Matthew Reilly - Area 7

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

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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.

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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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Matthew Reilly

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.

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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