Chimera Read online

  Or would they just run off as soon as he drew his gun?

  “Go on,” Laughing Boy said. “It’s not locked.”

  Julia’s body was very close to freezing in fear. She could barely move her arms. “You want me to go in there,” she said, as if clarifying an order.

  “Yep,” Laughing Boy said, giggling.

  “Why are you doing this?” she demanded. “I don’t know anything!”

  “Chapel didn’t tell you about the virus? Come on. I don’t have all day. I’ve got lots of other people to round up.”

  Julia reached out and touched the handle of the door. It opened outward. She pulled it toward her and looked inside to see the interior of the shop, which was dark and stank of mildew. What a horrible place to die.

  “Walk inside and turn around to face me. Then put your hands behind your neck and lace your fingers together.” He laughed. “Seriously, I just want to get this over with. I don’t get any thrill from killing people. It’s just my job.” He chuckled again.

  She felt like her legs were made of wood. She couldn’t feel her toes.

  She did what he said. To the letter.

  “Good,” he told her, taking a step inside the store. He let the door swing shut behind him. “Now—”

  “Now!” Julia shouted.

  The drunk vet who’d been waiting for her inside the store did exactly as she’d told him to. He had a length of iron rebar in his hands, and he swung it at Laughing Boy’s head with all his strength.

  ATLANTA, GEORGIA: APRIL 13, T+27:23

  Julia wasn’t there when Chapel came back up through the hatch. He panicked for a second and then he called for Angel, hoping she might know where Julia might have gone.

  “Hold it together, sugar,” she told him. “Just head to your left. Now, up ahead—see that abandoned store?”

  “Just tell me if she’s all right, Angel,” Chapel pleaded.

  “Just fine. Door’s open.”

  Chapel shoved open the door and pushed through into the store beyond.

  He could not have expected what he saw.

  Laughing Boy was sprawled out on the floor, his arms above his head and his wrists tied together around a support pillar. He was chuckling softly to himself, though he wasn’t smiling. There was a nasty-looking bruise on the side of his head.

  Julia had been hiding behind the pillar. She came out into the open, and Chapel saw she was holding a silenced pistol. It had to be Laughing Boy’s.

  Perhaps strangest of all, the drunk guy in the army coat was standing up against one wall, holding a length of rebar like a club.

  “You—” Chapel started.

  “Name’s Rudy, not that you asked,” the drunk told him. “You did ask about my service record. First Battalion, Third Marines.”

  Chapel nodded slowly. “Army Rangers,” he said.

  “A grunt, huh? I guess I can forgive you for being an asshole, then. Since it comes with the branch.”

  Chapel found himself smiling. “You rescued Julia?” he asked.

  “Not exactly.” Rudy nodded at her. “Just came in for the assist, really, right at the end of the whole thing.”

  Julia was watching Laughing Boy. She wouldn’t take her eyes off him. “Angel and I worked together on this. Rudy was a big part of it. You were too busy playing James Bond to get involved.”

  Chapel’s smile died on his face. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  Laughing Boy’s whole body shook with mirth. “Okay? Okay. Yeah, we’re all okay in here. Too bad it can’t last.”

  Julia kicked him in the ribs. “It won’t last for you, that’s for sure,” she said.

  Chapel put the scene together in his mind. Laughing Boy must have been following them this whole time, waiting for a time when Chapel and Julia weren’t in the same place. He’d moved in when he got his chance, but Julia, working with Angel and Rudy, had somehow lured Laughing Boy in here and gotten the better of him. His first thought was one of immense relief that it had worked out like that—that Julia was still alive.

  His second thought was that they were all in deep shit.

  “Go ahead, Chapel,” Julia said.

  “Go ahead and do what?” Chapel asked.

  “Interrogate him! Find out why he’s chasing us.”

  “Julia—” he began.

  It was Laughing Boy who answered that, though. “He knows that already. It’s because of the virus, of course. Why don’t you ask Captain Jimmy here about that? About the virus?”

  Julia’s eyes flicked toward Chapel, but she was smart enough not to lower the gun or look away from Laughing Boy for long. “Chapel?” she said.

  “I’ll tell you about it later,” he told her. “I don’t want to say anything in front of him.”

  “Then—then ask him about the chimeras. He must know more than we do,” Julia pointed out.

  “I’m sure of it. I’m also sure he’s not going to tell us what we need to know.”

  “He will if you torture him,” Julia suggested. “I don’t like it, Lord knows I’m not comfortable with any Guantanamo Bay shit. But if anybody ever deserved it—”

  “Won’t work,” Laughing Boy said, chuckling.

  “He’s right,” Chapel told her.

  “You don’t know how to waterboard somebody? They didn’t train you in that?” Julia demanded.

  “They taught me all about interrogation techniques,” Chapel confirmed. “And why they’re no good.”

  “Let me guess,” she said. “Anything you can do to him, he knows some way to resist it. Damn it!”

  “No. The problem is, torture works too well. Ten minutes in he’d tell us everything we wanted to hear. He’d tell us anything at all, to make us stop. He’d tell us ten different stories. One of them might even be true, but we’d have no way to know which one. There’s also the fact that it’s illegal.”

  “I don’t care! This isn’t just about your case, Chapel. This man is a murderer. He needs to pay!”

  She was right—there was no question about that. She was also fooling herself. Chapel wondered if there had ever been a time in human history when the people who needed to pay actually ended up doing it. The sad fact was that men like Laughing Boy were above the law.

  Chapel wasn’t in the business of righting wrongs. He was in the business of protecting people. Right then, that meant getting Julia away from that place.

  “Just put the gun down,” he said. “We need to get out of here. Somebody might have seen you and him coming in here. They might have called the cops. If they come and find us like this—”

  “No! No way! We are not going to just let him go!”

  “We’ll leave him here, like this. He can explain to the cops how he wound up in this position. He won’t name us—he doesn’t dare.”

  “This asshole kills people! He killed Portia, my receptionist! And who knows how many other people?”

  Chapel walked over toward her and held out his hand so she could give him the silenced pistol. She didn’t move an inch.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “Just give me the gun.”

  “No,” she told him, and he saw in her eyes that she didn’t trust him. No more than she trusted Laughing Boy. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “How does this end?” he asked her.

  “You know what he’s capable of. He’s worse than the chimeras!”

  “Tell me how it ends,” he asked her, quietly.

  On the ground Laughing Boy started to guffaw.

  “Does it end with you shooting him in the head? I don’t think it does. You’re not a killer, Julia.” He held out his hand again. “You’re better than him.”

  “You could kill him,” Julia pointed out. “You have a gun, too.”

  Laughing Boy crowed at the thought. “He doesn’t have the balls!”
>
  Chapel shook his head. “I guess that’s the difference between you and me. You seem to think it’s an act of courage to shoot a defenseless man tied up on the ground. I don’t.”

  “Nah,” Laughing Boy said. “Nah. The difference is that you’re one of those military types who takes the whole defense thing too seriously. The difference between you and me is that you think your job is to protect America.”

  “That is my job,” Chapel said. “What’s yours?”

  “I’m here to make sure America wins. No matter what it takes.”

  “Shut up!” Julia shouted at him. “Shut up and stop laughing!”

  Laughing Boy chuckled to himself.

  Julia lifted the pistol and sighted down its barrel.

  “Julia, if we kill him, it won’t even matter,” Chapel told her. “They’ll just send somebody else. There is absolutely nothing to be gained from this.”

  “We have to do something,” she said.

  “And we will. But not now. We’re done here,” Chapel said. “Julia, give me the—”

  Julia squeezed the trigger of the pistol.

  ATLANTA, GEORGIA: APRIL 13, T+27:29

  She jumped as it went off, perhaps not expecting it to make so much noise. Silencers could cut down the decibels of a gunshot but only so much—the pistol still roared like a lion when it fired.

  Blood spurted out of Laughing Boy’s shoe. She’d shot him in the foot.

  “Jesus fuck!” Laughing Boy shouted, and his leg flopped around like a landed fish. For a second nobody moved. Finally Chapel recovered and moved closer to Julia.

  She looked like she’d seen a ghost.

  “That,” Chapel said slowly, “will definitely slow him down.”

  “I was aiming for his head,” she told him.

  Chapel had no idea what to make of that.

  He took the pistol from Julia—she didn’t fight him this time—and wiped the grip with the tail of his shirt. When he was sure it was clean, he slid it into the darkness at the back of the abandoned store. “Now we really have to go. Rudy—you too.”

  The ex-marine nodded. He didn’t look particularly shocked by what he’d seen. Less so than Julia, for sure. He went to the door and held it open for Julia, who marched out with her head down. She looked like she was near tears.

  Chapel took one last look at Laughing Boy. He was still bleeding, though not too badly. His face was screwed up with pain, but he was still chuckling.

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” the CIA man said. “You don’t even need to torture me. She’s going nowhere. She might have the bug.”

  “She might not,” Chapel said, and he turned to go.

  “Maybe,” Laughing Boy said. “Maybe you’ve got it, too.”

  Chapel’s blood froze.

  He’d considered that before, of course. Anyone who came into contact with the chimeras was at risk of contracting the virus. And he had been in very close contact with the one in New York.

  He hadn’t let himself think about it consciously, not before that. He’d put it away in the box of things he had to worry about later.

  It would have to stay there, for now. He closed the door behind him and faced Rudy and Julia. Nodding, he led them deeper into the mall. There was no sign anyone had heard the gunshot or wanted to investigate it if they did. When he was sure they were in the clear, Chapel turned to Rudy and offered his hand.

  “I’d rather have a kiss from her,” the vet said.

  Julia had been lost in her own thoughts. She came to long enough to look him in the face. “How about a hundred dollars?” she asked.

  “That works, too,” Rudy told her.

  She handed over the money and then turned away, clearly not wanting to look at either of them for a while.

  “Maybe we can do better than that,” Chapel said. “Rudy—I misjudged you, and I’m sorry. I thought you were just a drunk.”

  “Probably because I told you I was, when we first met,” Rudy said. He had a sunny smile on his face. The hundred-dollar bill was already tucked away in one of his pockets. “I got no illusions. I’m an alcoholic, through and through.”

  “You ever thought about changing that?” Chapel asked.

  “Sometimes,” Rudy admitted. “The tough part’s getting started, though.”

  Chapel nodded. He didn’t have time to help Rudy get to an AA meeting or a rehab facility. But he knew somebody who might. “I’ve got a friend. You’d like him—he’s a jarhead like you. Dumb as a box of rocks, but he’s got the heart of a bear.” He reached into his pocket and took out a scrap of paper and a pen. He wrote down Top’s name and phone number and handed it to the ex-marine. “Tell him a one-armed grunt gave you his name.”

  Rudy stared at the slip of paper.

  “No obligations,” Chapel said. “Just—if you want to talk to someone. Someone who gets it. Top’s your man.”

  Rudy nodded and took the number. “Thank you kindly. But who’s this one-armed fellow I’m supposed to know?”

  Chapel smiled. “Just say what I told you, and he’ll know who it is. Now, listen. I hate to be rude. Again. But—”

  “But it’s best for all of us if I just walk away now and pretend I never saw you. That’s one thing us marines can actually figure out. When to keep our damned mouths shut,” Rudy agreed. He gave Chapel a mock salute, turned on his heel, and walked away.

  Chapel sighed in relief. That could have gone much worse. He reached for Julia’s arm, but she pulled away from him. He could only imagine what she was going through. She’d probably never fired a pistol before. She’d certainly never tried to kill anybody before.

  “Just talk to me,” he said. “Just tell me—”

  “No,” she said, turning to face him. She drew herself up to her full height. Visibly composed herself. “You tell me. Tell me about this virus.”

  ATLANTA, GEORGIA: APRIL 13, T+28:44

  Back at the motel he told her everything.

  He had struggled with it in the cab ride back. He was duty bound not to reveal any of the limited information he had about the chimeras.

  But she had a right to know.

  He took the hands-free unit from his ear and buried it inside his jacket, along with his phone. Then he turned on the cold water tap in the bathroom. He didn’t want Angel to hear him talking about this. Not if he was going to be blunt about it. “The chimeras I’m chasing are escapees from a facility in the Catskills,” he told Julia, when he was sure he’d taken enough precautions. “They were held there a long time. Maybe all their lives. They were locked up not just because they’re so obviously dangerous, but because they are carriers for some kind of virus.”

  “Like Typhoid Mary,” Julia suggested.

  “Who?” Chapel asked.

  Julia shook her head in disbelief. “You’ve never heard of her? She was a woman who lived in New York a hundred years ago. She was a carrier for typhoid fever—she never actually got the disease herself, but she worked as a cook for a number of families and everywhere she worked she ended up giving the disease to whoever ate her food. She refused to believe that she had the disease, since she didn’t show any symptoms.”

  “What happened to her?” Chapel asked.

  “Eventually she had to be quarantined. She spent the rest of her life—thirty years—on an island in the East River, all alone.”

  Thirty years, Chapel thought. If Julia was locked up somewhere like that, she might live another fifty years. How long would the chimeras have lived if nobody let them out of their cage?

  “This virus the chimeras are carrying—” Julia began.

  “It’s why I’m so desperate to catch them. It’s why this is so important that some people are willing to kill over it.”

  “Yes. I grasped that part already,” Julia said. She sat up very straight on the end of the bed, her hands folde
d in her lap. “Is it airborne?”

  “No. It can only be passed on through exchange of body fluids.”

  “That’s not as comforting as it sounds,” she said, and the look on her face must have been the one while explaining to her clients how distemper or kennel cough worked. “Diseases vary in how difficult they are to pass on—HIV, for instance, is actually very difficult to transmit, that’s why it mostly spreads through sex and blood transfusions. Other bloodborne illnesses are much more robust. For some of them a chimera could sneeze on someone, or spit on them, and transmit it. What disease are we talking about? Some kind of flu? A retrovirus? Ebola?”

  “I don’t know. It’s classified.”

  Julia frowned. “Classified. They didn’t even tell you that much?”

  “Just that it’s hard to detect, and that there is no cure or vaccine.”

  “Fuck,” Julia said.

  “But you don’t have it,” Chapel told her.

  “I don’t? How do you know that? You haven’t taken any blood or tissue samples that I’m aware of. Maybe while I was sleeping, but I imagine I would have noticed that.”

  “I wouldn’t do that to you without your knowledge.”

  She sighed. “Then how can you possibly know I’m not infected, Chapel?”

  “I just do. Your contact with the chimera was minimal. He didn’t bite or scratch you when you were in that cab, and—”

  “He manhandled me. Something could have happened. Why did you keep this from me? I thought Laughing Boy was just a homicidal lunatic. There seemed to be a lot of that going around! I had no idea this was a public health issue. Chapel—what if I kissed Rudy, like he wanted? I could have given it to him. Shit—I did kiss you, and more.”

  “I had contact with the chimera as well. And I know I don’t have it,” Chapel told her.

  “Good God, Chapel! Either of us could have given it to the other. Oh, God—why didn’t I wait at least until we had some condoms? I was so caught up in the moment. I didn’t even think about STDs, much less this! Chapel, what if I had it, and you didn’t, but I gave it to you this morning? Huh? What if it was the other way around? What if you gave it to me when you made love to me?”