DISCLAIMER: I own nothing from the RE franchise except my own characters, crazy plot ideas for this work and perhaps the science trivia that might pop up at any point.
2. Leon
Medellín, Colombia -July 14th, 2019.
"This is getting old," Helena groaned, putting down her binoculars. "This isn't what I signed for when they gave us this mission."
Leon scoffed in agreement. The mission had taken longer than they had planned. It had seemed simple at first, a routine mission. Tracking down potential firearms and biological dealers, catching them in the act, and stopping the illegal trade, but one thing led to another. The gang they had been chasing turned out to be a facade for an even bigger picture, and Leon and Helena ended up tracking various people across different countries. From what they knew so far, the real perpetrators of the illegal trafficking bartered more than just weapons. The group seemed to include several political figures of power.
Right now, the duo was staying in a hotel in Medellin. The two agents had been watching a man named Pablo Villega, a member of a known cartel in the city. The man had several houses, but he was currently staying in a small apartment in front of their building.
"You should ask Hunnigan to let you talk to Claire," Helena said, stretching her neck. "It's been three months since you have seen your wife, Leon."
"I don't want to put her at risk. Even if Hunnigan secured the line, the call could get tracked," Leon sighed. He did miss Claire, but until they didn't know more about this group, he didn't want to risk it. As far as he was concerned, the group could have ties with Mobius, and he didn't want them to find any link to her.
Helena sighed and rubbed her face.
"The guy hasn't moved in an hour," she sighed. "Talk about a healthy lifestyle..."
Leon sighed and shook his head. If the agent said he wasn't getting a little fed up with the mission, that would be a lie. But the target was important, especially since the last conversation he had with his brother-in-law.
Leon's mind flew back to an afternoon months ago. Chris had turned up unexpectedly at his office at DSO headquarters, which was strange since his brother-in-law rarely popped around the building. The man looked irritated.
"We have to talk," he said gravely, closing the door behind him.
Leon raised an eyebrow and put down the documents he'd been reviewing. The agent watched Chris look around his office before finally sitting down and looking at the photo that rested on Leon's desk.
Leon's office had never had much decoration. The agent had never tried to decorate it until Claire, posing as Clara at the time, took upon herself to make his office more livable. Claire no longer worked with the DSO, so she no longer shared offices with him, but the traces of her presence were still present even two years later. The carnivorous plants now had a new companion: Leon's wedding photo that rested on his desk.
"Never picture you as someone who would keep a photo on his desk, Leon," Chris said, looking at the photo.
"Makes me tolerate paperwork," Leon answered. "So, what did you want to tell me?"
"Do you still remember the shit from two years ago at Blackwell?"
"How would I forget it?" Leon answered. "I am still pissed that we didn't catch Mobius, but what about it?"
"You told me Wong said that Mobius was more than a terrorist group. That it had members in high power positions, right?"
Leon frowned. Yes, that was what Ada said, but he wasn't sure how trustworthy the information was. Why was Chris bringing this up so suddenly?
"Yes, she said that," Leon nodded, "Why are you bringing this up now?"
"Because Wong might have been right," Chris said. "Mobius found Claire even though she was undercover, right? At that time, we thought there was a mole on our side."
They did. Leon even suspected Ada, but they never found out who the mole was, so all that was nothing but speculation.
"What if more than a mole Mobius was among us all that time," Chris said. "What if they are still here?"
Leon looked at Chris with a frown.
"That wouldn't make sense," Leon said. "If that were true, they would have come for her long ago."
"That's what worries me," Chris said, crossing his arms. "I suspect the BSAA might be tangled with Mobius."
"What?"
"BSAA has been losing its sight. I started noticing since the Dulvey incident," Chris replied. "I'll be looking into that, but until then, it's better if Claire stays away from the BSAA. I have to leave for a mission in a few days, but I already talked to Jill and Barry so that they keep an eye on things. You should do the same with your side."
Leon frowned even more. If Chris's thoughts were correct, someone in the DSO could be part of Mobius, too. Then Claire would be at risk.
"I am supposed to leave on a mission, too," Leon said gravely. "Maybe I should ask for a reassignment..."
"Claire mentioned it," Chris nodded. "I know what you're thinking, but I don't think you should. If they haven't tried to approach Claire for the past two years, I don't think they will now. If you ask for reassignment so suddenly, they might suspect. You should go."
"I don't know how long it will take me," Leon said. "Claire would be alone until I finish..."
"Yeah, I know that, too," Chris said. "But you can do the double job while you are at it. I got a tip that there's a cartel in South America that might have ties to Mobius. You can see if you find something while you are there. You look on that side, and I'll look on mine. Mobius will have to fall..."
"Seems like he's moving," Helena's voice brought Leon back from his flashback. The agent turned to the window and saw Pablo Villega standing from his seat and walking to the door. He returned some minutes later, accompanied by a woman in a gray dress.
"Who's that?" Helena mumbled. "I can't see her face..."
Leon picked his visors and tried to focus on the woman's face. However, she was in a position that it was impossible to see her from their angle.
"Nasty bastard," Helena sighed. "I swear if he gets touchy, I refuse to keep watching. I'm not here to watch some disgusting cheap porn..."
Leon snorted.
"You won't have to," he told his partner. "Don't worry..."
"Holy shit."
"What?"
"She shot him..."
"What?"
Leon looked out the window. Pablo Villega lay dead with a bullet in the head in the armchair. The woman in the gray dress appeared through the window and jumped onto the safety ladder with an agility that Leon found very familiar. Suddenly the woman turned to look at him and winked at him.
"Ada?" he said, surprised.
"Not this again," Helena groaned.
Helena and Leon went out the window as well and began the chase. The buildings in the area were low and close together, so jumping from one roof to another was not very difficult. Ada had the advantage over them, but Helena and Leon weren't going to let the spy get away again.
It was not the first time they had run into her while on the mission. The woman had already executed two of the men they had been monitoring. On both occasions, Ada had managed to slip away. However, Leon would not let it happen again.
"Ada!" Leon shouted. "Stop."
Ada stopped at the edge of the building. The woman turned with an enigmatic smile.
"I thought we were over the gun-pointing," she said.
"I'll stop pointing it at you when you stop giving me a reason, Ada."
"Dutiful, Leon, of course. How is your wife?"
"Why should you care about that?" Helena asked.
"You're right," Ada nodded. "I shouldn't, but you should. She's still Mobius's favorite doll."
"What do you know about Mobius?" Leon asked, "Why are you killing their men?"
"Their men? Oh, you mean them?" Ada replied innocently. "They are not Mobius's men. They are people that Mobius used and no longer needs. I just got paid to silence them before you got them to talk."
"So now you assassinate people, too?" Helena asked.
"Assassinations were always part of my job," Ada replied. "As long as I get paid, the rest is unimportant."
"Where's Mobius now?" Leon asked.
"I told you before, didn't I? Mobius is everywhere..." Ada replied. "And if I were you, I would keep an eye on your wife. They are just waiting for the right moment to go for her. Take that as advice from a friend..."
"What do you...?"
Ada chose that moment to drop the flash grenade. The glow from the bomb momentarily blinded both agents, and it took them a few moments to recover. By the time they could see again, Ada had already escaped, leaving no traces.
"Shit, I hate that woman," Helena cursed. "She escaped again, now what?"
"If there's something I know about Ada, that's that she is never easy to catch," Leon sighed.
"She is with Mobius then?"
"I don't know if she is," Leon replied, putting his gun back into the holster. "But I can say that at least someone from that organization hired her to do this. She knows more than she told us."
"Do you think what she said is true?" Helena sighed. "They still haven't given up on Claire?"
"I have reasons to think she is telling the truth. Come on, let's head back. We have a corpse to check."
By the time Leon and Helena returned to the scene, they found the place on fire, and the local firefighters were trying to prevent it from spreading to the surrounding apartments. The two agents looked on with a certain air of defeat as the flames consumed everything in their path.
When the fire finally went out, Leon and Helena entered the room to see the damage. Any documents of interest would have burned to the ashes by now, but they hoped that maybe they could still find something. The search seemed hopeless until Leon found a USB memory stick hidden in a bag behind a loose tile in the bathroom. The explosion had caused the tile to fall, exposing the hole. Its location had prevented it from getting damaged by the fire.
The agents returned to their hotel room so that they could look through the USB drive's contents. The drive contained several video files without titles. Helena clicked on the first one and what they found was horrible. The video was a recording of a small village getting massacred by large and non-human creatures. The people screamed in terror, and the screams mixed with roars and growls from the monsters. The remaining videos were from the same event but taken from different angles. One of the videos even showed how the monsters killed and devoured a group of native people. Leon felt disgusted.
"Are those BOWs?" Helena asked, looking at Leon.
"Yes, they are..."
"Don't they look like...?"
They looked like the monsters from Blackwell's maze, yes. But the resolution of the footage was not good enough to be sure. If those creatures were indeed alpha forms, then Mobius was definitely behind it.
"We need to find out what that place is," Leon said.
Leon pulled out his phone and waited for Hunnigan to answer. His eyes kept staring at the horrific scene on the laptop's screen.
"Leon, is everything ok?" the operator answered with concern.
"Hunnigan. Yeah, everything is fine, but Pablo Villegas is dead."
"What?"
"Ada killed him, too."
Hunnigan let out a tired sigh.
"He was our last lead in the case of the Cartel of Malabrisas," Hunnigan said. "This will complicate things, Leon."
"I know," Leon replied, pacing around the room. "Whoever was founding the cartel found out we were after them and sent somebody to clean up before we could get to the group."
"That's impossible. No one should know about this mission. It was completely classified."
No, no one should have known. Still, Ada had killed each man before he could catch and question them. Someone had hired her to do that, and that someone had known Leon and Helena were on their tail.
"We found something in Villega's apartment. I'm about to send you some files. The contents are horrible, but I need to know what that place is. Do you think you can figure that out?"
"Uh, it will depend on what the image offers, but yes. I can try."
"Excellent. It might be another testing ground from Mobius, so we must find where it is."
"Testing ground? Mobius? Mobius hasn't appeared in the last few years, Leon. Are you sure?" Hunnigan asked.
"No, it's only a gut feeling, but the contents in that footage looks just like how Blackwell did..."
"I understand. I'll do what I can to find out."
"Thanks, Hunnigan," Leon said.
"Have you talked to Claire?"
Helena snorted. The woman leaned back on her seat and crossed her arms, staring at him with a smirk.
"Claire?" Hunnigan's voice turned less formal. " I was wondering when you'd ask about her. Yes, I spoke to her yesterday. She told me to tell you that you better succeed in this mission. Otherwise, she won't forgive you for taking that long."
Leon snorted. That sounded just like Claire.
"Yeah, she can punish me all she wants when I get back. How is she?"
"She sounded well. She told me she was about to start on a project with the WHO."
"The WHO? That sounds important," Leon said with a frown. He knew Claire was a consultant for the WHO, but this was the first time he heard about her working directly in their projects. "What project?"
"She didn't say anything, but she seemed pretty cheerful."
"Then, it's probably another of those weird virus studies," Leon scoffed. "Ok, as long as she's fine."
"Do you want me to pass her a message?"
"Yeah, tell her I'll be home soon."
"Ok, I will."
Leon put his phone back into his pocket as Helena laughed behind him. Leon had already grown used to the teasing he received ever since formalizing his marriage with Claire. It had been the best decision he could have taken, and all of their friends agreed, even if they enjoyed teasing him with uncharacteristic behavior.
"So, she's on another mad scientist adventure?" Helena asked. "I'd say I am surprised, but I am not."
"So it seems," Leon replied. "A request from the WHO."
"She might not officially work in any organization, but Claire sure knows how to stay busy."
"That's Claire, always working for the greater good," Leon snorted. "She tries to fix up whatever Chris and I break."
"That has to be challenging," Helena sighed. "Well, that aside, what are we gonna do now?"
"For now, I think we have no choice but to wait. The Cartel of Malabrisa is no more now that Ada eliminated Villegas. This situation pretty much leaves us on a dead end."
"So we gotta start over again," Helena sighed. "When will we go home?"
"Not too soon, I am afraid," Leon sighed.
Leon looked out the window and sighed as he watched the night scenery. He could picture Claire sitting in her office, working diligently on whichever project she had.
A wave of homesickness hit Leon, something that had never happened before, and a comment his father made some time before echoed in his thoughts: when you get a family, your thoughts will always be at home, no matter where you are.