Whatever — it didn’t matter. He had to get away.
Chapel ran east as fast as he could, ducking into the trees, headed straight for the road that lay beyond. He heard shouting behind him, but he didn’t stop, didn’t look back.
Just up ahead the trees gave way. The road appeared, a single lane of blacktop painted a dim red by the distant flare. Chapel broke through onto the road surface and smelled fireworks, the distinct sulfurous tang of spent gunpowder.
Then a soft shoulder rammed into his armpit, and he smelled Julia, felt her body press up against his. She was moving, running, and she supported him as he hobbled along. They headed down the road toward an SUV parked fifty yards away, showing no lights. As they got closer he saw Chief Petty Officer Andrews standing next to the open driver’s-side door. She had a smoking flare gun in her hand.
The rear hatch of the SUV swung open, and Julia shoved him inside, into the rear compartment. Chapel realized he could barely keep his eyes open, that he was so weak he was likely to pass out at any second.
The hatch swung down to close him up inside the vehicle. He heard feminine voices talking in a low whisper. Heard the engine of the SUV turn over.
Enough. He let go of consciousness and sank into darkness.
BOULDER, COLORADO: APRIL 15, T+68:14
Reinhard stared down at the puddle of blood on the floor of the toolshed. He rubbed his throat where the bastard had choked him. His hand came away stained with red, and he shook drops of semicoagulated blood from his fingers. “This is where I woke up. Just before you arrived. My men were still out in the woods, shooting at flares.”
He shook his head. “They weren’t trained to handle that kind of Special Forces shit. They were trained to work as bodyguards for celebrities and CEOs. Not to guard against an attack by Army Rangers.”
He bent down and looked at the set of handcuffs lying on the floor, one cuff open with the key still in the lock.
“I’ll admit it, I wasn’t ready for this either. Maybe I should have known better. I saw what Chapel was like on the road, when he took down Quinn. But I also saw how much blood he lost. There was no way a man in that kind of condition could do what he did, not without help. You’re telling me there was nobody here. Just a stewardess and a veterinarian out in the woods.” He shook his head again. “No way. I’m telling you, there had to be a whole company of Rangers involved. Otherwise…”
He didn’t want to turn around. He didn’t want to look at the man who had come to debrief him. He didn’t want to admit he’d failed. “We did our best. We followed the script, did exactly what we were told. I’ve worked for the judge a long time. I knew I had to give this my all, and I did. I honestly don’t see how we could have done any better.”
“Ha,” his debriefer said. It was almost like a little laugh. Not that there was anything funny here.
“Are you going to tell me I’m fired?” Reinhard asked. “Shit. I know you are. You’re here to tell me I screwed up and I’m off the payroll. Gonna lose my pension, too. I had fifteen years in that. Well, I don’t know who could have done better.”
“Heh. Hee ha hee,” the man behind him said. “Nobody’s saying otherwise.”
Reinhard felt his heart skip a beat. Was it possible he was going to walk out of this with a job? He knew what a mess this was. He knew how many kinds of hell the blowback would be. Was it possible?
He started to turn around to look at the man. “So am I—”
“Fired? Ha ha ha,” the man laughed. “No.”
Which would have been good to hear, except the debriefer was holding a silenced pistol in his hand. And the barrel was pointed at Reinhard’s side.
“One — ha — problem, though. The plan was, Chapel would — hee hee — die while protecting the judge. Ha hee. We were going to present his body to the coroner and — heh — say that Quinn killed him.”
The gunshot was louder than Reinhard expected. Silencers always were. You expected a flat little cough, like when somebody fired a silenced pistol on TV. Real silencers just muffled the sound of the gunshot a little. He looked down and saw a stain of red spreading across his side. Exactly in the same place where Quinn shot Chapel.
“See — ha — we still need a body, to make it look right,” the debriefer said. “Heh ha ho. Gotta stick to the — ha — script. That left arm’s going to have to come off, too.”
SUPERIOR, COLORADO: APRIL 15, T+69:33
It was a lot easier opening his eyes, this time. Chapel felt warm and comfortable, like he was waking up after a good nap in a soft bed. He felt a dozen times stronger than before. Something was jabbing him in the arm, but it was easy to ignore. He looked up and saw a stucco ceiling above him, and a light fixture that was a little too bright for comfort. So he closed his eyes again and fell back asleep.
The pinpoint irritation in his arm woke him again, a little later. It was exactly in the crook of his right arm and it felt like a mosquito bite, maybe. He reached over with his left arm to swat it away.
His left hand passed right through his right arm, meeting no resistance. That made him open his eyes again. He looked over to his left and saw that his arm was gone.
Oh, yeah, he thought.
He did not find the fact particularly distressing. He had woken up so many times before, expecting to find himself whole and intact. The first few months it had been a horrible sensation to have to wake up and remember he was an amputee. Eventually he’d gotten used to it, or at least it had stopped waking him up with the cold sweats.
Leisurely, knowing there was no rush, he turned his head to the right.
Chief Petty Officer Andrews was lying in the bed next to him. She looked pale and slightly disheveled, but she was smiling.
Damn, Chapel thought. Julia’s not going to like this. And I don’t even remember getting into bed with the CPO. Or anything we might have done.
“You’re awake,” Andrews said.
Julia’s face appeared over Andrews’s shoulder.
Oh, wow, Chapel thought. What exactly did I miss?
But Julia wasn’t in the bed. She was standing next to it, leaning over Andrews. Julia wasn’t smiling. “Try not to move your arm,” she said. “If that needle comes out, it’s going to make a hell of a mess.”
Keeping his shoulder immobile, Chapel tilted his head to look down at his arm. A needle was buried in the flesh there, a needle attached to a plastic tube full of blood. The tube ran to an IV bag, and another tube ran to a needle in Andrews’s arm.
Andrews laid her head back on her pillow. “Type O negative,” she said. “I’m a universal donor.”
“You lost a lot of blood,” Julia told him. “I had to give you a transfusion or you probably would have died.” She checked the blood bag and the tubes. “The CPO is going to be tired for a while, but otherwise she should be fine. You, on the other hand—”
“Where are we?” Chapel asked. His voice sounded hoarse and reedy, but he felt good. He felt better. He wanted, suddenly, to get up and get back to work.
“A motel room outside of Boulder,” Andrews told him. “It was the closest place that Angel felt was safe. Actually, she advised us to keep going, to get out of Colorado altogether, but Julia decided you needed to be treated immediately if you were going to make it. She started barking orders and Angel had no choice but to listen. Julia would make a great combat medic, you know.”
“She’s fantastic,” Chapel agreed. “But Angel—”