Matthew Reilly - Area 7

clanged down against her shield as he forced her back toward

the battered wing of the plane.

As she danced backwards, staving off Webster's slashes, Mother bent down and scooped up a jagged sword of her own.

She tried to strike back, but Webster had all the momentum.

He swung again, cutting deep into her shoulder, tearing

open the sleeve of her dress coat, drawing blood.

"Arrgh!" Mother shouted, dropping her shield, fending

off the next three blows with only her sword.

Damn it, all she needed was one opening, one

chance ...

"Why did you betray the President!" she yelled as she

stumbled backwards, trying to distract him.

"There comes a time when a man has to make a decision,

Mother!" the Army warrant officer barked back,

yelling between blows. "When he has to choose a side! I

have fought for this country! I have had friends who died for

it, only to be fucked over later by politicians like him! So

when the opportunity arose, I decided that I was no longer

going to stand by and watch yet another two-bit, whore-banging, draft-dodging fuck drive this country into the ground!"

Webster swung--a lusty, sideways swipe.

Mother jumped backwards, avoiding the blow, leaping

up onto the wing of the plane, so that she was now three feet

off the ground.

But the wing wobbled slightly under her weight, and

she lost her balance for a split second and Webster slashed

viciously with his sword--once again slicing sideways--aiming for her now-exposed ankles, way too fast for her to

block in time.

And the vicious blow hit home--

Clang!!!

Webster's weapon hand vibrated monstrously as his

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jagged metal sword slammed into Mother's dress-uniformed

pants leg, just below the knee.

Webster blanched.

"What--?"

Mother smiled.

He'd hit her prosthetic lower leg--her titanium-alloy prosthetic lower leg!

Seeing her opponent's confusion, Mother took her one and only opportunity, and swung her own makeshift sword

with all her might.

Slash!

A fountain of blood sprayed out from Webster's throat

as Mother's blade sliced across his neck, severing his carotid

artery.

Webster's blade fell from his hand, and he dropped to

his knees, clutching his bleeding throat. He held his hands

out in front of him, gazing at the blood on them in disbelief.

Then he took one final horrified look up at Mother, after

which he fell face-first into a pool of his own blood.

The crowd of inmates roared with delight.

By now, the assembled mob--Seth Grimshaw included --had moved around to the northern side of the pit in an effort to find better spectating positions.

Some of them had started cheering for the President, a

happily deranged chant in the tradition of American

Olympic supporters: "U-S-A! USA!"

ON THE EASTERN SIDE OF THE PIT, GANT WAS STILL ENGAGED in the fight of her life.

Her 7th Squadron opponent's swordlike length of steel

clanged against her own quarterstaff pipe.

They fought amid the wreckage, trading blows, the

Bravo Unit commando driving her backwards. As he did so,

he began to smile with every raging swing. Clearly, he felt

he had the edge.

And so he swung harder, but as Gant saw, this only

served to wear him out more with every blow.

So she feigned fatigue, staggered backwards, "desperately"

fended off his swings.

And then her assailant swung--a lunging sloppy effort,

the swipe of a tiring man--and quick as a flash, belying her

apparent fatigue, Gant ducked beneath the blow and

launched herself upward, thrusting her pipe forward--end first--ramming its solid tip right into the throat of her

stunned opponent, crushing his Adam's apple, ramming it

two inches back into his windpipe, stopping him dead in his

tracks.

The man's eyes went instantly wide with disbelief. He

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wobbled unsteadily, wheezing, choking. He may have been

standing up, but he was already dead. Staring stupidly at

Gant, he crumpled to the ground.

The crowd of prisoners was oddly silent--stunned, it

seemed, by Gant's lightning-fast death blow.

Then they cheered their approval. Wolf whistles rained

down on Gant. Claps and cheers.

"Whoa, baby!"

"Now that is what I call a woman!"

AT THE NORTHERN END OF THE PIT, THE PRESIDENT SLID TO THE

ground beside Juliet Janson, hauled her up, but when they

both got to their feet, they froze.

Before them, standing next to one of the upturned engines

of the AWACS plane--alone but closer now--stood

Colonel Jerome T. Harper.

On the ground to his left, lying on the floor, was Boa

McConnell. He was groaning painfully, still reeling from

Mother's crunching shoulder-tackle earlier.

The hoots and hollers from the prisoners enveloped

them.

"Come on, Mr. Prez! Get some blood on your hands! Kill the fucker!"

"Eat shit, Harper!"

"U-S-A! USA!"

Harper knew the score. All his men were either dead or

useless.

And yet still he seemed strangely confident ...

It was then that he pulled something out of his pocket.

It looked like a high-tech grenade of some sort--a small

pressurized cylindrical canister with a nozzle on its top and a

vertical clear-glass window on its side.

Through the narrow glass window, the President could

see the contents of the grenade very clearly.

It was filled with a mustard-yellow liquid.

"Oh, Jesus ..." he breathed.

It was a biological grenade.

A Chinese biological grenade.

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Matthew Reilly

A pressure-sealed explosive charge filled with the

Sinovirus.

AN EVIL GRIN CRACKED HARPER'S FACE.

"I was hoping it wouldn't come to this," he said. "But

fortunately for me, like every Air Force man at this complex,

I have already been immunized against the Sinovirus. The

same, however, cannot be said for you or your brave Marine

guardians."

Then, without so much as a blink, Harper pulled the pin

on the Sinovirus grenade.

harper didn't see him until it was too late.

As he pulled the pin on the grenade, all he saw was a

flashing blur of movement from the wreckage to his immediate

left.

The next thing he knew, Shane Schofield was standing

beside him, emerging from the darkness, swinging a length

of piping upward like a baseball bat.

The pipe struck Harper on the underside of his wrist,

causing the Sinovirus grenade to fly out of his hand and go

soaring upwards.

THE LIVE BIOLOGICAL GRENADE FLEW UP INTO THE AIR.

It flew in a kind of bizarre slow motion, tumbling end

over end, high above the northern half of the pit.

Schofield watched it, eyes wide.

The prisoners watched it, mouths agape.

The President watched it, awestruck.

Harper watched it, an evil grin forming on his face.

One, one-thousand ...

Two, one-thousand ...

Three ...

At that moment, at the height of its arc, about thirty

feet above the floor of the pit--directly above its northernmost

section--the Sinovirus grenade went off.

IN THE FIRELIGHT OF THE PRISONERS' TORCHES, THE AEROSOL

explosion of the grenade inside the hangar was almost beautiful.

It looked like the blast of a water-filled firecracker--a

354 Matthew Reilly

giant star-shaped burst of mist--with multiple fingers of watery

yellow particles shooting outwards from a central point,

showering laterally, fanning out like a giant umbrella over

the sunken aircraft elevator platform, orange firelight glinting