Reilly Matthew

Area 7

AREA 7

MATTHEW REILLY

St. Martin's Paperbacks

NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should

be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as

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author nor the publisher has received any payment for this

"stripped book."

First published in Australia by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited

AREA 7

Copyright © 2001 by Matthew Reilly.

Excerpt from Contest copyright © 2003 by Matthew Reilly.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information

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St. Martin's Press hardcover edition / February 2002

St. Martin's Paperbacks edition / February 2003

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10 987654321

For John Schrooten, my friend

I'LL TRY TO BE QUICK. SINCERE THANKS ONCE AGAIN TO:

Natalie Freer--who gets to see (and put up with) my

creative eccentricities up close. Her patience and generosity

know no bounds.

My brother, Stephen Reilly--tortured writer, constructive

and creative critic, and good friend; and to his wife,

Rebecca Ryan, because they come as a package.

My wonderful parents--Ray and Denise Reilly--for

encouraging me to build miniature movie sets for my Star

Wars action figures when I was a kid; my creativity comes

directly from them.

My good friends John Schrooten, Nik and Simon Kozlina,

the whole Kay clan (notably Don, who made me shrink

the size of the cats in Temple), and to Paul Whyte for accompanying

me on an extraordinary trip to Utah while researching

this book.

A special mention to two American friends--Captain

Paul M. Woods, U.S. Army, and Gunnery Sergeant Kris Hankinson,

USMC (retired), who generously gave of their time

and assisted me with the military details of this book. Any

mistakes are mine, and were made over their objections.

And finally, once again, thanks to everyone at Pan

Macmillan and Thomas Dunne Books. This is our fourth

outing together and it still rocks. Thanks to Gate Paterson,

Jane Novak, Sarina Rowell, Paul Kenny, and Pete Wolverton.

And, of course, as always, to the sales reps for the countless

hours they spend on the road between bookstores.

To anyone who knows a writer, never underestimate the

power of your encouragement.

All right! Now on with the show. ...

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

SPECIAL AREA (RESTRICTED) NO. 7

GROUND LEVEL: Main Hangar

LEVEL 1: Hangar Bay

LEVEL 2: Hangar Bay

LEVEL 3: Living Quarters

LEVEL 4: Laboratories

LEVEL 5

LEVEL 6: X-rail platform

GROUND LEVEL: MAIN HANGER

LEVEL I UNDERGROUND HANGAR BAY

Air

LEVEL 2: UNDERGROUND HANGAR BAY

shaft

LEVEL 6: X-RAIL PLATFORM

Regular

elevator

Tunnel

blast doors

>

rail engines

Maintenance

vehicle

The single greatest fear that America faces today

is that its military forces no longer tolerate the

continuing incompetence of its civilian leadership.

Mr. George K. Suskind,

Defense Intelligence Agency,

Evidence given before the House

Sub-committee on the Armed Forces,

22 July 1996

The difference between a republic and an empire is

the loyalty of one's army.

Julius Caesar

AREA 7

INTRODUCTION

From: Katz, Caleb

The C.B. Powell Memorial Address: "The

Presidency"

(Speech delivered at the School of Politics,

Harvard University, 26 February 1999)

there is no other institution in the world quite like the

President of the United States.

All at once, the person who holds this title becomes the

leader of the fourth most populous nation on earth, the

commander-in-chief of its armed forces, and the chief executive

officer of what Harry Truman called "the largest going

concern in the world."

The use of the term "chief executive" has made comparisons

with company structures inevitable, and to a certain extent,

they are appropriate--although, what other corporate

leaders in the world have 2-trillion-dollar budgets at their fingertips, a license to use the 82nd Airborne Division to enforce

their will, and briefcases at their sides that can unleash an arsenal

of thermonuclear devastation against their competitors?

Among modern political systems, however, the American

President is unique--for the simple reason that he is

both head of government and head of state.

Most nations separate these two functions. In the United

Kingdom, for instance, the head of state is the Queen; the

head of government is the Prime Minister. It is a separation

born out of a history of tyrants--kings who wore the crown,

but who also governed at their often erratic pleasure.

But in the U.S., the man who runs the country is also the

4        Matthew Reilly

symbol of the country. In his words and his deeds, the President's

every act is a barometer for the glory of the nation.

For his strength is the people's strength.

John F. Kennedy staring down the Soviets over Cuba in

1962.

Harry Truman's nerves-of-steel decision to drop the

atomic bomb on Japan in 1945.

Or Ronald Reagan's confident smile.

His strength is the people's strength.

But there are dangers in this arrangement of things. For

if the President is the embodiment of America, what happens

when things go wrong?

The assassination of John F. Kennedy.

The resignation of Richard Nixon.

The humiliation of William Jefferson Clinton.

The death of Kennedy was the death of America's innocence.

Nixon's resignation drove a knife into the heart of

America's optimism. And the humiliation of Clinton was the

global humiliation of America--at peace summits and press

conferences around the world, the first question asked of

Clinton was invariably directed at his sexcapades in a study

adjoining the Oval Office.

Be it in death or disgrace, decisiveness or courage, the

President of the United States is more than just a man. He is

an institution--a symbol--the walking, talking embodiment

of a nation. On his back ride the hopes and dreams of 276

million people ... [pp. 1-2]

From: Farmer, J. T.

"Coincidence or Co-ordinated Murder?

The Death of Senator Jeremiah Woolf"

Article from: The Conspiracy Theorist Monthly [circulation: 152 copies]

(Delva Press, April issue, 2001)

... The body was found in the woods surrounding the senator's

isolated hunting cabin in the Kuskokwim Mountains in

Alaska.

Area 7 5

Truth be told, at the time of his death Jerry Woolf was

no longer a senator, having retired abruptly from Congress

only ten months earlier, surprising all the pundits, citing

family reasons for the unexpected move.

He was still alive when they found him--no mean feat

considering the high-velocity hunting bullet lodged in his

chest. Woolf was immediately taken by helicopter to

Elaine County Hospital, one hundred and fifty miles away,

where emergency residents tried in vain to stem the blood

flow.

But the damage was too severe. After forty-five minutes

of emergency treatment, former United States Senator Jeremiah

K. Woolf died.

Sounds simple, doesn't it? A terrible hunting accident.

Like so many others that happen every year in this country.

That's what your government would have you believe.

Consider this: Blaine County Hospital records show

that a patient named Jeremiah K. Woolf was declared dead

in the emergency ward at 4:35 p.m. on the afternoon of February

6, 2001.

That is the only record of the incident that exists. All

other records of Woolf's examination at the hospital were

confiscated by the FBI.

Now consider this: on that very same day--February 6,

2001--on the other side of the country, at exactly 9:35 p.m.,

Jeremiah Woolf's Washington townhouse was destroyed in

an explosion, an explosion that killed his wife and only

daughter. Investigators would later claim that this blast was

caused by a gas leak.

The FBI believes Woolf--previously a vibrant young

senator, crusader against organized crime, and potential

presidential candidate--was the victim of an extortion

racket: leave us alone, or we'll kill your family.

This is, without a doubt, a government smokescreen.

If Woolf was being blackmailed, well, one has to ask: why? He had retired from the Senate ten months previously.

And if he was killed in a routine hunting accident, why were

6        Matthew Reilly

the records of his emergency room procedures at Elaine

County Hospital taken by the FBI?

What really happened to Jerry Woolf? At the moment,

we just don't know.

But consider this final point: owing to the time difference,

9:35 p.m. in Washington, D.C., is 4:35 p.m. in Alaska.

So at the end of the day, after all the talk of hunting accidents

and Mafia blackmail and faulty gas valves is cast

aside, one fact remains: at the exact same moment that former

United States Senator Jerry Woolf's heart stopped beating

in an emergency room in Alaska, his home on the other

side of the country exploded in a gigantic ball of flames ...

AREA 7

PROLOGUE

Protected Inmates' Wing,

Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary,

Leavenworth, Kansas,

20 January, 12:00 p.m.

IT HAD BEEN HIS LAST REQUEST.

To watch the inauguration ceremony on television.

Sure, it had delayed the trip to Terre Haute by an hour, but

then--so the powers-that-be at Leavenworth had reckoned--if

the condemned man's last request was reasonable, who were

they to refuse him?

The television threw a flickering strobelike glow onto

the concrete walls of the holding cell. Tinny voices came

from its speakers:

"... do solemnly swear..."

"... do solemnly swear..."

"... that I will faithfully execute the office of President

of the United States..."

"... that I will faithfully execute the office of President

of the United States..."

The condemned prisoner watched the television intently.

And then--despite the fact that he had less than two

hours to live--a smile began to spread across his face.

THE NUMBER ON HIS PRISON SHIRT READ: "T-77."

He was an older man, fifty-nine, with a round, weather

beaten face and slicked-down black hair. Despite his age, he

was a big man, powerfully built--with a bull neck and broad

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Matthew Reilly

shoulders. His eyes were a bottomless unreadable black and

they glistened with intelligence. He'd been born in Baton

Rouge, Louisiana, and when he spoke, his accent was

strong.

Until recently, he had been a resident of TWing--that

section of Leavenworth devoted to inmates who are not safe

among the general prison population.

Two weeks ago, however, he had been moved from

T-Wing to Pre-Transit--otherwise known as the Departure

Lounge--another special wing where those awaiting execution

stayed before they were flown out to Terre Haute Federal

Penitentiary in Indiana for execution by lethal injection.

A former civil war fort, leavenworth is a maximum

security federal prison. This means it receives only those offenders

who break federal laws--a class of individuals that

variously includes violent criminals, foreign spies or terrorists,

organized crime bosses, and members of the U.S. armed

forces who sell secrets, commit crimes or desert.

It is also perhaps the most brutal penitentiary in America.

But in that peculiar way of prisons the world over, its

inhabitants--men who have themselves killed or raped-- have, over the years, developed a strange sense of justice.

Serial rapists are themselves violated on a daily basis.

Army deserters are beaten regularly, or worse, branded on

their foreheads with the letter "D." Foreign spies, such as the

four Middle Eastern terrorists convicted of the World Trade

Center bombing in 1993, have been known to lose body

parts.

But by far the most ferocious treatment of all is reserved

for one particular class of prisoner: traitors.

It seems that despite all their own crimes, all their own

atrocities, the American inmates of Leavenworth--many of

them disgraced soldiers--still profess a deep love of their

country. Traitors are usually killed within their first three

days in the pen.

William Anson Cole, the former CIA analyst who sold

information to the Chinese government about an impending

Area 7

Navy SEAL mission to the Xichang Launch Center, the epicenter

of China's space operations--information which led

to the capture, torture and death of all six SEAL team

members--was found dead in his cell two days after he

had arrived at the prison. His rectum had been torn from

repeated violations with a pool cue and he had been strangled,

hog-style, with a bed leg tied across his throat--a

crude simulation of the Chinese torture method of strangulation

by bamboo pole.

Ostensibly, prisoner T-77 was in Leavenworth for

murder--or more precisely, for ordering the murder of two

senior Navy officers--a crime which in the U.S. military

carried the death sentence. However, the fact that the two

Navy officers he'd had killed had been advisers to the Joint

Chiefs of Staff elevated his crime to treason. High treason.

That--and his own previous high ranking--had earned

him a place in T-Wing.

But even in T-Wing a man isn't entirely safe. T-77 had

been beaten several times during his short residency there--

on two occasions, so severely that he'd required blood

transfusions.

IN HIS FORMER LIFE, HIS NAME HAD BEEN CHARLES SAMSON Russell and he had been a three-star Lieutenant General in

the United States Air Force. Call-sign: Caesar.

He had a certified IQ of 182, genius level, and as such

he had been a brilliant officer. Methodical and razor-sharp,

he'd been the ultimate commander, hence his call-sign.

But most of all ... patient, Caesar thought now as he

watched the flickering television screen in front of him.

The two men on the screen--the Chief Justice of the

Supreme Court and the President-Elect--were finishing

their duet. They stood in gray, wintry sunshine, on the West

Portico of the Capitol Building. The new President had his

hand on a Bible.

"... and will to the best of my ability.. "

"... and will to the best of my ability..."

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Matthew Reilly

"... preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of

the United States, so help me God."

"... preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of

the United States, so help me God."

Fifteen years, Caesar thought.

Fifteen years, he had waited.

And now, at last, it had happened.

It hadn't been easy. There had been several false

starts--including one who had made it to the election as a

vice-presidential candidate, only to lose in a landslide. Four

others had made it to the New Hampshire primary, but then

failed to secure their parties' candidacy.

And of course, you always had some--like that Woolf

fellow--who would quit politics before they had even begun

to truly explore their presidential potential. It was an extra

expense, but no matter. Even Senator Woolf had served a

useful purpose.

But now ...

Now, it was different ...

Now, he had one ...

HIS THEORY HAD BEEN BORN OUT OF A VERY SIMPLE FACT.

For the last forty years, every American president bar

two has hailed from two very elite clubs: state governors and

federal senators.

Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon were all senators before

they became President. Carter, Reagan, and Clinton were all

state governors. The only exceptions were George Bush Sr.

and Gerald Ford. Bush was a member of the House of Representatives,

not the Senate, and Ford's rise to the Presidency

stands in a category of its own.

But, as General Charles Russell had also discovered,

men of influence were also men of extremely unpredictable

health.

The ravages of their political lifestyles--high stress,

constant travel, chronic lack of exercise--often took a great

toll on their bodies.

Area 7 13

And while getting the transmitter onto the heart of a sitting

President was nigh on impossible, given the narrow

source of American Presidents--senators and governors--

getting it onto a man's coronary muscle before he became

President wasn't out of the question.

Because, after all, a man is just a man before he becomes

President.

THE STATISTICS FOR THE NEXT FIFTEEN YEARS SPOKE FOR

themselves.

Forty-two percent of U.S. senators had had gallbladder

surgery during their time in office, gallstones being a common

problem for overweight middle-aged men.

Of the remaining fifty-eight percent, only four would

avoid some sort of surgical procedure during their political

careers.

Kidney and liver operations were very common. Several

heart bypasses--they were the easiest operations during

which to plant the device--and not a few prostate problems.

And then there had been this one.

Halfway through his second term as governor of a large

southwestern state, he had complained of chest pains and labored

breathing. An exploratory procedure performed by a

staff surgeon at the Air Force base just outside Houston had

revealed an obstruction in the Governor's left lung, detritus

from excessive smoking.

Through a deft procedure involving state-of-the-art

fiber-optic cameras and ultra-small wire-controlled surgical

instruments called nanotechnology, the obstruction was removed

and the Governor told to quit smoking.

What the Governor did not know, however, was that

during that operation the Air Force surgeon had attached a second piece of nanotechnology--a microscopic radio

transmitter the size Of a pin-head--to the outer wall of the

Governor's heart.

Constructed of evanescent plastic--a semiorganic material

which, over time, would partially dissolve into the

14

Matthew Reilly

outer tissue of the Governor's heart--the transmitter would

ultimately take on a distorted shape, giving it the appearance

of a harmless blood clot, thus masking it from discovery by

any observation techniques such as X-rays. Anything larger

or more regularly shaped would be detected on an incoming

President's first physical, and that just couldn't be allowed to

happen.

As a final precaution, it was inserted into the Governor's

body "cold"--unactivated. The White House's AXS-7

antibugging system would detect an unauthorized radio signal

in an instant.

No.

Activation would occur later, when the time was right.

As usual, at the end of the procedure, one final operation

was performed: a fine-grained plaster mold of the Governor's

right hand was made.

It would also be necessary, when the time came.

THE GUARDS CAME FOR HIM TEN MINUTES LATER.

Cuffed and chained, General Charles "Caesar" Russell

was escorted from his cell and taken to the waiting plane.

The trip to Indiana passed without incident, as did the

somber walk to the injection room.

The record would later show that as he lay spread

eagled on the injection table like a horizontal Christ, his

arms and legs bound with worn leather straps, the prisoner

refused to take the last rites. He had no last words, no final

expression of remorse for his crimes. In fact, throughout the

whole pre-injection ritual, he never said a word at all. This

was consistent with Russell's post-trial actions--indeed, his

execution had been fast-tracked because he had lodged no

appeals of any kind.

The military tribunal that had sentenced him to death

had said that so heinous was his crime, he could never be allowed

to leave federal custody alive.

They had been right.

At 3:37 p.m. on 20 January, the grim procedure took

Area 7 15

place. Fifty milligrams of sodium thiopental--to induce

unconsciousness--was followed by ten of pancuronium

bromide--to stop respiration--and then, finally, twenty milligrams

of potassium chloride to stop Russell's heart.

At 3:40 p.m., three minutes later, Lieutenant General

Charles Samson Russell was declared dead by the Terre Haute county coroner.

since the general had no living relatives, his body was

taken from the prison by members of the United States Air

Force for immediate cremation.

At 3:52 p.m.--twelve minutes after he had been declared

officially dead--as his body was being rushed

through the streets of Terre Haute, Indiana, in the back of an

Air Force ambulance, two electroshock defibrillator paddles

were applied to the dead General's chest and charged.

"Clear!" one of the Air Force medical personnel yelled.

The General's body convulsed violently as a wave of

raw electric current shot through his vascular system.

It happened on the third application of the paddles.

On the electrocardiogram monitor on the wall, a small

spike appeared.

The General's heartbeat had resumed.

Within moments, it was pulsing at a regular rhythm.

As General Russell well knew, death occurs when the

heart is no longer able to deliver oxygen to the body. The act

of respiration--breathing--oxygenates a person's blood,

and then the person's heart delivers that oxygenated blood to

the body.

It was the supply of reoxygenated blood coursing

through Russell's arteries that had kept him alive for that

crucial twelve minutes--blood that had been biogenetically

crammed with oxygen-rich red cells; blood which during

that twelve-minute period had continued to supply Russell's

brain and vital organs with oxygen, even though his heart

had stopped beating--blood which had been supplied to the

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General during the two transfusions that had been required

after his unfortunate beatings at Leavenworth.

The military tribunal had said that he would never leave

federal custody alive.

They had been right.

while all this was happening, in a stark empty cell in

the Departure Lounge at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary,

the rickety old television remained on.

On it, the newly crowned President--smiling, ecstatic,

elated--waved to the cheering crowds.

O'Hare International Airport,

Chicago, Illinois

3 July (Six months later)

they found the first one at o'hare in chicago, sitting

inside an empty hangar at the farthest reaches of the airfield.

A regulation early morning sweep with an electromagnetic

reader had revealed a weak magnetic signal emanating

from the suspect hangar.

The hangar had been completely deserted, except for

the warhead standing in the exact center of the cavernous interior

space.

From a distance, it looked like a large silver cone about

five feet tall mounted on a cargo pallet. Up close, one would

recognize it more easily as a conical warhead designed to be

inserted into a cruise missile.

Wires sprang out from its sides, connecting the warhead

to a small upwardly pointed satellite dish. Through a clear

rectangular window set into the warhead's side, there could

be seen a luminous purple liquid.

Plasma.

Type-240 blast plasma. An extremely volatile quasi

nuclear liquid explosive.

Enough to level a city.

Further investigations revealed that the magnetic signal

that had been detected inside the hangar was part of a

Area 7

complex proximity sensor array surrounding the warhead. If

anyone stepped within fifty feet of the bomb, a red warning

light began to flash, indicating that the device had been

armed.

Lease records revealed that the empty hangar belonged

to the United States Air Force.

Then it was discovered that according to the airfield's

log books, no Air Force personnel had set foot inside that

hangar for at least six weeks.

A call was made to USAF Transportation Command at

Scott Air Force Base.

The Air Force was vague, noncommittal. It knew nothing

about any plasma-based warheads at its civilian hangars.

It would check with its people and get back to O'Hare

ASAP.

It was then that reports came flooding in from around

the country.

Identical warheads--all of them surrounded by magnetic

proximity sensors; all with fold-out satellite dishes

pointing up into the sky--had been found inside empty Air

Force hangars at all three of New York's major airports:

JFK, La Guardia and Newark.

And then Dulles in Washington called.

Then LAX.

San Francisco. San Diego.

Boston. Philadelphia.

St. Louis. Denver.

Seattle. Detroit.

Fourteen devices in all, at fourteen airports across the

country.

All armed. All set. All ready to go off.

All they were waiting for now was the signal.

FIRST CONFRONTATION

3 July/ 0600 Hours

THE THREE HELICOPTERS THUNDERED OVER THE ARID DESERT

plain, booming through the early morning silence.

They flew in tight formation—like they always did

... shooting low over the tumbleweeds, kicking up a tornado of

sand behind them, their freshly waxed sides glinting in the

dawn light.

The giant Sikorsky VH-60N flew out in front—again,

like it always did—flanked on either side by two menacing

CH-53E Super Stallions.

With its pristine white roof and hand-polished dark-green

flanks, the VH-60N is unique among American military helicopters.

It is built for the United States government in a high

security "caged" section at the Sikorsky Aircraft plant in Connecticut.

It is non-deployable—meaning that it is never used

in any operational capacity by the United States Marine

Corps, the branch of the military charged with its upkeep.

It is used for one thing, and one thing only. And it has

no replicas on active duty—and for good reason, for no one

but a few highly cleared Marine engineers and executives at

Sikorsky can know all of its special features.

Paradoxically, for all this secrecy, the VH-60N is without

a doubt the most recognized helicopter in the Western

world.

On air traffic control displays, it is designated "HMX-1,"

Marine Helicopter Squadron One, and its official radio call sign

is "Nighthawk." But over the years, the helicopter that

ferries the President of the United States over short-tomedium

distances has come to be known by a simpler

name—Marine One.

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Matthew Reilly

Known as "Ml" to those who fly in it, it is rarely observed

in flight, and when it is, it is usually in the most demure

of circumstances--taking off from the manicured

South Lawn of the White House or arriving at Camp David.

But not today.

Today it roared over the desert, transporting its famous

passenger between two remote Air Force bases located in

the barren Utah landscape.

Captain Shane M. Schofield, USMC, dressed in his full

blue dress "A" uniform--white peaked hat; navy-blue coat

with gold buttons; medium-blue trousers with red stripe;

spit-polished boots; white patent leather belt with matching

white holster, inside of which resided an ornamental nickel

plated M9 pistol--stood in the cockpit of the Presidential

helicopter, behind its two pilots, peering out through the

chopper's reinforced forward windshield.

At five-ten, Schofield was lean and muscular, with a

handsome narrow face and spiky black hair. And although

they were not standard attire for Marines in full dress uniform,

he also wore sunglasses--a pair of wraparound anti

flash glasses with reflective silver lenses.

The glasses covered a pair of prominent vertical scars

that cut down across both of Schofield's eyes. They were wounds from a previous mission and the reason for his operationatcall-sign,

"Scarecrow."

The flat desert plain stretched out before him, dull yellow

against the morning sky. The dusty desert floor rushed

by beneath the bow of the speeding helicopter.

In the near distance, Schofield saw a low mountain--

their destination.

A cluster of buildings lay nestled at the base of the

rocky hill, at the end of a long concrete runway, their tiny

lights just visible in the early light. The main building of the

complex appeared to be a large airplane hangar, half-buried

in the side of the mountain.

It was United States Air Force Special Area (Restricted)

7, the second Air Force base they were to visit that day.

"Advance Team Two, this is Nighthawk One, we are on

Area 7 23

final approach to Area 7. Please confirm venue status," the

pilot of Ml, Marine Colonel Michael "Gunman" Grier said

into his helmet mike.

There was no reply.

"I say again, Advance Team Two. Report."

Still no reply.

"It's the jamming system," Grier's copilot, Lieutenant

Colonel Michelle Dallas, said. "The radio guys at 8 said to

expect it. These bases are all Level-7 classified, so they're

covered at all times by a satellite-generated radio sphere.

Short-range transmissions only, to stop anybody transmitting

information out."

Earlier that morning, the President had visited Area 8, a

similarly isolated Air Force base about twenty miles to the

east of Area 7. There, accompanied by his nine-man Secret

Service Detail, he had been taken on a brief tour of the facility,

to inspect some new aircraft stationed in its hangars.

While he had done so, Schofield and the other thirteen

Marines stationed aboard Marine One and its two escort

choppers had waited outside, twiddling their thumbs underneath

Air Force One, the President's massive Boeing 747.

arguing over why they hadn't been allowed inside the main

hangar of Area 8. The general consensus--based solely on

wild unsubstantiated gossip--had been that it was because

the facility housed some of the Air Force's top-secret new

airplanes.

One soldier, a big-smiling, loud-talking AfricanAmerican

sergeant named Wendall "Elvis" Haynes, said that

he'd heard they had the Aurora in there, the legendary low

orbit spy plane capable of speeds over Mach 9. The current

fastest plane in the world, the SR-71 Blackbird, could only

reach Mach 3.

Others had proffered that a whole squadron of F-44's--

ultra-nimble, wedge-shaped fighters based on the flying

wing shape of the B-2 stealth bomber--were stationed there.

Others still--perhaps inspired by the launch of a Chinese

space shuttle two days previously--suggested that

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Matthew Reilly

Area 8 housed the X-38, a sleek 747-launched offensive

space shuttle. A black project run by the Ak Force in association

with NASA, the X-38 was reputedly the world's first

fight-capable space vehicle, an attack shuttle.

Schofield ignored their speculation.

He didn't have to guess that Area 8 had something to do

with top-secret airplane development, probably space

based. He could tell it from one simple fact.

Although the Ak Force engineers had concealed it well,

the regulation-size black bitumen runway of Area 8 actually extended another thousand yards in both directions--as a

pale concrete landing strip hidden beneath a thin layer of

sand and carefully placed tumbleweeds.

It was an elongated runway, designed to launch and receive

aircraft that needed an extra-long landing strip, which

meant aircraft like space shuttles or--

And then suddenly the President had emerged from the

main hangar and they were on the move again.

Originally, the Boss had intended to fly to Area 7 on Air

Force One. It would be faster than Marine One, even though

the distance was short

But there had been a problem on Air Force One. An unexpected

leak in the left wing's fuel tank.

And so the Boss had taken Marine One--always on

stand-by for precisely this situation.

Which was why Schofield was now gazing at Area 7, lit

up like a Christmas tree in the dim morning light.

As he peered at the distant hangar complex, however,

Schofield had a strange thought. Curiously, none of his colleagues

on HMX-1 knew any stories about Area 7, not even

wild unsubstantiated rumors.

No one, it seemed, knew what went on at Area 7.

LIFE IN THE IMMEDIATE VICINITY OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE

United States was a world unto itself.

It was at the same time both thrilling and frightening,

Schofield thought.

Thrilling because you were so close to one with so

much power, and frightening because that man was surrounded

by a great number of people who claimed his influence

as their own.

Indeed, even in his short time on board Marine One,

Schofield had observed that at any one time, there were at

least three competing power clusters vying for the President's

attention.

First was the President's own staff, those people ... largely self-important Harvard types ...whom the President

had appointed to aid him on a range of matters: from national

security and domestic policy, to the management of

the press corps or the management of his political life.

No matter what their field of expertise, at least insofar

as Schofield could see, each of the President's personal staff

seemed to have one all-encompassing goal: to get the President

outside, onto the streets, and into the public eye.

In direct contrast to this objective—indeed, in direct opposition

to it—was the second group vying for the President's

ear: his protectors, the United States Secret Service.

Led by the stoic, no-nonsense and completely impassive

Special Agent Francis X. Cutler, the Presidential Detail

was constantly at loggerheads with the White House staff.

Cutler—officially known as "Chief of the Detail," but

known to the President merely as Frank—was renowned for

26

Matthew Reilly

his coolness under pressure and his complete intransigence

to pleas from political ass-kissers. With his narrow gray eyes

and matching crew-cut hair, Frank Cutler could stare down

any member of the President's staff and rebuff them with a

single word, "No."

The third and last group pressing for presidential attention

was the crew of Marine One itself.

Not only were they also subjected to the inflated egos of

the presidential staff--Schofield would never forget his first

flight on Marine One, when the President's Domestic Policy

Adviser, a pompous twenty-nine-year-old lawyer from New

York, had ordered Schofield to get him a double latte, and to

"make it quick"--they were also often at odds with the Secret

Service.

Securing the President's safety may have been the job

of the Secret Service, but when he was on HMX-1, so the

Marine Corps reasoned, the Boss had at least six United

States Marines on board with him at any given time.

An uneasy truce had been brokered.

While on board Marine One, the President's safety

would be in Marine hands. As such, only key members of

his Secret Service Detail--Frank Cutler and a few others-- would fly with him. The rest of his personal Detail would fly

in the two chase helicopters.

As soon as the President stepped off Marine One, however,

his well-being was once again the exclusive responsibility

of the United States Secret Service.

gunman grier spoke into his helmet mike. "nighthawk

Three, this is Nighthawk One. Go and check on Advance

Team Two for me. This radio sphere is screwing up our long

range comms. I'm picking up their All-Clear beacon, but I

can't get any voice contact. They should be over at the exit

vent. And if you get close enough, see if you can raise Area

8 again. Find out what's happening with Air Force One."

"Copy that, Nighthawk One," a voice replied over the

short-wave. "On our way."

Area 7 27

From his position behind Grier and Dallas, Schofield

saw the Super Stallion to their right peel away from the

group and head off over the desert.

The two remaining choppers of Marine Helicopter

Squadron-1 continued on their way.

IN A DARKENED ROOM SOMEWHERE, A BLUE-UNIFORMED MAN wearing a radio headset and seated in front of an illuminated

computer display spoke quietly into his wraparound

microphone.

"--Initiating primary satellite signal test ... now--"

He pressed a button on his console.

"what the hell--?" dallas said, touching her earpiece.

"What is it?" Gunman Grier asked.

"I don't know," Dallas said, swiveling in her seat. "I just

picked up a spike on the microwave band."

She looked at the microwave display screen--it depicted

a series of jagged spikes and troughs--then shook her

head. "Strange. Looks like an incoming microwave signal

just hit us and then bounced away."

"Antibugging was done this morning," Grier said.

"Twice."

Comprehensive sweeps for listening devices planted on

Marine One--and her passengers--were done with rigorous

regularity. It was nigh on impossible to plant a transmitting

or receiving device on the President's helicopter.

Dallas peered at her screen, shrugging. "The signal's

too small to be a location beacon. Ditto, speech or computer

data. It didn't send or take any information--it's as if it was

just, well, checking to see if we were here." She turned to

Grier questioningly.

The Presidential Helicopter Pilot frowned. "Most probably

it's just a surge in the radiosphere, a deflected microwave

signal. But let's not take any chances." He turned to

Schofield. "Captain, if you wouldn't mind, would you please

do a sweep of the aircraft with the magic wand?"

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Matthew Reilly

"--return signal received," the console operator in

the darkened room said. "Primary signal test successful. The

device is operational. Repeat. The device is operational. Switching back to dormant mode. All right. Commencing

test of secondary signal--"

SCHOFIELD STEPPED INTO THE MAIN CABIN OF MARINE ONE,

waving an AXS-9 digital spectrum analyzer over the walls,

seats, ceiling and floor, searching for anything that was

emitting an outgoing signal.

As one would expect of the President's helicopter, the

interior of Ml was plush. Indeed, with its deep maroon carpet

and widely spaced seats, it looked more like the first

class section of a commercial airliner than the hold of a

military aircraft.

Twelve beige leather seats took up most of the main

cabin. Each seat had the Seal of the President of the United

States embroidered on it, as did the oversized armrests that

adjoined each chair and the scotch glasses and coffee mugs,

just in case anyone forgot in whose presence they were

traveling.

At the rear of the central area, guarded at all times by a

Marine in full dress uniform, was a polished mahogany door

that led to the aft-most section of the helicopter.

It was the President's private office.

Small but elegantly appointed--and featuring an amazingly

compact arrangement of phones, faxes, computers and

televisions--Marine One's office allowed the Boss to monitor

the nation's business wherever he happened to be.

At the very rear of the President's office, behind a small

pressure-sealed door, was one final feature of Marine One

which was reserved for use in only the most dire of circumstances

--a small one-man ejection unit, the Presidential escape

pod.

Schofield waved his spectrum analyzer over the seats in

the first-class section, searching for bugs.

Area 7 29

Seated there were Frank Cutler and five of his Secret

Service people. They peered out the windows, ignoring

Schofield as he did his sweep around them.

Also there were a couple of the President's advisers--

his Deputy Chief of Staff, his Communications Director--

both of whom flicked through thick manila folders.

Standing above them, manning the two exit doors at either

end of the main cabin, were a pair of straight-backed

United States Marines.

There was one more person seated in the main cabin.

A stocky no-necked man dressed in an olive U.S. Army

uniform, sitting quietly at the back of the cabin, in the first

class seat closest to the President's office.

To look at him, with his carrot-red hair and bushy orange

mustache, he didn't seem like anyone special, and truth

be told, he wasn't anyone special.

He was an Army warrant officer named Carl Webster,

and he followed the President wherever he went--not because

of any special expertise or knowledge he possessed,

but because of the extremely important object handcuffed to

his right wrist: a stainless-steel briefcase that contained the

codes and the activation switches to America's nuclear arsenal,

a briefcase known as "the Football."

Schofield finished his sweep, including a short "excuse me" check of the President's office.

Nothing.

There was not a single bug to be found on the helicopter.

He returned to the cockpit, just in time to hear Gunman

Grier say into his mike: "Copy that, Nighthawk Three, thank

you. Continue on to the vent."

Grier turned to his copilot. "Air Force One's back on

deck. It was just a valve leak. It'll stay at Area 8. We'll bring

the Boss back after our little visit to Area 7. Scarecrow?"

"Nothing," Schofield said. "The helicopter's clean."

Grier shrugged. "Must have been the radiosphere.

Thanks, Scarecrow."

30

Matthew Reilly

Suddenly Grier touched his helmet as another message

came through.

He sighed wearily as the voice at the other end nattered

into his ear.

"We'll do our best, Colonel," he said, "but I make no

promises." Grier switched off his mike and shook his head.

"Fucking Ramrod."

He turned to Schofield and Dallas. "Ladies and gentlemen,

our esteemed White House Liaison Officer has asked

us to pick up the pace a little. Apparently, the Boss has an afternoon tea with the Washington Ladies' Auxiliary to get to,

and Liaison Officer Hagerty thinks we're not going fast

enough to meet his schedule."

Dallas snuffed a laugh. "Good ol' Ramrod."

When it came to the use of Marine One, all White

House-Marine Corps correspondence went through a Marine

colonel called the White House Liaison Officer, a position

which for the last three years had been held by Colonel

Rodney Hagerty, USMC.

Unfortunately, Hagerty, forty-one years old, tall and

lanky, with a pencil-thin mustache and a far too proper manner,

was regarded by many in HMX-1 as the worst kind of

soldier--a ladder climber, but also a ruthless expert in office

politics, someone more interested in getting stars on his

shoulders than actually being a United States Marine. But as

so often happens, the upper echelons of the Corps didn't see

this and kept promoting him nonetheless.

Even Schofield disliked him. Hagerty was a bureaucrat--a bureaucrat who had obviously come to enjoy his proximity

to power. Although his official call-sign was "Hot Rod," his

rigid adherence to procedure and protocol, even when it was

patently impractical, had earned him an alternate call-sign

among the troops: "Ramrod."

AT THAT VERY SAME MOMENT, THE LONE SUPER STALLION chopper that was Nighthawk Three was landing in a cloud of

dust on the sandy desert plain. About half a mile to the west

stood the low rocky mountain that housed Area 7.

Area 7 31

As the big chopper's tires hit the ground, four Marines

dressed in full combat attire leaped out from it and ran over

to a small trench carved into the rock-hard desert floor.

The trench housed Area 7's EEV--Emergency Escape Vent--the well-concealed exit point of a long underground

tunnel that provided emergency egress from Area 7. Today it

was the primary escape route from the complex, in the unlikely

event that the President encountered any trouble there.

The lead Marine, a lieutenant named Corbin "Colt"

Hendricks, approached the dusty earthen hole, accompanied

by his three subordinates, MP-5/10--sometimes called the

MP-10, they were 10 mm versions of the Heckler & Koch

MP-5--in hand.

A steady beep-pause-beep warbled in Hendricks's earpiece:

Advance Team 2's All-Clear beacon. The A-C beacon

couldn't transmit voice messages, but its powerful digital

signal still provided a worthwhile service: if Advance Team

2 encountered any kind of ambush or disturbance, its lead

agent simply flicked off the All-Clear beacon and everyone

else in the presidential entourage would know that danger

was afoot. Its presence now was reassuring.

Hendricks and his squad came to the edge of the trench

and looked down into it.

"Oh shit ..." Hendricks breathed.

the other two presidential helicopters raced toward

Restricted Area 7.

"Hey, Scarecrow?" Gunman Grier turned in his seat to

face Schofield. "Where's your harem?"

Through his reflective silver sunglasses, Schofield offered

a crooked smile to the Presidential helicopter pilot.

"They're over on Nighthawk Two today, sir," he said.

Grier was referring to the two female members of

Schofield's former unit who had joined him on his tour on

board Marine Helicopter Squadron-1 ... Staff Sergeant Elizabeth "Fox" Gant and Gunnery Sergeant Gena "Mother" Newman.

As a former commander of a Marine Force Reconnaissance

Unit, Schofield was something of a rarity on board

Marine One.

Owing to the largely ceremonial duties associated with

working on the President's helicopter and to the fact that

time spent on board the helicopter is not counted as "active

deployed airtime," many Marines choose to avoid HMX-1

duty. Indeed, with few exceptions, most of the troops assigned

to HMX-1 are relatively junior soldiers who won't

miss any promotional opportunities.

So to have a former Recon commander on board was

highly unusual, but something which Gunman Grier welcomed.

He liked Schofield. He'd heard on the grapevine that he

was a gifted field commander—a man who looked out for

his men, and as a result, got the very best out of them.

Grier had also heard about what had happened to

Area 7 33

Schofield on his last mission and he respected the young

captain for it.

He also liked both Mother and Gant--admired their attitudes

to their work and their fierce loyalty to their former

commander--and his labeling of them as Schofield's

"harem" was a sign of affection from a man who rarely

showed it.

Schofield, however, was used to being considered unusual.

Indeed, that was why he was stationed aboard Marine One.

About eighteen months previously, as a lieutenant, he'd

been in command of a Marine Reconnaissance Unit that had

been sent to a remote ice station in Antarctica, to investigate

the discovery of a possible alien spacecraft.

In a word, the mission had gone to hell on an express

elevator.

Including himself, only four of his twelve Marines had

survived the nightmare, during which they had been forced

to defend the station against two foreign military forces and

infiltrators from within their own unit. To top it off,

Schofield himself had been declared dead by some corrupt

members of the Marine Corps hierarchy, men who had been

prepared to make that lie a reality.

His eventual return to America--alive and well--had

sparked a media frenzy.

His face appeared on every major newspaper in the nation.

Wherever he went, even after the initial frenzy, tabloid

journalists and photographers tried to snap his picture or

coax information out of him. After all, he was a walking

talking monument to the corruption of the United States

military--the good soldier who had been targeted for extermination

by the faceless generals of his own military leadership.

Which left the Marine Corps with a serious problem: where to put him?

In the end, the answer had been rather inventive.

The safest place to hide Schofield was right in front of

34

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the world's media, but in the one place where they wouldn't

be able to touch him.

He would be assigned to Marine One.

The chopper was based at the Marine Corps Air Facility

at Quantico, Virginia, so Schofield could live on the base,

making access to him all but impossible. And he would work

on board the President's VH-60N, which was only really

ever seen landing at the White House, and even then, always

at a safe distance from the press.

When the transfer was made, Mother and Gant had

elected to go with Schofield. The fourth survivor of their

Antarctic disaster, a private named Rebound Simmons, had

decided to leave the Marine Corps after their ill-fated mission.

That had been a year ago.

In that time, Schofield--quiet at the best of times and

not given to small talk--had made only a handful of friends

in the White House: mainly people among the Secret Service

and the domestic staff; the ordinary people. With his reflective

silver antiflash glasses, however, he was popular

with the President's playful grandkids. As such, to their delight,

he was nearly always assigned to guard them whenever

they visited. And yet, despite this, he had never actually

spoken conversationally with the President.

Area 7 loomed large in front of Marine One. Schofield

could see the massive doors of the complex's enormous

hangar slowly opening, revealing bright electric lighting inside.

Grier spoke into his helmet mike: "Nighthawk Two, this

is Nighthawk One, beginning descent now."

IN THE BELLY OF NIGHTHAWK TWO, SERGEANT ELIZABETH

"Fox" Gant sat hunched in a canvas jumpseat, trying vainly

to read from a folder perched on her knees.

Unlike Marine One, the rotor noise inside Nighthawk

Two was absolutely deafening. And since it never carried the

President, its interior decor was about a thousand times

Area 7 35

more utilitarian. No upholstered seats or embroidered armrests

here.

Now a staff sergeant, Libby Gant was twenty-eight

years old, well, as of six hours ago.

Compact and fit, she had short blonde hair and sky-blue

eyes, and in regular battle dress--fatigues, body armor and

MP-10--she cut a smart figure. In full dress uniform--

peaked hat, dress coat and trousers--she looked spectacular.

Since they were flying in restricted Air Force airspace,

the mood on board Nighthawk Two was relaxed. The usual

tensions of coordinating Marine One's flight path with those

of civilian air traffic weren't an issue, so Gant--studying

part-time for entry into Officer Candidate School--took the

opportunity to brush up on some of her notes.

She was just getting to Course 9405, Advanced Tactical

Command, when a soft voice invaded her consciousness.

"Happy birthday to you ...

Happy birthday to you ...

Happy birthday, dear Staff Sergeant Ga-ant ...

Happy birthday to you."

She looked up from her work and sighed.

Sliding into the empty seat beside her was Nicholas

Tate III, the President's Domestic Policy Adviser. Tate was

handsome in a European sort of way--with dark eyebrows,

olive skin and a male model's jawline--and confident in the

extreme. Today he wore a three-thousand-dollar Armani suit

and matching Armani cologne. Apparently it was the latest

thing.

Tate held out a small neatly wrapped package for Gant

to take.

"Twenty-eight, if I'm not mistaken," he said.

"That's right, sir," Gant said.

"Please, call me Nick." He nodded at the gift. "Well, go

on. Open it."

Reluctantly, Gant unwrapped the small package, unveiling

36

Matthew Reilly

an aqua-green box. She popped the lid, revealing an absolutely

gorgeous silver necklace.

Small and thin, it looked like a length of the finest silver

thread, its polished surface sparkling. A small but stylish diamond

dangled like a teardrop from the front of the necklace.

"It's from Tiffany's," Tate said.

Gant looked up at him. "I'm not allowed to wear jewelery in uniform, Mr. Tate."

"I know. I was hoping you could wear it when I took

you to dinner at Nino's next Saturday."

Nino's was a restaurant in Georgetown, popular among

Washington socialites and arguably the most expensive

eatery in town.

Gant sighed. "I'm seeing someone."

It was kind of true. Only last weekend, after a tentative

start, she and Shane Schofield had gone out on something

resembling a date.

"Now, now, now," Tate said, "I heard about that. One

date does not a relationship make."

This was getting difficult. Gant held the necklace up to

the light of the window. "You know, this looks a lot like a

necklace I saw in Paris once."

"Oh, really?"

At Gant's mention of the word "Paris," however, one of

the other Marines sitting nearby cocked her head to the side.

Tate never saw it.

"Yes," Gant said. "We were there a couple of months

ago with the Boss, and I had a day off, so I--"

"Jesus H. Christ, would you take a look at that!" a lusty

woman's voice cut Gant off.

"Hey there, Mother," Gant said, as Gunnery Sergeant

Gena "Mother" Newman appeared in the narrow aisle next

to her.

"How you doin' there, Birthday Babe?" Mother said

with a knowing smile.

The "Paris" code was one they had used several times

before. When either of them encountered an unwanted male

admirer, she would slip the word "Paris" into the conversation

Area 7 37

and the other, hearing the signal, would come to the rescue.

It was a common trick used by girlfriends worldwide.

Granted, at six feet four inches and an even 200 pounds,

Mother rarely had to use it. With her dark, heavyset features,

fully shaved head and gruff no-nonsense manner, she was almost

the perfect antithesis of Libby Gant. Her call-sign,

"Mother," said it all, really. It wasn't indicative of any extraordinary maternal qualities. It was short for motherfucker.

A gifted warrior, adept at all kinds of heavy weaponry and

guncraft, she'd been promoted to the highly respected rank

of gunnery sergeant a year ago.

In addition to this--thanks to a close encounter with a

killer whale during the disastrous mission to Antarctica--

Mother had one other, highly unusual physical feature.

A prosthetic lower left leg.

The nasty incident with the killer whale had deprived

her of everything below the left knee. That said, she'd done

better than the killer had. It had received a bullet to its brain.

What Mother now had in place of her natural left foot

and shin was a state-of-the-art prosthetic limb which, so its

makers claimed, guaranteed total and undiminished body

movement. Featuring titanium-alloy "bones," fully rotating

joints and hydraulic muscle simulators, its operation was so

sophisticated--involving nerve impulse reception and automatic

weight-shifting--that it required an internal prologic

computer chip to control it.

Mother was gazing at the glistening Tiffany's necklace.

"Whoa, that is one mighty fine piece of jewelry," she

gawped. She turned to Nick Tate: "That piece of string must

have cost you a pretty penny, sonny Jim."

"It was within my price range," Tate said coolly.

"Probably cost more than I make in a year"

"Probably did."

Mother ignored him, turned to Gant. "Sorry to rain on

your parade, Birthday Babe, but the skipper sent me back to

get you. He wants you up front for the landing."

"Oh, okay."

Gant stood, and as she did, she handed Tate back his

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necklace. "I'm sorry, Nicholas, but I can't accept this. I'm seeing someone else."

And with that she headed up front.

over at the emergency escape vent, colt hendricks

just stood with his mouth agape, staring down into the

trench.

The sight before him was nothing short of horrific.

All nine members of the Secret Service's secondary advance

team lay on the sand-covered floor of the trench, their bodies twisted at all angles, riddled with bullet holes. The

size of the wounds indicated hollow-point ammunition had

been used--bullets that expanded once they entered the

wound, guaranteeing a kill. A few of the agents had been

shot in the face--their heads had been all but blown off. Blood was everywhere, drying in the sand.

Hendricks saw the agent-in-charge of the Secret Service

team, a man named Baker--mouth open, eyes wide, bullet

hole in the forehead. In Agent Baker's outstretched hand

was the Advance Team's All-Clear beacon switch. The attack

must have happened so quickly that he hadn't even had

time to flick the switch.

Beyond Baker, Hendricks saw a solid-looking steel

door set into the dirt wall of the trench--the escape vent itself.

It just stood there, resolutely closed.

Hendricks spun on his heel, yanked out his radio, headed back toward Nighthawk Three.

"Nighthawk One!"

Radio static.

"Goddamn it! Nighthawk One! This is--"

It was as if the desert just came alive.

The dusty desert floor parted--sand falling off canvas

ambush covers--and suddenly, from both sides of Hendricks,

about a dozen man-sized shapes rose from the sand,

submachine guns raised and firing.

A second later, a 9-millimeter Silvertip bullet entered

Hendricks's brain from the side. The subsequent gaseous

Area 7 59

expansion of the hollow-pointed projectile caused his head to

explode.

Hendricks never saw the man who killed him.

Never saw the dark team of desert wraiths take down

the rest of his men with clinical, ruthless efficiency.

And he never saw them take his helicopter and fly it

back toward Area 7.

THE TWO REMAINING PRESIDENTIAL HELICOPTERS DESCENDED

together, landing in a whirlwind of sand in front of the massive

main hangar of United States Air Force Special Area

(Restricted) No. 7.

The giant hangar's enormous twin doors yawned wide,

its interior brightly illuminated. The low mountain into

which the hangar had been carved loomed over the squat

four-building complex.

No sooner had the two choppers touched the ground

than the Secret Service people from Nighthawk Two were

dashing to their positions around Marine One.

A welcoming party stood on the runway in front of the

hangar, standing silently in the cool morning air, silhouetted

by the hangar light behind them.

Two Air Force officers—one colonel and one major ... stood at the head of the welcoming unit.

Behind the two officers stood four rows of fully armed

commandos, ten men to a row. All of them were dressed in

full combat gear—black battle-dress uniforms, black body

armor, black helmets—and they all held high-tech Belgian made

P-90 assault rifles rigidly across their chests.

Looking out through Marine One's cockpit windshield,

Schofield recognized their insignia patches at once. They

were members of a unit rarely seen at U.S. military exercises,

a unit which was shrouded in secrecy, a unit which

many believed was used only in the most critical of missions.

It was the elite ground unit in the United States Air

Force, the famous 7th Special Operations Squadron.

Based in West Germany for much of the Cold War, its

Area 7 41

official task during that time was the defense of U.S. airfields

against the elite Soviet Spetsnaz units. Its unofficial

achievements, though, were far more spectacular.

Masterminding the defection of five senior Soviet nuclear

missile specialists from a secret base in the Ukraine

mountains. The assassination of KGB operations chief

Vladimir Nakov in Moscow in 1990, before Nakov could

himself assassinate Mikhail Gorbachev. And, finally, in

1997, the daring rescue of the CIA's captured Far Eastern

Bureau Chief, Fred Conway, from the dreaded Xiangi

Prison--the all but impregnable maze of grim cells and torture

chambers belonging to the notorious Chinese External

Intelligence Service.

Each man in the formation wore a special combat mask

around his throat--an ERG-6 gas mask. Black and hard, it

looked like the lower half of a hockey mask, and it covered

its wearer's mouth and nose in much the same way Jesse

James's mask had covered his face in the old days.

Three other men stood out in front of the detachment of

7th Squadron members on the deserted runway. All three

wore starched white lab coats. Scientists.

Once the Marine and Secret Service people from

Nighthawk Two were in place, a set of Airstairs folded down

from the forward left-hand side of Marine One.

Two Marines emerged from the helicopter first and took

up their positions at the base of the stairs, backs straight,

eyes forward.

A moment later, Special Agent Frank Cutler stepped out

of the chopper, hand on his holster, eyes watchful. The Secret

Service trusts nobody. Not even the United States Air

Force. Even it could have a disgruntled soldier who might

take a shot at the President.

The President came out next, followed by his staff.

Schofield and a young Marine corporal emerged last of

all.

As usual, Marine One's two pilots, Gunman and Dallas,

stayed on board just in case a rapid departure was called for.

The two parties faced each other on the runway in the

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Matthew Reilly

early morning light--the Air Force detachment stationed at

the complex; the President and his entourage.

Twisting coils of windswept sand swirled around their

bodies. A sandstorm was due later in the day.

A young Air Force captain guided the President over to

the colonel at the head of the Air Force formation--a severe

looking man with gray hair and eyebrows. As the President

came closer, the colonel stepped forward and crisply saluted

his Commander-in-Chief.

"Good morning, Mr. President," he said. "My name is

Colonel Jerome T. Harper, United States Air Force Medical

and Surgical Command, and commanding officer of United

States Air Force Special Area (Restricted) 7. This is Major

Kurt Logan, commander of the 7th Squadron forces here at

the base. Your two Secret Service advance teams are waiting

for you inside. We're honored to have you, sir. Welcome to

Area 7."

"Thank you, Colonel," the President replied. "It's a

pleasure to be here. Lead the way."

AS SOON AS THE PRESIDENT WAS TAKEN AWAY, DISAPPEARING

inside the enormous main hangar with his highest-level entourage

in tow, the major in charge of the 7th Squadron detachment

came up to Schofield.

Major Kurt Logan was about six-one, with closely

shaved hair and heavily pockmarked skin. Schofield had actually

met him before, although he doubted Logan would remember

him.

It had been at a special command and leadership course

run by the Navy at their SEAL compound in Fort Lauderdale in 1997. Through a combination of smart tactics and

ruthless follow-through, the softly spoken Logan had come

first in the class by a clear forty points. He could assess any

battlefield situation in an instant, and when it came to engaging"

the enemy, he was uncompromising. Schofield, then

just a budding Recon Unit commander, had come tenth in a

class of sixteen.

From the looks of things, Logan hadn't changed much.

His whole bearing--hands clasped firmly behind his back,

steely level gaze--indicated a powerful, confident inner

strength. Battle-hardened strength.

"Excuse me, Captain," Logan said in a soft Southern

drawl. He offered Schofield a sheet of paper. "Our personnel

list for your records."

Schofield took the list, then gave one of his own to Logan

in return.

It was common practice at presidential inspections for

both sides to swap personnel lists, since the President's people

wanted to know who was at the base they were inspecting,

Matthew Reilly

and the base people wanted to know exactly who was in

the presidential convoy.

Schofield glanced at the Area 7 list. Columns of meaningless

names ran down it.

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

SPECIAL AREA (RESTRICTED) 07

ON-SITE PERSONNEL

CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET

NAME

NAME

COMMAND UNIT

Harper, JT (CO)

7TH SQUADRON

Alvarez, MJ    A        Frommer, SN E

Arthurs, RT    C        Gale, A          D

Atlock, FD      B        Giggs, RE       B

Baines, AW    A        Golding, DK    D

Bennett, B     E        Goldman, WE A

Biggs, NM      C        Grayson, SR   E

Boland, CS     B        Hughes, R      A

Boyce, LW     D        Ingliss, WA     B

Calvert, ET     E        Johnson, SW  D

Carney, LE     E        Jones, M        D

Christian, FC  A        Kincaid, R      B

Coleman, GK  E        Littleton, SO   E

Coles, M        B        Logan, (MAJ) KW      A

Crick, DT       D        McConnell, BA B

Criece, TW     A        Messick, K     E

Davis, AM      E        Milbourn, SK   D

Dayton, AM    E        Morton, IN     C

Dillan, ST       D        Nance, GF     D

Doheny, FG    A        Nystrom, JJ   D

Egan, RR       B        Oliver, PK      E

Fraser, MS     C        Price, AL        C

Fredericks, GH         A        Rawson, MJ    C

NAME  UNIT   Area 7 NAME  45 UNIT

Sayles, MT Sommers, SR Stone, JK B C C  Taylor, AS Willis, IS Wolfson, HT     B C A

CIVILIAN STAFF

Botha, GW MED

Franklin, HS MED

Shaw, DE MED

He did notice something, though.

There were more names here than there were 7th

Squadron men on the tarmac. While there had been forty

commandos out on the tarmac, there were fifty 7th Squadron

members on the list. He figured there must be another ten

man unit inside the base somewhere.

As Schofield looked at the list, Logan said, "Captain, if

you wouldn't mind, we'd like you to move your--"

"What appears to be the problem, Major?" a voice said

from behind Schofield. "Don't bother with Captain

Schofield. I am in command here."

It was Ramrod Hagerty, the White House Liaison Officer.

With his Englishman's mustache and distinctly battle-hardened posture, Hagerty was everything Kurt Logan was

not.

Before he answered him, Logan looked Hagerty up and

down. What he saw obviously didn't impress him.

"I was led to believe that Colonel drier was in ultimate

command of Marine One," Logan said coolly--and correctly.

"Well, ah, yes ... yes, technically, he is," Hagerty said.

"But, as White House Liaison, anything to do with the

movement of these helicopters must go through me first."

Logan looked at Hagerty in stony silence.

Then he said, "I was about to ask the captain here if he

wouldn't mind rolling your helicopters into the main hangar

while the President is at the base. We wouldn't want enemy

satellites knowing that we had the Boss visiting, now would

we?"

46

Matthew Reilly

"No, no, of course not. Of course not," Ramrod said.

"Schofield. Make it happen."

"Yes, sir," Schofield said dryly.

THE GIANT DOUBLE DOORS OF THE HANGAR CLOSED WITH A resounding

boom.

The two lead helicopters of Marine Helicopter

Squadron-1 were now parked inside the main hangar of Area

7, their rotors and tail booms folded into their stowed positions.

Despite their own considerable size, the two Presidential

helicopters were dwarfed by the cavernous hangar.

Having supervised the roll-in of the choppers, Schofield

now stood in the middle of the massive interior space, alone,

scanning it silently.

The rest of the Marine,<White House and Secret Service

contingent--those who hadn't been senior enough to go

with the President, about twenty people--variously milled

about the helicopters or drank coffee in the two glass-walled

offices that flanked the main doors.

The size of the hangar stunned Schofield.

It was gigantic.

Completely illuminated by brilliant white halogen

lights, it must have stretched at least a hundred yards into the

mountain. A ceiling-mounted rail system ran for its entire

length. At the moment, two large wooden crates hung from

the rails at either end of the hangar.

At the far end of the vast space--facing the doors that

led out to the runway--stood a two-story, completely internal building that ran for the full width of the hangar. This

building's upper floor had angled glass windows that looked

out over the hangar floor.

A small unobtrusive personnel elevator sat quietly underneath

the overhang created by the building's upper level,

sunk in the hangar's northern wall.

Apart from the Presidential helicopters, there were no

other aircraft in the hangar at present. Some large white

painted towing vehicles not unlike those seen at airports lay

Area 7 47

scattered around the hangar floor--indeed, Schofield had

used two of them to bring in the choppers.

By far the most striking feature of the immense hangar,

however, was the massive aircraft elevator platform that lay

in its center.

It was huge, unbelievably huge, like the enormous hydraulic

elevators that hang off the sides of aircraft carriers--

a giant square-shaped platform in the very center of the

hangar.

At 200 feet by 200 feet, the platform was large enough

to hold an entire AWACS Boeing 707--the Air- Force's famous

radar-detecting airplanes, known for the thirty-foot

flying-saucer-like rotodomes mounted on their backs.

Supported by an unseen hydraulic lift system, the giant

platform took up nearly the whole of the central Area of the

hangar. As with similar aircraft elevators, to maximize efficiency,

on the northeastern corner of the platform was a small detachable section which was itself a working elevator, capable

of operating independently of the larger platform. To do

this it ran on rails attached to the wall of the elevator shaft

rather than on the main platform's telescoping hydraulic

strut--a kind of "platform within a platform," so to speak.

Today, however, the Air Force personnel at Area 7 were

putting on the whole show.

As he stood at the edge of the enormous elevator shaft,

Schofield could see the President--with his nine-man Secret

Service Detail and his high-ranking Air Force tour guides--

standing on the full-sized platform, getting smaller and

smaller as they descended the wide concrete shaft on it.

AT THAT VERY SAME MOMENT, AS SHANE SCHOFIELD STOOD IN

the center of the vast hangar bay, looking down into the wide

elevator shaft, someone else was watching him.

The watcher stood in Area 7's darkened control room,

on the upper floor of the internal building that formed the

eastern wall of the hangar. Around him, four uniformed radio

operators spoke softly into headset microphones:

48

Matthew Reilly

"--Alpha Unit, cover the Level 3 common room--"

"--Echo Unit advises that the Marine investigatory

team from Nighthawk Three had to be neutralized out at the

EEV. They found the secondary advance team. Echo is parking

their chopper in one of the outside hangars now. Returning

to the main hangar when they're done--"

"--Bravo and Charlie Units are to remain in main

hangar--"

"--Delta Unit reports that it is now in position--"

"--the Secret Service are trying to contact their primary

advance team on Level 6. The simulated All-Clear signal,

however, appears to be working--"

Major Kurt Logan arrived at the side of the shadowy

figure. "Sir. The President and his Detail just arrived on

Level 4. All units are in position."

"Good."

"Shall we move now?"

"No. Let him take the tour," the faceless man said.

"There is still one more thing that has to be taken care of before

we can begin."

"GOOD MORNING."

Schofield turned, and saw the smiling faces of Libby

Gant and Mother Newman.

"Hey there," he said.

"Ralph's still pissed at you," Mother said. "He wants a

rematch."

Ralph was Mother's husband. A short nugget of a man

with a moon-shaped smiling face and a limitless ability to

put up with Mother's eccentricities, he was a trucker, owning

his own Mack eighteen-wheeler. It had a painting of an

arrow-struck heart on its side with the word "Mother" flowing

over it. With his short stature and ready smile, Ralph was

widely regarded in the Marine community as a bona fide

legend.

He was also the proud owner of a new barbecue, and at

the obligatory Sunday afternoon lunch at Mother's place a

few weeks ago, he'd challenged Schofield to a shoot-off on

the garage basketball hoop. Schofield had let him win and

Ralph knew it.

"Maybe next weekend?" Schofield said. "How about

you? How'd that checkup on the leg go yesterday?"

"In a word, Scarecrow, sen-sational," Mother

said. "I got full movement and I can run just as fast as I used

to. That seemed to satisfy the docs. Hell, I told 'em that just

last week I bowled 275, but that didn't seem to mean much.

Either way, since I'm now part machine, I want a new nickname:

Darth Fucking Vader."

Schofield laughed. "Okay, Darth."

50

Matthew Reilly

"You having trouble with Ramrod again?" Gant asked

seriously.

"The usual," Schofield said. "Hey, happy birthday."

Gant smiled. "Thanks."

"I got you something." Schofield reached into his dress

coat pocket. "It's not huge or anything, but ..." he frowned,

patted his other pockets. "Damn, it's here somewhere.

Maybe it's back on the chopper ..."

"Don't worry about it."

"Can I give it to you later?"

"Sure."

Mother gazed at the enormous hangar around them.

"What the fuck is this place? Looks like Fort Knox."

"More than that," Schofield said.

"What do you mean?"

"Look at the floor just inside the hangar doors."

Mother and Gant did. A series of box-shaped indentations

ran in a line across the concrete floor in front of the

doors. Each indentation was at least a yard square and deep.

"Now look up."

They did, and saw a series of thick, toothlike metal

protrusions--protrusions which, when lowered, would fit

perfectly into the box-shaped indentations on the floor.

"Piston-driven armored door," Schofield said, "like the

ones they have on Nimitz-class carriers. They're used to divide

the ship's hangar bays into self-contained zones in case

of fire or explosion. But, you'll notice that there aren't any

other armored doors in this hangar. That's the only one,

which means it's the only exit."

"So what are you saying?" Mother asked.

"I'm saying," Schofield said, "that whatever they're doing

in this complex is more important than you or I could

possibly imagine."

THE WIDE ELEVATOR PLATFORM HOLDING THE PRESIDENT OF the United States jolted to a halt in front of a giant steel door

marked with an enormous black-painted "4."

The wide concrete elevator shaft stretched up into the

air above the President and his Secret Service Detail like an

oversized vertical tunnel. The bright artificial light of the

ground-level hangar was but a small square of white now-- three hundred feet straight up.

No sooner had the elevator stopped than the massive

steel door in front of it rumbled upward. Colonel Jerome

Harper led the way, walking and talking quickly:

"This facility was once the headquarters for the North

American Air Defense Command--NORAD--before

NORAD was moved to a more modern facility built underneath

Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado in 1975.

"The complex is surrounded by a two-foot-thick titanium

outer wall, which is itself buried beneath one hundred

feet of solid granite. Like the Cheyenne Mountain complex,

it is designed to withstand a direct hit from a thermonuclear

missile."

Harper handed the President a sheet of paper, on which

was a schematic diagram of the subterranean structure.

The hangar appeared at the top of the diagram--at

ground level, capped by the low mountain--then the wide

aircraft elevator shaft led downwards, until it met a multileveled

structure built deep within the earth.

Harper said, "The underground complex contains six

levels, the first two of which--Levels 1 and 2--are storage

hangars for high-risk aircraft, much like the ones you saw at

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Matthew Reilly

Area 8 earlier this morning. Level 3 houses communications

and staff living quarters. Level 5 is confinement. And Level

6 is the X-Rail system.

"Each level is completely scalable to both radiation and

airborne contagions, and the whole facility, if locked down,

is capable of living off a self-contained supply of oxygen for

thirty days. Food supplies are kept in a storage Area on Level

3. Water supply is kept in a 100-million-gallon tank in the

Level 1 hangar."

Their group came to a short upwardly sloping corridor,

at the end of which sat a squat solid-looking door that

looked like a gigantic safe. An Air Force man hurriedly began

opening it.

"Project Fortune was stationed here four years ago, after

the first viable embryo reached maturity," Harper said.

"Now, at last, it has reached a stage where it can be put to

use."

The President waited patiently while the three-foot

thick door was pulled open.

Frank Cutler and the eight other members of the President's

personal Detail stood behind him--silent, impassive,

invisible. At three-minute intervals, Cutler would silently

check his earpiece for the All-Clear beacons from both of

his advance teams. The beacons came in loud and clear.

Then, finally, the door swung open, and the President

looked casually beyond it.

And his jaw dropped.

"Oh ... my ... God ..."

"MY MONEY'S ON THE SUPERBOMB," ELVIS HAYNES SAID AS HE

leaned back in his chair.

Elvis, Schofield, Gant and Mother were sitting in one of

the glass-walled offices by the main doors of the hangar.

With them were Colonels Grier and Dallas, all the other

Marines stationed on board the Presidential helicopters, as

well as the three remaining Secret Service agents.

In a not-so-subtle division of management and labor, all

the White House people who had remained up in the hangar

either sat in the other glass-walled office on the southern

side of the hangar or worked inside their helicopters, which,

they said, were more suited to their rank than the spartan Air

Force offices.

They also—so Nicholas Tate had said to Gant when he

had invited her to stay on Marine One with him—had better

coffee, plunger stuff.

Gant went with Schofield and the others.

Ramrod Hagerty, on the other hand, sat over with the

White House people.

"No way, man," a small bespectacled corporal named

Gus Gorman said. "The superbomb doesn't exist."

Gorman was a thin, nerdy looking individual, with thick

glasses, a big nose and a narrow scrawny neck. Not even full

dress uniform could make him look sexy. Popular with the

other troops for his almost-photographic memory and sharp

wit, his call-sign "Brainiac" was a compliment, not an insult.

"Bullshit," Elvis said, "DARPA made it in the nineties,

in conjunction with the Navy ..."

"But they could never make it work. Thing depended on

54

Matthew Reilly

some element only found in meteorites and they could never

find a live specimen of it"

"You guys'll believe anything," a softly spoken voice

said from the other side of the office.

Everybody turned, Schofield included.

The speaker was a new sergeant to the unit--an intense

young man with a heavy-browed face, pug nose and deep

brown eyes. He didn't talk much, so when he did it was

something of a special occasion for the team. At first, it had

been a trait which some had mistaken for contempt. But

soon it was discovered that Sergeant Buck Riley Jr. just

didn't like to talk unnecessarily.

Riley Jr. was the son of a highly regarded Marine staff

sergeant. His father, Buck Riley Sr., had also been a man

Shane Schofield had known better than most.

They had met under fire--back when Schofield had

been in a god-almighty mess in Bosnia and Riley Sr. had

been on the rescue team. They had become good friends and

Riley Sr. had become Schofield's loyal staff sergeant. Sadly,

he had also been on that fateful mission to Antarctica-- where he had been murdered in the most brutal fashion by

an enemy whose name Schofield had been forbidden to

mention by the Official Secrets Act.

Sergeant Buck Riley Jr.--silent, intense and serious-- bore his father's call-sign with pride. He was known

throughout the unit simply as "Book II"

Book II looked at Elvis and Brainiac. "Do you guys seriously

believe that DARPA has built a bomb that can destroy

a third of the earth's mass?"

"Yes," Elvis said.

"No," Brainiac said.

"Well, they haven't The superbomb is an urban

myth," Book II said, "designed to keep the conspiracy theorists

on the Internet and the gossipy old women in the

United States Marine Corps happy. Want me to give you a

couple more examples? That the FBI sends agents into

prisons as deep cover operatives. That the United States

Area 7 55

Air Force has nuclear bombers stationed in commercial

hangars at every major airport in the United States for use

in the event of a sudden outbreak of war. That USAMRIID

has developed a cure for AIDS but hasn't been allowed to

release it. That the Air Force has developed a magnetic

propulsion system that allows vehicles to float on air. That

the losing tenderer in the bid to build the stealth bomber

proposed a supersonic plane that could attain complete invisibility

through the use of nuclear-powered air refraction

--and built the plane anyway, even after they lost the

bid. Heard any of those?"

"No," Elvis said, "but they're way cool"

"What about you, Captain?" Book II turned to

Schofield. "You heard any of those before?"

Schofield held the young sergeant's gaze. "I've heard

about the last one, but not the others."

He turned away from the debate, scanning the office

around him.

He frowned. Someone was missing.

And then it hit him.

"Hey, where's Warrant Officer Webster?" he said.

the president of the united states stared out through

the slanted observation windows, his mouth agape.

Through the windows, in the middle of a high

ceilinged, hall-like room, he saw a large freestanding cube made of a clear glasslike substance.

It just sat there in the middle of the hall, not quite reaching

the ceiling, not quite reaching the walls, a glass cube the

size of a large living room, bounded on two sides by the elevated

L-shaped observation structure.

It was what lay inside the glass cube, however, that

seized the President's attention.

Indeed, he couldn't take his eyes off it.

"The cube is made of high-tensile polyfiber, and has its

own separate oxygen supply. It is completely airtight,"

Colonel Harper said. "Should its structural integrity be compromised,

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Matthew Reilly

the cube's internal air pressure is automatically

raised, so that no contagions can enter it."

Harper gestured to one of the three scientists who had

been up on the tarmac earlier. "Mr. President, I'd like you to

meet Dr. Gunther Botha, the guiding force behind Project

Fortune."

The President shook Botha's hand. Botha was a fat,

wide-faced, balding man of fifty-eight, and he spoke with a

guttural South African accent. "It's a pleasure to meet you,

Mr. President."

"Dr. Botha is from--"

"I know where Dr. Botha is from," the President said, a

trace of disapproval in his voice. "I saw his file yesterday."

Gunther Botha was a former member of the South

African Defense Force's notorious Medical Battalion.

Though not widely known, throughout the 1980's South

Africa was second only to the Soviet Union in the creation

and stockpiling of biological weapons, principally for use

against the black majority. "

But with the fall of the apartheid regime, Gunther Botha

quickly found himself out of a job and directly in the firing

line of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. His clandestine

hiring by the United States government in 1996 was

not unlike its harboring of Nazi scientists after World War II.

Specialists in Botha's chosen field of expertise were exceedingly

hard to come by.

The President turned back to look out through the observation

windows. "So this is the vaccine ..." he said, gazing

down at the clear fiberglass cube.

"Yes, sir, it is," Botha said.

"Tested?" The President didn't turn as he spoke.

"Yes."

"In serum-hydrate form?"

"Yes."

"Against the latest strain?"

"We tested it against 9.1 yesterday afternoon, as soon as

it arrived."

Area 7 57

"Mr. President," Colonel Harper said, "if you'd like, we

can give you a demonstration."

A pause.

"All right," the President said. "Do so."

"where did he go?" schofield asked as he stood in the

middle of the wide main hangar of Area 7 with Libby Gant.

Warrant Officer Carl Webster--the man in charge of the

Football--wasn't in either of the two Presidential helicopters,

nor was he in the hangar's two offices. And a quick

check with the Secret Service people had revealed that he

hadn't gone with the President on the tour of the facility.

Warrant Officer Webster was nowhere to be found.

It was cause for concern because there were strict rules

of protocol as to Webster's movements. If he wasn't with the

President, he was supposed to stay close to Marine One at

all times.

"Take a look at the welcoming committee, the famous

7th Squadron," Gant said, eyeing the three groups of P-90

armed commandos stationed at various points around the

hangar bay. The crack Air Force troops just watched

Schofield and Gant impassively.

"They look pretty mean to me," Schofield said.

"They're jacked up," Gant said.

"What?"

"Yellow tinges to their eyes."

"Steroids?"

"Uh-huh," Gant said.

"No wonder they look so edgy," Schofield said.

"Elvis doesn't like them," Gant said. "Says he heard

somewhere that they're, quote, 'unofficially racist.' You'll

notice that there are no black members in these squads."

It was true. Apart from a couple of AsianAmerican

members scattered among them, the 7th Squadron units in

the hangar were absolutely lily-white.

"Yes, I've heard those rumors, too," Schofield said. Although

no one liked to admit it, in some sections of the

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Matthew Reilly

armed forces, racism--particularly against black soldiers--

was still a problem. And with their brutal selection courses,

special forces units like the 7th Squadron could easily wield

subtle discriminatory powers.

Schofield nodded at the leaders of the three ten-man

groups, distinguished from the others by the fact that they

didn't have to hold their P-90's in their hands. Their machine

guns were secured behind their shoulder blades, in back

mounted holsters. "You know what they call the five 7th

Squadron unit commanders at exercises?"

"What?"

"The Five Snakes. As the overall squadron leader, Kurt

Logan commands one ten-man team, the first one, Alpha

Unit. The other four units are run by four captains--McConnell,

Willis, Stone and Carney. And they're good. When

they've cared to show up at the interservice combat exercises

at Bragg, they've always come in at number one. One

time, a lone 7th Squadron unit took out three SEAL defensive

teams all by itself--and that was without Logan."

"Why do they call them the Five Snakes?" Gant asked.

"It started out as a jealous joke among the other field

commanders. Three reasons. One, because tactically they

resemble snakes: they strike quickly and with maximum

force, and with a total lack of mercy. Two, because, personally,

they're all very cold individuals. They would never mix

with their counterparts in the other services. Always stuck

together."

"And the third reason?"

"Because each of their call-signs is a variety of aggressive

snake."

"Nice," Gant said wryly.

They kept walking. Gant changed the subject: "You

know, I had a good time last Saturday night."

"You did?" Schofield turned to face her.

"Yeah. Did you?"

"Oh, yeah."

Gant said, "I was just wondering, you know, because,

well, you didn't ..."

Area 7 59

"Wait a second," Schofield said suddenly. "Something's

wrong here."

"What?"

Schofield looked at the three 7th Squadron units stationed

around the hangar again.

One squad stood guard over by the regular elevator. The

second group of ten men stood beside the wide aircraft elevator

shaft. The third unit stood on the southeastern side of

the hangar, over by a door that led into the two-story control

building.

It was at that moment that Schofield saw the sign on the

door behind the third group of 7th Squadron men.

And then, in his mind's eye, he saw it.

"Come on," he said, heading back toward the offices.

"Quickly."

'THE ARMING CODES HAVE BEEN ENTERED, SIR," LOGAN SAID.

"The Football is ready. Warrant Officer Webster was

most ... forthcoming."

The radio operators inside the control room continued

their verbal updates:

"--emergency sealing system ready--"

"--self-contained oxygen supply ready--"

"Major Logan," one of them said, "I'm still picking up

those trace heat signatures in sector nine outside, out by the

EEV."

"Size?"

"Same as before. Between twelve and seventeen inches.

I'm not sure, sir, but I'd swear they've moved closer to the

vent since the last time I looked."

Logan looked at the satellite image. A zoomed-in black

and-white shot of the desert to the east of the main complex

showed about twenty-four rod-shaped white blobs arrayed

in a wide three-hundred-yard circle around the Emergency

Escape Vent.

"Twelve to seventeen inches." Logan peered closely at

the image. "Too small to be men. Probably just a pack of

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Matthew Reilly

desert rats. Get an enhanced image from the satellite, just to

be sure. Keep an eye on them."

The shadowy figure turned to face Logan. "Where is the

President now?"

"He's down in the testing lab on Level 4."

"Contact Harper. Give him the green light. Tell him

we're ready. Tell him the mission is go."

"SUBJECT ONE HAS NOT BEEN IMMUNIZED WITH THE VACCINE,"

Dr. Gunther Botha said in a neutral scientific voice.

The President now stood in near darkness, in another

area of Level 4, facing two brightly lit test chambers.

Inside each chamber stood a completely naked man.

Both men, in perverse contrast to their nakedness, wore gas

masks and a series of electrodes attached to their chests.

"Subject One is a white, Caucasian male, five foot

seven inches, one hundred and sixty pounds, age thirty-six.

Subject is wearing a standard-issue anti-contagion gas

mask. Releasing the agent now."

There was a soft hissing sound as a light mist of

mustard-yellow aerosol particles was released into the first

man's chamber. He was a thin man, gangly. He looked about

himself fearfully as the gas entered his airtight room.

The President said, "Where did you get the virus?"

"Changchun," Botha said.

The President nodded.

Changchun was a remote town in northern Manchuria.

Although the Chinese government denied it, Changchun

was the Chinese Army's chief biological weapons testing facility.

It was said that political prisoners and captured foreign

spies were sent there and used as guinea pigs for virus

and nerve agent testing.

The naked man in the gas chamber was still standing,

still looking nervously about himself.

"Secondary infection occurs via indirect ingestion

through dermatological orifices—hair follicles in the skin,

open cuts," Botha said blandly. "Without administration of

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an effective vaccine, death will occur approximately thirty

minutes after contact. For indirectly ingested nerve agents,

this is a relatively fast kill rate.

"But," Botha held up a finger, "when compared with the

effects of direct inhalation of this agent, it is highly efficient."

He pressed an intercom switch and addressed the man

in the chamber. "Would you please remove your mask."

In response, the man gave Botha the finger--firmly.

Botha just sighed and pressed a button on a nearby console.

Subject One received a severe shock through his chest

electrodes.

"I said, would you please remove your gas mask."

Subject One slowly took off his mask.

And immediately--violently--the virus took effect.

The man clutched his stomach and coughed a deep,

hacking cough.

"As I said, far more efficient," Botha said.

The man doubled over, started wheezing.

"Gastrointestinal irritation begins within approximately

ten seconds of onset."

The man vomited explosively, splatting brown-green

vomit all over the test booth's floor.

"Stomach liquefication within thirty seconds ..."

The man dropped to his knees, gasping for air. A

chunky liquid dribbled down his chin. He clutched at the

booth's glass wall, right in front of Botha.

"Liver and kidney liquefication within a minute ..."

The subject puked a bloody black sludge all over the

window. Then he fell to the ground, shuddering and shivering.

"Total organ failure within ninety seconds. Death

within two minutes."

Soon, the naked man inside the chamber--coiled in the

fetal position--lay still.

The President watched, trying to hide his revulsion.

It was beyond cruel, this method of death, even for a

man such as this.

area 7

Nevertheless, he tried to justify Subject One's grisly

death in the light of what Subject One had done during his

life. With a friend, Leon Roy Hailey had tortured nine

women in the back of his van, laughing at them as they

begged for mercy. The two men had recorded the girls' death

throes on a video recorder for later gratification. The President had seen those tapes.

He also knew that Leon Roy Hailey had been sentenced

to four hundred and fifty-two years in prison for his crimes

He was never to leave prison alive. And so, after five brute

years in jail, he--like every other test subject at Area 7, all

of them serving multiple life sentences--had elected to submit himself to scientific testing.

"Subject Two," Botha said tonelessly, "has been given

the vaccine in serum-hydrate form. Serum was mixed into

a glass of water he drank exactly thirty minutes ago. Subject is

a white, Caucasian male, six feet eight inches, two hundred

and fifteen pounds, age thirty-two. Releasing the agent now.

Again, the hissing came, followed by the sudden puff of

mustard-yellow aerosol mist.

The man in the second chamber saw the gas enter his

booth, but unlike the first test subject, he didn't do anything

in response. He was much bigger than the first man--broad

chested, too, with bulging biceps, enormous fists and a small

elliptical head that seemed way too tiny for his body.

With his gas mask on and the yellow mist falling all

around him, he just stared out through the one-way glass of

the test chamber, as if a painful agonizing death didn't worry

him in the slightest.

No coughing. No spasming. With the gas mask on, the

virus hadn't affected him yet.

Botha flicked the intercom switch: "Take off your mask

please."

Subject Two obeyed Botha's command without objection,

removed his mask.

The President saw the man's face, and this time he

caught his breath.

It was a face he had seen many times before--on television,

64

Matthew Reilly

in the newspapers. It was the evil tattooed face of Lucifer

James Leary, the serial killer known across America as

"the Surgeon of Phoenix."

He was the man who had killed thirty-two hitchhikers,

most of them young backpackers, whom he had picked up

on the interstate between Las Vegas and Phoenix between

1991 and 1998. In every case, Leary had left his trademark

--a piece of the victim's jewelry, usually a ring or

necklace, lying on the roadway at the spot where the victim

had been abducted.

A disgraced former medical student, Leary would take

his victims to his home in Phoenix, amputate their limbs and

then eat those limbs in front of them. The discovery of his

house by FBI agents--complete with blood-smeared basement

and two live but partially eaten victims--had horrified

America.

Even now, Lucifer Leary looked like the picture of evil.

The entire left-hand side of his face was covered by a black

tattoo depicting five vertical claw marks, as if Freddy

Krueger himself had slashed his razor-tipped fingers viciously

down Leary's cheek. The tattooed slash marks were

impressive in their detail--torn ragged skin, imitation

blood--designed to evoke maximum revulsion.

At that moment, to the President's horror, Leary smiled at the observation window, revealing hideous yellow teeth.

It was then that it hit the President.

Even though his gas mask was off, Leary didn't seem to

be affected by the airborne virus.

"As you will see," Botha said proudly, "even when the

virus is inhaled directly into the lungs from the air, an orally

administered vaccine delivered in serum-hydrate form is effective

in preventing infection. The vaccine neutralizes the

invading virus by restricting the release of the protein diethylpropanase by the virus, a protein which attacks the pigmentation enzyme metahydrogenase and the blood group

protein, DB--"

"In English, please," the President said tersely.

Botha said, "Mr. President, what you have just seen is a

Area 7 65

quantum leap forward in biotechnological warfare. It is the

world's first genetically engineered biological weapon, a

completely synthetic agent, so there are no natural cures.

And it works with a degree of efficiency the likes of which I

have never seen before. It is a purely constructed virus, and

make no mistake, it has been constructed in a very particular

way.

"It is an ethnic bullet, designed to kill only certain races of people, people possessed of certain ethnically exclusive

genes. In this case, it attacks only those people who

are possessed of the enzyme metahydrogenase and DB

blood protein. These are the enzymes which cause white

skin pigmentation, the characteristic enzymes of Caucasian

people.

"Mr. President, the same enzyme that makes our skin

white makes us susceptible to this virus. It is extraordinary. I

don't know how the Chinese did it. My government in South

Africa tried for years to develop a virus that it could put in

the water supply which would make only black people sterile,

but we never succeeded.

"But from the look of this agent, it would not be difficult

to adapt the genetic makeup of the virus so that it would

also attack African Americans, since their pigmentation enzyme

is a variant of metahydrogenase--"

"Bottom line," the President said.

"The bottom line is simple, Mr. President," Botha said.

"The only people safe from this virus are people of Asian

origin, because they do not possess these pigmentation enzymes at all. As such, they would be immune from the agent while Caucasians and African Americans everywhere would die.

"Mr. President. Allow me to introduce you to the latest

Chinese biological weapon. Meet the Sinovirus."

"I'M TELLING YOU, THERE'S SOMETHING NOT RIGHT HERE,"

Schofield said.

"Bullshit, Captain." Ramrod Hagerty waved his hand

dismissively. "You've been reading too many comic books."

"What about Webster, then? I can't find him anywhere.

He's not allowed to just disappear."

"Probably in the John."

"No, I checked there," Schofield said. "And Nighthawk

Three? Where are they? Why hasn't Hendricks called in?"

Hagerty just stared at him blankly.

Schofield said, "Sir, with all due respect, if you would

just look at where these 7th Squadron guys are standing ..."

Hagerty turned in his chair. He, Schofield and Gant

were in the southern office of the main hangar, with the

small group of White House people. Hagerty casually

looked out through the office's windows at the 7th Squadron

commandos spaced around the hangar outside.

"Looks like they're guarding every entrance." Hagerty

shrugged. "To stop us going into areas we're not supposed

to."

"No, sir, they're not. Look closely. The group to the

north are guarding the regular elevator. The middle group

are guarding the aircraft elevator. They're both fine. But look

at the group over by the control building, the group in front

of the door."

"Yeah, so ..."

"Sir, they're guarding a storage closet."

Area 7

67

Hagerty looked from Schofield to the Air Force commandos.

It was true. They were standing in front of a door

marked "storage."

"That's very nice, Captain. I'll put your observations in

my report." Hagerty resumed his paperwork.

"But sir ..."

"I said, I'll put your observations in my report, Captain

Schofield. That will be all."

Schofield straightened.

"With respect, sir, have you ever been in combat?" he said.

Hagerty froze, looked up. "I'm not sure if I like your

tone, Captain."

"Have you ever been in combat?"

"I was in Saudi during Desert Storm."

"Fighting?"

"No. Embassy staff."

"Sir, if you'd ever been in combat, you'd know that those

three groups of Air Force commandos are not standing in defensive

positions. Those are offensive positions. More than

that, those men are perfectly placed to rout these two offices--"

"Rubbish."

Schofield grabbed the sheet of paper Hagerty had been

writing on and scribbled a quick map of the hangar:

c=3<)

c=>r--)

68

Matthew Reilly

"This is where they are now," Schofield tapped the three

big black dots on the diagram. "Twelve o'clock, ten o'clock

and four o'clock. But when they move like this ..."

Schofield added some arrows to his diagram:

K

C>

"... we've got serious trouble. All the Marines and Secret

Service people over in the northern office will face the

full force of the attack, while the White House people here

in the southern office will naturally run the other way--right

into the third unit of 7th Squadron soldiers."

Hagerty looked at Schofield's diagram for a long moment.

Then he said, "That has got to be the stupidest thing I've

ever heard, Captain. These are American servicemen."

"For Christ's sake, just listen to me--"

"No, you listen to me," Hagerty spat. "Don't think for a

moment that I don't know who you are. I know all about

Wilkes Ice Station. I know what happened there. But just because

you were some kind of hero once doesn't give you a

license to spout out fucking conspiracy theories and expect

to be believed. I've been in this Corps for twenty-two years

and I have risen to where I am by--"

"--what? Pushing pencils?" Schofield said.

Hagerty fell silent. His face grew beet root red.

Area 7 69

"That's it, Schofield. For the sake of the Corps, I won't

make a scene here, but when we get back to Quantico, as

soon as we touch down, you will be taken into custody and

held for court martial on charges of gross insubordination.

Now get the fuck out of my sight."

Schofield just shook his head in exasperation and left.

"AND THESE, SIR, ARE THE MEN WHO BROUGHT BACK THE

Sinovirus," Colonel Harper said, guiding the President

around the test booths on Level 4.

A giant thirty-foot-long quarantine chamber stood before

them. Through a small glass window set into the side of the

reinforced chamber, the President saw four men, all seated

on sofas watching a television and bathed in blue ultraviolet

light. All of them, he noted, were of Asian extraction.

As soon as they saw the President, two of the men inside

the chamber rose to their feet and stood to attention.

"Mr. President, meet Captain Robert Wu and Lieutenant

Chet Li from the 7th Squadron--"

Just then Harper's cell phone buzzed.

The colonel excused himself and stepped away to take

the call.

"It's a pleasure to meet you both, gentlemen," the President

said, stepping forward. "Your country owes you a debt

of gratitude."

"Thank you, sir."

"Thank you."

"How long do you have to stay in there for?" the President

inquired, asking the obligatory personal question.

"Another couple of hours, I think, sir," the one named

Wu said. "We got back yesterday with the new strain, but we

have to stay in here for twenty-four hours. The chamber is

operated on a time lock. Can't be opened until 0900 hours.

So they can be sure there are no other bugs on us."

"Well, I won't be here come nine o'clock," the President

said, "but rest assured, you'll be receiving something

from me in the very near future."

"Thank you, sir."

jo       Matthew Reilly

"Thank you, sir."

Having finished his call, Colonel Harper returned.

"And that concludes our tour, Mr. President," he said.

"Now, if you'll come this way, I have one last thing to show

you."

SCHOFIELD AND GANT STOOD INSIDE MARINE ONE, BEHIND

Brainiac.

Brainiac was seated at the helicopter's communications

console, typing quickly on a keyboard.

"Anything from Nighthawk Three or the two advance

teams?" Schofield asked.

"Nada from Nighthawk Three," Brainiac said. "And just

the beacons from the Secret Service teams."

Schofield thought for a moment. "Are we plugged into

Area 7's local network?"

"Yep. So the President can collect secure transmissions

by the landline."

"Okay then, can you bring up the complex's security

camera system for me?"

"Sure."

the president was led up a set of  stairs to level 3,

the living quarters of Area 7.

With his nine-man Secret Service Detail he was brought

into a wide low-ceilinged common room--couches, coffee

tables, kitchenette and, taking pride of place over by the

wall, a big-screen Panasonic TV.

"If you would just wait here for a moment, Mr. President,"

Colonel Harper said, "I'll send someone down in a

minute."

And then he left the room, leaving the President and his

Detail alone.

A SERIES OF BLACK-AND-WHITE MONITORS FLICKERED TO LIFE in the communications bay of Marine One.

Each monitor depicted a grid of views from the multitude

of security cameras around Area 7.

Area 7

"We have contact," Brainiac said.

From various angles, Schofield saw empty stairwells--

the main hangar--something that looked like a subway

station--the interiors of the glass-walled offices in the

main hangar, one of them filled with Marines and Secret

Service people, the other containing White House staff

members--and, in grainy black-and-white, the inside of an

elevator--

Schofield froze at the final image.

The elevator was packed with ten fully armed 7th

Squadron commandos.

And then suddenly movement from one of the other

monitors caught his eye.

It was the view from one of the stairwell cameras.

A whole stream of armed 7th Squadron commandos was

storming down the stairwell.

"This is going to be very painful," he said flatly.

schofield stepped out of marine one onto the hangar

floor, Gant and Brainiac close behind him.

Although nothing physical about it had changed, somehow

the hangar now looked very different.

Now it looked menacing.

Dangerous.

Schofield saw the three groups of 7th Squadron commandos

arrayed around the enormous interior space--saw

the commander of one of the groups touch his ear as he

caught a radio transmission.

"Stay here," Schofield said.

"Okay," Brainiac said.

"Hey," Gant said.

"What?"

"Try not to look so spooked."

"I'll do my best," Schofield said as he stepped out from

the cover of Marine One and started walking casually across

the hangar floor, toward the northern glass-walled office.

He was about halfway there when it happened.

Loud and sudden.

72

Matthew Reilly

Boom!

Like a curtain falling at the end of a stage show, a giant

piston-driven titanium door thundered down in front of the

hangar's main doors. Its leading edge--lined with nasty

looking toothlike protrusions--lodged firmly into the series

of boxlike indentations that ran across the entry to the

hangar.

And with the falling of the massive armored door,

Schofield gave up any pretense of trying to appear calm.

He broke into a run just as the two nearest groups of 7th

Squadron commandos--the ones at twelve o'clock and ten

o'clock--raised their P-90's and the air around him became

awash with sizzling bullets.

IT HAD BEEN FIVE MINUTES NOW AND NOBODY HAD COME FOR

them and the President of the United States was not accustomed

to waiting.

The President and his protective Detail just stood in the

common room on Level 3, looking about themselves, waiting

in the silence.

"Frank," the President said to the Chief of the Detail,

"see what's going on--"

The big-screen television came on.

The President and his Detail whirled around.

"What the fuck ..." somebody said.

On the screen, large and bold, was the bright yellow insignia

of the Emergency Broadcast System--the special all

spectrum broadcast network that was capable of cutting off

regular broadcasting in the event of a national emergency.

Then, abruptly, the BBS symbol disappeared, and a face

appeared in its place.

"What the hell ..." this time it was the President who

spoke.

The face on the screen was that of a dead man.

It was the face of Lieutenant General Charles Samson

Russell, USAF, call-sign: "Caesar."

ON EVERY TELEVISION SCREEN IN AREA 7--AND, IT APPEARED,

every television in the United States--the round, heavy

browed face of Charles Russell began to speak.

"Mr. President. People of America. Welcome to Area 7.

My name is General Charles Russell, United States Air

Force. For too long, I have watched this country eat itself. I

74

Matthew Reilly

will do so no longer." His tone was measured, his Louisiana

accent thick.

"Our representatives at both federal and state levels are

incapable of genuine leadership. Our free press is no longer

the tool for controlling government that it was intended to

be. To every man who has ever fought or died for this country,

this state of affairs is a disgrace. It can no longer be allowed

to continue."

IN THE COMMON ROOM, THE PRESIDENT JUST STARED AT THE

big-screen television.

"And so I propose a challenge, Mr. President--both to

you and to the system you represent.

"Implanted on your heart is a radio device. It was attached

to the outer tissue of your cardiac muscle during an

operation on your left lung four years ago."

Frank Cutler spun to face the President, a look of horror

spreading across his face.

"I will initiate its signal now," Caesar said. He pressed

some buttons on a small red unit that he held in his hand.

The compact unit had a black stub antenna sticking out from

its top.

Frank Cutler pulled a debugging wand from his coat--a spectrum analyzer used to detect any signal-emitting device-- and waved it over the President's body.

Feet and legs ... okay.

Waist and stomach... okay.

Chest ...

The wand went crazy.

"MY CHALLENGE TO YOU, MR. PRESIDENT, IS SIMPLE." Russell's voice echoed throughout the underground base.

"As you well know, at every major airport in the United

States there are at least three hangars devoted to the storage

of United States Air Force bombers, fighters and ordnance.

"Right now, inside fourteen of those hangars, sit fourteen

Type-240 blast plasma warheads. The airports include

John F. Kennedy, Newark and La Guardia in New York,

Area 7 75

Dulles in Washington, O'Hare in Chicago, LAX in Los Angeles,

and airports in San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle,

Boston, Philadelphia and Detroit. Each plasma warhead, as

you know, has a blast radius of sixteen miles and a detonation

yield of ninety megatons. All are armed."

IN THE COMMON ROOM ON LEVEL 3, EVERYONE WAS SILENT.

"The only thing that will stop the detonation of these

warheads, Mr. President," Charles Russell said with a smile,

"is the continued beating of your heart."

russell went on.

"All the devices at the airports are patched in to a single

satellite in geosynchronous orbit above this base. That satellite,

Mr. President, emits a high-powered microwave signal

which is picked up and bounced back to it by the transmitter

placed on your heart.

"But the radio transmitter on your heart, once started, is

kinetically operated. If your heart should stop beating, the

transmitter will cease to operate, and the satellite's signal

will not be bounced back to it—in which case, the satellite

will instruct the bombs in the airports to detonate.

"Mr. President. If your heart should stop, America as

we know it dies. If your heart keeps beating, America lives.

"You are the symbol of a bankrupt culture, sir: a politician,

a man who seeks power for power's sake, but, like the

people you represent, one who lives safe in the knowledge

that he will never ever be called upon to stand up and fight

for the system that gives him that power.

"Well, you have lived safely for too long, Mr. President.

Now you have been called to account. Now you have been

called to fight.

"I, on the other hand, am a warrior. I have spilled my

blood for this country. What blood have you spilled? What

sacrifices have you made? None. Coward.

"But like an honest patriot, I will give you and the system

you represent a final chance to prove your worth. For

the people of this country need proof. They need to see you

flounder—see you fall—see you sell them out to save your

Area 7 77

skin. They elected you to represent them. Now you shall do

that--literally. If you die, they die with you.

"This facility has been completely sealed. It is designed

to withstand the full force of a nuclear blast, so there is no

way out of it. Inside it with you is a fifty-man detachment of

the best ground force this country has to offer, the 7th Special

Operations Squadron. These men have orders to kill

you, Mr. President.

"With your Secret Service Detail, you will face them in

a fight to the death. Whoever wins, gets the country. Whoever

loses, dies.

"Of course, the American people must be kept apprised

of the score in this challenge," Caesar said. "Therefore,

every hour on the hour, I shall address them via the Emergency

Broadcast System and give them an update on the

pursuit."

The President looked up at the nearest security camera.

"This is ridiculous! You couldn't possibly have put a--"

"Jeremiah K. Woolf, Mr. President," Caesar Russell

said from the TV screen. The President immediately fell

silent.

No one else spoke.

"I will assume from your silence that you have seen the

FBI file."

Of course the President had seen the file--the peculiarities

of the ex-senator's death had demanded it.

At the exact moment that Jeremiah Woolf had died in

Alaska, his home in Washington, D.C., had exploded. No

culprit--for either incident--had ever been found. It was a

coincidence too bizarre to ignore, but in the absence of any

evidence to explain it, to the mass media it had remained

simply that, a tragic coincidence.

As the President knew, however, one particular aspect

of the ex-senator's death had never been made public:

namely, the elevated levels of red blood cell production in

his bloodstream, plus extremely low alveolar and arterial

phosphate pressures. All of these symptoms indicated a

78

Matthew Reilly

prolonged period of hyperventilation before Woolf had been

shot--a period during which the ex-senator had experienced

a heightened state of "fight or flight" physiology.

In other words, the ex-senator had been running from

someone when he'd been shot. He had been hunted.

And now it made sense.

Woolf had been implanted with a transmitter ...

... and then in Alaska he had been hunted and shot,

and when, finally, his heart had stopped, his home on the

other side of the country had been destroyed.

Caesar Russell's voice invaded his thoughts. "Former

Senator Woolf's unexpected retirement from government

left me with an extra transmitting device. And so he became

a guinea pig, a test run. A test run for today."

The President exchanged a look with Frank Cutler.

Caesar said, "Oh, and just in case you're harboring ambitions

of escaping this facility ..." He lifted an object into

view.

It was a stainless steel briefcase.

Warrant Officer Carl Webster's steel briefcase.

The case's handle still had the pair of handcuffs attached

to it--only now the open-ended cuff was no longer

attached to anything. It was splattered all over with blood.

It was the Football.

And it was open.

The President saw the briefcase's flat-glass palm-print

analyzer and keypad. The palm-print analyzer was an identification

feature programmed to recognize the President's

palm print, so that only he could activate--and deactivate--

America's thermonuclear arsenal.

Somehow, though, Russell had managed to falsify the

President's palm print and enter the arming codes. But how

could he have gotten a copy of the President's hand print?

"In addition to the transmitter on your heart, Mr. President,"

Russell said, "all the devices in the airports have been

networked to a recycling timer of exactly ninety minutes, as

is shown on the Football's display screen. Only the application

of your palm print to the analyzer--once every ninety

Area 7 79

minutes--will reset that timer and stop the plasma warheads

from going off, so don't think of leaving. The Football, for

your information, will be kept up here in the main hangar.

"This is a great day in the history of the nation, Mr.

President, a day of reckoning. Come the dawn of tomorrow,

the glorious Fourth of July, we shall see if we all awake in a

new, reborn America. Good luck, Mr. President, and may

God have mercy on your soul."

At that moment, as if right on cue, the main doors to the

common room burst open and a team of 7th Squadron commandos

--led by Major Kurt Logan and wearing their fearsome

ERG-6 gas masks--rushed into the room, their

devastating P-90 machine guns blazing.

The challenge had begun.

SECOND CONFRONTATION

3 July/ 0700 Hours

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

SPECIAL AREA (RESTRICTED) NO.7

0700 HOURS

GROUND LEVEL: Main Hangar

LEVEL 1: Hangar Bay

LEVEL 2: Hangar Bay

LEVEL 3: Living Quarters

LEVEL 4: Laboratories

LEVEL 5 gafinsflien

LEVEL 6: X-rail platform

THE MAIN HANGAR HAD BECOME A BATTLEFIELD.

Bullet holes raked the floor at Shane Schofield's feet as

he raced for the doorway to the northern glass-walled office.

He poked his head around the doorway: "Marines!

Scatter!"

But that was all he could say before the window next to

him shattered into a thousand fragments and he dived away,

crawling for the cover of the two Presidential helicopters

and their towing vehicles.

He looked back just in time to see a couple of full dress-uniformed

Marines burst out through the windows of

the office a moment before the small structure was hit by a

Predator shoulder-launched missile and its walls blasted

outwards in a shower of glass and billowing fire.

Schofield slid under Marine One, and found himself lying

next to Libby Gant and Brainiac.

Gunfire echoed out all around them. And then bizarrely,

above the gunshots, Schofield heard a voice booming out

from the hangar's loudspeaker system: "Good luck, Mr.

President, and may God have mercy on your soul."

"Holy shit!" Brainiac yelled.

"This way!" Schofield said, crawling on his stomach

underneath the big helicopter.

He arrived at a wide grille in the floor. It came away easily.

An air vent opened up beneath it. The steel-walled vent

plunged down into the earth, disappearing into darkness.

"Let's go!" Schofield yelled above the gunfire.

Abruptly, a metal panel in the bottom of Marine One

burst open—almost decapitating Schofield—and a figure

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Matthew Reilly

with an M-16 dropped down behind him, the gun leveled at

his forehead.

"Fuck! It's you," Mother said as she lowered herself out

of the helicopter's emergency escape hatch onto the ground.

"Here, happy birthday," she said, tossing an MP-10 machine

pistol to Gant. "Sorry, Scarecrow, nothing for you.

That was all I could find in the basic arms cabinet on board.

There's more in the forward armory, but Gunman's got the

key to that."

"Never mind," Schofield said, "the first thing we've got

to do is get out of here and regroup. Then we have to figure

out a way of taking these bastards down. This way."

"Did you catch any of that shit on the television?"

Mother said as she crawled over to the vent.

Gant and Brainiac climbed down into the vent first,

bracing their legs against its walls, shimmying themselves

down into it.

"No," Schofield said, "I was too busy dodging bullets."

"Then I've got a lot to tell you," Mother said as they

lowered themselves into the shaft.

the president of the united states was moving faster

than he had ever moved before. In fact, his feet barely even

touched the ground.

At the first sight of the 7th Squadron commandos

storming the common room, his nine-man Protective Detail

had thrown itself into action.

Four men immediately took up defensive positions in

between the President and the oncoming assault troops,

throwing their coats open to reveal Uzi submachine guns.

The Uzi's buzzed as they unleashed a brutal wave of gunfire

at a crushing 600 rounds per minute.

The other five members of the Detail crash-tackled the

President out into the nearby fire escape, practically lifting

him off his feet as they gang-rushed him out of the room,

covering his body with their own.

The door to the fire stairs slammed shut behind them,

but not before they saw the 7th Squadron troops clinically

Area 7 83

take up covering positions behind couches, doors and cupboards

and leap-frog each other and tear to shreds the four

Secret Service men who had remained behind--drowning

out the buzz of their Uzi's with the whirring drone of their

P-90 assault rifles.

The Uzi's might have fired at 600 rounds per minute.

But the P-90, made by the FN Herstal company in Belgium,

fired at an astonishing 900 rounds per minute. Indeed, with

its rounded hand guard, internal blowback system, and incredible

hundred-round magazine mounted above the barrel,

it looked like something out of a science fiction movie.

"Down the stairs! Now!" Frank Cutler yelled as bullets

slammed into the other side of the firedoor. "Head for the alternate

exit!"

The President and what was left of his Detail flew down

the stairs, taking them four at a time, hurling themselves

around every turn. Every one of them had a weapon in his or

her hand now--Uzi's, SIG-Sauers, anything ...

The President himself could do nothing but run with

them, so tightly was he flanked by his bodyguards.

"Advance Team One! Come in!" Cutler yelled into his

wrist microphone as he ran.

No reply.

"Advance Team One! Come in! We are approaching

Exit Point One with Patriot and we need to know if it is

open!"

He received no reply.

UP IN THE MAIN HANGAR, BOOK II WAS IN HELL.

Bullets strafed the floor all around him, glass rained

down on his head.

He was tucked up against the outside of the northern office

with Elvis--in the tiny gap between it and the hangar's

armored door--the two of them having dived out through

the office's bullet-shattered windows a moment before it had

been blasted to smithereens by the Predator missile.

The three ten-man teams of 7th Squadron men were

everywhere, moving with precision and speed, racing around

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Matthew Reilly

the helicopters, leaping over dead men, their guns pressed

against their shoulders, eyes looking straight down the

barrels.

On the other side of the hangar, Book saw the White

House people come streaming out of the southern glass

walled office--about ten people in total--screaming, looking

about themselves, only to be met by the 7th Squadron

unit that had been stationed on the eastern side of the floor.

The White House men and women were cut down

where they stood, hit head-on by a wave of merciless fire.

Their bodies convulsed and shuddered under the weight of

the brutal onslaught.

And then suddenly Book II heard a shout and he looked

up and saw Gunman Grier burst out of the remains of the

northern office, yelling with rage, his nickel-plated Beretta

up and firing.

No sooner had he appeared, however, than Grier's chest

literally exploded in a gout of red as two 7th Squadron

troopers blasted him at the same time.

The force of their fire pummeled Grier's body, keeping

him standing long after he was dead--sending him staggering

backwards, reeling with each impact, until he slammed

into a wall and fell to the ground in a heap.

"This is a real fucked-up situation!" Elvis yelled above

the gunfire. "There's no way out of here!"

"Over there!" Book II pointed at the regular elevator on

the northern side of the hangar. "That's the only way out I

can see!"

"But how do we get there?"

"We drive!" Book n shouted, nodding at one of the big

towing vehicles attached to the tail boom of Nighthawk

Two, ten yards away.

THE FOUR RADIO MEN INSIDE THE CONTROL ROOM SPOKE rapidly

into their headsets.

"--Bravo Unit, close down all remaining hostile agents

inside that northern office--"

Area 7

"--Alpha Unit is in pursuit of Presidential Detail down

the eastern fire stairs--"

"--Charlie Unit, break off from the main hangar, I

have visual on four Marines heading down the primary air

vent--"

"--Delta Unit, be patient, maintain your position--"

"what do you mean, they attached a radio transmitter

to his heart?" Schofield said as he made his way down the

vertical ventilation shaft, his feet splayed wide, pressed

against its silver steel walls.

Gant and Brainiac were farther down, shimmying their

way quickly down the vent, a seemingly bottomless drop beneath

them.

"If his heart stops, the bombs go off, in every major airport,

in every major city," Mother said.

"Jesus," Schofield said.

"And he's got to report in every ninety minutes, to reset

a timer on the Football. Again, if he doesn't, boom"

"Every ninety minutes?" Schofield pressed a button on

his old digital watch, starting a timer of his own. He gave it

a few minutes head-start. It started ticking down from 85:00

minutes--85:00 ... 84:59 ... 84:58--when abruptly, he

heard a clattering noise from somewhere above him and he

snapped his head up--

Bullets sprayed everywhere.

Peppering the metal walls all around him and Mother.

Schofield saw a P-90 rifle sticking over the rim of the

ventilation shaft--held by someone out of sight--firing

wildly down into it.

"Scarecrow!" Gant called from ten feet below them.

She was crouched inside a small horizontal tunnel that

branched off the main vertical shaft. "Down here!"

"Go, Mother! Go!" Schofield yelled.

Both he and Mother released their footholds on the

shaft's walls and let themselves slide down the vertical vent.

Whooosh!

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Matthew Reilly

They shot down the narrow vertical tunnel, sizzling-hot

bullets impacting all around them, before--reeeech!--they

dug their heels into the shaft's walls just short of the horizontal

tunnel.

Mother came to a perfect halt right in front of it.

Schofield, however, overshot the cross-vent, but somehow

managed to throw his hands out and grip it with his fingertips,

a split second before he would have fallen several hundred feet to his death.

Mother stepped inside the cross-vent first, then hauled

Schofield into it after her, not a moment before a long abseiling

rope dropped down the vertical shaft above them.

The 7th Squadron was coming.

Up ahead, Gant ran in the lead, closely followed by

Brainiac. The silver-walled tunnel was about five feet

square, so they all had to crouch slightly to run through it.

Gant came around a slight bend on the tunnel and saw

light up ahead. She sped up--and then lurched to a sudden

halt, clutching desperately for a handhold.

She stopped so suddenly that Brainiac almost bowled

right into her. It was lucky he pulled up in time. A collision

would have sent both of them falling a hundred and eighty

feet straight down.

"Fuck me ..." Brainiac said.

"What's the holdup--?" Mother said as she and

Schofield arrived on the scene. "Oh ..."

Their tunnel ended at the main elevator shaft.

The giant concrete-walled chasm, two hundred feet

across, yawned before them.

On the other side of it, directly opposite them, they saw

an enormous heavy steel door with a black-painted "I" on it.

It looked like a hangar door of some sort.

And nearly two hundred feet below them--parked at

the fourth underground level--they saw the wide hydraulic

elevator platform.

"You know, it's at times like this I wish I had a

Maghook," Schofield said. A Maghook was a combined

Area 7 89

grappling hook and high-powered magnet--the signature

weapon of Marine Recon Units.

"There are a couple upstairs in Nighthawk Two,"

Mother said.

"Wouldn't do us any good," Gant said. "Distance is too

far. A Maghook has a maximum rope length of a hundred

and fifty feet. This is at least two hundred."

"Well, we better think of something," Brainiac said,

looking back down the cross-vent, listening to the whizzing

sounds of the 7th Squadron men abseiling down the main

vertical shaft beyond it.

Schofield looked at the wide concrete chasm in front of

them. It was clearly well used--covered in grime and

grease.

Indented at regular intervals on its walls, however, were

a series of thin rectangular conduits--small horizontal gutters

cut into the shaft's concrete walls. Each gutter was

about six inches deep and ran right around the enormous elevator

shaft, circling it. They were designed, it seemed, to

house wires and cabling without hindering the elevator platform's

upward and downward movement.

But right now, they afforded Schofield no escape.

Boom!

He spun. It was the sound of heavy boots clanging on

metal.

The 7th Squadron men had arrived at the other end of

the horizontal tunnel.

the air force men moved fast, racing half-crouched

down the cross-vent, guns up.

There were four of them--all wearing black combat

gear: helmets, gas masks, body armor. Unsure of which

cross-tunnel Schofield's group had taken, the others in their

unit had gone farther down the vertical vent to check the

other levels.

The two lead men rounded the bend in the tunnel--and

stopped.

Matthew Reilly

They had come to the end of the horizontal cross-vent,

to the point where it met the massive elevator shaft.

But there was no one there.

The end of the tunnel was empty.

when the president of the united states visits a certain

venue, the Secret Service has always plotted in advance at

least three alternate exit routes, in case of emergency.

In big-city hotels, this usually comprises a back entrance,

a service entrance--say, through the kitchen--and

the roof, for lift-out via helicopter.

At Area 7, the Secret Service had sent two advance

teams to secure and then guard the alternate exit points that

they had chosen.

Alternate Exit Point 1 was on the lowest level of Area 7--

Level 6. The exit itself was the eight-hundred-yard-long Emergency

Exit Vent that opened onto the desert floor about half a

mile from the low mountain that covered the base. The first Secret

Service advance team was stationed down on Level 6, the

second up at the Vent's exit on the desert floor itself.

The President and his five-man Detail charged down the

fire stairs, a hailstorm of bullets sizzling past their cheeks,

shooting right through their flailing coats. The 7th Squadron's

first unit--Alpha Unit, led by Major Kurt Logan--was close

behind them.

They came to a firedoor that read: level 4: laboratory

facilities. Dashed past it.

More stairs, another landing, another door. This one had

a larger sign on it:

LEVEL 5: ANIMAL CONTAINMENT AREA

NO ENTRY

THIS DOOR FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY

ENTER VIA ELEVATORS AT OTHER END OF FLOOR

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Matthew Reilly

The President ran right past it.

They arrived at the bottom of the stairwell--at a door

marked: level 6: x-rail station.

Frank Cutler was running in the lead. He came to the

door, yanked it open--

--and was immediately assaulted by a ferocious barrage

of automatic gunfire.

Cutler's face and chest became a ragged bloody mess

as a relentless wave of bullets rammed into it. The Chief of

the Detail went flying back into the stairwell, skidding

across the floor, the man immediately behind him also going

down.

Another agent--a young female named Juliet Janson-- dived forward and slammed the door shut again, but before

she did she got a fleeting, horrifying glimpse of the area beyond

it.

The sixth and lowest level of Area 7 looked like an underground

subway station--with a flat, raised platform sitting

in between two sets of extra-wide railway tracks. The

door to the Emergency Exit Vent--their goal--lay buried in

the concrete wall of the right-hand track.

Positioned on the train tracks in front of that door, however,

and covered by the station's chest-high platform, was a

whole other unit of 7th Squadron soldiers, all with their

P-90's trained on the fire escape.

In front of the 7th Squadron men, lying facedown in

their own blood, lay the bullet-riddled bodies of the nine

members of the Secret Service's Advance Team One.

The door slammed shut and Special Agent Juliet Janson

turned.

"Quickly!" she shouted. "Back up the stairs! Now!"

"--ALL UNITS, BE AWARE, DELTA UNIT HAS ENGAGED THE

enemy--" one of the radio men in the control room said.

"Repeat, Delta Unit has engaged the enemy--"

shane schofield tried not to breathe, tried not to make a sound.

Area 7 93

All they had to do was look over the edge.

He was hanging by his fingertips from one of the horizontal

cabling gutters carved into the concrete wall of the elevator

shaft, a bare three feet below the mouth of the

cross-vent he had been standing in only moments before.

Standing in that cross-vent right now were the four

heavily armed 7th Squadron men who had stormed it only

seconds earlier.

Beside him, Mother, Gant and Brainiac were also clinging

to the cabling gutter with their fingers.

Above them, they could hear one of the 7th Squadron

men speaking into his helmet mike.

"Charlie Six, this is Charlie One, they're not in the

Level 1 cross-vent. Copy that, we're on our way."

Heavy footsteps, then nothing.

Schofield sighed with relief.

"Where to now?" Brainiac asked.

"There," Schofield said, jerking his chin at the giant

steel hangar door on the opposite side of the wide elevator

shaft.

"YOU READY?" BOOK II YELLED TO ELVIS.

"Ready!" Elvis shouted back.

Book II looked out at the big white-painted Volvo towing

vehicle attached to the tail boom of Nighthawk Two ten

yards away. With its oversized tires, low-slung body and

small two-man driver's cabin, it looked like either a brick on

wheels or a giant cockroach. Indeed, it was this resemblance

that had earned the towing vehicle the nickname "cockroach"

among airport workers around the world.

At the moment, Nighthawk Two's cockroach was facing

outwards, pointed at the armor-plated titanium door that had

thundered down into place only minutes earlier, sealing the

hangar.

Book II was now holding two nickel-plated Berettas in

his hands, one his own, the other pilfered from a dead Marine

nearby. He shouted to Elvis, "You take the wheel! I'll

go for the other side!"

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Matthew Reilly

"You got it!"

"Okay! Now."

The two of them leapt to their feet and dashed out into

the open together, their legs moving in time.

Almost instantly, a line of bullets raced across the

ground behind them, nipping at their heels.

Elvis flung himself into the driver's seat, slammed the

door shut behind him. Book II made for the passenger side,

but he was met with a brutal volley of gunfire, so instead he

just dived onto the towing vehicle's flat steel roof and yelled,

"Elvis! Punch it!"

Elvis keyed the ignition. The Volvo's big 600horsepower

engine roared to life. Then Elvis jammed it into gear

and floored it.

The towing vehicle's tires squealed as they shot off the

mark, heading straight for the armored door that cut the

hangar off from the outside world, taking Nighthawk Two,

a full-sized CH-53E Super Stallion transport helicopter,

with it!

The two remaining units of 7th Squadron men in the

hangar--twenty men in total--swept across the hangar on

foot, pursuing the speeding cockroach with their guns.

A wave of supercharged bullets pummeled the big

Volvo's sides.

Elvis yanked on the steering wheel and the big cockroach

swung around, rocketing toward the southern glass

walled office.

On its roof, Book II raised himself on one knee and fired

both his pistols at the oncoming 7th Squadron commandos.

It didn't do much good--the Air Force assassins had

him outgunned. It was like attacking a battery of Patriot missiles

with a peashooter. He ducked back behind the cockroach's

cabin amid a flurry of return fire.

"Oh, crap!" Elvis shouted from the driver's cabin.

Book II looked up.

A lone 7th Squadron commando stood about thirty

yards in front of them--right in their path--on the southern

Area 7 95

side of the central elevator shaft, with a Predator antitank

rocket launcher hefted onto his shoulder!

The commando pulled the trigger.

There was a puff of smoke before a small cylindrical

object came blasting out of the launcher, shooting toward

the speeding cockroach at phenomenal speed, leaving a

dead-straight vapor trail in the air behind it.

Elvis reacted quickly, did the only thing he could think

to do.

He yanked his steering wheel hard to the left.

The massive Volvo towing vehicle rose onto two wheels

as it swung violently left--and for a moment it looked like it

was going to drive straight into the yawning chasm that was

the elevator shaft.

But it just kept turning ... turning ... wheels screeching

... until suddenly it was heading north, along the narrow

section of floor in between Marine One and the elevator

shaft.

Nighthawk Two wasn't so lucky.

Since it was bouncing along--in reverse--behind the

runaway cockroach, Elvis's sudden turn had brought it directly

into the missile's line of fire.

The Predator hit it, slamming into Nighthawk Two's reinforced

glass cockpit at tremendous speed.

The result was nothing short of spectacular.

The whole front section of the CH-53E Super Stallion

exploded magnificently--blasting out in an instant, showering

the area behind the quickly moving helicopter with glass

and twisted metal, leaving the chopper with a jagged metal hole where the glass bubble of its cockpit was supposed to be!

The impact of the missile had also destroyed the landing

wheels under the nose of the chopper. So now the giant

helicopter was being hauled behind Elvis's towing vehicle

with its nose--or what was left of it--dragging wildly on

the floor, kicking up sparks.

"Elvis!" Book II yelled. "Go for the elevator! The regular

elevator!"

Matthew Reilly

The 7th Squadron soldiers dived out of the way as the

speeding cockroach thundered in among them, wildly out of

control.

Elvis saw the elevator doors off to his right, and yanked

the steering wheel hard over. The cockroach responded,

swinging right, cutting the corner of the aircraft elevator

shaft--so that for the briefest of moments, Book II, partially

hanging off the roof of the vehicle, saw nothing but a wide

chasm of emptiness falling away beneath him.

Three seconds later, the cockroach--with the semi

destroyed helicopter behind it--skidded to a squealing halt

right in front of the elevator doors on the northern side of the

hangar.

Book II leapt off the top of the big Volvo and hit the call

button, Elvis joining him, when suddenly two armed men

leapt over the big towing vehicle behind them.

Book II spun, snapping his guns up, triggers half-pulled.

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" one of the armed men said,

holding his pistol up.

"Easy, Sergeant," the other one said calmly. "We're

with you."

Book II eased back on his triggers.

They were Marines.

The first was Sergeant Ashley Lewicky, an extraordinarily

ugly career sergeant with a thick monobrow, battered pug

nose, and mile-wide grin. Short and stout, his call-sign was a

slam dunk: "Love Machine." Of roughly equal age and rank,

he and Elvis had been buddies for years.

The second Marine, however, couldn't have been more

different from Love Machine. Tall and handsome in a clean

cut kind of way, he was a twenty-nine-year-old captain

named Tom Reeves. A promising young officer, he'd been

tagged for rapid promotion. Indeed, he'd already been promoted

over several more-experienced lieutenants. Despite

his obvious skills, the men called him "Calvin," because he

looked like a Calvin Klein underwear model.

"Jesus H. Christ, Elvis," Love Machine said, "where the

hell did you learn to drive! A demolition derby?"

Area 7 97

"Why? Where have you two been?" Elvis asked.

"Where do you think, knucklehead? Inside Nighthawk

Two. We both dived in there when the shit hit the fan. And

we were kinda happy there until you guys drove us into the

sights of that rocket laun--"

Just then, a volley of bullets smacked into the wall

above their heads.

Ten 7th Squadron men--Bravo Unit--were charging

across the wide hangar after them.

"I presume you had a plan when you drove over here,

Sergeant," Calvin Reeves said to Book II.

At that moment, the elevator pinged and its metal doors

slid open. Thankfully, it was empty.

"This was it, sir," Book II said.

"I approve," Calvin said and they all rushed inside.

Book II went straight to the control panel and hit "door

close."

The doors began to close. A bullet sizzled inside,

smacked against the back wall of the lift.

"Hurry up ..." Elvis urged.

The doors kept closing.

They heard boots thud onto the roof of the cockroach

outside, heard machine-gun bolts cock--

The doors came together ...

... a bare second before they erupted with domelike

welts from the barrage of bullets outside.

IT HAD TAKEN THEM A WHILE, BUT MOVING HAND OVER HAND,

hanging by their fingertips from the cabling gutter that ran

all the way around the elevator shaft, they had eventually

made it to the wide hangar door on the other side.

Hanging one-handed from the horizontal gutter,

Schofield hit a button on a control panel beside the hangar

door. Instantly, the massive steel door began to rumble upward.

Schofield climbed up onto level ground first, made sure

there were no enemy troops around, then turned to help the

others up behind him.

When they were all up, they gazed at the area before

them.

"Whoa, mama ..." Mother breathed.

A cavernous--completely underground--aircraft hangar

stretched away from them.

IN THE CONTROL ROOM OVERLOOKING THE MAIN GROUND

level hangar, the wall of black-and-white television monitors

flashed an array of images from the underground complex:

Juliet Janson and the President running up the stairwell.

Book II, Calvin Reeves, Elvis and Love Machine inside

the regular elevator, punching out the ceiling hatch and

climbing up through it.

Schofield and the others stepping up into the doorway

of the underground hangar.

"--okay, Charlie Unit, I have them. The ones who were

in the ventilation shaft. Level 1 hangar bay. Four Marines:

two male, two female. They're all yours--"

Area 7 99

"--Bravo Unit, your targets have just exited the personnel

elevator through the ceiling hatch. About to lose visual

contact. But they're in the shaft. Sealing all elevator shaft

doors except yours. Okay, they're shut in. Take them out--"

"--sir, Echo Unit has cleaned out the rest of the main

hangar. Awaiting further instructions--"

"Send them to help Charlie," Caesar Russell said, eyeing

the monitor with Shane Schofield on it.

"--Echo, this is Control, proceed to Level 1 hangar bay

for rendezvous with Charlie Unit--"

"--Alpha Unit, Presidential Detail is climbing the stairs.

Coming right for you. Delta Unit, the Level 6 fire door is unguarded.

You are free to enter the stairwell and engage--"

IT WAS ABSOLUTELY GIGANTIC.

An enormous subterranean hangar, roughly the same

size as the one up at ground level, perhaps even larger.

It had several aircraft in it, too.

One converted Boeing 707 AWACS plane, with the

characteristic flying-saucer-like rotodome mounted on its

back. Two sinister-looking B-2 stealth bombers, with their

black radar-absorbent paint, futuristic flying-wing design,

and angry furrowed-brow cockpit windows. And parked directly

in front of the stealth bombers, one Lockheed SR-71

Blackbird, the world's fastest operational aircraft, with its

sleek super-elongated fuselage and twin rear thrusters.

The massive airplanes towered above Schofield and his

team, dominating the cavernous space.

"What do we do now?" Mother asked.

Schofield was momentarily silent.

He was staring intently at the AWACS plane. It just

stood there silently, pointing toward the wide aircraft elevator

shaft.

Then he said, "We find out if what they're saying about

the President's heart is true."

THE AIR IN THE FIRE STAIRS WAS FILLED WITH FLYING BULLETS.

The Presidential Detail, down to three now, guided their

Matthew Reilly

charge up the stairs, leading with their guns, a makeshift array

of Uzis, SIG-Sauers and spare ankle revolvers.

A young male agent named Julio Ramondo led the way,

spraying the stairs above them with his Uzi, despite a bullet

wound to his shoulder.

Special Agent Juliet Janson came after him, having assumed

command of the Detail more by action than protocol.

She guided the President along behind her.

The third and last surviving agent of the Detail--his

name was Curtis--covered their rear, firing down the stairs

behind them as they moved.

At twenty-eight, Juliet Janson was the most junior

member of the President's Detail, but that didn't seem to

matter now.

She had degrees in criminology and psychology, could

run a hundred meters in 13.8 seconds and was an excellent

marksman. The daughter of an American businessman father

and a Taiwanese university lecturer mother, she had a

flawless Eurasian complexion--smooth olive skin, a sharply

defined jawline, beautiful almond-brown eyes and shoulder

length jet-black hair.

"Ramondo! Can you see it!" she shouted above the

gunfire.

After the horror of their attempt to get to Level 6 and

the bloody death of Frank Cutler, the President and his Detail

had been left in the middle of a 7th Squadron sandwich.

The unit down on Level 6 was coming up after them,

while the unit that had chased them out of the common room

on Level 3 was closing in on them from above.

What that had left them with was a race--a race to get

to one of the floors in between Level 6 and Level 3 before

they faced fire from both above and below.

"Yes! I see it!" Ramondo yelled back. "Come on!"

Juliet Janson arrived on the landing next to Ramondo,

with the President beside her. Thumping footfalls echoed

down the stairwell above them, bullets ripped apart the walls

all around them.

Janson saw the nearest door, saw the sign on it:

Area 7 101

LEVEL 5: ANIMAL CONTAINMENT AREA

NO ENTRY

THIS DOOR FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY

ENTER VIA ELEVATORS AT OTHER END OF FLOOR

"I think this qualifies as an emergency," she said, before

blasting the door's locks with three shots from her

SIG-Sauer.

Then she kicked open the door and hauled the President

into Level 5.

BOOK II LOOKED UP INTO THE DARKNESS OF THE REGULAR elevator

shaft, saw the outer doors that led to the ground-level

hangar about fifty feet above him.

He was standing on top of the personnel elevator--now

stopped midway down the shaft--with Calvin, Elvis and Love Machine. A few widely spaced fluorescent lights illuminated

the enclosed concrete elevator well.

"Why did we have to get out of the elevator?" Elvis

asked.

"Cameras," Book II said. "We couldn't stay--"

"We'd have been sitting ducks if we'd stayed inside it,"

Calvin Reeves said, cutting in. "Gentlemen, as the ranking

officer here, I am taking command."

"So what's the plan then, Captain America?" Love Machine

asked.

"We keep moving--" Calvin began, but that was all he

got out, because at that moment, the outer doors above them

burst open and almost immediately three P-90 gunbarrels

appeared, bright yellow flashes bursting forth from their

muzzles.

A flurry of ricochets impacted all around the elevator.

Book II ducked and spun--and saw a series of vertical

counterweight cables running down the wall of the shaft,

disappearing down the side of the stationary elevator.

"The cables!" he yelled, scampering over to the wall,

not caring for the chain of command. "Everybody down! Now!"

102

Matthew Reilly

SHANE SCHOFIELD BURST INTO THE FORWARD CABIN OF THE

AWACS plane in the hangar on Level 1.

"Brainiac"

"Already on it," Brainiac headed aft, disappearing inside

the main cabin of the aircraft.

"Close the door," Schofield said to Mother, who had

come in last.

Schofield charged aft. The interior of the AWACS was

very similar to that of a commercial airliner--albeit a commercial

airliner that had had all its seats ripped out and replaced

by large flat-topped surveillance consoles.

Brainiac was already at one of the consoles. It was

whirring to life as Schofield took a seat beside him. Mother

and Gant went straight for the plane's two door-windows,

peered out through them.

Brainiac started typing at the console.

"Mother said it was a microwave signal," Schofield

said. "The satellite beams it down and then the radio chip on

the President's heart bounces the signal back up."

Brainiac typed some more. "Makes sense. Only a microwave

signal could penetrate the radiosphere over this base--and then only if it knew the trapdoor frequency."

"Trapdoor frequency?"

Brainiac kept typing. "The radiosphere over this base is

like an umbrella, a giant hemispherical dome of scrambled

electromagnetic energy. Basically, this umbrella of garbled

energy stops all unauthorized signals from either entering or

escaping the base. But, like all good jamming systems, it has

a designated frequency for use by authorized transmissions.

This is the trapdoor frequency--a microwave bandwidth

that wends its way through the radiosphere, avoiding the

jamming signatures. Kind of like a secret path through a

minefield."

"So this satellite signal is coming in on the trapdoor frequency?"

Schofield said.

"That's my guess," Brainiac said. "What I'm doing now

is using the AWACS's rotodome to search all the microwave

Area 7

103

frequencies inside this base. These birds have the best bandwidth

detection systems around, so it shouldn't take-- bingo. Got it."

He slammed his finger down on the enter key and a

new screen came up.

"Okay, you looking at this?" Brainiac printed out the

screen. "It's a standard rebounding signature. The satellite

sends down a search signal--they're the tall spikes on

the positive side, about 10 gigahertz--and then, soon after,

the receiver on the ground, the President, bounces that signal

back. Those are the deep spikes on the negative side."

50

75

100

Brainiac circled the spikes on the printout.

"Search and return," he said. "Interference aside, the rebounding

signature seems to repeat itself once every twenty-five seconds. Captain, that Air Force general ain't lying.

There's something down here bouncing back a secure satellite

microwave signal."

75

100

"How do we know it isn't just a beacon or something?"

Schofield said.

"The irregularity of it," Brainiac said. "See how it isn't

quite a perfectly replicating sequence? See how, every now

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and then, there's a medium-sized spike in between the

search and the return signals?" Brainiac tapped the midsized

spikes inside two of the circles.

"So what does that mean?"

"It's an interference signature. It means that the source

of the return signal is moving."

"Jesus," Schofield said. "It's real."

"And it just got worse," Gant said from the window set

into the escape door on the left-hand side of the cabin.

"Have a look at this."

Schofield came over to the small window, looked out

through it.

And his blood went cold.

There must have been at least twenty of them.

Twenty 7th Squadron soldiers running quickly across

the hangar outside--P-90 assault rifles in their hands, ERG-6

masks covering their faces--forming a wide circle around

the AWACS plane, surrounding it.

IT WAS THE SMELL THAT HIT THEM FIRST.

It smelled like a zoo—that peculiar mix of animal excrement

and sawdust in a confined space.

Juliet Janson led the way into Level 5, pulling the President

along behind her. The other two Secret Service agents

hurried in after them, jamming the stairwell door shut behind

them.

They were standing in a wide, dark room, lined on three

sides with grim-looking cages—forged steel bars set into

walls of solid concrete. On the fourth side of the room were

some more modern-looking cages: these cages had clear,

floor-to-ceiling fiberglass walls and were filled with inky

black water. Janson couldn't see what lurked inside the

sloshing opaque water.

A sudden grunting sound made her spin.

There was something very large inside one of the steel

cages to her right. In the dim light of the dungeon, she could

make out a big, hairy, lumbering shape moving behind the

thick black bars.

There came an ominous scratching sound from the

cage—like someone dragging a fingernail slowly and deliberately

down a chalkboard.

Special Agent Curtis went over to the cell, peered into

the darkness beyond the bars.

"Don't get too close," Janson warned.

Too late.

A hideous bloodcurdling roar filled the dungeon as an

enormous black head—a blurred combination of matted

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Matthew Reilly

hair, wild eyes and flashing six-inch teeth--burst out from

behind the bars and lunged at the hapless agent.

Curtis fell back from the cage, landing on his butt as the

animal--enraged, ferocious, frenzied--reached in vain for

him with a long hairy claw, held back only by the super

strong bars of the cell.

The would-be ambush over, Janson now got a better

look at the creature.

It was huge, at least nine feet tall, and covered in shaggy

black fur--and it looked completely out of place in a concrete

underground cell.

Janson couldn't believe it.

It was a bear.

And it didn't seem to be a very happy bear either. Its fur

was matted and stringy, sweat-stained, growing in clumps.

The animal's own feces clung to the fur on its hindquarters,

making the world's largest living land carnivore look like

some deranged horror movie monster.

The three other cages on the northern side of the dungeon

held more bears--four females and two cubs.

"Jesus ..." the President breathed.

"What the hell is going on in this place?" Julio Ramondo whispered.

"I don't care," Janson said, pulling the President toward

a heavy-looking door on the far side of the dungeon. "Whatever

it is, we can't stay here."

THE HANGAR BAY ON LEVEL 1 WAS SILENT.

The giant AWACS plane stood in the center of the vast

hangar, surrounded by the ring of 7th Squadron commandos.

"This isn't the situation I was hoping for," Schofield

said.

"How do they keep knowing where we are?" Mother

asked.

Gant looked at Schofield. "I would imagine a base like

this is wired up the kazoo."

"Agreed," Schofield said.

"What are you talking about?" Mother said.

Area 7 107

"Cameras," Schofield said. "Surveillance cameras.

Somewhere in this base, someone's in a room watching a

bank of monitors and telling these guys where we--"

Whump!

There came a heavy thump from somewhere outside.

Gant peered out through the window in the escape door.

"Shit! They're on the wing!"

"Oh, Christ!" Schofield said, "they're going for the

doors ..."

He exchanged a look with Gant.

"They're going to storm the plane," he said.

they looked like ants crawling over a toy airplane.

Eight 7th Squadron men--four to each side--stalking along

the wings of the giant Boeing 707.

Captain Luther "Python" Willis, commander of the 7th

Squadron's third sub-unit, Charlie Unit, stood on the hangar

floor, watching his men move along the wings of the stationary

plane.

"The Avengers are on the way up," his master sergeant

said.

Python said nothing, just nodded coldly.

inside the AWACS plane, schofield was charging down

the central aisle, checking the plane's rear entry points. Gant

and Brainiac manned the two side windows.

"There's nobody back here!" Schofield called from the

aft section of the plane, where there were two emergency

doors. "Fox!"

"I got four on the left wing!" Gant yelled.

"I got four on the right!" Brainiac said.

"Mother!" Schofield called.

No answer.

"Mother!"

Schofield strode quickly through the main cabin, moving

forward.

There was no sign of Mother anywhere. She was supposed

to be checking the plane's forward entrances--the

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bail-out door in the floor of the forward cabin, and the roof

hatches in the cockpit above the pilots' ejection seats.

As he hurried forward, Schofield looked out through the

nearest window, saw the armed commandos on the left-hand

wing.

He frowned. What were they doing out there?

They couldn't just burst in through the wing doors.

Even with their nickel-plated pistols, Schofield and his

Marines could easily repel a single-file entry through such a

small entrance.

It was at that moment, however--out through the window

in the side door of the Boeing 707--that he saw the

Avengers.

There were two of them and they entered the hangar bay

from the vehicle access ramp at the far eastern end of the

floor.

The Avenger air-defense vehicle is a modified Humvee.

It has the basic wide-bodied chassis of a Humvee, but

mounted on its back are two square-shaped pods, which

each hold four Stinger surface-to-air missiles. Attached to

the underside of these missile launchers is a pair of powerful

fifty-caliber machine guns. It is basically a highly efficient,

highly mobile airplane killer.

"Okay, now I know what they're going to do," Schofield

said aloud.

They were going to blast the plane with the Stingers and

then, in the smoke and confusion that followed, make a

forced entry.

Good plan, Schofield thought. And very painful for him

and his three Marines.

The two Avengers split up as they raced across the

wide-open floor of the hangar, one heading for the right

flank of the AWACS, the other heading for the left.

Schofield saw them go, disappearing from his limited

field of vision.

Shit.

He had to do something, and fast--

VROOOM!

Area 7 109

The wing-mounted engines of the AWACS plane thundered

to life. In the enclosed space of the hangar, their roar

was positively deafening.

Schofield spun where he stood. "Mother," he said.

the avengers skidded to a halt on either side of the

AWACS plane just as the massive Boeing 707 began to roll

forward, its engines filling the hangar with the thunderous

roar of blasting air.

At the sudden movement of the plane, the eight men on

its wings were jolted off balance.

Schofield charged into the cockpit of the AWACS.

Mother was sitting in the captain's seat.

"Hey there, Scarecrow!" she yelled above the din.

"Want to join me for a Sunday drive!"

"You ever driven a plane before, Mother?"

"I saw Kurt Russell drive one in a movie once! Hell, it

can't be much different from driving Ralph's eighteen

wheel--"

Whack-whack whack whack-whack!

A volley of bullets assaulted the windshield of the cockpit,

shattering it, sending glass flying all over Mother and

Schofield, the upwardly directed shots punching into the

ceiling.

And then Schofield saw one of the Avengers skid to a

halt off to the left of the AWACS plane, saw its twin missile

pods tilt upward on their hinges, getting ready to fire at the

cockpit.

"Mother! Quickly! Go left!" he shouted.

"What?" Going left would put them on a collision

course with the Avenger.

"Just do it!" Schofield leapt into the right-hand co-pilot's

seat and using the plane's pedal-operated steering controls,

Area 7

brought her hard to port, at the same time as he pushed forward

on the plane's thrusters.

The giant AWACS plane responded immediately.

It picked up speed, moving quickly inside the confines

of the enormous hangar, swinging sharply to the left--heading

directly for the Avenger.

The 7th Squadron men on the Avenger saw what was

going to happen.

Abandoning their efforts to get a lock on the plane with

their Stingers, they dived from the missile-mounted Humvee

a bare second before the enormous forward wheels of the

Boeing thundered right over the top of the Avenger, crushing

it like a tin can, rolling over its crumpled remains like a

monster truck at a car rally.

"Yee-hah!" Mother yelled as the airplane bounced

wildly over what was left of the Humvee.

"It's not over yet," Schofield said. "There's still another

one out there. Fox! Where's that other Avenger!"

Gant and Brainiac were still in the main cabin of the

AWACS, covering the wing-entry doors on either side of the

plane--Gant with her MP-10, Brainiac with his Beretta.

"It's behind us to the left!" Gant yelled. Out her window,

she saw the Humvee on the hangar floor outside, over

by the northern wall, its missile pods raised and ready. Then,

without warning, there came a puff of smoke from one of the

pods.

"Bracing positions!" she called. "Missile away!"

There came a sudden monstrous explosion and abruptly

the whole AWACS plane shuddered violently as its rear

wheels were lifted clear off the ground.

Billowing smoke rushed into the main cabin, shooting

forward from the rear as the giant plane came back down to

earth, jouncing on its suspension.

"They've hit our tail!" Gant yelled.

It was worse than that.

The second Avenger had reduced the entire tail section

of their 707 to a smoking, gaping hole. The high tail fin of

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Matthew Reilly

the plane lay bent and broken on the floor of the hangar,

completely detached from the plane.

The AWACS continued to turn in a wide circle, its massive

wheels rolling quickly, at the same time as it was pummeled

by a continuous rain of fire from the 7th Squadron

soldiers on the ground.

In the enormous space of the underground hangar, the

plane's movement seemed almost comical--for something

so big and so heavy to move so quickly and so recklessly

was a sight to behold.

The plane came around 180 degrees--the tip of its right

wing bouncing off the flank of the parked SR-71 Blackbird-- so that now it was facing the opposite direction from which

it had started, its open rear end now exposed to the withering

fire of the 7th Squadron men on the ground.

Bullets raked the interior of the central cabin, smashing

into the ceiling and walls. Gant and Brainiac hit the deck as

fragments of plastic and plaster rained down all around

them.

"Fuck!" Brainiac yelled. "They don't teach this at Parris

Island!"

BOOK II WAS ALSO MOVING FAST.

He slid quickly down one of the vertical counterweight

cables that ran up the side of the regular elevator shaft.

Calvin, Elvis and Love Machine slid down the cables after

him, lowering themselves down the shaft.

After avoiding the barrage of fire up on the roof of the

elevator, they now had to find a way out of the shaft, before

the 7th Squadron men up there got around the elevator that

now formed an obstacle between them.

Book II stopped at a pair of outer doors marked with a

large black-painted "I," and immediately heard the muffled

sounds of a firefight--clattering automatic gunfire, booming

explosions, squealing tires.

"Not this one," Calvin Reeves said as he came alongside

Book II. "Let's try the next one."

They slid farther down the shaft.

Area 7 113

inside the hangar bay, python willis watched the

AWACS plane as it sped in a wild circle around the enormous

hangar.

He spoke without emotion into his headset mike:

"Avenger Two. Go for the cockpit. Two missiles."

IN THE COCKPIT OF THE AWACS PLANE, SCHOFIELD PUMPED

on the steering pedals.

"Mother!" he yelled. "Get back in the main cabin!

Cover the tail! Make sure no one gets in through there! I'll

take care of the driving up here!"

Mother grabbed her M-16 and headed aft.

As she left, Schofield saw the second Humvee appear in

front of him, over by the northern wall. It swung around

quickly, taking up a new position, getting ready to fire again.

He keyed the plane's intercom.

"brainiac!" schofield's voice boomed over the plane's speaker system. "Engage electronic countermeasures!"

Back in the main cabin, Brainiac looked up at the sound

of Schofield's voice. "Oh, yeah. Of course!"

"What is he talking about?" Gant yelled as Mother

joined them in the main cabin.

But Brainiac was already clambering toward one of the

consoles. He slid into the seat, began typing quickly.

Gant peered out her door-window--saw the walls of the

hangar streaking by outside--saw the surviving Humvee

skid to a halt over by the wall, preparing to fire another of its

missiles.

"It's going to hit us again!" she called.

"Brainiac ..." Schofield's voice said expectantly over

the speakers.

Brainiac typed fast. The words "engage mf scrambler"

appeared on his screen.

"Bracing positions!" Gant yelled.

Two clouds of smoke puffed out from the Humvee's

missile pods--

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Matthew Reilly

--at exactly the same moment as Brainiac slammed his

finger down on the enter key.

A pair of Stinger missiles shot out from the pods on the

back of the Humvee, twin smoke trails zooming out behind

them. They were heading directly for the forward section of

the AWACS plane, flying in perfect formation.

And then, all of a sudden, the Stingers went crazy.

Despite the fact that the missiles were heat-seekers, the

AWACS's powerful antimissile countermeasures still affected

them--disrupting their chip-to-chip electronics,

scrambling their internal-logic systems. It was as if a tidal

wave of electronic noise, blasting invisibly outward from the

AWACS's enormous rotodome, had slammed into the two

Stingers.

The two missiles responded accordingly.

They went haywire.

They broke formation in an instant, parting in a looping

Y-shape--one rolling wildly to the right, the other swinging

left. The right-hand one shot quickly underneath the rolling

AWACS plane, while the left-hand one sailed clear over it.

From the cockpit of the AWACS Schofield watched in

amazement as one of the missiles shot across his bow and

then--bizarrely--headed back toward the Humvee that had

launched it!

A second later the missile slammed into the concrete

wall above the Humvee--thundering at tremendous speed

right into a ten-foot-high box-shaped compartment mounted

above the floor of the hangar.

The missile detonated--sending an enormous gout of

concrete spraying out from the wall all around the compartment.

The compartment's wide steel door was blasted off its

hinges by the stunning impact and went bouncing across the

hangar, a twisted metal wreck. Large chunks of concrete

rained down on the very Humvee that had fired the missile.

Whatever that compartment was, Schofield thought, it

was toast now.

But there was still one more out-of-control missile

swooping around the hangar.

Area 7 115

This second missile swung around the destroyed rear

section of the moving AWACS plane, rolling wildly through

the air, before it too doubled back and hit the hangar's northern

wall, right alongside the regular elevator's doors.

A hailstorm of concrete blasted out from the wall,

showering chunks everywhere.

This blast of concrete, however, was followed by a most

peculiar sight.

A shockingly powerful geyser of water--yes, water--

began to shoot out from the newly formed hole in the wall,

jetting outward with tremendous force.

Schofield frowned. "What the hell ... ?"

AN OMINOUS EXPLOSION SHOOK THE WALLS OF THE REGULAR

elevator shaft.

Book II, now hanging with his group next to the outer

doors of Level 3--the doors to Level 2 had also been locked,

so they'd moved down to the next floor--looked up sharply

at the sound.

The sight that met him was as terrifying as it was unexpected.

A whole section of the concrete wall alongside the

Level 1 doorway sixty feet above them just blasted outward,

showering the shaft with chunks of concrete.

And then, right behind the concrete, came the water.

IT RAINED DOWN ON BOOK II AND THE OTHERS LIKE SPRAY

from a goddamned firehose.

Torrents and torrents of pouring water, roaring like a

waterfall down the narrow elevator shaft, gushing out of the

hole in the wall on Level 1, pounding down against their

bodies.

It was all they could do to hold on to their cables.

But as soon as he felt the surging weight of the waterfall,

Book II saw the future: the wall of water was just too

strong.

They were going to fall.

Matthew Reilly

"--ALL UNITS, BE AWARE. WE HAVE RUPTURE OF THE LONG term water tanks on Level 1. Repeat: integrity of water tanks

on Level 1 has been broken--"

"--Water from the tanks is entering the regular elevator

shaft--"

"Initiate airtight countermeasures," Caesar Russell said

calmly. "Seal off the shaft. Keep that water contained. Let it

flood the shaft."

"Yes, sir."

love machine fell first.

In the face of the powerful waterfall, he lost his grip on

the counterweight cable and dropped straight past Book.

He fell fast--falling away from Book II in a kind of

nightmarish slow motion; eyes wide, mouth open, his shout

drowned out by the roar of the waterfall--before he disappeared

into the inky darkness of the shaft.

Book II swore. "Damn it!"

And then he did the only thing he could think to do.

"Sergeant! No!" Calvin yelled, but it was too late.

Book II loosened his grip on his cable and slid like a

bullet down the shaft after Love Machine, disappearing into

the darkness.

BOOK II DROPPED INTO BLACKNESS.

He slid for a long time, whizzing down the counterweight

cable, sliding fast, the heat from the cable burning

through his white formal gloves.

Then suddenly, with a splash, he entered water--deep water--at the bottom of the shaft.

Just as he had hoped.

The elevator shaft was approximately ten feet square

and if all its exit doors were sealed, then with the monumental

quantities of water rushing out of the hole on Level 1,

he'd figured it wouldn't take long for it to accumulate at the

bottom and fill to a reasonable depth.

Sure enough, Love Machine hovered in the pool of water

next to him, gasping for air, coughing water. But alive.

Area 7

"You okay?" Book II yelled.

"Uh-huh!"

Calvin and Elvis arrived at the base of the shaft a few

moments later, sliding down the counterweight cables. The

roaring waterfall thundered into the pool all around them,

kicking up spray.

"Okay, Captain Fantastic," Elvis said to Calvin, "our

nice safe elevator shaft is now filling with water! What do

you suggest we do now?"

Calvin hesitated.

Book II didn't. He nodded at the pair of outer doors a

few feet above them. "Simple. We bust out!"

"MOTHERFUCKER ..." BRAINIAC SAID AS HE PEERED OUT FROM

the rear of the AWACS plane's main cabin.

A high-pressure geyser of water was now shooting out

of the hole in the wall over by the personnel elevator, throwing

a carpet of water all over the concrete floor of the hangar.

"What the hell is this ride?"

"Just another day of mayhem and destruction with the

Scarecrow," Mother said.

"Hey," Gant said, looking out through her door-window.

"What happened to the guys on the wings?"

Mother and Brainiac spun to look out at the plane's

wings.

The AWACS's wings were bare.

The 7th Squadron men who had been out there before

were nowhere to be seen.

It was only then that they heard the ominous sound of

thumping footsteps on the roof.

the AWACS plane continued on its rampaging circuit

of the hangar, now traveling through a layer of water one

inch deep.

It had almost come full circle—so that now it was facing

the empty section of the hangar that led to the wide-open

doorway of the aircraft elevator shaft.

Schofield pumped on the steering pedals, trying to keep

the enormous surveillance plane under control.

He saw the doorway to the aircraft elevator shaft directly

in front of him. At the moment, a shallow film of water

cascaded over it like Niagara Falls, dropping out of sight

into the shaft.

The big hydraulic elevator platform was almost certainly

the best way out of this jam", but the last he had seen, it

was stopped down on one of the lower levels ...

And then, more suddenly than Schofield could possibly

have anticipated, the roof above him exploded in a shower of

sparks.

In actual fact, it wasn't the roof—it was one of the blast

hatches set into the roof of the cockpit, one of the hatches

that blew open when the pilot's ejection seat was activated.

No sooner had the hatch blasted open than a veritable

hailstorm of gunfire flooded down through it, smashing into

the airplane's dashboard, shattering all its gauges and dials.

This torrent of bullets was quickly followed by a second

volley which ripped through the empty pilot's seat ... the lefthand

seat; the seat Mother had been sitting in before ... tearing

it to shreds.

Area 7

Schofield saw what was going to happen next and he

quickly dived out of his seat, rolling forward into the tiny

section of floor space in front of it.

Not a moment later, a pair of combat boots landed with

a thump on the pilot's seat--boots that belonged to a

fearsome-looking 7th Squadron commando.

The masked commando spun quickly, his P-90 assault

rifle pressed firmly against his shoulder, searching for enemies

at the rear of the cockpit. Then he turned to look forward,

and downward--where, to his complete surprise, he

saw Schofield lying curled up on the floor.

Gunless and defenseless, Schofield saw the masked

commando's black-gloved trigger finger begin to squeeze--

And so he lashed out with his foot.

Not at the man's legs, but at the lever that ran alongside

the flight seat underneath him--the ejection lever.

Schofield's kick connected.

The lever snapped backward.

And with a loud, blasting whoosh! the pilot's ejection

seat shot up through the hole in the cockpit's roof--taking

the 7th Squadron commando with it!

python willis watched in complete and utter astonishment

as one of his men went rocketing up at incredible

speed out of the cockpit of the AWACS and past his shocked

colleagues on the roof of the plane, on top of an ejection

seat!

The man shot into the air like a bullet, before smashing

--violently, concussively--into the concrete ceiling of

the hangar.

The crack of the man's neck echoed sickeningly

throughout the underground hangar bay--it was distinct

even above the roar of the AWACS's engines, so hard did his

body hit the ceiling. He was killed instantly, the force of the

three-hundred-pound ejection seat snapping his spine like a

twig as it squashed him against the concrete roof.

In the meantime, Schofield had gotten his own Beretta

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Matthew Reilly

pistol out and, sliding on his back onto the floor behind

the pilots' seats, was firing it up at the roof of the cockpit-- trying to deter anyone else from following their comrade

into the flight deck.

In seconds, his gun went dry and he stood up and

looked out through the forward windshield--

--and saw that the plane was heading directly for the

massive doorway leading to the elevator shaft!

"Oh, this just keeps getting better and better," he said.

In a fleeting second, he tried to find a solution to the

situation.

The plane was heading for the shaft.

The 7th Squadron were all over its roof--all over the

hangar for that matter.

And he and Gant and Mother and Brainiac were stuck

inside the plane.

What was the solution?

Simple.

Get out of the hangar.

But there is no way out. We're stuck in this plane, and if

we leave it, we're dead.

Unless, of course, we get out of the hangar while we're

still on board the plane ...

Oh, yeah ...

And with that, Schofield climbed back into the co-pilot's

seat and took control of the plane again. Despite the bullet

damage, the controls still worked.

He pushed forward on the collective, speeding up the

big Boeing 707, keeping it pointed directly at the enormous

steel doorway that led out to the elevator shaft.

"WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING ... ?" PYTHON SAID.

The giant AWACS plane was picking up speed, rumbling

across the wide expanse of the hangar, heading straight

for the open elevator doorway.

THE COMMANDOS ON THE ROOF OF THE PLANE FELT IT SURGE

forward, gaining momentum.

Area 7 121

They looked forward, saw where it was heading, and

their eyes widened.

"HE can't be serious," python breathed, as he watched

his men leap off the roof of the moving airplane as it careered

toward the open doorway.

IN THE COCKPIT OF THE SPEEDING PLANE, SCHOFIELD WAS

strapping on his seat belt. As he did so, he keyed the intercom

switch.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.

Find a chair and buckle up tight, because we're about to take

off."

BACK IN THE MAIN CABIN, GANT AND THE OTHER TWO MARINES

spun to look forward.

Through the AWACS's cabin, they could see all the way

through to the cockpit--could see the open elevator shaft

looming ahead of them, rapidly approaching.

"Is he thinking what I think he's thinking?" Gant said to

Mother.

Mother paused before she spoke. "Yes, he is."

They leapt as one for the nearest available seats and

clutched desperately for the seat belts.

the converted boeing 707--deprived of its entire tail

section--thundered across the wide subterranean hangar

bay, the wet concrete floor rushing by beneath it, heading

straight for the open elevator shaft.

And then, before anyone could even hope to stop it, the

plane shot through the doorway and tipped off the edge and

fell down into the shaft, disappearing from view.

the AWACS plane soared down the elevator shaft

fast--nose-first--looking like a crazed kamikaze fighter.

Down the wide concrete shaft it went--down, down,

down--before it crashed, loudly, on the massive hydraulic

elevator platform resting on Level 4, one hundred and eighty

feet below.

The nose of the AWACS plane crumpled instantly as it

thundered into the elevator platform. Loose parts flew everywhere,

blasting outward like shrapnel. Two of the plane's jet

engines bounced high into the air as they smashed into the

platform.

The plane itself, however, seemed to teeter on its broken

nose for an eternity. And then, with a loud metal-on-metal

groan, like a slow-falling California redwood, it fell, landing

with a colossal thump on its left-hand wing, snapping the

wing in an instant, before the whole ruined aircraft slammed

down against the elevator platform with a resounding boom.

inside the AWACS plane, the world was tilted forty-five degrees to the left.

Mother, Gant and Brainiac all sat comically in their

seats, strapped in, but hanging dramatically to the side. They

were starting to unbuckle themselves from their seat belts

when Schofield hurried into the main cabin from the cockpit.

"Come on," he said, helping Mother with her belt, "we

can't stay here. They'll be down soon."

"Where are we going?" Gant asked, as she dropped out

of her seat and stood up.

Area 7 123

Schofield pursed his lips. "We have to find the President."

"--jesus! he just drove the plane off the fucking

edge--"

"--Charlie and Echo Units, initiate pursuit--"

"--President is on Level 5, heading into the confinement

area. Delta Unit, you are free to enter the animal quarters--"

"--Copy that, Bravo leader. Yes, they're in the water at

the bottom of the shaft. Good idea--"

"What's Boa doing?" Caesar Russell asked. Captain

Bruno "Boa" McConnell was in command of Bravo Unit,

one of the Five Snakes.

"He's on top of the personnel elevator, sir. He's going to

lower the elevator down the shaft. Drown the bastards. And

if they try to crawl up the sides, shoot them dead."

BOOK II AND THE OTHERS HOVERED IN THE EVER-DEEPENING

pool of water at the base of the regular elevator shaft.

The super-heavy rain of water blasted down all around

them. It showed no sign of stopping and the elevator shaft

was flooding rapidly, the water level rising fast, lifting them

to the nearest pair of outer doors.

And then abruptly, above the roar of falling water, a

loud clunking noise echoed down the shaft, followed by the

hum of mechanical movement.

Book II looked upwards---just as the rain of water

stopped.

Well, sort of stopped. Now it started raining down the

sides of the shaft, covering the counterweight cables with a

curtain of gushing water.

"What's happening?" Love Machine said.

And then Book II saw it.

Saw a shadow superimposed on the darkness above

them--a box-shaped shadow, growing larger and larger as it

came closer and closer.

124     Matthew Reilly

"What is that?" Calvin Reeves said.

"Oh, damn ..." Book II breathed. "It's the elevator."

THE PERSONNEL ELEVATOR EDGED ITS WAY DOWN THE SHAFT,

water pounding onto its roof and cascading off its sides.

High above it, in the open doorway up on ground level,

two 7th Squadron snipers lay with night-scoped rifles at the

ready, aimed down into the shaft.

Their guns were trained on the roof of the elevator,

waiting for anyone to emerge from the gaps on either side of

the lift, the only points where the enemy could climb out

from underneath the downward-moving elevator.

"Nor nice," book II said flatly. "Nor nice."

Either they drowned as the elevator pushed them under

the surface, or they climbed up the sides of the lift, where no

doubt, the bad guys would be waiting ...

He looked quickly at the pair of outer doors two feet

above him. They had a large "5" painted on them.

Level 5.

He wondered what was on this level, then decided he

didn't care. These doors were the only way out. Period.

He hauled himself out of the water, stood on his toes on

the edge of the doorway. A curtain of water poured down

onto his head.

Like all the other outer doors in this elevator shaft, he

saw, these two were closed tight, air-sealed.

The elevator above him continued its descent, moving

slowly and steadily downward.

The rising water reached the base of the doorway,

splashed against his boots, moving equally steadily upward.

Calvin Reeves appeared at his side. "How the hell do

we open these doors, Sergeant?"

Book guessed that the doors' release mechanism was

contained somewhere within the wall.

"I can't see it!" he shouted back. "It must be hidden inside

the wall!"

area 7

125

The elevator was close now, looming one floor above

them, grinding inexorably downward.

Water continued to pour.

And then Book II saw it--a thick insulated cable running

out from the concrete wall to the right of the doors and down into the pool of water beneath him.

"Of course!" he yelled. An emergency release lever wouldn't be on this level. It would be situated either above or below the floor, so that the doors could be opened when the elevator was stopped here.

Without so much as a second thought, Book II took a

deep breath and dropped into the pool of water beneath him.

silence.

The eerie quiet of the underwater world.

Book II swam downwards, his fingers feeling their way

along the thick black cable attached to the concrete wall.

After about nine feet, he came to a steel utility box sunk

into the wall. He opened it, felt for a lever, found a row of

six, and yanked the fifth one.

He immediately heard a sharp shoosh! from somewhere

above him--the sound of a pressure door being released.

He swam upward, fast. Came to the surface, broke it--

"--book! quickly! come on!" were the first words he

heard.

He'd come up a few feet away from the now-opened

doors and immediately saw Calvin Reeves and Elvis standing

up on level ground. Love Machine clung to the edge of

the doorway, reaching out for Book II with an outstretched

hand.

Then Book II looked up.

The descending elevator was barely three feet above his

head and coming down fast!

He threw out a hand and Love Machine grabbed it, and

hauled him over to the doorway, pulling him through the water.

Then Elvis and Calvin grabbed them both and yanked

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Matthew Reilly

them out of the water, just as the elevator slid past the edge

of the doorway and abruptly came to a halt--right in front of

the doorway.

Everybody froze.

Water began to ooze up around the floor of the lift, rising

up from beneath it, hungrily searching for an escape

from the shaft. It immediately began to spread out across the

concrete floor of Level 5.

Book II waited tensely for the elevator's doors to

open--waited for a phalanx of 7th Squadron men to burst

out from it with their guns blazing.

But none did.

The lift was empty.

They were safe, for the moment.

Book II turned to face the room around him. A layer of

expanding water had already started filling it.

It was a wide anteroom of some sort. Some wooden

desks, a Lexan glass cabinet full of shotguns and riot gear.

Plus a couple of holding cells.

Book II frowned.

It was almost as if he were standing in the reception room of a jail.

"What in God's name is this place?" he said aloud.

AT THAT VERY SAME MOMENT, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF LEVEL 5,

Juliet Janson and the President of the United States found

themselves standing in a whole new kind of hell.

Juliet had thought the animal cage room had been bad.

This was worse.

After bursting through the heavy-looking door on the

western side of the animal cage room, she now found herself

staring at a far more frightening part of Area 7.

A wide, dark, low-ceilinged room stretched away from

her. It was sparsely lit, with only one in every three lights

turned on, a policy which had the effect of leaving small

patches of the vast room hidden in perfect blackness.

But the low light couldn't hide the true nature of this

level.

It was filled with cells.

Old rusty concrete cages--thick-walled, with anodized

black bars sunk deep into concrete dividers. The cells were

quite obviously aged, and in the half-light of Level 5, they

took on a positively Gothic appearance.

It was, however, the groans and hoarse whispers coming

from the darkness behind the bars that betrayed the nature of

their occupants.

These were not animal cells, Juliet realized in horror.

They were human cells.

THE PRISONERS HEARD THE HEAVY DOOR BURST OPEN--HEARD

Juliet and the President and the other two Secret Service

agents charge through it--and they rushed as one to the

doors of their cells to see what the commotion was.

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Matthew Reilly

"Oh, hey, baby!" one toothless individual cried as

Juliet, striking and purposeful as she held her silver SIG Sauer pistol in her hand, charged past his cell, pulling the

President behind her.

"Ramondo!" she yelled. "Block that door behind us!"

A row of steel lockers lined the wall near the door leading

back to the animal cage room. Ramondo yanked the first

three of them down from their upright positions, strewing

the lockers in front of the door.

The prisoners began to shout and cry out.

Like all lifers, they could sense fear instantly, and they

took pleasure in heightening it. Some yelled obscenities,

others rattled their bars with enamel drinking mugs, others

still just wailed a constant ear-piercing "Ahhhhhhhhh!"

Juliet bolted through the nightmare, grim-faced and determined.

She saw a gently-sloping ramp off to her right--fenced

off by a big barred gate. The ramp seemed to lead up to the

next level. She made for it.

"Hey, baby! You wanna go for a spin ... on top of my

flagpole!"

The President stared wide-eyed at the chaos all around

him. Prisoners in blue denim uniforms, unshaven and

crazed, leaned out from their cages, trying to grab him.

"Hey, old man. I bet you got a nice soft marshmallow ass--"

"Come on," Juliet yanked the President away from the

voices.

They came to the barred gate.

As one would expect on a cell block, its lock was thick

and strong. They couldn't shoot through it.

"Curtis," Juliet said crisply. "Lock."

Special Agent Curtis slid to his knees in front of the

gate and pulled a high-tech-looking lock-picking device

from his coat pocket.

As Curtis unfolded his lock-picker, Janson scanned the

area around them.

There was movement and noise everywhere. Arms

area 7 129

flailed out of cell doors. Snarling faces tried to squeeze

through the bars. And the shouting, the constant shouting.

"Ahhhhhhhh!"

None of the prisoners seemed to recognize the President.

They all just seemed to enjoy making noise, inciting

fear--

Then abruptly, there came a loud boom from somewhere

behind them.

Juliet spun, pistol up.

She was met by the sight of a Marine, his full dress uniform

completely saturated, charging toward her with a Remington

pump-action shotgun raised.

Behind the first man were three more Marines, also

soaked to the skin.

The lead Marine lowered his shotgun when he saw

Juliet and the President.

"It's okay! It's okay!" Book II said, coming closer, lowering

the shotgun he had pilfered from the arms cabinet in

the anteroom. "It's us!"

Calvin Reeves stepped forward, spoke seriously.

"What's happened down here?"

Juliet said, "We've lost six people already, and those Air

Force bastards are in the next room, right on our asses."

Behind her, Special Agent Curtis inserted his lock

picker into the gate's lock, pressed a button.

Zzzzzzzzz!

The lock-picking device emitted a shrill dentist-drill

like buzz. The lock clicked loudly and the gate swung open.

"What's your plan from here, Agent Janson?" Calvin

asked.

"To be where the bad guys aren't," Juliet said. "First of

all, by going up this ramp. Let's move."

Special Agents Curtis and Ramondo headed up the

ramp first, followed by Calvin. Juliet pushed the President

after them. Love Machine and Elvis went next. Book II fell

into step beside Juliet, covering the rear.

Just as they were about to head up the ramp, however,

they both heard a voice above the din.

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"--not a prisoner--a scientist!--know this facility-- can help you!"

Juliet and Book II spun.

It took them a second to locate the owner of the voice.

Three cells down from the ramp, in the cell closest to

the animal cage room.

The owner of the voice was standing up against the bars

of his cell--which in the surrounding chaos had only made

him look just like all the other prisoners.

But upon closer inspection, he looked considerably different

from the others.

He wasn't wearing a blue denim inmate uniform.

Rather, he wore a white lab coat over shirtsleeves and a loosened

tie.

Nor did he look deranged or menacing. Quite the opposite,

in fact. He was short, with glasses and thinning blond

hair that looked like it had been combed every day of his life.

Juliet and Book came to his cell.

"Who are you?" Juliet shouted above the din.

"My name is Herbert Franklin!" he replied quickly.

"I'm a doctor, an immunologist! Until this morning, I was

working on the vaccine! But then the Air Force people

locked me in here!"

"You know this facility?" Book II yelled. Beside him,

Juliet stole a glance at the heavy door leading back to the animal

cage room. It was banging from the other side.

"Yes!" the man named Franklin said.

"What do you think?" Book II asked Juliet.

She pondered it for a moment.

Then she shouted up the ramp: "Curtis! Quickly! Get

back here! I got another lock I need opened!"

Two minutes later, they were all heading up the ramp,

now with a new member added to their group.

As they raced up the sloping walkway, however, making

for the next floor, none of them noticed the layer of expanding

water that lapped up against the bottom of the ramp.

when schofield's runaway AWACS plane had crashed

down onto it, the massive aircraft elevator platform had been

parked on Level 4—at the spot where the President's entourage

had left it nearly an hour earlier.

Now, the crumpled remains of the Boeing 707 lay

sprawled across the width of the elevator platform.

Gnarled pieces of metal lay everywhere. A couple of

tires had been thrown clear with the impact. The plane itself

lay pointed downwards, tilted over on its side, its nose

dented sharply inwards, its left-hand wing broken in half,

crushed beneath the plane's tremendous weight. Miraculously,

the AWACS plane's thirty-foot flying-saucer-like

rotodome had survived the fall completely intact.

Shane Schofield stepped out of the wreck of the plane,

followed by Gant, Mother and Brainiac. They jumped over

the debris as they ran for the giant steel door that led to

Level 4.

A smaller door set into the base of the gigantic door

opened easily.

No sooner had they opened it than Schofield raised his

gun and fired. The shot smashed into a wall-mounted security

camera, blasting it to oblivion in a shower of sparks.

"No cameras," he said as he walked. "That's how

they're following us."

The four of them made their way up a short upwardly

sloping corridor. A squat solid-looking door loomed at the

end of it.

Mother spun the flywheel on it and the big door swung

open.

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Matthew Reilly

Schofield stepped through the doorway first, his nickel

plated pistol leading the way.

He emerged inside a laboratory of some sort. Supercomputers

lined the walls, their lights blinking. Keyboard

terminals and data screens and clear-plastic experiment

boxes occupied the remaining bench space.

Otherwise, the lab was deserted--

Blam!

Gunshot.

Blam!

Another.

It was Gant, exterminating a couple of security cameras.

Schofield continued to scan the wide room.

The most dominant feature of the laboratory was a line

of slanted glass windows that lay directly opposite the entrance.

He stepped up to the observation windows and peered

out through them--

---and found himself looking out over a wide, high

ceilinged room, in the center of which stood a gigantic glass

cube.

The cube was freestanding, occupying the center of the

hall-like room, but without touching its ceiling or walls.

The wall on the far side of the cube--a wall which divided

this level in two--didn't quite reach the ceiling.

Rather, it stopped about seven feet short of it, replaced by

thick glass. Through that glass, Schofield saw a series of

crisscrossing catwalks suspended above whatever was on

the other side of the floor.

But it was the cube in front of him that held his immediate

attention.

It was about the size of a large living room. Such a conclusion

was easy to come to, given that the glass cube was

filled with regular household furniture--a couch, a table,

chairs, a TV with PlayStation 2 and, most strangely of all, a

single bed draped with a Jar Jar Binks doona cover.

Some toys lay strewn about the glass-enclosed living

area 7 133

room. Matchbox cars. A bright yellow Episode I spaceship.

Some picture books.

Schofield shook his head.

It looked like the bedroom of a little boy.

It was at that precise moment that the occupant of the

glass cube ambled casually out from a discreetly curtained

off corner of the cube--the toilet.

Schofield's jaw dropped.

"What on earth is going on here?" he breathed.

there was a set of stairs on the northern side of the elevated

lab leading down to the cube.

When he reached the base of the stairs, Schofield

walked alongside the dividing wall that sealed this section

off from the eastern side of the floor. Gant walked with him.

Mother and Brainiac stayed up in the observation lab.

Schofield and Gant came to a halt before the giant freestanding

cube, gazed into it.

The occupant of the glass cube saw them coming, and

casually walked over to the edge of the completely sealed

structure.

The occupant arrived at the clear glass barrier in front of

Schofield, cocked his head to one side.

"Hey, mister," the little boy said.

"--SIR, I HAVE COMPLETE VISUAL BLACKOUT IN THE LABS ON

Level 4. They've started shooting the surveillance cameras--"

"I'm surprised it took them this long," Caesar Russell

said. "Where is the President?"

"Level 5, moving up the ramp to Level 4."

"And our people?"

"Alpha Unit is in position, waiting in the decompression

area on Level 4. Delta Unit has been stopped in the animal

containment area on Level 5."

Caesar smiled.

Although Delta was momentarily halted, the theory behind

its movements was sound. Delta was forcing the President

up through the complex--to where Alpha was waiting ...

"Tell Delta to get through that doorway and push up the

ramp, and cut off the President's retreat."

he couldn't have been more than six years old.

And with a bowl-shaped shock of brown hair that came

down to his eyes, Disneyland T-shirt and Converse sneakers,

he looked like any of a million American kids.

Only this kid lived inside a glass cube, in the belly of a

top-secret United States Air Force base.

"Hey there," Schofield said warily.

"Why are you frightened?" the boy asked suddenly.

"Frightened?"

"Yes, you're frightened. What are you scared of?"

"How do you know I'm frightened?"

"I just know," the boy said cryptically. He spoke with

area 7 135

such a serene, even voice that Schofield felt like he was in

some kind of dream. "What's your name?" the boy asked.

"Shane. But most people call me Scarecrow."

"Scarecrow? That's a funny name."

"What about you?" Schofield said. "What's your

name?"

"Kevin."

"And your last name?"

"What's a last name?" the boy asked.

Schofield paused.

"Where are you from, Kevin?"

The boy shrugged. "Here, I guess. I've never been anywhere

else. Hey, do you want to know something?"

"Sure."

"Did you know that Twinkies give kids half their daily

glucose requirement as well as giving them a tasty snack?"

"Uh, no, I didn't know that," Schofield said.

"And that reptiles are so sensitive to variations in the

earth's magnetic field that some scientists say they can predict

earthquakes? Oh, and nobody knows news like NBC,"

the boy said earnestly.

"Is that so?" Schofield exchanged a glance with Gant.

Just then, a loud mechanical noise echoed out from the

other side of the dividing wall.

Schofield and Gant spun, and through the glass section

at the top of the wall, saw the lights on the other side of

Level 4 suddenly and unexpectedly go out.

the president of the united states moved cautiously up

the ramp that linked Level 5 to Level 4, surrounded by three

Secret Service agents, four United States Marines and a lone

bookish scientist.

At the top of the ramp was a large retractable grille--

kind of like a garage door mounted horizontally.

Juliet Janson hit a switch on the wall and the horizontal

door began to slide open, revealing ominous darkness

above it.

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"RAMP DOOR IS OPENING ..." ONE OF THE TENTH SQUADRON

commandos inside the Level 4 decompression area whispered

into his radio mike.

The other nine members of Alpha Unit were arrayed

around the eastern section of the floor in various hiding

places--their guns focused on the ramp in the center of the

room. With their half gas masks and night-vision goggles

they looked like a gang of insects waiting for the kill.

The horizontal door slid slowly open, casting a wide

beam of light up into the darkened room. The only other

light in the area came through the section of glass at the top

of the wall which divided this level in two.

"Stay out of sight until they're all up on level ground,"

Kurt Logan said from his position. "No one gets out alive."

the two secret service agents Curtis and Ramondo

stepped up into the semi-darkness first, armed with their

Uzis. They were followed by Calvin Reeves and Elvis.

The President came next, with Juliet Janson by his side.

He held a small SIG-Sauer P-228 pistol awkwardly in his

hand. Juliet had given it to him, just in case.

Behind them came the scientist, Herbert Franklin, and

bringing up the rear, Book II and Love Machine, both armed

with pump-action shotguns.

As soon as he stepped up into the semidarkness, Book

II didn't like it.

Various structures loomed around them. To his immediate

right, on the southern side of the enormous room, was a

long hexagonal chamber. To his left, shrouded in deep

shadow, he saw eight telephone-booth-sized chambers. In

the hazy light filtering through from the other side of the floor, he could just make out a series of catwalks high up

near the ceiling, twenty feet above the floor.

As soon as Book II stepped clear of the floor-level doorway,

its horizontal door slid smoothly back into place near

his feet, sealing the exit.

Calvin had hit a switch in the floor nearby, closing it.

area 7 137

Book II swallowed. He would have preferred to keep

that door open.

He flicked on a heavy police flashlight he had taken

from the Level 5 anteroom. Holding it under the barrel of his

shotgun, he played its beam over the room around them.

Calvin Reeves assumed command of strategy.

"You two," he whispered to Curtis and Ramondo,

"check behind those telephone booths, then take the stairwell

door. Haynes, Lewicky, Riley"--he said, using Elvis's,

Love Machine's and Book II's surnames--"the area behind

this decompression chamber, then secure that other door," he

pointed toward the dividing wall. "Janson. You and I stay

with the Boss."

Curtis and Ramondo disappeared in among the test

chambers, then, moments later, reappeared at the stairwell end.

"No one back there," Ramondo said.

Book II, Elvis and Love Machine entered the darkness

behind the decompression chamber. A narrow, empty section

of floor greeted them. Nothing.

"Clear back here," Book II said, as the three Marines

emerged from behind the long hexagonal chamber. They

headed for the door in the dividing wall.

Reeves was following standard tactics in close-quarter,

indoor engagements--where there is no sign of the enemy,

secure all exits, then consolidate your position.

It was his biggest mistake.

Not only because it limited his options for retreat, but

because it was exactly what Kurt Logan--already inside the

room--was expecting him to do.

while elvis and love machine headed for the dividing

wall, Book II played his flashlight over the thirty-foot-long

decompression chamber. It was absolutely huge.

At the end of the elongated chamber, he found a small

glass porthole, and shone his light in through it.

What he saw made him jump.

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Matthew Reilly

An Asian face stared back at him, a man's face, pressed

up against the glass.

The Asian man was smiling cheerfully.

And then he pointed up--toward the roof of the decompression

chamber.

Book II followed the man's finger with his flashlight

and peered up at the top of the decompression chamber--

--and found himself staring into the mantislike face of

a 7th Squadron commando wearing night-vision goggles

and a gas mask!

THE FLASHLIGHT WAS THE ONLY THING THAT SAVED BOOK II'S life.

Primarily because it blinded the man hiding on top of

the decompression chamber, if only for a moment. The man

shied away from the light as his night-vision goggles magnified

its beam by a factor of 150.

That was all the time Book II needed.

His shotgun boomed, blasting the commando's goggles

to pieces, sending him flying off the top of the chamber.

It was a small victory, for at that exact moment, gunfire

erupted around the darkened room as a legion of dark figures

emerged from their positions on top of the decompression

chamber and inside the telephone-booth-like test chambers

and rained hell on Book's hapless group in the center of the

floor.

OVER BY THE STAIRWELL DOOR, CURTIS AND RAMONDO WERE

assaulted by a barrage of P-90 gunfire from both flanks.

They were cut down where they stood, their bodies riddled

with bloody wounds.

Juliet Janson crash-tackled the President, hurling him to

the floor at the base of the decompression chamber, just as a

volley of rounds whistled past their heads.

Calvin Reeves wasn't so lucky.

The crossfire of bullets ripped into the back of his head,

and he jolted suddenly upright, then dropped to his knees, a

look of stunned dismay on his face--as though he had done

area 7 139

everything right, and still lost. Then his face smacked down

hard against the floor, right next to the spot where Herbert

Franklin lay with his head in his hands.

bullets sizzled through the air.

Juliet yanked the President to his feet, firing with her

free hand, dragging him toward the cover of the lab benches

over by the dividing wall, when suddenly she saw a 7th

Squadron commando rise up from the roof of the decompression

chamber and take aim at the President's head.

She brought her gun around. Not fast enough--

Blam!

The 7th Squadron man's head exploded, his neck snapping

backwards. His body tumbled off the decompression

chamber.

Juliet spun to see who had fired the killing shot, but

strangely she saw no one.

book II, elvis and love machine all dived together behind

a lab bench just as the benchtop was raked with gunfire.

They returned fire, aiming at three Air Force commandos

taking cover among the test booths.

But it quickly became clear that the Marines' makeshift

assortment of shotguns and pistols was going to be no match

for the rapid-fire P-90 machine guns of the 7th Squadron troops. The shelves around them shattered and splintered under the phenomenal weight of enemy fire.

Elvis ducked for cover. "Goddamn!" he yelled. "This is

seriously fucked up!"

"No kidding," Book II shouted. He shucked his pump

action and snapped up to fire, but when he appeared above

the benchtop and loosed a couple of shots, he saw a very

strange thing happen: he saw all three of the shadowy 7th

Squadron shooters get yanked clean off their feet from behind.

Their guns went silent, and Book II found himself staring

at an empty area of the battlefield.

"What the ...?"

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Matthew Reilly

from his own position near the stairwell door, alpha

Unit's leader, Kurt Logan, saw what was happening.

"Fuck! There's someone else in here!" he yelled angrily

into his microphone. "Somebody's picking us off!"

Suddenly the trooper beside Logan took a hit to the side

of the head and half his skull exploded, spraying blood and

brains everywhere.

"Fuck!" Logan had expected to lose maybe two of his

men in the Shootout--but now he had lost six. "Alpha Unit,

pull out! Everybody back to the stairwell now! Take emergency

evac measures!"

He threw open the stairwell door, just as a line of bullets

punctured the wall all around it, almost taking his head off.

His remaining men dashed past him, out through the door,

into the shelter of the eastern stairwell--but not before they

had brutally fired down at their fallen comrades' bodies,

peppering the corpses and the floor all around them with

bullets.

Logan himself mercilessly strafed the body of a dead

7th Squadron man on the ground beside him. Then, when he

was done, he disappeared through the doorway after the others

and abruptly there was silence.

BOOK II WAS STILL CROUCHED BEHIND HIS LAB BENCH WITH

Elvis and Love Machine, acrid gunsmoke rising into the air

all around them.

Silence.

Deafening silence.

Juliet Janson and the President lay on the floor five feet

away from Book and the others, shielded by another bench,

covered in dust and broken bits of plastic. Juliet still had her

gun raised--

Whump!

A pair of boots landed with a loud thud on the benchtop

above them.

They all snapped to look up--and found themselves

area 7 141

staring at Captain Shane M. Schofield, USMC, dressed in

full dress uniform, with two nickel-plated Berettas gripped

in his hands.

He smiled at them. "Hey there."

meanwhile, in bars and offices and homes around

America and the world, people sat glued to their television

sets.

Because there was so little footage, CNN and the overseas

news networks just kept broadcasting the existing few

minutes' worth of tape over and over again. Experts were

brought in to give their opinions.

Government people sprang into action, although no one

could really do anything substantive, since the exact location

of the nightmarish affair was known only to a select few.

In any case, in a few minutes it would be eight o'clock

Mountain Daylight Time and the people of the world tensely

awaited the next hourly update.

THIRD CONFRONTATION

3 July/ 0800 Hours

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

SPECIAL AREA (RESTRICTED) NO.7

0800 HOURS

GROUND LEVEL: Main Hangar

LEVEL 1: Hangar Bay

LEVEL 2: Hangar Bay

LEVEL 3: Living Quarters

LEVEL 4: Laboratories

Level 5:  Animal Confinement Quarters

LEVEL 6: X-rail platform

space division, that part of the defense intelligence

Agency which deals with foreign powers' space capabilities,

is located on the second-to-bottom floor of the Pentagon,

three stories directly below the famous Pentagon Situation

Room.

And although its title may sound exotic and exciting, as

David Fairfax knew, such a perception couldn't have been

further from the truth.

In short, you got sent to Space Division as punishment,

because nothing ever happened in Space Division.

It was nearly 10.00 a.m. on the East Coast as Fairfax ... oblivious to any commotion going on in the outside world ... tapped away on his computer keyboard, trying to decipher a collection of phone taps that the DIA had picked up over the past few months. Whoever had been using the phones in question had fitted them with sophisticated encoders, masking their content. It was up to Fairfax to crack that code.

It's funny how times change, he thought.

David Theodore Fairfax was a cryptanalyst, a code

breaker. Of medium height, lean, with floppy brown hair and

thin wire-frame glasses, he didn't look like a genius. In fact,

in his Mooks T-shirt, jeans and sneakers, he looked more

like a gawky university student than a government analyst.

It was, however, his brilliant undergraduate thesis on

theoretical nonlinear computing that had brought him to the

attention of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department

of Defense's chief intelligence-gathering organization.

The DIA worked in close consultation with the NSA, America's

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Matthew Reilly

chief signals gatherer and code breaker. But that didn't

prevent it from running its own team of code crackers--who

often spied on the US A--of which Dave Fairfax was a part.

Fairfax had taken to cryptanalysis immediately. He

loved the challenge of it, the battle between two minds: one

which hopes to conceal, the other which hopes to reveal. He

lived by the maxim: No code is unbreakable.

It didn't take him long to get noticed.

In the early 1990's, U.S. authorities were confounded by

a man named Phil Zimmerman and his unbreakable encryption

software, "PGP." In 1991, Zimmerman had posted

PGP on the Internet, to the great consternation of the U.S.

government--principally because the government couldn't

crack it.

PGP employed a cryptographic system known as the

"public key system," which involved the multiplication of

very large prime numbers to obtain the code's all-important

"key." In this case "very large prime numbers" meant numbers

with over 130 digits.

It was unbreakable.

It was claimed that it would take all the supercomputers

in the world twelve times the age of the universe to check all

the possible values for a single message.

The government was annoyed. It became known that

certain terrorist groups and foreign governments had started

using PGP to encrypt their messages. In 1993, a grand jury

investigation into Zimmerman was initiated on the basis that

by uploading PGP onto the Internet, he had exported a weapon out of the United States, since encryption software

came under the government's definition of a "munition."

And then strangely, in 1996, after hounding Zimmerman

for three years, the U.S. Attorney General's office

dropped the case.

Just like that.

They claimed that the horse had bolted and the case was

no longer worth pursuing, so they closed the file.

What the Attorney General never mentioned was the

area 7 147

call she had received from the Director of the DIA on the

morning she dropped the case, saying that PGP had been

cracked.

And as anyone in cryptography knows, once you crack

your enemy's code, you don't let them know you've

cracked it.

And the man who cracked PGP: an unknown twenty-five-year-old DIA mathematician by the name of David

Fairfax.

It turned out that Fairfax's theoretical nonlinear computer

was no longer theoretical. A prototype version of it

was built for the express purpose of breaking PGP, and as it

turned out, the computer, with its unimaginable calculative

abilities, could factor extremely large numbers with considerable

ease.

No code is unbreakable.

History, however, is tough on cryptanalysts--for the

simple fact that they cannot talk about their greatest victories.

And so it was with Dave Fairfax. He might have

cracked PGP, but he could never talk about it, and in the

great maze of government work, he had simply been given a

small pay raise and then moved on to the next job.

AND SO HERE HE WAS IN SPACE DIVISION, ANALYZING A SERIES

of unauthorized phone transmissions coming into and out of

some remote Air Force base in Utah.

In a similarly isolated room across the hall from him,

however, was where all the good stuff was happening today.

A joint taskforce of DIA and NSA cryptanalysts were tracking

the encrypted signals coming out of the Chinese space

shuttle that had launched from Xichang a few days earlier.

Now that was interesting, Fairfax thought. Better than

decrypting some phone calls from a stupid Air Force base in

the desert.

The recorded phone calls appeared on Fairfax's computer

screen as a waterfall of cascading numbers--the

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Matthew Reilly

mathematical representation of a series of telephone conversations

that had taken place in Utah over the last couple of

months.

A huge pair of headphones covered Fairfax's ears, emitting

a steady stream of garbled static. His eyes were fixed on

the screen.

One thing was clear: whoever had made these calls had

encrypted them well. Fairfax had been at this for the last two

days.

He tried a few older algorithms.

Nothing.

He tried a few newer ones.

Nothing.

He could do this all month if he had to.

He tried a program he had developed to crack Vodafone's

newest encryption system--

--"Kan bevestig dot in-enting plaasvind--"

For a brief second, a strange guttural language materialized

in his ears.

Fairfax's eyes glowed to life.

Gotcha ...

He tried the program on some of the other telephone

conversations.

And in a miraculous instant, formless static suddenly

became clear voices speaking in a foreign tongue, interspersed

with the odd sentence of English.

"--Toetse op laaste paging word op die vier-entwientigste

verwag. Wat van die onttrekkings eenheid?--"

"--Reccondo span is alreeds weggestuur--"

"--Voorbereidings onderweg. Vroeg oggend. Beste tyd

vir onttrekking--"

"--everything is in place. Confirm that it's the third--"

"--Ontrekking kan 'n probleem wees. Gestel ons ge

bruik die Hoeb land hier naby. Verstaan hy is 'n lid van Die

Organisasie-- "

"--Sal die instruksies oordra--"

"--mission is a go--"

area 7 149

"--Die Reccondos is gereed. Verwagte aankoms by be

plande bestemming binne nege dae--"

Fairfax's eyes gleamed as he gazed at the screen. No code is unbreakable. He reached for his phone.

after the short battle in the decompression area,

Schofield and the others retreated to the opposite side of

Level 4, to the observation lab overlooking the giant cube ... locking the doors behind them and then blasting the security

keypads with gunshots.

Of all the places Schofield had seen so far, this area was

the most easily defended.

Barring the regular personnel elevator, it had only two

entrances: the short ramp leading back to the aircraft elevator

and the doorway leading to the staircase that went down

to the cube.

Juliet Janson flopped to the floor of the lab, exhausted.

The President did the same.

The Marines ... Book II, Elvis, Love Machine, Mother

and Brainiac—formed a huddle and quickly told each other

of their respective adventures inside flooding elevator shafts

and runaway AWACS planes.

The last member of their rag-tag group ... the lab

coat-wearing scientist, Herbert Franklin ... took a seat in the

corner.

Schofield and Gant remained standing.

They had a few weapons now, gear that they had scavenged

from the bodies of the 7th Squadron men in the decompression

area ... guns, a few radio headsets, three

extremely high-powered grenades made of RDX compound,

and two thumbtack-sized lock-destroying explosives known

as Lock-Blasters.

Logan's men, however, had spoiled well.

The brutal gunfire that they had directed at their own

area 7 151

fallen men hadn't been intended as kill shots--it had been

intended to destroy any weapons the dead men might offer

their enemy. Consequently, only one P-90 assault rifle had

been salvaged from the battlefield. All the others had been

shattered, as had many of the fallen men's semiautomatic

pistols.

"Mother," Schofield said, tossing the P-90 to her, "keep

an eye on the ramp entrance. Elvis, the stairs going down to

the cube."

Mother and Elvis dashed off.

Although just about everyone else in the world would

have gone straight over to the President at that time,

Schofield didn't. He could see that the President hadn't been

injured--still had all his fingers and toes--and so long as his

heart was still beating, he was all right.

Instead, Schofield went over to Juliet Janson.

"Update," was all he said.

Janson glanced up at Schofield, looked into the reflective

silver lenses of his wraparound antiflash glasses.

She'd seen him around the Presidential helicopters before,

but had never really talked to him. She'd heard about

him from the other agents, though. He was the one from that

thing in Antarctica.

"They ambushed us in the Level 3 common room, just

after the message came over the Emergency Broadcast System,"

she said. "Been right on our tails ever since. We hit the

stairwell, made for the Emergency Exit Vent down on Level

6, but they were waiting for us. We came back up the

stairs--they were waiting for us again. We diverted through

5 and came up the ramp to 4--and they were waiting for us

again."

"Casualties?"

"Eight agents from the President's Personal Detail

killed. Plus the whole Advance Team down on Level 6. That

makes seventeen in total."

"Frank Cutler?"

"Gone."

"Anything else?"

152

Matthew Reilly

Janson nodded at the little lab-coated man. "We picked

him up on 5, before we walked into that ambush in the decompression

room. Says he's a scientist working here."

Schofield glanced over at Herbert Franklin. Small and

bespectacled, the little man just bowed his head in silence.

"What about you?" Janson asked.

Schofield shrugged. "We were up in the main hangar

when it went down. Scrambled down the ventilation shaft,

arrived in one of the underground hangars, destroyed a

Humvee, crashed an AWACS plane."

"The usual," Gant added.

"How did you know about the ambush next door?" Janson

asked.

Schofield shrugged. "We were down next to the cube

when the lights went out in the decompression area. We

were hoping it was someone friendly, trying to hide from

the security cameras. So we checked it out from above, from

the catwalks. When we saw who it was, saw them surrounding

that ramp in the middle of the room, we figured they

were waiting for the big score"--he nodded at the President --"so we set up a little counter-ambush of our own."

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROOM, BRAINIAC SAT DOWN NEXT

to the President.

"Mr. President," he said with deference.

"Hello," the President replied.

"How you feelin', sir?"

"Well, I'm still alive, which is a good start, considering

the circumstances. What's your name, son?"

"Gorman, sir. Corporal Gus Gorman, but most of the

guys just call me Brainiac."

"Brainiac?"

"That's right, sir," Brainiac hesitated. "Sir, if you don't

mind, I was wondering, if it wasn't too much trouble, if I

could ask you a question."

"Why not?" the President said.

"Okay, then. Okay. Well, you being' President and all,

you'd know certain things, right?"

area 7 153

"Yes ..."

"Right. Cool. Because what I always wanted to know

was this: is Puerto Rico a United States protectorate because

it has the highest number of UFO sightings in the world per

annum?"

"What?"

"Well, think about it, why the hell else would we want

to hold on to Puerto-fucking-Rico, there ain't nothing

there--"

"Brainiac," Schofield said from across the room.

"Leave the President alone. Mr. President, you better come

and see this. It's almost eight o'clock and Caesar will be giving

his hourly update any second."

The President went over to join Schofield--but not before

he gave Brainiac a strange look.

AT THE TICK OF EIGHT O'CLOCK, CAESAR RUSSELL'S FACE APpeared

on every television set in Area 7.

"My fellow Americans," he boomed, "after one hour's

play, the President is still alive. His cause, however, is not

looking good.

"His personal Secret Service Detail has been decimated,

with eight of its nine members already confirmed

dead. Two more Secret Service units--advance teams, one

stationed down in the lowest floor of this facility, another at

one of the exterior exits, consisting of nine men each--were

also eliminated, bringing the total of presidential losses to

twenty-six men. On both occasions, no losses were sustained

by my 7th Squadron men.

"That said, some knights in shining armor have arrived

on the scene. A small band of United States Marines-- members of the President's ornamental helicopter crew,

looking very pretty in their dress uniforms--have come to

his defen--"

Just then, completely without warning, the television

sets throughout Area 7 abruptly died, their screens shrinking

to black.

At the same moment, all the lights in the complex

blinked out, plunging Area 7 into darkness.

Inside the lab on Level 4, everybody looked up at the

sudden loss of power.

"Uh-oh ..." Gant said, eyeing the ceiling.

Then, a second later, the lights whirred back to life and

the TV system rebooted, Caesar's face still looming large,

still talking.

area 7 155

"--which leaves us with five 7th Squadron units versus

a handful of United States Marines. Such is the state of play

at eight o'clock. I shall see you again for another update at

0900 hours."

The TV screens cut to black.

"liar," juliet janson said. 'that son of a bitch is Distorting

the truth. The advance team down on Level 6 was already

dead when we got there. They were killed before all

this started."

"He also lied about his losses," Brainiac said. "Sneaky

bastard."

"So what do we do?" Gant asked Schofield. "They have

us outnumbered, outflanked and outgunned. Plus, this is

their turf."

Schofield was wondering exactly the same thing.

The 7th Squadron had them completely on the run.

They had all the leverage, and more importantly, he thought,

looking down at his formal full dress uniform, they had

come prepared to fight.

"Okay," he said, thinking aloud. "Know your enemy."

"What?"

"First principles. We have to even things up, but to do

that, we need knowledge. Rule Number One: know your enemy.

Okay. So who are they?"

Janson shrugged. "The 7th Squadron. The Air Force's

crack ground unit. The best in the country. Well trained, well

armed--"

"And on steroids," Gant added.

"More than just steroids," another voice said.

Everyone turned.

It was the scientist, Herbert Franklin.

"Who are you?" Schofield said.

The little man shuffled nervously. "My name is Herbie

Franklin. Until this morning, I was an immunologist on

Project Fortune. But they locked me up just before you all arrived."

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Matthew Reilly

Schofield said, "What did you mean, 'more than just

steroids'?"

"Well, what I meant was that the 7th Squadron men at

this base have been ... augmented... for want of a better

word."

"Augmented?"

"Enhanced. Improved for better performance. Ever wondered

why the 7th Squadron does so well at interservice battle

competitions? Ever wondered why they can keep fighting

while everyone else is falling over with exhaustion?"

"Yes ..."

Franklin spoke quickly: "Anabolic steroids to enhance

muscle and fitness levels. Artificial erythropoietin injections

for increased blood oxygenation."

"Artificial erythropoietin?" Gant repeated.

"EPO for short," Herbie said. "It's a hormone that stimulates

production of red blood cells by the bone marrow,

thus increasing the supply of oxygen in the bloodstream. Endurance

athletes, mainly cyclists, have been using it for

years.

"The 7th Squadron are stronger than you, and they can

run all day long," Herbie said. "Hell, Captain, these men

were tough when they got here, but since their arrival they

have been augmented by the latest pharmacological technology

to fight harder, better and longer than anybody else."

"Okay, okay," Schofield said, "I think we get the picture."

He was thinking, however, of a small boy named Kevin,

living fifty feet away, inside a glass cube. "So is that what

you do here? Is that what this base is all about? Enhancing

elite soldiers?"

"No ..." Herbie said, casting a wary glance over at the

President. "The augmentation of the 7th Squadron troopers

is only performed as an ancillary task, since they guard the

base."

"So what the hell is this place?"

Again Herbie looked at the President. Then he took a

deep breath before answering--

area 7 157

It was another voice, however, that spoke.

"This base houses the most important vaccine ever developed

in the history of America," it said.

Schofield spun.

It was the President.

Schofield appraised him. The President was still wearing

his charcoal colored suit and tie. With his neatly combed

light-gray hair and familiar wrinkled face, he looked like a

middle-aged country businessman--albeit a businessman

who had been sweating hard for the last hour.

"A vaccine?" Schofield said.

"Yes. A vaccine against the latest Chinese genetic virus.

A virus that targets Caucasian people by way of their pigmentation

DNA. An agent known as the Sinovirus."

"And the source of this vaccine ... ?" Schofield said.

"... is a genetically constructed human being," the

President said.

"A what?"

"A person, Captain Schofield, who since the embryonic

stage of his existence has been purpose-built to withstand

the Sinovirus, whose very blood can be harvested to produce

antibodies for the rest of the American population. A human

vaccine. The world's first genetically tailored human being,

Captain, a boy named Kevin."

SCHOFIELD'S EYES NARROWED.

It explained a lot—the tight security surrounding the

complex, the presidential visit, and a boy living inside a

glass cube. He was also struck by one other aspect of what

the President had just said: the president knew his name.

"You created a boy to use as a vaccine?" Schofield said.

"With respect, sir, but doesn't that bother you?"

The President grimaced. "My job is not made up of

black and whites, Captain. Just gray, infinite gray. And in

that world of gray, I have to make decisions—often difficult

ones. Sure, Kevin existed long before I became President,

but once I knew about him, I had to make the call to continue

the project. I made that call. I may not like it, but in

the face of an agent like the Sinovirus, tough decisions are

necessary."

There was a short silence.

Book spoke. "What about the prisoners downstairs?"

"And the animals. What are they used for?" Juliet said.

Schofield frowned. He hadn't seen Level 5, so he didn't

know about any animals or prisoners.

Herbie Franklin answered. "The animals are used for

both projects, the vaccine and the 7th Squadron augmentation.

The Kodiak bears are utilized for their blood toxins. All

bears have extremely high blood-oxygen levels for use when

they hibernate. The blood enhancement research for the 7th

Squadron came from them."

"So what about the other cages, the water-filled ones?"

Janson asked. "What's in them?"

Herbie paused. "A rare breed of monitor lizard known

area 7 159

as the Komodo dragon. The largest lizard in the world, about

thirteen feet long, as big as a regular crocodile. We have six

of them."

"And what are they used for?" Schofield asked.

"Komodos are the most ancient reptilian species on

earth, found only on the scattered middle islands in Indonesia.

They're great swimmers--been known to swim between

islands--but they're equally fast on land, easily capable of

running down a man, which they do regularly. Their internal

antibiotic system, however, is extraordinarily robust. They

are all but impervious to illness. Their lymph nodes produce

a highly concentrated antibacterial serum that has protected

them against disease for thousands of years."

The President said, "The Komodo dragons' blood byproducts

have been reconfigured to match the structure of

human blood, and as such form the basis of Kevin's immune

system. We then harvest Kevin's genetically constructed

blood plasma to produce a serum that can be inserted into

America's water supply--a serum-hydrate solution--thereby immunizing the general population against the Sinovirus."

"You spike the water supply?" Schofield said.

"Oh, it's been done before," Herbie said. "In 1989,

against botulinum toxin, and in 1990--because of Iraq--

against anthrax. Although Americans don't know it, they're

resistant to all the world's major biological weapons."

"What about the human prisoners?" Book II asked.

"What are they here for?"

Herbie looked to the President, who nodded silently.

The little scientist shrugged. "The human prisoners are

another story altogether. They're not here to provide any sort

of blood by-product or serum. Their role is simple. They're

guinea pigs for the testing of the vaccine."

"Jesus Christ," Gant breathed when she saw the list of

prisoner names.

After Herbie had told them the purpose of the prisoners

downstairs, he had brought up a list of their names on one of

the laboratory's computer terminals.

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Matthew Reilly

There were forty-two of them in total, all multiple lifers

or death-row candidates who had somehow escaped the

chair.

"The worst of the worst," Herbie said, nodding at the

list of names.

Schofield had heard of many of them.

Sylvester McLean--the child-murderer from Atlanta.

Ronald Noonan--the Houston baker turned clock-tower

sniper. Lucifer Leary--the serial killer from Phoenix. Seth

Grimshaw--the notorious leader of the Black League, an

ultra-violent terrorist organization that believed the U.S.

government was preparing America for a United Nations

takeover.

"Seth Grimshaw?" Gant said, seeing the name. She

turned to Juliet Janson. "Wasn't he the one who--?"

"Yes," Janson said, glancing nervously at the President

over on the far side of the lab. "In early February. Just after

the inauguration. He's a genuine 18-84."

Gant said, "Oh, man, do I hope their cages are sturdy."

"all right. great," schofield said. "which brings us

back to the here and now. We're shut in here. They want to

kill the President. And because of the radio transmitter on

his heart, if he dies, fourteen major cities go up in smoke."

"And all right in front of the people of America," Janson

said.

"Not necessarily," the President said, "because Caesar

wouldn't know about the LBJ Directive."

"What's the LBJ Directive?" Schofield asked.

"It's a feature of the Emergency Broadcast System, but

known only to the President and the Vice-President. It's essentially

a safety valve, brought in by Lyndon Johnson in

1967, to stop the BBS from being used too soon."

"So what does it do?"

"It provides for a forty-five-minute delay of any broadcast

sent over the system, unless a presidential override

code is entered. In other words, except in the most urgent

circumstances, it stops a panic broadcast from being sent

area 7 161

out, effectively allowing for a forty-five-minute cooling-off

period.

"Now, since it's 8:09, Caesar's initial broadcast has got

out there, but if we were to find the BBS transmission box

inside this complex, we could stop all his subsequent transmissions."

Schofield pursed his lips, thinking. "That has to be a

secondary consideration. Something to do only if we happen

to be in the right place at the right time."

He turned to Herbie. "Tell us about this complex."

Herbie shrugged. "What's there to know? It's a fortress.

Used to be NORAD headquarters. When it shuts down, it shuts down. The thing is, I don't think anyone ever expected

it to be used to keep someone locked in"

"But even a total lockdown must have a release procedure,"

Schofield said. "Something which opens the doors

when the crisis is over."

Herbie nodded. "The time lock."

"Time lock?"

"In the event of total lockdown, a timer-controlled security

system is activated. Every hour on the hour, those people

still alive inside the base have a five-minute window

period to enter one of three possible codes."

"What kind of codes?" Gant asked.

"Remember," Herbie said, "this facility was intended

for use in a full-scale U.S.-Soviet nuclear exchange. The

codes reflect that. As such, there are three possible entry

codes.

"The first code simply continues the lockdown. The nuclear

crisis is still going, so the facility remains locked

down. The second code assumes the crisis has been resolved.

It calls an end to the lockdown--armored blast doors

are retracted and all entrances and exits are reopened."

"And the third code?" Gant asked.

"The third code is a halfway measure--it allows for

messenger escape. It authorizes title opening of individual

exits and entrances for messengers to leave the facility."

Schofield was listening to Herbie carefully.

162

Matthew Reilly

"What happens when no code is entered during the

hourly window period?" he asked.

"You're fast, Captain. You see, that's the kicker, isn't it?

If no code is entered, the complex's computer is warned that

the facility may have been taken by the enemy. It then gives

you one chance to reenter one of the other codes at the next hourly window period. If no code is entered at that time,

then the computer assumes that the facility has been taken

by the enemy, at which point the facility's self-destruct

mechanism is activated."

"Self-destruct mechanism?" Brainiac blurted. "What the fuck is that?"

"A one-hundred-megaton thermonuclear warhead buried

beneath the complex," Herbie said simply.

"Oh, Christ ..." Brainiac said.

Gant said, "Surely they removed that when the Soviet

Union collapsed."

"I'm afraid not," Herbie said. "When this base was reconfigured

as a chemical weapons facility, it was decided

that the self-destruct device still had value. If there was an

accident and a virus spread throughout the facility, the

whole contaminated complex--virus included--could be

destroyed by a superheated nuclear blast."

"Okay," Schofield said, "so if we want to leave, we have

to wait for the hourly window period, find a computer connected

to the central network, and then enter the correct

code."

"That's right," Herbie said.

"So what are the codes?" Schofield asked.

Herbie shrugged helplessly. "That I don't know. I can

initiate a lockdown if there's been an outbreak, but I don't

have clearance to undo one. Only the Air Force guys can do

that--"

"Uh, excuse me," Juliet Janson said, "but aren't we forgetting

something?"

"Like what?" Brainiac said.

"Like the Football," Janson said. "The President's briefcase.

The one that's been rigged to stop him from escaping

area 7 163

this complex. He has to press his palm against the analyzer

plate on the Football once every ninety minutes, otherwise

the plasma bombs in the cities go off."

"Damn it," Schofield said. He had forgotten all about

that. He looked at his watch.

It was 8:12 a.m.

This had all started at 7:00 a.m. Which meant they had

to get the President's hand onto the Football by 8:30.

He looked up at the others. "Where are they keeping the

Football?"

"Russell said it would be kept in the main hangar, up on

ground level," the President said.

"What do you think?" Gant said to Schofield.

"I don't think we have much choice. Somehow, we have

to get his hand onto the Football."

"But we can't keep doing that forever."

"No," Schofield said, "we can't. At some point, we'll

have to come up with a more long-term solution. But until

then, we deal with the short-term ones."

Janson said, "It'd be suicide to bring the President out

into the open upstairs, they'll almost certainly be waiting."

"That's right," Schofield stood up. "Which is why we

don't do that. What we do is quite straightforward. We bring

the Football to him."

"THE FIRST THING WE HAVE TO DO," SCHOFIELD SAID, rounding

everyone up, "is take care of those security cameras.

While they're still operating, we're screwed." He turned to

Herbie Franklin. "Where's the central junction box in this

place?"

"In the Level 1 hangar bay, I think, on the northern

wall."

"Okay," Schofield said. "Mother, Brainiac, I want you

guys to take care of those cameras. Cut the power if you have

to, I don't care, just shut down the camera system. You got

me?"

"(

"Got it," Mother said.

"And take Dr. Franklin with you. If he's lying, shoot

him."

"Got it," Mother said, eyeing Herbie suspiciously. Herbie

gulped.

"What about the rest of us?" Juliet asked.

Schofield headed toward the short ramp that led to the

wide aircraft elevator shaft.

"The rest of us are going upstairs to play some football."

"--system reboot is complete--"

"Status?" Caesar Russell asked.

Ten minutes previously, during Caesar's second BBS

broadcast, the entire complex had experienced an abrupt

power shutdown, causing all its interior systems to switch

off.

"--Confirm: main power supply has been cut," one of

area 7 165

the radio operators said. "We're running on auxiliary power

now. All systems operational."

"--We lost that enhanced satellite image of the EEV

that was coming through. Renewing contact with the satellite

now--"

Another operator: "Copy that. Main power supply was

switched off at the Level 1 junction box at exactly 0800

hours, by operator 008-72--"

"8-72?" Caesar frowned, thinking.

"--Sir, we have no visual feed. All cameras went down

with the cutting of the main power supply--"

Caesar's eyes narrowed. "All units, report in."

"--This is Alpha," Kurt Logan's voice said. "Initiate

frequency swap. Possibility that enemy has obtained some of

our radio equipment--"

"--Frequency swap complete," the senior operator said.

"Go ahead, Alpha Leader--"

"--We are in the Level 2 hangar bay. Heading for the

personnel elevator for rendezvous up in the main hangar.

Report six dead--"

"--This is Bravo Leader, we're up in the main hangar,

covering the Football. All men present and accounted for.

No casualties--"

"--This is Charlie Leader. We are moving in tandem

with Echo through the common worn area on Level 3. We

have one dead, two wounded from that AWACS shit before.

Understand targets were last sighted on Level 4. Preparing

for joint assault through floor-to-ceiling hatches between 3

and 4. Please advise--"

"--Charlie, Echo, this is Control. We have lost all visual

contact on the Level 4 lab area--"

"Engage at will, Charlie and Echo," Caesar Russell cut

in sharply. "Keep them moving. They can't run forever."

"--This is Delta. We are still on 5. No casualties. By

the time we broke down that door on 5, the targets had already

gone up the ramp to Level 4. Be advised, there is

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Matthew Reilly

substantial flooding in the Level 5 confinement area. Awaiting

instructions--"

"--Delta, this is Caesar," Russell said coolly, "head

back down to Level 6. Cover the X-rail exits."

"--Affirmative, that, sir--"

Twenty black-clad 7th squadron commandos hurried

down one of the corridors of the Level 3 living area, their

boots thundering on the floor--the men of Charlie and Echo

Units.

They came to a pressure-sealed manhole in the carpet.

A code was entered and the circular hatch came free with a

sharp hiss, revealing a crawl space between the floor of

Level 3 and the ceiling of Level 4. Another pressure hatch

lay directly beneath this one--the entry to Level 4.

One of the commandos lowered himself through the

manhole.

"Control, this is Charlie Leader," Python Willis said

into his headset mike. "We are at the manhole leading to the

observation lab on Level 4. Preparing to storm the floor from

above."

"Do it!" Caesar's voice replied.

Python nodded to his man in the crawl space.

The commando released the pressure valve and let the

hatch drop to the floor ten feet below him. Then he jumped

down to the ground after it, three others close behind him,

their P-90's aimed and ready.

Nothing.

The lab around them was empty.

There came a loud mechanical rumbling from within

the walls.

The 7th Squadron men whirled around as one.

It was the sound of the hydraulic aircraft elevator platform.

The commandos of Charlie and Echo Units hurried

down the short sloping walkway that led from the observation

lab to the aircraft elevator shaft.

They got there just in time to see the underside of the

area 7 167

giant elevator platform rising up into the shaft above them,

heading for the main hangar.

Python Willis spoke into his helmet mike. "Control, this

is Charlie Leader. They're going for the Football."

THE GIGANTIC AIRCRAFT ELEVATOR GROANED LOUDLY AS IT

lumbered up the wide concrete shaft.

It moved slowly, carrying the crumpled remains of the

crashed AWACS plane on its back.

The plane lay tilted forward, like a wounded bird, its

nose lower than its destroyed rear section, its broken wings

splayed wide. The plane's rotodome--still intact--towered

high above the whole sorry image.

The massive elevator rumbled up the greasy concrete

shaft.

As it passed the open doorway to the level 1 hangar

bay, however, three tiny figures quickly leapt off it, hustling

into the underground hangar.

It was Mother and Brainiac and, puffing along behind

them, Herbie Franklin.

They were heading for the central junction box that

Franklin had said was located in the Level 1 hangar bay, to

disable Area 7's camera system.

The hangar was deserted now, the 7th Squadron men

long gone. The two stealth bombers and the lone SR-71

Blackbird still stood silently in the cavernous space, like a

trio of sleeping sentinels.

Mother checked her watch as she skirted the left-hand

wall of the hangar.

8:20.

Ten minutes to get the President to the Football.

As she moved along the concrete wall, watchful for

area 7 169

enemy soldiers, she saw a large box-shaped compartment at

the far end of it. The compartment's ten-foot-tall steel door

was twisted and bent, partially destroyed.

"Oh, yeah," she said.

"What?" Herbie asked from behind her.

"Our little run-in with the 7th Squadron up here earlier,"

Mother said. "They got a couple of Stingers off--one hit

that compartment, the other punctured some water tanks inside

the wall over by the personnel elevator."

"Oh," Herbie said.

"Let's see what's left," Mother said.

upstairs, the giant elevator platform rose slowly into

the main hangar.

The remains of the AWACS plane appeared first, rising

above the rim of the square-shaped shaft.

Then the exploded rear section of the fuselage ...

... followed by the intact rotodome ...

... then the snapped wings ...

The rest of the battered plane rose slowly into view and

then, with a loud boom!, the platform came level with the

hangar floor and stopped.

There was a long silence.

The ground-level hangar bore the scars of the battle that

had taken place there nearly an hour and a half before.

Marine One--still attached to its towing vehicle--stood

on the western side of the elevator platform, while its semi

destroyed sister chopper, Nighthawk Two, and its cockroach

stood on the northern side of the platform, over by the personnel

elevator.

On the eastern side of the AWACS plane, however,

stood something entirely new: a team of ten 7th Squadron

commandos--Bravo Unit--positioned in between the elevator

platform and the internal building, standing inside a

semicircular barricade of wooden crates and Samsonite containers.

On a chair in the center of the barricade sat a familiar

Matthew Reilly

stainless-steel briefcase, folded open, revealing a series of

red and green lights, a keypad, and a flat-glass analyzer

plate.

The Football.

Captain Bruno "Boa" McConnell--the gray-eyed

leader of Bravo Unit--gazed at the crumpled AWACS plane

suspiciously.

The broken plane just sat there in the center of the enormous

hangar--silent, unmoving--a great big pile of junk.

More silence.

"HOW'S IT GOING DOWN THERE, MOTHER?" SCHOFIELD'S  VOICE

whispered in Mother's earpiece, borrowed from one of the

dead Secret Service agents.

Down on Level 1, Mother surveyed the damaged electricity

junction box in front of her. Fully half the switchboard

had been destroyed by the missile impact. The other

half was a mixed bag--some parts were intact, others were

just mounds of melted wires. At the moment, Herbie

Franklin was tapping the keys on a computer terminal that

had survived the impact.

"Just a second," she said into her wrist microphone.

"Yo, Poindexter. What's the story?"

Franklin frowned. "It doesn't make sense. Somebody's

been here already, about twenty minutes ago at eight

o'clock. They cut the main power. The whole base is running

on auxiliary power ..."

"Can you cut the cameras?" Mother asked.

"Don't have to. They were shut down when the main

power was disabled." Herbie turned to face Mother.

"They're already off."

UP IN THE MAIN HANGAR, THE REGULAR ELEVATOR'S DOORS

opened.

Out of the lift stepped Kurt Logan and the three other

survivors from Alpha Unit. They met up with Boa McConnell

and the men of Bravo Unit.

area 7 177

"What's happening?" Logan asked.

"Nothing ..." Boa replied. "Yet."

"--control, this is charlie leader" python willis's

voice said over the control room's speakers. "There's no one

down here on Level 4."

"--Copy, Charlie Leader. Bring your team up to the

main hangar in the personnel lift. Echo, stay down there.

Caesar wants you roving around the lower levels. We've lost

all camera visuals and we need some eyes down there--"

on level 1, mother keyed her wrist mike. "scarecrow,

this is Mother. Cameras are down. Repeat: Cameras are down. We're heading for the aircraft elevator shaft." "Thanks, Mother."

"all right, we're in business," schofield said, turning

to the President, Book II and Juliet. They were in a dark

place.

He looked at his watch:

8:25:59.

8:26:00.

This was going to be close.

"Fox, Elvis, Love Machine, get ready. On my mark. In

three ..."

THE MAIN HANGAR WAS SILENT.

"Two ..."

Marine One stood about thirty feet away from the

wreck of the AWACS plane, shining in the harsh artificial

light.

"One ..."

The men of Bravo Unit eyed the shattered AWACS bird

cautiously, guns up, trigger fingers tensed.

"... mark."

Schofield pressed a button on a small handheld unit--it

was the remote detonation switch for one of the RDX-based

Matthew Reilly

grenades that he had found on the 7th Squadron men in the

decompression room. Pound for pound, aluminized RDX is

about six times more powerful than C4--it blows big and it

blows wide, a superblasting charge.

As soon as he hit the button, the RDX charge that he

had left in the cockpit of the AWACS plane exploded--blasting outwards, showering the hangar with a star-shaped

rain of glass and shrapnel.

AND THEN EVERYTHING HAPPENED AT ONCE.

the men of bravo unit dived away from the explosion.

Sizzling-hot pieces of the plane's cockpit shot low over

their heads, lodging in the barricade all around them like

darts smacking into a corkboard.

As they clambered back to their feet, they saw movement,

saw three shadows climb out from the air vent underneath

Marine One.

"There!" Boa pointed.

One of the shadows ran out from beneath the President's

helicopter, while the other two slithered up through a

hatch in its underbelly.

A moment later, Marine One's engines roared to life.

Its tail boom folded into place from its stowed position,

as did its rotor blades. No sooner were the rotor blades extended

than they began to rotate, despite the fact that the

President's helicopter was still attached to its towing vehicle.

Gunfire erupted as the lone Marine who had dashed out

from underneath the chopper—Love Machine—disengaged

the cockroach attached to its tail and climbed inside the towing

vehicle's tiny driver's cabin.

"What the fuck ... ?" Kurt Logan said as the cockroach

skidded out from behind Marine One and swung around the

elevator platform, heading directly for the 7th Squadron

men guarding the Football.

"Open fire," Logan said to Boa and his men. "Open fire

now."

They did.

A barrage of P-90 fire assaulted the speeding towing vehicle's

windscreen, shattering it.

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Matthew Reilly

Inside the driver's cabin, Love Machine ducked below

the dashboard. Bullets tore into the seatback behind him,

sending the fluffy innards of the seat showering everywhere.

The cockroach careered across the hangar, bouncing

wildly, taking fire.

Then suddenly, behind it, Marine One rose into the

air--inside the hangar--the deafening thump-thump-thump of its rotor blades reverberating off the walls, drowning out

all other sound.

Inside its cockpit, Gant worked the controls while Elvis

hit switches everywhere.

"Elvis! Give me missiles!" she shouted. "And whatever

you do, don't hit the Football, okay!"

Elvis slammed his finger down on a launch button.

Shoom!

A Hellfire missile shot out from a pod mounted on the

side of the Presidential helicopter, a finger of smoke extending

through the air behind it, the missile shooting at tremendous

speed toward the internal building on the eastern side

of the hangar.

The missile hit the exact center of the building--right

above the Bravo troops guarding the Football--and detonated.

The middle section of the internal building blasted outwards

in a shower of glass and plasterboard. A section of the

glassed-in upper level collapsed to the ground behind the

Bravo men guarding the Football.

The 7th Squadron commandos leapt clear of the falling

debris--only to have to roll again a split second later to

avoid a second source of danger: the oncoming cockroach

driven by Love Machine.

It was chaos.

Mayhem.

Pandemonium.

Exactly as Schofield had planned.

SCHOFIELD WATCHED THE CONFUSION FROM HIS POSITION inside

the destroyed AWACS plane. His watch read:

area 7 175

8:27:50.

8:27:51.

Two minutes left.

"Okay, Book, let's go." He turned to Juliet and the President.

"You two stay here until we've checked the status of

the Football. If we can get it, we'll bring it back to you. If

not, you'll have to come out."

And with that Schofield and Book II leapt down from

the gaping hole at the rear of the AWACS plane and ran out

into the open.

AT EXACTLY THE SAME MOMENT, A SIX-BARRELED VULCAN

minigun popped out from a compartment underneath the

nose of Marine One and began spewing out a devastating

stream of supermachine-gun fire.

The 7th Squadron men--already scattered everywhere

--were dispersed even more. Some dived behind

their barricade for cover, others found shelter among the ruins

of the AWACS plane and fired up at the President's helicopter.

Gant sat at the controls of Marine One as her enemy's

bullets left scratches on the Lexan windshield. And the

armor-plated walls of the big Sikorsky were built to withstand

missile impacts, so gunfire wasn't a problem.

Beside her, Elvis was yelling, "Yee-ha!" as he rained

hell on the 7th Squadron men with the minigun.

SCHOFIELD  AND BOOK II RAN EASTWARD, SIDESTEPPING

quickly toward the 7th Squadron men guarding the Football.

They moved in tandem, guns up, firing--bizarrely--at

Love Machine's runaway cockroach and up at Marine One.

The fact that they were firing at their own people was

probably best explained by the fact that they were dressed in

the black fatigues, black body armor and half-face gas

masks of the 7th Squadron--slightly damaged uniforms

they had pilfered from the dead Air Force commandos in the

decompression area down on Level 4.

Schofield and Book danced sideways, edging toward

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Matthew Reilly

the barricade in front of the Football, firing hard at their own

men--but missing woefully.

They reached the barricade, and Schofield immediately

saw the Football on the chair.

Then he saw the tether.

"Damn it!"

The presidential briefcase was anchored to a tie-down

stud on the floor by a thick metal cord. It looked like titanium

thread.

Watch.

8:28:59.

8:29:00.

"Shit," Schofield keyed his wrist mike. "Janson! The

Football's tethered to the floor. We can't move it. You're going

to have to bring the President out into the open."

"Okay," came the reply.

"Fox! Love Machine! I need another thirty seconds of

mayhem! Then you know what to do."

Fox's voice: "Whatever you say, Scarecrow!"

Love Machine: "Roger that, Boss!"

And then Schofield saw Janson and the President leap

out from the rear section of the AWACS plane--also dressed

in full 7th Squadron attire and brandishing pistols, which

they fired determinedly at Love Machine's cockroach.

Janson fired her SIG-Sauer with a firm two-handed

grip. The President wasn't as fluid, but he did all right for a

guy who'd never served in the military.

Marine One banked in a wide circle around the enormous

hangar, drawing fire, the roar of its speed-blurred rotor

blades thunderous in the enclosed space.

Love Machine's towing vehicle swung past the barricade

protecting the Football, then veered left, heading north, smashing through some broken pieces of the AWACS plane

and then disappearing behind it.

FROM THE FIRST-FLOOR CONTROL ROOM OF THE INTERNAL

building, Caesar Russell watched the chaos unfolding below

him.

area 7

He saw the Presidential helicopter performing death

defying passes inside the enclosed hangar. He saw the

speeding cockroach blasting through the remains of the

AWACS plane on the elevator platform.

And he saw his own men--scattered and dispersed--

firing wildly at both of these two crazy threats, as if they

had been prepared for any ordered attack but not a totally

insane one.

"Goddamn it!" he roared. "Where is Charlie?"

"Still coming up in the personnel elevator, sir."

And then, in an instant of total clarity, as he watched his

men down on the hangar floor, Caesar saw him, and his jaw

dropped.

"No ..."

Caesar watched in stunned amazement as one of his

own men raced over to the Football--which, of course, was

still surrounded by a few men from Bravo Unit, all of them

facing outwards--pulled off one of his black leather gloves,

and under the watchful eye of three other black-clad impostors,

moved his hand toward the palm-print analyzer inside

the steel briefcase.

SCHOFIELD'S  WATCH TICKED EVER FORWARD.

8:29:31.

8:29:32.

Amid the roar of the rampaging helicopter and the cacophony

of gunfire all around him, and guarded by

Schofield, Book II and Juliet Janson, the President stepped

up to the Football.

He yanked off his glove, took a final look around himself,

and then, as he strode past the Football, he inconspicuously

placed his hand on the palm-print analyzer, just as the

countdown timer on its display hit 0:24.

The briefcase beeped and the timer instantly ticked over

from 0:24 to 90:00 and started counting down again.

When Schofield saw that the deed was done, he and

Book II fell into step alongside Juliet and the President.

"Remember, guns up and firing," he said. He held his

Matthew Reilly

wrist mike to his lips, "Fox, Elvis, Love Machine: get out of

here. We'll meet you downstairs. Mother, the platform. Now"

mother stood inside the enormous hangar doorway

down on Level 1, looking up into the elevator shaft.

Two hundred feet above her, she could see the underside

of the massive aircraft platform, beyond which she

could hear the sounds of the battle.

She hit the call button, and immediately the giant elevator

platform high above her jolted sharply and slowly began

to descend.

UP IN THE MAIN HANGAR, THE SHATTERED REMAINS OF THE

AWACS plane--and the platform on which they stood-- began to disappear into the floor.

The elevator was going down.

Schofield, Book II, Juliet and the President charged toward

it, firing up at Marine One as they did so--acting like

good 7th Squadron soldiers.

IN THE CONTROL ROOM OVERLOOKING THE HANGAR, CAESAR

grabbed a microphone.

"Boa! Logan! The President is there! He walked right in

among you and hit the analyzer and now he's heading for the

elevator platform. For Christ's sake, he's wearing one of our

own goddamn uniforms!"

IN THE MAIN HANGAR, KURT LOGAN SPUN AROUND WHERE HE

stood, and he saw them--saw four 7th Squadron people

leaping down onto the slowly descending elevator platform,

now completely ignoring Marine One and the runaway

cockroach.

"The platform!" he yelled. "Bravo Unit! Converge on

the platform! Alpha, take out the helicopter and kill that

fucking cockroach!"

marine one was already swooping toward the ground

again--her diversionary mission accomplished.

area 7 179

Gant landed the big chopper right where she had found

it--over the air vent in the floor on the western side of the elevator shaft--and with Elvis's help, she maneuvered the big

bird around so that her floor hatch stopped directly above the

ventilation shaft.

Once the helicopter was stopped, she leapt out of the

pilot's seat and headed for the floor hatch, while Elvis

dashed for the rear left-hand door and threw it open for

Love Machine.

love machine was in a world of pain.

His Volvo towing vehicle wasn't as bulletproof as Marine

One and he was taking all kinds of shit from the 7th

Squadron men.

Tires squealed, bullets impacted, glass shattered.

And now he had to get over to Marine One.

His biggest problem, however, was that he had just

swung his cockroach around for another pass at the 7th

Squadron men on the eastern side of the platform when

Schofield's call had come in.

He was now on the other side of the shaft from Marine

One, heading northward, and the elevator platform--now

sinking slowly into the shaft--was no longer there to drive

on.

He'd have to go around.

More bullets hit his cockroach as three 7th Squadron

commandos appeared right in front of him and assailed his

vehicle with a harrowing wave of gunfire.

Bullets riddled the driver's compartment.

Two slugs slammed into Love Machine's left shoulder,

spraying blood.

Love Machine roared.

A separate volley hit both of his front tires and they

punctured loudly, and suddenly he was skidding out of control,

sliding precariously close to the edge of the elevator

shaft and the now ten-foot drop to the slowly descending

platform.

Somehow, he didn't fall into the shaft. Instead, he

180     Matthew Reilly

bounced across the northeastern corner of the great square

hole, shooting past the 7th Squadron men who had hammered

him with gunfire, and slammed at tremendous speed

into the remains of Nighthawk Two, which still sat near the

northern wall of the hangar--attached to its own towing vehicle,

its cockpit blasted open--right where Book II had left

it ninety minutes earlier.

ELVIS SAW THE CRASH FROM HIS POSITION INSIDE MARINE ONE, saw Love Machine's cockroach plough into Nighthawk Two

and lurch to a thunderous halt, the bricklike towing vehicle

half-buried in the helicopter's crumpled side.

And then he saw the three 7th Squadron men rushing

toward the crashed cockroach.

"Oh, no ..." he breathed.

meanwhile, schofield, book II, juliet and the president-- still dressed in their black 7th Squadron uniforms--were

fighting their own unique kind of battle.

Since it was now descending into the square-shaped

shaft, the aircraft elevator platform had effectively become a

great walled pit, the four walls of the shaft bounding it on

every side. And with the remains of the AWACS plane still

strewn about the platform, it was also now a twisted steel

maze.

Seven members of Bravo Unit moved among the pieces

of the plane, searching for them, hunting them.

Schofield guided his people along the eastern edge of

the platform, leading the way, hurdling broken pieces of

plane, eyes watchful for the enemy, but searching the floor

for something else, something he had planted--

There.

The broken section of wing was right where he had left

it.

Schofield hurried over to it. It was resting on the ground

at the corner of the moving elevator platform, up against the

northern and eastern walls. With Book II's help, he lifted the

area 7 181

portion of wing off the elevator's floor, revealing a wide

square hole in the platform.

The hole was about ten feet square. It was that part of the

platform that usually housed the detachable mini-elevator.

Right now, the detachable section of the elevator platform

lay about fifteen feet below them, farther down the

shaft--nestled in the corner, unmoving, waiting for them.

By placing the broken section of wing over the top of it

earlier, Schofield had ensured that the 7th Squadron didn't

know this exit existed.

It was their escape route.

"love machine! You still alive?" elvis yelled into his

mike from the cockpit of Marine One.

"Aw, fuck ..." came the pained reply.

"Can you move?"

"Get out of here, man. I'm gone. I'm hit and my ankle

was busted in the crash--"

"We don't leave anyone behind," another voice said

firmly over the same frequency.

It was Schofield's voice.

"Elvis. You and Fox get clear. I'm closer--I'll take care

of Love Machine. Love Machine, sit tight. I'm coming for

you."

ON THE DOWNWARD-MOVING ELEVATOR PLATFORM, SCHOFIELD

spun and looked upwards.

"What are you doing?" Book II asked.

"I'm going to get Love Machine," he said, eyeing the

destroyed fuselage of the AWACS plane above him. It was

still tilted sharply forward--nose down, ass up. The elevated

rear section of the plane was still above the rim of the hangar

floor. But not for long. Soon the downward movement of the

platform would bring it below the rim.

"Take the President down," he said to Book II and

Juliet.

"What are you going to do?" Juliet said.

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Matthew Reilly

"I'm going to get my man," Schofield said. "I'll meet

you downstairs."

With that he took off into the twisted metal forest

around them.

Book II and Juliet could only watch him go. And then

they set about their own task of leaping down to the detachable

mini-elevator in the shaft below them.

SCHOFIELD RAN.

Up the steeply sloping left-hand wing of the destroyed

AWACS plane.

He reached the top of the wing, then used some dents in

the side of the fuselage to climb up onto the battered plane's

roof. It was then that he was spotted by two of the Bravo

Unit men on the platform below him.

Their P-90 assault rifles erupted.

But Schofield never stopped moving. He just kept running,

dancing up the slanted roof of the plane, heading

aft--toward the point where the rear section of the

downward-moving plane was about to swing past the rim

of the shaft.

He hit the rear edge of the plane's roof just as it

swooped past the rim and he jumped--diving forward, leaping

full-stretch--and landed with a thud, face-first, out of

the line of fire, on the main hangar's shiny concrete floor,

twenty feet away from Love Machine's crashed cockroach.

He looked up just in time to see the three 7th Squadron

commandos arrive at the cockroach's door.

love machine sighed as he saw the muzzle of a P-90 Assault

rifle appear a few inches in front of his face.

The features of the 7th Squadron commando holding

the gun were obscured by the soldier's half-faced gas mask,

but the man's eyes weren't covered. They glinted with satisfaction.

Love Machine closed his eyes, waited for the end.

Blam!

No end.

area 7 183

Confused, he opened his eyes again--to see his executioner,

now with only half a head, sway unsteadily on his

feet, and then fall in a kind of stunned slow motion to the

ground.

The other two commandos spun instantly, only to be cut

down by a ferocious volley of semiautomatic pistol fire.

They were hurled out of view and then to Love Machine's

complete surprise, he saw, standing in their place--The Scarecrow.

Dressed in his black 7th Squadron clothing.

"Come on," Schofield said. "Let's get you out of here."

BOOK II LANDED ON THE NONSKID DECK OF THE MINI-ELEVATOR,

next to Juliet and the President, eight feet below the

downward-moving main platform.

It was dark down here, in the shadow of the principal

platform.

As soon as they were all on the detachable deck, Juliet

hit a button on a small console built into its floor.

The detachable deck began to glide quickly down the

side of the shaft, traveling on its own set of wall-mounted

rails, moving faster than the gigantic main platform above it.

Pulling away.

SCHOFIELD BEGAN TO HAUL LOVE MACHINE OUT OF THE Cockroach.

As he did so, he saw several weapons strewn about the

exploded-open cockpit of Nighthawk Two--a couple of

MP-10's, some grenades, a chunky .44 caliber "Desert Eagle"

semiautomatic pistol, and, most pleasing of all for

Schofield, two gunlike weapons, still in their black-leather

back holsters, that must have spilled out of Nighthawk

Two's weapons cabinet when it had been blown apart earlier.

They looked like high-tech Tommy guns, each possessed

of a short stubby barrel and two handgrips. Sticking

out of each gun's barrel, however, was a chrome grappling

hook with a bulbous magnetic head.

It was the famous Armalite MH-12 Maghook, a grappling

hook which also contained a high-powered magnet for

adhesion to sheer metallic surfaces.

"Oh, yes ..." Schofield said, grabbing the two Maghooks

area 7 185

and handing one of them to Love Machine. He also grabbed

an MP-10, and the big Desert Eagle pistol, which he shoved

into his belt--

Ping!

At that moment, the doors to the nearby personnel elevator

abruptly opened--

--revealing ten fully armed 7th Squadron men!

Python Willis and the men of Charlie Unit.

Python's eyes nearly popped out of his head when he

saw Schofield standing so close and dressed in 7th Squadron

attire.

His men raised their P-90's instantly.

"Oh, shit!" Schofield said as he shoved Love Machine

back into the cockroach's driver's compartment and clambered

in there with him as a volley of bullets slammed into

the cockroach's frame.

Schofield jammed the stick into reverse--hoped to God

it would still go--and planted the gas pedal to the floor.

The cockroach squealed off the mark, its rear tires

smoking, shooting backwards out of the wreck of Nighthawk

Two, impact sparks chasing it across the floor.

The cockroach rushed across the hangar floor in reverse,

narrowly missing the edge of the elevator shaft as it

rocketed toward the now-abandoned barricade on the eastern

side of the shaft.

Schofield turned in his seat as he drove--saw the barricade

rushing toward him a second too late.

He hit the brakes and the big three-ton towing vehicle

did a wild 180-degree spin. The front end of the cockroach

came swinging around like a baseball bat and took out the

barricade with one devastating swipe, sending crates and

Samsonite containers flying everywhere.

The cockroach jolted to a halt.

In its driver's compartment, Schofield lurched forward.

When he looked up to see where he was, he was surprised to

see that, right next to his door, not three feet away, stood the

chair upon which sat the President's briefcase--the Football.

Holy shit.

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Matthew Reilly

The briefcase's handgrip was still tethered to the floor

by the length of superstrong titanium cord, but now, since the

President had successfully reset its ninety-minute timer, it

had been abandoned by the 7th Squadron men, rightfully assuming

that the President's sole objective was now to get out.

So now the Football just sat there, alone, completely

unguarded.

Schofield saw the opportunity, and took it.

He leapt out of the driver's compartment and slid to the

floor beside the Football.

The men of Charlie Unit were charging across the

hangar, guns blazing, pummeling the exposed rump of the

cockroach with a million rounds of lead.

Sheltered by the big towing vehicle, Schofield brought

one of the tiny 7th Squadron Lock-Blasters out of his

pocket, attached it to the tie-down stud in the floor that held

the Football to the ground, hit the activate button, and dived

away.

One, one-thousand ...

Two, one-thousand ...

Three--

The blast was short and sharp.

With a loud crack! the tie-down stud broke free from

the floor, and suddenly the Football--with the length of titanium

cord still attached to it--was free.

Schofield scooped it up and dived back into the cab of

the cockroach, just as the first 7th Squadron men arrived.

Two of them leapt up onto the back of the cockroach,

landing on it at the exact same moment that Schofield

floored the accelerator and the cockroach took off, the sudden

lurch of motion sending one of the commandos falling

ass-over-head off the back of the towing vehicle.

The second man had better reflexes. He discarded his

P-90, giving himself an extra hand, and somehow managed

to hang on to the roof of the speeding vehicle.

Schofield swung the cockroach around the southern

side of the enormous elevator shaft--tires squealing, engine

roaring, and now with an extra passenger on its back.

area 7

He saw Marine One up ahead, standing on the western

side of the shaft, its rotor blades still turning.

That was where he wanted to go. Pull alongside Marine

One, race inside it and then leap down into its floor hatch

and escape into the ventilation shaft below it.

But his hopes were dashed when he saw the three black

clad men from Alpha Unit appear from the other side of the

Presidential helicopter, guns up.

Ready for him.

But for some reason, they didn't fire.

Why weren't they?

With shocking suddenness, the small rear window of

the driver's compartment behind Schofield's head exploded

all around him, showering Schofield and Love Machine

with glass, and a pair of black-gloved hands appeared on either

side of Schofield's head, one of them brandishing a

knife!

It was the 7th Squadron commando on the back of the

cockroach. With his head held above the driver's compartment,

he was reaching in with his hands to kill Schofield.

On a reflex, Schofield grabbed the man's knife hand,

while the assassin's other hand clutched madly at his face.

They were still rushing toward Marine One, the cockroach--its two front tires punctured, its driver fighting for

his life--caroming wildly across the shiny hangar floor.

Grappling with the commando behind him, Schofield

saw Marine One ahead of them, saw its rapidly spinning

vertical tail rotor, a blurring circle of motion about six feet

off the ground, a few inches higher than the roof of the

cockroach ...

Schofield didn't miss a beat.

He threw the fast-moving cockroach into a skid, fishtailing

the big vehicle sideways--sliding it underneath the

tail rotor of Marine One, so that the buzz saw-like blades of

the vertical rotor passed low over the cockroach's roof.

Then he heard the commando behind him scream in terror

before--abruptly--the yell was cut short as the tail rotor

sheared the commando's head clean off his body and a

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Matthew Reilly

shocking waterfall of blood gushed down from the roof of

the driver's compartment.

The three men of Alpha Unit standing near Marine One

hurled themselves clear of the sliding towing vehicle as it

shot beneath the tail boom of the President's helicopter.

The cockroach emerged on the other side of the chopper,

skidding to a sideways halt, so that now the bullet

battered towing vehicle was facing the great square hole that

was the elevator shaft.

Schofield saw the yawning shaft before him--with its

wide hydraulic platform inside it, still making its ponderous

descent; saw the AWACS plane's flying-saucer-like roto

dome about ten feet below the floorline.

He revved the engine.

Love Machine saw what he was thinking.

"You are out of your mind, Captain."

"Whatever works," Schofield said. "Hang on."

He gunned it.

The cockroach shot forward, rear tires squealing,

rushed toward the edge of the shaft.

Speed is everything, Schofield thought as he drove. He

needed enough forward velocity so that the cockroach

would reach the ...

The cockroach rushed toward the rim.

Bullet sparks exploded all around it.

Schofield drove hard.

Then the cockroach hit the edge of the elevator shaft

and launched itself out into the air ...

THE COCKROACH SOARED—WHEELS SPINNING, NOSE HIGH.

Then, as it fell, its forward bumper began to droop and

it resumed the appearance of three tons of steel that was

never intended to fly.

By this time, the elevator platform had descended about

thirty feet below floorline, but the body of the destroyed

AWACS plane—and its intact rotodome—made the fall for

the soaring cockroach only about ten feet.

The cockroach landed—smash!—right on top of the

AWACS plane's downward-slanted rotodome.

The rotodome, titanium-based and very rigid, resisted

the downward energy of the falling vehicle valiantly.

Its support struts, however, did not.

They buckled instantly, snapping like twigs, as did the

body of the airplane underneath the rotodome.

The AWACS's cylindrical fuselage just crumpled like

an aluminum can under the weight of the falling towing vehicle,

effectively cushioning the roach's fall.

The rotodome was driven down into the fuselage, creating

a ramplike effect which allowed Schofield's cockroach

to skip off the other side of the plane and bounce down onto

its destroyed left-hand wing.

Schofield and Love Machine were thrown about like rag

dolls as the cockroach bounced and jounced and thundered

forward.

Somehow, Schofield managed to hit the brakes and the

cockroach skidded and spun, before slamming to an abrupt

halt against the far wall of the shaft, right next to the

Matthew Reilly

square-shaped hole that normally housed the detachable

mini-elevator.

Schofield was already moving when the cockroach

stopped, helping Love Machine out of the driver's cabin just

as the first 7th Squadron men emerged from the twisted steel

forest around them and opened fire.

But their bullets were too slow.

Indeed, they could only watch in stunned amazement as

Schofield handed Love Machine the Football, draped the

wounded man's arms over his shoulders, and without even a

blink, jumped with Love Machine down into the hole in the

platform, disappearing into the blackness beneath it.

LIKE A PAIR OF TANDEM SKYDIVERS, SCHOFIELD AND LOVE

Machine dropped down the side of the massive elevator

shaft, dwarfed by its immense size.

As instructed, Love Machine gripped Schofield's shoulders

as hard as he could--holding on to the Football as he

did so. That didn't stop him screaming "Arrrrrgghh!!!" all

the way down.

The gray concrete wall rushed past them as they free fell down the side of the shaft.

As he dropped, Schofield looked down and saw a

square of white light stretching out from the hangar on Level

1, illuminating the tiny mini-elevator platform stopped there--two hundred feet below.

He unholstered his newly acquired Maghook, snapped

open its grappling hook.

He couldn't fire it up at the underside of the main platform.

Maghooks only had one hundred and fifty feet of rope.

It wouldn't be long enough.

No, he had to wait until they dropped about fifty feet,

and then--

As he dropped past it, Schofield lodged the Maghook's

grappling hook into a metal bracket sticking out from the

greasy concrete wall. The bracket kept a series of thick cables

running down the side of the shaft bundled together.

As the Maghook gripped the bracket, Schofield and

area 7 191

Love Machine continued to fall, the hook's rope playing out

above them, unspooling rapidly, wobbling through the air.

The mini-elevator's deck rushed up toward them at

shocking speed.

Faster, faster, faster ...

Jolt.

And they stopped, three feet above the mini-elevator's

deck, in front of the massive doorway that led into the Level

1 hangar bay.

Schofield released his grip on a black button on the

Maghook's forward grip--it was a trigger that initiated a

clamping mechanism that bit into the Maghook's unspooling

rope. He'd hit it just in time. He and Love Machine were

lowered the final three feet.

Their boots touched the ground and they turned to find

that they had company.

Standing in front of them just inside the hangar bay

doors were Book II, Juliet and the President. With them

were Mother, Brainiac and the scientist, Herbie Franklin.

"If anybody makes a joke about 'dropping in,'" Mother

said, "I will personally rip that person's throat out."

"WE HAVE TO KEEP MOVING," SCHOFIELD SAID WHEN HE'D

reeled in his Maghook. The giant aircraft elevator was still

lumbering down the shaft above them—with its cargo of 7th

Squadron commandos.

Schofield's group headed for the vehicle ramp at the far

end of the enormous underground hangar bay, Book II and

Mother carrying the wounded Love Machine between them.

Juliet Janson came alongside Schofield. "So, now what?"

"We've got the President," he said. "And we've got the

Football. Since the Football was the only thing keeping the

President here, I say we ditch this party. That means finding

a networked terminal. We use the computer to open up an

exit during the next hourly window period and then we get

out of Dodge.

"Dr. Franklin," he turned as they all started down the

circular vehicle access ramp. "Where's the nearest security

computer? Something that will open up an exit during the

next window period."

Herbie said, "There are two on this level—one in the

hangar's office, the other in the junction box."

"Not here," Schofield said. "The bad guys'll be here any

minute."

"Then the nearest one is on 4, in the decompression area

down there."

"Then that's where we're going."

A woman's voice came through Schofield's earpiece as

he moved: "Scarecrow, this is Fox. We are at the bottom of

the ventilation shaft. What do you want us to do?"

area 7 193

"Can you cut across the bottom of the aircraft elevator

shaft?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Meet us in the Level 4 lab," Schofield said into his

wrist mike.

"Got it. Oh, and Scarecrow, we--uh--picked up a couple

of new passengers."

"Wonderful," Schofield said. "See you soon."

They raced down the vehicle ramp to Level 2, where

they came to an opening in the floor that accessed the emergency

stairwell. The eight of them hurried down the stairs

until they arrived at the heavy firedoor that led to the decompression area on Level 4.

Brainiac tested the door.

It opened easily.

Schofield was immediately worried. This was one of the

doors they had locked and then disabled earlier. Now it was

unlocked. He made a hand signal: "Proceed with caution."

Brainiac nodded.

He quickly and silently swung the door open as Book II

and Mother slipped inside, an M-16 and a P-90 pressed

against their respective shoulders.

No fire was necessary.

Aside from the bodies on the floor--from their previous

encounter with the 7th Squadron here--the decompression

area was empty.

Juliet and the President went in next, stepping over the

bodies. Schofield followed, with Love Machine draped over

his shoulder.

A couple of computer terminals sat sunk into the wall

on their right, partially hidden behind the telephone-booth-sized test chambers.

"Dr. Franklin, pick a terminal," Schofield said.

"Brainiac, go with him. Find out what we have to do to get

out of this rat maze. Book, take Love Machine. Mother,

check the lab next door for a first-aid kit."

Mother headed for the doorway leading to the other side

of the floor.

194

Matthew Reilly

Book II lowered the grimacing Love Machine to the

ground, then made to shut the door behind them.

"What the hell ... ?" he said as he looked at the door.

Schofield came over. "What is it?"

"Look at the lock."

Schofield did so, and his eyes narrowed.

The door's bolt mechanism--the thick rectangular part

of the lock that extended out from the door and secured itself

inside a matching slot in the doorframe--had been

sheared off.

Cleanly.

Perfectly.

Indeed, the cut was so clean that it could only have been

done by some sort of laser ...

Schofield frowned.

Somebody had been through here since the battle.

"Scarecrow," someone said.

It was Mother.

She was standing in the doorway leading to the western

side of Level 4. Standing with her was Libby Gant, who had

appeared from the other side of the floor.

"Scarecrow. You better see this," Mother said.

schofield went over to the doorway set into the white

wall that divided Level 4.

He checked the lock on the door as he met Gant and

Mother. Its bolt had also been sheared off with a laser cutting

device.

"What is it?" he said.

He looked up and was surprised to see, standing with

Gant, Colonel Hot Rod Hagerty and Nicholas Tate III, the

President's slick Domestic Policy Adviser. Gant's new passengers.

Gant jerked her thumb at the area behind her--the high

ceilinged hall-like space that housed the great glass cube.

Schofield looked into it ...

... and immediately felt his blood run cold.

The cube looked like a bomb had hit it.

area 7 195

Its clear walls lay at all angles, shattered and broken.

Entire sections of glass had fallen in on the bedroom inside

it, exposing the room to the outside air. Toys lay on their

sides. The colorful furniture had been overturned, hurled

roughly aside.

There was no sign of the boy, Kevin.

"Looks like they took a whole bunch of stuff from up in

the lab, too," Gant said. "The entire area has been ransacked."

Schofield bit his lip in thought as he looked at the scene

before him.

He didn't want to say it. Didn't even want to think it.

But there was no denying it now.

"There's someone else in here," he said.

THE LANGUAGE WAS AFRIKAANS.

The official language of the white regime that had ruled

South Africa up until 1994, but which now, for obvious reasons,

was no longer the country's official language.

After consulting with the DIA's two African language

specialists, Dave Fairfax now had all of his recorded conversations

translated and ready for presentation to the Director.

He looked at the transcript again and smiled. It read:

COMM-SAT SECURE WIRE TRACE E/13A-2

DIA-SPACE DIV-PENT-DC

OPERATOR: T16-009

SOURCE: USAF-SA(R)07

29-MAY         22:10-56       AFRIKAANS-- ENGLISH

VOICE 1:       Kan bevestig dat in-enting plaasvind.         Can confirm that vaccine is operational.

13-JUN          18:01:38

AFRIKAANS--ENGLISH

Test on latest strain expected

on the third. What about

the extraction unit?

VOICE 1: Toetse op

laaste poging

word op die vierentwientigste verwag. Wat van

die onttrekkings

eenheild?

VOICE 2: Reccondo span is Reccondo team has already alreeds weggestuur. been dispatched.

15-JHN

area 7 197

14:45:46

AFRIKAANS--ENGLISH

VOICE 1:

16-JUN

Voorbereidings

onderweg.

Vroeg oggend.

Beste tyd vir

onttrekking.

19:56:09

Preparations under way.

Early morning. Optimal time for

extraction.

ENGLISH--ENGLISH

VOICE 3:

21-JUN

07:22:13

VOICE 2:

Everything is in

place. Confirm that

it's the third.

Everything is in place.

Confirm that it's the third.

AFRIKAANS--ENGLISH

VOICE 1: Ontrekking kan 'n Extraction is the biggest

probleem wees.

Gestei ons gebruik

die Hoeb land hier

naby. Verstaan hy is

'n lid van Die

Organisasie.

Sal die instruksies

oordra.

problem. Plan is to use the

Hoeb land nearby. Member

of Die Organisasie.

Will pass on those instructions.

22-JUN          20-51-59       ENGLISH -- ENGLISH

VOICE 3: 23-JUN      Mission is a go. 01:18:22     Mission is a go. AFRIKAANS -- ENGLISH

VOICE 1:       Die Reccondos is       Reccondos are in place.

gereed. Verwagte

aankoms by

beplande

bestemming binne

nege dae.

Estimate arrival at target

destination in nine days.

"That is some seriously weird shit, my friend," one

of the African language experts said as he was putting on

his jacket to leave. He was a short, pleasant fellow named

198

Matthew Reilly

Lew Alvy. "I mean, Reccondo Units. Die Organisasie.

Jesus."

"What do you mean?" Fairfax asked. "What are they?"

Alvy took a quick look around himself.

"The Reccondos," he said, "are the baddest of the bad

when it comes to elite units. They're the South African Reconnaissance Commandos. Before Mandela, they were the crack assassination squad of the white regime. Specialists in

cross-border raids, covert hits--usually on black resistance

leaders--trained to be ghosts. They would never leave a

trace of their presence, but you'd know they'd been there because

of all the cut throats.

"Tough bastards, too. I heard once, in Zimbabwe, a

squad of Reccondos lay in ambush for nineteen days, not

moving, hiding in the veldt under heat-deflecting dirt covers,

until their target arrived. The target came by, thinking the

area was secure, and--boom--they nailed him. Some say

that in the eighties they bolstered their numbers by enlisting

Angolan mercenaries, but the argument became academic in

1994 when Mandela took power and the unit was disbanded

in light of its previous missions. Suddenly they all became

mercenaries, a crack hit squad for hire."

"Shit," Fairfax breathed. "And Die Organisasie? What's

that?"

Alvy said, "Part myth, part reality. No one's really sure.

But MI6 has a file, so does the CIA. It's an underground organization

of exiled white South Africans who actively plot

the demise of the ANC government in the hope of returning

South Africa to the bad old days. Rich bastards--rich, racist

bastards. Also known as the 'Third Force,' or the 'Spider

Network.' Hell, it was listed last year on Interpol as an active

terrorist organization."

Fairfax frowned as Alvy departed.

What could an ultra-rich right-wing South African organization

and an elite light commando unit possibly want

with a remote U.S. Air Force base?

typically, hot rod hagerty and nicholas tate went

straight over to the President. Elvis, on the other hand,

rushed over to check on his wounded buddy, Love Machine.

Schofield stood in the center of the decompression area

on Level 4, with Gant at his side.

Gant nodded at Hagerty and Tate. "We found them inside

Marine One, holed up inside the Presidential escape

pod. Hiding."

"He'll take command," Schofield said.

"He is the ranking officer," Gant said.

"He's never been under fire."

"Shit."

A few yards to their left, over by the test chambers,

Brainiac and Herbie Franklin sat before a computer terminal.

Schofield stepped up behind them. "So, what's the

story?"

"This is very odd," Herbie said. "Here, look," he

pointed at the screen. It read:

S.A.(R) 07A

SECURITY ACCESS LOG

7-3-010229027

SYSTEM TIME KEY ACTION OPERATOR       RESPONSE

06:30:00       System status 070-67         All systems

check  operational

200

Matthew Reilly

TIME   KEY ACTION   OPERATOR     ammction

response

terminal 1-Ai

RESPONSE

06:58:34       Lockdown      105-02 Lockdown

command                enacted

07:00:00       System status          070-67 All systems

check            operational

(lockdown

mode)

07:30:00       System status          070-67 All systems

check            operational

(lockdown

H      _     _   _     _  _  __ _                  mode)

U/:J/:%         WARNING:     System         Malfunction

Auxiliary                  located at

08:00:15

WARNING:

Auxiliary

power

System

capacity: ->u /n

Main power

shutdown

command

(terminal

3-A1)

SYSTEM 008-72

systems:

TRACS;

AUX SYS-1

RADCCM

SPHERE;

MBN; EXT

FAN

Terminal

1-A2 not

responding

Main power

disabled

area 7

201

TIME

KEY ACTION

OPERATOR

SYSTEM RESPONSE

08:00:18

08:00:19

08:01:02

08:04:34

08:04:55

Auxiliary

power

enabled

WARNING:

Auxiliary

power

operational.

Low power

protocol

enabled

Lockdown

special

release

command

entered

(terminal

3-A1)

Lockdown

special

release

command

entered

(terminal

3-A1)

Lockdown

special

release

command

entered

(terminal

3-A1)

Aux System

AUX System

008-72

008-72

008-72

Auxiliary

power start

up

Low power

protocol in

effect:

nonessential

systems

disabled

Door 003-V

opened

Door 062-W

opened

DooMOOW

opened

202

TIME

Matthew Reilly

SYSTEM KEY ACTION OPERATOR     RESPONSE

1

08:18:00

WARNING:

AUX System   Terminal 1-A2

not

08:21:30

power

capacity. 35°<i:

Security

camera

system

shutdown

command

(terminal

1A1)

008-93

SYSTEM

ERROR:

Security

camera

system

already

disabled per

low power

protocol

"Okay," Herbie said. "Well, it starts out all right. Standard

system checks by a local operator. Probably one of the

console operators up in the main hangar on ground level.

Then comes the lockdown at 6:58, keyed in by operator

number 105-02. That's someone high up. A 105 prefix indicates

a colonel or above. Probably Colonel Harper.

"But then, at 7:37, something must have happened up

on Level 1. At that time nearly half the complex's auxiliary

power supply went up in smoke."

"A missile hit the junction box " Schofield said, recalling

his battle with the missile-mounted Humvees up in the

Level 1 hangar bay earlier. His tone made it sound like this

sort of thing happened every day.

"O-kay" Herbie said. "That would explain it. That junction

box housed the auxiliary power generators. The unfortunate

consequence of that, however, happened here," he

pointed at another line:

08:00:15

Main power

shutdown

command

(terminal 3A1)

008-72

Main power

disabled

area 7 203

"Somebody turned off the main power supply," Herbie

said. "That was why I couldn't disable the cameras before.

See here, you can see my entry at 8:21. I'm operator

008-93.

"The problem was somebody else--operator number

008-72--had already turned the cameras off by shutting

down the main power supply. As soon as anyone shuts off

the main power, the system switches over to auxiliary

power--but now, because of your missile impact, this place

only has half its auxiliary power remaining, which as you

can see, is draining fast.

"But ... when the auxiliary power supply kicks in, the

system switches off all nonessential power drains--things

like excess lighting and the security camera network. That's

the low power protocol that keeps getting mentioned."

"So by cutting the power, he cut the cameras ..."

Schofield thought aloud.

"Yes."

"He didn't want to be seen ..."

"More than that," Herbie said. "Look at what he did

next. He keyed in three special lockdown release codes--

once at 8:01 and twice at 8:04--opening three exit doors."

"The five-minute window period," Schofield said.

"That's right."

"So which doors did he open?"

"Just a second, I'll find out." Herbie tapped some keys.

"Now, the first one was 003-V." A schematic diagram of the

Area 7 complex came up on his screen. "There it is. The

Emergency Exit Vent."

"And the other two?"

"062-W and 100-W..." Herbie said aloud, scanning

the screen. "Door 062-W stands for door sixty-two/west.

But that would mean it was part of the ..."

"What?" Schofield said.

Herbie said, "62-West is the blast door that seals off the

westward X-rail tunnel down on Level 6."

"And the other one? 100West?"

"It's where that X-rail tunnel ends, over by Lake Powell,

204

Matthew Reilly

about forty miles west of here. 100-West is the security

door leading out to the lake."

Brainiac asked, "Why would he open those three

doors?"

"You open the Emergency Exit Vent to let your companions

in. To help you steal the booty," Schofield said.

"And the other two doors?"

"You open them so all of you can get out."

"So why cut the power?" Gant asked.

"To disable the security cameras," Schofield said.

"Whoever did this didn't want the Air Force people to see

him doing it."

"See him doing what?" Brainiac said.

Schofield exchanged a look with Gant.

"See him taking the boy," he said.

"Quickly," Schofield said to Herbie, "can you find out

who operator number 008-72 is?"

"Sure." Herbie began typing fast.

A moment later, he said, "Got it." A list appeared on his

screen. Schofield scanned the list until he found the entry he

was looking for:

008-72

BOTHA, GuntherW.

"Who's Gunther Botha?" Schofield asked.

"Son of a bitch," a voice said from behind them.

It was the President. He stepped up behind Schofield's

shoulder.

"Botha," he spat. "I should have known."

"south african scientist, working here on the vaccine,"

the President said. "You make a deal with the Devil, and it

comes back to bite you in the ass."

"Why would he want to take the boy?"

"The Sinovirus kills both white people and black people,

Captain," the President said. "Only people of Asian origin

are safe from it. That boy, however, has been genetically

designed to be a universal vaccine, for both blacks and

area 7 205

whites. But if only white people are given the vaccine, then

only white people would survive an outbreak of the

Sinovirus. And if Botha is working for who I think he's

working for ..."

"So what do we do now?" Herbie said.

"We go after the boy," Schofield said instantly. "And we--"

"No, you do not, Captain," Hot Rod Hagerty said, appearing

suddenly behind Schofield. "You will stay here and

you will guard the President."

"But ..."

"In case you haven't been paying attention, if the President

dies, so does America. One little boy can wait. I think

it's time you got your priorities straight, Captain Schofield."

"But we can't just leave him--"

"Yes, we can, and yes we will," Hagerty said, his face

reddening. "In case you have forgotten, Captain, I am your

superior officer, and I am now ordering you to obey me. The

United States government pays me to do the thinking for

you. So this is what you will think: your country is more important

than the life of one little boy."

Schofield didn't move a muscle. "I wouldn't want to

live in a country that leaves a little boy to die ..."

Hagerty's eyes blazed. "No. From now on, you will do

as I say, how I say, and when I say--"

The President himself seemed about to interfere when

Schofield stepped forward, right in front of Hagerty.

"No, sir" he said firmly, "I will not follow you. Because

if you'd waited for me to finish what I was going to say earlier,

you would have heard me say: 'We go after the boy, and

we take the President with us.' Because in case you haven't

been paying attention, that Botha guy and whoever's with

him opened up an exit to this place! They've given us a way

out."

Hagerty fell silent, grinding his teeth.

"Now, if you don't mind," Schofield said, "and if nobody

else has any better ideas, what do you say we all get

the hell out of this place?"

UP IN THE CONTROL ROOM OVERLOOKING THE MAIN HANGAR,

Caesar Russell's four radio operators were working overtime.

"--main power's down, no cameras operational at all.

All systems running on auxiliary power supply--"

"--Sir, someone's initiated the lockdown release codes.

The western X-rail door has been opened--"

"Who?" Caesar Russell asked pointedly.

The console operator frowned. "It looks like it was Professor

Botha, sir."

"Botha," Caesar said quietly. "How predictable."

"Sir," another operator said, "I have movement on the

X-rail system. Someone heading westward toward the

canyons--"

"Oh, Gunther. You couldn't help yourself, could you?

You're trying to snatch the boy," Caesar smiled sadly.

"What's the ETA on that X-rail train at the lake?"

"Forty miles of track at one hundred and seventy miles

per hour. About fourteen minutes, sir."

"Get Bravo down to Level 6 on the double, to pursue

Botha on the X-rail. Then open the top door and send Charlie

out in the AH-77's to cut him off at the lake--we'll get

him from in front and behind. Now go. Go. Although Gunther

could never know it, we need that boy. This will all be

for nothing if we don't have that child."

schofield, mother, gant and book II flew down the

fire stairs at full speed.

area 7 207

Schofield ran with his Desert Eagle held out in front of

him. The Football now dangled from his waist, its hand-grip

attached to a clip on his 7th Squadron combat webbing.

Behind them came the President and Juliet, Herbie the

scientist, Hot Rod Hagerty and Nicholas Tate. Bringing up

the rear were Elvis and Brainiac, carrying Love Machine between

them.

They came to the Level 6 doorway. Frank Cutler's

bloodied and broken body still lay on the floor beside it.

"Be careful," Juliet said to Schofield as he put his hand

on the doorknob. "This was where they got us before."

Schofield nodded.

Then--quickly, silently--he whipped open the door,

and took cover.

There was no sound.

No gunshots went off.

No bullets whistled into the stairwell.

"Holy Christ!" Mother said, as she looked beyond the

doorway.

THE MASSIVE AIRCRAFT ELEVATOR LUMBERED DOWN THE

shaft.

On its back, amid the pieces of the destroyed AWACS

plane, stood the ten men of Bravo Unit. They were moving

down through the complex, heading for Level 6, in pursuit

of Gunther Botha and the boy.

The gigantic elevator platform rumbled down the shaft,

the dirty gray concrete walls sliding past the Bravo Unit men.

They swung by Level 3, moving downward ... then

Level 4 ... then--

--the elevator platform plunged into water.

As it came to Level 5, the cell block level, the elevator

platform rushed down into a wide body of water that had

formed at the bottom of the shaft. Several tons of water immediately

gushed onto the platform, slithering in among the

pieces of the crumpled AWACS plane.

"Goddamn!" the leader of Bravo Unit, Boa McConnell,

exclaimed as the water rushed up to his waist.

He reached for his radio mike.

"--bravo unit reports substantial flooding on level 5.

It's starting to fill the main elevator shaft. Only access to

Level 6 is via the eastern fire stairs or the western ventilation

shaft. Bravo is going for the ventilation shaft--"

"--Sir. That enhanced satellite image of the Emergency

Escape Vent is coming through now."

A sheet of high-gloss paper edged out of a nearby

printer. A radio operator tore it clear, checked the time code

area 7 209

at the top. "This one's from ten minutes ago. Another one

coming through--what the fuck--?"

"What is it?" Caesar Russell said, taking the printout

from the operator. Russell recalled the subject of the satellite

scans: the twenty-four rodlike objects that had been picked

up on the infrared satellite earlier, the ones that had been

fanned out in a wide circle around the EEV.

Caesar's eyes narrowed.

The enhanced satellite image showed a few of the

"rods" very clearly. They weren't rods at all.

They were combat boots--sticking out from underneath

heat-deflecting covers.

The second satellite scan came through. Caesar grabbed

it. It was more recent than the first. Only a minute old.

It showed the same image as the first scan: the Emergency

Exit Vent and the desert floor around it.

Only now the cluster of combat boots surrounding the

Vent was nowhere in sight.

They were gone.

"Mmmm, very clever, Gunther," Caesar said softly.

"You brought the Reccondos with you."

there were bodies everywhere.

Christ, Schofield thought. It looks like a war has been

fought down here.

He wasn't far wrong.

Level 6 resembled a subway station—with a central elevated

concrete platform, flanked on either side by train

tracks. Like a regular train station, at both ends of the extremely

elongated space were a pair of train tunnels that disappeared

into darkness. Unlike a regular train station,

however, three of those four tunnels were sealed off by

heavy gray-steel blast doors.

On the central platform lay nine corpses, all dressed in

suits.

The nine members of the Secret Service's Primary Advance

Team.

Their bodies lay at all angles, bathed in blood, their

suits ripped to shreds by the penetration of countless bullets.

Beyond them, however, lay another set of bodies ... ten

of them—all dressed in black combat clothing.

7th Squadron men.

All dead.

Three of them lay spread-eagled on the platform, with

enormous star-shaped holes in their chests. Exit wounds. It

seemed that these men had been shot in their backs as they'd

clambered up onto the platform from the right-hand railway

track, their rib cages exploding outwards with the sudden

gaseous expansion of the hollow-pointed bullets that had hit

them.

More 7th Squadron men lay sprawled on the track itself,

area 7 211

in various states of bloodiness. Three of them, Schofield

saw, bore very precise bullet holes in their foreheads.

Four of the 7th Squadron commandos, however, had not

been shot.

They lay slumped next to a steel door sunk into the wall

of the right-hand track--the entrance to the Emergency Exit

Vent.

Their throats had been slit from ear to ear.

They had been the first to die, Schofield thought, when

their assailants had emerged from the Vent behind them.

Schofield stepped out from the stairwell doorway, onto

the platform.

The underground station was empty.

It was then that he saw them.

They sat on either side of the central platform, one to

each track: X-rail engines.

"Whoa," he breathed.

X-rail systems are high-speed underground railway systems

used by the U.S. military for equipment delivery and

transport. X-rail engines--or "railcars" as they are known--

move so fast that they require four railway tracks for stability:

two tracks on the ground and two fastened to the ceiling

above the railcar.

The X-railcars that Schofield saw now exuded power

and speed.

They were about sixty feet long--about the size of regular

subway carriages--but their sleek curves and sharp

pointed noses were quite clearly designed for one purpose:

to slice through the air at tremendous speed.

Each train's design was based on that of the most well

known high-speed train in the world, the Japanese Bullet

Train. A steeply slanted nose, aerodynamically grooved

sides, even a couple of winglike canards jutting out from the

bow of each train were all included as part of the relentless

pursuit of speed.

The X-rail train to Schofield's left was actually made up

of two carriages connected by way of an accordion-like passageway.

The two railcars were positioned back-to-back,

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Matthew Reilly

their sharpened noses pointed in opposite directions. Both

engines were painted glistening white, so that they looked

like a pair of space shuttles connected tail-to-tail.

It was only when Schofield saw their struts, however,

that he realized why the system was called an "X"-rail.

Jutting out from both the front and rear edges of each

engine, swept back like the wings of a fast-flying bird, were

four elongated struts, which when seen from head-on would

look like an "X." The lower struts reached down to the wide

railway-like tracks beneath the railcar, while the upper

struts reached up to an identical pair of tracks attached to

the ceiling of the tunnel. All the struts, top and bottom,

were contoured like airplane wings to allow for maximum

speed.

Nestled up against the blast door behind the double

engined train was a smaller type of X-rail vehicle--a kind of

miniature car that was barely a third the size of the longer

engines. It was little more than a round two-person cockpit

mounted in the center of a set of four struts.

"Maintenance vehicle," Herbie said. "Used for tunnel

upkeep and cleaning. Faster than the bigger engines, but it

only holds two."

"Now why don't they have these on the New York subway?"

Elvis said, eyeing the double-engined X-rail train.

"Hey, over there," Brainiac said, pointing at the open

tunnel door at the far end of the left-hand railway track. It

was the only tunnel that wasn't sealed off by a blast door.

"That's door 62-West," Herbie Franklin said. "That's

how they got out."

"Then that's where we're going," Schofield said.

They all hurried for the twin-engined X-rail train, dashing

out into the open, halfway down the length of the station's

platform.

Schofield reached the forward engine's side door and

hit a button. With a soft shoosh, all the side doors of the two

rail cars--two doors per car--slid open.

Schofield stood inside the lead rail car's forward doorway,

the Football hanging from his waist, as he ushered the

area 7 213

others inside. Book II dashed in first, headed straight for the

driver's cabin, Herbie close behind him.

The President and Juliet came next, rushing in through

the lead car's rear doorway. They were flanked by Gant and

Mother, and followed by Hot Rod Hagerty and Nick Tate--

always keen to stay close to the President.

Trailing last of all, still making their way across the

platform, were Elvis and Brainiac with the wounded Love

Machine draped between them.

"Elvis! Brainiac! Pick it up! Come on!"

Schofield looked back into the interior of the rail car.

The inside of the car looked like a cross between a standard

subway carriage and a freight car. It had a few rows of passenger

seats near the back, and a wide open empty space

near the front for cargo boxes and the like to be stored.

Schofield saw the President over by the rear door, about

forty feet away, slumping into a passenger seat in exhaustion.

And then it happened.

Completely without warning.

One moment, Schofield was looking down the interior

of the rail car, looking at the seated figure of the President;

the next, every single window on the platform side of the

rail car just exploded, glass spraying inwards under the

weight of a shocking amount of automatic gunfire, blasting

tiny shards of glass all over the inside of the carriage.

More gunfire followed--loud, relentless, booming. It

impacted hard against the right-hand flank of the X-rail engine,

so hard in fact that it caused the entire carriage to shudder

violently.

Schofield ducked, shielding his face from the rain of

flying glass. Then he spun and peered out through the shattered

window beside him--

--and saw a phalanx of 7th Squadron commandos

come leaping out of the air vent at the far western end of the

platform, armed with P-90 rifles and a couple of devastating

six-barreled miniguns.

The miniguns whirred, spewing out an unbelievable

storm of bullets, pummeling the side of the rail car.

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Matthew Reilly

"You okay?" Schofield yelled to Juliet and the President,

his voice barely audible above the thunderous gunfire.

The President, now lying facedown on the floor, nodded

feebly in reply.

"Stay down!" Schofield called.

Abruptly, the X-rail engine beneath them roared to life.

Schofield snapped around to see Book II and Herbie in

the driver's compartment, flicking switches, pushing throttles.

The rail car's power system thrummed loudly, warming

up.

Let's go, Schofield thought anxiously. Let's go ...

And then suddenly a voice exploded in his earpiece: "Hey! Wait for us!"

It was Elvis.

elvis, brainiac and love machine were still out on the

platform.

Lagging behind the others under Love Machine's

weight, they hadn't been able to make it to the two connected

rail cars by the time the 7th Squadron commandos

had appeared at the other end of the underground station.

Now they were pinned down behind a concrete pillar,

only ten feet away from the rearmost door of the second rail car,

the area all around them shredded by the 7th Squadron's

brutal minigun fire.

"All right! We have to move! Get ready!" Elvis yelled.

"Okay, now!"

They burst out from their position. Bullets slammed

into the pillars all around them. Chunks of concrete flew

everywhere. Two bullets blasted clean through Elvis's left

shoulder.

"Come on, Love Machine, stay with us!" he yelled.

They reached the rear door of the second rail car, began

to shove Love Machine inside it when--

Smack!

Love Machine's head jolted violently to the left, snapping

at an unnatural angle, smacking hard against the side of

Elvis's shoulder.

area 7 215

"Oh, man," Brainiac said, seeing it. "No."

Elvis turned.

Love Machine's head lolled lifelessly against his shoulder,

a goopy syrup of brains and blood dripping slowly out

of a bullet hole in the back of it.

Love Machine was gone.

Elvis just froze, oblivious to his own wounds.

Brainiac said, "Elvis, come on. Get him inside. The

train's about to go."

Elvis didn't reply. He just looked at the lifeless body of

Love Machine, slumped against his shoulder.

"Elvis ..."

"Go," Elvis said softly, as bullets hit all around them.

He lowered Love Machine's body to the ground beside the

X-rail car. Then he looked Brainiac square in the eyes. "Go.

Now."

"What are you doing?" Brainiac said.

"I'm staying here with my friend."

And then Brainiac saw the sadness in Elvis's eyes--saw

Elvis look lethally over at the 7th Squadron men sidestepping

their way toward them from the far end of the platform.

Brainiac nodded. "Take care of yourself, Elvis."

"Never," Elvis said.

"brainiac! " schofield yelled, gun in hand, trying to see

what was happening at the back of the train without getting

his head blown off. "What's going on back there!"

Brainiac's voice said, "We lost Love Machine, sir, and

Elvis has ... oh, fuck!"

Just then, two loud puncturelike booms echoed out

through the underground station.

Thawump!

Thawump!

Schofield turned ...

—just in time to see two black baseball-sized grenades

come rocketing through the air toward him and the X-rail car!

They had been shot from a pair of M-203 grenade

launchers held by the 7th Squadron commandos.

The two high explosive rounds shot in through the

blasted-open windows of the lead X-rail car ... one entering

near the front of the car, right next to Schofield; the other

rocketing in through a broken window near the rear of the

car, near Gant and Mother and the President.

The grenade near Schofield bounced off the far wall and

spun to a halt on the floor a couple of yards away from him.

Schofield didn't waste a second.

He dived forward—toward the grenade, sliding across

the floor on his chest—and swiped the charge back out

through the open door of the railcar with his hand. The

grenade whipped across the hard floor of the carriage and

disappeared through the door. Schofield then ducked back

behind the wall as the grenade detonated outside, sending a

vicious ball of flames rushing in through the doorway.

area 7 217

AT THE OTHER END OF THE CARRIAGE, GANT AND MOTHER

weren't so lucky.

Their grenade had landed in among the passenger seats

that occupied the rear half of the carriage. There was no way

anyone could get to it before it detonated.

"Everybody! This way!" Gant said, yanking the President

to his feet and shoving him toward the accordion-like

tunnel that connected the two X-rail cars.

A glass door slid sideways as Gant pushed the President

through the passageway. Mother, Juliet, Hot Rod and Tate

clambered through behind them.

The glass door slid shut as a second connecting door

opened and Gant and the President dived through it--entering

the second rail car--and threw themselves sprawling to the

floor, closely followed by the others, just as the grenade in

the first rail car exploded brilliantly, spreading fire in every

direction, shattering the first connecting door, but only

cracking the second one, its flaming claws left to scratch

hungrily at the glass.

SCHOFIELD WAS THROWN TO THE GROUND BY THE BLAST OF

the second grenade.

He staggered to his feet, spoke into his radio mike:

"Fox! Mother! You guys all right?"

Gant's voice: "We're still here, and we've still got the

President. We're in the second carriage now."

"Brainiac," Schofield said. "Are you on board?"

"Yeah, I'm in the back of the second car ..."

"Book!" Schofield yelled forward. "Have you figured

out how to drive this thing yet?"

"I think so!"

"Then punch it!"

A moment later, the X-rail train began to move forward

on its tracks, heading toward the oncoming 7th Squadron

soldiers.

"Sir," it was Brainiac's voice. "I have to tell you something.

We lost Love Machine ..."

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Matthew Reilly

"Ah, shit," Schofield said sadly.

"... and we're about to lose Elvis."

"What?" Schofield said, perplexed and horrified at the

same time.

But he didn't get to discuss it further, for at that moment,

three more puncturelike whumps reverberated

through the underground station.

Thwump!

Thwump!

Thwump!

Three rocket-launched grenades sped across the width

of the station, zeroing in on the slow-moving X-rail train,

three thin lines of smoke cutting through the air behind

them, before suddenly--swoop!-swoop!-swoop!--one after

the other they shot in through the shattered windows of the

second X-rail car.

The X-rail car that held the President.

As if on cue, Schofield heard Mother's voice roar over

his earpiece: "Oh, fuck me!"

THE TWIN-ENGINED X-RAIL TRAIN BEGAN TO PICK UP SPEED,

heading for the tunnel.

In the second railcar, Gant couldn't believe what was

happening.

Three grenades!

All in her carriage.

She saw the options in a nanosecond: If we stay, we die

for sure. If we get out, we take our chances with the 7th

Squadron. In that case, death is probable, but not certain.

"We can't stay here!" she yelled instantly. "Out! Out!"

She and Juliet immediately grabbed the President by his

coat and hauled him toward the door. They didn't miss a step

as they ran through the doorway and dived out of the moving

train onto the platform, rolling quickly as they landed.

Hot Rod Hagerty and Nicholas Tate jumped nervously

from the moving rail car, landing awkwardly.

A split second later, the figure of Mother--obviously

not wanting to wait in line behind Hagerty and Tate--came

area 7 219

flying out through one of the broken windows next to the

doorway. She somersaulted as she hit the platform, gun

tucked up against her chest, rolled to her feet.

A moment later, the three grenades went off--three

consecutive blasts, booming out from the second rail car.

A trio of brilliant fireballs expanded laterally throughout

the interior of the rail car--illuminating the entire carriage

like a spectacular elongated lightbulb--consuming

every available inch of space within it.

Angry flames billowed out from the windows of the carriage,

snapping the window frames like twigs, cracking the

car's walls.

The fireballs fanned out over the underground platform,

expanding over Gant and the others' heads as they scurried

behind the station's concrete pillars to avoid the fire of the

advancing 7th Squadron men.

THE ENTIRE X-RAIL TRAIN ROCKED WITH THE TRIPLE GRENADE

explosion, but it kept on going, picking up speed with every

yard.

In the front carriage, Schofield was almost knocked off

his feet by the blast. When he managed to regain his balance

and look back down the track, he felt a rush of horror sweep

through him.

He saw the President--flanked by Gant and Mother and

Juliet--taking cover on the underground station's platform.

Damn it!

The President was off the train!

The accelerating X-rail train was now approaching the

western end of the station, coming alongside the 7th

Squadron commandos positioned there. Schofield saw the

7th Squadron men, right alongside his carriage, but they

paid him no heed.

They only had eyes for the President.

And suddenly Schofield had a decision to make.

Leap off the train and stay with the President--the President

on whose back the fate of the country rested.

Or go after the boy ...

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Then, in a fleeting instant, just as the train was about to

disappear into the tunnel, Schofield saw him, and he knew

then that the President would get away--at least away from

the Level 6 station. And he knew that Gant and Mother

would see it, too.

And with that, he made his decision to go after Kevin.

A second later, Schofield's view of the X-rail station--

the image of the ten 7th Squadron commandos leapfrogging

their way down the platform toward the President of the

United States and his last few guardians--was replaced with

that of the impenetrable black wall of the tunnel.

gant ducked, covering her head from the chunks of

concrete that were raining down all around her.

They were screwed.

The 7th Squadron had them.

There was nowhere they could go, nowhere they could

run. They were stuck out in the very middle of the platform,

outnumbered, outgunned and out of goddamned luck.

And then she saw Elvis.

Walking like a robot--an automaton, completely out in

the open--toward the advancing 7th Squadron men, despite

the raging gunbattle going on all around him.

He had no weapon in his hands. Indeed, his massive

fists were clenched firmly on either side of his body as he

walked. His face was entirely devoid of emotion--his eyes

fixed, his jaw set.

Elvis, it seemed, had his own mission now.

"Oh, Jesus," Gant breathed. "Take care, Elvis."

Then she turned to the others, "Get ready, people. We're

leaving."

"What?" Hot Rod Hagerty blurted. "How?"

"Elvis is going to buy us some time. Take cover and get

ready to move."

sergeant wendall "elvis" haynes, USMC, strode purposefully

toward the oncoming 7th Squadron commandos, in between them and the President's group.

area 7 221

The 7th Squadron men slowed slightly, if only because

this was such an odd thing for Elvis to do. He was quite

obviously unarmed and yet he just kept moving slowly

forward--twenty yards from them, twenty yards from the

President--completely calm.

The 7th Squadron commandos never heard the mantra

he was repeating softly to himself as he walked. "You killed

my friend. You killed my friend. You killed my friend ..."

Quickly and efficiently, one of the 7th Squadron men

raised his P-90 and fired a short burst. The volley ripped

Elvis's chest to shreds and he fell, and the 7th Squadron men

resumed their advance.

It was only when they reached Elvis that they heard him

speaking, gurgling through his own blood: "You killed my

friend ..."

And then they saw his bearlike right hand open like a

flower--

--to reveal, resting in his palm, a high-powered RDX

hand grenade.

"You killed my ..."

Elvis drew his final breath.

And his hand relaxed completely--releasing the

grenade's spoon--and to the utter horror of the men of

Bravo Unit standing close around it, the powerful RDX

grenade went off with all its terrible force.

THE X-RAIL TRAIN ROCKETED THROUGH THE TUNNEL SYSTEM.

Sleek and streamlined, with its bullet-shaped nose and

its flat X-framed fuselage, the twin-carriage train whipped

through the wide tunnel at a cool two hundred miles per

hour--and this despite its blasted-out windows and bullet

battered walls.

It moved with little noise and surprising smoothness.

This was because it was propelled not by an engine, but

rather by a state-of-the-art magnetic propulsion system that

had been developed to replace the aging steam-operated catapults

on the Navy's aircraft carriers. Magnetic propulsion

required few moving parts yet yielded phenomenal ground

speeds, making it very popular among engineers who lived

by the rule that the more parts a piece of machinery has, the

more parts it has that can break.

Book II sat in the driver's compartment, hands on the

controls. Herbie sat beside him. The driver's compartment

was the only part of the X-rail car that hadn't had all its windows

blasted to pieces.

"Aw, shit!" Schofield's voice yelled from behind them. "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

Schofield strode into the driver's compartment.

"What's wrong?" Book II asked.

"This is what's wrong," Schofield said, indicating the

silver Samsonite briefcase dangling from his combat webbing.

The Football. "Damn it! Everything was happening

too fast. I never even thought about it when the President

dived off the train. What time is it?"

area 7 223

It was 8:55.

"Great," he said. "We now have just over an hour to get

this suitcase back to the President."

"Should we turn around?" Book II asked.

Schofield paused, thinking fast, a thousand thoughts

swirling through his head.

Then he said decisively: "No. I'm not leaving that boy.

We can get back in time."

"Uh, but what about the country?" Book II said.

Schofield offered him a crooked smile. "I've never lost

to a countdown yet, and I'm not about to start today." He

turned to Herbie. "All right, Herbie. Twenty-five words or

less: tell me about this X-rail system. Where does it go?"

"Well, it's not exactly my area of expertise," Herbie

said, "but I've traveled on it a few times. So far as I know,

it's actually made up of two systems. One heads west from

Area 7, taking you to Lake Powell. The other heads east,

taking you to Area 8."

As Herbie explained, they were on the system that extended

forty miles to the west, out to Lake Powell.

Schofield had heard of Lake Powell before. Truth be

told, it was not so much a lake as a vast one-hundred-and-ninety-mile-long

mazelike network of twisting water-filled

canyons.

Situated right on the Utah-Arizona border, Lake Powell

had once looked like the Grand Canyon, an enormous system

of gorges and canyons that had been carved into the

earth by the mighty Colorado River, the same river that

would create the Grand Canyon farther downstream.

Unlike the Grand Canyon, however, Lake Powell had

been dammed by the U.S. government in 1963 to generate

hydroelectric power--thus backing up the river, creating the

lake, and turning what was already a striking vista of rock

formations into a spectacular desert canyonland that was

half-filled with water.

Now giant sand-yellow mesas rose majestically out of

the lake's sparkling blue waters, while towering templelike

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Matthew Reilly

buttes lorded over its flat blue horizon. And, of course, there

were the chasms and canyons, now with canals at their bases

instead of dusty rocky paths.

Kind of like a cross between the Grand Canyon and

Venice, really.

Like any large project, the damming of the Colorado

River in 1963 had raised howls of protest. Environmentalists

claimed that the dam raised silt levels and threatened the

ecosystem of a two-centimeter-long variety of tadpole. This

seemed like nothing, however, to the owner of a tiny rest stop gas station, who would see his store--built on the site

of an old western trading post--covered by a hundred feet of

water. He was compensated by the government.

In any case, with its ninety-three named gorges and

God-only-knew how many others, for a few years Lake

Powell became a popular tourist destination for house

boaters. But times had changed, and the tourist trade had

slackened off. Now it lay largely silent, a ghostlike network

of winding chasms and ultra-narrow "slot canyons," in

which there was to be found no flat ground, only sheer vertical

rock and water, endless water.

"This X-rail tunnel meets the lake at an underground

loading bay," Herbie said. "The system was built for two

reasons. First, so that the construction of Areas 7 and 8 could

be kept absolutely secret. Materials would be hauled on

barges up the lake and then delivered forty miles underground

to the building site. We still use it occasionally as a

back-door entrance for supplies and prisoner delivery."

"Okay," Schofield said. "And the second reason?"

"To act as an escape route in the event of an emergency,"

Herbie said.

Schofield looked forward.

X-rail tracks rushed by beneath him--and above him-- at incredible speed. The wide rectangular tunnel in front of

the train bent away into darkness.

A sudden noise made him spin, pistol up.

Brainiac froze in the doorway to the driver's compartment,

his hands snapping into the air.

area 7

225

"Whoa-whoa-whoa! It's me!"

Schofield lowered his gun. "Knock next time, will you?"

"Sure thing, Boss." Brainiac sat down in a spare seat.

"Where have you been?"

"In the back of the second carriage. I got separated from

the others when those rocket grenades came flying in. Dived

into a storage compartment just as the three grenades went

off."

"Well, it's good to have you here," Schofield said. "We

need all the help we can get." He turned to Herbie. "Can we

get telemetry on any of the other trains on this system?"

"I think so," Herbie said. "Just give me a second

here ..."

He punched some keys on the driver's console. A computer

monitor on the dashboard came to life. In a few seconds,

Herbie brought up an image of the X-rail system.

X-RAIL NETWORK 3-589-001

Schofield saw an elongated S-bend that stretched horizontally

from Area 7 to the network of canyons that was

Lake Powell. He also saw two blinking red dots moving

along the trackline toward the lake.

"The dots are X-rail trains," Herbie said. "That's us

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Matthew Reilly

closer to Area 7. The other one must have left about ten minutes

ahead of us."

Schofield stared at the first blinking dot as it arrived at

the loading bay and stopped.

"So, Herbie," he said, "since we've got a bit of time, this

Botha character. Who is he?"

NO SOONER HAD ELVIS'S HAND GRENADE GONE OFF THAN

Gant and Mother and Juliet were up on their feet and firing

their guns hard, covering the President as they all ran back toward

the fire stairwell from which they had entered Level 6.

The blast of Elvis's RDX grenade had killed five of the

7th Squadron men instantly. Their bloodied limbs now lay

splayed across the X-rail tracks on either side of the central

platform.

The five remaining members of Bravo Unit had been

farther away from the grenade when it had gone off. They

had been knocked over by the concussion wave, and were

now scrambling to find cover--behind pillars and down on

the X-rail tracks--in the face of Gant and the others' retreating

fire.

Into the fire stairs.

Gant led the President up the stairwell. She was breathing

hard, legs pumping, heart pounding, Mother, Juliet,

Hagerty and Tate close behind her.

The group came to the Level 5 firedoor.

Gant reached for the door's handle--then pulled her

hand back sharply.

Small jets of water spurted out from the edges of its

frame. The jets of water shot out from the door's rubber seal,

mainly from down near the floor, losing intensity as they

moved higher. No water sprayed out from the top of the

door.

It was as if there was a waist-high body of water behind

the fireproof door, just waiting to break through.

And then, from behind the door, Gant heard some of the

most hideous shrieking sounds she had ever heard in her

area 7 227

life. It was horrific--pained, desperate. The cries of trapped

animals ...

"Oh, no ... the bears," Juliet Janson said as she came

alongside Gant and saw the firedoor. "I don't think we want

to go in there."

"Agreed," Gant said.

They raced up the stairs and came to Level 4. After

checking the decompression area beyond the door, Gant

gave the all-clear.

The six of them entered, fanned out.

"Hello again!" a voice boomed out suddenly from

above them.

Everyone spun. Gant snapped her gun up fast, and found

herself drawing a bead on a wall-mounted television set.

Caesar's face was on it, grinning.

"People of America, it is now 9:04, and thus time for

your hourly update."

caesar gave his report smugly.

"--and your Marines, inept and foolish, have yet to inflict

any losses on my men. They do little but run. Indeed, His

Highness was last seen making a desperate bid for freedom

down on the lowest level of this facility. I am informed that a

firefight has just taken place down there, but await a report

on the result of that exchange ..."

As far as Gant was concerned, it was all bullshit. Whatever

Caesar said, whatever lies he told, it didn't affect their

situation. And it certainly didn't help to watch him gloat.

So while Caesar spoke on the television and the others

watched him, Gant investigated the sliding door set into the

floor that led down to Level 5.

She could just make out muffled shouts coming from

the other side of it. People yelling.

She hit the door open switch, raised her gun. The horizontal

door slid away.

The shouts became screams as the prisoners down on

Level 5 heard the door grind open.

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Matthew Reilly

Gant peered down the ramp.

"Good God," she breathed.

She saw the water immediately, saw it lapping against

the ramp below her. In fact, the ramp simply disappeared

into it.

While Caesar's voice continued to boom, she edged

down the sloping walkway, until her spit-polished dress

shoes stepped ankle-deep into the water.

She crouched down on the ramp, looked out over Level 5.

What she saw shook her.

The entire level was flooded.

Easily to chest height.

It was terribly dark as well, which only served to make

the flooded cell block look all the more frightening.

The inky-black indoor lake stretched away from her, to

the far end of the floor, its liquid form slipping in through the

bars of all the cells--cells which held an assortment of the

most wretched-looking individuals Gant had ever seen.

And then the prisoners saw her.

Screams, shrieks, wails. They shook the bars of their

cells, cells that they would ultimately drown in if the water

level continued to rise.

Like Schofield, Gant hadn't seen the cell bay before. She had only heard the President talk about it when he'd told

them about the Sinovirus and its vaccine, Kevin.

"We'd better go." Juliet appeared at her shoulder. Caesar's

broadcast, it seemed, had concluded.

"They're going to drown ..." Gant said, as Janson

pulled her gently back up the ramp to Level 4.

"Believe me, drowning's too good for the likes of

them," the Secret Service agent said. "Come on. Let's find somewhere to hole up. I don't know about you, but I sure as

hell need a rest."

She hit the door close button and the horizontal door

slid shut, cutting off the prisoners' pained shouts.

Then, with the President and Mother and Hot Rod and

Tate in tow behind them, Gant and Juliet headed for the

western side of the floor.

area 7 229

None of them noticed the long decompression chamber

as they departed.

Although from a distance it appeared normal, had they

looked at it more closely, they would have seen that the

timer-activated lock on its pressurized door had timed out

and unlocked itself.

The door was no longer fully closed.

The decompression chamber was now empty.

It was 9:06 a.m.

"--bravo leader, come in. report--" one of the radio operators said into his microphone.

"--Control, this is Bravo Leader. We have suffered serious

casualties on the X-rail platform. Five dead, two

wounded. One of their guys had an RDX grenade and did a

fucking kamikaze--"

"--What about the President?" the radio man cut in.

"--The President is still in the complex. I repeat: The

President is still in the complex. Last seen heading back up

the fire stairs. Some of his Marine bodyguards, though, took

off down the tunnel in the second X-rail train--"

"--And the Football?"

"--No longer with the President. One of my boys

swears that he saw that Schofield guy with it on the train--"

"--Thank you, Bravo Leader. Bring your wounded up

to the main hangar for treatment. We'll get Echo to flush the

lower floors for the President now--"

"GUNTHER botha used to be a colonel in south africa's

Medical Battalion," Herbie said, as the X-rail car hurtled

down the tunnel toward the desert lake.

"The Meds," Schofield said distastefully.

"You've heard of them?"

"Yes. Not a very nice group to be involved with. They

were an offensive bio-medical unit, a specialized subdivision

of the Reccondos. Elite troops who used biological weapons

in the field."

"That's right," Herbie said. "See, before Mandela, the

South Africans were the world leaders in biowarfare. And,

area 7 237

boy, did we love them. Ever wondered why we didn't do all

that much about defeating apartheid? Do you know who

brought us the Soviet flesh-eating bug, necrotizing fasciitis?

The South Africans.

"But as good as they were, one thing still eluded them.

They'd been trying for years to develop a virus that would

kill blacks but not whites, but they never found it. Botha was

one of their leading lights and apparently he was on the

verge of a breakthrough when the apartheid regime was

overthrown.

"As it turned out," Herbie said, "Botha's core research

could be adapted for use on something the American government

was working on--a vaccine against the Sinovirus, a

virus that distinguishes between races."

"So we brought him here," Schofield said.

"That's right," Herbie said.

"And now it seems we're discovering that Professor

Botha isn't all that trustworthy."

"It would seem so."

Schofield paused for a moment, thinking.

"And he's not working alone," he said.

"How do you know?"

Schofield said, "All those dead 7th Squadron men we

saw when we arrived on Level 6 earlier. I've never met Gunther Botha before, but I'm pretty sure he couldn't wipe out

an entire 7th Squadron unit all by himself. Remember,

Botha opened three doors, the two X-rail doors and the

Emergency Escape Vent--which opens onto Level 6.

"He let a team of men in through that vent. They were

the ones who killed the 7th Squadron men there. Judging by

the bullet wounds in their backs and the amount of slashed

throats, I presume Botha's friends caught the 7th Squadron

men from behind." Schofield bit his lip. "But that still

doesn't tell me what I want to know."

"And what is that?"

Schofield looked up. "If Botha is selling us out, what I

want to know is: who is he selling us out to?"

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Matthew Reilly

"IT WAS A SECURITY RISK FROM THE START, BUT WE COULDN'T

have done it without him," the President said.

He and the others were sitting in the observation lab

overlooking the smashed glass cube on Level 4, catching

their breath.

When they'd arrived moments earlier, they'd been confronted

by the sight of a thick circular ceiling hatch lying on

the floor of the lab.

The 7th Squadron had been through here.

Which hopefully meant they wouldn't be coming back

soon. It would be a good place to hide, for a while.

Libby Gant was the only one who stood--still on edge--gazing down at the destroyed cube. The underground complex had grown strangely silent since Caesar's last update,

as if the 7th Squadron weren't prowling around it anymore,

as if they had stopped hounding the President, at least

for the moment.

Gant didn't like it.

It meant something was up.

And so she had just asked the President about Gunther

Botha, the man who had taken Kevin.

"Botha knew more about racially targeted viruses than

all of our scientists put together," the President went on.

"But he had a history."

"With the apartheid regime?"

"Yes, and beyond that. What we feared the most were

his links with a group called Die Organisasie, or the Organisation.

It's an underground network comprising former

apartheid ministers, wealthy South African landowners, former

elite troops from the South African armed forces, and

ousted military leaders who fled the country when apartheid

collapsed, rightfully fearing that the new government would

have their heads for past crimes. Most intelligence agencies

believe that Die Organisasie only wants to retake South

Africa, but we're not so sure."

"What do you mean?" Gant asked.

The President sighed. "You have to realize what's at

area 7 233

stake here. Ethnically selective bioweapons like the

Sinovirus are like no other weapon in the history of

mankind. They are the ultimate bargaining tool, because

they have the power to sentence a defined population to

death while absolutely, without question, protecting another.

"Our fears about Die Organisasie don't just relate to

what they'd do to the Republic of South Africa. It's what

they'd do to the entire African continent that frightens us."

"Yes ..."

"Die Organisasie is a racist organization, pure and simple.

They actually believe white people are genetically superior

to black people. They believe that black people should be slaves to whites. They don't just hate South African black

people, they hate all black people.

"Now, if Die Organisasie has the Sinovirus and the vaccine

to it, they could release it Africa-wide, and give the cure

only to those white groups who supported them. Black

Africa would die, and the rest of the world wouldn't be able

to do a thing about it, because we wouldn't have the vaccine

to the Sinovirus.

"Do you remember in 1999 when Ghaddafi spoke of

uniting Africa like never before? He spoke of creating 'the

United States of Africa,' but it was regarded as a joke.

Ghaddafi could never have made that happen. There are far

too many tribal issues to overcome to unite the various black

African nations. But," the President said, "an organization

that had the Sinovirus and its cure in its possession could

rule Africa with an iron fist. It could turn Africa--resource rich Africa, complete with a billion-strong black slave workforce

--into its own private empire."

SCHOFIELD'S BATTERED X-RAIL CAR RACED THROUGH THE underground

tunnel.

They had been traveling for ten minutes now and

Schofield was beginning to feel anxious. They would be arriving

at the loading dock adjoining the lake soon and he

didn't know what to expect.

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Matthew Reilly

One question about Area 7, however, was still bothering

him. "Herbie, how did the Air Force get a sample of the

Sinovirus?"

"Good question," Herbie said, nodding. "It took a

while, but eventually we managed to turn two Chinese lab workers at the biowarfare facility in Changchun. In return

for a one-way trip to America and twenty million U.S. dollars

each, they agreed to smuggle several vials of the virus

out of China."

"The guys in the decompression chamber," Schofield

said, recalling the Asian faces he had seen inside the chamber

on Level 4 earlier.

"Yes."

"But there were four men inside the chamber."

"That's right," Herbie said. "As you'd probably understand,

in China, top-secret government lab workers can't

just up and leave the country that easily. We had to get them

out. The other two men inside that quarantine chamber were

the two 7th Squadron soldiers who extracted them from

China--two Chinese-American officers named Robert Wu

and Chet Li. Wu and Li used to be a part of Echo Unit, one

of the five 7th Squadron teams based at Area 7, which was

why they were chosen--"

Abruptly, Schofield held up his hand, moved to the

front windshield.

"Sorry, Dr. Franklin," he said, "but I'm afraid that'll

have to do for the moment. I have a funny feeling that things

are about to get a little hairy."

He nodded at the tunnel ahead of them.

At the end of the long concrete tunnel, beyond its rapidly

streaking gray walls, was a tiny luminous speck of

light--growing larger as they approached it--the familiar

glow of artificial fluorescent lighting.

It was the loading dock.

They had arrived at the end of the tunnel.

"DON'T GO IN," SCHOFIELD SAID TO BOOK. 'THEY COULD BE

waiting for us inside. Stop in the tunnel. We'll walk the rest

of the way."

The bullet-riddled X-rail train slowed to a halt in the

darkness of the tunnel, a hundred yards short of the illuminated

loading dock.

Schofield was out of it in an instant—Desert Eagle in

one hand, the Football flailing from his waist—leaping

down to the concrete next to the tracks. Brainiac, Book II

and Herbie followed close behind him.

They ran down the tunnel toward the light, guns up.

Schofield came to the end of the tunnel, peered around

the concrete corner.

Brilliant white light assaulted his eyes. He found himself

staring at a giant rocky cavern that had been converted

into a modern loading dock—a curious mix of flat concrete

and uneven rocky surfaces.

Two sets of X-rail tracks lay on either side of a long

central platform. The track on Schofield's side of the platform

was empty, while the track on the other side was occupied

by another X-rail train ... Botha's.

It lay still, unmoving.

Some black steel cranes ran on wall-mounted rails,

leading from the X-rail tracks to a wide pool of water at the

far end of the enormous rocky cavern.

The water in the pool glowed a brilliant aquamarine

green, enriched by the minerals of Lake Powell. The pool itself

disappeared to the west, winding its way into a twisting

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black cave that Schofield could only assume led out to the

lake. Three ordinary-looking houseboats and a couple of

strange-looking sand-colored speedboats bobbed on its surface,

tied to the loading bay's concrete dock.

There was one other thing that Schofield noticed about

the immense underground loading bay.

It was empty.

Completely and utterly empty.

Deserted.

Schofield stepped cautiously out from the tunnel, and

climbed up onto the central platform between the two X-rail

tracks, dwarfed by the sheer size of the cavern.

And then he saw it.

Standing at the other end of the platform, over by the

pool of water leading out to the lake.

It looked like some bizarre kind of supermarket display:

a small chest-high "pyramid" of yellow ten-gallon barrels,

in front of which sat a chunky Samsonite trunk--black and

solid and high-tech. The trunk's lid was open.

As he approached them, Schofield saw that the yellow

barrels had words stenciled on their sides.

"Oh, damn ..." he said as he read them.

AFX-708: EXPLOSIVE FILLER.

AFX-708 was a shockingly powerful explosive epoxy,

used in the famous BLU-109 bombs that had ripped Saddam

Hussein's bunkers to shreds in the Gulf War. A 109's super hardened nose would drive down into a solid concrete

bunker and then the AFX-708 warhead inside it would detonate

--hard--and blow the bunker up from the inside.

With Book II, Brainiac and Herbie behind him,

Schofield looked inside the open Samsonite trunk that sat in

front of the collection of AFX barrels.

A timer display stared back up at him.

00:19.

00:18.

00:17.

"Mother of God ..." he breathed. Then he turned to the

others, "Gentlemen! Run!"

area 7 237

seventeen seconds later, a bone-crunching explosion

ripped through the loading bay.

The cluster of AFX-708 barrels sent a devastating ball

of white-hot light shooting out in every direction, expanding

radially.

The rock-and-concrete walls of the loading bay cracked

under the weight of the explosion, blasting outwards in a

million lethal chunks, one entire wall just disintegrating to

powder in the blink of an eye. Gunther Botha's X-rail train--

so close to the source of the blast--was simply vaporized.

SCHOFIELD NEVER SAW IT.

Because by the time the explosives went off, he and the

others were no longer inside the loading bay.

They were outside.

FOURTH CONFRONTATION

3 July, 0912 Hours

NORTH-EASTERN LAKE POWELL,

UTAH, U.S.A.

canyon

Desert plain

THE HEAT hit THEM LIKE A BLAST FURNACE.

Blistering desert heat.

It was everywhere. In the air. In the rock. Against your

skin. Enveloping you, surrounding you, as if you were standing in an oven. The complete opposite of the subterranean

cool of Area 7 and the X-rail tunnel.

Out here, the blazing desert sun ruled.

shane schofield sped down a narrow water-filled

canyon at breakneck speed, blasting through the heat, sitting

at the controls of a very odd-looking--but very fast--speedboat.

With him in the boat was Book II, while behind them, in

a similar craft of their own, were Brainiac and Herbie.

Technically, Schofield's boat was called a PCR-2-- patrol-craft, river, two-man--but it was more commonly

known as a "bipod," a small two-man jet-propelled rivercraft

built by the Lockheed Shipbuilding Company for the U.S.

Navy. The bipod was known for its unique design configuration.

Basically, it looked as if someone had joined two small

bullet-shaped jet boats with a thin seven-foot crossbeam, in

effect creating a catamaran-type vehicle with two pods at either

end of the beam. Since both open-topped pods were

possessed of powerful two-hundred-horsepower Yamaha

pump-jet engines, it made for an extremely fast--and extremely

stable--boat frame.

Schofield's bipod was painted in desert camouflage colors

--brown blobs on a sandy yellow background--and it

shot over the water at incredible speed, kicking up twin ten foot

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sprays of water behind it. Schofield sat in the left-hand

pod, driving, while Book II sat in the right-hand one, manning

the boat's sinister bow-mounted 7.62 mm machine gun.

The sun shone--burning hot.

It was already 100 degrees in the shade.

"How you guys doing over there?" Schofield said into

his wrist mike as he looked back at the other bipod behind

him--Brainiac was driving, Herbie sat in the gunner's pod.

Brainiac's voice: "I'm okay, but I think our scientist

friend here is turning green."

They were speeding down a twenty-foot-wide slot

canyon that wended its way southward, toward the main

body of Lake Powell.

The pool of water at the far end of the loading bay had

indeed led out to the lake, a tight, dark, winding cave whose

exterior door--a brilliantly camouflaged plate-steel gate designed

to look like a wall of rock--had been left open by the

escaping thieves.

Schofield and his men had emerged from the cave at the

end of a dead-end canyon and powered off not a moment before

the entire wall of rock behind them had been blasted

outward by the monstrous AFX explosion.

The two bipods sped around a wide bend in the water

filled canyon.

When viewed from above, this canyon resembled a

race-car track, a never-ending series of twists, turns and full

180-degree bends.

That wasn't so bad.

The trouble started when it met up with all the other narrow canyons of Lake Powell--then the canyon system

resembled a giant high-walled maze of interconnecting natural

canals.

They came to an intersection of three canyons, arriving

at it from the northeast.

At first Schofield didn't know what to do.

Two rock-walled canals stretched away from him--a

fork in the watery road. And he didn't know where Botha

area 7 243

was going. Presumably the South African scientist had a

plan--but what?

And then Schofield saw the waves. Saw a collection of

ripples lapping against the sheer stone walls of the canyon

branching away to the left--barely perceptible, but definitely

there--the residual waves of a motorboat's wash.

Schofield gunned it, swinging left, heading south.

As he traveled down the canyonways, banking with the

bends, he looked upward. The rocky walls of these canyons

rose at least two hundred feet above the water level. At their

rims, Schofield saw clouds of billowing sand, blowing viciously,

offering sporadic relief from the blazing sun.

It was the sandstorm.

The sandstorm that had been forecast to occur that

morning, but which the members of HMX-1 had expected to

miss.

It was absolutely raging up there, Schofield saw, but

down here, in the shelter of the canyons, it was relatively

calm--a kind of meteorological haven below the canyon

system's high rocky rim.

Relatively calm, Schofield emphasized.

Because at that moment, he rounded a final corner and,

completely unexpectedly, burst out into wide open space--

into an enormous craterlike formation with a giant flat

topped mesa rising out of the water in its center.

Although the crater was bounded by magnificent sheer rock walls, it was too wide to offer total protection from the

wild sandstorm above. Flurries of sand whipped down into

the vast expanse of open water, swirling maniacally.

It was then that through the veil of wind-hurled sand,

Schofield saw them.

They were rounding the right-hand base of the mesa,

speeding away.

Five boats.

One large white powerboat that looked like a hydrofoil,

and four nimble bipods, also painted sand-yellow.

To Schofield's horror, at least a half-dozen slot canyons

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Matthew Reilly

branched out from the walls of this circular crater, like the

points on a clock, offering a multitude of escape routes.

He hit the gas, charged into the sandstorm, heading for

the southern end of the central mesa, hoping to take the

South Africans by surprise on the other side.

His bipod skipped over the water at incredible speed,

propelled by its powerful minijet engines. Brainiac and Herbie's bipod bounced along beside it, kicking up spray, jouncing

wildly through the horizontal rain of flying sand.

They rounded the left-hand end of the mesa--and saw

the five South African boats heading for a wide vertical

canyon that burrowed into the western wall of the crater.

They gave chase.

The South Africans must have seen them, because right

then two of their bipods peeled away from the main hydrofoil,

turning in a wide 180-degree arc, angling menacingly

toward Schofield's boats, their 7.62 mm machine guns flaring

to life.

Then suddenly--shockingly--the left-hand South African

bipod exploded.

It just blew out of the water, consumed in a geyser of

spray. One second it was there, the next it was replaced by a

ring of foaming water and a rain of falling fiberglass.

For its part, the right-hand South African bipod just

wheeled around instantly, abandoning this confrontation,

and took off after the other South African boats.

Schofield spun. What the--?

SHOOOOOMU

Without warning, three black helicopters came bursting

out of the sandstorm above the crater and plunged into the

canyon system from behind him!

The three choppers swung into the relative shelter of the

crater like World War II dive bombers, banking sharply before

righting themselves without any loss of speed. They

thundered over Schofield and his team, powering toward the

South African boats as they disappeared inside the slot

canyon to the west.

area 7 245

The choppers just shot into the narrow canyon after

them.

Schofield's jaw dropped.

In a word, the three helicopters looked awesome. Sleek

and mean and fast. They looked like nothing he had ever

seen before.

They were each painted gunmetal black and looked like

a cross between an attack helicopter and a fighter jet. Each

helicopter had a regular helicopter rotor and a sharply

pointed nose, but they were also possessed of downwardly

canted wings that extended out from their frames.

They were AH-77 Penetrators--medium-sized attack

choppers; a new kind of fighter-chopper hybrid that combined

the hovering mobility of a helicopter with the superior

straight-line speed of a fighter jet. With their black radar

absorbent paint, swept-back wings and severe-looking cockpits,

they looked like a pack of angry airborne sharks.

The three Penetrators shot forward, banking into the

narrow canyon after the four South African speedboats,

completely ignoring Schofield and his men.

And in a fleeting instant, Schofield had a strange

thought. What the hell were the Air Force people doing out

here? Weren't they after the President? What did they care

about Kevin?

In any case, this was now a three-way chase.

"Sir!" Brainiac's voice came in. "What do we do?"

Schofield paused. Decision time. A tornado of thoughts

whizzed through his mind--Kevin, Botha, the Air Force, the

President, and the unstoppable countdown on the Football

that at some point would force him to give up on this chase

and turn back ...

He made the call.

"We go in after them," he said.

schofield's bipod roared into the canyon the south

Africans and the Penetrators had taken, Brainiac and Herbie's bipod close behind it.

It was a particularly winding canyon, this one--left then right, twisting and turning--but, thankfully, sheltered

from the sandstorm.

About a hundred yards in, however, it forked into two

subcanyons, one heading left, the other right. Little did any of them know that the subcanyons of Lake Powell have a

habit of swinging back on each other, like interweaving

pieces of string, forming multiple intersections ...

Schofield saw the three Air Force choppers split up at

the fork--one going left, two going right. The four South

African rivercraft up ahead of them must have already split

up.

"Brainiac!" he yelled. "Go left! We'll take the right! Remember, all we want is the boy! We get him and then we high-tail it out of here, okay?"

"Got it, Scarecrow."

The two bipods parted--taking separate canyons--Schofield peeling right, Brainiac banking left.

for schofield, it was like entering a fireworks show-- a spectacular display of tracer bullets, missiles and dangerously

exploding rock.

He saw the two black choppers eighty yards up ahead-- trailing the lead hydrofoil and one of the South African

bipods. The two speeding helicopters stayed below the

canyon's rim--the raging sandstorm above the canyon system

area 7 24,

preventing them from going any higher--banking an<

turning with the bends of the winding canyon, their roto

blades thumping.

Tracer bullets streamed out from their nose-mounted

Vulcan cannons. Air-to-ground missiles streaked out from

their wings and blasted into the rocky walls of the canyon all

around the two South African speedboats.

For their part, the South Africans weren't exactly

either.

The men in the bipod had come prepared to protect the

lead hydrofoil--they had a shoulder-mounted Stinger missile launcher. While one man drove the bipod, the gunner

thrust the Stinger onto his shoulder and fired it up at the

trailing Penetrators.

But the Penetrators must have had the same ultrapowerful

electronic countermeasures that the AWACs planes inside

Area 7 had, because the Stingers just shot past them

spiraling wildly, careering into the walls of the canyon

where they detonated, sending showers of car-sized boulders

splashing down into the canal below--boulders which

Schofield had to swerve to avoid.

And then suddenly Schofield saw a long, white object

drop out of a hatch in the belly of one of the black choppers

and, dangling from a small drogue parachute, splash down

into the water.

A second later, the water beneath the chopper churned

into a froth and he saw a finger of bubbles stretch out from

the roiling section of water, heading straight for the South

African bipod.

It was a torpedo!

Five seconds later, completely without warning, the

speeding bipod exploded violently.

The force of the blast was so strong that it lifted the fast

moving bipod clear off the water's surface. Indeed, such was

the bipod's velocity that it tumbled end over end, totally out

of control, bouncing across the water's surface like a skimming

stone until it slammed--top-first--into the hard rock

wall of the canyon and blew apart.

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Matthew Reilly

Schofield drove hard, closing in, now fifty yards behind

the action. He needed to catch up, but the South Africans

had had too much of a head-start.

And then abruptly the canyon turned ...

... and intersected with its twin from the left--the subcanyon that Brainiac and Herbie had taken in pursuit of the

other two South African bipods--so that now the two

canyons formed a giant X-shaped junction.

And it happened.

the white south african hydrofoil shot into the intersection

from the top-right-hand corner of the X--at exactly

the same time as one of its own bipods entered the junction

from the bottom-right.

Speeding rivercraft shot every which way.

The hydrofoil and the bipod swerved to avoid each

other. Both fishtailed wildly on the water, sending a wall of

spray flying into the air--and losing all of their forward momentum

in an instant.

The second South African bipod from Brainiac's

canyon never even had a chance to slow down.

It just shot straight through the X-shaped junction like a

bullet--between the two boats that had been forced to stop,

blasting spectacularly through their spray--before zooming

off down the canyon ahead of it, heading west.

The three Air Force Penetrators--two from Schofield's

canyon, one from the other canyon--were also thrown into

chaos. One managed to haul itself to a halt, while the other

two whipped through the airspace above the junction, crossing

paths, missing each other by inches, and overshooting

the momentarily stalled boats below.

It was all Schofield needed.

Now he could catch up.

in his bipod, brainiac was still eighty yards short of

the X-junction.

He saw the mayhem in front of him--saw the restarting

hydrofoil, and the stalled South African bipod.

area 7 249

His gaze fell instantly on the hydrofoil, which was now

rotating laterally in the water, preparing to resume its run

down the canyon to the bottom-left of the X.

Brainiac cut a beeline for it.

SCHOFIELD ARRIVED AT THE JUNCTION JUST AS THE HYDROFOIL

peeled away to the south and Brainiac's bipod swooped into

the narrow canyon fast behind it.

"I'm going after the hydrofoil, sir!"

"I see you!" Schofield yelled.

He was about to follow when some movement to his

right caught his eye. He spun to look down the long high walled canyonway that stretched away from him to the west.

He saw one of the South African bipods disappearing

down the elongated canyonway--all on its own.

It was the bipod that had shot straight through the intersection,

from the bottom-right corner to the top-left. Curiously,

it was not even trying to return to give aid to the

hydrofoil.

Then, in a blink, the tiny bipod was gone, vanishing

down a narrow side canyon at the far end of the larger

canyonway.

And it hit Schofield.

The boy wasn't in the hydrofoil.

He was in the bipod.

That bipod.

"Oh, no," Schofield breathed as he snapped round and

saw Brainiac's speeding bipod disappear around a bend in

the southern canyon in pursuit of the hydrofoil.

"Brainiac ..."

brainiac's sand-colored bipod was moving fast.

Really, really fast.

It came alongside the speeding South African hydrofoil,

the two rivercraft hurtling down the narrow rock-walled

canal like a pair of runaway stock cars, with two of the Air

Force Penetrators firing wildly down on them as they did so.

"Brainiac, can--you hear--me--?" Schofield's garbled

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voice said in Brainiac's ears, but in the roar of bullets, engines

and helicopter rotors, the young Marine couldn't make

out Schofield's words.

Brainiac got Herbie to use his pod's controls and bring

the bipod in close to the speeding hydrofoil while Brainiac

himself climbed out of his seat.

He watched the hydrofoil as they sped alongside it--saw its two strutlike bow-mounted skids carving through the

water--but he couldn't see inside the big speedboat's

smoked-glass windows.

Then, with a deep breath, he jumped--across the gap

between the two speeding boats--landing on his feet, on the

foot-wide side decking of the moving hydrofoil.

"--ainiac--out--of there!-- "

Schofield's voice was a blur.

Brainiac grabbed a handhold on the roof of the speeding

hydrofoil. He wasn't sure what he expected to happen next.

Perhaps some resistance--like someone throwing open one

of the hydrofoil's side doors and firing on him. But no resistance

came.

Brainiac didn't care. He just dive-rolled onto the hydrofoil's

forward deck and blasted out the vehicle's windshield.

Glass flew everywhere and a second later, when the smoke

cleared, he saw the inside of the boat's cabin.

And he frowned.

The hydrofoil's cabin was empty.

Brainiac climbed inside--

--and saw the hydrofoil's steering controls moving of

their own accord, guided by some kind of computer

controlled navigation system, an anti-impedance system that

directed the vehicle away from all other objects, rock walls

and boats alike.

Then suddenly, in the silence of the cabin, Schofield's

voice was loud and alive in Brainiac's ear.

"For God's sake, Brainiac! Get out of there! The hydrofoil

is a decoy! The hydrofoil is a decoy! "

And at that moment, to his absolute horror, Brainiac heard a shrill beep that would signal the end of his life.          [

area 7 251

A second later, the entire hydrofoil blew, its windows

blasting outwards in a shockingly violent explosion.

The force of the blast flipped Herbie's bipod, too, causing

the little speedboat to flip over onto its top and skid in a

gigantic spraying mess across the surface of the canal, before

it smashed into the wall of the canyon and stopped.

After the impact, the crumpled bipod just lay still,

droplets of water raining down all around it.

BACK AT THE X-INTERSECTION, SCHOFIELD WAS ABOUT TO

take off after the rogue South African bipod that had skulked

away from the fight when, from completely out of nowhere,

a line of bullet geysers shattered the water all around his

boat.

It was the fourth and last South African bipod firing on

him.

It had started up again and was now heading eastward, back into the canyon that led to the crater with the mesa in

its middle.

Before Schofield could even think of a response, two

parallel lines of much bigger bullet geysers erupted all

around his sand-colored bipod. They hit so close, their spray

spattered his face.

This barrage of fire came from the third Penetrator helicopter,

which still hovered above the X-shaped junction,

turning laterally in midair, searching for Kevin. The black

chopper's six-barreled Vulcan cannon roared loudly as it

spewed forth a long tongue of bright yellow flames.

Schofield gunned the engine of his bipod, wheeling it

around to the left, away from the Penetrator's gunfire--but

also, unfortunately, away from the rogue bipod that he was

sure contained Kevin--instead taking off after the other South African bipod that had headed back east, toward the

crater with the mesa in it.

The Penetrator gave chase, lowering its nose, powering

forward like a charging T-rex, its thrusters igniting.

Schofield's bipod skimmed across the surface of the

area 7 253

water, its hull barely even touching the waves, trailing the

South African bipod through the winding rock-walled

canyon, the sharklike Penetrator looming in the air behind it.

"Any ideas?" Book II yelled from the gunner's pod.

"Yeah!" Schofield called. "Don't die!"

The Penetrator opened fire and two more lines of geysers

hit the water all around their speeding bipod.

Schofield banked left--hard--so hard that the boat's

left-hand pod lifted clear out of the water, just as a line of

bullets ripped up the choppy surface beneath it.

And then, just then, two torpedoes dropped out of the

bottom of the Penetrator.

Schofield saw them and his eyes widened.

"Oh, man."

One after the other, the torpedoes splashed down into

the water and a second later two identical fingers of bubbles

took off after the two bipods, charging up the water-filled

canyon behind them.

One torpedo immediately zeroed in on Schofield's boat.

Schofield cut right, angling for an oddly shaped boulder

that jutted out from the right-hand wall of the canyon. The

gently sloping boulder looked remarkably like a ramp ...

The torpedo closed in.

Schofield's bipod whipped across the water. Book II

saw what Schofield was aiming for--the boulder ...

The bipod hit the rock ramp, just as the torpedo swung

in underneath its jet engines and--

--the bipod shot up out of the water, its exposed twin

hulls rocketing up the length of the rock--scratching,

shrieking, screeching--and then suddenly, whoosh!, like a

stunt car leaping up into the sky, it shot off the end of the

sloping boulder, just as the torpedo detonated against the

base of the ramp, shattering it into a thousand fragments that

went showering upwards in a glorious flower-shaped formation

behind the soaring bipod.

The double-hulled boat landed in the water with a

splash, still moving fast.

254

Matthew Reilly

Schofield looked forward just in time to see the South

African bipod up ahead of him veering left, heading for a

semicircular tunnel burrowed into the left-hand wall of the

canyon.

He took off after it, the remaining torpedo charging

through the water behind him like a hungry crocodile.

The South African bipod shot into the tunnel.

A second later, Schofield's twin-hulled boat whipped

into the darkness behind it.

The torpedo swung in after them.

their headlamps blazing, the two bipods zoomed down

the length of the narrow tunnel at almost a hundred miles an

hour, the dark wet walls of the passageway streaking past

them in a blur, like some ultrafast indoor roller-coaster ride.

Schofield concentrated hard as he drove.

It was so fast!

The tunnel itself was about twenty feet wide and

roughly cylindrical in shape, with its walls curving slightly

as they touched the shallow water surface. About two hundred

yards ahead of him, he saw a small point of light--the

end of the tunnel.

Suddenly Book II yelled, "It's closing!"

"What!"

"That other torpedo!"

Schofield spun.

The torpedo behind them was indeed moving in

quickly, closing the gap fast.

He snapped to look forward--saw the water-blasting jet

engines of the South African bipod five yards in front of

him. Damn it. Since each bipod was about thirteen feet

wide, the tunnel wasn't wide enough to pass.

Schofield gunned it left--but the South African bipod

cut him off. Tried right. Same deal.

"What do we do?" Book II called.

"I don't--" Schofield cut himself off. "Hang on!"

"What?"

"Just hold on tight!"

area 7 255

The torpedo weaved its way under the surface of the

shallow water like a slithering snake, edging dangerously

close to Schofield's stern.

Schofield hit his thrusters, pulled closer to the South

African bipod in front of him--so that now the two sleek

twin-hulled boats were whipping along at a hundred miles

an hour in the tightly enclosed space barely afoot apart.

Schofield saw the South African driver turn quickly in

his seat and see them.

"Hello!" Schofield gave the man a wave. "Goodbye!"

And with that, just as the torpedo began to disappear

underneath the stern of Schofield's boat, Schofield jammed

his thrusters as far forward as they would go and yanked his

steering yoke hard to the right.

His speeding bipod swung quickly right, the whole

twin-hulled boat lifting completely out of the water as it ran up the curving right-hand wall of the tunnel. The bipod

bounced so high up the wall that for a moment it was actually

traveling at right angles to the earth.

The torpedo didn't care. With its original target lost, it

quickly overtook Schofield's wall-skimming boat and zeroed

in on the only other object in the vicinity--the South

African bipod.

The explosion in the narrow confines of the tunnel was

huge.

The South African bipod was blasted to bits--bits that

were flung all around the tunnel, followed by a rolling, roaring

fireball that filled the narrow cylindrical passageway.

Still moving fast, Schofield's twin-hulled boat swooped

down off the sloping wall and blasted right through the

charred remains of the South African bipod, exploding

through the billowing wall of fire that now filled the tunnel

before--suddenly, gloriously--it burst into the bright open

space of the awaiting canyon at the end of the passageway.

SCHOFIELD EASED BACK ON THE THROTTLE AND HIS BIPOD

ground to a halt in the middle of this new canyon.

His face and body were soaking wet, covered in spray.

Book II was the same.

He looked at this new high-walled canyon around them,

trying to get a bearing on where they were, and quickly realized

that this wasn't a new canyon at all—it was the same

subcanyon he had taken earlier when he and Book II had

separated from Brainiac. Indeed, as he now saw, he and

Book weren't far from the fork in the canyon where they had

split up from Brainiac.

Schofield revved the engine, started to swing around, to

continue his pursuit of the rogue South African bipod, when

suddenly he heard a strange thumping noise to his right.

He snapped around.

And saw another helicopter ... a fourth helicopter ... half-obscured by the vertical wall of the canyon, hovering

fifty feet above the water at the fork of the two subcanyons.

One thing about this helicopter struck him straight

away.

It wasn't a Penetrator. It was far too chunky, not nearly

sleek enough.

As he saw it swing around in midair, Schofield recognized

the chopper to be a CH-53E Super Stallion, a powerful heavy-lift transport bird like the two that usually accompanied Marine One. The Super Stallion was renowned for its toughness and strength—with its lowerable rear loading ramp, it could hold fifty-five fully equipped men and carry them into hell and back.

area 7 257

The Air Force men must have brought this Super Stallion

along to carry the boy back in, as the attack-configured

Penetrators only had room for three crew members.

Judging by the way it hovered at the fork of the two

canyons, however, slowly turning laterally, Schofield figured

that this chopper was more than just a prisoner transport--it

was providing support of some kind.

Schofield spun his bipod around, headed slowly and

cautiously toward the Super Stallion.

"What are you doing?" Book II asked. "The kid is that way."

"I know," Schofield said, "but the way I see it, we're not

going to catch that boy on the water. It's time we got into the air."

the three 7th squadron commandos inside the super

Stallion all wore headsets. One flew the chopper while the

other two spoke into microphones, speaking quickly amid

the roar of the helicopter's rotor noise.

They, too, were searching for the rogue South African

bipod that had slipped away after the near collision in the

X-intersection.

"--Penetrator One, this is Looking Glass," one of them

said. "There's a canyon coming up on your right, take that. It

might have gone down that way--"

The other radioman said, "Penetrator Two. Cut back to

the north and check that slot canyon on your left--"

Matthew Reilly

A map of the canyon system glowed green on each of

the men's computer screens.

REAL TIME GEOSAT IMAGE

SATELLITE: xs-0356-070

TARGET AREA: Powell (lake) ct.

GPS GRID: 114°U"I2"W; 23*>45'11"N

OVERLAY: KILE usavsa (u) ?>W\v

The three illuminated dots on the left--P-1, P-2 and

P-3--indicated the three Penetrators prowling the canyons

for the rogue bipod. The stationary dot near the mesa crater,

"L-G," depicted the Super Stallion, call-sign "Looking

Glass." The black line indicated the path of the chase so far.

While the two radiomen continued to issue instructions,

the pilot peered forward through the bubblelike canopy of the

helicopter, his eyes searching the canyon in front of them.

Amid the roar of the rotor blades and the sound of their

own voices in their headsets, none of the crew heard the dull thunk! of a Maghook hitting the underside of their mighty

chopper.

Schofield's bipod sat in the water directly beneath the

Super Stallion--bucking and bouncing on the churning

wash generated by the helicopter's downdraft--having approached

the big transport bird from behind.

Area 7 259

A thin threadlike rope connected the bipod to the underside

of the Super Stallion fifty feet above it--the black

Kevlar fiber rope of Schofield's Maghook.

And then suddenly a tiny figure whizzed up into the air

toward the chopper, reeled upward by the Maghook's internal

spooler.

Schofield.

In a second, he was hanging from the Super Stallion's

underbelly--fifty feet above the water's surface, right next

to an emergency access hatch built into the big helicopter's

floor--gripping the Maghook as it clung to the helicopter's

underside by virtue of its bulbous magnetic head.

The noise was shocking up here, deafening. The wind

blast from the rotors made his 7th Squadron clothes press

against his skin, made the Football hanging from his webbing

twist and flap wildly.

Super Stallions have fully retractable landing gear, so

Schofield grabbed a fat cable eyehole as a handhold. Then

he hit a button on the Maghook, allowing it to unspool down

to Book.

Within seconds, Book II was beside him, hanging from

the Maghook on the underside of the Super Stallion.

Schofield grabbed the access hatch's pressure-release

handle. "You ready?" he yelled.

Book II nodded.

Then, with a firm twist, Schofield turned the handle and

the emergency hatch above them dropped out of its slot.

THE MEN INSIDE THE SUPER STALLION FELT THE BLAST OF wind first.

A gale of fast-moving air rushed into the rear cabin of

the Super Stallion a second before Schofield swung up

through the hatch in its floor, closely followed by Book II.

They came up inside the chopper's rear troop compartment,

a wide cargo hold separated from the cockpit by a

small steel doorway.

The two radiomen in the cockpit both spun at once,

looking back into the hold. They went for their guns.

260

Matthew Reilly

But Schofield and Book II were already moving fast,

guns up, mirroring each other's movements perfectly. One

shot from Schofield and the first radioman went down. Another

from Book and the second guy was history.

The chopper's pilot saw what was happening, and realized

quickly that a gun wasn't his best way out of this situation.

He pushed forward on the Super Stallion's control stick,

causing the entire helicopter to lurch dramatically.

Book II lost his balance immediately, and fell.

Schofield, already dancing quickly toward the cockpit,

dived to the floor and slid--forward, fast, on his chest-- toward the open cockpit door.

The pilot tried to kick the door shut and seal off the

cockpit, but Schofield was too quick.

He slid head-first--rolling onto his back as he did so--sliding in through the doorway, into the cockpit, and jolting

to a perfect halt inside the threshold--one hand propping

open the door, the other gripping his .44 caliber Desert Eagle,

aimed directly up at the bridge of the pilot's nose.

"Don't make me do it," he said from the floor, his eyes

looking up the barrel of his gun, his finger poised on the

trigger.

The pilot was stunned, his mouth open. He just glared

down at Schofield--on the floor, with his gun held unwaveringly

in the firing position.

"Don't make me," Schofield said again.

The pilot went for the Glock in his shoulder holster.

Blam!

Schofield put a bullet in his brain.

"Damn it," he said, shoving the dead pilot out of his seat

and taking the controls. "I told you, you asshole."

Schofield  AND BOOK'S SUPER STALLION ROARED DOWN THE

narrow canyonway, banking with each bend, heading for the

X-intersection where all the rivercraft had nearly collided

earlier.

In his mind's eye, Schofield remembered seeing the

rogue bipod sneaking off down the western branch of that

intersection and then disappearing off to the right, into a narrow

slot canyon at the far end.

With the help of the Super Stallion's map of the canyon

system, he now saw that slot canyon--it snaked its way to

the north, opening onto another lakelike crater with a small

mesa in it.

That was where the rogue bipod had been heading.

But what's waiting in that crater? Schofield thought.

Why are the South Africans heading there?

The Super Stallion thundered down its narrow rock walled canyon, heading for the X-intersection, rounded a bend--

--and came face-to-face with one of the Air Force Penetrators.

Schofield yanked on the control stick, reining the Super

Stallion to a lurching halt in midair.

The Penetrator was hovering above the X-intersection,

turning laterally in the air, looking down each of the four

rock-walled alleyways that met there. It looked like a gigantic

flying shark, searching for its prey.

It saw them.

"Looking Glass, this is Penetrator Three," a voice said

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Matthew Reilly

sharply over Schofield's cockpit intercom. "Got any realtime

imagery from the satellite yet?"

Schofield froze.

Shit.

"Book, quickly. Weapons check."

The Penetrator turned in the air to face the Super Stallion.

"Looking Glass? You listening?"

Book II said, "We got a nose-mounted Gatling gun.

That's it."

"Nothing else?"

The two helicopters faced each other, hovering above

the intersection like a pair of eagles squaring off, a hundred

yards apart.

"Nothing."

"Looking Glass," the voice on the intercom became

cautious. "Please respond immediately with your authentication

code."

Schofield saw the Penetrator's downturned wings--saw

the missiles hanging from them.

They looked like Sidewinders.

Sidewinders ... Schofield thought.

Then, abruptly, he hit the talk button on his console.

"Penetrator gunship, this is Captain Shane Schofield, United

States Marine Corps, Presidential Detachment. I am now in

command of this helicopter. I've only got one word to say to

you."

"And what is that?"

"Draw," Schofield said flatly.

Silence.

Then: "Okay ..."

"What the hell are you doing?" Book II said.

Schofield didn't reply. He just kept his eyes locked on

the Penetrator's wings.

A moment later, with a flash of light, an AIM-9M Sidewinder missile blasted forward from the left-hand wing of the Penetrator.

"Oh, shit ..." Book II breathed.

area 7 263

Schofield saw the charging missile from head-on--saw

its domed nose, saw the star-shaped outline of its stabilizing

fins, saw the looping smoke trail issuing out behind it as it

rolled through the air heading straight for them\

"What are you doing!" Book II exclaimed. "Are you

just going to sit there--?"

And then Schofield did the strangest thing.

He jammed his finger down on his control stick's trigger.

With the Sidewinder missile hurtling toward it--and

only a bare second away from impact--the Super Stallion's

nose-mounted Gatling gun came to life, spewing forth a line

of glowing orange tracer bullets.

Schofield angled the line of laserlike bullets toward the

oncoming missile, and just as the missile came within

twenty yards of his helicopter--boom!--his bullets hit the

Sidewinder right on its forward dome, causing it to explode

in midair, fifteen yards short of the hovering Super Stallion.

"What the--?" Book II said.

But Schofield wasn't finished.

Now that the Sidewinder was out of the way, he swung

his line of tracer bullets back up toward the Penetrator.

In the near distance, he could see the Penetrator's two

pilots fumbling to launch another missile, but it was too late.

Schofield's tracer bullets rammed into the canopy of the Penetrator--one after the other after the other--pummeling it, pounding it, causing the entire attack helicopter to recoil

helplessly in the air.

Schofield's relentless stream of bullets must have gone

right through the Penetrator's cockpit, because an instant

later, one of the chopper's fuel tanks ignited and the whole

attack helicopter spontaneously exploded, bursting into a

billowing ball of flames before the entire flaming chopper

just dropped out of the sky and crashed into the water below.

with the penetrator out of the way, schofield gunned

his Super Stallion down the western canyonway, heading for

the narrow slot canyon into which the rogue bipod had disappeared.

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Matthew Reilly

"What the hell did you do back there?" Book II asked.

"Huh?"

"I didn't know you could shoot down a missile with

tracer bullets."

"Only Sidewinders," Schofield said. "Sidewinders are

heat-seekers--they use an infrared system to lock in on their

targets. But to accomplish that, the forward seeker dome on

the missile has to allow infrared radiation to pass through it.

That means using a material other than plate steel. The

seeker dome of a Sidewinder is actually made of a very fragile

transparent plastic. It's a weak point on the missile."

"You shot it at its weak point?"

"I did."

"Pretty risky strategy."

"I saw it coming. Not many people get to see a

Sidewinder from head-on. It was worth taking the chance."

"Are you always this risky?" Book II asked evenly.

Schofield turned at the question.

He paused before answering, appraised the young sergeant

beside him.

"I try not to be," he said. "But sometimes ... it's unavoidable."

They came to the narrow slot canyon into which the

South African bipod had fled.

The little canyon was cloaked in shadow, and it was a

lot narrower than Schofield thought it would be. His Super

Stallion's whizzing rotor blades only just fitted between its

high rock walls.

The giant helicopter roared along the narrow canyon,

moving through the shadows, before abruptly it burst out

into brilliant sunshine, out into a wide craterlike lake

bounded by three-hundred-foot-high vertical rock walls and

with a small mesa at its northern end.

As with the other crater, the sandstorm up above the

canyon system invaded this open stretch of water. The wind-hurled sand fell like rain, in slanting wavelike sheets. It assaulted

Schofield's windshield, drummed against it.

area 7

"You see anything?" Schofield yelled.

"Over there!" Book II pointed off to their left, at the vertical outer wall of the crater opposite the mesa, at a point where a particularly wide canyon branched westward, away

from the circular mini-lake.

There, Schofield saw a tiny rivercraft sitting on the water's surface, bucking with the medium-sized waves generated by the sandstorm.

It was the rogue South African bipod.

And it was alone.

schofield's super stallion zoomed over the water  filled desert crater, flying low and fast, its rotors thumping.

Schofield stared at the bipod as they came closer.

It appeared to be stationary, as if it were lying at anchor

about twenty yards out from where the sheer rock wall of the

crater plunged down into the water.

Schofield swung the Super Stallion to a halt thirty yards

away from the bipod, kept it in a hovering pattern ten feet

above the choppy surface of the water. Wind-hurled sand pelted the windshield.

He looked at the bipod more closely--a rope of some sort stretched down into the water beneath it.

The bipod was at anchor ...

And then suddenly he saw movement.

On the bipod.

Through the veil of flying sand, he saw a pudgy-looking, bald-headed man in shirtsleeves get to his feet inside the left-hand pod, the driver's pod.

Gunther Botha.

Botha had been bent over in his pod, doing something when Schofield's chopper had arrived under the cover of the roaring sandstorm.

In the right-hand section of the bipod, however,

Schofield saw someone else.

It was the tiny figure of Kevin, looking very small and

out of place in the fearsomely equipped gunner's pod.

266     Matthew Reilly

Schofield felt relief wash over his body.

They'd found him.

schofield's voice boomed out from the exterior speakers of the Super Stallion: "Dr. Gunther Botha, we are United States Marines! You are now under arrest! Hand over the boy, and give yourself up now!"

Botha didn't seem to care. He just hurriedly tossed

something square and metallic over the side of his bipod. It

splashed into the water and sank, disappearing.

What the hell is he doing? Schofield thought.

Inside the Super Stallion's cockpit, he turned to Book.

"Open the loading ramp. Then bring us around, rear-end

first."

The Super Stallion turned laterally, rotating in midair as

its rear loading ramp folded down, opening.

The giant chopper's rear end came round toward the stationary

bipod, hovering ten feet above the water. Schofield

stood on the now-open loading ramp, his Desert Eagle pistol

in his hand, a hand mike in the other, windblown sand flying

wildly all around him.

He raised the microphone to his lips.

"The boy, Botha," his amplified voice boomed.

Still Botha didn't seem to care.

Kevin, however, turned in his seat and saw Schofield,

standing in the hold of the Super Stallion. A broad smile appeared

across the little boy's face. He waved--a child's

wave, his arm swatting rapidly from side to side.

Schofield waved back briefly.

At the moment, he was more concerned with what

Botha was up to, for now he could see the fat South African

virologist much more clearly.

Botha had a scuba tank strapped to his back, over his

white shirtsleeves. He hurriedly threw a full-face diving

mask to Kevin and gesticulated for the little boy to put it on.

Schofield frowned. Scuba gear?

Whatever Botha was doing, it was time to stop him.

area 7

Schofield raised his gun and was about to fire across

Botha's bow to get his attention, when suddenly there came

a loud whumping noise from somewhere close above him and completely without warning, he saw the tail rotor of his Super Stallion blast out into a million pieces and separate completely from the rest of the chopper!

Like a tree branch snapping, the Super Stallion's tail

boom broke free of the chopper's main body and dropped

down into the water, causing the entire helicopter to spin

wildly and veer away from the bipod.

With its tail rotor gone, the Super Stallion spun out of

control--and wheeled down toward the water's surface below.

Book II wrestled with the chopper's control stick, but

the Super Stallion was beyond salvation. It rolled sharply in

the air, heading nose-first for the water.

In the rear cargo bay, Schofield was hurled against the

side wall, somehow managed to get a grip on a canvas seat there.

The Super Stallion hit the lake.

Water flew everywhere, a gigantic Whitewater splash.

The big helicopter's nose drove down into the water,

going under for a full ten seconds before its buoyancy

righted it again, and the massive chopper bobbed slowly on

the surface.

Book II hit the kill switch and the chopper's engines

died instantly. Its rotor blades began to slow.

Water rushed into the cargo hold.

It didn't come in through the open rear loading ramp

just yet--since the ramp was designed to rest just above the

water's surface in the event of a water landing--but rather it

entered the crashed helicopter via the small access hatch that

Schofield and Book II had used to enter it earlier.

A Super Stallion is built to stay afloat for a short while

in a water crash, but since Schofield and Book had discarded

the chopper's floor access hatch when they'd entered it, this

Super Stallion wasn't even going to do that.

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Matthew Reilly

It was sinking. Fast.

Schofield ran into the cockpit. "What the hell was that?

Something hit us!"

"I know," Book II said. He nodded out through the

windshield. "I think it was them."

Schofield peered out through the forward windshield.

Hovering above the water in front of their sinking helicopter,

partially obscured by the veil of wind-hurled sand--and flanking the anchored South African bipod--were the two remaining Air Force Penetrators.

the super stallion sank with frightening speed.

Water gurgled up through the access hatch, expanding

outward as it rose up into the cargo hold, pulling the rear end

of the chopper down into the lake.

As more water rushed into it, the helicopter dropped

lower in the water. Within a minute, the rear loading ramp

fell below the waterline and from that moment on, water

came flooding in through the wide rear opening.

Up in the cockpit, Schofield and Book II were standing

ankle-deep in water when abruptly the entire chopper tilted

sharply skyward.

"Any risky ideas now?" Book II shouted, grabbing for a

handhold.

"Not a one."

The Super Stallion continued to sink slowly, rear end

first.

With the Football still hanging from his side, Schofield

looked out through the cockpit's forward windshield.

He saw one of the Penetrators approach Gunther

Botha's bipod. It hovered directly in front of the tiny rivercraft,

like a gigantic menacing vulture.

Schofield saw Botha stand in his pod and face the

black Air Force helicopter—waving. With his arms flailing,

he looked like a tiny pathetic figure beseeching an angry

bird-god.

Then, without warning, a Stinger missile shot down

from the right-hand wing of the Penetrator, trailing a dead straight finger of white smoke.

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Matthew Reilly

The missile hit Botha's pod and blasted it out of the water.

One second Botha was there, the next he was gone, replaced

by a frothing circle of ripples.

Kevin's pod, however, remained intact--severed

cleanly from Botha's by the missile impact.

His pod and the cracked remains of the bipod's crossbeam just bobbed in the water under the steely gaze of the

hovering Penetrator.

from his position inside the sinking super stallion,

Schofield blanched.

They'd just killed Botha!

Holy shit

His Super Stallion was now three-quarters underwater--

its entire rear section underneath the surface. Only its domelike

glass windshield and the tip of one of its rotor blades

still protruded above the waterline.

Water began to lap up against the outside of the windshield.

The entire rear cargo hold was now filled with encroaching

dark-green liquid--water that wanted to rise into

the cockpit, and devour the whole helicopter.

The chopper sank further.

Through the green-tinged waves slapping against the

windshield, Schofield saw the Air Force Penetrator swing in

above the half-destroyed bipod and lower a rescue harness

down to Kevin.

"Ah, damn it," he said aloud.

But the Super Stallion just continued to sink--down

and down--and the last thing Schofield saw before the

windshield was completely covered over by lapping green

water was the image of Kevin being hauled up toward the

Penetrator on the harness and being pulled into the rear section

of the attack helicopter's three-man cockpit.

Then the windshield was covered over completely-and

Schofield saw nothing but green.

area 7 271

the two air force penetrators were well aware of who

was inside the Super Stallion.

Their calls to "Looking Glass" on- a designated alternate

frequency had gone unanswered for the last few minutes. Indeed,

it was a transponder trace on the Super Stallion that

had led them to this crater--where they had found Botha

and the boy.

The two Penetrators hovered above the sinking Super

Stallion, watching it founder, watching it drown.

Inside the lead Penetrator sat Python Willis, the commander

of Charlie Unit. He gazed intently at the sinking

Super Stallion, making sure it disappeared beneath the

waves.

The Super Stallion's cockpit went under, followed by the tip of its rotor blade--the last remaining part of the helicopter

above the waterline.

A legion of bubbles rose instantly to the surface as

every ounce of air inside the sinking helicopter was replaced

with water.

The two Penetrators waited.

The Super Stallion disappeared into the inky green

depths of the lake, trailing multiple lines of bubbles.

Still Python Willis waited--until the bubbles stopped

coming, until he was sure that there could be no air whatsoever

inside the sunken helicopter.

After a few minutes, the water surface became calm.

Still the two Penetrators waited.

They lingered another ten minutes, just to be absolutely

certain that nobody came up. If anyone did, they would finish

them off.

Nobody came up.

At last, Python made the decision and the two Penetrators

wheeled around in the air and headed back toward

Area 7.

No one could have stayed under that long, not even

Matthew Reilly

inside an air pocket. The air in a pocket would have gone bad

by now.

No.

Shane Schofield--and whoever else was in that Super

Stallion with him--was now, without a doubt, dead.

gant, mother, juliet and the president were still on

Level 4, in the semi-darkened observation lab. Hot Rod

Hagerty and Nicholas Tate were also still with them.

"We should move," Gant said.

"What are you thinking?" Mother asked.

"No. What are you doing, Sergeant Gant?" Hot Rod

demanded.

"We shouldn't stay here," Gant said.

"But this is a perfectly good hiding place."

"We should keep moving. If they're searching for us,

and we stay in the same place, they'll eventually find us. We

should move at least once every twenty minutes."

"And where exactly did you learn this?" Hagerty asked.

"It's in the training manual for Officer Candidate

School," Gant said. "Standard evasive techniques. Surely

you read it at some point in your career. Besides, there's

something else I'd like to check out--"

Hagerty went red. "I will not be spoken to like that by a sergeant--"

"Yes. You will," Mother stepped up to Hagerty. At six four, she towered over him. She nodded over at Gant: "Because that little chickadee is smarter and cooler in a combat

situation than you'll ever be. And, for your information, she

ain't gonna be a sergeant for long. Soon she's gonna be an

officer. And I'll tell you something, I'd put my life in her

hands before I put it in yours."

Hagerty pursed his lips. "Right. That's--"

"Colonel Hagerty," the President said, stepping forward,

"Sergeant Gant has saved my life twice this morning--on

Matthew Reilly

the train downstairs and then on the platform. In

both instances, she was decisive and cool-headed in a situation

that would have brought many other people unstuck. I

am happy to trust my safety to her judgment."

"Fucking-A," Mother said. "The power of estrogen, man."

"Sergeant Gant," the President said. "What are you

thinking?"

Gant smiled, her sky-blue eyes gleaming.

"I'm thinking we do something about that transmitter

attached to your heart, sir."

IN HIS STERILE WINDOWLESS ROOM ON THE SECOND-TO-BOTTOM floor of the Pentagon, Dave Fairfax was still hard at work decoding the intercepted telephone conversations that had come

out of United States Air Force Special Area (Restricted) No. 7.

Having decrypted the incoming and outgoing messages

in Afrikaans, Fairfax was pretty pleased with himself.

There was, however, still one thing that nagged at him.

The two messages in English that he had found in amongst

the Afrikaans messages.

He played the two messages again, listened intently.

16-HIM          19:56:09       ENGLISH--ENGLISH

VOICE 3: Everything is in place.      Everything is in place.

Confirm that it's the third. Confirm that it's the third.

22-JUN          20:51:59       ENGLISH--ENGLISH

VOICE 3: Mission is a go.     Mission is a go.

One thing was certain. It was the same voice on both

messages.

A man's voice. American. Southern accent. Speaking

slowly, deliberately.

Fairfax pushed his glasses up onto his nose, started typing

on his keyboard.

He brought up a voice analysis program.

Then he compared the taped voice's digital signature--

or "voiceprint"--with the signatures of every other voice in

the DIA's mainframe, every voice the Agency had ever secretly

recorded.

No.

DATE

DIVISION

SOURCE FILE

1.       29-May         SPACE DIV-01 SAT-SURV (FILE 034-77A)

2.       07-Jun SPACEDIV-01 SAT-SURV (FILE 034-77A)

3.       16-Jun SPACEDIV-02 USAF-SA(R)07 (FILE 009-21 D)

4.       22-Jun SPACEDIV-02 USAF-SA(R)07 (FILE 009-21 D)

5.       02-Jul  SPACEDIV-01 SAT-SURV (FILE 034-77A)

6.       03-Jul  SPACEDIV-01 SAT-SURV (FILE 034-77A)

Matthew Reilly

Spiked displays whizzed across his screen as the program

accessed the Agency's massive database of voiceprints.

And then the computer beeped:

6 MATCHES FOUND

DISPLAY ALL MATCHES?

"Yes, please," Fairfax said as he hit the "Y" key.

Six entries appeared on his screen:

Okay, Fairfax thought.

He discarded the third and the fourth entries--they

were the two messages that he'd just played. Their division

designator, spacediv-02, meant his own section, Section 2.

The other four messages, however, were the property of

Section 1, the main unit of Space Division located across the

hall.

The source file for the Section 1 messages, SAT-SURV,

stood for "Satellite Surveillance." Section 1, it seemed, had

been tapping into foreign satellite transmissions lately.

Fairfax clicked on the first entry:

29MAY

13:12:00

SATELLITE INTERCEPT (ENGLISH!

VOICE 1:       They did the test this morning. The vaccine is

operational against all previous strains. All they need

now is a sample of the latest version.

Fairfax frowned. The messages in Afrikaans had also

mentioned a vaccine. And a successful test.

He hit the next entry:

area 7

7-jun   23:47:33       satellite intercept (english

VOICE 1:       Virus snatch team is en route to Changchun. Nan

are CAPTAIN ROBERT WU and LIEUTENANT CHET

Both can be trusted. As discussed, the price

delivery of the vaccine to you will be one hundred

and twenty million dollars, ten million for each of

twelve men involved.

Changchun, Fairfax thought. The Chinese bioweapons

production facility.

And a hundred and twenty million dollars, to be divided

among twelve men.

This was getting interesting.

Next:

2-JUL  02:21:57       SATELLITE INTERCEPT

(CHINESE--ENGLISH)

VOICE 1:       Copy that, Yellow Star. We'll be there.

What is this--? Fairfax thought.

Yellow Star?

But that was the ...

He clicked on the final message:

3-JUL  04:04:42       SATELLITE INTERCEPT ENGLISH

VOICE 1:       WU and LI have arrived back at Area 7 with the vin

Your men are with them. All the money has been

accounted for. Names of my men who will need to

be extracted: BENNETT, CALVERT, COLEMAN, DAYTON,

FROMMER, GRAYSON, LITTLETON, MESSICK, OLIVER

and myself.

Fairfax was looking at the names on the last messaj

when suddenly the door to his subterranean office was flung

open and his boss--a tall, bald bureaucrat named Eugene

Wisher--stormed into the room, followed by three heavily

278

Matthew Reilly

armed military policemen. Wisher was in charge of the operation

going on across the hall--the tracking of the newly

launched Chinese space shuttle.

"Fairfax!" he bellowed. "What the hell are you doing

in here!"

Fairfax gulped, eyed the MP's guns fearfully. "Uh,

wha-- what are you talking about?"

"Why are you accessing intercepted transmissions from

our operation?"

"Your operation?" Fairfax said.

"Yes. Our operation. Why are you downloading information

from the mainframe that pertains to the classified operation

going on in Section 1?"

Fairfax fell silent, deep in thought, while his boss kept

yelling at him.

And suddenly it all became very, very clear.

"Oh, Christ," he breathed.

IT TOOK SOME EXPLAINING--AT GUNPOINT--BUT AFTER FIVE

minutes, Dave Fairfax suddenly found himself standing in

front of two DIA Assistant Directors in the operations room

across the hall from his windowless office.

Monitors glowed all around the room, technicians worked

at over a dozen consoles--all of it related to the tracking of the

newly launched Chinese Space Shuttle, the Yellow Star.

"I need a personnel list for Special Area 7," the twenty-five-year-old Fairfax said to the two high-ranking DLA

chiefs standing before him.

A list came.

Fairfax looked at it. It read:

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

SPECIAL AREA (RESTRICTED) 07

ON-SITE PERSONNEL

CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET

NAME

UNIT

NAME

UNIT

COMMAND UNIT

Harper, JT (CO)

7TH SQUADRON

Alvarez, MJ    A

Arthurs, RT    C

Atlock, FD      B

Baines, AW    A

Bennett, B     E

Biggs, NM

Boland, CS

Boyce, LW

Calvert, ET

Carney, LE

282

Matthew        Reilly

NAME  UNIT

Price, AL

Rawson, MJ

Sayles, MT

Sommers, SR C C B C         Stone, JK Taylor, AS Willis, IS Wolfson, HT C B C A

CIVILIAN STAFF

Botha, GW     MED

Franklin, HS   MED

Shaw, DE      MED

"Anybody else see a pattern here?" Fairfax said.

All of the men named in the intercepted transmission

were from the unit designated "E"--or in military parlance

"Echo."

"The only man in 'E' who isn't mentioned," Fairfax

said, "is this one, 'Carney, LE.' I can only assume that he's

the man speaking on the tape."

Fairfax turned to the two DIA chiefs standing beside

him. "There's a rogue unit at that base. A rogue unit that has

been communicating with the Chinese government and its

new space shuttle. All the men in Echo Unit."

"--echo unit. report--"

"--This is Echo leader" the voice of Captain Lee "Cobra"

Carney replied.

Cobra spoke with a slow Southern drawl--measured,

icy, dangerous. "We're in the Level 3 livin' quarters. Just

swept the two underground hangar levels. Nothin' there.

Workin' our way down through the complex now, coverin'

the stairwell as we go."

"--Copy that, Echo leader--"

"Sir," another of the radio operators turned to Caesar

Russell, "Charlie Unit just arrived back from the lake.

They're outside, and they have the boy."

"Good. Losses?"

"Five."

"Acceptable. And Botha?" Caesar asked.

"Dead."

"Even better. Let them in through the top door."

gant and the others headed for the fire stairwell at

the eastern end of Level 4.

"I know this isn't exactly relevant to the present situation,"

Mother said as she and Gant walked side by side, "but

I've been meaning to ask you about your little date with the

Scarecrow last Saturday. You haven't said anything about it."

Gant gave Mother a crooked grin. "Not looking for gossip,

are we, Mother?"

"Why, hell yes. That's exactly what I'm looking for

Old married hags like me get off hearing about the sexual

284

Matthew Reilly

gymnastics of pretty young things like you. And I was just,

you know ... interested."

Gant smiled sadly. "It didn't go as well as I would have

liked."

"How do you mean?"

Gant shrugged, kept walking, gun in hand. "He didn't

kiss me. We had a great dinner at this quiet little restaurant,

then we walked along the banks of the Potomac, just talking.

God, we talked all evening. And then, when he dropped me

home, I was hoping that he'd kiss me. But he ... just ... didn't. And so we stood there awkwardly and said we'd see

each other later, and the date just ... ended."

Mother's eyes narrowed. "Oooh, Scarecrow. I'll kick your ass ..."

"Please don't," Gant said as they came to the door leading

to the stairwell. "And don't tell him I told you anything."

Mother ground her teeth. "Mmm, okay ..."

"In any case, I'd rather not think about it right now,"

Gant said. "We've got work to do."

She opened the firedoor a crack, peered through it, her

gun raised beside her face.

The stairwell was dark and silent.

Empty.

"Stairwell's clear," she whispered.

She opened the door fully, took a few steps up the stairs.

Mother moved into position behind her, both of their

eyes looking up the barrels of their guns.

They came to the Level 3 landing, saw the door leading

into the complex's living quarters.

There was no one here.

That's odd, Gant thought.

There were no soldiers stationed on the landing, not

even a sentry left there to block their movement up through

the complex.

Very odd, she thought. If she had been in charge of the

opposing forces, she would be flushing every floor for the

President, and ensuring that she blocked off the stairwell

while she did so.

area 7 285

Obviously, the 7th Squadron operated differently.

With the stairwell unguarded, Gant and her team made

swift progress upwards, came to the Level 2 hangar bay.

The Level 2 hangar--untouched, so far, by the mayhem

of the day--was practically identical to the one above it, the

only difference being that the collection of planes inside it

was far less exotic. While the Level 1 hangar contained its

pair of Stealth bombers and the SR-71 Blackbird, this one

only held two AWACS surveillance airplanes.

Which was exactly what Gant wanted.

TWO MINUTES LATER, SHE WAS INSIDE THE LOWER CARGO HOLD

of one of the AWACS planes, unscrewing a heavy lead panel

in the floor.

The panel came free, revealing an electronics compartment

--and in the middle of that compartment, secured

firmly in place, was a very sturdy-looking fluorescent

orange unit, about the size of a small shoebox. The orange

box appeared to be made of some superstrong material.

"What's that?" Juliet Janson asked from behind Gant.

The President answered for her. "It's the plane's flight

data recorder. The black box."

"Doesn't look very black," Ramrod Hagerty said sourly.

"They never are," Gant said, extracting the small orange

unit from its nook. "It's just the name they're known by.

Black boxes are nearly always painted bright orange, for

better visibility in a wreck. That said, they're usually found

another way--"

"Oh, very good ..." the President said.

"What?" Hagerty asked. "What?"

"Ever wondered how they find the black box so fast after

an airplane crash?" Gant said. "When a plane goes down,

debris is spread all over the place, yet they always find the

flight data recorder very quickly, usually within a few

hours."

"Yes ..."

Gant said, "That's because all black boxes have a

battery-powered transponder inside them. That transponder

286

Matthew Reilly

emits a high-powered microwave signal, giving the box's location

to crash investigators."

"So what are you going to do with it?" Hagerty asked.

Gant called up through the hatch above her. "Mother!"

"Yeah?" Mother's voice floated back.

"You found that signal yet?"

"I'll have it in two seconds!"

Gant gave Hagerty a look. "I'm going to try to impersonate

the signal coming from the President's heart."

IN THE MAIN CABIN OF THE AWACS PLANE, MOTHER SAT AT A

computer console.

She pulled up the screen showing the microwave signal

coming into Area 7 from the low-orbit satellite. It was the

same screen Brainiac had found inside the other AWACS

plane earlier, depicting a twenty-five-second rebounding

signature.

50

75

Gant came up from the cargo hold with the orange

colored black box. She plugged a cable into a socket on its

side, connecting it to Mother's terminal. Immediately, the

spike graph appeared on a small illuminated LCD screen on

the black box's top.

"Okay," Gant said to Mother, "see that search signal,

the upward spike? I want you to set it as the 'find' frequency

on the black box."

When crash investigators search for a black box, they

use a radio transmitter to emit a pre-set microwave signal

called the 'find' frequency. When the black box's transponder

area 7 287

detects that signal, it sends out a return signal, revealing

its location.

"Okay ..." Mother said, typing. "Done."

"Good," Gant said. "Now set that rebounding frequency

--the downward spike--as the return signal."

"Okay, just a minute."

"Will the signal strength from the black box be powerful

enough to reach all the way up to the satellite?" the President

asked.

"I think it'll work. They used microwave signals to talk

to Armstrong on the moon, and SETI uses them to send

messages into outer space." Gant smiled. "It's not the size

that matters, it's the quality of the signal."

"All right, done," Mother said. She turned to Gant. "So,

Fearless Leader, what exactly have I just created?"

"Mother, if you've done it right, when we activate the

transmitter inside this black box, we'll be mimicking the

signal coming out of the President's heart."

"So what now?" the President asked.

"Yes," Hagerty said meanly. "Do we just switch it on?"

"Definitely not. If we turn it on, the satellite will pick up

two identical signals, and that might cause it to detonate the

bombs. We can't risk that. No, we've just laid the groundwork.

Now it's time for the hard part. Now we have to substitute the black box's signal for the President's."

"And how do we do that?" Hagerty asked. "Please don't

tell me that you're going to perform open-heart surgery on

the President of the United States with a pocket knife?"

"Do I look like MacGyver to you?" Gant asked. "No.

My theory is this: somehow Caesar Russell got that transmitter onto the President's heart ..."

"That's right. He did it during an operation I had a few

years ago," the President said.

"But I'm figuring he didn't turn it on until today," Gant

said. "The White House's scanners would have picked up an

unauthorized signal as soon as it was turned on."

"Yes, so ..." Hagerty said.

"So," Gant said, "somewhere in this complex, Caesar

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Matthew Reilly

Russell has a unit that turns the President's transmitter on

and off. I'm guessing that that unit--probably just a handheld

initiate/terminate unit of some kind--is sitting in the

same room as Caesar himself."

"It is," the President said, recalling the small unit that

Caesar Russell had turned on at the very start of the challenge.

"He had it when he appeared on the television sets before,

at the beginning of all this. It's red, handheld, with a

black stub antenna."

"Right then," Gant said. "Now all we have to do is find

his command center." She turned to Juliet. "Your people

have checked out this place. Any ideas?"

Juliet said, "The main hangar. In the building overlooking

the floor. There's a whole command-and-control room

up there."

"Then that's where we're going," Gant said. "So what

we do now is simple. First, we take Caesar Russell's command

center. Then, in between the search signals sent down

from the satellite, we use his initiate/terminate unit to turn

off the transmitter attached to the President's heart, while a

second later, we turn on the black box."

She gave the President a wry smile. "Like I said. Simple."

THE FIVE REMAINING MEMBERS OF CHARLIE UNIT WERE MOVING

quickly through a low concrete tunnel, all running in a

half-crouch.

Trotting along with them--and because of his height,

not needing to crouch--was Kevin.

Charlie Unit had just returned from Lake Powell, after

killing Botha, retrieving Kevin, and watching Schofield's

chopper drown.

They had parked their two Penetrators outside and were

now reentering the complex through an entrance that connected

the main facility with one of the outside hangars, an

entrance known as the "top door."

The top door's tunnel opened onto the rear of the personnel

elevator shaft, at ground level, by virtue of a foot thick titanium door.

Charlie Unit came to the heavy silver door.

Python Willis punched in the appropriate override code.

The top door was a special entrance to Area 7--if you were

senior enough to know the override code, you could open it

anytime, even during a lockdown.

The thick titanium door swung open--

--and Python froze.

He saw the roof of the personnel elevator parked just

below his feet, sitting right there in front of him.

And standing on top of it, was Cobra Carney and four

members of Echo Unit.

The other half of Echo, Python saw through the hatch in

the elevator's roof, were down in the car itself.

290

Matthew Reilly

"Jesus, Cobra," Python said, "you scared the shit out of

me. Wasn't expecting to see you guys here--"

"Caesar told us to come get you," Cobra drawled.

"Make sure you all got in okay."

Python shoved Kevin forward, onto the roof of the

stopped elevator. "We lost five, but we got him."

"Good," Cobra said. "Very good."

It was then that--through the roof hatch of the elevator --Python saw four more men standing in the elevator car

with the Echo men.

Four Asian men.

Python frowned.

They were the four men who had been inside the decompression

chamber earlier that morning--7th Squadron

Captain Robert Wu and Lieutenant Chet Li, and the two

Chinese lab workers. The men who had brought the latest

strain of the Sinovirus back to Area 7.

"Cobra, what's going on?" Python said suddenly, looking

up.

"Sorry, Python," Cobra said.

And with that he gave a short nod to his men.

In a flash, the four members of Echo Unit on the elevator's

roof raised their P-90's and unleashed a withering storm

of fire on Charlie Unit.

Python Willis was hit by about a million rounds. His

face and chest were turned instantly to mush. The four Charlie

men behind him also dropped like flailing marionettes,

one after the other, until the only figure left standing on that

side of the elevator's roof was the wide-eyed and terrified

Kevin.

Cobra Carney strode forward and grabbed the little boy

roughly by the arm.

"Smile, kid, you're coming with me now."

THE CONTROL ROOM OVERLOOKING THE MAIN HANGAR WAS

quiet.

Boa McConnell and the four other surviving members

of Bravo Unit sat slumped in the corner, looking bloodied

and dirty. Two of Boa's men were seriously wounded.

Colonel Jerome T. Harper--the ostensible CO of Area 7, but in reality a minion of Caesar Russell--tended to their wounds.

Another figure sat at the back of the room, shrouded in

shadow--he had been sitting inside the control room for the

whole morning, never uttering a word. He just watched

silently.

Major Kurt Logan and the remainder of Alpha Unit

were also in the control room. Logan now stood with Caesar,

whispering in hushed tones. His Alpha Unit had fared little

better than Bravo Unit: of his original team of ten men, including

himself, there were only four left.

Caesar, however, seemed absolutely unperturbed by

their losses.

"Any word from Echo Unit?"

"Cobra reports that they are now on Level 4. No sign of

the President yet--"

"Damn it, shit!"

It was one of the other radio operators. His computer

monitor had just blinked out.

There had been no warning. No dying whine.

"What is it?" the head operator asked.

"Fuck!" another radioman yelled as his monitor also

crashed.

292

Matthew Reilly

It spread around the control room like a virus. All

around the command center, one after the other, monitors

blinked out.

"--Air conditioning systems just went down--"

"--Water cooling system is gone--"

"What's going on?" Caesar Russell said calmly.

"--Power to the cell bay is falling rapidly--"

"The complex's power supply is crashing," the senior

operator said to Russell. "But I don't know why ..."

He brought up a system display screen.

SA(R) 07A

SECURITY ACCESS LOG

SOURCE POWER HISTORY (3-JUL)

7-3-010223077

TIME   KEY ACTION   OPERATOR     SYSTEM RESPONSE

06:30:00       System status          070-67 All systems

check            operational

06:58:34       Lockdown      105-02 Lockdown

command                enacted

07:00:00       System status          070-67 All systems

check            operational

(lockdown

mode)

07:30:00       System status          070-67 All systems

check            operational

(lockdown

mode)

aSYSTEM

TIME  KEY ACTION OPERATOR       RESPONSE

Area 7

293

07:3 7:b6

07.38:00

WARNING:

Auxiliary

power malfunction

WARNING:

Auxiliary ...

power

Capacity: 50%

08:00:15

Main power 008-72

shutdown

command

(terminal

3-A1)

)8:00:18

Auxiliary power Aux System

enabled

WARNING:

Auxiliary power system

System

operational.

Low

power protocol

enabled

Aux Syste

Malfunction

terminal

1-A2

Receiving no

response

from

systems:

TRACS;

AUX SYS-1;

RAD COMS

SPHERE;

MBN; FXT ,

FAN

Terminal 1 A2

not

responding

Main power

disabled

Auxiliary

power

Low power

protocol in

effect:

nonessential

systems

disabled

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Matthew Reilly

TIME   KEY ACTION OPERATOR       SYSTEM RESPONSE

08:01:02       Lockdown 008-72      Door 003-V

special opened

release

command

entered

(terminal

3A1)

08:04:34       Lockdown 008-72      Door 062-W

special opened

release

command

entered

(terminal

3A1)

08:04:55       Lockdown 008-72      Door100-W

special opened

release

command

entered

(terminal

3A1)

08:18:00       WARNING: Aux System       terminal 1A2

Auxiliary        not

power capacity: 35% responding

08:21:30       Security 008-93        SYSTEM

camera         ERROR:

system shut   Security

down   camera

command      system

(terminal       already

1-A1)  disabled per

\                  low power

protocol

area 7

295

TIME KEY ACTION OPERATOR

SYSTEM

RESPONSE

08:38:00

18:58:00

09:04:43

09:08:00

09:18:00

39:28:00

WARNING

Aux System

Auxiliary

rapacity: 25f WARNING:

Auxiliary

power

capacity: 15C

Lockdown

special

release

command

entered

(terminal

3-A2)

WARNING:

077-01E

Aux System

Auxiliary

power

capacity: 10%

WARNING:     Aux System

Auxiliary

power

capacity: r)°/o

WARNING:     Aux System

power

rapacity: 0%

lerminal 1-A2

responum

Terminal 1-A2

Door 62-E

opened

utiate system

ate system

reboot?

Commence

system

shutdown

"Jesus, we've been running on auxiliary power since

eight o'clock!" the senior console operator said.

Colonel Harper stepped forward. "But that should have

kept us going for at least three hours, enough time to reboot

the main power supply."

While they spoke, Caesar gazed at the computer screen,

at the entry:

296     Matthew Reilly

09:04:43       Lockdown      077-01E        Door62E

special opened

release

command

entered

(terminal

3A2)

The "77" prefix indicated a member of the 7th

Squadron. "E" stood for Echo Unit; and "01," its leader, Cobra

Carney.

Caesar's eyes narrowed. It appeared that during the last

lockdown window period, Cobra Carney had opened Door

62-E--the eastern X-rail blast door down on Level 6 ...

Jerome Harper and the radioman were still debating the

power situation.

"It should have, yes," the radioman said. "But it appears

the system only had half power: when it kicked in, so it only

lasted an hour and a half--"

The senior man's monitor blinked out. It was the last

one to go.

Then, all at once, the overhead lights in the control

room went out.

Caesar and the console operators were devoured by

darkness.

Caesar spun, turned to look out through the windows

overlooking the enormous ground-level hangar. He saw the

bright halogen lights running along the length of the hangar

shut off in sequence, one after the other after the other.

The hangar--and all its contents: Marine One, the destroyed

cockroach towing vehicles, the blasted-open

Nighthawk Two, the overhead crane system--was consumed

by inky blackness.

"All systems down," someone said in the darkness.

"The whole complex has lost power."

down in the AWACS plane on level 2, libby gant and

the others were preparing to head up through the underground

area 7

base, to locate and take out Caesar Russell's control

room, when without warning every single light in the subterranean hangar went out.

The gigantic hangar was plunged into darkness.

Pitch darkness.

Gant flicked on the pencil-sized flashlight attached to

the barrel of her MP-10. Its thin beam illuminated her face.

"The power," Mother whispered. "Why would they cut

the power?"

"Yeah," Juliet said, "surely that would only make it harder to find us."

"Maybe they had no choice in the matter," Gant said.

"What does this mean for us?" the President asked

coming up beside them.

"It doesn't change the plan," Gant said. "We're still going

for the command center. What we have to figure out

though, is how it affects this environment."

At that moment, from somewhere deep within the bowels

of the complex, they heard a scream--a wild scream; human,

but at the same time, somehow not human; the

terror-inspiring howl of a seriously deranged individual.

"Oh, Jesus," Gant breathed. "The prisoners. They're

out."

FIFTH CONFRONTATION

3 July/ 0930 Hours

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

SPECIAL AREA (RESTRICTION) NO.7

0930 HOURS

GROUND LEVEL: Main Hangar

LEVEL 1: Hangar Bay

LEVEL 2: Hangar Bay

LEVEL 3: Living Quarters

LEVEL 4: Laboratories

LEVEL 5:

LEVEL 6: X-rail platform

ABOUT TEN MINUTES BEFORE THE POWER WENT OFF AT AREA 7,

a chunky CH-53E Super Stallion transport helicopter was

sinking slowly through the aqua-green water of Lake Powell.

It made for a peculiar sight.

With its tail section completely blown apart, the chopper

sank rear end first, almost vertical, its open loading ramp

swallowing water by the ton. Against the hazy green backdrop

of the water all around it, it looked as if the Super Stallion

was free-falling in silent ultra-slow motion.

Thin streams of bubbles weaved their way to the surface

above it—the same bubbles that were being watched by the

two Air Force Penetrators hovering above the lake.

Shane Schofield and Buck Riley Jr. stared out through

the sinking helicopter's Lexan windshield—looking straight

up.

They saw the water's surface high above them, rippling

like a glass lens, fifty feet away and getting more and more

distant.

Beyond the distorted lens of water they could make out

the twin images of the Penetrator attack choppers hovering

above the surface, waiting for them to emerge, if they dared.

In the water all around them, a bizarre yet extraordinary

underwater landscape revealed itself. Giant boulders rested

on the lakebed, desert trails that had once been dry land

twisted and turned, there was even a giant submerged cliff

that soared upward, disappearing above the water's surface.

The submerged desert world appeared as a ghostly pale

green.

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Matthew Reilly

Book II turned to Schofield. "If you've got any more

magic escape plans, now would be the time to use them."

"Sorry," Schofield said. "I'm all out."

Behind them--or rather, below them--water was flooding

up into the cargo bay. It rose quickly through the hold,

entering the helicopter via the wide-open loading ramp and

any other orifice it could find.

Thankfully, the cockpit was airtight, so at seventy feet

down, the still-sinking helicopter reached equilibrium--and

an air pocket formed in the upturned cockpit, the same way

a drinking cup submerged upside-down in a bathtub will

form an air bubble.

The helicopter glided downwards until, at ninety feet, it

hit the bottom.

A billowing cloud of silt exploded all around the Super

Stallion as its destroyed tail section impacted against the

floor of the lake and came to rest--still upright--against a

massive submerged boulder.

"We haven't got much time," Schofield said. "This air

will go bad real fast."

"What do we do?" Book II said. "If we stay, we die. If

we swim to the surface, we die."

"There has to be something ..." Schofield said, almost

to himself.

"What do you mean?"

"There has to be a reason ..."

"What are you talking about?" Book II said angrily. "A

reason for what?"

Schofield spun to face him. "A reason why Botha

stopped here. In this spot. He didn't stop here for the hell of

it. He had a reason to drop anchor here--"

And then Schofield saw it.

"Oh, you cunning bastard ..." he breathed.

He was staring out over Book II's shoulder, out into the

murky green haze of the underwater world.

Book II spun, and he saw it, too.

"Oh my God ..." he whispered.

There, partially obscured by the aqua-green mist of the

area 7

water, was a structure--not a boulder or a rock formation,

but a distinctly man-made structure--a structure which

looked totally out of place in the green underwater world of

Lake Powell.

Schofield and Book saw a wide flat awning, a small

glass-windowed office, and a wide garage door. And underneath the awning: two old-style petrol pumps.

It was a gas station.

An underwater gas station.

IT WAS NESTLED UP AGAINST THE BASE OF THE CLIFF, AT THE

point where the enormous circular crater containing the

small mesa met a wide canyon stretching westward, right on

the corner.

It was then that Schofield remembered what this gas

station was.

It was the rest-stop petrol station that had been flooded

over when Lake Powell had been created in 1963 by the

damming of the Colorado River--the old 1950's-era gas station

that had been built on the site of an old trading post.

"Let's move," he said. "Before we use up all the oxygen

in here."

"To where?" Book II asked incredulously. "The gas

station?"

"Yep," Schofield said, looking at his watch.

It was 9:26.

Thirty-four minutes to get the Football back to the

President.

"Gas stations have air pumps," he said, "for inflating

tires. Air that we can breathe until those Penetrators go

away. Maybe when the government compensated him, the

guy who owned this station just upped and left everything

behind."

"That's your magic escape plan? Any air left in those

pumps will be forty years old. It could be rancid, or contaminated

by God-only-knows what."

"If it's air-sealed," Schofield said, "then some of it may

still be good. And right now, we don't have any other options.

area 7

I'll go first. If I find a hose, I'll signal you to come over."

"And if you don't?"

Schofield unclipped the Football from his webbing and

handed it to Book II. "Then you'll have to come up with

a magic plan of your own."

the super stallion lay on the bottom of the lake, surrounded by the silent underwater world.

Abruptly, a finger of bubbles issued out from its open

rear section--trailing the figure of Shane Schofield, still dressed in his black 7th Squadron battle uniform, as he entered the water from within the sunken helicopter.

Schofield hovered in the void for a moment, looked

about himself, saw the gas station, but then suddenly he saw

something else.

Something resting on the lakebed directly beneath him

about three feet away.

It was a small silver Samsonite container--heavy duty

obviously designed to protect its contents from strong impacts; about the size of two videocassettes placed side by side. It sat on the silty lake floor, perfectly still, weighed

down by a small anchor.

It was the object Gunther Botha had tossed over the side

of his bipod when Schofield and Book had interrupted him.

Schofield swam down to it, cut away the anchor with a

knife, and then attached the silver container's handle to the

clip on his combat webbing.

He'd look at its contents later.

Right now he had other things to do.

He headed for the underwater gas station, pulling himself through the water with long powerful strokes. He covered the distance between the Super Stallion and the gas

station quickly, and soon found himself hovering in front of

the ghostlike submerged structure.

His lungs began to ache. He had to find an air hose

soon--

306

Matthew Reilly

There.

Beside the open doorway of the gas station's office.

A black hose, connected to a large pressurized drum.

Schofield swam for it.

He came to the hose, grabbed it and pressed down on its

release valve.

The hose's nozzle sputtered to life, spewing out some

pathetically small bubbles.

Not a good sign, Schofield thought.

And then, in a sudden billowing rush, a wash of big fat

bubbles came bursting out of the hose.

Schofield quickly put his mouth over it and, without a

second thought, breathed in the forty-year-old air.

At first, he gagged, and coughed awfully. It tasted bitter

and stale, foul. But then it got cleaner and he began to

breathe it in normally. The air was okay--just.

He waved to Book in the helicopter, gave him the

thumbs-up.

As Book swam over with the Football, Schofield pulled

the air hose into the gas station's little office, so that any

stray bubbles got trapped against the office's ceiling rather

than rising to the lake's surface and alerting the Penetrators

to their new air source.

While he did so, he looked at the submerged gas station

all around him.

He was still thinking about Botha.

The South African scientist's escape plan couldn't have

involved just coming to this sunken petrol station. It had to

be something more than that ...

Schofield looked around the gas station's office and the

garage adjoining it. The whole structure was nestled up

against the base of the sunken cliff.

Just then, however, through the rear window of the little

office, Schofield saw something built into the base of the

cliff behind the gas station.

A wide boarded-up doorway.

It was constructed of thick wooden beams, and it appeared

area 7

to burrow into the cliff face. A pair of mine-car

tracks disappeared underneath the planks that sealed its entrance.

A mine.

Botha's plan was beginning to make more sense.

Thirty seconds later, Book II joined him inside the office and gulped in some air from the hose.

Another minute and Schofield leaned outside the office

and saw the blurred rippling outlines of the Air Force Penetrators above the surface wheel around in the air and depart

heading back for Area 7.

As soon as they were gone, he got Book's attention and

pointed at the mine entrance behind the gas station, signalling, I'm going there. You wait here.

Book nodded.

Schofield then flicked on the small barrel-mounted

flashlight on his Desert Eagle pistol and swam out through

the rear window of the office, heading for the mine entrance

at the base of the cliff.

HE CAME TO THE BOARDED-UP MINE, AND FOUND THAT SOME

of its rotting planks had been removed--possibly recently.

He swam inside.

Darkness met him. Impenetrable underwater darkness.

The narrow beam of his flashlight revealed rough rocky

walls, submerged support beams, and the pair of mine-car

tracks on the floor, disappearing into the shadows.

Schofield swam quickly through the mine tunnel,

guided by the beam of his flashlight.

He had to keep track of how far he had gone. There

would come a time very soon when he would have to make a

choice: go back to Book and get some more air from the

hose, or keep going, and hope he made it to a part of the

mine that wasn't filled with water.

The only thing that convinced him that he would find

such an air source was Botha. The South African scientist

wouldn't have come here if he couldn't--

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Matthew Reilly

Suddenly Schofield saw a narrow vertical shaft branching

off his tunnel. A rung ladder ran up its length.

He swam over to the shaft, pointed his flashlight up into

it. The shaft went both up and down, disappearing into

blackness in both directions. It was an access shaft of some

sort, allowing quick and easy movement to all levels of the

mine.

Schofield was running out of air.

He did the math.

The lake was about ninety feet deep here. Hence, ninety

feet up that rung ladder, the water should level out.

Screw it.

It was the only option.

He turned back to get Book.

TWO MINUTES LATER, HE RETURNED TO THE MINE TUNNEL, THIS

time with Book II--and the Football--beside him, plus a

new lungful of air.

They headed straight for the vertical access shaft, used

its rung ladder to pull themselves up it.

The shaft was a tight cylinder, with earthen doorways

opening off it every ten feet or so. Climbing it was like

climbing up a very narrow sewer pipe.

Schofield led the way, moving quickly, counting the

rungs as he climbed, calculating one foot for every rung.

At fifty rungs, his lungs began to burn.

At seventy, he felt bile crawling up the back of his

throat.

At ninety, he still saw no sign of the surface, and he

started to worry that he had got it all wrong, that he had

made a fatal mistake, that this was the end, that he was about

to black out--

--THEN SUDDENLY, GLORIOUSLY, SCHOFIELD'S HEAD exploded

out of the water into beautiful cool air.

He immediately swung his body to the side to allow

Book II to surface next to him. Book burst out of the water

area 7

and both of them gulped in the fresh air as they hung from

the ladder in the tight vertical well.

The shaft still rose into darkness above them--only

now it was no longer filled with water.

Once he had regained his breath, Schofield climbed up

out of the water and stepped through the nearest earthen

doorway.

He emerged inside a wide flat-floored cavern, an old administration

chamber for the mine. What he saw inside the

chamber, however, stopped him cold.

He saw boxes of provisions--food, water, gas cookers,

powdered milk--hundreds of boxes.

Hundreds and hundreds of boxes.

A dozen fold-out cots lined the walls. A table covered

with fake passports and drivers' licenses stood in one corner.

It's a camp, Schofield thought. A base camp.

With enough food to last for weeks, months even--for

however long it would take for the United States government

to stop searching Lake Powell for the men who had

stolen the Sinovirus and its prized vaccine source: Kevin.

Then, once the coast was clear, Botha and his men

would leave the lake and make their way back to their homeland

at their leisure.

Schofield looked at the stacks of boxes. Whoever had

done this had been bringing stuff here for a long time.

"Geez." Book II joined Schofield in the chamber.

"Somebody came prepared."

Schofield looked at his watch.

9:31 a.m.

"Come on. We've got twenty-nine minutes to get this

briefcase back to the President," Schofield said. "I say we go

for the surface, and see if there's a way to get back to Area 7."

Schofield AND BOOK II CLIMBED.

As fast as they could. Up the vertical access shaft.

Schofield with Botha's small Samsonite container. Book II

with the Football.

Within a minute, they reached the top of the ladder and

stepped up into a wide aluminum building of some sort, kind

of like an oversized shed.

A set of mine-car tracks began over on the far side of

the shed, disappearing into the earth. They were flanked by a

collection of rusty loading trays and old conveyor belts.

Everything was covered in dust and cobwebs.

Schofield and Book raced for the external door, kicked

it open.

Brilliant sunlight assaulted their eyes, wind-blown sand

blasted their faces. The sandstorm was still raging.

The two tiny figures of Schofield and Book II stepped

out of the mine shed ...

... and they found themselves standing on a gigantic

flat-topped desert peninsula that stretched out into Lake

Powell. They looked like ants against the magnificent Utah

landscape—the magnitude of the earth around them dwarfing

even the large aluminum shed from which they had

emerged.

Strangely, though, there was another structure on this

vast flat-topped peninsula. It stood a bare fifty yards away

from the mine shed: a small farmhouse, with a barn attached

to its side.

Schofield and Book ran for it through the storm-tossed

sand.

area 7

THE LETTERBOX AT THE GATE READ: HOEG.

Schofield bolted past it, into the front yard.

He came to the side of the farmhouse, crouched underneath a window, peered inside, just as the wall beside him

exploded with automatic gunfire. He spun to see a man

dressed in denim overalls come charging around the corner

of the farmhouse with an AK-47 assault rifle in his hands.

Blam!

Another shot rang out above the sandstorm and the

farmer dropped to the dusty ground, dead.

Book II appeared at Schofield's side, his M9 pistol

smoking.

"What the hell is going on here?" he yelled.

"I'm guessing," Schofield said, "that if we live through

this, we'll find that Mr. Hoeg is a friend of Gunther Botha's

Come on."

Schofield ran for the barn, threw open its doors, hoping

against hope that he would find some kind of transportation

inside it ...

"Well, it's about time we had a bit of luck," he said

"Thank you, God. We deserved a break."

Standing there before him--glistening like a new car in

a showroom--was a vehicle common to the farms in these

parts: a beautiful lime-green biplane, a crop duster.

three minutes later, schofield and book were shooting

through the sky, soaring high over the snakelike canyons

of Lake Powell.

It was 9:38 a.m.

This is going to be close, Schofield thought.

The plane was a Tiger Moth--an old World War II biplane

often used for crop dusting in the dry southwest. It had

two parallel wings, one above the fuselage and one below,

that were joined by vertical struts and criss-crossing wires.

Two spindly landing wheels stretched down from the forward

end of its body, like the elongated legs of a mosquito,

and an insecticide sprayer was attached to its tail.

312

Matthew Reilly

Like most biplanes, it was a two-seater--the pilot sitting

in the backseat, the co-pilot up front.

And it was a good plane, too, well looked after. Mr.

Hoeg, it seemed, in addition to being a goddamned spy, was

obviously an airplane enthusiast.

"What do you think?" Book said into his flight helmet's

microphone. "Do we go for the X-rail?"

"Not now," Schofield replied. "There's not enough time.

We head straight for Area 7. For the Emergency Exit Vent."

Dave Fairfax's heart was racing.

This had turned into quite an eventful day.

After he'd heard Dave's assessment of the situation at

Area 7 and the presence of a rogue unit there, the DIA assistant director in charge of surveilling the Chinese space shuttle had ordered a blanket tap of a one-hundred-mile circle

surrounding Areas 7 and 8. Now, any signal coming out of

that zone would be picked up by the DIA's surveillance

satellites.

Impressed by Fairfax's work on the matter thus far, the

assistant director also gave the young cryptanalyst free rein

to further pursue the case. "Do whatever you have to, young

man," he'd said. "You report directly to me now."

Fairfax, however, was still puzzled.

Perhaps he was just excited, but something still nagged

at him. The pieces still didn't quite add up.

The Chinese had a shuttle up in space, communicating

with a rogue unit at a U.S. Air Force base.

Okay.

So there was something at this base that the Chinese

wanted. Fairfax guessed it was the virus vaccine that kept

getting mentioned in all the decoded messages.

Okay ...

And the shuttle was the best way to communicate directly

with the men on the ground.

No.

That wasn't right. The Chinese could use any of a dozen

different satellites to communicate with men on the ground.

You didn't need a whole shuttle to do that.

314

Matthew Reilly

But what if the shuttle had another purpose ...

Fairfax turned to one of the Air Force liaison people the

DIA had called in. "What sort of hardware does the Air

Force keep at Area 7?"

The Air Force guy shrugged. "Couple of Stealths, an

SR-71 Blackbird, a few AWACS birds. Apart from that, it's

mainly used as a biological facility."

"What about the other complex then? Area 8?"

The Air Force man's eyes narrowed. "That's another

story altogether."

"Hey. This is need-to-know. Believe me, I really need to

know."

The Air Force man hesitated for a moment.

Then he said, "Area 8 contains two working prototypes

of the X-38 space shuttle. It's a satellite killer--a smaller,

sleeker version of the standard shuttle that gets launched off

the back of a high-flying 747."

"A satellite killer?"

"Carries special zero-gravity AMRAAM missiles on its

wings. It's designed for a quick launch and short target

oriented missions: flying up into a low-earth orbit, knocking

out enemy spy satellites or space stations, then coming

home."

"How many people can it hold?" Fairfax asked.

The Air Force man frowned. "Three command crew.

Maybe ten or twelve in the weapons hold, at the very most.

Why?"

Now Fairfax was thinking fast.

"Oh, no way ..." he breathed. "No way!"

He lunged for a nearby printout.

It was the printout of the last message he had decoded,

the same one he had used to reveal the men of Echo Unit as

traitors. It read:

3J11L  Q4;04;4?       satellite intercept

VOICE 1:       WU and LI have arrived back at Area 7 with the virus.

Your men are with them. All the money has been

area 7

accounted for. Names of my men who will need to

be extracted: BENNETT, CALVERT, COLEMAN, DAYTON,

FROMMER, GRAYSON, LITTLETON, MESSICK, OLIVER

and myself.

Fairfax read the line: "Names of my men who will need

to be extracted."

"Extracted ..." he said aloud.

"What are you thinking?" the Air Force liaison man

asked.

Fairfax was in a world of his own now. He saw it

clearly.

"If you wanted to get a top-secret vaccine out of a top

secret Air Force base in the middle of the U.S. desert, how

would you do it? You couldn't fly it out, because the distance

is too far. You'd be shot down before you even made it

to California. Same for an overland extraction. You'd never

make it to the border before we caught you. By sea? Same

problem. But these Chinese bastards have figured it out."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't get something out of America by going

north, south, east or west," Fairfax said. "You get it out by

going up. Into space."

schofield looked at his watch.

9:47 a.m.

Thirteen minutes to get the Football to the President.

He and Book II had been flying for several minutes

now, soaring over the desert landscape in their gaudy lime

green biplane at a swift 190 miles an hour.

In the distance ahead of them--rising up out of the flat

desert plain--they could just make out the low mountain, the

runway, and the small cluster of buildings that was Area 7.

Immediately after they had taken off, Schofield had

taken the opportunity to open the silver Samsonite container

that he had found on the lake floor.

Inside it, he saw twelve shiny glass ampules, sitting in

foam-lined pockets. Each tiny glass bulb was filled with a

strange blue liquid. A white stick-on label on each ampule

read:

I.V. VACCINATION AMPULE

Measured dose: 55 ml

Tested against SV strain V.9.1

Certified: 3/7 05:24:33

Schofield's eyes widened.

It was a field vaccination kit--measured doses of the

vaccine that Kevin's genetically constructed blood had provided,

doses that could be administered by syringe. And created

only this morning.

It was Gunther Botha's masterwork.

The antidote to the latest strain of the Sinovirus.

area 7 317

Schofield stuffed six of the little glass ampules into the

thigh pocket of his 7th Squadron fatigues. They might come

in handy later.

He tapped Book II on the shoulder, handed him the

other six. "Just in case you catch a cold."

Still sitting in the forward seat of the biplane, for the

whole trip thus far Book II had been staring silently forward.

He took the ampules Schofield offered him, pocketed

them in his stolen 7th Squadron uniform. Then he just resumed

his brooding forward gaze.

"Why don't you like me?" Schofield asked suddenly,

speaking into his helmet mike.

Book II's head cocked to the side.

A moment later, the young sergeant's voice came

through Schofield's helmet. "There's something I've been

wanting to ask you for a long time, Captain." His voice was

low, cold.

"What's that?"

"My father was on that mission to Antarctica with you.

But he never came back. How did he die?"

Schofield fell silent.

Book II's father--Buck Riley Sr., the original "Book"

Riley--had died a horrific death during that terrible mission

to Wilkes Ice Station. A murderous British SAS commander

named Trevor Barnaby had fed him, live, to a pool of ferocious

killer whales.

"He was captured by the enemy. And they killed him."

"How?"

"You don't want to know."

"How?"

Schofield shut his eyes. "They hung him upside-down

over a pool of killer whales and lowered him in."

"The Marine Corps never tells you how," Book II said

softly, his voice tinny over the radio. "They just send you a

letter, telling you what a patriot your dad was, and informing

you that he was killed in action. Do you know, Captain, what

happened to my family after my father died?"

Schofield bit his lip. "No. I don't."

Matthew Reilly

"My mother used to live on the base at Camp Lejeune,

North Carolina. I was in basic training at Parris Island. You know what happens to a Marine's wife when her husband is

killed in action, Captain?"

Schofield knew. But he said nothing.

"She gets moved off the base. Seems the wives of living

soldiers don't like the presence of newly single widows on

the base--widows who might go stealing their husbands.

"So my mother, after losing her husband, got moved out

of her home. She tried to start over, tried to be strong, but it

didn't work. Three months after she was moved off the base,

they found her in the bathroom of her new shoebox apartment.

She'd taken a whole bottle of sleeping pills."

Book II turned in his seat, looked Schofield straight in

the eye.

"That's why I was asking you about using risky strategies

before. This isn't a game, you know. When someone

dies, there are consequences. My father is dead, and my

mother killed herself because she couldn't live without him.

I just wanted to make sure my father didn't die because of

some high-risk tactical maneuver of yours."

Schofield was silent.

He'd never really known Book II's mother.

Book Sr. hadn't really socialized with his fellow

Marines, preferring to spend his downtime with his family.

Sure, Schofield had met Paula Riley at the odd lunch or dinner,

but he'd never really gotten to know her. He'd heard

about her death--and at the time he'd wished that he'd done

more to help her.

"Your father was the bravest man I have ever known,"

Schofield said. "He died saving another person's life. A little

girl fell out of a hovercraft and he dived out after her,

shielded her from the fall. That's how they caught him. Then

they took him back to the ice station and killed him. I tried to

get back in time, but I ... I didn't make it."

"I thought you said you'd never lost to a countdown."

Schofield said nothing.

"He talked about you, you know," Book II said. "Said

area 7 319

you were one of the finest commanders he'd ever served under.

Said he loved you like his own son, like me. I don't

apologize for being a little cold toward you, Captain. I just

had to get your measure, make my mind up for myself."

"And your decision?"

"I'm still making up my mind."

The plane swooped down toward the desert floor.

it was 9:51 when the lime-green tiger moth touched

down on the dusty desert plain, kicking up a cloud of sand

behind it, in the midst of the raging sandstorm.

As soon as the biplane skidded to a halt, Schofield and

Book II were out of it—Schofield holding the Football and

his Desert Eagle pistol, Book with two nickel-plated M9's ... charging toward the trench carved into the earth that housed

the entrance to the Emergency Exit Vent.

Bodies lay everywhere, half-covered in sand.

Nine Secret Service people, all dressed in suits. And all

dead. Members of Advance Team 2.

Four dead Marines littered the ground as well. All in

full dress uniform. Colt Hendricks and the men of

Nighthawk Three, who had come out here to check on the

Escape Vent.

Christ, Schofield thought as he and Book II hurdled the

bodies, heading for the Vent's entrance.

All this death ... and all of it will have consequences.

9:52 a.m.

Schofield and Book hit the entrance to the Emergency

Exit Vent on the fly—it was still open from the Reccondos'

entry before—and entered a narrow concrete tunnel and the

cool shade of the Area 7 complex.

They came to a rung ladder that stretched down into

darkness—grabbed it and slid down it for a full five hundred

feet. There were no lights here, so they slid by the light of

Schofield's small barrel-mounted flashlight. Armed with his

two ornamental pistols, Book II didn't have a flashlight.

9:53 a.m.

area 7 327

They hit the bottom, and saw a long one-man-wide concrete

tunnel stretching away from them, gradually sloping

downward--again, no lights.

They took off down it, running hard.

Schofield spoke into his Secret Service wrist mike as he

ran: "Fox! Fox! Can you read me? We're back! We're back

inside the complex!"

His earpiece fizzled and crackled.

No reply.

Maybe Secret Service radios weren't designed to withstand

long underwater swims.

9:54.

After several hundred yards of running down the ultra

narrow passageway, they burst out through the Emergency

Exit Vent's door on Level 6, and found themselves standing

on the northern tracks of the X-rail station.

The underground station was pitch-black.

Total darkness.

Frightening.

By the beam of his gunlight, Schofield could make out a

score of dead bodies, plus a charred, blasted-open section in

the middle of the central platform--the spot where Elvis's

RDX grenade had gone off earlier.

"The stairs," he said, pointing his beam at the door leading

to the fire stairs on their left. They leapt up onto the platform,

charged for the door.

"Fox! Fox! Can you read me?"

Fizzle. Crackle.

They came to the stairwell door. Schofield threw it

open--

--and immediately heard the rapid clang-clang-clang of more than a dozen pairs of combat boots booming down

the stairs ... and getting louder.

"Quickly, this way," he said, diving down onto the

tracks on the southern side of the platform, taking cover underneath

the struts of the small X-rail maintenance vehicle

sitting there.

Schofield killed his flashlight as Book II landed on the

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tracks beside him--not a second before the stairwell door

burst open and Cobra Carney and the men of Echo Unit

came charging out of it, a gaggle of wobbling flashlight

beams moving quickly through the darkness.

Schofield immediately saw Kevin among them, surrounded

by four men of Asian extraction.

"What is this?" Book II whispered.

Schofield stared at the four men flanking Kevin.

They were the four men he had seen inside the decompression

chamber earlier, the ones who had brought the

Sinovirus back from China.

His mind raced.

What was going on?

Kevin had only just been returned to Area 7 on the Penetrators.

Yet now he was being moved again. Had Caesar instructed

this team of commandos to take him to another,

more secure location?

And yet again the question nagged Schofield: What did

Caesar Russell care for Kevin? Wasn't he after the President?

Cobra and his men leapt down onto the tracks on the

other side of the platform, moving with purpose.

It was then--by the light of Echo Unit's flashlights-- that Schofield saw that the blast doors sealing the X-rail tunnel on the other side of the platform were open. They were

the doors that sealed off the tunnel that led to Area 8.

Cobra and his men, with Kevin and the four Asian men

among them, disappeared inside the eastern tunnel, looking

behind themselves as they went.

Looking behind themselves ... Schofield thought.

And then he saw Cobra Carney take one last anxious

glance over his shoulder before he entered the tunnel, and

suddenly Schofield knew.

These men were stealing Kevin ... from Caesar.

UP IN THE DARKENED HANGAR ON LEVEL 2, GANT LOOKED

nervously at her watch.

9:55 a.m.

area 7 323

Five minutes until the President had to place his palm

on the Football's analyzer plate.

And still no word from Scarecrow.

Shit.

If he didn't come back soon, this show was over.

Gant and Mother--with Juliet, the President, Hagerty

and Tate--had left the AWACS plane on Level 2, and guided

by the flashlights on their gun barrels, had made their way

across the underground hangar toward the wide aircraft elevator

shaft.

Still carrying the black box that she had pilfered from

the AWACS's belly, Gant was heading for Caesar Russell's

command center up on ground level to carry out her plan.

But if Schofield didn't get back with the Football soon,

any plan she had would become academic.

The complex was eerily silent.

When combined with the pitch darkness that now

shrouded the underground facility, it made for a very haunting

atmosphere.

For a moment, Gant thought she heard her earpiece

crackle: "--ox?--ead me?"

Juliet heard it, too. "Did you hear that--?"

And then so suddenly that it made them all jump, a gunshot

echoed up through the elevator shaft.

Loud and booming.

The blast of a pump-action shotgun.

What followed the gunshot, however, was infinitely

more terrifying.

A cackle of laughter.

An insane cackle that floated up the shaft, cutting

through the air like a scythe.

"Nah-ha-haaaaaaaah! Hellooooo everybody! We're

coming to get you!"

This was followed by a man's voice howling like a

wolf. "Arrooooo!"

Even Mother gulped. "The prisoners ..."

"They must have found the arms cabinet down in the

cell bay," Juliet said.

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Abruptly, a loud mechanical clanking noise reverberated

up through the elevator shaft.

Gant looked out over the edge.

The giant aircraft elevator platform lay at the bottom of

the shaft on Level 5, the remains of the destroyed AWACS

plane on its back half-submerged in a wide body of water.

At various places on the elevator platform, Gant saw

torches--flaming torches, about twenty of them--moving

all around, flickering in the darkness. Torches held aloft by

men.

The escaped prisoners.

"How many do you see?" Juliet asked.

"I don't know," Gant said. "Thirty-five, forty. Why, how

many are there?"

"Forty-two."

"Oh, perfect."

Then, abruptly, with a great groaning lurch, the elevator

platform lifted up out of the lake at the base of the shaft,

dripping water.

"I thought the power ..." Mother began.

Juliet shook her head. "It has a stand-alone hydraulic

engine, for use in a power blackout like this."

The elevator lumbered up the shaft, its massive form

moving steadily through the darkness.

"Quickly. Away from the edge." Gant pushed the President

back behind the landing gear of one of the AWACS

planes nearby. She and Mother and Juliet clicked off their

barrel-mounted flashlights.

The gigantic elevator platform rumbled past the open

doorway of Level 2, continued slowly upward. As it did so,

Gant peered around the landing gear of the AWACS.

The scene looked like something out of a horror movie.

They were standing on the rising elevator platform-- holding flaming torches above their heads; shotguns and pistols

in their spare hands--and they howled like animals,

whooping it up, their shrill calls grating like fingernails on a

chalkboard in the dark silence of the complex.

The prisoners from the Level 5 cell block.

area 7 325

Half of them were not wearing shirts--their bare chests

shone in the firelight of their torches. Others wore bandannas

wrapped around their heads and biceps.

All of them, however, wore soaking-wet trousers,

caused by the rising water on Level 5.

Then the elevator rose out of Gant's view, and she

emerged from her hiding spot to watch its underside climb

and climb until it arrived at the main hangar with an ominous,

thunderous boom.

caesar russell strode purposefully across the control

room overlooking the main hangar.

He had just seen the aircraft elevator platform--with its

cargo of howling and shotgun-firing prisoners--rise into

view. No sooner had it stopped than prisoners bolted off it,

scattering in every direction.

"Get on the handhelds," Caesar ordered coolly. "Tell

Charlie to wait at the top door and prepare for evacuation to

the secondary command post. We'll come to them. Where's

Echo?"

"I can't raise them, sir," the nearest radioman replied.

"Never mind. We'll contact them later. Let's go."

Everyone started moving. Logan and his three Alpha

men. Boa McConnell and his four Bravo men.

Caesar used a keypad to unlock a small pressure door

set into the northern wall of the control room, hurled it open.

A smooth concrete passageway stretched away from

him, sloping down and to the left, where it would ultimately

connect with the top door's passageway.

The three Alpha men led the way. They charged into the

passageway, guns first. Caesar himself went next, followed

by Logan.

Colonel Jerome Harper was next in line, but he never

got the chance.

For just as Logan disappeared inside the passageway's

entrance, the regular door on the other side of the control

room flew open, revealing five shotgun-toting prisoners!

Boom!

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An entire console was blasted to pieces.

In the escape passageway, Logan spun--and saw the intruders,

and realized that the others weren't going to make it

into the tunnel--and with a look to Harper, he made the call

and slammed the escape door shut behind him, sealing off

the passageway, sealing Harper and the remaining Air Force

men inside the control room.

Eleven men in total were left behind: Harper, Boa McConnell, Boa's four Bravo Unit men, the four radio operators,

and the unseen man who had been observing the

morning's events from the shadows.

All were left in the control room, at the mercy of the

murderous prisoners.

down in the level 6 x-rail station, schofield and book

II hurried out from their hiding spot underneath the compact

maintenance vehicle, leapt up onto the platform and dashed

for the door to the fire stairs.

9:56.

Schofield yanked open the door and instantly heard

shotgun fire echoing down the stairwell, followed by a loud

"Arroooo!"

He shut the door quickly.

"Well, it's official," he said. "We have just arrived in

hell."

"Four minutes to find the President," Book II said.

"I know. I know," Schofield looked about himself. "But

to do that we have to get up into the complex somehow."

He stared out into the darkness of the underground railway

station.

"Quickly, this way," he started racing down the platform.

"What?" Book II said, chasing after him.

"There's another way up into the complex. Those 7th

Squadron guys used it before—the air vent at the other end

of the platform!"

9:57.

The two of them reached the air vent.

Schofield tried his mike again, hoping he hadn't busted

it during that swim through Lake Powell.

"Fox! Fox! Can you read me?"

Pop. Fizz. Nothing.

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He and Book clambered into the air vent, hurried down

its length, their boots reverberating with every step.

They came to the base of the vent's four-hundred-foot

tall vertical shaft.

"Whoa," Book II said, looking up the shaft. It disappeared

into black infinity.

9:58.

Schofield said, "Quickly, up the air vent. We use the

cross-vents to reach the aircraft elevator shaft and then we

cut across the platform and see if we can find them."

Schofield fired his Maghook up into the darkened air

vent, delaying the activation of its magnet. The grappling

hook boomed up the shaft, flying fast, before Schofield initiated

its magnetic charge and immediately--whump!--the

hook snapped left in midair, dragged sideways by its powerful

magnetic pull, and attached itself to the vertical wall of

the vent.

9:58:20.

Schofield went first, whizzing up into the shaft on the

Maghook's rope. Book II came up behind him.

9:58:40.

They hurried into the nearest horizontal cross-vent,

charged down it, the Football flailing in Schofield's spare

hand.

9:58:50.

They came to the enormous aircraft elevator shaft. It yawned before them, shrouded in black. The only light: some orange firelight way up at the top of the shaft winking through the tiny square aperture that usually contained the mini-elevator. The main platform, it seemed, was right up at ground level, up in the hangar there.

Schofield and Book II stood at the mouth of the cross

vent. They were on Level 3.

Schofield brought his mike to his lips.

"Fox! Fox! Where are you!"

"Hey!" a familiar female voice echoed down through

the shaft.

area 7 329

Schofield snapped to look up, brought his gunlight

around.

And saw a small white spot--the beam of another

barrel-mounted flashlight--blinking back at him from the

other side of the shaft, but from one level above, from the

massive hangar doorway of Level 2.

And above the flashlight, in the glow of its beam,

Schofield saw the very anxious face of Libby Gant.

9:59:00.

"Fox!"

"Scarecrow!"

Gant's voice came through Schofield's earpiece loud

and clear now. The water damage must have only affected its

range.

"Damn it!" Schofield said. "I thought the elevator platform

would be here!"

"The prisoners took it up to the main hangar," Gant

said.

9:59:05.

9:59:06.

"Jesus, Scarecrow. What do we do? We only have a

minute left ..."

Schofield was thinking the same thing.

Sixty seconds.

Not enough time to go down to the bottom of the shaft,

swim across, and come back up again. And not enough time

to shuffle hand-over-hand around the walls of the shaft, either.

And they couldn't swing across on a Maghook--it was

too far.

Damn, he thought.

Damn-damn-damn-damn-damn-damn-damn-damn.

"What about a Harbour Bridge? " Mother's voice came

in over Schofield's earpiece.

The "Harbour Bridge" was a legendary Maghook trick.

Two people fired two oppositely charged Maghooks in such

a way that the two hooks hit in midair and stuck together. It

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was named after the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the famous

Australian landmark that was built from opposite sides of

Sydney Harbour, two separate arcs that ultimately met in the

middle. Schofield had seen a number of Marines try it. None

of them had succeeded.

"No," he said, "the Harbour Bridge is impossible. I've

never seen anyone hit another Maghook in mid-flight. But

maybe ..."

9:59:09.

9:59:10.

He looked over at the President and Gant standing in the

doorway to Level 2, gauged the distance.

Then he looked up--and saw the darkened underside of

the aircraft elevator platform, way up at the top of the shaft.

Mother's suggestion, however, had given him an idea.

Maybe with two Mag hooks they could ...

"Fox! Quickly!" he said. "Where is the mini-elevator?"

"Where we left it before, up on Level 1," Gant said.

"Go up to Level 1. Get on it. Take it up the shaft and

stop it a hundred feet below the main elevator platform. Go! Now!"

Gant knew not to argue. There was no time. She

grabbed the President and dashed out of Schofield's sight.

9:59:14.

9:59:15.

Schofield dashed past Book II, heading back along the

horizontal cross-vent to the main vent.

He came to the vertical ventilation shaft and without

even a blink, fired his Mag hook up into it again.

This time he waited until the Maghook had played out

its entire one hundred and fifty feet of rope before initiating

the grappling hook's magnetic pull.

As before, the Maghook's powerful magnetic charge

yanked the upwardly flying hook sideways in midair, and it

thunked hard against the metal wall of the vent, and held fast.

9:59:22.

9:59:23.

area 7 331

Schofield whizzed up the shaft again.

This time Book II didn't go with him--Schofield didn't

have the time to send the Maghook back down for him. He'd

have to do this alone, and besides, he needed the

Maghook ...

Schofield shot up the shaft on the Maghook's rope, the

air vent's close steel walls rushing past him on all four sides.

He stopped the hook's reeling mechanism as he came to another

cross-vent three levels up--but still a hundred feet below

the main hangar. He charged into the cross-vent.

9:59:29.

9:59:30.

Came to the aircraft elevator shaft again. The underside

of the giant elevator platform loomed closer now, only a

hundred feet above him. He could hear the gunshot blasts

and catcalls of the prisoners up in the hangar and wondered

for the briefest of moments what on earth they were doing

up there.

9:59:34.

9:59:35.

And then, by the light of his barrel-mounted flashlight,

he saw the mini-elevator whizzing up the concrete wall on

the other side of the massive elevator shaft. The small figures

of Gant, Juliet, Mother and the President were on it.

9:59:37.

9:59:38.

As the mini-elevator drew level with him, Schofield

said, "Okay! Stop there!"

The mini-elevator jolted to a halt, now diagonally opposite

Schofield but separated from him by a sheer concrete

chasm two hundred feet wide.

And so they faced each other, from opposite sides of the

enormous shaft.

9:59:40.

"Okay, Fox," Schofield said into his radio. "I want you

to fire your Maghook into the underside of the elevator platform."

"But it's not long enough to swing across on ..."

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"I know. But two Maghooks will be," Schofield said.

"Try and hit the platform about a quarter of the way across.

I'll do the same from this side."

9:59:42.

Schofield fired his Maghook. With a loud, puncturelike

whump, the hook flew into the air, flying diagonally up into

the shaft.

And then--clunk!--the magnetic head of the hook affixed

itself to the underside of the elevator platform.

9:59:43.

Clunk! A similar noise came from the other side of the

shaft. Gant had done the same with her Maghook.

9:59:45.

9:59:46.

Schofield held his Maghook with one hand. Then he

opened the Football, revealing the countdown timer inside it--00:00:14 ... 00:00:13--and held it by its handle, folded

open.

"Okay, Fox," he said into his mike. "Now give the rope

to the President. We've got twelve seconds now, so we'll

only get one shot at this."

"Oh, you have got to be kidding," Mother's voice said.

On the other side of the shaft, Gant gave the Maghook's

launcher to the President of the United States. "Good luck,

sir."

Now, Schofield and the President stood on opposite

sides of the great concrete elevator shaft, holding on to the

diagonally stretched ropes of their respective Maghooks,

looking like a pair of trapeze artists about to perform their

act.

9:59:49.

9:59:50.

"Go!" Schofield said.

and they swung.

Out over the shaft.

Two tiny figures, on two equally tiny threadlike ropes.

area 7

Indeed, as the two of them swung in mirroring pendulum

like arcs, they did look like trapeze artists--swinging toward each other, aiming to meet in the middle, Schofield holding

out the open briefcase, the President reaching forward with

his outstretched hand.

9:59:52.

9:59:53.

Schofield reached the base of his arc, started coming up.

In the dim light, he saw the President swooping in toward him, a look of sheer terror plastered across his face.

But the chief executive swung well, gripping his rope

tightly, reaching forward with his right hand.

9:59:54.

9:59:55.

And they came close, rising in their pendulum motion,

reaching the extremities of their arcs ...

9:59:56.

9:59:57.

... and, four hundred feet above the base of the elevator shaft, swinging in near total darkness, they came together, and the President pressed his outstretched palm

against the analyzer plate in Schofield's hand.

Beep!

The timer on the Football instantly reset itself.

00:00:02 became 90:00:00 and the clock immediately

began counting down once more.

As for Schofield and the President, having briefly

shared the same space of air four hundred feet above the

world, they now parted, swooping back toward their respective starting points.

The President arrived back at the mini-elevator platform, where he was caught by Gant, Mother and Juliet.

On the other side of the elevator shaft, Schofield swung

back to his cross-vent.

He landed lightly on the edge of the tunnel, breathing

deeply with relief, the stainless-steel Football hanging open

in his hand.

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Matthew Reilly

They'd done it. At least for another ninety minutes.

Now all he had to do was get himself and Book over to the

President. Then they'd be back in business.

Schofield reeled in his Maghook, then turned to head

back down the cross-vent to get Book--

Shuck-shuck

Three men were blocking his way--men wearing blue

jeans but no shirts. They also brandished pump-action Remingtons

and they variously had tattooed chests, bulging biceps,

or no front teeth.

"Reach for the sky, pardner," one of the shotgun-toting

prisoners said.

caesar russell charged through the low concrete Escape

tunnel.

The three remaining men from Alpha Unit ran in front

of him. Kurt Logan hurried along behind.

They'd just left Harper and the others in the control

room to be captured by the escaped inmates, and were now

bolting down the escape-passageway, racing for the point

where it met the top door exit.

They rounded a bend, came to a heavy steel door half buried

in concrete, keyed the code. The door opened.

The top door's exit tunnel appeared before them, heading

right and left.

To the right ... freedom, via the exit that opened onto one

of the exterior hangars here at Area 7.

To the left, around a bend, the regular elevator shaft,

and ...

... something else.

Caesar froze.

He saw a combat boot protruding around the corner that

led to the regular elevator shaft.

The black combat boot of a dead commando.

Caesar stepped closer.

And saw that the boot belonged to the horribly bloodied

body of Python Willis—the commanding officer of Charlie

Unit, the 7th Squadron unit that had been bringing Kevin

back to Area 7.

Caesar's face darkened.

Charlie Unit lay dead before him. And Kevin was

nowhere to be seen.

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Matthew Reilly

Then Caesar saw the mark on the wall next to Python

Willis's dead fingers, a symbol scrawled in blood, a final

gesture from Charlie Unit's commander before he'd died.

A single capital "E."

Caesar just stared at it, pursing his lips.

Logan came up beside him. "What is it?"

"Let's get to the secondary command post," Caesar said

flatly. "And when we get there, I want you to find out what's

happened to Echo Unit."

shane schofield emerged from the air vent hatch underneath

Marine One, flanked by the four heavily armed

prisoners. He no longer carried the Football. One of his captors

now held it like a new toy.

As he slid out from underneath the Presidential helicopter,

he thought he heard clapping and shouting ...

... and then suddenly--boom!--a gunshot made him

start. The shot was quickly followed by a loud roar of approval.

Then another booming gunshot--and more cheers and

applause.

Schofield felt his blood run cold.

What the hell was he walking into?

He emerged from beneath Marine One and immediately

saw about thirty prisoners, their backs to him, gathered

around the central aircraft elevator platform.

In the time since his capture in the air vent down below,

the massive platform--with the tangled remains of the destroyed

AWACS plane still on it--had been lowered about

ten feet below the floor-line of the hangar and halted, so that

now it formed a gigantic square-shaped pit in the center of

the hangar.

The mob of inmates was crowded around the makeshift

pit, looking intently down into it like gamblers at a cockfight,

shaking their fists, shouting and cat-calling. One

shaggy-looking individual was screaming, "Run, little man!

Run! Run! Ha-haaaaa.

area 7 337

They were the most motley crew Schofield had ever

seen.

Their angry faces were covered in scars and tattoos.

Each prisoner's uniform had been tailored to his own personal

tastes--some had ripped off their shirtsleeves and

turned them into headbands, others wore their shirts open,

others still, wore no shirts at all.

Schofield was marched over to the edge of the pit. He

looked down into it.

Amid the maze of AWACS plane pieces that littered the

square concrete hole, he saw two blue-uniformed Air Force

men--young men and, judging by their perfectly pressed

uniforms, office bunnies, radio operators probably--running

like frightened animals.

In the pit with them were five burly inmates--all armed

with shotguns--prowling through the maze, hunting the two

hapless radio operators.

Schofield saw the bodies of two more radiomen lying in

pools of blood in separate corners of the pit: the cause of the

cheers he had heard moments before.

It was then, however, that to Schofield's horror, a small

band of prisoners emerged from the other side of the hangar.

In the midst of this new group of inmates, Schofield saw

Gant, Mother, Juliet ... and the President of the United

States.

"Tell me this isn't happening," he breathed to himself.

DOWN IN THE DARKNESS OF THE LEVEL 1 HANGAR, NICHOLAS

Tate III, Domestic Policy Adviser to the President of the

United States, gazed nervously up into the elevator shaft.

The President and his three female protectors hadn't returned

from their trip up the shaft on the detachable minielevator,

and now Tate was worried.

"Do you think the inmates got them?" he asked Hot Rod Hagerty.

They could hear the shouts and gunshots from up in the

main hangar. It was like standing outside a stadium during a

football match.

"I hope not," Hagerty whispered.

Tate continued to stare up into the shaft, a thousand

thoughts flickering through his mind, most of them relating

to his own self-preservation. A minute passed.

"So what do you think we should do?" he said at last,

without turning around.

There was no reply.

Tate frowned, spun around. "I said ..." He froze.

Hagerty was nowhere to be seen.

The Level 1 hangar stretched away from him, shrouded

in darkness, the only presence, the shadows of the gigantic

planes inside it.

Tate's face went blank.

Hagerty was gone.

Vanished ... silently, instantly ... in the space of a single

minute.

It was as if he'd just been erased from existence.

A lightning bolt of fear shot through Nicholas Tate.

area 7 339

Now he was alone, down here, in a locked-down facility

filled with treacherous Air Force commandos and the nastiest

collection of murderers known to man.

And then he saw it.

Saw a glint of light on the floor a few yards away from

him, at the spot where he had last seen Hagerty standing. He

went over to it, picked it up.

It was a ring.

A gold officer's ring.

Hagerty's graduation ring from Annapolis.

THE LAST TWO RADIO OPERATORS DIDN'T LAST LONG.

As the final shots rang out from within the pit, Schofield

and Gant were shoved together, the others beside them.

"Hey there," Gant said.

"Hi," Schofield said.

After Schofield and the President's daring trapeze act,

Gant and her team hadn't fared any better than Schofield had.

No sooner had the President swung back onto the mini

elevator than the little platform had jolted suddenly and

whizzed up the shaft--called by someone up in the main

hangar.

They had risen up into the hangar and found themselves

in the middle of a whole new nightmare.

The prisoners--the former test subjects for Gunther

Botha's vaccine--were now in charge of Area 7.

Although there was no way she could have hidden their

meager supply of guns, Gant did manage to hide her

Maghook on their short ride up the shaft. It now lay clinging

magnetically to the underside of the detachable mini

elevator.

Unfortunately, when the little platform had arrived up in

the ground-level hangar--rising up through the matching

square hole in the corner of the main platform--Gant had

still had the black box from the AWACS plane in her possession.

But she hadn't wanted to alert any of the prisoners to its

significance, so she'd placed it on the floor of the mini

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elevator, and as soon as the platform had come flush against

the floor of the main hangar, she'd "accidentally" kicked it

clear, sending it tumbling out onto the hangar floor, a short

way from the elevator shaft.

With the hunt in the pit now over, the prisoners gathered around the aircraft elevator shaft turned their attention to the

President and his guardians.

An older prisoner stepped out of the larger group of inmates,

a shotgun held lazily in his hand.

He was a very distinctive-looking individual.

He appeared to be about fifty, and judging from the confidence

of his stride, he clearly had the respect of the group.

Although the top of his head was bald, long gray-black hair flowed down from its sides, growing past his shoulders. A

narrow angular nose, pale white skin, and hollow bloodless

cheeks completed his very Gothic appearance.

"Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly," the

long-haired man said as he stepped in front of the President.

He had a soft silky voice, menacing in its slow articulation.

"Good morning, Mr. President," he said pleasantly.

"How nice of you to join us. Remember me?"

The President said nothing.

"But of course you do," the prisoner said. "I'm an

18-84. In one way or another, you've met all nine of the

people who during your presidency have been convicted under

Title 18, Part I, Chapter 84 of the United States Code.

It's that part of the Code that prohibits ordinary Americans

from attempting to assassinate their President.

"Grimshaw, Seth Grimshaw," the long-haired prisoner

said, offering his hand. "We met in February, just a couple of

weeks after you -became President, as you were leaving the

Bonaventure Hotel in LA viaits underground kitchen. I was

the one who tried to put a bullet in your skull."

The President said nothing.

And he didn't take Grimshaw's proffered hand.

"You managed to keep that whole incident quiet,"

Grimshaw said. "Very impressive. Especially since all

someone like me really wants is publicity. And besides, it's

area 7 341

not wise to scare the nation, is it? Better to keep the ignorant

masses unaware of these troublesome little attempts on your

life. As they say, ignorance is bliss."

The President said nothing.

Grimshaw looked him up and down, cast a bemused eye

over the black combat clothing that the Chief Executive now

wore. The President, Juliet and Schofield were all still

dressed in their black 7th Squadron combat attire. Gant and

Mother, on the other hand, still wore their formal--but now

very dirty--Marine dress uniforms.

Grimshaw smiled, a thin, satisfied smile.

Then he strolled over to the inmate holding the Football

and took the silver briefcase from him. He opened it, then

glanced from its countdown display screen to the President.

"It would appear that my recently liberated associates

and I have intruded upon something rather interesting. A

game of cat-and-mouse, it would seem, judging by your

clothes and the way you unceremoniously scampered

through my cell block earlier." He clucked his tongue reproachfully.

"Really, Mr. President, I must say, this is not at

all presidential. Not at all."

Grimshaw's eyes narrowed.

"But who am I to stop such an imaginative spectacle?

The President and his loyal bodyguards versus the treacherous

military-industrial complex." Grimshaw turned. "Goliath.

Bring the other captives over here."

At that moment, an extraordinarily large prisoner--Goliath, Schofield guessed--stepped out from behind Grimshaw and headed off in the direction of the hangar's internal building. He was an absolute giant of a man, with massive tree-trunk-sized biceps and a squared-off head reminiscent of Frankenstein's monster. He even had a flat square

bulge that protruded from his forehead--the signature mark,

Schofield knew, of someone who'd had a steel plate inserted

in his skull. Goliath carried a P-90 assault rifle in one massive

fist and Schofield's Maghook in the other.

He returned moments later.

Behind him came the seven Air Force men who--along

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with the four unfortunate radio operators--had been captured

inside the control room earlier:

Colonel Jerome T. Harper.

Boa McConnell and his four Bravo Unit men, two of

whom were badly wounded.

And the lone individual who had been observing the

morning's events from the shadows of Caesar Russell's control

room.

Schofield recognized him instantly.

So did the President.

"Webster ..." he said softly.

Warrant Officer Carl Webster, the official guardian of

the Football, stood with the Air Force people, looking very uncomfortable. Beneath his thick hairy eyebrows, his eyes

darted left and right, as if searching for an escape.

"You cocksucking little bastard," Mother said. "You gave the Football to Russell. You sold out the President."

Webster said nothing.

Schofield watched him. He had wondered whether

Webster had been abducted by the 7th Squadron earlier that

morning. More than anything else, Caesar Russell had

needed the Football to carry out his presidential challenge,

and Schofield had speculated as to how he had obtained it

from Webster.

Quite clearly, force hadn't been necessary--the blood

on the Football's handcuffs had obviously been a ruse. Webster,

it seemed, had been bought long before the President

had arrived at Area 7.

"Now, now, children," Seth Grimshaw said, waving the

Football in his hand. "Save your strength. You'll be able to

settle all your scores in a moment. But first"--he turned to

the Air Force colonel, Harper--"I have a question that needs

answering. The exit to this facility. Where is it?"

"There is no exit," Harper lied. "The facility is in lock down. You can't get out."

Grimshaw raised his shotgun, pointed it at Harper's

face, shucked the pump action. "Perhaps I'm not being specific

enough."

area 7

He then turned and fired two booming shots into the

two injured Bravo Unit men standing next to Harper. They

were blasted off their feet.

Grimshaw turned the gun back to Harper, raised his

eyebrows expectantly.

Harper's face went white. He nodded over at the regular

elevator: "There's a door that branches off the personnel elevator shaft. We call it the top door. It leads outside. Keypad code is 5564771."

"Thank you, Colonel, you really are too kind,

Grimshaw said. "Now then, we must let you children finish

what you've started. As I'm sure you'll understand, once we

depart this dreadful place, we can't allow any of you to leave

it alive. But as a final gesture of good will, I am going to offer you all one last favor--albeit one that is more for my entertainment than yours.

"I am going to give you all one last chance to kill each

other. Five against five. In the killing pit. So at least the winner will die knowing who won your impromptu civil war."

He turned to Goliath. "Put the Air Force people in here. Stand the President's little posse on the other side."

SCHOFIELD AND THE OTHERS WERE MARCHED AT GUNPOINT TO

the far side of the pit, the eastern side.

The five remaining Air Force men--Jerome Harper,

Boa McConnell, the last two men from Bravo Unit, and the

traitor, Warrant Officer Webster--stood directly opposite

them, separated by the two-hundred-foot-wide sunken aircraft

elevator platform.

"Let the battle begin," Seth Grimshaw bared his teeth.

"To the death."

SCHOFIELD DROPPED DOWN INTO THE PIT AND IMMEDIATELY

found himself confronted by a twisted metal maze--the

enormous broken pieces of the smashed AWACS plane.

The Boeing 707's wings lay at all angles, snapped and

broken and still dripping with water. Its gigantic barrel-like

jet engines stood on their ends. And in the very center of the

pit--easily the largest single piece of the destroyed plane-- stood the AWACS's horribly broken fuselage. Long and

cylindrical, it lay diagonally across the pit, nose down, like a

massive dead bird.

The darkness of the main hangar didn't help things.

The only light was the firelight from the inmates'

torches--they cast long shadows down into the maze, turning

it into a dark metal forest where you couldn't see more

than a few feet in front of your face.

How the hell did we get into this? Schofield thought.

He and the others stood on the eastern side of the pit, up

against its solid concrete wall, not sure what to do.

Abruptly, a shotgun round blasted into the wall above

Schofield's head.

Seth Grimshaw called: "The two teams will engage each other immediately! If you do not begin eliminating one

another soon, we will start eliminating you from up here!"

"Christ ..." Juliet Janson gasped.

Schofield turned to face his group. "Okay, we don't

have much time, so listen up. Not only do we have to survive

this, but we have to find a way out of here afterwards."

"The mini-elevator," Gant nodded to their right, to the

northeastern corner of the pit where the detachable

area 7 345

mini platform now lay flush against the pit's floor, albeit covered

by five armed prisoners.

"We're going to need a diversion," Schofield said,

"something to--"

The flying piece of metal nearly took his head clean off.

Schofield saw it at the very last second and on a reflex,

he ducked, just as the jagged piece of steel slammed like an

axe into the concrete wall behind him.

He spun, searching for the source of the projectile--

and he saw it in the shapes of the two commandos from

Bravo Unit, bursting out of the darkness, hurdling the

pieces of broken plane, each man holding a length of jagged

metal like a sword, and charging at Schofield's group at

speed!

"Scatter!" Schofield yelled as the first commando came

storming toward him, swinging down hard with his "sword."

Schofield blocked the blow by grabbing the man's

downward-moving wrist, while Gant engaged the other

commando.

"Go!" Schofield yelled to Juliet, Mother and the President.

"Get out of here!"

Juliet and the President dashed off into the darkness.

But Mother hesitated.

Schofield saw her. "Go! Stay with the President!"

THE PRISONERS CHEERED WITH DELIGHT AS OVER BY THE eastern

wall of the pit, Schofield fought with the first 7th

Squadron commando, while behind him, Gant grappled with

the second Bravo Unit man.

The President and Juliet--with Mother a short distance

behind them--dashed north through the darkened maze,

heading for the mini-elevator at the northeastern corner.

From above them, however, the chanting prisoners saw

what Juliet and the President and Mother could not: three figures

closing in on them from their left, moving quickly along

the northern wall of the pit--Jerome Harper, Carl Webster,

and coordinating the assault, Captain Boa McConnell.

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Matthew Reilly

SCHOFIELD AND GANT STOOD BACK TO BACK, FIGHTING THEIR

own separate battles.

Gant had taken up a length of piping from the floor, and

was now wielding it like a quarterstaff against the blows of

her Bravo Unit commando.

The Bravo man swung his piece of steel viciously, two

fisted, but Gant parried well, holding her length of pipe sideways,

blocking the blow.

"How you doing back there?" Schofield asked, between

blows with his own enemy.

"Just ... frigging ... dandy," Gant said, gritting her

teeth.

"We have to get to the President."

"I know," Gant said, "but first ... I have to ... save your ass."

She glanced over her shoulder at him and smiled, and in

a fleeting instant, she saw his opponent move in for another

blow and she shouted, "Scarecrow! Duck!"

Schofield dropped like a stone.

His opponent's sword swooshed over his head, and the

man overbalanced, and stumbled right toward Gant.

Gant was waiting.

Turning her attention from her own assailant for the

briefest of moments, she swung her length of pipe hard,

baseball-style.

Shwack!

The sound of her pipe hitting the Bravo Unit man's head

was absolutely sickening. The commando collapsed in a

heap just as Gant spun again--pirouetting like a ballet

dancer--returning just in time to block the next blow from

her own attacker.

"Scarecrow! Go!" she yelled. "Get to the President!"

And with a final look at her, Schofield dashed off into

the darkened wreckage.

ABOUT TWENTY YARDS TO THE NORTH OF SCHOFIELD AND

Gant, Juliet Janson and the President were running hard,

weaving their way through the debris-cluttered maze, heading

area 7

for the northeastern corner, but unaware of the three men

closing in on them from the left.

They went for Juliet first.

Two figures came bursting out of the darkness, from behind the destroyed rear end of the AWACS plane--Boa McConnell and Warrant Officer Carl Webster. They crash-tackled Juliet hard, hurling her to the floor.

The President spun to see her hit the floor, held down by Boa and Webster. Then he turned again, and saw Colonel

Jerome Harper, standing amid the AWACS wreckage, watching from a distance.

The President was hurrying to help Juliet when- whoosh--a large blurring shape came exploding out of the

nearby wreckage, missing him by inches.

Mother.

Flying through the air, out of the darkness, linebacker

style.

Crunchhhh!

She shoulder-charged Boa McConnell so hard that she

almost snapped his neck. The 7th Squadron commander was

thrown off Juliet's body, visibly dazed.

Carl Webster was momentarily startled by the sudden

loss of his fellow attacker, and he turned to see what had

happened--

--just in time to receive a powerful punch from Mother

Even though he was a bulky man, Webster was thrown

right off Juliet by the blow and went crashing into a collection

of plane pieces. Without a pause, he snatched up a wicked-looking four-foot strip of metal and brandished it at

Mother.

Mother growled.

Webster charged.

The fight was as brutal as they come.

They couldn't have been more evenly matched--both

were experienced in hand-to-hand combat, both were over

six feet tall, and they both weighed in at over two hundred

pounds.

Webster roared as he swung his makeshift metal sword.

348

Matthew Reilly

Mother ducked, then quickly grabbed a busted piece of the

AWACS's wing flap to use as a shield. Webster's blows

clanged down against her shield as he forced her back toward

the battered wing of the plane.

As she danced backwards, staving off Webster's slashes, Mother bent down and scooped up a jagged sword of her own.

She tried to strike back, but Webster had all the momentum.

He swung again, cutting deep into her shoulder, tearing

open the sleeve of her dress coat, drawing blood.

"Arrgh!" Mother shouted, dropping her shield, fending

off the next three blows with only her sword.

Damn it, all she needed was one opening, one

chance ...

"Why did you betray the President!" she yelled as she

stumbled backwards, trying to distract him.

"There comes a time when a man has to make a decision,

Mother!" the Army warrant officer barked back,

yelling between blows. "When he has to choose a side! I

have fought for this country! I have had friends who died for

it, only to be fucked over later by politicians like him! So

when the opportunity arose, I decided that I was no longer

going to stand by and watch yet another two-bit, whore-banging, draft-dodging fuck drive this country into the ground!"

Webster swung--a lusty, sideways swipe.

Mother jumped backwards, avoiding the blow, leaping

up onto the wing of the plane, so that she was now three feet

off the ground.

But the wing wobbled slightly under her weight, and

she lost her balance for a split second and Webster slashed

viciously with his sword--once again slicing sideways--aiming for her now-exposed ankles, way too fast for her to

block in time.

And the vicious blow hit home--

Clang!!!

Webster's weapon hand vibrated monstrously as his

area 7 349

jagged metal sword slammed into Mother's dress-uniformed

pants leg, just below the knee.

Webster blanched.

"What--?"

Mother smiled.

He'd hit her prosthetic lower leg--her titanium-alloy prosthetic lower leg!

Seeing her opponent's confusion, Mother took her one and only opportunity, and swung her own makeshift sword

with all her might.

Slash!

A fountain of blood sprayed out from Webster's throat

as Mother's blade sliced across his neck, severing his carotid

artery.

Webster's blade fell from his hand, and he dropped to

his knees, clutching his bleeding throat. He held his hands

out in front of him, gazing at the blood on them in disbelief.

Then he took one final horrified look up at Mother, after

which he fell face-first into a pool of his own blood.

The crowd of inmates roared with delight.

By now, the assembled mob--Seth Grimshaw included --had moved around to the northern side of the pit in an effort to find better spectating positions.

Some of them had started cheering for the President, a

happily deranged chant in the tradition of American

Olympic supporters: "U-S-A! USA!"

ON THE EASTERN SIDE OF THE PIT, GANT WAS STILL ENGAGED in the fight of her life.

Her 7th Squadron opponent's swordlike length of steel

clanged against her own quarterstaff pipe.

They fought amid the wreckage, trading blows, the

Bravo Unit commando driving her backwards. As he did so,

he began to smile with every raging swing. Clearly, he felt

he had the edge.

And so he swung harder, but as Gant saw, this only

served to wear him out more with every blow.

So she feigned fatigue, staggered backwards, "desperately"

fended off his swings.

And then her assailant swung--a lunging sloppy effort,

the swipe of a tiring man--and quick as a flash, belying her

apparent fatigue, Gant ducked beneath the blow and

launched herself upward, thrusting her pipe forward--end first--ramming its solid tip right into the throat of her

stunned opponent, crushing his Adam's apple, ramming it

two inches back into his windpipe, stopping him dead in his

tracks.

The man's eyes went instantly wide with disbelief. He

area 7 351

wobbled unsteadily, wheezing, choking. He may have been

standing up, but he was already dead. Staring stupidly at

Gant, he crumpled to the ground.

The crowd of prisoners was oddly silent--stunned, it

seemed, by Gant's lightning-fast death blow.

Then they cheered their approval. Wolf whistles rained

down on Gant. Claps and cheers.

"Whoa, baby!"

"Now that is what I call a woman!"

AT THE NORTHERN END OF THE PIT, THE PRESIDENT SLID TO THE

ground beside Juliet Janson, hauled her up, but when they

both got to their feet, they froze.

Before them, standing next to one of the upturned engines

of the AWACS plane--alone but closer now--stood

Colonel Jerome T. Harper.

On the ground to his left, lying on the floor, was Boa

McConnell. He was groaning painfully, still reeling from

Mother's crunching shoulder-tackle earlier.

The hoots and hollers from the prisoners enveloped

them.

"Come on, Mr. Prez! Get some blood on your hands! Kill the fucker!"

"Eat shit, Harper!"

"U-S-A! USA!"

Harper knew the score. All his men were either dead or

useless.

And yet still he seemed strangely confident ...

It was then that he pulled something out of his pocket.

It looked like a high-tech grenade of some sort--a small

pressurized cylindrical canister with a nozzle on its top and a

vertical clear-glass window on its side.

Through the narrow glass window, the President could

see the contents of the grenade very clearly.

It was filled with a mustard-yellow liquid.

"Oh, Jesus ..." he breathed.

It was a biological grenade.

A Chinese biological grenade.

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Matthew Reilly

A pressure-sealed explosive charge filled with the

Sinovirus.

AN EVIL GRIN CRACKED HARPER'S FACE.

"I was hoping it wouldn't come to this," he said. "But

fortunately for me, like every Air Force man at this complex,

I have already been immunized against the Sinovirus. The

same, however, cannot be said for you or your brave Marine

guardians."

Then, without so much as a blink, Harper pulled the pin

on the Sinovirus grenade.

harper didn't see him until it was too late.

As he pulled the pin on the grenade, all he saw was a

flashing blur of movement from the wreckage to his immediate

left.

The next thing he knew, Shane Schofield was standing

beside him, emerging from the darkness, swinging a length

of piping upward like a baseball bat.

The pipe struck Harper on the underside of his wrist,

causing the Sinovirus grenade to fly out of his hand and go

soaring upwards.

THE LIVE BIOLOGICAL GRENADE FLEW UP INTO THE AIR.

It flew in a kind of bizarre slow motion, tumbling end

over end, high above the northern half of the pit.

Schofield watched it, eyes wide.

The prisoners watched it, mouths agape.

The President watched it, awestruck.

Harper watched it, an evil grin forming on his face.

One, one-thousand ...

Two, one-thousand ...

Three ...

At that moment, at the height of its arc, about thirty

feet above the floor of the pit--directly above its northernmost

section--the Sinovirus grenade went off.

IN THE FIRELIGHT OF THE PRISONERS' TORCHES, THE AEROSOL

explosion of the grenade inside the hangar was almost beautiful.

It looked like the blast of a water-filled firecracker--a

354     Matthew Reilly

giant star-shaped burst of mist--with multiple fingers of watery

yellow particles shooting outwards from a central point,

showering laterally, fanning out like a giant umbrella over

the sunken aircraft elevator platform, orange firelight glinting

off every single particle.

And then in wondrous slow motion, the whole misty

cloud began to fall, first at its extremities, then in its center,

down over the pit.

LIKE SLOW-FALLING SNOW, THE Sinovirus PARTICLES descended.

Since it had detonated above the floor line of the hangar,

the yellow mist hit the prisoners standing on the rim first.

Their reaction was as sudden as it was violent.

Most of them doubled over where they stood, started

hacking, vomiting. Some fell to their knees, dropping their

flaming torches, others lapsed instantly into involuntary fits.

Within a minute, all but two were on the floor, writhing

in agony, screaming as their insides began to liquefy.

Seth Grimshaw was one of the two.

Along with Goliath, he stood unaffected by the falling

yellow mist, while everyone around him lay dying.

Although only they and the now-dead Gunther Botha

knew it, Grimshaw and Goliath had been the original test

subjects for the vaccine against the Sinovirus the previous

afternoon.

Unlike the others, they had Kevin's vaccine coursing

through their veins.

They were immune.

THE YELLOW MIST FELL THROUGH THE DARKNESS.

It was now about fifteen feet above the lowered elevator

platform--five feet above the rim--and still falling steadily.

Alone on the eastern side of the pit, Libby Gant had

seen the grenade detonate, had seen the spectacular aerosol

explosion high above the pit. She didn't have to be a rocket

scientist to guess what it was.

A biological agent.

area 7 355

The Sinovirus.

Move!

Gant spun. She was standing right next to the eastern

wall of the pit, ten feet below the rim. The rim itself was now

empty, all the inmates having moved around to the northern

side earlier.

Gant didn't waste a second.

She was still wearing her full dress uniform, which

meant she had no gas-mask--so she definitely didn't want to

be here when the Sinovirus descended into the pit.

The particles were fourteen feet off the floor.

And falling ...

Gant pushed one of the AWACS plane's big black tires

up against the concrete wall, jumped up onto it, hauled herself

out of the ten-foot-deep pit.

She rolled up onto the hangar's floor, careful to stay

low, beneath the layer of descending Sinovirus particles.

She saw the hangar's internal building about twenty

yards away from her, saw the slanted observation windows

of its upper level.

The control room, she thought. Caesar's command

center.

Staying low but moving fast, Gant hurried for the doorway

at the base of the internal building.

THE YELLOW HAZE CONTINUED TO FALL.

Having consumed the prisoners on the northern edge of

the pit, its particles now dipped below the rim, drifting down

into the pit itself.

Schofield looked anxiously about himself.

In the pandemonium of the grenade blast and the ensuing

wails of the dying prisoners--as they fell, they dropped

their torches, plunging the pit into even thicker darkness--

he had lost sight of Jerome Harper.

After the blast, Harper had dashed off into the darkened

forest of the AWACS wreckage, disappearing. Schofield

didn't like the idea of him lurking somewhere in the area.

But right now, he had other things to worry about.

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Matthew Reilly

The mist was now inside the pit--nine feet off the

floor--and still falling.

He looked over at the President and Juliet.

Like him, they were still wearing their stolen 7th

Squadron uniforms--complete with ERG-6 half-face gas masks wrapped around their necks.

"Captain! Your gas mask! Put it on!" the President

yelled, pulling on his own mask. "If you breathe the virus

into your lungs directly, it'll kill you in seconds! With the

mask on, it's a lot slower!"

Schofield lifted his mask over his face.

Juliet, however, yanked her mask up and over her head

and threw it over to Mother, just back from her fight with

Webster. Unlike the other three, Mother was still dressed in

her maskless full dress uniform.

"But what about you--?" she said.

Juliet indicated her Eurasian features. "Asian blood, remember.

It won't hurt me. But it'll kill you if you don't put

that on!"

"Thanks!" Mother said as she clamped the mask over

her nose and mouth.

"Quickly!" Schofield said. "This way!"

Gas mask on, he charged into the darkened maze of

wreckage, heading for the northeastern corner, for the mini

elevator parked there.

The others took off after him, racing into the darkness.

After several seconds of running, Schofield came to the

mini-elevator, lying flush against the floor in the corner of

the pit.

A flaming torch lay on it. One of the dying prisoners up

on the rim must have dropped it into the pit when the virus

had struck him down.

Schofield snatched it up and turned to see the President

and Mother arrive at his side.

It was only then that any of them noticed.

No Juliet.

Area 7 357

juliet janson lay sprawled on the ground back near

the AWACS's fuselage.

Just as she had been about to charge into the maze after

Schofield and the others, a strong hand had appeared from

completely out of nowhere and grabbed her ankle, causing

her to trip and fall.

The hand belonged to Boa McConnell, lying spread

eagled on the floor, still dazed from Mother's tackle earlier,

but alert enough to recognize one of his enemies.

Now, he held on to Juliet's ankle, refusing to let go.

Juliet struggled.

Boa extracted a long K-Bar knife from his boot, raised

it. Juliet's eyes went wide as he made to plunge the knife

into her ankle ...

Blam! McConnell's head exploded like a burst balloon,

shot from somewhere above them. He flopped to the floor,

dead.

Juliet scrambled away from the body. She looked upward,

searching the darkness for the source of the gunshot.

She found it in the shape of a flaming torch over on the

southern side of the pit, being waved from side to side, accompanied by a voice that called: "Janson! Agent Janson!"

Juliet squinted to see the owner of the torch.

In the flickering glow of the torch's flames, she could

just make out the man holding it--a man in 7th Squadron

clothing brandishing a nickel-plated pistol in his spare hand.

Book II.

"janson! where are you?" schofield said into his radio mike, as he waited impatiently on the detachable mini elevator.

Book II's voice answered him. "Scarecrow, it's Book.

I've got Janson. You get out of here."

"Thanks, Book. Fox, you still alive?"

No reply.

Schofield's whole body froze.

And then: "I'm here, Scarecrow."

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Matthew Reilly

He started breathing again. "Where are you?"

"I'm inside the building at the eastern end of the hangar.

Get the President out of here. Don't worry about me."

"All right ..." Schofield said. "Listen, I have to get to

Area 8. The bad guys have taken Kevin there. I'm going to

take the President with me. Rendezvous with us there when

you--oh, shit!"

"What is it?"

"The Football. It's still up in the hangar somewhere.

Grimshaw had it."

"Leave that to me," Gant said. "You just get the President

out of here. I'll meet you at Area 8 as soon as I can."

"Thanks," Schofield said. "And Fox ..."

"Yeah?"

"You be careful."

There was a pause at the other end. "You too, Scarecrow"

And with that, Schofield pressed a button and the mini

elevator whizzed him, Mother and the President swiftly

down the shaft.

AS THEY DESCENDED QUICKLY, MOTHER TOUCHED SCHOFIELD

on the shoulder, spoke through her gas mask.

"Area 8?"

Schofield turned to face her. "That's right."

No matter how he looked at it, his mind kept coming

back to the same image: the image of the 7th Squadron unit

down on the Level 6 platform taking Kevin into the X-rail

tunnel, heading for Area 8.

Kevin ...

The little boy was at the center of all of this.

Schofield said, "I want to find out what this whole thing

has been about. But to do that, I need two things."

"What?"

He indicated the President. "First: him."

"And second?"

"Kevin," Schofield said firmly. "Which is why we have

to get to Area 8 fast."

caesar russell, kurt logan and the three surviving

commandos from Logan's Alpha Unit charged across the

runway of Area 7 in the glare of the blazing desert sun, raced

into the four-story airfield control tower that stood about a

hundred yards from the main complex.

Having emerged from the top door exit inside a small

side hangar, they'd made their way to the tower, which doubled

as the base's secondary control room.

They hurried into the tower's command center--it was

a replica of the one inside Area 7--and started flicking

switches. Television monitors came to life. Console lights

flicked on.

Caesar said, "Get me a fix on Echo Unit's personnel locators."

It didn't take long for Logan to find Echo. Every 7th

Squadron member had an electronic locator surgically implanted

beneath the skin on his wrist.

"They're on the X-rail. Arriving at Area 8 right now."

"Fire up the Penetrators," Caesar said. "We're going to

Area 8."

down on level 1 of the underground complex,

Nicholas Tate was wandering around in a terrified daze.

After the sudden and mysterious disappearance of Hot Rod Hagerty, he didn't know what to do.

Flashlight in hand, he walked absently to the far end of

the darkened hangar, searching for Hagerty. But he stopped

twenty yards short of the ramp there when he saw something

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Matthew Reilly

emerging from it. Already somewhat muddled, now his

mind reeled at the sight that met him.

It was almost surreal.

A family of bears--yes, bears--stepped out from the

ramp and onto the floor of Level 1.

One gigantic male, a smaller female, and three

awkward-looking little cubs ambled out onto the hangar

floor. They were all hunched forward, padding along on all

fours, sniffing the petrol-soaked air all around them.

Tate wobbled unsteadily.

Then he turned and ran back toward the main elevator

shaft.

THE DETACHED MINI-ELEVATOR WHIPPED DOWN THE AIRCRAFT

elevator shaft in near total darkness, with Schofield, Mother

and the President on its back, the orange glow from

Schofield's torch the only light .

As they descended, Schofield yanked a couple of Gunther Botha's glass ampules from his thigh pocket--the small glass bulbs containing the antidote to the Sinovirus.

He turned to the President, spoke through his gas mask:

"How long do we have?"

"Half an hour till the first symptoms set in," the President

said, "when it invades the body through the skin. Dermal

infection is slower than direct inhalation. That antidote,

however, will neutralize the virus in its tracks."

Schofield handed a glass bulb to both Mother and the

President, then pulled out another one for himself. "We need

to find some hypodermic needles before we head to Area 8,"

he said.

They rode the mini-elevator down to Level 1.

When they arrived there, however, they were met by

Nicholas Tate, bursting forth from the darkness wide-eyed

and alarmed. He stepped straight onto the mini-elevator.

"I ... er ... don't think you want to go that way," he

said.

"Why not?" Schofield asked.

"Bears," Tate said dramatically.

area 7 361

Schofield frowned, looked to the President. Clearly,

Tate had lost it.

"Where's Ramrod?" Mother asked.

"Gone," Tate said. "Just--poof---disappeared. One minute he was standing here behind me, the next he was just missing. All he left was this."

Tate held up Hagerty's Annapolis graduation ring.

Schofield didn't get it.

The President did.

"Oh, Jesus," he said. "He's out."

"Who's out?" Mother asked.

"There's only one person in this complex who is known to leave a person's jewelry at the site of an abduction," the

President said. "The serial killer, Lucifer Leary."

"The Surgeon of Phoenix ..." Schofield whispered, recalling

the name and the horror that went along with it.

"Oh, super," Mother spat. "Just what we need. Another fucking wacko running around this place."

The President turned to Schofield. "Captain, we don't

have time for this. If Caesar Russell's got that boy ..."

Schofield bit his lip. He didn't like leaving anybody behind,

even Ramrod Hagerty.

"Captain," the President said, his face hard, "as I said

earlier this morning, sometimes in this job I have to make

difficult decisions--and I'm going to make one now. If he's

still alive, Colonel Hagerty is going to have to look after

himself. We can't spend the next hour searching this facility

for him. There's something bigger at stake here. Much bigger.

We have to get that boy back."

they took the mini-elevator to the second underground

hangar, Level 2, and--now accompanied by the confused

Nicholas Tate--dashed down its length.

Thankfully, there were no bears in this hangar.

They hit the fire stairwell at a run and rushed down it,

guided by the light of Schofield's flaming torch. Since they

had come direct from their fight in the pit, they had no

weapons, no flashlights, no nothing.

362

Matthew Reilly

They came to the bottom of the stairwell, and the door

to Level 6.

Cautiously, Schofield opened it.

The Level 6 X-rail platform was completely dark.

No sound. No sign of life.

Schofield edged out onto the platform. Dark shapes littered

the area--bodies from the three separate gunfights that

had taken place down there over the course of the morning, the charred remains of Elvis's RDX explosion.

Schofield and Mother ran straight over to the bodies of

some Bravo Unit men. They grabbed a P-90 assault rifle

each, plus SIG-Sauer pistols. Schofield even found a first

aid field kit on one of the men which contained four plastic wrapped hypodermic needles.

Perfect.

He tossed a SIG to the President, but didn't offer a gun

to the unstable Tate.

"This way," he said.

He hurried along the platform, heading for the X-rail

engine that sat on the northern tracks of the underground

railway station, pointing toward the open tunnel that led to

Area 8.

UP IN THE MAIN HANGAR, BOOK II WAS PULLING JULIET Janson out of the ten-foot-deep pit that was the aircraft elevator

platform. He was wearing his uniform's ERG-6 gas mask.

A thin residual mist hung over the area, the lingering

cloud of the Sinovirus.

Juliet came out of the pit, and with a shout, she saw

them: Seth Grimshaw and the giant Goliath disappearing inside the personnel elevator. And Grimshaw was still holding

the Football.

"Over there!" she pointed. "They're going for the exit in

the elevator shaft. That Air Force guy Harper gave Grimshaw the exit code."

"Do you know the code?" Book II asked.

"Do I ever," Juliet leapt to her feet. "I was there when

Harper said it. Come on."

libby gant was on her own.

She was standing in a dark hallway inside the command

building at the eastern end of the hangar, at the base of a set

of stairs--unarmed but alert as hell.

In the hangar outside, the Sinovirus was loose, and she

didn't have a gas mask.

Okay, she thought, surely in a facility like this, there

would have to be some--

She found them in a cupboard underneath the stairs:

biohazard suits. Great big yellow Chemturions--with large,

baggy plastic helmets, balloonlike yellow coveralls, and

self-contained air packs.

Matthew Reilly

In the same cupboard, Gant also found a chunky

Maglite flashlight. Very handy.

She slipped into one of the Chemturion suits as fast as

she could, pulling its Ziploc zipper shut, turning on its self

contained air supply. The suit immediately inflated and she

started hearing her own breathing as a Darth Vader-like

wheeze.

Now safe from the Sinovirus, she had something else

she wanted to do.

She recalled her previous plan: find Caesar Russell's

command center--get the initiate/terminate unit that he'd

used to start the transmitter on the President's heart--then

use the black box that she'd taken from the AWACS plane

earlier to impersonate the President's radio signal.

The black box.

So far as she knew, it was still on the floor of the main

hangar, in the spot where she had kicked it away from the

mini elevator.

She decided to search the command center for the I/T

unit first. Then she'd go back for the black box.

Guided by the light of her newfound flashlight, she

climbed the stairs, came to the command room's doorway.

The door was ajar.

Slowly, Gant pushed it open, to reveal a very battered

looking room.

It looked like a war had been fought in there.

The room's plasterboard walls were shredded with bullet

holes. The slanted windows overlooking the main hangar

were cracked or completely shattered. Several computer

consoles bore fat round holes in their monitors. Others just

sat there blank, lacking a power source.

Dressed in her yellow biohazard suit, Gant entered the

room, stepping over a pair of dead 7th Squadron men lying

all shot up on the floor. Their weapons were gone, presumably

taken by the inmates who had stormed through here.

Through the faceplate of her airtight suit, Gant's eyes

swept the control room, searching for the

Yes.

area 7

It was sitting on top of one of the computer monitors

and it was just as the President had described it: a small red hand held unit, with a black stub antenna sticking out of its top.

The initiate/terminate unit.

Gant picked it up, examined it. It looked like a miniature mobile phone.

She saw two switches on its face. Beneath each switch

was a crude length of tape marked with a handwritten T

and "2."

Gant frowned. Why would Caesar need ... ?

She shook the thought away, stuffed the IT unit into the

chest pocket of her biohazard suit.

As she did so, she peered out over the darkened hangar

to see if she could spot the black box down by the pit.

The vast hangar floor stretched away from her, veiled

by the unearthly mist of the Sinovirus.

Except for the flickering flames of the prisoners' discarded

torches, nothing moved.

The area was awash with irregularly shaped objects:

slumped bodies, Marine One, a crashed cockroach, one battered

helicopter, even Bravo Unit's busted-open barricade of

crates and boxes.

Gant's flashlight had a powerful beam, and in the middle

of some bodies and debris on the near side of the pit, it illuminated

the bright-orange outline of the AWACS's black

box.

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Excellent ...

Gant made to leave, when abruptly, a glint of pale-blue

light caught her eye.

She paused. It seemed that not every monitor in the control

room had been shot or lost power.

Hidden underneath a fallen piece of shredded plasterboard,

a lone screen was still glowing.

Gant frowned.

The complex's power was out--which meant this system

must be operating on an independent power source.

Which meant it must be pretty important ...

She lifted the broken piece of wall off the screen. The

screen read:

LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL S.A.(R) 7A

FAILSAFE SYSTEM HISTORY

7-3-468201103

TIME KEY ACTION

SYSTEM RESPONSE

0658 AUTHORIZED LOCKDOWN

INITIATE CODE ENTERED

0801 AUTHORIZED LOCKDOWN

EXTENSION CODE ENTERED

0900 AUTHORIZED LOCKDOWN

EXTENSION CODE ENTERED

1005 NO AUTHORIZED CODE

ENTERED

LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL

ENABLED

LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL

CONTINUED

LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL

CONTINUED

FACILITY SELF-DESTRUCT

MECHANISM ARMED

10 OS *******  WARNING **************

EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.

IF YOU DO NOT ENTER AN AUTHORIZED

LOCKDOWN EXTENSION OR TERMINATION

CODE BY 1105 HOURS, FACILITY SELF

DESTRUCT SEQUENCE WILL BE ACTIVATED.

SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE DURATION: 10:00

MINUTES.

************** IA/ A  **************

Area 7 367

Gant's eyes went wide.

Facility self-destruct sequence ...

No wonder this system operated on an independent

power source.

But for whatever reason--presumably the sudden intrusion

of the inmates--Caesar Russell's people had failed to

enter the appropriate lockdown extension code during the

window period after 10:00 a.m.

So now, if no one entered an extension or termination

code before 11:05 a.m., Area 7's self-destruct sequence

would begin--a ten-minute procedure that would culminate

in the hundred-megaton thermonuclear warhead buried in

the earth beneath the complex going off.

"Holy mother of God ..." Gant breathed. She looked at

her watch.

It was 10:15 a.m.

She turned to go--

--at the same moment as a long length of steel piping

crashed down against the back of her suit-hooded head.

Gant dropped to the floor, out cold.

She never saw her attacker.

Never saw him heft her onto his shoulder.

Never saw him carry her out of the control room.

THE X-RAIL TRAIN BOOMED THROUGH THE TUNNEL SYSTEM,

rocketing along on its quartet of tracks at tremendous speed,

heading toward Area 8.

It wouldn't be a long trip. At two hundred miles per

hour, they'd cover the twenty miles in about six minutes.

Although he didn't know exactly where Echo Unit was

going with Kevin, Schofield at least knew they had come

this way.

It was better than nothing.

Having set the train's autopilot, he walked back into the

main cabin and sat down with Mother and the President.

Nick Tate was off at the other end of the carriage, still somewhat

out of it, staring with great concentration at the buttons

on his cellular phone.

Schofield sat down. As he did so, he pulled out his newfound

syringe and the antidote to the Sinovirus, and set

about injecting himself with it. Mother and the President did

the same.

As he jabbed the needle into his arm, Schofield looked

up at the President. "Now, sir, if you don't mind, would you please tell me what the hell is going on at this base?"

the president pursed his lips.

"You could start," Schofield prompted, "with why an

Air Force Lieutenant General wants to kill you in front of

the nation. Then you could tell me why he also wants to

keep his hands on a genetically engineered boy who is the

vaccine to an ethnic bullet."

The President bowed his head, and nodded.

area 7 369

Then he said, "Technically, Caesar Russell is no longer

a lieutenant general in the Air Force. Technically, he is dead. On the twentieth of January this year, the day of my inauguration,

Charles Samson Russell was executed by lethal injection

at Terre Haute Federal Penitentiary for the crime of

high treason.

"What he wants," the President said, "is what he wanted

before he was executed. To radically change the face of this

country. Forever. And the two things he needs to do to effect

that are: one, kill me, in a highly visible, highly embarrassing

way. And two, retain control of the Sinovirus vaccine.

"To understand why he's doing this, however, you have

to understand Russell's history, in particular his links with a

clandestine Air Force society known as the Brotherhood."

"Yes ..." Schofield said cautiously.

The President leaned forward. "Over the past thirty

years, various Congressional Armed Services Committees

have heard about the existence of certain undesirable societies

within the branches of our armed forces; informal underground

organizations with less-than-acceptable common

interests. Hate societies."

"For example?"

"In the eighties there was a secret group of men in the

Army known as the Bitch Killers. They opposed the presence

of women in the Army, so they engaged in activities to

drive them out of the service. More than eighteen sexual assaults

in the Army were attributed to members of this group,

even if actual proof was difficult to establish. The extent of

its membership was never fully ascertained, but then, that's

the problem with these sorts of societies: there is never any

physical proof of their existence. They're like ghosts, existing

in non-tangible ways--a knowing look during a salute, a

nod in a hallway, a subtle promotion over a non-member."

Schofield was silent.

While he had never been approached by anyone linked

with such a group in his career, he had heard of them. They

were like hardcore college fraternities, small groups with

their own secret handshakes, their own "codes," their own

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Matthew Reilly

disgusting initiation ceremonies. For officers, they started at

places like West Point and Annapolis; for enlisted men, at

training camps around the country.

The President said, "They form for various reasons:

some have religious skews--for example, anti-Semitic

groups like the old 'Jewboy League' in the Navy. Or the sexist

ones, like the Bitch Killers. The formation of groups like

this in high-risk occupations is well documented--even police

forces like the L.A.P.D. are known to have secret hate

societies within their ranks.

"But in terms of sheer violence, the worst groups were

always the racist societies. There used to be one in every

service. In the Navy, it was the Order of White America. In

the Army, the Black Death. In the Air Force, it was a group

known only as the Brotherhood. All three displayed a particular

hostility toward black Americans in their ranks.

"But the thing is," the President said, "they were all

thought to have been wiped out during a Department of Defense-initiated purge in the late 1980's. Now while we

haven't heard about a resurgence of racist elements in either

the Army or the Navy, it was discovered recently that the

Brotherhood is indeed alive and well, and one of its key figures

was none other than General Charles 'Caesar' Russell."

Schofield said nothing.

The President shifted in his seat. "Charles Russell was

tried and convicted for ordering the murder of two Navy admirals,

advisers to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Turned out, Russell

had approached them shortly after my announcement to

run for President and asked them to join him in some kind of

treasonable endeavour that would change America forever.

The only details he told them were that the plan would involve

the removal of the President, and that it would rid

America of its 'human waste products. The two admirals refused

his offer, so Caesar had them eliminated. What he

didn't know was that one of those admirals had secretly

taped his offer and tipped off the FBI and the Secret Service.

"Russell was arrested and tried for murder and treason.

Since it was a military proceeding, the trial was held

area 7 377

immediately, albeit in closed session. During the case the question

was, to what America's 'human waste products' actually were

was debated at length. Equivocal evidence was brought that

Russell was a member of the Brotherhood--a secret cabal of

high-ranking USAF officers, mainly from the Southern belt,

who intentionally hinder the rise of black Americans

through the ranks of the Air Force. It didn't help that the military

prosecutor was black, but in any case the issue was

never resolved. On the basis of the taped evidence, Russell

was found guilty and sentenced to death. When he decided

not to lodge any appeals whatsoever, his execution was fast

tracked--and he was 'executed' in January of this year. And

that was that. Or so we thought."

Schofield said, "I get the feeling that you knew what

Caesar was planning, even if it didn't come out in the court

case."

The President nodded.

"Over the past ten years, Caesar Russell has been in

charge of every major United States Air Force base between

Florida and Nevada. The 20th at Warren in Wyoming, which

looks after our ICBM stockpile. Space Warfare at Falcon,

Colorado, which controls defense satellites and space missions.

Area 7, of course. Hell, he even spent a year at AFSOC at Hurlbut Field in Florida, supervising the Air Force's

crack special ops teams, including the 7th Squadron. He has

loyal followers at each of those bases, senior officers who

owe their positions to him, a small but powerful clique of

base commanders who we now suspect are also members of

the Brotherhood.

"What Russell also knows, however, is what's inside

every one of our most secret bases. He knew of the Sinovirus

from its earliest development phases, knew of its potential

uses, and he knew of our response to it--a genetically constructed

virus-resistant human being--right from the very

beginning.

"The thing is, Charles Russell is smart, very smart. He

thought of other possibilities for the one person in the world

in possession of the ultimate ethnic bullet and its vaccine.

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Matthew Reilly

Judging by this transmitter attached to my heart, it looks like

he's been planning a revolution for some time now, but it's

only the advent of the Sinovirus that makes it totally perfect

for him."

"How so?"

"Because Caesar Russell wants to take America back to

its pre-Civil War state," the President said simply.

There was a silence.

"Did you hear the names of the cities he's put his

plasma bombs in? Fourteen devices, in fourteen airports, all

around the country. Not true. They're not placed all around

the country. They're only placed in northern cities. New

York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, LA, San Francisco, Seattle.

The furthest south those bombs get is St. Louis. No

Atlanta, no Houston, no Miami even. Nothing below the

Tennessee-Kentucky state line."

"Why those cities, then?" Schofield asked slowly.

The President said, "Because they represent the North,

the liberals, the dandies of America who talk a lot, produce

nothing, and yet consume everything. And Caesar wants an

America without the North.

"For with the Sinovirus and its cure in his possession,

he will have what's left of the nation at his mercy. Every

man, woman and child--black and white--will owe their

life to him and his precious vaccine."

The President winced.

"I imagine the black population would be eliminated

first, with the vaccine being administered only to white

Americans. Considering Caesar's racist tendencies, I assume

it was the black population he was talking about when

he mentioned 'human waste products.'

"But remember what I said before: he has to do two

things to get what he wants: he has to have Kevin in his possession, and he also has to kill me. For no revolution--no

true revolution--can take place without the visible and humiliating

destruction of the previous regime. The execution

of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in France; the imprisonment

area 7 373

of the Czar in Russia in 1918; Hitler's complete "Nazification' of Germany in the thirties.

"Anybody can kill a President, if they are determined

enough. A revolutionary, however, has to do it in front of the

people he desires to rule--showing them that the previous

ruling system no longer deserves their respect.

"And don't be mistaken, Caesar Russell isn't doing this

in front of America. He's doing it in front of the most extreme

elements of America--the Timothy McVeighs of the

country; the poor, the angry, the disenfranchised, the white

supremacists, the white trash, the antifederal militias--those

parts of the nation, located mainly in the Southern states,

that wouldn't give two shits if the cappuccino-drinking liberals

in New York, Chicago and San Francisco were blasted

off the face of the earth."

"But the country would be decimated ..." Schofield

said. "Why would he want to rule a destroyed country?"

"Yes, but you see, Caesar doesn't see it that way," the

President said. "To his mind, the country wouldn't be destroyed.

It would merely be purified, renewed, cleansed. It

would be a new beginning. The southern city centers would

be intact. The Midwest would still be largely intact, able to

provide sustenance."

Schofield asked, "What about the other armed forces?

What would he do about them?"

"Captain, as you would well know, the U.S. Air Force

receives more funding than all the other armed services

combined ... Sure, it may have only 385,000 personnel, but it

has more missiles and strike capability than all the other

services combined. If, by virtue of the Brotherhood and his

previous commands, Caesar has even a fiftieth of the Air

Force behind him, he could scramble his bombers and take

out every key Army and Navy installation in this country--

plus every Air Force base that was not allied with him--before

they could even raise a small counteroffensive effort.

"Foreign defense would be the same. With its Stealth

bombers, strike fighters and a stockpile of nuclear missiles

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Matthew Reilly

greater than that of any other country in the world, Caesar's

new Air Force, acting alone, would be more than capable of

handling any hostile foreign incursion.

"Captain, make no mistake, to Caesar's warped mind,

this scenario would be perfect: America would be isolationist

once again, completely self-sufficient, and governed by

an absolutely lily-white regime. Back to its pre-Civil War

state."

"Mother Mcfeer..." Mother breathed.

Schofield frowned.

"Okay, then," he said, "so what if Russell can't pull this

off? What if he fails? Surely he isn't just going to accept defeat

and walk away. I can't see him simply disarming his

bombs if he loses and saying, 'Oh well, I was wrong, you

win.'"

"No," the President said seriously. "That worries me,

too. Because if by some miracle we do survive all this, the

question becomes: what has Caesar got in store for us then?"

after prising apart the personnel elevator's exterior

doors, Book II and Juliet Janson came to the "top door" exit.

Juliet entered the code Harper had revealed earlier:

5564771.

With a sharp hiss, the heavy titanium door opened.

They raced down the concrete corridor beyond it, each

holding one of Book's pistols.

They ran for about forty yards before, abruptly, they

burst through another door and found themselves standing

inside an ordinary-looking aircraft hangar. Shafts of brilliant

sunlight slanted in through the hangar's wide-open doors.

The hangar was completely empty: no planes, no cars, no ...

Goliath must have been waiting behind the door.

Juliet stepped out first, only to feel the barrel of a P-90

press up against the side of her head.

"Bang-bang, you're dead," Goliath said oafishly.

He squeezed the trigger just as Book II—whom Goliath

hadn't seen yet—lunged forward and with lightning speed

swiped back the P-90's charging handle, ejecting the round

that was in its chamber.

Click!

The gun against Juliet's head fired nothing.

"Wha ... ?" Goliath snapped to look at Book II.

And then everything happened very fast.

In one movement, Juliet grabbed the barrel of Goliath's

P-90 and whipped up her own gun, at the same moment as

Goliath's other enormous fist—which still held Schofield's

Maghook—came rushing at her face. The Maghook hit

Juliet on the side of the head, and she and the P-90 went

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Matthew Reilly

sprawling to the floor. Juliet hit the ground hard. The P-90

clattered away.

Book raised his Beretta--but not fast enough. Goliath

caught his gun hand ... and growled at him.

Now the two men were holding the same gun.

Goliath thrust his Frankensteinian chin right up close to

Book II's face as he began depressing Book's own trigger

finger.

Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!

As the gun boomed, Goliath brought it around in a wide

arc, angling it so that in a few shots' time, it would be

pointed at Book's head.

It was like an arm wrestle.

Book II tried with all his might to stop the movement of

the gun, but Goliath was far too strong.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

The gun was now pointed at Book's left arm--

Blam!

Book's left bicep exploded. Blood sprayed all over his

head. He roared with pain.

Then before he knew it, the gun barrel was pointing directly

at his face and--

Click.

Out of ammo.

"That's better." Goliath grinned. "Now we can have a

fair fight."

He discarded the gun and--onehanded--grabbed

Book by the throat and thrust him up against the wall.

Book's feet dangled twelve inches off the ground.

He struggled uselessly in Goliath's grip, his wounded

arm burning. He let fly with a weak punch that hit Goliath

square on the forehead.

The big man didn't even seem to feel the blow. Indeed,

Book's fist seemed to just bounce off his skull.

Goliath chuckled stupidly. "Steel plate. May not make

me too bright, but it sure makes me tough."

Goliath brought up the Maghook in his spare hand, so

that it was now pointed at Book's eyes.

area 7 377

"What about you, soldier boy? How strong is your

skull? You think this little hook gun could crush it? What do

you say we find out ..."

He pressed the Maghook's cold magnetic head up

against Book II's nose.

Book, held up by his neck, grabbed the Maghook with

both hands, and despite his wounded arm, pushed it back toward

Goliath. The Maghook went vertical, but then to

Book's horror, it started to come back toward his face. Goliath

was going to win this arm wrestle, too.

Then suddenly Book saw the way out.

"Aw, what the hell," he said.

And so he reached forward, gripped the Maghook's

launcher and pressed the button marked "m" on it, initiating

the grappling hook's powerful magnetic charge.

The response was instantaneous.

The lights on the Maghook's magnetic head burst to

life, and the now-charged head began searching for a metallic

source nearby.

It found it in the steel plate inside Goliath's forehead.

With a powerful thud! the Maghook lodged itself

against the big man's brow. It stuck hard, as if it were being sucked against the prisoner's very skin.

Goliath roared with rage, tried to extract the Maghook

from his forehead, in doing so, releasing Book.

Book II dropped to the floor, gasping, clutching the

ragged red hole in his bicep.

Goliath was spinning around, wrestling like an idiot

with the Maghook attached to his face.

Book II kept his distance, at least until the staggering

Goliath had his back to the wall. Then Book just stepped forward,

grabbed the handgrip of the Maghook with his good

hand and, without mercy, pulled the trigger.

The Maghook discharged with a gaseous whump! and

Goliath's head was sent thundering backwards--his neck

snapping almost ninety degrees the wrong way--his skull

smashing against the wall behind him, creating a

basketball-sized crater in the concrete. For his part, Book II

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Matthew Reilly

was hurled several yards in the other direction, care of Newton's

Third Law.

Still, he fared far better than Goliath. The gigantic prisoner

now slid slowly to the floor, his eyes wide with shock

and his head cracked open like an egg, a foul soup of blood

and brains oozing out of it.

while book II had been fighting with goliath, the still

dazed Juliet had been trying to regather her pistol from the

floor nearby.

When at last she got it and stood up, she stopped dead.

He was just standing there. Twenty yards away. On the

other side of the hangar--Seth Grimshaw.

"I remember you now," Grimshaw said, stepping forward.

Janson said nothing, just stared at him. She saw that he

was still holding the Football ... and a P-90 assault rifle,

held low, one-handed, aimed right at her.

"You were at the Bonaventure when I tried to take out

His Majesty," Grimshaw said. "You're U-triple-S. One of

those chirpy little fucks who think that throwing their bodies

in front of a corrupt President is in some way honorable."

Janson said nothing.

She held her nickel Beretta by her side, down by her

thigh.

Grimshaw had his rifle leveled at her. He smiled.

"Try and stop this." He began to squeeze the trigger on

his P-90.

Janson was ice-cool. She had one chance, and she knew

it. Like all members of the Secret Service, she was an expert

marksman. Grimshaw, on the other hand--like nearly all

criminals--was shooting from the hip. The Secret Service

had actually done probability Scales on this sort of thing: in

all likelihood, Grimshaw would miss with at least his first

three shots.

Taking into account the time it would take for her to

raise her own gun, Janson would have to hit him with her

first.

area 7 375

Back the odds, she told herself. Back the odds.

And so as Grimshaw pulled his trigger, she whipped out her pistol.

She brought it up fast, superfast, and fired ... at exactly

the same time as Grimshaw loosed three short rounds

himself.

The odds, it seemed, were wrong.

BOTH SHOOTERS FELL--LIKE MIRROR IMAGES--SNAPPING

backwards on opposite sides of the hangar, dropping to the

ground in identical splashes of blood.

Janson lay on her back on the shiny polished floor of the

hangar--gasping, breathing fast, looking up at the ceiling--

a bloody red hole in her left shoulder.

Grimshaw, on the other hand, didn't move.

Didn't move at all.

He lay completely still, on his back.

Although Janson didn't know it yet, her single bullet

had punctured the bridge of Grimshaw's nose, breaking it,

creating a foul blood-splattered hole in his face. The exit

wound that had blasted out the back of his head, however,

was twice as big.

Seth Grimshaw was dead.

And the Football lay neatly at his side.

THE X-RAIL TRAIN SHOT THROUGH THE TUNNEL SYSTEM.

After his talk with the President, Schofield had moved

into the driver's compartment. They'd be arriving at Area 8

in a couple of minutes, and he wanted a short moment's

peace.

With a soft shooshing sound, the compartment's sliding

door opened and Mother entered.

"How you doing?" she said as she sat down beside him.

"To be honest," he said, "when I woke up this morning,

I didn't think the day would turn out like this."

"Scarecrow, why didn't you kiss her?" Mother asked

suddenly.

"What? Kiss who?"

"Fox. When you took her out to dinner and dropped her

home. Why didn't you kiss her?"

Schofield sighed. "You'll never make it in the diplomatic

corps, Mother."

"Blow me. If I'm going to die today, I'm sure as hell not

going to die wondering. Why didn't you kiss her? She

wanted you to."

"She did? Ah, damn it."

"So why didn't you?"

"Because I ..." he paused. "I guess I got scared."

"Scarecrow. What the fuck are you talking about? What

were you afraid of? The girl is crazy about you."

"And I'm crazy about her, too. I have been for a long

time. Do you remember when she joined the unit, when the

selection committee put on that barbecue at the base in

Hawaii? I knew it then—as soon as I saw her—but back then

area 7 381

I figured she could never be interested in me, not with

these ... things."

He touched the twin scars running vertically down his

eyelids.

He snuffed a laugh. "I didn't talk much at that lunch. ]

even think she caught me staring off into space at one point,

I wonder if she knows I was thinking about her"

"Scarecrow," Mother said. "You and I both know Fox

can see beyond your eyes."

"See, that's the thing. I know that," Schofield said. "I

know that. I just don't know what I was thinking last week.

We were finally going out on a date. We'd gotten along so

well all night. Everything was going great. And then we arrived

at her front door and suddenly I didn't want to screw

everything up by doing the wrong thing ... and well, I don't

know ... I guess ... I guess I just froze up."

Mother started nodding sagely--then she burst out

laughing.

"I'm glad you think this is funny," Schofield said.

Mother kept laughing, clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"Scarecrow, you know, every now and then, it's nice to see

that you're human. You can leap off ice cliffs and swing

across giant elevator shafts, but you still freeze up when it

comes to kissing the girl. You're beautiful."

"Thanks," Schofield said.

Mother stood up to go.

"Just promise me this," she said kindly. "When you see

Fox next, kiss the fucking girl, will you!"

While Schofield, mother and the president were shooting

through the X-rail tunnel under the desert floor toward

Area 8, Caesar Russell and his four remaining 7th Squadron

men were zooming through the air above the desert in their

two Penetrator attack choppers, heading in the same direction,

a few minutes ahead of the X-rail train.

The small cluster of buildings that was Area 8 rose up

out of the sandy landscape in front of the two helicopters.

Area 8 was essentially a smaller version of Area 7: two

box-shaped hangars and a three-story airfield control tower

sat alongside the facility's black bitumen runway, complete

with its sand-covered extensions that Schofield had observed

earlier that day.

As the two Penetrators approached it, Caesar saw the

gigantic doors to one of the complex's hangars suddenly part

in the middle, and open.

It took the doors a long while to open fully, but once

they had, Caesar's jaw dropped.

One of the most amazing-looking flying objects known

to man rolled slowly out of the hangar.

Truth be told, what Caesar saw was actually two flying

objects. The first was a massive Boeing 747 jumbo jet,

painted in glistening silver. The jumbo, with its imperious

nose and outstretched swanlike wings, edged out from the

shadows of the hangar.

It was, however, the smaller aircraft mounted on the back of the 747 that seized Caesar's attention.

It looked incredible.

Its paint scheme was like that of NASA's regular space

area 7 383

shuttles: mainly white, with the American flag and "united

states" written in bold lettering on its side, and with the

distinctive black-painted nose and underbelly.

But this was no ordinary space shuttle.

It was the X-38.

One of two sleek mini-shuttles purpose-built by the

United States Air Force for the tasks of satellite killing and,

where necessary, the boarding, takeover or destruction of

foreign space stations.

In shape, it was similar to the standard shuttles--delta

platform, with flat triangular wings, a high aerodynamic tail,

and three conical thrusters on its rear end--but it was

smaller, much more compact. For where Atlantis and her

sister shuttles were heavy long-haul vehicles designed for

ferrying bulky satellites into space, this was the sports version,

designed for blasting them out of existence.

Four specially designed zero-gravity AMRAAM missiles

hung from its wings, on the outside of two enormous

Pegasus II booster rockets--massive cylindrical thrusters

filled to the brim with liquid oxygen--that were attached to

the underbelly of the bird.

What a lot of people don't realize is that many of today's

space flights are conducted with what is essentially

late 1960's technology. Saturn V and Titan II boosters were

used in the original U.S.-Soviet space race in the sixties.

The X-38, however, with its 747 launch platform and its

stunning Pegasus II boosters, is the first orbiter to truly bring

space flight into the twenty-first century.

Its specially configured 747 launcher--fitted with new

extra-powerful Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines, enhanced

pressurization systems and extra radiation protection for the

pilots--can carry the X-38 to a release height of around

67,000 feet, 24,000 feet higher than a commercial jumbo

can fly. Air launch saves the shuttle one-third of its first

stage power/lift ratio.

Then the Pegasus II boosters kick in.

More powerful than Titan III by a whole order of magnitude,

the boosters provide enough lift after the high

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altitude launch to carry the shuttle into a low-earth orbit.

Once expended, they are jettisoned from the shuttle. The

X-38--now in a stationary orbit about two hundred and ten

miles above the earth--can then maneuver freely in space,

killing enemy satellites at will, and coordinate its landing,

all under its own power.

Caesar Russell gazed at the mini-shuttle.

It was absolutely magnificent.

He turned to Kurt Logan. "That shuttle cannot be allowed

to get off the--"

He didn't get to finish the sentence, for at that moment

--completely without warning--five Stinger missiles

came rocketing out from the darkened hangar behind the silver

747, swooping in a wide arc around its wings before rising

sharply into the air, heading straight for Caesar's two

Penetrators.

Echo Unit had seen them.

THE UNDERGROUND X-RAIL STATION OF AREA 8 WAS identical

to the one at Area 7: two tracks on either side of an elongated

central platform, with an elevator sunk into the northern

track's wall.

After about" seven minutes of superfast travel,

Schofield's X-rail car zoomed into the station, bursting into

the white fluorescent light of Area 8. The bullet-shaped engine

decelerated quickly, stopped on a dime.

Its doors hissed open and Schofield, Mother and the

President of the United States came charging out of it, heading

straight for the elevator set into the northern wall. Trailing

behind them--looking completely lost and now holding

his cell phone to his ear--was Nicholas Tate in.

Schofield hit the elevator's call button.

As he waited for the lift to arrive, he noticed Tate for the

first time. The White House suit was clearly rattled, freaked

out by the morning's events. But it was only then that

Schofield realized that Tate was speaking into his cell phone.

"No," Tate said irritably into the phone, "I want to know

Area 7

who you are! You have interrupted my phone call to my

stockbroker. Identify yourself."

"What on earth are you doing?" Schofield asked.

Tate frowned, spoke very seriously--in doing so, indicating that he had gone completely bonkers. "Well, I was calling my broker. I figured by the way things are going today, I'd sell off my U.S. dollars. So, after we got out of that train tunnel, I called him up, but no sooner do I get him on the line than this asshole cuts across the connection."

Schofield snatched the phone from Tate's hand.

"Hey!"

Schofield spoke into it. "This is Captain Shane M.

Schofield, United States Marine Corps, Presidential Detachment, serial number 358-6279. Who is this?"

A voice came through the phone: "This is David Fairfax of the Defense Intelligence Agency. I'm speaking from

a monitoring station in D.C. We have been scanning all transmissions emanating from two Air Force bases in the Utah desert. We believe that there may be a rogue Air Force unit

at one of those bases and that the President's life may be in

danger. I just enacted an emergency breakthrough on your

friend's telephone call."

"Believe me, you don't know the half of it, Mr. Fairfax,"

Schofield said.

"Is the President safe?"

"He's right here." Schofield held the phone out for the

President.

The President spoke into it: "This is the President of the

United States. Captain Schofield is with me."

Schofield added, "And we are currently in pursuit of

that rogue Air Force unit you just mentioned. Tell me everything

you know about it--"

Just then, the elevator pinged.

"Hold on." Schofield raised his P-90 toward the elevator.

The doors opened ...

... revealing horribly blood-splattered walls and a particularly

grisly sight.

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The gunned-down bodies of three dead Air Force men

lay strewn about the elevator--no doubt members of the

skeleton crew stationed at Area 8.

"I think we got a fresh trail," Mother said.

They hurried into the lift.

Tate stayed behind, determined not to go near any more

danger. The President, however, insisted on going with

Schofield and Mother.

"But, sir--" Schofield began.

"Captain. If I'm going to die today as the representative

of this country, I'm not going to do it cowering in some corner,

waiting to be found. It's time to stand up and be

counted. And besides, it looks like you could do with some

numbers."

Schofield nodded. "If you say so, sir. Just stay close and

shoot straight."

The elevator doors closed and Schofield hit the button

for ground level.

Then he brought Tate's cell phone back to his ear.

"Okay, Mr. Fairfax. Twenty-five words or less. Tell me

everything you know about this rogue Air Force unit."

IN HIS SUBTERRANEAN ROOM IN WASHINGTON, DAVE FAIRFAX

sat up straighter in his chair.

Events had just gotten a lot more real.

First, he had picked up the cell phone call coming out of Area 8. Then he had cut across the line--interrupting some moron--and now he was speaking to this Schofield character, a Marine on the President's helicopter detail. As soon as

he had heard it, Fairfax had punched Schofield's serial number into his computer. Now he had Schofield's complete military history--including his current posting on Marine One--right in front of him.

"Okay," Fairfax said into his headset mike. "As I said, I'm DIA, and recently I've been decoding a set of unauthorized transmissions coming out of those bases. Now, first of all, we think a team of former South African Reccondos are heading there--"

"Don't mind them. Killed them already," Schofield's voice said. "The rogue unit. Tell me about the rogue unit."

"Oh ... okay," Fairfax said. "By our reckoning, the rogue unit is one of the five 7th Squadron units guarding the

Area 7 complex: the unit designated 'Echo' ..."

at area 8, the elevator whizzed up the shaft.

Fairfax's voice came through the cell phone. "... I believe that this unit is aiding Chinese agents in an attempt to steal a biological vaccine that was being developed at

Area 7."

Schofield said, "Do you have any idea how they're going to get the vaccine out of America?"

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Matthew Reilly

"Uh, yeah ... yeah I do," Fairfax's voice said. "But you

might not believe it ..."

"I'll believe just about anything, Mr. Fairfax. Try me."

"Okay ... I believe they're going to load the vaccine

onto a satellite-killer shuttle based at Area 8 and fly it up

into a low orbit where they will rendezvous with the Chinese

space shuttle that launched last week. They will then transfer

both themselves and the vaccine onto the Chinese shuttle

and land it back inside Chinese territory where we can't get

to it or them ..."

"Son of a bitch," Schofield breathed.

"I know it sounds crazy, but ..."

"... but it's the only way to get something out of the

United States," Schofield said. "We could stop any other extraction

method--car, plane, boat. But if they went up into

space, we'd never be able to follow them. They'd be home by

the time we got a chase shuttle onto the pad at Canaveral."

"Exactly"

"Thanks, Mr. Fairfax. Call the Marines and the Army,

and get them to mobilize whatever air-capable units they

have--carriers, choppers, anything--and send them directly

to Areas 7 and 8. Do not use the Air Force. Repeat: Do

not use the Air Force. Until further notification, treat all Air

Force personnel as suspicious."

As he spoke, Schofield saw the illuminated numbers on

the elevator ticking upward: "SL-3 ... SL-2 ..."

"As for us," Schofield said, "we have to go now."

"What are you going to do? What about the President? "

"sl-!" became "g" and suddenly Schofield heard muffled

gunfire beyond the elevator doors.

Ping!

The elevator had reached the ground floor.

"We're going after the vaccine," he said. "Call you

later."

And he hung up.

A second later, the elevator's doors opened--

SIXTH CONFRONTATION

3 July, 1023 Hours

--AND SUDDENLY SCHOFIELD AND THE OTHERS ENTERED A

whole new ball game.

In the main hangar of Area 8, a fierce gun battle was already

under way.

Explosions boomed, gunfire roared.

Shafts of sunlight streamed in through the hangar's gigantic

open doors. About fifty yards away from the elevator,

filling the open doorway--partially blocking the incoming

sun--was the birdlike rear end of a silver Boeing 747.

"Son of a bitch," Schofield breathed as he saw the

streamlined space shuttle mounted on the 747's back.

Gunfire rang out from over by the hangar doors.

Five black-clad 7th Squadron commandos--the treacherous men from Echo Unit, Schofield guessed--were taking cover behind the doors, firing their P-90's at something outside the hangar.

"This way," Schofield said, hurrying out of the elevator.

The three of them skirted around a Humvee and a pair of

cockroach towing vehicles until they could see what lay beyond

the hangar doors: two black Penetrator helicopters,

hovering low over the tarmac outside the hangar, blocking

the way of the shuttle-carrying 747.

The six-barreled Vulcan miniguns mounted underneath

the noses of the two Penetrators were raining down a storm

of bullets on the Echo Unit men in the hangar--pinning

them down, preventing them from dashing across the twenty

yards of open ground to the wheeled stairway that led onto

the 747.

Missiles lanced out from the wing stubs of the Penetrators,

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zeroing in on the 747. But the jumbo must have been

using the latest electromagnetic countermeasures, because

the missiles never got near them--they just went berserk as

soon as they got close to the big plane, rolling through the

air away from it, before slamming into the ground and detonating

in showers of concrete and sand.

Even the onslaught of flashing orange tracer bullets

from the helicopters just veered away from the body of the

giant jumbo, as if some invisible magnetic shield prevented

them coming near it.

From his position behind the cockroach, Schofield recognized

two of the men seated inside one of the helicopters:

Caesar Russell and Kurt Logan.

I'll bet Caesar's not happy with Echo, he thought.

Caesar and Logan must have arrived only moments

earlier--just as the men of Echo had been boarding their escape

plane. Caesar's choppers, it seemed, must have opened

fire before all the Echo men had been able to get on the

plane, before they'd been able to get away with Kevin.

Kevin ...

Schofield scanned the battlefield. He couldn't see the

little boy anywhere.

He must already be on board the plane ...

And then without warning the 747 powered up, its four

massive jet engines blasting air everywhere, sending any

loose objects tumbling across the hangar.

The plane started moving forward--away from the

hangar, out onto the runway--toward the two black Penetrators.

Its wheeled staircase clattered to the ground behind it.

It was a good tactic.

The Penetrators knew that they stood no chance against

the weight of the rolling 747, so they split like a pair of

frightened pigeons, moving out of the way of the massive

jumbo.

It was then that Schofield saw an Echo man standing in

the open side door of the 747, saw him wave to his men still

in the hangar and then toss a thin rope ladder from the doorway.

area 7 393

The rope ladder hung from the small doorway, swaying

beneath the rolling plane.

At that same moment, movement near the hangar's entry

caught his eye and he spun, and saw the five Echo men

at the hangar door dash for the Humvee parked near his

cockroach.

They were going to try to board the 747 ...

... while it was moving!

As soon as the Echo men moved, a withering burst of

tracer fire from the Penetrators outside flooded in through the

hangar's open doorway, shredding the ground at their feet.

Two of the men fell, hit, their bodies erupting in a thousand

explosions of red. The other three made it to the

Humvee, clambered inside, started her up. The big car

peeled off the mark, turning in a wide circle--

Shoooooom!

A missile rocketed in through the open hangar doors,

heading straight for the skidding Humvee.

The Humvee's life was short.

The missile hit it square on the nose--so hard that the

wide-bodied jeep was sent flailing back across the slippery

hangar floor, before it slammed against a wall and filled with

light and blasted outwards in a shower of metal.

"Holy exploding Humvees, Batman!" Mother said.

"Quickly!" Schofield said. "This way!"

"What are we doing?" the President asked.

Schofield pointed at the moving jumbo outside. "We're

getting on that plane."

AS WITH MANY DESERT BASES, AREA 8'S ELONGATED RUNWAY

was roughly L-shaped, with the shorter arm of the "L" meeting

the open doorway of the complex's main hangar.

Aircraft took off and landed on the longer arm of the "L" but to get out to that runway, all planes had to taxi along

the shorter strip first. While the main runway was over five

thousand yards long, the shorter runway--or taxiway--was

only about four hundred yards in length.

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Matthew Reilly

The silver 747--with the glistening white X-38 space

shuttle on its back--rumbled along the taxiway, flanked by

the two black Air Force Penetrators.

Windblown sand whistled all around it, the brutal desert

sun glinted off its sides.

The big jumbo had reached the halfway point of the

taxiway when a speeding vehicle came blasting out of the

main hangar behind it.

It was a cockroach.

One of the white flat-bodied towing vehicles that had

been parked inside the hangar. Looking like a brick with

wheels, it thundered along the taxiway, chasing after the big

plane.

In the cramped driver's compartment of the cockroach,

Mother drove. Schofield and the President shared the passenger

seat.

"Come on, Mother, pick it up!" Schofield urged.

"We've got to catch it before it gets to the main runway!

Once it gets there and starts on its flight run, we're screwed."

Mother jammed the cockroach into third, its highest

gear. The towing vehicle's V8 engine roared as it leapt forward,

accelerating through the shimmering desert heat.

The cockroach whipped across the taxiway, closed in on

the shuttle-carrying 747.

The Penetrators opened fire on it, but Schofield kicked

open the passenger-side window and unleashed a burst from

both his and Mother's P-90 assault rifles, hitting the nose mounted Vulcan cannon on one of the Penetrators, causing it to bank away. But the other chopper kept firing hard, kicking up sparks all around the speeding cockroach.

"Mother! Get us under the plane! We need its countermeasures!"

Mother hit the gas and the cockroach surged forward,

hit its top speed. It reeled in the lumbering 747--inch by

painful inch--until at last the speeding towing vehicle sped

underneath the silver jumbo's high tail section.

It was like entering an air bubble.

The bullets from the second Penetrator no longer hit the

area 7 395

ground all around them. The fireworks display of their impact

sparks ended abruptly.

The cockroach kept rushing forward--now speeding

along in the shadow of the shuttle-carrying 747--pushing

past its rear landing gear while still remaining in the shelter

of its massive body.

The cockroach weaved under the left-hand wing of the

747, the tarmac rushing by beneath it, heading for the rope

ladder that dangled from the plane's still-open left-hand

door.

The cockroach came to the rope ladder--

--just as the entire 747 abruptly swung right.

"Goddamn it!" Mother yelled as the cockroach swung

out from the shelter of the jumbo into glaring sunlight.

"It's turning onto the main runway!" Schofield shouted.

Like a giant, slow-moving bird, the silver 747--with the X-38 shuttle on its back--turned onto Area 8's elongated runway.

"Get to that ladder, Mother!" Schofield called.

Mother gunned it, yanked the steering wheel hard-right,

directing the cockroach--now momentarily deprived of the

jumbo's electromagnetic protection--back in toward the

flailing rope ladder, but not before one of the Penetrators

swung quickly around in front of the turning 747 and

opened fire.

A devastating line of tracer bullets impacted against the

tarmac in front of the cockroach, kicking up sparks that ricocheted

everywhere.

Several bullets smacked against the cockroach's windscreen,

cracking it. Many more, however, bounced up underneath the towing vehicle's speeding front bumper and

impacted against the underside of the cockroach--three of them hitting the vehicle's steering column.

The response was instantaneous.

The steering wheel in Mother's hands went haywire.

The cockroach fishtailed wildly, lurching sideways as it

sped along the runway under the wing of the 747, swinging

left and right.

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Mother had to use all her strength just to keep a grip on

the steering wheel, to keep the cockroach under control.

The 747 finished its turn, began to straighten up.

The runway in front of it stretched away into the distance

--a long, straight ribbon of black that disappeared into

the shimmering desert horizon.

"Mother ...!" Schofield yelled.

"I know!" Mother shouted. "You go! Get up on the roof! I'll bring us under the ladder! And take the Prez here with you!"

"But what about you--?"

"Scarecrow! In about twelve seconds, that jumbo is going

to take off and if you aren't on it, we lose that kid! I have

to stay at the wheel of this thing, otherwise it'll spin out!"

"But those Penetrators will kill you once we're

gone ...!"

"That's why you have to take him with you!" Mother

said, nodding at the President. "Don't mind me, Scarecrow.

You know it'll take more than a bunch of Air Force cocksuckers to get rid of me"

Schofield wasn't so sure.

But he saw the look in her eye, and he knew that she

was prepared to keep driving the cockroach--to her almost

certain death--so long as he and the President got on board

that plane.

He turned to the President. "Come on. You're coming

with me."

THE COCKROACH RACED ALONGSIDE THE 747, ONCE AGAIN

shielded by its electronic countermeasures, swung in underneath

its forward left-hand entry door--the door from which

the rope ladder dangled.

The two tiny figures of Schofield and the President-- still dressed in their black combat uniforms--climbed up

onto the roof of the speeding towing vehicle. Conveniently,

their 7th Squadron uniforms came with protective goggles,

so they put them on to protect their eyes against the storm of

sand blowing all around them.

area 7 397

Down in the driver's compartment, Mother continued to

grapple with the steering wheel of the cockroach, trying

with all her might to keep the rampaging vehicle on a

straight course.

On the roof of the cockroach--in the face of the battering wind--Schofield reached for the flailing rope ladder. It

fluttered and swayed just out of his reach--

Then suddenly a deafening roar filled his ears.

The 747's four wing-mounted jet engines were coming

to life.

Schofield's blood ran cold.

The plane was powering up for take-off, starting its run

down the airstrip. Any second now, it would accelerate considerably

and pull away from the cockroach.

The rope ladder continued to flutter in the raging wind,

a few feet in front of the speeding cockroach. Billowing

clouds of sand flew everywhere.

Schofield turned to the President and yelled: "Okay! I grab the ladder! You grab me!"

"What!"

"You'll understand!"

And with that, Schofield charged across the flat roof of

the cockroach and leapt off its forward edge ...

... and flew through the air, reaching up with his outstretched

arms ...

... and caught the bottom rung of the dangling rope ladder.

He waved for the President to follow. "Now you grab me!"

With a doubtful shake of his head, the President said, "Okay ..."

And he ran forward and jumped--

--just as the silver 747 shot forward, its engines engaging.

The President flew through the short space of air in

front of the speeding cockroach before his body slammed into Schofield's, and he threw his arms around the young

captain's waist, clasping his hips tightly while Schofield

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Matthew Reilly

himself held on grimly to the bottom rung of the rope ladder

with both of his hands!

Mother's cockroach instantly peeled away behind them,

unable to keep up. The two Penetrators also gave up the

chase, wheeling to a halt in midair above the runway.

Hanging from the rope ladder--and traveling at close to a hundred miles an hour, with the wind whipping all around him and the President of the United States hanging from his waist--Schofield watched in horror as one of the Penetrators loosed a missile at Mother's now-unprotected cockroach.

The missile hit the cockroach's tail and detonated hard,

lifting the rear end of the still-speeding towing vehicle a

clear five feet off the ground.

With the missile impact, the cockroach fishtailed

wildly--and shot off the runway, onto the sand, kicking up

an enormous billowing dust cloud--and then it flipped-- and tumbled--and rolled--once, twice, three times--before

it came to a thumping crashing crushing halt, right on its

cockpit, surrounded by falling sand.

And as he hung from the doorway of the accelerating

747, Schofield could only stare at the dust-covered wreck

and pray that Mother had died quickly.

BUT RIGHT NOW HE HAD OTHER THINGS TO DO.

The 747 continued to rush down the runway.

As it did so, the two tiny figures of Schofield and the

President could be seen dangling from its forward left-hand

doorway.

The 747 picked up speed. With the extra weight of the

X-38 on its back, it required an unusually long take-off run.

Wind whipped all around Schofield and the President as

they hung from the rope ladder.

"You go first!" Schofield yelled. "Climb up my body

and then go up the ladder!"

The President did as he was told.

With the runway rushing by beneath them, he first

climbed up Schofield's body, using his combat webbing for

hand- and footholds. Then he stepped off Schofield's shoulders

onto the rope ladder itself and began to climb it.

As soon as the President was on the ladder, Schofield

began to haul himself up, using only his arms.

The ground continued to whip by beneath them as they

ascended the rope ladder, the wind slamming into their

bodies.

And then, all of a sudden, as they reached the doorway

at the top of the ladder, the speeding runway beneath them

just dropped away—dropped dramatically away—and receded

rapidly into obscurity.

Schofield swallowed.

They were now in the air.

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Matthew Reilly

caesar russell's helicopter landed softly on the runway

far beneath the rising 747, twenty yards away from

Mother's crashed cockroach.

Caesar stepped out of the chopper and just gazed up after

the plane.

Kurt Logan walked over to the torpedoed cockroach. It

was a battered, tangled wreck. Mangled steel lay everywhere.

Its driver's compartment was completely flattened, its

windshield and roof struts bent shockingly inward. It looked

like an aluminum can that had been crumpled flat.

And then he saw the body. It lay facedown in the sand in

front of the smashed towing vehicle--twisted and broken.

Only the torso and limbs were visible, the head was not.

Mother's head lay somewhere underneath the cockroach's

lowered front bumper, crushed flat against the ground. Her

left pants leg ended abruptly at the knee--her lower leg

wrenched off by the force of the impact.

Logan returned to Russell's side. Caesar hadn't taken

his eyes off the rising silver plane.

"Echo has the boy," Logan said. "And the Marines have

the President."

"Yes," Caesar said, staring up at the fleeing jumbo.

"Yes. So now, regrettably, we move to the alternate plan.

Which means we head back to Area 7."

the president landed with a heavy thump inside the

open doorway of the 747, absolutely breathless.

Schofield followed a few seconds later, also breathing

hard. He managed to stagger to his knees and pull the door

shut behind him. It sealed with a loud whump!

Both men were lying on the floor, still wearing their

protective goggles, when one of the pilots of the 747--a commando from Echo Unit--came down the stairwell from

the upper deck.

The pilot was wearing a baggy bright-orange flight suit

which Schofield immediately recognized as a pressure suit.

area 7 401

Pressure suits were mandatory on all high-altitude or

low-orbital flights. Although baggy on the outside, they

were actually quite figure-hugging on the inside, with elasticized

cuffs that ran down the wearer's arms and legs. The

cuffs squeezed its wearer's limbs to regulate blood flow

through the body and to stop blood draining from the head.

This man's suit had a metal ring around its neck, to

which could be attached a space-flight helmet, and a plug-in

hose socket on its waist, to which one connected a life

support unit.

"Ah, you made it," the Echo pilot said as he approached

them, obviously not seeing beyond their 7th Squadron outfits

and filthy sand-covered goggles. "Sorry, but we couldn't

wait for you any longer. Cobra made the call. Come on, it's

only Coleman and me left. Everyone else is already up in the

shutt--"

Smack!

Schofield stood quickly and punched him hard in the

face, dropping him with one hit.

"Apology not accepted," Schofield said. Then he turned

to the President. "Wait here."

"Okay," the Chief Executive replied quickly.

The 747 soared into the sky. Inside it, the world was

tilted crazily, at an almost 45-degree angle.

Schofield hurried up the stairs that led to the 747's upper

deck and cockpit. He held his P-90 poised in front of him,

searching for the second pilot, the man named Coleman.

He found him as he was emerging from the cockpit. Another

sharp blow later--this time with the butt of his P-90--

and Coleman was also out cold.

Schofield rushed into the empty cockpit, scanned it

quickly.

He'd been hoping to seize the controls and bring the

plane down ...

No dice.

A screen on the cockpit's display revealed that the plane

was flying on autopilot, and heading for an altitude of

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Matthew Reilly

67,000 feet--the height at which the 747 would release the

space shuttle on its back.

At the bottom of the screen, however, were the words:

AUTOPILOT ENGAGED.

TO DISABLE AUTOPILOT OR ALTER SET COURSE

ENTER AUTHORIZATION CODE.

Authorization code? Schofield thought.

Shit.

He couldn't switch off the autopilot. Which meant he

couldn't bring the plane down ...

So what could he do?

He looked about himself, saw the clouds outside, saw

the unconscious body of the pilot named Coleman lying on

the floor just outside the cockpit.

And as his eyes fell on the pilot's body, he got an idea.

schofield came back down to the president, hauling

the unconscious Coleman on his shoulder.

He nodded toward the other knocked-out pilot at the

President's feet. "Put on his flight suit," Schofield said as he

dropped Coleman's body to the floor and started undressing it.

Within minutes, Schofield and the President were wearing

the two pilots' bright-orange pressure suits--with SIG Sauer pistols concealed in their thigh pockets.

"Where to now?" the President asked.

Schofield gave him a serious look. "Where no man has

gone before."

the X-38 space shuttle was connected to the launch

jumbo by a cylindrical umbilical. Half a dozen titanium

struts actually mounted the shuttle onto the back of the 747,

but it was the umbilical that allowed human access to and

from the spacecraft.

Basically, the umbilical looked like a long vertical tube

that stretched upward from the back of the jumbo into the

area 7 403

underside of the shuttle. Its entrance was at the midpoint of

the jumbo, halfway along its lower deck.

Schofield and the President hurried toward it.

On the way, they found gear that had been waiting for

the two Echo Unit pilots: two white briefcase-like life support systems--small self-contained air-conditioners just

like those carried by the shuttle astronauts--and a pair of

spherical gold-tinted space helmets that clicked onto the

neck rings of their pressure suits.

The reflective gold tint of the helmets' dome-shaped

visors--a feature designed to protect the wearer from the

brutal quantities of ultraviolet radiation one experiences at

extremely high altitudes--completely hid their faces.

They came to the umbilical's entrance: a tubular vertical

tunnel that disappeared into the ceiling. A thin steel ladder

rose up through its core.

Now dressed completely in his space suit, his face hidden

by his reflective gold visor, Schofield peered up into it.

At the top end of the tube, about thirty yards straight up,

he could see the illuminated interior of the X-38 shuttle.

He turned to the President and signaled with his finger: up.

they climbed the ladder slowly, weighed down by their

cumbersome space suits and life-support briefcases.

After about a minute of climbing, Schofield's helmeted

head rose up through a circular hatch in the floor of the

shuttle.

Schofield froze.

The rear cargo compartment of the space shuttle looked

like the interior of a high-tech bus.

It was only a small space, compact, designed to hold

anything from men to weapons to small satellites. It had

pristine white walls that were lined with life-support sockets,

keypads and tie-down equipment studs. At the moment,

however, the cabin was in personnel-carrying mode: about a

dozen heavy-looking flight seats faced forward, grouped in

pairs.

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Matthew Reilly

And strapped into those seats, Schofield saw, were the

men of Echo Unit and their Chinese conspirators.

There were five of them inside the cargo cabin, and they

all wore identical space suits--gold-tinted helmets and

baggy orange pressure suits with small U.S. flags sewn onto

the shoulders.

How ironic, Schofield thought.

They were also strapped tightly into their flight seats, in

readiness for the high-G transit into orbit.

Through the cockpit door at the front of the cargo compartment,

he saw three more space-suited individuals--the shuttle's flight team. Beyond them he could see the clear open sky.

As he stood there, sticking half out of the shuttle's floor

hatch, Schofield felt his adrenaline surge.

He knew that their reflective gold helmets prevented

him and the President from being recognized. But still he

felt self-conscious, certain that he looked like an impostor

stepping into the heart of enemy territory.

Near the front end of the compartment, there were several

empty seats--waiting, presumably, for the two 747 pilots,

and the five Echo commandos who had been cut off down in the hangar.

Slowly, Schofield raised himself up and out of the umbilical

tunnel.

No one paid him any special attention.

He searched the cabin for Kevin, and at first, to his horror, didn't see him.

No ...

But then he noticed that one of the five space-suited figures

seated inside the cabin didn't quite seem to fill out his

oversized suit.

In fact, it looked almost comical. The suit's gloved arms

hung limply on this figure, its booted leggings dangled

clumsily to the floor. It appeared that the wearer of this suit

was way too small for it ...

It had to be.

Rather than bunching up the space suit to allow Kevin's

area 7 405

hands to reach into its gloves, the Echo men had made sure

that the little boy was receiving the full benefit of the pressure

suit's blood-regulating cuffs, even if that meant he

looked like Charlie Chaplin wearing an oversized outfit.

All right, Schofield thought as he stepped out of the umbilical's hatch. How am I going to do this?

Why not just grab Kevin before anyone has a chance to

unbuckle themselves, then dive down into the umbilical and

get back into the 747 and--

Just then a hand seized Schofield's arm, and a voice exploded

in his ear.

"Yo, Coleman"

It was one of the shuttle's pilots, faceless behind his

gold visor. He had stepped back into the personnel cabin and

grabbed Schofield's arm. His tinny voice came in over

Schofield's helmet intercom.

"Just you two? What happened to the others?"

Schofield just shook his head sadly.

"Aw, well," the faceless astronaut said. He pointed with

two fingers to a pair of flight seats close to the cockpit door. "Take a seat and strap in"

Then, with casual efficiency, the astronaut crouched

down, helped the President out of the umbilical, and shut the

entry hatch behind him!

Then he just strode forward to the cockpit, speaking

into his intercom as he did so: "All personnel, prepare for

separation from the launch vehicle in thirty seconds"

The cockpit door slid firmly shut behind the pilot, sealing

it off, and Schofield was left standing in the middle of

the cabin, staring at the closed pressure hatch in the floor beneath

him.

Holy shit ... .

They were about to go into orbit.

With the president behind him, Schofield made his way

forward, to two empty seats near the cockpit door.

As he did so, he observed how the Echo men had attached

themselves to the shuttle's centralized life-support

system and strapped themselves into their seats.

He arrived at his seat, and plugged a secondary hose

from his life-support briefcase into a socket in the seat's

arm. Then he sat down and started securing his seat harness.

The President, watching him, did the same, strapping

himself into a seat on the other side of the central aisle.

Once he was safely secured, Schofield turned to look

about himself.

Across the aisle from him, in the seat directly behind

the President, he saw the lopsided figure of Kevin, looking

very awkward in his oversized space suit.

It was then that a strange thing happened.

Kevin waved at him.

Waved at him.

It was a rapid side-to-side wave which made the little

boy's overlong sleeve flap stupidly in the air.

Schofield frowned, did a double take.

He was wearing his opaque gold-tinted space helmet.

There was no way Kevin could see his face.

Did Kevin know who he was?

How could Kevin know who he was?

Schofield dismissed the thought as stupid. Kevin must

have just been waving at all of the astronauts.

He turned to check on the President--saw him draw his

area 7 407

seat belts tightly across his chest. The President seemed to

take a long, deep breath. Schofield knew how he felt.

Suddenly, voices came in over their helmet intercoms.

"Booster ignition standing by ..."

"Approaching launch height ..."

"Umbilical release in three ... two ... one ... mark."

There came a loud clunking noise from beneath the

shuttle, and abruptly, the whole spacecraft rose slightly in

the air, felt lighter.

"Umbilical has separated ... we are clear of the

launch vehicle ..."

There came a soft chuckle. Then Cobra Carney's voice: "Burn it."

"Certainly, sir. Prepare to engage Pegasus boosters ... Ignition in three ..."

The shuttle beneath Schofield began to rumble ominously.

two ...

He waited in tense anticipation.

"... one ... mark."

IT LOOKED LIKE SOMEONE HAD IGNITED A FLAME THROWER.

When the X-38's Pegasus boosters fired, the space shuttle

was positioned slightly above its abandoned 747 launch

vehicle--its gigantic boosters pointed directly at the silver

jumbo beneath it.

The boosters ignited, bright as magnesium flares. Two

incredibly long tongues of white-hot fire blasted out from

the twin cylindrical boosters on the underside of the X-38.

The two lances of fire shot like lightning bolts straight

into the 747, severing it in the middle, cutting through it like

a pair of blow torches.

The 747 just snapped in half under the weight of the

fiery blast, its back broken in an instant. The fuel inside its

wings ignited immediately, and a split second later, the

whole gigantic plane just exploded, showering the sky with

a thousand pieces of smoke-trailing debris.

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Matthew Reilly

SCHOFIELD NEVER SAW THE 747 GET DESTROYED. HE WAS IN A

whole new world now.

The blast of the boosters igniting was like nothing he

had ever heard.

It was loud. Booming. All-consuming.

It had been like the sound of a jet engine thundering to

life--only multiplied by a thousand.

Now the shuttle tilted sharply upwards and rocketed forward.

Schofield was thrust back into his seat by the G-force.

The whole cabin began to shake and shudder. He felt his

cheeks flatten, press back against his face. He clenched his

teeth.

Apart from the closed cockpit door, the only visible link

between the flight deck and the rear cargo compartment was

a five-inch-thick window set into the cockpit's back wall.

Through this window, Schofield could see right through

to the forward windshield of the shuttle--through which he

could actually see the sky turning purple as they rose higher.

For a few minutes the shuttle soared upward, its massive

boosters lifting it high into the sky. Then, abruptly, over

the roar of the rockets, the flight team's voices returned:

"Prepare to jettison boosters and switch over to self contained power ..."

"Copy that."

"Stand by for booster release. In three ... two ... one ... mark."

Kerchunk!

Schofield felt the weight of the enormous booster rockets

drop away from the rising shuttle.

He looked over at the President--the Chief Executive

was gripping his armrests tightly. As far as Schofield was

concerned, that was actually a good sign. It meant that the

President hadn't passed out.

The X-38 rose into the sky. The shuddering and shaking

had stopped now and the ride became smoother, quieter, almost

as if the X-38 were floating on air.

Area 7 409

The respite gave Schofield a chance to take in his surroundings

more closely.

The first thing he saw was a keypad next to the cockpit

door--a locking mechanism, presumably for use in emergencies,

like when cabin pressure was lost.

Schofield also examined his space suit. There was a

small unit sewn into the sleeve of his left forearm which appeared

to control his helmet intercom. At the moment, the

unit's display screen indicated that he was currently on

channel 05.

He looked over at the President, surreptitiously tapped

his wrist unit, then held up three fingers: Switch to channel

three.

The President nodded. A few seconds later, Schofield

said, "Can you hear me?"

"Yes. What's the plan?"

"We sit tight. And we wait for a chance to take over this

bird."

THE SHUTTLE FLEW HIGHER.

As it did so, the view outside its forward windshield

gradually changed. The sky transformed from cloudy purple

to ominous black.

And then abruptly, as though a veil had been lifted,

Schofield found himself looking at a glorious galaxy of

stars, and beneath the starfield--glowing like an opal

against the jet-black sky--the wide elliptical expanse of the

Earth, curving downward at both extremities, stretching

away into the distance like some unbelievably gigantic luminescent

orb, so absolutely immense in its size that it was almost

too large to comprehend.

It was breathtaking.

They weren't far up, almost exactly at the dividing line

between space and the outer atmosphere, about two hundred miles.

The Earth itself--curved and massive and dazzling--

filled almost three-quarters of Schofield's field of vision.

He stared at the sight, at the glowing turquoise planet

410     Matthew Reilly

hovering in front of the universe. Then he turned his gaze to

the starfield above the planet. It was so clear up here, the

starry sky so endless.

And then, one of the stars began to move.

Schofield blinked, looked again.

One of the stars was definitely moving.

"Holy Christ ..." he breathed.

It wasn't a star at all.

It was a shuttle, a space shuttle, all but identical in shape

and size to the regular American models.

It soared effortlessly in the weightlessness of space, cutting

a dead-straight line toward them. The red and yellow

flag on its tail was unmistakable.

It was the Chinese space shuttle.

Schofield flicked back to channel 05 in time to hear

Cobra's voice say: "Yellow Star, this is Fleeing Eagle, I

have visual on you now. We are reducing thrust to begin

parking orbit. You may commence your approach in thirty

seconds."

JUST THEN, THE COCKPIT DOOR SLID OPEN AND TWO OF THE

X-38's pilots emerged.

Schofield snapped to look up.

Now that they were in low orbit, they could move

around the cabin. It was zero gravity, so they stepped lightly,

using handgrips attached to the ceiling to move around.

Both pilots still wore their gold-tinted helmets, still carried

their briefcase-like life-support units at their sides. They

strode past Schofield and the President, heading aft to prepare

for the docking with the Chinese shuttle.

A couple of the other space-suited men in the cargo

hold also began unbuckling their seatbelts, getting up to help

with the transfer.

Schofield saw the chance, tuned to channel 03.

"Okay," he turned to the President. "This is it. Follow me."

As casually as he could make it look, Schofield

Area 7 411

reconnected his air hose to his life-support briefcase and began

unbuckling his seat belts.

The President did the same.

As his belts came free, Schofield felt the weightlessness

take hold of him. He gripped a ceiling handhold and before

anyone could stop him--or even ask him what he was

doing--he casually stepped over to Kevin and began reattaching

the boy's life-support briefcase and disengaging

him from his seat.

A couple of the faceless Echo astronauts looked over, curious.

Schofield gestured to the cockpit--Wanna have a look?

Kevin nodded.

The Echo men went back to their work.

With the President in tow behind him--holding on to the ceiling handholds--Schofield led Kevin forward, into

the shuttle's cockpit.

The view from the cockpit was even more incredible.

Through the panoramic forward windshield, the Earth

looked amazing, stretching away from them like an enormous

aqua-blue convex lens.

The last remaining pilot in the cockpit turned in his seat

as they entered.

Over to channel 05: "Just thought we'd come up and see

the view," Schofield said, coughing through his voice to

mask it.

"Not bad, huh? Just be sure to keep your visors on. Radiation's

a killer, and the sun is almost blinding."

Schofield put Kevin in the empty co-pilot's seat. Then he

turned to the President, clicked back to channel 03.

"You unbuckle his seat belts, then use them to secure his arms. I'll take care of his life-support hose."

"Huh--how? When?"

"After I do this ..." Schofield said.

And with that he leaned forward, grabbed the pilot's

gold-tinted visor, and wrenched it open.

"Argh!" the pilot roared, as raw white sunlight

412     Matthew Reilly

assaulted his eyes. Underneath his gold-tinted visor was a

clear glass bubble that afforded no protection against the

pure sunlight.

Schofield then ripped the man's life-support system out

of its wall socket, while at the same time, the President unclasped

his seat belts and quickly looped them behind the

man's flight seat, pinning his arms firmly to his sides.

Deprived of his life support--and now tied to his own

seat--the pilot started to gasp desperately for air.

Schofield dived for the cockpit door, slammed his fist

down on a switch next to the entryway. The door slid

quickly shut, enclosing the three of them inside the cockpit.

The President spun, "So what--?"

But Schofield was still moving.

He knew he had about three seconds before someone

reopened the cockpit door from the rear cargo compartment.

There was a keypad next to the door, identical to the one

on the other side.

Schofield rushed over to it.

Apart from the usual numbered keys and open/close

switches, there was one long red rectangular button on the

panel, concealed behind a clear-plastic safety casing. It read:

EMERGENCY USE ONLY:

COCKPIT SECURITY LOCK

Schofield flipped open the safety casing and hit the big

red button.

Immediately--thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk!--the door's five emergency deadbolts locked into place, sealing off the cockpit like a bank vault.

A second later, Schofield heard a weak thumping noise coming from the other side: the sound of the Echo men hammering

angrily on the door.

Reflective gold helmets peered in through the five-inch

thick window in the dividing wall, waving furious fists.

Schofield didn't care.

This shuttle was now his.

Area 7 413

HE LEANED OVER KEVIN IN THE CO-PILOT'S SEAT, THE EARTH

and the stars laid out before him.

In addition to the view, he was confronted by another

intimidating sight: the X-38's flight console--a collection of about a million tiny switches, lights, buttons and monitors.

It looked like the cockpit of a jumbo jet ... only more complex.

The President took the rear navigator's seat, lifting

Kevin onto his lap.

"So, what now?" he asked. "Don't tell me you know

how to fly a space shuttle, too, Captain."

"Unfortunately not," Schofield said. He turned to face

the bound and still-gagging shuttle pilot. "But he does."

Schofield pulled his SIG-Sauer from his thigh pocket

and held it to the choking pilot's visor. The President reattached

the man's life-support hose. The pilot stopped gasping

as Schofield flicked his intercom to channel 03.

"I need you to help me bring this thing back down to

earth," Schofield said.

"Fuck you ..." the pilot said.

"Hmm," Schofield said. He then nodded to the President,

who yanked the pilot's life-support hose out of its

socket again. The Echo Unit pilot immediately resumed his

gagging.

Schofield tried again. "How about I put this another

way: either you tell me how to pilot this thing safely back to

Utah, or I do it without your help. Now, given the way I fly,

either we'll burn up on reentry or crash into a friggin' mountain.

Either way, we die. So, the way I see it, you either tell

me how to do it, or you get killed watching me try."

The President reattached the pilot's life-support hose.

The bound man's face was almost blue.

"Okay," he breathed. "Okay ..."

"Great," Schofield said, "Now, the first thing I need is--"

He cut himself off as illuminated green words scrolled

out rapidly across the cockpit's transparent heads-up display,

or HUD, in the windshield:

414     Matthew Reilly

FLEEING EAGLE, THIS IS YELLOW STAR.

YOU HAVE ALTERED COURSE.

PLEASE REALIGN TO VECTOR THREE-ZERO-ZERO.

Schofield stared at the words on the HUD. They seemed

to hover in the air in front of the starfield.

Then, beyond the transparent display, he saw the Chinese

space shuttle, much closer now.

It glided slowly and effortlessly through the void toward

his ship, about three hundred yards away and closing

quickly.

FLEEING EAGLE, PLEASE CONFIRM.

"Please confirm ..." Schofield muttered as he scanned

the cockpit's enormous array of switches and found the

weapons section. "Confirm this"

He flipped open a safety casing to reveal two red buttons

marked missile launch.

"This is for Mother," he said as he jammed his fingers

down on both buttons.

THE TWO SHUTTLES FACED EACH OTHER IN SPACE--HOVERING

above the outer atmosphere, lit from below by the brilliant

reflected light of the world--the compact X-38 and the

much larger Chinese shuttle.

And then suddenly, twin bolts of white shot out from

the wings of the X-38--two missiles, sleek zero-gravity AMRAAM's. They blasted off their wing mounts and rocketed through the vacuum between the two shuttles.

The missiles moved unbelievably fast, converging on

the Chinese shuttle like a pair of giant winged needles.

They left no smoke trails in their wakes. No puffs of

flame or fire, for nothing survives in a vacuum. Their tail

thrusters simply glowed orange against the black star-filled

sky.

There was nothing the Chinese space shuttle could do.

Area 7 415

There were, quite simply, no defensive measures it could

employ up here.

The two AMRAAM's slammed into the Chinese ship at

exactly the same time--one hitting it in the middle, the other

in the nose.

The shuttle just cracked.

There was an instantaneous flash of blinding white light

and the Chinese shuttle spontaneously blew out into pieces

which, after the initial blast, just radiated outwards in a kind

of accentuated slow motion.

The Yellow Star would not be returning to Earth.

the echo men were still hammering on the cockpit

door as, under the instructions of the tied-up pilot, Schofield

enabled the X-38's automated re-entry procedures.

There was nothing the men from Echo Unit could do.

The cockpit door was three-inch-thick titanium. And

firing a gun through the five-inch-thick glass window didn't

look like a clever option.

Indeed, as the X-38 began its controlled descent out of

its orbit, hit the atmosphere and engaged its heat shields

against the 4,000°F temperatures outside, they could only

strap themselves back into their seats and hang on.

The shuttle rocketed downward under the autopilot. As it did so, Schofield watched the starfield above them slowly

fade away, replaced by a hazy purple aura, before suddenly,

brilliantly, they burst down into dazzling blue sky.

The orbiting X-38 had traveled eastward—but because

it hadn't actually been up that long, only about halfway

across Colorado. Looking down, and facing west now,

Schofield saw steel-gray mountains and lush green valleys.

Beyond them, on the curved horizon, he could see the

sandy-yellow Utah desert.

He looked at his watch.

10:36 a.m.

They hadn't been in orbit long at all. About twelve minutes,

in fact. Now, gliding downward at supersonic speed,

they'd be back in Utah in only a couple more.

Suddenly, the heads-up display came to life:

Area 7 417

SOURCE AIRFIELD BEACON DETECTED

AIRFIELD IDENTIFIED AS UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

SPECIAL AREA (RESTRICTED) 08

PROCEEDING TO SOURCE AIRFIELD

Area 8, Schofield thought.

No.

He didn't want to go there.

So far as he could see, the only way to end this challenge

once and for all was to get away from these bases with

the President and the Football.

But to do that, they needed the Football.

And the Football--whose interminable countdown still needed to be satisfied by 11:30--was last seen at Area 7, in

the hands of Seth Grimshaw.

Schofield turned to his captive shuttle pilot. "We need

to get to Area 7."

The X-38 descended rapidly, shooting westward, blasting

over the barren Utah desert.

It flew down toward Area 8, roaring through the air, but

as it came close, Schofield disengaged the autopilot and,

now flying the shuttle manually like a regular plane, he allowed

the shuttle to overshoot the base.

They covered the twenty miles to Area 7 in less than a

minute, and very soon, he saw the low mountain and the

cluster of hangars and buildings, and the elongated runway

in the sand. In the far distance, on the horizon, he saw the

wide expanse of Lake Powell, with its twisting network of

water-filled canyons.

He aimed for the runway, sweeping in low over the

buildings of Area 7. It ran from east to west, so he was coming

straight for it.

The X-38 boomed over the Area 7 complex, shaking its

walls, -before touching down perfectly on its black bitumen

runway.

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Matthew Reilly

But it came in fast--very fast.

Which was why Schofield didn't see the two black Penetrator

helicopters sitting silently next to Area 7's hangars.

Didn't see one of them immediately power up and rise

into the air as soon as his tires had hit the tarmac.

the X-38 rocketed down the desert runway, its tires

smoking.

Schofield tried to rein in the speeding spacecraft, releasing

a brake parachute which fluttered to life behind it. The

shuttle began to slow.

When at last it had lost all its momentum, Schofield

flicked some switches, prepared to take her back to the main

hangar.

He never even got to turn the shuttle around.

For at the very moment that he brought it to a halt, he

saw the Penetrator helicopter swing menacingly into place

in front of him, hovering above the runway like an evil bird

of prey.

THE SPACE SHUTTLE AND THE WINGED ATTACK HELICOPTER

squared off like a pair of gunslingers on a Wild West

street--the shuttle on the runway, the Penetrator floating in

the air in front of it

Inside the shuttle's cockpit, Schofield yanked off his

helmet. The President did the same.

"Shit. What do we--?" the President asked.

Bang!

The cockpit door shuddered.

The men of Echo Unit were out of their seats and were

once again pounding on it.

Then suddenly the voice of the Penetrator's pilot came

in over the radio. It was one of Caesar Russell's 7th

Squadron men.

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Matthew Reilly

"X-38, this is Air Force Penetrator. Be advised, we have

missile lock on you. Release the boy now."

Schofield spun to look at Kevin, thinking fast.

The world was closing in on them--the Penetrator outside,

the Echo men inside, missile lock ...

And then he saw the compartment sunk into the wall

beyond Kevin's seat.

He turned to the President. "Sir, could you help Kevin

get his suit off, please?"

The President did so while Schofield hit the talk button.

"Air Force Penetrator, what are your intentions?"

As he spoke, Schofield climbed over to the wall compartment

and yanked it open.

A sign on its door panel read: survival kit.

The Echo men continued to pound on the cockpit door.

"If you release the boy," the Penetrator pilot said, "we

leave you in peace."

"Yeah, right," Schofield muttered.

He was foraging frantically through the shuttle's survival

compartment. "Come on," he breathed, "there has to

be one in here. There always is ..."

Into his mike, however, he said, "And if we don't release

the boy?"

"Then we might just have to cut our losses and kill you

all."

It was then that Schofield found what he was looking for inside the compartment: a two-foot-long cylindrical metal tube that looked like a--

He grabbed it, snapped to look up--and found himself

looking out through the five-inch-thick glass window that

opened onto the rear section of the shuttle. On the other side

of the glass, aimed right at his face, was a pistol, held by one

of the Echo men!

With a flash of white light--and a silent bang--the pistol

fired.

Schofield shut his eyes, waited for the bullet to crash

through the glass and enter his head.

Area 7 421

But the glass was too thick. The bullet just scratched the

surface and pinged away.

Schofield breathed again, raced back to his seat.

"Air Force Penetrator," he said as he climbed back into

his flight seat and started doing up his seat belts. "All right.

All right Listen. I also have the President here." As he

spoke, he indicated for the President to undo his belts.

"The President ..."

"That's right. I'm going to send him out with the boy.

I'm sure you won't mind that. Now, I have your word, you

won't fire on us if we send them out?"

"That's right."

"Okay," Schofield said,to Kevin and the President.

"When I release the hatch, I want you two to get as far away

from this shuttle as you can. All right?"

"Right," Kevin said.

"Right," the President nodded. "But what about you?"

Schofield pulled the hatch release lever.

With a sharp snap-whoosh! a small section of the shuttle's ceiling--the part directly above the tied-up shuttle pilot--

went catapulting high into the air, flying end over end.

A wide square of blue sky opened over the pilot.

"Just get as far away from this shuttle as you can,"

Schofield said. "I'll be joining you in a minute. I just have a

helicopter to kill."

IN THE SHIMMERING DESERT HEAT, TWO TINY FIGURES EMERGED

from the shuttle's cockpit hatch.

The President and Kevin.

The President still wore his orange flight suit, only now

he was helmetless. Kevin just wore the regular clothes he'd

been wearing underneath his oversized space suit.

The Penetrator loomed above them, its rotor wash shaking

the air.

A plastic rope ladder hung down from the shuttle's roof.

It had unrolled automatically when the escape hatch had

been jettisoned.

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The President and Kevin descended the ladder quickly,

under the watchful eye of the Penetrator's three crew members.

Then their feet touched the burning-hot tarmac and they

hurried away from the shuttle.

THE SHUTTLE'S COCKPIT, SCHOFIELD WAS

positioning the          lap,

Waiting for Kevin and the President to get clear.

He exchanged a glance with the still-bound shuttle pilot.

"What're you looking at?" he said--

Zazzzzzz!

Without warning, a spray of brilliant orange sparks exploded

out from the door behind him.

Holy ...

The Echo men were using a blow torch to cut through

the door!

Must wait for the President and the boy to get clear ...

And then the Penetrator pilot's voice came through. "Thank you, X-38. I'm sorry for misleading you, but unfortunately you must now be destroyed. Good night."

Instantly, a Sidewinder missile shot out from the right

hand wing stub of the Penetrator, a smoke trail looping

through the air behind it. It zoomed downwards, heading

straight for the space shuttle's windshield.

The blow torch's sparks sprayed into the cockpit from behind,

Screw it, Schofield thought. Time to blow this joint.

And with that, he yanked on the ejection lever beside

his seat.

like a new year's eve firecracker shooting up into the

sky, Shane Schofield rocketed up into the air above the

grounded space shuttle, sitting on his flight seat.

He carved a perfectly straight vertical path into the air,

in the process creating a bizarre triangle between himself,

the space shuttle and the Penetrator helicopter.

And then everything happened at once.

Area 7 423

First, the Penetrator's missile slammed into the X-38

beneath Schofield, causing it and the Echo men inside it to

explode in a billowing blasting fireball.

For his part, Schofield shot high into the air above the

>with the flight >  >

as he drew level with the Penetrator's shocked crew.

It was only then that the chopper's three crew members

survival kit onto his shoulder--as he flew upwards on the

ejection seat.

Only it wasn't just any old tube.

It was a rocket launcher.

A compact M-72 single-shot disposable rocket

launcher, supplied in the survival kit for astronauts who

crash-landed in enemy territory and needed some lightweight

but heavy-hitting firepower.

Hovering in the air in his ejection seat, high above the

billowing fireball that had been the X-38, Schofield jammed

his finger down on the rocket launcher's trigger.

Instantly, a streamlined warhead shoomed out from the

M-72 on his shoulder, streaking through the air at phenomenal

speed, heading straight for the Penetrator's cockpit.

The warhead smashed through the helicopter's glass

windshield and detonated violently. The walls of the attack

helicopter blasted outwards, the chopper just disintegrating

in midair.

It dropped out of the sky--a blazing, flaming wreck,

trailing a plume of thick black smoke--and crashed down

against the tarmac, shattering into pieces.

The final episode of the sequence was the inflating of

Schofield's parachute.

It blossomed to life above his ejection seat, lifting him

out of it. Then the parachute carried him safely back down

to earth, landing him gently on the runway a short way

from the twin flaming ruins of the space shuttle and the

Penetrator.

The President and Kevin rushed up to him.

"That was so cool!" Kevin gasped.

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Matthew Reilly

"Yes. Remind me never to point a loaded weapon at

you," the President said.

Schofield discarded his parachute, gazed back down the

runway toward the buildings of Area 7.

Area 7 ...

Strangely, the first thing he thought about was not the

Football nor the fate of the country.

It was Libby Gant.

He'd last seen her during their battle in the pit, when

Colonel Harper's Sinovirus grenade had gone off and they'd

been separated.

But then he saw the helicopter.

Saw the second Penetrator--Caesar and Logan's Penetrator--sitting

empty and abandoned outside the main

hangar complex.

"Caesar came back to Area 7 ..." Schofield said aloud.

"Why would he do that?"

It was then that he saw a figure emerge from the base of

the airfield's control tower, waving one arm weakly.

It was Book II.

schofield, kevin and the president met book at the

base of the tower.

Book II looked pale, weary. He wore a thick bandage

over a wound on his left bicep; the rest of the arm was held

in a makeshift sling.

"Scarecrow. Quick," he said, obviously still in pain.

"You better come and see this. Now."

AS THEY CLIMBED THE STAIRS OF THE CONTROL TOWER,

Schofield said, "When did Caesar come back to Area 7?"

"They landed only a few minutes before you did. They were all heading for that top door entrance when you guys arrived. I was looking after Janson up in the tower, and we saw the whole ejection-seat thing. Caesar and Logan watched it from the hangar entrance, but when you blasted their boys to kingdom come, they headed straight inside the

complex again."

"Caesar went back inside the complex. ... Why?"

Schofield said, thinking hard. Then he looked up. "Any word

from Gant?"

"No," Book II said. "I figured she was with you."

"We got separated when that Sinovirus grenade went

off before. She must still be inside the complex."

They arrived at the top level of the tower. Juliet Janson

lay slumped on a chair, a bandage over her bullet-wounded

shoulder, alive but very pale.

Beside her lay the Football.

"So what did you want me to see?" Schofield asked Book.

"This," Book II said, indicating one particular computer

screen. It was flashing:

LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL S.A.(R) 7A

FAILSAFE SYSTEM ENACTED

AUTH CODE: 7-3-468201103

426     Matthew Reilly

EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.

IF YOU DO NOT ENTER AN AUTHORIZED LOCKDOWN

EXTENSION OR TERMINATION CODE BY 1105 HOURS,

FACILITY SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE WILL BE ACTIVATED.

SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE DURATION: 10:00

MINUTES.

***************** warning * ******* * * * *****

Schofield looked at his watch.

It was 10:43.

Twenty-two minutes till the complex's thermonuclear

self-destruct mechanism was set in motion.

And they'd had no word from Gant ...

Shit.

"There's another thing," Book II said. "We've managed

to get the generators back on line, but the power's still very

low. We've been able to get a couple of systems back on,

some light systems, a few communication lines and the internal

broadcast system."

"And ... ?"

"Have a look at this."

Book II hit a switch, and one of the console monitors

blinked to life.

On it, Schofield saw the image of the control room

overlooking the main hangar.

And standing inside the heavily battered room, looking

directly into the camera as he had done on several occasions

earlier that morning, was Caesar Russell.

russell grinned at the camera.

When he spoke, his voice boomed out from the tower's

speakers.

"Greetings, Mr. President, people of America. I know

it's a little early for my hourly update, but since, alas, it appears

that my race has been run, I'm sure you won't mind an

early commentary.

"My men are vanquished, my cause lost. I would

area 7

commend the President and his brave bodyguards for their

efforts, but such is not my way. I merely leave you all with

one parting comment: this country can never be the same,

after today ..."

Then Caesar did something that made Schofield's blood completely freeze.

He pulled open the front of his combat fatigues, revealing his chest.

Schofield's jaw dropped. "Oh no ..."

There, on Russell's chest, was a long vertical scar, right over his heart--the scar of a man who had had heart surgery

sometime in the past.

Caesar grinned, an evil, maniacal, completely insane grin.

"Cross my heart," he said, "and hope to die."

"what?" the president said. "I don't get it."

Schofield was silent.

He got it.

He snatched a piece of paper from his pocket. It was the printout he'd gotten Brainiac to

on the plane right at the very start of all this--when he'd needed to know if there really was a radio transmitter planted on the

President's heart.

Schofield scanned the printout. It still had the circles

Brainiac had drawn on it before:

50

75

100

He recalled Brainiac's earlier explanation. "It's a standard rebounding signature. The satellite sends down a search signal--they're the tall spikes on the

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positive side--and then, soon after, the receiver on the

ground, the President, bounces that signal back. Those are

the deep spikes on the negative side.

"Search and return. Interference aside, the rebounding

signature seems to repeat itself once every twenty-five seconds."

"Interference aside ..." Schofield said as he stared at

the printout.

"Only there is no interference. There are two separate signals. The satellite needs to pick up two signals ..." He

grabbed a nearby pen and joined the four circles into two pairs.

"This graph indicates two distinct signal patterns,"

Schofield said. "The first and the third. And then the second

and fourth."

"What are you saying?" the President asked.

"What I'm saying, Mr. President, is that you're not the

only man at this complex with a radio transmitter attached to

his heart. It's Caesar's trump card, his last resort, so that

even if he loses, he still wins. Caesar Russell has a transmitter

attached to his heart. So now, if he dies, the devices at the

airports go off."

"But he's inside the complex," Book II said, wincing

with pain, "and in exactly twenty minutes, the self-destruct

sequence will be initiated."

"I know," Schofield said, "and so does he. Which means

I now have to do something that I never thought I'd ever want to do. I have to go back into Area 7 and stop Caesar

Russell from getting killed."

SEVENTH

CONFRONTATION

3 July, 1045 Hours

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

SPECIAL AREA (RESTRICTED) NO.7

1045 HOURS

GROUND LEVEL: Main Hangar

LEVEL 1: Hangar Bay

LEVEL 2: Hangar Bay

LEVEL 3: Living Quarters

SCHOFIELD RE-ARMED HIMSELF.

With Book II and Juliet both wounded, he was going

back inside alone.

He got his Maghook back from Book, slid it into the

shotgun holster on his back. He also grabbed the P-90 that

Seth Grimshaw had brought out of the complex. It only had

about forty rounds left in it, but that was better than nothing.

He jammed Book's M9 and his own Desert Eagle pistol into

his thigh holsters. And last of all, he swapped his water damaged

wrist mike and earpiece for Juliet's working unit.

Book and Juliet would remain up in the tower armed with a P-90, guarding the President, the Football and Kevin until the Army and Marine forces arrived at the base.

Schofield pulled out Nicholas Tate's cell phone, dialed

the operator. He got Dave Fairfax's voice straight away, cutting

into the call.

"Mr. Fairfax, I need a favor."

"What?"

"I need the lockdown release codes for Special Area 7,

the codes that turn off the self-destruct mechanism. Now, I

can't imagine they're kept in a book somewhere. You're going

to have to get onto the local network itself and somehow

pull them out."

"How long have I got?" Fairfax asked.

"You've got exactly nineteen minutes."

"I'm on it."

Fairfax hung up.

Schofield jammed a fresh clip into his M9. As he did so,

a figure appeared at his side.

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Matthew Reilly

"I think she's still alive, too," Kevin said suddenly.

Schofield looked up, appraised the little boy for a moment

"How did you know I was thinking that?"

"I just know. I always know. I knew that Dr. Botha was

lying to the Air Force men. And I could tell that you were a

good man. I can't see exactly what someone's thinking, just

what they're feeling. Right now, you're worried about someone,

someone you care about. Someone who's still inside."

"Is this how you knew it was me on the space shuttle?"

"Yes."

Schofield finished loading his guns. "Any final tips,

then?" he asked Kevin.

The little boy said, "I only saw her once, when you were

both standing outside my cube. I only sensed one thing

about her: she really likes you. So you'd better save her."

Schofield gave him a wry smile. "Thanks."

And then he was away.

He tried the top door entrance first.

No luck.

Caesar had changed the code, manually it seemed. No

time for Fairfax to crack that one.

That left only one other option: the Emergency Exit Vent.

Schofield ran for Caesar's abandoned Penetrator helicopter.

It was 10:48 a.m.

TWO MINUTES LATER, CAESAR'S PENETRATOR--NOW FLOWN

by Schofield--landed next to the EEV in a swirling cloud of

dust and sand.

The EEV hadn't been hard to find. Mr. Hoeg's lime

green biplane--still sitting there on the desert floor--betrayed

the exit's location quite unambiguously.

No sooner had the black helicopter touched the ground

than Schofield was out of it and running toward the EEV.

He leapt down into the earthen trench and disappeared

inside the exit's open steel doorway at a run.

Area 7 433

it was 10:51 when schofield stepped out onto the darkened

X-rail tracks on Level 6, his gun raised.

The world down here was pitch-black, save for the thin

beam of his P-90's barrel-mounted flashlight.

He saw bodies laid out before him, shadows in the dim

light--the remnants of the previous battles that day.

Air Force vs. Secret Service.

South Africans vs. Air Force.

Schofield and his Marines vs. Air Force.

Christ ...

But another thing weighed on his mind. Kevin, of

course, had been right. Apart from saving Caesar Russell,

Schofield had a far more personal reason for entering Area 7

again.

He wanted to find Libby Gant.

He didn't know what had happened to her after the

Sinovirus grenade had gone off up in the main hangar, but he

refused to believe that she was dead.

Schofield brought his wrist mike to his lips. "Fox. Fox.

Are you out there? This is Scarecrow. I'm back inside. Can

you hear me?"

IN A DARK PLACE SOMEWHERE INSIDE AREA 7, LIBBY GANT

stirred, a voice invading her dreams.

"--you hear me?"

She'd been unconscious for nearly an hour now, and

she didn't have a clue where she was or what had happened

to her.

Her last memory was of being inside the control room

upstairs and seeing something important and then suddenly ... nothing.

As she blinked awake, she saw that she was still wearing

her bright-yellow biohazard suit, except for the helmet.

It had been removed.

It was only then that she became aware of a pain in her

shoulders. Gant opened her eyes fully--

--and an ice-cold chill rippled down her spine.

Her entire upper body was bound to a pair of steel girders

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Matthew Reilly

that had been arranged in the shape of an X. Her wrists

were held high above her head--crucifix-style--affixed to

the arms of the cross with duct tape, while more thick tape

held her throat tightly up against the junction of the X. Her

legs--duct-taped at the ankles--were laid out flat in front

of her.

Gant began to breathe very very fast.

What the hell was this?

She was someone's prisoner.

AS SHE HUNG HELPLESSLY FROM THE CROSS, EYES WIDE AND

terrified, she slowly began to regain her senses. She took in

the area around her.

The first thing she noticed about this place was that

there was no electric lighting. Three small fires illuminated

the immediate area.

It was in this grim firelight that she saw Hagerty.

Colonel Hot Rod Hagerty sat immediately to her right,

similarly "crucified"--his legs stretched out on the floor in

front of him, his arms outstretched on his own cross. His

eyes were shut, his head bent. Every few seconds he

groaned.

Gant looked at the room around them.

She was sitting underneath an overhang of some sort, in

dark shadow; a stagelike structure stood out in the open

space in front of her. Some children's toys lay scattered

about the stage, amid shards of glass.

It looked as if--once--a glass cube of some sort had

encased the stage, but now only half of that cube remained

standing.

Gant realized where she was.

She was in the area that had contained Kevin's sterilized

living area. Right now, she must be sitting directly underneath

the observation lab that had overlooked the cube, beneath

the overhang it created.

And then Gant saw the third crucified figure in the

room, and she gasped in revulsion.

It was the Air Force colonel, Jerome Harper.

area 7 435

Or what was left of him.

He lay to Gant's left, also under the overhang, his arms

taped to a cross high above his head, his head leaning as far

forward as the duct tape around his throat would allow.

But it was his lower body that seized Gant's shocked

attention.

Harper's legs were missing.

No, not just missing.

Hacked off.

Everything from the Air Force colonel's waist down had

been brutally carved away--like a carcass in an abattoir--leaving a gigantic slab of raw hacked flesh around his hips.

Indeed, Harper's whole waist region was just a foul bloody

mess that ended at the curved bony hook of his spinal column.

It was the most disgusting thing Gant had ever seen in

her life.

Her eyes swept the room, as the full extent of her

predicament became clear.

She was the prisoner of a monster. An individual who,

until today, had been a guest here at Area 7.

Lucifer Leary.

The Surgeon of Phoenix.

The serial killer who had terrorized hitchhikers on the Vegas-to-Phoenix interstate--the former medical student

who would kidnap his victims, take them home, and then eat their limbs in front of them.

Gant looked about herself in horror.

Leary--a big man, she recalled, at least six-eight, with a hideous facial tattoo--was nowhere to be seen.

Except for Hagerty and herself, the whole observation

area was completely and utterly empty.

Which, in a strange way, was even more frightening.

SCHOFIELD MADE FOR THE STAIRWELL AT THE EASTERN END OF

Level 6.

He had to get to the control room overlooking the main

hangar--to enter the termination codes before 11:05; or if

he couldn't do that, to capture Caesar and get him out of

Area 7 before the nuke went off at 11:15.

He threw open the stairwell doorway--

--and was instantly confronted by an enormous black

bear, caught in the beam of his small flashlight, rearing up

on its hind legs, baring its massive claws and bellowing

loudly at him!

Schofield dived off the edge of the X-rail platform as

the family of bears ambled out of the stairwell--papa bear,

mama bear and three little baby bears, all in a row.

Nicholas Tate had been right.

There were bears on the loose.

Papa bear seemed to sniff the air for a moment. Then he

headed westward, toward the other end of the underground

railway station, followed by his brood.

As soon as they were a safe distance away, Schofield

dashed into the open stairwell.

dave fairfax was tapping feverishly at the keyboard of

his supercomputer.

After five minutes' work, the computer had found a

source number that represented Area 7's self-destruct release

code.

Not bad progress, really. There was only one problem.

Area 7 437

The number had 640 million digits.

He kept typing.

10:52.

Schofield bounded up the stairwell, in near pitch

darkness, his flashlight beam wobbling.

As he ran, he tried to get Gant on the airwaves. "Fox,

this is Scarecrow. Can you hear me?" he whispered. "I repeat,

Fox, this is Scarecrow ..."

No reply.

He ran past the firedoor to Level 5--the door with the

thin jets of water shooting out from its edges--then came to

Level 4, the lab level, hurried past its open door, heading

upward.

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF LEVEL 4, GANT HEARD THE VOICE again. It sounded tinny and distant.

"--repeat, Fox, this is Scarecrow--"

Scarecrow ...

The voice was coming from Gant's earpiece, which

now hung loosely from her ear. It must have been dislodged

when her captor had knocked her unconscious.

Gant looked up at her left wrist, duct-taped to the cross

high above her head.

She still had her Secret Service wrist mike attached to

it. But there was no way she could bring it to her mouth, and

the mike only worked when you spoke into it at close range.

So she started tapping her finger on the top of the microphone.

schofield came to the floor door that opened onto

Level 2 and suddenly stopped.

He'd heard a strange tapping in his earpiece.

Tap-tap-taap. Tap-taap-tap. ...

Long and short taps.

Morse code.

Morse code that read, "F-O-X. F-O-X ..."

438     Matthew Reilly

"Fox, is that you? One tap for no, two taps for yes."

Tap-tap.

"Are you okay?"

Tap.

"Where are you? Tap out the floor number."

Tap-tap-tap-tap.

10:53.

Schofield burst through the Level 4 firedoor, scanning

the decompression area down the barrel of his gun.

It was dark.

Very dark.

This end of the floor was completely deserted--the decompression

chamber was empty, as were the test chambers

opposite it, and the catwalks above. The sliding horizontal

doorway in the floor--the one that led down to the Level 5

cell bay--however, was still open.

The water level down on Level 5 had risen considerably

over the last few hours. It had leveled off flush against the

floor of Level 4. Inky black wavelets lapped up against the

edges of the horizontal opening so that it now looked like a

little rectangular pool.

Level 5, it seemed, was completely underwater now.

Schofield stepped past the pool--just as something

slashed quickly through its waves. He spun, whipped his

gun around, but whatever it had been was long gone.

This was not what he needed.

Dark complex. Bears moving around the stairwells.

Caesar and Logan in here somewhere. Water everywhere.

Not to mention the possible presence of more prisoners.

He came to the wall that divided Level 4 in two, flung

its door open and snapped his gun up ...

... and immediately saw Gant on the far side, beyond

the shattered remains of Kevin's cube, lying spread-eagled

up against a bizarre steel cross.

SCHOFIELD RAN ACROSS THE OBSERVATION AREA, SLID TO HIS

knees in front of Gant.

As he arrived before her, he dropped his P-90, clasped

her head gently in his hands and, without even thinking,

kissed her on the lips.

At first, Gant was a little stunned, then she realized

what was happening and she kissed him back.

When he pulled away, Schofield saw the two men on either

side of her.

First he saw Hagerty, out cold, similarly crucified.

Then he saw the dead Colonel Harper—saw the raw

pink flesh of his hacked-off lower body, saw his exposed

tailbone.

"Holy Christ ..." he breathed.

"Quickly," Gant said. "We don't have much time, he'll

be back soon."

"Who?" Schofield started unraveling her duct-taped

throat.

"Lucifer Leary."

"Oh, shit ..." Schofield started working faster. The tape

around Gant's neck came free. He started on her wrists ...

There came a loud resonating boom from within the

walls.

Schofield and Gant both looked up, eyes wide.

"The aircraft elevator ..." Schofield said.

"He must have gone upstairs," Gant breathed, "and now

he's back. Hurry ..."

Faster now, Schofield continued untying the tape

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around Gant's left wrist, but it was done too tightly. His fingers

fumbled with the tape. This was taking too long ...

He spun, saw some glass shards lying over by Kevin's

stagelike living area--shards that he could use to cut the

duct tape. He slid over toward them and sifted through them,

trying to find one that was sharp enough. He found one, just

as Gant called, "Scarecrow!" and he stood and turned--

--and found himself confronted by an extremely tall

broad-shouldered figure.

Schofield froze.

The figure just stood there before him--perhaps a yard

away, his face shrouded in shadow--absolutely motionless.

He towered over Schofield, gazing at him silently. Schofield

hadn't even heard him approach.

"Do you know why the weasel never steals from the alligator's

nest?" the shadowy figure asked. Schofield couldn't

even see the man's mouth move.

Schofield swallowed.

"Because," the figure said, "it never knows when the alligator

will return."

And then the giant man stepped into the firelight--

--and Schofield saw the most fearsome, evil-looking

face he'd ever seen in his life. The face was big--like its

owner--and it had a hideous black tattoo covering its entire

left side, a tattoo depicting five ragged claw marks scratched

down the length of the man's face.

Lucifer Leary.

He was absolutely enormous, too, at least six-foot

eight, with massive muscular shoulders and gigantic tree

trunk legs; almost a full foot taller than Schofield. He wore

prison-issue jeans and a sky-blue shirt with the sleeves ripped

off. His black eyes revealed not a trace of humanity--they

just stared at Schofield like empty black orbs.

Then Leary opened his mouth, smiling menacingly, revealing

foul yellow teeth.

The effect was mesmerizing, almost hypnotic.

Schofield shot a glance back over at Gant, at his P-90

lying on the floor in front of her. Then, in what he thought

area 7 441

was a quick draw, he whipped his two pistols from his thigh

holsters.

The guns barely got out of their sheaths. Leary had anticipated

the move.

Quick as a rattlesnake, he lunged forward and clamped

his fists around Schofield's gun hands, seizing them by the

wrists.

And then the bigger man started to squeeze.

Schofield had never felt such intense pain in his life. He

dropped to his knees, teeth clenched--his wrists held in

Leary's giant paws. Blood flow to his hands ceased. It felt as

if his fingers--bulging with redness--were going to burst.

He released his pistols. They clattered to the floor. Leary kicked them away.

Then, with the guns gone, he seized Schofield by the

throat, lifted him clear off the ground and hurled him across

Kevin's living area.

Schofield went crashing across the stage, sliding

through some toys, before he exploded through a still

upright section of glass and went tumbling off the far edge

of the stage.

Lucifer stalked around the elevated platform after him,

his every step crunching on broken glass.

Schofield groaned, tried to stand. He needn't have bothered.

Within seconds, Leary was there.

The massive killer lifted Schofield off the floor by his

combat webbing and punched him hard in the face, sending

his head snapping backwards.

Gant could only watch helplessly from her cross--her

hands still tightly bound, Schofield's P-90 lying on the floor

only inches away from her--as Lucifer pounded Schofield.

The fight was all one-way traffic.

Lucifer hit, Schofield recoiled, collapsed in a heap to

the floor.

Lucifer strode forward, Schofield struggled to stand up.

And then Lucifer hurled Schofield through the doorway

that divided Level 4, sending him sliding into the decompression

area.

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Lucifer followed him in.

Another kick and Schofield rolled--bleeding and gasping --up against the rim of the horizontal doorway in the

floor, filled as it was with lapping water.

And then from out of nowhere, a giant reptilian head

came bursting up out of the water and lunged at Schofield's

head.

Schofield rolled quickly, avoiding the fast-moving jaws

as they snapped down an inch away from his face.

Jesus!

It was a Komodo dragon. The largest lizard in the

world, a known man-eater. The President had said they kept

some of them here--along with the Kodiak bears, in cages

down on Level 5--for use on the Sinovirus project.

The electric locks on their cages, it seemed, hadn't survived

the power shutdown either.

At the sight of the Komodo dragon in the pool, a thin

smile cracked Lucifer's hideous face.

He lifted Schofield off the ground and held him out over

the reptile-infested pool.

As he hung above it, legs kicking, hands grappling at

Lucifer's enormous fists, Schofield saw the dark alligator

like bodies of at least two dragons in the water beneath him.

Then without so much as a pause, Lucifer dropped

Schofield into the pool.

Schofield splashed down into the water in an explosion

of foam, a moment before Lucifer pressed a button in the

floor beside the doorway, causing the hole's sliding garage

style door to close quickly over the ripples that marked the

spot where Schofield had plunged into it.

Within seconds, the leading edge of the door met the

opposite rim.

Ka-chunk.

Sealed. Shut.

Lucifer grunted a laugh as he heard Schofield's fists

banging on the underside of the sliding door, heard the

sloshing of water underneath the closed door--the sound of

the dragons mauling the foolish Marine.

Area 7 443

Lucifer smiled.

Then he headed back toward the other side of Level 4,

where the pleasure of carving up the pretty female soldier

awaited him.

libby gant gasped in horror as lucifer leary returned

alone to the observation area of Level 4.

No.

Lucifer couldn't have ...

No ...

The giant serial killer strode confidently across the wide

hall-like room, his head lowered, his eyes locked on Gant's.

He dropped to his knees in front of her, pushed his face

close to hers. His breath was foul--it reeked of eaten human flesh.

He stroked her hair.

"Such a shame, such a shame," he trilled, "that your

knight in shining armor was not the brave warrior he thought

himself to be. Which only leaves us, now, to get ... better acquainted."

"Not likely," said a voice from behind Lucifer.

The giant spun.

And there, in the doorway that led to the decompression

area, his whole body dripping with water, stood Shane

Schofield.

"YOU'LL HAVE TO GET RID OF ME," HE SAID GRIMLY, "BEFORE

you lay a finger on her."

Lucifer roared, snatched up Schofield's P-90 and let rip

with an extended burst.

Schofield just stepped behind the doorway, out of sight,

as the dividing wall all around the door was shredded by the

hailstorm of gunfire.

Within seconds, however, the gun ran dry and Lucifer

Area 7 445

discarded it and stormed across the observation area, into

the decompression area.

The horizontal door in its floor now lay open, wavelets

still lapping against its rims. The large outlines of the Komodo dragons were still visible beneath the pool's rippling

surface.

But, somehow, they hadn't killed Schofield.

And then Lucifer saw him, standing over by the decompression

chamber, to the right of the pool.

He charged at Schofield, lashed out with a ferocious

right.

Schofield ducked, walked under the punch. He was

calmer now, collected. Not so caught-by-surprise. He had

Lucifer's measure.

Lucifer spun, swung again. Another miss. Schofield

punished the error with a crisp hit to Lucifer's face.

Crack.

Instantly broken nose.

Lucifer seemed more stunned than injured. He touched

the blood that ran down from his nose as if it were an alien

substance, as if no one had ever hurt him before.

And then Schofield hit him again, a great powerful

blow, and for the first time, the big man staggered slightly.

Again, harder this time, and Lucifer took an unsteady

step backwards.

Again, another step backwards.

Again--the most violent punch Schofield had ever

thrown--and Lucifer's back foot touched the rim of the

pool. He turned slightly---just as Schofield nailed him in the

nose, causing the big man to lose his footing completely and

fall backwards ...

... into the Komodo-infested pool.

There was a great splash as Lucifer entered the water,

and as the foam subsided, the Komodos rushed him, swarming

all over his body, turning it into a writhing mass of black

reptilian skin, claws and tails, and in the middle of it all, Lucifer's kicking feet and agonized screams.

Then, abruptly, the pool turned a sickening shade of red

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Matthew Reilly

and Lucifer's legs went still. The Komodos just continued to

eat his body.

Schofield winced at the sight, but then, if anyone deserved

to die such a horrific painful death, Lucifer Leary did.

Then Schofield hit the button that closed the floor door,

obliterating the foul sight, and hurried back to get Gant.

10:59.

Within a minute, Gant was unbound and standing next

to Schofield as he freed the bleary-eyed Hot Rod Hagerty.

Gant said, "You know, this birthday really has sucked." She nodded toward the decompression area. "What happened

in there? I thought Leary had ..."

"He did," Schofield said. "Bastard dropped me in a pool

filled with Komodo dragons."

"So how'd you get out?"

Schofield pulled out his Maghook. "Apparently reptiles

are exceptionally sensitive to magnetic discharges. I only

learned that little fact this morning, from a little boy named

Kevin. So I just flicked on my Maghook and they didn't

want to come near me. Then I opened the floor door up again

from below and came back for you. Sadly, Lucifer didn't

have a supercharged magnetic grappling hook on him when he fell in."

"Nice," Gant said. "Very nice. So where's the President,

and Kevin?"

"They're safe. They're outside the complex."

"So why are you back in here?"

Schofield looked at his watch.

It was exactly 11:00 a.m.

"Two reasons. One, because in exactly five minutes this

facility's self-destruct mechanism will be activated. Ten

minutes after that, this whole place will be vaporized, and

we can't allow that to happen while Caesar Russell is inside

it. So we either stop it from going off, or, if we can't do that,

we get Caesar Russell out of here before it does."

"Wait a second," Gant said, "we have to save Caesar?"

"It seems our host decided to put a radio chip on his

Area 7 447

own heart as well as the President's. So if he dies, so does

the country."

"Son of a bitch," Gant said. "So what was the second

reason?"

Schofield's face reddened slightly. "I wanted to find you."

Gant's face lit up, but she spoke matter-of-factly: "You

know, we can talk about this later."

"I think that would be good," Schofield said as Hagerty

came free of his bonds, blinking out of his stupor. "What do

you say we do it on another date?"

Gant broke out in a grin. "You bet."

11:01.

Schofield and Gant rode the detachable mini-elevator

swiftly up the main shaft, now armed only with Schofield's pistols ... Gant with the M9, Schofield with the Desert Eagle.

Schofield had sent Hagerty down to Level 6, to escape

via the Emergency Exit Vent. When he'd seen the hacked-up

half-body of Colonel Harper, Hagerty hadn't argued. He was

happy to get out of Area 7 as quickly as possible.

"I don't know if we'll be able to disarm the self-destruct

system," Gant said as Schofield gave her a shot of the

Sinovirus vaccine to protect her against the contaminated

hangar. "You have to enter a lockdown code by 11:05 to call

it off, and we don't know any of the codes."

"I've been working on that," Schofield said, pulling out

his cell phone. He hit redial and Fairfax's voice came on the

line straight away.

"Mr. Fairfax, how goes it?"

"The lockdown termination code is 10502," Fairfax

said. "Hacked into the system from behind, from the source

code. Got it that way. Turns out it's the operator number of

the head dude there, an Air Force colonel named Harper."

"I don't think he'll be needing it anymore," Schofield

said. "Thank you, Mr. Fairfax. If I get out of this alive, I'll

buy you a beer sometime."

He hung up and turned to Gant.

"Okay. Time to turn off this nuclear time bomb. Then all

we have to do is capture Caesar alive."

area 7 449

they rose up the side of the darkened shaft.

Its great square-shaped opening up at ground level

loomed above them, backlit by orange firelight.

It turned out that Lucifer Leary had indeed brought the

main elevator platform down to Level 4. When they'd arrived

at the elevator shaft from the Level 4 observation lab,

Schofield and Gant had found the giant platform sitting right

there in front of them, piled high with no less than fifteen bodies--prisoners, 7th Squadron commandos, Marines and

White House staff--bodies which Leary no doubt planned

to dismember in strange and unusual ways.

As such, the shaft now yawned wide above Schofield

and Gant, open and airy.

As they traveled quickly up it, Gant reached underneath

the moving platform. She emerged with her Maghook, which she'd left attached to the underside of the mini elevator earlier.

"Get ready," Schofield said.

They had arrived at the main hangar.

THE HANGAR LOOKED LIKE HELL.

Literally.

Fires burned all over the place, bathing the enormous

space in a haunting orange glow. Bodies lay everywhere.

Assorted debris littered the area--the remains of blown

up helicopters, crumpled towing vehicles, the pieces of

Bravo Unit's failed barricade over by the internal building.

Nothing, it seemed, lay unscarred.

The slanted windows of the control room overlooking the

hangar were completely shattered. Even one of the giant

wooden crates hanging from the overhead crane system had a

gnarled piece of Nighthawk 2's tail rotor embedded in its side.

Amazingly, however, one object remained untouched

by the day's mayhem.

Marine One.

It still stood on the western side of the aircraft elevator

shaft, miraculously intact.

450

Matthew Reilly

As their elevator jolted to a halt inside the hangar,

Schofield and Gant looked about themselves cautiously.

11:02.

"The self-destruct computer is in the control room,"

Gant said.

"Then that's where we're going," Schofield said, heading

for the internal building.

"Wait a minute," Gant said, stopping suddenly, her eyes

scanning the debris-covered floor around them.

"We don't have a minute," Schofield said.

"You go, then," Gant said. "Call me if you need any

help. I'm gonna try something."

"Okay," Schofield said, charging off toward the internal

building.

Gant, meanwhile, dropped to her knees and started

searching through the bodies and debris around the mini elevator platform.

schofield burst inside the lower floor of the internal

building, leading with his Desert Eagle.

He hit the stairs on the fly, charged up them. For the first

time that day, he actually felt in control. He had the lock down code--10502--and now all he had to do was punch it

into the computer and disarm the nuke.

Then he would have plenty of time to find Caesar--whose men were now history--before he killed himself, and

drag him out of Area 7 to face justice.

11:03.

Schofield came to the control room door, pushed it

open, his gun leveled in front of him.

What he saw took him completely by surprise.

There, sitting in a swivel chair in the middle of the destroyed

command room, waiting for Schofield and smiling

broadly at him, was Caesar Russell.

"I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT BE BACK," CAESAR SAID.

He was unarmed.

"You know, Captain," he said, "a man like you is wasted

on this country. You're clever, you've got courage, and

you'll do whatever it takes to win, including the bizarre

and the illogical, such as saving me. You and your efforts

would be unappreciated by the ignorant fools who make up

this nation. Which is why," he sighed, "it is such a shame

that you have to die."

It was then that the gun cocked next to Schofield's head

Schofield turned--

--to see Major Kurt Logan standing behind him, his silver

SIG-Sauer pistol pointed right at Schofield's temple.

11:04.

"Come in," Caesar said. "Come in."

Logan relieved Schofield of his Desert Eagle as the two

of them stepped into the destroyed control room.

"Come and watch America's death sentence," Caesar

waved at an illuminated screen behind him. It was like the one Schofield had seen outside. It read:

LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL S.A.(R) 7A

FAILSAFE SYSTEM ENACTED

AUTH CODE: 7-3-468201103

452

Matthew Reilly

***************

'WARNING"

***************

EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.

IF YOU DO NOT ENTER AN AUTHORIZED LOCKDOWN

EXTENSION OR TERMINATION CODE BY 1105

HOURS, FACILITY SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE WILL

BE ACTIVATED. SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE DURATION:

10:00 MINUTES.

**************** yu a pMlMft*****************

Schofield saw a clock at the bottom corner of the computer

screen ticking upward.

11:04:29.

11:04:30.

11:04:31.

"Tick-tick-tick," Caesar said deliciously. "How frustrating

this must be for you, Captain. No clever plans to save

you now, no space shuttles, no secret exits. Once the ten

minute self-destruct sequence is set in motion, nothing can

stop it from going off. I will die, and so will you, and so, too, will America."

The clock on the screen ticked upward.

Covered by Logan, Schofield could only watch helplessly

as it approached 11:05 a.m.

11:04:56.

11:04:57.

Schofield clenched his fists with frustration.

He knew the code! He knew it. But he couldn't use it.

And where the hell was Gant? What was she doing?

11:04:58.

11:04:59.

11:05:00.

"Lift-off," Caesar smiled.

"Shit," Schofield said.

The screen beeped.

Area 7 453

LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL S.A.(R) 7A

FACILITY SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE ACTIVATED.

10:00 MINUTES TO DETONATION.

A blinking countdown commenced on the screen.

10:00.

9:59.

9:58.

At that very same moment, an army of battery-powered

revolving red lights exploded to life throughout the complex

--inside the main hangar, down in the aircraft elevator

shaft, even inside the control room.

An electronic voice boomed out from an emergency PA

system.

"Warning. Ten minutes to facility self-destruct ..."

And just then--as they were bathed in strobing red

light--Schofield saw Kurt Logan take his eyes off him, just

for a split second, to look out at the lights.

Schofield took the chance.

He drove his body into Logan's, sending both of them

crashing against a computer console.

Logan brought his gun around, but Schofield grabbed

his wrist and banged it down against the console, causing

the 7th Squadron commander to release the pistol.

Caesar just sat back, grinning with satisfaction, watching

the fight in front of him with mad delight.

Schofield and Logan fought hard, covered in red emergency

lighting. They looked like mirror images, two elite

soldiers who had studied from the same manual, exchanging

identical blows, employing identical evasive moves.

But Schofield was exhausted from his previous battle

with Lucifer and he unleashed a loose swing which Logan punished without mercy.

He ducked beneath Schofield's wayward blow and then

tackled him around the waist, lifting Schofield clear off the

ground and driving him backwards toward the shattered

windows of the control room.

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Matthew Reilly

Schofield blasted out through the destroyed windows of

the command room, back-first, flying through the air. He

shut his eyes and waited for the crushing impact with the

floor thirty feet below.

It never came.

Instead, his fall was unexpectedly short.

Thud!

Schofield slammed down on a rough wooden surface

that rocked beneath his weight.

He opened his eyes.

He was lying on top of one of the enormous wooden

cargo crates that hung from the main hangar's ceiling mounted rail network.

It had been parked just outside the control room, a little

to the left, allowing the command center a clear view of the

hangar.

A triangle of thick chains connected the massive crate

to the overhead rail system six feet above it. The chains were

held together by a spring-loaded ring mechanism not unlike

the closable circular latch one finds on a necklace.

Attached to the ring mechanism was a square control

unit made up of three big buttons which presumably moved

the crate back and forth along the rails.

Then suddenly, the crate rocked wildly and Schofield

looked up to see that Kurt Logan had jumped out onto it after

him.

DOWN ON THE HANGAR FLOOR, LIBBY GANT HAD HEARD THE

crash of breaking glass and snapped to look up.

She had just found what she was looking for amid the

debris on the floor when she saw Schofield come exploding

out through the control room's windows and land hard on

the wooden crate suspended high above the hangar floor.

Then she saw Kurt Logan jump out through the window,

and land easily on the crate next to him.

"No ..." Gant breathed.

She drew her gun, but abruptly, a barrage of bullet

impact-sparks lit up the floor all around her.

Area 7 455

She dived for cover behind a couple of dead bodies.

When she finally looked up, she saw Caesar Russell leaning

out from the destroyed control room windows, brandishing a

P-90 and yelling, "No, no, no! A fair fight, please!"

"warning. nine minutes to facility self-destruct ..."

Up on the wooden crate, Logan kneeled astride

Schofield, hit him hard in the face.

"You've made today a lot harder than it had to be, Captain."

His face gleamed with anger in the strobelike red light.

Another punch. Hard.

Schofield's head slammed back against the crate, his

nose gushing with blood.

Logan then grabbed the control unit above his head and

hit a button.

With a jolt and a sway and the clanking of mechanical

gears, the crate began to move out across the hangar,

toward the open aircraft elevator shaft. It was petrol

powered, so it hadn't been affected by the complex's power

loss.

As the crate began to glide out over the hangar, Logan kept pounding Schofield, talking as he did so.

"You know, I remember--"

Punch.

"--taking out you Marine pussies at the annual

war games--"

Punch.

"--Too fucking easy. You're a disgrace--"

Punch.

"--to the country, to the flag, and to your fucking bitch

whore mothers."

Punch.

Schofield could barely keep his eyes open.

Christ, he was getting his ass kicked ...

And then the crate swung out over the four-hundredfoot-deep

aircraft elevator shaft and Logan pressed a button

on the control unit, stopping it.

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Matthew Reilly

The big crate swung to a halt directly above the wide,

yawning shaft.

"Warning. Eight minutes to facility self-destruct ..."

Schofield peered over the edge of the crate, saw the

shaft's concrete walls, now lined with revolving red lights,

plummeting like four matching vertical cliffs down into bottomless

black.

"Good-bye, Captain Schofield," Logan said, as he lifted

Schofield by his lapels and stood him at the edge of the

crate.

Schofield--battered, bloody, bruised and exhausted-- couldn't resist. He stood unsteadily at the edge of the crate,

the great hole of the elevator shaft yawning wide beneath

him.

He thought about the Maghook on his back, but then

saw the ceiling. It was made of sheer flat fiberglass. The

Maghook wouldn't stick to it with its magnet, nor could it

get a purchase on it with its hook.

In any case, he didn't have any energy left to fight.

No more guns.

No more Maghooks.

No more ejection seats.

He had nothing that Logan didn't have more of.

And then, just as Logan was about to push him off the

edge of the crate, Schofield saw Gant--a shadow amid the

redness--saw her taking cover behind some bodies next to

the eastern rim of the elevator shaft.

Except friends ...

He turned suddenly to face Logan ...

... and to Logan's complete surprise, he smiled, and

raised his open palm, revealing his Secret Service microphone.

Schofield then looked Logan deep in the eye and said,

"Sydney Harbour Bridge, Gant. You take the negative."

Logan frowned. "Huh?"

And then before Logan could even think to do anything,

with his last ounce of strength, Schofield reached over

area 7 457

Logan's shoulder and unlatched the spring-loaded ring mechanism

holding the crate to the overhead rail system.

The result was instantaneous.

In a kind of hellish slow motion that was only accentuated

by the strobing red lighting, the crate--with both

Schofield and Logan on it--just fell away from its ceiling

mounted rails, spilling the two combatants off its back ...

... and the three of them--Schofield, Logan and the

crate itself--dropped together into the four-hundred-foot

abyss of the elevator shaft.

SCHOFIELD FELL THROUGH THE AIR.

Fast.

At first he saw the red-lit hangar rushing past him,

swinging upwards--then suddenly that image was replaced

by the rim of the elevator shaft, swooshing by him as he

dropped into the shaft itself. Then all he saw were rapidly

rushing concrete walls speeding by in a blur of gray and he

glanced up and saw the wide square up at the top of the shaft

shrinking very, very quickly above him.

He saw Logan falling beside him, a look of absolute terror

on his face. It looked as if Logan couldn't believe what

Schofield had just done.

He'd just dropped both of them into the shaft, crate and

all!

Schofield, however, just prayed that Gant had heard him.

And as he fell through the air, surrounded by red light,

he coolly unslung his Maghook, initiated its magnet, selected

a positive charge, and looked up in search of his only

hope.

gant had heard his call.

Now she lay on her stomach on the rim of the shaft,

aiming her own Maghook--now charged negatively--down

into it.

"Scarecrow," she said into her radio mike, "you fire

first. I'll make the shot."

AS HE FELL DOWN THE ELEVATOR SHAFT, SCHOFIELD FIRED HIS positively charged Maghook into the air.

Area 7 459

It rocketed up the shaft--flying perfectly vertical--its

tail rope wobbling through the air behind it.

Kurt Logan, falling alongside Schofield, saw what he

was doing and yelled, "No ...!"

"Come on, Fox," Schofield whispered. "Don't let me

die."

libby gant's eyes narrowed as she gazed down the barrel

of her Maghook.

Despite all the distractions around her--the flashing red

lights, the klaxons, the droning electronic warning voice--

she drew a bead on Schofield's flying Maghook: an arcing

dot of glinting metal shooting up out of the blackness of the

shaft, coming toward her.

"Nothing's impossible," she whispered to herself.

Then, cool as ice, she pulled the trigger on her own

Maghook.

Whump!

The bulbous magnetic head of her Maghook shot out of

its launcher, rushed down into the shaft, trailing its own

length of rope.

schofield's maghook shot up the shaft.

Gant's Maghook shot down the shaft.

Schofield fell, with Logan and the crate beside him.

Gant rode her Maghook all the way down. "Come on, baby. Come on ..." Since they were oppositely charged, they'd only have to pass by close to each other to--

Clang!

The two Maghooks hit--in midair--like twin missiles

slamming into each other in the sky!

The Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Their powerful magnetic charges held them firmly together,

and up in the hangar, Gant quickly hooked her

launcher into a grate in the floor.

Two maghooks equals three hundred feet of rope.

And a three-hundred-foot fall means one hell of a jolt.

460

Matthew Reilly

When he saw Gant's flying magnetic hook connect with

his own, Schofield--still falling fast--slung his launcher

under his shoulders and around his chest. Then he tensed his

arms around the rope, bracing himself for the impending

jolt.

This was going to hurt.

it hurt.

With an outrageous snap, the ropes of the two

Maghooks went taut and Schofield bounced up into the air,

yanked upward like a skydiver opening his parachute-- while below him, Kurt Logan and the wooden crate just kept

on falling, and slammed into the aircraft platform below

them.

The wooden crate just exploded, its walls shattering

into splinters as it hit the platform.

Logan met a similar fate.

He landed hard--screaming--on the jagged remains of

the AWACS plane that still littered the elevator platform. His

head was separated from his shoulders as his throat hit an

upwardly pointed piece of wing. The rest of his body just flattened with the phenomenal impact, splatting like a

tomato when it hit the platform.

As for Schofield, after he was snapped upwards by the

ropes of the two Maghooks, he swung in toward the side

wall of the shaft. He slammed into it heavily, bounced off it,

and was left hanging next to the sheer concrete wall a bare

eighty feet above the elevator platform, breathing hard, his

shoulders and arms aching from the jolt, but alive.

the two maghooks reeled schofield up the shaft

quickly.

"Warning. Six minutes to facility self-destruct."

It was 11:09 when Gant hauled him up over the rim of

the great pit.

"I thought you said the Harbour Bridge was impossible,"

she said dryly.

"Believe me, that was a very nice way to be proved

wrong," Schofield said.

Gant smiled. "Yeah, well I only did it because I wanted

another ..."

She was interrupted by a thunderous line of gunfire cutting

through the air all around them, ripping across both

their bodies.

A ragged bullet wound burst open near Gant's right

foot—shattering her ankle—while another two appeared on

Schofield's left shoulder. More bullets passed so close to his

face he felt their air trails swoosh past his nose.

Both Marines dropped, gritting their teeth, as Caesar

Russell came charging out of the internal building nearby,

his P-90 pressed against his shoulder, firing wildly, his eyes

gleaming with madness.

Schofield—hurt for sure, but far more mobile than

Gant—pushed Gant behind the remains of Bravo Unit's

crate barricade.

Then he grabbed her Beretta and made a loping dash the

other way, through the strobing red-on-black world, toward

the remains of Nighthawk Two over by the personnel elevator,

trying to draw Caesar's fire away from Gant.

462

Matthew Reilly

The massive Marine Corps Super Stallion was still

parked in front of the regular elevator's doors--battered and

dented, its entire cockpit section blasted wide open.

Caesar's stream of bullets chewed up the ground at his

heels, but it was loose fire, and in the flashing red light, Caesar

missed wide.

Schofield made it to the Super Stallion, dived into its

exploded-open cockpit, just as the chopper's walls erupted

with bullet holes.

"Come on, hero!" Caesar yelled. "What's the matter? Can't shoot back? What're you afraid of? Go on! Find a gun

and shoot back!"

That, however, was the one thing Schofield couldn't do.

If he killed Caesar, he killed every major city in northern

America.

Goddamnit! he thought.

It was the worst possible situation.

He was being fired upon by a man he couldn't fire back at!

"Fox!" he yelled into his wrist mike. "You okay?"

A stifled grimace over his earpiece. "Yeah ..."

Schofield yelled, "We have to grab him and get him out

of here! Any ideas?"

Gant's reply was drowned out by the complex's electronic

voice.

"Warning. Five minutes to facility self-destruct ..."

Through a small door-window, Schofield saw Caesar

approaching the semi-destroyed helicopter from the side,

pummeling its flanks with his fire.

"You like that, hero?" the Air Force general yelled.

"You like that!"

Inside the blasted-open cockpit, everything was shuddering

and shaking under the weight of Caesar's fire.

Schofield clenched his teeth, gripped his gun. The two bullet

holes in his shoulder hurt like hell, but adrenaline was keeping

him going.

Through the cracked door-window of the Super Stallion

area 7 463

he saw Caesar--crazed and deranged--firing like a yee-ha

cowboy at the chopper, striding cockily around it, heading

toward its open cockpit.

Caesar would have him in about four seconds ...

Then suddenly Gant's voice exploded through his earpiece.

"Scarecrow! Get ready to shoot. There might be another

way ..."

"But I can't shoot!" Schofield yelled.

"Just give me a second here!"

OVER BY THE ELEVATOR SHAFT, GANT WAS CROUCHED OVER

the object she had been searching for earlier--the black box

that she had pilfered from the AWACS plane down on Level

2 ninety minutes earlier, the black box that she had surreptitiously

kicked away from the mini-elevator when she and

the President had arrived in the main hangar before.

In the flashing light of the complex, she pulled a small

red unit with a black stub antenna from the thigh pocket of

her baggy biohazard suit.

It was Russell's initiate/terminate unit--with its two

on-off switches marked "1" and "2."

It was only now that Gant understood why there were two switches on the unit.

This unit not only started and stopped the radio transmitter

on the President's heart, it also started and stopped

the transmitter on Caesar's heart.

caesar was almost at the blasted-open cockpit of the

chopper, his P-90 raised.

In a few seconds, he would have a clear shot at Schofield.

"I'm coming ...!" he cackled.

Schofield lay slumped on the floor inside the Super

Stallion, pinned down, looking out through its exposed forward

section.

Trapped.

"Fox--" he said into his mike.

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Matthew Reilly

"--WHATEVER YOU'RE GOING TO DO ... PLEASE DO IT SOON."

Gant was sweating, the world around her flashing red.

Her ankle throbbed painfully, but she had to concentrate--

"Warning. Four minutes to facility self-destruct ..."

She'd brought up the familiar spike pattern on the black

box's small LCD screen. Now she turned to the I/T unit.

The only question was which switch on the unit controlled

the President's transmitter and which controlled

Caesar's--1 or 2?

Gant had no doubt.

Caesar would make himself Number 1.

Then--in time with the spike screen on the black box,

in between its recurring search and return signals--she flicked the switch marked "1" on the initiate/terminate unit, switching off Caesar's microwave signal.

As soon as she did that, she switched on the black box's

microwave signal--using it to impersonate Caesar's signal.

If she'd done it right, the satellite in orbit above them

wouldn't be able to tell that it was a new return signal coming

back to it.

A tiny green strobe light on top of the black box started

blinking.

Gant keyed her radio mike.

"Scarecrow! I just took care of the radio signal! Nail the

bastard!"

As soon as gant said it, caesar came into schofield's

view.

The Air Force general smiled at the sight of Schofield,

slumped in the cockpit of the destroyed Super Stallion, defiantly

raising his ornamental pistol in defense.

Caesar wagged a finger at Schofield. "Oh, no, no, no, Captain, you're not allowed to do that. Remember, no shooting Uncle Caesar."

"No?" Schofield said.

"No."

"Oh ..." Schofield sighed.

Area 7 465

Then--blam!--quick as a flash, he snapped his gun up

and shot Caesar square in the chest.

A gout of blood erupted from Caesar's torso.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

Caesar reeled with each shot, staggering backwards, his

eyes bulging in astonishment, his face completely aghast.

He dropped his P-90 and fell unceremoniously to the floor,

landing hard on his butt.

Schofield rose to his feet, stepped out of the chopper

and strode over to the fallen Caesar, kicking the general's

P-90 away from his clawing fingers.

Caesar was still alive, but only just.

A trickle of blood gurgled out the side of his mouth. He looked pathetic, helpless, a shadow of his former self.

Schofield stared down at him.

"How ... how ... ?" Caesar stammered through the

blood. "You ... you can't kill me!"

"As a matter of fact, I could," Schofield said. "But I

think I'll leave that to you."

And then he hurried off to rejoin Gant and get the hell

out of Area 7.

"warning. three minutes to facility self-destruct ..."

Schofield carried Gant in his arms onto the detachable

mini-elevator. Her right ankle had been completely shattered

by Caesar's shot, and she couldn't walk on it at all.

But that didn't stop her contributing.

While Schofield carried her, she held the most important

black box in the world in her lap.

Their goal now ... more than saving their own lives ... was to get that flight data recorder out of Area 7 before it

was destroyed in the coming nuclear blast. If its signal

died now, everything they had fought for would be for

nothing.

"Okay, smart guy," Gant said, "how are we gonna get

out of this seven-story nuclear grenade?"

Schofield hit the floor panel of the mini-elevator and it

began to whiz down the wall of the shaft. He looked at his

watch.

11:12:30.

11:12:31.

"Well, we can't get out through the top door," he said.

"Caesar changed the code, and it took my DIA guy ten minutes to crack the lockdown codes. And I don't like our

chances of getting out through the EEV in time. It took

Book and me a good minute to come down through that

vent before. I can't imagine the two of us getting up it in

less than ten. And by then, that Escape Vent is gonna be vapor."

"So what are we going to do?"

Area 7 467

"There's one way," Schofield said, "if we can get to it in

time."

11:12:49.

11:12:50.

SCHOFIELD STOPPED THE MINI-ELEVATOR AT THE LEVEL 2

hangar, and still carrying Gant, hustled down its length,

making for the entry to the stairwell at the other end.

"Warning. Two minutes to facility self-destruct ..."

They reached the stairwell.

11:13:20.

Schofield burst into it, leapt down it with Gant in his

arms, taking the stairs three at a time.

They passed Level 3, the living quarters.

11:13:32.

Level 4, the nightmare floor.

11:13:41.

Level 5, the flooded floor.

11:13:50.

Schofield kicked open the door to Level 6.

"Warning. One minute to facility self-destruct ..."

He saw their escape vehicle right away.

The small X-rail maintenance vehicle still sat right next

to the stairwell door, on the track that led out to Lake Powell,

in the spot where it had been sitting all day.

Schofield remembered what Herbie Franklin had said

about the maintenance car before. It was smaller than the

other X-rail engines, and faster, too--just a round capsule

and four long struts, with room for only two people in its

podlike cabin.

"Forty-five seconds to facility self-destruct ..."

Schofield yanked open the pod's door, heaved Gant

into it, then he clambered up into the small round capsule

after her.

"Thirty seconds ..."

Schofield hit the black start button on the pod's console.

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Matthew Reilly

The compact X-rail engine hummed to life.

"Twenty seconds ... nineteen ... eighteen ..."

He looked at the tracks in front of him. They stretched

away into flashing red darkness, four parallel tracks converging

to a point in the far distance.

"Hit it!" Gant said.

Schofield jammed the throttle forward.

"Fifteen ..."

The small X-rail pod leapt off the mark, thundered forward,

shooting along the length of the underground subway

station, crashing through the strobing red shadows.

"Fourteen ..."

Schofield was thrust back into his seat by the speed.

The pod hit 50 mph.

"Thirteen ..."

The X-rail pod gained speed quickly. Schofield saw the

quartet of tracks both beneath and above the windshield

rushing past them.

100 mph.

"Twelve ... eleven ..."

Then suddenly--shoom!--the X-shaped pod entered

the tunnel leading out to Lake Powell, leaving Area 7 behind

it.

150 mph.

"Ten ..."

250 mph. Two hundred and fifty miles per hour equaled

about 110 yards per second. In ten seconds, they'd be nearly

a mile away from Area 7.

"Nine ... eight ..."

Schofield hoped a mile would be enough.

"Seven ... six ..."

He urged the little pod onward.

"Five ... four ..."

Gant groaned with pain.

"Three ... two ..."

The little maintenance pod rocketed through the tunnel,

Area 7 469

shooting away from Area 7, banking with every bend, moving

at phenomenal speed.

"One ...

"... facility self-destruct activated."

boom time.

IT SOUNDED LIKE THE END OF THE UNIVERSE.

The colossal roar of the nuclear explosion inside Area 7

was absolutely monstrous.

For a structure that had been designed in the Cold War

to withstand a direct nuclear strike, it did quite well containing

its own supernuclear demise.

The W-88 self-destruct warhead was situated inside the

walls of Level 2, roughly in the center of the underground

facility. When it went off, the whole underground complex

lit up like a lightbulb, and a white-hot pulse of energy rocketed

through its floors and walls—unstoppable, irresistible.

Everything inside the complex was obliterated in a

nanosecond ... aeroplanes, test chambers, elevator shafts.

Even the bloodied and broken Caesar Russell.

From his position on the floor of the main hangar, the

last thing he saw was a flash of blinding white light, followed

by an instant's worth of the most intense heat he had

ever felt in his life. And then nothing.

But to a large extent, the complex's two-foot-thick titanium

outer wall contained the blast.

The concussion wave that the momentous explosion

generated, however, shook the sandy earth well beyond the

structure's titanium walls, making it shudder and shake for

several miles around Area 7, the wave of expanding energy

fanning outward in concentric circles, like ripples in a pond.

The first thing to go was the Emergency Exit Vent.

Its tight concrete walls were assaulted by the expanding

wall of energy within a second of the blast. They were

Area 7 471

turned instantly to powder. Had Schofield and Gant been inside

it, they would have been pulverized beyond recognition.

It was then, however, that the most spectacular sight of

all appeared.

Since the entire complex had effectively become a

hollowed-out shell, the superheavy layer of granite above

the underground section caved in on it.

From the sky above Area 7, it looked as if a perfectly

circular earthquake had struck the facility.

Without warning, an eight-hundred-yard-wide ring of

earth around the complex just gave way, turned to rubble,

and Area 7's buildings--the main hangar, the airfield tower,

the other hangars--were just swallowed by the earth, dropping

from sight, until all that remained in the place of Area 7

was a gigantic half-mile-wide crater in the desert floor.

From his position on board a Marine Corps Super Stallion

that had arrived at the complex only ten minutes earlier,

the President of the United States just watched it all go down.

Beside him, Book II, Juliet Janson and the boy named

Kevin just stared in stunned awe at the spectacular end of

Area 7.

DOWN IN THE X-RAIL TUNNEL, IT WASN'T OVER YET.

When the nuke had gone off, Schofield and Gant's

maintenance pod had been shooting through the tunnel like

a speeding bullet.

Then they'd heard the boom of the blast.

Felt the shudder of the earth all around them.

And then Schofield looked out through the rear window

of the two-person pod.

"Son of a ..." he breathed.

He saw an advancing wall of falling rock, rampaging through the tunnel behind them!

The roof of the tunnel was caving in, shattering into

pieces as the expanding pulse of the concussion wave rippled

outward from Area 7.

The problem was, it was catching up with them!

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Matthew Reilly

The X-rail pod shot through the tunnel at two hundred

and fifty miles per hour.

The advancing wall of falling rock shot forward after it,

doing at least two-sixty.

Chunks of falling rock rained down on the tunnel. It

was as if the passageway were now a living creature biting

down at the heels of the speeding X-rail pod.

Bang!

A chunk of concrete the size of a baseball landed on the

roof of the pod. Schofield snapped to look up at the sound.

And then--

Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!

A deafening hailstorm of chunks rained down on top of

the pod.

No! Schofield's mind screamed. Not now! Not this close

to the end!

The advancing wall of collapsing rock had caught them.

Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang--

Chunks assaulted the pod's windscreen, shattering it.

Glass exploded everywhere.

Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang--

Small chunks started entering the cockpit. The whole

pod started to shudder violently, as if it were about to run off

its ...

And then all of a sudden the concrete rain slowed and

the pod blasted clear of the falling chunks.

Schofield turned in his seat and saw the moving waterfall

of concrete receding into the tunnel behind them, shrinking

back behind a bend, falling back like a hungry monster

that had given up on the chase. The ripplelike expansion of

the concussion wave had run its course and petered out.

They'd outrun it.

Just.

And as the X-rail pod continued on its way down the

tunnel, Shane Schofield fell back into his seat and breathed a

long and deep sigh of relief.

BY THE TIME SCHOFIELD AND GANT WERE AIRLIFTED FROM

the canyonway outside the X-rail loading dock adjoining

Lake Powell by a Marine CH-53E, there was a veritable armada

of Army and Marine Corps helicopters in the air

above Area 7.

They looked like a swarm of tiny insects, black dots

hovering in the clear desert sky--all keeping at a safe distance

to avoid any lingering radiation.

The President was now safely ensconced in his Marine

helicopter, which itself was surrounded by no less than five

other Marine Super Stallions. Until the radio transmitter attached

to his heart was removed, the Marines would stay by his side.

And the moment he had been lifted off the tarmac at

Area 7, he had issued a standing order that all Air Force aircraft

in the continental United States be grounded pending

further notice.

schofield and gant--and their precious microwave-transmitting black box--were reunited with the President, Book II, Juliet and Kevin at Area 8, which had been secured twenty minutes before their arrival by two Marine Recon units.

During their sweep of the base, the Marines had found no live personnel except one Nicholas Tate III, Domestic Policy Adviser to the President of the United States, rambling incoherently, saying something about calling his stockbroker.

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Matthew Reilly

Gant was immediately placed on a stretcher and her ankle

attended to by a corpsman. Schofield was given a temporary

gauze dressing for his bullet wounds, a sling for his

arm, and a dose of codeine for the pain.

"Nice to see you made it out, Captain," the President

said as he came over to where they sat. "Not so Caesar, I

take it?"

"I'm afraid he couldn't make it, sir," Schofield said. He

held up the black box, its green transmission light blinking.

"But he's with us in spirit."

The President smiled. "The Marines who swept this

base said they found something outside it that you might like

to see."

Schofield didn't understand. "Like what?"

"Like me, you sexy thing," Mother roared as she

stepped out from behind the President.

Schofield grinned from ear to ear. "You made it!"

The last he had seen, Mother had been flipping end over

end inside a speeding cockroach.

"Fucking indestructible is what I am," Mother said. She

was limping slightly on her real leg. "When it got hit by that

missile, I knew my cockroach was done for. And I didn't figure

old Caesar and his buddies would take kindly to finding

me in it. But when I ran off the runway, I kicked up a hell of

a dust cloud. So I bailed out under the cover of the cloud.

The cockroach flipped and smashed and I just dug a little

hole for my head in the sand under its front bumper, ripped

my fake leg off for added effect, and played dead until Caesar

and his choppers flew off."

"Ripped your fake leg off for added effect ..."

Schofield said. "Nice touch."

"I thought so," she smiled. Then she jutted her chin at

him. "What about you? Last I saw, you and the Prez were

heading off into outer space. Did you save the fucking day again?"

'I might have," Schofield said.

"More to the point," Mother whispered conspiratorially,

Area 7

475

"did you do what I told you to do with You-Know-Who?"

She nodded theatrically at Gant. "Did you kiss the friggin'

girl, Scarecrow?"

Schofield snuffed a laugh, cast a sideways look at Gant.

"You know what, Mother? As a matter of fact, I think I

did."

A SHORT WHILE LATER, SCHOFIELD SAT ALONE WITH THE President.

"So what's the word on the rest of the country?" he

asked. "Have they been watching all this every hour on the

Emergency Broadcast System?"

The President smiled. "It's funny you should ask. While

you were gone, we examined the complex's power history, and we found this."

He pulled out a printout of Area 7's source power history,

pointed to one entry.

07:37:b6

WARNING:

Auxiliary

power

malfunction

bystein

Malfunction

located at

terminal

1A2

Receiving no

response

from

systems:

TRACS;AUX

SYS-1; RAD

COM

SPHERE;

MBN;

FXT FAN

The President said, "Remember you said that you blew

up a junction box on one of the underground hangar levels

earlier this morning? Sometime around 7:37."

Matthew Reilly

"Yeah ..."

"Well, it seems that that junction box was kind of important.

Among other things, it housed the controls for the

base's auxiliary power system and its radiosphere. It also

housed a system called the MBN. You know what 'MBN'

stands for?"

"No ..."

"Stands for the Military Broadcast Network, the previous

name for the Emergency Broadcast System. Seems the

MBN's outgoing transmission cable was destroyed in that

blast. And because the LBJ Protocol was never initiated this

morning, Caesar's transmissions over the Emergency

Broadcast System were delayed by forty-five minutes."

"But the system was destroyed at 7:37 ..." Schofield

said.

The President smiled.

"Correct," he said, "which means that every time Caesar

Russell spoke into his digital camera this morning, he

wasn't transmitting at all. He was speaking to no one but the

people at Area 7."

Schofield blinked, trying to comprehend it all.

Then he said: "So the country doesn't know this happened ..."

The President nodded ruefully.

"It seems," he said, "that the people of America have

been preoccupied all day with another drama, an accident

involving Hollywood's highest paid actress and her actor fiance".

"It appears that the unlucky couple have been trapped in

the Swiss Alps all day, cut off by an avalanche while hiking

illegally on Swiss military property. Sadly, their unscrupulous

guide was killed, but I believe that just in the last hour

our two superstars have been found safe and well.

"As I understand it, CNN has been covering the whole

drama all day, updating the public every hour, recycling

some amateur footage of the area, giving updates. Biggest

news event since Diana's car crash, they tell me."

Area 7 477

Schofield almost laughed.

"So they really don't know," he said.

"That's right," the President said. "And that, Captain, is

the way it will stay."

exactly six hours later, the second X-38 space shuttle

from Area 8 was launched off the back of a high-flying 747.

Its mission: the destruction of a rogue Air Force reconnaissance

satellite hovering in a geosynchronous orbit above

southern Utah.

So far as the shuttle's pilots could tell, it appeared that

the satellite in question had been sending and receiving a peculiar

microwave signal down into the Utah desert.

In the end, the pilots didn't care what it was doing. They

had orders, which they followed to the letter.

And so they blasted the satellite out of the sky.

WITH THE CONTROLLING SATELLITE DESTROYED, THE TYPE 240

plasma explosives in the airports were rendered useless,

apart from their proximity sensors, which would take a little

more time to disable.

Over the next few hours, all fourteen bombs would be

disarmed and dismantled, and then taken away for analysis.

IN ADDITION TO THE DISARMING OF THE PLASMA BOMBS, THE

destruction of the satellite also allowed for the removal of

the radio transmitter attached to the President's heart.

The procedure was conducted by a renowned civilian

heart surgeon from Johns Hopkins University Hospital under

the watchful eye of three other cardiac surgeons and

armed supervision by the United States Secret Service and

the United States Marine Corps.

Never was a surgeon more careful--or more nervous-- during an operation.

Area 7 479

Limited anaesthesia was used. Although the public was

never notified of it, for twenty-eight minutes, the Vice

President was in charge of the United States of America.

AN INVESTIGATORY COMMITTEE WOULD LATER BE FORMED TO

conduct an inquiry into the Air Force's role in the Area 7 incident.

As a result of that inquiry, no less than eighteen high

ranking Air Force officers in charge of a dozen bases across

the southwestern United States and ninety-nine junior officers

and enlisted men stationed at those bases were tried for

treason in closed session.

It appeared that all of the men linked to the day's events

were either currently serving, or had once served, at either

the Air Force Special Operations Command, based at Hurlbut Field, Florida, or with the 14th and 20th Air Forces at

Warren and Falcon Air Force Bases in Wyoming and Colorado.

All, at one time or another, had been under the direct

command of Charles "Caesar" Russell.

Overall, in a service of nearly 400,000 men and women,

one hundred and seventeen traitors was not a very large

group, barely a dozen to each tainted base. But considering

the aircraft and ordnance at those bases, it was more than

enough to carry out Caesar's plan.

It further emerged at the trials that five of the USAF

personnel involved in the plot were Air Force surgeons who

at various times had performed procedures on congressional

members, including the United States senator and onetime

presidential hopeful, Jeremiah K. Woolf.

Circumstantial evidence presented at all the trials also

suggested that every Air Force man involved in the incident

was a member of an informal racist society within the

United States Air Force known as the Brotherhood.

All were sentenced to life imprisonment at an undisclosed

military prison, with no hope of parole. Unfortunately,

the plane delivering them to the secret prison

inexplicably crashed during flight. There were no survivors.

In the investigatory committee's final report to the Joint

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Matthew Reilly

Chiefs of Staff, the subject of "informal antisocial interest

groups" within the armed forces was raised. While it was acknowledged

in the report that most such societies had been

removed from the military during a purge in the 1980's, the

report recommended that a new investigation be initiated

into their continued presence.

The Joint Chiefs, however, did not accept that such societies

existed, and therefore rejected the recommendations

of the investigatory committee on this point.

OVER THE NEXT SIX MONTHS, THERE WOULD BE A NUMBER OF

unconfirmed reports from tourists in the Lake Powell area

concerning the sighting of a family of Kodiak bears around

the northeastern portion of the lake.

Officers of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigated

the reports, but no bears were ever found.

A COUPLE OF WEEKS LATER, A QUIET CEREMONY WAS HELD IN A

dark underground meeting room beneath the White House.

Inside the room were nine people.

The President of the United States.

Captain Shane Schofield--with his arm in a sling.

Staff Sergeant Elizabeth Gant--with crutches on account

of her broken ankle.

Gunnery Sergeant Gena "Mother" Newman--with her small bald-headed trucker husband, Ralph.

Sergeant Buck Riley Junior--with sling.

United States Secret Service Agent Juliet Janson--with

sling.

David Fairfax, of the Defense Intelligence Agency-- wearing his good sneakers.

And a small boy named Kevin.

The President bestowed upon Schofield and his team of

Marines the Congressional Medal of Honor (Classified), for

acts of valor in the field of battle despite the endangerment

of their own lives.

It was, however, an award they could tell no one about.

But then again, they all agreed it was probably better

that way.

while the others stayed to eat in the white house dining

room--during which dinner the President had a particularly

lively conversation with Mother and Ralph about the

Teamsters--Schofield and Gant took their leave, and went

out, alone, on their second date.

482

Matthew Reilly

When they got to the venue, they found that they had

the place to themselves.

A single candle-lit table stood in the center of the wide

wood-paneled room.

And so they took their places and dined.

Alone.

In the President's private dining room, on the upper floor

of the White House, overlooking the Washington Monument.

"Give them whatever they want," the President had instructed

his personal chef. "Just put it on my tab."

By flickering candlelight, they talked and talked till late

in the evening.

As dessert arrived, Schofield reached into his pocket.

"You know," he said, "I meant to give you this on your

birthday, but the day kind of got away from me."

He pulled a crumpled piece of cardboard from his

pocket. It was small, about the size of a Christmas card.

"What is it?" Gant asked.

"It was your birthday present," Schofield said sadly. "It

was in my trouser pocket all day--I had to take it with me

every time I changed uniforms--so I'm afraid it got a little,

well, beat up."

He handed it to Gant.

She looked at it, and she smiled.

It was a photograph.

A photograph of a group of people standing on a beautiful

Hawaiian beach. Everyone was wearing board shorts

and loud Hawaiian shirts.

And standing next to each other at the very edge of the

group, smiling for the camera, were Gant and Schofield.

Gant's smile was a little uncomfortable, and Schofield's

kind of sad, behind his reflective silver sunglasses.

Gant remembered the day as if it were yesterday.

It had been that barbecue held on a beach near Pearl Harbor, celebrating her promotion to Schofield's Recon Unit.

"It was the first time we met," Schofield said.

"Yes," Gant said. "Yes, it was."

area 7

"I've never forgotten it," he said.

Gant beamed. "You know, this is the nicest birthday

present I've received this year."

Then she lifted herself up out of her seat, leaned over the table and kissed him on the lips.

after their dinner, they arrived downstairs, where

they were met by a presidential limousine. It was flanked

however, from in front and behind, by four Marine Corps

Humvees, six police cruisers and four motorcycle outriders.

Gant raised her eyebrows at the elaborate motorcade.

"Oh, yeah," Schofield said sheepishly, "there was something else I had to tell you about."

"Yes?" Gant said.

Schofield opened the limousine's rear door wide--

--to reveal the small sleeping figure of Kevin lying in the backseat.

"He needed a place to stay, at least until they find him

a new home," Schofield shrugged. "So I said I'd take him

as long as they needed. The government, however, insisted on providing a little extra security."

Gant just shook her head and smiled.

"Come on," she said. "Let's go home."

AN INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW REILLY

THE WRITING OF AREA 7

How did you come up with the idea for Area 7?

I actually conceived the core idea for Area 7--namely, that a

character has a transmitter attached to his heart and if his

heart stops, something terrible happens--just after I finished Ice Station, way back in 1997. (I still remember finishing Ice

Station and saying to myself, "Okay, Matt, you now have

two options for your next book: you can do that transmitter

on-the heart one or you can do that mean two-stories-told-in-parallel

novel." Obviously, I chose the latter option, and it

became Temple.)

The thing was, back then, I couldn't figure out a way to

make the transmitter-on-the-heart idea work. My main problem

was that I didn't know whose heart to put the transmitter

on! I had this great idea, but didn't have a story to wrap it up

in. Then, nearly three years later, when I decided to do a new

Shane Schofield book, I said, "Wait a second, what if I attached

the transmitter to the U.S. President's heart and made

Schofield one of his bodyguards ..." And so Area 7 was born.

What was it like to write a sequel?

Area 7 is the first sequel I've ever written, and it was a very

different experience to creating a wholly new novel. The

first thing that must be said is that I didn't make the decision

to do a sequel to Ice Station lightly. As a keen moviegoer, I

am very conscious of sequels that ruin the original story. So

I decided that if I was going to write a sequel to Ice Station, that book would have to (a) have a rip-roaringly original

486

Matthew Reilly

story that at least matched the story in Ice Station', and

(b) somehow add to the experience of Ice Station. It was also

important to me that Area 7 should stand on its own, that

readers who hadn't read Ice Station would still be able to enjoy

it just as much as those who had read the earlier book. I

reckon Area 7 stands up to all three of those stipulations, but

ultimately that's for my readers to decide.

So, to you, how does Area 7 "add to the experience of Ice

Station"?

To my mind, a sequel should reveal some kind of extra dimension

to the lead characters of the original. In Area 7, for

example, we learn a little more about Schofield and Gant's

relationship, and about Mother's home life. To my mind, the

biggest addition comes in the character of Book II. (For

those who haven't read Ice Station, I suggest, at this point,

that you skip to the next question as I'm about to give away

a couple of plot points.)

I loved the original "Book" Riley in Ice Station. I loved

his loyalty to Scarecrow, his nuggety strength, and his overall

"fatherly" influence on Schofield. As such, it was a big

decision to kill him in Ice Station (his death, I've been told,

shocked a lot of people; in fact, my girlfriend, Natalie, still

hasn't forgiven me for doing that). And so, in Area 7, I

thought I'd "resurrect" Book in the shape of his son, Book

II. I felt it might do two things: first, it would bring Book Sr.

back in the new book, at least in spirit; and second, it would

add something to the Ice Station experience by showing that

the story in Ice Station was not quite over at the end of the

book, that the events depicted there had consequences,

repercussions.

Now, I know what you're thinking: Matthew Reilly books aren't exactly known for their character development.

Hey, one reviewer once said that the characters in my books

don't live long enough to justify any "development." My response,

however, is simple: I want to write about action and

thrills and adventure, and if developing characters slows

area 7 487

down the action, then developing characters gets the chop!

The introduction of Book II, however, was an effort to give a

little more character depth than usual.

Why did you choose to set Area 7 in the American desert?

Several reasons. First, because I love stories about Area 51,

the top-secret base where the U.S. government supposedly

keeps aliens and crashed alien spacecraft. The second reason

was far more pragmatic: a blazing hot desert was the diametric

opposite to the Antarctic wasteland of Ice Station and

I figured that, visually, a sequel to Ice Station should be as

different as possible to the original. And once I learned

about the extraordinary landscape of Lake Powell, with its

incongruous mix of towering canyons and watery lakes and canals, the choice of location was settled. (And, hey, I'd

been to the cold for Ice Station, the jungle for Temple, and

the city for Contest, so why not tackle a desert environment

for my fourth book?)

Have you been to Lake Powell?

Yes, I have. As part of my research for Area 7, I went to the

Utah-Arizona border just to see the lake. I'd seen pictures of

it in books (and on the Internet), but decided I had to see it

for myself. It is absolutely awesome. Oddly, though, when

you meet Americans and ask them, "Have you been to Lake

Powell?" they say, "Lake what?" Granted, it is very close to

the Grand Canyon, so it's probably just overshadowed by its

more famous neighbor.

Some questions about technique. How do you go about

writing? For example, do you set yourself certain hours in

which to work each day, or are you a "have to be in the mood" kind of writer?

I am, without question, a "have to be in the mood" kind of

writer. The simple reason for this is that I have tried writing

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Matthew Reilly

when I wasn't in the mood, and I didn't like what I wrote. I

had wasted my time. Now, if I'm not in the mood, I go to the

library and do some research or see a movie (often just to

give my mind a rest), and when I return, I am usually ready

and raring to go.

The more complex reason, however, for this method of

writing is that I just can't stand routine. I love variation, in

the hours I work, in the amount of writing I do, in how I

spend my day. (I also, it must be said, have a pathetically

short attention span!) So rather than look at writing on a

day-to-day basis--and say to myself, "Okay, Matt, you have to write for six hours today between the hours of 9 a.m. and

3 p.m."--I look at my writing on a weekly basis and say: "All right, this week, I would like to get four good days'

worth of writing done. Doesn't matter when I do it, as long

as it gets done." Now, I don't care if I get that writing done

during the day, the evening, or the middle of the night

(which can be a very good time to write since the phone--

usually--doesn't ring at two o'clock in the morning!). So

long as I get it done, I am happy. Working this way, on the

average day, I get about eight hours of writing done.

Sounds like this would require considerable self-motivation.

How do you motivate yourself to keep writing?

Generally speaking, motivation isn't a problem for me. Like

everyone else, I have my bad days (who doesn't?), but

they're not very common. Quite simply, I enjoy the act of

writing. I am not a stereotypical "tortured" writer, hunched

over my keyboard, tearing my hair out, gnashing my teeth at

the prospect of the next sentence. I like writing. I like creating.

And I love creating big action scenes with words on a

page. Since that's pretty much what I do each day, I find motivating

myself fairly easy. Now, motivating myself to exercise,

that's another story ...

Having said that, however, I should say something a little

more general on the subject (because I am asked about

Area 7 489

motivation a lot). Writing a book does take a lot of self-motivation. It takes me about a year to write each novel. That's

a long time to spend on a single project, so you have to really

love what you're doing--and that means wanting to tell

the story you're telling.

If you have a story to tell, no one will force you to

write it down. You have to do it. If you don't know the ending,

no one else is going to give it to you. You have to figure

it out. Writing a book--to me--is one of the most invigorating

mental challenges in the world. It can be hard (when I

was finishing the writing of Temple, my head was nearly exploding

with all the subplots running between the two parallel

stories); it can be thrilling (it took me nearly two weeks to write the hovercraft chase in Ice Station, but every one of those days was just awesome; typing fast, living the action in my head); and it can be painful (I cut a killer action scene from Temple--before I actually wrote it, thank God--because I felt it was one too many) but when you see that manuscript sitting on your desk at the end of it all, it is enormously--enormously--satisfying.

On a more defatted note, when you write, do you work on a

chapter-by-chapter basis?

No. I work on a scene-by-scene basis. I like to think that

with my books, chapter endings are generally not the best

place to stop reading. And, indeed, this is how I write--I

don't stop writing when I reach the end of a chapter. I keep

going, as I hope the reader will do. I stop my day's writing

when I get the scene done. Again, the hovercraft chase in Ice

Station is a good example. That forty-page action sequence

took me nearly two weeks to write (sounds like making a

movie, doesn't it?), but in it are a whole bunch of small interwoven

mini-scenes--Schofield going under the hovercraft;

Book Sr. saving Holly; Renshaw and Schofield

running alongside the cliff edge. I did each of these mini

scenes on a different day.

490     Matthew Reilly

Any other tips for aspiring writers?

Yes. There is no such thing as an "aspiring writer." You are a

writer. Period. I was told that once, and I have never forgotten

it.

So what's next for Matthew Reilly?

Hmmmm. Good question. With my next book, I want to

reinvent what I do, and take the action thriller to the next

level. It can go faster. I'm talking lean, mean and totally out

of control. In the downtime I've had since finishing Area 7,

I have been working on this idea, toying with new structures,

figuring out ways to make the narrative just zoom along. I

think if you want longevity as a creative individual (think of

Madonna, or U2, or of great storytellers like Steven Spielberg,

Michael Crichton, or Joss Whedon) you have to evolve, constantly reinvent yourself, and take your craft to a

new level. Reset the benchmark for yourself. So, to answer

the question: the future involves pushing myself to a new

level of speed in my next novel. And then I'm going to make

a movie.

Any final comments ?

As always, I just hope you enjoyed the book. Best wishes,

and hopefully, I'll see you next time!

Matthew Reilly

Sydney, Australia

August 2001

Read on for an excerpt from

Matthew Reilly's next book

CONTEST

Coming in hardcover

March 2003

From St. Martin's Press

THE SWITCHBOARD OPERATOR STARED AT THE PANEL BEFORE

her in stunned disbelief.

When is this going to stop? she thought.

On the panel in front of her, two rows of flashing lights

indicated that there were a hell of a lot of phone calls waiting

to be answered.

She took a deep breath and pressed the flashing square

that read "9," and began:

"Good evening, Con Edison Customer Service Line,

my name is Sandy. How may I help you?"

Her headset rattled with the tinny voice of yet another

disgruntled New Yorker. When finally it stopped, she

punched the code--401--into her computer console.

That made fourteen in the last hour, on her panel alone.

All coming from inside grid two-twelve--central Manhattan.

A 401--power out due to a probable short in the main.

The switchboard operator looked at the words on her computer screen: "Probable short in the main." Electronically, she didn't know what a short in the main meant nor how it was caused. She simply knew all the symptoms of power cuts and failures and, in much the same way as a doctor identifies an illness, all she did was add up the symptoms

and identify the problem. To know how it was caused was

someone else's job.

She shrugged, leaned forward and pressed the next

flashing square, ready to face the next complaint.

THE LOWEST FLOOR OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY--THE

Stack contains no toilets, no offices, no desks, and no computers.

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Matthew Reilly

Indeed the Stack holds nothing but books, lots and lots of

books.

Containing over 75 miles of shelving, the New York

Public Library is the largest circulating library in the world.

If a patron seeks a certain book they fill out a slip & the book

is found--by staff only--down in the Stack after which it is

presented to the patron in the Reading Room.

Wherefore, the Stack acts as little more than a holding

pen for over ten million books.

Lots of books. In lots of bookshelves. And these bookshelves

are arranged in a vast rectangular grid formation.

Long rows of bookshelves stretch the length of the floor,

while horizontal cross-aisles cut across these rows at intervals

of twenty feet--creating an enormous maze of right-angled

twists and turns, blind corners, and long straight aisles that

stretch away into infinity.

An enormous maze, thought NYPD Officer Paul

Hawkins as he wandered through the Stack. Wonderful.

Hawkins had been wandering through the dusty aisles

for several minutes now and had so far found nothing.

Damn it, he thought, as he turned back for the main

stairwell. --

A soft noise.

From off to the right.

Hawkins' hand whipped to the pistol by his side. He listened

intently.

There it was again.

A low, rasping sound.

Not breathing, he thought. No. More like ... sliding. Like a broom sweeping slowly over a wooden floor. Like something sliding along the dusty floor of the Stack.

Hawkins drew his gun and listened again. It was definitely

coming from the right, from somewhere within the maze of bookshelves around him. He swallowed.

There's someone in here.

He grabbed the radio on his belt.

"Parker!" he hissed. "Parker! Do you copy?"

No answer.

Contest         493

Jesus.

"Parker, where are you?"

Hawkins switched off the radio and turned to look back

at the receding rows of bookshelves before him. He pursed

his lips for a moment.

Then he lifted his gun and ventured out into the maze.

gun in hand, hawkins quietly zig-zagged his way between

the bookshelves, moving quickly and purposefully,

searching for the source of the sound.

He came to a halt at the base of a bookcase full of dusty

hardcovers. Held his breath for a moment. Waited ...

There.

His eyes snapped left.

There it was again. The sweeping sound.

It was getting louder--he must be getting closer.

Hawkins darted left, then right, then left--moving

smoothly in and out of the aisles, stopping every few meters

at the flat end of a bookcase. It was disorienting, he thought.

Every aisle looked the same as the one before.

He stopped again.

Listened.

Again, he heard the soft brushing sound. Like a broom

on a dusty wooden floor.

Only louder now.

Close.

Very, very close.

Hawkins hurried along a cross-aisle until suddenly he

was confronted by a wall of bookshelves--a solid wall of

books that seemed to stretch away into darkness in both directions.

A wall? Hawkins thought. He must be at the edge of

the floor--at one of the long sides of the enormous rectangle.

The sound came again.

Only this time, it came from ... behind him.

Hawkins spun, raised his gun.

What the hell--? Had it turned?

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Matthew Reilly

Cautiously, he edged his way down the alleyway of

books.

The aisle closed in around him. The nearest cross

passageway branched away to his right--there was nothing

but the unbroken wall of bookshelves to his left--about

twenty feet away. It was cloaked in shadow.

Hawkins stepped forward slowly. The passageway

came fully into view.

It was different.

This wasn't a T-junction like the last one. More like an

L-shape.

Hawkins frowned, and then he realized. It was a corner

--the very corner of the floor. He hadn't realized that

he'd come this far from the murder scene at the center.

Listening.

Nothing.

He came to the L-junction and listened again. There

was no sound.

Whatever it was, it was gone now.

And then Hawkins began to think. He'd followed the

sound, the source of which had presumably been unaware of

his presence. But its last few movements had been odd.

It was as though whoever it was had lost direction and

had started circling ...

Circling, Hawkins thought.

No one would consciously go in a circle, would they,

unless they were lost or ... or unless they knew someone

was following them.

Hawkins' blood went completely cold. Whoever it was,

it wasn't just circling.

It was doubling back.

It knew he was here.

Hawkins spun to face the long aisle behind him, jamming

his back into the corner shelving.

Nothing.

"Damn it!" he whispered. He could feel beads of cold

sweat forming on his forehead. "Damn it, shit!"

Contest

He couldn't believe it. He'd walked right into a corner.

A goddamn corner! Two options--straight or left. Shit, he thought, at least among the bookshelves he'd have had room.

Now he was trapped.

And then suddenly he saw it.

Off to the left, moving slowly and carefully out into the passageway.

Hawkins' eyes widened.

"Holy shit."

It looked like nothing he had ever seen before.

Big and long, but low to the ground like an alligator, the

creature looked almost dinosaurian--with black-green pebbled skin, four powerful stubby limbs and a long, thic

counterbalancing tail.

Its head was truly odd. No eyes, and--seemingly--no mouth. The only distinguishing feature: a pair of long spindly antennae that jutted up from its forehead and

clocked rhythmically from side to side.

It was twenty feet away from Hawkins when the tip of

its tail finally came into view. The tail itself must have been

eight feet long, and it slid across the floor in long, slow arcs, creating the soft sweeping sound. Hawkins saw that the tail

tapered sharply to a point at its tip. The whole animal must

have been at least fourteen feet long.

Hawkins blinked. For an instant there, behind the tail, he thought he caught a glimpse of a man, a small man

dressed completely in white--

And then the creature's head eased slowly upward--the folds of its skin peeling back to reveal a hideous four-sided

jaw that opened with a soft, lethal hiss. Four rows of hideously

jagged, saliva-covered teeth appeared.

"Jesus Christ!" Hawkins stared at the creature.

It moved forward.

Toward him.

One of the animal's forelegs caught his attention. A green light glowed from a thick gray band strapped to the

creature's left forelimb.

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Matthew Reilly

It was close now--its jaws wide, salivating wildly, dripping

goo all over the floor. Hawkins' eyes were locked on

the swaying antennae on its head, clocking from side to side

like a pair of metronomes.

It was three feet away ...

Two feet ...

Hawkins tensed to run, but for some terrifying reason,

his legs wouldn't move. He tried to raise his gun, but

couldn't--it was as if every muscle in his body had gone

completely, instantly limp. He watched helplessly as, to his

horror, his gun slipped from his unresponsive hand and

dropped loudly to the floor.

The antennae kept swaying.

One foot away ...

Hawkins was sweating profusely, breathing in short,

rapid breaths. He just couldn't take his eyes off the antennae.

They seemed to move in perfect rhythm, swaying in smooth

hypnotic circles ...

He watched--completely defenseless--as the creature's

sinister-looking head came slowly up to his knee.

Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.

And then, suddenly, unexpectedly, like a cobra coiling

up off the ground, the creature's long pointed eight-foot tail

lifted off the floor and swung forward--over its low reptilian

body--so that now it was pointing forward, arcing over its

frame like a scorpion's stinger, the tip of the tail pointing

right at the bridge of Paul Hawkins's nose.

Hawkins saw it happen and his terror hit fever pitch. He

desperately wanted to shut his eyes, so he wouldn't see it

happen, but he couldn't even do that--

"Hey!"

The creature's head snapped left.

And in an instant, the trance was broken and Hawkins

could move again. He looked up and saw ...

... a man.

A man, standing a short way down the aisle. Hawkins

hadn't even seen him approach. Hadn't even heard him.

Hawkins took in the man's appearance. He had wet hair, and

Contest         497

was wearing jeans and sneakers and a white shirt that hung

out at the waist.

The man spoke to Hawkins.

"Come over here. Now."

Hawkins looked down warily at the big alligator like

creature at his feet. It ignored him completely, simply faced

the man in jeans, its body dead still.

If it had eyes, Hawkins thought, it was definitely glaring at him. A low rumbling noise rose threateningly from the depths of its throat.

Hawkins glanced questioningly at the man. The man just kept his eyes levelled at him.

"Come on," he said, eyes unmoving. "Just leave the gun

there and walk very slowly over to me."

Tentatively, Hawkins took a step forward.

The creature at his knee didn't move. It remained steadfastly

focused on the man in jeans.

The man pushed Hawkins behind him and slowly

stepped backward, away from the creature.

Hawkins looked down the aisle behind them and saw

two figures standing maybe forty feet away--a small one in

white, and another, equally small, who looked like ... he

squinted ... like a little girl.

"Move," Swain said, pushing Hawkins down the aisle,

his back to him.

Swain kept his eyes averted, directed at the bookshelves, away from the creature's swaying antennae, watching

it only out of his peripheral vision.

The two men stepped slowly down the aisle, away from

the frozen creature.

And then suddenly it began to follow them, moving

around the corner in a darting crablike manner that belied its

size. Then it stopped.

Swain pushed Hawkins farther down the aisle. "Keep

moving. Just keep moving."

"What the--"

"Just move."

Swain was walking backward, still facing the creature.

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Matthew Reilly

Again it made a darting, scuttling movement ten feet forward,

and then stopped again, well short of Hawkins and himself

It's being cautious, he thought.

And then it charged.

"Oh, shit!

The large animal bounded down the narrow confines of

the aisle.

Swain looked frantically for somewhere to run. But he

was still ten feet away from the nearest cross-aisle into the

maze of bookshelves.

There was nowhere to go!

Swain braced himself, the ground beneath him vibrating

under the thumping weight of the fast-approaching creature. Christ, it must weigh nearly four hundred pounds.

Hawkins turned. He saw it over Swain's shoulder.

"Holy Christ ..."

Swain just stood there, feet spread wide, taking up the

whole aisle.

The creature kept coming. It wasn't stopping.

"It's not stopping!" Hawkins yelled.

"It has to!" Swain called. "It has to stop!"

The creature bounded forward, bearing down on Swain

like a runaway freight train, until abruptly, three feet short of

him, it reared on its hind legs and clasped the bookcases on

either side of it with its clawed forelimbs, bringing it to a

sudden, lunging stop.

The four-sided jaw stopped inches away from Swain's

unmoving face.

The creature hissed fiercely, challenging him. Its saliva

dripped down onto the floor in front of his shoes.

Swain averted his gaze again, stared at a nearby bookshelf, keeping his eyes off the animal's oscillating antennae.

The horrifying alligator like creature, now standing up on its

hind legs, towered over him, loomed above him like an evil

apparition.

Swain wagged a finger at the infuriated animal: "Ah-ah-ah. No touching."

Contest

And he began to walk backward again, pushing Hawkins.

Hawkins stumbled down the aisle, looking back over

his shoulder every few seconds. This time the creature didn't

follow them, at least not immediately.

They reached the little white man and the girl, and were

a good thirty feet from the creature when it began moving

toward them again.

The little man spoke: "Sequencing! She's sequencing!

The man in the loose-fitting shirt and jeans looked at

Hawkins, standing there in his well-pressed police uniform.

"We don't have time to talk right now, but my name is

Stephen Swain, and at the moment we're all in big trouble.

You ready to run?"

Hawkins answered without thinking. "Yuh-huh."

Swain looked back down the aisle at the large dinosaur like creature. Twenty feet. He picked up Holly.

"You know the way back to the main stairwell?" he

asked Hawkins.

The young cop nodded. "I think so."

"Then you lead the way. Just keep zig-zagging. We'll be

right behind you." He turned to the others. "You two ready?"

They nodded. "Okay then, let's move."

Hawkins broke into a run, the others close behind him.

With a great lunge, the creature leaped forward in pursuit.

Swain brought up the rear, carrying Holly on his hip. He

could hear the pounding of the great weight on the floor behind him.

The stairs. The stairs. Got to reach the stairs.

Left, right, left, right.

He could see the cop weaving up ahead, and then

abruptly he saw the aisle with yellow tape running down its length up ahead. The aisle that led back to the main stairwell block.

"Daddy! It's catching up!" Holly yelled from his shoulder.

He looked behind him.

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Matthew Reilly

The creature was indeed closing in on them--a giant

black-green monster galloping down the narrow aisle with

its salivating jaws bared wide.

Swain wasn't worried for himself. Selexin had been

right about that. Whatever it was, it was another contestant,

and it couldn't touch him. Not yet. Not until that number on

his watch read "7."

But if it got Holly ...

He saw the cop round the corner up ahead entering the

police-taped aisle, followed by Selexin. Swain rounded the

corner last of all, panting hard, and saw--

The door!

He saw Selexin duck inside it, and then the policeman

appeared in the doorway, his hand outstretched.

"Come on!" he was yelling.

Swain heard the creature slide around the corner behind

him.

He kept running, kept holding Holly to his chest. He

was breathing very fast now. He was sure he was running too

slowly. He could hear the creature's snorting grunts close

behind him. Any second now it would be all over him, ready

to pluck his daughter--the only family he had left--right from his very arms ...

"Come on!" Hawkins called again.

Behind him, Swain heard the creature's tail slam

against a bookcase, heard the sound of books crashing to the

floor. Then suddenly, he was at the door and he reached for

Hawkins' outstretched arms and Hawkins grabbed his hand

and hurled him and Holly inside the stairwell just as Selexin

slammed the big door shut behind them.

Selexin turned, breathless, exhilarated. "We made it--"

Bang!

The door behind him shuddered violently.

Swain lifted himself up from the floor, gasping for air.

"Come on."

They were a whole floor up the stairwell when they

heard the door to the Stack bang open with a loud bone-jarring crack!

INCOMPLETE--6

Swain frowned at the wristband. He'd missed the arrival of

the last two contestants. Now there was no knowing where

the next--and last--contestant would enter the library.

No knowing when the Presidian would begin.

The group had left the stairwell and were now hiding in an office on the Lower Ground Floor--a partially underground half-floor which on days opened via a side entrance onto 42nd Street. Like all the other offices around it, this one was partitioned by waist-high wood paneling with glass reaching the rest of the way up to the ceiling. Everyone was careful to stay low, out of sight, below

the glass.

Swain had found a directory of the library attached to

the wall of the stairwell and wrenched it free. He was looking

at it now while Selexin sat behind the desk, quietly explaining

their situation to Hawkins. Holly was sitting on the

floor nestled up to Swain, holding him tightly, sucking her

thumb. She was still a little shell-shocked by their close encounter

with the big creature downstairs.

The directory showed a cross-section of the library. Five

floors--three above ground, two below--each a different

color. The two sub-levels below the Ground Floor were both

shaded gray and stamped with the label no public access.

The others were brightly colored:

THIRD FLOOR --MAIN READING ROOM,

EDNA BARNES SALOMON ROOM

SECOND FLOOR --ORIENTAL DIVISION

SLAVIC & BACK DIVISION

GROUND FLOOR --ASTOR HALL ST. AVE ENTRANCE

Matthew Reilly

LOWER GROUND FLOOR

COAT CHECK

LIBRARY SHOP; EXHIBIT--FORUM CONVENTION CENTER

LIBRARY OFFICES, 42ND ST. ENTRANCE

Swain remembered the enormous Reading Room up on

the top floor with its sea of desks. He tried to memorize the

rest. Small blue squares picturing a stick-man and woman

indicated toilets on every other floor. Another blue square,

with a car pictured in it, filled one half of the Lower Ground

Floor. The parking lot.

He checked his wristband again.

INCOMPLETE--6

Still 6." Good.

He looked over at Selexin and the policeman, and shook

his head in wonder.

That young cop was lucky to be alive. It had been only

blind luck that had led Swain to his rescue--an instant when

he, Holly and Selexin had been descending the main stairwell

and seen a long shadow stretch out onto the landing below

them.

They had watched from the shadows above as the creature --Selexin said its name was Reese--stepped slowly into view, accompanied by its guide. It stopped on the landing, seemed to examine the floor with its snub dinosaurlike snout, and then peered down the stairwell.

Then it had slithered quickly down the stairs.

Something had caught its attention.

Curious, they had followed it down into the Stack and

seen it weave purposefully in and out of the bookshelves for

several minutes--stalking something, leading it on. It was

only at the last moment that Swain had ventured out into the

furthermost aisle to actually see Reese's quarry--a lone policeman,

trapped in the corner.

Contest         503

He'd moved instantly--stopping only for a piece of last-minute advice from Selexin: avoid all eye contact with Reese's antennae.

And so they had met Hawkins.

Swain turned to Selexin. "Tell me more about Reese."

"Reese," Selexin said. "Well, for one thing, Reese is, in

human terms, female. Her tail tapers sharply to a point, like

a spear. Males of her species possess only blunted tails. This

is because in their clans, the female is the hunter, and her

chief weapon is her sharp pointed tail.

"Did you see, when Reese was moving in on your new friend here," Selexin nodded to Hawkins, "that her tail was

poised high over her body, in a large arc, pointing forward?

And he couldn't move an inch.

"That is why I told you not to make prolonged eye contact

with her antennae. Any extended visual contact with them will cause instant paralysis. Just like it did with him."

Selexin gave Hawkins a look. "That is how Reese hunts. You

look at her antennae for too long and you suffer hypnotic

paralysis, and--bang!--before you know it, she's got you

with that tail. Right through the brain."

The little man smiled. "I would say she bears a rather

strong resemblance to the female of your own species, aggressive and instinctive. Wouldn't you say?"

"fey," Holly said.

Swain ignored the remark. "Tell me more about her

hunting methods. Her stalking methods."

Selexin took a breath. "Well, as you no doubt observed,

Reese has no eyes. For the simple reason that she

does not need them. She comes from a planet surrounded

by opaque, inert gases. Light cannot enter their atmosphere,

and the inert gases are impervious to any chemical

change. Her race has simply adapted over time to utilize

and enhance their other senses: increased auditory acuity,

sensitive ampullae for detecting the distressed heartbeat of

frightened or wounded prey, and, most of all, a highly

evolved scent detection mechanism. In fact, I would say that

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Matthew Reilly

her sense of smell is her most well-developed hunting tool."

"Wait a second," Swain said, alarmed, "she can smell us?"

"Not now. Reese's sense of smell has a very limited

range. No farther than, say, a couple of feet."

Swain breathed in relief. Hawkins did, too.

"But within that range," Selexin went on, "her sense of

smell is incredibly astute."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," Selexin said, "that the manner by which she

detected him,"--Selexin pointed roughly at Hawkins--"was

by his scent."

"But I thought you said her range wasn't that good.

How could--"

Swain cut himself off. Selexin was waiting for him

again, giving him an expectant "are-you-finished?" look.

"That is correct," Selexin said, "in a way. You see,

Reese didn't smell him. What she smelled was the scent he

left behind. Do you remember when Reese first came into

our view in the stairwell? She bent low and sniffed the

floor?"

Swain frowned. "Yeah ..."

"Footprints," Selexin said. "A trail not long cold. With

any fresh trail like that, Reese doesn't need to smell anything

beyond two feet, because she just follows the scent of

the trail itself."

"Oh," Swain said.

And then it hit him.

"Oh, shit!"

He shot up to look out through the glass partition above

him--

And found himself staring at Reese's menacing four pronged jaws--wide open, foully salivating--pressed up against the other side of the glass, only inches away.

Swain fell backward, stumbled away from the glass.

Hawkins leaped to his feet, mouth agape.

Reese slammed against the partition, smearing saliva

everywhere.

Contest         50

"Eyes down!" Swain yelled, snatching Holly up in his

arms. Reese rammed the partition again--hard--and the

whole office shook. "Keep your eyes away from the antennae! Go for the door!"

There were two glass doors to this square-shaped office--one leading west, one east. Reese was banging on the

eastern wall of the room.

Swain ran for the other door, threw it open and charged

into the next office, Selexin and Hawkins close behind him.

With Holly in the crook of his arm, he slid smoothly over a desk in the center of the office, opened the next door.

"Close the doors behind you!" he yelled back.

"Already doing it!" Hawkins called forward.

And then, from behind them, there came a loud crashing

sound--the sound of breaking glass.

Up ahead, Swain continued to run. Over desks, through

doorways, dodging filing cabinets, sending paper flying

everywhere. Then he came to the last office and emerged on a wide marble-floored hallway. Off to the right were the elevators

and the main stairwell. To the left--and closer--was

a heavy blue door that read: To Parking Lot.

Hawkins was yelling. "She's coming! And she seems

really pissed!"

Beyond Hawkins, Swain could see nothing but offices

divided by glass partitions.

And then he saw it. Saw the long pointed tail flashing

up above the waist-high wood paneling. It was barging

through anything that lay in its path--like a shark's fin slicing

through water--launching desks and cabinets and swivel

chairs high into the air.

Two offices away and heading directly for them.

Moving fast.

Closing in.

Swain glanced back at the heavy blue door at the end of

the hallway. It looked strong, with a hydraulic opening

mechanism. It might give them time.

Better do something ...

506

Matthew Reilly

With Holly in his arms, he hurried to the hydraulic door,

opened it. He stepped into the threshold, pulled Selexin

through, and turned to look for Hawkins.

Hawkins was running hard, down the length of the marble

hallway. Abruptly, Reese skidded out into the hall behind

him.

Hawkins dashed past Swain, through the doorway, and

Swain shut the big hydraulic door behind him. It closed with

a dull, vacuumlike thud.

Then he turned and took in the area before him.

An underground parking lot.

It looked new--almost brand new, in fact A recent renovation.

Glistening newly paved concrete, white-painted

floor markings, shiny yellow wheel clamps on the ground,

pristine white fluorescent lights. It was quite a contrast to the

old dusty library they had seen so far.

Swain scanned the parking lot.

No cars.

Damn.

There was a Down ramp in the center of the lot, about

twenty yards in front of them, and an Exit ramp going up to

the street on the far side of the lot.

There came a sudden, very loud bang from somewhere

behind them.

Swain spun.

Reese was ramming against the other side of the door.

He quickly led the others over to the Down ramp. It was wide--wide enough for two cars to pass each other side-by

side. They had just reached the top of the ramp when there

came a crashing bang and suddenly he heard a hissing sound

from behind them.

Swain turned around slowly.

Reese was standing at the entrance to the parking lot,

her guide positioned silently behind her.

Swain swallowed--

--and then, abruptly, he heard another sound.

Clop ...

Clop ...

Contest         507

Clop ...

Footsteps. Slow footsteps. Echoing loudly in the deserted

parking lot.

Swain, Holly, Selexin and Hawkins all spun at the same

time--and they saw him.

Coming up the Down ramp.

Walking slowly, purposefully.

A six-foot-tall bearded man, dressed in a broad

shouldered animal-skin jacket, dark pants and knee-high

black boots that clip-clopped loudly on the concrete ramp.

And behind him, yet another guide, dressed completely

in white.

As the big bearded man stepped onto level ground and

stopped, Swain instinctively pushed Holly behind him.

At the sight of this new contestant, Reese became visibly

agitated. She hissed even louder.

They all stood in silence--the three groups forming a

precarious, unspeaking triangle.

It was then that Swain looked down at his wristband. It

now read:

INITIALIZED--7

Seven.

Swain looked up slowly.

The Presidian had begun.

MATTHEW REILLY was born in 1974 and

studied law at the University of New South Wales.

At twenty-seven, he has written four novels and

several screenplays. His books are published in

14 languages and sold in over 30 countries. Film

rights to his worldwide bestseller Ice Station were

optioned by Paramount Pictures earlier this year.

His other novels include Ice Station, Temple, and

Contest. He lives in Sydney, Australia.

AREA 7

It is America's most secret base, hidden deep in the Utah,

desert, an Air Force installation known only as Area 7. And

today, it has a visitor - the President of the United States.

He has come to inspect Area 7, to examine its secrets for

himself. But he's going to get more than he bargained for

on this trip. Because hostile forces are waiting inside.

Among the President's helicopter crew, however, is a

young Marine. He is quiet, enigmatic, and he hides his

eyes behind a pair of silver sunglasses. His name is

Schofield. Call-sign: Scarecrow. Rumor has it, he's a good

man in a storm. Judging by what the President has just

walked into, he'd better be. ...

Content

Reilly Matthew Area 7