foot square room, "here's what we're gonna do. Once we find out where Wesker's got your sister, the five of us..." He glared at Jill and Barry, as though suspecting them of momentary defection. "The five of us, we're gonna storm the place, lay down some massive firepower, and..."
"Okay," Barry broke in with the air of someone who'd simply had enough. "Point of God damn order, all right? Wesker's impervious to massive firepower. Claire isn't. What if we nail her by mistake?"
Chris and Leon both tensed, and Jill felt a wave of gratitude – Barry had brought up the one consideration that might make them listen.
Hunk snorted, then wiped his nose with a filthy bandana. He spat into it, examined the result with something like pleasure, then stuffed the whole thing back into his pocket.
Jill winced.
"Don't think I don't know that, okay?" Hunk glared at Barry and, by association, Jill. He seemed to count them as the same person, an unenthusiastic and potentially dangerous portion of their team. "We don't lay down the firepower at Wesker, we lay it down around him. Not too close, not too far. He'll come to check it out, the bastard. I guarantee."
He was probably right, Jill reflected reluctantly. She couldn't imagine Wesker twiddling his thumbs while someone dropped rockets nearby. He'd have to investigate as a matter of pride.
The phone rang, and Chris leveraged himself to his feet with a sigh. "Right back," he said. He squeezed Jill's shoulder as he passed and she wished she had a comforting word, a supporting smile, anything to offer him. She didn't. Ever since he'd come up with this Hunk idea, he'd been like a dying man running toward his last hope of survival. She hated to think what might happen if Hunk failed, as he almost certainly would.
Jill wasn't a fool. Hunk was good, and she'd admit that; he was unpredictable, unethical, and unreliable, but he was very, very good.
But was he as good as Wesker?
Maybe a part of her still idolized the man, she admitted in a rare moment of raw truth. She'd held him on a pedestal when he was human, seeing him as virtually unstoppable. How much more so now that he'd sold his soul for unlimited power?
To her horror, tears blurred her vision and she forced them back. My God, if Hunk caught her crying! But why did things have to be this way?
Leon's expression had a bit more wariness now, for which Jill was grateful. She was well aware of the irony: Chris and Leon had become staunch allies against her and Barry, with Hunk in between. I hope you're happy, Claire.
An instant wave of guilt. That wasn't fair. It was Wesker. So why did it feel so much easier to blame Claire Redfield's stupidity?
She forced her attention back to Hunk and his low, hillbilly voice – deceptively stupid, she had to admit. She wondered how much of him was real and how much was an act.
"So heavy firepower," he was saying as he lounged against the computer desk. "Wesker's gonna come out to investigate, see? Way I see it, there's two alternatives. Either he comes out on his own or he hauls Carla with him."
"Claire," chorused all three, Leon through gritted teeth. Jill cheered inwardly and wished Chris was here to see it. Who the hell was he talking to, anyway?
"Yeah, Claire, whatever. Anyway, if he comes out on his own situation's easy. One of us tracks back where he came from, rescues the girl. The rest hold him off from a distance. Once Clara... Kara... the Redfield girl is safe, we sound the retreat and get the hell out.
"'Course, he might drag her along. Gets a bit more complicated then. We'll have to give him what he wants."
Jill's throat tightened. "You mean Chris."
He gave her an encouraging smile. "That's right, Valentine. I mean Chris."
"That's enough." Barry shoved away from the wall and glared into Hunk's eyes. Physically, he was the only one of them able to do this without craning his neck. "We have enough trouble with one Redfield missing. We're not sending both into the lion's den."
Hunk cackled wickedly. "Hold your horses, Burton. You're a mistrustful lot you STARS, you know that? I have a better plan than throwing Redfield to the lion, as you put it."
"None of this matters," Jill broke in. "Not unless..."
"Jill," Leon snapped. "Barry." He glared at them each in turn. "Would you let the man finish?"
"Leon, we're..."
"We've been planning and plotting and arguing for months now, and what have we accomplished? Let's be honest. Nothing. Less than nothing! For all we know that monster is raping Claire on an hourly basis, and we're sitting around drinking beer and eating potato chips!"
Jill bit off an angry response. She itched to say that judging from the video, Wesker didn't have to rape anyone; it looked like Claire was pretty willing to lie in his arms. She understood, of course. Wesker could be charming when he wanted to be. She'd nursed a bit of a crush on him herself once upon a time, not that she'd ever tell Chris – or anyone, for that matter.
But if she let that slip, she knew she'd be taking her life – not to mention any hopes of a relationship with Chris – into her own hands. "All right, Leon," she said as gently as she could around a mountain of impatience. "We're listening." She glared at the hulking mercenary, who she had yet to address by name. She didn't know his name, and she refused to call him Hunk.
He grinned as though reading her thoughts, and she noted with disgust that he was missing a tooth. He looked like an Olympic hockey player. "Thanks babe," he said, and Barry had to grab Jill's arm as she went for the Glock at her waistband. "So we send Redfield in and he gets Wesker to let the girl go. Shouldn't be any problem – not her he wants. 'Course, we have to consider that she might not want to go."
"What are you talking about?" Leon demanded in a low threatening voice.
"Well, judging from the video he's got her brainwashed pretty good. Gotta consider the possibilities, Kennedy. Take it easy. Either way. Whether she wants to go or not, one of us swoops in and grabs her. We make sure Redfield's out of range and we drop something real heavy on this Wesker guy. Don't care what it is. High grade explosive, anvil, whatever. It ain't gonna kill him, but it'll put him out of comission for a coupla minutes – long enough for us to get the hell out of there. From what I hear he's fast, but not as fast as a jet." He shrugged expansively. "It won't kill him, but that's not what you hired me for."
Anger simmered and boiled over. "That's fantastic," Jill exploded sarcastically. "Absolutely brilliant. Never would have come up with that on our own. There's just one problem, you creepy little drone. We don't have the first clue where he's keeping her! How do you suggest we solve that problem? Start at the North Pole and work our way down?"
"We won't have to." They spun as Chris walked into the room, a slightly dazed expression on his face. His cell phone dangled from one shaking hand. "Work our way down, that is."
"What are you talking about?" Barry demanded.
Chris blinked at the phone and shook his head as though coming out of a trance. "On the phone... it was Claire."
"Claire?" Leon exploded.
"Did she tell you where she was?" demanded Jill.
"What'd she say?" shouted Barry at the same time.
Only Hunk remained silent.
"She didn't tell me where she was exactly. She didn't know. She said it was cold, icy, windy – winter snowstorm. That should limit us, right?"
"To about five hundred places on the globe, from Siberia to Antarctica," Hunk agreed drily. "Where'd she call from?"
"Wesker's phone."
"What kind of phone? Ground line? Cell?"
"Satellite."
Hunk grinned slowly. "You're kidding. He let her get her hands on his sat phone? What a jerk."
Warning bells went off in Jill's head. Something Hunk had said didn't ring true. But before she could follow the thought, the mercenary leaped into action. "Give me that phone, a computer, and twenty minutes. The rest of you get ready to move. We're going after Sarah."
"Claire," Leon muttered as he jogged after Chris.
Jill hesitated another moment, trying to follow her train of thought out of the station. But Barry tugged on her arm, and everyone was moving... She waited a second longer and gave it up in disgust. Whatever she thought of Hunk and his little plan, she had to get moving. She couldn't abandon Chris, not now.
But she wished to hell she remembered what had bothered her about Hunk's words.