Morning broke over Harvardville, sunlight cutting through the haze left over from the night before.
Outside the luxury hotel downtown, several black SUVs with government plates had been waiting for a while. Ashley hugged Sherry and Becky tightly, reluctant to let go, while the agents behind her struggled to cram all the bags and boxes from her shopping spree the night before into the trunks.
"Uncle Ryan, Jill, I'm heading back to Washington. Next time I get a break, I'm coming to visit again!" Ashley waved cheerfully. Harvardville had been through an apocalyptic terror attack the day before, but under Ryan and Star Fire's protection, the Graham girl hadn't had a single hair disturbed. The whole thing had been like a change of scenery for the weekend.
"Safe trip. Say hi to Mr. Graham for me." Ryan had one hand in the pocket of his trench coat, and he nodded with a smile.
With Ashley on her way, Ryan and the rest boarded the private jet back to Star Fire HQ in Colorado. Leon, because of the incidents the night before, had been pulled back to Washington before dawn by a string of frantic calls from Graham. He hadn't even had time to say goodbye.
Claire, after wrapping up the follow-up on TerraSave's humanitarian response in Harvardville, accepted Ryan's invitation and came to tour Starfire Pharma's underground base.
Here she saw something nothing like Umbrella. No inhumane human experiments, no dark and bloody underground cages, just well-organized research space and all the protective equipment and broad-spectrum vaccines developed to fight bioterror.
When it came time to leave, wind howled across the helipad at the Star Fire base.
"Honestly, Ryan, I was worried at first that you'd turn into the next Spencer." Claire looked out over the underground city that resembled a fortress out of the future, the last doubt finally gone from her eyes. "But seeing it now, a world full of monsters really does need a spark like Star Fire."
"Star Fire only protects its own. Cleaning up the trash in the way is a side benefit." Ryan handed Claire a specialized encrypted communicator marked with the Star Fire emblem. "TerraSave does the kind of work that makes enemies. If you ever run into trouble your principles can't solve, call me directly. Whether it's a financial syndicate or a warlord, Star Fire's Shadow Force is always available to offer a friend some 'physical salvation' service."
Claire gripped the communicator tightly and nodded, then boarded the helicopter to return to her humanitarian work.
...
A week later. Star Fire HQ, Sublevel 3, core laboratory.
Luis came over to Ryan with two black circles under his eyes, a freshly printed evaluation report in hand, sighing.
"Boss, we're done unwrapping WilPharma's goodie bag. Everything in Downing's head plus the data off the hard drives we hauled back, we've wrung it all dry."
"And?" Ryan was leaning back on the couch, going through a few military procurement reports Jill had handed him.
"Useful, but not very." Luis spread his hands, disdain all over his voice. "Their G-virus purification technique is crude as hell. A total waste of good material. On the plus side, all the brute-force trial data they ran to bring the mutation rate down saved us a lot of detours. Combining it with that garbage, Dr. Annette and I managed to shave the Abyss enhancement serum's rejection rate down another half a percent."
"Better than nothing." Ryan tossed the report on the table. He'd clearly already expected this much from WilPharma's tech. "Trash tech is still trash, but if we can squeeze a little nutrition out of it, at least they didn't die for nothing."
Jill came over with two cups of coffee and handed one to Ryan. Her expression wasn't good.
"Ryan, we may have trouble coming."
Jill tapped the tactical tablet and projected several files onto the big screen. "You probably noticed it already in that report you were just reading. Over the last few days, all three of the standard vaccine procurement contracts Star Fire submitted to the military have been held up without justification, under the pretext of 'security review.' On top of that, a few shipments of medical supplies we sent to the East Coast got stopped at temporary federal military checkpoints for forty-eight hours. They were extremely hardline about it. Wouldn't even honor Graham's special authorization."
Ryan's hand paused on the coffee cup. A flicker of interest crossed his pitch-black eyes. "Graham just gave us a ten-year green light, and somebody still has the nerve to put a chokehold on us through military channels?"
"We looked into it." Jill gave a cold laugh and pulled up a photo of a gray-haired, hard-faced man. "The current Secretary of Defense, Wilson. He has deep roots in the military and he's always argued that the armed forces should have their own biological deterrent capability. The overwhelming technical lead Star Fire has put on display has him feeling threatened. He's not just targeting Star Fire. He's using this to probe how far Graham is willing to go."
"He wants to run his own biological deterrent program? Who does he think he is?" Luis rolled his eyes from the sidelines. "With those wooden-headed idiots in the military labs, it'll be a miracle from God if they don't end up with a zombie siege on their hands."
Ryan looked at Wilson's stern, arrogant face on the screen, and a slow, dangerous curve formed at the corner of his mouth.
He knew the Secretary of Defense wasn't just sitting on the dirty history of the Penamstan Incident. He'd also been quietly running his own "suppressant" and soldier enhancement programs on the side. For a Star Fire in search of perfect evolution, that was another premium client delivering himself right to the doorstep.
"Looks like our Secretary of Defense is a little short on firsthand awe of Star Fire's capabilities." Ryan stood up and drained his coffee in one swallow.
He tossed the file on Wilson onto the table and took another sip.
"He thinks he can make Star Fire bow by holding up a few contracts?"
Jill sat across from him, swiping through the tablet with one finger. "Wilson is deeply entrenched in the military. If we go head-to-head..."
"Who said anything about head-to-head?" Ryan smiled. "He likes playing dirty tricks, doesn't he? Then we go to Washington and flip his card table over right in front of him."
Jill raised an eyebrow. "When?"
"Tomorrow." Ryan stood up and walked over to the window. "Leon said something's happening at the White House. Graham's cybersecurity system got hacked and he's up to his neck in it. That kind of mess is the perfect water to muddy."
"You're planning to..."
"Help Graham figure out who the hackers are, and while we're there, see what role Wilson is playing in this." Ryan turned his head. "He blocks Star Fire's contracts. I dig up his skeletons. Fair enough."
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