Matthew Reilly - Area 7

Harper said it. Come on."

libby gant was on her own.

She was standing in a dark hallway inside the command

building at the eastern end of the hangar, at the base of a set

of stairs--unarmed but alert as hell.

In the hangar outside, the Sinovirus was loose, and she

didn't have a gas mask.

Okay, she thought, surely in a facility like this, there

would have to be some--

She found them in a cupboard underneath the stairs:

biohazard suits. Great big yellow Chemturions--with large,

baggy plastic helmets, balloonlike yellow coveralls, and

self-contained air packs.

Matthew Reilly

In the same cupboard, Gant also found a chunky

Maglite flashlight. Very handy.

She slipped into one of the Chemturion suits as fast as

she could, pulling its Ziploc zipper shut, turning on its self

contained air supply. The suit immediately inflated and she

started hearing her own breathing as a Darth Vader-like

wheeze.

Now safe from the Sinovirus, she had something else

she wanted to do.

She recalled her previous plan: find Caesar Russell's

command center--get the initiate/terminate unit that he'd

used to start the transmitter on the President's heart--then

use the black box that she'd taken from the AWACS plane

earlier to impersonate the President's radio signal.

The black box.

So far as she knew, it was still on the floor of the main

hangar, in the spot where she had kicked it away from the

mini elevator.

She decided to search the command center for the I/T

unit first. Then she'd go back for the black box.

Guided by the light of her newfound flashlight, she

climbed the stairs, came to the command room's doorway.

The door was ajar.

Slowly, Gant pushed it open, to reveal a very battered

looking room.

It looked like a war had been fought in there.

The room's plasterboard walls were shredded with bullet

holes. The slanted windows overlooking the main hangar

were cracked or completely shattered. Several computer

consoles bore fat round holes in their monitors. Others just

sat there blank, lacking a power source.

Dressed in her yellow biohazard suit, Gant entered the

room, stepping over a pair of dead 7th Squadron men lying

all shot up on the floor. Their weapons were gone, presumably

taken by the inmates who had stormed through here.

Through the faceplate of her airtight suit, Gant's eyes

swept the control room, searching for the

Yes.

area 7

It was sitting on top of one of the computer monitors

and it was just as the President had described it: a small red hand held unit, with a black stub antenna sticking out of its top.

The initiate/terminate unit.

Gant picked it up, examined it. It looked like a miniature mobile phone.

She saw two switches on its face. Beneath each switch

was a crude length of tape marked with a handwritten T

and "2."

Gant frowned. Why would Caesar need ... ?

She shook the thought away, stuffed the IT unit into the

chest pocket of her biohazard suit.

As she did so, she peered out over the darkened hangar

to see if she could spot the black box down by the pit.

The vast hangar floor stretched away from her, veiled

by the unearthly mist of the Sinovirus.

Except for the flickering flames of the prisoners' discarded

torches, nothing moved.

The area was awash with irregularly shaped objects:

slumped bodies, Marine One, a crashed cockroach, one battered

helicopter, even Bravo Unit's busted-open barricade of

crates and boxes.

Gant's flashlight had a powerful beam, and in the middle

of some bodies and debris on the near side of the pit, it illuminated

the bright-orange outline of the AWACS's black

box.

366

Matthew Reilly

Excellent ...

Gant made to leave, when abruptly, a glint of pale-blue

light caught her eye.

She paused. It seemed that not every monitor in the control

room had been shot or lost power.

Hidden underneath a fallen piece of shredded plasterboard,

a lone screen was still glowing.

Gant frowned.

The complex's power was out--which meant this system

must be operating on an independent power source.

Which meant it must be pretty important ...

She lifted the broken piece of wall off the screen. The

screen read:

LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL S.A.(R) 7A

FAILSAFE SYSTEM HISTORY

7-3-468201103

TIME KEY ACTION

SYSTEM RESPONSE

0658 AUTHORIZED LOCKDOWN

INITIATE CODE ENTERED

0801 AUTHORIZED LOCKDOWN

EXTENSION CODE ENTERED

0900 AUTHORIZED LOCKDOWN

EXTENSION CODE ENTERED

1005 NO AUTHORIZED CODE

ENTERED

LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL

ENABLED

LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL

CONTINUED

LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL

CONTINUED

FACILITY SELF-DESTRUCT

MECHANISM ARMED

10 OS ******* WARNING **************

EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.

IF YOU DO NOT ENTER AN AUTHORIZED

LOCKDOWN EXTENSION OR TERMINATION

CODE BY 1105 HOURS, FACILITY SELF

DESTRUCT SEQUENCE WILL BE ACTIVATED.

SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE DURATION: 10:00

MINUTES.

************** IA/ A **************

Area 7 367

Gant's eyes went wide.

Facility self-destruct sequence ...

No wonder this system operated on an independent

power source.

But for whatever reason--presumably the sudden intrusion

of the inmates--Caesar Russell's people had failed to

enter the appropriate lockdown extension code during the

window period after 10:00 a.m.

So now, if no one entered an extension or termination

code before 11:05 a.m., Area 7's self-destruct sequence

would begin--a ten-minute procedure that would culminate

in the hundred-megaton thermonuclear warhead buried in

the earth beneath the complex going off.

"Holy mother of God ..." Gant breathed. She looked at

her watch.

It was 10:15 a.m.

She turned to go--

--at the same moment as a long length of steel piping

crashed down against the back of her suit-hooded head.

Gant dropped to the floor, out cold.

She never saw her attacker.

Never saw him heft her onto his shoulder.

Never saw him carry her out of the control room.

THE X-RAIL TRAIN BOOMED THROUGH THE TUNNEL SYSTEM,

rocketing along on its quartet of tracks at tremendous speed,

heading toward Area 8.

It wouldn't be a long trip. At two hundred miles per

hour, they'd cover the twenty miles in about six minutes.

Although he didn't know exactly where Echo Unit was

going with Kevin, Schofield at least knew they had come

this way.

It was better than nothing.

Having set the train's autopilot, he walked back into the

main cabin and sat down with Mother and the President.

Nick Tate was off at the other end of the carriage, still somewhat

out of it, staring with great concentration at the buttons

on his cellular phone.

Schofield sat down. As he did so, he pulled out his newfound

syringe and the antidote to the Sinovirus, and set

about injecting himself with it. Mother and the President did

the same.

As he jabbed the needle into his arm, Schofield looked

up at the President. "Now, sir, if you don't mind, would you please tell me what the hell is going on at this base?"

the president pursed his lips.

"You could start," Schofield prompted, "with why an

Air Force Lieutenant General wants to kill you in front of

the nation. Then you could tell me why he also wants to

keep his hands on a genetically engineered boy who is the