“That’s still includes me,” I point out.
“Just shut up,” Endo says. “When Gordon first found Nemesis, he took the information—”
“To Zoomb,” I say. “I know.”
Endo shakes his head. “They were his second choice. Gordon was a good soldier. A true patriot. He brought it to the one person in the government he thought would take his wild claims seriously.”
I wait for the revelation, eyebrows raised to say ‘any day now.’
“At the time he was Senator Gary Beck.”
My mouth slowly opens.
Endo nods. “Two years later he became—”
“President Dickface.”
Son-of-a-bitch. “So if they’re not coming for me...”
“They’re headed for the Capitol,” Endo says.
I hold up my hand. “Wait. Stop. Two things. First, we need to stop finishing each other’s sentences. This isn’t a bromance. Second, we need to warn—”
“Nobody,” Endo says, face grim.
I groan in annoyance. “What did I say about finishing my sentences? And why the hell would we not warn the President? Besides the fact that he’s a tool.”
“If the President feels that he is a target, he will run. Inland. He’ll try to hide, but there isn’t anywhere he can go that Gordon doesn’t know about. The Kaiju will pursue him across the country, destroying everything in their path. And when that happens—”
“The king of bad decisions will start dropping nukes,” I say, ignoring my bromance moratorium. Endo is right. President Beck is two balls short of being a man and a few billion brain cells short of the scarecrow. He’d put the whole country in jeopardy. The question is how do we prepare to fend off three colossal Kaiju combatants without tipping our hand or evacuating the nation’s capital? It’s damn near close to treason.
Gordon is the answer. Without him, the Kaiju might become subservient to Nemesis. They might go mad. Or they might just swim around the ocean gobbling up whales. They never endured the tortures of Nemesis’s past, so it’s very possible the thirst for vengeance that drives her, and Gordon, won’t be part of the equation.
The door opens. Collins rushes in, holding my clothes. Alessi is behind her with a bag for Endo.
“Have you seen?” Collins asks.
I point to the news channel still playing the live footage of Rio being used like a bag of snack chips.
“I brought you some clothes” she says, placing them on the bed.
While I’m pleased to see the shorts, t-shirt and red beanie cap, I ignore the change of clothes and sit up. The pain meds I’m on dull the lingering pain I feel, for the most part, but I’m still kind of a mess. I reach my hand out to Alessi. “Phone?”
She glances at Endo and he nods. Alessi hands me her phone. “This thing is secure, right?”
“What are you doing?” Collins asks.
I dial the number. “Calling backup.”
32
I toured the White House once, when I was a kid. Eighth grade. Worst few days of my young adult life. I had to sleep in the same room as my childhood bully. My wallet with $57 of birthday money I brought was stolen—I’m pretty sure by the same bully. And my girlfriend broke up with me in front of the Washington Monument. Our nation’s capital has left a sour taste in my mouth since, despite the fact that my childhood bully is in jail for stealing a tank and my girlfriend blimped out, which I discovered while honing my Facebook stalker skills.
That I’m about to start my fourth White House tour of the week has me feeling a little bit of nausea. Reservations are typically made six months to twenty-one days in advance, long enough for the Secret Service to find out what they can. Using his considerable computer skills and bending a few rules, Watson managed to get us in four days in a row. And by ‘us,’ I mean Endo and me. As much as I prefer Collins as a partner, Endo’s presence is necessary, and Collins is harder to forget. We’ve changed our identities each day, posing as tourists from different parts of the world, never directly communicating. Just observing. Waiting. When things go sideways, we need to have access to the President, and he’s been here all week. Starting tomorrow, he’ll be touring Europe, so I’m willing to bet Gordon knows this and will make his move sooner than later—and by sooner, I mean today.
This afternoon’s tour guide, Mindy, is a peppy young woman with a pony tail and a bright smile. She’s a real girl-next-door type, but in love with the history of her country and its capital, which I’m putting at great risk. It’s an acceptable risk, I try to tell myself. Making a stand in Washington is better than letting the nation get tromped into oblivion. Of course, there’s a real risk that my plan, formed without the support of our military, is going to fall apart like a roll of toilet paper strung beneath a waterfall.