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

“Rod, this is a—” I can barely bring myself to say it, but shove the words out, “—paranormal threat. My office and my office alone has jurisdiction, whether the event is in your territory or Hawaii.”


“Thanks for reminding me,” Cugliari says. “You don’t have a full team. Regulations say that each Fusion Center must have a minimum of three field team members and two office coordinators. You’ve been a three-man operation for years. Even if this was a paranormal threat, which it’s not, you don’t have the person—”

“That’s why I’ve hired Collins and Woodall,” I say, and am thrilled when neither of the two objects. They might later, but they no doubt understand that I’m up against a wall and that Cugliari is a dick.

He laughs in a way that makes me think he’s going to wave his hand at me and say, “The very idea,” but he just turns away and says, “Just stay out of my way and I’ll put in a good word. See if you can’t be the janitor for FC-Boston.”

“You want me to pop this guy?” Woodstock asks. He’s just met the man, but his fists are clenched and his eyes are shooting lasers through the back of Cugliari’s head.

Collins puts her hand on my arm. “You need to put jurisdiction aside. Focus on the big picture.”

Right. The big picture is that all these people are going to die.

Collins’s unanswered question hits me like a kick in the nuts. “Rod!” I shout it loud and angry enough that a good number of people turn and look, putting Rod on the spot. He turns around slowly. “Did you cancel my evacuation order?”

“You mean, did I save the City of Portland from widespread chaos that would result in the loss of life and property? You bet to hell I did.” He gets in my face. “We’re in the business of protecting lives, not endangering them.”

I point to the city beyond the highway. “You need to get those people away from here.” My eyes wander and I start looking for other requests that might have been canceled. There’s no heavy ordinance. No tanks. No mortar. No anti-tank missile teams. The biggest guns I see are turret machine guns mounted to the top of five Humvees. They won’t be any more use than Woodstock’s helicopter-mounted weapon. I turn my right ear to the sky and ignore everything else. If there were jets circling the city, I would hear them.

“Everyone who dies here today,” I say, “it’s on you.”

He cocks his head to the side, steps closer and twitches his mustache. “That a threat?”

I’m a millisecond away from pummeling Cugliari when a National Guard soldier approaches with a large handheld tablet like an iPad, but twice the size. “Sir, the satellite link is up.”

Cugliari takes the tablet and looks at the image. It’s a view of Portland, centered on the staging area. What I immediately notice is the number of cars moving on the streets behind us. Beyond the warehouses are blocks of residential neighborhoods, then the city proper and finally the ocean. The forest opposite the highway looks undisturbed, but that doesn’t make me feel any better.

Cugliari, on the other hand, feels vindicated. “There’s nothing there.” Using the touch screen, he moves the image north. “Nothing at all.”

“Can you point this thing somewhere else?” I ask the National Guardsman.

He nods. “Most anywhere in Maine and Northern New Hampshire.”

“Bring up Ashton, Maine,” I tell him.

“Showing me an empty town that was evacuated on your order isn’t going to change any—”

“Evacuated?” I shout. “Have you even been paying attention?”

“You mean to your reports of an imaginary giant monster stomping its way through Maine? You’ve been marshaling forces based on your word alone. You lied about a biological threat, Hudson. You’re in serious—”

The Guardsman saves Cugliari from a beat down. “Oh my God.”

Cugliari looks at the satellite image. The town of Ashton looks like a scar on the face of the planet. “What is that?”

“That is Ashton,” I tell him. “What’s left of it.”

I can see flashing lights of emergency vehicles on the fringes of downtown, but they probably have no idea what to do. “Zoom in,” I say. “Center of town.”

When Cugliari doesn’t move, the Guardsman does it for him.

As the images of death and destruction come into focus, I watch all of Cugliari’s anger and resolve melt away. “What happened?”

“That would be the imaginary giant monster,” Woodstock answers.

“Ashton never got my evacuation order,” I say. “If they had, all those people might still be alive. Instead, the town is a graveyard. Rod.” When he doesn’t look at me, I raise my voice. “Rod!” His head snaps toward me. I point to the warehouses behind us. “There are sixty-two thousand more people on the other side of these buildings than there were in Ashton. Their lives are at risk, because of you. Order the evacuation. Get me my heavy hitters. And call back the God-damned jets.”

He’s about to nod when Collins speaks up. “Jon...”

The worry in her voice tenses my back into a steel plate. I look at her and she taps her nose. I take a sniff.

Vinegar.