Chapter 74: The Gambit

The name immediately spilled out of Raymond’s mouth as soon as Jill finished her question. Rachel was still right next to him and playing with her knife to keep the pressure on him.

“O’Brian?” Jill repeated her boss name. She knew the man and while his recent actions have been suspicious a name dropping like this from a member of another organization didn’t hold much credit. “What’s O’Brian have anything to do with Il Vetro?

“Everything.” It wasn’t enough of an answer for Rick who threw his knife right between Raymond’s legs and that made him speak more. “He faked their return!”

“Why?”

“To push Lansdale to act and catch him.” The redhead relaxed a tiny bit when Rick took back his knife. “During the Terragrigia incident… I came across Lansdale talking on the phone with Il Vetro. From what I understood, he betrayed them. After the destruction of the city on his order, I contacted O’Brian and told him everything. Lansdale is a mad man that needs to be stopped. I’ve been a mole for the BSAA ever since.” His eyes turned to Rachel. “Apparently, I’m not the only one although I don’t understand why O’Brian didn’t warn me about you.”

Rachel gave him a malicious grin. “I’m not a mole for the BSAA.”

Jill took back the floor. “Do you have proof of what you say?”

“Contact O’Brian.”

“Why act against us? The fake capture of Redfield and Sherawat, your trap room upstairs…” Rick inquired.

“To give me time.” Raymond answered. “You would have slept for a couple hours and I was supposed to bring you to another part of the ship for you to explore, in the meantime, I was tasked to search for evidence linking Il Vetro to Lansdale.”

“That makes no sense.” Jill wasn’t buying it. “Why didn’t O’Brian tell us right from the start? Why the need to pretend Chris and Jessica were here instead of sending us directly?”

The answer to her question was not something she had expected. “Because there is a mole in the BSAA. This ship… was one of Il Vetro bases during the Terragrigia Panic.”

“That explains the UAVs.” Rachel connected the dots.

So did Rick. “So O’Brian wanted Il Vetro to make a come back on this ship, their former base, to push Lansdale to act in panic as he’s supposed to have dealt with the terrorist organization last year. Them alive after his betrayal puts him in danger because they can reveal he’s the mastermind behind the Terragrigia Panic. The Zenobia is to give more credit to the return but also to collect possible evidence.”

“That still…” Jill stopped mid-sentence and turned to Rick. “Do you think O’Brian thought one of us was the mole?”

“No.” He shook his head. “You don’t have any motive to help Lansdale and the F.B.C.. Not when you’re a founding member of the BSAA. There is nothing to gain for you. Me neither, even though my file is shady at best. My contributions alone to the BSAA removed me from the list of suspects. I’m not even talking about the fact we basically told O’Brian of our suspicions regarding the F.B.B. right after Terragrigia. Perhaps…. Declaring Chris and Jessica going under the radar was to involve you and as a result me? We are the best in the BSAA and I don't think other agents would be able to survive the B.O.W. here. Rachel is an expert and nearly got herself killed.”

The blonde woman glared at Raymond for that.

“As far as I knew, you were working for Lansdale. ” The redhead man defended himself. “We were told to destroy everything we could find. This mission is off the books and you’re one of the best in the F.B.C. To me, you were an enemy.”

“Any idea about who the mole is?” Jill asked Raymond.

“Sherawat.”

Rick and Rachel exchange a look that meant plenty of things with how complicit it was. The name of Chris’ current partner being brought forward partially explained O’Brian not telling anything to Jill or Rick. They could have discussed the plan and Jessica could have learned of it.

If she’s the mole, then it would have proven disastrous and the plan to expose Lansdale would have failed miserably. The man would have acted very differently and could have perhaps taken down the BSAA. That would have given him more power to act as he wished across the globe since he wouldn’t have any opposition.

“Why?”

Raymond looked at Jill. “She's former F.B.C. It was a bit too convenient that she joined the BSAA right after the Terragrigia Panic when the F.B.C. 's reputation soared from it.”

“Why not Parker? He was F.B.C. too.” Jill insisted. Not like she particularly liked Jessica but she wouldn’t trust words alone. Even if Rick suspects her too.

“I do not know. You’ll have to ask O’Brian.”

“Do you know what’s the virus at work here?” Rick inquired.

“Yes. I found a note from one of the crew member’s corpses. It’s called the T-Abyss.”

“And?” Rachel asked Raymond for more.

“I’m not too sure about it but its base is the Abyss virus. A virus discovered at the bottom of the ocean at the beginning of the century and studied at Montpellier in France.” The redhead replied simply.

It wasn’t enough for Jill. “Anything else?”

“I wasn’t on the ship long enough to know more about the virus but probably.”

It still wasn’t enough but there was no point in asking more questions. They couldn’t verify the answer. Rachel and Rick could make him talk but Jill will not go down that road so the point was moot. She gave a meaningful look to the latter. Rick got closer to Raymond and flicked his forehead knocking him out.

“I’ll never get tired of seeing you flick people to unconsciousness.” Rachel commented with amusement while looking at her partner.

Rick was the first to speak. “We need to contact O’Brian to confirm everything he said. That means getting to the bridge or the communication center. The issue at hand is him. What do we do with him? I can’t carry him all over the ship like a backpack and we can’t let him here tied up.”

“A ooze could come.” Rachel finished his train of thoughts.

Jill had an idea about it. “What about locking him in the room where we found the mannequin?”

“Lock is busted. I had to, to get inside.”

Sighing, the former STARS agent so one last solution. “He’s coming with us, then. Awake.”

““Unarmed.”” Both former black ops wouldn’t budge on this.

“And still tied up. His hands at least.” Rachel added wisely.

“Fine by me.” Jill grabbed Rick by the arm and led him outside the station to have a serious talk with him, out of Rachel’s earshot.

She wasn’t happy with the whole ordeal that had just happened and she perhaps needed reassurance about him and about Rachel.

He spoke first. “What is it?”

“Would you have done it?” Jill was blunt with her question and went straight to the core of the matter.

His face was as blank as ever and that was something she didn’t like. “Torture, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think?”

His own question made her pause to think about it. Rick was a survivor first and foremost and would do anything to keep on living. Of that she was sure, yet he had lines that she knew he wouldn’t cross. At least the Rick before the army had ones. The man in front of her?

“I think that… You have it in you to do it.” She confessed. “I… chose to believe you wouldn’t.”

For the first time since they got on the Queen Zenobia, Rick gave her a smile. A genuine, warm smile. The kind that subdued her fears.

“I wouldn’t, no. Neither would Rachel. Not physically at least. Our little stage comedy over there? It was technically torture. Psychological. Way more effective to get information or so Queen used to say.”

“Queen?”

Rick’s expression changed to one of sadness. “Queen was the leader of Team Beta, the other team but also the interrogation expert. Fear is what breaks your captive, not the pain. They’d do everything to make the pain stop and spout bullshit but fear? Fear destabilizes at the core and the truth is more often than not obtained like this.”

“You had an expert in interrogation?” That partially shocked Jill. It wasn’t so out of left field for the military and especially the black ops to have that kind of person in the ranks but she always thought that Rick’s unit was more of a raid type one.

“Yes.” Rick nodded. “Everyone in the team had their own speciality. A bit like the A-team but bigger. Sometimes speciality overlapped though. Infiltration, explosives, snipping, CQC, medical, computers…”

Jill was curious about Rick’s own skill. “What was your specialty? Fighting?”

“With my abilities you’d think so, hm?” He chuckled. “But no. Rachel and I were the survivors' experts. How to find resources, how to transform them and use them to our advantage and to our enemies disadvantage. We were the one to take all the dangerous missions when the whole Unit couldn’t act. Our odds of survival and success were far higher.”

“The Spencer Rain.” The name of the ship slipped through her lips.

“Among others,"Rick nodded. “Lost at sea, isolated, with plenty of B.O.W. and viruses on board? We barely made it out alive, the others would have died.” He sighed, not particularly wanting to remember that mission.

Satisfied with what she heard and she didn’t believe for a moment Rick would lie to her, Jill changed the subject. “Do you think Raymond lied?”

Rick’s demeanor changed back to professional. “No. His heartbeat while elevated because of how scared we made him was steady. Now, it’s not a 100% method. Some people can lie with a steady heart but in this case I don’t think he could have calmed himself down enough for that if he could and who knows what he’ll do?”

Jill blinked a few times, digesting what he had just said. “You monitored his heartbeats with… your hearing?”

“Yes. I was close enough and there wasn’t much noise, so I was able to focus on it. Not easy when there were three more hearts beating but I’m well accustomed to mine and Rachel’s. It was just about isolating yours.”

She looked at him with awe. “This is such bullshit.”

“I agree wholeheartedly but that’s life.” He turned back toward the medical station. “Come on, we should move. The more time we spend here, the more suspicious Lansdale will get if he’s not contacted.”

“Can’t Rachel…”

“Perhaps but I wouldn’t put it past the man to obliterate the ship anyway. Two agents are nothing compared to a whole city.”

Jill couldn’t argue the point and followed him. Climbing over the destroyed window, she looked at an unconscious Raymond, wondering what else the man was hiding.

“Here. found this along the way.”

Both ladies watched Rick pull a MP5 from behind his back, shocking them. They had been so focused on Raymond that they had completely missed the additional weapon in his possession. He handed it to Rachel who was more than happy to take it along with two spare mags fully loaded.

Jill frowned slightly. Perhaps it was jealousy that pushed her to dislike Rick giving the MP5 to someone else than her, or perhaps it was because she didn’t fully trust Rachel. It was wiped off her face when he turned around and offered her his shotgun and his bandolier.

“Why?”

“You may need it more than I do and I’m packing heavier guns.” He replied tapping on one of his biceps making Rachel snort as she put the spare mags into Raymond's tactical vest she had stolen for herself.

Jill accepted the gifts without another word.