Chimera (42 page)

At the courthouse the cars pulled into an
underground lot, and Chapel blinked as they left the sun behind. Someone opened
Chapel's door, and he stepped out onto concrete that stank of old motor oil.

“This way,” the security guard said. He wore his
sunglasses even indoors.

Chapel was ushered up an elevator and through a
small office where a dozen State Highway Patrol troopers were drinking coffee
and talking about football. This must be the security detail he was supposed to
take over, but none of them would even meet his eye. His black-suited escort
didn't let him linger in that office but directed him through and into a larger
office beyond.

Judge Franklin Hayes was waiting there for him,
looking almost exactly as he had when he'd broken into Angel's line to demand
Chapel's presence. The judge hadn't shaved in a day or so and steel-colored
stubble had broken out on his cheeks. He looked just as angry as he had when
they'd spoken.

“Took you long enough,” Hayes said.

DENVER, COLORADO:
APRIL 14, T+57:01

Hayes steepled his fingers in front of him
and glared at Chapel. “You're seven hours late, Captain.” He turned to his
security guard. “This is Reinhard, my head of security. He's been in charge here
since you refused to come earlier.”

Reinhard was a big guy, broad through the shoulders
like a linebacker, though not much taller than Chapel. He had a crew cut and a
strong jaw, but his eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses. Even without seeing
his eyes, though, Chapel could tell the man was giving him the once-over.

“Doesn't look like much,” Reinhard said.

Hayes chuckled. “Oh, Chapel's got his
qualifications. Director Banks was happy to send them along. He's a war hero,
Reinhard. Lost his arm in Afghanistan, fighting for your freedom.”

“A cripple, then,” Reinhard said.

“All the best military training. He served with the
Army Rangers, that's quite an elite force,” Hayes went on, smiling. The judge
had the look of a career politician. He'd probably had acting lessons to be able
to look so jovial and friendly. But his eyes gave him away. They were like chips
of glass in his face. Hard and cold. “Of course, that was several years
ago.”

“He does look pretty old,” Reinhard agreed.

“Come, come. He's had plenty of time to mature and
gain wisdom, let's say.” Hayes put his hands down on the desk. “Plenty of time
for that. He hasn't seen much field service since he lost his arm, of course
. . .”

“So they sent you a desk jockey,” Reinhard grunted.
“Huh.”

“Are you suggesting he isn't the best man for the
job?” Hayes asked, a look of fake shock creasing his face. “Are you suggesting
they could have sent someone better?”

“Maybe one of the rent-a-cops who works over at the
mall,” Reinhard said.

Chapel fumed in silence.

He understood this game. He knew what Hayes wanted
to get across but was too slick to say outright. The judge hadn't gotten as far
in his career as he had without knowing how to lay on a good line of bullshit,
but still make himself understood.

He was saying he didn't trust Chapel. He was also
saying he
did
trust Reinhard, his own man, and that
he wanted to keep Reinhard in charge and let Chapel play second fiddle here.

Time to fix that.

“Your Honor,” he said, “you'll want to move to your
left.”

Hayes didn't have time to ask why before Chapel's
pistol was out, held tight in his right hand and pointed at Reinhard's throat.
The security guard was smart enough to keep his hands visible and not
flinch.

“Take off your sunglasses,” Chapel said.

“I'll be damned if—”

“Take them off now,” Chapel insisted, using his
best officer voice.

Hayes scooted to the left in his rolling chair.

Slowly, using both hands, Reinhard reached up and
took off his sunglasses. His eyes were a cold blue. They narrowed as he stared
at Chapel. “You just bought yourself some trouble,” he said. “And you were
already fully stocked.”

“Shut up,” Chapel told him.

A lamp with a brass shade sat on Hayes's desk.
Chapel grabbed it and shone the light directly in Reinhard's eyes.

“—the fuck,” Reinhard said, squinting, turning his
face away from the light.

“Okay. He's clean,” Chapel said, and put the lamp
back on the desk. “Reinhard, you go outside and find your men. Tell every one of
them to remove his sunglasses and keep them off. Nobody's wearing sunglasses
today. You got it?”

“Why the hell should I—”

“The judge knows why,” Chapel said.

Reinhard turned to look at Hayes, who just nodded.
The security guard shook his head in disgust and stormed out of the office.

Chapel holstered his weapon, then went over to
close the door.

“Huh,” Hayes said. “I hadn't thought of that. If he
was a chimera, his nictitating membranes would have closed, by reflex.”

Chapel nodded.

“I've known Reinhard for years,” Hayes pointed out.
“You think I'm dumb enough to let one of the monsters join my team?”

Chapel inhaled sharply through his nose. “I haven't
made up my mind yet how dumb you are,” he said.

Hayes's face started to turn red, but Chapel wasn't
about to let him talk. He would just spout more insults or threats, and that
wasn't getting them anywhere.

“I'm here to do one job, which is to keep you
alive,” Chapel pointed out. “Sometimes you may want to doubt my methods or to
question my orders. Don't. I've taken down two chimeras in the last two days. I
know how it's done. Reinhard clearly doesn't even know what they are. He doesn't
know what to expect. He doesn't know how dangerous they really are.”

“He knows how to shoot,” Hayes said.

“No. No, he doesn't. Not this time. I don't know
where he got his training—if he's ex-military or he just took a six-week
correspondence course out of the back of
Guns and
Ammo
. It doesn't matter. Whoever taught him to shoot told him to
always aim for center mass. That doesn't work with chimeras. They have
reinforced rib cages. You can put six slugs in a chimera, right over his heart,
and it won't even slow him down. You have to aim for the face. Their skulls are
just like ours.”

Hayes opened his mouth. He looked like he was going
to say something nasty. But then he closed it again and just nodded.

“Okay,” the judge said. “We've got a little time
before the convoy is ready to move out. Why don't you have a seat, so we can
talk?”

DENVER, COLORADO:
APRIL 14, T+57:12

“First off, let's talk about why I'm here.
The chimeras,” Chapel said. He kept one eye on the window. It was unlikely that
Quinn would climb up the side of the courthouse to get to the office, but you
never knew. “I'm sorry I'm late getting here. But I wasn't wasting that time.
I've learned a great deal about them in the last two days.”

“Oh?” Hayes asked.

“I don't know how much you're cleared to know,”
Chapel said. “But you do need to know what's coming for you. It's a chimera
named Quinn. He's supposed to be the strongest of them, and one of the most
vicious.”

Hayes turned around and got a bottle of bourbon out
of a sideboard. He offered Chapel a glass, but he turned it down. “Maybe I don't
want to know some of this,” he said, pouring himself a healthy drink. His tough
guy act had evaporated like summer rain on a hot sidewalk. Interesting.

Chapel shook his head. “I'm not trying to scare
you. But you need to understand how serious this is. The chimeras were given a
list of victims. A kill list. For the most part they were allowed to choose
their own targets. But this Quinn was given specific orders to come here. For
you.”

“Okay,” Hayes said. He sipped at his liquor. “Okay,
but—why?”

“That's exactly what I'd like to know.” Chapel
sighed. “Some of the names on the list make sense. The scientists who created
the chimeras are there. People who worked at Camp Putnam. I notice you aren't
asking a lot of questions here. You know about Camp Putnam.”

Hayes set his glass down. “Tom Banks is a personal
friend of mine,” he said, meeting Chapel's eye. “He gave me a briefing. One I'm
definitely not cleared for. But he agreed with you—I needed to know.”

Chapel nodded. He'd assumed as much, though he'd
hoped there was another reason Hayes knew so much about the chimeras. “Some of
the names on the list don't make any sense at all. There are three people on
that list who couldn't possibly have been involved in the project. People with
no connection to Camp Putnam. And then there's you.”

“Me?” Hayes said. “I've never been to that
place.”

Chapel shrugged. “Your link to the chimeras seems
pretty tangential. But it's real. You worked for the CIA at one point. You did
yearly debriefings of people the agency wanted to keep an eye on. Specifically,
you debriefed William Taggart and Helen Bryant.”

Hayes blinked rapidly. “Sure. They were a couple of
scientists. Biologists, I think. A little creepy, as I recall. I always assumed
they worked in germ warfare.”

“You debriefed them but you didn't know why they
were being checked up on?”

Hayes frowned. “That was common practice back then.
CIA practice. Everything was cutouts; nobody knew anybody else's business.
That's why they got a lawyer to do the debriefings in the first place. I wasn't
privy to anything truly sensitive, so they could trust me not to give away any
secrets by accident.”

That jibed with what Chapel knew of the CIA and its
culture of compartmentalized information, but he was still surprised. “How did
you even know what to ask them?”

“I had a script,” Hayes said. “ ‘In the last year,
have you met with or spoken by telephone with anyone who identified themselves
as an official of a foreign nation? Has anyone you don't know approached you in
a social situation and asked questions you felt uncomfortable answering?' That
kind of stuff. It was really just a checklist—they would say no to every
question, I would make marks on a form, and then I would go home. I debriefed a
lot of people. Scientists, defectors, former radicals who claimed to have gone
straight. It was just part of my job.”

Chapel nodded. That wasn't helpful at all—he'd
really hoped Hayes might have known something about Taggart and Bryant that he
didn't—but at least it was one small mystery cleared up. There was another one,
though. “You were also counsel when Christina Smollett sued the CIA.”

“Who?”

Chapel gritted his teeth. “A mentally ill woman in
New York City. The suit was probably brought by her parents. She claimed the CIA
was sending people into her bedroom at night to sexually assault her.”

Hayes made a disgusted face. “There were always
cases like that. I hated them. Those people were obviously suffering, but it
wasn't our fault. It was my job to get rid of them as quickly as possible.
Preferably without spending any money.”

“You don't remember this case in particular?”
Chapel asked.

“No. I could go through my old files,” he
offered.

Chapel held up a hand. “No need.”

“Why her?” Hayes asked. “Why did you bring her
up?”

Chapel leaned to the side and tilted his head a
little to the left. Was there sweat on Hayes's forehead? Just a trace. Not
enough he would even notice it. And his pupils were a little dilated, Chapel
decided.

Interesting.

Extremely interesting.

“Her name came up in one of my investigations, but
it's probably nothing,” Chapel said. No point in telling the judge that
Christina Smollett was on the kill list.

Not when Hayes was lying to him about not knowing
who she was.

Hayes was a good liar. He'd been a lawyer, once, so
it made sense—he'd been trained how to keep his cards close to his vest. But
Chapel had been trained in military interrogation techniques. He could spot the
telltales. He knew when someone was withholding facts from him.

Hayes knew exactly who Christina Smollett was,
Chapel was sure of it. And he knew why she was on the list.

DENVER, COLORADO:
APRIL 14, T+57:36

“All right, let's move on,” Chapel said,
because he knew better than to push—if he started demanding information now,
Hayes would just shut down and refuse to talk at all. There might be time to ask
more questions later. “Talk to me about this itinerary. I understand you plan to
move to a different location. Somewhere I'm not allowed to know about until we
get there.”

“I've already seen that your systems can be
hacked,” Hayes told him. “And Tom—Director Banks—told me that whoever released
the chimeras has access to military technology. Apparently they used a Predator
drone to break open Camp Putnam.”

Chapel hadn't known that. He filed it away for
later review. Right now he had to focus on keeping Hayes alive.

“I think it's a bad move to change locations now.
You'll never be more vulnerable than when you're in transit.”

“Whoever is giving the chimeras their instructions
already knows I'm here. What they don't know is the new location.”

“Which is?” Chapel asked.

Hayes surprised him by actually telling him. “I
have a house up in the foothills of the Rockies. A little place outside of
Boulder.”

“Is it secure? Can it be secured?”

“It's six acres of land, mostly forested. All of it
fenced. There's one private road leading to it so we don't have to worry about
traffic. It's hard to find if you don't know where to look, and it's not listed
under my name—technically it belongs to my ex-wife, but she's in Washington
State now and won't be dropping by.”