Chapter 19
Blastoff
The weatherworn numbers on the abandoned building at the end of the dirt road matched the numbers on the index card. This was definitely the right place.
Claire rolled to a stop, threw the Mustang into park, and switched off the ignition. "Welcome to Settler's Bluff..." Population, zero. Fright factor, ten. "Holy hillbilly."
Her gaze panned her surroundings, finger poised above the door lock button. She'd seen wooden sidewalks on summer, lazy day ocean piers. Daydreamed about a whitewashed, wrap-around porch. Potted plants suspended above a two-seat swinging bench, sipping sun-brewed iced tea and drifting into a nap while listening to a soothing wind chime tinkle.
Those visions were alive. Vibrant. There were people on the piers. Bursts of magnificent color in the shrubbery near her dream porch, shocks of orange and yellow in the flowers and bountiful spring greens in the fat-leafed trees.
Nothing like the sun-bleached, warped and slanted pilings attached to the rotted, wooden and crumbled brick buildings that lined the narrow strip of road.
No lights. No lampposts. The warehouse yard and the adjacent, derelict lots shrouded in silence. The sharp bend of tree limbs casting jagged, shifting shadows across the decayed storefronts and deep into the swaying Red Maple and Box Elder forest tangle. The moonlight swallowed in a towering trunk and leaf canopy.
Un-fucking believable! This place was low by low's standards. For a 'safe house' it didn't appear very 'safe'. Pretty much the last place on earth she'd run and hide if her ass were in a sling. But, that's me. I'm not Leon.
Claire eased the door open, and inhaled pine. A rushing wind blew unsettling creaks, and the clatter of unhinged, lopsided shutters banged against the front of the buildings, down the empty street. No chainsaw, thank God!
The stiff breeze rustled the stray hairs in her ponytail. Raindrops tickled her scalp. She forced her way through waist high weeds crowded against a sagging post and rail fence.
Her Redfield bullshit meter started to rise. Did Ada send her on some snipe hunt? The black-haired bitch sitting all warm and cozy in her bed, cracking open a tall cool one, laughing her ass off, while Claire was out-nipples rock hard-stumbling around a deserted turn of the century town in the cold and in the dark. Well, hardy-fuckin'-har! Bravo, bitch! Ya got me!
Claire shook her head and crumpled the index card. Three damn hours! I just booked it three, lonnnng fuckin' hours, broke every land speed record in a Mustang known to man, to be punked by some grudge-holding Asian broad. Fuuuck meeee! I'm nobody's joke. I'm outta here. If I hurry I can floor it back home, and be ready when the po-po come knockin'. This Lucy had some 'splaining to do.
The first stop when she rolled back into a town with more than one dead horse was a wrecking yard. She'd donate the car in Ada Wong's name, keep one of the lug nuts, and mail it to the bitch. C.O.D.
The second stop would be a visit to James. She owed him more than an apology. It was going to take a lot of hospital visiting hours and more flowers than she could afford to ease her guilt.
Claire walked back to the Mustang. What kinds of flowers are appropriate in this situation? Roses? Too expensive. Carnations? Oh, no, not carnations. Aren't those dead people flowers?
She stopped. Rested her hand on the warm hood. "What if it's not a joke?" The bitch rammed that truck right up James' ass, awfully reckless, and pointless, for a shenanigan.
"Why?"
You really want to go in there by yourself?
"No."
Walk away.
"What if...what if he's here? He asked for help. I can't abandon him."
No, he didn't ask for help. Ada said he needed your help. Big difference.
"But-"
It's wrong. Feel it. Smell it. Get in the car and go.
"I came all this way. Seems ridiculous to just...just leave. Ada isn't really known as a prankster. She didn't maim, and possibly kill, a government agent to send me on a wild goose chase."
No, she's an accomplished liar.
"I can leave the car here, keep to the fence. Scout around the buildings. No harm in looking. Being sure. Five minutes. What's five minutes? I have to know. I can spare five minutes."
An hour later, sitting across a butcher-block table, staring into the fire-forge ember eyes of Albert Wesker-trading insults and morality with a psychopath inoculated against every strain of sympathy known to mankind-Claire Redfield would remember those words, and wish she had taken the advice of her subconscious and simply, unequivocally, driven away.
But, now was now, not an hour from now. Fear and adrenaline, and good old-fashioned Redfield curiosity inched her over the precipice of decision. One foot dangling in mid-air, the rest of her body ready to take a leap of faith plunge into the unknown.
She reached for the glove box, and recoiled. It wasn't there. This isn't my car. The sudden awareness was a revelation. The Beretta was sitting in the nightstand next to her bed. Right where I left it.
This isn't my car. Her heartbeat picked up rhythm. No one knows I'm here. Faster. I have no weapon. Pounding in her ears."I'm all alone."
She recalled the last time she'd seen another human being. Seventy, almost eighty, miles ago.
She'd stopped for gas and an energy drink, and asked the clerk for directions from the point where she had been directed to exit the freeway.
'By the looks of this thing, appears to me, you're headed for Settler's Bluff.'
'Settler's Bluff?'
'It's an old mining town. Some dang fool struck it rich back in the Eighteen hundreds. Brought a flock of diggers and panners that swarmed in like locusts and blasted the hills with dynamite and pressure hoses. Right prosperous town, until the vein dried up.'
'There were a few that waded through the dry spell, pokin' around, prayin' for their chance to turn a buck. The interstate finished 'em off forty years ago. The highway came, seventy miles south, and Settler's Bluff turned into a ghost town.'
'Nowadays it gets it's fair share of tourists, ya know, sightseers hyped up on adventure, people whose grandparents told 'em about the Bluff's heyday and they wanna' go and have a look-see, a few teenagers on a Saturday night-liquored up on beer and mischief-but never a gal, all by herself, at night. You spook easy?'
'Never in my life.'
'Hmph. Lotta' crazy grumblings goin' on about that place.'
Claire leaned on the counter. 'What kind of grumblings?'
'Strange noises. Visions. People seein' things. Hearin' things. Animal-like sounds. Strange lights. Some say ghosts, some say it's somethin' else.'
'I don't believe in ghosts, and anything non-supernatural I'm more than capable of handling. Trust me.'
Claire caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She dove down behind the Mustang, and slowly raised her head over the hood. The hairs on her neck prickled.
A thin stream of flashlight beam bobbed up and down. Over the rustle of leaves there were voices, low and hushed. Then, she smelled smoke. Cigarette smoke. Drifting downwind.
Leon doesn't smoke. Does Downing? He didn't smell like a dirty ashtray.
Something was fishy as day old potato salad left out on a hundred degree day. Common sense finally caught up to Redfield instinct and worry wasn't far behind. Leon. Am I too late?
Claire scuttled forward on her hands and knees. Her decision made. She plunged like a lead ball, confident in her quick thinking ability and a parachute sewn out of imaginary Redfield luck to save her from the neck-breaking stop at the bottom.
###
Wesker circled the bulletproof glass and steel container.
The glass itself was a bullet-resistant, glass-clad polycarbonate. Durable and lightweight, purchased in curved, cut to measure spec sheets. Designed to repel high-powered firearm discharge with no-spall tolerance performance.
The stainless steel box and electrical panel and water pump fittings manufactured in Germany and assembled at an Organization R and D lab in Texas.
It never ceased to amaze how it were possible in the States to procure bulk defensive and offensive armament components for use in no questions asked applications, and yet one had to sign a form at a pharmacy to buy limited quantities of over the counter cough syrup.
If Christopher were of a think outside the small box for his brain mindset, he'd use a different approach in his quest to infiltrate every bio weapon lab and testing facility on the seven continents. Who knew, maybe he enjoyed piloting pontoon boats into backwater, malaria infested locales, just for the thrill of it?
A smarter approach, a better alternative, would have been an investigation into the sale and tracking of materials used in the very facilities he aimed to blow to Kingdom Come and back again.
Purchase requisitions for lab equipment. Oversize, steel, containers. Plexiglas. Security monitoring applications and software. That's where the real trail lay, waiting for someone with more brains than muscle to follow it back to every clandestine mover and shaker involved in bio weapon production and testing.
He stopped in front of Kennedy and titled his chin up.
I was there. There, the night Claire slammed Kennedy's door and wiped her tears away on the back of her hand as she trudged up her driveway. She never turned around. Never saw Kennedy slam his fist into the steering wheel. Never saw him linger outside a Manhattan high rise three days later, and float away in a sea of quick walking people. Ada on one arm, a brand new plaster cast on the other.
I was there. There, the night of the charity auction and masquerade ball.
He'd gone to sample the Carnevale atmosphere and bid on a Nineteen forty-seven Chevrolet Fleetmaster Country Club Coupe.
The pictures in the auction catalogue hardly did the automobile justice. The generously rounded 'Fat Body' fenders and gleaming black paint job were pristine. The wooden side panels and trunk overlay dent and scratch free. The interior was immaculate. No rips or stains. Two hundred and twenty-nine original miles on a clean, well-kept, stock engine. Classic as Bette Davis, and an acquisition privilege.
He had glanced up, and there she was. Descending down a grand staircase flanked by twin Cupids carved from Italian marble. Sparkling, in a body-hugging champagne sheath; light on cleavage, but generous with the thigh-high slit, and flash of a leg that went on for a mile.
Several heads next to him turned, and the dim-witted, delusional comments regarding Redfield, and what these crass men might do with Redfield if given the opportunity, were enough for Wesker to excuse himself from unpleasant company and find his own solace, and order his conflicted thoughts, at a bar tucked into a corner of the ballroom's upper viewing gallery.
Kennedy, all black tie and white tux, stood out like a polar bear in the jungle, and the women tossed him admiring, double-take glances as freely as they tossed back their open bar alcohol.
If truth be told, and a lip-scrunching, bitter truth indeed, the duo made a handsome pair.
And it wasn't until later, when the chandelier lights dimmed, and the romantic lilt of a waltz brought the gala revelers into twirling motion, he bumped elbows with the inseparable couple on the dance floor.
Gliding his partner, a random blushing brunette plucked from the sidelines on a whim, close enough to hear Kennedy and Claire's whispered words, and angry enough to care.
Surveillance was a beautiful beast, addicting really, and with it he had learned many things over the years.
Garbage day at the current Redfield residence was Tuesday.
Redfield's on the side go-to girls never came to the door on a Friday, because Friday was reserved for Valentine.
When in town Christopher mowed his lawn on Sunday, the old fashioned way, with a push blade mower, a river of sweat and a dual can beer hat on his head.
Halloween, and their home was dark. The porch light turned out. No decorative plastic window clings stuck to the panes. No novelty witch doorknockers, or skeleton print leaf bags scattered on the front lawn. No lopsided, toothless grin pumpkin sticking out from behind the overgrowth of bushes that always seemed to find their way up and onto the Redfield front steps no matter where Christopher hung his hat and called it gravy.
Wesker stared at Kennedy's face. The pasty flesh had soured four shades of mottled gray, gone slack-jawed and relaxed in slumbered repose.
This is what she chose. This is what she chooses. This...this...this limp, lifeless man. Together. Not together. Alone. A couple. Like bungee cord she always snapped back. To him.
Wesker whispered in Kennedy's ear. "Do you know what you are? You are a comfy pair of shoes. Sneakers, Agent Kennedy. Cheap. Off the rack. Traction less. Sneakers. Replaceable."
He set the high-heeled, ruby sequined pumps on the table.
###
Two figures stood sentry near a padlocked door. Both tall. One man was lean, the other a genetic abomination. Iowa corn fed on triple steroids.
Claire army-crawled to the edge of the weeds.
"I'm freezin' my fucking balls off. Been a long time. Think she'll show, Jack?"
These gentlemen were strappin', loud and proud. String Bean cradled an AK and Big Boy had, what appeared to be, an Uzi.
Big Boy turned and scanned the tree line and the thick, wild grass patches that shielded Claire's crouched form.
"She's already here. Nice engine purr on that 'Stang she parked ten minutes ago."
"What the fu-"
Big Boy jerked his head at the trees. "She's over there. Creepin'. Slinkin'. Thinkin' about how sneaky she is." He tromped out into the yard, and into the moonlight. "Ain't that right!"
Jesus! Claire cupped her hand over her mouth. He was, without a doubt, the largest man she had ever seen; twin sides of beef wrapped in muscle. She gulped, and pressed her stomach flat to the ground.
"Little Claire Redfield, little Claire Redfield, wants to come in, wants to come in. Not by the hairs on our chinny, chin, chin."
Sting Bean approached the rail. "Come on out, honey. We won't hurt ya."
Big Boy flicked his cigarette stub. "Speak for yourself. I wouldn't mind hurting her. You here me, Red! I wouldn't mind hurting you, not one damn bit!"
Now was a terrible time to have to pee, but nature was nature, and her bladder was painfully full. The tingle inside her nostril didn't help matters any. Sneeze, and it was game over.
Big Boy weaved back and forth across the yard, moving closer, jabbing his gun tip down into the brush. "Little Claire Redfield, little Claire Redfield, wants to come in, she wants to come in. She'd better show her fucking face, show her little fucking Claire Redfield face by the count of ten! Ten...Nine...Eight..."
I'll never make it back to the car.
"Seven...Six..."
Run? Where to? Out there? You don't leave junkyard dogs behind to guard...nothing.
"Five...Four..."
He's so...Big. Abominable Snowman big.
"Three...Two..."
Leon. I came for Leon. Ada sent me here for a reason. This man might take me to him. Stupid, Leon! Stupid, me! She took a deep breath, pushed herself onto her knees, and raised her hands in the air.
Big Boy's grin spread his lips from ear to ear.
"Don't shoot. I'm looking for Special Agent Kennedy. Please, just don't shoot."
String Bean nudged Big Boy with his elbow and flicked a switch on his headset. He mumbled into a mouthpiece.
Big Boy was at her side in one impossibly long stride. "Turn around, Sneak Queen. Spread your legs."
"I'm not armed."
He flashed black-speckled teeth. "No, but I am."
His nametag glinted in the moonlight. J. Krauser.
"Is this really necessary? I told you, I'm not carrying a weapon. Who are you?"
"The man who'll blow a hole right between your eyes if you don't turn around and spread your legs."
"You know who I am. Tell me who you are. Where's Agent Kennedy?"
A broad smile crinkled his pocked cheeks. "Not a problem." He raised his gun and pressed the barrel between her eyebrows. "I'm Mr. Uzi. My associate is Mr. AK. Clear enough for you?"
"Crystal."
"I'm not going to ask again."
J. Krauser kicked her feet apart. He ran his hands up her legs and over her ass. He stopped, for what seemed too long in Claire's opinion, between her thigh and her crotch.
"If you're finished."
Alcohol-laced breath brushed her earlobe. "And if I'm not?"
"I'm going to break your God damn hand."
Her arm went first, wrenched so far up her back her fingers brushed the base of her skull. Her knees went next, driven into the ground with a kick to the back of her legs. "I've got a better idea." He yanked her head back. "Why don't you take the bitch out of your voice and show me some respect."
"Come on, Jack. Let it alone. She's here. He's here. I wanna' get paid."
Big Boy shifted his gaze back and forth between them.
"You hurt her and it's on you. He wants her undamaged."
She was jerked upright and off her feet, an arm tucked beneath her breasts.
He? He who? What the hell is going on here? What have I gotten myself into this time?
J. Krauser deposited her on the porch and inserted a key into the padlock.
"Little Claire Redfield gets to go in, she gets to go in..."
He gave her shoulders a good shove and she stumbled into a narrow corridor lit by a row of low-watt bulbs, strung across flimsy wire and draped over rusted nails. A cool draft wafted rot and mildew.
The door slammed shut and she jumped when she heard the padlock click as it was locked into place.
Lights are good. Lights mean power. A portable power source? A generator?
The floor sloped down and away, cut sharply to the right, and disappeared into pockets of darkness. The disproportionately spaced light strand growing further and further apart.
Her legs refused to cooperate with her rising curiosity. Going deeper inside instead of straight out, her fear protested, is the exact opposite of where you should go. Christopher Redfield kidnap logic 101.
'Never get into a vehicle with a man pointing a gun. If you're going to die-which you surely will if you get into a car and allow yourself to be transported to a more discreet location-always, always, make your stand at the abduction point. At least that way there will be a body, instead of a mystery.'
Who's going to find me now? How can I be so gullible? Ada cried Leon. I came running.
Claire put her hands on her hips and stared into the corridor.
Someone used Ada to throw the chum. Baby steps propelled her forward. Leon was the hook. J. Krauser and his pal were the rod and reel. So, who's driving the boat?
She crept down two flights of uneven plank stairs, one hand braced against the wall to steady herself.
What is the motive? Revenge? Someone angry with me? With Chris? Well, that's not hard to imagine. Chris has always been long on enemies and short on friends. He pisses everyone off. No reason to take it out on me. I never hurt anyone...well, anyone that didn't deserve it. Ok, anyone except for James.
The bottom of the stairs opened into a stairwell connected to a short hallway framed in earth and two by fours. She ducked beneath the low timbers.
A ransom? Fat chance. I'm not worth squat. If blood were money I'd bleed pennies.
There was white light at the end of the hallway, gleaming and bright, like a blinding burst of headlight high beams on a deserted highway.
Claire raised her arm to shield her eyes and stepped into the light.
"Good evening, Claire. Nice of you to finally join us."
That voice. I know that voice. It sounds exactly like...It can't be...He's dead. Dead!
She blinked, and the contours of the room snapped into focus.
Albert Wesker!
Not a ghost.
He lied.
A black-clad boogeyman of the mortal kind, as real as the sudden, violent twist of her stomach being wrung like dishrag, rising up from the ashes of her past to haunt her future.
He slid a chair away from a butcher-block table with the tip of his boot. "Have a seat. Kennedy is waiting."