Up ahead, in the lee of a high cliff, stood a small cluster of unremarkable buildings. There was no fence, nor any sign, but Angel was sure of it.
“You’re here,” she told them.
DENALI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE, ALASKA: APRIL 15, T+83:01
Julia switched off the snowmachine and an incredible silence settled over the clearing in the trees. After a few seconds Chapel could hear the individual snowflakes falling on the ground around him.
He climbed off the back of the machine and took a few steps toward the main building. It was a squat, windowless structure, built of heavy brick that looked like it could survive being buried in snow every year. A metal stovepipe stuck up from one end, pushing white steam or smoke into the air that was the same color as the snow, the same color as the sky. A snowmachine not unlike theirs sat parked near the single door. The machine looked like it had seen some heavy use — duct tape had patched a crack in its windshield, and the skids were scuffed and pockmarked.
Chapel looked back and saw Julia still straddling their snowmachine, her hands on the handlebars as if she might start the vehicle up and drive away.
“You coming?” he asked her. “You don’t have to.”
She nodded. She was looking at the building as if she could see through its walls. “Give me a second,” she said.
He understood. Her father was in there, a man she’d never gotten along with. A man who had done terrible things. He waited in silence. He could feel his nose hairs freezing, but he just gave her the time she needed.
“Okay,” she said, finally. Just as he’d known she would. She got off the machine and came up to the door with him. Reaching out one hand, she knocked hard on the door. There was no bell or intercom or any other way to summon the inhabitants.
Nor was there any answer to the knock. They stood together, their breath frosting the air between them. Snowflakes settled on Julia’s eyelashes. She knocked again.
Chapel tried the knob. It turned easily — the door wasn’t locked.
They stepped inside, out of the snow. The room beyond the door was wide and open, only a little warmer than the outside air. The inside of the building was even less impressive than its exterior. The interior was lined with row after row of cinder blocks, and one wall of the room was a big rolling door, like a more secure version of a garage door. If it were opened, the building would offer no shelter at all from the elements. There was little furniture inside except for three waist-high aluminum slabs.
On top of each slab lay a grizzly bear, curled up and sleeping, their enormous bodies rising and falling slowly as they breathed. Electrodes were buried in their thick fur and attached to wires that hung from the ceiling. Where the wires came together they were gathered into thick cables.
Chapel put his arm out to hold Julia back. “Watch out,” he said.
The bear closest to them had opened one eye. It watched them with a dull indifference. The bear moved its forelegs a few inches, sliding them across the slab as if it would start to get down at any moment. Then, as Chapel held his breath, the bear tucked the foreleg in, closer to its body, and its eye closed again.
“This is not what I expected,” Julia said.
“No,” Chapel agreed. He tried to think of something else to say.
Before any words came to him, Julia approached one of the bears — one that had not stirred — and walked slowly around its slab, examining it without touching it. Chapel wanted to drag her back, to get them both out of there, but he didn’t want to risk making any noise.
“They don’t appear to have been ill-treated,” Julia said, bending low to examine one bear’s nostrils.
“Are they drugged?” Chapel asked, whispering, though she’d spoken at conversational volume. Having grown up in Florida, he’d learned a healthy respect for animals that could maul and eat him without much provocation. You didn’t mess with alligators if you wanted to live to go to high school, and he had a feeling grizzly bears belonged in that same category.
Of course, she was a veterinarian. Maybe she knew what she was doing.
“They’re hibernating,” Julia told him. “Actually, ‘denning’ is the preferred term. Bears don’t really hibernate.”
“No?” Chapel asked.
“No, their body temperatures never fall low enough for that, and they can be woken up a lot more easily than, say, a hibernating bat or hedgehog.”
“Then maybe you should keep your voice down,” Chapel told her.
“Aren’t they gorgeous? You just want to curl up with them and pet their fur,” she said, almost touching a bear’s two-inch-long claws. “Not a good idea, though. They’re way stronger than they look, and a hell of a lot faster. They can run faster than us. And they’re highly aggressive — it doesn’t take much to set them off.”
“Like the chimeras,” Chapel pointed out. Meaning, she should get away from them and the two of them should leave. As cold as it was, the air in the room was humid and full of the smell of the bears, and he was feeling distinctly uncomfortable. Give Chapel a squad of heavily armed Taliban screaming for his death and he knew how to react to that. This was wholly outside his sphere of knowledge.
“My dad’s not here,” Julia said. “He must be in one of the other buildings.” She took one last look around and inhaled deeply. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“Okay,” Chapel said. He backed toward the door slowly, not wanting to take his eyes off the bears.
When the door opened behind him, he jumped and nearly shouted in panic.
A man in a heavy parka stood there, looking in at them. He looked like he was in his midtwenties, and he had a calm, unexceptional face. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing in here?”
“We’re looking for William Taggart,” Julia told him. “He’s my father.”
The man’s expression didn’t change. “He’s over in the lab. You shouldn’t be in here. We can’t risk exposing the bears to anything you track in. What do you want with Dr. Taggart?”
Julia looked confused. “I told you, he’s my father. And he’s… in danger. I’ve come to find him and take him out of here.”
The man turned to face Chapel, as if expecting him to introduce himself. Chapel stayed silent. There was something about this guy he didn’t like. He felt wrong, even though Chapel couldn’t have said why.
“Dr. Taggart can’t leave. Not now,” the man said. He was still staring at Chapel. When Chapel didn’t say anything, he held out one hand for Chapel to shake.
Chapel grabbed him by the wrist and twisted around to get the stump of his left shoulder into the man’s stomach, knocking him off balance. Chapel pushed hard, and the man fell backward out of the door, into the snow, with Chapel almost on top of him.
A look of sudden rage passed over the man’s face. But that wasn’t what Chapel was watching. When the man staggered out into the daylight, the sun hit him right in the eyes. Just as Chapel had expected, black nictitating membranes slid down over the man’s eyes to protect them from the sudden light.
Chapel rolled off him and up to his feet, drawing his sidearm in the same motion. He pointed the weapon right at the man’s face.
“Ian,” he said, “don’t you fucking move.”
DENALI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE, ALASKA: APRIL 15, T+83:16
The chimera blinked and spat some snow out of his mouth. He put his hands down on the ground as if he might spring up at any second, jump up and right at Chapel.
“Where’s Taggart?” Chapel demanded. “What have you done with him? Did you kill him? I don’t know how you got here so quickly, but if you killed him, you’re going to pay. And don’t get any crazy ideas about trying to trick me. I’ve met your brothers. Malcolm, and Quinn, and the one who went to New York. The one who killed Helen Bryant.”