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David went on, his dark gaze still fixed on the young Bravo. "I've talked to the people on my team I believe to be trustworthy, and three of them have agreed to go. I'm not going to lie to you -- it will be dangerous, and without the S. T. A. R. S. to back us up, there's no guarantee we'll be able to close the lab down. We just want to go in, collect some solid evidence on this T-Virus, and get back out before anyone even knows we're…"

They all stared at David, Chris feeling like he'd just been punched in the gut. He was still reeling from the information about the S. T. A. R. S., from the realization that they were on their own and now another lab? And he wants to take Rebecca…

Before he could stop himself, Chris interrupted. "I'm going, too."

"We all go," Barry said firmly.

Jill nodded, putting her arm around Rebecca. The teen seemed flustered, her cheeks red, and looking at her, Chris was once again reminded of Claire. It was more than just a physical resemblance; Rebecca had the same wit, the same spirited blend of courage and thoughtfulness that Chris's younger sister had. And since the Spencer estate disaster, Chris had come to feel just as protective of Rebecca. Too many of his friends had died already. Joseph, Richard, Kenneth, Forest, and Enrico -- not to mention Billy Rabbitson; his body had never been found, but Chris had no doubts that Umbrella had killed him to keep him from talking. It wasn't that Rebecca couldn't handle herself… but damn it, she's part of our team. No way she goes without us.

"You've got your team right here," Chris said. "You can take us instead, let your guys look into the cover up."

David sat back down and looked at Chris, his face expressionless, "Tell me who's involved in Umbrella's conspiracy to hide their research," he said.

David shook his head. "Look, this isn't a full-scale op; five people is already stretching it. Rebecca's got the background we need to find the data on the virus, and she already knows what symptoms to look for."

Chris glanced at the others, then back at David, determined not to let his confusion show. "We suspect several people locally. Umbrella's office workers, of course. The police commissioner, Chief Irons, a couple of his men…"

David nodded. "And now that it looks like the S. T. A. R. S. are in on this, what do you propose to do?"

Where the hell is he going with this?

Chris sighed. "I don't know. I… we should contact the Feds, maybe an internal affairs division to look into the S. T. A. R. S. and the RPD."

Barry cut in "… and we'll get in touch with some of the other S. T. A. R. S. branches. There are still good people working out there who ain't gonna be too happy that Umbrella's taking over."

David nodded again. "So you agree that Umbrella has to be stopped, even though it will be dangerous?"

He was about to say, "You should ask Rebecca." And he knows it.

"Well, no shit," Chris said, scowling angrily. "We can't just sit around and do nothing, there's no telling what could happen if the T-Virus gets out again!"

"And what can you tell me about the classification of the virus?" David asked quietly.

Chris opened his mouth to answer -- and then closed it, staring at David thoughtfully.

David stood up and looked at all of them in turn as he spoke, his voice intense and determined. "I agree, Umbrella has to be stopped -- but let's not kid ourselves. We're talking about breaking from the S. T. A. R. S. and going up against a multi-billion dollar establishment on our own. Nowhere is going to be safe, and our only chance for success is if we each do what we can, what we're good at, to take Umbrella down."

He fixed his cool gaze on Chris, as if he realized that Chris was the one who had to be convinced. "You and Jill and Barry already know what to look for here, and you've been with the S. T. A. R. S. longer than Rebecca. You should stay here, out of sight, see if you can ferret out the connection between the local police and Umbrella -- and reach out to the S. T. A. R. S. members that you think would help us."

David turned to Rebecca again. "And if you agree, I think we should leave for Maine tonight. With the information I have, it looks as though things have already gotten out of hand. My team is standing by; we could go in tomorrow at dusk."

The room was silent for a moment, the only sound that of the ceiling fan whirring overhead. Chris still felt angry, but couldn't find a hole in the man's logic; he was right about their options, and whether Chris liked it or not, the choice to go to Maine was Rebecca's to make.

"What information do you have?" Jill asked thoughtfully. "How did you find out about the lab?"

David reached down to a battered briefcase propped next to his chair and dug through it, pulling out a file folder. "An interesting story in itself, if a strange one. I was hoping that one of you might be able to decipher some of this…"

He laid out three sheets of paper on the coffee table as he spoke, what looked like photocopies of newspaper clippings, and a simple diagram. "Shortly after I talked to the home office, I received a visit from a stranger, a man who claimed to be a friend of the S. T. A. R. S… he told me his name was Trent, and gave me these."

"Just before we went in to rescue the Bravos, a man named Trent gave me some information about the Spencer estate, and warned me about Wesker," Jill said. "He was quite a piece of work, real shady -- he didn't give anything away, you know? But he knew what was going on with Umbrella, and what he did tell me all panned out."

"Trent!" Jill broke in excitedly. She turned to Chris, her eyes wide, and Chris felt his heart skip a beat. He'd almost forgotten about their mysterious benefactor.

The guy who told Jill to watch out for traitors, who told Brad where to pick us up…

Barry nodded. "And Brad Vickers said that Trent called in the estate's coordinates right after Wesker activated the triggering system. If he hadn't radioed, we woulda blown up with the rest of the mansion."

Chris suddenly realized that he had a serious headache brewing as they all gathered around Barry's coffee table, staring down at the papers. The S. T. A. R. S. were working for Umbrella, there was another T-Virus facility operating in Maine -- and now Trent again, popping up like some cryptic fairy godmother, his motives impossible to guess at. It was like some kind of a game, the stakes all or nothing as they struggled to get to the bottom of Umbrella's conspiracy.

David stared at Jill, his expression puzzled. "You know him?"

Chris shot an unhappy glance at Rebecca, thinking again of his kid sister and wishing, not for the first time, that they'd never heard of Umbrella.

And we have no choice but to play -- but whose game are we playing? And what do we risk losing if we fail?

David watched them study the information that Trent had given him, somehow not surprised that the enigmatic stranger had contacted the S. T. A. R. S. before. The man had been a professional, though at what, precisely, David couldn't imagine.

The Exeter S. T. A. R. S. had enjoyed an easy summer, more paperwork than action. The Bravos had taken off for a criminal profiling seminar in New Hampshire, and David had been entertaining thoughts of packing a bag and attending the final days -- until he'd received Barry's call, followed by his first hint from the home office that something was wrong.

David thought back to the brief encounter he'd had only five days ago, searching his memory for some additional clues, something he'd missed. He'd arrived home late from work, and it had been raining… pouring, a thundering summer storm that beat at the windows and masked the sound of his gentle knocking…

Why would he want to help us fight Umbrella? What's in it for him?

He'd spent the next day calling a few of his branch contacts with discreet questions and digging through files on Umbrella, not making it home until almost midnight. The driving rain had ushered him into his cold, dark house, the atmosphere matching his mood perfectly. He'd poured a scotch and collapsed on the couch, his head spinning from the implications of what he'd learned -- that either his old friend Barry was lying or that the AD for the S. T. A. R. S. was.

The rapping at his door was so soft that he missed it at first, the steady rain hammering on the roof covering the sound. Then it grew louder.

Frowning, David looked at his watch and walked slowly to the door, wondering who the hell came calling in the middle of the night. He lived alone and had no family; it had to be work, or maybe someone with car trouble…

He cracked the door open -- and saw a man in a black trench coat standing on his porch, streams of water running down his lined face.

The stranger smiled, an open, friendly expression, his eyes glittering bright with humor. "David Trapp?"

"Yes?"

David took in the man at a glance. Tall and thin, maybe a few years past David's age, say forty-two or forty-three. His dark hair was plastered to his skull by the rain, and he held a large manila envelope in one gloved hand.

The man grinned wider. "My name is Trent, and this is for you."

He held out the damp envelope and David glanced at it warily, not sure if he should take it. Mr. Trent didn't seem dangerous, or at least not threatening, but he was still a stranger, and David preferred to know the people he accepted gifts from.

Trent shook his head, his smile unwavering. "No. But I know you, Mr. Trapp. And I also know what you're about to go up against. Believe me, you're going to need all the help you can get."

"I don't know what you're talking about. Perhaps you have me confused with someone else."

"Do I know you?" David asked.

Confused and not a little irritated, David opened the door wider to accept the envelope. As soon as he grasped it, Trent turned and started to walk away.

Trent's smile faded as he extended the envelope, his dark eyes narrowing slightly. "Mr. Trapp, it's raining. And this is for you."

Too late and only too obvious what he'd meant. He knew about Umbrella and the S. T. A. R. S., but who does he work for? And why did he choose to contact me?

"Hold on a moment."

Trent ignored him, disappearing into the rain-drenched shadows around the side of the house.

David stood in the doorway uncertainly, holding the damp paper and staring into the pouring darkness for another minute before going back inside. Once he'd studied the contents, he wished he'd gone after Trent, but by then, of course, it was too late.

Jill and Rebecca were studying the map while Barry and Chris worked through the copied newspaper articles. There were four of them, all recent, all centered around the tiny coastal town of Caliban Cove, Maine. Three of them concerned the disappearances of local fishermen, all presumed dead. The fourth was a rather humorous piece about the "ghosts" that haunted the cove; it seemed that several townspeople had heard strange sounds floating across the waters late at night, described as "the cries of the damned." The writer of the article had laughingly suggested that the witnesses to the phenomena should probably stop drinking their mouthwash before bed.

Funny. Unless you know what we know about Umbrella.

Trent's map showed several structures behind and below the lighthouse, leading down to a small pier on the southern tip of the open crescent. There was a notched border that ran the length of the cove on the inland side, presumably a fence. CALIBAN COVE was written across the top in bold letters. In smaller type just beneath were the words UMB. RESEARCH AND TESTING.

The third piece of paper that Trent had given him was the one that David didn't understand; there was a short list of names at the top, seven in all: LYLE AMMON, ALAN KINNESON, TOM ATHENS, LOUIS THURMAN, NICOLAS GRIFFITH, WILLIAM BIRKIN, TIFFANY CHIN.

The map was of the stretch of coast just south of the small town, an aerial sketch of the cove itself. David had uncovered a few facts about the area on a visit to Exeter's library, uncomfortable using the S. T. A. R. S. computer after Barry's call. The rather isolated stretch had been privately owned for several years, bought up by an anonymous group. There was a defunct lighthouse on the northern rim of the inlet, sitting atop a cliff that was supposedly riddled with sea caves.

Just under it was a somewhat poetic list of sorts, set into the center of the page in curling font.

David nodded. "I checked all of them with the S. T. A. R. S. database and came up blank. The rest, though… Is it a riddle of some sort?"

Jill had picked it up again and was reading it carefully. She looked up at David, a half-smile on her face. "No question that we've got the same Trent here. The guy's into riddles."

"Any idea what it means?" David asked.

Jill glanced back at the paper, frowning as she read it to herself again:

Ammon's message received / blue series / enter answer for key / letters and numbers reverse / time rainbow / don't count / blue to access.

Jill sighed heavily. "Well, one of the names here was in the material that Trent gave me -- William Birkin. We figured out that at least some of the others were researchers at the Spencer facility, so I'm willing to bet these people also work for Umbrella. Birkin may not have been at the estate when it was destroyed. I don't recognize any of the others."

"Oh, shit."

They all turned to Rebecca who was staring at the top of the page, her face drained of color. She looked at David with an expression of anxious despair. "Nicolas Griffith is on this list."

She looked around at all of them, her young face openly distressed. "Yeah, except I thought he was dead. He was one of the greats, one of the most brilliant men ever to work in the biosciences."

David nodded. "You know who he is?"

Rebecca took the paper from her as Jill looked back at David thoughtfully. "A lot of what Trent gave me seemed like pretty random stuff, but some of it related to the Spencer mansion's secrets; the whole place was rigged with puzzle locks and traps. Maybe this is the same deal. It relates to something you'll find."

She turned back to David, her gaze heavy with dread. "If he's with Umbrella, we've got a lot more to worry about than the T-Virus getting out. He's a genius in the field of molecular virology and if the stories are true, he's also totally insane."

Rebecca looked back at the list, her stomach a leaden knot.

Rebecca's mouth felt dry. She reached for her glass of water and drained it before looking at David. "How much do you know about the study of viruses?" she asked.

"What can you tell us about him?" David asked.

He smiled a little. "Nothing. That's why I'm here."

Dr. Griffith, still alive… and involved with Umbrella. Could today possibly get any worse?

"Okay. Viruses are classified by their replication strategy and by the type of nucleic acid in the virion -- that's the specialized element in a virus that allows it to transfer its genome to another living cell. A genome is a single, simple set of chromosomes. According to the Baltimore Classification, there are seven distinct types of viruses, and each group infects certain organisms in a certain way. In the early sixties, a young scientist at a private university in California challenged the theory, insisting that there was an eighth group -- one based loosely on dsDNA and ssDNA viruses -- that could infect everything it contacted. It was Dr. Griffith. He pub-lished several papers, and while it turned out that he was wrong, his reasoning was brilliant. I know, I read them. The scientific community scoffed at his theory, but his research on virus-specified inclusion bodies in the cytoplasm without a linear genome…"

Rebecca nodded, trying to think of where to start.

Rebecca trailed off, noticing the blank expressions on their faces. "Sorry. Anyway, Griffith stopped trying to prove the theory, but a lot of people were interested to see what he'd come up with next."

Jill interrupted, frowning. "Where did you learn all this?"

"In school. One of my professors was kind of a science-history buff. His specialty was defunct theories… and scandals."

"The next time anyone heard from Griffith, it was because he'd gotten kicked out of the university. Dr. Vachss -- that was my prof -- told us that Griffith was officially fired for using drugs, methamphetamines, but the rumor was that he'd been experimenting with drug-induced behavior modification on a couple of his students. Neither of them would talk, but one of them ended up in an asylum and the other eventually committed suicide. Nothing was ever proved, but after that, no one would hire him and as far as the facts go, that's the last anyone heard of Nicolas Griffith."

"So what happened?" David asked.

"But there's more to the story?" David asked.

She stood up, crossing her arms tightly. The agony those men must have endured; she'd seen pictures of Marburg victims. From the initial headache to extreme amplification in a matter of days. Fever, clotting, shock, brain damage, massive hemorrhaging from every orifice, they would've died in pools of their own blood.

Rebecca nodded slowly. "In the mid-eighties, a private lab in Washington was broken into by cops and the bodies of three men were found, all dead of a filovirus infection -- it was Marburg, one of the most lethal viruses there is. They'd been dead for weeks; neighbors had complained because of the smell. The papers the police found in the lab suggested that all three men were research assistants to a Dr. Nicolas Dunne, and that they had allowed themselves to be deliberately infected with what they understood to be a harmless cold virus. Dr. Dunne was going to see if he could cure it."

"And your professor thought it was Griffith?" Jill asked softly.

Rebecca forced the images away and turned to Jill, finishing the story the way Dr. Vachss had. "Griffith's mother -- her maiden name was Dunne."

Barry let out a low whistle, as Jill and Chris exchanged a worried look. David was studying her intently, his gaze cool and unreadable. All the same, she thought she knew what was going through his mind. He's wondering if this changes things. If I'll go with him to see this Caliban Cove facility, now that I know it's being run by people like Griffith.

Rebecca looked away from David's intense scrutiny and saw that the rest of her team was watching her, their faces tight with concern. Since that terrible night at the Spencer estate, they'd become like a family to her. She didn't want to leave, to risk never seeing them again… but David's right. Without the support of the S. T. A. R. S., nowhere will be safe for any of us. And this would be my chance to contribute, to do what I'm good at…

She wanted to believe that it was the only reason, that she'd be going to fight the good fight, but she couldn't help the tiny shiver of excitement that ran through her at the thought of getting her hands on the T-Virus. It would be a golden opportunity to study the mutagen before anyone else, to categorize the effects and pick apart the virion right down to its smallest capsid.

Rebecca took a deep breath and blew it out, her decision made. "I'll do it," she said. "When do we go?"