Chimera (40 page)

He was getting pretty close to that moment.

Hollingshead sighed and continued. “Let's instead
talk about how I failed you. How I made an utter mess of this thing.”

“Sir?”

“I said something to you just before you left the
Pentagon. I told you to follow the clues. To figure out what was really going on
here.”

“Yes, sir, you did, which is exactly what I've
been—”

Hollingshead lifted one hand.

Chapel fell silent.

“I meant, you see, and—now this is where it becomes
my fault—I meant that you should figure out what the CIA wanted out of all this.
Why, say, they were so anxious to handle it themselves. I don't believe you've
done much in that regard, other than shooting the toes off a special agent.
Instead of the investigation I wished you to complete, you took it upon yourself
to dig up the secrets of a very old, very moribund project that it behooves no
one—no one at all, son—to know about. About which you certainly have no need to
know.”

“My orders were to catch or kill the chimeras, sir.
To know how to do that I needed to know what they were,” Chapel said.

Hollingshead's eyes sparkled.

Which made Chapel think he'd made a mistake.

“Ah! Finally! We have some insight, a little window
into the soul of James Chapel and why he chose to do all this. But that doesn't
make it all better. Or does it?”

“No. Sir,” Chapel said, though it made his teeth
grind.

“No, no, because you found nothing in the camp.
Because, of course, there was nothing to be found but some very old, very sad
secrets. You wasted all that time, son. You wasted it for nothing.”

Chapel opened his mouth, but then he closed it
again quickly.

Hollingshead didn't know about Samuel. He didn't
know Samuel was still alive.

It was probably best for Samuel that it remain that
way.

But after what Chapel had seen in Camp Putnam—after
what he'd learned—he could not remain silent. He had taken a vow to serve his
country. To obey his superior officers. But there were times when even that vow
had to be broken.

“You're wrong, sir. I did find something
there.”

It was gratifying to see Hollingshead look
surprised for once. The man who knew everything, the spider at the center of the
web of secrets, looked like he'd been punched in the face. His eyes were very
wide as he waited to hear what Chapel said next.

“I found evil,” Chapel said. “What happened in that
camp was nothing short of criminal. What was done there—what happened to those
boys—”

“Boys who grew up to be killers,” Hollingshead
interjected.

But Chapel wouldn't be derailed. Justice was at
stake. “Maybe. Maybe we made them that way. We talk about the chimeras as if
they're monsters. And I won't deny that they do monstrous things. But they're
still ninety-nine percent human. And I figure that means they should have had
the same rights as you and me. But they weren't given those rights. They were
tortured in there, starved, neglected, and abandoned.”

“I won't speak to this,” Hollingshead sputtered.
“And if you're wise, you'll—”

“No, sir, I won't shut up. They were children. And
they were tortured. That's not something that can just stand. Someone's going to
have to pay.”

NAVAL SUPPORT
UNIT SARATOGA SPRINGS, NEW YORK: APRIL 14, T+50:31

Hollingshead was quiet for a very long time.
He took off his glasses and folded them carefully. Put them in a pocket of his
vest. Chapel couldn't read anything in his face or his body language. He
couldn't tell what Hollingshead was about to do.

Not that it mattered. Chapel knew his career was
already over. That he'd be lucky not to be arrested and thrown in prison for the
rest of his life, after what he'd done.

He didn't regret a single word he'd said.

“I . . . see,” Hollingshead said,
finally. “Have you . . . well. I suppose I should ask what you think
you're going to do now. How you intend to attain this hypothetical justice. Are
you going to go to the media? Reveal classified information to the public? Write
a book about what you've seen and go on Larry King to talk about it?”

Chapel frowned. That was one thing he hadn't
considered. Something had to be done. But what? “No, sir, I don't suppose I
will,” he admitted. “I did take an oath not to do that sort of thing.”

“Then . . . perhaps you'll try to get
justice from within the DIA? File reports with some oversight committee or
other, make a nuisance of yourself? Will you write a carefully composed e-mail
to the president?”

Chapel felt the wind go right out of him. That was
more in line with what he
could
do. But he also knew
that it would achieve exactly nothing. There were people out there who were
responsible for Camp Putnam, but they were people in positions of influence, and
people like that didn't respond well to being called out. They would go into
damage control mode. Shift blame. Implicate Chapel in the whole thing and make
sure he took the fall for what they'd done. It was how any bureaucracy
worked.

“No,” Hollingshead said, “I can see it in your
eyes. You're too smart to throw your life away like that, either. If it will
accomplish nothing. Well”—he sighed—“son, maybe you should think more on what
you're going to do. But perhaps you can wait on that until you're done with your
assignment.”

“I—sir?” Chapel was deeply confused. Hollingshead
couldn't mean what he'd just implied, could he?

“I'm sending you to Denver, right now,”
Hollingshead said. “Come now, Captain. You look honestly surprised.”

“I suppose I didn't expect that after
. . . what I said,” he tried.

“Oh, Captain, I assure you. I have not yet begun to
chew you out, as the men say. This conversation will continue at some future
date. But I need you in Denver because there is a chimera there about to try to
kill Franklin Hayes. Quite clearly, I have no time to brief or ready anyone
else. Director Banks and I agree that what we need, right now, is boots on the
ground—not stewing in a cell in some loathsome brig. So you will go to Denver
and you will continue the job we assigned you.”

“Sir?” Chapel asked. And he knew it was over. He
wasn't going to get his moment of righteous indignation after all. It burned
inside him still, but Hollingshead had moved on. Cut the floor out from under
Chapel's feet and gotten back to what mattered to him.

“There will be a chimera attack in Denver, and it
will happen today,” Hollingshead said. His tone told Chapel this was not
speculation. “The judge's security team will not be prepared to defeat it. If
you aren't there, son, loaded for bear and knowing what you know—it will
succeed.”

“It . . . will,” Chapel said. He knew he
would not be allowed to know how Hollingshead could be so certain.

“And if that happens, Tom Banks will win.”

“Win,” Chapel said. Because he couldn't think of
what else to say.

He had been mistaken, it seemed. He had been
mistaken all along. He'd thought Hollingshead had given him this mission so he
could protect the people on the list.

That had been foolish, it seemed. Apparently, to
both the CIA and the Pentagon, this was a
game
.

Hollingshead rose stiffly to his feet, then pulled
back the canvas cover at the back of the truck. “Follow me, please,” the admiral
said.

Chapel followed him out of the truck and down onto
a concrete surface that he thought he recognized. He looked up and saw that he'd
been brought to the same airport in the Catskills where he'd landed the night
before. Hollingshead's jet was sitting on the runway, ready to take off. Nearby
was the helicopter Chapel had heard—it must have brought Hollingshead here.

A sailor came up to unlock Chapel's handcuffs. The
same sailor returned his phone, his hands-free set, and his sidearm. He checked
the action and the magazine and saw it had been cleaned and reloaded for
him.

He had begun to suspect that Hollingshead wasn't on
his side. That the admiral was working against him in some nefarious way. He
lacked any real proof or any good reason to believe that other than a hunch and
a few scraps of half-certain information.

Now this—all this, the guilt trip, the threats of
criminal charges, the sudden reversal and reinstatement . . . was it
all part of the deeper game? Was it just a way to make Chapel step back in
line?

That was intelligence work for you. It was
impossible to ever really know who you could trust.

Hollingshead met Chapel's eye one last time before
sending him away. “You will protect Franklin Hayes to the utmost of your
ability,” the admiral said. “When that is done . . . we will address
your future. But for right now, Chapel, I need you—God protect us all.”

Chapel climbed inside the jet, and Chief Petty
Officer Andrews closed the hatch.

When she'd finished, the CPO turned to give Chapel
a long and questioning look. “I've got new orders, now,” she said.

“I know. You're taking me to Denver.”

She nodded. “And if you try to divert the plane,
I'm supposed to shoot you. Are you going to push it, or do you want to sit down
and wait until I have the towels heated and your breakfast cooked?”

Chapel hadn't eaten or slept in quite a while.
“I'll be a good boy,” he said.

She nodded and headed toward the back of the cabin.
“It's almost four hours to Denver from here. Get comfortable.”

Chapel nodded and headed toward one of the seats,
intending to sit down and promptly pass out.

Before he could even pick which seat looked the
most comfortable, though, one of them swiveled around and Julia jumped out of
it, rushing over to put her arms around him.

He was surprised to see her there, to say the
least. After what Hollingshead had said to him in the truck, he assumed he would
never see her again. “Are you all right?” he asked her.

She nodded, her head against his shoulder. “They
asked me a million questions, but nobody beat me with a rubber hose or anything,
if that's what you mean. Then that nice old man—your boss, right?—he told me to
get on the plane. He said I was your responsibility now, and you'd have to
figure out what to do with me.”

None of this made any sense, Chapel thought. Not a
bit.

He knew he was glad to see her, though. He lifted
his hand to stroke her back.

And just like that the moment between them was
over. She pushed him away, and when he looked in her face again, he saw she had
recovered herself, that she was back to their professional relationship.

But for a second there, when she'd first seen him,
there'd been something more. She had looked to him for something not
professional at all—comfort. She must have been terrified when the navy men
interrogated her. She must have wondered if she would ever see daylight again.
So when she saw Chapel, she'd known that she was going to be okay, and she had
run to him in relief. Maybe that was all there was to it. But
maybe . . .

He shook his head and forced himself not to think
stupid thoughts.

IN TRANSIT: APRIL
14, T+51:07

Julia was exhausted enough that she fell
asleep soon after they took off, but Chapel still had some work to do. He would
try to take a nap before they landed in Denver—his body was certainly ready for
it—but he needed at least some information on what he was getting himself
into.

So he plugged the hands-free set into his ear.

“Angel,” he said, “are you online?”

“I'm here, Captain,” she said.

Chapel closed his eyes. This wasn't going to be
fun. “So it's Captain, now. Not sweetie, or sugar?”

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you've
gotten me in?” Angel asked. She didn't sound particularly angry, though. More
concerned.

“I'm sorry, Angel. I truly am.”

“Apparently—and I have this from on high—I'll be
listed as a conspirator when they charge you for espionage. That means I could
face the same penalty you do. Do you know what the penalty is for
espionage?”

“All too well. Listen, Angel, it won't come to
that. Conspiracy charges are just a way to get accomplices to provide
information on the principal in any investigation. Which means if you tell them
everything, they'll let you off.”

“You mean, if I throw you under the bus.”

“It's not a betrayal if I tell you it's okay,”
Chapel said. “I don't want you to suffer because I made some bad decisions.”

Angel sounded a little less upset, but she still
didn't call him sweetie. “Okay, okay, enough. We can have a blame party later,”
Angel said. “Tell me what you need now. And I'll let you know if you're approved
for it.”

“I just need to know about Franklin Hayes. Is he
still alive, at least?”

“Yes. And just as ornery as ever. He's been calling
me constantly, or at least his office has, demanding updates on when you're
going to arrive. Right now I have you down for landing in Denver about half past
eleven, local time.”

“What about the chimera?”
Quinn,
he thought,
it's Quinn who will be
there
.

“He might already be in Denver. By the time you
land, he'll have more than a five-hour head start on you.”

That wasn't good. But it was encouraging to know
that Quinn hadn't already struck. “What do you know about security on-site?”

“It's pretty solid. Judge Hayes is surrounded by
Colorado Highway Patrol officers. That's the closest thing they have to a state
police force. He has some private bodyguards as well. I've seen their dossiers.
They've all got security clearances, though nothing near what they would need to
be told what's coming for the judge. They're all former Blackwater or
Halliburton guys. Most of them were civilian contractors in Iraq.”