Chapter 6
Brian Irons, in his most private moments, allowed himself to be overcome by guilt and shame over what he had done in the name of greed. Every man has his price, or so men who put themselves up for sale always believed. It was a small comfort, when you were doing wrong, to know that other men were doing wrong as well. At least he was not alone in his greed. Several members of the City Council joined him in his guilt, and probably the mayor as well. Irons had been under Umbrella’s control for long enough to see the signs in others.
He flipped through the envelope, watching as the one-hundreds flipped by. They always paid the same, not counting for inflation. One-thousand a week. Fifty-two-thousand a year. Combined with his regular salary of eighty-five-thousand a year, it made him a fairly wealthy man, but his debt never went down. The more they paid, the more he spent. On extensive artwork and sculptures, many of which decorated the police station, and a huge amount on sports betting. Umbrella might pay him fifty-grand a year, but he lost fifty-five a year on gambling alone. It was a hole that just kept getting deeper.
“How’s the wife and kids, Brian?” Wesker asked.
“They’re fine,” Irons muttered. He had no wife or children, as Wesker well knew. His only family was a bitter ex-wife and a brother he hadn’t spoken to in eleven years. But Wesker said it every time, like some painfully unfunny running gag.
Sometimes, Irons wished that he could get rid of Wesker and never have to see his smarmy, arrogant face again. Unfortunately, Wesker was simply too good at his job for Irons to get rid of him easily. True to his word, he worked as hard as everyone else, and nobody in the entire department could fault Irons for promoting him to head of the Alpha team. But even after ten years working with him, he barely knew anything about Wesker aside from his connection to Umbrella. It was almost easy for Irons to forget that Wesker was basically a spy within the department, until their monthly meetings when Wesker’s true purpose revealed itself once more.
Irons tucked the envelope of money into his desk drawer. Once the financial aspect of their meeting was over, he could get down to real business. He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach. “Good work on the Martinez case,” he grumbled, as if the act of giving Wesker praise made him physically ill. “You even got yourself a mention in the newspaper last week. Congratulations.”
“You know I don’t do this job for newspaper headlines,” Wesker replied.
“I don’t know why you do this job,” Irons countered. “I don’t know anything about you. But I’ve approved your request for new computers in the S.T.A.R.S. command center, and I passed on your new training suggestions to Murphy at the Academy. I’ll let you know if he gets back to me. He probably won’t.”
“Thank you,” Wesker said with a nod. “I’ve submitted all our overtime sheets with Catherine, and everything seems in order there.”
“Did you talk to Frost about his vacation request?”
Wesker nodded. “I have. Did you meet the new member of Bravo team?”
“That little girl Rebecca? Not personally, no.”
“You reviewed her file, though?”
“Of course I did. I accepted her transfer request.”
“Can I ask why?”
Irons looked at Wesker curiously, wondering why he cared. “Because she looked like a promising young officer. Bravo team needed a first-aid specialist anyway. The ‘R’ stands for ‘Rescue,’ remember.”
“She’s quite pretty, you know.”
Irons grunted indifferently. “Yes, well S.T.A.R.S. needs more pretty girls in its ranks. I can only look at Enrico’s ugly mug so often. What’s your point, Wesker?”
“Nothing,” Wesker said. “Nothing at all, just curious.”
“You’re usually not this talkative.”
Wesker half-smiled and shrugged slightly. “That’s because I have something to tell you, but I don’t know think you want to hear it.”
“Tell me what?” Irons asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
Wesker met his gaze unflinchingly. “Tomorrow, there’s going to be a fire in one of the old warehouses in the industrial district. After the flames die down, the firefighters are going to find the badly burned remains of six people.”
Irons fell back into his chair, raising a hand to cover his eyes. “Oh God, I knew you were going to tell me this one of these days.”
“The fire will go largely un-investigated,” Wesker continued. “You can tell the press whatever you want, but do not assign anyone to the case. Let me handle the investigation.”
Irons stared at the ceiling, breathing heavily. He didn’t want to ask, he didn’t want to know anything about it, but at the same time, he could not go into this without some information, to soothe his guilty conscience if nothing else.
“Who are the victims?” he asked quietly.
“No one important,” Wesker said, equally quietly. “No one that anyone will come looking for in the future.”
“How did they die?”
“In a fire,” Wesker said, but his eyes told Irons, “You don’t want to know.”
Irons had no choice but to accept that as the answer. Wesker reached into his pocket and pulled out another bulging envelope. “In return for your continued cooperation, I’ve been authorized to give you a bonus this week.” He stood and tossed the envelope on the desk before leaving the office.
Irons gradually built up the strength to open it, finding five-thousand dollars inside. Quite a bonus, indeed. He held the envelope against his chest, trying to fight down the rising bile in his throat. The money was not worth it, no amount was worth what he had to put himself through, but he no longer had a choice.
That was the truth. He had no choice anymore. It suddenly occurred to him that the money in the envelope was not to buy his loyalty. It was merely to keep him content. They didn’t need to buy his loyalty after all this time. They already owned him.