The Cyclops Initiative (13 page)

“Do you have . . . trouble with being out in the open like this?” Julia said.

“Are you asking if I'm an agoraphobic?” Angel replied. She laughed. “Not exactly. But I was a weird kid. I didn't like to play with dolls, and I didn't care about clothes at all. But I wasn't good at sports, so I couldn't even be a proper tomboy. I didn't have any friends, so I spent all my time in my room. That's why I got into computers.”

“I'm sorry. That sounds tough.”

“I guess, but—­” Angel shrugged. “Being online—­it was so much better than high school. There ­people only cared about how you were dressed, what you looked like. And if you weren't friends with the right ­people, then you were a loser and you were just screwed for life. But online . . . you could go anywhere, and what mattered was how smart you were. If you were funny or clever, or you figured out how to do something nobody else could do, then you were awesome. You were cool. I could never have had that in the real world. I was never alone after I got my computer. Any time, day or night, somebody was out there, wanting to talk or share files or whatever.”

And now she fulfilled that role for others, Julia thought. Playing the constant companion to field agents who relied on her brains to keep them alive. Julia knew what it meant to feel useful, to feel like you could help ­people. The animals she treated needed her—­sometimes she was the difference between them living and dying. Angel must feel that way all the time.

Still.

“You must have missed out on so much, though. Parties and going to college and dating—­”

“Please! Online gaming parties, online universities, and, frankly, I'm a girl who likes video games and knows how to use the Internet. When it comes to dating, I can take my pick.”

Julia didn't know what to say to that. It made her think of a thought experiment she'd read about when she was taking a psychology class in college. If you spent your whole life locked in a room where everything was painted white, you couldn't miss the color blue. It wouldn't even mean anything to you if somebody tried to explain it to you.

She couldn't help but feel sorry for Angel, though. She could date all the Internet geeks she wanted online, but if she couldn't actually meet up with them in person, well . . .

Maybe there were some things she didn't want to know about Angel. There was one thing, though, that had always bothered her. “Listen, if I'm not allowed to know this, that's okay. But if we're going to be stuck together on this road trip all night, I have to ask.”

Angel looked at her funny. Maybe she thought Julia was about to ask her if she was a virgin or something.

But that wasn't it. “I know Chapel gave you your name. Angel, I mean.”

“Yeah. It started out as a code name, but it just stuck. Now everybody calls me that.”

“I'm guessing your real name is classified,” Julia said.

Angel sighed. “It is. But I guess that doesn't matter anymore. It's not like I work for the government now. I'll tell you, but you have to promise not to laugh. It's Edith.”

Julia bit her lip. “Okay,” she said.

“They named me after my great-­grandmother. She was a great woman—­she was a flapper in the 1920s and she learned how to fly an airplane and she worked at catching spies during World War II. I wanted to be just like her and now I kind of am and I'm very proud of it.”

“Sounds like a great role model,” Julia said.

“She was. Now I've got to ask you something.”

“Shoot,” Julia said.

“I want to ask you,” Angel said, “never, ever to call me that name.”

“You got it,” Julia replied. She glanced over and saw Angel smiling from ear to ear and that was it—­she couldn't hold it in anymore. They both broke up laughing so hard Julia had to fight to keep the car in its lane.

WALT WHITMAN SER­VICE AREA, NJ: MARCH 22, 00:06

Chapel had been a soldier before he'd been anything else. He had a soldier's skills, including the most crucial of them all. He could sleep anywhere, at any time.

When they opened the trunk, he was barely conscious. It could have been a horde of cops out there waiting to take him by force and he wouldn't have been able to resist. Instead, and luckily for him, he opened one bleary eye and saw Julia looking down at him.

“Sorry to wake you up,” she said, “but we kind of need to know where we're going next.”

He sat up and rubbed at his face. He felt sore all over and he had a few new bruises from being thrown around the trunk since they left the apartment, but in a second he would be fine, ready for action again.

In a second.

“My mouth tastes like the bottom of a trash can,” he said. “This has been a very long day.” And of course it wasn't over yet. They might have escaped the police in New York, but they were far from being safe.

“Come on,” Julia said, giving him a hand with getting out of the trunk. “I'll buy you a cup of coffee and we can talk.”

“Maybe some dinner, too,” Chapel said.

Julia laughed. “Sure.”

The three of them headed into the rest stop's diner. Even at midnight there were a fair number of ­people inside, fueling up before they got back on the road. The three of them grabbed a booth near the back. They had a good view of the windows and would see any police cars that pulled into the parking lot, and if they had to run, they were right next to the kitchen.

Chapel had trained for this kind of thing. Of course, his instructors at Ranger school had expected him to be on the lam in Afghanistan or Pakistan, one step ahead of the Taliban, but the skills carried over.

He also knew that he needed a lot of protein to keep him going. He ordered pork chops and sausage while Angel got a salad and Julia stuck to just coffee.

Once the waiter was gone, Julia leaned across the table and said, “So what's the plan? I assume you have a plan.”

“I can do something with this, maybe,” Angel said, picking up the plastic bag that held her hard drive. “If I can—­”

Chapel waved a hand to silence her. “I have a plan,” he said, looking Julia in the eye. She wasn't going to like this. “They locked down New York pretty tight, but they just don't have the manpower to do that for the entire eastern seaboard. Which means we can relax just a little. From now on, I'm doing the driving. As for you, we have to find a way for you to go home. We'll call you a cab or find some nice truck driver to take you back. I'm sorry, Julia, but you shouldn't know anything else.”

“Uh, actually,” Angel said.

Julia frowned. “As usual, your big plan is to keep me in the dark. Well, sorry, buddy. You're stuck with me for a while longer.”

Chapel turned to look from one of them to the other. “What are you two talking about?”

It was Julia who answered. “I got a phone call about an hour ago. Back when you were napping in the trunk. You remember Marty, the guy who lives in the apartment right below me? He called to tell me the cops were raiding my place, tearing up my furniture, asking a lot of questions about me. He said they wanted to bring me in for an interview as soon as possible.”

“Damn,” Chapel said. “Julia—­I'm sorry. That's the last thing I wanted to happen.”

“It's not your fault,” Angel said. “I'm the one who went to her for help. You wouldn't have involved her if I hadn't asked her to call you.”

Julia shook her head. “Worrying about whose fault it was doesn't get us anywhere. Obviously I can't go back to New York now. They'll just arrest me on sight. And we can't let that happen. I know what Angel looks like, and they would eventually get me to talk, one way or another.”

Chapel nodded. He'd forgotten how quickly she adapted to new situations. Yesterday she'd been a perfectly ordinary veterinarian living in Brooklyn. Now she was a wanted fugitive. For a civilian like Julia, that was a huge shift—­but she was taking it incredibly well.

Of course, this wasn't the first time it had happened to her. Chapel and Julia had met under similarly screwed-­up conditions, way back when.

Something occurred to Chapel. “This doesn't make any sense. They must have known that Angel and I were at your place somehow. But how? Nobody knows what Angel looks like, and I wasn't spotted on my way in or out. This doesn't make any sense.”

“Maybe they just knew that you and I used to be a ­couple,” Julia pointed out.

“But how? My name was never on the apartment lease, or the phone bill, or anything like that. No, the only ­people who knew about us were the ­people in that building, our friends, and—­well, Angel here and the director. But he wouldn't have sent the police after you. He's on our side.”

“You're sure of that?” Julia asked.

“Absolutely,” Angel told her. “He would never turn on us.”

Chapel wondered, if only for a moment. Hollingshead was a tough man. He made tough decisions sometimes. If it was the only way to protect the country, he would turn them in. But no—­he had sent Chapel to save Angel. Telling the police about Julia would only damage that operation. It hadn't been the director.

“So nobody in law enforcement or intelligence knew to look for you,” Chapel told Julia. “This doesn't make any sense.”

“Well, there was one other guy,” she said. “He was definitely in intelligence. The one who told me to dump you.”

Chapel opened his mouth to protest. But then he realized what she'd just said.

“I'm sorry,” Angel said. “Who?”

THE PENTAGON: MARCH 22, 00:12

The second Wilkes landed on the Pentagon helipad he was surrounded by soldiers. Maybe as an honor guard or maybe to take him into custody, he couldn't say. He noticed there were no marines among them.

They saluted him but refused to answer any questions. They moved him through security and into the building in a hurry, then took him down an elevator to the F Ring, the first layer of underground offices. He'd never been in that section before. Not like he would have a chance to get lost, since the soldiers kept him from moving in any direction but where they wanted him to go.

They took him to a door with no sign on it, not even a room number. He knew what that meant. Anybody who had business through that door would already know where it was. If you didn't have business there, you were in deep shit.

The door opened and a one-­star general peered out at them. He looked at Wilkes and nodded.

Wilkes threw him a salute, of course. Then he stood at attention until he was told to come inside. He knew when to show respect.

The ­people in the room beyond certainly deserved it. Patrick Norton, the SecDef, was in there. So were a lot of other high-­ranking ­people he didn't recognize. Other than Norton, he knew only Rupert Hollingshead and Charlotte Holman and Paul Moulton.

The general who had opened the door cleared his throat. “First Lieutenant Wilkes,” he said. “We have some questions for you. You will answer them succinctly. Then we will give you your orders. Once you receive your orders, you will carry them out immediately. You will not ask any questions while you are in this room. You will not address anyone in this room other than myself. Anything you overhear in this room is considered a matter of national security and may never be repeated. Is this understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Wilkes said.

The general nodded. “Earlier today you initiated a manhunt for a field agent of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Namely one Chapel, James. You provided a photograph of the field agent to local law enforcement agencies. Is this correct?”

“Yes, sir,” Wilkes said.

“This despite standing orders not to provide such agencies with any information regarding active field agents under any circumstances. Can you explain why you violated those standing orders?”

“Sir, it was essential to find Chapel as quickly as possible. I had discovered that he was in collusion with the subject I had been sent to apprehend.”

“Everyone here has been briefed on your mission, Lieutenant. You can be a little less succinct, now,” the general said.

“Thank you, sir. I was ordered to apprehend one DIA analyst code named ‘Angel' and bring her in for interrogation. It turned out my target wasn't a human being but an advanced computer system. When I arrived at the target coordinates, I found Captain Chapel already on the scene, tampering with the computer, even though he had been ordered to stay away. While he was there, person or persons unknown attacked me and agents of law enforcement. In the ensuing chaos Chapel fled the scene. I ascertained that he had removed a piece of hardware, a hard drive, from the Angel computer. It is my understanding that this computer was instrumental in the attack on the Port of New Orleans yesterday, and most likely also the attack on my person today. I believed Chapel was colluding with terrorists. I felt the only chance I had to move forward with my mission was to detain Chapel and regain access to the computer hardware. To this end I provided the photograph, but not Chapel's name or any other pertinent information.”

The general nodded. “After initiating the manhunt, you made a phone call to the office of the secretary of defense. In this call you made a certain implication. Will you repeat it for us now?”

“Yes, sir.” Wilkes looked across the room and made eye contact with Director Hollingshead. “I accused my direct superior of giving aid and comfort to an enemy of the United States.”

The room was so quiet Wilkes could hear the ventilation system ticking over. Every eye in the room was staring right at him, many of them in disbelief.

Well, he'd taken this job to protect his country, not to make friends.

“I did so under the aegis of Presidential Policy Directive 19,” he said, which was the only thing that could save his ass. In the old days, talking like that about a superior officer could get you court-­martialed.