In a moment it was over except for the smoke and the car alarms and the ringing in his ears. He looked down and saw he was lying on top of Julia, his artificial arm wrapped around her head, presumably to protect her from the blast.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
She nodded. Her eyes were very wide. Clearly no one had ever tried to blow her up before.
Chapel wished he could say the same.
He looked up and saw every light on the street was on now, every house awake and alert. People had come out onto their porches to see what was going on. Some of them were standing in the street, watching Funt’s house as it went up in flames.
He looked down and saw he was still lying on Julia. He released her head from his cradling arm, and she pulled herself out from beneath him. Carefully he got to his feet, then helped her up as well.
“I get the feeling Jeremy Funt was expecting us,” Julia said.
Chapel shook his head. He felt a little dizzy from the blast, still. If you want to find me I’ve gone under the underground…
Who the hell was this guy, and what game was he playing?
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA: APRIL 13, T+21:02
Policemen in fireproof suits climbed over the remains of the charred house like ants on a discarded candy bar. Fire engines were parked three deep in front, their engines idling noisily while water leaked from their hose connectors. Up and down the street the locals were leaning off their porches, trying to get a better look.
Tom Banks watched it all on a fifty-inch screen. The image was grainy, especially blown up that big. It was coming through the lens of a cameraphone and the resolution just couldn’t keep up. Every time Laughing Boy moved, the view distorted and broke down into pixels as big as Banks’s thumb.
“Fertilizer bomb,” Laughing Boy confirmed. He’d been on the scene just minutes after the explosion and he’d been liaising with the local cops the whole time. “You know what that looks like. Heh. Domestic terrorism.”
“I thought you took your medication,” Banks said, annoyed as always by his underling’s constant giggling.
“Oh, I did,” the operative confirmed. “Just thought that was funny.”
Banks poured himself a scotch and soda. It looked like he would be up all night. “I don’t suppose we got lucky and they pulled any bodies out of there? Say, a one-armed gimp and a redhead with a nice ass?”
“They made it out. Cops are looking for ’em right now,” Laughing Boy replied. “Jeremy Funt, too. They want to know why he would blow up his own house.”
“Figures. Hollingshead will make that heat go away,” Banks said. He sighed deeply.
“You want me to help the cops out? Or maybe make this problem go away by myself?” Laughing Boy asked.
“Not yet,” Banks told him. “There’ll be time for that after Chapel leads us to Funt. The chimera might do it for us, too. Chapel’s gotten lucky so far, but luck runs out.”
“And if it doesn’t—”
Banks frowned. “When I give the word, you can kill Chapel. Not before.”
“Yes, sir,” Laughing Boy said.
ATLANTA, GEORGIA: APRIL 13, T+24:43
Orange light touched Chapel’s eyes. He opened them and looked around, uncertain for a moment where he was. He was lying in a bed, covered by a thick blanket. He was wearing nothing but his pants.
Motel room, he thought. That was right. He and Julia had checked in last night. He had said he would lie down for a little while, expecting his racing thoughts to keep him awake. Then…
His mouth tasted awful. Slowly he sat up and looked around. He heard water running, and decided that Julia must be taking a shower in the bathroom. Her clothes were draped over the back of a chair. His were folded neatly on top of a dresser.
He must have been so tired he just passed out. He couldn’t remember undressing. He reached up with both hands to rub at his face. His right hand touched his cheek. He felt his left hand moving, but it never made contact. He tried to lift it to his face again, and it felt like it went right through him. He had the unnerving sensation that it was passing right through his flesh.
With a start he looked down and saw that his arm was gone.
Chapel was no stranger to the phantom limb effect. Before he’d been fitted with his prosthesis, he’d constantly felt like his arm was still there and he just couldn’t see it. He’d been able, in his mind, to move his left hand, to make a fist. For the first few months after the amputation, he’d experienced severe pain in that hand. That was normal, they told him. The body’s image of itself wasn’t based on present reality but on muscle memory, and his brain was just having trouble remembering that part of his body was missing. He often woke up in the morning thinking his arm was still there. Each day brought a fresh shock when he recalled what he had become.
He had a brief moment of panic until he saw the arm, sitting on a coffee table near the room’s door. It was plugged in and charging. So were his and Julia’s phones, and his hands-free set.
He didn’t remember doing any of that. He didn’t remember taking off his arm. He couldn’t imagine doing it in front of Julia.
And yet here he was.
Another moment of panic came when he looked at the clock. It was nearly seven in the morning — he must have slept until the dawn light came and found him. He stared at the curtains over the room’s single window and saw the light coming through was strong and clear. He had been asleep for more than four hours.
Plenty of time for the chimeras to find their targets. Plenty of time for people to die.
He jumped out of the bed and grabbed his hands-free set. Shoving it in his ear, he called, “Angel? Can you hear me?”
“I’m here, sunshine,” she said. She sounded almost as tired as he felt. Had she spent the entire night reconfiguring her servers?
“Thank God you’re back,” Chapel said. “I’ve missed you. Are you okay? You sound like you didn’t sleep at all.”
“Aren’t you sweet?” she said, with a little laugh. “I didn’t, but I popped a few energy drinks and now I’m fine. This wasn’t my first all-nighter. You’ll be glad to know I’m back up to full speed. Rebuilding my system took a little longer than expected, but we should be safe now — no CIA sneaks listening in. Are you ready to get back to work?”
“Yeah. Listen, the first thing we need to talk about — the police here might be looking for me. I managed to blow up Funt’s house last night.”
“I’ve been keeping an eye on you,” Angel said. “You do know how to have fun, sugar. As for the police, they were looking for you, yes. I took care of that.”
“Thanks.” Chapel wondered what she had told them to keep them off his tail, but he supposed it didn’t matter. There were far more important things to discuss. “Angel, I need you to check in on Eleanor Pechowski for me. I need to know she’s still alive.”
“Then I’ve got some good news. I spoke with her about twenty minutes ago. After I told her she was in danger, she went to stay at a friend’s house. I have a police detail watching the place twenty-four seven. She’s as safe as she can be.”
That was one stroke of luck. “I’m beginning to think I made the wrong choice,” Chapel told her. “It seems Jeremy Funt might be able to take care of himself.” He briefly filled her in on what they’d found in his house. “The funny thing is, there was at least a week’s worth of dust there. Like he’d been expecting this. He had plenty of time to plan and set his booby traps. Did you contact him yesterday?”
“I did. He thanked me for the information and said he would be careful. Tell you the truth, he didn’t seem particularly surprised.”