Chimera (30 page)

“You told him he would be safe,” Julia said.

“That's right. I lied to him,” Funt told her. “I betrayed him. I feel bad about that every once in a while. Then I think about the five people he killed, and what he did to that cop, and to me. He looked like a kid. He sounded like a kid. When he got angry, he was a demon out of hell. I have no idea what they did to him at Camp Putnam when he got back—for all I know they ran Nazi-style experiments on him night and day. Honest to God, I can't say for sure if I think he deserved it or not.”

STONE MOUNTAIN, GEORGIA: APRIL 13, T+36:02

Chapel shook his head. Some of this was new information, but he didn't see how much of it helped him. “So the CIA . . . created the chimeras, and then just warehoused them in this camp. But why? Why create them in the first place? What were they supposed to do? What were they supposed to be?”

“You think they'd tell me things like that? I only got to see the camp so I would know how dangerous Malcolm was. How tough my job was going to be,” Funt said.

“Okay. Okay.” Chapel scrubbed at his face with his hands. He felt soiled just from hearing Funt's story. “Then—”

“The whole time,” Julia said. Both men turned to face her, but it was clear she was talking to herself. She had her arms wrapped around her chest and was bending over slightly at the waist. She looked like she might throw up—or start screaming. She shivered violently, and Chapel took his coat off and put it around her shoulders, but it didn't seem to help. “The whole time I was growing up. The whole time,” she repeated. She stared into Chapel's eyes. “I was sixteen years old when all that happened. My dad was teaching me how to drive. Then he went and shot a boy full of tranquilizer darts and took him back to prison. My parents—I thought I knew who they were, but—oh God. When I was six, they were just being born. Or made, or grown in vats, or whatever. When I was in first grade, learning to read, my parents were giving birth to little monsters. Chapel. Chapel!”

“I'm here,” he said, and reached for her, but she shoved him away.

“Chapel, they're my brothers. Maybe not in, you know, a genetic way. But in every other way that counts. My brothers!”

“No,” he said. “No. You can't think like that.”

“How can I not?” she asked him. “How can I think about them any other way?”

He started to answer, though he honestly had no idea what he was going to say. Before any words could come out of his mouth, though, a great booming noise ripped through the air and he jumped in surprise. It was followed by a deafening fanfare, and then a haze of light burst over the top of the mountain.

“What the hell?” Chapel asked. He let go of Julia long enough to run over toward the visitors' center and see what was going on.

Then the fanfare resolved into music—familiar fiddle music. It was the Charlie Daniels Band, singing about Georgia. The light came from powerful floodlights that were illuminating the carving on the side of the mountain.

The nightly laser show had begun.

Down at the bottom of the mountain, hundreds, maybe thousands of tourists would be staring in awe up at the carving as the lasers animated the generals and made it appear their horses were galloping across the stone. They were probably gaping in surprise and delight, looking up toward where Chapel, Julia, and Funt stood at the summit.

“Come on,” Chapel said. “Right now?”

Nearby someone laughed. Chapel spun around, half expecting Laughing Boy to step out of the darkness. But the figure that moved into the haze of light now was taller than Laughing Boy, and more heavily muscled.

“Funny story, huh?” the figure asked.

“Who—” Chapel began, but he already knew who it was.

“I never heard his version before. Real funny.” The haze of light turned red for a moment, then died down to a less diffuse glow. Chapel's eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness, and he could make out the details of the newcomer's face.

His eyes were black from side to side, with no white showing at all.

Malcolm had arrived.

STONE MOUNTAIN, GEORGIA: APRIL 13, T+36:09

“No fucking way,” Funt shouted. “Why did you bring him here?”

Chapel could only shake his head in disbelief.

“Nobody else knew where I was going to be,” Funt insisted. “I didn't tell anyone. So you must have told him he could find me here! You sold me out, Chapel!”

“No! I didn't tell anyone,” Chapel protested.

Except Angel, of course.

He couldn't imagine that she would have told Malcolm where to find Funt. That was just impossible. But her systems had been compromised once before, by the CIA—and the CIA had been trying to kill Funt for years.

But that meant—

A gunshot roared across the top of Stone Mountain, drowning out the blaring music that came from below. Chapel spun around and saw Malcolm looking down between his feet.

“Can't see very well in the dark, can you, Funt?” the chimera asked. “I can.”

“Wait,” Chapel said. “Just wait.” He held his hands up, outstretched, toward the chimera. “It doesn't have to be like this. You've been manipulated, Malcolm. You were sent here like a heat-seeking missile.”

“I don't know what that is,” the chimera told him.

“Just—just take my word for it. They made you come here. You're doing somebody else's bidding.”

“You're talking about the Voice,” Malcolm said, nodding.

“Sure—the—the voice. What voice?”

“The Voice on the telephone. The one that told us we would be free, and then the fence came down. The one that told us where to find the ones we wanted to kill. The Voice doesn't make us do things,” the chimera said, smiling. “It helps us. It helps us do the things we want to do.”

Like killing Funt. Malcolm had a very good reason to want him dead. Just like the chimera in New York had good reason to want to kill Helen Bryant, the woman who made him, the woman who locked him away in an armed camp for twenty-five years.

Malcolm wasn't being manipulated. Used, yes. But he was only being used to do a thing he wanted anyway.

Revenge was a powerful motivator. In Special Forces training they'd taught Chapel it could break through almost any disincentive—you could torture a man, you could take away everything he loved, but in the end you were only making him more resolved. They'd taught him that the way to fight terrorists wasn't to punish them, but to convince them you were really on their side.

“They'll kill you when you're done,” Chapel told the chimera. “You do understand that, don't you? They've already sent men to kill you. But I can keep you alive. I can protect you.”

“I'm going to kill Jeremy Funt, now, mister. It was nice talking,” Malcolm sneered, “but maybe you'll shut up until I'm done.”

“No!” Funt screamed, and he fired again. The bullet ricocheted off the rock not three feet from where Chapel stood. He ducked reflexively. “No—you don't want me. I never hurt you, Malcolm. But he”—Funt stabbed one finger in Chapel's direction—“he killed one of your brothers! Kill him!”

“Wow. You think you know me so well, don't you, Jeremy Funt?” Malcolm said, stalking toward the ex-FBI agent. “You don't know me at all. He killed Brody, yeah. The Voice told me as much. But you know what? Where I come from, if somebody's strong enough to kill a chimera, that's something to respect. Killing us is hard. Apparently fooling us is a lot easier. That's the weakling's way.”

Funt raised his pistol again, but before he could pull the trigger Malcolm was running—leaping toward him. Chapel reached for his own sidearm and only then realized he didn't have it. It was in Funt's pocket.

“No!” he shouted, as the chimera collided with Funt. The pistol fired, and a moment later fired again—Chapel could see the muzzle flares as explosions of light between Funt and the chimera—and then Funt's arm flew up, bending in all the wrong places. The chimera stomped on Funt's foot and the man screamed.

“No,” Chapel shouted again, as he closed the distance between himself and the chimera. “No!” He locked his fingers together and swung both of his fists down, hard, into Malcolm's left kidney.

The pain of getting punched there was usually enough to incapacitate a grown man. It could cause massive internal bleeding and even death and was an illegal move in boxing and every martial arts competition for good reason. It was a nasty, low blow, and Chapel had been trained to deliver it with devastating precision.

It made Malcolm stop what he was doing for a fraction of a second.

Chapel figured that would have to be enough.

Funt was down on the ground, scrambling away from the chimera like a crab, pushing with his heels and his good arm just to escape. His pistol was gone, probably knocked out of his hand when Malcolm broke his arm.

Chapel decided to stop worrying about Funt, as just then Malcolm was turning around to face him—and smiling wickedly.

“You really want some of this?” Malcolm asked.

Chapel dropped into a defensive posture, his fists raised like they were going to have a nice, friendly boxing match.

“Show me what you've got,” he said.

The chimera came at him like a runaway train.

STONE MOUNTAIN, GEORGIA: APRIL 13, T+36:12

There was no way Chapel could stop Malcolm, or even slow him down. The chimera was just too strong, and he outweighed Chapel by a good fifty pounds. So he didn't try to stand his ground. There was no way he could move out of the way of Malcolm's charge, either—he was just too fast.

So he twisted on the ball of one foot and let Malcolm hit him, but he rolled with the bull rush, twisting around to slide over the chimera's back as he went past. Chapel landed on his feet, though not as firmly as he would have liked—the ground was too uneven to stick the landing.

Still, he was suddenly behind Malcolm where Malcolm couldn't see him.

If he'd been fighting a human opponent, Chapel could have ended things then and there. He could have wrapped his good arm around his opponent's neck and put him in a sleeper hold. Block the blood flow to the carotid artery, even for a few seconds, and a human body will simply shut down.

He knew it wouldn't be that easy. But he was out of other ideas.

He brought his right knee up, hard, into the small of Malcolm's back. The chimera didn't even grunt in pain—maybe it felt like Chapel was tickling him—but he was ninety-nine percent human, which meant he had the same reflexes as a human being. He arched his back away from the blow, throwing his head back toward Chapel.

Chapel threw his artificial arm around Malcolm's throat and squeezed.

The prosthetic arm was designed to respond to subconscious commands. Normally Chapel didn't have to think about how the arm should move, it just acted like a real arm. He could override it, though. He could give it conscious commands and it would obey them, even in ways a real arm wouldn't.

He told his arm to squeeze, and it acted like a metal noose around the chimera's neck. It tightened like a vise and stayed locked shut. A living arm could get fatigued. Its muscles were elastic enough to give way as Malcolm bucked and tried to break loose. Chapel's prosthetic arm didn't have those weaknesses.

The chimera gasped and spat in rage as he tried to get free. He tried to reach around behind him, to grab Chapel and hurt him enough to make him let go. His fingers found the side of Chapel's shirt and he tore through the fabric, maybe intending to gouge into the flesh beneath.

Chapel responded by using his good right arm to deliver punch after punch to the side of Malcolm's head.

The chimera screamed in frustration and ducked forward, bending at the waist until he lifted Chapel right off the ground. With his arm locked around Malcolm's throat Chapel had no option but to go along for the ride.

For a second he was airborne and flopping back and forth, like a rider holding on to a bucking horse. Malcolm twisted from side to side, trying to shake him free, but the only way that would happen was if Chapel's prosthetic arm gave out. Chapel forgot all about hitting Malcolm and just tried to hold on, tried to get his legs around Malcolm's waist, tried to grab the chimera with his free hand.

Then Malcolm started to run—straight toward the side of the mountain. Straight toward the laser show still playing out below.

No—no, he wouldn't,
Chapel had time to think, as he watched the edge of the stone top of the mountain come rushing toward them.
He'll kill us both!

But maybe for a chimera, death was preferable to being taken prisoner again. Malcolm ran full speed toward the edge, toward a drop of more than five hundred feet.

A fence ran around the edge of the mountaintop, a chain-link fence that looked about as sturdy as a lace doily from Chapel's perspective. It would catch them if Malcolm threw himself over the edge, but with their combined weight and the chimera's momentum Chapel was certain they would just tear through.

He had no choice. He told his arm to let go.

STONE MOUNTAIN, GEORGIA: APRIL 13, T+36:14

It was exactly what Malcolm had been hoping for. As soon as the pressure on his throat lessened, the chimera dug in his heels and skidded to a stop. But Chapel had no way to slow himself down, and he went shooting forward over Malcolm's shoulders and head to fly through the air, carried along by inertia straight toward the fence and the edge.

He slammed into the chain link with a clattering rattle. Lasers and floodlights dazzled his eyes as he felt the chain bend and stretch. It was held up by a series of metal posts spaced about ten feet apart. The posts were anchored in the bare rock of the mountain, but they could only take so much stress. He felt the whole fence jump and dance as one post snapped off at its base, heard another one groan and shriek as the force of his impact bent it down and outward.