Chimera (57 page)

Laughing Boy fired as fast as he could pull the trigger, pouring lead into Ian's chest and face. He got off five bullets of his six before Ian snapped his arm like a piece of dry wood.

He broke Laughing Boy's other arm with a punch. Another punch took him in the throat and stopped his laughing. After that—

After that it was largely superfluous. When Ian was done, there wasn't much left of Laughing Boy.

Then he turned to face Chapel.

Chapel had no weapons left. He knew he couldn't fight Ian hand to hand. Trying that had nearly gotten him killed when he faced Malcolm—only Julia had saved him then. He tried to scramble away, tried to fend Ian off with his arm, but it was impossible, there was nothing he could do. Ian grabbed Chapel by the throat and just picked him up off the ground and held him in the air. Chapel grabbed at Ian's wrist with his hand, tried to force him to let go, but it was like trying to free himself from an iron manacle.

Chapel couldn't breathe. He couldn't speak.

“No,” Ian said, but he didn't let go. “No, I don't have to do this!” He was arguing with himself, trying to step back from the all-consuming rage that ruled him. “No, I will not. I will not!”

He threw Chapel away from him like a piece of garbage.

Chapel rolled through the snow, his whole body racked with pain. He thought he had broken some ribs. Maybe his shoulder, too. He could barely breathe, couldn't think at all. He opened his mouth and tried to talk. Tried to reason with Ian. “Ian, it's over—no one wants to kill you now, you—”

“I had a question,” Ian said.

He sounded perfectly calm.

Chapel struggled to sit up. To get back on his feet. Ian was different from the others, maybe. But he was still a chimera. He could still kill them all without any real effort. And he was bleeding. Even if he didn't kill them, if he got his blood on Taggart—on Julia—

Chapel would die before he let that happen.

He forced himself upward. Forced himself to stand. Walking was probably out of the question. But he dropped into a fighting crouch. Got his arm up. Made a fist.

“I had one question left to answer,” Ian said.

“What—is it?” Chapel asked. If he could keep Ian talking, maybe Julia could get away. Get her father back to the lab, to the snowmachines there.

“It doesn't matter. I found my answer. I found it while I watched you fight among yourselves.”

“Try me,” Chapel said.

Ian came closer. One big stride and he was almost close enough for Chapel to touch. It was hard to read his eyes, covered as they were, black from side to side. But the way Ian kept twisting his mouth around, the way he held his hands, spoke volumes.

All his control, all that self-restraint that made Ian different from the others, was just a veneer. A surface. Underneath he was still a chimera, with all that meant.

“I wanted to know what I'm supposed to do now,” Ian said. He closed his mouth with an audible click. His blood was draining away, cascading out of him to stain the snow. He didn't seem to be weakening, though. He would never be weak enough that Chapel could take him in hand-to-hand combat. “What comes next for me?”

“You can come south with us,” Chapel said. “You can tell the world what they did to you. You can make sure the people who did this to you pay.”

Ian studied Chapel's face with his black eyes. His nostrils were flaring. He was one wrong word away from turning into a machine with tearing hands and pummeling fists, a machine that could only kill. “That's what you want from me?”

“Isn't it what you want? Revenge?” Chapel asked. “Killing us won't do it, but you can—”

The chimera grabbed Chapel again and threw him down on the ground. Raised one foot high in the air as if he would stomp Chapel to death, there and then. Chapel closed his eyes and threw his arm across his face, for all the good it would do.

The foot didn't come down.

Slowly Chapel opened his eyes and looked up.

“In another life, I would have been a great man,” Ian said. He glared down at Chapel with those black eyes. “I would have been a hero. A king. And you want to give me revenge. You want to make it all better by punishing the guilty. That's not how it works.”

The chimera looked down at himself. Blood covered the front of his parka. He tore it away with hands like claws, tore away the shirt beneath. Four massive wounds like red roses had blossomed on his chest. A fifth marred his cheek.

“This world,” Ian said, “isn't my world. My world was to be cinders and dust. My world was a place where I could build something new. In this world I have no place.” He bent down and sorted among the ruins of Laughing Boy's body and picked up the assassin's revolver.

Chapel was on his back in the snow, still gasping for breath. He tried desperately to get up, to run toward Ian, but it was too late.

Ian pressed the barrel of the revolver under his chin and fired.

UNDISCLOSED LOCATION: APRIL 15, T+85:14

Angel saw it all on the satellite feeds. She couldn't reach Chapel without a cell signal, but she could still watch him from orbit. She saw Ian die.

In a corner of one of her many computer screens she had a clock running, a timer that she'd started around six ten on April twelfth. The moment the fence of Camp Putnam came down and the chimeras walked out into the world. It had been counting up ever since then, telling her how much time had expired, measuring the length of their escape.

She stopped the clock now, at eighty-five hours and fourteen minutes.

All four targets had been neutralized. The mission was complete.

EPILOGUE

WASHINGTON, D.C.:
MAY 3, 11:02, EDT

Rupert Hollingshead was sitting on a bench
with a good view of the Capitol building. He was eating a sandwich from a paper
bag, and he had a laptop computer sitting on the bench next to him.

Chapel watched him from across the street. “What am
I missing, Angel?” he asked. “Where are the soldiers waiting to arrest me as
soon as I show my face?”

“I guess anything's possible, sugar, but it looks
like he actually came alone. I don't see any SEAL teams hiding in the bushes. He
did say he would meet with you one-on-one.”

“And you trust him?” Chapel asked. He had a
baseball cap pulled low over his face. He was relatively certain no one had
followed him to this meeting, but he'd gotten pretty paranoid over the last
month as he made his way back to Washington. When Hollingshead had asked for
this meeting, he'd just assumed it had to be a trap.

“About as much as you do,” Angel admitted. “But I
also want to hear what he has to say.”

Chapel grunted in frustration. This was a stupid
move. Coming out of the cold like this, even for just a few minutes in a public
place, meant putting himself at enormous risk. They could take him at any time.
And once they had him they could get him to talk. He had no doubt about that. He
would hold out as long as he could, but eventually he would tell them where
Julia was hiding.

But if he didn't go down there and talk to
Hollingshead, he would never know what the admiral wanted to say for
himself.

“Okay,” he said. “I'm going in. Let me know the
second you see any suspicious movement near my location.”

“You got it, honey.”

Chapel strode quickly over to the bench and sat
down. He did not look at Hollingshead. The admiral seemed slightly surprised to
see him.

“Is that a mannequin arm in your sleeve there,
son?” he asked.

“Your people would be looking for a one-armed man,”
Chapel said. “My artificial arm was destroyed in Denver, so I had to
improvise.”

“Clever.”

For a while they sat in silence. Chapel waited to
see armed soldiers come running at him, weapons ready, but none appeared.

Hollingshead continued to eat his sandwich. He said
nothing.

“Banks was behind it all,” Chapel said, finally,
though he was relatively certain Hollingshead already knew that. “I can't prove
it, though. He used Laughing Boy as a cutout. Laughing Boy was the Voice. That
disposable phone I found in Camp Putnam that you took from me. It would have
told you as much.”

“Indeed,” Hollingshead said.

“He released the chimeras. Gave them the kill list
and sent them out to murder everyone on it. If they failed, he would still have
the excuse the targets had been exposed to the virus, so he could kill them
anyway. It was all about cleaning up a mess. Your mess. Fixing the chimera
problem, and fixing it quietly, will earn Banks some favors in the White House.
And meanwhile he'll have a pet judge on the Supreme Court, in Hayes. The CIA is
going to come out of this looking like a bunch of heroes.”

“You've figured it all out,” Hollingshead
agreed.

“Not all of it. I thought you were on my side, but
then you betrayed me.”

“Interesting. That's how you saw it?”

“How else can I see it?” Chapel asked. “You knew
what was going to happen in Denver. You knew it was a suicide mission. But when
I started to figure it out, when I started to ask questions, you shut me down.
And then you threw me under that particular bus. You all but sent me to Denver
at gunpoint.”

Hollingshead took a bite of his sandwich. “I
suppose I did.”

“I know why you picked me. I get it now. You said
you didn't pick my name out of a hat. That was true. Banks would have vetoed
anyone you chose for this mission, if he thought they had a chance to succeed.
So you called up a semiretired one-armed guy in his forties, long past his
prime. Me. You needed to sacrifice somebody and I was expendable. I understand
that. Obviously I don't like it.”

“Obviously.”

“But I understand it. I just can't figure this one
thing out, though. What did you stand to gain from this?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Chapel shook his head in disgust. “It was a game.
The CIA and the DIA were playing a game, with Camp Putnam as the chessboard.
Right?”

Hollingshead nodded. “Darling Green was a DoD
project, and for a long time we owned it lock, stock, and barrel. That changed
when Malcolm escaped. That wasn't supposed to happen. The CIA was brought in to
cover external security on Camp Putnam. Ever since then they've been trying to
take over the whole thing.”

“Why would they even want a mess like that?”

Hollingshead smiled warmly. “Until you can answer
that question, you'll never truly understand politics, son. Why did the U.K. go
to war over the Falkland Islands? Because they thought it belonged to them, and
people with power will never give up power voluntarily.”

Chapel laughed, a short, bitter laugh. “So to take
over Camp Putnam, Banks had to blow part of it up. Wow. By letting the chimeras
out, they became an external security problem. His bailiwick.”

“But his mole failed. I was called in before he
was. So I retained some oversight on the recovery effort.” Hollingshead put his
sandwich down. “I was allowed to bring you in, as a last attempt to save myself
from disgrace.”

“Except—you didn't. You had every chance to make
that work. But you threw the game. You could have warned me not to go to Denver.
If I didn't go, there would never have been an attempt on Hayes's life. Hayes
needed a martyr for his cause, and until I arrived he couldn't play out his
false flag operation. You could have ruined all of Banks's plans by just telling
me not to go. Instead you sent me in with a pat on the back. Certain that I
would get myself killed just like Banks wanted.”

“No,” Hollingshead said.

“No?”

“That's where you're wrong.”

“Admiral. With all due respect, sir. Don't lie to
me now. It's not going to get you anywhere.”

Hollingshead sighed. “You think so little of me.
Are you armed, Captain? Did you come here to kill me? Let me tell you a little
story first if you'd be so, ah, kind. Don't worry. It's quite short.”

“I'm listening.”

“About two years ago I fell down a flight of
stairs. Terrible bother of a thing, broke my femur if you can believe it. When
you're as old as me that can happen, apparently. I had to have a hip replaced,
too, which—son, be glad you aren't old enough to know this yet—is one of the
most debilitating surgeries there is. After the replacement I needed lengthy and
quite, oh, decidedly unpleasant physical therapy.”

Chapel frowned. Where was Hollingshead going with
this?

“I went to Walter Reed for it. And there I met a
man who was going to become a very good friend of mine, despite the fact that I
cursed his name every day. A physical therapist, a fellow with one arm, one leg,
and one eye.”

“Wait—you're talking about Top,” Chapel said.

“I'm talking about the meanest son of a bitch I
ever met,” Hollingshead confirmed, “and the man who made sure I am not in a
wheelchair today. A man who, despite my advanced age, insisted that I consider
myself one of his ‘boys.' ”

“You're definitely talking about Top.”

Hollingshead nodded. “Top had one bit of
conversation he kept coming back to. Just how lucky I was. I certainly didn't
feel that way. But he would continuously point out that while I had lost a hip,
my new one was a perfectly good replacement. I was far luckier, he kept telling
me, than boys of his who had lost arms and legs. He occasionally mentioned one
of his boys who had lost an arm. A boy from Military Intelligence with one arm
who had somehow taught him—taught Top, that is—how to swim. He was unabashedly
proud of this particular boy.”

Chapel didn't know what to say.

“When Tom Banks came to my office and I could see
in his eyes he would never accept a young, strong, whole man for this mission, I
rejoiced, honestly. I finally had the chance to activate the operative I'd
wanted to meet for so long. I most certainly didn't pick your name out of a hat,
son. I'd been following your career for months, waiting until I had the perfect
opportunity to bring you into my personal fold. When I discovered what Banks had
planned for my operative in Denver, I didn't hesitate for a second to recommend
you for that particular mission.”

“Now you're losing me,” Chapel said.

“I didn't send you to die there, son. You're one of
Top's boys. I sent you there because I knew nobody else could live through
it.”

Chapel could only stare in disbelief.

“It had to happen that way. It had to come to all
this. It is a sad fact of our particular line of work that the pieces on the
game board can never be allowed to know all the rules of the game they're
playing out,” Hollingshead said. “Perhaps most sad is the fact they rarely know
if they're winning or losing.”

“You—you think you won this?” Chapel asked.

“Not entirely. We lost Helen Bryant, who was a good
woman, despite what history forced her to do. Many other people died as well,
people who were perfectly innocent. I don't consider that a total victory.”

“But—but Banks and Hayes got what they
wanted—they—”

Hollingshead put away his sandwich and picked up
his laptop. He opened it and clicked the trackpad a few times. Then he turned it
to show the screen to Chapel. “It looks like I've timed this just right. What
you see here is a live feed of what is happening, even now, on the floor of the
Senate. It's going out on C-SPAN.”

Chapel studied the screen. There was no sound, but
the video showed exactly what Hollingshead had described. A panel of senators
had gathered to ask questions of Franklin Hayes. Chapel was watching the judge's
confirmation hearing.

“I don't understand,” Chapel said. On the screen
Hayes was smiling. One of the senators said something and everybody laughed.
Clearly they were all having a great time. Just as Chapel had expected, it
looked like Hayes was going to sail through the hearing and be confirmed with no
trouble.

But then the view blurred as the camera was whirled
around to point at something else. It ended up focusing on the doors at the back
of the Senate chamber, which had just opened. Two people came up the aisle. In
the grainy view of the laptop's screen, Chapel couldn't quite make them out. A
Senate page led them toward a table next to the one where Hayes sat. A
microphone was put on the table and adjusted so the newcomers could reach it.
They were given water and legal pads and pens in case they wanted to take notes.
Slowly the camera zoomed in until Chapel could finally see their faces.

One of them was Ellie Pechowski. The other he
barely recognized—until someone pointed a camera light at him.

Then his nictitating membranes slid down over his
eyes, turning them completely black.

“Samuel,” Chapel gasped. “You knew he was still
alive.”

“The whole time,” Hollingshead affirmed.

On the screen the Senate floor erupted into chaos
as people rushed to get away from Samuel, to pull back from the monster in their
midst. Franklin Hayes jumped up and started shouting at someone. The senator in
charge of the proceedings banged his gavel for order. Without sound, Chapel
could only imagine what people were saying.

“Samuel will give witness to the entire story,”
Hollingshead promised. “He will expose everything that happened to him. He will
tell them about the Voice. He will tell them about the kill list, and how the
assassination attempt on Hayes was staged.”

“No one will believe him,” Chapel said.

“Perhaps not. Does it really matter? Most likely
Banks will attempt to spin this against me. He'll expose my involvement in the
day-to-day running of Camp Putnam. I may be indicted,” Hollingshead said. He was
smiling. Beaming. “Maybe I'll pay for everything I did back then. Just as I
deserve.”

“And that's winning?”

“I've wanted to come clean on this for a very long
time, son. I'm willing to pay the piper now. It's unlikely I'll go to jail,”
Hollingshead said. “I may be removed from my post. But Tom Banks is in much
worse trouble, believe me. When everyone was under the impression that you were
dead, he forced me to turn over the entire project to him. I gave him full
authority on the cleanup of Darling Green, and for maintaining the secrecy of
the chimeras and their escape. He bullied me into it, but I conceded with as
much grace as I could muster.”

Chapel wanted to laugh. “You old son of a bitch.
You gave him all the rope he asked for—so he could hang himself with it.”

“All the, shall we say, blowback from this little
display,” Hollingshead said, gesturing at the laptop screen, “will fall squarely
on Tom Banks's head. It will ensure he is ejected most forcefully from CIA
headquarters. He'll be lucky if they let him back into the state of Virginia.
And it will forever and irrevocably make sure that Franklin Hayes is never
appointed to the Supreme Court. I may not win, son. I may not come out of this
smelling like a rose. But I guarantee you
they will
lose
.”

Chapel shook his head. “And once the kill list is
made public, there's no way Banks can ever hurt anyone on it, not without
implicating himself as a conspirator to murder.”

“You have put your finger exactly on it. Ellie, a
dear friend of mine, will be safe. So will the young ladies who we used so
horribly. Jeremy Funt will no longer be persecuted. And you, and your dear
Julia, are perfectly welcome to come out of hiding now. You are safe, son.
Everyone is safe.”