Resident Evil. Retribution (25 page)

“I don’t dare ask you, then,” Salter asked, winking, speaking in a blaring Florida voice. He was a whitehaired man, wearing a cream-colored suit, twenty years older than his wife. His broad nose was mottled with blue veins and his slab of a face was the color of raw steak. “I don’t dare ask about the good investments, that’s probably breaking some damn insider-trading rule. But maybe later on you can give me a hint!”

“Of course, Senator.”

The two children looked quietly miserable. The teenager was a pretty blonde with braces, and a dress that was too low cut for her age. The boy was about eleven, pale, already pimply, wearing a Marlins T-shirt. He kept stealing looks at some kind of portable game console on his lap, as he picked at his chicken chasseur.

Senator Salter, for his part, was frequently stealing looks at Alice.

At the back of the room stood two men and a woman in suits and sunglasses, looking uncannily like Secret Service agents. But they were Umbrella Special Security, Level 4. Alice had once worked at that level. It was tedious.

“I wonder,” Dr. Isaacs suddenly said, “what Mrs. Parks thinks of living in so remote a place? She seems a dynamic woman, more suited to an urban environment. But perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps she lives to hike and fish?”

He looked at Alice, smiling faintly, raising his eyebrows to indicate that the question was meant for her.

The smile ended at Isaacs’ eyes. They were as cold as chips of ice.

Alice put down her Chardonnay.

“Oh, I love it. I keep very busy. I help Spence with his research—investment takes research, you know. We go on trips all the time, of course, sometimes business, sometimes pleasure.”

“But—isn’t it rather too large a place for just the two of you?” Laney Salter asked, eyebrows raised. “Gosh, it seems… just huge!”

Spence chuckled.

“We hope to fill it up—with children.” He raised his glass to Alice. “The time hasn’t come yet. But it will.”

Alice remembered to smile shyly.

“Thinking ahead, I like that!” the senator boomed. “Speaking of that—” He nodded to Dr. Isaacs. “Maybe we can adjourn here, pretty soon, and talk about that little matter…”

“Certainly,” Isaacs said, smiling coolly, as unruffled as ever. “Whenever you like.”

An hour later, Isaacs was meeting with the senator in the library. The children were watching television in an upstairs bedroom and Alice, sitting on the sofa, was watching Spence—who’d been cornered by Laney Salter in the sitting room, where they’d gone for drinks.

Spence was standing in front of the fireplace, his back to it, his face frozen in a polite smile, a drink in his hand. Mrs. Salter seemed to inch closer and closer to him, her eyes on his as she chatted earnestly about sports. How she liked
vigorous
sports. “
You know
—
men who really get out there and take that ball. Just… take it!”

As she said that she threw back her shoulders, making her breasts pop forward. And making Spence inch back a little more.

Alice smiled to herself, amused by the woman’s brazenness. Spence was going to back into the fire soon. Laney was something of a cougar. She’d probably have preferred a teenage boy, but Spence would have to do. He was a pretty youthful thirty-two.

Twenty minutes later, she whispered something to him, then turned to Alice.

“I think I’ll check on my kids… upstairs,” she said. She gave Spence a significant look and sashayed from the room.

When she was gone, he rolled his eyes, and Alice laughed.

“Spence, I think there’s smoke rising from the back of your pants,” she warned. “Then again, she’s pretty hot. Maybe it’s the front of your pants—”

Alice broke off as the door opened and Isaacs came in, followed by Senator Salter. The politician strode directly to Alice, beaming at her.

“There she is, the glorious lady of the house!” he bellowed. “I wonder if I could have a bourbon and branch water.”

As Alice made the drink, Isaacs crossed to Spence.

“A few words outside, Spence?” he said.

Spence nodded, put his drink on the mantel, and they went out into the hall, closing the door behind them. Alice finished the drink and brought it to the senator, who was standing by the fire, warming his chubby hands. The room wasn’t brightly lit, and the firelight danced on his features, lighting them from below, making him look quietly demonic as he grinned at her.

“Look at that, the perfect hostess!” He saluted her with the drink, and took a long pull at it, watching her over the top of his glass.

“Do you and Mrs. Salter return to D.C. from here, Senator?” Alice asked, sitting on the sofa. It was the only conversation she could think of, at that moment.

“Ohhh, yes, yes, tomorrow. We’ll be staying here tonight, of course. Your husband was kind enough to invite us.”

“Oh, well, of course,” Alice murmured. She hadn’t known they were staying. But she decided she should pretend she was in the loop. “I suggested it to Spence—we have so much room here, after all.”

“You know it’s kind of funny, some of your servants seem like they’re more used to being bodyguards. Saw some gun bulges…”

“Oh, well, Spence likes people to… to multitask.” She grinned. “Our upstairs maid is a crack shot.”

“Is she? I bet you can hit any target you point at, yourself. I’ll bet you have a lot of talents, Alice,” he said. “All kinda hidden talents, a sexy lady like you.”

Normally, Alice would’ve slapped him down for that kind of talk. But she just smiled blandly. He was a senator, and a critical contact for Umbrella. Plus her job paid her a very high six figures a year. She definitely didn’t want to lose it.

Spence and Isaacs returned, Spence looking kind of flushed, Alice thought, Dr. Isaacs looking the same as always: like the cat who’d eaten the canary. He maintained a nauseating demeanor of self-satisfaction and superiority, whatever he did.

“Alice,” Spence said, “a word outside…?”

Not liking the feel of it, Alice followed him into the hall. He closed the door and looked around.

“Well?” she asked. Before he could speak she said, “Oh, I know—they want you to make Mrs. Salter happy.”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“A happy Mrs. Salter is a happy Senator Salter? I’m not sure how I feel about that. I mean I know we’re just…” She lowered her voice. “…Just playing parts, here, but you and I have gotten…”

“It’s more than that. The senator knows there’s something more going on here. He doubts that it’s legal, whatever it is. And he isn’t certain he wants to approve the appropriations for Umbrella’s… special projects. Umbrella is a government contractor but they’re trying to cut back on… that area of deployment.”

He didn’t say “biowarfare” but she knew that’s what he meant.

“And?” She wanted him to say it. She wanted to see what his expression was like as he said it.

“And he hints that if you play nice with him, he’ll play nice with us. He won’t ask too many questions about the Hive. He’s heard that term, somewhere. He knows it’s connected to this place. And he’ll approve the appropriations for the… project.”

Her mouth was dry. And as for his face, as he said it, he
did
seem unhappy. But there was no hint that he wanted her to say no. She could tell he’d made up his mind that they were both going to play the game.

“This is… supremely sick, Spence.”

“I know,” he admitted. “But—we’ve done worse.”

“Have we?”

He shrugged.

“I have. They sent me on an assignment where I had to shoot a whole roomful of…” He shook his head. “Never mind. It’s just one night.”

“Easy for you to say. Laney Salter is way more palatable than that bloated, bourbon-soaked satyr.” She tried making a joke. “Maybe we could switch places. He might like you.”

Spence didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile.

“So… he likes to do it right there on the sofa, that kinda guy. I’m meeting her upstairs. Isaacs says we keep them both happy.”

“Isaacs. He’s behind this.”

Dr. Isaacs likes to degrade people…
she thought. Her stomach roiled, thinking about it.

She could walk away from this. They wouldn’t kill her for it. She’d just lose any career opportunity in the future. They’d see to that. They punished disobedience.

And then again, maybe her life
would
be in danger. After all, Salter was a powerful man. He might worry that she’d talk about all this, in the media. He might demand they take care of her—completely.

It wouldn’t take long. But the thought of it…

Even if Salter had been an attractive man, she’d still have felt degraded by the whole experience. Being bartered like a cheap whore.

“That’s how you think of me, Spence? You and Isaacs? Like I’m… some fun girl in Bangkok, always ready to ‘entertain’ the businessman?”

“No!” He shook his head sadly. “Come on. Laney’s an attractive lady, but—I’m not feeling any better about this. I don’t like to be ‘entertainment’ either. Not that way. But we have to do it. There are billions of dollars
—many
billions of dollars—on the line here! Salter doesn’t like anyone telling him no. He’s really vindictive, and he’s taken a fancy to you, big time. He couldn’t take his eyes off you at dinner.”

“Suppose I throw up my dinner on him, during all this?”

Spence sighed.

“You’re tougher than that.”

In the end, she gave in. The risks of refusing were too high.

Billions of dollars—many billions…

That was the deciding factor as far as Umbrella was concerned.

She kept her face neutral as she returned to the sitting room. The senator was looking at her attentively, licking his lips. Isaacs spoke as she entered.

“Well, I’ll be off,” he said. “My car is waiting.” He gave the senator a little bow. “Good night.” As he left the room, Alice glanced at the door, hoping Spence would rush in, say,
No, Alice, don’t do it, I won’t allow it.

But of course he didn’t.

She turned to Salter.

“Well. How can I… entertain you?” And she dropped the strap of her dress from her shoulder.

It took him longer to finish than she’d hoped. A good half hour. Afterward, once he’d patted her on her naked rear and left the room—closing the door behind him—she burst into tears. It was the first time she’d cried since childhood.

It would be the last time for years after.

Remembering that night, now, as she lay on the cot in the helicopter, Alice squirmed—and winced when the movement brought pain.

A black female medic came in, nodded to her and, as if on cue, injected her I.V. line with a painkiller. The soothing drug almost blotted out the memory of that half hour on the sofa. The weight of him on her; the smell of him—sweat, cigars, bourbon, faint halitosis, a strong scent of deodorant and aftershave. The slobbery pressure of his lips. The moment she’d opened her eyes and seen his veiny, bulbous nose rearing over her.

His gasping, grasping, pumping. His murmured obscenities, stubby, probing fingers.

Bruises on her breasts.

She almost threw up, remembering.

But then she closed her eyes and let the drug ease her into restful sleep…

The screen in the attack room showed the prow of the submarine. It was a fairly clear video feed—Umbella had upgraded it—revealing the green-blue sea, becoming darker shades of blue as it went down. A polar bear swam by, which was exciting for Dori, and they saw a few fish, and a pair of walruses.

Tom was tapping a control screen, causing the ballast tanks to fill.

“You’re
sure
the hatches are all closed?” Judy asked. She sounded like a wife already, Tom thought. He’d been married once—his wife had been shot by a cop. But by then, she was already dead. She was just “walking around dead.” She’d been bitten by the walking corpse of her sister Edna.

Tom had to kill Edna himself.

Now he was watching the gauges, and he felt the enormous submarine lurch.

“What about… what about doing it all evenly?” Judy asked, looking around nervously as the vessel began to shudder.

“What you mean, evenly?” Tom asked, watching the gauges.

“I mean—making one side sink and not the other,” she said, “unless you intend to. What if we flip upside down, or…”

“Naw, it’s all set up to spread the ballast weight evenly around the ship. It might tilt a little to the forward, but not so much. Don’t you worry.” Truth was, he wasn’t feeling as confident as he sounded.

“Oh!” Dori said, clutching at Judy as the ship lurched again. She, too, was wearing an old Russian sailor’s uniform, a little too big for her, the pant legs rolled up. “Is it going to sink?” she asked worriedly.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Tom chuckled. “It’s supposed to sink! That’s what submarines do. Look at the screen, there—we’re going down!” He was a bit worried that they were going down faster than he’d intended, though. He needed to slow the process down.

The conning tower would be underwater now, and below the ice pack. They could hear the water rushing around the vessel, causing a soft rumbling. The video screen was getting darker.

Then it occurred to Tom that they weren’t far off the coast—so the water might be relatively shallow here. Which meant—

CLUNK

It sounded just like that, a metallic clunk, as they hit the bottom. The vessel rocked around them, and they clung to the nearest surfaces, Judy slipping an arm around Dori. The deck tilted—and stopped at a slight angle. A shuddering worked its way through the ship, but the deck was steady under them again, and they relaxed a little.

“Went down a little too fast,” Tom said apologetically. He was listening for the sound of running water; for the alarms that would come if the hull was breached. Nothing. A wire-frame image on the ship’s status monitor showed the submarine tilted a little, but there were no indicators of water pouring in.

“Look!” Dori said, pointing at the video screen.

Tom looked—and shuddered. There was something human out there; a dark silhouette against the light-colored sea bottom. Sea grass swirled around it, and fish darted past its head.

Human? But it wasn’t really human—judging from the red glow from the eyes.