Matthew Reilly - Area 7

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.

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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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Matthew Reilly

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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Matthew Reilly

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.

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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