Calm Before The Storm

Chapter Fourteen

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Irons. If you have any other information that might help us, please contact me as soon as you can.”

“Of course I will,” Irons said. “Glad I could help. Have a good evening.”

“You too, and thanks again. Goodbye now.”

“Goodbye.”

Irons set the phone down and let out a long breath. He held onto the phone for a moment before letting go, and leaned back in his chair. His head tilted back and he blinked a few times, staring at the ceiling.

Umbrella didn’t know anything yet, at least not about him. When they had called him, he expected some kind of vague threat or other hint that they knew about his involvement. But to his disbelief, the man on the phone sounded sincerely unaware of Irons’ connection to the events at the lab. He was some mid-level manager calling about possible information dealing with an Umbrella facility out in the mountains. Any kind of police action out in the woods that might have something to do with the facility.

The man was not very specific, not surprisingly. He mentioned some kind of internal investigation into Umbrella employees, and asked very politely for any information the local police might have.

Irons had answered very carefully, keeping his responses in line with what was the papers reported. And of course, qualifying each response with the statement that he could not comment on an ongoing investigation. The man from Umbrella seemed happy with the answers, or at least Irons thought he sounded that way.

Without Wesker around to give him directions, Irons was forced to play everything by ear and hope for the best. The call from Umbrella unnerved him at first, but now that his heart had stopped racing, he felt better about how things turned out. Maybe Wesker had decided not to throw Irons under the bus after all. If Wesker managed to erase any record of the bribery, then maybe Irons would be safe. He knew that any investigation on his end would find nothing out of the ordinary. He was very careful right from the beginning not to leave any kind of paper trail to the thousands of dollars he’d been bribed with in the past decade. So if Umbrella didn’t know about it, then maybe he would be safe.

Well, he might be safe from prosecution, but his career was not going to survive much longer. He knew that already. The farce that was the “investigation” was going to eventually ruin him, and he knew it.

It was sort of an open secret that the S.T.A.R.S. teams were not under any kind of investigation. Irons made no effort at all to conceal his lies to the media. The entire police department knew that his talk about an investigation was nothing but smoke and mirrors to distract the newspapers and reporters, and no one did anything about it. Of course, any day now, one of the officers in the force might blab to the press, but Irons was cautiously optimistic that they would keep the secret.

In the end, all he had to do was appeal to their sense of loyalty. Irons worked hard all his career to fight illegal corruption in the police department, and for the most part he succeeded. But even without corruption, there was still the infamous Blue Code of Silence, a permanent feature in even the most law-abiding police department.

It was the unspoken code of loyalty between police officers. It had a very negative public stigma attached to it, because far too often, corrupt police used it as a way to cover up wrongdoing by officers. But in this case, Irons invoked the Blue Wall to protect people that had truly done no wrong.

Barry Burton was a legend at the RCPD, and his tragic death shook the department down to its foundation. The S.T.A.R.S. unit included some of the most widely-respected officers in the force, including Barry, Enrico Marini, Chris Redfield, and ironically, even Albert Wesker. For so many of the members of the team to die so suddenly wasn’t just a tragedy for the department, it was a great loss for the entire city. And for the local media to jump in and started making baseless accusations was a slap in the face to the people who died. Irons did not have to work very hard to persuade the rest of the force to keep silent about the events at the lab. To respect the memory of their fallen peers, they were more than happy to keep silent.

The truth, as Irons explained it to them, went like this:

The S.T.A.R.S. Bravo team was sent on a mission to help rescue people involved in a train accident. But when they arrived, they discovered a secret research facility in the Arklay Mountains. Terrorists had infiltrated the facility and taken hostages. They set explosives in the surrounding area, and one of their bombs inadvertently derailed the train. Federal agencies were already on the scene, and reluctantly allowed the Bravo team to assist them once they discovered the situation. For reasons of national security, the entire hostage situation was kept hidden from the media.

When the violence escalated, the Bravo team was sent in to help the federal agents. Several of them were killed by the terrorists. When Alpha team arrived on the scene 24 hours later, they had no choice but to help as well. In the aftermath of the terrorist act, only four members of the S.T.A.R.S. team had survived. They were all required to keep their silence about what they saw and witnessed, because of the nature of the work done at the facility. They could all be charged with treason if they revealed anything they saw there.

Irons’ version of the story was similar enough to the rumors already circulating the police station that everyone pretty much accepted it. It was also related to the series of lies that Irons gave Chris and the others, although many details were different. Irons insisted that Chris, Jill, Rebecca, and Brad were completely blameless in the deaths of their fellow officers, but due to the risk to national security, they had no choice but to conceal the events that took place.

In another week or so, Irons would have to retire due to the public pressure. He would claim full responsibility for the failures of the investigation, and announce that no charges would be filed against any of the officers involved. The whole thing would be written off as a horrible tragedy, but the public would never be given a full explanation, and no one would ever be truly held accountable for the deaths.

Irons’ resignation would serve as a public admission of guilt, and for such a high-ranking officer to be forced out of office would trick the media into thinking that someone had really been punished. It was not the graceful retirement that he had always planned on, but more like a reluctant resignation with the support of the department. It would serve its purpose. Irons would take the brunt of the public disapproval, hopefully leaving the rest of the department unscathed.

The police force, believing that Barry, Enrico, and the rest had died fighting against terrorism, would keep that secret. And the S.T.A.R.S. team members who survived would surely never reveal the truth, knowing that no one would ever believe them. Not that it even mattered, since three of them had already resigned. Brad Vickers was the only S.T.A.R.S. member still on the team, and Irons expected him to quit the force any day now. By the time Irons retired in disgrace, there would be no one left to disagree with his version of events.

But until then, Irons still had lots of work to do. He didn’t want to leave the department a mess for his eventual replacement, whoever that might be, so he took it upon himself to take care of the multitude of problems in the aftermath of the incident in the mountains.

As distasteful as it was, the S.T.A.R.S. teams had to be resurrected. The special team was too important to just let it fade away. Even though most of its members were dead, Irons was not about to cancel the entire unit. Already, he had promoted several regular police officers to serve in the new S.T.A.R.S. teams. Police veteran Marvin Branagh was chosen to command the new Alpha team.

A stack of transfer requests sat on Irons’ desk. There were always a few applications to join the S.T.A.R.S. team, but since the events a few days before, Irons was inundated with requests to join the team. And as much as he disliked the thought of replacing the people who died, he had no choice but to accept a few transfers to help fill the ranks.

He read through some of the applications and set them aside, not impressed with anything that he saw. One or two of them seemed like good candidates, so he put them in a separate pile. It took him half an hour to peruse most of the stack and at the end of it, he had about eight or nine good choices out of more than fifty.

One of the applications in particular caught his attention. It was from a police officer in a nearby city on the other side of the Arklay Mountains. He had grown up in Raccoon City before moving away, his background check came back flawless, and he had been a member of the special Rangers unit of the United States army. He earned several medals and commendations with the Rangers, and had just completed his training at the Academy. His name was Leon Kennedy. Irons liked his application, and decided to accept it on the spot. He felt that an officer like Leon Kennedy would fit right in at the RCPD.

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