Стефани Перри - Underworld

Five, six buildings, no lights, no movement—a front, surely....

"Underground," Rebecca whispered, and David nodded. Probably; they'd discussed several possibilities, and it seemed the most likely. Even in the wan light he could see that the buildings were old, dusty and worn. There was a smallish structure in the front, five long, low buildings in a row behind it, all with sloping metal roofs. It was certainly big enough to be some kind of a testing ground, the larger buildings as big as aircraft hangars, but between the site's placement—alone, out in the open in the middle of a desert—and the wear and tear, he'd guess underground.

Good and bad. Good, because they should be able to get into the compound without much trouble; bad because God only knew what kind of surveillance system had been set up. They would have to go in fast.

David turned, still in a crouch, and faced the team. "We'll need to double-time," he said softly, "and stay

low. We scale the fence, head for the structure closest to the front gate, same order—I'm on point, John's in back. We have to find the entry ASAP. Watch for cameras, and everyone's armed as soon as we're in the compound."

Nods all around, faces grim and set. David turned and started for the fence, head down, his muscles tight and jumping. Twenty meters, the air biting into his lungs, freezing the light sweat on his skin. Ten meters. Five, and he could see the "No Trespassing" signs posted on the fence, and as they reached the gate, David saw the sign telling them that they were at the privately owned "Weather Monitoring and Survey

#7." He looked up and saw the rounded silhouettes of what had to be satellite dishes on two of the buildings, plus the multiple thin lines of antennae stretching up from one of them.

David touched the fence with the barrel of the M-16, then with his hand. Nothing, and there was no barbed wire either, no sensor lines that he could see, no alarm trips.

Obviously, no weather station would have those; trust Umbrella to be as concise in their fronts as with anything else.

He slung the rifle over his shoulder, grabbed the thick wire and pulled himself up. It was only seven feet; he was at the top in five seconds, flipping himself over and jumping to the dusty ground inside the compound.

Rebecca was next, climbing quickly and easily, a lithe shadow in the dark. David reached up to help her, but she leapt nimbly to the ground next to him with hardly a stumble. She drew her weapon, an H&K VP70, and turned to cover the darkness as David looked back to the fence.

Leon almost tripped off the top, but David managed to steady him, grabbing the younger man's hand; once he was down, he nodded his thanks at David and turned to help Claire over.

So far, so good. . . .

David scanned the shadows around them as John scaled the outside, his heart pounding, all of his

senses on high alert. There was no sound but the gentleclankof the fence, no movement in the blackness.

He glanced back as John thumped to the cold and dusty ground, then nodded toward the front structure, the smaller one. If he were to design a false cover, he'd hide the real entrance somewhere no one would look—in a broom closet at the back of the last building, through a trap door in the dirt—but Umbrella was cocky, too smug to worry about such simple precautions.

It will be in the first building, because they'll believe they've hidden it so cleverly that no one will find it. Because if there's one thing we can count on, it's that Umbrella thinks they're too smart to be caught out. .. .

He hoped. Staying down, David started for the building, praying that if there were cameras watching them, there was no one watching the cameras.

It was late, but Reston wasn't tired. He sat in the control room, sipping brandy from a ceramic mug and idly thinking about the next day's agenda.

He'd make his report, of course; Cole still hadn't managed to fix the intercom system, although the video cameras all seemed to be in working order; the Ca6 handler, Les Duvall, wanted one of the mechanics to see about a sticking lock on the release cage— and there was still the city. The MaSKs couldn't exactly shine if the only colors were tan and brick . . .

. . .have to get the construction people into Four tomorrow. And see how the Avis do with the perches—

A red light flashed on the panel in front of him, accompanied by a soft mechanical bleat. It was the sixth or seventh time in the last week; he'd have to get Cole to fix that, too. The winds sweeping off the plain

could be vicious; on a bad day, they rattled the doors to the surface structures hard enough to set off all of the sensors.

Still, good thing I was here...once the Planet was fully staffed, there'd always be someone in control to reset the sensors, but for the time being, he was the only one with access to the control room. If he'd been in bed, the soft but insistent alarm currently going off

in his private room would have forced him to get up.

Reston reached for the switch, glancing at the row of monitors to his left more for form's sake than because he expected to see anything—

—and froze, staring at a screen that showed him the entry room nearly a quarter mile above where he sat, in a view from the ceiling cam in the southeast corner. Four, five people, turning on flashlights, all of them dressed in black. The thin beams of light roamed over the dusty consoles, the walls of meteorological equipment—and illuminated the weapons they were holding in flashes of metal. Guns and rifles.

Oh, no.

Reston felt almost a full second of fear and despair before he remembered who he was. Jay Reston had not become one of the most powerful men in the country, perhaps in the world, by panicking.

He reached beneath the console, reached for the slender handset tucked into the slot next to the chair that would connect him directly to White Umbrella's private offices. As soon as he picked it up, the line went through.

"This is Reston," he said, and could hear the steel in his voice, hear it and feel it. "We have a problem. I want a call put in to Trent, I want Jackson to call me

immediately—and send out a team, now, I want them here twenty minutes ago."

He stared at the screen as he spoke, at theintruders, and clenched his jaw, his initial fear turning to anger. The fugitive S.T.A.R.S., surely_

It didn't matter. Even if they found the entrance, they didn't have the codes—and whoever they were, they would pay for causing him even a second of distress.

Reston slid the phone back into its slot, folded his arms, and watched the strangers move silently across the screen, wondering if they had any idea that they'd be dead within half an hour.

SEVEN

THE BUILDING WAS COLD AND DARK, BUT

there was the soft hum of working machinery to break the silence, to listen to over the pounding of her heart. It wasn't too big, maybe thirty feet by twenty, but it was a single room, big enough to feel unsafe, vulnerable. Small lights blinked randomly all around it, like dozens of eyes watching them from the shadows.

Man, I hate this.

Rebecca trailed the tight beam from her flashlight over the west wall of the building, looking for anything out of the ordinary and trying not to feel sick at the same time. In movies, private detectives and cops who had just crashed someone's house were always strolling calmly around, looking for evidence, as if they owned the place; in real life, breaking in somewhere you were absolutelynotsupposed to be was terrifying. She knew they were in the right, that they were the good guys, but still her palms were damp, her

heart hammering, and she wished desperately there were a bathroom she could get to. Her bladder had apparently shrunk to the size of a walnut.