Chimera (20 page)

He put that thought out of his head right away. That couldn't possibly be right.

“Angel,” he said, to clear his mind. “Angel, are you there?”

“I'm back,” Angel told him. “What happened there?”

“Franklin Hayes broke into your signal.
The
Franklin Hayes. He had some help from Banks, by the sound of it.”

“Banks hijacked my line?” Angel sounded mortified. “That son of a . . . I can't believe it. Well, I mean, I believe he would do such a thing. I just can't believe he actually pulled it off.”

“I think we need to assume from now on that he can hear everything we say,” Chapel told her. “I don't like that much, but—”

“I'll do what I can to change that,” Angel told him. “It means switching to a new system, cutting myself completely out of the network for a while, rebuilding my public and private keys, getting a whole new block of IP addresses. I'll be offline while that's going on—I won't be able to contact you at all. And it'll take some time.”

“We don't have a lot of that,” Chapel told her.

“I know. It'll take about four hours, and even then I can't guarantee he won't pull that stunt again. But it's something we need to do. Director Hollingshead will freak out when he hears about this. Oh my God, I have so much work to do here. I thought I was secure! I mean, I've got firewalls in here, I've got 256-bit encryption, I've got defenses nobody's supposed to know about. All of it military spec. I'm supposed to be invisible here. I feel like somebody broke into my house and went snooping through my underwear drawer, Chapel.”

“I can imagine,” he told her. “Angel, before you go offline, I just need to know a couple of things. I need you to look at Franklin Hayes. Apparently he worked for the CIA at some point. Can you confirm that?”

“Should be no harm in looking. Wow. That was easy. It's on his public website. Yep, before he became a judge he worked for the CIA, back in the eighties and early nineties.”

“As an asset?”

“No, as a lawyer. Nothing clandestine,” Angel said. “The CIA has its own cadre of lawyers. Just like the Mafia does and for the same reason—because so much of what it does is illegal. It looks like his time there was pretty mundane. His records aren't even classified. Let's see what I can pull up.”

Chapel waited while she tapped at her keyboard.

“Huh,” she said, finally. “Interesting. Franklin Hayes was lead counsel on a couple of high-profile cases. Civil liberties lawsuits, mostly—American citizens claiming the CIA had trampled on their rights. Ninety percent of his cases were settled out of court, but that isn't unusual. Corporate lawyers have the same ratio, typically. I'm running through the list of his cases . . . huh. Oh, boy. Chapel, you're going to like this.”

“Go ahead.”

“One of the cases was brought by the family of a young woman who had been committed to a mental hospital for schizophrenia. She claimed the CIA had sent one of their spies to sneak in her window every night and . . . ah . . . take advantage of her in her bed. The case was thrown out for lack of evidence. The judge who heard it chastised the family for wasting the court's time. Franklin Hayes was counsel for the agency on that case.”

“Why is that relevant?” Chapel asked.

“Because the name of the girl was Christina Smollett.”

IN TRANSIT: APRIL 12, T+16:23

“Holy shit,” Chapel said. He wasn't a big fan of pointless vulgarity, but this situation seemed to warrant it. “That's no coincidence.”

“Definitely not,” Angel said. “I'll forgive you for sullying my ears with such language,” she went on. “Because right now I feel like fucking swearing myself. I have no way of knowing what the connection actually amounts to. I'm being honest with you here, Chapel. I don't have any information on what the CIA might have actually done to Christina Smollett. But there has to be some relevance. The CIA did
something
to her, and she associated it in some way with being sexually assaulted.”

“And Franklin Hayes smoothed it over,” Chapel said. “Covered it up.”

“Worse than that. He tried to countersue the family for besmirching the name of the CIA,” Angel went on. “The judge dismissed the countersuit but agreed to seal all testimony heard in the case. The whole thing was spun as some crazy girl making impossible accusations, and the CIA just didn't want the public to make something out of nothing. But if there wasn't something there, we wouldn't be talking about it right now.”

“I'm not a big fan of the CIA right now,” Chapel said, which was putting it mildly. “But even I don't believe they're in the business of raping schizophrenics.” The words felt ugly in his mouth, but that was what they were talking about. He sighed. “If the records are sealed, I guess there's no way for you to find out what the testimony said.”

“This was back in the late eighties, before anything was digitized,” Angel told him. “Assuming it wasn't actually destroyed, all that testimony is locked away in a filing cabinet somewhere. Short of breaking into a courthouse and stealing the physical papers, no one is ever going to see it—and that's more your area than mine.”

“I'm no thief,” Chapel told her. “I'm not about to do that. So we'll have to find some other way of getting the information. Someone has to know what happened. Franklin Hayes, for instance. I bet he knows all about it.”

“Too bad you just turned him into an enemy,” Angel pointed out.

“Did you hear our conversation?”

“All of it. In fact, so did Director Hollingshead. I woke him up and let him listen in. He's very interested in what Banks did to my computers. And so am I. Chapel, I need to get started on sweeping my gear and moving to new servers. We can't let them just eavesdrop whenever they want. In fact, if they know what we've just been talking about . . . well. They're not going to like the fact we made this connection.”

“True enough. All right, Angel. Do what you need to do. We're still a ways from Atlanta, and after we land, I'll be doing some legwork anyway. I'll need to check in with—”

“Chapel, until we're secure again, it's better if I don't know the details.”

“Got it. Thank you, Angel. Thanks for everything.”

She didn't respond. The hands-free unit in his ear had already switched off.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA: APRIL 12, T+17:53

The jet set down at Hartsfield-Jackson airport in the middle of the night. Chief Petty Officer Andrews brought them cups of hot coffee and croissants while they taxied to the gate and waited for clearance to debark. Chapel had to admit that if he had to fly, this was the way to go. Hollingshead was a lucky man. Before he knew it, he and Julia were whisked through the terminal and out to where a car was waiting for them.

The driver seemed surprised when they said they had no luggage. “Not even an overnight bag?” he asked.

Chapel just shrugged. Fatigue was starting to get to him. He needed to sleep, but that wasn't in the cards. He gave the driver Jeremy Funt's last known address.

“Seriously? That's down in Capitol View. Not the best neighborhood,” the driver told him.

“It's where we're going,” Chapel said.

“You're the boss.” The driver got the car moving and thankfully had little to say after that. Chapel tried watching through the windows as they rolled along, trying to get a feel for this new city. It all blurred together into lights and pools of darkness. He focused on the street signs instead.

After about twenty minutes he leaned forward, a little alarmed. “You're driving in circles,” he told the driver.

Had Banks set him up? Was this some kind of ploy to delay him? Or was there something more sinister going on? Was he going to be taken somewhere quiet and quietly shot?

He started to reach for his weapon.

“What are you talking about? I know this city like the back of my hand,” the driver said.

“We just passed Peachtree Street,” Chapel said. “Except we passed Peachtree Street ten minutes ago.”

The driver laughed. “Buddy, you never been to Atlanta before, have you? Half the streets here are called that. It's the state tree. You never heard of Georgia peaches?”

“Oh,” Chapel said.

He sank back into his seat.

Damn it, he was getting paranoid. Which only made sense given his circumstances, but still—he was losing it. He'd been going too long too fast, never getting a chance to rest. He needed sleep. If he didn't get it, he would probably start shooting at shadows.

He told himself he just needed to find Jeremy Funt. Once he had the man located and under protection, he could rest.

Just a little while longer.

Within thirty seconds his head fell back against the seat and he was asleep.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA: APRIL 13, T+19:01

“Hey. Hey, buddy! We're here!”

Chapel's eyes snapped open. They felt gritty and raw. All of him felt gritty and raw. Where was he? What was . . .

Right. It all came flooding back. He stirred himself, sat up. Adjusted his jacket. He touched Julia's shoulder, and she slapped his hand away.

“Take your time,” the driver told him.

Chapel nodded and rubbed at his face with his hands. His silicone left hand dragged in his stubble, but the irritation helped wake him up a little. He rubbed Julia's shoulder with his good hand. “It's time to wake up,” he told her.

She shifted in her seat, making little sounds of annoyance. Then she leaned forward and laid her head on his chest, one of her arms snaking around his waist. “Let me sleep in today,” she said. “The little Chihuahuas can wait.”

She was so warm against his body in the chilly air-conditioned cab. Chapel felt his body stirring. He put his good hand on her hair and stroked it gently.

Whoa,
he told himself. Not appropriate.

He thought of when she'd been examining him in her clinic, and she'd kissed him. That had just been a reward for saving her, though. Except—she had said that it was also maybe because she'd
wanted
to kiss him.

Her hair was soft and slightly curly. It felt good in his fingers. This was totally wrong, he thought. He had a mission to complete; there was no time for this. But he wanted so desperately to just lean in and kiss her awake.

“Oh, no,” she said, and sat bolt upright. “Oh my God.”

“It's not what—”

“Oh my God,” she said again. “Oh God. Chapel. I—I am so sorry.”

“You are?” he asked.

“I thought you were somebody else. My ex-boyfriend. Wow,” she said. “That was not appropriate, huh? I'm really sorry.”

Chapel reached for the handle of his door. “It's fine. Really,” he said. He opened his door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Harsh sodium lamps burned down from above, pushing away shadows that refused to be completely contained. The buildings on either side of him were mostly one- and two-story houses with peaked roofs. Each had a patch of green lawn out front, and most had a tree or two. It looked nothing whatsoever like New York City.

“Do we need to pay the driver?” Julia asked, coming up beside him.

“No—no—it's all taken care of,” he said, a little too quickly.

She gave him a weak smile. He turned toward the car, intending to ask the driver to wait while they went inside, but the cabbie was already pulling away. He waved furiously to call the man back, but it was no use.

Oh, well. He could always call for another car. Even without Angel's help he supposed he could manage that.

“So what's the plan, here?” Julia asked.

“The man who lives here, Jeremy Funt, is like your father—at least in that the chimeras want to kill them both.” She winced and he immediately felt like an ass. She knew her father's life—just as her own—was in danger, and she didn't need to be reminded of the fact. “I'm going to get him, and you, out of here. And then I'm going to sit here all night waiting for a chimera to show up. If I can, I'll take it into custody.”

“How do you know the chimera will come here?” she asked, rubbing at her eyes.

“I don't, really. But I'm operating under the assumption the chimera has the same list I do, which is how I got this address. Huh. No lights on in the house.”

Julia shrugged. “It's late. Maybe he's asleep, like a sane person.”

“Maybe,” Chapel agreed. If it was him, if
he
knew a psychopath was coming to kill him, Chapel would keep a light on. It would at least make it easier to see the maniac when he arrived. “Come on.” He went up a narrow gravel driveway to the front door of the house and knocked loudly. He glanced around at the surrounding houses. Plenty of them still showed lights. He could see the blue glow of a television set through one window across the street and hear people laughing somewhere nearby. A dog was barking a few streets away. It wasn't
that
late.

When there was no answer to his knock he looked around until he found a doorbell and tried that. Still no response.

“Maybe he was really sane, and he went somewhere else. Since he knew the chimera was coming. You did let everyone know they were in danger, right?” Julia asked.

“It was the first thing I did.”

Something here just wasn't right. He knocked again, knowing there would be no reply. “Okay. I need to get inside, whether he's here or not, so I can lay my ambush for the chimera. Stand back and watch the street. If you see anyone looking at us and wondering what we're doing, let me know. If you see a police car, let me know.”

“I'm guessing, in this neighborhood that's a pretty rare sight,” Julia told him.

“Keep an eye out anyway.” Chapel flexed his shoulder. It had been a long time since he had knocked a door down with brute force. He had little choice, though. He grabbed the doorknob, intending to lift the door in its hinges and then ram it with his shoulder.