Chapter Twenty-Seven: Seek And Destroy
Ruslan Yuskevich was fascinated to the point of distraction.
He had been watching the group of survivors since they had first appeared on the Hawkeye's monitors, tearing down a street in a bus covered in a murder of infected crows. He had been following their frantic flight through Raccoon City ever since, looking on with a morbid kind of amusement as they stumbled into and fought their way out of at least a half dozen situations that surely should have meant the end of all their lives. They suffered losses, they would have had to be superhuman not to, yet every time he thought the entire group was about to be consumed by the B. they proved him wrong. He was almost rooting for them.
Almost.
Yuskevich knew it was a group of corpses he was watching through the Hawkeye's screens. They would all meet the same fate as the other residents of Raccoon City before long. He had been watching them fall one by one for hours now.
In that time, Yuskevich had used the International Computer Recognition Utility to compile detailed backgrounds on each of the survivors. He had done so out of a strange kind of amused curiosity and discarded files as each member of the unusual little band fell to the creatures who now ruled Raccoon. His eyes flicked to a screen to the right of his seat in the Hawkeye's command deck and perused the data scrolling across the monitor for what must have been the hundredth time.
For the most part, the backgrounds of the survivors who so intrigued Yuskevich were rather pedestrian: a photographer, an Army Ranger – not one, Yuskevich noted, doing double-duty as a BONES infiltrator – and a handful of U.S. Marshals. There was nothing in any of their files that the operation commander found particularly interesting.
The man the marshals were sent to escort and the young doctor though…
Yuskevich tapped a few keys and brought up a split-screen comparison of the information the ICRU had amassed on Doctor Sarah Waxer and Drake Lincoln.
The girl was, by anyone's definition, a certified genius. Her IQ score alone put her in the top 5 percent of intellects in the world. She had graduated from medical school as a teenager and had more degrees in virology, microbiology and biochemistry than most of the researchers who had developed the T-Virus. What she lacked was field experience. Yuskevich wondered how much of her appointment as the lead researcher on the Raccoon outbreak was due to the CDC wanting to have an X factor on the ground and how much was due to prodding from Umbrella to get the agency to offer up a sacrificial lamb.
The Corporation would have wanted to control the government's response to the crisis lest it learn the truth about who was really responsible for this disaster, Yuskevich mused quietly as he scrolled through Sarah Waxer's file. Perhaps they saw the girl as a shield of sorts. With her in play, the CDC could be seen to be taking action in sending one of its most brilliant minds to handle the problem while Umbrella's Inner Circle could rest easy, believing her greenness would prevent her from ever discovering that the virus had been manufactured.
If such was the case then Umbrella had underestimated Doctor Waxer at its peril. True, the girl didn't have the full picture, but Yuskevich had overhead enough on the Hawkeye's audio sensors to know she now strongly suspected the virus that had destroyed Raccoon City was manmade and not the product of Mother Nature's darker side.
The BONES commander turned his attention to the other profile on his screen. Drake Lincoln; now there was a man with a story to tell – one that was long, troubled and violent. The man was an ex-Delta Force operator who had seen action in conflict hot-spots around the world. From desert dunes to arctic tundra, Drake Lincoln had spilled blood and piled up bodies. According to his file, he was a technical specialist but his unit had been used almost exclusively for wet works so it only made sense that he had found work as a hitman for a faction of the New York mob after being discharged following a disastrous operation that saw most of his squad returned to the U.S. in body bags. Based on the various police records the ICRU had been able to pilfer, Lincoln had been as prolific a killer for the mafia as he had been for the American government.
At least until he decided to turn himself in to the authorities here. Yuskevich still hadn't been able to piece together the man's motivations for making that decision. The ICRU had given the BONES commander access to Drake Lincoln's confidential psychological evaluations from his time in the military and they hardly gave him the impression the man was the type to surrender. One had even described him as "a man of solid focus". Those didn't seem like words one would use on a man who would roll over because he felt the law closing in or tired of being pursued. Then again, who could understand every nuance of human behaviour?
Not that it matters anyway, Yuskevich reminded himself, thinking it a waste that the pair would meet a bloody and violent end within a few hours. They were a scientific genius and gifted killer. Any other day and the two would have been on the top of Umbrella's recruitment list. It's a pity but life is made up of small tragedies.
"Sir!"
Rennings' urgent shout drew Yuskevich's eyes from the data feed on his monitor over to the man's work station. The communications officer was frantically stabbing at his keyboard as he called up an image from one of the Hawkeye's cameras onto the main screen. It was tinged in hues of green from the night-vision lens and showed a group of a half dozen men closing in on the band of survivors that had so enthralled Yuskevich for the last few hours.
"Looks like we've found our missing U.B.C.S. unit," Rennings explained, his fingers flying over the keys as he cleaned up the signal. Some of the graininess to the picture vanished, bringing details of the uniforms the men wore into greater detail. Yuskevich was able to make out the octagonal Umbrella shield crossed by a pair of swords on the back of each man's vest: The logo of the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasures Service. "And it looks like they've found our group of plucky survivors."
Yuskevich watched as the U.B.C.S troopers moved forward in a loose circle, converging on Doctor Sarah Waxer, Drake Lincoln and the rest of their companions. It was clear to Yuskevich that the mercenaries were trying to surround the survivors who seemed completely oblivious to the presence of the six heavily armed men. For a moment he wondered if the U.B.C.S. unit had mistaken the group for a pack of virus carriers and would do him the favour of shooting first without bothering to ask any questions at all. Yuskevich dismissed the thought as soon as it occurred to him. That would be far too convenient.
A moment later, his doubts were proven correct as the mercenaries lunged out of the tall grass and disarmed the survivors without firing a shot. Yuskevich grunted sourly. Expecting to be disappointed did not stop one from being disappointed.
"Is Sergeant Kuznetsov down there?" Yuskevich asked as a new thought took root in his mind, one that sent tendrils of apprehension creeping into the back of his mind.
"Running facial recognition now," Rennings replied, his fingers dancing across his keyboard. "Analyzing and…bingo! He's down there alright." The communications officer punched in a sequence and the picture on the main screen zoomed in on one of the mercenaries. Despite the pea soup colour to the image he could make out the ugly scar that divided a face that was all hard edges almost entirely in half. Sergeant Dmitry Kuznetsov stood speaking with Doctor Waxer and whatever he was saying made the young woman's shoulders sag visibly.
He knows things.
That knowledge sent the vines of apprehension curling even tighter around Yuskevich's brain. Unlike most of the other U.B.C.S. troopers who had been included in Operation Watchdog, Dmitry Kuznetsov was a survivor of a previous Umbrella spill. He had encountered B. engineered with the T-Virus before. He had seen them in action. He knew what they were capable of and despite all that he had lived to tell the tale which he was almost certainly sharing with this group of cattle who had made it further than they had any right too. Yuskevich would like to hear what the scientists who came up with the computer projections about the outbreak's death rate had to say about how long this merry little band had lasted.
He knows things.
Yuskevich watched Kuznetsov address the group of survivors and with each passing second, with each passing word, felt his dread grow. Each time the U.B.C.S. sergeant opened his lips he could be spill another secret, voice another unpleasant truth about what Umbrella really was and, more importantly, how it really made its money. Kuznetsov held the keys to a conspiracy that could land hundreds of thousands of people around the world in prison for a long, long time. Ruslan Yuskevich included.
He knows things!
How had the man ever been allowed to take part in an operation as sensitive as Watchdog? Yuskevich already knew the answer to that question though. No doubt, the Umbrella brass had wanted someone with his experience, with his knowledge. They wanted to see if it would prove an asset against the carriers in the city. No doubt, they wanted to see how their own X factor held up in their little experiment. No doubt, they thought it would provide them with valuable data. No doubt, it was coming back to haunt them now.
What had happened to the man's Watchdog supervisor? How had he managed to take control of his entire bloody unit? He was the one man who could sink the entire ship that was White Umbrella and here he was running around on his own, certainly sharing secrets that one of the biggest companies on the planet had spent billions of dollars and a pile of corpses to protect.
Yuskevich took a deep breath and steadied himself. He was a military commander. He would not give in to dread and frustration. Control and calculation were the tools that won battles and solved problems. They were what cleaned up the messes his superiors were so fond of making.
It doesn't matter, he told himself as he watched Kuznetsov waving the survivors forward, leading them through the snake grass towards a cabin on a hill in the distance. One way or another, they are all going to be dead before the sun comes up.
"Any word from command on an ETA for the Hammer Down protocol?"
The Hammer Down protocol would be what brought Umbrella's morbid science fair in Raccoon City to a close. It would be enacted by the U.S. military but would come on the recommendation from the Joint Raccoon Syndrome Advisory Committee which, while comprised of several health agencies, was still heavily stacked with Umbrella personnel. The committee would inform the military that conventional containment methods in Raccoon City had failed and the outbreak was in danger of spreading beyond the quarantine zone. Committee officials would tell the armed forces that, in essence, a limb needed to be sacrificed to save the body. The army would then order a strike on the city, Yuskevich figured it would either be limited nuclear or extensive napalm. Either way, it would incinerate any trace of the virus and, in turn, any shred of evidence tying the Umbrella Corporation to the disaster.
"Negative," Rennings said with a shake of his head. "Command told us to remain radio silent until it orders Operation Watchdog has been completed. The last orders we received were to continue to watch, record and transmit data."
Yuskevich ground his teeth together. He had been watching, recording and transmitting data for hours. What more did they need to order an end to this sideshow? Everyone was dead. His eyes flicked back to the image on the Hawkeye's main screen. Well, almost everyone.
Yuskevich shook his head. Umbrella might not be ready to close the curtains on Operation Watchdog yet but he still had control of the situation. Signals into and out of Raccoon were still being jammed. Even if the U.B.C.S. troops still had their radio it would do them no good in getting a message out. The Arklay Forest was crawling with B. including the fearsome Hunters. The survivors had their work cut out from them if they were to have any shot at making it outside the city.
Still, they've made it this far.
Yuskevich had not made it to where he was by leaving things to chance. If command wasn't willing to wrap up the loose ends now then he would have to take matters into his own hands. What was the American expression? If you want something done right, do it yourself.
Yuskevich briefly considered using the Hawkeye's cannons to blow Sergeant Kuznetsov's team and Doctor Waxer's group off the map then decided against it. He preferred the subtle touch over blunt force when possible and instead hit a button on his control console. It activated the intercom in the Hawkeye's ready room where two ten man strike teams awaited his orders. They were Operation Watchdog's insurance policy and meant to be deployed in emergencies only but with Kuznetsov revealing God knew what on the ground Yuskevich thought the situation qualified.
"Captain Azulu, come in."
Takimbe Azulu had joined the ranks of BONES after spending time fighting for and against despots in Uganda. He was no stranger to death as his resume contained several campaigns of ethnic cleansing. Yuskevich knew that Azulu, like him, understood certain people simply did not have a right to exist. When told to kill, he killed. He followed orders without hesitation or question. It was partly why Yuskevich respected the cold-eyed African so much.
"Azulu here," a baritone voice that carried only a hint of Afrikaans answered over the speaker.
"Prepare your men for deployment. You will parachute into a clearing two clicks south of our current position and converge on a cabin to the north. Co-ordinates are being uploaded to you now." Yuskevich nodded to Rennings and the American punched a series of keys that would send schematics as well as information on each of the survivors and members of the U.B.C.S. teams to the personal computers carried by Azulu and his BONES troopers. "Your targets are a U.B.C.S. squad at least six men strong and seven survivors of the T-Virus spill. Be advised, the group includes law enforcement and military personnel. All targets are armed with small arms and anti-personnel grenades."
"Roger that," Azulu responded, "Mission designations?"
"Strike teams will be designated as Sweeper. Control will be designated as Overseer."
The need for call signs seemed an unnecessary precaution with the jammer functioning a full capacity but Yuskevich had always favoured caution over bravado. It was what prevented things from becoming…sloppy. This mission is messy enough as it is already.
"Sweeper One copies all," Azulu said. "Mission objectives?"
Yuskevich glanced back up at the screen. Sergeant Kuznetsov had fallen into step alongside the U.S. Marshal who had emerged as the leader of the group of survivors. The two men had their heads close together, clearly locked in deep conversation. Yuskevich scowled. It seemed the two parties had agreed to join forces. You would have saved us all a lot of trouble if you had just shot each other dead.
Captain Azulu's question hung in the air. Yuskevich hit the intercom button.
"Seek and destroy."
