Project Maigo(76)

As its wide limbs scramble and claw at the grass, the thing tumbles and rolls, slamming into the Washington Monument. The sound of stone cracking is like a cannon blast. I swear I see the obelisk waver, but it doesn’t fall. Then Drakon is back up and charging straight toward the White House. It will cover the half-mile distance in seconds.

Beck steps forward, hands on the south wall of the White House’s roof. “Fire!”





39



The thunder that follows the President’s order drowns out the sounds of the wailing city. The sirens. The screaming. Even Drakon’s roar. The amount of firepower launched from the White House is mind numbing. Missiles cruise over the South Lawn. I can feel the heat from their fiery rockets on my face. A wall of bright orange tracer rounds follows the missiles, showing the paths of thousands of bullets, all headed for Drakon. And then there’s the ordinance we can’t see: grenades launched above it all, tumbling through the air toward the monster’s back.

While the modern and primal destructive forces race toward each other, I turn to Dunne and grab his arm and point to Beck. “Get him to the PEOC!” The Presidential Emergency Operations Center is a bunker beneath the East Wing, and it was built to withstand a nuclear blast. It won’t stop four Kaiju from digging him out like colossal dogs going after a buried bone, but it will protect him if one of these sons-a-bitches self-immolates. And while I’m not a fan of Beck—at least before I gave him a bravery boost and a moral adjustment—he’s still the President, and my boss.

Dunne looks confused for a moment, but then Endo turns to him and says, “Go. Now.” The agent nods and takes Beck’s arm. The President resists for a moment, but I give him a mental shove, and the pair runs for the roof exit.

A series of explosions nearly knocks me over. I turn back to the south and see Drakon emerge from a billowing mass of fire. Tracer rounds greet her on the way out of the flames, hot metal digging into her thick skin, but doing no real damage. That is, until a line of orange, spewing from one of the chain guns, strikes her left eye. The orb absorbs hundreds of rounds before bursting liquid nasty all over the monster’s face.

Drakon shrieks in pain and thrashes as she continues forward. When the dark lizard reaches the South Lawn Fountain, the top of her lowered snout slams into the thick stone wall. The head stops while the body moves forward. The giant head folds under the body as it lifts up and over. The angle is so extreme that I find myself hoping the thing’s neck will be snapped.

The monster’s tail thrashes wildly, trying to find some kind of equilibrium, but the body continues up and over, landing in the fountain with a splash. For a moment, it appears that we’ve managed a small victory, but then a grenade bursts—directly over one of the orange membranes on the creature’s exposed underside—sending shards of metal downward and plumes of glowing fluid upward.

“Get down!” I shout, tackling Endo to the roof.

The resulting explosion knocks everyone down and knocks the air from my lungs, but we’re spared from the searing heat and flames. The metal fragments created relatively small holes. Had it been a missile, the White House and everyone on this roof, would have been reduced to ash.

“Hold your fire!” I shout, and then remember that I’ve got access to Devine. Crouching behind the wall, I pull out my smart phone, activate the Devine network and broadcast to all emergency personnel listening, careful not to identify myself. “This is Agent Dunne of the Secret Service, do not, I repeat do not hit the target’s membranes!” I don’t need to explain why to the people atop the White House roof. They all just got a stark reminder. But with three more Kaiju incoming, each containing enough boom-juice to level D.C., I think a quick refresher is a good idea.

As confirmations start to come in from various military and emergency sources, I hang up the phone and hit the call button for Ranger.

He answers, out of breath. “What?”

“Ranger, I need an ETA.”

“Two minutes for me,” he says. His voice shakes as he runs. “One for...our special friend.”

“Copy that,” I say, and hang up, dialing Woodstock. The line connects, and I don’t wait for a greeting. “Status?”

“In the air and hanging back,” Woodstock replies. “But these guys are moving fast; seventy miles per hour, straight through the suburbs. They’re getting shot to shit, but they’re not even feeling it.”

“ETA?”

“We’re about twenty miles out. We’ll be inside the city limits in ten minutes. To the White House in fifteen.”