How did Trent know there would be weapons here? Did he know I'd be taking them from dead men?
Carlos realized suddenly that he was overestimating Trent's reach. There had to be another cache of weapons somewhere in the building, that was all, he and Jill had just happened across the duffel bag. The al-ternative – that Trent had somehow known about the dead soldiers – was too bizarre to consider. They started down the first leg of the balcony side by side, Carlos wondering what Jill would say if he told her about Trent. She'd probably think he was kidding, the whole thing was so spy-novel mysterious… Something moved. Ahead of them and around the first corner, something on the ceiling, a flash of dark movement. Carlos stepped to the railing and leaned out to look, but, whatever it was, it was either hidden be-hind one of the hanging arches or something that his exhausted brain had come up with to keep him awake. "What?" Jill whispered at his shoulder, holding her revolver ready. Carlos searched a few seconds longer and then shook his head, turning away. "Nothing, I guess, thought I saw something on the ceiling, but…" "Shit!"
Carlos swung around as Jill jerked her weapon up, pointing at the ceiling just in front of them as a creature the size of a large dog skittered in their direction, a thing with a humped body and multiple legs, its thickly furred feet thumping stickily across the ceiling faster than seemed possible. Jill unloaded three rounds into it before Carlos could blink, but not before he registered what he was looking at. It was a spider, big enough for Carlos to see his own reflection in its shining eyes as it crashed to the floor. Dark fluids spouted from its back as it thrashed its mul-ticolored legs in the air, ichorous blood pooling beneath it. The wild, silent dance lasted only a second or two before it curled into itself, dead. "I hate spiders," Jill said, a look of revulsion on her face as she started forward again, scanning the ceiling.
"All those legs, that bloated stomach… yuck." "You've seen these before?" Carlos asked, unable to look away from the closed fist of its body.
"Yeah, at the Umbrella lab in the woods. Not alive, though, the ones I saw were dead."
Jill's apparent calm as they skirted the dead spider and continued on reminded Carlos how lucky he was to have hooked up with her. He'd come across a lot of tough men in his experiences, but he doubted very much that any one of them, put in her position, would be handling themselves as capably as Jill Valentine. The rest of the balcony was clear, although Carlos uncomfortably noted a shitload of webbing on the ceil-ing, mounds of the thick white stuff accumulated in every corner; he didn't care much for spiders, either. When they reached the door and swept their way through, Jill going in low, Carlos was relieved to be outside again. They'd come out on a wide ledge in front of the tower itself, a barren space surrounded by an ancient railing, a couple of defunct spotlights, and a few dead plants. There was a doorlike opening set a story higher up in the tower but no way to get to it. It seemed like a dead end, nowhere to go but back the way they'd come. Carlos sighed; at least the crows, if that's what they were, had migrated somewhere else. "So what now?" Carlos asked, looking out over the dark courtyard, at the still smoking wrecked trolley car. When Jill didn't answer, Carlos turned and saw her standing by a copper plaque he hadn't noticed, set into the stone face of the tower. She reached into her bag and produced a wrapped set of lockpicks. "You give up way too easy," Jill said, selecting a few pieces from the bundle. "Watch for crows, and I'll see what I can do about getting us a ladder."
Carlos covered her, vaguely wondering if there was anything she couldn't do, smelling rain on the cold wind that blew across the ledge. A moment later there was a series of clicks followed by a low hum of hidden machinery, and a narrow metal ladder descended from just beneath the opening above.
"How do you feel about standing guard for another few minutes?" Jill asked, smiling. Carlos grinned, feeling her excitement; it really was almost over. "You got it." Jill quickly scaled the ladder and disappeared through the open door above. She called down an all-clear a second later, and for the next several minutes, Carlos paced the ledge, thinking about what he was going to do after they were rescued. He wanted to talk to Trent again, about what needed to be done to stop Umbrella; whatever it took, he was there.
I bet he'd be interested in talking to Jill, too. When the 'copters come, we play stupid until they let us go, then plan out our next step – after a good meal and a shower and about twenty-four hours of sleep, ofcourse…
He was so fixated on their deliverance from Raccoon that he didn't notice Jill's expression at first as she de-scended the ladder, didn't really think about the fact that there weren't any bells tolling. He smiled at her… and then felt his heart sink, understanding that their trial wasn't over yet.
"There's a gear missing from the bell mechanism,"she said, "and we have to have it to make them ring.The good news is, I'm willing to bet that it's some-where in the building."Carlos arched an eyebrow. "How do you figure?"I found this next to one of the other gears," Jill saidand handed him a tattered postcard.The picture on the front was of three paintings hung
in a row, each piece incorporating a clock. Carlos flipped the card over and saw "St. Michael Clock Tower, Raccoon City" in fine print on the upper left corner. Below that was a printed line of verse, which Jill said out loud.
" 'Give your soul to the goddess. Put your hands to-gether to pray before her.' "Carlos stared at her. "Are you suggesting that wepray for the missing gear?"Ha ha. I'm suggesting that the gear is whereverthese clocks are."Carlos handed the card back. "You said that was thegood news – what's the bad?"
Jill smiled sourly, an entirely humorless expression.
"I doubt that the gear is going to be laying out in plain sight. It's some kind of puzzle, like the ones I ran across at the Spencer estate – and a few of those almost got me killed."
Carlos didn't ask. For the moment, at least, he didn't want to know.
SEVENTEEN
AFTER TRACKING HIM FOR NEARLY HALF AN hour, Nicholai found Dr. Richard Aquino on the fourth floor of Raccoon City's largest hospital. Seeing the Watchdog made Nicholai happy in a way he couldn't ex-plain, not even to himself. A sense that all was right with the world, that things were unfolding as they should…… with me on top, making the decisions. In a mo-ment there will only be three left, three little doggies for me to hunt in the land of the walking dead, he thought dreamily. Does it get any better than this? Aquino was just locking a door behind him, a look of sweaty fear on his pallid face as his gaze darted around nervously. He pocketed his keys and turned to-ward the hallway that led back to the elevator, pushing his smudged glasses to the bridge of his nose. Nicholai was amused to note that he wasn't even armed. Nicholai stepped half out of the shadows, planning to enjoy himself. After Nicholai had spent over an hour getting to the hospital, jogging most of the way, the mousy Dr. Aquino had had the nerve to try and hide from him – although looking at him now, Nicholai thought it was more likely that the scientist hadn't even known that he was being hunted and had eluded Nicholai by pure accident. Aquino looked like the kind of man who could get lost in his own backyard; even now, the "watchdog" didn't realize that he wasn't alone anymore, that Nicholai was only three meters
away. "Doctor!" Nicholai called loudly, and Aquino jumped around, gasping, involuntarily waving his hands in front of him; his surprise was absolute. Nicholai couldn't help a slight smile. "Who, who are you?" Aquino stammered. He had watery blue eyes and a bad haircut. Nicholai stepped closer, deliberately intimidating the scientist with his size. "I'm with Umbrella. I came to see how you were progressing with the vaccine among other things." "With Umbrella? I didn't – what vaccine, I don't know what you're talking about." No weapon, no physical skills, and he can't tell a lie without blushing. He must be brilliant. Nicholai lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Opera-tion Watchdog sent me, Doctor. You haven't filed a de-tails report lately. They've been worried about you."