As he did every time he put it on, he ran it through a quick check to make sure everything was working all right. He lifted the arm and then swung it backward, made a fist, and then straightened his hand out like he was about to deliver a karate chop. Finally, to check the fingers he touched each of them in turn with the thumb.
Living nerves in his shoulder and chest had been rewired to replace the ones he’d lost. Sensors in his new hand sent messages to those nerves through subcutaneous electrodes. The neurosurgery had gone so smoothly that now when Chapel touched his artificial thumb to his artificial index finger, he actually felt them rubbing against each other. He could pick up a playing card with those fingers and feel the smooth coating of its lamination, or touch sandpaper and feel how rough it was.
He thought about what Top would say. “There’s guys out there with two hooks instead of hands that learn how to make omelets in the morning without getting egg all over their shirts. You, my boy, are living in science fiction tomorrowland. Is it not a glorious thing to be living in George Jetson world?”
“Sure is, Top,” Chapel said, out loud.
Jerks could laugh at him all they wanted for being a freak. Jim Chapel was whole. Top had taught him that. He was whole and vital and he could do anything he set his mind to. Whatever the DIA wanted him for, he was ready.
He dressed himself hurriedly and then tapped a message on the BlackBerry acknowledging that he was on his way. To the Pentagon.
Coming out of the locker room he found Laughing Boy waiting for him. “All right, you delivered your message,” Chapel said. “You can go now, I’m being a good boy.”
Laughing Boy shook his head and chortled a little. “Nope. I’m supposed to drive you there myself. Make sure you show up.”
“I know how to follow orders,” Chapel insisted. Laughing Boy didn’t even shrug. “Fine. We’ll go in just a second. I need to let my reporting officer know where I’m going—”
Laughing Boy shook his head.
So it was one of those kinds of briefings, then. The kind where you just disappeared off the face of the earth and nobody knew where you went. This was getting weirder by the minute.
Chapel sighed. “Fine. Let’s go.”
POUGHKEEPSIE, NEW YORK: APRIL 12, T+4:04
Two hundred and fifty miles away, Lieutenant Barry Charles slapped the helmet of the greenest private in his squad. “We ran through this in the simulator just last month, remember? The train extraction — that’s exactly how we’re going to do this. Get all the nice civilians out of the car first, then we take down the target. Don’t let any of the nice civilians get hurt. Don’t let the target get hurt, at least not too much. We’ve got orders to bring him in alive. You children understand what I’m saying?”
The four men Charles commanded all saluted. In their body armor and protective masks they looked like a mean bunch of sons of bitches, Charles had to admit that. They were the best men the 308th counterintelligence battalion had ever trained, and they were ripped and ready.
“Then let’s take this train. By the book, soldiers!”
The men shouted a wordless response and swarmed toward the train. Command had signaled ahead and forced the train to stop ten miles north of Poughkeepsie, out in the sticks where collateral damage would be light. The train’s conductor had confirmed the presence of the target and told them which car he was in. Charles had been given only the quickest of briefings on this mission — a picture of the target and a warning that the man he wanted was potentially armed and definitely dangerous, an escapee from a DoD detention facility upstate — but he had no doubt this was going to be a cakewalk.
“Unlock the doors now,” he called — he was patched in directly with the train’s own radio system and the conductor was ready to do as he said.
Looking up at the train now he saw the anxious faces of commuters and tourists staring down at him. He gave them a cheery wave to put them at ease and then turned to signal to his men. There were two doors on the train car, one at either end. He had four men — one to take the door, one to provide cover. Simplicity itself. He dropped his hand and the men hit the doors running, the pneumatic locks hissing open for them. The metal side of the train pinged in the morning sun. Through the windows Charles watched his men take up stations inside the train, covering one another just like they’d been trained.
There were a couple of screams and some angry shouts, but nothing Charles wasn’t expecting. Civilians started pouring out of the train car in a nearly orderly fashion. About as orderly as you could expect from citizens with no military discipline or training. Charles shouted for them to head as quickly as possible to the safety of a big box hardware store a hundred yards behind him, and they did as they were told.
“Lieutenant, sir, we have him,” one of his squad called. The voice in his ear sounded pumped up and excited. “He’s just sitting there, looks like he might be asleep.”
Talk about your lucky breaks. “Well, whatever you do,” Charles said, “don’t be rude and wake him up. Are the civilians clear?”
“Sir, yes, sir,” another of the squad called.
“I’m coming up. Just keep your eyes open.”
Charles got one foot up on the door platform and grabbed a safety rail. He let his carbine swing across the front of his chest as he hauled himself up into the airlocklike compartment between train cars. The door that lead into the car proper was activated by a slap plate. He reached down to activate it.
Hell broke out before the door even had a chance to slide open.
“Sir, he’s moving—” someone shouted.
“—does not appear to be armed, repeat, I see no weapons—”
“What the hell? What the hell did he just—”
The door in front of Charles slid open and he looked into a scene of utter chaos. A man with a scraggly beard had picked up one of Charles’s men, and as Charles watched, the target threw the soldier into one of his squad mates, sending them both sprawling over the rows of seats. A third squad member came at the target with his carbine up and ready to fire.
The target reached forward, grabbed the soldier’s arm, and twisted it around like he was trying to break a green branch off a tree.
Charles heard a series of pops like muffled gunfire, but he knew what they actually were — the sounds of the soldier’s bones snapping, one by one. A second later the soldier started screaming. He dropped to the floor, down for the count.
Charles started to rush forward, to come to the defense of his men, but he nearly tripped over what he thought was luggage that had fallen into the aisle.
It wasn’t luggage. It was his fourth squad member. Looking down, Charles saw the man was still alive but broken like a porcelain doll. His mask was gone, and his face was obscured by blood.
Lieutenant Charles looked up at the man who had neutralized his entire squad and for a moment — a split second — he stopped and stared, because he couldn’t do anything else. The man’s eyes. There was something wrong with the man’s eyes. They were solid black, from side to side. Charles thought for a moment he was looking into empty eye sockets. But no — no — he could see them shining—
He didn’t waste any more time. He brought his carbine up and started firing in tight, controlled three-shot bursts. Just like he’d been trained. Charles had spent enough time on the firing range — and in real life, live fire operations — to know how to shoot, and how to hit what he aimed at.