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Julia ave hiht ti The first tiet a chance, you have to letht he knew exactly what she ht made him feel very hot and bothered "You don&039;t mean-"
Her eyes opened wide, and she put a hand over her mouth "Jeez! No I hed and reached over and patted his wrist, defusing the sudden tension "Wow, Chapel You&039;re blushing"
He turned away, because he could feel the heat in his cheeks
"Oh, don&039;t be embarrassed It&039;s cute," Julia said
Nobody had called Chapel cute since he was seven years old It felt very strange to hear it now
"There&039;s souy, I see that in the way you move, the lines in your face But there&039;s an innocence underneath it Interesting It&039;s like I can see that you really believe in what you do In who you are You&039;re not cynical about your job at all"
"I took an oath to protect my country," he said "I take it pretty seriously"
Julia shook her head "I&039;vesecrets made them better than everybody else"
"The opposite is usually true," Chapel said, furrowing his brow He was distinctly unco
Luckily Julia didn&039;t push it any further Though she did say, almost under her breath, "I wish I could see you in your unifor no one had ever said about him He pretended he hadn&039;t heard her and went back to his sandwich
After they finished their meal, Julia curled up in her leather seat, covered in a thick wool blanket that looked very warht Chief Petty Officer Andrews came out and touched a button on the arm of Julia&039;s chair It reclined sently Julia didn&039;t even wake up The chief petty officer expertly slipped a pillow under Julia&039;s head She smiled at Chapel, then disappeared as silently as she&039;d come
Chapel watched Julia&039;s body rise and fall with her breathing for a while He thought about how she&039;d held hiood it had felt to have her body pressed up against his He&039;d felt like a hero, then
He watched her brorinkle and knew she
She was beautiful Beyond that, there was so and s tiht her with him to keep her safe That was all She had kissed hi to start anything Whatever he was feeling now she probably didn&039;t return it How could she? He was a h to put anybody off Maybe she&039;d just kissed him out of pity She&039;d called him cute and adorable, but those ords women used to describe babies and kittens, not et to know better in a romantic way Weren&039;t they?
Da like that He needed to stop thinking about Julia as anything but an asset that needed to be protected
He turned his seat to face theand watched lights blinking on the tarrabbed his phone and his hands-free set out of his pocket He put the hands-free set in his ear and forced hiel," he said, "I don&039;t know if you&039;re listening I wanted to say I&039;el told hi this case get to enda That rong ofbut helpto see that I could never do this without you"
"That&039;s a start," she said
"This case-this operation-is like nothing I&039;ve ever had to do before," Chapel told her "I&039;et worried There are three more chimeras out there There&039;s no way I can catch therihing Boy to worry about He&039;s killing people, Angel He&039;s killing anyone who comes in contact with a chi to kill Julia"
"I know"
"I couldn&039;t let that happen," he said
"I know Director Hollingshead wasn&039;t very happy when he heard you&039;d brought a civilian along for the ride, of course But I explained everything to him and made him see it was necessary to prevent another death"
"You did that for me? Even after what I said?"
"I care, Chapel I care about people, just like you do"
Chapel nodded to hilad to hear it "So he&039;sokay with this?" He glanced over his shoulder and saw Julia&039;s sleeping face half covered by her blanket She was beautiful like that, in repose When she wasn&039;t angry or grief-stricken He wondered what it would have been like to meet her before all this In just ordinary circuain, how could that have ever happened? A veterinarian in New York and a defense intelligence analyst in Virginia would have very little to talk about Al in coel was silent for a ht not come back on the line "She could be infected, Chapel"
"I know," Chapel sighed He&039;d known it fro Boy inside her clinic She had, in fact, been exposed to the chimera, and if it so much as scratched her while they were in the back of the hijacked cab together, she could have the virus already "If Hollingshead orders it, I&039;ll bring her in Turn her over to his doctors so they can screen her for the virus Treat her if necessary But I can&039;t just send her off to face Laughing Boy on her own"
"He won&039;t order that Even if she does have the virus, she&039;s probably better off with you where you can watch her and oing to make your job harder if you have to babysit her at the same time"
"I&039;m not so sure about that She&039;s proved herself to be pretty resourceful, and she ht have inforured out how to ask, yet"
"Fair enough Hollingshead says it&039;s okay, she can travel with you Justtoo sensitive, and it should be all right"
"That&039;s good," Chapel said "About Laughing Boy-what can we do about hi people, then he ht? Please tell me that Banks didn&039;t order him to kill Julia Please tell me we can have him arrested and reel said
Chapel tapped at the arers "The CIA doesn&039;t just kill As happen that I don&039;t get to hear about But-"
"Chapel, he was authorized to do this And the authorization carabbed the arot a license to kill? That&039;s so from the movies Only the president can authorize the execution of Ael told hiht "Is the threat of this virus really that high? That they would just kill people on suspicion they ht have it?"
"I don&039;t have a lot of inforel told him "This is way beyond top secret stuff What we do know, and this from confidential sources, is that the disease caused by the virus is incurable and almost impossible to detect until it&039;s way too late to do anything"
"Jesus" Chapel glanced at Julia again She could be a ticking ti the virus while she slept And there was no way to know for sure "That doesn&039;t excuse his behavior We need to find a way to stop Laughing Boy now Before he can kill anyone else"
"Chapel," Angel said, "I want to tell you soht"
"What?" It had been a while since soenda," she told hishead&039;s, and it may not match up with yours We&039;re not like Director Banks and his operative We don&039;t want to just kill people to keep this thing under control But we do intend to control it, regardless of what that takes Director Hollingshead can&039;t stop Laughing Boy He doesn&039;t intend to try He rees with Banks, at least in principle, about what needs to be done If Julia does have the virus, on&039;t kill her But ill lock her up for the rest of her life in a facility like the one the chimeras escaped from Because we have no other choice"
PART TWO
IN TRANSIT: APRIL 12, T+15:48
When Chapel was convinced Julia wasn&039;t going to wake up at any lected all day Reed his artificial ar a retractable cord built into the shoulder While he waited for it to recharge he called Angel again and asked her about the next two nao, first," he said
"Eleanor Pechowski," Angel replied, and he heard her clacking at her keyboard "Eleanor, who are you? Let&039;s see She&039;s a retired schoolteacher"
"That doesn&039;t sound like soenetic freak would want to kill," Chapel pointed out "Maybe a disgruntled forel went on "In UNESCO Let&039;s seeshe lived in New York City at the tilish, ates Maybe she fell in with the black helicopter crowd"
Chapel rolled his eyes "Please tell el laughed "No, I was just kidding But just to work at the UN schools, Eleanor Pechowski had to have a security clearance So the intelligence community would have been aware of her"
"It&039;s a pretty tenuous connection Just because soround check on her doesn&039;tfor the CIA And the last tilish teachers Okay, what about Jeremy Funt, the one in Atlanta? What&039;s his story?"
"That one&039;s easy He was a govern hidden at all"
"Tellforward and nearly pulling the plug on his arel said "He worked for the FBI"
"Huh," Chapel said That didn&039;t make much sense The CIA and the FBI had little to do with each other, other than both being governencies They weren&039;t even overseen by the same cabinet department "Is it possible that&039;s a cover?"
"Not unless it&039;s an extreood one His service record is an open book, here-and it shows hi a steady load of cases fro persons, kidnappings, wire fraud The one question e of forty-five, long before mandatory retirement With a file like that, norrace, that he messed up somehow and was forced to retire, but there&039;s no indication here he was anything less than a solid asset to the bureau"
"So Funt just dropped off the bureau payroll with no explanation, huh? That&039;s interesting And at least he sounds like a et" He had no idea why the chimeras would want to kill Funt, but if he had to prioritize targets, an FBI agent sounded higher in value than a retired schoolteacher It sounded like Atlanta el, what else can you tell uy? What does he do for money? Does he have any faht now It looks like-hold on Chapel, givewith one of er in el?" Chapel asked
"So indignant "Just who the hell do they think they are? Hacking ht to-"
Static filled Chapel&039;s ear and then the signal went dead
"Angel?" he called "Angel, coel?"
A new voice spoke to him
"Captain Chapel, I presume," the voice said "You and I need to have a little talk"
IN TRANSIT: APRIL 12, T+16:02
"Listen, I don&039;t knoho the hell you are, but this is an encrypted line," Chapel said, pulling his phone out of his pocket The screen showed he was still connected to the nu had changed "Intruding on this channel is a violation of any number of laws, and-"
"Law?" The voice in his ear chuckled It was a ravelly as if its oas a habitual cigarette smoker There was iron in that voice, but also a little silver-it was the voice of so, like a salesman or a voice-over actor "I know all about the law," the voice said "I apologize for cutting in, but they weren&039;t going to let me speak to you, otherwise"