Chimera Read online

  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.”

  “I—I don’t know what to say,” Chapel said. “I thought, coming here today, you were going to have me arrested. Or killed.”

  “Hardly. In fact,” Hollingshead told him, “if you’re willing to put up with me awhile longer . . . I’d like to offer you a job. A permanent position. The Cold War was a long and dark time, full of secrets. There are plenty of skeletons in that particular closet I’d like yanked out into the light of day. Assuming I still have a job tomorrow, I promise you’ll have one, too. Oh, and I’ll see about getting you a
replacement for that arm of yours. Least we can do, really.”

  Chapel put a hand over his mouth. He couldn’t help it.

  He laughed long and hard.

  WASHINGTON, D.C.: JUNE 5, 14:28 EDT

  “So it’s official? You’re working for Hollingshead now?” Julia asked

  “I’m getting a W-2 form and everything,” Chapel told her. They were walking down a Washington street on a sunny day and no one they saw was armed, no one was looking to kill them. “I get two weeks’ vacation a year, though, and I’m starting my first one immediately.”

  “Maybe we can go someplace quiet,” Julia said, taking his arm.

  Neither of them was exactly sure what they were to each other, now. For a while he’d been scared their relationship would be over before it started, until Hollingshead had called Chapel one fine morning and given him one piece of excellent news.

  Both of them were negative. There was no trace of the chimera virus in either of their systems. They’d caught a real lucky break there. They wouldn’t have to be quarantined. They wouldn’t be separated by medical necessity.

  They would always be buddies—but now, maybe, they had a chance to be something more.

  Not that he could exactly come out and say as much.

  “How’s your dad?” Chapel asked, to keep his mind off the question.

  “They say he’ll make a full recovery. The bullet pierced his jugular, but my field dressing held.” She shrugged. “I don’t know what to make of things, yet. He told me—well. He told me why he did it all. I hope someday I can forgive him. I’m going to try.”

  Chapel nodded. He hoped she would find some peace there, eventually.

  “What about Samuel?” she asked.

  His eyes widened. He’d barely thought about the last living chimera. Already they were receding behind him, like a bad dream. “He’s going to get new hands, for one thing. I can vouch for what they can do in that line, these days.”