Human targets, though, couldn’t move as fast as the thing in front of him. It got one foot up on the armrest of a train seat, then the other was on the headrest. Charles tried to track the thing but he couldn’t — it moved too fast as it crammed itself into the overhead luggage rack and wriggled toward him like a worm.
Suddenly it was above him, at head height, and its hands were reaching down for him. Charles tried to bring his weapon up, putting every ounce of speed he had into reacquiring his target.
The thing was faster. Its hands tore away Charles’s mask, and then its thumbs went for his eyes.
IN TRANSIT: APRIL 12, T+4:41
Laughing Boy had a car waiting right outside the fitness center, a black Crown Victoria with Virginia plates. Chapel got in without a word, and the two of them headed straight for the Pentagon.
Chapel didn’t ask for the man’s name. CIA told you what you needed to know and they didn’t like it if you asked them questions. He resolved to keep calling the guy Laughing Boy, if only in his head.
They had a long drive together during which neither of them said more than ten words. Mostly they were about whether there would be much traffic on I-95. Fort Belvoir was just south of Mount Vernon, only a few miles from the Pentagon — it wasn’t a long ride — but you always hit a snarl of traffic when you approached the Beltway that surrounded the District of Columbia. Half the country seemed to be trying to get into D.C. to do some business or just see the sights. The Pentagon was still in Virginia, technically, but that didn’t make things any easier. As the car slowed down to a crawl outside of Arlington, Chapel got impatient and started drumming on his side of the dashboard with his artificial fingers.
Laughing Boy seemed to find that very funny.
There wasn’t a lot, it seemed, that didn’t amuse Laughing Boy. He never stopped laughing the whole time they were in the car together, though as he focused on his driving it dropped to a kind of dry giggling that grated on Chapel’s nerves. When they got to the Pentagon’s parking entrance, he pulled the car into a reserved spot but before he got out he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a bottle of pills.
“Gotta show due respect, right?” Laughing Boy asked, with a hearty guffaw. He popped three pills in his mouth and dry swallowed them. The effect was almost immediate. He grimaced and rubbed at his chest and sweat broke out on his head, slicking his crew cut. Eventually he recovered and looked over at Chapel with a grim smile. “Can’t take those when I’m driving.”
Chapel got a quick look at the pill bottle before Laughing Boy put it away. The pills were something called clozapine — Chapel had no idea what they were for, but he did notice that Laughing Boy stopped laughing after taking them.
Thank heaven for small favors, he thought.
The two of them headed inside through the security checkpoint, where Chapel had the usual hassles that came with having part of your body replaced by metal. The soldiers who did his pat-down and search were at least respectful — he doubted he was the only amputee they’d seen that day. Chapel and the CIA man were given laminates, and a helpful guard gave them directions on how to get to the office Laughing Boy named.
Chapel was not surprised when, five minutes later, Laughing Boy ignored the directions altogether and took him deep into C Ring and to an office on the wrong side of the building. They passed quickly through, ignored by all the clerks in their cubicles, and back to an elevator in an otherwise empty hallway. When the elevator doors opened, Chapel saw two soldiers inside carrying M4 carbines. The soldiers demanded to see their laminates and then let them in. One of the soldiers punched a button marked H and they started to descend.
Chapel was a little surprised by that. The Pentagon was built in five concentric rings of office space, rings A through E. There were two sublevels underground called F and G that he knew of. He’d never heard of an H level at all.
When the elevator doors opened again, he looked out into a long hallway with unadorned concrete walls. The floor and ceiling were painted a glossy battleship gray. Unmarked green doors stood every dozen yards or so down the corridor, which seemed to stretch on forever. There were no office numbers, nor any signs distinguishing one door from another. “How do you even know which office you want?” Chapel asked Laughing Boy as they headed down the echoing hall.
“If you’re down here and you don’t know which one is which, you’re already in trouble,” Laughing Boy told him.
“This isn’t where DIA DX has its offices,” Chapel pointed out. “I’ve seen those before. This isn’t—”
He stopped because Laughing Boy was staring at him. Waiting for him to ask a question. Chapel was certain there would be no answers.
“Never mind,” Chapel said.
“Good dog.”
The CIA man took the lead, setting off at a good clip, and Chapel followed. He did a double take when, for the first time, he saw the back of Laughing Boy’s head. There was a bad scar there — more of a dent — where the flesh had turned white and no hair grew.
“Come on,” Laughing Boy said. “We’re already late.” He stood next to a door exactly like all the others, his hand on the knob.
Chapel hurried to catch up with him. Laughing Boy turned the knob and revealed the room beyond — which was nothing like what Chapel had expected.
THE PENTAGON: APRIL 12, T+4:59
Classical music filled the air, soft and almost lost under the sound of falling water coming from a splashing fountain in the center of the space. The room beyond the unmarked door was lined with wooden shelves full of leather-bound books, and the floor was covered by a rich blue carpet. There were, of course, no windows — they had to be a couple hundred feet underground — but the fountain kept the room from feeling claustrophobic.
Armchairs upholstered in red leather were gathered around the room in small conversation areas, while to one side stood a fully stocked wet bar with comfortable-looking stools. On the other side of the room stood a massive globe in a brass stand and a giant map cabinet with dozens of drawers.
It didn’t look like an underground bunker. It didn’t look like an office, either. It looked like a private club, the kind of place where old diplomats would sit and discuss foreign affairs over snifters of brandy.
“Fallout shelter,” someone said from behind Chapel’s shoulder.
He turned and saw a man of about sixty dressed in a three-piece suit and a bow tie. The suit was tweed — elegant but not exactly stylish — and the man in it looked like a throwback to the nineteenth century, with long sideburns and a pair of tiny wire-rimmed glasses. He smiled warmly as Chapel stared at him.
“You’re wondering where you are, of course,” the man said. He held out a hand and Chapel shook it. “This whole level was supposed to be a private fallout shelter for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I doubt it will surprise you to know they demanded it have a pleasant little tavern. The other rooms on this level aren’t like this, sadly. Mostly they’re full of metal cots and preserved food from the 1960s. This room is my favorite.”
“It’s… nice,” Chapel offered. Maybe a little stuffy for his taste, but it definitely beat his cubicle back at Fort Belvoir.
“Rupert Hollingshead,” the man said, and let go of Chapel’s hand. “I’m the one who sent you all those pesky text messages. I am also, despite appearances, a member of the DIA directorate, though not of DX, I’m afraid.”
“Captain James Chapel, sir, reporting,” Chapel said, and gave Hollingshead a salute. If Hollingshead was DIA, then he had to be military, either a full bird colonel or a brigadier general. The fact that he was out of uniform didn’t matter one whit.