Chimera (47 page)

He didn't know how long Reinhard would remain unconscious. He didn't know what he would find outside of the shed. He desperately wanted to sit down and rest for a while. But a lot of things had come together to give him this one chance. He could not afford to waste it—he definitely would not get another one.

He stumbled outside, trying to keep low. It was hard to bend from the waist without blacking out. The pain from his wound was excruciating, and his duct tape bandage constricted his chest and made it hard to breathe. So he squatted down and duckwalked around the side of the shed to try to get his bearings.

What he saw was more confusing than revelatory. The shed stood about twenty yards away from a big house, a pile of fake log cabin construction with lots of windows. Most of them were dark. Between the house and the shed was a wide patch of gravel where four cars sat, unattended. Surrounding the gravel and the buildings were tall dark trees, mostly pines. A single break in the forest led down to a road about two hundred yards away. That had to be east, since the rough shapes of mountains loomed over the trees on the other side, which must be west.

The entire scene was lit by a flickering red light, as if the forest were on fire. Chapel soon saw that wasn't accurate, however, as a new red light burst into life high over the trees to the south, a light that sank slowly toward the forest. A flare, fired from a flare gun. It was impossible to say where the flare had come from.

The moment the flare appeared, Chapel heard gunfire open up—automatic fire from at least three light machine guns, maybe Uzis or Mac-10s judging by the sound. The muzzle flashes came from over by the house, and he heard men shouting over there as well. That must be Reinhard's men, shooting indiscriminately into the trees. But who were they shooting at? They were acting like they were under invasion by a full-scale assault, but Chapel heard no return fire, saw no movement at all to the south. Just the flare, slowly settling to earth.

Whatever—it didn't matter. He had to get away.

Chapel ran east as fast as he could, ducking into the trees, headed straight for the road that lay beyond. He heard shouting behind him, but he didn't stop, didn't look back.

Just up ahead the trees gave way. The road appeared, a single lane of blacktop painted a dim red by the distant flare. Chapel broke through onto the road surface and smelled fireworks, the distinct sulfurous tang of spent gunpowder.

Then a soft shoulder rammed into his armpit, and he smelled Julia, felt her body press up against his. She was moving, running, and she supported him as he hobbled along. They headed down the road toward an SUV parked fifty yards away, showing no lights. As they got closer he saw Chief Petty Officer Andrews standing next to the open driver's-side door. She had a smoking flare gun in her hand.

The rear hatch of the SUV swung open, and Julia shoved him inside, into the rear compartment. Chapel realized he could barely keep his eyes open, that he was so weak he was likely to pass out at any second.

The hatch swung down to close him up inside the vehicle. He heard feminine voices talking in a low whisper. Heard the engine of the SUV turn over.

Enough. He let go of consciousness and sank into darkness.

BOULDER, COLORADO: APRIL 15, T+68:14

Reinhard stared down at the puddle of blood on the floor of the toolshed. He rubbed his throat where the bastard had choked him. His hand came away stained with red, and he shook drops of semicoagulated blood from his fingers. “This is where I woke up. Just before you arrived. My men were still out in the woods, shooting at flares.”

He shook his head. “They weren't trained to handle that kind of Special Forces shit. They were trained to work as bodyguards for celebrities and CEOs. Not to guard against an attack by Army Rangers.”

He bent down and looked at the set of handcuffs lying on the floor, one cuff open with the key still in the lock.

“I'll admit it, I wasn't ready for this either. Maybe I should have known better. I saw what Chapel was like on the road, when he took down Quinn. But I also saw how much blood he lost. There was no way a man in that kind of condition could do what he did, not without help. You're telling me there was nobody here. Just a stewardess and a veterinarian out in the woods.” He shook his head again. “No way. I'm telling you, there had to be a whole company of Rangers involved. Otherwise . . .”

He didn't want to turn around. He didn't want to look at the man who had come to debrief him. He didn't want to admit he'd failed. “We did our best. We followed the script, did exactly what we were told. I've worked for the judge a long time. I knew I had to give this my all, and I did. I honestly don't see how we could have done any better.”

“Ha,” his debriefer said. It was almost like a little laugh. Not that there was anything funny here.

“Are you going to tell me I'm fired?” Reinhard asked. “Shit. I know you are. You're here to tell me I screwed up and I'm off the payroll. Gonna lose my pension, too. I had fifteen years in that. Well, I don't know who could have done better.”

“Heh. Hee ha hee,” the man behind him said. “Nobody's saying otherwise.”

Reinhard felt his heart skip a beat. Was it possible he was going to walk out of this with a job? He knew what a mess this was. He knew how many kinds of hell the blowback would be. Was it possible?

He started to turn around to look at the man. “So am I—”

“Fired? Ha ha ha,” the man laughed. “No.”

Which would have been good to hear, except the debriefer was holding a silenced pistol in his hand. And the barrel was pointed at Reinhard's side.

“One—ha—problem, though. The plan was, Chapel would—hee hee—die while protecting the judge. Ha hee. We were going to present his body to the coroner and—heh—say that Quinn killed him.”

The gunshot was louder than Reinhard expected. Silencers always were. You expected a flat little cough, like when somebody fired a silenced pistol on TV. Real silencers just muffled the sound of the gunshot a little. He looked down and saw a stain of red spreading across his side. Exactly in the same place where Quinn shot Chapel.

“See—ha—we still need a body, to make it look right,” the debriefer said. “Heh ha ho. Gotta stick to the—ha—script. That left arm's going to have to come off, too.”

SUPERIOR, COLORADO: APRIL 15, T+69:33

It was a lot easier opening his eyes, this time. Chapel felt warm and comfortable, like he was waking up after a good nap in a soft bed. He felt a dozen times stronger than before. Something was jabbing him in the arm, but it was easy to ignore. He looked up and saw a stucco ceiling above him, and a light fixture that was a little too bright for comfort. So he closed his eyes again and fell back asleep.

The pinpoint irritation in his arm woke him again, a little later. It was exactly in the crook of his right arm and it felt like a mosquito bite, maybe. He reached over with his left arm to swat it away.

His left hand passed right through his right arm, meeting no resistance. That made him open his eyes again. He looked over to his left and saw that his arm was gone.

Oh, yeah,
he thought.

He did not find the fact particularly distressing. He had woken up so many times before, expecting to find himself whole and intact. The first few months it had been a horrible sensation to have to wake up and remember he was an amputee. Eventually he'd gotten used to it, or at least it had stopped waking him up with the cold sweats.

Leisurely, knowing there was no rush, he turned his head to the right.

Chief Petty Officer Andrews was lying in the bed next to him. She looked pale and slightly disheveled, but she was smiling.

Damn,
Chapel thought.
Julia's not going to like this. And I don't even remember getting into bed with the CPO. Or anything we might have done.

“You're awake,” Andrews said.

Julia's face appeared over Andrews's shoulder.

Oh, wow,
Chapel thought.
What exactly did I miss?

But Julia wasn't in the bed. She was standing next to it, leaning over Andrews. Julia wasn't smiling. “Try not to move your arm,” she said. “If that needle comes out, it's going to make a hell of a mess.”

Keeping his shoulder immobile, Chapel tilted his head to look down at his arm. A needle was buried in the flesh there, a needle attached to a plastic tube full of blood. The tube ran to an IV bag, and another tube ran to a needle in Andrews's arm.

Andrews laid her head back on her pillow. “Type O negative,” she said. “I'm a universal donor.”

“You lost a lot of blood,” Julia told him. “I had to give you a transfusion or you probably would have died.” She checked the blood bag and the tubes. “The CPO is going to be tired for a while, but otherwise she should be fine. You, on the other hand—”

“Where are we?” Chapel asked. His voice sounded hoarse and reedy, but he felt good. He felt better. He wanted, suddenly, to get up and get back to work.

“A motel room outside of Boulder,” Andrews told him. “It was the closest place that Angel felt was safe. Actually, she advised us to keep going, to get out of Colorado altogether, but Julia decided you needed to be treated immediately if you were going to make it. She started barking orders and Angel had no choice but to listen. Julia would make a great combat medic, you know.”

“She's fantastic,” Chapel agreed. “But Angel—”

He stopped. He'd been about to say they couldn't trust Angel. But he shouldn't be able to trust Andrews, for the same reason. They both worked for Hollingshead. The man who'd sent Chapel to Denver so he could die just to make the judge look good.

He didn't want to speak his suspicions out loud, however. Not when it was clear that Andrews had just saved his life.

“Angel was the brains behind this whole rescue,” Julia said. “She tracked you by satellite to that house. She guided us there.”

Angel had made his arm scare Reinhard as well, and that had certainly helped. What did it mean? Angel had to have been in on the setup. She had steered him toward Denver just as strongly as Hollingshead and Banks.

“What about the flares?” he asked, trying to piece things together.

“That was her idea, too,” Andrews said. “I keep a sidearm on board the jet, in case I need to act as an impromptu sky marshal. But one pistol-packing CPO wouldn't have a chance against a small army of security guards. So she told me to take the flare gun from the emergency kit on the plane and told me how to use it—where exactly to shoot the flares so it would look like a bunch of Special Forces types were storming the compound.”

“Most of the medical equipment I'm using came from that same emergency kit,” Julia told him. “Angel told me to bring it along. There was a full suture kit in there, as well as some antibiotics and painkillers. You owe her, big time.”

It made no sense.

Angel had led him right to the trap and told him to walk in. Banks and Hollingshead had come up with this scheme to make the judge look good by staging an assassination. Angel must have known something of the details.

So why, now, was she helping him? Part of the plan had been for him to die at Quinn's hands. Hayes had presumably announced to the world that Chapel was dead. If he showed up in public now, alive and with a story to tell, it would ruin the entire plan. Angel should have been helping to kill him, not helping to save him.

He looked over at Andrews. She was beholden to Hollingshead, certainly, but he doubted she'd known any details about the plan. The fewer people who know a secret, the easier it is to keep. That was the entire rationale behind need-to-know information. So it was highly unlikely she was his enemy.

He would just have to trust her. “Angel betrayed me,” he said aloud. “She was told to get me to Denver no matter what it took. Because I was supposed to go there and get myself killed while fighting Quinn.”

Neither Andrews nor Julia looked particularly shocked.

“It was a setup, do you understand? She was in on the scheme to kill me.”

Chapel nearly jumped when Angel answered him directly.

Her voice came from the motel room's telephone, which must have been set to speaker so Julia and Andrews could consult with her. She must have been listening the whole time.

“That's partly true,” Angel admitted. “Chapel, Hollingshead and Banks did collude in sending you to Denver. And, yes, I knew you were walking into danger and I didn't tell you everything I knew.”

Chapel glared over at the phone. If she was admitting that much—

“I thought I was doing my duty. My job. I thought keeping secrets from you, and operating on a secret agenda, was important. It was a matter of national security, and even if I wanted to be honest with you, I couldn't be. I'm sure you understand that. But then things changed,” Angel said.

“Changed how?” Chapel demanded.

Andrews and Julia both looked away. This was between Chapel and Angel, and they didn't want to be part of it.

“First, I need to tell you something.”

Chapel grimaced. “What? You're going to apologize?”

“In a way. Chapel, I want to tell you something about myself. Something I'm not supposed to reveal to anyone. I was a hacker, once. Back when I was a teenager, I was pretty good with computers and I had nothing better to do than to try to hack into the Pentagon's servers. I thought it would be funny.”

“Why are you telling—”

“Just listen. I was a high school kid. I didn't know any better. It was easy, almost too easy to get in. I never saw anything important, really. I didn't understand any of the data I found. I think it was all just payroll records. So I logged out and forgot about it. Until the next morning when a bunch of soldiers broke down my bedroom door and arrested me.

“Long story short, I was looking at a lot of jail time because I'd been bored and fooled around where I shouldn't. I got passed around to a lot of people, psychologists and intelligence analysts and military lawyers, all of them wanting to know how I did what I did. I tried to explain, but none of them understood. They were convinced I was a domestic terrorist, and they were talking about espionage charges. I could have gone to jail for life, Chapel. But then they took me to this one office, in the subbasement of the Pentagon. You know that office. It used to be a fallout shelter for the Joint Chiefs.”