Chimera Read Free

said, and now she did look him in the
eye. “I didn’t say no. I said, let me get back to you.”
    â€œSure,” he said.
    She walked away. She looked angry. Like he was the
one who had brushed her off.
    Well, in a couple of weeks he would be reassigned
to a new office, anyway. Probably one where his reporting officer was fat and
bald and smelled like cheap cigars. And it wasn’t like it could have gone
anywhere with Sara anyway, not with both of them hiding a relationship from
their superior officers and hoping they never got caught.
    He turned back to his computer and tried to make
sense of the memo on his screen. He got about three sentences in before he
realized he couldn’t remember which weapons system this memo related to, or why
any of it mattered in the slightest degree.
    Grunting in frustration he pushed himself up out of
his chair and logged off from the computer. There was no way he was going to get
any work done, not until he got his head clear, and that meant he needed to go
swim some laps.
    Just as he stepped out of the cubicle he heard the
chime as his BlackBerry received a new text message.
    â€œI cannot deal with you right now,” he told his
phone, and walked away.
    FORT BELVOIR,
VIRGINIA: APRIL 12, T+4:02
    When they flew him home from Afghanistan, one
of the first thoughts through Chapel’s mind had been that he would never swim
again.
    He’d grown up in Florida, swimming in the canals
with turtles and manatees. He’d gotten his SCUBA certification at the age of
twelve and his MSD—the highest level of nonprofessional certification—by
eighteen. He’d spent more of his youth in the water than on dry land, at least
according to his mother. He’d seriously considered going into the navy instead
of the army, maybe even becoming a frogman. In the end, he had only decided to
be a grunt because he didn’t want to spend half his life swabbing decks. He had
learned quickly enough that the army liked soldiers who could swim, too—it had
been a big part of his being chosen for Special Forces training—and he had made
a point of doing twenty laps a day in the nearest pool to keep in shape. It had
become his refuge, his private time to just think and move and be free and
weightless. He’d never felt as at peace anywhere else as he did while
swimming.
    Now that was over.
    A man with one arm can only swim in circles, he’d
thought. He had been lying in a specially made stretcher on board a troop
transport flying into National Airport. He had spent most of the flight staring
out the window, feeling sorry for himself.
    His life was over. His career was over—he would
never go back into the theater of operations, never do anything real or valuable
again. No one would ever take him seriously for the rest of his life—he would
just be a cripple, someone they should feel sorry for. He pitied himself more
than anyone else ever could.
    That had ended when he got to Walter Reed and
started his rehabilitation. He’d been a little shocked when he met the man they
sent to teach him how to live with one arm. The physical therapist had come into
the room in a wheelchair because he was missing his right leg. He was also
missing his right arm, and his right eye. He’d been a master gunnery sergeant
with the Marines in Iraq and had thrown himself on an IED to protect what he
called his boys. Not a single one of them had been injured that day. Just him.
“Call me Top,” he’d said, and he held out his left hand for Chapel to shake.
    Chapel had reached automatically to take that hand.
It had taken him a second to remember his own left hand wasn’t there anymore.
Eventually he’d awkwardly reached over and shook Top’s hand with his right.
    â€œSee?” Top had said. “You’re already getting the
hang of it. You make do with what you’ve got. Hell, I should know it’s not easy,
but then, I never expected