Except—
On the table behind Reinhard, something was moving. It was Chapel’s artificial arm, and it was moving on its own volition.
BOULDER, COLORADO: APRIL 15, T+66:01
The arm wasn’t supposed to be able to do that. It was supposed to power down automatically when it wasn’t attached. If it didn’t detect skin contact through its electrodes, it shut down to save battery power.
But its fingers were definitely moving.
It couldn’t get the leverage to move very far. But it bent at the elbow, and the index finger whined softly as it extended to its full length. Chapel, who was used to that sound, heard it clearly, but Reinhard didn’t react. Maybe he couldn’t make out the sound above the static coming from his walkie-talkie.
Chapel tried not to stare. He knew who was controlling the arm — the only person in the world, as far as he knew, who could. He remembered when he’d first heard Angel’s voice. She had wanted to convince him she could hack into any system, so she had briefly taken over his arm and made it wave at him. He had been massively disturbed by her ability to do that. He’d been horrified she had the ability.
But now, when what she was doing was infinitely creepier, he was glad for it.
Reinhard was too busy playing with his walkie-talkie to look at the arm. But after a moment, he turned the radio off in disgust and threw it down on the table. And then he must have heard the motors squealing behind him. The mechanical sound of the robotic fingers clenching and unclenching.
His reaction was immediate and violent. He jumped off his chair and squawked like a parrot, spinning around to stare at the arm. “What the hell?” he demanded.
The arm bent slowly at the elbow, looking for all the world like a living thing. Its fingers flexed rapidly, waggling back and forth as the motors made their high-pitched whine. It was impossible to ignore now. Reinhard made a nasty noise in his throat.
What was Angel trying to achieve? Did she want to make it choke Reinhard to death? But no, that was impossible. There was no way she could even see the arm or where it was — there were no cameras in the toolshed for her to hack into. She must just be triggering the various motors at random. But why?
Because, Chapel realized with a start, she thought the arm was still attached to his shoulder. She wasn’t trying to get Reinhard’s attention. She was trying to signal Chapel, to send him a message.
Too bad Reinhard was the one to receive it. He reached for a mallet that hung on the wall. With three vigorous swinging motions he smashed the arm into bits of flying metal.
No, Chapel thought. No! Do you have any idea how expensive that thing is? Do you have any idea what it’s meant to me?
For Chapel, it was like watching someone shoot his pet dog.
Reinhard spun around and stared at Chapel with wide eyes. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. Clearly he thought Chapel had some way to make the arm move remotely. “Answer me, damn it!”
Chapel tried to shrug. Then he stared downward as best he could, toward the gag of duct tape over his mouth.
Reinhard’s reaction was immediate and unthinking. He rushed across the room to grab the gag and tear it off Chapel’s face. His own sweating red features were only a foot or so from Chapel’s mouth.
So Chapel only had to whisper when he said, “That was dumb.”
Reinhard’s features didn’t change. Maybe he didn’t realize what he’d just done. Or maybe he just had no idea what Chapel was capable of.
Chapel swung his legs up fast and wrapped them around Reinhard’s neck. He was weak from blood loss and lying at a bad angle. But he had strength enough left to put pressure on Reinhard’s carotid arteries.
They’d taught him this move in Special Forces training. If you can cut off blood flow to a man’s brain, even for a few seconds, he will see a flash of white light… and then he will fall unconscious and collapse in a heap.
Reinhard obliged nicely, falling across Chapel in a sudden rush of weight.
“Thank you, Top, for making me swim again and build up my leg muscles,” Chapel breathed.
Using his knees, he rolled Reinhard off and onto the floor. The next part took a lot of work, and Chapel had to stop several times to catch his breath. But eventually he managed to move Reinhard around until he could reach into the man’s jacket pocket. Just as he’d expected, there was a handcuff key in there.
He uncuffed himself and got to his feet. His head spun for a while and he saw red spots in his vision, but he managed. Fresh blood started flowing from his wound. He shoved a hand over the hole in his side, but the blood dripped through his fingers.
First things first. He found the roll of duct tape and wrapped a generous swathe of it around his midriff. It was hardly sanitary and would never work as well as real gauze, but it made a passable bandage and kept him from bleeding out there and then. Next he searched Reinhard’s pockets until he found what he was hoping for — his pistol. The P228 that Hollingshead had given him. Reinhard must have picked it up when the judge surprised Chapel in the limo.
He looked down at the arm where it lay on the table. It was a total loss, sadly. Reinhard had smashed it to pieces. It moved spasmodically, its few remaining intact actuators whining and moving pointlessly.
The hand had been damaged almost beyond recognition. It felt weird, but all the same Chapel picked it up with his good, living hand and gave it one last squeeze. It could be tough, saying good-bye to an old friend.
But it was time to get out of there.
BOULDER, COLORADO: APRIL 15, T+66:06
Chapel felt woozy and nauseated even before he opened the door of the toolshed. Cold night air swept in and nearly knocked him off his feet. It made the waxy sweat on his face and chest feel like ice. But he managed not to fall down.
He didn’t know how long Reinhard would remain unconscious. He didn’t know what he would find outside of the shed. He desperately wanted to sit down and rest for a while. But a lot of things had come together to give him this one chance. He could not afford to waste it — he definitely would not get another one.
He stumbled outside, trying to keep low. It was hard to bend from the waist without blacking out. The pain from his wound was excruciating, and his duct tape bandage constricted his chest and made it hard to breathe. So he squatted down and duckwalked around the side of the shed to try to get his bearings.
What he saw was more confusing than revelatory. The shed stood about twenty yards away from a big house, a pile of fake log cabin construction with lots of windows. Most of them were dark. Between the house and the shed was a wide patch of gravel where four cars sat, unattended. Surrounding the gravel and the buildings were tall dark trees, mostly pines. A single break in the forest led down to a road about two hundred yards away. That had to be east, since the rough shapes of mountains loomed over the trees on the other side, which must be west.
The entire scene was lit by a flickering red light, as if the forest were on fire. Chapel soon saw that wasn’t accurate, however, as a new red light burst into life high over the trees to the south, a light that sank slowly toward the forest. A flare, fired from a flare gun. It was impossible to say where the flare had come from.
The moment the flare appeared, Chapel heard gunfire open up — automatic fire from at least three light machine guns, maybe Uzis or Mac-10s judging by the sound. The muzzle flashes came from over by the house, and he heard men shouting over there as well. That must be Reinhard’s men, shooting indiscriminately into the trees. But who were they shooting at? They were acting like they were under invasion by a full-scale assault, but Chapel heard no return fire, saw no movement at all to the south. Just the flare, slowly settling to earth.