And that’s before the warhead goes off, Pierce thought. He peered up at the brooding gray clouds above them. Is that it? Is it over?

A menacing shadow fell over the deck of the transport ship as the male MUTO, his hooked jaws opened wide, dived from the clouds, surrounded by yet another deluge of crashing F-35s. Its dark wings spread out behind it, its six clawed limbs reaching out hungrily, the male attacked the Yakima, instantly plunging the entire ship underwater. Nearly fifty thousand tons of displaced seawater splashed into the air, dousing some of the burning aircraft sinking slowly nearby. The water sprayed like a geyser before crashing back down onto the churning foam.

There were no survivors.

The turbulent waters began to settle, just for a moment, before the male erupted from the waves and took to the sky once more. The ten-foot-long re-entry vehicle was clenched between its jaws as the creature soared high above the bay, then swooped down toward the city ahead.

Bearing its ticking prize, the male flew over San Francisco.

TWENTY-THREE

Panic spread through the Tac-Ops center. Screens shorted and went black. Frantic analysts and technicians struggled to restore contact with the city. Paper maps were spread out atop a portable chart table, charting blast radiuses and fallout patterns from a new ground zero. This was beyond a worst-case scenario. This was a potential catastrophe beyond anticipation.

“Fifty-four minutes and counting!” an analyst called out.

Admiral Stenz stared in horror at the digital clock on the wall. The mechanical device continued to count down the minutes and seconds to detonation. They had less than an hour before the warhead exploded—and now that winged monster was carrying it into the city.

“It’s right in the middle of downtown, sir,” Hampton reported, confirming their latest visual reconnaissance of the male’s flight path. He started to elaborate, but Stenz cut him off.

“How many?” the admiral demanded.

“At least a hundred thousand,” Hampton said. “But we put in a shielded detonator. Nothing can stop it remotely.”

In other words, we can’t deactivate the damn bomb from here, Stenz thought. Their precautions against the MUTOs’ electromagnetic auras were coming back to bite them. But who could have expected that the male would hijack the warhead and bring it inland?

I should’ve, that’s who.

But there would time enough to crucify himself later. Right now their top priority, even beyond containing the monsters, was that ticking nuclear warhead. If they couldn’t defuse it remotely, then somebody was going to need to get the job done on-site.

“Both bridges are down,” Martinez informed him, as though reading his mind. “All roads into the city are jammed with cars, and we’re seeing electrical disturbances as high as thirty-thousand feet.”