Matthew Reilly - Area 7

He turned to Goliath. "Put the Air Force people in here. Stand the President's little posse on the other side."

SCHOFIELD AND THE OTHERS WERE MARCHED AT GUNPOINT TO

the far side of the pit, the eastern side.

The five remaining Air Force men--Jerome Harper,

Boa McConnell, the last two men from Bravo Unit, and the

traitor, Warrant Officer Webster--stood directly opposite

them, separated by the two-hundred-foot-wide sunken aircraft

elevator platform.

"Let the battle begin," Seth Grimshaw bared his teeth.

"To the death."

SCHOFIELD DROPPED DOWN INTO THE PIT AND IMMEDIATELY

found himself confronted by a twisted metal maze--the

enormous broken pieces of the smashed AWACS plane.

The Boeing 707's wings lay at all angles, snapped and

broken and still dripping with water. Its gigantic barrel-like

jet engines stood on their ends. And in the very center of the

pit--easily the largest single piece of the destroyed plane-- stood the AWACS's horribly broken fuselage. Long and

cylindrical, it lay diagonally across the pit, nose down, like a

massive dead bird.

The darkness of the main hangar didn't help things.

The only light was the firelight from the inmates'

torches--they cast long shadows down into the maze, turning

it into a dark metal forest where you couldn't see more

than a few feet in front of your face.

How the hell did we get into this? Schofield thought.

He and the others stood on the eastern side of the pit, up

against its solid concrete wall, not sure what to do.

Abruptly, a shotgun round blasted into the wall above

Schofield's head.

Seth Grimshaw called: "The two teams will engage each other immediately! If you do not begin eliminating one

another soon, we will start eliminating you from up here!"

"Christ ..." Juliet Janson gasped.

Schofield turned to face his group. "Okay, we don't

have much time, so listen up. Not only do we have to survive

this, but we have to find a way out of here afterwards."

"The mini-elevator," Gant nodded to their right, to the

northeastern corner of the pit where the detachable

area 7 345

mini platform now lay flush against the pit's floor, albeit covered

by five armed prisoners.

"We're going to need a diversion," Schofield said,

"something to--"

The flying piece of metal nearly took his head clean off.

Schofield saw it at the very last second and on a reflex,

he ducked, just as the jagged piece of steel slammed like an

axe into the concrete wall behind him.

He spun, searching for the source of the projectile--

and he saw it in the shapes of the two commandos from

Bravo Unit, bursting out of the darkness, hurdling the

pieces of broken plane, each man holding a length of jagged

metal like a sword, and charging at Schofield's group at

speed!

"Scatter!" Schofield yelled as the first commando came

storming toward him, swinging down hard with his "sword."

Schofield blocked the blow by grabbing the man's

downward-moving wrist, while Gant engaged the other

commando.

"Go!" Schofield yelled to Juliet, Mother and the President.

"Get out of here!"

Juliet and the President dashed off into the darkness.

But Mother hesitated.

Schofield saw her. "Go! Stay with the President!"

THE PRISONERS CHEERED WITH DELIGHT AS OVER BY THE eastern

wall of the pit, Schofield fought with the first 7th

Squadron commando, while behind him, Gant grappled with

the second Bravo Unit man.

The President and Juliet--with Mother a short distance

behind them--dashed north through the darkened maze,

heading for the mini-elevator at the northeastern corner.

From above them, however, the chanting prisoners saw

what Juliet and the President and Mother could not: three figures

closing in on them from their left, moving quickly along

the northern wall of the pit--Jerome Harper, Carl Webster,

and coordinating the assault, Captain Boa McConnell.

346

Matthew Reilly

SCHOFIELD AND GANT STOOD BACK TO BACK, FIGHTING THEIR

own separate battles.

Gant had taken up a length of piping from the floor, and

was now wielding it like a quarterstaff against the blows of

her Bravo Unit commando.

The Bravo man swung his piece of steel viciously, two

fisted, but Gant parried well, holding her length of pipe sideways,

blocking the blow.

"How you doing back there?" Schofield asked, between

blows with his own enemy.

"Just ... frigging ... dandy," Gant said, gritting her

teeth.

"We have to get to the President."

"I know," Gant said, "but first ... I have to ... save your ass."

She glanced over her shoulder at him and smiled, and in

a fleeting instant, she saw his opponent move in for another

blow and she shouted, "Scarecrow! Duck!"

Schofield dropped like a stone.

His opponent's sword swooshed over his head, and the

man overbalanced, and stumbled right toward Gant.

Gant was waiting.

Turning her attention from her own assailant for the

briefest of moments, she swung her length of pipe hard,

baseball-style.

Shwack!

The sound of her pipe hitting the Bravo Unit man's head

was absolutely sickening. The commando collapsed in a

heap just as Gant spun again--pirouetting like a ballet

dancer--returning just in time to block the next blow from

her own attacker.

"Scarecrow! Go!" she yelled. "Get to the President!"

And with a final look at her, Schofield dashed off into

the darkened wreckage.

ABOUT TWENTY YARDS TO THE NORTH OF SCHOFIELD AND

Gant, Juliet Janson and the President were running hard,

weaving their way through the debris-cluttered maze, heading

area 7

for the northeastern corner, but unaware of the three men

closing in on them from the left.

They went for Juliet first.

Two figures came bursting out of the darkness, from behind the destroyed rear end of the AWACS plane--Boa McConnell and Warrant Officer Carl Webster. They crash-tackled Juliet hard, hurling her to the floor.

The President spun to see her hit the floor, held down by Boa and Webster. Then he turned again, and saw Colonel

Jerome Harper, standing amid the AWACS wreckage, watching from a distance.

The President was hurrying to help Juliet when- whoosh--a large blurring shape came exploding out of the

nearby wreckage, missing him by inches.

Mother.

Flying through the air, out of the darkness, linebacker

style.

Crunchhhh!

She shoulder-charged Boa McConnell so hard that she

almost snapped his neck. The 7th Squadron commander was

thrown off Juliet's body, visibly dazed.

Carl Webster was momentarily startled by the sudden

loss of his fellow attacker, and he turned to see what had

happened--

--just in time to receive a powerful punch from Mother

Even though he was a bulky man, Webster was thrown

right off Juliet by the blow and went crashing into a collection

of plane pieces. Without a pause, he snatched up a wicked-looking four-foot strip of metal and brandished it at

Mother.

Mother growled.

Webster charged.

The fight was as brutal as they come.

They couldn't have been more evenly matched--both

were experienced in hand-to-hand combat, both were over

six feet tall, and they both weighed in at over two hundred

pounds.

Webster roared as he swung his makeshift metal sword.

348

Matthew Reilly

Mother ducked, then quickly grabbed a busted piece of the

AWACS's wing flap to use as a shield. Webster's blows