STARS secret hideout, Marseille, Paris 0122 hours, 22-10-2004 "Wake up!" whispered a frightened voice. Jill Valentine opened her eyes, and immediately rolled onto her feet from the makeshift bed, wheeling around in the direction of the voice. It was that of her long time friend Claire Redfield. "What is it?" Jill replied back, looking at her watch. "They're here, we need to get out of here now!" Claire whispered. "How many of them, armed?" "More of them than we can possibly handle, all armed with P-90s. We need to move!" Jill quickly put on her boots, and flicked the lever which opened the emergency exit. With that the two of them fled down the secret tunnel and into the small raft, starting the almost silent engine and steering out to sea. "How did they know?!" Jill exclaimed. "Your guess is as good as mine," Claire replied, breathing slightly heavily. "An informer?" Jill nodded, "we had better tell Chris and the others." Claire took the emergency mobile phone from a compartment in the raft and inserted one of the many SIM cards and dialled Chris's number. It took a while to connect to the international carriers. But finally there was a reply. "Hello, Manuel Rodriguez speaking." "The sun is shining." Claire said, reciting the secret code from the movie the Shadow. "Yes, the ice is slippery." Came the reply. "Claire, how are you?" "I'm still in one piece. Listen Chris," Claire said seriously. "I don't know how they just did it, but Umbrella discovered where Jill and I were. They've raided our hideout." "Shit, are the two of you okay?" Chris asked, sort of panicked. "We're fine, we escaped down the tunnel, I don't know our exact co- ordinates, but we've taken the raft, and we're still in the city limits of Marseille. Where can we find you?" "Listen carefully Claire, this is what I want you to do." "I'm listening." "I want you to go to Genoa, North Italy. Call me when you reach there, and make sure that you do it under the cover of nightfall." "Okay, will do. By brother." "Bye, good luck and Godspeed." Claire ended the call, took off the cover to the phone, removed the SIM card and smashed it into a million little pieces which she scattered into the ocean.

The Umbrella Corporation mercenaries

"Sir, I think that we've missed them." Came a computerised voice from inside a fearsome looking mask. But the person who the mercenary was talking to didn't reply. "Sir?" came the voice again. "I heard you the first time soldier. Stand down." Came the irritated reply. "But they left only recently, the heat signature seems to indicate that they left only minutes before we arrived." "Alright soldiers, I want you to use your infrared sights, search the hideout, I don't want a single square centimetre left unsearched." It was only a few more minutes before one of them said "found something!" "Where soldier." The soldier then raised a finger to his lips, and whispered, "shhhhh... in the cupboard." The captain looked at the cupboard through the infrared glasses. He was right, something was in the cupboard. "Stand down soldier." The captain ordered, cocking his FN-Herstal P-90 and approaching the cupboard. "When I open the door, perforate them, got it!!!" The captain then opened the door of the cupboard, and immediately the sound of gunfire broke the silence. But it wasn't the gunfire of a P-90. The captain opened his eyes and blinked in horror, before looking inside the cupboard. The bastards set a booby trap!!! He looked in the direction of his man. It was him that had been riddled full of holes. "Soldier!!!" the captain said unsympathetically before kicking the soldier onto his front, still conscious. The last thing that the unknown soldier heard was "I told you to fire first!" before the last litres of lifeblood drained into a messy stain on the carpet.

Authors note What did you think? I should have my next chapter posted in about a week. On the point of corrections, please point out grammatical BUT NOT SPELLING mistakes. Next chapter is the reunion in Genoa. Please read and review Thanks VV