Chimera

by David Wellington

  He shot a glance at her eyes and saw she was desperate to know. And for once he could answer—she would find out soon enough anyway, from the police. “Your mother wrote the word ‘chimera’ on her wall. Probably while she was being killed.”

  “Oh my God,” Julia gasped.

  He was sorry to have to shock her like this. But it was important. “Do you know what she was trying to tell us?”

  “I have no idea,” Julia said. “She never used the word ‘chimera’ in my presence, not that I remember. But then, she never talked about her work to me. Ever.”

  Chapel rubbed at his eyes with the balls of his thumbs. Chimera had to mean something. Helen Bryant had died to get the word to him. She must have thought he—or someone—would understand. But what could it possibly mean?

  In his head he saw black eyes. The eyes of the detainee when blinding light shone on them. They had turned black because an extra eyelid had slid across the maniac’s eyes.

  Even at the time, Chapel had thought they looked like the eyes of a snake or something. Lots of animals had an extra eyelid, didn’t they? He seemed to remember that cats and birds did, too.

  No. What he was thinking was crazy. But—

  “If you could do that to a goat. If you could have a pig that grows human organs—you could—you could have a human being with animal organs as well, you could make them stronger, tougher, even—”

  He couldn’t finish the thought out loud.

  But he had another one. “Julia. What kind of research does your father do?”

  She bit her lip. “He’s one of the world’s leading experts on gene therapy,” she said. “He works with human DNA.”

  BROOKLYN, NEW YORK: APRIL 12, T+11:16

  It was impossible. It simply couldn’t be.

  And yet Chapel had seen the evidence with his own eyes. The detainee in the gutted department store had been far stronger and faster than any human being had a right to be. And he’d had an extra eyelid, one that shut down automatically when he was exposed to bright light, protecting his eyes. Making them as black as eight balls in his head. He had seemed inhuman. A monster. Chapel had refused to accept that, and so he had thought of the detainee as human, completely human. He’d been of the same opinion as Julia—that the guy had to have been full of drugs to make him so inhumanly strong and resistant to damage.

  But if in fact the detainee had been a chimera—a combination of human and animal genes—it made a kind of crazy sense. Chapel had seen a documentary on chimpanzees, once, that had startled him. He’d always thought chimps were just smart apes that could be trained to do circus tricks or maybe learn some basic sign language. Instead, the chimps in that documentary—wild chimps—had been incredibly strong and very dangerous. They were capable of tearing a human being to pieces, and if their territory or their dominance was threatened, they had no qualms at all about doing it.

  If the detainee had possessed chimpanzee genes, or genes from some other species stronger than a human being—

  “You’re tough, for a human,” the detainee had said to him. Because the maniac wasn’t human. At least not entirely.

  His phone was buzzing in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw the call was coming from the number (000) 000-0000. That had to mean it was an encrypted call, from Angel most likely. He hit the end button, and the phone stopped vibrating.

  Before he could even put it in his pocket, it started ringing out loud. He checked and saw that he’d turned the ringer off, but apparently Angel could override that.

  Probably she was just checking in to make sure he was all right. It might be something else, though. Something important.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Julia said, staring at him and his phone. “Either take that call or yank the battery out of that thing.”

  Before he could do either, the flatscreen on the wall flickered and the image there changed. It showed a line drawing of a human head with one ear highlighted. The screen animated and showed an earpiece like the one in Chapel’s pocket being inserted.

  Not exactly subtle.

  “What the hell?” Julia asked.

  “That screen must be attached to the Internet,” Chapel said to her while he fished in his pocket. He took out the earpiece and stared at it. “I have a friend who’s . . . good with computers.”

  He put the earpiece in and was not surprised to hear Angel calling his name. “Are you alone, sugar?” she asked.

  “Not quite. I—”

  He turned to look at Julia, but she was already storming out of the examining room. “I’ve got work to do,” she said, and slammed the door behind her.

  “I’m alone now,” he told Angel.

  “That’s good. I like having you all to myself,” she told him. “Tell me you’re okay. Your vitals look all right, though you seem tired.”

  “It’s been a long day. Wait a minute—you can tell I’m tired from the earpiece?”

  “It’s got a few sneaky features. It can collect biometric data. Among other things.”

  “And those other things—”

  “Sweetie, if you ask me about classified things, you know I have to lie. And I don’t ever want to lie to you.”

  “Fair enough. All right, Angel. What’s so important you needed to cut in on me like that?”

  “I’m going to put Director Hollingshead on the line, and he can tell you all about it. Director?”

  “I’m here,” the admiral said. “Chapel—it sounded like you took a pretty good blow to the head, there. Are you recovered?”

  “I was dazed for a minute,” Chapel told him. “But I’ll be all right. Dr. Taggart took care of me. She also told me a few interesting things about chim—”

  “Ahem,” Hollingshead broke in. “No need to tell an old dog anything about digging up bones, son.”

  “Ah.” So Hollingshead already knew about chimeras. And what Chapel was facing. It would have been nice to have some warning, but Chapel supposed some things were meant to stay secret. Apparently so secret it couldn’t even be discussed over an encrypted line. “Okay, then, sir, I’ll tell you all about it some other time. Maybe in person.”

  “You’re on the trail, son, and that’s all that matters. What’s the status of your, ah, investigation? What’s your next step?”

  “There’s one more name on the list with a New York address. She shouldn’t be in danger now—the other three are probably hundreds of miles from here by now. Still, it won’t hurt to pay her a visit and make sure she’s safe. After that, it’s either Chicago or Atlanta. Any thought on where I should head first?”

  “Angel’s looking for clues. Maybe she’ll turn something up. I know you’ll make the right choice, Captain Chapel. I have utter faith in you. Director Banks on the other hand . . .”

  “Oh?”

  “You’ve got some competition, let us say. Oh, nothing you can’t handle—and no one you haven’t met before. Someone you’ve seen around the Pentagon, perhaps.”

  Laughing Boy. Hollingshead must be talking about Laughing Boy. “He’s been activated? Maybe that’s good news—two of us running down leads can cover a lot more ground than one,” Chapel pointed out.

  “Unfortunately he’s not as proactive as you’ve shown yourself to be,” Hollingshead said, sounding contrite. “In fact, I fear he’s simply bird-dogging you. After your recent success, I sent a team to pick up what was left of the . . . fellow in question. Your new shadow got there first. What he did with the remai
ns is currently unknown.”

  Chapel thought about that. If Laughing Boy had taken the body of the dead detainee, it could simply mean the CIA didn’t want the local authorities claiming the remains of a man who was carrying a dangerous virus. But why not let Hollingshead’s people take care of it? Banks must have had his reasons. Maybe there was something about the body he didn’t want anyone else to see.

  Yet another mystery to add to the already enormous pile of mysteries in this operation. Chapel shrugged it off. “At least the . . . specimen is under wraps. Do you think I need to worry about our civilian friends?”

  Hollingshead didn’t sound sure when he answered. “No one has declared war just yet. Chalk this one up to a shot across our bows, maybe. For now we’re all pulling in the same direction,” he said. “Just keep your eyes open.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  “All right, then. I’ll put Angel back on, and she can help you coordinate your next move.”

  Chapel talked to Angel briefly, arranging to have a cab waiting when he left the veterinary clinic. Then he opened the door of the examination room and headed out to the front of the office, where Julia and her receptionist were talking quietly. Julia had a balled-up tissue in her hand, and the receptionist was rubbing her back in slow circles. Apparently Julia had finally gotten a chance to start grieving for her mother.

  “I’ll be going now,” Chapel told her. “If there’s anything I can do—”

  “You already have,” Julia told him.

  “I might have some more questions,” he suggested. “But I’ll give you some time, first. I’m . . . I’m so sorry.”

  She nodded. She wasn’t even looking at him anymore. “You should get a CT scan at some point. Make sure your brain wasn’t injured in that concussion.”

  “If I get a chance, I will,” he told her.

  “You’ll want a doctor who specializes in human patients for that.” She got up to unlock the front door. “I hope you’ll forgive me if I say I never want our paths to cross again.”

  He couldn’t blame her for that. “Thanks for all your help.”

  She shrugged. He started to walk out the door, but she stopped him by putting one hand on his artificial shoulder. He flinched, even if she didn’t. He’d never gotten used to people touching him there.

  “Captain,” she said, “be careful. But find the rest of them, and make sure nobody else has to go through this. Grief, I mean. It sucks.”

  “I’ll do my best,” he promised her.

  IN TRANSIT: APRIL 12, T+11:29

  Back to work. The next name on the list was Christina Smollett. She was in New York City, too. Hopefully she was still alive.

  A new cab was waiting for him in front of Julia’s clinic. He climbed in, and the car rolled smoothly away before he’d even had a chance to tell the driver what address he wanted.

  “All taken care of,” Angel told him.

  “I appreciate it.” He tapped on his knee with the fingers of his artificial hand. When he’d been talking with Julia, he’d almost forgotten the time-sensitive nature of his operation. Now that he was away from her, the ticking of the clock started to bother him again. “We’ll have to make this next visit quick. What can you tell me about Christina Smollett?”

  Angel hummed a little tune while she worked. “Interesting,” she said, after a minute.

  “Anything you’d like to share?” Chapel asked.

  Angel laughed. “If I understood it, I’d give you some analysis. What I’m looking at is just facts. Christina Smollett has a social security number, a date of birth—August 23, 1959—and a mailing address we already knew, 462 First Avenue, New York, where you’re headed now. Beyond that? Not much. As far as I can tell she’s never filed a tax form, for one thing.”

  “That’s odd for a woman in her fifties,” Chapel mused.

  “Never been married, no children. No family left, either—her parents died a while back, both from natural causes and at advanced ages. No brothers or sisters. She doesn’t have a bank account. She doesn’t have any academic records past high school, which . . . let me check . . . she did graduate from, though not with particularly impressive grades. From there the list gets pretty monotonous. No driver’s license. No history of service in the armed forces. No arrests, warrants for arrest, or so much as a parking ticket. Never been fingerprinted, and I can’t find a single photograph of her taken after 1971. It’s like she hasn’t so much as touched the world in forty years.”

  “Sounds like she’s been living off the grid,” Chapel said.

  “And you sound like you’ve got a theory, sweetie.”

  “More like a hunch,” Chapel said. “I’m betting Christina Smollett works for the CIA. Probably in the National Clandestine Service. She’s undercover, or at least off the books.”

  “They certainly don’t list her on their payroll,” Angel confirmed.

  “Helen Bryant and William Taggart were both CIA employees. I’m pretty sure every single name on that list is or was as well. We’re tracking down the people who worked on some operation in the eighties. Probably something the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology got up to.”

  “Aren’t they the ones who make the exploding pens and cyanide-filled false teeth?” Angel asked. “The gadget shop?”

  “They do more than that. They were the ones who ran MK-ULTRA, for instance. That’s exactly the shop that Drs. Bryant and Taggart would work for. And unless I’m way off, I’m willing to bet Christina Smollett worked in the directorate as well.”

  “Let me do some more checking, see what I turn up,” Angel said.

  As the cab rolled into Manhattan the traffic picked up a little, but it wasn’t long before they were on First Avenue. The cabdriver rapped on the partition and glanced over his shoulder. “You want the emergency room or the main entrance?” he asked.

  “What? Emergency room?” Chapel said. “No, I’m going to a private residence. A house or an apartment building.”

  “Oh, sorry. With that bruise on your head I figured you were checking yourself in. You sure you have the right address?”

  “Definitely. 462 First Avenue,” Chapel confirmed.

  “Buddy,” the cabbie told him, “maybe you should have them take a look at your head. That’s the address for Bellevue Hospital. You know—the place where they send all the crazies.”

  MANHATTAN, NEW YORK: APRIL 12, T+11:55

  Chapel reached for his wallet to pay the cabdriver, but the man waved his hand to say no. “All prepaid, and I’m not going to take advantage of a guy like you,” the cabbie said, smiling broadly.

  “A guy like me?” Chapel asked.

  “No offense, friend, no offense meant. I have a mother in Ohio, she’s like you, okay? So I understand how hard it can be.”

  Chapel started to reach up to touch his artificial arm, then stopped himself.

  “When you have trouble keeping track of things, right? When maybe you have memory problems. My mom’s got the Alzheimer’s, she’s doing all right, though.”

  “That’s . . . good,” Chapel said. “I’m glad to hear it. Thanks.”

  Clearly the man thought he had brain damage or something. Humiliated and still a little confused by what he was doing there, Chapel climbed out of the cab and looked up at the façade of Bellevue Hospital, which looked like any other glass-fronted building in New York except it had the name “Bellevue” written up one side. Having only seen the hospital in movi
es before, he would have expected some huge brick monolith with tiny barred windows from which the occasional scream could be heard.

  Maybe he should check himself in. He was definitely feeling disoriented and confused. Julia had said he was recovering nicely from his concussion, though. “Angel, do you have any thoughts about what’s going on, here?”

  “Just one, sugar. I’m starting to understand why Christina Smollett is so far off the radar. She’s been a resident here since 1979. She’s a patient in the psychiatric hospital.”

  Chapel frowned. “How old was she when she checked in? Wait—I can do this one in my head. She was born in 1959 so she would have been nineteen or twenty. I don’t see how she could possibly have done any work for the CIA before that. And I seriously doubt the CIA has any undercover operatives in there.”

  “You still want to go in and talk to her?” Angel asked. “I can make the arrangements.”

  “Yeah, I should at least see if she can give me any new leads.” Though Chapel wondered what a woman who’d been living in a psychiatric hospital for over thirty years could possibly know about genetic freaks with extra eyelids or the inner workings of secret government facilities. Still, he was here. “I won’t take long. Can you have a helicopter ready to pick me up when I’m done?”

  “There’s a helipad on the roof. It’s not open to civil aviation, but I can get you in and out before anyone knows you’re there. In the meantime . . . okay, you’re good. You’ve been added to the list of approved visitors for Christina Smollett. I’ve listed you as being in law enforcement.”

  “Thanks,” Chapel said, and he hurried for the entrance. There was a metal detector inside and a couple of bored-looking uniformed security guards, one of whom was reading a newspaper. The other wrote down Chapel’s name on a clipboard and then waved him through to a bank of elevators.

  On the way up Angel gave him directions to the correct ward. The Psychiatric Hospital was behind a series of locked doors that security guards had to open for him. The place was clean and brightly lit, but it looked old and tired all the same, the walls painted in drab institutional colors and the endless doors all the same. Following Angel’s directions, he finally reached a nurses’ station where a man in purple surgical scrubs waved him over. “You’re here to see Kristin, right?”