Monster Hunter Nemesis (20 page)

“We’ll take you up on that,” warned the congresswoman.

That seemed to satisfy them.
Suckers.
It would be a cold day in Hell before any of these idiots ever got a look at the real inner workings of his secret operation. “Whatever puts you at ease, ma’am.”

“With this madman on the loose, I don’t see how any of us can be at ease.”

“He blames me for his paranoid fantasies, but all of you are in danger as well. I’d like to offer some of my men to each of you to beef up your existing security details. If Franks comes after you or your families though . . .” Stricken spread his hands apologetically. “The Task Force has good men, some of the best, but I’m afraid they’re only men. However, they’re the best I can offer . . . for now.”

The Subcommittee members shared nervous looks.
When some supernatural scary bullshit comes around it’s my job to keep you all safe, but you won’t let me have Nemesis assets that could actually save you. Yeah, sleep on that, chumps.

“He’s only one man . . .” said a congressman.

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking he’s a man at all. He’s a repository of three hundred years of combat experience housed in a body that refuses to die. When I first learned about Franks I asked Dwayne Myers what advanced military training of ours Franks had taken part in . . . His response was ‘all of it.’ He can fly a fighter jet, outswim a Navy SEAL, or snipe you through your bedroom window from a thousand yards away. Franks has been trained on nuclear, biological, chemical, and unearthly weapons of mass destruction. He knows our systems, weaknesses, plans, and vulnerabilities. If there’s a way to make us bleed, Franks holds the razor. There’s no telling what he’ll do next.”

Stricken glanced back at the President. He appeared troubled, only now he was reading something in his hands. It was an old piece of parchment sealed in a glass box. The Contract.
Good. Let the gravity of the situation sink in.

“I believe all of us here have read that Contract many times, Mr. President . . . I regret that it has come to this. Believe me, sir, Franks will keep his word. As long as he imagines that we’ve broken the agreement, he will not stop. I give you my word that we will catch him . . . If I had better tools at my disposal I could catch him faster, but I will do the best I can with whatever assets you see fit to grant me.”

“So if Franks intends to murder us for something we aren’t actually doing, how long would it take to make that thing a reality?” That congressman was frightened, probably imagining Franks murdering his entire family.

“That’s a good question.” The President had been on the edge of granting approval before. This was threatening to push him over. “Theoretically . . . How long would it take for these Nemesis soldiers to be built?”

The real number was six months of vat growth and being bombarded with continual education and conditioning stimuli to make them combat effective, and then a year of exercises and testing, and even then his First Prototype had failed to take Franks. Making up a fake number that was too low to justify his already existing troops would just cause suspicion that Franks was telling the truth. “We’ve never done this before, sir . . . We’d do our best. The sooner I could get started, the sooner we’d have a replacement for Franks ready. Of course, I’d like to catch Franks long before these assets would be ready, but if we postpone because of the timing, that doesn’t help us with the next threat, or the one after that. Honestly, not having Franks in our supernatural arsenal will be a blow to national security, and we’ve lost him no matter what. Who knows when the next Las Vegas or Copper Lake will happen, but happen, they will. We need soldiers who can survive in supernatural environments that would destroy a normal man. Time is of the essence, so we would rush the first batch as quickly as possible.”

“But they’d still have this
kill switch
installed?”

“Of course. We send a coded transmission, they don’t just immediately die, but it also causes the bodies to melt and destroy any evidence, all with the push of a button.”

“Well, I’d like one of those buttons then,” the President said.

Like he was going to let some untrained coward decide when it was the right time to obliterate his life’s work . . . The running joke with this POTUS was that if he opened the football—the case holding the nuclear launch codes—balloons and confetti would shoot out like a kid’s birthday party. It was better to leave the weapons in the hands of the adults who understood that opinion polls could not overcome the laws of physics. “Of course, Mr. President . . . Can I take that as a
go?
”

All of the Subcommittee members were staring at the screen. If any of them disagreed, they were afraid to voice their objections now. They’d counted on Franks for so long that they didn’t know what to do when their guard dog had gone rabid.

“Yes, Mr. Stricken. A tentative go. Make a few, then we will test and inspect them before we commit too many resources to the Project. If they work as well as you expect them to, then we will proceed further.”

About damned time.
“A wise decision, sir. I’ll see to the details.”

“In the meantime, how do you intend to catch Franks?”

Stricken smiled. Franks’ tearing through the Flierls’ team had been the straw that had broken the camel’s back. It was time to bring in some more help. He’d already moved the necessary funds from one of his black budgets to the official one. “Outsourcing.”

Los Angeles, California

“Financially speaking, Paranormal Tactical Consulting has been having a fantastic quarter,” Rick Armstrong read from the three-by-five card. He paused and scratched out that line with his pencil. “That sounds stupid. What’s the right word?”

Shane Durant was sitting on the couch in Armstrong’s office. “Huh?” He had his phone in one hand, surfing the internet, and a rubber squeezey doughnut in his other hand to work on his grip strength, so he really hadn’t been paying attention while his boss practiced his speech. “What word?”

“Should I say financially speaking or
fiscally
speaking?”

“They’re investors. Get them drunk and tell them we’ve made a shit ton of money this year. Simple.”

“Our positioning is fantastic, but I need to think about how to sell it for maximum effect . . .” Armstrong tapped his pencil against the side of his head. “Las Vegas really was a huge coup for us.”

“A few of our guys died.”

“I know! That’s the part I’ve got to think about how to spin. Casualties should be expected in this business, but I don’t really want to come out and say that because that might scare off some investors. On the bright side, we signed several new contracts.”

Durant just grunted in response. He knew that. He’d written the contracts himself. In addition to being one of their best Hunters, he was Paranormal Tactical’s lawyer. That reminded him though, he still needed to draw up that lawsuit paperwork against Holly Newcastle . . .

Armstrong dropped his stack of cards on his desk. “I really want to beat MHI. They’ve been top dog for so long, they’re due for an upset. PT is destined to be number one.”

“Uh huh.” Durant kept squeezing the rubber doughnut until the burning in his forearms was too much. Then he switched hands.
I got an email.

“I know it’s only been a few days, but we can’t afford to wait to replace the men we lost. It isn’t like we’ve got a shortage of out-of-work combat vets who’d love a job.” Armstrong was a retired Army colonel who had originally gone into private security contracting. Once he’d learned about the lucrative world of professional monster hunting the switch had been a no-brainer. His career had left him with plenty of contacts suited for this line of work. “You know, MHI has a fancy memorial wall with silver plaques on it. It says
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.
Supposedly it’s good for morale. We’ll make one . . . but it’ll be bigger. I want
gold
plaques. Make a note, we need to think of a saying in Latin. Something ballsy but profound.”

“Yep. Profound.” Durant didn’t really pay much attention when Armstrong got spun up about surpassing MHI. The email was a PUFF alert from the Treasury Department. There had been a major revision to the Perpetual Unearthly Forces Fund table. There were even a few informational attachments included.
What interesting new creature am I going to be paid large sums of money to kill today?
He began the download.

“I need to talk to the CFO, but we’ll need hiring bonuses, and we need to upgrade our equipment. Did you see the shit the MCB had there?” Armstrong asked wistfully. “If we’re going to grow, then we need more capital influx. New contracts are great, but that doesn’t help our short term cash flow. I’ve got to wine and dine these investors’ panties off. Don’t worry, Shane. I can bring the charm.”

But Durant was busy reading the new PUFF table. The new entry’s identity was a bit of a surprise. Then he saw the bounty number. “Whoa . . .” The rubber doughnut fell on the floor and rolled under the couch.

“What is it?” Armstrong asked.

“Only the largest PUFF bounty in history.” Durant showed him the phone.

Armstrong’s mouth fell open. “To hell with the investors! Call up
everybody.
”

Berlin, Germany

“Vater!”
The airport was crowded, but his youngest daughter spotted him quickly. Hannah always had a good eye. He very much hoped that she would not follow in his footsteps, and would instead lead a long, peaceful life, but if she did choose to be a Hunter like her father, then her keen observational skills would be very useful.

Hannah ran up and wrapped her arms around his legs the second he stepped off the escalator. Klaus Lindemann dropped his suitcases, scooped up his daughter, and hugged her tight. “I’m so glad to be home. I missed you, Hannah.”

“We heard your conference in America turned out to be very scary!”

“Yes. I will tell you all about it.”
Someday.
Until she was older he would only give her the edited, adventurous, happy version of the events, where Grimm Berlin had helped battle a horrible monster and had saved the day. He’d leave out the part where Hugo’s head had been hacked off with a rusty sword by a monster ripped from his own nightmares. “Oh my. You have grown so big.”

“You were only gone for a week!”

“Leaving you always feels like an eternity.” His men were getting off the escalator behind him. Some of them had family waiting as well. All of them waved at Hannah as they passed. She was so adorable that she was almost Grimm Berlin’s mascot. “Now, where is your mother?”

“She had to take Matthias to the potty. What is America like?”

“It is very big and very loud. Everyone is always smiling.”

“I like smiles.”

“Of course. You are five. But Americans smile too much. They smile even when they do not mean it.”

“Their faces must hurt.”

“Indeed . . .” He noticed that some of his men were talking. Miesen was reading to them from his tablet. Apparently something interesting had happened.

Miesen saw his employer and hurried over. “Klaus, you need to see this.” He handed Klaus the device. “Hello, Hannah.”

“Hello, Ryan.” Then she hid her face against her father’s shoulder.

“Did you meet the MCB man Franks at the conference?” Miesen asked.

“Yes. He struck me as a rather unpleasant type.”

“No surprise. It turns out that he’s not even human.”

Klaus scrolled through the attachment. “The American government was employing a flesh golem and now he is a criminal. Interesting. He’s originally from Darmstadt. Well, I hope they do not attempt to blame his madness on us.”

“They have declared he is no longer exempt. He is officially a monster. Keep reading.”

When Lindemann got to the bounty amount, he couldn’t believe his eyes. “Two hundred and fifty
million
dollars . . . This has to be a mistake.”

“That’s over one hundred and eighty million euros.” Miesen’s eyes were wide. “Can you imagine?”

“Is that a lot?” Hannah asked.

“Yes, Hannah. I am afraid it is far too much.”

“I checked. They updated the PUFF table. It matches.” Miesen was a very good Hunter, but his perceptions were colored by youth and enthusiasm.

Klaus was still not convinced this wasn’t a typo, and if it wasn’t a mistake, then that did not bode well. “Does it originate from the same source as our Nachtmar bounty?”

“That was a huge sum.”

“It was a lot of money for a giant spider, but it was nothing for what we eventually faced. If that crafty albino feels the need to put such a ridiculous amount on this Franks, then I know something is wrong.” Like most of the Hunters who had been at ICMHP, he’d come to hate the man known as Stricken. He’d paid Grimm Berlin well for their victory, but then had left them to die in the aftermath. Besides, Grimm Berlin had donated the Nachtmar bounty to the families of the Hunters who had died at the Last Dragon. It was not so much, once it was spread out among that many grieving widows.

“That bounty was wired into Grimm Berlin’s bank account quickly. There’s no reason to think this will be different. Think of what we could do with that!”

The word had spread. All of his Hunters had drifted over to listen. The men were waiting for him to make a decision. Their spouses did not understand what was going on, but they had seen this look before. Around them, thousands of normal people went about their business, blissfully unaware that the men who protected them from the supernatural were here, facing a sudden, difficult decision. “Ah, Miesen, we were just there. I’ve not even kissed my wife yet.”

“Do you wish us to stand down, Klaus? You know we will defer to your wisdom.”

They would follow his orders without question. That was what happened when you were one of the most experienced Monster Hunters alive. “No . . . We will go back.”

Miesen raised his voice. “You hear that, everyone? The biggest bounty ever will be ours.”

There were some exaggerated weary groans, but also an undercurrent of excitement. There were also some very angry wives and some Hunters who had some explaining to do.