(Trap)
The Umbrella Corporation VTOL pilot was too seasoned a veteran to fidget or drum his fingers or indeed betray any sign of nervousness or impatience. That didn't mean he didn't feel both; he just kept it bottled up inside. Only his eyes continually flicking to the digital clock mounted on the dash gave him away. That clock was counting down the last few minutes before he was to assume the mission had failed; releasing him to return to Japan.
The prospect didn't thrill him, home though it was and the safety of the huge buried Umbrella complex. It would be up to him to report the failure to Chairman Wesker. Not that he had anything to do with the failure but the Chairman had taken to venting his anger on the bearers of bad news. The fact that he tended to calm down and even seem regretful at his actions did little good for the unfortunates who found themselves summarily ejected from the facility onto the zombie haunted streets of Tokyo.
His stern upbringing and training kept him from uttering a sigh of relief when the communication officer in the rear compartment buzzed him to announce the electronic signal had been received indicating success and calling for pick-up. Taking just a moment to swallow hard he fired up the engines and directed the other man to forward the news to Umbrella central. The second VTOL followed his lead and both ships lifted and then transitioned to level flight.
The two aircraft took the nap of the earth route to their destination, depending on Night Vision goggles and terrain mapping radar to keep them from hitting a tree or a handy hillside. An alarm beeped as they approached the target area and both craft pulled up sharply. The wings and engines rotated, returning them to hover as every pair of eyes searched for the visual signal.
"On your left Leader," the other pilot reported. The first pilot nodded as he saw the strobe flashing from the open field to the South of the small town. He began to descend. Seeing figures in Umbrella combat uniforms lying down and being tended to he directed the second ship to pick up the wounded.
The moment he touched down two figures sprinted for the side door, which the crew chief was pulling open. One carefully carried two small bundles while the second dragged a teenaged girl who, in spite of being gagged and having her hands tied behind her, was putting up a tremendous struggle. Good, he nodded again. Not only had the primary targets been acquired but one of the secondary ones as well. He activated the intercom and told the commo officer to flash that news to Tokyo immediately.
From force of habit he kept scanning the area. He saw the pocket of black clad men collapsing on the two aircraft in proper fashioned. His ship lurched as the troops assigned to it poured on board. He reminded himself to allow for the weight of the new passengers and then smiled. All total the trio wouldn't amount to more than fifty kilos.
The ship lurched again, this time almost violently. He corrected and tried to determine the problem. The swaying became even more pronounced.
"Go see what the problem is," he instructed his copilot. The man nodded, unstrapped and disappeared back into the passenger compartment. Shortly there was one more shake and the vehicle steadied. The helmeted copilot returned and sat back down.
"What in the world was all that shaking?"
The figure raised its visor revealing a face that bore no resemblance to his copilot.
"Sorry, it was just us taking over the aircraft."
As seasoned a veteran as the pilot was his mouth dropped open and he took moments to react, moments that he didn't have. He tried to toggle the switch that would take him off intercom and allow him to broadcast a warning. He failed, never even seeing the silenced pistol in the man's hand.
"Damn," Sam Treadwell muttered as he pushed the pilot's body away from the controls and set the VTOL down. The former Umbrella pilot hated to shoot another aircraft driver and had hoped to take him alive. But no chances could be taken of allowing him to send a warning. He cut the engines as the craft settled. He peered at the second VTOL and was relieved to see it copying his actions. VERY relieved as the other hijacking pilot was his wife Claire.
Back in the passenger compartment Carlos and Alice looked at each other and heaved mutual sighs of relief. The hastily contrived ambush seemed to have proved successful. They now had two aircraft capable of getting a raiding party to Japan and the chance to slip that party inside the Umbrella Headquarters complex.
Three Umbrella personnel had survived the attack. Assisted by Stan Grafton who was trained in Intelligence the former police officers Jill and Chris questioned them. At the same time Sam and Carlos conducted a search of the electronics aboard while Alice and Claire inventoried the very useful cargo. Neighbors were helping Bill Henderson stack the equipment they took from the bodies of the attackers. Ammunition and weapons were always welcome, the former even more so nowadays although Alaska had an ammunition factory running, mostly producing the commonest combat calibers. The night vision goggles were extremely prized, There wouldn't be any more of those made.
The sextet of friends got together with Stan and Bill and sat down in the town hall meeting room where Sam and Stan had spread out the documents taken from the bodies and the helos along with the notes they had made from the interrogation of the surviving attackers. Surprisingly K-Mart and Angie joined them, K-Mart informing her mom that neighbors were watching the twins, neighbors who were motherly, armed to the teeth and ready for anything.
"What do we have?" asked Alice.
"Nothing good," replied Chris. Stan nodded in agreement and took over.
"Let me summarize what we know for sure and then tell you what we, that being Chris and Jill and I, extrapolate from this stuff and the interrogations."
A murmur of agreement swept the room.
"Okay then. We know for sure that Albert Wesker, Chairman of Umbrella Corporation specifically ordered a mission with the objective of kidnapping Alice and Carlos' infant children. The purpose of this was to obtain them in order to study the secondary effects of the T-Virus and what, if anything, might be transmitted by DNA. If any of the abilities that are the result of your bonding with the virus on that cellular level could be passed on to your children it might be possible to pass them in other ways."
"A secondary consideration was the taking of both K-Mart and Angie. K-Mart, who is listed as 'the teen female residing with Project Alice' was targeted because of the belief that she might also be your birth child Alice. And Angie, described here as 'Angela Ashford also known as Angela Valentine' because of oh her exposure to the virus and the antivirus too."
Stan looked around the room. "There is one piece of really encouraging news in these descriptions, especially that of Angie."
"What's that?" Angie herself asked.
"The part calling you 'Angela Valentine'. This suggests to me that Umbrella is depending on Satellite intelligence and perhaps also monitoring radio and other open-air communications. I believe they are short on 'Humint' or Human Intelligence."
"You mean informants." said Chris.
"Informants, spies, undercover operatives, whatever. If Umbrella HAD them they would know that Angie has been 'Angela Redfield' for over a year now, ever since Jill married Chris and he formally adopted her. Therefore there's no informant here in the village or up at State, at least in the records office. So whatever is decided here will not be likely to get back to Wesker."
"But you believe we will have to decide something," Alice said.
"Yes." Stan took a deep breath. "Here's where we get more into reading between the lines. From what we, that is Sam, Chris and I, can tell if this mission is a failure that is NOT going to be the end of it. The extraction of the children is a top-priority and as we all know from Umbrella's history nothing stands in the way when they decide that."
Alice nodded. "Look at what the damn fools did in Raccoon City after all. You would think that when you lose your entire staff AND the team you send in to find out what happened you would slow down for a moment and go 'Let's think this though'. But no, they reopened the hive. Then they thought they could contain the infection to Raccoon City. Nope, wrong again. So what next? They STILL act as though it s all temporary setbacks; that the original goal is worth pursuing even after they've destroyed ninety-nine percent of the world."
A murmur of agreement swept the room.
Stan nodded. "So you can be sure they'll try again. Not only for the infants and for the teens but also because they, or rather he as I assume Chairman Wesker is at the heart of it all, thinks that this action would make you Alice, 'Project Alice' as the papers put it, agree to return to the Umbrella fold."
Alice shook her head. "Obviously I..."
"We," chorused Carlos, Chris and Jill."
"WE," Alice smiled at the correction, "would do anything for our children but at the same time we know that Umbrella would have no intention of living up to any bargains it made with us for the safe return of the babies, K-Mart or Angie."
"So where does that leave us?"
"Mikey is running some serious computer security sweeps to make sure our landline phones are not compromised." Heads bobbed again. The former computer guru of Claire's convoy was one of the very best and he had much more equipment than of old and that he had was vastly more state of the art than what had been in his vehicle. "Once that's confirmed I'm getting in touch with Guard HQ and have them check with the remaining NORAD network. Those radars need to be on high alert for a secondary force while we figure out what to do."
"I don't think that there's any doubt as to what we need to do," Alice said firmly and calmly but everyone could see the anger building in her eyes. "It's time we take the fight to them."
"More than that," added Carlos. "I think it's past time we settle Umbrella's hash and that of Chairman Albert Wesker once and for all."
(To be continued)