Myrmidon

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Chapel didn’t have time to worry if the drone would support his weight. He didn’t have time to worry about whether he could run safely across the top of the building, or whether a sniper had his back in his crosshairs, or anything else.

He swung his feet up to get them on tar paper, and he ran, leaping as the roof shifted underneath him, ignoring the bullets that whizzed all around his head and neck. At least one of them grazed his back like a hot wire being dragged through his skin, but either it didn’t hit anything vital or adrenaline just kept him going. He reached the edge of the roof and jumped.

His body collided with the top of the drone, hard enough to make it bounce in the air. He started to slip off its top and reached out with both hands to find anything to grab for purchase, anything at all.

“Careful!” Angel squeaked, just as one of Chapel’s hands grabbed the edge of a ducted propeller. He heard a sickening squelching noise as the fingertips of that hand were sheared off instantly by the whirling propeller.

It took him a second to realize that those fingertips were just made of silicone, that it was his artificial left hand that had grabbed the duct. Those fingertips could be replaced.

His good hand found a nylon loop mounted on the top of the drone. He weaved his living fingers through the loop like a cowboy holding on to a bucking bronco.

The drone’s propellers whined and protested at having to hold up his weight, but the machine stayed airborne, and soon Angel had leveled it out so Chapel wouldn’t slip off. He saw that the top of the drone was covered in some kind of lightweight padding. Of course—it was designed to carry a survivor out of a burning building.

“Angel, you’re incredible,” Chapel said. “Where did you find this thing?”

“It was up at the airport, being tested by the local fire department.” Angel’s voice through the speakers was loud enough to be heard over the chaos down at street level. It was loud enough to make Chapel’s teeth vibrate in his mouth. “I can fly you out of here now, Chapel. I’ll get you someplace safe, then—”

“No,” Chapel said. “Belcher’s not finished. He can still set off some of the gas shells. I have to stop him.”

“You may not realize this,” Angel said, “but World War III just broke out down there.”

As if to illustrate her point, the building behind Chapel sagged, then collapsed in a heap of broken bricks and a vast cloud of dust. Through the mess, Chapel could see the igloos in the distance. A lot of the neo-Nazis were dead now, their metal blinds chewed to scrap by tank rounds, but there were still more than a thousand of them firing away. One of them had a LAW, a light antitank weapon, and as Chapel watched, a horizontal streak of smoke lanced out toward the advancing army position and knocked a tank over on its side. Infantrymen all around it shrieked and ran as the tank rolled over on its top, crushing anything in its way.

“Jesus,” Chapel said. “Angel—does the army even know I’m here?”

“They do, but they can’t guarantee your safety,” she told him. “Belcher and his men are their priority, not covering your cute butt.”

Chapel shook his head. “As long as they’re not actively trying to kill me. I don’t think Belcher has any more Stinger missiles down there. You need to fly me over there, to the igloos. This thing isn’t bulletproof, is it?”

“No! One good shot to any of its propellers, and it turns into the world’s most expensive unmanned aerial brick.”

“So you’ll just have to try to serpentine and hope that doesn’t happen.”

“Chapel,” she said, “if you do get shot down, if you get killed trying to do this—”

“Then I won’t have to live with the fact that I’ve failed,” he told her.

She didn’t waste any more time arguing. They’d worked together long enough that she understood him and his moods. She knew that when Chapel was this desperate, there was no time to try to talk him out of his plan.

Without another word, she sent the drone rising above the fray and angling straight toward the igloos.