Because he knew the secret.
Life was cheap.
“What’s happening?” he asked as he picked up the phone.
One’s deep, steady voice sounded on the other end. “The Hive’s shut down.”
Cain leaned forward in his comfortable leather chair, leaning his elbows on his oak desk. “What do you mean it’s shut down?”
“Just what I said. Security measures have taken effect. No heat signatures. We’re cut off from the entire complex. It’s been locked down, and we can’t reach Abernathy or Parks at the mansion.”
That wasn’t good. The only way the pair at the mansion would be incommunicado is if the security lockdown extended to the mansion. And that would only happen if things were totally disastrous.
No heat signatures meant probably nobody alive.
Five hundred dead employees definitely qualified as a disaster.
It was also possible that something had taken the ersatz married couple out. Cain had recruited Alice himself out of the Treasury Department, so he knew exactly what she was capable of. If someone or something had subdued her—well, that was disastrous, too.
“When did this happen?” he asked.
“Kaplan picked it up about fifteen minutes ago.”
Knowing it was a stupid question—if One wasn’t capable of thinking of this for himself, Cain wouldn’t have hired him—he had to ask anyhow: “Can we get into the Red Queen to shut her down?”
“Kaplan’s been trying, but she’s also cut off from all externals. We can’t get at her systems, processors—not even the surveillance cameras. Nothing. Only way to find out what’s happening is to go in.”
“The mansion’s still open?”
“Yes.”
“Not for much longer.” Cain leaned back in his chair. This wasn’t good. There was a lot of very important research going on in the Hive, but if any of it got out, there’d be hell to pay. The licker, the T-virus, the Nemesis Program, Project: Open Book—any one of them getting loose would be very bad for the corporation.
He immediately tapped some keys on the Umbrella laptop that sat to the right of the yellow phone on his desk, calling up the dossiers of who from One’s staff was on duty today.
It was his primary team: the aforementioned Bart Kaplan, a former FBI agent, One’s second, and the resident computer expert; Olga Danilova, their field medic, formerly with the Russian Army; and four soldiers, Vance Drew, J.D. Hawkins, Rain Melendez, and Alfonso Warner, recruited out of, respectively, the NYPD, the CIA by way of the Navy SEALs, the LAPD, and the federal penitentiary located just outside Raccoon City.
If anyone could find out what happened down there, it was them.
“You have a go,” Cain said. “Procedure Three. You know the drill.”
“Understood,” One said without even a moment’s hesitation. “We’ll be airborne in ten.”
That was one of the reasons why Cain liked One. He understood chain of command.
“Godspeed, One.”
Cain hung up the yellow phone.
ELEVEN
HIS HANDS RAN GENTLY UP AND DOWN HER naked flesh, his callused fingers playing over her skin, feeling both rough and smooth at the same time.
His lips hungrily attacked hers, as if they were trying to consume each other. Their tongues explored—teasing, tasting, dancing.
He pulled her slim athletic form tight against his muscular body.
Nothing mattered right now but him as they rolled around the oh-so-comfortable mattress. Their bodies were intertwined, his arms wrapped around her torso, her legs wrapped around his waist.
She moaned in utmost ecstasy, as for the first time in years, she felt something. That’s what had been missing for so long.
She never wanted it to end.
Eventually it did . . .
When she woke up, it was raining and her jaw hurt.
The images from her dream—was it a dream?—faded slowly. Something about a man and a bed, but she couldn’t bring it into focus.
Or much of anything else.
The ground was cold against her sore jaw. She tried to prop herself up, only to feel a stabbing pain in her right shoulder.
She forced herself to focus, to take in her surroundings.
The first thing she realized was that the ground was cold because it wasn’t ground. It was marble.
The rain was only coming down on her feet. It was the steady rhythm of a shower.
Gently rubbing her right shoulder with her left hand, she looked down. Aside from a crumpled shower curtain—which, based on the bent metal hooks along one end of it, had been ripped off the rod—she was naked.
Obviously something had happened in the shower.
But what?
Her need to figure out what was going on led her to another stunning revelation.
She had no idea who she was.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to recall—anything. She knew that she was a woman lying naked in a marble shower. It was more like a big shower stall—the size of a bathtub, but with only a small lip all around, and just the one faucet.
That didn’t make sense—she could identify marble, a faucet, a shower, tell the difference between a tub and a stall, yet she hadn’t the first clue who or where she was.
Gingerly, she got up. Her right shoulder and the right side of her face both still ached, but the ache was already receding. Just residual pain from falling down.
Assuming she had fallen down.
The evidence, at least, supported that. The way she was sprawled on the shower floor, the way the curtain had been ripped down with her—all of that pointed to her falling down, probably grabbing the curtain for support as she fell.
This only served to confuse her more. For whatever reason, she was having no trouble analyzing her situation, even drawing conclusions.
Yet she couldn’t recall her name, her favorite color, what she liked to eat, how old she was, what her mother’s maiden name was.
No, wait. Her mother’s maiden name was Ferrara.
Why the hell did she remember that?
She turned the water off, which draped the bathroom in an eerie quiet. The dripping from the showerhead echoed throughout the massive bathroom, and only then did she appreciate just how big the place was.
From the looks of it, whoever lived here—her?—was quite well off. Top-of-the-line furnishings made of brass and marble, expensive toiletries, and the room was spotless. Either she was a neat freak, or had a good cleaning service. Or both. And the bath products were not the kind you found at your local CVS.
(More confusion: she remembered a national drugstore chain, but nothing about herself.)
The mirror was covered in condensation from the hot water. She walked up to it and wiped it away with her right hand.
A very attractive woman with neck-length straight dirty-blond hair, light blue eyes, and pale unblemished skin stared back at her.
Almost unblemished. Her right shoulder was bruised, probably from falling in the shower, and there was a scar along her left shoulder. That didn’t come from the fall, though. As best she could tell, the scar was several years old.
She wondered what caused it.
On a hook on the wall to her right sat a white piece of cloth. It looked like some kind of jacket, with a rope-like belt at the waist. She grabbed it and put it on. It felt like silk. Or maybe satin. She wasn’t sure what the difference between them was. And she couldn’t remember what this article of clothing was called, but she knew it had a name.
Slowly, she padded out into the next room.
Any doubts she had that she was loaded evaporated as she stepped into the bedroom. She imagined that several inner-city apartments could fit into this one bedroom. Everything in it was in the most pristine shape, yet there was a sense of age—that everything in this room was older than she was.
Of course, she had no idea how old she was. She wasn’t even sure how old she looked even after looking at herself in the mirror.
Tying the belt—no, sash—of the whatever-it-was-she-was-wearing, she walked through the bedroom. A dark red dress lay neatly on the bed. She guessed that it was something she was supposed to wear when she got out of the shower.
It was a double bed with two sets of pillows. Did she live here alone?
Only then did she acknowledge the extra weight on her left hand. Aside from the white thing, she did wear one other item: a gold ring. The ring symbolized—something. It didn’t appear to have any kind of design, just a flat ribbon of gold wrapped around her third finger. It meant something, though, she knew that much, and it had something to do with whether or not she lived alone. But she couldn’t put the pieces together. Yet.
She walked over to the window. Pushing aside the thick curtains with the odd patterns on them, she saw a forest. Most of the trees were bereft of leaves, and those that were still intact were yellow, red, or brown. That meant it was autumn.
Thrilled to add another item to the list of Things She Could Recall, she took a moment to marvel at the sunset. Or maybe it was a sunrise. She had no idea what time of the day it actually was, but the sun was low, painting the sky glorious shades of purple and yellow.
Next to the window was a writing desk. A pad of paper sat in the center of it, with the words TODAY ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE written in ink on the top sheet.
She frowned. What the hell was that supposed to mean?
There was an ornately designed pen next to the pad. She grabbed it with her left hand—thus confirming that she was left-handed, for what that was worth—and started writing.
By the time she got as far as TODAY ALL YOUR she stopped. The handwriting wasn’t remotely similar.
Did she share that bed with someone else? Or did the person who was responsible for rendering her unconscious in the shower leave this note?
It didn’t make sense.
But then, nothing made sense right now.
She walked over to the dresser drawer, grateful that she knew what that, at least, was.
The two top drawers revealed linens and underwear, all neatly folded and arranged and lending more credence to her earlier neat-freak hypothesis.
When she opened the third drawer, she gasped.
A sheet of glass sat on top of this drawer, blocking simple access to its contents. Etched in the glass was a numeric pad over two words: LOCKED and UNLOCKED. The former word was blinking in green.
That wasn’t nearly so scary as what was under the glass.
Guns.
Several of them.
And, for some reason, she knew for sure that these were among the finest and most up-to-date weaponry that money could buy.
Part of her wished she could remember the key code to unlock the glass barrier, assuming she ever did know it. Another part of her was grateful that she didn’t.
What did this say about her? Were the guns hers? The person she shared the house with? Both? Did they belong to whoever wrote the note? Maybe she was the intruder and the person who wrote the note owned the guns.
Too many questions. Not enough answers.
Bathrobe! That’s what the white silk or satin thing was called.
She chuckled to herself. That was one answer, anyhow.
But it didn’t help her with the guns. Or the cut on her shoulder. Or the identity of—well, anyone.
Now that she knew what it was, she also realized she might as well take the bathrobe off. She had found underwear, as well as the dress. Something weird was going on, and while the dress didn’t look one hundred percent practical, it was more so than the bathrobe.
The dress—which had an odd cut, extending down practically to her ankle on the outer part of her right leg, but cut in a U-shape, leaving her legs free. On the left side, the dress only came to her hips. It gave her a sexy look that also permitted her legs a certain freedom of movement.
After retireving a pair of biker shorts—why had she known that was what they were called?—and a pair of thigh-high boots, she put the dress on over them. There was something she thought might be the right thing to wear over her chest, but she couldn’t remember what the damn thing would be called. Anyhow, the dress had small straps that didn’t seem conducive to wearing anything under it at the chest area.
Somehow, putting on normal clothes made her feel better.
She stepped out into the next room. It seemed to be—well, she didn’t know what it seemed to be. It was another big room, full of old furniture, wood paneling, and high ceilings. At the (very) far end of the room was a statue of a woman with wings, covered in plastic. Looking at it, she thought it should have been outside, for some reason.
A framed picture caught her eye on one of the wooden tables.
Picking it up, she saw that it portrayed her and a man, both dressed in funny outfits.
In a flash, she realized not only what the picture represented, but why she wore a gold ring.
She and the man in the picture were married.
This, in turn, raised more questions. Was the money that paid for this mansion hers or his? Or both? Did he write the note on the table? Did he attack her in the shower? Where was he?
There was certainly something familiar about the man in the picture. She knew him, though whether that familiarity was a good one or not, she couldn’t tell.
Right now, she was just grateful for any feeling of familiarity. She certainly wasn’t getting it from this house. The more she walked through it, the less she believed that this place was hers. It didn’t feel right.
A heavy thud startled her. She set the picture down, and turned toward the statue. When she first entered the room, she had thought it to be in an alcove, but she realized now that it was a doorway to a vestibule or hallway or something—and there was a door or a window that had just been opened. Wind was now rustling the plastic that covered the winged-woman statue.
“Hello?”
Nobody replied.
She moved toward the doorway, all the while wondering at the absurdity of instinctively knowing the word vestibule, yet taking five minutes to remember what a wedding ring and a bathrobe were.
Cautiously, she walked closer to the statue, now really wishing she had the codes that would allow her access to those guns. She had no idea whether or not she knew how to use them, but she had the feeling that just holding one in her hand would put her in a better position right now.
Sure enough, there was a door here—an old wooden one with a brass pull handle that was, for some inexplicable reason, up around her neck level. The door was so big, she wondered if it had been built with giraffes in mind.
It was only slightly ajar. Based on the breeze that was still fluttering the plastic on the statue, it was quite possible the wind had knocked the door open.
She started to step outside, then stopped. It was growing darker. That beautiful sky signified sunset. Looking around, she quickly spied several switches next to the door. Instinctively, she turned them on.
This was the right move. Where it had been dim on the other side of the door, it was now lit up like daylight. Whoever built this place wanted people to be able to get around outside at night if they had to. A reasonable precaution since, based on that forest outside the bedroom window, they were in the middle of nowhere. Any significant illumination there was to be had around here was going to come from the house.
Opening the door all the way, she stepped outside. A blast of cold air caused goosebumps to rise on her exposed arms and legs, making her wonder if stepping outside without seeing if the house came equipped with a coat was such a hot idea.
The doorway led to a sheltered walkway that bordered the house—house, hell, it was a mansion—the shelter supported on the outside by columns with ridges in them.
She found she couldn’t remember what kind of columns they were, though she was pretty sure it had something to do with being greasy. Maybe.
The walkway was covered with brown leaves that crinkled under her booted feet. The sound was pleasant, almost soothi
ng in its harshness. It reminded her of—something. Another familiar feeling that ultimately meant nothing without context.
As much to hear the sound of her own voice again, she said, “Hello?”
Another sudden noise made her jump, but this time it was a huge flock of birds, who took her voicing as a prompt to all fly off into the evening air at once.
Shaking her head, she turned to go back inside. If nothing else, it was freezing out here.
Then the breeze started.
No, this wasn’t a breeze. This was wind.
And it was getting closer.
The dead brown leaves rustled and started flying up into the air and along the ground toward the mansion, as if being pushed by a mental force.
Or by a helicopter.
She had no idea where that thought came from, but it was one she didn’t like very much, and thought she’d have an easier time dealing with inside. Besides which, the wind was getting stronger.
Running toward the door, she almost stumbled. The thigh-high boots may have looked good with the dress, but they weren’t much more practical than the bathrobe had been.
She reached the doorway and took another quick look around to see if she could see anything that would explain the sudden wind—like helicopters. Why she was so sure that they were causing this—especially since she couldn’t hear anything besides the leaves rustling, and didn’t helicopters usually make lots of noise?—she couldn’t say.
But the wind had gotten worse; leaves and the grit of the ground were being buffetted about the air now, and was in danger of getting in her eyes. She made a grab for the door—
—only to be grabbed around the stomach and pulled inside.
She struggled initially as the man—for it was a man, but not the man in the wedding photo—dragged her inside, but she didn’t put up much of a fight, mainly because of the bright lights that now shone through the window.
Something was happening.
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