Chapter 9
Jill wrapped her hands around the cup of hot coffee, watching the steam rise from the surface. It was cheap coffee purchased from a vending machine upstairs, but it wasn’t the worst coffee she had ever had. The rush of caffeine helped her feel more alert and perked up her frayed nerves. Carlisle was generous enough to buy her coffee and some donuts to make up for the lack of a proper breakfast. She hadn’t felt very hungry until she ate the first one, and then ate the rest of them ravenously while Carlisle waited for her to finish. She sipped the coffee, feeling better about herself, but only a little bit.
“So what do you want to know?” she asked.
Carlisle briefly scanned the pages of the transcript of everything Jill said the night before. “Well, it says here that Albert Wesker is dead.”
“Yes,” Jill said with some satisfaction.
“I’d like some more details.”
“Like what?”
“How did he die? Did you actually see him get killed?”
“Yes, I did,” Jill replied. She leaned back in her chair and let out a long sigh. “He was killed by one of your monsters you made in that lab. I can’t remember what he called it, but it was this huge tall creature with white skin.”
“The creature that you killed with the rocket launcher?”
“Yes.”
“And you saw Wesker get killed?” Carlisle asked again.
“Yes,” Jill repeated. “I was in the room, I saw it with my own eyes. It picked him up and stabbed him right through the chest.”
She paused and allowed herself to remember those hectic moments. She had not thought about it for some time, not wanting to remember. Barry was at her feet, dying of a gunshot wound. Wesker was shooting at them, acting insane. And then the monster broke free of its glass tank and murdered Wesker right in front of them. The sight of Wesker’s blood splashing across the creature’s broad torso was etched in her memory. In those terrifying minutes, they were forced to leave Barry behind in order to escape, and the thought of him dying in that final, hopeless last stand made her breath catch in her chest.
“The son of a bitch got what he deserved,” she whispered. “He betrayed all of us. He killed Enrico, he killed Barry, he damn near killed us all.”
“You were aware that Wesker worked for Umbrella, is that right?”
“We figured it out right at the end,” Jill explained. “We found a few things with his name on them, like that note I told you about earlier. And when we found him in that lab room, he confessed to us that he’d worked for Umbrella for years.”
Carlisle nodded slowly, reading the papers. “Yes, I’m having trouble understanding that part of this whole thing. Wesker was your commanding officer in the police force, but he was working in the Arklay lab as well for that entire time. How in the world could he have managed to work for the police for so long without giving himself away?”
“I don’t know. Even now I don’t really believe it. I mean, Wesker wasn’t exactly my friend, but I thought I knew him. I trusted him, I respected him. I would never in a million years have suspected that he was working for Umbrella that whole time.”
“He didn’t just work there, he was the one in charge,” Carlisle said. “He was the Research Supervisor for the entire lab. The only person with more authority was Dr. Spencer.”
Jill just shook her head. “I don’t know how he did it for so long.”
“You weren’t there when Wesker joined the police force, were you?”
“No, he joined the force long before I did.”
“I wish we had records or some kind of documentation about his time with the police. But it seems that Dr. Spencer was very good at hiding that kind of information. We only had a few clues about Wesker’s involvement in the police, that’s why I’m asking you about him.”
“You mean Umbrella didn’t even know?” Jill asked incredulously.
“Well, we knew that Spencer had some influence in the police force. That’s not entirely uncommon. We knew he kept a bank account specifically for payments to local officials, including the Chief of Police.”
“Irons,” Jill grumbled. “That bastard. I hope he got what he deserved too.”
“But,” Carlisle continued, “actually having an Umbrella employee infiltrate the local police force is unprecedented. I mean, I could see it happening in another country perhaps, where the police are traditionally more corrupt and easier to bribe. But in the United States? I can’t believe Dr. Spencer would even attempt something so audacious. And it wasn’t some random employee either, it was the supervisor for the entire lab complex. That’s just incredible.”
“You almost sound impressed,” Jill said.
“I am very impressed,” Carlisle admitted. “Wesker must have been some kind of genius to have pulled it off for so many years.”
“Yeah, I guess so. He certainly fooled us.”
“So you understand why I’m so interested in how he died.”
“What do you mean?”
Carlisle finally set the papers down and leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs and stretching his arms. He put his hands behind his head and arched his head back, looking up at the ceiling. “Well, I don’t understand how a guy smart enough to have lived a double-life for a decade could have gotten himself killed in such a stupid way.”
“He didn’t think the monster would attack him.”
“Exactly. That makes no sense. Wesker knew enough about Tyrants to know better. Besides, you said that you were trapped in the room, right? There were no other ways out?”
“Yeah.”
“So what would have happened if the Tyrant killed you like he planned? He would still be stuck in the room with a loose Tyrant, and it would have killed him anyway, unless he could have managed to escape, which seems unlikely. He would have had to get past the Tyrant to get to the door.”
“Maybe he ...” Jill started to say, but she realized that Carlisle had a point. She almost said that maybe Wesker hadn’t intended for the monster to get loose at all, but that didn’t make sense either. Wesker clearly intended for them to wind up in that room, by forcing Barry to lead them there, so he must have intended to release the monster. But how would he have gotten away?
“See what I mean?” Carlisle asked. “Now, you’re absolutely sure that the Tyrant killed him? Is there any way that Wesker could have faked it?”
“No,” Jill said with certainty. “It stabbed him right through the chest. He was only thirty feet away from me. I saw the blood. There’s no way that it was a trick or something.”
“Hmm,” Carlisle said, leaning forward to pick up the transcript again, flipping to the later pages. “Okay, I think we’ll do some more investigation into this later, but for now let’s forget about Wesker. How about we talk about Nicholai Ginovaef, the UBCF Commander?”
“What do you want to know about him?” Jill asked darkly, staring into her coffee. “He was a sadistic psychopath and he tried to rape me. What else can I say?”
“Sergeant Ginovaef was in command of all Umbrella forces in the city,” Carlisle explained. “He was the one who organized the search and rescue squads, he supervised all of the evacuation efforts, and he had full authority regarding use of force against infected hosts.” Carlisle paused then, as if letting it sink it, but Jill didn’t care about Nicholai’s qualifications. “It’s hard enough to believe that someone like Albert Wesker could have been conspiring against Umbrella, but if Sergeant Ginovaef was also involved in some kind of conspiracy, that’s almost unthinkable. He was one of the most highly decorated officers in the entire Umbrella Security Department.”
“I never said he was part of a conspiracy,” Jill said, confused. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“He should have reported in when the last UBCF troops left the city park,” Carlisle said, “but after that, we lost all contact with him and he was presumed missing. You said that he was alon
e in the park’s office when you heard him on the phone with someone, is that correct?”
“Yeah, he said he was on the phone with someone from Umbrella.”
“Well, that’s not the case. We had no contact with Nicholai at that time.”
“Then who was he on the phone with?”
“That’s what we’d like to know. Based on what you told us, it appears that he was attempting to fake his own death and cover something up, although we have no idea what. That helicopter you used to escape the city was not Umbrella property. If Nicholai planned to use it, then he must have been trying to escape the city without us knowing about it.”
“But why?” Jill asked. She shook her head, unable to follow what Carlisle was getting at.
Carlisle shrugged slightly. “We don’t know. But it might have had something to do with that creature you told us about. The one that kept pursuing you all day, the one that killed your fellow police officer, Brad Vickers.”
“What do you mean, the one I told you about? You’re the ones who let it loose!”
“Miss Valentine, I can assure you that Umbrella did not release that creature into the city to hunt you down. We knew nothing about it. As I said before, we don’t care what you know, and we certainly weren’t trying to kill you.”
“But if you didn’t send it after me, then who ...” Jill’s voice trailed off, as she began to realize what Carlisle was implying.
Carlisle nodded and said, “Now do you see why we are so interested in Albert Wesker?”
“He’s dead!” Jill repeated. “He has to be!” She stared at Carlisle, who merely tilted his head inquiringly. Jill’s heart pounded in her chest, and she suddenly felt cold. She forced herself to laugh at the absurdity of it. “He’s got to be dead, there’s no way he could have survived ...”
“Consider this,” Carlisle said, his voice calm and soothing. “Wesker planned on killing you and your teammates back in the lab, so that you could not reveal to anyone what you saw there. But you did manage to escape. Now, let’s pretend – as ridiculous as it sounds – that Wesker managed to fake his death. Who else could have created that creature, and who else had the motive to send it after you? And who else could Nicholai have been working with? Everything points to Wesker.”
“What about the other guy you told me about? Spencer, what about him?”
“Okay,” Carlisle conceded. “It’s possible that Spencer was the one working with Nicholai, but why would he bother? Spencer was already gone by the time the infection hit the city.”
Jill attempted to play it over in her mind, trying to see all the angles, but the whole situation was just too complicated for her to understand. Surely there was someone working for Umbrella who had the motive to send that creature after her. She had to assume that Carlisle was being honest, since at this point he had no reason to lie, but maybe he didn’t have all the facts. Maybe his superiors were keeping information from him.
Wesker was dead, Jill was certain of it. There was no way he could have faked being stabbed through the chest, and even if he somehow survived, he would have been infected with the disease anyway and turned into a zombie like the rest. He absolutely had to be dead. Spencer must have been the one who sent the creature after the S.T.A.R.S. team, to silence them in case they knew about his involvement in the outbreak. If Spencer remained near Raccoon City, all he needed to do was buy a newspaper to know who escaped the lab, and if Wesker was capable of creating such a creature, then Spencer certainly was too. He probably hired Nicholai to sabotage the rescue efforts in the city, although Jill couldn’t see why.
However, there was one more detail that stuck in the back of her mind. Something that she avoided thinking about until now, but suddenly became very vital to unraveling the entire situation.
“You didn’t have UBCF teams stationed in Raccoon City, did you?” Jill asked slowly, trying to piece together her thoughts.
“No, we had to bring them in from other locations.”
“What about Nicholai?”
“We had to call him in as well.”
“Do you know where he was stationed?”
“Not off the top of my head, but I can find out. Why do you want to know?”
“Just something,” Jill said vaguely.
In all the madness after their return to Raccoon City, after their final, fateful meeting with Irons and self-imposed exile from the police station, Jill and the others had too much on their minds to deal with all the fallout from the failed mission. There were simply too many things going on at once; the media circus surrounding them, the suspicious behavior by Irons, trying to deal with the deaths of their teammates, Chris’ plans to leave the city, and Jill drowning her troubles in alcohol. In the middle of everything that was going on, Jill all but forgot about one more senseless tragedy following their return to the city.
The murder of Barry’s family. Jill was not able to cope with it at the time, and was too ashamed and scared to even think about it. The funerals never took place, but even if they had, Jill didn’t think she would have been strong enough to go. But in the back of her mind, there was always the nagging question: Who killed Barry’s wife and daughters?
Wesker could not have done it himself, because he was at the lab with them. So he must have had an accomplice working with him. Learning the identity of that person seemed like a distant concern at the time, especially since Irons seemed determined to block any police action regarding them. Jill didn’t even know what kind of investigation had been done, or if there were even any suspects.
What did Nicholai say to her? That she wasn’t the only one? When Jill was defenseless and Nicholai hovered over her, holding his knife to her throat, he said that there had been many others. It didn’t matter if he meant other people he murdered, or other women he raped, the fact was that Nicholai was capable of such brutal, despicable, violent acts.
Did Nicholai kill Barry’s family? It seemed impossible to conceive of such a coincidence, but the scenario made sense. Wesker would have had access to Umbrella records and could have sought out the help of someone like Nicholai. And Nicholai had already proven himself capable and willing to commit rape and murder. And both of them, Wesker and Nicholai, were involved in some kind of conspiracy against Umbrella. In that sense, it was almost impossible for them not to have been working together.
But the thought that she had been in the same room as the man who killed Barry’s wife and children, and almost become a victim herself ...
“Listen,” Carlisle said, pushing his chair back from the table. “Let’s take a break from this, okay? Let’s take a walk and stretch our legs.”
Jill looked down and saw that her coffee cup was empty. She stood up and wrapped her arms around herself, as if she was cold. She said nothing as Carlisle led her out of the cafeteria, her mind still running, trying to put the pieces together.
The guards in the hallway were gone now, and Jill and Carlisle were alone as they walked down the hall. Carlisle’s shoes clicked on the tile, while Jill’s socked feet made no sound. They got into an elevator and Carlisle reached out to press one of the buttons. His finger hovered over the number panel for a second, and then he seemed to change his mind, and pressed a different button.
The elevator hummed slightly and began to descend. Jill expected Carlisle to take them up to the ground floor, but she was too lost in her introspection to spend much time thinking about it.
“There is one more thing I was kind of curious about,” he said. “This isn’t really important to our investigation, but I am curious.”
“About what?” Jill muttered.
“That woman that you met at the mansion. The one that you said fought off the Tyrant.”
“What about her?”
“Do you know anything about her?”
“Only what I told the other people,” Jill said. “She must have been one of their lab subjects, someone they were experimenting on. I me
an, she had chains on her wrists for God’s sake. She didn’t even know how to talk. Who knows how long she had been there.”
“Do you know where she is now?”
Jill shook her head. “The last time I saw her was when we flew away in the helicopter. I have no idea what happened to her after that.”
Her last memory of the mysterious woman was looking down to see her waving goodbye as Brad flew them to safety. Jill was convinced that the woman was waving goodbye, that she understood what was happening. She wasn’t able to speak or communicate, but Jill believed she was intelligent enough to understand. After all, the woman defended them selflessly, and even followed Jill’s directions, getting out of the way so Chris could use the rocket launcher.
Prompted by Carlisle’s questions, Jill began to wonder what did happen to her. She must have remained in the woods; Jill doubted that she could have found her way to the city. And if she had not gone into the city …
“She might still be alive,” Jill whispered.
Carlisle looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“Well, that lab was miles away from the city, out in the mountains. I know the city was destroyed, but could the explosion have reached all the way out there? If she went in the other direction, then she might have been far enough away that she would survive.”
The elevator door opened with a ping. Jill looked out to see several Umbrella employees sitting around at computer terminals. Carlisle walked out and Jill followed, wondering what floor they were on now, and how far underground this facility extended.
“Do you think she’s dangerous?” Carlisle asked. “If she managed to escape and was still on the loose, do you think she would hurt anyone?”
“I don’t really know,” Jill said honestly as Carlisle led her down a brightly-lit corridor. More Umbrella employees passed them in the hall, giving Jill a strange look.
“You said in the report that the woman attacked you at first, but then you think she tried to befriend you. Do you really think that?”
Jill shrugged. “Maybe. I think she was trying to communicate with me, at least. She didn’t seem to want to hurt me. But I really can’t say if other people would be safe around her. I mean, she was like an animal, she might hurt someone without trying to.”
“Interesting way of putting it,” Carlisle said.
He pushed open a set of doors and Jill found herself on a wide metal catwalk that circled a huge lab room at least five hundred feet long. The sudden immensity stunned her, making her back up, as if expecting the roof to collapse. They had to be several stories underground, and the sight of such a huge room baffled her.
The catwalk extended in a long circle around the entire perimeter of the room, and looked down to a veritable maze of computers and scientific apparatus on dozens of tables below. Several people in white lab coats walked around, some carrying clipboards or laptops. Jill looked around the room, watching in fascination at the extent of the work done here. This facility had to be at least as large as the one outside Raccoon City, she realized, if not bigger.
There was a huge enclosed space right in the middle of the room, walled off from the rest of the area by thick plexiglass walls and a complete ceiling. It was like a fully-contained living area inside the larger lab room, with clear walls so the researchers could look right inside. Not just one room, the enclosed area contained several large rooms, all interconnected and separated from the lab area.
Jill walked to the edge of the catwalk and put her hands on the railing to steady herself. Leaning over the railing, she looked carefully into the enclosed area. There seemed to be a large number of colored plastic furniture, tables, and even a television. All sorts of items seemed to be randomly laying around inside. Pillows, chairs, books, toy blocks, a bicycle, everything disorganized, like the room of a child who never picked up his toys.
Inside the enclosed living area, there was a single person. The researchers and scientists stood around and watched intently, studying whoever it was. Dressed in baggy blue and white clothes like pajamas, the person sat in the middle of the floor in one of the rooms, facing the other direction. The person had long dirty blonde hair that reached the floor when seated. As Jill looked on, the person suddenly perked up, as if hearing something, and stood up.
Jill suddenly realized it was a woman, and she stared intently, not really believing what she was looking at. The woman’s arms were abnormally long, hanging almost to her knees when she stood up straight, and just below the cuffs of her long-sleeved shirt, Jill could make out fading red scabs around the woman’s wrists.
She turned and looked up directly at Jill. An awkward, toothy smile appeared on her face, and she brushed loose strands of hair out of her eyes. Lifting one large hand, she waved clumsily, as if unfamiliar with the gesture.
When she spoke, her voice was low and garbled, the words mispronounced. They were the words of a person first learning how to speak.
“Hullo, Jull,” the woman said.
Jill’s breath caught in her throat. She was speechless, staring in absolute shock, as Carlisle came up beside her and leaned on the railing as well.
“Jill Valentine,” he said softly, “Allow me to introduce you to Lisa Trevor.”