Project Nemesis (A Kaiju Thriller) (12 page)

“Here,” Coop says.

“Lie,” I tell her. “Tell Stephens there’s a biological terror threat, but do not elaborate. Let him draw his own conclusions.”

“Makes sense,” she says and then Ted is back on.

“Anything else?” he asks.

“Send a helicopter to my position,” I say.
“Something with a big gun.”

“I’ll try,” he says, sounding agitated. Watson is amazing in so many ways, but he’s easily distracted and oversensitive. It’s also been a really long time since FC-P had a threat level higher than what I call
RPSC
—Rastafarian Pot-Smoking Chill. We’re out of practice. If he can’t stay calm and get his job done, people could die.

“Ted,” I say, “you and I both know there is no try.”

He chuckles. “There is only
do
. I’ll get it done.”

“Thank you, Ted. Call me back when you have an ETA on the chopper.”

“Will do,” he says, and I hang up.

I hand the phone back to Collins. “Keep that on. They might need to track the GPS.” I don’t say, “
in
case something happens to us,” but I can see she understands.

I push open the door and enter the third floor hallway. The walls are splattered with blood. The bodies of five doctors, dressed for surgery, litter the floor. They’re mangled, like the woman in the morgue fridge, but not mostly consumed like the people outside.

I step over the bodies, working hard to not let them distract me. We need to figure out where the creature is heading and make sure an army is waiting when it gets there. “Let’s try to find the roof access.”

Collins has her hand over her mouth as she steps around the bodies. Without looking away from the corpses, she nods.

The distinct sound of a gun being racked stops us in our tracks. “Put your hands on top of your heads and turn around slowly.” The accent is subtle, but easy for me to place. The man with a gun aimed at my back is Japanese.

17

When a bullet doesn’t punch through the back of my head, I take that as a cue to turn around. If he’s going to kill me, I’d like to look him in the eye first. I move slowly and keep my fingers locked behind my head. I see the gun first. It’s a
Ruger
Mark II .22 semiautomatic pistol with a sound suppressor. The low caliber and the sound suppressor say a lot about the man holding the weapon.

That combination means that this gun will barely make a sound when he fires it. My body hitting the floor would be much louder. The bullet, aimed at the head, will lack the power to punch through a skull twice, meaning the bullet will ricochet inside the target’s skull and shred gray matter. The victim will be very dead, but there will be very little mess. When this man kills, I doubt anyone finds the bodies.

The men we faced before were soldiers.
Big guns and muscles with minds for tactics.
This man kills up close and personal, and rather than simple tactics, he must have a mind for strategy, which is probably why I’m not dead.

The man himself defies a label. He looks at me with the same cold stare of the soldiers, but I can see his mind working, too. His black hair is slicked back, though some of it is out of place, probably from hiding. He’s wearing a black suit coat and a white shirt—partially unbuttoned, but no tie. Best guess is that he’s some kind of assassin, but his presence here makes no sense.

Not that anything has made sense since we ran into the shotgun-wielding Royals fan.

Collins follows my cue and turns around.

“Sheriff Collins,” the man says with a nod. Then he looks at me. “Your resourcefulness is impressive for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.”

I shrug. “It’s a gift.”

He smiles a little. “Why are you here?”

“Honestly,” I say, matching his smile, “and I shit you not, we’re here because Mr. Johnson, the Vet you assholes murdered, called in a report about a Sasquatch.”

“Sasquatch?”

“Your patrols were noisy,” I explain.
“Went too close to his house.
Freaked the old man out.”

“It’s the truth,” Collins said. “He’s been calling for months.”

The man’s eyes cut back and forth between Collins and me. He’s trying to figure out if we’re telling the truth. “Then we are not enemies.”

The hell we’re not, I think, and I know Collins is on the same page, but she’s smart and stays quiet.

The man lowers his weapon to a downward angle, which isn’t supposed to be as threatening, but makes me just as uncomfortable. “Could you point that to the side a
little.
Maybe aim for my leg? I’d rather you keep it pointed at my head than at my boys.”

I see Collins smile a little.

At first, I’m not sure the man has understood the request, but then his aim adjusts slightly to the right. “Now place your weapons on the floor.
Slowly.
One at a time.”

“Thought we weren’t enemies,” I say. When he doesn’t reply, Collins complies, drawing her pistol between two fingers and placing it on the floor.

“Now you,” the man says, adjusting the
Ruger
back to my crotch.

I follow orders, and when my weapon is on the floor, the man waves for us to step toward him and says, “I need your help.”

“Feeding time at the mad science circus?” I say.

He ignores me and points to a pair of double doors. “There is a wounded man. I need to get him to a hospital.”

This is about the last thing I expected the man to say. And if it’s true, I will help. But not until I have some answers. “Tell us what happened here,” I say. “And then we’ll help.”

“You will be better off not knowing,” he says. “There are some things that cannot be forgiven.”

Exactly what I was thinking.

I look at Collins to make sure she’s on board. I don’t want to risk her life without consent. She grants it, verbally. “We’ll take the chance.”

He bows slightly.
“Very well.
This is a research facility working on medical advancements in gene therapy, bio-engineering and accelerated organ growth for transplantation. A recent experiment has had...unforeseen consequences.”

“You mean that creature,” I say. “That’s kind of a big unforeseen consequence. How did it happen?”

“I am not a scientist,” the man says, and there is no doubt he’s telling the truth.

“Then who are you?” Collins asked.

“
Katsu
Endo,” he says. “I am the personal bodyguard of the man in the next room.”

“And he is?” I ask.

“General Lance Gordon.”

“General?” I say. “So this is a military facility?”

“The General was here to receive an experimental heart transplant,” he says. “The...creature—”

The way he says this reveals he’s just as confused about the creature’s appearance as they are. Could it really have been created accidentally? Something that large would take time to grow, unless... I recall the man’s words, accelerated organ growth. But how quickly could something the size of an elephant grow?

“—did not appear until after the operation was complete.”

“How did you survive?” Collins asked.

“I barred the doors,” Endo says. “Shut off the lights.
Stayed quiet.
It passed us by several times.”

That I’m dubious is an understatement. “It killed everyone else here.
Everyone.
And just you and the General survived?”

“Actually,” he says. “Two other people managed to survive.” He raises his eyebrows at me.

“Right,” I say.
Touché.
It’s hard to say if everything this man has said is the truth, but he’s showing no telltale signs of lying. That said
,
I’m positive we’re not getting the whole truth. And if this man really is a bodyguard for a U.S. general, then maybe he wasn’t involved in the decision to kill the Johnsons, Collins and me. “All right, look, we’ll help you get your boss out of here, but once he’s safe, I need your guarantee that you’re going to let us go.”

He stares at us. I can see the idea bothers him. His instinct is to probably kill us both where we stand.

“Look,” I say. “Someone needs to clean up the mess that was made here. That thing is headed toward civilization and when it gets there, a whole shit-storm of trouble is going to come your way. General or not, you two are screwed. The only chance of avoiding that scenario is letting us get the word out to organize a response.”

I can see him strategizing, working through the possibilities. He raises the gun back to my head. “I agree with everything you’ve said, but do not believe they are the words of a Fish and Wildlife Service officer. Show me
your
I.D.”

I sigh, but comply, slowly taking out my I.D. and tossing it to him. He catches it in his hand, flips it open and looks a little surprised.
“DHS?”

“That’s me,” I say.

For a moment he looks like he doesn’t believe me. Who can blame him, really? With my cargo shorts, t-shirt and beanie cap, I look like the average Mainer out for a hike in the woods. Of course, Collins and I also evaded an armed search party, killed three soldiers and survived the creature’s assault.

He throws the badge back to me. “The General is your direct superior. You have a duty to save his life.”

I hear a hint of a question in his words and answer truthfully. “Yes.”

He holsters his weapon and turns toward the door. “Come with me.”

Collins and I look at each other, quickly pick up our weapons, and follow the man. I keep my weapon still drawn but aimed at the floor. I don’t think the man is going to ambush us. He could have killed us already, but I still don’t trust him.

I push open the door and enter a surgical suite. The operating table flood-lights have been extinguished, and the room is dimly lit by a single lamp. There are surgical instruments covering trays, some bloody, some clean.

But the unconscious general isn’t lying on the operating table, or on a gurney or even sitting on a chair. He’s standing on the far side of the room, stark naked, with a hand against the empty wall and staring at it like he’s looking through a window.

Endo has stopped just inside the door. He looks as confused as I am.

“General,” he says, confirming at least part of his story—this man is a general. “General Gordon.”

The General flinches, hearing Endo for the first time, and turns his head around.
“Endo?”
His voice sounds dry and scratchy.

“I’m here, sir.” Endo says.

“I can feel her,” the General says.

Endo steps toward the naked man. “Feel who?”

“
Maigo
.”
When the General turns around, Collins and I both take quick breaths.
A long cut over his sternum has been sewn shut, but isn’t bandaged in any kind of way. A trickle of blood runs over his belly to his leg and all the way to the floor.

“General!” Endo says, sounding genuinely concerned. He takes a step forward, but the older man holds up his hand in a way that commands authority.

The open hand becomes a pointed finger. It lands on me. “Who—” And then on Collins. “—are they?”

Endo looks at both of us and then says, “Sheriff Collins and Jon Hudson from DHS.”

“DHS?” the General says, looking confused. “This is our couple from the woods?”

Oh shit. They were aware of what went down in the woods. Doesn’t mean they ordered it, but they didn’t disapprove.

“Yes,” Endo says. “But they’re going to help you—”

“I’m fine.” The General levels his eyes at Endo. “Kill them.”