PROLOGUE
CARLOS WAS JUST GETTING OUT OF THE
shower when the phone rang. He wrapped a towel
around his waist and stumbled out into the cramped liv-
ing room, nearly tripping over a still unopened box of
books in his haste to get to the bleating phone; he hadn't
had time to get an answering machine since moving to
the city, and only the new field office had his number. It
wouldn't pay to miss any calls, particularly since Um-
brella was footing his bills.
He snatched up the receiver with one dripping hand
and tried not to sound too out of breath.
"Hello?"
"Carlos, it's Mitch Hirami."
Unconsciously, Carlos stood up a little straighter,
still clutching the damp towel. "Yes, sir."
Hirami was his squad leader. Carlos had only met
him twice, not enough time to get a solid read on him,
but he seemed competent enough - as did the other
guys in the squad.
Competent, if not exactly up-front... Like Carlos, no one talked much about their past, although he knew
for a fact that Hirami had been involved in gunrunning
through South America a few years back before he'd
started to work for Umbrella. It seemed that everyone
he'd met on the U.B.C.S. had a secret or two - most of
them involving activities not strictly legal.
"Orders just came down on a developing situation.
We're calling everyone in on this, ASAP. You got an
hour to report, and we leave in two, that's 1500 hours,
comprende?"
"Si-uh, yes, sir." Carlos had been fluent in English for years, but he was still getting used to speaking it
full-time. "Is there any info on what kind of situation?"
"Negative. You'll be briefed along with the rest of us
when you come in."
Hirami's tone of voice suggested that he had more to
say. Carlos waited, starting to feel chilled by the water
drying on his body.
"Word is, it's a chemical spill," Hirami said, and Carlos thought he could hear a thread of unease in the
squad leader's voice. "Something that's making peo-ple ... making them act differently."
Carlos frowned. "Differently how?"
Hirami sighed. "They don't pay us to ask questions, Oliveira, do they? Now you know as much as I do. Just
get here."
"Yes, sir," Carlos said, but Hirami had already
hung up.
Carlos dropped the receiver into its cradle, not sure if
he should feel excited or nervous about his first
U.B.C.S. operation. Umbrella Biohazard Countermea-
sure Service: an impressive title for a group of hired
ex-mercenaries and ex-military, most with combat ex-
perience and shady backgrounds. The recruiter in Hon-
duras had said that they'd be called upon to "deal" with
situations that Umbrella needed handled quickly and
aggressively - and legally. After three years of fighting
in private little wars between rival gangs and revolu-
tionaries, of living in mud shacks and eating out of
cans, the promise of real employment - and at an as-
tonishingly good wage - was like an answered prayer.
Too good to be true, that's what I thought ... and
what if it turns out that I was right?
Carlos shook his head. He wasn't going to find out
standing around in a towel. In any case, it couldn't pos-
sibly be worse man shooting it out with a bunch of
coked-up pendejos in some anonymous jungle, wonder-
ing if he'd hear the bullet that finally took him out.
He had an hour, and it was a twenty-minute walk to
the office. He turned toward the bedroom, suddenly de-
termined to show up early, to see if he could get any
more out of Hirami about what was going on. Already,
he could feel the warm build of nervous adrenaline in his gut, a feeling he'd grown up with and knew better
than any other - part anticipation, part excitement, and
a healthy dose of fear...
Carlos grinned as he finished toweling off, amused at
himself. He'd spent too much time in the jungle. He was
in the United States now, working for a legitimate phar-
maceutical company - what was there to be afraid of?
"Nada," he said, and, still smiling, he went to find his fatigues.
Late September in the outskirts of the big city; it was
a sunny day, but Carlos could feel the first whisper of
autumn as he hurried toward the field office, a kind of
thinning of the air, leaves beginning to wilt on the
branches overhead. Not that there were very many
trees; his apartment was at the edge of a sprawling in-
dustrial area - a few dingy fabrication plants, fenced
lots overgrown with weeds, seeming acres of run-down
storage facilities. The U.B.C.S. office was actually a
renovated warehouse on an Umbrella-owned lot, sur-
rounded by a fairly modern shipping complex complete
with helipad and loading docks - a nice setup, although
Carlos wondered again why they'd decided to build in
such a crummy area. They could obviously afford
much better.
Carlos checked his watch as he headed up Everett
Street and started to walk a little faster. He wasn't going to be late, but he still wanted to get there before
the briefing, see what the other guys were saying. Hi-
rami had said they were calling in everyone - four pla-
toons, three squads of ten in each platoon, 120 people
all total. Carlos was a corporal in squad A of platoon D;
ridiculous, how these things were set up, but he sup-
posed it was necessary to keep track of everyone.
Somebody had to know something...
He took a right where Everett met 374th, his
thoughts wandering, vaguely curious about where they
were being sent...
... when a man stepped out of an alley only a few
meters in front of him, a well-dressed stranger wearing
a wide smile. He stood there, hands jammed into the
pockets of an expensive trench coat, apparently waiting
for Carlos to reach him.
Carlos kept his expression carefully neutral, studying
the man warily. Tall, thin, dark hair and eyes but defi-
nitely Caucasian, early to mid-40s - and grinning as
though he meant to share an exceptionally funny joke.
Carlos prepared to walk past him, reminding himself
of how many crazies lived in any decent-sized city, an
unavoidable hazard of urban life.
He probably wants to tell me about the aliens moni-
toring his brain waves, maybe babble some conspiracy
theory...
"Carlos Oliveira?" the man asked, but it was more of a statement than a question.
Carlos stopped in his tracks, his whole body tensing,
instinctively letting his right hand drop to where he
wore a gun - except he wasn't carrying, hadn't since
crossing the border, carajo...
As if sensing the upset he'd caused, the stranger took
a step back, holding his hands up in the air. He seemed
amused, but not especially threatening.
"Who's asking?" Carlos snapped. "And how the hell did you know my name?"
"My name is Trent, Mr. Oliveira," he said, his dark gaze glittering with barely suppressed mirth. "And I have some information for you."
ONE
IN THE DREAM, JILL DIDN'T RUN FAST ENOUGH.
It was the same dream she'd suffered every few days
since the mission that had nearly killed them all that
terrible, endless night in July. Back when only a few
Raccoon citizens had been hurt by Umbrella's secret
and the S.T.A.R.S. administration wasn't completely
corrupt, back when she was still stupid enough to think
that people would believe their story.
In the dream, she and the other survivors - Chris,
Barry, and Rebecca - waited anxiously for rescue at the
hidden laboratory's helipad, all of them exhausted,
wounded, and very aware that the buildings around and
beneath them were about to self-destruct. It was dawn,
cool light coming in shafts through the trees that sur-
rounded the Spencer estate, the stillness broken only by
the welcome sound of the approaching 'copter. Six
members of the Special Tactics and Rescue Squad were
dead, lost to the human and inhuman creatures that
roamed the estate, and if Brad didn't set down quick,
there wouldn't be any survivors. The lab was going to
blow, destroying the proof of Umbrella's T-virus spill
and killing them all.
Chris and Barry waved their arms, motioning for
Brad to hurry. Jill checked her watch, dazed, her mind
still trying to grasp all that had happened, to sort it all
out. Umbrella Pharmaceutical, the single biggest con-
tributor to Raccoon City's prosperity and a major force
in the corporate world, had secretly created monsters in
the name of bioweapons research and in playing with
fire had managed to burn themselves very badly.
That didn't matter now, all that mattered was getting
the hell away -
- and we 've got maybe three minutes, four max -
CRASH!
Jill whirled around, saw chunks of concrete and tar
fly into the air and rain down over the northwest cor-
ner of the landing pad. A giant claw stretched up from
the hole, fell across the jagged lip -
- and the pale, hulking monster, the one she and
Barry had tried to kill in the lab, the Tyrant, leaped out
onto the heliport. It rose smoothly from its agile
crouch ... and started toward them.
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