Careful not to trip on anything, Chapel advanced into the room. He was still blocking the main exit, but he stayed far enough from the kitchen entrance to not be surprised if the intruder came running out.
He cleared his throat. Summoned up his best command voice. “Stop where you are! You’re under arrest!”
Silence filled the apartment. To one side of Chapel, a broken lamp rolled off a table and landed in a snowdrift of old tax forms. He managed not to jump, even as keyed up as he was.
“Step out of the kitchen. Lie down on the floor in here with your fingers locked behind your head,” Chapel demanded.
The intruder took a step toward him. Chapel could hear the stamping footsteps on the wooden kitchen floor. He could hear the intruder breathing heavily, now, too. Chapel felt like his senses were coming alive, growing stronger. He remembered this focus, this clarity, from the days when he’d worked in the field.
“Step out of the kitchen,” he repeated. “Lie down on the—”
The intruder didn’t just emerge from the kitchen. It was like he exploded out of it, like he was a bullet fired from a gun. Chapel had never seen a human being move that fast — before this moment, he would have sworn it was impossible.
He jerked the trigger of the P228. His instincts were good, his reflexes just as sharp as they’d ever been. He was certain he’d hit his target, that the 9 mm round had caught his target in his shoulder.
The intruder didn’t slow down at all. He collided with Chapel, knocking him over, sending them both rolling into the remains of a couch. Chapel saw a massive fist lift in the air, the arm behind it curling as the intruder readied a devastating blow aimed right at Chapel’s head.
He managed to yank his head to one side. The fist came down with a thunderous crack. Chapel felt splinters dig into his ear and the side of his face. He glanced to the side and saw the intruder’s fist buried in the shattered floorboards.
Impossible, Chapel thought. This is impossible—
And then strong arms grabbed him and hauled him into the air. He kicked and struggled, because he knew how hard it was to lift a human being who refused to let his center of gravity stay in one place. The hand gripping his leg squeezed. Hard. Chapel felt the muscle there, honed by years of swimming, crush and start to tear.
Then the intruder tossed Chapel into a corner of the room and made a break for the apartment door.
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK: APRIL 12, T+9:03
Chapel picked himself up off the floor and shook some dust off his jacket. His head swam for a minute, but he fought the wooziness off.
No damn time to be hurt, he told himself. Except it sounded like Top’s voice inside his head. “That’s right, Top,” he said out loud. And then he dashed for the apartment door and down the stairs.
Chapel had gone through Special Forces training with the Army Rangers. The Rangers were famous for always being the first boots on the ground — wherever the army went, the Rangers were the first group sent in. They had a reputation for moving fast and keeping their wits about them. It had been a while since he’d used it, but conditioning like that doesn’t break. He took the stairs two at a time and put his good shoulder into the door, knocking it wide open and spilling him into the street.
Just in time to see the back door of the cab slam shut, and the vehicle take off down the road at high speed. He saw two people in the backseat. One was Julia.
He was certain the other one was the intruder.
“Hell, no,” he said, and lifted his weapon, aiming with both hands. The cab was already a hundred feet away and gaining speed, weaving to avoid other cars. He couldn’t risk firing into its cabin in case he hit Julia by accident, so he snapped a shot at its rear right tire. The bullet dug a narrow trench through the asphalt, barely missing by a foot.
Chapel wanted to swear. He wanted to shout in frustration.
Instead he took off at a run. There was no way he could catch up with the speeding cab — his legs were strong but he was only human. He had no intention of just giving up, though.
Even if there was no hope at all.
“Chapel,” Angel said. “Chapel! Tan Lexus, just ahead on your left!”
Chapel didn’t waste time asking questions. He ran over to the indicated car and grabbed the driver’s-side door handle. It resisted him — but then he heard a chunk as the door lock opened.
He had no idea what Angel was planning. He knew how to hot-wire a car, but it would take too long. This was pointless, it was just a token gesture, but—
As he slid into the driver’s seat, the car rumbled to life.
“Keyless ignition,” Angel said, “tied in to one of those always-on satellite services, so if you lose your keys you can just ask the nice man in India to start the car for you. Or, you know, your favorite hacker.”
Chapel pulled on his seat belt and stepped on the gas.
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK: APRIL 12, T+9:04
Chapel jerked the wheel to the side to get around a slow-moving bicyclist and nearly collided with a line of cars coming the other way. He swerved back into his lane and accelerated. He could just see the cab ahead, a block away. There was a red light between them, but he took it at full speed, ignoring the horns that blared at him and the shouts of pedestrians.
He had to be careful, had to avoid accidents — it was far too easy, in the heat of the moment like this, to trade speed for safety. If he caught the intruder but ran over six pedestrians in the process, why exactly was he doing this?
The cabdriver didn’t seem to have any such qualms. He sideswiped a city bus and then rocketed across his lane and half up onto the sidewalk to get around another car. The intruder must have been threatening him to make him drive like that, Chapel thought. He must be afraid for his life.
From what Chapel had seen, he had good reason to be.
“Is New York traffic always like this?” Chapel asked.
“Day in, day out,” Angel told him. “There’s another traffic light up ahead — I’m going to keep it green for you, but you need to watch out. Jaywalking is the official pastime in this city.”
“Noted,” Chapel said, palming the wheel as he gunned around a double-parked delivery van. Up ahead in the crosswalk people were standing in the street, inches from the cars that blasted past them going both ways. “You can’t get these people to actually wait on the sidewalks, can you?”
“There are some things even I can’t hack,” Angel told him. “Sorry, sweetie.”
Too much traffic. Too many people. On an open country highway Chapel could have given chase for miles. Here he was going to kill somebody if he didn’t end this, and soon. The bright yellow cab was inching closer, but the cabbie was taking ever more serious risks. He blasted right through a fruit cart, sending its umbrella twirling and spattering the road and passersby with bright orange mango pulp. A woman in a business suit screamed and threw her briefcase at the cab as it nearly took her toes off.
“I need to get close and drive him off the road,” Chapel said.
“Hold on,” Angel told him. “Up ahead — perfect! One lane of the road up ahead is closed for construction. There’s a blue wooden barrier and some orange netting making a temporary sidewalk. Do you see it?”
Chapel squinted at the road ahead. Yeah, the cab was just entering a new block where the road had been dug up. Big construction vehicles were leaning on the sidewalk and out into the street, protected from sideswipes by a blue wooden wall. Three more feet of the road had been cordoned off with traffic barrels and netting so people on foot could get around the construction.