Chimera: A Jim Chapel Mission

"I have no doubt," Ellie said. "And I'm sure you know more about security clearances and needs to know and the like than I do. One hates to break the law, though. You're in some kind of trouble, Captain, I can see it in your eyes."

Julia glanced over at him in surprise.

"I'm beginning to think so, ma'am. I'm beginning to think my own people are using me as a pawn in a game I can't see yet. And since those same people don't seem to want me to talk to you about this, I'm thinking I definitely need to know whatever information you have. I understand your reluctance, but I have to insist."

"Hmm," Ellie said, watching him closely.

"There are lives at stake," Chapel tried.

"Of course," Ellie said. "There always are."

Chapel saw in her eyes that she was waiting for him to say the right words. She wanted to talk to him, but she wasn't going to give up what she had for free. He took a deep breath. He was making a big leap of faith, he knew. But he needed this information. "The chimeras are loose. They've left their camp and are at large, with a list of people they want to kill. Your name is on that list. Julia-Dr. Taggart here-wasn't on that list, but they tried to kill her anyway."

"They are quite dangerous, yes," Ellie said, still giving nothing away.

"Not just them. Somebody helped them escape."

"Ah," Ellie said, leaning forward. "Now that's interesting."

Chapel nodded. "I intend to find out who it was. And make sure they're punished," he told her. "Somebody is using the chimeras, somebody has turned them into his personal death squad. I won't let him get away with it."

She smiled, and he knew he'd won her over. She sat back and looked up at the ceiling as if gathering her thoughts. "Have you met any of the chimeras? Ian, perhaps?"

"Not Ian. Malcolm and another one, who I'm told was named Brody," Chapel said.

"Oh, my. Oh, my my. The look on your face tells me something," Ellie said, leaning back on the couch. She took a deep sip from her teacup full of whiskey. "That's the look of a soldier. Are they . . . ah?"

"Yes," Chapel said.

"At least they're at peace, then. For once in their lives." Ellie sighed deeply. "I was their teacher. I disciplined them when need arose, and I daresay I was stricter than they would have liked. But I did care for them. You can't not love your students, even the stupid ones."

Julia gasped in shock.

"Oh, young lady, did you think a teacher wasn't allowed to call someone 'stupid'? Part of our job is to evaluate them, you know. And there were a few of the boys who were stupid, quite as dumb as the proverbial rocks. Others were brilliant. They all possessed what we used to refer to as animal cunning."

"You were a teacher with UNESCO, weren't you?" Chapel asked, prodding her to go on.

"Oh, yes, back in the eighties, back when I thought I could still save the world by teaching it not to end sentences in prepositions. I was rather more idealistic back then. I specialized in children with developmental and emotional issues. That was why the Defense Department wanted to hire me. That and my security clearance."

"I'm sorry," Chapel said. "You worked for the DoD? I thought the chimeras were a CIA project."

"I wouldn't know anything about that. I know the man who recruited me was wearing a uniform, that's all."

Chapel nodded. No need to jump to conclusions. "So the DoD approached you about a teaching assignment. When was this?"

"Nineteen ninety," Ellie said.

"So they would have been pretty young," Chapel said. "Did anyone ever tell you why they were created-or why they were detained?"

"Absolutely not. Before you ask, yes, I did wonder. I burned with curiosity about that for a long time, but when you ask the same question a hundred times and are routinely told you don't need to know the answer, you eventually give in and stop asking. I'm sure you can understand that."

"Yeah," Chapel said. "Yeah, I can."

"Captain, the word 'yeah' does not belong in the English language. The word you want to use is 'yes.' As in, 'yes, ma'am.' "

Chapel felt himself blush. "Yes, ma'am."

Ellie frowned and picked up her teacup again. "I think this will be a very long night if I make you guess which questions to ask and then tell you what I think you should know. Why don't I just go through the story as I remember it?"

"All right," Chapel said.

Ellie knocked back her cup in one gulp and began.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: APRIL 13, T+40:12

"It was 1990 when they first approached me. A captain of the navy whose name I don't remember-I never saw him again-came to my school on Roosevelt Island in New York. He asked if I had any experience administering intelligence tests, specifically culture-neutral IQ tests. I explained that I had been doing just such a thing for more than ten years. I asked why he wanted to know, but of course he didn't answer. A few months later, during my summer break, I was asked to come up to the Catskills for a weekend and to bring anything I needed to administer such a test to a group of two hundred children, all of them four years old, all of them boys. In exchange I would be paid handsomely for my time, but I had to agree not to tell anyone where I was going or why.

"Back then I was just a little older than you are now. Still young enough to think an adventure sounded fun, rather than exhausting. So I went. I was certainly not expecting what I saw. Camp Putnam was about a hundred acres of ground enclosed by an electric fence. There were guard towers and quite a number of soldiers. Inside the fence were the boys. They were adorable, and even when I noticed what was so strange about their eyes, I couldn't help but feel they were the healthiest, most curious bunch of four-year-olds I'd ever met. I'm sure I asked a thousand questions that day, but I did not receive any answers, as you can imagine.

"I did the job I'd been brought in for, administering the tests. Julia, dear, your parents were really quite interested in the results. They kept asking me if I would stay and tabulate the results then and there. They offered me more money. It was summertime, when every teacher needs more money, so I did as they asked. As it turned out, I ended up staying at the camp for eight more years.

"The boys were incredibly healthy and most of them had quite high IQs. They never seemed to get sick, and when they fell out of trees or skinned their elbows, they healed with astonishing speed. The soldiers played with them and treated them very well-at that time-but nobody, no one at all had considered they needed to be educated. In the end I had to volunteer to be their teacher. The prospect of these boys growing up in that camp, unable to read, unable to do basic math, was just startling to me. I was under the impression, you see, that they were orphans or something. That they were being raised there by the military but that when they were old enough they would go forth into the world, that they would get jobs and marry and have happy lives.

"I sometimes think your father, Julia, hired me on simply because it was easier to do that than to disillusion me.

"In many ways that was an idyllic time and I was quite happy. The Catskills are a beautiful place, and I fell in love with country living. In the summer I would hold class in a field of wildflowers deep in the camp. In the winter we would all crowd into a cozy little schoolhouse, the boys wrapped up in blankets around woodstoves. Beyond that-I was electrified. It was an incredible opportunity for someone like me. There were no televisions in Camp Putnam. No radios or newspapers. I could teach these boys to become men, to become upstanding gentlemen without any of the distractions or temptations of modern life. I imagined the papers I could write based on my observations, the awards and grants I could win with the data I collected. I will admit I was not above the scientific impulse that drove people like Taggart and Bryant.

"That changed, though, in 1993. That was the year of the first death.

"The boys had always fought among themselves. They were quick of temper, though at the time we thought that was just a product of their environment. Boys will be boys, we said. They squabbled over any little thing that one of them had and the others lacked. If a guard gave one of them a candy bar, we knew it would end in a fistfight as one of the other boys decided it by rights belonged to him.

"When one of them-his name was Gerald-failed to show up in my class one day, I assumed he was just playing hooky or that he was sick. When he was gone for a week, I began to worry. Eventually Dr. Bryant took me aside and explained. Gerald was dead. He had been attacked by three other boys, and they had broken his neck. She made it sound like an accident. A tragedy, but nothing unnatural. The three boys who killed Gerald would be punished, she said, but I didn't need to worry about it.

"Three months later it happened again. Two boys went into the woods, just playing, exploring, doing what eight-year-old boys do. Only one came back. He refused to tell us what happened to his friend and so guards had to go out looking for him. The missing boy's name was Marcus. They found him impaled on a tree branch. When his friend, Tyrone, was questioned, he admitted they had fallen out over whether Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer was smarter. It was a question I had asked in class that day, and they had debated it at some length before Tyrone decided he could settle the question once and for all. He had made a kind of spear out of the tree branch and he ran Marcus through with it, puncturing a lung.

"I had plenty of training in dealing with emotionally confused youths. I offered my services in helping Tyrone, but Dr. Taggart said that wouldn't be necessary. I did not see Tyrone again. I assumed he had been taken to another facility, separated for the safety of the population. What actually happened to him is something I don't like to contemplate.

"It became rapidly apparent, however, that we had a real problem on our hands. The violence escalated each month. Fistfights turned into boys throwing rocks at each other, which turned into horrible beatings and boys using makeshift weapons against one another. The scientists tried all manner of ways to settle things down, from putting drugs in the boys' food to splitting them up into small groups and forbidding them from being alone with each other at any time. The number of guards in the camp was doubled, and then tripled.

"It did not help. A guard was killed, in 1994. It was a horrible time. The other guards swept through the camp looking for the culprit. They were not . . . gentle in their interrogations. For a while things quieted down as the boys were put under a draconian sort of lockdown. They were forced to stay in their cabins at all times, not even being allowed out for exercise. That couldn't last, though, not if we wished to keep the boys healthy. I imagine some of us believed the rash of violence had been a fad. A phase the boys would grow out of.

"This was not the case.

"The boys continued their lessons through it all. The only time they saw each other, for a while, was in my classroom. Which meant that their anger at each other found no other outlet. I had to break up fights constantly. I had guards rush in and restrain my students in the middle of my lectures. If I called on a boy and he didn't know the answer, the others would jeer at him mercilessly. If he did know the answer, they would mock him for being a show-off. Then one day a fight broke out that I couldn't stop. One of the slower boys, but one notorious for his incredible strength, attacked another boy right in front of me. The attacker-his name was Keenan-broke the other boy's arms in the time it takes to say it. He was jumping on top of his victim, smashing him with his feet. I tried to pull him away and he lashed out at me. His nictitating membranes-his third eyelids, I can see you don't know the term-were down, and when their eyes were like that I knew they weren't going to stop. They were going to hit and bite and scratch until everything in front of them was destroyed. Keenan came at me with nothing in his heart but pure, animal rage. I had thwarted him, and he would tear me to pieces."

Julia gasped. "What did you do?" she asked.

Ellie inhaled deeply. "I drew my sidearm and I put him down like a mad dog. Three bullets in his skull, that was enough. Did I not mention that I was carrying a pistol while I taught? We all were, by that point. Every human being in Camp Putnam went armed at all times. It just wasn't safe otherwise."

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: APRIL 13, T+40:51

The fireplace by Chapel's right side crackled and popped. Apomotov came in and poured more whiskey into their teacups. Outside the wind from the lake battered at the house, but inside all was quiet. No one spoke a word as they waited for Ellie to continue her story.

"The level of aggression we saw," she said, looking only into her teacup, "was far beyond anything we'd expected. Anything we'd planned for. These were children! You've only seen them as adults. At that age they looked like little seraphs, angels with black eyes. When they turned on each other, or on us, they turned to demons in a moment. We tried so many things. I recommended individual counseling-bringing in a small army of psychologists, child development specialists, social workers. My request was roundly denied. It was too great a security risk.

"The boys kept fighting, and every time they hurt a guard, things just got so much worse. In 1995, they killed one of the researchers, a Dr. Harkness."

Julia gasped.

"I'm . . . sorry," Julia said, when Chapel looked at her. "Just-I knew her. Dr. Harkness. She was really sweet. She used to bring me magazines, Tiger Beat and . . . and Seventeen. She said being raised by scientists, I needed to see what the real world was like. They killed her? Oh my God. Oh my God . . . Mom just told me she moved away."

She shook her head, and Chapel saw a tear roll down her cheek.

"Please," Julia said. "Just-go on. I'll be okay."

Ellie gave her a sympathetic frown, but she clearly wanted to get back to her story. "After that the guards were told to shoot any boy acting violent. They were human beings, those guards, and they rarely did as they were told. At least, at first. In 1996, things changed."

Ellie drew her feet up underneath her as if they were cold. She took a moment to catch her breath and drink some more whiskey. "I made a mistake. A bad one. It has occurred to me, more than once, that what happened was my fault.

"I know I'm being overly hard on myself. But it happened because of what I did. Or rather, what I didn't do.

"A group of the boys came to me. Just four of them, a little cabal. They were the smartest of the lot, my best pupils. And they knew what was happening. They understood that normal children-human children-weren't like this. They said that if they could just get out of the camp, see the world beyond and live like normal children, then they would settle down. That they would overcome their impulses. The leader was a boy named Ian. The smartest of them all, and one of the strongest. You could see in his eyes he was a natural leader. Well, when his eyes weren't covered by those horrible membranes, you could see it. He had organized this little committee. He came to me because he knew I was the most sympathetic adult in that camp, and the one who was the least tied to the military. He asked me for my help. They had a plan, but they needed certain things to make it happen. They needed to know where the guards would be at a certain hour. And then he told me he needed my sidearm.

"I told him it was impossible, and I refused to help. He saw at once I wouldn't budge and that he'd made a mistake asking for my gun. So instead, then, he pleaded-begged, on bended knee-that I not tell anyone what he'd asked. He promised that he would forget all about the plan, that he would devote himself to stopping the violence.

"So I kept my peace. Two nights later they rushed the fence. They had no weapons and no idea what they were doing; they simply thought they could climb over an electrified fence and run away. The guards killed one of them and restrained Ian. Two more of them did get over the fence, believe it or not. They fought the guards who came for them. One of them was tranquilized and taken away and I never saw him again. One of them actually got loose, and it was months before he was returned to us."

"That was Malcolm," Chapel said, remembering Funt's story.

"Yes. Malcolm. They caught him again, eventually. The camp he came back to was not the one he left," Ellie said.

She shuddered but went on. "There had been a gate in the fence, originally. A wide gate you could drive a jeep through. The guards sealed that up. They added a new, outer fence. And in between them they laid mines. Land mines. There would not be a second escape attempt."

"Wait," Chapel said. "They sealed the fence? There was no gate after that?"

"I believe I spoke clearly, Captain. After 1996, the fence was complete. After that date no human being ever set foot in Camp Putnam. The guards had decided, you see, that it wasn't safe. Not even for armed men. Anyone attempting to go in or out was to be shot on sight. And believe me, this time the guards obeyed their orders to the letter."

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: APRIL 13, T+41:06

Chapel's phone started to ring. It surprised him enough he jumped in his seat. He took it out of his pocket and saw that it was still set to vibrate, but apparently Angel could get past that. "Forgive me," he said. He yanked the battery out of the phone, and it went silent again.

"Someone doesn't want you to hear this," Ellie said, looking frightened.

Chapel didn't blame her. "That's all the more reason why I need to hear it," he told her. "A lot of people have spent a lot of time and effort keeping this secret so long. But secrets have a way of festering. This one's old enough and dangerous enough that people are dying for it. I have to stop that."

"I suppose someone must," Ellie said. "There's not much more to tell, though, I'm afraid. My involvement with Camp Putnam didn't last much longer."

"You said you started there in 1990, and that you worked there for eight years," Chapel told her.

"Yes. Those last two years were . . . terrifying. My safety was guaranteed, but the boys were trapped in there. They were abandoned. Left to their own self-destructive impulses. When I took the job, I had thought I was working at some kind of high-tech summer camp. By the time I left, I felt like I was a schoolteacher at Auschwitz."

"I'm sorry you had to go through this," Chapel told her.

"I stayed, Captain. I stayed even after they sealed the fence. I'm not asking for your pity." Ellie finished her drink. "Perhaps I thought I could still help in some way. It can be hard to remember why we did things, later on. I've often suspected that human brains are more susceptible to inertia than we like to think. I had been the boys' teacher. I kept teaching. The soldiers built a platform, a kind of stage that rose above the level of the fence. The scientists and I would go up there whenever we wished to observe or address the boys. We were separated from the boys by twenty yards of no-man's-land, so we had to use megaphones to talk to them. The scientists kept asking them questions. The guards would throw food and clothing down to them. I tried to teach them. I tried to stick to my lesson plans. Each day fewer and fewer of them came to listen. I told myself they had decided what I had to impart wasn't worth hearing. I think I knew the truth, though. There were fewer of them all the time because there was nobody stopping them from acting out. No way to dissuade them from killing each other. When I began, there had been two hundred boys in that camp. When I left-when it became clear that I wasn't helping them-there were perhaps thirty of them remaining."

Chapel's heart skipped a beat. Thirty, in 1998. According to Hollingshead, only seven had still been alive when the fence was blown open and they escaped. Seven-out of two hundred.

"The last of them I ever saw was Ian," Ellie said. "He kept coming. My star pupil, he was always there when I went on that stage. He would shout questions up to me, and I would answer them the best I could. When he asked when I was coming back inside, when the gate would be reinstalled-" She stopped for a moment. "When he asked when he would be free, I had no answer for him. I could only pretend I hadn't heard him. Captain, you told me earlier about Malcolm. Malcolm survived all this time. He got to be free again. That makes me strangely happy. I'm not surprised Brody made it as well. He was the most thoughtful of them. The one who tried to think things through, to understand why things were the way they were. Quinn almost certainly made it. He was the strongest of them by far. But I am certain-absolutely certain-that if even one of them is still alive out there, it's Ian. You say you haven't met him yet. When you do, I think you'll understand."

She fell silent then. She wasn't looking at Chapel or Julia, just at her own memories. When Apomotov came in to announce someone was persistently trying to call them on the telephone, Ellie glanced up.

"Well, who is it?" she asked.

"A young lady who won't give her name. I told her we couldn't accept any calls now. Under the circumstances."

"Quite right," Ellie said. "Captain Chapel. I've told you all I know. I find it has distressed me more than I expected, saying it all out loud after all this time. I think I'd like to go to bed now. Was there anything else you required?"

"Just one more thing, ma'am. I hate to impose."

Ellie lifted one hand in resignation. "I can hardly refuse now."

Chapel leaned forward on the divan. "I need directions on how to get to Camp Putnam," he told her.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: APRIL 13, T+41:27

Apomotov fetched them their coats and Chapel thanked him profusely. Julia just stared at the door like she couldn't wait to leave. Before going back out into the cold, though, Chapel decided he needed to do one thing.

He put the battery back in his phone. It started ringing instantly. He put the hands-free unit in his ear and said, "Hello, Angel. What's new?"

Any trace of the sultry vixen he remembered was gone from the operator's voice. "Captain Chapel. I have new orders from Director Hollingshead. Will you listen to them and acknowledge receipt?"

"Sure," Chapel said, with a sigh.

"The director orders you-and I am told to phrase this as a direct order-to proceed immediately to Denver, Colorado, where you will take charge of the security detail around Judge Franklin Hayes. Do you acknowledge?"

"You can tell the admiral I received him loud and clear," Chapel told her.

"Chapel," Angel said, her voice warming up by maybe a tenth of a degree, "you're headed down a dark path."

"I know it, Angel."

She clucked her tongue. "You're not supposed to know any of this. I'm not supposed to know anything about Camp Putnam. That's a top secret DoD installation, and just the fact of its existence is need-to-know information."

"I know."

"I can't help you if you disobey these orders, Chapel. I can't help you with the consequences of your actions. You'll be on your own. I want to go on record as saying-no-begging you to reconsider your next move. You have your orders."

"Understood," he said. He put the phone and the hands-free unit in his pocket. He left the battery in the phone for the moment, just in case. Just in case of what, he couldn't say. He glanced at Julia, but she was still staring at the door.

Ellie had come up to the foyer to see them off. "Stay warm," she said.

"Thank you for everything," he told her. "You've been more help than I expected." He thought of something. "You don't know Franklin Hayes, do you?"

"The federal judge? The one who's supposed to become our next Supreme Court justice? Just from what I've seen on the news."

"What about the names Christina Smollett, Marcia Kennedy, or Olivia Nguyen?"

Ellie just shook her head.

Chapel nodded. It had been a long shot. "Okay. Thanks again-and stay safe, please. I hate the fact I'm leaving you here alone when you're in danger."

Ellie's face fell. "Captain, I could have done more for them."

Chapel shook his head in incomprehension.

"I could have fought harder. I could have helped Ian and his cabal. I could have . . ." She let the thought trail away. "I could have made their lives a little easier, in some way. Been kinder to them." She was starting to cry.

Was she looking for forgiveness? Chapel would have given it if he could, but he sensed that nothing he said would matter. He tried anyway. "They came to you for a reason. You were probably the only human who ever really cared for them," he said.

She shook her head in negation. He'd been right-he couldn't offer her any forgiveness, not now, if she couldn't forgive herself.

"If they do come here and . . ." She lowered her head. "If they came here," she said, "I don't think I would blame them."

Chapel had no words for that. He disagreed, but it didn't matter, not to Ellie. He pushed open the door and stepped out into the night, Julia following close behind.

"I need to borrow your phone," he told her.

Julia looked up at him. Her eyes were blank. "My whole life," she said, her voice a flat monotone. "My whole life that was going on and they never told me. My parents were doing that. They were doing all of that."

It had finally happened-the endorphins and adrenaline were gone, and she'd fallen into the abyss of her own thoughts. Just as she'd said she expected, it had become too much for her to bear. Without another word she handed over the phone.

Chapel dialed from the piece of paper in his pocket. "Chief Petty Officer Andrews," he said, "I'm coming to you right now, and I have a flight plan to file. The destination is anywhere in the Catskills Mountains, in New York State."

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA: APRIL 13, T+41:46

On the phone, Franklin Hayes was livid. Tom Banks toyed with the idea of just hanging up on him.

But no. The judge was too important to Banks's plans for the future. Especially the next few days.

"He's headed where?" Hayes demanded.

"The Catskills. You know what he expects to find there. Don't make me say it, even on an encrypted line."

Hayes was silent for a second. "You think he'll learn anything?"

"It's hard to know. My jurisdiction stops at the fence. What may still be inside there, if anything, is Hollingshead's business. It doesn't matter."

Hayes wasn't about to be diverted from his previous ire. "Whatever. I need him here, in Denver. I need him here now."

Banks agreed. Chapel needed to be in Denver as soon as humanly possible. This jaunt to Camp Putnam was going to slow down a lot of plans. Not for the first time, Banks wondered how much Chapel had figured out. Whether he was starting to guess what the real game was here, and what the stakes were.

It seemed unlikely. Chapel had proved he was tougher than nails, but he'd also made a lot of dumb mistakes-like dragging the cute veterinarian around with him. A smart operative would have left her behind.

He couldn't just assume Chapel was an idiot, though. And he definitely couldn't just ring him up and tell him what to do. The one-armed asshole had to be led around like a bull with a ring in his nose. If you pulled too hard on the ring, he would just plant his feet and refuse to move. You had to be subtle about it. Make him think he was still in charge of his own destiny.

"I've got to go," Banks told Hayes. "I think I can solve our mutual problem, but it means making a very delicate phone call."

"To whom?" Hayes demanded.

The judge had no need to know, but for once Banks relented. "Rupert Hollingshead. I've got to light a fire under his ass." Chapel trusted his boss. Time to exploit that particular mistake.

IN TRANSIT: APRIL 14, T+43:07

They landed in the Catskills with no fuss. The airport there was little more than a short runway between two forested hills, a place for hobbyist pilots to park their Cessnas. It was just big enough to accommodate the jet.

"There are some pretty rich people up here, in the middle of nowhere," Chief Petty Officer Andrews told Chapel. "This isn't the first G4 to land on this strip. What do you want me to do now?"

"Hmm?"

"Me, the pilot, this plane. Do you want us to wait here for you?"

Chapel thought about that for a second. "What are your orders from up top?"

Andrews studied his face for a moment before answering. Perhaps she was trying to decide what his security clearance was. "I've received no new orders since I picked you up in Atlanta. Though-there was one thing. I was told to watch you closely and provide an update on your psychological state." She was being careful, he saw, choosing her words precisely. She hadn't told him who was supposed to get that update.

"Okay. Don't get in trouble on my account," he told her, knowing perfectly well she wouldn't. If orders came in to leave him stranded in the Catskills, she would take her plane up and away on a moment's notice. "If you don't get any other orders, stay put. Refuel if they have the right facilities here. We might need to leave in a hurry."

"Sir, yes, sir," she said, and saluted him. Her way of saying she would follow her orders-wherever they came from. Reminding him, perhaps, of the chain of command.

He returned the salute anyway, then went to wake Julia. She'd just managed to fall asleep and she was surly getting up, pushing his hands away and pulling her hair down over her eyes as if she wanted to block out the light. She didn't say anything, though, as he led her down the stairs to the ground.

It was cold out, though not as frigid as Chicago. What Chapel hadn't been expecting, though, was how dark it was. There were a few lights on the airstrip's sole building, a hangar about five hundred yards away. The jet behind them showed its own lights that blinked on its wingtips. Otherwise the world was wrapped in a thick blanket of dark cloud that only a few stars could penetrate. The moon was down, and Chapel couldn't see more than a dozen yards in any direction.

No one was waiting for them on the tarmac. Not a soul.

That was a good thing, of course. It meant Chapel wasn't about to be arrested-or worse. It meant Hollingshead wasn't ready to reel him in, not quite yet. Maybe the admiral wanted to give him a chance to come in on his own. Or maybe he wanted to see just how far Chapel would push.

The darkness was also a bad thing, though, because they had a ways to go yet in the middle of the night. "Angel," he said, "what are the chances of getting some transport out here?"

"Sorry, Captain," the operator said in his ear. She sounded like she had better things to do. "You can turn around and get back on that plane. Follow your orders. Otherwise, you're on your own."

"Understood," Chapel said.

Crap. He'd gotten used to Angel's help. He'd gotten used to having cars waiting for him everywhere he went, and helicopters when the cars weren't fast enough.

Well, he still had his training. Army Rangers didn't have angels sitting on their shoulders when they were dropped behind enemy lines. They were taught to improvise as necessary.