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

When the nearest FBI man saw Gordon’s grin widen, he realized the truth. He started to shout a warning, but Gordon pulled the handle on his door and kicked it open. The heavy door struck the man’s leg with a crack. The man dropped to the concrete floor, screaming and clutching his shattered knee.

As the second, very surprised man jumped back and adjusted his aim toward Gordon, the old general lunged out with shocking speed and clutched the weapon, and the man’s hand, crushing both. The man started to scream, but Gordon yanked him in close and delivered a punch to the man’s chest. Beneath his knuckles, he felt ribs bend, separate and then break. He felt muscle and sinew tearing away. He felt the man’s raw heart, flex inward, and burst.

When he drew his fist back, the man was dead, his chest caved in like he’d been on the receiving end of a cannon ball.

Gordon looked up and saw Endo grappling with the fourth FBI agent, a dead man already at their feet. When he looked away, he heard a crack and knew the agent was dead. He closed the door to his car and stood over the FBI agent whose knee he’d turned to powder.

The man watched as Gordon picked up the dropped handgun.

“Glock 23,” Gordon said. “Standard issue. Not really a man’s gun, is it, though?”

The agent didn’t reply.

“Still, I suppose it will kill a man just as good as anything.”

“Don’t—don’t shoot me,” the agent said. “I have kids.”

“Then you’re in the wrong line of work,” Gordon replied. “But don’t worry. Answer my question and I won’t shoot you.”

The man nodded.

“Who requested I be brought in?”

The agent looked uncomfortable answering, but when Gordon gently tapped the man’s knee with the gun barrel, he blurted out, “DHS!”

“Which office?”

“I—I don’t know,” the man cried. “It was a Fusion Center, but it didn’t have a city designation. Just a P. Fusion Center – P!”

Gordon stared into the man’s eyes. He’d seen the look before. The utter desperation. Plus, giving away the identity of the arresting agency wasn’t exactly a breach in security. He believed the man. It meant that agent Hudson had survived the BioLance building’s destruction. He would have to be dealt with, but not yet.

Gordon put the gun down on the concrete and smiled at the man, who looked relieved. Then he placed his thick hand over the man’s neck and slowly increased the pressure. The agent fought, despite the severe pain it must have caused his leg. He punched, jabbed pressure points and kicked his good leg into Gordon’s groin.

None of it fazed the general. He felt very little pain.

The agent’s face turned deep red, and just before the man lost consciousness, something in the neck cracked. The flesh compressed quickly after that, and the man’s body laid still.

A shifting sound took the general’s attention away from the man. He looked back and found Endo dragging the man with the cratered chest to the open back hatch of the SUV where two bodies already waited.

“You are a marvel of efficiency, Endo,” Gordon said as the man tossed the dead agent into the vehicle. Gordon picked up the agent with the crushed neck, lifting him with one hand. He carried the man to the SUV and put him in with the rest.

Endo closed the SUV’s rear door and turned to the general. “You seem...well, sir.”

Gordon grinned. “Better than that.”

Endo nodded. “The heart?”

“There is no doubt about that,” Gordon answered. “It would seem a little bit of our large Alaskan friend hitched a ride with my new organ.”

“Is it safe?” Endo asked.

The question annoyed the general, but Endo had watched out for his safety for the past five years. It was his job to ask those kinds of questions. Gordon nodded. “I will let you know the second I feel anything but stellar.”

Endo gave a nod, before turning away, climbing into the SUV and pulling away. He’d park it in a visitor spot where it wouldn’t be discovered for days. Gordon looked around the garage.

Not a drop of blood or a sign of a struggle.

He bent down and picked up the lone discarded handgun and slid it beneath the driver’s seat of his BMW before locking the doors and strutting away. If security was even watching the garage feeds, they would simply see Gordon’s vehicle enter the dead zone and the SUV follow. Since both vehicles had tinted windows, they would never know Endo hadn’t been driving the SUV all along.

Gordon opened the trunk, which contained his discarded hospital clothes, and opened a briefcase. Inside was a custom made, sound suppressed .50 caliber Desert Eagle handgun. It could punch a hole in a man’s chest big enough to leap through without making much more sound than a cough. He chambered a round, tucked the weapon behind his back and headed for the elevator.

As the doors pinged open, Endo slid up next to the general and stepped inside. They both turned around to face the garage.

“Do you think security has been told to watch for us?” Endo asked.

Gordon looked at Endo. “Only one way to find out.”

Both men smiled.

The doors slid closed and the elevator shot up toward the fiftieth floor of Boston’s second tallest building.





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