Kaiju Preservation Society(50)

“It’s a sketchy way to get funding.”

“Wait until you figure out that at least some of that billionaire funding is actually government funding,” Tom said. “They contract with the billionaire’s company for a service on an expensive no-bid contract with the understanding that a cut of that revenue makes it here.”

“Billionaires are laundering government money for us?”

“Basically.”

“I reiterate my amazement this is all still somehow a secret,” I said.

“Acknowledged,” Tom said. “And remember what I said the first time we ever talked about it. It’s secret, but not that secret.” He pointed at his tablet. “Sometimes that means letting people we’d rather not in on the secret.”

Watching Rob Sanders now walking down the gangway, I leaned toward Tom, who was standing next to me, along with Brynn MacDonald, as part of the welcoming party. “I can’t promise I won’t feed him to the tree crabs,” I said.

“Resist the temptation,” Tom suggested. “It would be bad to feed our funders to the fauna.”

“Maybe just parts of him.”

“Jamie.”

“Fine,” I said. “I will let him live. Today.”

The three tourists made their way to where we were standing, and MacDonald greeted the first of them. “Major General Tipton,” she said. “Welcome back to Tanaka Base.” She nodded to Sanders and the other tourist. “I understand you’re running with half of your expected team at the moment.”

“We are,” he said. “Dr. Gaines, who was with us from the Department of Energy, had a severe asthma attack after we crossed over to Honda Base. She’s recuperating there in their medical facility, and the other two members of her team elected to stay with her.”

“I hope she’ll be all right.”

“She’ll be fine. They’ll keep her people busy, I’m sure.” Tipton motioned to Sanders and the other person on his team. “Allow me to introduce Colonel David Jones, my aide, and this is Robert Sanders, who is here representing Tensorial, one of our major contractors. He’s taken on this role from his father.”

I blinked at this and then remember Tom mentioning a couple of weeks back that Sanders came from a family that made its money from defense contracts. I suppose this meant he’d come back into the fold in the last few weeks.

“Pleasure,” MacDonald said. “This is Tom Stevens, my aide, and Jamie Gray, who will be your liaison during your stay.”

Sanders pointed to Tom. “You look familiar somehow,” he said.

“We overlapped at Dartmouth,” Tom said. “I was a couple of years behind you.”

“Well, isn’t it a small world,” Sanders said. “Speaking of which”—he turned and faced me. “Look who this is!”

“It’s me,” I agreed.

“You know Rob?” Tipton asked.

“Jamie was one of my executives at füdmüd,” Sanders told him.

“Oh! You must have been very pleased at your stock payout when Uber bought your company,” Tipton said to me.

“Alas,” I said, looking at Sanders. “I wasn’t there when it happened and didn’t own any stock when it did.”

Tipton chortled. “Bet you regret that now.”

“Well, I did get a fifteen percent discount at Duane Reade, so it wasn’t all bad.”

Tipton pointed at Sanders. “This one just became a billionaire from that. If I had his money, I’d be on the beach in Cancun with a big fruity drink in my hand. This one went back to work for his dad.”

“To be fair, I was on the board of Tensorial when I was CEO of füdmüd,” Sanders said. “I still kept a hand in. And now I’m here.”

“Yes, sweating our asses off,” Tipton said. “This place hasn’t gotten any cooler since the last time I was here.”

“No, I suppose not,” MacDonald said. She pointed toward me. “Jamie here will be in charge of your stay here, so anything you need, you can just—”

“Actually—and I apologize for cutting you off here, Dr. MacDonald,” Tipton said, and this is how I learned that Brynn MacDonald had a doctorate in something, “I’ve been tasked with getting a comprehensive overview of the KakKasuak Event—”

“The what?”

“It’s what we’re calling your exploding kaiju on the other side,” Tipton said. “I’ve been tasked with getting a comprehensive overview of the event as quickly as possible and returning as quickly as possible.” He nodded to Jones, who reached into the bag he was carrying and presented MacDonald with a clipboard with paper on it. “Here are the things we’ll need to be briefed on. We’ll need to have those briefings today.”

MacDonald took the clipboard and passed it to Tom without looking at it. “We have a full suite of briefings scheduled for tomorrow—”

Tipton shook his head. “Apologies again, Dr. MacDonald, but we have to be back on our way tomorrow morning.” He held a hand up, anticipating the objection she was about to make. “This isn’t me pushing you around and disrupting your schedules, I promise you. This is coming from my bosses, and also from their boss, and his boss. All the way up.”