saw that one of the cars had barreled into a roadwork
barricade - a barricade they'd probably come within
a second or two of bashing into themselves. She
caught just a glimpse of a crumpled hood, of broken
windows and a stream of oily smoke, and then the
second sedan was blocking her view, shrieking around the corner and continuing the chase.
"Sorry 'bout that," John called back to them,
sounding anything but; he seemed wired with
adrenaline-pumped glee.
In the few weeks since she and Leon had joined up
with the fugitive ex-S.T.A.R.S., she'd discovered that
John would make jokes about anything. It was simul-
taneously his most endearing and most annoying
trait.
"Everyone alright?" David asked, and Claire nod- ded, saw Rebecca do the same.
"Took a whack but I'm okay," Leon said, rubbing his arm with a pained expression. "But I don't
think..."
BAM!
Whatever Leon didn't think was cut off by the
powerful blast that slammed into the back of the van.
Still most of a block away, the sedan's passenger had
fired a shotgun at them; a few inches higher and the
pellets would have come in through the window.
"John, change of plans," David called as the van swerved, his cool, authoritative voice rising over the
noise of the screaming engines. "We're in their sights..."
Before he could finish, John took a hard left.
Rebecca fell backwards, nearly crashing into Claire.
The van was now headed down a quiet suburban
street.
"Hold on to your butts," John called over his
shoulder.
Chill night air whipped through the van, dark
houses flying by as John picked up speed. Leon and
David were already reloading, crouched behind the
metal half-door. Claire exchanged a look with
Rebecca, who looked as unhappy about their situa-
tion as she felt. Rebecca Chambers was ex-S.T.A.R.S.,
she'd worked with Claire's brother, Chris, as well as
undertaking a recent Umbrella operation with David
and John, also ex-S.T.A.R.S. - but the young woman
had been trained as a medic with a background in
biochemistry. Marksmanship wasn't her forte - even
Claire was a better shot - and she was the only person
in the van who hadn't had any real training . . .
. . . unless you count surviving Raccoon.
Claire shuddered involuntarily as John took a hard
right, veering wide around a parked truck, the sedan
gaining ground. Raccoon City; the scratches and
bruises on Claire's body hadn't even faded yet, and
she knew that Leon's shoulder was still giving him
pain...
BAM!
Another shotgun blast from behind, but it went
wide and high.
This time. . .
"Change of plans," David said, his crisp British accent calming, like the voice of reason and logic in
the midst of chaos. It was no wonder he'd been a
S.T.A.R.S. captain.
"Everyone brace for an impact. John, just past your
next turn, bring us to a stop. Hit and run, alright?"
David brought his knees up, wedging his feet
against the van's wall. "They want us so badly, let them have us."
Claire slid over and pushed her feet against the
back of the passenger seat, knees bent and head down.
Rebecca moved closer to David, and Leon sidled back
so that his head was close to Claire's. They locked
gazes and Leon smiled faintly.
"This is nothing" he said, and in spite of her fear, Claire found herself smiling back at him. After mak-
ing it through the madness of Raccoon City, skirting
the murderous Umbrella creatures and crazed hu-
mans - not to mention their extremely narrow escape
from explosive death when Umbrella's secret facilities
blew up - compared to all that, a simple car wreck
was like a Sunday picnic.
Yeah, just keep telling yourself that, her mind whis- pered, and then she didn't think anything at all,
because the van was swerving around a corner and
John was pumping the brakes and they were about to
get hit by about a ton and a half of fast moving metal
and glass.
David inhaled and exhaled deeply, relaxing his
muscles as best he could, the squeal of brakes coming
up fast from behind...
... and wham, violent motion, a sense of incredible vibration, a second that seemed to stretch for an
endless and silent eternity...
... and the noise coming immediately after - break-
ing glass and the sound of a tin can being crushed
amplified a million times. David was jerked forward
and back, heard Rebecca emit a strangled gasp -
- and it was over, and John was already hitting the
gas as David rolled to his knees, raising his Beretta.
He shot a look out the back and saw that the sedan
was motionless, skewed across the dark street, the
front grill and headlamps smashed all to hell. The
slumped, shadowy figures behind the spidered glass
were as still as the ruined car.
Not that we fared much better. . .
The inexpensive green minivan he'd bought specifi-
cally for their ride to the airfield no longer had a bumper, tail lights, a rear license plate - or, he imag-
ined, any possible method for opening the back gate;
the door was a warped and crunched-up mass of
useless metal.
No great loss. David Trapp despised minivans, and
it wasn't as though they'd planned on taking it to
Europe. The important thing was that they were still
alive - and that - for the moment at least - they'd
managed to avoid the infinitely long arm of Umbrel-
la's wrath.
As they sped away from the wrecked car, David
turned and regarded the others, reflexively putting a
hand out to help Rebecca up. Since the ill-fated
mission to the Umbrella lab on the coast, he'd grown
quite attached to the young woman, as had John. The
rest of his team hadn't survived...
He shook off the thought before it could take hold,
and called up to John that they should circle back
toward their original destination, staying away from
major streets. A bad break that they'd been spotted
just as they were leaving, but not all that surprising,
however. Umbrella had staked Exeter out two months
earlier, right after they'd returned from Caliban Cove.
It had only been a matter of time.
"Nice trick, David," Leon said. "I'll have to re- member that next time I get chased by Umbrella
goons."
David nodded uncomfortably. He liked Leon and
Claire, but wasn't so sure how he felt about two more
people looking to him for leadership. He could under-
stand it with John and Rebecca, they'd at least been
part of the S.T.A.R.S. before - but Leon was a rookie
cop from Raccoon and Claire was a college student
who just happened to be Chris Redfield's little sister.
When he'd made the decision to break from the
S.T.A.R.S. after finding out about their connection to
Umbrella, he hadn't expected to continue leading,
hadn't wanted to -
- but it wasn't my decision to make, was it... he hadn't asked for their allegiance, or offered himself up
as decision maker and it didn't matter, that was just
the way things had turned out. In war, one didn't
always have the luxury of choice.
David glanced around at the others before staring
out the back, watching the homes and buildings slip
past in the cold dark. Everyone seemed a bit subdued,
always the aftermath of an adrenaline rush. Rebecca
was unloading clips and repacking the weapons, Leon
and Claire sitting close together across from her, not
talking. Those two were usually joined at the hip, and
were still as tight as they'd been since David, John, and Rebecca had picked them up just outside of
Raccoon less than a month earlier, dirty and damaged
and reeling from their run-in with Umbrella. David
didn't think there was a romantic connection there, at
least not yet; it was more likely their shared night-
mare. Nearly dying together could be quite a bonding
experience.
As far as David knew, Leon and Claire were the
only survivors of the Raccoon disaster who knew
about Umbrella's T-Virus spill. The child they'd had
with them had only had the faintest idea, although
Claire had been very careful to shield the little girl
from the truth. Sherry Birkin didn't need to know
that her parents had been responsible for the creation
of Umbrella's most powerful bioweapons; better that
she remember her mother and father as decent
people. . .
"David? Anything wrong?"
He shook himself out of his mental wanderings and
nodded at Claire. "I'm sorry. Yes, I'm fine. Actually, I was thinking about Sherry; how is she?"
Claire smiled, and David was struck again by how
she brightened when Sherry's name came up. "She's good, she's settling in. Kate is nothing like her sister, a
definite plus. And Sherry likes her."
David nodded again. Sherry's aunt had seemed
nice, but beyond that, she'd be able to protect Sherry
if Umbrella decided to track the girl down; Kate Boyd
was a fiercely competent criminal lawyer, one of the
best in California. Umbrella would do well to stay
away from the Birkins' only child.
Too bad the same doesn't apply to us; wouldn't that
make things quite a lot easier. . .
Rebecca had finished reorganizing their rather im-
pressive cache of weapons. She scooted over to sit
next to him, brushing a loose strand of hair off her
forehead. Her eyes much older than the rest of her
face; barely nineteen, she'd already lived through two
Umbrella incidents. Technically, she had more expe-
rience than any of them as far as the pharmaceutical
company went.
Rebecca didn't speak for a moment, staring out at
the passing streets. When she finally spoke, she kept
her voice low, her sharp gaze studying him intently.
"Do you think they're still alive?"
He wouldn't bother feeding her a sunny picture;
young as she was, the girl had a knack for seeing
through people.
"I don't know," he said, careful not to let the others overhear. Claire wanted desperately to reunite with
her brother. "I doubt it. We should have heard from them. Either they're afraid of being traced, or. . ."
Rebecca sighed. Not surprised, but not happy.
"Yeah. Even if they couldn't get through to us - Texas
still has the scrambler up, don't they?"
David nodded. Texas, Oregon, Montana - all open
channels with S.T.A.R.S. members who could still be
trusted, and they hadn't gotten a call in over a month.
The last message had been from Jill; David knew it by
heart. In fact, it had been haunting him daily for
weeks.
"Safe and sound in Austria. Barry and Chris track-
ing lead at UHQ, looks promising. Get ready."
Ready to join them, to call in the few waiting troops
that he and John had managed to network. Ready to
storm Umbrella's real headquarters, the power be- hind it all. Ready to strike against the evil at its
source. Jill and Barry and Chris had gone to Europe
to find out where the true leaders of Umbrella's
hidden purpose were secreted, starting at internation-
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