Matthew Reilly - Area 7

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