Chapter 111: The Missing Link

Rick’s words brought Rachel out of her own analysis of the documents she had in hand. She closed the file, dropped it on the coffee table in front of her without thinking twice and scooted over close to him on the sofa to have a look at what he was looking at.

“What did you find?”

“This here. That name.” He pointed at a specific line with his finger.

“Shen Mei?”

“She’s a member of the official investigation team the President tasked with.”

“So? What about it?”

“This is her service record. Look here.” He turned a few pages and pointed at something that made Rachel’s eyes widened and see the connection.

“She was a Unit and Team’s monitor and coordinator back in 2000.” She looked down further and found what she had expected to find. “Penamstan.”

“Yeah. It doesn’t mean it’s her but—” His phone beeped loudly. An alert to remind him he needed to go or he would miss his flight. After a moment of hesitation, he turned it off and tucked his phone back into his pants pocket.

That surprised his friend. “You’re staying?”

“Yes. Leon is already in China investigating. If there is something to find, he’ll find it. No,” Rick shook his head. “This… This is… It’s happening here, Rach. Whoever is behind this is in America. If I leave, I would just waste time. I’m sure there is something in those files that can lead us to the truth. Maybe not evidence but—”

“That never stopped us before.” She smirked. The memory of their one mission in New-Zealand where they raided a facility without any proof of involvement in bio-terrorism or research had been proven to be the right call.

“No.” He handed a few files to her. “Forget everything else, we must focus on this Shen Mei. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that she’s part of both incidents.”

Rachel took them all, nodding. “There is no coincidence. Only links we didn’t find.”

“Really? You’re quoting Chaser, of all people?” It surprised him a bit.

Huffing, she took back her original spot on the sofa. “He was an asshole and I hated his guts but that didn’t mean he didn’t have pearls of wisdom to share.”

“He was just head over heels for you.”

No further comment came from her mouth. She was already busy reading through the documents. While they were pressed by time, the truth was that she didn’t like talking about their late comrades, whether she liked them or not. It always sent her into a frenzied rage born from the pain and grief of the loss. To this day she still hasn’t recovered from the death of Crow, Blast and White properly.

The information on Shen Mei was interesting. The woman was in her late twenties. Chinese American descent. Her mother was Chinese and father American. She had a younger brother Jun Shi who enlisted in the army too and was declared dead. The more Rachel read, the more she realized Shen Mei looked like the perfect culprit for the matter at hand. Or rather the perfect scapegoat. There was no doubt in her mind that the woman was involved somehow.

When Rachel learned that Shen Mei quit the army to become a federal agent a few years ago, she paused. From the document the woman service records were simply perfect. There was no reason for her to quit the army in the first place. Getting suspicious, she looked into the three other members of the Team investigating China.

‘Huh, quite the cutie you are, Mister Kennedy.’

What she read from Leon’s file shone a lot of light on the man’s relationship with Rick. His survival of Raccoon city on his first day on the job, meaning after only 21 weeks of training, was quite extraordinary when many police officers and military veterans with years of experience lost their lives during the outbreak. In her opinion, the man had what it takes to be part of the selection she and Rick had gone through to be in the Unit. It was clear Leon was a survivor and the more she read, the more she was convinced of it.

‘Saving the president’s daughter from a cult in spain… Las Plagas? Wow, that shit is nasty! And he did it on his own? Damn! That’s impressive. Not Rick impressive but me impressive.’

Despite Rick’s trust in the man, Rachel was thorough with her study. It didn’t reveal anything relevant to the situation however and sped on to the next. The next member of the group surprised her and not just a little bit. She was completely taken aback by the picture attached to the file.

“Holy shit! Rick, look!”

“Hm?”

He turned his head around to see what this was about. Rachel nearly rubbed the documents onto his face and he had to pull back away for his eyes to have a proper focus on what they were seeing.

“Captain Jason Tyler?” He was confused and before he could read the record, Rachel filled him in on who the man was.

“He was my roomie!”

It didn’t help Rick one bit and he frowned. “Roomie? You know that guy?”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course I do! So do you! He’s the guy you broke the arm and knocked out the first day of the selections for the Unit! The day we met! Remember him, yet?”

He blinked once or twice, searching his memory as best as he could. At the time, he was too busy playing catch up with everyone to pay attention to who the other candidates were. More than that, since there would be just another candidate recruit beside himself, there was even less reason to get to know the other. Nonetheless, the story was very familiar to him. It was something he would never forget, however the face of the guy was another matter entirely.

“I don’t remember anything about him except kicking his ass. You sure it’s him?”

Rachel hummed in affirmation and continued reading the documents. It didn’t matter if they knew the guy or not. That was irrelevant to their case. Except she quickly found out it wasn’t quite true.

“Oh, I have another missing link too.”

This time Rick was far more interested than previously. “How so?”

“It says here that Tyler was deployed in Penamstan in 2000. Want to guess who his Team Operator was?”

Rick didn’t even think. The answer came naturally. “Shen Mei.”

“Bingo. We need the mission reports for—”

Rick leaned forward, discarding the document he was reading to the side. “Got you covered. It’s here somewhere.” After pushing dossiers right and left and quickly checking their content, he found the right one. “Got it.”

It was snatched from his hands and Rachel began to read aloud a resume of the content. The relevant part.

“Got into the Special Forces in 99 and was promoted to Captain within the year. In 2000 he got his own team.” She stayed quiet for a moment, reading further but not mentioning what was uninteresting. “Ah! Here! His team code named “Mad Dogs”—”

“We already know the—”

“Shhh.” Rachel shut him up for interrupting. “They were sent secretly to Penamstan before the UN agreed to send troops. Two Squads, Alpha One, Tyler’s and Alpha Two. Alpha Two got shot out of the sky by the rebels and crashed. Tyler disobeyed orders from Command to not go for a rescue and he and his squad were confronted with a T-virus outbreak. Infected population.”

Rick didn’t interrupt her again when wondered about this. ‘Where does the T-virus come from? It’s been six years and we still don’t have an answer to that question. The Penamstan was too poor to get hold of it and Umbrella, despite its difficulty, was still standing and running. There shouldn’t have been an outbreak there and if there had been a secret lab we would have found it.’

“They recovered one badly injured member of Squad Alpha Tw— Oh!”

“What?”

“Jun Shi. That’s the name of the guy.”

He immediately made the connection with Shen Mei. “The plot thickens. And unravel.”

“Yeah. They did a 70 miles trek back to their base with Jun Shi who died of his injuries along the way. Squad Alpha One narrowingly escaped the city before it was bombed by MK77s.”

“And at the same time we were purging the whole surrounding area of any zombies.” Rick spoke aloud to no one in particular.

Rachel continued reading the file, her eyes never leaving it. “It seems to me that your friend Leon is in danger.”

“You’re right.” Rick picked up his phone and began writing a text. Its content was to be wary of Tyler and Shen Mei. It was a risky move. Leon didn’t know Rick was on the case too and if somehow one of them read the message, it wouldn’t bode well. Thinking about it for a moment, he decided against it.

‘Leon will notice that their behavior is suspicious on his own. Besides, if I send him a text and it is intercepted I might blow my anonymity. Again if that’s not already the case.’

“Now that’s curious.” Rachel brought him out of his thoughts.

“What is?”

“The head honcho commanding directly the Unit was none other than Secretary of Defense Alec Wilson, Major General at the time.”

“The same Secretary of Defense who was present during the outbreak at the White House? Interesting.”

Rachel closed the dossier and tossed it onto the coffee table. “You’re thinking what I’m thinking?”

“That he’s involved? Yes. Why refuse a rescue op for Alpha Two, then agree to it for Alpha One? With Mk77s to boot? That doesn’t make sense, unless…”

“There was an important difference between the two squads. One important enough that he couldn’t lose Alpha One.”

Rick picked up his phone again. “I’m calling the Major. We need detailed information about that unit and those two squads.”

Entering the number she had left on a post it on one of the dossiers he waited for her to pick up.

“Major Teresa Walker.”

“Ma’am, it’s Wald. Is the line secure?”

“It is. Did you already solve the case?”

“No, ma’am but we have a very good lead. We need more information however to follow it.”

“Information about what?”

“The Mad Dogs unit. All their ops, all their reports. From the names of its members to the number of times they went to the toilets per day, ma’am.”

“It will take time. I’ll have to go to the archives.”

“Ma’am, it is imperative no one knows we’re sniffing the Mad Dogs. Not even the president.”

“Wald… You’re asking me to go behind our Chief of State. That’s not an easy thing to do and it is treason.”

Rick grimaced, thinking she wouldn’t agree to his request. “I know ma’am but sometimes we have to do what we have to do, no matter the consequences. I wouldn’t be surprised if those files are… monitored.”

“...” Teresa went silent for a moment, understanding what Rick was implying. His lead was about someone very close to the president. A person that he perhaps trusted and would share the information without knowing of their duplicity. On a personal level, she was proud of the soldier she had raised and trained.

“You know I wouldn’t be asking if there was another way.”

“The point is moot. I won’t be able to get the files before you leave for China.”

“That’s the thing ma’am… I’m not leaving.”

Another moment of silence came from the other end of the line. Rick not leaving meant he had abandoned China's lead and more importantly it meant the current one he had was in DC. More reason for him requesting utter secrecy and treason.

“... Same drop point?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll do my best time wise.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

The call ended. Rick looked pensively at the phone in his hand before tossing it on the table.

“So?” Rachel wanted to know the details.

“She agreed but it will take time to do it behind everyone’s back. We’re going to need lots of food.”

“Well… All this talk about China made me want to eat chinese.”

Rachel was already up walking in the direction of her desk where she stored restaurants’ flyers and menus. The night will be quite long for both of them. They had a very good lead, however that didn’t mean it was the correct one. They still had plenty of documents to go through.