IN TRANSIT: APRIL 12, T+12:22
Seen from the roof of Bellevue the sky over New York City was a deep blue-black. Up this high Chapel could even see a few stars, though most of them were lost in the haze of light that seemed to rise from the city like mist. On the western horizon a last streak of pink marked where the sun had gone down.
Out there, Chapel thought, out past that sunset there are three more of the bastards already moving toward their targets. Implacable killers moving fast, like sharks that had caught the scent of blood. And he had just thrown away the best weapon he had to find and fight them.
“Angel,” he said, “please come in. Angel?”
There was no response.
“Angel,” he said, “I’m sorry if I was rude.”
She didn’t reply.
“Sir?” the pilot asked, leaning across the crew seats of the chopper and shouting over the noise of the engine. “We need to get airborne.”
Chapel nodded and climbed into his seat. A helmet waited for him there — he picked it up and started to pull it on when he realized he would have to take the hands-free unit out of his ear for it to fit.
His main connection to Angel. Well, she could reach him through the helicopter’s radio if she felt like talking. He put the hands-free unit in his pocket and pulled the helmet on. Adjusting the microphone, he asked the pilot, “What are your orders?”
“Sir, I’m to take you to Newark Airport; that’s just the other side of the Hudson River. There you will find a civilian jet waiting for you to take you wherever you want to go. I’m supposed to ask you where that is, sir. They need to file a flight plan before you arrive or you won’t be able to take off.”
Where indeed? The next names on the list, in geographical order, were in Atlanta and Chicago. He had to pick one and hope that he wasn’t haring off after another distraction. If he chose the wrong one, if he wasted time on another red herring, he could be sentencing an innocent person to death. He pulled the crumpled list from his pocket.
He tapped his artificial fingers on his knee. The target in Chicago was named Eleanor Pechowski; the one in Atlanta was a Jeremy Funt.
Angel might have been able to help him. She might have told him which of them was a higher-value target for the chimeras. But Angel wasn’t talking to him.
He remembered something he’d heard Teddy Roosevelt had said. In a crisis, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The second best was the wrong thing. The worst thing you could do was nothing.
He had to make a decision. He had to just pick one.
“Atlanta,” he told the pilot. “I’m going to Atlanta next.”
So he could start this whole crazy chase over from scratch.
“Might as well settle in, sir. This’ll take a little while,” the pilot told him.
Chapel nodded and looked out his window. They were already lifting off the hospital roof. The helicopter made a wide arc around a skyscraper and headed west, toward the sunset. At least he was making some progress.
It had been a long day and he felt like closing his eyes, maybe even getting a little sleep. The very first thing they taught him in the army was how to sleep wherever he might be, whenever he got the chance. He closed his eyes and tried to calm down his racing mind. Tried not to think about dead doctors and monsters that were part human and part something else.
Before he could nod off, though, he felt his phone jump in his pocket. He let it vibrate for a second, wondering who could be calling him. Maybe it was Angel, he thought. Or Hollingshead calling him to bitch him out for the way he’d treated Angel.
It was neither of them. The phone listed the number as having a 718 area code. He vaguely remembered that was the code for Brooklyn.
He only knew one person in Brooklyn. “Julia?” he said, answering the call. “Did you think of something that I needed to—”
“Chapel!” Julia said. She was shouting, but he could barely hear her over the noise of the helicopter. Only a few words got through. “Chapel, you — to come — man here — police — says he’s police — don’t know who else to — think he’s — kill me!”
The phone beeped three times and the words CALL FAILED appeared on the screen. Chapel wasn’t used to this phone — it worked differently from his old BlackBerry — but he managed to call up the recent call menu and tried to call her back. The phone beeped three times, telling him it couldn’t make the connection. He tried again.
Three beeps.
Chapel could only think one thing. A second chimera was in New York — and it had decided to pick up where the first one left off. It was going to kill Julia.
“Change of plans,” he told the pilot. “Take us to Brooklyn — as fast as you can!”
The pilot shook his head and looked over at Chapel. “Sir, that’s not allowed. I’ve already put in my own flight plan, and the local authorities are very strict about civilian aircraft deviating from course over Manhattan.”
“A woman’s going to die if you don’t turn around right now,” Chapel told the man. When the pilot didn’t respond instantly, Chapel grabbed the chin strap of his helmet and dragged his head to the side to make eye contact. “Turn around,” he said.
The pilot was military. He knew what a direct order sounded like.
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK: APRIL 12, T+12:31
The pilot set them down on the ball field of a public park not too far from Julia’s clinic. It was as close as he could get.
Chapel jumped to the ground. He took a second to get his bearings and headed for the closest exit from the park. The streets beyond were lit brightly enough, and the clinic was only two blocks away. He prayed he wasn’t too late.
He’d never forgive himself if he failed to save Julia, not after he’d already failed her mother.
When he reached the clinic, he found it shut up tight for the night. An iron shutter had been pulled down over its front door and curtains obscured its windows. He was about to hammer on the door, demanding to be let in, when he heard a sudden sharp noise come from inside. A noise like a muffled gunshot.
Or one fired from a silencer.
No. Jesus no. This chimera had a gun.
Chapel looked up and saw there were no bars on the windows of the second story of the building. There was a light fixture just above the doorway that looked sturdy enough to hold his weight. He jumped up and grabbed it with his good hand, then slowly pulled himself up until he could hook one leg around it.
As a kid in Florida Chapel had climbed plenty of trees. Then in the army he’d learned to climb walls and fences. He could do this. He got a nasty twinge from his hurt leg when he put all his weight on that foot, but he managed to launch himself upward and grab the ledge of the second-story window. Desperation gave him strength as he pulled himself up so he could stand on the ledge. It was only a few inches wide, but it was enough.
He tried the window and found it opened freely. Chapel jumped through feetfirst and landed in a dark bedroom full of minimalist furniture. Thankfully there was nobody asleep in the bed. He hurried to the room’s door and started to reach for the knob — then remembered his training and pressed his ear up against the door instead.
For a moment he heard nothing. Then a soft creak, as if someone had stepped on a loose stair riser. The chimera must have heard him come through the window and was coming upstairs to investigate.
The sound wasn’t repeated. Chapel had no idea where the chimera was in the building. One wrong move now and he was likely to get shot. He drew his weapon and held it low, down by his thigh.
Every shred of his training told him he was in a lousy situation. There was an armed madman out there beyond the door, and Chapel had no idea of his location or if he was even alone. Opening the door would expose him to enemy fire. He glanced down at the bottom of the door and saw only darkness there — there would be no lights in the hall outside. He would be running blind, running right into what could be an ambush or a trap or who knew what. Julia could already be dead, and he might be throwing away his life for nothing — worse than that, he was jeopardizing his mission by acting like this.