Gargantua (22 page)

“Well, you guys sure don’t think small,” Wayne said.

The colonel’s radio had been squawking with various conversations throughout, but Jack had tuned them out. One, however, caught his attention. “Malau base, this is MacArthur for Colonel Wayne.”

“Excuse me a minute,” Wayne said, unhooking the radio and walking off to the side to have his conversation in privacy.

“Have you acquired a boat for this mission?” Moki asked.

Jack shook his head. “Not yet.” Hale could have gotten a boat from his institute, of course, but they didn’t want to risk bringing it here with all the giant lizard activity in the area—not to mention the military presence. No, they were better off using a boat already on Malau, but the only thing the pair of them had was the
Scorpion Fish,
which wasn’t practical for the purpose.

“Well, now you have,” Moki said. “You will take mine.”

Jack smiled. That solved several problems right there. When they had had dinner several lifetimes ago, the president had mentioned that he owned a good-sized boat—not quite a yacht, but more than a simple motorboat. “That’s very generous, sir,” he said. “We can use my camcorder to record the baby’s voice. Now if Colonel Wayne will just give us what we need, we’ll be more or less set.”

Just then, Wayne came back to rejoin the group. He had his “business face” back on, which didn’t surprise Jack. “You wanted to hear a plan, Colonel. That’s the plan. What we need from you is help with the detonation.”

Wayne hesitated only for half a second, but it was enough.
Something’s wrong,
Jack thought. He’d only known the colonel a short time, but in that time he had never hesitated before speaking.

“This is no longer my operation. The 31
st
MEU is on its way from Okinawa. They’ll be here in twenty-four hours.”

Jack opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. He was stunned. “With—with what orders?”

“General Cox will be calling the shots from now on. I have no more power in this.”

“That’s it? You just walk away? It’s, ‘So long guys, go to hell’?”

“I have my orders,” Wayne said tersely.

So much for Wayne not following the stereotype of the hidebound military nitwit,
Jack thought with disappointment. “Fine,” he said, “we’ll do it without you.” He turned to Hale. “We can talk to the chief—he can probably get us a line on some explosives. Hell, whoever blew up that truck to distract the two guards on the nine-footer has to have gotten that explosive from
somewhere.”

“It’s a possiblity, yeah,” Hale agreed.

The president turned on Wayne. “Do you force us to defy your orders, Colonel?”

Jack could have cheered. This island was still Manny Moki’s turf. Jack wasn’t sure how, exactly, jurisdiction would work in this case, but from what Paul had told him days before, the U.S. military were there as a courtesy to an independent nation. And that independent nation had just taken a stand in Jack and Hale’s favor.

After another uncomfortable silence, Wayne raised his radio to his lips. “Master Sergeants Field and Hughes, report to command. Say again—Field and Hughes, report to command, immediately. Out.”

I don’t believe this.
“Putting us under house arrest?” Jack said, both outraged and aghast.

“They’re demolition experts,” Wayne said.

Jack blinked in surprise.

“You see,” Wayne continued, “I was just thinking about the message that my corporal passed on. What it said was that General Cox would take over upon the arrival of the 31
st
.” He looked around. “They ain’t here yet. So I’m still in charge for the time being, and I say that when Field and Hughes report to you, give them the coordinates. They’ll set the charges and be ready when you get the creatures back home.”

Jack shook his head.
I’ve been making a career out of misjudging people since I got here,
he thought.
Gotta watch that.
He reached out his hand and said, “Thank you, Colonel.”

Wayne accepted the handshake and said, “Good luck.” Then he walked off.

Jack looked at Moki, then at Hale. “Well, we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

“And then some,” Hale said.

“Come,” Moki said, “I will take you to the boat.”

Paul Bateman studied himself in the mirror.
This is stupid,
he thought, looking at his neatly combed hair and his tucked-in shirt. Not since Mak’s daughter’s christening had he gone to the trouble to seriously groom himself beyond what was necessary to politely interact with the rest of humanity.

Now, though, he’d been upgraded.
From rinky-dink weekly newspaper on a backwater island to sole press link to the biggest story of the year. Not bad for a California surfer dude.

The neatening up really hadn’t been necessary. After all, he was communicating by cell phone. He could be in his bathrobe, and no one would be the wiser. But it was the principle of the thing.

He had already made one introductory call to the press room on Kalor. He imagined something out of
His Girl Friday,
with a bunch of guys in fedoras leaping onto old hook-and-mouthpiece phones and reading notes copied onto spiral notebooks. In reality, they were probably all carrying cell phones, had made their notes on laptops, and weren’t wearing hats of any kind, but Paul still liked the image.

The call had informed him that, as he himself had predicted, CNN was only the beginning. Every major wire service, newspaper, TV network, and online news provider had a representative on Kalor wanting to know what was happening. He had told them that they would have an official press release inside an hour.

Now an hour later, Paul was ready to make the call. He’d written a release, run it by Sergeant Greene, to whom Wayne had delegated the task of approving all releases, and was now ready to pass it on to the rest of the world.

He had no idea how the information was going to be transferred. There was a woman named Carla something who ran the press room on Kalor, who would no doubt pass the info on and relay any questions to Paul. Paul also intended to e-mail the release to a variety of sources—but first, the phone call.

“Hello?” came Carla’s voice before the first ring ended.

“Hi, Carla, this is Paul Bateman from the
Malau Weekly News.
I have a release for the press corps.”

“About time,” she muttered.

“At thirteen hundred hours yesterday, the 43
rd
Marine Expeditionary Unit from the island of Kalor arrived on Malau under the command of Colonel J. Christopher Wayne.” Idly, Paul wondered what the “J” stood for.
Wonder if it stands for John,
he thought, then decided that would just be too corny. “They came in response to a direct request from Malau President Manuel Z. Moki to the threat of a previously unknown and uncatalogued reptile.” Paul had originally written this in the plural, but Sergeant Greene had insisted on keeping it singular, on the theory that one giant lizard was spooky enough, thanks. “This reptile is believed to be responsible for three unexplained deaths on Malau over the last week, as well as an attack on three photojournalists. Two of those journalists—Marcello Silverio and John Hawkins—are missing, with a third—Pierce Askegren—having been evacuated from the Malau Clinic to Kalor General Hospital this morning with several injuries. The 43
rd
expects to have the situation under control within the next twenty-four hours, at which point they will have the reptile in captivity.” He took a breath. “That’s it.”

“I assume two of the people who died are Marina Greenberg and Carol Franz,” Carla said. Paul remembered that that story had made the wire services. “Who was the third?”

“A Malauan named Dak Malano.”

“We understand that the 31
st
MEU from Okinawa is on its way to take over the operation. If the situation is under control, why is the larger force needed?”

That one caught Paul off guard. Greene had told him to answer all questions he didn’t know the answer to with a “no comment,” which is what he did in this case.

“What about the rumor that President Moki has been placed under house arrest for questioning the authority of the U.S. military forces?”

Where do they come up with these things?
“That is most definitely not true. Colonel Wayne and President Moki get along just fine, and in fact Manny was the one who called in the 43
rd
in the first place.”

“We’ve gotten reports of a nine-foot-long creature, another of a forty-foot one, and yet another of a two-hundred-foot one. Which is the right size?”

Paul chose his words carefully. “A nine-foot reptile has been sighted on Malau, and the military’s intention is to capture the creature within the next twenty-four hours.”

“So what about this two-hundred-foot-long one?”

Smiling, Paul said, “There is no reptile of that size that I’m aware of.”

“Okay. Hang on, I think I’ve got a couple more questions.”

“Sorry,” Paul said, leaping at the opportunity, “but I’ve got to go. I’ll call back in an hour or two. Or three.”

“But—”

He pressed the
END
button on the cell phone before Carla could protest further.

Whew.
Paul wiped the sweat from his brow.
I do not want to go through that again. Being a one-man press corps isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

At least, not under military jurisdiction. He supposed he could have just ignored Greene and gone ahead and told the whole truth, but if he did that, his status would go quickly from one-man press corps to latest guy on the evac plane.

He got up from his desk and peered out the window. He saw Jack, Doc Hale, and Manny all standing outside talking.
Well, let’s see what our resident mad scientists have come up with.

As he went outside, Jack said, “Got a breaking story for you, Paul. Feel like coming along?”

“Sure,” he said gleefully.
I’ll take being out reporting over answering awkward questions any day.

“Great,” Jack said. “Bring a lifejacket.”

Paul frowned. “Excuse me?”

Jack laughed. “C’mon, I’ll explain on the way.”

They started to walk toward the pier, but were intercepted by Joe Movita. “We just found a body,” he said to Manny without preamble.

“My God,” said Manny, crestfallen. “Whose?”

“Kikko. At least, what was left of his body. He’d been torn to pieces.”

Paul shuddered. “So the nine-footer’s still on the island.”

“Or was,” Hale said. “The AWAC tracked it with the big ’un out on the ocean.”

Joe was shaking his head, however. “Whatever did this wasn’t the same thing that attacked Jimmy—the pattern of wounding is similar, but whatever did this is a good deal larger.”

“The father lizard?” Jack said.

“That’d be my guess, yeah. The funny thing is, Kikko had a harpoon gun and a rope with him.”

Manny shook his head. “Thank you for this information, Chief.”

Joe nodded, and went off in the direction of the clinic. “What the hell was he doing with a harpoon gun?” Paul asked.

Jack shrugged. “We can worry about that later. C’mon, let me tell you our cunning plan.”

As they walked toward the pier, Jack did so, and Paul had to admit to being impressed with either their ambition or their stupidity.

“Yowza,” he said when they were finished. He turned to Hale. “Y’know, we’re gonna have to
completely
redo your interview at this point.”

Hale laughed. “Prob’ly, yeah. One thing we still need are the speakers. I already talked to the blokes in the dive shop about some waterproof housing for ’em, and we’ve got recording equipment and the ultra-high-frequency broadcaster, but we’re gonna need some serious speakers to attract these guys’ attention.”

“Not
too
serious,” Jack said. “Remember, sound travels very efficiently underwater.”

Paul nodded. “Either way, I think we should be able to prevail upon some local help—assuming they haven’t been evacuated.” He grinned. “In fact, if they
have
been evacuated, it’ll be a lot easier to borrow it.”

“Borrow it,” Jack said dubiously, then looked at Hale. “Are all reporters this larcenous?”

“Nah,” Hale said, “they’re usually worse.”

“Sir, you impugn me,” Paul said with mock indignance. “In any case, Dak was part of a band called Friends Anemones. They’ve got a huge sound system in a garage on the outskirts of town.”

“As it happens,” Manny said, “the members of our friend Dak’s group have already been evacuated—without their equipment, which would have put them over the weight limit. As I recall, Maru was father vocal in his displeasure with this turn of events. However, their instruments and sound system are, in fact, being stored at the airfield.”

“Beauty,” Hale said. “Paul, whyn’t you and I go fetch that stuff?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Paul said.

Manny said, “Meanwhile, Jack, I will show you to my boat.”

“Actually,” Jack said, looking as if he’d just remembered something, “I’ll meet you there. I need to get back to the hotel and—well, see to the baby. And, ah, and to Brandon.”

Paul understood immediately. They needed the little lizard for their cockamamie plan to work.
And Jack wants Brandon to get on the next plane outta here.

“Of course,” Manny said, “I will meet you there.”

Hale gestured in the general direction of the airfield. “After you, mate.”

Paul nodded and went with the geologist.

For the third time in fifteen minutes, Jack had to explain his and Hale’s plan—this time to Brandon, whom he had found on the lawn behind the Ritz, still frolicking with Casey. He had almost not wanted to disturb the idyllic scene, but he had to. First, though, he had to bring Brandon up to speed—especially since part of the plan was to separate Brandon from his new pet.

“I know you’re gonna miss him,” Jack said quickly, before Brandon had a chance to object to losing Casey so soon after finding him, “but we’re doing the right thing, Brandon. We’re doing what’s right for him.”

Jack steeled himself for the expected complaints, the implorations to let Casey stay with Brandon forever.