Chapel stared up at Favorov. What the hell? What had Favorov said to Hollingshead to make him bend like this?
“Come now, speak for your master,” Favorov said.
Chapel chose his words carefully. He knew he wouldn’t get a second chance at this. “Sir,” he said, marshalling his strength to get the words out, “let me die—don’t let this son of a bitch get away with—”
A strong hand pressed down on Chapel’s mouth and shut him up. It belonged to either Stephen or Michael.
Chapel expected Favorov to fly into a rage and strike him or something. Instead the Russian just shrugged. “Mr. Pentagon,” he said, “would you care to explain what is going on to your lackey?”
Hollingshead’s voice on the phone sounded defeated. Resigned. Chapel hated hearing the man like that. Hollingshead was a father figure to him, more than a boss—and he was a good man, too. A strong leader in a time when the military needed exactly that. It was heartbreaking to hear him admit he’d already lost.
“Son, Mr. Favorov has explained what’s going to happen. He’s going to leave the country on his private yacht. We’re going to let him reach international waters. We’re going to let him go. You’re just too valuable to sacrifice.”
No, Chapel thought. No, I’m willing to—
“I know you won’t like it, but I need you alive,” Hollingshead said. “For now, we’re going to have to play this the way it lies.”
9
The Russian ended the call and pocketed the cell phone.
The look in Chapel’s eyes must have been one of pure rage, because Favorov patted his head and said, “Come now, Mr. Chapel, you should be happy about this. You’re going to live. You’re going to sleep in your own bed tonight. As soon as I am on my yacht you’ll be permitted to go free.” He glanced at his watch. “It should be here in less than three hours—I already sent word to the marina, and my crew are always standing by. So this little ordeal won’t even last very long.”
Except for the ordeal Chapel would have to live with for the rest of his life: knowing he’d let an enemy of the United States just walk away, when if he’d been just a little smarter he could have caught the bastard.
Favorov looked to his servants. “My very foolish wife says he has a fake arm. He lost it in Afghanistan, like so many other careless people. Get his shirt off so I can see it. You’re not hiding any other secrets from me, are you, Mr. Chapel? No secret spy devices in your underwear? I have no desire to strip-search you.”
One of the servants tore Chapel’s shirt off, revealing his prosthetic arm. It looked exactly like his real one, right up to the shoulder. The only difference was that it ended in a set of clamps covered in unpainted silicone where it clung to his torso.
“They do such nice work these days. Back in the eighties, back in Russia, I saw so many soldiers come home with hooks for hands,” Favorov ruminated, “peg legs. Like a bunch of pirates.” He smiled. “It was a very dangerous place, Afghanistan.”
Chapel gritted his teeth. “Still is,” he said.
Favorov nodded, and a faraway look passed briefly across his face. Then he snarled at his servants. “I pay you to keep me and my family safe. Is there a reason you haven’t tied his hands yet?”
They snapped to it, tearing up Chapel’s shirt and twisting the strips of cloth into a stout rope. They rolled him over and pulled his hands behind his back. Neither of them seemed to want to touch Chapel’s artificial arm but they did what they were told. Chapel was still too weak to fight back, so he didn’t try.
“Gag him as well. I don’t want him confusing you two, as easy as it would be,” Favorov said. “Good-bye, Mr. Chapel. I don’t think I’ll see you again. The servants can make sure you get home safely once I’m gone.”
He left the room then. Chapel curled up on his side on the billiards table, putting his weight on his artificial arm. With no blood vessels inside it, it couldn’t fall asleep or start to spasm.
Stephen and Michael, the servants, watched him carefully. They never came very close to him. Chapel could feel himself getting stronger by the minute, as he got over the stunning effects of having a bottle smashed against his head. But bound and gagged, there wasn’t much he could do.
He could lie here, and wait for it to be over. That was the obvious choice. The safe choice, the reasonable choice. But one thing kept bothering him. Something Director Hollingshead had said.
For now we’re going to have to play it as it lies, he’d said. Those had been his orders. A golf reference. Chapel didn’t play golf much—his preferred physical activity was swimming—but he knew what that one meant. When you hit a golf ball it landed where it was going to land, and you had to make your next move based on the terrain you were given.
Hollingshead was a master of implication. He very rarely gave direct orders—those could get him in trouble later. Instead he tended to suggest things one might do. And he’d had to make sure Favorov thought he was giving in. Acceding to the Russian’s demands. Saying anything else might have resulted in Chapel’s immediate death. But at the same time, he’d managed to send Chapel a perfectly clear message.
He hadn’t told Chapel to stand down. He hadn’t ordered Chapel to behave like a good little prisoner. He’d told him to play it as it lay. In other words, to use his own initiative. To achieve whatever was possible, as Chapel judged it.
Which meant this wasn’t over. Not if Chapel could get just a little bit of luck.
10
“I don’t like this,” one of the servants said. Chapel decided that one would be Stephen, just because he wanted a name to pin on him. “Nothing like this was supposed to happen.”
“When you took this job,” the one Chapel decided would be Michael said, “you knew it was going to be dicey. Who hires a house servant who has bodyguard experience?”
“Every rich weirdo on Long Island,” Stephen said. He kept glancing at the door, as if he expected a wave of SWAT police to come storming through. “I don’t like this.”
“You already said that.”
“This guy,” Stephen went on, nodding at Chapel, who was busy doing his best impression of a semiconscious invalid (not exactly a stretch), “he’s from the government. The Pentagon, the boss said.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?” Stephen asked.
“Don’t psych yourself out. This is going to be fine. Look at him—he can barely move.”
“But if his friends come looking for him—”
“Then,” Michael said, with a long-suffering sigh, “we say he hit his head and we were just trying to make him comfortable while we waited for the ambulance to come.”
“Comfortable. We were trying to make him comfortable by tying him up and gagging him.”
Michael just shrugged.
“Look, one of us should have a gun. I’m just saying. What if he wakes up? What if he wakes up and he’s pissed off?”
“Then he’ll be tied up and gagged,” Michael pointed out.
“One of us should have a gun. I’m going to get a gun.”
“Did the boss tell you to leave and get a gun?”
Stephen smiled as if he’d just solved one of life’s great mysteries. “He yelled at us before, for not being proactive and tying him up. Maybe he expects us to be proactive again. These rich assholes, they’re always yelling at their employees about being more proactive. About thinking outside the box.”
“The way you’re thinking’s going to get you put in a box,” Michael growled. “Just shut up and sit tight.”
“I’m going to get a gun. Keep an eye on him.”
The way Michael sighed, then, told Chapel that these two had similar conversations all the time. Michael talked a tough game, but it was clear he wasn’t in charge—Stephen didn’t have to listen to him.