Minotaur (3 page)

7.

C
hapel never fully lost consciousness. The idea you could knock someone out by hitting them on the back of the head was a myth. It could stun someone, leave them reeling, make them temporarily blind. It could leave them disoriented and confused. It could give them a concussion or even brain damage.

But it didn’t just put somebody to sleep. Chapel lost the ability to see straight, but he could still hear everything going on in the small dining room.

“I’m sorry—­Ygor, forgive me, I’m sorry! I panicked!”

He heard Favorov rise stiffly from his chair, heard him walking around the table. Chapel realized he must be on the floor, that he must have fallen when he was struck, because his reeling vision showed him two pairs of feet. He saw Fiona’s feet in her elegant heels, and then he saw Favorov’s penny loafers.

One of which came right at his face. Chapel was helpless, unable to move as the kick landed hard on his cheek.

“Piece of American trash,” Favorov said. “My dear, you just did the stupidest fucking thing in a lifetime of empty-­headed blunders. Do you have any idea what is going to happen now? To me? To you? To the children?”

“Ygor—­please—­please—­I—­”

Chapel heard a meaty
thwack
and he knew Favorov must have struck his wife across the face. Sounded like he’d used an open hand.

In his dazed state he felt strangely detached from what was happening to him. He was able to feel sorry for Fiona, though. She wasn’t stupid at all, from what he’d seen, and all she’d done to deserve that slap was try to defend her husband. He tried to say something in her defense but his tongue wasn’t working right and he only managed to groan.

Favorov must have bent over him, then—­his voice sounded much closer. “Looks like you didn’t kill him.”

“I just wanted to—­”

“Shut up,” Favorov said. “In a long life of pointlessness and vacuity, you did one smart thing, you know that? You married the right man. There is a way we can control this situation. Call in Stephen and Michael. We’ll take him to the billiards room—­there are no windows there. And get me my satellite cell phone. It’s time to call in some favors.”

“Of course, Ygor, I’ll go right away,” Fiona said. Chapel heard a door open and shut again.

He tried to move. Tried to get his arms under him so he could push himself up, somehow get to his feet.

It didn’t work.

He felt practiced hands search the pockets of his jacket. “Unarmed,” Favorov said, with a surprised grunt. “Interesting. I assumed you had orders to kill me if I refused you. That’s how the CIA would have handled this, back during the Cold War. Perhaps your masters have lost their nerve.” Favorov chuckled. “That may bode well for you. Ah. Here’s your phone. I imagine I don’t even need to dial, do I? They’re already listening. Do you hear me, Pentagon? Are you receiving me? I have your man. I have him hostage. If you want him back alive, call me. There will be certain conditions.”

The door opened again. Rough hands dug into Chapel’s armpits and hauled him off the floor, then started dragging him away.

He had no idea what Favorov was planning, no idea what his fate was going to be. He did know one thing—­he was expendable. If Favorov planned on using him as a bargaining chip, he was going to be disappointed at the response. Too bad Chapel wouldn’t live long enough to see the look on the Russian’s face.

8.

C
hapel’s eyes were just starting to focus again as he was dragged into another room and thrown on top of a pool table. He was recovering other senses as well. He could smell alcohol—­wine, the fumes burning in his nostrils—­and he realized that Fiona had struck him across the back of the head with the bottle she’d been holding. He hoped there weren’t any jagged shards of glass sticking out of his neck.

Two servants, presumably Stephen and Michael, were in the room with him. Their faces were still blurry but he could make out their hands, and the fact that they weren’t holding guns. Not that it made much difference. He still felt weak and incredibly dizzy, and he knew it would be some time before he fully recovered. If he had a concussion it might be days.

Something was sticking into the small of his back, something round and hard and it hurt. Without thinking about it he used his left hand to dig a pool ball out from under him. His artificial hand. Interesting. His right hand was still too weak to make a fist but his prosthetic arm was controlled by a whole different set of nerves—­it was wired to the nerves in the stump where his left arm used to be, and he controlled the arm by twitching muscles in his shoulder. The onboard computer in the arm was smart enough to interpret those twitches and translate them into moving the fingers, the wrist, the elbow of the artificial arm. It had taken him months to learn how to control the simplest movements but now, ten years later, it was as easy as controlling his healthy right arm. Even more so now as his nervous system slowly recovered from the shock it had taken.

It seemed neither of his two guards had noticed that his left arm had moved. They didn’t react, anyway—­nobody had tried to tie him up yet. He made a point of keeping his left arm still so as not to give the game away.

They left him there for a while, nobody speaking to him or doing anything with him. He used the time to make an inventory of what he had to work with. He moved his tongue around in his mouth. He thought maybe he had regained the power of speech. That was something. He could probably move his neck, too, though it hurt like hell. Well, if Favorov would be kind enough to lean over Chapel’s face, he could head-­butt the man to death. Maybe.

The thought made him chuckle. The sound made his guards nervous.

“He’s awake,” one of them said, sounding panicky.

“Shit. What do we do?” the other one asked.

“You could,” Chapel said, though each word he spoke exhausted him, “help me . . . get out of here. That way you won’t go to . . . prison with your . . . boss.”

He could just see the two of them glancing at each other with frightened eyes. Were they actually considering it?

It didn’t matter. At that same moment the door of the billiards room flew open and Favorov came storming in. He had Chapel’s cell phone in his hand.
If I were James Bond
, Chapel thought,
then Angel would be able to overload the phone or something, make it act like a taser and stun the bastard.

Of course, James Bond wouldn’t have let Fiona sneak up behind him. He probably would have already seduced her by now. Chapel had never been any great shakes in that department.

Favorov beamed down at him. The Russian didn’t quite lean over far enough to let Chapel put his head-­butting plan into action, but he let Chapel see every inch of his gleaming white teeth. “It didn’t take very long. They did not so much as make me sweat.”

Chapel wasn’t sure what he meant. But then the phone in the Russian’s hand spoke, and Chapel heard Rupert Hollingshead on the other end of the line.

“Chapel? Son, can you speak? I need to make sure you’re unharmed before we start negotiating with this man.”

Chapel stared up at Favorov. What the hell? What had Favorov said to Hollingshead to make him bend like this?

“Come now, speak for your master,” Favorov said.

Chapel chose his words carefully. He knew he wouldn’t get a second chance at this. “Sir,” he said, marshalling his strength to get the words out, “let me die—­don’t let this son of a bitch get away with—­”

A strong hand pressed down on Chapel’s mouth and shut him up. It belonged to either Stephen or Michael.

Chapel expected Favorov to fly into a rage and strike him or something. Instead the Russian just shrugged. “Mr. Pentagon,” he said, “would you care to explain what is going on to your lackey?”

Hollingshead’s voice on the phone sounded defeated. Resigned. Chapel hated hearing the man like that. Hollingshead was a father figure to him, more than a boss—­and he was a good man, too. A strong leader in a time when the military needed exactly that. It was heartbreaking to hear him admit he’d already lost.

“Son, Mr. Favorov has explained what’s going to happen. He’s going to leave the country on his private yacht. We’re going to let him reach international waters. We’re going to let him go. You’re just too valuable to sacrifice.”

No, Chapel thought. No, I’m willing to—­

“I know you won’t like it, but I need you alive,” Hollingshead said. “For now, we’re going to have to play this the way it lies.”

9.

T
he Russian ended the call and pocketed the cell phone.

The look in Chapel’s eyes must have been one of pure rage, because Favorov patted his head and said, “Come now, Mr. Chapel, you should be happy about this. You’re going to live. You’re going to sleep in your own bed tonight. As soon as I am on my yacht you’ll be permitted to go free.” He glanced at his watch. “It should be here in less than three hours—­I already sent word to the marina, and my crew are always standing by. So this little ordeal won’t even last very long.”

Except for the ordeal Chapel would have to live with for the rest of his life: knowing he’d let an enemy of the United States just walk away, when if he’d been just a little smarter he could have caught the bastard.

Favorov looked to his servants. “My very foolish wife says he has a fake arm. He lost it in Afghanistan, like so many other careless ­people. Get his shirt off so I can see it. You’re not hiding any other secrets from me, are you, Mr. Chapel? No secret spy devices in your underwear? I have no desire to strip-­search you.”

One of the servants tore Chapel’s shirt off, revealing his prosthetic arm. It looked exactly like his real one, right up to the shoulder. The only difference was that it ended in a set of clamps covered in unpainted silicone where it clung to his torso.

“They do such nice work these days. Back in the eighties, back in Russia, I saw so many soldiers come home with hooks for hands,” Favorov ruminated, “peg legs. Like a bunch of pirates.” He smiled. “It was a very dangerous place, Afghanistan.”

Chapel gritted his teeth. “Still is,” he said.

Favorov nodded, and a faraway look passed briefly across his face. Then he snarled at his servants. “I pay you to keep me and my family safe. Is there a reason you haven’t tied his hands yet?”

They snapped to it, tearing up Chapel’s shirt and twisting the strips of cloth into a stout rope. They rolled him over and pulled his hands behind his back. Neither of them seemed to want to touch Chapel’s artificial arm but they did what they were told. Chapel was still too weak to fight back, so he didn’t try.

“Gag him as well. I don’t want him confusing you two, as easy as it would be,” Favorov said. “Good-­bye, Mr. Chapel. I don’t think I’ll see you again. The servants can make sure you get home safely once I’m gone.”

He left the room then. Chapel curled up on his side on the billiards table, putting his weight on his artificial arm. With no blood vessels inside it, it couldn’t fall asleep or start to spasm.

Stephen and Michael, the servants, watched him carefully. They never came very close to him. Chapel could feel himself getting stronger by the minute, as he got over the stunning effects of having a bottle smashed against his head. But bound and gagged, there wasn’t much he could do.

He could lie here, and wait for it to be over. That was the obvious choice. The safe choice, the reasonable choice. But one thing kept bothering him. Something Director Hollingshead had said.

For now we’re going to have to play it as it lies
, he’d said. Those had been his orders. A golf reference. Chapel didn’t play golf much—­his preferred physical activity was swimming—­but he knew what that one meant. When you hit a golf ball it landed where it was going to land, and you had to make your next move based on the terrain you were given.

Hollingshead was a master of implication. He very rarely gave direct orders—­those could get him in trouble later. Instead he tended to suggest things one might do. And he’d had to make sure Favorov thought he was giving in. Acceding to the Russian’s demands. Saying anything else might have resulted in Chapel’s immediate death. But at the same time, he’d managed to send Chapel a perfectly clear message.

He hadn’t told Chapel to stand down. He hadn’t ordered Chapel to behave like a good little prisoner. He’d told him to play it as it lay. In other words, to use his own initiative. To achieve whatever was possible, as Chapel judged it.

Which meant this wasn’t over. Not if Chapel could get just a little bit of luck.

10.

“I
don’t like this,” one of the servants said. Chapel decided that one would be Stephen, just because he wanted a name to pin on him. “Nothing like this was supposed to happen.”

“When you took this job,” the one Chapel decided would be Michael said, “you knew it was going to be dicey. Who hires a house servant who has bodyguard experience?”

“Every rich weirdo on Long Island,” Stephen said. He kept glancing at the door, as if he expected a wave of SWAT police to come storming through. “I don’t like this.”

“You already said that.”

“This guy,” Stephen went on, nodding at Chapel, who was busy doing his best impression of a semiconscious invalid (not exactly a stretch), “he’s from the government. The Pentagon, the boss said.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?” Stephen asked.

“Don’t psych yourself out. This is going to be fine. Look at him—­he can barely move.”

“But if his friends come looking for him—­”

“Then,” Michael said, with a long-­suffering sigh, “we say he hit his head and we were just trying to make him comfortable while we waited for the ambulance to come.”

“Comfortable. We were trying to make him comfortable by tying him up and gagging him.”

Michael just shrugged.

“Look, one of us should have a gun. I’m just saying. What if he wakes up? What if he wakes up and he’s pissed off?”

“Then he’ll be tied up and gagged,” Michael pointed out.

“One of us should have a gun. I’m going to get a gun.”

“Did the boss tell you to leave and get a gun?”

Stephen smiled as if he’d just solved one of life’s great mysteries. “He yelled at us before, for not being proactive and tying him up. Maybe he expects us to be proactive again. These rich assholes, they’re always yelling at their employees about being more proactive. About thinking outside the box.”

“The way you’re thinking’s going to get you put in a box,” Michael growled. “Just shut up and sit tight.”

“I’m going to get a gun. Keep an eye on him.”

The way Michael sighed, then, told Chapel that these two had similar conversations all the time. Michael talked a tough game, but it was clear he wasn’t in charge—­Stephen didn’t have to listen to him.

He certainly made no attempt to stop Stephen when he left to go get a gun. Instead he just moved over to stand by the door, where he could watch Chapel and also be ready if anyone came storming in. He was the smarter of the two, definitely—­Michael was one to look out for.

He was also, now, all alone with Chapel.

Time to figure out what he could do with that bit of luck, Chapel thought.

He quietly tested the makeshift rope holding his wrists together. It was surprisingly well knotted. Maybe one of the servants had been a sailor in a former life. Maybe they doubled as crew for the yacht. There was no way Chapel could untie his hands. But maybe he didn’t need to.

Michael watched him with a certain nervous intensity. He kept his eyes moving around the room, as if he expected danger to arise from any corner. There wasn’t a lot Chapel could do while he was being watched like that. For a long time he just fumed and waited, thinking through the angles, wondering if the crazy plan he’d come up with could possibly work. He would have to be silent, perfectly silent, and he would need to move very fast. He was still groggy from being smacked across the back of the head with a wine bottle. He would have to take that into account.

Michael’s eyes kept flicking over at him. The servant knew better than to get complacent, to take his eyes off his charge. He was, in his way, good at this.

Until the second he wasn’t.

Maybe he heard something out in the hall. Maybe he was just willing Stephen to hurry up and come back with the gun. For whatever reason, Michael broke off his careful watching and went to the door, opening it a crack so he could look through.

Chapel had his chance—­if Michael didn’t immediately turn around and see what he was doing.

His hands were securely tied, but Chapel still had a way to get free—­at the shoulder. Chapel’s artificial arm had been designed to work for just about any kind of amputee, including one with no arms at all. Normally when he removed the arm (at night when he went to bed, or when he went swimming) he would reach around with his good arm and flick a hidden catch to make the clamps release from his shoulder. But a double amputee wouldn’t be able to do that, so the arm’s designers had put in another way to release it. Chapel rolled his left shoulder as far back as it would go. A tiny motor in the arm buzzed against his skin, basically asking him for confirmation. He rolled the shoulder again, twice, and the clamps retracted. He was terrified the arm would fall off onto the billiards table with a thump. It didn’t.

Michael called out into the hallway in a stage whisper, calling for his friend. There was no reply.

Behind him Chapel carefully lowered his feet to the floor. He wanted to be standing up when he untied his hands, just in case.

That turned out to be a smart move. Before he could even begin to work at the knots, Michael turned around again to look at his prisoner. Chapel saw his face start to change when he saw Chapel standing up, one of his arms dangling at his side. He saw Michael start to shout out for help.

He couldn’t let that happen.

The artificial arm Chapel wore cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was a miracle of modern engineering, an incredible marriage of computer controls and tiny servomotors, of negative feedback circuits and incredibly deft actuators. It was one of the most complex and advanced machines in the world.

It also made a surprisingly effective club.

Chapel spun around from his waist, extending his good right arm as he pivoted. His artificial arm flashed out like a medieval flail. The heavy clamps on the artificial shoulder caught Michael in the face and sent the servant flying backward to crash against the wood paneling of the billiard room’s wall.

Instead of shouting for help Michael just made a nasty gasping noise as his breath went out of him. He struggled to find his footing, to come up for a counterattack.

Chapel knew he couldn’t let that happen. He moved in fast, his legs still a little numb. But they remembered their training. He closed the distance between himself and Michael in a fraction of a second. He threw his right arm around Michael’s neck and squeezed as hard as he could, putting pressure on the man’s carotid artery. In his training with the Army Rangers Chapel had performed that move so many times it was second nature.

It was almost impossible to knock someone unconscious by hitting them on the back of the head. However, stopping the blood flow to their brain usually did the trick.

Michael slumped to the floor, his eyes slightly open but failing to track. He looked almost peaceful as he collapsed in a heap.