Godzilla - The Official Movie Novelization (24 page)

Tucked in among the airmen, Ford watched as the heavy-lift transport chopper peeled away from its escort, flying toward San Francisco Bay with the recovered warhead. Ford wondered if it was one of the bombs he’d replaced the detonator on.

“Where are they taking it?” he asked, referring to the warhead.

“Twenty miles out to sea,” an airman explained. “Convergence point. We’re going to lure them there. Three birds, one stone!”

The escort ‘copter banked away toward Sausalito to the north. Ford shuddered beneath the blanket as the chopper bearing the 300-kiloton warhead made its way toward San Francisco.

His home. His family.

A makeshift command center had been established on a mountain overlook to the north of the Golden Gate Bridge. The scenic location offered a workable view of San Francisco Bay and the city proper. Mobile trailers and temporary structures were swarming with military personnel, who hustled to make sure everything was in readiness for the next, and possibly final, stage of the defense operations. Sunlight filtered through gray clouds. An overcast sky threatened to rain.

Airlifted to the site, Serizawa and Graham accompanied Admiral Stenz, Captain Hampton, and key personnel from the
Saratoga
as they hurried across the grounds to their new tactical operations center. Hampton updated the admiral on the move.

“We only found one warhead, sir,” he reported, “but it’s intact and already prepped with a manual timer and detonation mechanism. Should be immune to those things.”

Stenz nodded. “Where is it right now?”

“En route, sir. There’s a transport vessel waiting in the bay. The warhead should be there any minute.”

Serizawa paused to look south, where he spied a heavy-lift military helicopter carrying the nuclear warhead toward the bay. The sight of the chopper’s lethal cargo filled his soul with dread. His fingers found the antique watch in his pocket. He thought of mushroom clouds rising over a devastated atoll in the Pacific.

History, he feared, was repeating itself.

* * *

The Air Force helicopter touched down in the foothills overlooking the bay. As Ford exited the chopper, civilian relief workers rushed up to treat his injuries. He brushed them off impatiently, anxious to get to Elle and Sam somehow. It was maddening to be so close, to actually be within sight of the city, and still be separated from his family.

Hang, on Elle
, he thought.
I’m almost there.

He surveyed his surroundings. A parking lot in the hills was jammed with vehicles: some military, but also plenty of school buses and ambulances. Hundreds of anxious people milled about an emergency staging area and shelter, hastily assembled on the outskirts of the city north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Trying to make sense of the situation, he buttonholed a passing relief worker bearing an armload of first aid supplies.

“Is the city evacuated?” Ford asked.

The other man shook his head. “Only schools and hospitals. Everyone else is still inside.”

Including Elle and Sam? Or were they among those evacuated? Ford flashed back to that nightmarish morning fifteen years ago when he and the other children had been hurriedly evacuated from Miss Okada’s classroom. He knew exactly how scared Sam must be right now, but he had no way of knowing where his family was. For all he knew, Sam was on one of those crowded buses in the parking lot.

He ran toward the vehicles, desperate to find out.

“Hey!” the puzzled relief worker said. “Where are you going?”

* * *

The USNS
Yakima
, a fast combat support ship, was docked at Fisherman’s Wharf. A skycrane helicopter hovered above the ship as the recovered nuclear warhead was lowered via winches onto the
Yakima
’s deck. Office workers being evacuated from nearby buildings glanced nervously at the nuclear warhead as they were hustled into waiting vans and buses. Jeff Lewis, one of the missile techs assigned to the operation, didn’t blame the spectators for looking askance at the warhead. To be honest, it made him uncomfortable, too. Nuclear bombs belonged in silos or submarines, not heading out into San Francisco Bay.

But what other choice did they have? Nothing else seemed to be stopping the monsters.

* * *

Running out of the hospital, Elle searched frantically for her son.

A full-scale evacuation was underway in front of San Francisco General. EMTs and orderlies assisted in loading critical patients into waiting ambulances, monitoring vitals as they did so. Many of the patients could not walk on their own and had to be wheeled to the vehicles and physically lifted inside. Moving them at all would be a bad idea under most circumstances, but these were definitely not normal conditions. Better to transport them now than leave them helpless in the path of the creatures that were reportedly converging on the city. Unlike more able-bodied people, these patients wouldn’t be able to make their own escape.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the loading and unloading area, National Guard troops were ushering more children onto school buses. Could Sam have accidentally been swept up in the mass evacuation? Standing atop the front steps of the hospital, she peered at the buses, hoping she wasn’t already too late. Panic threatened as one bus after another drove away from the hospital, heading toward God knew where. What if Sam was already on one of those buses? How on Earth would she ever find him again?

No
,
I can’t lose him, too!

Then, through the bustling confusion, she glimpsed Sam tottering about in the chaos, looking lost and confused. Numerous strangers jostled the little boy, too caught up in the overall emergency to pay attention to a single unattended child on the verge of tears. Sam looked about anxiously, searching for a familiar face. Elle’s heart nearly burst from her chest.

“SAM!”

Her voice reached him through the hubbub. Turning toward her, he spied his mother at the top of the steps. His face lit up in relief.

“Mommy!”

He ran toward her with his tiny arms outstretched.

“No!” she cried out, afraid of losing him in the crowd again. “Wait there!”

But it was no use. Desperate for his mother, Sam raced for the steps and was almost immediately swallowed up by swirling maelstrom of soldiers, paramedics, evacuees, stretchers, IVs, and gurneys. Rushing down the steps, shoving her way through the hectic mass exodus, Elle tried to keep him in sight, but too many much larger bodies got in the way. People were practically stampeding toward the buses and ambulances now, desperate not to be left behind. Any pretense at a calm and orderly evacuation was devolving into bedlam.

Hang on, baby
,
I’m coming!

* * *

Sam couldn’t get to his mommy. Big people rushed past him on all sides, blocking him and spinning him around until he didn’t know which way to go. He looked for Mommy, but he couldn’t see her anymore. There were too many people all around, all in too big of a hurry to notice him. A swinging elbow knocked him down and he fell onto the pavement. Rushing feet stomped past him and, unable to get back up, he curled up into a ball, afraid that the crowd was going to stomp all over him. Boots and shoes smacked against the ground, only inches away from him. Terrified, tears pouring down his face, he screamed for his mommy.

And all at once she was there, her comforting arms scooping him up from the pavement and holding him close. A flood of grownups swept past them on either side, ignoring the rescue, but Sam wasn’t afraid anymore. His mother had found him.

“It’s okay, I got you,” she cooed, hugging him tightly. “I got you.”

* * *

Thank God
, Elle thought.

She had gotten to him just in time. Things were getting seriously crazy out here now that the last of the buses were beginning to pull away. A few more moments and Sam might have actually been trampled in the rush. She hefted him in her arms and squeezed him with all her strength. She never wanted to let go of him again.

And yet, glancing around, she saw that there was only one school bus left. Her heart was torn in two as she spotted Laura herding the children from their ward onto the bus, which, in theory, would take them out of harm’s way. If Sam stayed behind with her, he would be trapped in a city that was looking at a disaster of unimaginable proportions. Conflicted, Elle found herself faced with two equally ghastly prospects: letting Sam out of her sight or risking his life by keeping him with her. It was agonizing dilemma, but, deep down inside, she understood that, if he stayed, she would not be able to protect him from the horrors in store.

The monsters were coming—and she knew what she had to do.

“Wait!” she shouted, running toward the last bus with Sam in her arms. “Wait!”

She reached the bus and tried to put him down on the bus’s steps. He clung to her, just as unwilling to let go as she was. Laura stepped forward to help Sam onto the bus. The older nurse held out her hand, but Sam turned away from her, wanting his mother instead.

“Sammy,” Elle said, her heart breaking. “You remember Laura, mommy’s work-friend? You need to go with her, okay?”

His eyes welled with tears. Panic filled his voice. “No, mommy, no!”

She was briefly tempted to climb into the bus with him, but then she remembered all the injured patients back in the triage unit.
Someone
had to stay to look after them. She suddenly appreciated, more than ever, the dilemma Ford confronted every time his duty called him away from his family. Fighting back tears of her own, she fought to keep up a brave face. For Sam’s sake.

“Mommy has to stay and help people. But I’ll see you soon, I promise.”

She pulled him tightly to her chest, just for a moment, then reluctantly let go. Peeling his tiny arms away from her was harder than clamping any bleeding artery. She felt like her own heart was being shredded by a monster’s claws. What if this was the last time she ever held her baby boy?

Laura tried again to take Sam from her. Her expression made it clear that she understood just how excruciating this farewell was for Elle. She gave the young mother a reassuring nod that testified to years of perfecting a good bedside manner.

“It’s okay,” she said, corralling Sam and taking his hand. “C’mon, Sammy.”

Laura led the boy up into the bus, where the driver was getting visibly impatient behind the wheel. She paused at the top of the steps to look back at Elle, who doing her best not to fall apart until the bus left. She didn’t want Sam to see how scared she was.

“I’ll keep him safe, Elle,” Laura said.

Elle knew she could count on Laura to keep her promise. Even so, as the door slid shut and the bus began to drive off, carrying Sam away, it took all of Elle’s strength and resolve not to change her mind and chase after the bus, screaming and shouting for it turn around and bring her boy back to her. He was only four years old. He needed his mother.

But he needed to get away, too. Before the monsters came.

Rain began to drizzle from the sky as she watched the bus join the procession heading for the Bridge. She waited, frozen in place, until she couldn’t see Sam’s bus anymore.

Then she turned and headed back to work.

At least Sam will be safe
, she thought.
If any of us are.

The tac-ops command center occupied a large state-of-the-art mobile trailer that had been tricked out with sophisticated communications and monitoring equipment. Networked screens lined the interior of the trailer to provide Admiral Stenz and his staff with real-time data, video, and satellite feeds. Large windows at the rear of the trailer offered a direct view of the bay and San Francisco. Analysts and technicians were already at their stations as Stenz strode into the trailer.

“Sit rep!” he demanded. “Where are our targets?”

“The male was spotted thirty miles west,” a civilian analyst reported, “off the Farallon Islands.”

“We’re showing seismic activity to the east, near Liver-more,” Martinez added. “Should be the female, closing in.”

Stenz nodded. “And the big one?”

The analysts shook their heads. The admiral glanced at the sonar screens from the ships offshore. They remained blank.

“Last contact was five hours ago,” Martinez said, “maintaining a bearing of zero-five-three degrees and descending past ten thousand feet. Nothing since.”

Five hours
, Stenz thought. That was more than enough time for the submerged leviathan to reach the strait leading into the bay. Frowning, he turned his attention to another bank of monitors, where live satellite and CCTV feeds showed the Golden Gate Bridge. The outbound lanes, leading away from the city, were jammed bumper-to-bumper with school buses packed with kids.
Damn it
.
Why aren’t those children to safety yet?

“There are still buses on that bridge,” he said. “Deploy everything we have. If they come at the bay, at least we’ll slow them down.”

But for how long?

* * *

“Everyone stay in your seats!” the bus driver hollered from behind the wheel. He honked his horn and shouted impatiently at the long line of buses in front of them on the bridge. “Come on, what’s the holdup?”

Sam’s bus, the last in the procession, was barely moving. Restless kids, most of them older than him, were getting loud and rowdy. Younger children were crying or refusing to stay in their seats, while the teenagers, who were working way too hard to hide how scared they were, joked and roughhoused with each other. Sam sat huddled in the back, wanting his mother, but trying to be brave. He peered out of the rain-streaked windows at the huge steel cables of the bridge and the foggy waters of the bay. Mommy’s friend Laura was up near the front of the bus, struggling to maintain order. Sam wasn’t entirely sure where the bus was taking them, but he hoped they got there soon—and that Mommy would come get him as soon as she could.

Horns blasted loudly across the bridge, but the caravan of buses remained snarled in traffic. The vehicles crept forward, their drivers jostling for inches. Inside Sam’s bus, somebody started throwing spit wads at the other kids. A paper airplane flew by Sam’s head. A teenager complained that he was starving. Sam tried to ignore the ruckus. He wished everybody would just calm down.