Project Maigo (29 page)

I’ve heard a few people enter and leave the Oval Office behind us, shouting for the President. Agents, aids, maybe even generals, none of them thinking to open the closed shades and look outside. Right now, the President is AWOL and not making decisions. The people who need his approval to act are probably freaking out, but that’s okay. He’s exactly where he needs to be.

I hope.

If I get the man killed, I’m fairly well screwed. Worse than that, so are all the people helping me tonight. As the last of the vehicles pulls away from the South Lawn drive and the helicopters thunder into the air, Agent Dunne returns from the Oval Office. The man looks like he’s going on vacation, carrying six black, hard cases of varying sizes.

I help him with the cases and open one of the three larger ones. “Is this everything?”

Dunne nods.

Inside the large case is a tactical uniform, complete with body armor. One like it came in handy against Gordon before, but we couldn’t wear the gear beneath our disguises. Knowing the Secret Service would have their own on hand, we decided it would be best to borrow theirs. And there’s the added bonus of looking like one of the gang. Hiding behind a row of thick bushes, Endo and I don the gear. As I cinch the last buckle, I feel much more prepared, though still fairly defenseless. To my surprise, Dunne changes into his own armor. He might be an automaton right now, but he’s still doing his job.

I open the next three cases to reveal three different weapons. I take the smallest of them, an FN P90, which has a super high rate of fire and Secret Service-issue, armor-piercing rounds. It’s also small and light, so my mobility won’t be compromised. And that’s important, because I’m probably going to be running for my life sooner than later. Endo takes the second weapon, an M4 Carbine, powerful enough to punch straight through an engine block, and hopefully through Gordon’s skin. Dunne, now ready for battle, takes an MP5 and slaps on a Beta C-Mag, a dual drum magazine that holds a hundred rounds. He can hold down that trigger and spray bullets until the sun comes up.

Dunne reaches beneath his jacket and draws his FN Five-seven pistol, spins it around and holds it out to Beck. “This your idea?” I ask Endo.

“I think it’s better if he can defend himself,” Endo says.

“He’s likely to shoot himself accidentally,” I complain.

“Just tell him he’s a good shot.”

I shake my head. This plan is getting stupider by the minute.

A string of Harrier jets roar by above, heading east, derailing my train of thought. Missiles scream from their undersides, rocketing ahead of the jets. The mix of jets and missiles pass by quickly. For some reason, the wailing air-raid sirens fall silent. The sound of screams fills the void, rising from all over the city—police sirens, squealing tires, people. If there was a soundtrack to Hell, it would probably sound something like this. I cringe, knowing that people are already dying in the city. And it’s my fault. I put them in harm’s way.

Tense voices, closer by, rise up next. The remaining Secret Service are taking up positions. Activating defenses. While we call the building a house, it is actually something closer to a fortress, with reinforced walls and windows, hidden chain guns, missile defense systems and now, a nearby battalion of tanks, which I know are there, because I recommended them. In fact, all of the protocols being activated right now are, in part, my creation, put in place when I still had the President’s ear.

Despite all this, it’s not enough. The weaponry might slow down a single Kaiju, but we’ve got three stomping toward the city. And a fourth somewhere else. And it’s that fourth, which we know carries Gordon around in its mouth, that is my true concern.

In the distance, missiles explode, filling the night with the sound of distant thunder. A roar follows, even louder. And it’s not a wounded cry, it’s just pissed. And closer than I would like.

A rumbling shakes my legs. The grinding squeal of tank treads scoring pavement. M1 Abrams tanks take up positions around the White House, on the far side of the South Lawn and along Executive Avenue, defending an empty building. Well, almost empty. They must know that Beck has decided to stay.

Proving this assumption correct, a ten-man squad of fully armored and armed Secret Service agents burst from the White House and take up defensive positions around Beck, and us. Endo and I share a grin.
Now this is more like it.

Amid the chaos, I become aware of a pulse moving through the colonnade floor, slowly growing more intense. With the White House empty of people and the Secret Service on board, it’s time to move. I focus on the sentence I want the President to say.

“Let’s move to the roof,” Beck says. “So we can see what we’re up against.”

Before any of the agents can complain about this tactic, Dunne says, “Right this way, sir,” and charges back into the Oval Office. When Endo and I, dressed as agents now, quickly follow, leading Beck inside, the rest fall in line. It’s like high school again, leading innocent Freshman behind the gym to smoke their first doobie, except that those freshman had a good time and weren’t in danger of a violent death.

We hurry through the White House in a blur. After being here day after day with halls full of tourists and employees, seeing the place empty feels surreal. We charge up a flight of stairs, and while Beck is encircled by agents, he’s holding his handgun at the ready, looking fearless. The most awkward part of a roofward charge is the elevator. We hurry inside, cram in tightly and then stand still while the elevator rises. I want to ask if the elevator exits at the roof. I want to make a Muzak joke. Both would invite suspicion, though, so I keep my mouth shut. The elevator doors open and all fourteen of us are vomited into the hallway beyond. The hall is black. Red emergency lights glow from the ceiling, allowing us to see while acclimating our eyes to the night. We hurry down the long stretch to a short staircase, at the top of which is a solid-looking door with a numeric keypad and a hand print security system. I step aside and let Dunne do the deed. Cool night air washes over us, along with the sounds of a panicked populace, the din of distant battle and the sound of something approaching.

Something large.

The roof has been transformed. Chain guns line the roof walls, two to the north, two to the south. What normally look like air conditioning units have been revealed for what they really are—missile launchers—controlled from inside the security room buried several levels below us. In addition to Secret Service, there are soldiers on the roof, armed with an array of weapons, including anti-tank missiles and grenade launchers.

“The men look afraid,” Beck says.

Endo shoots me a questioning glance. I shrug. I didn’t put the words in his mouth. I’m barely looking at the soldiers hurrying about. My eyes are turned southward, past the South Lawn and the Ellipse, all the way to the Washington Monument.

“Men!” Beck shouts, raising his hands in the air.

Someone says, “Oh my God, is that the President?”

“Our darkest hour is upon us, but we must stand together, as brothers, as equals! I will fight with you, and if I must, I will die with you!”

The number of cheers equals the number of confused faces.

“Now let’s send these Kaiju sons-a-bi—”

A roar interrupts Beck’s speech. It comes from the south. All heads turn.

Drakon, now  200 feet long from snout to tail comes flailing out of the reflecting pool at a dead run. The monster still has a low to the ground body, like a lizard, but like all the other Kaiju, it’s wearing a Nemesis skin, with coils of dark flesh, a jagged spike-covered back and glowing membranes, which are thankfully on its underside, illuminating its approach like a punk-ass teenager’s undercar lighting.

As its wide limbs scramble and claw at the grass, the thing tumbles and rolls, slamming into the Washington Monument. The sound of stone cracking is like a cannon blast. I swear I see the obelisk waver, but it doesn’t fall. Then Drakon is back up and charging straight toward the White House. It will cover the half-mile distance in seconds.

Beck steps forward, hands on the south wall of the White House’s roof. “Fire!”

39

The thunder that follows the President’s order drowns out the sounds of the wailing city. The sirens. The screaming. Even Drakon’s roar. The amount of firepower launched from the White House is mind numbing. Missiles cruise over the South Lawn. I can feel the heat from their fiery rockets on my face. A wall of bright orange tracer rounds follows the missiles, showing the paths of thousands of bullets, all headed for Drakon. And then there’s the ordinance we can’t see: grenades launched above it all, tumbling through the air toward the monster’s back.

While the modern and primal destructive forces race toward each other, I turn to Dunne and grab his arm and point to Beck. “Get him to the PEOC!” The Presidential Emergency Operations Center is a bunker beneath the East Wing, and it was built to withstand a nuclear blast. It won’t stop four Kaiju from digging him out like colossal dogs going after a buried bone, but it will protect him if one of these sons-a-bitches self-immolates. And while I’m not a fan of Beck—at least before I gave him a bravery boost and a moral adjustment—he’s still the President, and my boss.

Dunne looks confused for a moment, but then Endo turns to him and says, “Go. Now.” The agent nods and takes Beck’s arm. The President resists for a moment, but I give him a mental shove, and the pair runs for the roof exit.

A series of explosions nearly knocks me over. I turn back to the south and see Drakon emerge from a billowing mass of fire. Tracer rounds greet her on the way out of the flames, hot metal digging into her thick skin, but doing no real damage. That is, until a line of orange, spewing from one of the chain guns, strikes her left eye. The orb absorbs hundreds of rounds before bursting liquid nasty all over the monster’s face.

Drakon shrieks in pain and thrashes as she continues forward. When the dark lizard reaches the South Lawn Fountain, the top of her lowered snout slams into the thick stone wall. The head stops while the body moves forward. The giant head folds under the body as it lifts up and over. The angle is so extreme that I find myself hoping the thing’s neck will be snapped.

The monster’s tail thrashes wildly, trying to find some kind of equilibrium, but the body continues up and over, landing in the fountain with a splash. For a moment, it appears that we’ve managed a small victory, but then a grenade bursts—directly over one of the orange membranes on the creature’s exposed underside—sending shards of metal downward and plumes of glowing fluid upward.

“Get down!” I shout, tackling Endo to the roof.

The resulting explosion knocks everyone down and knocks the air from my lungs, but we’re spared from the searing heat and flames. The metal fragments created relatively small holes. Had it been a missile, the White House and everyone on this roof, would have been reduced to ash.

“Hold your fire!” I shout, and then remember that I’ve got access to Devine. Crouching behind the wall, I pull out my smart phone, activate the Devine network and broadcast to all emergency personnel listening, careful not to identify myself. “This is Agent Dunne of the Secret Service, do not, I repeat do
not
hit the target’s membranes!” I don’t need to explain why to the people atop the White House roof. They all just got a stark reminder. But with three more Kaiju incoming, each containing enough boom-juice to level D.C., I think a quick refresher is a good idea.

As confirmations start to come in from various military and emergency sources, I hang up the phone and hit the call button for Ranger.

He answers, out of breath. “What?”

“Ranger, I need an ETA.”

“Two minutes for me,” he says. His voice shakes as he runs. “One for...our special friend.”

“Copy that,” I say, and hang up, dialing Woodstock. The line connects, and I don’t wait for a greeting. “Status?”

“In the air and hanging back,” Woodstock replies. “But these guys are moving fast; seventy miles per hour, straight through the suburbs. They’re getting shot to shit, but they’re not even feeling it.”

“ETA?”

“We’re about twenty miles out. We’ll be inside the city limits in ten minutes. To the White House in fifteen.”

“Copy that,” I say. “Be safe.”

I hang up the phone and pocket it. My job here isn’t to coordinate the response, it’s to
respond
. Personally. As much as I hate it, that’s the only way this mess is going to be resolved.

With a high pitched squeal I can feel in my teeth, Drakon rolls over. Seeing an opportunity, the first of the M1 Abrams tanks to react to the Kaiju’s sudden appearance, launches a round at Drakon’s side. The tank fires a supersonic 120mm kinetic round with a depleted uranium tip. It’s capable of punching through just about anything on the planet. Including, it would seem, Kaiju flesh.

The round strikes Drakon’s right forelimb, exploding with tremendous force and spraying chunks of brown meat and black skin across the lawn.

Drakon roars in pain and bounces on its feet, turning back and forth. It’s almost comical, like the thing is saying, ‘What hit me? What hit me?’ It must figure out the answer because it leaps through the air and drops down on the tank, crushing it with the creature’s weight. Adding insult to injury, Drakon takes hold of the tank’s gun turret, lifts the crumpled tank off the ground and throws it across the lawn, toward a second tank still taking aim. The tanks collide in a tangle of very expensive metal, and the men buried somewhere within.