“Oh, that’s beautiful. A little closer, baby,” he whispered to the gigantic reptile, coaxing him closer. Like many professional cameramen, he suffered from a delusion that once he started filming, he was invisible and protected by some sort of benign magic. Whether it was a wild gun battle between cops and bank robbers or a twenty-story-tall creature marching directly toward him, Animal felt safe as long as the camera was rolling. Confronting dangerous situations through a viewfinder gave the feeling of watching it all transpire on television.
But he was not safe, and by the time he realized the danger he was in, it was too late. The big feet were swiftly closing in on him. Just another second or two, Animal kept telling himself, then I’ll get out of the way. He felt his heart rate shoot up as the dragon’s angular head came swinging directly toward him, but he continued to stand in the middle of the street and film until the last possible moment. The viewfinder in his camera began to overflow with leathery, scale-covered flesh. Then one of the razor-clawed feet lifted and blotted out most of the frame. Too late Animal realized it was going to come down directly on top of him. There was nothing to do but film all the way to the bitter end.
He screamed. And then kaboom—the foot crushed down on the pavement and everything went dark and quiet for a second. Animal opened one eye and looked around. In terrified amazement, he saw that he was standing between two of the beast’s toes! He was surrounded on three sides by walls of metacarpal flesh as tall as he was.
The foot lifted and sailed overhead as the creature continued marching.
The camera kept rolling, but Animal wasn’t looking through it any longer. He had gone into a sort of catatonic shock. His feet felt nailed to the pavement and, under his jacket, he could feel the sweat running down his body. He followed the creature with his eyes, craning his neck backward to stare into the sky as the towering animal cruised away. “This is not a good thing,” he mumbled to himself, barely aware that the powerful tail was swishing by only an arm’s length above his head.
As it stalked deeper into the heart of midtown, the beast paused several times and stretched its long crocodilian neck to one side or the other. It was making a careful inspection of the area, totally unconcerned with the panic of the tiny humans below. Animal could tell it was looking for something.
Our plane landed at Newark International Airport and headed away from the passenger terminals. Out on an isolated patch of tarmac was a convoy of white army vehicles and police cars waiting to take us to our next destination. A man in civilian clothes holding a walkie-talkie rushed out through the rain to meet us. Even before the door of the cargo bay swung open, we could see by the expression on his face that the creature had been sighted again. As soon as we stepped outside he delivered the bad news.
“Colonel Hicks, it’s here, sir. Came ashore in Manhattan a few minutes ago, down around the Fulton Fish Market.”
Hicks cursed under his breath, then asked, “What’s it doing?”
“The situation is pretty chaotic, but from what we can gather, it’s stomping through town like it owns the place.”
Hicks cursed again. As we piled into the waiting vehicles he turned to Elsie, Mendel, and me, saying, “It won’t be long now.” We knew he meant it wouldn’t be long until the creature was killed. As soon as our gear was loaded up, we took off. We raced toward the city behind the wailing sirens of our police escort. As we drove we listened to the police radio and heard the panicked, scattered reports coming out of Manhattan. There were so many people shouting over the airwaves at the same time, it was impossible to get a clear picture of what was going on. But three things became clear: It was huge, it was frightening, and it was on the move. Even though the creature was causing an enormous amount of mayhem and damage, I couldn’t help but harbor a secret, selfish hope that the army wouldn’t be able to kill it until we got a chance to see it with our own eyes. After all, this was a remarkable, never-before-seen species, and I wanted the chance to study its movements and behavior before it was gunned down.
It didn’t take long to reach our destination, a fenced-in parking lot on the Jersey riverfront just across the river from New York City. The army had commandeered the site and was in the process of transforming it from a lonely patch of asphalt into a fully functioning military base. They called it the command center.
By the time we got there, a dozen large tents—larger than ordinary houses—had been pitched. Soldiers were off-loading scores of supply trucks and hauling crates of sophisticated electronic equipment into the tents. In less than an hour the army had set up barracks for hundreds of soldiers, a mess tent, portable toilets, and a mobile chemical analysis laboratory, and had moved in enough weaponry to fight a war against a medium-sized country. Besides the Humvees and armored personnel carriers, there were M1-A1 tanks, mobile rocket launcher trucks, and tall, long-barreled cannons. Parked along the riverfront was a squadron of Apache helicopters, fearsome, heavily armored flying machines that looked as if they could sink a battleship all by themselves. And, of course, there were soldiers. Everywhere we looked, soldiers were running from place to place, helping to set up the encampment. Those that weren’t involved in the construction effort patrolled the surrounding rooftops in their black rain ponchos, machine guns in hand.
As we pulled up to the main gate we were confronted by a different army, an army of reporters. Standing under a forest of umbrellas, they shouted questions to us as we drove past them and entered the compound. Once we were inside, we rolled up to the largest of the tents, the war room, where we were greeted by a tense soldier dressed in a combat helmet and full camouflage jumpsuit. He introduced himself as we stepped out into the rain.
“Sergeant Oliver O’Neal reporting, sir!” he shouted to Hicks, snapping into a rigid salute. He motioned to a few of his men, who were standing by with large black umbrellas to protect us from the rain.
Hicks looked at the man as though he were crazy and began marching past him into the tent. This wasn’t the time to worry about formal greetings and military protocol. “Any word from the mayor’s office?”
O’Neal broke out of his salute and jogged along behind the fast-marching colonel. “Yes, good news. Good news on that front, sir.”
“Well, what the hell is it?” Hicks demanded. He’d only known O’Neal for ten seconds and was already annoyed with him.
“I just spoke to city hall and they’ve agreed to the evacuation order, sir. The mayor is calling in the National Guard.”
Elsie interrupted. “Are you talking about evacuating Manhattan? That’s over three million people!” She looked at me. “Has that ever been done before?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” I told her.
As we climbed a set of stairs to enter the command center’s main tent, Mendel started sneezing. “This weather cannot be good for my nasal passages.”
Hicks continued moving down a long hallway. On all sides of us, soldiers were hooking up equipment and finishing the construction of the temporary headquarters. He yelled over his shoulder at O’Neal, “Where is it now?”
All at once it became apparent why Sergeant O’Neal was so nervous. “We lost sight of him, sir.”
The colonel stopped dead in his tracks and turned around. He cocked his head to one side and said, “You wanna run that by me one more time? I don’t think I heard you right.”
“After the initial, um, attack, he … well, he can move around pretty quickly, sir, and he just, um, disappeared.”
Colonel Hicks was an intimidating presence even when he wasn’t trying. When he heard this news, his frustration threatened to boil over. He moved in close on the nervous sergeant and looked him squarely in the eyes. “He what?”
“Disappeared, sir.” O’Neal stood there as though the world were about to cave in on his head. And it probably would have if another soldier hadn’t stepped in at that very moment and told Hicks that he had a telephone call from the secretary of defense. After a lingering, deadly stare, Hicks turned away
to take the call.
I stepped up to O’Neal and asked for clarification. “How in the world can something that large just disappear?”
“We’re not sure,” he told me. “We’re scanning the area now. Believe me, we’ll find him.”
It didn’t take long for Elsie to notice that Sergeant O’Neal had the body of a GI Joe and a movie star’s good looks. She slunk in close and looked up into his eyes. “Don’t worry, gorgeous, it probably returned to the river.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so,” I said. From where we were standing, we had an unobstructed view of Manhattan through one of the tent’s doorways. It was only a feeling, a hunch, but somehow I was sure that after chasing this gargantuan mutant halfway across the planet, our travels were over. “I mean, look at it,” I said, pointing across the river to the dense cluster of skyscrapers under the dark gray sky. “It’s perfect. It’s an island like the one he comes from, but it’s not like any other island in the world. This is a place where he can easily hide. He’s there, all right. He’s in there somewhere.”
Hicks was still speaking on his cellular phone when another soldier ran up to him and gave him some urgent news. The colonel shouted into the phone, “Mr. Secretary, I’ll have to call you back.” He turned to us. “Channel Twelve caught it on film!”
We rushed into the big tent’s main space, the war room, and crowded around a television set. We flipped over to WIDF, Channel 12, just in time to see the spectacular videotape images cameraman Animal Palotti had shot only minutes before. There on that tiny little screen we got our first look at the gigantic reptile. He was only a few inches tall on the television, but our mouths dropped open in amazement when we saw him walking toward us. When the huge foot lifted and then came plummeting down toward the camera, several people gasped and involuntarily backed away.
The screen went black and we were certain the cameraman had been stomped like a ripe grape. But moments later a reporter’s smiling face appeared on the screen. It was Charles Caiman. He was out in the rain somewhere, doing a live stand-up report while someone stood behind him holding an umbrella. He seemed positively delighted with the frightening images we’d just seen. “You won’t find reporting like that on the other channels!” he chirped. “These images are exclusive to WIDF, shot less than half an hour ago by cameraman Victor Palotti, who, like all of us on the ActionNews team, is willing to risk life and limb to provide you, the viewer, with the kind of footage you’ve just seen. So stick with us, won’t you, as we continue our coverage right after this commercial message.”
The noisy WIDF newsroom fell silent as everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to watch the overhead television screens mounted around the room. Spellbound, they watched the huge lizard march directly toward Animal’s camera until the giant foot lifted and blotted out the sky. Everyone present held their breath, amazed by what they had seen. But as soon as Caiman finished talking and introduced the station break, the whole room erupted in cheers.
“You the man, Animal!”
“Way to go, Victor!”
Animal had arrived only seconds before the tape went on the air, just in time to see his work onscreen. The staff crowded around him offering him congratulations on a job well done. Animal took a bow.
Audrey and Lucy were nearby, throwing the entire contents of their desks into cardboard boxes, when Animal came over and sat down, grinning like the wild man he was. Audrey was properly impressed.
“Now that was great tape. Nice stuff, Animal, but weren’t you scared?”
“What are you, kidding me? Of course I was scared. I knew Lucy was gonna kill me.”
Lucy picked up the nearest nonlethal weapon she could find, which happened to be a heavy envelope, and used it to whack her daredevil husband across the arm. “You’re damn right, you crazy wop. You were only a chihuahua’s butt-hair from being squashed by that big ape.”
“It’s a lizard, Lucy. Not an ape.”
“Whatever! From now on, I don’t want you going near that thing, you hear me?”
“People! Everyone listen up!” Murray, the balding station manager with the heart of gold, climbed up on a chair to make an announcement. When he had everyone’s attention, he updated them. “Everybody should be packed by now. We’re going to do the ten o’clock show from the New Jersey station.” All the employees groaned. “Which means,” he continued, “we have to be completely relocated in two hours. The vans are here, they’re parked right out front. Let’s start loading up.” He hopped down off the chair and told Animal that he was supposed to report to the helipad at the top of the building. He’d be going up in the chopper with Caiman to look for the creature. Lucy got a worried look on her face, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop him. And being in a helicopter sounded safe enough.
“You guys gonna be all right?” Animal asked, pulling on his leather jacket.
“Yeah, sure. Oh, Vic, Audrey’s gonna stay with us tonight. She can’t go back to her apartment.”
“A threesome? Great.”
This time Animal knew what was coming and stepped out of the way before Lucy could whack him with the envelope. They smiled at each other, then moved in close for a kiss good-bye. Lucy whispered, “I’m real proud of you, Victor. I’ll see you tonight. And, sweetie?”
“Yeah?”
She whacked him across the arm with the envelope. “Gotcha.”
Audrey was staring up at the nearest television monitor. The commercial was over and they were reporting on the army headquarters being set up across the river. For the second time that day she’d noticed her ex-boyfriend, me, walking across a TV screen surrounded by a military escort. And this time I wasn’t in far-off Panama. I was right across the Linclon Tunnel in New Jersey. She was watching the film of Elsie, Mendel, and me arriving at the command center.
Although she would later deny it, I believe that this was the moment when her transformation began, the moment when her ambition began to hatch inside the overheated incubator of her brain. The biggest news story to hit New York City in fifty years was unfolding around her, and there was her dear old friend Niko Tatopoulos at the center of the action. She stared at the television, lost in cogitation.
“Hello! Earth to Planet Audrey!” When she snapped out of her trance, Caiman was standing at her desk with an exasperated expression on his face. “My bag, my bag, my bag! How many times do I have to ask?”
“Oh, sorry.” She picked up his field case and press ID badge, carrying them for him as he hurried toward the elevators. Her mind was already racing, imagining ways to exploit her connection with someone on the inside of the story. She spoke to her boss in a conspiratorial whisper. “Mr. Caiman, listen, I’ve got a lead. I know a guy on the inside! One of those experts the army brought in.”
“Not now.” He wasn’t even listening.
Audrey couldn’t believe it. She knew someone on the inside. For the first time in her career she had a connection, a source, and she was offering this plum to her boss on a silver platter. She shot a look toward Animal, who was marching along with them, but he only shrugged. “Mr. Caiman, I don’t think you understand. I’m telling you I know one of those scientists the army brought in. At the very least I can get us some great back—”
“Listen, honey,” Caiman cut her off, “this is when the big boys go to work, understand?” And with that he stepped into the waiting elevator and flashed the already befuddled Audrey a hand signal she couldn’t understand. She stared at him, confused. Then he did it again, yelling, “The bag! Can I please have my bag?”
She gave it to him all right. She flung the carry case at him hard enough to knock him against the rear wall of the elevator just as the doors started sliding closed. Then she flashed him a hand gesture of her own, one he had no trouble interpreting.
Audrey fumed. She boiled. She stewed. And, after a moment, she looked down and realized she was still holding Caiman’s press ID badge—which is when her scheme kicked into high gear.
Only a few minutes later she and Lucy were schlepping their boxes out the front door of the building. They carried them through the rain and loaded them in the waiting vans. One look at the congested street and both women knew those vans weren’t going to be in New Jersey for the ten o’clock broadcast. Forty-third Street was jammed solid with traffic from one end to the other.
“Come on, girl, we’ll take the subway,” Lucy decided.
As they hurried across the street and went down the stairs to the train, Audrey looked up and saw the WIDF news helicopter lifting away from the rooftop helipad.
Inside the chopper, Caiman had already gone live. “Call us courageous or call us foolhardy, but we’ve decided to take to the skies to keep you, the public, informed during this hour of crisis. We’re putting our lives in the hands of Captain Jeremy Myers, WIDF’s ActionCopter pilot. And who knows, maybe we’ll catch a glimpse of this sizable saurian, this wrecking ball of a reptile, this herpetological horror show that has already caused so much damage to the city of New York and struck so much fear into the hearts of those who call the place home.”
Animal rack-focused past the verbose anchorman to show the mayhem taking place in the streets below. Police and National Guardsmen were out in full force doing everything they could to facilitate the exodus, but it was no use. The entire rain-soaked island was an endless, angry traffic jam.
“City officials,” Caiman continued, “are calling this the worst act of destruction ever, much worse than the World Trade Center incident. As you can see, hundreds of thousands of Manhattanites, attempting to comply with the mayor’s evacuation order, have taken to the streets, some of them desperately clutching their most treasured possessions in hand. This is the largest emergency evacuation in the long history of New York. And not everyone is happy about it or believes it necessary.”
They cut to a man-on-the-street interview. Some middle-aged palooka they’d interviewed outside the office an hour earlier was suddenly showing up in the living rooms of ten million households, offering his uninformed opinion. “What are we running from?” the man asked, disgusted. “Some big lizard? I got cockroaches in my building that could kick the crap out of it.”
Godzilla Page 7
