What the hell had we gotten ourselves into?
The mood at ICMHP had changed drastically over the last few hours. Earlier it had been a sort of festive environment. Now half the crowd was somber, as they realized that they weren’t alone and things were messed up all over the rest of the world too, and the other half was really excited, because they’d come to the same conclusion and were now figuring out how they could make money off the situation by blowing things up. Hunters are proactive like that.
I caught a couple of the panels that sounded interesting, where the topics were about the technical end of Hunting. It turned out that the German, Lindemann, was a former member of the elite German counter-terrorism unit GSG-9, and a walking encyclopedia of how to kill dangerous fey. That panel alone was worth the price of admission. Sure, he had insulted me earlier, but at least I had been insulted by the best. Then I went to one of the boring policy ones, but my wife was on the panel so I had no choice. She spent most of it arguing with some idiot professor who was advocating fair trials for intelligent undead. After that was another one on PUFF filing and how to get timely payments from the Treasury, but I snuck out after fifteen minutes of listening to information that I already knew about.
The conversations in the halls were different than before. Stupid Hunters didn’t live long, and we worked in a business that fostered a healthy sense of paranoia. The guests knew that something was up, and many of them had come to the same conclusions that we had. The conference was rigged. The timing was too suspicious. The official policy makers hadn’t wanted the world’s Hunters to know what was going on, but someone else with sufficient pull had arranged to put us all together where the subject would surely arise, but they weren’t direct enough to simply come out and say it.
The keynote address was next. When I had read the description earlier, and it said that it was going to be the MCB director discussing policy, I hadn’t expected there to be much turnout. But now with all of the fresh new conspiracy theories floating around, there was already a crowd formed outside the banquet-hall doors waiting for the keynote to begin. Unfortunately, some of the men loitering around the hall were PT douchebags, which meant that I needed to hang back in order to not violate the restraining order. But since I really wanted to hear what Stark was going to say, I’d just waited until the lights went down before sneaking in. The room was packed, so I didn’t think anyone would notice me. John VanZant, who was also named on the restraining order, was standing in back too. Agent Franks was the last one in, and he just stood there, glowering.
A moment later Director Stark walked out to the podium to sporadic applause. A bunch of unfamiliar bureaucrats came in behind him and sat on folding chairs at the back of the stage. I found it amusing that Stark already had a posse. Myers had got by with just Franks…And then I realized how odd it was that the MCB’s single most famous asset had been stuck out here in nowhere land and not in prestige seats. Was there a reason for that? I looked over at Franks, but his expression was as inscrutable as ever.
The first few minutes of the keynote were more prewritten nonsense. The only interesting bit was about how the United States government would be awarding several large new contracts for monster-related facility security. The accountant part of my brain filed that away, but the Hunter part really wanted to know about this strange underground invasion. Stark changed topics, but now it was more blather about synergy and mission statements. The audience was becoming tense. Now that they knew something was happening worldwide, the Hunters were eager for answers. They wanted meat, and they were being given fluff.
“Tell us what you know!” a man shouted from the center of the room. I couldn’t make out who it was, but I was impressed a bunch like this had been patient this long. Stark pretended that he hadn’t heard and kept reading. Then another Hunter to the side yelled something similar, then another Hunter in back raised a rude question, and the bureaucrats behind Stark began to shift nervously.
Stark reached up and adjusted his suddenly too-tight necktie. It must have been constricting his considerable bulldog jowls. “Easy, everyone. I don’t know what you’re carrying on about.”
“Lies.” That accusation caused some shifting and looking by the MCB in the audience to see who’d said it. Earl Harbinger saved them the trouble of searching, because he simply stood up so everyone could see him. “We know about the pattern. We know about the attacks. Don’t waste our time.”
Stark blanched when he saw who it was. I don’t know what their history was, but it was plain to see that Stark didn’t like, and was a little frightened of, Earl Harbinger. What was it with Earl and collecting personal grudges with MCB Directors? “You need to quiet down or I’ll have security remove you.”
Security? Franks sighed dejectedly. Sweet. I would pay good money to watch Frankenstein and the Wolfman fight. That would be some Clash of the Titans level awesomeness right there. Earl sat back down, but I could tell that he wasn’t done yet. Once Earl got to pushing he wasn’t going to quit until he got what he wanted.
“Now where was I?” The vibrating of Stark’s pocket was picked up over the microphone. He tried to ignore his phone and kept on reading from his increasingly pointless speech.
Agent Franks lifted one hand to his earpiece, scowling. His blunt features twisted into a dangerous scowl, then he walked quickly from the hall. The three government men sitting on the stand behind Stark all reached into their pockets at the same time. The lights of the phone’s displays could be seen across the hall. The G-men exchanged glances, and then two of them stood up and quickly walked off stage. The other agents providing security all began speaking softly into their microphones. Phones began buzzing all across the auditorium, except for a few MCB men who had forgotten to put them on vibrate, and those began to ring. Every single MCB in sight had just gotten a call.
Something was going down.
A murmur rose from the audience. Agent Stark continued reading from his prepared remarks and let the call go to voice mail, but after a few seconds his pocket began buzzing again. He finally looked up from his paper, scanned the audience, saw all the display lights and realized there was a problem. “Better answer this. Probably the wife.” He laughed nervously, covered the microphone with one hand, and turned away to take the call. Stark listened and didn’t make a sound for probably thirty seconds. It was very awkward.
When he turned back around, his eyes were very wide. “Well, uh…Let’s see…Important business. You’ll have to excuse me for a moment.” He took a few halting steps, realized he should probably say something else and came back to the microphone. “I’ll be right back. There is nothing to be concerned about. Please remain seated.” And then the Director of the MCB fled the podium.
The audience murmur evolved into the suspicious muttering of several hundred Hunters. The final government man on the stage looked around, realized he was all alone, then got up and hurried after his boss. A minute passed, but no one came out to fill the void. It was the middle of the keynote address and the spotlight was completely empty. Now we knew something really interesting had happened.
“Bring out the dancing girls!” one of the Australians shouted. There was general nervous laughter.
My phone vibrated. I pulled it out, expecting a text from one of my teammates. Hopefully someone had been able to overhear one of the MCB and had an idea what was going on. But the number was listed as Unknown.
Would you like to know what is going on? Meet in room 212. You have 5 minutes.
That seemed odd, but it wasn’t until I looked up that I realized the really weird part. There were about fifty other Hunters scattered across the room reading their phones too. I recognized most of them as team leaders or managers from the various companies. VanZant, who was standing only a few feet away, showed me his phone.
We had all received the same message.
Chapter 5
“You think this is a trap?” VanZant asked as we got on the escalator. He glanced back at the cro
wd behind us. “We’re about to put the world’s most experienced Hunters in one room.”
“That’s whatever room I’m in, John,” Earl Harbinger retorted.
“I’m just saying it’s a tempting target.”
“If it’s a trap it’s got to be one of the most convoluted things I’ve ever heard of. You think we’re gonna open the door and get pounced on by shoggoths?”
“Shoggoths don’t really pounce,” I said. “It’s more of a squishy lumbering motion.”
Earl had briefed VanZant and the other team leaders about the pattern we’d discovered earlier. “If this is an invasion, now would be a really convenient time to eliminate a shitload of the opposition’s brainpower in one move.”
Earl stroked his chin thoughtfully. “If that was the case, it’d be smarter to blow the whole hotel up. Get us all.” He looked down the escalator. Since we’d been toward the back we’d gotten out first. Just from our company I could see Julie, Cody, Paxton, Eddings, and Priest. That was a big chunk of MHI’s leadership. In addition, I recognized many familiar faces from today’s schmoozing, including owners and commanders from most of the different companies. Everybody wanted a piece of this puzzle. Say what you will about Hunters, we were a curious bunch. “You’ve got a point.”
“I was a soldier, Earl. I still try to think like one. If we’d caught this many Taliban honchos in one place I’d have dropped a mortar round on it faster than you could blink. Assuming I could actually get permission, of course.”
“Fair enough. Split off at the top. Stop every other one of our people. Hang back just in case.”
“Roger that,” VanZant nodded. “We’re the cavalry.”
Earl leaned in and lowered his voice. “Especially stop Julie. Tell her it’s my orders.”
“Why?” I asked. “She’s not going to like getting left out.”
“Julie stays outside. If it is a trap, I’m almost indestructible and you’re replaceable. If MHI lost her we’d be out of business in no time. She’s the only one of us that can negotiate a contract worth a damn.”
Sure, a chivalrous husband would’ve stuck up for his wife, but life’s too short to pick a fight with Earl Harbinger.
“Julie only gets the best contracts because she’s cute,” VanZant said as we reached the top. “The rest of us are a homely bunch.” He stepped off to the side and had disappeared into the casino’s crowds within seconds. It is easy to be inconspicuous when you’re short.
Room 212 had been one of the panel rooms earlier. The long table in front had been removed and someone had rolled in a television. The chairs were still in neat rows, with a single sheet of paper neatly folded in the center of each one. I picked one up. The photocopy only had a few lines on it. “The number ten million, a phone number and…” A bunch of numbers and letters.
“Coordinates,” Earl looked over my shoulder. “To the northeast of here.”
He was really good. “That’s what I thought,” I lied.
It wasn’t that big of a room, and our competitor’s leadership filled it quickly. Many of them appeared nervous. A few of the younger ones were trying to play it cool as they patted theirs sides to make sure their guns were still there. Most seemed curious. The older and more experienced Hunters looked annoyed, having gotten tired of playing games a long time ago. The big Pole from White Eagle squished in next to me. He was wearing way too much cologne. Many Hunters remained standing, and a few of our guys stood right next to the door.
The TV came on by itself, displaying a close-up of a deathly pale, very thin, totally bald man wearing persimmon-colored sunglasses and a white dress shirt that was nearly the same color as his skin. “Good evening, Monster Hunters. Welcome to Ick-mip.” Earl tensed so violently that my chair shook. I looked over to see that my boss’s teeth were clenched, his lips pulled back in snarl of hatred. “I am Mr. Stricken,” the TV said.
“You albino motherfucker,” Earl growled.
Stricken smiled. “Pleasure to see you too, Mr. Harbinger.”
That confirmed a few things. Stricken was on a live feed, we were on camera, and they knew each other. The sunglasses swiveled to the side as Stricken studied something. “Before I continue, please shut off all your electronics and recording devices…Yes…Third row…Ms. Kim. Shut it off temporarily or I shut you off permanently. If I see so much as an electrical blip in that room it’ll put me in a really foul mood. And please close the door.” Stricken appeared to be watching another screen. “Were you born in a barn? Shut it or this meeting is adjourned.”
I turned to look. Cody was closest. Our New Mexico team lead hesitated. He was an old friend of my father, the man that had saved my brother’s fingers, and one of our wiser, more experienced, and cautious men.
“This isn’t a trick. If I wanted you dead, I would’ve poisoned your breakfast…” Stricken said as he looked to the other side and read something. “Which was a jalapeño omelet at Denny’s at six forty-five this morning. Well, you’re an early riser, Mr. Cody. Now close the door. I will not tell you again.”
“Do it,” Earl ordered. Cody pulled the doors closed.
“Thank you.” Stricken launched right into his message. “At twelve hundred hours today there was a monster-related event in a small town in northeastern Nevada. Due to the isolated nature of the location, law enforcement officials didn’t discover the aftermath until a few hours ago. The scene has been contained, but the MCB was only recently made aware and has gone on full alert.”
So that was what had interrupted Stark’s speech.
“How bad?” a man that looked suspiciously like Buddy Holly asked.
“Ten confirmed dead, fifteen missing, Mister…” Stricken’s head shifted to the other side as he studied a different monitor. “Wylder, Team TALON…Heh…That’s a clever acronym. Allow me to clarify, Mr. Wylder. It was a more of a truck stop with some trailers around it than an actual town, but it’s gone now. Those not ripped limb from limb vanished without a trace. We’re not sure exactly how many, because the containment team is still finding pieces and trying to figure out which pieces go in which body bag. Do not interrupt me again.”
A young man sitting a few rows ahead of me stood up. “Who are you?”
Stricken waited a moment for the information to load. “Pierre Darne…I knew your father. You take directions as well as he does, as in not at all. What part of ‘don’t interrupt me’ did you fail to grasp? I know there’s a language barrier here, and English is your third language, but I’m about to offer you a very lucrative business proposal, so you can either sit your ass down or get the hell out of my meeting and wait for the official MCB press release.”
Darne reluctantly returned to his chair.
“I represent a special, multi-agency task force within the United States government.”
Earl snorted.
“We would like this particular issue dealt with as quickly and quietly as possible. The provisional PUFF bounty for this particular one-of-a-kind entity is listed as the first line on the sheet left on your chair.” I looked down at the $10,000,000.00 and gave a low whistle. “For our foreign friends in the audience, those are American dollars, which must come as a letdown to those of you still collecting bounties in pounds, but at least they’re not pesos. If you go to the PUFF website you’ll see that this new bounty was posted in the last fifteen minutes with all of the applicable information to be filled in later.”
The big Pole leaned across me to ask Earl, “Is he telling truth?”
“He’s from the government, all right,” Earl said, which didn’t really answer the question.
“Some of you may be wondering if this is legitimate. Understandable. When this meeting is over I’d like everyone present to check their personal bank account. A good faith payment of ten thousand dollars has been placed into each to compensate you for your time. Think of it like a gift basket, only without the mixed nuts. But more importantly, you will be able to confirm that the money was wired there by the United States
Treasury’s Perpetual Unearthly Forces Fund. That should confirm I am who I say I am.”
He hadn’t really said who he was at all, but if this Stricken could get the PUFF to move that quick, the dude had some pull. Getting them to process something as simple as a zombie kill required processing reams of paperwork.
“More importantly, my task force has oversight over the requests for proposals on several new, very lucrative US government contracts. You heard the new MCB director. I’m talking about several worldwide markets, too. Whichever company manages to complete this particular assignment will…let’s be honest, win many of these contracts.”
That caused a stir. Big government Monster contracts were always worth a fortune, with a company being paid merely to be on call in case something happened at a certain facility, which rarely did. For example, MHI had a contract with the Department of Energy for a few of their sites, including one contract at Los Alamos that dated back to the forties, interrupted only while we’d been shut down. To any Hunting company, contracts like that were like an endless cash dispenser, and when they did come up, the competition was fierce.
Being the accountant that I am, I turned to Earl excitedly. We were talking about astronomical sums of money, but the look in his eye told me that none of that sounded in the least bit appealing to him.
“What is the monster?” the German, Lindemann, asked. Stricken looked to his monitor. “I will save you the time, Mr. Stricken. Klaus Lindemann, Grimm Berlin. We get the point. You are well informed. I too, enjoy being informed. So please, do tell us what is the nature of this creature?”
Stricken smiled, and there was something inherently wrong about that expression, like the muscles of his gaunt face weren’t used to making friendly shapes. “Your reputation precedes you, Mr. Lindemann. The threat is of an unknown type and number. There are no witnesses. The only intelligence we have is where it last struck, the coordinates of which are on your sheet.”
The German spoke for all of us. “It would seem that if the type is unknown, then this bounty seems suspiciously excessive. Normally, such a payment is reserved for the most lethal of beings.”