Chapter 16
The Villain
He'd watched them from the fourth floor window. His boot pressed down on helpless, people should know when it's their time to die, Spencer's trachea.
He monitored Redfield and Valentine's clumsy approach with the theme park glee of a child. They battled the elements as much as themselves. An almost irresistible, impatient, urge swelled to meet them on the lawn and throttle the two mismatched lovebirds, and their ill-timed argument, into permanent silence.
Had Christopher suspected? He must have. The man was a danger suction cup. Elephant stampede charge, tusks first, into an unknown without so much as a footnote glance to consider alternatives and weigh consequences.
Like a good Hansel he had followed Wesker's trail right to Spence's estate, and had somehow conned Gretel into taking his always searching for the next sugar rush ride.
Tonight's treat: lead jacketed spice drops. Spence and Valentine eliminated, gone the way of the Dodo. Redfield maimed into submission with a well-placed bullet to his spine. Tagged a murderer, his reputation shredded, Christopher would spend the rest of his Dudley Do Right life mourning the loss of his mobility, and his female Canadian Mounted sidekick.
The way it should have happened. The way he designed it to happen. That is, until Valentine wrangled herself from the brink of obscurity and mustered a Saint savior maneuver. One of the hardest where the hell did she come from hits he'd taken in a very long time. A testament to her determination, and an unexpected four-story plummet reminder that even the most well constructed plans go awry.
He could have easily let the rocks crack her in half and watch the waves slide her broken body into the sea. Instead, he'd done some last second improvisation of his own. He pulled her in tight, wrapped his arms around her, and flipped her on top of him so her back faced the tar black sky.
Three seconds of pure trench coat flapping, terror-filled limbo. Knowing the void rushing by in a speeding streak had a bottom. Seeing the fourth floor sink into the third floor, the third floor collapse onto the second floor, racing down past the treetops, and watching the sandy banks and rocky shoals even out and become almost level with his eyes.
Side? Back? The pain would be the same. Viral enhanced did not take the hot bite out of a bullet munching through his intestines and spitting out torn, jellied cord, or the gut-grabbing sting out of a bone snapped limb. This was going to hurt…
##
What to do about Valentine? Wesker drummed his fingers on the limousine seat. What to do?
##
'Karen?' His eyebrow spiked.
The technician bounded off his chair. An oversize index card cluster fluttered to the floor. 'I'm sorry. I didn't hear you come in.'
No tremble in his voice. No Sir in his greeting. His apology for his lack of awareness somehow not quite apologetic enough.
This particular disrespectful lab coat fool had the name Ryan printed on his badge. Honestly, if he'd seen one young, eager to prove himself technician he'd seen them all. They were a revolving door of staff members-innumerable to count-forgettable as his personal cleaning service. One inefficient Maria after another rolled into a plethora of can't get it right to save their ass Juan's.
'Perhaps, you were too busy dreaming up fake monikers for our test subjects.'
'Just a little something to put her at ease.'
'Correct me if I am mistaken,' Wesker said, fully aware even on the off chance he were wrong there wasn't a soul within a hundred miles who dared make the mistake of pointing out subtle inconsistencies in his logic, 'I believe your job is to stabilize our guest and see she makes a full recovery. She is no use to this organization damaged. You were not assigned the task of creating a false identity, fabricated in some sense of misguided sympathy, and manufactured from smoke blown out the flat backside you call your ass.'
'My bad. You're absolutely right. Won't happen again.'
This particular ant spoke with more bravado than the usual quiver snivelers Wesker detected, and very nearly came to expect, when he dealt with his drones. The casual tone and flippant slang use reminiscent of a certain redhead that kept his brain humming long into a cold night after a scientific formula ceased to light his imagination fire.
What to do about Valentine?
'I've completed a full complement of tests. Ran the whole spectrum. MRI picked up some minor swelling on the frontal lobe. No skull fracture. No blood in the surrounding tissue. Nothing concrete in the scans that would indicate a solid medical reason for her memory loss. Retrograde amnesia. She doesn't remember her name. How she was injured. Basic alphabet. We've done some flashcards. She thinks a circle is a square. Can't put numbers in sequence, but surprisingly recited a recipe for Chicken Kiev. I looked it up. It's spot on, right down to the temperatures she gave.'
What to do about Valentine?
##
They'd crashed onto the beach. His teeth rattled inside his mouth like dice in a Yahtzee cup. Valentine bounced from his embrace. His vision exploded in a crackling white and yellow cluster of stars and spots.
When he woke the raging downpour had become a drizzle. Valentine rested a few feet away. Her face buried in the sand. The incoming rolls of ocean wave pounded down and washed over her backside, sloughing her inch by inch into the churning sea.
The ground had done its damage. His legs splayed at unnatural angles. Left leg flayed to the bone, pearl white femur broken in two halves, the jagged edges pushed up and into stringy bits of torn muscle and tendon.
He gritted his teeth, rolled onto his side, and blinked the wet from his eyes…
##
What to do about Valentine?
Wesker glanced at his watch. Five minutes to lift off. He'd ditched the leather for Burberry tailored wool. Warmer in this weather and easily blended into the executive business class travelers gathered in the early morning dawn on the Biggin Hill private jet airstrip twelve miles southeast of London.
There was plenty of time to deal with Valentine. He'd left her alive, but not exactly well. Technician Ryan, for all his youthful sass, seemed capable enough. She'd be no worse for wear in his hands.
He strolled across the tarmac minus the extra pep in his step that accompanied his stride when he traveled; tired, hungry, ready to leave the monochromatic gray sky and lush green valleys and hilltops of England far behind.
Seven hours until touchdown at Teterboro in New Jersey. Time to rest, recuperate, shift his thoughts and reorganize current priorities.
Kennedy. He owed the agent the introduction of his fists after his jaunt through Spain. A little five-fingered tit for Kennedy's fuck with him tat.
The Captain greeted him with a nod at the top of the ramp and ushered him into the cabin. "We're in the air in four."
His stomach growled to the taunt of fresh brewed coffee aroma, egg, and ham.
"Mind if I join you?"
Do babies cry in a movie theatre? Hell yes, he minded! An all too familiar thorn in his foot leaned around a compliment of beige leather seats, jaws ready to clamp around a bacon strip. "Hope you don't mind. I started without you. It was getting cold. I hate to let a good meal go to waste."
Alex. Today's in-flight entertainment a nudge above Matt Damon movie reruns and half rung below the pleasure of watching the back of his eyelids. Goodbye peaceful solitude. The next seven hours, six with a good tail wind, a waking transatlantic nightmare.
"This is a private jet-"
"One my company, your generous benefactors, pay out the nose to maintain. If you don't like it you can trot yourself over to the nearest ticket counter and fly commercial."
An excellent, irrefutable point. He'd just as soon drizzle his head in honey and stuff it down a fire ant mound than mingle in a crammed seven-forty-seven seated next to a woman who smelled like she wore her Depends on the outside, and an obese body odor magnet tucking generous flaps of flesh down between the armrests. "Of course. By all means, be my guest."
Alex had already made himself at home. Two fingers of Glenfiddich malt in a crystal cut glass. Shoes stripped. Tie loose. Feeding his face full of the breakfast Wesker had ordered, and had very much looked forward to eating.
He'd be damned if he'd stuff himself into a single seat located toward the cockpit and suffer a sore ass and cramped limbs for the duration of the flight. Alex had already helped himself to his meal. He wouldn't give him the satisfaction of robbing him his comfort as well.
Wesker unbuttoned his coat and settled into the loveseat-sized chair opposite his uninvited travel companion. Who knew, maybe he'd get lucky and a great big glob of breakfast jam and toast would save him the trouble of choking the life out of this early morning surprise? One could only dream.
"I can't help but notice you're not sticking around for Spencer's funeral," Alex said, alternating bites of ham and biscuit chunks layered in sausage gravy.
His ham! His gravy! "I sent my condolences."
"Flowers and a card? Black roses? A sincere declaration of your grief? Did you include an apology?"
"I have done nothing that would require an apology on my behalf. You have drawn a false conclusion." Wesker's eyes narrowed. "I resent the implication."
Alex dabbed his lips with a napkin. "I don't give two flying shits what you resent. I want an answer. Yes. No. Did you have anything to do with Spencer's death?"
On second thought, Pee Pants and Fatty Magee might have been a better option than playing seven hours of hot seat with a representative of one of his largest financial backers.
The engines whirled on with a high-pitched whine roar. The aircraft backed away from the hangar.
"Spencer has been dying for years. He needed no help from yours truly."
"There's a lot of speculation surrounding the incident. And while I don't personally hold you above suspicion, rumor has it a BSAA operative by the name of Redfield killed him. A Chris Redfield to be exact. Are you familiar with the man?"
"It may ring a bell."
"Should ring lots of 'em. Redfield was a former colleague, was he not?"
"He was."
"Curious, isn't it?" He reached into a briefcase and tossed a file folder on the empty seat next to Wesker.
Security camera snapshots of Christopher spilled onto the carpet. Black and white date and time stamped images. Russia.
"Intelligence on Redfield lists him more a nuisance than anything else. Odd that a man with such a clear cut right and wrong ethical code would go on a rampage and murder Oswell in cold blood."
"I am not privy to the inner workings of Redfield's mental state."
"No, I suppose not." Another photo plucked from the briefcase. "Are you privy to this woman?"
"Excella Gionne. Lade E. Sultry. Shrewd. A Tricell liason. We have met before, briefly, at a conference in Prague."
"At least you didn't deny it."
"Why should I?"
"Because it might be considered bad taste to play two sides against the middle my scheming partner."
"My interests serve only the Organization."
"You're sure about that?"
Another photo. Kennedy.
"And this man?"
"I have never officially made his acquaintance." Not yet.
"His name is Leon Kennedy. Assigned to a special task force under the guidance and protection of the President of the United States. Caused quite a disturbance while on assignment in Spain. Last seen here." Another photo, this one taken at a distance. "In the company of one Frederick Downing. Does Downing chime those bells?"
"We have not had the pleasure of a formal introduction."
"Really?"
Prague. Café Slavia.
"Uncanny isn't it? This man could be your double. In fact, Albert, I would bet my life that this is you."
"I said formal. This was a casual exchange."
"I see. Two total strangers sharing a Viennese coffee."
The whites of Wesker's eyes flared orange. "Enough."
"No, Albert, it's the Organization who's had enough. We're tired of your games. Stories. Back door deals. Your inability to deliver on your promises."
##
Asleep or awake the conversations always ended the same. She judged him guilty for his transgressions. Wasn't interested in his explanations. Hated him right down to the molecules that made up the very fabric of his very existence. Like brother, like sister. Their blood was sludge.
Roses and sonnets and declarations of feelings he'd learned-if by habit than nothing else-to repress, were not going to tilt Cupid's bow in his favor.
##
'My brother is going to blow a hole right through your head.'
Courage and conviction and a smatter of tears streaked down dirt smudged cheeks.
'He is more than welcome to try. Operative word, 'try', it implies both the possibility of success and failure.'
'He won't fail. This base will be your tomb.'
'Funny,' he grinned, 'how two minds think alike. I was of a divergent opinion it would be Christopher left buried beneath the ice.'
She had backed herself into a corner.
'My only concern is what to do about you when the matter is settled, the debt paid, and his blood congealed cold.'
One hand pressed to the wall on either side of her shoulders. His full weight crushed against her. 'What to do with little broken-hearted Claire Redfield? A newfound puppy slaughtered and a brother erased right before her very eyes. A very traumatic day.'
'Leave me alone.'
'Try,' he said, his lips suspended above hers, 'and stop me.'
##
One kiss, and she'd fought him like a supernatural being imbued with the strength of twenty men…
##
Birkin jingled the keys to the holding cells. Unsteady steps heaved his body in wavy lines. 'Come along, Albert.'
'Perhaps we should call it a day.'
'You know what your problem is?'
No. But leave it to a man who couldn't hold his liquor to enlighten him.
Birkin collided with his shoulder. 'You don't know how to have any fun. You're all work and no play.'
'Five o'clock comes early.'
'Pwshh.' He jiggled a key in the lock. 'Comes even earlier with Annette up half the fuckin' night pukin' her guts out. Morning sickness my ass! There's a misnomer if I've ever heard one…'
##
Birkin undid his belt. 'Me first, or you?'
'I think this has gone far enough.'
'I never figured you for a queer.'
'And I never fingered you a rapist. It's wrong, William. Go home to your wife.'
'She don't know any better. She's ours to do with whatever we like. And right now…' He massaged the bulge in his pants. 'I'd like to pump her full of something more than needles.'
##
Camaraderie walked hand and hand with respect, and after he'd learned of William's dubious nocturnal activities he found the lab, their friendship, the very recycled air they shared tainted with disdain and disgust.
God forbid a higher power should bless a man like Birkin with a daughter, and when Wesker discovered the bump sharing Annette's waistline was indeed a girl Sunday dinner at the Birkin abode became as unpalatable as Annette's charred brickloaf and lumpy mashed potatoes.
##
'You parcel out virus like you're a fucking postman. A crumb here, a morsel there, and it's always on your schedule, at your convenience.'
Alex bent over and shoved his nose in Wesker's face. The space reserved for oxygen and lips of a female variety, upper and lower body.
'Well, I'm here to tell you, not anymore. We want it. All of it. The research notes. The formulas. The serums. Access to test subjects. Everything you obtained in Russia, and whatever else you put your grubby paws on when you went to Spencer's estate.'
Wesker thrust his elbow up. Alex's head snapped back. He lost his footing and stumbled into the breakfast tray table. Egg and orange juice splattered against the oval window.
'I think you will agree I am not particularly fond of ultimatums. Threaten me again and I will rip your kidneys out the back of your skull.'
Alex rolled onto his back. His shaky fingers fumbled in his pockets. He extracted a handkerchief and held it to his nose. 'You're a dead man! Dead! Do you hear me, Wesker? Dead! I'm looking at a ghost!'
Wesker smoothed a crease in his pants. Promises. Promises. If he had a dollar for every time someone threatened him with imminent mortal demise he wouldn't need men like Alex to fund his projects.
##
He dragged her up the muddy slope one agonizing breath at a time. Pull. Stop. Breathe. Pull. Stop. Breathe. Half a mind to leave her in the rain trampled brush, crawl his busted ass up four flights of stairs, wrench his broken femur from his leg, and jam the white and blood-slick jagged edge between Christopher's eyes.
He clutched the car door handle and pulled himself upright. A fresh pain blast dropped him to his knees.
He glanced up at the fourth floor balcony window. There is no suffering in death.
##
They stared at each other across the aisle. Alex drew a finger in a slicing motion across his neck. His dried egg yolk mustached lips mouthed the words 'dead man.'
Wesker grinned. Alex was more than welcome to try.