Matthew Reilly - Area 7

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

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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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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