“Oh, Nick, I’m so sorry. I’m really, really, really, really, really sorry. I didn’t mean for it to turn out like this.” She seemed to be sincere, and I had trouble staying quite as mad, especially after she confessed the truth to me. “Look, I lied to you. I’m not really a reporter. I’m just an assistant to a reporter. When we broke up and I came to New York, I was so sure I was going to make it. But it’s eight years later and I’m still at the bottom of the ladder. That’s why I needed this story so bad. I wanted to tell you the truth, but you’re so successful—you have this glamorous, exciting life—and I … I just didn’t want you to know I was such a failure.”
I could see that she was ashamed of what she had done. Teardrops merged with raindrops and dripped down her cheeks. But no amount of crying was going to erase the fact that she’d betrayed me in cold blood. “So you thought that made it okay to steal my videotape? And use all the things I said to you?”
“No! That was a terrible thing to do. I never should have done it, and I’m sorry.”
I threw my last bag into the trunk and yanked open the cab’s back door. I got in and turned to her for one last word. “Well, good luck in your new career. I think you really have what it takes.” I slammed the door closed in her face for dramatic effect and was pleased when the driver peeled away the moment I was inside. She’d remember that, I congratulated myself.
But within seconds I’d turned around in my seat and was looking through the rear window. Audrey didn’t move, just stood there in the pouring rain watching the cab drive away. I knew that this time it was probably final—the last time I would ever see her.
Once we were on the road, I sank back in the seat and contemplated the horrible turn my life had taken. Not only was I humiliated, angry, and wet, but I was certain this episode was going to permanently damage my reputation. My research grants were in danger. I found myself longing to return to Chernobyl and my trustworthy worms. Then another nasty possibility loomed on the horizon: Maybe by the time I returned to Ukraine, the NRC would pull the plug on my unfinished work there. I didn’t know General Anderson well, but he didn’t seem like the type of man who would be satisfied with banishing me from the command center. I imagined him getting on the phone with the commissioner and demanding that my contract be rescinded. I felt as though I were trapped in a nightmare, watching my entire life go up in flames. With such pleasant thoughts drifting through my mind, I’m surprised I noticed that my driver missed the turn for the airport. Despite the huge sign pointing to the left, he veered right. I leaned forward and saw we were heading into a rundown district of warehouses and factories. I knocked on the partition glass.
“Excuse me, I don’t think this is the way to the airport.”
He ignored me and continued to drive.
“Hey, buddy, where do you think you’re going? Do you speak English?”
Again I knocked on the glass barrier and again he ignored me. Another conspiracy theory began to bloom in my head: The reason you never hear of anyone ratting out the U.S. Army is because they deal with breaches of security swiftly and severely. The reason the cab had arrived so quickly wasn’t because some dispatcher took pity on me, but because General Anderson had told someone to take care of me!
I reached for the door handle. I was prepared to jump out of the moving car and make a run for it. But they’d thought of everything: both doors were locked from the outside.
“All right, that’s it. Stop this car right now!” To my surprise, the driver obliged. He stepped on the brake and the cab skidded to a stop. “Let me out of here,” I demanded. “Unlock these doors.”
The cabbie turned around to face me. He had heavy-lidded eyes and a salt-and-pepper beard. In a French accent he said, “I’m afraid I cannot do what you ask.”
I gasped. He was the same guy we’d run into on the beach in Jamaica, the one who smoked in hospital rooms. “Hey, I know you. You’re that guy, the insurance salesman.”
He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a laminated identification card. He twirled it between his fingers briefly before laying it over the back of the seat for me to inspect. It looked official, but it was completely in French. He introduced himself under his true identity. “Agent Phillipe Roaché, DGSE.”
“Never heard of it.”
“The French Secret Service.”
“Oh.”
“I thought you might want to know that your friends in the American military have decided not to look for the nest. They’re going to waste too much time trying to kill the creature first.”
The way he said this made me believe him at once. But the circumstances were so fishy, I felt the need to be skeptical. “What? Are you sure? How could you possibly know that?”
“We know. Trust me.”
“Trust you? You lock me in the back of a cab, hijack me out to an abandoned warehouse district, then you have the gall to ask me to trust you?”
“Yes.”
“And why in the world would I trust you?”
“Because you’re the only one who wants to find the nest as much as I do.”
The man had a point. If the army wasn’t going to go after the nest, someone had to do it. I thought about the possibility of the enormous reptile rearing ten little ones just like him—or perhaps they’d be even larger—and I made a decision that although Roaché wasn’t the type of man anyone could trust completely, I would at least listen to what he had to say. I sat back in the seat and he drove deeper into the rows of unused warehouses.
Over the next eighteen hours I was going to learn many things about this French secret agent. But I already sensed how intelligent, perceptive, and highly skilled he was. I am certain that under less stressful circumstances, he would have noticed the news van that had been following us ever since we left the command center.
A large door rolled open and we drove into a warehouse. The door rolled closed behind us, pushed by a couple of men dressed in U.S. Army combat fatigues. Stepping out of the cab, I took a look around the warehouse and saw that these fellows meant business. Although there couldn’t have been more than fifteen of them, they had stockpiled an arsenal that was, in its own way, every bit as impressive as the one the U.S. Army had brought to town. In addition to lots of high-tech communications and tracking equipment, there were crates full of rifles, rockets, bazookas, and grenades, and a fleet of assorted vehicles—a couple of jeeps, an army limousine identical to the ones I’d seen screeching into and out of the command center, and even a tank! I hoped they weren’t planning on using the tank. The men moved about the room busily engaged in all sorts of tasks.
I was impressed. “How did you get all of this stuff into the country?” I asked, assuming they’d used some sort of diplomatic immunity to smuggle the goods past customs.
“This is America.” Roaché shrugged. “There is nothing you cannot buy.”
Along one wall there were several racks of military uniforms—enough of them to dress every man in the room as a lieutenant colonel or a GI, depending on what the situation called for. As with the weapons and the vehicles, they’d tried to find at least one of everything, allowing them to improvise their way through a wide variety of scenarios. I wondered if all of this was really necessary. “Why all the secrecy?” I asked Roaché. “Why aren’t you guys working with the American government?”
He lit a cigarette and gave me a Mona Lisa smirk. “Sorry, mon ami, but I am not permitted to speak of such things.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” I complained, feeling we were getting off on the wrong foot. “You said you wanted my trust. Then I need yours.”
Roaché paused to consider this for a moment. He knew I had a point. And I knew he needed my help. “Nick, I am a patriot. I love my country. Can you understand that?”
“Sure,” I said.
“It is my job and my duty to protect my country. Sometimes I must even protect her from herself, from the mistakes she has made. Mistakes we don’t want the world to know about.”
“You’re talking about the tests in the Pacific?”
“Oui. As you may know, this testing done by my country has left a horrible mess. We are here to help clean it up the best we can.”
He led me quickly past the indoor parking lot of military vehicles. Despite the wide selection, the one they seemed to be preparing for their assault on the nest was a white Humvee. A discussion was under way, all in fast-moving French, about how to make the vehicle look more realistic. One of the men brought over photos of a similar Humvee parked outside the command center and called his comrades’ attention to various details, including the serial numbers and a couple of small dents. Striving for authenticity, one man went to get the paint and stencils, while the others carefully kicked dents into the fenders.
Roaché led me back to the center of the room and introduced me to a man who was eavesdropping on the command center through a set of headphones. His name was Jean-Louis. Or Jean-Marc, or something like that. It seemed like all of the men were named Jean-something, and I couldn’t keep them all straight. He scribbled something down on a notepad, then spoke to Roaché mostly in English.
“They are planning to set the trap ce soir at eight-thirty.”
“Where?”
“Dans le northern sector du Central Park.”
Upon hearing this news, Roaché took me to a large map of the city thumbtacked to the side of a huge wooden crate. He scratched his beard, contemplating the army’s strategy, before turning to me. “If Godzilla accepts the fish again, it will give us some time to find the nest undefended. We know how to get into the city. We just do not know where to start looking for the nest.”
I told him the creature’s name was Gojira, but I don’t think he cared one way or the other. As we were studying the map, a cracking sound diverted everyone’s attention to a set of open windows above. Everyone stopped. We waited in silence, wondering if someone could be up there spying on us. But there were no more noises, so we returned to our discussion.
“Here.” I plunked my finger down on the map. “The Twenty-third Street subway station.”
“Pourquoi?”
“Well, this is where we first found the fish and discovered he was burrowing through the subway tunnels. With a little luck, we’ll be able to follow his trail directly from there to the nest.”
“So you’re in?”
In? I scanned the faces of the other men in the room, then looked over at the ample stockpile of firearms. I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by in, but I knew that whatever it meant, I was going to say yes. If there was a nest, it had to be destroyed as quickly as possible. “Are you kidding? I always wanted to join the French Foreign Legion. I’m in. Definitely in.”
Roaché and the assorted Jeans got a chuckle out of my enlistment speech, but everyone stopped laughing when we heard the noise on the roof again. This time a search party was immediately sent outside for a look around. When they returned without having found anything unusual, we decided it must have been the building settling or some birds keeping themselves out of the rain.
• • •
Victor Palotti parked his van illegally in a neighbor’s driveway and jogged up the block toward his brownstone apartment. It was raining hard. As he came up the steps he couldn’t help noticing the fifteen strangers milling around on his front porch, chatting and drinking coffee.
“How ya doin’?” whispered a bearded man holding a sleeping child in his arms.
“Hello.” A Korean lady he’d never seen before raised her coffee cup toward him in greeting. Who were these people, and why did they look so at home in his home? He smiled halfheartedly and moved past them into his apartment.
It was even more crowded inside. People he didn’t recognize were crowded onto his sofa watching his television set. Others where playing a game of Scrabble at his kitchen table. This made Animal uncomfortable. It wasn’t so much that he wanted them all to get out; he just wanted to know what the heck was going on. And he knew how to find out.
“Lucy!”
A second later his wife, her maternal instinct running in high gear, stepped out of the kitchen wearing an apron and holding a pot of decaf in one hand and a pot of regular in the other. “Hi, hon.” She pecked Animal on the lips before turning away to offer a refill to some guy in a business suit who was talking on a mobile phone.
“Who are these people?”
“What? I couldn’t just let them sleep on the street. They’re people who live in Manhattan. All the hotels are full from here to Pennsylvania. Ma’am, would you like more coffee?”
“You’re nuts, you know that?”
“Ain’t that why you married me?” She smiled.
Animal shook his head and couldn’t help but smile back. It took him a minute to remember why he’d driven through the rain like a madman all the way from Newark. “Where’s Audrey?”
“In the bedroom. Crying her eyes out because of you.”
“Because of me? What did I do now?”
“All that you-gotta-be-vicious-to-get-ahead stuff you filled her head with.”
“You were the one—”
“Whatever. Go in there and talk to her. She’s all broken up.”
As Lucy waded deeper into the crowd, offering refills, Animal pushed his way toward the back of the apartment and opened the door to the Jungle. The Jungle was the couple’s bedroom. It got its name as a result of Lucy’s choice of wallpaper: lush pink and red flowers dripping over a dark green background.
Audrey sat in the bed, awash in discarded tissues, her red eyes focused on the television. She was watching a news broadcast and weeping. As WIDF returned from a commercial for an exciting new toilet bowl cleaning product, the screen filled with the words THEY CALL HIM GODZILLA!
“It’s Gojira, you morons!” she sniffled. Not only had Caiman stolen her report right out from under her, but he also had the whole country mispronouncing the creature’s name.
General Anderson was holding a live news conference. “Contrary to what you may have heard, we have no reliable information that leads us to believe there are any eggs. These reports were the result of some very irresponsible reporting. In fact, they came from a woman who was only posing as a reporter but had no valid credentials. At the present time, we …”
“Waaaaaaah!” Audrey broke into a fresh set of tears and punched a nearby pillow. “It’s all my fault. What have I done, Animal? What have I become? I just wanted to be tough, but look at me. This isn’t me. I don’t do things like this.”
Animal came over and sat on the edge of the bed, not knowing exactly what to say. “Yeah, well, you know. We all make mistakes, Aud.” He was trying to comfort her, but obviously that wasn’t what she needed to hear. As soon as she heard the word mistake she let out a loud moan and covered her head with a pillow. Just then a stranger walked out of the Jungle’s bathroom, a long-haired biker dude in reflective sunglasses who trucked out to the living room.
“Yo,” the guy said on his way out.
“Yo,” replied Animal.
“Yeah, we all make mistakes,” Audrey was saying, “but I just screwed up royally with the only man who ever really cared about me.”
“Maybe not.”
Audrey blew her nose and tossed another tissue on the bed. “What do you mean?”
“If you could make it all up to him, would you?”
“Of course I would. Why? What are you talking about?”
“Good. Listen up. I saw the two of you talking today when that cab came to pick him up. Then I followed him. I was going to, I don’t know, try and talk some sense into him—tell him what a big mistake he was making by not giving you another chance.”
“You did? That’s so nice.”
“Yeah, whatever. But then the cab suddenly pulls into this warehouse area, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. So I climbed up on the roof and looked inside. And get this. The warehouse is packed with guns and trucks and a bunch of French wackos who want to try to sneak in
to the city tonight.”
Audrey gasped. “Is he crazy?”
“You tell me.”
Audrey chewed on her lower lip, concentrating, trying to make sense of this news. In a flash she realized what must be happening. “They’re going after the nest!”
“Exactamundo. And it occurred to me that if he finds it, you should be the one to show the world that he was right all along, that the army should have listened to him in the first place.”
“Wait a sec. You want me to follow him and a bunch of French wackos into the city?”
Animal was already digging through the closet, retrieving extra videocassettes and spare battery packs and throwing them into a backpack. “We both will. I’ll go with you. C’mon, it’ll be fun!”
“Fun?” she asked, evidently doubting it. “I don’t know about this. I’ve already made such a mess of things. And the authorities have the whole island blocked off. I saw a story where some kids were trying to sneak in and—”
Animal lifted the window and interrupted her. “Look, Audrey. I’m going after them. You can come with me or not.” Audrey sat in bed wrestling with her demons as Animal lifted his bag of gear out onto the fire escape. When she asked him what he was doing, he looked embarrassed. “I think it would be safer if I didn’t go through the front. If Lucy finds out, she’ll hurt me.”
When I stepped out of the rest room, I was dressed in full combat uniform: camouflage fatigues, helmet, boots, the whole works. But no gun. They told me I would look more authentic if I carried a rifle, but I didn’t want one.
Roaché had five of his men lined up and standing at attention. He walked down the line like a drill sergeant, scrutinizing each one of them. He adjusted the tilt of a helmet here, loosened a collar there. He thought one of the men looked too clean, so he took the man’s jacket and rubbed it on the ground before giving it back to him. When at last he seemed satisfied with the team’s appearance, he handed each man a stick of gum and sent him to the Humvee. Then agent Roaché turned his sights on me. Apparently I already had the look he was searching for. “Pas mal,” he said. We were ready to rock and roll.
Godzilla Page 14
