Matthew Reilly: Hell Island

That left Schofield and Bigfoot in the Tomcat on the port-side elevator, facing the now 80-strong force of apes.

“Bigfoot! Let’s move! Time to get out of here—”

All of a sudden, their fighter started rocking wildly.

Schofield spun in his seat. “Shit! They must have climbed up the side of the ship!”

The rest of the ape army—nearly 300 gorillas—was now climbing up and over the outer edges of the elevator platform!

They swarmed around the plane, clambered up onto it, shook it, hit it, fired at it.

Schofield closed the Tomcat’s canopy a split second before it was hit by gunfire. Made of reinforced Lexan glass, the canopy was capable of deflecting high-velocity air-to-air tracers, so it could handle this small-arms fire, even from up close.

But then one clever gorilla climbed into the towing vehicle that was attached to the Tomcat and started it up.

“Aw, no way, that just ain’t fair…” Bigfoot breathed.

Covered in rampaging apes and now pulled by the towing vehicle, the Tomcat slowly started moving…

…toward the edge of the elevator!

“They’re going to tip us over the side!” Bigfoot exclaimed.

Indeed they were.

The Tomcat rolled toward the edge of the elevator, six stories above the waterline.

As it did so, the apes on its back started bailing off it, jumping clear. They knew what was about to happen.

“Ah, Captain…” Bigfoot said. “Any ideas?”

“Yeah. Buckle up.” Schofield was already strapping on his seatbelt.

“Buckle up? How’s that going to—oh!” Bigfoot clutched at his belts, started clasping them.

The towing vehicle came to the edge of the platform and the ape driving it bailed out just as the towing vehicle tipped over the edge, now hanging from the Tomcat’s front landing gear.

The ape army did the rest. They pushed the F-14 until its front wheels lurched off the edge and the entire plane—with Schofield and Bigfoot in it—fell, off the carrier, plunging ninety feet straight down to the water far below.

THE INSTANT the Tomcat fell off the edge, the canopy of the fighter blew open and the F-14’s two ejection seats shot up out of the plane.

The ejection seats—with Schofield and Bigfoot on them—rocketed up into the sky above the aircraft carrier while the Tomcat went in the opposite direction, the plane falling in a clumsy tumbling heap down the side of the boat and into the water, where it landed with a great splash and immediately began to sink.

Schofield and Bigfoot flew high into the air before they disengaged their flight seats and initiated the parachutes that were attached to their seatbelts.

As the two of them floated back down to the earth, they scanned the huge force of apes on the deck of the carrier. They looked like an army of ants swarming over the aft runway.

Then suddenly Hail Mary gunshots started to zing past Schofield’s head, tearing through his chute.

“Where to now?” Bigfoot asked over the UHF.

Schofield pursed his lips, thinking fast. His eyes fell on the chunky CH-53 Super Stallion in the center of the flight deck.

“It’s time to even the score a little. Follow me.”

He angled his gliding flight back toward the carrier, toward its mid-section.

Schofield touched down on the middle of the flight deck. Bigfoot landed a second after him, not far from the catapult launch controls.

The apes charged forward, roaring, firing, rampaging.

“Stay here,” Schofield ordered before racing across the open deck to the massive Super Stallion.

Hunched in the pouring rain, he did something near the front of the chopper out of Bigfoot’s sight before he came back around and charged into the chopper via its forward right-side door, slamming the door shut an instant before the gorillas arrived, banging on the side of the chopper, massing around it.

Inside the Super Stallion, Schofield hustled into the cockpit, shutting its door behind him, locking it.

Watching from the outside, taking cover behind the on-deck launch controls, Bigfoot was confused.

What was Schofield doing?

But then something even more confusing occurred.

The rear loading ramp of the Super Stallion folded open.

Naturally, the apes stormed it, fifty of them rushing inside, hungry for Schofield’s blood.

Bigfoot frowned. What on earth is he…?

“Bigfoot!” Schofield’s voice said over the UHF. “After you do what I ask, get down to Casper’s door and find the others. I’ll meet you there.”

“Casper’s d—? Oh yeah, sure,” Bigfoot said. “But what do you want me to do now?”

“Simple. Initiate Catapult No. 1.”

“What—!”

At that moment, Schofield brought the rear loading ramp back up, closing it, trapping the fifty-odd apes that had gone inside.

It was then that Bigfoot saw what Schofield had done at the front of the chopper: via a tie-down chain, Schofield had attached the helicopter to the carrier’s No. 1 launch catapult.

“You have got to be kidding…” Bigfoot said.

“Uh, now please, Bigfoot. They’re about to break down the cockpit door.”

“Right.”

Bigfoot hit a switch on the launch console, igniting Catapult No. 1.

The Super Stallion hurtled down the length of the runway at a speed no helicopter had gone before.

The steam-driven catapult slingshot it down the tarmac at an astonishing 160 km/h!

The great chopper’s landing wheels snapped off after about ninety feet and the CH-53 slid the rest of the way, on its belly, sparks flying everywhere, the ear-piercing shriek of metal scraping against the flight deck filling the air.

And then… shoom… the Super Stallion shot off the bow of the Nimitz, soaring out horizontally from the flight deck for a full 150 feet, hanging in the air for a moment before it arced downward, falling toward the sea.

A second before it hit the ocean, a human figure could be seen leaping from one of its cockpit windows, jumping clear of the falling helicopter, hitting the water at the same time it did, but safely alongside it.

The helicopter came down with a massive splash and as the splash subsided, it could be seen bobbing slowly in the water.

And then it began to sink.

Shrieks could be heard from within it—the cries of the trapped gorillas.

Ten seconds later, the Super Stallion went under, with its cargo of murderous apes, never to rise again.

Shane Schofield trod water for a few moments, staring at what he’d just done. Then he started swimming back toward the ship, heading for the bow.

Once there, he pulled a Pony bottle from his combat webbing—a compact bottle-sized SCUBA tank fitted with a mouthpiece. He jammed it into his mouth and went underwater.

Within a minute, he arrived at a little-known entrance to the carrier, one located fifty feet below the waterline: a submarine docking door.

Designed to recover long-range reconnaissance troops—read spies—returning to the Nimitz via small submarines, for a long time Marines had referred to it as the spooks’ door. Over time, “spook” had become “ghost” and then ghost had become “Casper,” as in the friendly one.

This was Casper’s door.

Schofield knocked loudly on it—in Morse code, punching out: “Mother. You there?”

At first there was no reply and Schofield’s heart began to beat a little faster, before suddenly there came a muffled answering knock from the other side: