New chapter is live.
Settle in, take your time, and let’s see what waits in the dark 🖤
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Once they were inside the truck, Freeman kept talking.
He complained about the strict requirements of the transport job, the route, the schedule, the tiresome demands of the people above him.
At first, Adrian listened carefully.
A man who talked this much had to let something useful slip sooner or later.
Ten minutes later, he admitted defeat.
Freeman had spent ten solid minutes saying nothing.
There were words everywhere, but not a single piece of meat on the bone.
Somehow, the talkative bastard was tight-lipped where it counted.
Adrian stopped following the monologue and looked at the others in the cargo compartment instead.
There were ten people in the truck.
Besides Freeman and Adrian, the security detail consisted of eight men.
They were fully armed, dressed head to toe in black tactical gear, wearing unfamiliar black helmets and gas masks.
Every man carried a sidearm, a knife, a radio, and an HK416.
The only exception sat across from Adrian.
He was a tall white man with his gas mask clipped to his belt and his helmet set beside him.
Sunglasses hid his eyes.
His face carried the dead calm of someone who did not waste expressions.
The most noticeable thing about him, however, was the bald head.
He felt Adrian’s stare and looked up.
Even through the sunglasses, the look sent a chill up Adrian’s spine.
It did not feel like meeting a man.
It felt like stepping too close to a killer in the dark.
“That’s Norman,” Freeman said, noticing the exchange.
“Captain of our security detail.
Don’t mind him.
He’s always like that, stone-faced and silent.
It’s why I hate riding in the same truck with him.
Terribly dull.
Thank heavens you’re here.”
Adrian considered pointing out that he had barely spoken.
Freeman had supplied the entire conversation by himself.
He kept that observation where it belonged.
The silence had just begun to turn awkward when a voice came over the radio.
“Mr.
Freeman, we’re entering Loplers.”
The convoy stopped at a local checkpoint.
Adrian pulled his attention away from Norman and got out to speak with the local unit.
The officer in charge was an acquaintance.
After two bills changed hands, he cheerfully ordered the soldiers blocking the road to move aside.
Adrian waved to the lead driver, and the convoy rolled forward.
As the first truck passed, he noticed that its rear compartment was not built for people.
The cargo section was round, almost like a tanker, except the whole thing was matte black.
Numbers and letters circled the container in neat strings, more like a black-market catalog code than any normal label.
A red valve sat on the side, apparently meant to open the tank.
The whole thing looked like an oversized iron maiden that had rolled off a twenty-first-century assembly line.
There were three cargo trucks like it: front, middle, and rear.
The officer clapped a hand on Adrian’s shoulder.
“Voss, what are they hauling?”
“No idea.
Rules of the trade: get paid, do the job, don’t ask questions.”
The officer understood.
Adrian said nothing more and climbed back aboard when the second truck reached him.
“I must say, finding a reliable local guide is a relief.” Freeman smiled as Adrian took his seat.
“I was told Loplers is a cesspit, every last man inside it a criminal.
But you’re different.
You and I are civilized men.
Ordinarily, our security team can handle a minor armed confrontation on its own, but my superiors insisted we hire a local guide, so I contacted Agor.”
Civilized?
Agor had probably left out the part where Adrian had once skinned men alive at sea and fed them to the fish.
Loplers was not an ordinary city where money solved everything.
Plenty of people there would take the cash, do nothing, and rob the cargo anyway.
Agor’s job was to connect outsiders with locals they could trust.
In plain terms, he was a broker.
You paid him, he found the right person, and he kept his cut.
Adrian heard the faint contempt under Freeman’s politeness.
The man probably did not spend much time in the field.
Beneath the warm manners and professional smile sat the arrogance of someone who considered himself civilized and everyone in a city like Loplers beneath him.
He had clearly never been educated by local gangs or old-school criminals.
Loplers had street gunfights often enough for people to complain about the noise.
Then again, parts of the U.S.
could be just as bad.
Adrian caught himself and decided Freeman’s contempt might have roots after all.
Across from him, Norman stared out at the streets.
His expression tightened further.
“Let’s get out of here quickly,” he said.
“The air in this place makes me sick.”
After that, Adrian laid out the route, stepped down several more times to pay the right people, and guided the convoy out of Loplers without a scratch.
“You have more pull in this city than I expected.” Freeman sounded genuinely impressed by how smooth the trip had been.
“Agor told me you were only a mercenary.
It seems I underestimated you.”
“You’re too kind.”
Adrian did not want to stretch the topic.
He wanted to deliver the cargo, collect his money, and leave.
Night had fully settled outside.
Trees he could not name crowded the mountain road on both sides, and the headlights failed to pierce the darkness beyond them.
It felt as if something were waiting just outside the reach of the beams.
He disliked the feeling.
He lit a cigarette, then looked up and found Norman staring at him.
After a moment, Adrian offered the pack.
“Want one?”
“I don’t smoke.”
Norman raised a hand in refusal.
Adrian tossed the cigarette he had just lit out the open side of the truck, feeling unreasonably annoyed.
“Thank you,” Norman said.
The thanks sounded even stranger coming from that deadpan face.
“I told you, Mr.
Voss is a civilized man.” Freeman, delighted to have found a topic again, patted Adrian’s shoulder and beamed at Norman.
The dark roadside waited ahead.
At the roadside ambush site, the heavily built stranger from the restaurant checked his phone and confirmed the time.
His earpiece crackled.
“Chris, the roadblock is set.
The rest of us are in position.
We can launch the ambush whenever you’re ready.”
“Good.”
Chris nodded and checked the M4A1 in his hands.
“Their convoy has five trucks.
Once they reach the marked point, disable the lead vehicle.
Then we move.”
“Simple and brutal.
Very you,” the voice on the other end said with a faint laugh.
“But they have five trucks.
Even if one carries the target, that leaves four more.
They’ve got numbers, Chris.
We only have twenty people, and air support’s still on the way.”
“No,” Chris said.
“Intel says only two trucks carry personnel.
The front, middle, and rear vehicles are cargo.
We don’t know which one has the target.”
“A shell game, then.” The other man sounded unimpressed.
“What’s the point?
If it were me, I’d pack every truck with shooters.”
Chris did not answer.
“By the way,” the man added, changing the subject, “have you been following the WilPharma mess?”
“That new pharmaceutical company?
I follow things like that.”
“What do you think?”
“I hope it collapses as soon as possible.”
“That’s harsh, man.
They only acquired T-virus samples.
Possessing a sample isn’t proof of criminal intent.
If WilPharma can develop a working T-virus vaccine, nothing like Raccoon City ever happens again.”
“A private pharmaceutical company legally researching Umbrella’s legacy sets a terrible precedent if it succeeds,” Chris said.
“After reports of a fatal clinical trial in India went public, WilPharma and the politicians backing it have been scrambling.
Protests are growing.
People are terrified of another Raccoon City in their own backyard.”
“Of course you’re right, Chris Redfield, BSAA hero, frontline veteran in the fight against bioterrorism.” The voice laughed, but the humor thinned toward the end.
“Let’s hope this operation goes smoothly.
To be honest, I’m getting nervous.”
“That’s not like you, Newman.” Chris frowned.
“What are you worried about?”
“I read your file, Chris.
Frontline work has a high casualty rate.
That’s normal for people like us.
But your team casualty rate is…
impressive.
People who deploy with you rarely come back whole.
Actually, a lot of them don’t come back with bodies intact.”
Chris was silent for a long moment.
“They were good people,” he said at last.
“The fighting was dangerous, and I couldn’t protect them.”
“Don’t take it all on yourself.
War is war.
And the things we fight look like they crawled out of horror movies.
We chose this road, and the ones who died chose it too.
I don’t think they regretted it.”
Listening to Newman, Chris looked up at the starless sky.
“I hope you’re right.”
He thought of the people who had worked beside him and never reached the end.
They had been some of the best soldiers in the world, people who set old grudges aside and fought together for something larger than themselves.
One by one, they had fallen.
Chris regretted that they had not lived to see bioterrorism wiped from the world.
But he was still alive.
As long as he was alive, he would fight.
For himself.
For the comrades who had sacrificed themselves.
For the world that still needed someone to stand between it and the monsters.
“Heads up.
Vehicles approaching.”
The radio cut through his thoughts.
The ground began to tremble.
Truck engines rolled closer, the sound swelling through the dark until the glare of headlights appeared on the road.
“The advance team confirms five black trucks,” Newman reported.
“Front, middle, and rear are cargo.
That’s them.”
Chris pushed the distractions aside.
His thumb took the safety off.
Night vision down, rifle ready, he watched the black convoy pass into the kill zone.
A blue flash burst beneath the lead truck.
Its headlights died at once.
Tires screamed as the vehicle slid several yards and locked up in the middle of the road.
Chris held the rifle in his right hand and pressed his left to his earpiece.
“All units, the operation is a go.
And…
everyone comes home alive.”
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Want to keep going?
I hope this chapter gave you another reason to stay with the story.
There’s still plenty ahead, and things are only starting to unfold.