Godzilla at World's End (20 page)

As Simon watched, Dr. Max Birchwood emerged from the palace, carrying a backpack and a laptop computer. He, too, was wearing army BDUs. Except for his slim physique and his wild and unruly beard, the kaijuologist looked just like the rest of the soldiers.

"Am I supposed to wear a uniform, too?" Townsend asked, only half-jokingly. Dr. Birchwood halted in his tracks and approached the airship designer.

"I know how you feel, Mr. Townsend," he said sympathetically. "I'm a scientist, too, and I've had a number of projects about which I cared very dearly pulled out from under me in my time."

"Well," Townsend said, relenting, "at least my daughter won't be making this trip. I'd hate to have to worry about her safety -"

Suddenly, the earth beneath the Plaza de las Armas began to quake. The ground itself seemed to ripple, and a great rumbling filled their ears. The soldiers reacted first. Most of them bailed out of the trucks and hugged the ground. Some of the men rolled under the trucks themselves as a tree branch dropped to the pavement nearby.

Dr. Birchwood tugged on Townsend's shoulder and pulled him away from the palace. Pieces of the building's facade began to drop off. In the distance, they could hear windows breaking and people crying out in alarm. Across the plaza, a wrought-iron lamppost tilted and fell into the street.

The quaking lasted for several minutes. Then, just as Simon Townsend began to think it would never end, it did.

A strange calm descended on the city. In the distance, sirens began to wail.

"Okay, okay, let's go," Colonel Briteis barked at his men as he clapped his hands. "Mount up and let's get moving!"

Reluctantly, the soldiers rose from their safe positions on the ground and climbed into the trucks. Dr. Birchwood and Simon Townsend stood nearby, listening as more sirens rose from the city around them.

Suddenly, a man in a Peruvian military uniform burst through the gate of the Government Palace and called to Colonel Briteis in Spanish. They exchanged words in an intense conversation. Dr. Birchwood and Townsend, both curious, approached the two soldiers.

"What's going on?" the kaijuologist asked. Colonel Briteis pulled off his Kevlar helmet and scratched his head.

"Colonel Torres here claims that a giant monster has broken out of the ground under one of the
pueblos jovenes
and is wrecking the city."

Parque Molinas, Miraflores
Central Lima, Peru

When the quake first began, Corporal Sean Brennan had ordered his men away from the airship's mooring mast and down onto the ground. Soon the vibrations had intensified, and he'd hugged the earth, too. This was the second major earthquake they'd experienced since arriving in Peru. The soldiers were becoming old hands at it.

You just had to know what to do until it passed.

Out beyond the boundary of Parque Molinas, the crowds that had gathered in the streets to see the
Destiny Explorer
dropped to the pavement. The earth rumbled, windows shattered, and a marble statue in the center of the park began to sway. So did the temporary mooring tower and cargo elevator. The members of the INN ground crew began yelling, but there was nothing to be done.

Finally, the quake passed. The mast and tower remained intact.

Then the sirens started to wail.

"This is worse than California," Bob Bodusky complained.

"Hey, look over there! "Jim Cirelli cried, pointing to an area of the city in the distance. Smoke began to rise in dark, rolling clouds. "Do you think something caught fire?"

***

Inside the observation deck of the
Destiny Explorer
, Nick Gordon and Robin Halliday spotted the cloud of smoke rising into the sky from the "new town" across the brown waters of the Rio Remac, on the other side of the city. From their vantage point high above the area of Lima called Miraflores, Nick and Robin had a pretty good view of the monster that suddenly emerged from the trembling ground!

Robin cried out when she saw the insectoid head rise above a cluster of wooden and paper huts and shelters that made up the shantytown. While she watched, entire structures leaped into the air as gigantic pointed claws lashed out at everything around them. People spilled out of those buildings, dropping into the pit from which the creature emerged.

"I've got to find my video camera!" Nick cried, tearing into his suitcase.

***

Ned Landson and Peter Blackwater were in the hangar bay saying good-bye to the Messerschmitt-XYB, regretting that they'd never tried out the toy on which both of them had worked so hard. They were joking about hijacking the XYB when they suddenly felt the airship shake. At first they thought it was just an errant gust of wind that had pushed the ship.

Then they heard the rumble of the Earth many feet beneath the airship. The boys ran to a view port in the hangar deck and peered outside - just in time to see a giant green monster crawl out of the pit in the heart of a shantytown!

"Wow!" Ned cried. "This is so cool in the extreme!"

Peter felt less enthusiastic.
But Ned is a biologist
, he reasoned.
And that thing out there is a new form of life!

"I want a better view of this," Ned proclaimed.

"We're not going down there, are we?" Peter replied.

"Nope," Ned answered, grabbing his shoulder. "I know a way to the top of the airship!" With that, Ned dashed off with Peter in tow.

"Do you mean
on top?
" Peter asked nervously. "Like ...
on
the hull?"

"Sure!" Ned said as he began to climb a narrow ladder that ran through the center of the hull.

In the Plaza de las Armas ...

As soon as Colonel Torres brought the Airborne unit the news about the creature, the army trucks moved off. Together, Simon Townsend and Dr. Birchwood clambered into the back of one of the ten-ton, six-wheeled, camouflage-green vehicles.

The military column, led by Colonel Torres's Hummer, left the plaza and entered the streets of Lima. Already, the city was in chaos. People stumbled in every direction. Some carried possessions. Others dragged children behind them.

A few minutes later, as they cautiously navigated the narrow, crowded streets, the colonels, Torres and Briteis, got their first view of the monster.

"What the hell is
that?"
Colonel Briteis exclaimed, looking up at the creature, which was fortunately still a good distance away. The thing looked like a big bug with two pointed metal drills for hands. As he watched, the monster slammed its foreclaws together. Sparks flew, and a clanging peal echoed over the city.

"Bad news, Colonel Briteis," Colonel Torres told the U.S. Army officer in Spanish. "That
diablo
is between us and the flying ship!"

Sunday, December 10, 2000, 8:10 P.M.
Outskirts of Leninsk
Near Baikonur Cosmodrome

The Russian tanks reached the suburbs of Leninsk at about the same time that Gigan reached the opposite end of the town. General Borodin would have preferred to confront the monster on the steppes, or even in the vast cosmodrome itself, which had plenty of empty space for his tanks to maneuver.

But the flood of refugees fleeing the town had slowed the progress of the defense troops. The tanks - fifty-five T-72s and twenty-five T-80s - had arrived more than an hour late.

Worse still, Borodin had no artillery - and artillery was the backbone of all Russian military tactics.

"Without artillery, you cannot fight a battle." Borodin heard these words all during his decades of military training. But in this case, he did not have the luxury of time. The general had been ordered by the prime minister himself to destroy the creature right here at Baikonur.

And it would be another two hours before the artillery was in position.

Anyway, his former military instructors had fought Nazis in the Great Patriotic War - not monsters in an age of monsters.

Borodin found little comfort in that knowledge. The general cursed the inefficiency of the new Russian Army and the chaotic political situation in the region. Baikonur, which had once had its own division of troops to guard it from internal and external threats in the days of the Soviet Union, now shared civil defense troops with the independent government of Kazakhstan.

General Borodin pulled off his oversized hat and rubbed his right hand through the dirty-gray stubble on his head. A short, bulky sixty-eight-year-old man with an even temperament, Leonid Borodin projected an aura of power and authority.

He paced around the command trailer for a few moments, considering his options. Then he stooped over a map table. The illuminated surface displayed a detailed map of the city.

Already, Borodin had sent scouts into the area, and they were constantly reporting on the creature's whereabouts. According to the latest report, the monster had reached the heart of Leninsk. The creature's position was marked with a blip on his map display.

Not that Borodin had to look far to find the creature - he only had to look for fires on the horizon.

His decision made, the general crossed the command trailer and tapped his communications officer on the shoulder. The man, who sat in front of a huge communications console, removed his bulky earphones and looked up at his commander.

"The attack will commence in twenty minutes," General Borodin announced. "The tanks will enter Leninsk from three directions, as planned. The tank commanders are to use concentrated fire to destroy the creature upon contact."

As the general spoke, the communications officer scribbled notes on a piece of blank paper.

"Even if that attack fails, it will buy us time," the general continued in a rare moment of candor. "In two hours the artillery will be in position to finish off the monster."

Hull of the
Destiny Explorer
Over Lima, Peru

"Up here," Ned cried to Peter, who was still climbing the narrow ladder far beneath him. When the older teen reached the top, his progress was blocked by a round aluminum hatch. Ned studied the latch mechanism for a moment, then threw it. Fresh air gushed into the narrow, claustrophobic tunnel they'd been climbing through. Ned pushed again, and the hatch clanged open.

Scrambling to the top of the ladder, Ned pulled himself out of the tunnel and onto the top of the
Destiny Explorer
's hull. Winds blasted him, throwing his long blond hair over his eyes. Ned brushed it aside and helped Peter out of the tunnel. But when the Native American teenager crawled onto the hull, he clutched the handhold and wouldn't stand up. His raven-black shoulder-length hair whipped around in the wind.

Ned rose unsteadily, but immediately dropped down again when the airship lurched. Both he and Peter could feel the
Explorer
swaying beneath them. Ned was ready to go back down the ladder when Peter spotted a yellow sign. He pulled on Ned's arm and pointed.

PULL HERE TO DEPLOY SAFETY RAIL, the sign read.

Ned Landson reached out, grasped the metal handle, and pulled. Silently, a stretch of railing rose up from the hull. The railing was low, but it formed a path all along the top of the airship. With a pop, a square metal door opened next to the hatch. Inside, Ned saw coiled safety belts and harnesses. He grabbed two of them.

The teenagers put the harnesses around their waists, and then clipped their individual safety lines to the rail. They could now move back and forth along the hull without fear of falling. Even if they did, the safety line would catch them before they could slip off the rounded sides of the airship.

As they got to their feet, the two teens heard an explosion from below. They looked out over a panoramic view of the city.

On the far side of a ribbon of water, the city was ablaze. Along the riverfront, low buildings that housed small businesses and shops burst into flames as a bolt of electricity struck them. Ned and Peter followed the path of that flash of lightning and saw the monster towering over the center of town.

"What is that?" Peter cried. "A giant bug!"

"No," Ned replied quickly. "It has only four legs - well, two legs and two arms ... or
are
they arms?"

"They look more like drills," Peter replied.

Ned nodded in agreement. "That thing isn't a product of evolution, I'm sure of it," Ned stated. "It looks like something a mad geneticist would create."

The mysterious monster was about fifty-five meters tall and had a large, insectlike head - complete with two multifaceted eyes and waving antennae above them. In the middle of the creature's hideous face were mandibles, which opened and closed intermittently for no apparent reason.

On the crown of the monster's head was a horn topped by a star-shaped crest. From that star, flashes of what looked like lightning bolts burst forth, raining destruction down on the city.

The creature's green-hued body was protected by layers of thick, overlapping scales. On its back were beetlelike wings with slashes of bright colors. The lower legs were short and there was even an abbreviated tail.

But the most amazing things about the creature were the pointed metallic half-cones where hands or claws should have been. The creature waved its arms wildly, smashing anything within its reach.

As the teens watched, the creature's right claw clipped the bell tower of a centuries-old stone cathedral. The structure crumpled, spilling huge bells into the crowded streets below. A cloud of dust obscured the rest of this horrific vision, but Peter was sure people had been crushed under the rubble.

Ned watched in dread as people began to jump out of the burning buildings on the riverfront. They leaped from high windows into the murky waters below. One woman was on fire as she plunged into the water. Ned watched as her corpse bobbed to the surface a final time before sinking beneath the dark waters.

Suddenly, Ned didn't think what he was seeing was so "cool."

Through the din of crashing buildings and screaming, fleeing victims, the two teenagers heard a fusillade of small-arms fire. Since arriving in Lima, Ned had noticed uniformed and heavily armed police on the streets below. Now a bunch of those paramilitary police had formed a line; with clear plastic riot shields held in front of them, they approached the monster down a wide boulevard.