Project Maigo, Page 3

  So when reports of the attack on Hong Kong came in, Endo and his team were on board a Cessna Citation X—the world’s fastest private jet, clocking in at 717 miles per hour—cruising across the Pacific, covering a mile every six seconds.

  Endo crossed his legs, settled back into the plush leather seat and glanced out the window at the blue sky and bluer ocean below. Somewhere down there was a 300-foot tall monster capable of destroying entire cities. Perhaps the world. A smile came to his face.

  “Sir,” a woman said.

  He turned to Maggie Alessi, his second in command. Like him, she was dressed in black slacks and a black jacket. The attire served to conceal their weapons, but also made them look like government officials. FBI, CIA, even the DHS. Whatever they needed to be. Zoomb had the resources to create any ID they needed, and the R&D department had a higher budget than most government agencies.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “We just got confirmation. The FC-P is in the air.”

  “Hudson?” he asked.

  “And Collins.”

  He nodded. He had nothing against Jon Hudson. In fact, he admired the man for standing unshaken before Nemesis and offering Maigo’s father, Alexander Tilly, to the monster as a sacrificial lamb. The man was guilty of murder, but at the time had not yet been convicted. Hudson had been scrutinized for the act at first, but no one could deny that he’d saved what remained of Boston, and countless more lives. When evidence proving that Tilly had murdered his wife and daughter emerged, the matter was dropped. Despite Endo’s admiration for Hudson, he knew the feeling was not mutual. Hudson would arrest him just as soon as he had evidence linking Endo to one of the many crimes Gordon had had him commit.

  He looked at his watch.

  “We land in an hour,” Alessi said, tucking her straight black hair behind her ears. Like Endo, her heritage was Japanese. Unlike Endo, she was born in the U.S. and had no love for Kaiju, fictional or real.

  “Plenty of time,” Endo said.

  “Not exactly.”

  Endo raised a single eyebrow, a habit he had picked up from General Gordon.

  “They were seen boarding some kind of stealth transport. Our military sources say it was already headed to Hong Kong to pick up other assets. If it’s as fast as they believe...”

  “How long will we have?” Endo asked.

  “Thirty minutes.”

  “It’s enough.”

  “Enough for what?” Alessi asked. “The attack is over. Authorities haven’t found any physical remains. And the few witnesses still alive aren’t talking, because they’re afraid they’ll be next. What do you expect to find?”

  “Evidence,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “That the creature responsible...” He turned his eyes back out the window, seeing a world filled with amazing and horrible secrets. “...was not Nemesis.”

  4

  “This is all wrong,” I say, staring over the wreckage of Hong Kong’s port. I’ve never been to the city before. Honestly, I’m not much of a city guy. And Hong Kong is all city. Even the mountains struggling to rise up taller than the myriad skyscrapers are marred by crisscrossing lines of homes, businesses and cell towers. It’s like everyone in the city is trying to get higher than everyone else. If they were trying to get out of reach of Nemesis, I’d understand, but like everywhere else on the planet, height is somehow associated with success. Sure, you can see for miles, but here that means gazing out your window at buildings, smog, a congested port and an ocean cluttered with cargo ships.

  Most of which are now half sunk.

  The port is in ruins.

  Thousands of massive shipping containers are strewn about like torn open Christmas presents, except that each of these gifts weighs several tons. And they’ve been tossed about so casually, there is no doubt, something of stunning strength put a whooping on this port.

  “I know,” Collins says. “Early estimates put the dead and missing at three hundred twenty.”

  I wipe my arm across my sweat-slicked forehead. It’s hotter and far more humid than it had been on the Ute reservation. To make matters worse, I can practically feel the smog clinging to the wet air, caking me in filth. And since I didn’t get to take a bath before our flight... Well, let’s just say that I’m riper than a peach left too long in the sun. At least Hawkins came through with the calamine lotion. He let me keep it and a bottle of anti-itch spray. “That’s not what I meant.”

  She glances at me. Doesn’t need to ask. She knows I’ll fill her in.

  “If this were Nemesis, it would be worse.”

  “Worse? But—”

  “Boston worse. Or Beverly. Or even Portland.” Nemesis very nearly wiped Boston off the map. She decimated Beverly harbor. And when she hit Portland, she was only half grown, yet she still left a path of destruction in her wake that dwarfed what I’m looking at. A ruined container catches my eyes. “Look. See the gouges?”

  The wounds in the thick metal are ominous. Powerful. Three claws have peeled through the metal like it was little more than paper.

  Collins sees it. “Shit. You’re right.”

  “Maigo’s—Nemesis’s claws wouldn’t just slice through one of those containers, they’d obliterate it. The destruction here is just too small in scale.”

  “But what about the human trafficking ring that was hit?” Collins asked. “All of the clients were killed, not to mention the ringleader. That’s a lot of very bad guys. It fits Nemesis’s M.O. of doling out justice.”

  I nod. She’s right about that. And other than Nemesis, nothing else I’m aware of is capable of this. Aware of is the key phrase. “There’s something more going on here. What if we were supposed to blame Nemesis for this mess.”

  “Please don’t tell me you think someone is setting up Nemesis.” Her voice oozes with doubt.

  “You saw the news on our way here. There isn’t any doubt in the world’s eyes that this was Nemesis.”

  Collins purses her lips. I can see she wants to believe me, but she’s struggling. In part, because the evidence is damning, but also because my belief that Nemesis isn’t entirely bad irks her. Not enough to create a divide between us, but certainly enough for her to cast doubt on my judgment of the beast. Which I appreciate. People who aren’t held accountable tend to make really poor choices. But this time, I have support.

  “He’s right,” a voice says from behind.

  We both turn to find the silhouette of a woman. The day is overcast and a brown-tinged haze fills the air, but it’s by no means dark. Yet this woman has found the perfect spot between two shipping containers to cloak herself in shadow. I squint, trying to see through the gloom, but she’s dressed in black. The only color I can see is her blonde hair, which hangs over her face. She doesn’t want to be seen.

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  “Can’t tell you that,” she says. Her voice is confident. American. “But you hitched a ride on my plane.”

  That’s all I needed to know. The plane that brought us here—some kind of classified stealth transport—is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. The special-ops group it belongs to has got to be the best of the best. And apparently, this woman is one of them.

  “How is he right?” Collins asks, all business.

  “This wasn’t your monster,” she says.

  I’m not sure I’m comfortable with her emphasis on the word your, like Nemesis belongs to me...or is somehow my fault. Though she is certainly my problem, as I’m in charge of preventing a repeat of Boston.

  “Then what was it?” Collins asks.

  The woman shrugs. “Something else. Smaller. I didn’t get a good look at it.”

  “Why not?” Collins’s tone suggests she doesn’t trust this woman.

  “Because I was running for my life with thirty doped-out sex slaves, that’s why.” The woman pauses, composes herself and continues. “Look, all I know is that it was big, but not three-hundred-feet tall big. It cast a bright orange light
and it was hungry.”

  “Hungry?” I ask.

  “You won’t be finding the missing,” she says. “They were eaten. All of them.”

  “How do you know they were eaten,” Collins says, “if you were running away?”

  The woman twists her neck to the side, and I hear her vertebrae pop.

  I had a friend that did that too much. Neck got all screwed up. “That’s not good for—”

  “Shut the fuck up and listen,” she says. “I’ve dealt with my fair share of monsters before. I understand that you two are new to this, but let me assure you, I know what someone being eaten sounds like. Fuck, you two are way more bitchy than your partners.”

  “Partners?” I ask.

  “Two DHS-P agents. Man and a woman. North side of the port.”

  Shit. Right now, Collins and I are the only field investigators at DHS-P. I’ve been given the green light to hire more, but haven’t. And not because I’m lazy. The low-key, don’t-give-a-shit Jon Hudson is on vacation. Collins and I have just been so swamped with calls since Nemesis, that I haven’t had a chance to even look at applications. Cooper has been trudging through them with Watson back at the office, but they can’t conduct the interviews or hire people. So, I know without a doubt, that the two people this woman has just described are imposters.

  And I’m pretty sure I know who one of them is. I pull out my phone and open the photo app. “Hold on a second,” I say, scrolling through the images like I’m trying to show her a photo of my kids, which I don’t have. When I find the image I’m looking for, I hold it up to the gap between the crates.

  The glowing screen illuminates the woman. She’s not dressed like a soldier. In fact, she’s dressed kind of slutty, in a tight black skirt. Lots of cleavage. Her blonde hair is dirty and hangs over her face, though I can see one of her piercing blue eyes. Perhaps this is why she wanted to remain in the dark. Who would take her seriously?

  She must see all this in my eyes, because she glances down at herself and explains. “I was undercover.” Then she looks up at the phone and adds, “That’s the guy.”

  “He give a name?” I ask.

  “Collins,” she says. “Jon Collins.”

  I grunt in annoyance. “Son-of-a-bitch.” That asshole. Endo is mocking us.

  “There a problem?” she asks.

  “I’m Collins,” Collins says.

  “And I’m Jon.”

  The woman actually laughs. “Sounds like you two have your hands full. I’ll let you get to it.”

  “We could use your help bringing him in,” I say, motioning to Endo’s photo.

  “Sorry,” the mystery woman says. “Got a plane to catch before the world goes to hell again.”

  I turn to Collins. “Let’s go find him.” When I turn back to thank the woman for the information, she’s gone. Like Batman. Silent and mysterious. Maybe she’s just lying on top of one of the containers, but I don’t want to know where she went, because it was pretty cool. I turn to Collins. “Ready for a run?”

  She just turns and starts running north. I follow, moving fast, leaping debris and dodging fallen containers. Endo. For the first time since Boston, he’s within reach, and I intend to put that bastard over my knee and spank the shit out of him, like I’m a card-carrying member of the Pat Robertson fan club.

  5

  “What the—” I manage to say, before slamming into the steel wall of a bright red container. I grunt and take a deep breath, replenishing the air knocked from my lungs and catching a strong whiff of oil and fishy ocean. “It’s not fair that my girlfriend can manhandle me.”

  “On mission, we’re partners,” she reminds me. “Remember? Also, you like it.”

  She’s right. My girl is buff and can fight. Not many guys would admit it, but that’s pretty hot.

  “And if you’re not too busy whining like a sissy,” she says, “maybe you’d like to help me catch Endo?”

  “You saw him?”

  “About 200 feet ahead. Walking away with a woman. Straight black hair.”

  I inch closer to the side of the container and peek around it. When I was running behind Collins, I couldn’t see much of what was ahead. But I quickly spot the pair, walking away casually like they were supposed to be there. Endo nods to a few of the Hong Kong police searching the area for evidence, and they give curt waves back. Not quite friendly. More like tolerant respect. The FC-P is known throughout the world. Although other agencies wouldn’t have been granted immediate access to a catastrophe in China, the FC-P is welcome, mostly because the images of Boston laid to waste are impossible to forget. No one wants that to happen to their city. That Endo is using our credentials to gain access to sites like this, no doubt on behalf of Zoomb, feels like a frontal wedgie from Hulk Hogan.

  I manage to control my ire and focus. “We can follow the rows of containers on either side. Flank them. Catch them in the middle.”

  Collins nods and heads off, moving quickly down the left side of a container row, which was undisturbed by the previous night’s attack.

  A quick peek around the other side reveals that Endo and his friend haven’t changed course or pace. They’re unaware of us. Moving casually, like I belong, I look south and walk across the open space between containers. Even if they had been looking, they wouldn’t have been able to I.D. me.

  Safely hidden by the containers on the other side of the alley, I continue to the far side, but the path isn’t nearly as clear as the one Collins took. Several containers have been knocked over and crushed, their contents disgorged. Toilet seats, clock radios and what appear to be massagers or maybe sex toys, litter the concrete.

  I do my best to hurry through the mess, but there isn’t much room to place my feet. After thirty seconds of stumbling, my foot rolls atop a massager, which shoots out from under me. My unceremonious fall is stopped by a toilet seat—the squishy kind, so that’s something. But my knees take the brunt of the fall, and I quickly come to the conclusion that Endo will be long gone by the time I pick my way through this mess. As the massager buzzes at me, I get back to my feet, find the nearest ladder and then throw myself onto the rungs.

  Move, you idiot, my internal monologue shouts at me. I climb the ladder, reaching the container’s top quickly. I now have a clear shot down the row. I can see Endo, now much further ahead. In a minute, he’ll be outside the port, no doubt whisked away by a waiting vehicle. I take two steps and stop. Not only are the metal containers slick with morning dew, but my boots sound like thunder as I move.

  A menagerie of cuss words flow from my lips as I quickly remove my boots. I’m probably going to cut my foot on the metal and die from some kind of exotic strain of tetanus, but at least my bare feet have better traction, and I’ll be able to move in relative silence.

  I sprint down the string of containers, sticking to the right side where the metal doesn’t flex as much and where I’m less likely to be spotted. Half way to Endo, I’m caught off guard by a five-foot gap, but I manage to jump the distance and continue on. Feeling like a real action hero, I turn on the speed, knowing I’ll catch up to Endo before he can escape.

  Collins must have seen my approach and realized our flanking plan wasn’t going to work, because she steps out in front of Endo and the woman, reaching into her coat, like she’s got a gun.

  Endo and the woman stop in place. They don’t raise their hands, but they don’t make a move for weapons, either. Knowing that they’ll soon call Collins’s bluff, I shift my aim to the left and leap, aiming for Endo. Yeah, it’s kind of a far fall, but Endo is going to break it for me.

  As I sail through the air, Collins doesn’t reveal a thing. Her eyes stay on Endo. Her expression doesn’t change. Nothing about her gives away my attack, and my approach is all but silent.

  Yet, Endo somehow senses my aerial approach. He doesn’t turn to attack me or dive out of the way. I could have lived with some kind of dramatic conclusion. He just takes a single step to the side, moving out of the way just enough, s
o I fly past and land hard on the ground.

  I’m able to curl in on myself, rolling as I hit, but holy hell, concrete is an unforgiving surface. I’m going to be in serious pain tomorrow. And since I’m not a ninja, or Endo, my sprawling roll doesn’t end until I slam into the side of a metal container. The empty container bongs from the impact, like a symbol at the end of a joke.

  To my surprise, when I right myself and turn around, Endo and the woman are still standing there. “Don’t move,” I say, sounding very un-authoritative. I climb to my feet. “You’re under arrest.”

  Endo smiles. “We’re in China.”

  “I don’t give a fuck.”

  He turns to the woman, his confidence never wavering. “I’ll see you at the plane.”

  She nods.

  Then they split like an atom, exploding into two different directions. Despite having already sprinted the length of a football field and dropping from the sky like Evel Knievel at Snake River, I throw myself after Endo and shout, “Get the woman!” I don’t look back to see if Collins is giving chase. I know she is.

  Endo is a blur. He’s not a big guy. Maybe 5’5”, and he’s skinny. Maneuvering through the maze of containers, both upright and spilled, is far easier for him, than it is for me. Where he moves with finesse, I—well, I just do my best. And somehow, I manage to stick with him.

  Until I don’t.

  He ducks into an alley between two bright yellow containers, and when I follow, he’s gone. Fifty feet separate the corner from the next turn. No way he could have made it all the way. Unless he’s been running slow on purpose, pulling some kind of pursuit rope-a-dope.

  “Ahem.” The cleared throat comes from behind me. I try to hide my surprise as I turn around, but Endo knows I’m flabbergasted. The smile on his face mocks me like a childhood bully.

  He leans back casually against a container. Glances up at the sky, like he’s got nothing better to do than wonder whether or not it’s going to rain. Then he says, “We don’t have to be enemies.”

  “We’re not,” I say. “You’re a criminal. I’m in law enforcement. I’m just doing my job.”