Major Hudson had been right, Yamagata thought. CEMCOR did not have much of a presence in Nebraska.

Actually, their presence in this part of Nebraska was zero. The only things west of North Platte were a handful of highways and a couple of towns so small the bad guys wouldn't spare a squad to guard them.

Yamagata stared out the window of the Humvee loaned to him by Hudson. Hernandez drove while Nicole dozed in the back seat. The sun started coming up, revealing miles and miles of flat, empty terrain.

"Welcome to the middle of nowhere," Yamagata muttered.

Hernandez snorted. "I think there's more stuff in the middle of nowhere than there is here."

They drove into Arthur, and just as quickly drove through it. The town had a few tree-lined residential streets and cluster of old, farmhouse-style buildings that passed for a downtown. As soon as they left Arthur behind, the scenery went back to miles and miles of miles and miles.

Yamagata looked over his shoulder at the tiny town. This far removed from civilization, it would be easy to forget about cities burned to the ground by Gigan and a President who ruled the country with an iron fist.

But how long would that tranquility last? How long before some higher up at CEMCOR decided this little fly speck town needed attention? How long before gray-clad jackboots knocked down doors and dragged out people for owning guns or posting some anti-Zamora comment on Facebook?

"We're almost there," said Hernandez as he turned onto a dirt road. "Better wake up Captain Fox."

Yamagata tapped Nicole on the knee. She moaned and stirred.

"Are we in Arthur?"

"We were. You missed it. Then again, I blinked and I missed it."

"Ha-Ha." Nicole yawned.

They drove four more miles on the dirt road before Yamagata saw a one-story cabin made of dark wood sitting next to a small lake.

"Good God." Yamagata shook his head. "I'd go crazy if I lived out here." His hometown of Pullman, Washington may have only had 30,000 people, but it was a metropolis compared to this place.

Hernandez shrugged. "What can I say? Staff Sergeant Morton likes his privacy."

"There's privacy, and then there's isolation," said Nicole as she gazed out the window.

The Humvee rolled to a stop a few feet from the front porch. The trio got out.

The front door flew open.

"Hands up!" A man stood on the porch. Yamagata guessed him to be six-two and 200 pounds. A solid 200 pounds judging by the fit of his red flannel shirt and blue jeans. He had a thick gray beard and a main of gray hair that flowed past his shoulders.

He also had an M-16 pointed at them.

"Calm down, Staff Sergeant," Hernandez told him. "It's me."

The man's brow furrowed. "Hernandez?"

"Affirmative."

The man – obviously Morton – smiled and lowered his rifle. "Shit, what brings you here to God's Country?"

"It sure as hell ain't for a social call."

"I imagine not, especially with these two." Morton walked down the steps, slinging the M-16 over his shoulder. "Major Yamagata. Captain Fox."

"I guess our reputation precedes us." Yamagata shook hands with Morton.

"How about you're on Zamora's most wanted list. So are most of the people in your squadron. The news has been plastering your faces and bios all over the place."

Yamagata tightened his lips in a grim expression. He wondered if his parents and grandparents had seen the news. Even more worrisome, would CEMCOR arrest them because of him? What about his sister, Jade? Was she all right up in Alaska?

"So you need a place to hide?" asked Morton.

"No," replied Yamagata. "We're done with the fugitive life."

Morton grinned. "Sounds like I've got three more recruits for the resistance. Come on inside."

The ex-Secret Service agent led them up the steps, briefly catching up with Hernandez.

"Master Sergeant, huh? To think, I knew you when you were a dumbass airman. You sure as hell came a long way."

"Yes I did," said Hernandez. "Speaking of long, what the hell happened to your hair? You have heard of barbers, haven't you?"

Morton rubbed his gray mane. "I spent nearly thirty years in uniform or wearing a badge. I had to put up with regulations about hair length and being clean shaven. After I left the Secret Service and moved here, I decided if I wanted to grow my hair long, I damn well will, and there's no one to tell me otherwise."

The living room was simple, with a couch and a few chairs. No television, Yamagata noticed. A fire crackled in the fireplace, warming the interior. Deer and elk heads adorned the walls.

Morton took them down to the basement. More like a bunker from what Yamagata saw.

The place had cinderblock walls. Racks of computer equipment, which drew all of Nicole's attention and interest, lined one entire wall. Another wall had racks holding pistols, rifles and shotguns. Tables had been set up for laptops, radios and cell phones.

"Damn." Hernandez gaped at the scene. "You've been busy." He turned to Morton. "No way you could have done all this in a few days."

"You're right." Morton put his M-16 on one of the gun racks. "All the years I served on President Zamora's detail, I heard things from him and his staff. Their beliefs, the kinds of people they liked and hated, their vision for the country, what they really wanted the Civilian Emergency Mobilization Corps to become. The more I heard, the more afraid I got. When I left the Secret Service, I set up my own little command bunker and recruited a network of contacts just in case the shit hit the fan."

"Which it did," said Nicole. "Why didn't you tell the public about everything you heard? You could have prevented all this."

"How many people have been calling Zamora a dictator since he first took office? How many of them were considered nuts? I would have been just one more. Believe me, putting this up on a website wouldn't have changed a damn thing."

"So you formed a resistance group even before Zamora became a dictator," Yamagata stated.

"That I did. I even drew up a list of potential recruits, and by the way, Major, you're on it."

"Me?"

Morton nodded. "You command the most advanced fighters in the world. Your service record and your psyche evals show you likely wouldn't go along with any tyrannical actions by Zamora."

"There's no 'likely' about it," Yamagata informed him. "Especially after we were thrown into one of CEMCOR's prison camps."

"Point is, you'd make a valuable asset to a resistance movement, moreso if we can get your Excaliburs."

"You don't have to worry about that. We liberated them from CEMCOR. All three are sitting at North Platte Airport under camouflage."

A grin spread across Morton's face. "That is great news, Major. If Zamora sends any CEMCOR reinforcements to Nebraska, we stand a chance at stopping them."

"Honestly, Mister Morton, we've got our eyes on much bigger prizes than a few F-16s or jackboots in pick-up trucks," said Yamagata.

"And what would that be?"

"Gigan, along with President Zamora, which are actually one in the same."

Morton scrunched his face in puzzlement. "I don't follow."

It was Nicole who answered. "Just before we were arrested by CEMCOR, I picked up a signal directed at Gigan from Air Force One. It could have only been sent by The President, especially when you take into consideration that a few hours after we reported this to our CO, CEMCOR raided our base."

"I don't believe in coincidence," Hernandez added.

Morton let out a long breath and looked at the floor in thought. "I've seen some posts on the internet, people saying Zamora is controlling Gigan, using it to take over the country. I thought it was just more dumbass conspiracy theorists making shit up. If what you say is true, I guess they really know what they're talking about."

"It is true," said Yamagata. "And that's where we need your help. There's no way Zamora could have built a control device himself. Somebody helped him. The Secret Service is always with The President. You must know some of the people he met with, ones that would have the background to come up with a way to control Gigan."

Morton went over to the table holding his laptops. "I created a file on everyone who visited President Zamora my last three years on the job. I don't mean cabinet secretaries and his usual group of advisors. I kept tabs on non-politicos, people you wouldn't expect to have an audience with the President."

Morton scrolled up and down a few times, his head slightly turning left and right as he read. Several minutes passed before he turned to face the trio. "I think I've got your man."

Yamagata, Nicole and Hernandez stood behind him. On the screen was a photo of doughy, balding man with glasses.

"Darrell Howell," Nicole read the name aloud. "So what makes him our man?"

"Howell has a doctorate in biology from Princeton and a masters in computer science from Columbia, which is also where our 'esteemed leader' earned his masters."

"I take it they were buddies," said Yamagata.

Morton nodded. "They were members of three different left leaning student groups, one of which was the Social Awareness Coalition, run by Professor Oscar Ward, committed Marxist, atheist and tree-hugger."

"Sounds like this Ward guy might have been Zamora's mentor," Yamagata chimed in.

"You better believe it. I heard Zamora mention Ward's name plenty of times. He talked about him with the same reverence thirteen-year-old girls used to talk about that Justin Bieber douchebag."

"Anything more about Howell that makes him our favorite?" Nicole asked Morton.

"He worked at NASA for ten years in their xenobiology division."

"So he studied aliens," said Hernandez.

"That's right. Some of the projects he worked on involved studying skin and tissue samples collected after battles with Gigan and King Ghidorah."

"You used 'worked' in the past tense," Nicole pointed out. "I take it he's no longer there?"

"That's correct," Morton answered. "He started accusing NASA of covering up other extraterrestrial threats to the planet. Eventually they got fed up with him and canned his ass."

"What's he doing now?" asked Yamagata.

"Supposedly he's working for the Department of Agriculture. The problem is, when I checked that out, I found out that Howell's office phone number and email are bogus. There's also no record of him ever setting foot inside the department's headquarters, or any of its offices throughout the country."

"Sounds like a cover story to me," said Yamagata. "One Zamora could easily create."

"Now for the big one," Nicole spoke. "What's Howell's location?"

"His address is an apartment in Henderson, Nevada," said Morton. "But I'm guessing that's bogus, too. I do know that during my time on Zamora's detail, Howell met with him three times. Every time, he flew in from McCarran Airport in Vegas."

"So Howell probably has some secret base in Nevada he's working out of," Nicole theorized.

"Nevada's a good place for it," Yamagata added. "The federal government owns half the land in that state. It wouldn't be too difficult for Zamora to set aside some of it for his college buddy."

"Nevada's a big state," Hernandez pointed out. "It's gonna take some work to narrow down where Howell might be."

"That'll be your job, Master Sergeant," said Yamagata. "Yours and Nicole's. Find Howell, and find out everything you can about that control device."

Nicole nodded, with Hernandez saying, "You got it."

"So what's your job going to be, Major?" Morton turned to him.

"Oh, I have the easiest job of all. I'm taking my flight to the Arctic Circle to free Godzilla."

Morton's eyes widened. An expression somewhere between amazement and disbelief formed on his face. "I thought Godzilla was dead."

"He might be, but given all the punishment he's taken from other monsters in the past, I doubt it. Even if he is alive, he's buried under thousands of tons of ice."

"Meaning it's going to take more than a shovel to dig him out," said Morton.

"You got that right."

"So what did you have in mind?"

Yamagata hesitated before answering. "Nukes."

"Nukes?" Morton blurted. "Shit, you don't think small, do you?"

"They're the only things we have that can melt all that ice."

"And vaporize Godzilla in the process."

"Not necessarily." Nicole shook her head. "Remember, Godzilla was created from nuclear testing. Where radiation destroys most organisms, Godzilla thrives on it. He's basically a living nuclear reactor."

"There are other factors to consider." Morton leaned back in his chair. "You set off nukes at the North Pole, every nuclear power in the world is going to freak out. The Russians, especially, since it's almost in their backyard. Someone might get so scared they actually launch nukes of their own. Even if they don't, you still have fallout. Who knows how far that will spread? The environmentalists are sure to raise hell over that."

Yamagata snorted. "The environmentalists can kiss my ass. As for making our 'friends' in the nuclear club nervous, given what's at stake in this country, I'm willing to take that chance."

"And we may not have to worry about fallout," said Nicole. "Godzilla can absorb radiation. Setting off those bombs might actually help him heal."

"And then you think he's automatically going to go after Gigan?" Morton looked doubtful.

Nicole responded, "You know how salmon can return to the exact place of their birth? Godzilla seems to have a natural instinct to track down other giant monsters, especially ones that threaten the human race. If we can free him, he'll find Gigan."

"It's a big if, though," Hernandez added. "First we have to somehow get our hands on a couple of nukes."

Morton folded his arms and slowly turned side-to-side in his chair. After about a minute, he turned back to his computer. "I think I can get you your bombs."

"Seriously?" Nicole's voice went up an octave in surprise.

Morton just grinned. "I know people. I'll see what I can do."

Yamagata watched Morton work his secure computers and burn phones, wondering if the scruffy, former Secret Service agent could actually deliver on his promise.

TO BE CONTINUED