Chimera (44 page)

“I'll go that far,” Young replied.

“We have to assume they're not going to take any
action,” he went on.

“That's what I'm seeing,” she said.

Chapel nodded. He had a couple more assumptions he
wasn't going to say out loud. He had to assume that Reinhard—and his entire
security crew—already knew that Quinn was in car three, and that they were on
his side. On the side of the Voice and the chimeras. They were in on the
assassination plot.

Chapel also had to assume that Young wasn't in on
it, too. If she was, this was going to be over very quickly.

“The judge is in danger,” Chapel said.

“Yep.”

“Are we going to do something about that?” he
asked.

“We sure as hell are.” Young flipped on her lights
and sirens and stamped on the brakes.

IN TRANSIT: APRIL
14, T+58:59

The sedans—cars two and three—shot past the
cruiser as Young maneuvered them back to the rear of the convoy again,
straddling the two lanes. Chapel saw her plan immediately—she was leaving the
right lane open so car three could move across to the shoulder, but not leaving
any room for them to fall back. As soon as the cruiser was clear of car three's
bumper she picked up speed again, until they were separated by only a single car
length's distance.

She grabbed the microphone and switched on her
loudspeakers. “Car three, break off from the convoy immediately,” she said, and
Chapel heard her voice repeated so loud outside the car it made the windshield
rattle. “Move to the shoulder and stop your vehicle. You have ten seconds to
comply.” She switched over to the radio, but held her palm over the microphone.
She glanced over at Chapel. “I know I can trust my fellow troopers. I've worked
with some of 'em for years.”

Chapel remembered the judge saying he'd worked with
Reinhard for years, too. But they needed allies. There were three troopers on
motorcycles in front of the limo, screening its advance, and two more well
behind them keeping an eye on their tail. “Call them,” he said.

Young flipped some switches on the radio and got on
a state police restricted channel. “This is Sergeant Young, calling all
motorcycle units. Have identified that car three is a threat, repeat, car
three.”

“Tell them to screen the limo and get it off the
road if they can,” Chapel told her.

“Forward units, protect the principal, and get it
to safety,” Young said into her microphone. “Rear units, close this road to
traffic! Fall back and deploy flares. Calling headquarters, calling
headquarters. We have an immediate need to close the northbound lanes of I-36
south of Broomfield. Repeat, we need an immediate road closure of I-36
northbound south of Broomfield.” Almost instantly the units ahead of the limo
called in to report they had received Young's orders and would do what they
could. At least the troopers were paying attention.

Chapel leaned forward to peer through the
windshield. Car three hadn't changed its speed or position at all. Neither had
the other sedans. All three of them had rolled up their windows, though. He
couldn't see anything through the tinted glass.

“Do we hail 'em again, give 'em another chance?”
Young asked. “I don't want to start shooting out tires or running anybody off
the road if we don't have to.”

“I think—” Chapel said, but he didn't get to finish
his thought.

Up ahead the rear passenger-side door of car three
popped open, and a man in a black suit flew out. He bounced off the asphalt and
came caroming straight toward the patrol cruiser.

“Mother Mary!” Young shouted, and whipped her wheel
over to the side, narrowly avoiding rolling right over the security guard.

Chapel spun around in his seat to watch as they
raced past the man. He was struggling to get to his feet in the middle of the
fast lane of the highway. It looked like he had a broken leg.

Chapel guessed immediately what had happened. Quinn
must have panicked. The other guards in car three must have tried to mollify
him.

Chimeras didn't take well to attempts to calm them
down.

“Shotgun, mounted behind your head,” Young said,
her voice tight with worry.

Chapel looked for and found the shotgun where it
was held behind the headrests by a pair of metal clips. He grabbed it and broke
it open. “Shells,” he said.

“Glove compartment. Grab the blue ones, those are
slugs,” Young told him. Her eyes were all over the road.

Chapel yanked open the glove compartment and found
the box of shells. Half of them were shot packed in red paper. The other half
were solid slugs mounted in blue plastic casings. She was right—they would be
far more effective against vehicle tires than the shells full of buckshot. He
loaded two in the shotgun and nodded at her.

“Aim for the right rear tire,” she told him.
“That'll make 'em slew over to the left, into the median. It's the
safest—Jesus!”

He looked up to see what had her attention. The
rear window of car three erupted in shards of glass. Chapel could see Quinn
using his fist to clear the remaining glass. The barrel of a pistol emerged from
inside the vehicle and started to track them.

“Head down!” Young shouted, as she veered to the
right. Chapel was thrown up against the passenger-side door, jarring his good
shoulder. The box of shotgun shells burst open and spilled all over his lap, the
shells rolling down into the leg well.

The windshield of the patrol cruiser cracked from
top to bottom as a pistol round tore through its cabin, narrowly missing Young's
ear.

“I'm fine,” she shouted, and he nodded, snapping
the shotgun closed and rolling down his window. “Take your shot, quick!”

Chapel caught a flash of motion ahead of them and
saw car two drifting back toward them. Either they'd come to see what was
happening—or to help. Whether they wanted to help Chapel or Quinn was an open
question.

“I've got this,” Young told him. “Take that
shot!”

IN TRANSIT: APRIL
14, T+59:03

Chapel rolled down his window and unbuckled
his seat belt. Cradling the shotgun in his arm, he got his knees up on the seat
and leaned out the window. The wind of their velocity tried to tear him out of
the car but he braced himself and held on. Young shouted something at him but he
couldn't hear. He could barely keep his eyes open as the air slapped him in the
face over and over, but he managed to get the shotgun clear of the window and
brought it up to his shoulder.

Then a second pistol shot struck the hood of the
cruiser, and Young had to veer to the side. Chapel flopped like a rag doll as
the car shifted under him. He had to grab for the car door with his artificial
hand, and nearly lost the shotgun. A third shot took off the wing mirror on the
driver's side.

At least Quinn—or whoever it was shooting from car
three—wasn't aiming at Chapel. They clearly intended to incapacitate Young so
she couldn't continue the pursuit. Chapel had to end this before that happened.
He raised the shotgun and tried to find an angle to get the rear tire of car
three. Normally with a shotgun you didn't need to aim—you just pointed and
fired. This shotgun was loaded with slugs, though, solid projectiles that acted
similar to rifle bullets. He needed to make his shot precise and clean.

That wasn't going to happen with him hanging out of
his window. He was firing across the car and the hood was in the way.

There was only one thing for it. He reached forward
with his left hand and grabbed the windshield wipers so he could pull himself
forward. He was going to have to climb out onto the hood.

Up ahead car two had fallen back in the right lane,
boxing car three in. Were they trying to help? Their windows were up, and he
couldn't see anyone inside the car. They weren't shooting at him, which was
nice, but they were preventing car three from complying with Young's
instructions. Not that Quinn was likely to let the driver of car three just pull
over and surrender.

No, it was on Chapel. He dragged himself forward,
compensating every time Young veered or drifted into one lane or the other,
trying to make it as hard as possible for the shooter in car three to get a bead
on her. He could hardly blame her for not wanting to stand still, even if it did
make it next to impossible for him to move out onto the hood. He glanced through
the windshield and saw her sitting up in her seat, trying to see over him. Her
eyes were firmly on the road. Either she knew what he was trying to do or she
figured it was his own neck at risk.

Stop stalling,
he
thought. He tried to channel Top, tried to hear his old physical therapist's
voice in his head. This wasn't exactly a situation Top had prepared him for,
though, and no words came.

It didn't matter. He knew what Top would want him
to do.

Chapel kicked his legs out of the window and
flopped down hard on the hood of the cruiser. Inertia tried to yank him up over
the windshield and onto the roof of the car but he kept his center of gravity
down and hugged the hood, the mechanical fingers of his left hand grabbing at
the grill on the front of the car because it was the only thing to hold on to.
Heat from the engine seared his chest and groin. The buttons of his shirt soaked
up that heat and scorched his flesh, but he could only ignore it. With his right
arm he reached around and brought the shotgun to bear. He braced it against the
hood, angling the barrel down toward the tire of car three.

That was when Quinn erupted out of the shattered
rear window, howling in rage, hauling himself through the broken glass. The
chimera pulled himself onto the trunk of car three. His mouth was wide open,
virus-carrying saliva forming long strands between his massive white teeth. He
stared at Chapel with eyes as black as the bottom of a well.

Quinn had a pistol in his hand.

Chapel had the shotgun.

Quinn lifted his weapon and pointed it straight at
Chapel's face. There was no way Chapel could dodge the bullet, no safe place he
could move to.

His weapon was already aimed.

He took his shot.

IN TRANSIT: APRIL
14, T+59:07

The sound of the rear tire of car three
exploding was the loudest bang Chapel had ever heard. Shreds of hot rubber and
steel belting blasted outward in a cloud of stinging, slapping chaff. Chapel
looked up and saw Quinn's pistol discharge. He could have sworn he saw the
bullet come out of the barrel, that he watched it travel in slow motion straight
for him. He dropped the shotgun and let it clatter away between the two cars.
Car three was already turning, swerving over into the grassy median strip, dust
and pieces of torn-up vegetation rising in a plume from its front tires.

Chapel couldn't tell if he'd been hit or not. Quinn
had fired from point-blank range. He'd been aiming right at Chapel. Had the car
started to swerve before or after Quinn pulled the trigger? Chapel knew from
past experience that you could be shot and not know it for long seconds, that
the brain under stress could delay pain reactions for a surprisingly long
time.

Was he already dead, but his body hadn't realized
it yet?

He wanted to look down at himself, check himself
for wounds, but he didn't dare. Car three had rumbled to a stop, nose down in
the median, and was rocking back and forth on its suspension. Young hit the
cruiser's brakes, though she was careful not to decelerate so hard that Chapel
went flying. When he decided she'd slowed down enough, when he could look down
at the asphalt and see the grain in it, the texture of the road surface, he
scrambled forward off the burning hot hood of the cruiser and rolled down to the
ground, taking the fall on his artificial left arm. In a moment he was back up
on his feet. He felt like he was floating, like adrenaline lifted him up into
the air and then he was running, dashing full tilt back down the highway toward
where car three sat, lifeless and unmoving.

On the far side of the median civilian cars went by
so fast they were just blurs of color in the air, red, bottle green, gunmetal
gray. He heard the sirens of Young's cruiser but only as if they were far away,
as if they were in the next county. He heard the breath surging in and out of
his lungs. He heard his own heartbeat.

His right side felt wet and cold. That was probably
blood. Not a good sign, but he still didn't feel any pain, and he definitely
didn't feel like it could slow him down. Quinn was back there, Quinn—a third
chimera, one of his targets—

His head was vibrating, like he'd taken a punch to
the temple. His brains felt like they were quivering Jell-O inside his
skull.

Black cars were moving all around him, slotting
themselves into place. Men in black suits were jogging across the asphalt, guns
and walkie-talkies in their hands. He glanced back and saw the limo almost right
behind him, pulled across both lanes of the highway, standing across the
road.

“The judge,” he shouted. He couldn't hear his own
voice. That wasn't a good sign. It could mean a lot of things, though, anything
from a concussion to a gunshot wound to the head. “Get the judge out of here!
Get the limo out of here!”

Up ahead car three stood in the median. Beyond it
he could see something black and white moving, thrashing around.

It was Quinn. They'd dressed him in one of their
suits, made him look like a member of the security detail. They had cut his hair
neat and professional, made him look like an ex-soldier or maybe an ex-football
player. The kind of man who would work for Reinhard. If his eyes weren't covered
by those nictitating membranes, Chapel would never recognize him. Quinn was
staggering back and forth on the median like he was drunk. Like he was trying to
walk on the deck of a heaving ship.