She could only pray that, somewhere, the rest of her family was safe.
General alarm sirens wailed from loudspeakers at the refugee camp in the hills. Holding Sam’s hand, Ford frowned as groups of soldiers rushed past them. An announcement issued from the speakers:
“All U.S. Military and Emergency Response personnel, report immediately for duty—”
Ford didn’t like the sound of that. Stepping away from Laura Watkins and the other children from the school bus, he called out to the troops.
“Hey! What’s happening?!”
“All hands on deck!” an Army soldier shouted back at him. “Those things dragged the nuke downtown! It goes off, so does the city!”
“They need a crew down on the ground to disarm it!” another soldier said.
Ford couldn’t believe his ears. He remembered the warhead the helicopters had rescued from the wreckage in the mountains. The plan had been to lure all three monsters out to sea, then detonate the warhead. How the hell had it ended up downtown — where Elle was?
Sam picked up on the heightened anxiety in the air. “Daddy?”
Damn it. Ford hated what he was about to say, but there was no other choice. “Sam, buddy, you need to wait here with these nice people.”
Understanding, Laura came forward to take the little boy’s hand. “It’s okay, Sam—”
“NO!” Sam yelped. Fear contorted his childish features. “DADDY, WAIT!” He broke away from the nurse and rushed frantically toward his father. “I want to stay with you!”
His son’s plea hit Ford right in the gut. He couldn’t remember Sam ever saying that before, which only made what he had to do that much harder. His throat tightened and his eyes misted over as he knelt down to face the tearful child, while keeping one eye on the departing troops. Ford didn’t have long, but he owed his son more than just another abrupt disappearance. There had been too many of those already.
“Alright, squid, listen I—” He realized that this was no time to be glib. He dug deeper, speaking from his heart. “I’m going back to find your mom. That’s why I need you to stay here, where it’s safe. Can you do that for me?”
Sam absorbed his father’s words. It took him a moment, but he wiped his eyes and nodded. He was only four, but he seemed to understand. They both knew how important Elle was. Ford felt incredibly proud of his little boy — and grateful for his courage.
“Daddy loves you so much. You and Mommy are all I’ve got in this world. I love you more than anything. So I need you to be a brave boy, okay?” Ford’s voice cracked as he thought of his own father, who had sacrificed everything to save him so many years ago. Joe Brody had lost the love of his life and the mother of his child. Ford wasn’t about to let history repeat itself. “No matter what happens, just know—” He choked up, tears leaking from his eyes. “I’m gonna do everything I can.”
Sam responded by throwing his arms around his dad and hugging him tightly. Caught by surprise, and moved more than he would have ever thought possible, Ford squeezed the little boy back for as long as he could spare, which, sadly, wasn’t very long at all. More soldiers ran past them, answering the general alarm, and Ford reluctantly let go of his son. Ford started to stand up, then remembered something. He fished a small item from his pocket and placed it in Sam’s hand. The boy’s eyes widened as he saw what it was.
A toy Navy man, as promised.
He looked up at his dad and their eyes met, truly seeing each other for perhaps the first time. And possibly the last. Wiping his eyes, Ford climbed to his feet and sprinted off after the other troops, while Laura Watkins came forward to comfort Sam. Ford felt confident the boy was in good hands.
Now he just had to save Elle, too.
TWENTY-FOUR
Chinatown was ground zero. Concentric circles spread out on the paper map from the current known location of the stolen ICBM. Stenz grimly contemplated the chart as his analysts pored over what data they could access with the power down. He listened as they formulated a desperate, last-ditch attempt to get troops in place to disarm the warhead before it took out the whole city.
“Thirty thousand feet should be right above the sphere of influence,” an analyst estimated.
A more skeptical analyst shook his head. “Even if they survive the jump, we’re talking a Hail Mary.”
Stenz understood the odds against them, but didn’t see any other choice. They could hardly stand by and watch the clock tick down to a thermonuclear explosion in the center of San Francisco. A hundred thousand lives were at risk. If there was even a chance of disarming the warhead, they had to take it, or there wouldn’t be a city left to defend.
Racing footsteps rushed past the trailer. Through the windows at the rear of the command center, Stenz saw dozens of soldiers reporting for duty. He took a deep breath and went out to address them. They needed to know what was at stake and how much was expected of them.
He didn’t envy them the daunting task ahead.
Captain Hampton presented the plan to Admiral Stenz and the troops inside the command center, which was now crammed with fresh volunteers like Ford. Video feeds from the city showed nothing but static. Computers tried and failed to reboot. Paper charts and satellite photos were mounted behind Hampton, while the admiral stood off to one side. Milling among the other soldiers, Ford spotted Doctors Serizawa and Graham with the brass. He listened attentively.
“The male delivered the warhead here, at the center of downtown,” Hampton said, pointing to a table map of the city. An “X” marked the last known location of the nuclear weapon. “Putting more than a hundred thousand citizens in the blast radius. We can’t stop it remotely.”
Low mutters and whispered remarks rippled among the gathered soldiers. Ford wondered how many of the troops had friends or family in San Francisco. Everyone seemed appropriately disturbed by the prospect of the warhead going off in the city, on top of the unprecedented threat posed by Godzilla and the MUTOs. On top of the nuclear blast, the city also faced the danger of lingering radiation as well. He was gratified that none of his comrades-in-arms even suggested sacrificing the city to get rid of the monsters.
An Army Captain, who identified himself as Quinn, took over the presentation.
“An analog initiator has been installed. And the MUTOs are frying electronics within a five-mile bubble. Approaching overhead is not an option.” He placed a transparent plastic dome over the “X” on the map to represent the MUTOs sphere of influence. “That’s why we’ll be conducting a HALO jump insertion. Jump altitude is thirty thousand feet. Skate just over the top and drop here and here.” He indicated two spots atop the plastic dome. “And if you don’t eat a skyscraper, we’ll rally here and find the bomb.”
A bomb technician raised his hand. “Doctor Serizawa, any guesses where to look?”
“Underground,” the scientist said. “If the MUTOs have spawned, they’ll be building a nest.”
“In which case,” Graham added, “the bomb going off would only be the beginning. Its fallout would catalyze their eggs. We’d have hundreds of them, annihilating everything.”
A hush fell over the command center as that nightmarish possibility sank in. Ford tried to imagine hundreds of creatures like the ones he’d encountered before. He couldn’t imagine how civilization — or even humanity — could even survive an onslaught of that magnitude. Sam’s future would be utterly wiped out, along with that of every other human being on the planet.