Project Hyperion (A Kaiju Thriller) (Kaiju #4)

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—”