“I just need to know about Franklin Hayes. Is he still alive, at least?”
“Yes. And just as ornery as ever. He’s been calling me constantly, or at least his office has, demanding updates on when you’re going to arrive. Right now I have you down for landing in Denver about half past eleven, local time.”
“What about the chimera?” Quinn, he thought, it’s Quinn who will be there.
“He might already be in Denver. By the time you land, he’ll have more than a five-hour head start on you.”
That wasn’t good. But it was encouraging to know that Quinn hadn’t already struck. “What do you know about security on-site?”
“It’s pretty solid. Judge Hayes is surrounded by Colorado Highway Patrol officers. That’s the closest thing they have to a state police force. He has some private bodyguards as well. I’ve seen their dossiers. They’ve all got security clearances, though nothing near what they would need to be told what’s coming for the judge. They’re all former Blackwater or Halliburton guys. Most of them were civilian contractors in Iraq.”
Private security. Civilian contractors. Mercenaries, to give them their proper name. Chapel had met plenty of those in Afghanistan and had never had a high opinion of them — they weren’t military but liked pretending they were. Well, at least they’d be likely to know how to shoot straight.
Not, apparently, that it would matter. Hollingshead had been clear on that — the judge’s security team wouldn’t be enough. “Are they ready for me to take over when I arrive?”
“Not quite. A man named Reinhard is the head of security there, one of the private bodyguards. He sent me an itinerary. Once you reach Denver and meet with the judge, they’re going to move him to a safehouse somewhere outside of the city. He’ll turn over all authority to you once Hayes is installed there.”
“Huh,” Chapel said. “That’s a weird move. He’ll be vulnerable during the transfer. The chimera could attack his car.”
“I worried about that, too. Especially since we know somebody is telling the chimeras where their targets are. I haven’t forgotten what happened at Stone Mountain. That probably explains why they won’t tell me the location of this safehouse.”
Chapel’s eyes went wide. “So I can’t know in advance where I’ll be protecting the judge.” He shook his head. “This has catastrophe written all over it.”
And he was going to be the man who took the blame if it went wrong.
IN TRANSIT: APRIL 14, T+52:10
Chapel sighed and sank back into his chair. “I need to know about Franklin Hayes. He’s a federal judge, I know that much. He’s supposed to become the next Supreme Court justice as well. Beyond that, what’s his story?”
“He worked for the CIA, you already know that,” Angel replied. “He became a judge in 1994 in Denver — he was appointed by the mayor of Denver to oversee a county court. In that position he would mostly have heard cases relating to traffic citations and misdemeanors. It’s not a very glamorous position, but it was a stepping-stone for him, a way into the judiciary. He worked his way up to the Colorado Supreme Court by 2003, and then switched over to his current position as a federal judge. As for becoming a Supreme Court justice, I’m not sure he’ll make it.”
“No?” Chapel asked. “Every time they talk about him on CNN or Fox News it sounds like he’s a shoo-in.”
“The president’s appointment went through just fine, and the judge’s record is squeaky clean. But he still has to get past the Senate, and given the political situation right now, he’s facing a pretty tough confirmation hearing.”
“He’s some kind of activist judge?” Chapel asked. “Or is it the other side that doesn’t like him — is he rabidly antiabortion or something?”
Angel worked her keyboard for a while. “Nothing like that, nothing that simple. He’s a pretty solid moderate when it comes to politics — which is a tough thing to be in these partisan times. It takes a really slick judge to avoid ruffling everybody’s feathers, but Hayes has managed to avoid the usual pitfalls. Except once. His Achilles’ heel is a single motion he ruled on in 2002. It was a domestic terrorism case. The guy in question set fire to a federal building, and three people inside burned to death. The federal government wanted him remanded to the custody of the Justice Department — they wanted to interrogate him and find out who he had worked with. Hayes threw out the request on a minor technicality. The terrorist stayed in a state prison, served out his term, and was released seven years later.”
“He did that in 2002?” Chapel frowned. “Back then everyone in the country was still pretty gung ho about anything that even resembled terrorism. It must have been an unpopular decision.”
“Worse still, Hayes refused to explain why he did it.”
Chapel sat up straight. There was something in her tone that had got his attention. “You think you know, though, don’t you?”
“It could just be a coincidence. There’s nothing like real evidence here. But during the hearing, the terrorist claimed he should be set free because he’d been given his orders by the CIA. Obviously, at the time people thought he was crazy.”
“That is an interesting coincidence,” Chapel agreed.
“It was just a minor scandal at the time, but now it’s coming back to bite him. There are senators on both sides of the aisle who are muttering that Hayes is soft on terrorism.”
“So you think the Senate will refuse to confirm him to the Supreme Court?” Chapel asked.
Angel clucked her tongue. “I’m not an expert, Chapel. That’s just my opinion. But a lot of pundits are starting to suggest it. He looked great when he was first nominated, but now the buzz is against him. And the current problem, the chimera problem, isn’t helping him any.”
“What on earth does that have to do with his confirmation?”
“Supreme Court nominees don’t just sit back and wait to hear if they’ve been accepted or not. They lobby hard to get the votes they need like any other kind of politician. Hayes has a PAC working for him in Washington. He’s supposed to be there right now meeting with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, but instead he’s locked up in his offices in his courthouse.”
“No wonder he got so angry with me,” Chapel said.
“He’s not a good guy to mess with,” Angel told him. “He’s connected, at every level. I mean, the president likes him. They know each other personally. And clearly he’s still connected to the CIA through Director Banks. Even just as a federal judge he has a lot of power to ruin your life if he wants to. Chapel, when you meet this guy, if I were you I would lick his boots. No, wait, he might not like that. You should ask him if you’re allowed to lick his boots.”
“Maybe I’ll just try saving his life,” Chapel suggested. “See how he likes that.”
IN TRANSIT: APRIL 14, T+54:13
Chapel did finally manage to get some sleep, after that. He put his head back on the seat and pulled a blanket over himself and he was out like a light.
But he must have dreamed.
He would never remember the dream. But he would remember waking up with one fact firmly in his mind, one thing that had nearly escaped his conscious mind, but which his subconscious mind had carefully filed away.
“Ellie,” he said, as his eyes opened.
Admiral Hollingshead had chastised Chapel for going to talk to Eleanor Pechowski. Except he hadn’t called her that. He’d called her Ellie Pechowski.
She’d told Chapel to call her Ellie when he met her. Probably she said that to everyone who met her. Which meant Rupert Hollingshead knew Ellie, had at least made her acquaintance.