Chimera

by David Wellington

  Chapel nodded and put his phone to his ear. “Angel, we’ve got Funt and he’s alive but badly hurt. This chopper’s going to take us to an airport nearby. Can you have an ambulance waiting?”

  “I’m on it,” Angel said.

  Julia jumped into the back of the chopper where she could sit with Funt and keep an eye on him. Chapel ran around the nose of the aircraft so he could take the copilot seat. Before he got in, though, he took one last look at the top of Stone Mountain—and the body of the second dead chimera he’d seen in two days.

  “Angel,” Chapel said, “what are they going to do with Malcolm?”

  “A quick cremation. That’s all,” Angel told him. “The men I sent you are trained in bacteriological warfare protocols. They’ll be safe.”

  Chapel nodded. There wouldn’t be any ceremony for Malcolm, he knew. No prayers, no weeping mourners.

  Maybe it was for the best. The chimera had been a killer, through and through. He’d lived for nothing but revenge. After the story Funt had told, though, Chapel couldn’t shake an image from his head: a ten-year-old boy, sitting in a tree house, scared and very, very alone. Not knowing what kind of future waited for him. Barely aware of where he was.

  Enough. Chapel’s job was to hunt down four chimeras, and he was half done.

  He climbed into the helicopter and pulled on a crash helmet. “Let’s go,” he told the pilot.

  IN TRANSIT: APRIL 13, T+36:48

  The chopper set down—much more smoothly this time—on a helipad at DeKalb-Peachtree Airport, only a few miles away from Stone Mountain. An airport medical team was waiting to take Funt away in an ambulance that sat waiting on the tarmac. Angel had timed everything perfectly, as usual.

  Julia ran over to the ambulance to tell the paramedics what she knew about Funt’s condition. The medical team didn’t waste any time getting him out of there. When Julia came back to the helipad, she was frowning. “Will he be safe if they take him to the hospital?” she asked. “Laughing Boy may be out of the picture, but—”

  Chapel nodded. The CIA had been trying to kill Funt for years. This was the perfect chance. They could even make it look like a natural death, like he had died of his injuries. “They’re not taking him to a civilian hospital,” he told her. In fact he’d been in touch with Admiral Hollingshead and arranged for Funt to be taken to a military hospital where he could be guarded night and day until he recovered. “As long as they keep him alive until he’s conscious, I’m okay with this. Once he’s awake, well, we saw how good he is at keeping one step ahead of them.”

  Julia shrugged. “I guess it’s all we can do. What’s next?”

  Chapel nodded toward a nearby runway. Hollingshead’s personal jet was already taxiing toward them. “Say good-bye to Atlanta.”

  “Gladly,” Julia said. Her red hair whipped in the breeze. “I’m about ready for another of those goat cheese and mandarin orange salads, too. How can I be hungry at a time like this? I should be sitting in a corner crying my eyes out, begging for somebody to make everything okay. Chapel, I killed a man. I don’t feel bad about it. I don’t feel scared right now. I don’t even feel mad at you anymore.”

  He knew the look in her eyes. He’d seen it often enough when he was fighting alongside the Rangers. “It’s going to hit you, eventually. But right now your body knows you aren’t safe. It knows you need to keep fighting. It’s flooding your brain with endorphins.”

  She put a hand over her face and laughed. “This is not how I thought my week was going to go.”

  He put his good hand on her shoulder and squeezed. She didn’t push him away. Probably because she was in shock.

  They had to wait a few minutes while boarding stairs were moved into position, but when they climbed up into the jet, Chief Petty Officer Andrews was waiting for them with hot towels. The jet’s main door was closed and suddenly they were in silence, sitting in comfortable chairs, and nobody was trying to kill them.

  Chapel had to admit it was a nice change of pace.

  “We’re cleared for takeoff right away,” Andrews told them. “Fasten your seat belts until we’re in the air, okay? Our flight time to Denver will be a little under three hours. I’ll dim the cabin lights now, and—”

  “Denver? We’re not going to Denver,” Chapel said.

  “Oh. I’m sorry,” Andrews told him. “I was informed you were. Was there a last-minute change?”

  “There needs to be. We’re going to Chicago.” He needed to check in with Eleanor Pechowski. Make sure she was safe.

  And find out everything she knew about chimeras and Camp Putnam.

  In his pocket his phone began to ring.

  IN TRANSIT: APRIL 13, T+36:54

  Chief Petty Officer Andrews smiled warmly and went to talk to the pilot. Julia looked at Chapel expectantly. His phone kept ringing.

  Finally he couldn’t take it anymore, so he answered it.

  “Sweetie,” Angel said, “I filed your flight plan for Denver—”

  “I need to make sure Eleanor Pechowski is safe,” he told her.

  “Of course you do. Which is why I’ve been calling her every two hours and sending police around to keep an eye on the place she’s staying. But Franklin Hayes’s people have been calling me, about every fifteen minutes, wanting an update on where you are and how soon you’ll be arriving in Denver.”

  Chapel glanced at his watch. “We have at least eleven hours before a chimera could even possibly reach Denver,” he said.

  “More like fourteen, because of the time zone difference,” Angel confirmed. “That gives you plenty of time to get to Denver and set up your defense for when the chimera comes for Hayes.”

  “Hayes will be fine. He’s surrounded by security. I have no doubt a chimera is going to try to kill him, but even one of them can’t realistically break into a federal courthouse full of cops. As far as I’m concerned, Hayes is the safest name on the list. I’ve finally got some breathing room here, Angel. I finally have time to follow up on some leads, and the last thing I need is to babysit some judge who’s in no real danger.”

  “Sweetie—”

  “Unless you know something you’re not telling me, Angel, I’ve made my decision.”

  She was silent for way too long.

  Chapel closed his eyes. “What does Admiral Hollingshead say about this?”

  Angel sounded sincerely apologetic. “He suggested to me—without actually saying anything directly, of course—that your next stop would be Denver.”

  “He suggested that, huh? Which suggests to me,” Chapel told her, “that he knows exactly where the chimeras are going.”

  “I’m not sure I like what you’re implying,” Angel said, caution thickening her voice.

  “Angel. I’m going to tell you something plainly now. No suggestions, no implications. Somebody knew we were going to Stone Mountain. Somebody told Malcolm where to find us.”

  “I’m not sure I follow,” Angel said.

  He was damned sure she did. She just wanted him to say it out loud. Maybe so when things went bad she could cover her posterior. Maybe she just wanted a record of him defying official orders.

  Chapel didn’t really care anymore.

  “Someone told Malcolm where Funt would be. They wanted Funt killed. Malcolm told me he was getting orders over the phone from someone he called the Voice. I don’t know who this Voice is, but it had to be somebody who can access your line, Angel. Because the only people who knew about Stone Mountain were Funt, me . . . and you.”

  Angel sounded panicky as she responded to that. Chapel wondered how good an actress she was. “You think my system’s been compromised again?” she asked. “Oh my God—should I move to different servers again?”

  “I don’t think there’s any point. I think the Voice can get to you anytime he wants to. Which means the Voice might be Director Banks. Or it mig
ht be Admiral Hollingshead.”

  “You can’t mean that,” Angel said.

  “Someone’s been setting me up for a while now, Angel. They tried to get me to run out to Denver while I was still en route to Atlanta. That’s why Hayes was able to break into your line. They must have known Malcolm was on his way to kill Funt, but they tried to keep me from saving him. They wanted him dead. Now the same mysterious person wants me to rush out to Denver rather than check up on Eleanor Pechowski.”

  “I promise you she’s safe,” Angel said. “I checked in with her just an hour ago and—”

  “I’m sure she’s safe. I’m not worried about her health. But I’m very interested in what she might be able to tell me—and why this Voice wants to make sure I don’t hear it. I’m going to Chicago, Angel. If Hollingshead won’t let me take his private plane there, I’ll walk over to the terminal and buy a ticket on a Delta flight with my own credit card.”

  It was a bluff, and one that could cost him. He knew perfectly well that if Hollingshead or Angel truly wanted him in Denver, he’d have no choice. With one phone call they could cut off his credit card—or put him on a no-fly list. They could make it impossible for him to go anywhere but Denver.

  There was only silence on the line for a long while. “Angel?” Chapel called, but she didn’t respond.

  By his watch, three minutes passed before she came back. “I’ve changed your flight plan,” she said. “You’re cleared to go to Chicago. But Chapel—”

  “What is it, Angel?”

  “You don’t have a lot of friends. It’s probably best if you don’t start making any new enemies, now.”

  It was a cryptic threat but he got it. He understood exactly what he was being told. He was on a leash, a short leash, and he would be choked if he strayed too far.

  PART THREE

  IN TRANSIT: APRIL 13, T+37:21

  Chapel knew he should take a nap on the flight from Atlanta to Chicago, but Julia was still wired, still a little freaked out that she’d killed Malcolm, and she kept getting up from her seat and walking up and down the aisle between them. Chief Petty Officer Andrews turned the cabin lights back up so Julia wouldn’t trip over anything.

  “Come help me with something,” he told her, just to get her mind off things. She walked over and gasped when she saw what he was doing.

  He had rolled up his sleeve and had used a steak knife to cut into the silicone flesh around his artificial wrist.

  “What on earth are you doing?” she demanded.

  “Look at the fingers,” he told her. They were half melted, some of them fused together by the electrical shock he’d gotten back on Stone Mountain. “The motors and actuators underneath are fine, but the artificial skin has to go.”

  She stared at him in horror but when he kept cutting at the fake flesh, she eventually shook her head and grabbed the knife away from him. “I do this for a living. Kind of,” she said. She neatly cut away the synthetic hand and then stripped it back like she was peeling off a glove. He lifted the artificial hand and flexed its various joints, listening to the soft whine of the motors.

  He spent the rest of the flight putting the hand through various exercises, getting used to how different it felt. If anything, the fingers were stronger now—they didn’t have to work against the silicone. Julia seemed fascinated by the robotic hand, which cheered him up a little. He’d expected her to be repulsed by this reminder that he wasn’t like everyone else. He should have known she was tougher than that.

  The plane set down in Midway airport in Chicago a little after nine thirty. When they’d taxied up to the terminal, Chief Petty Officer Andrews went to open the main cabin door. “Brace yourselves,” she said. “Chicago in springtime can be a shocking thing.” The door popped open and a blast of frigid air rushed inside the plane. Julia immediately reached for her pink hoodie.

  “It must be forty degrees out there,” Chapel said, rubbing at his good arm with his robotic hand.

  “The local temperature is closer to thirty-seven Fahrenheit,” Andrews told him with a perky smile. “Don’t say you weren’t warned.”

  “We’ll freeze to death out there,” Julia said. She shook her head. “Chapel, I’m not dressed for this. Maybe I should stay in the plane.”

  Angel had thought of everything though, as usual. A pile of cardboard boxes were waiting on the tarmac, having been delivered even while they were taxiing in from the runway.

  Julia got the boxes open and started pulling winter coats out of their wrapping paper. “This one’s yours, I think,” she said, holding up a black coat with a lot of pockets and zippers. “Plenty of room for all your spy gadgets.” The next box held a woman’s coat in a shade of grayish blue. “Oh, there’s a note with this one,” she said, and picked it up. “ ‘I thought this color might suit you more than hot pink,’ ” she read. She pulled on the coat and zipped it to her neck. Almost instantly she looked happier. “Wow. The coat I have at home isn’t this nice.”

  Chapel took a second to appreciate the way the color worked with her hair and the way the coat’s lines suited Julia’s slender frame. He’d never cared a fig for fashion, and definitely not for women’s coats, but he had to admit that Angel had picked the perfect one for Julia. He smiled. His life might be in danger and there might be homicidal lunatics on the loose, but at least he had attractive company. “What’s in the other two boxes?” he asked.

  The remaining boxes were much smaller. One held a hands-free unit identical to the one he’d lost in Atlanta. He wasted no time putting it in his ear. “Angel,” he said, “nice work here. Julia loves the coat you got her.”

  “You’re welcome, sugar. I know what it’s like to be a woman in a cold climate,” the operator responded, as if she’d been sitting on his shoulder the whole time. “What do you think of the gloves?”

  The final box held three different pairs of black leather gloves. “I wasn’t sure what size you would need now that your hand is thinner,” Angel told him. “I hope one of them will work.”

  “Thanks, Angel. You did great.” Chapel tried the gloves on until he found one that fit comfortably over his robotic hand. He held it up and showed it to Julia. She nodded in approval.

  He went to the cabin door and started wrestling it open again, prepared now for the cold. “Come on,” he said. “We have to go meet an elderly schoolteacher, and there’s no time to lose.”

  CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: APRIL 13, T+39:44

  They caught a cab and fought traffic all the way through the center of Chicago. Chapel checked his watch constantly as they struggled through the streetlights but there was nothing for it. He had to do this, and it didn’t matter how long it took.

  “You were almost relaxed, back on the plane,” Julia told him. “I was so wound up I kept wondering how you could be chill at a time like this. Now you’re just as keyed up as you were last night when we landed in Atlanta.”

  He watched the streetlights and the shadows alternately paint her face. “It’s an army thing. Our unofficial motto is ‘Hurry up and wait.’ You spend a lot of time in the army sitting around somewhere wondering when you’re going to be called up, when the next firefight is going to happen. Eventually, if you’re lucky, you learn to compartmentalize. You recognize when you’re safe and you can let your guard down. It happens so infrequently that you have to take advantage of it when it does happen.”

  “I feel like I’m never going to relax again,” Julia said, pulling her shoulders in. “I keep expecting to fall down. I know that everything that’s happened, everything I’ve done is go
ing to catch up with me. I’m just waiting for the hammer to drop.”

  Chapel nodded. He’d seen what extreme stress could do to people. He’d seen soldiers come back from firefights whooping and hollering with adrenaline, and before they’d taken their boots off they were already lost, dropped down a hole into their own thoughts. Sometimes they never climbed back out of that hole.

  “The only treatment for what you have is to keep moving,” he told her. “Your body’s smart. It knows how to keep you alive, if you listen to it. Right now it’s telling you not to lie down, not to rest.”

  Julia frowned. “That’s not a great solution either. That’ll give you ulcers and migraines and who knows what else.”

  “Hang in there,” he told her. “This will be over at some point. Then you can figure it all out for yourself.” It was the best comfort he had to offer her.

  The cab took them up Lake Shore Drive to a neighborhood called the Near North Side. It was a region of mansions and town houses, everything covered with a sheen of old money. And ice. Some of the houses still had icicles hanging from their eaves.

  “It felt like summer was right around the corner, back in Atlanta,” Julia said, like she was talking to herself. Maybe she just wanted to change the subject.

  The cab pulled up in front of a town house, and they stepped out into a knife-edged wind. Lake Michigan filled half the world around them, and gusts that rippled its surface buffeted them almost constantly.

  “Coat or no coat, I want to get inside,” Julia told Chapel.

  “I’m with you there,” he said. He went up to the door of the town house where Eleanor Pechowski was staying and rang the bell. The door was answered almost instantly by an older man wearing thick glasses and a sweater vest.

  “You must be Captain Chapel. Please, come inside,” the man said. He kept one hand hidden behind the door while he looked out at the street, scanning up and down the rows of parked cars.