“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.