Resident Evil: Underworld Read Free Page B

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 impressive 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 experience 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 tracking 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 behind 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 international HQ in Austria—and had promptly disappeared.
    “Heads up, kids,” John called from the front, and David looked away from Rebecca’s unsmiling face, looked out to see they were already at the airfield.
    Whatever had happened to their friends, they’d find out soon enough.

TWO
    Rebecca strapped herself into the tiny seat of the tiny plane and looked out the window, wishing that David had chartered a jet. A giant, solid, can’t-possibly-be-unsafe-’cause-it’s-so-damned-big jet. From where she sat, she could see the propellers on the wing of the aircraft— propellers, like on a kid’s toy.
    Bet this puppy will sink like a rock, though, once it falls out of the sky at a few hundred miles an hour and slams into the ocean…
    “Just so you know, this is the kind of plane that’s always killing rock stars and the like. Just as they make it off the ground, a big gust of wind knocks them right back down.”
    Rebecca looked up to see John’s grinning face; he was hanging over the seats in front of her, his massive arms folded across the headrests. He probably needed two seats to himself; John wasn’t just big, he was body-builder huge, two