attached, most of it hidden in the shadow of a building overhang.
Jill was probably waiting in one of them. Carlos shoved a few of the crates aside with one hip, Mikhail steadying himself against the station wall.
"Almost there," Carlos said.
Mikhail smiled weakly. "Bet you'll be glad to dump my ass into a seat."
"Be gladder to sit my own ass down. One-way ticket outta here."
Mikhail actually managed a laugh. "I hear that."
They moved beneath the overhang, Carlos searching the windows of both cars for movement. He didn't see anything; worse, he didn't/eel anything. The place seemed totally deserted, still and lifeless.
Hope you 're taking a nap in there, Jill Valentine.
The sliding side door of the first car they reached was locked; to their mutual relief, the second wasn't. After giving the car a once-over to be certain it was empty, Carlos helped Mikhail aboard, getting him settled into a window bench seat. As soon as the platoon leader was lying down, he seemed to fall into a half swoon.
"I'm going to check out the second car, then see what I can do to get a few lights on in here," Carlos said. Mikhail grunted in response.
Not surprisingly, Jill wasn't in the other car, either, but Carlos did find the electrical controls next to the driver's seat. At the touch of a button, a row of overhead lights switched on, illuminating an aging wood floor and red vinyl padded seats lining both walls.
worry for her. If something had happened, he was going to feel at least partly responsible for not accompanying her back to the restaurant.
Mikhail was barely conscious when Carlos checked on him, but it was more like sleep than coma. Until a doctor looked at the wound, rest was probably the best thing for him.
There was an open control panel at the back of the car, which Carlos knelt to examine. His heart dropped when he saw that it was part of the primary power setup and that a few parts had been removed. He didn't know anything about cable cars, but it didn't take a genius to understand that you couldn't run a machine when the wires had been pulled, particularly on such an ancient system. It looked like there was a missing fuse, too.
"Hijo de la chingada,"he whispered and heard a feeble laugh behind him.
"I know just enough Spanish to know you shouldn't kiss your mother with that mouth," Mikhail said.
"What's wrong?"
"There's a fuse missing," Carlos said. "And these circuits have got to be shorted out. We'll have to bypass them if we want to get this thing moving."
"Just northeast of here ...," Mikhail started, but he had to pause for a few breaths before going on.
"There's a gas station. Repair shop. It was one of the landmarks on... the city map, it's suburbs past that. Probably have equipment there."
Carlos thought about it. He didn't want to leave Mikhail alone, and Jill or Nicholai could show up any minute...
...but we ain 't going no place without a power
cable and a high amp fuse, and Mikhail's on a downhill slide; what choice have I got?
"Yeah, okay," Carlos said lightly, walking over to Mikhail. He gazed down at him, concerned about the high color of his cheeks, the waxy pallor of his brow. "Guess I'll go check that out—wanna come with?"
"Ha ha," Mikhail whispered. "Be careful."
Carlos nodded. "Try to get some sleep. If anyone shows up, tell them I'll be right back."
Mikhail was already slipping back into a doze.
"Sure," he mumbled.
Carlos checked Mikhail's rifle to make sure it was loaded, and he placed it next to the padded bench, within easy reach. He hunted around for something else to say, some words of reassurance, and finally just turned and walked to the exit. Mikhail wasn't stupid, he knew what the stakes were.
His life, among other things.
Carlos took a deep breath and opened the door, praying that the gas station wasn't too far away.
Chan was gone, and not only was there no way to tell where he was headed but Nicholai had missed him by bare minutes. The computer he'd apparently made his report from was still warm, the glass of the monitor crackling with static electricity. Nicholai impulsively scooped up the monitor and threw it across the room, but wasn't satisfied with its mundane explosion of cheap plastic casing and glass. He wanted blood. If Chan came back to the office, Nicholai would beat him severely before ending his life.
He paced the small, heavily littered office, fuming.
He teases me with his ignorance. He is so stupid, so oblivious, how can he be so inferior and still be alive? Nicholai knew that the thought wasn't strictly rational, but he was furious with Chan. Davis Chan didn't deserve to be a Watchdog, he didn't deserve tolive.
Gradually, Nicholai took hold of himself, breathing deeply, forcing himself to count to a hundred by twos. It was still early in the game. Besides, Nicholai's plan depended on having information that Umbrella wanted— and if he meant to steal that information, he had to allowsome time for the other Watchdogs to collect it. The daily field reports were a bare summary of conditions and body count, used as much as a check-in as anything else; the real stuff was being stored on disk, transcribed from found documents or picked out of someone else's files, only downloaded by cell if the
Watchdog considered it of critical importance.
And... while I'm waiting, I can check in with my comrades at the trolley.
Nicholai stopped pacing, struck by the realization that he had truly enjoyed his deception of Carlos and Mikhail. Somehow, that there were two of them had turned it into a more exciting game. Would they suspect him? What were they saying about his sudden departure? What did theythink of him?
And what would it be like to witness Mikhail's slow, excruciating loss of life, watch him lose his capacity for reason as the young protagonist Carlos vainly struggles to beat the odds?Nicholai could disable the bell mechanism once they reached the clock tower... perhaps bravely volunteer to seek out the hospital, to bring back supplies—
Nicholai laughed suddenly, a harsh barking sound in the stillness of the room. He had to kill Dr. Aquino— the scientist who was supposed to report in from the hospital, the one working with the vaccine—anyway, and he knew that Aquino had been ordered to see to the hospital's destruction before leaving Raccoon, to eliminate trace evidence from his research. And there was also a specific species of organic stored at the hospital that Umbrella had decided to abandon, the Hunter Gamma series, so blowing up the hospital meant two objectives met for the price of one.
It seemed that the HGs weren't cost effective, although there had been serious disagreement within the administration about whether or not to destroy the prototypes. If Nicholai could lure Carlos into combat with one of them, he would have some valuable information of his own to sell... and he, too, would be meeting more than one objective with a single action.
It all came together, there was a kind of symmetry to it all. He'd drop me entire scheme if anything went wrong, of course, or if he found it wouldn't mesh with his plans. He wasn't an idiot—but having a project to fill his downtime would keep him from becoming overly frustrated.
Nicholai turned and started for the door, amused by his own indulgence. Raccoon City was like some haunted kingdom where he was ruler, able to do as he wished—anythinghe wished. Lie, murder, bathe in the glory of another man's defeat. It was all his for the tak-ing,and with a payoff at the end.
He felt like himself again. It was time to play.
THIRTEEN
JILL HAD FINALLY DECIDED TO OPEN THE metal shutter and make a break for it when she heard shots outside, the high-pitched chatter of an assault rifle. To say she was relieved was an understatement; the relentless thumping of the mostly dead outside had been eating at her nerves, almost tempting her to shoot herself, just so she wouldn't have to hear it anymore— and now, in a matter of seconds, it was quiet once again.