bedsheets. They moved away from the house at speed, but I figured I had more important people to track. There are no heat signatures in the boys’ room right now.”
Chapel nodded to himself. “See if you can get a better twenty on them. I just want to make sure that if the guards inside decide to go down shooting we won’t catch them in the crossfire. There’s no rush now.”
“Favorov might have left something behind—a computer, an address book . . . something.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Except Chapel knew perfectly well that the Russian had never left any written account of his gunrunning. All of the pertinent information would be locked up in just one place: Favorov’s head. They would never know, now, whether he had been acting as a triple agent working for the Russian government or if he was just the middleman for the Russian mafia, stealing guns from his former employers to sell to homegrown American terrorists.
Chapel had failed in his mission.
At least he was still alive.
Another hundred yards down the beach he found a narrow staircase of old and weathered wood that led up to the mansion’s gardens. It was covered in signs saying that this was a private beach and that trespassers would be shot. Chapel ignored the warnings and climbed up to the ground level, just as the SWAT teams made their big entrance.
31.
T here was a lot of shouting. A lot of men running around, back and forth, into the mansion with guns in their hands, out of it with computers and filing cabinets and loose bundles of paper. The guards inside, at least, had known when they were beat. They surrendered without a single further shot fired, and none of them were injured in the raid. At least, none of them who weren’t already dead.
Police vehicles drove all over Favorov’s immaculately tended gardens and lawns, crushing flower beds, knocking down topiary bushes. Red, blue, and white lights flashed everywhere, dazzling Chapel’s eyes. An ATF truck pulled right up to the kitchen door, where men in navy blue windbreakers hauled up crate after crate of AK-47s.
A white ambulance pulled through the main gates and parked just outside the front door. EMTs carrying wound kits came rushing out. One of them dashed over to Chapel and started plucking at the packing tape holding his abdomen together. Chapel pushed the man away. Perhaps after noticing the various pistols stuffed in Chapel’s pockets, the EMT took the hint. There were people inside who needed his talents a lot more desperately than Chapel did.
“Chapel, you need to sit down,” Angel said in his ear. “Frankly, you need to be airlifted out of there to the nearest ER.”
“I’m fine.”
Angel actually laughed at that one. “You have a real habit of getting yourself beaten up, don’t you? We can’t even send you to a dinner party without you ending up with broken ribs and a punctured lung.”
Chapel really wanted to laugh along. He really wanted to put all this behind him, to go home and go to bed at the very least. He sighed deeply. What more could he accomplish here? What skills did he even have to bring to this party? He couldn’t break the encryption on a hard drive. He couldn’t pore over Favorov’s papers looking for dodgy entries in a ledger book—he was no accountant. The mansion and its grounds were secure, everything else now was just mopping up.
“I have Director Hollingshead on the line,” Angel told him. “Do you want to talk to him?”
Chapel could imagine few things he’d rather do less. But he was a working man, and working men have bosses, and they know how to treat their bosses. “Put him through,” Chapel said.
“Son? Son, I just heard from the Coast Guard. They’ve seized Favorov’s yacht.”
“Sir,” Chapel said. “I assume he wasn’t on it.”
“You’d be correct in that. He got away. Chapel, I don’t want you beating yourself up over this. You did your level best, there’s no question.”
It would have been
Chapel nodded to himself. “See if you can get a better twenty on them. I just want to make sure that if the guards inside decide to go down shooting we won’t catch them in the crossfire. There’s no rush now.”
“Favorov might have left something behind—a computer, an address book . . . something.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Except Chapel knew perfectly well that the Russian had never left any written account of his gunrunning. All of the pertinent information would be locked up in just one place: Favorov’s head. They would never know, now, whether he had been acting as a triple agent working for the Russian government or if he was just the middleman for the Russian mafia, stealing guns from his former employers to sell to homegrown American terrorists.
Chapel had failed in his mission.
At least he was still alive.
Another hundred yards down the beach he found a narrow staircase of old and weathered wood that led up to the mansion’s gardens. It was covered in signs saying that this was a private beach and that trespassers would be shot. Chapel ignored the warnings and climbed up to the ground level, just as the SWAT teams made their big entrance.
31.
T here was a lot of shouting. A lot of men running around, back and forth, into the mansion with guns in their hands, out of it with computers and filing cabinets and loose bundles of paper. The guards inside, at least, had known when they were beat. They surrendered without a single further shot fired, and none of them were injured in the raid. At least, none of them who weren’t already dead.
Police vehicles drove all over Favorov’s immaculately tended gardens and lawns, crushing flower beds, knocking down topiary bushes. Red, blue, and white lights flashed everywhere, dazzling Chapel’s eyes. An ATF truck pulled right up to the kitchen door, where men in navy blue windbreakers hauled up crate after crate of AK-47s.
A white ambulance pulled through the main gates and parked just outside the front door. EMTs carrying wound kits came rushing out. One of them dashed over to Chapel and started plucking at the packing tape holding his abdomen together. Chapel pushed the man away. Perhaps after noticing the various pistols stuffed in Chapel’s pockets, the EMT took the hint. There were people inside who needed his talents a lot more desperately than Chapel did.
“Chapel, you need to sit down,” Angel said in his ear. “Frankly, you need to be airlifted out of there to the nearest ER.”
“I’m fine.”
Angel actually laughed at that one. “You have a real habit of getting yourself beaten up, don’t you? We can’t even send you to a dinner party without you ending up with broken ribs and a punctured lung.”
Chapel really wanted to laugh along. He really wanted to put all this behind him, to go home and go to bed at the very least. He sighed deeply. What more could he accomplish here? What skills did he even have to bring to this party? He couldn’t break the encryption on a hard drive. He couldn’t pore over Favorov’s papers looking for dodgy entries in a ledger book—he was no accountant. The mansion and its grounds were secure, everything else now was just mopping up.
“I have Director Hollingshead on the line,” Angel told him. “Do you want to talk to him?”
Chapel could imagine few things he’d rather do less. But he was a working man, and working men have bosses, and they know how to treat their bosses. “Put him through,” Chapel said.
“Son? Son, I just heard from the Coast Guard. They’ve seized Favorov’s yacht.”
“Sir,” Chapel said. “I assume he wasn’t on it.”
“You’d be correct in that. He got away. Chapel, I don’t want you beating yourself up over this. You did your level best, there’s no question.”
It would have been
Similar Books
