“Let’s walk over to the far side,” Chapel said, pointing at a fence on the other side of the mountaintop.
“There’s nobody over there,” Julia told him.
“I want to make myself as visible as possible so he can find me,” Chapel replied. He didn’t like this. He’d expected Funt to meet him as soon as he stepped out of the cable car. He’d expected the man to want to talk to him.
Maybe that had been too much to hope for.
“Chapel,” Angel said, “I’ve got bad news. Maybe.”
“Go ahead,” he told her.
“I’ve been listening to the chatter on the park service radio channel. They’re all checking in, confirming everybody’s off the mountain and they can close up shop for the night. Except one ranger hasn’t called in yet. They keep requesting he confirm his position, but he’s not responding.”
“Could be anything. Maybe his radio’s battery just died. Or he could have ducked out for a smoke break.”
“Maybe,” Angel said. “Considering how things have gone since we started with this case, you think that’s likely?”
“No,” Chapel agreed. He bit his lip. “Damn. If the CIA knows we’re up here—” he began, but he was interrupted.
“Chapel,” Julia said in a forced whisper, “behind you!”
Chapel swung around just in time for someone to poke a gun barrel in his ribs.
He froze in place.
The gunman wore the uniform of a park ranger, including the Smokey Bear hat. He was grinning maniacally.
“Hi,” Jeremy Funt said.
STONE MOUNTAIN, GEORGIA: APRIL 13, T+35:36
“Nice to see you again,” Chapel said. He kept his hands at his sides. Funt hadn’t told him to put them up, and he didn’t want the paranoid ex-FBI agent to think he was reaching for a weapon.
“Give me a second here. Look behind you — there, you see?”
From the visitors’ center a park ranger — presumably a real park ranger — made a series of hand gestures, rolling her hands around each other, tapping her watch. Clearly she was suggesting it was time for everybody to head back down. She looked over in the direction where Funt and Chapel were standing. Funt waved his free hand at her, then held up his fingers splayed out as if to suggest he needed five more minutes.
The female park ranger shrugged and headed inside the center.
“In a second we’ll have this place all to ourselves,” Funt told Chapel.
“You know her? You set this up?”
“Nope. I was up here about a month ago, scouting out new locations for booby traps. I watched the rangers and studied their routine. Half of them are hard-core pot smokers. They invite their friends up here after hours and they get high while the laser show plays on the side of the mountain. The supervisors don’t interfere as long as they don’t draw too much attention.”
The tourists were all herded back into the visitors’ center and into the Skyride cable car to head back down to the park below. All the park rangers went with them, including one who turned out most of the lights in the visitors’ center before he boarded the cable car. Eventually it departed.
“Okay, just us, now,” Funt said. “Why don’t you take two steps back, very carefully — the ground here is none too level. And then you can tell me who the hell Red here is, and why you brought her.”
“She’s someone I’m protecting,” Chapel said, nodding in Julia’s direction.
“I’m Julia Taggart. I don’t work for the government.”
Funt didn’t look away from Chapel’s face. “Who do you work for, then?”
“Cats and dogs,” Julia said. She sounded perfectly calm.
Well, Chapel supposed that was easier when you didn’t have a gun pointed at your large intestine.
“She’s a veterinarian. A chimera tried to kill her in New York,” Chapel said.
Funt nodded. “I’ll buy it. For now. I did some checking up on you, Chapel. I still have a few friends left in interesting places. You’re definitely not CIA.” Funt stopped as if he’d just thought of something. “Wait a minute. Taggart?”
“William Taggart is her father. You know William Taggart?”
Funt shrugged. “I met him, a long time ago. Mad scientist type. Liked to clone up perversions of nature in his spare time. Made the chimeras.”
“ ‘Made’ them. I guess that’s not a bad way to put it. What are they, specifically?”
“You don’t know?” Funt asked.
“I only know what I’ve seen. I got no briefing at all, just a warning they were tough. The one in New York was definitely that. He also had funny eyelids. I know what the word ‘chimera’ means, too. An organism with DNA from two or more sources. Which is more than they’re supposed to have.”
Funt nodded. “Okay. I’m going to trust you, just a little bit. I can’t hold this gun on you all night, after all. So I’m going to put it away. But first, you’re going to give me yours. Then I’ll tell you what I know, and then we can discuss getting me out of Atlanta. That’s the deal. You okay with it?”
“I’d rather hold on to my weapon.”
Funt smiled. “I’d rather be married to Phoebe Cates. I’d rather be in Philadelphia right now, eating a cheesesteak. The last fifteen years, I’ve had to deal with how things are, not how I’d rather they were.”
“Fair enough,” Chapel said. Very, very slowly he reached into his jacket and removed his weapon. He handed it to Funt by the grip.
“Good,” Funt said, shoving it in one of his pockets. He lowered his own pistol, but he kept it in his hand. “Now we can talk.”
STONE MOUNTAIN, GEORGIA: APRIL 13, T+35:39
“I have a lot of questions,” Chapel said. “Starting with what they are. I want to know about the one you called Malcolm, and what your relationship with him is. I want to know when you first encountered them and—”
Funt held up his hands for peace. “Stop. I’ll tell you my whole story. That should answer most of your questions. But first I need something from you. I want your promise that when we’re done here, we’ll go straight to the nearest airport. You’ll make sure I get a plane ride to anywhere I want to go.”
“Done,” Chapel said.
“That easy, huh?”
“I’ve got carte blanche to deal with the chimeras,” Chapel told him. “My boss — at the DIA — just wants to make sure they don’t kill anyone else.”
“Oh, I’m certain that’s not all he wants.” Funt rolled his eyes. “Whatever. If you get me away from Malcolm, that’s all I care about. Okay. Let me think about where to start with this.”
“The beginning’s always a good place,” Julia said.
Chapel looked across at her. She was standing close enough the three of them might as well be whispering. Clearly she intended to listen in on this. Chapel knew that Hollingshead probably didn’t want her to hear it, but he figured this time he wouldn’t try to stop her. He was in enough hot water as it was. If Funt started revealing state secrets, that would be another thing, of course.
But as far as Chapel was concerned, the chimeras were fair game.
“It started in 1996. I worked for the bureau back then.” Funt looked at Julia. “That’s the FBI.” She just nodded, so he went on. “I wasn’t exactly famous; I mean, it’s not like I was a household name. But I had cracked some missing persons cases, found some kids who’d been abducted by religious cults or their parents or whatever and I had a reputation as the kind of guy who could find anybody. One day my AD — that’s assistant director — calls me into his office and tells me to sign out for the day, then take a train to Virginia and meet with some guy in Langley. It was all very hush-hush and I wasn’t supposed to let anybody know where I was going.