Matthew Reilly - Area 7

blinked to life.

On it, Schofield saw the image of the control room

overlooking the main hangar.

And standing inside the heavily battered room, looking

directly into the camera as he had done on several occasions

earlier that morning, was Caesar Russell.

russell grinned at the camera.

When he spoke, his voice boomed out from the tower's

speakers.

"Greetings, Mr. President, people of America. I know

it's a little early for my hourly update, but since, alas, it appears

that my race has been run, I'm sure you won't mind an

early commentary.

"My men are vanquished, my cause lost. I would

area 7

commend the President and his brave bodyguards for their

efforts, but such is not my way. I merely leave you all with

one parting comment: this country can never be the same,

after today ..."

Then Caesar did something that made Schofield's blood completely freeze.

He pulled open the front of his combat fatigues, revealing his chest.

Schofield's jaw dropped. "Oh no ..."

There, on Russell's chest, was a long vertical scar, right over his heart--the scar of a man who had had heart surgery

sometime in the past.

Caesar grinned, an evil, maniacal, completely insane grin.

"Cross my heart," he said, "and hope to die."

"what?" the president said. "I don't get it."

Schofield was silent.

He got it.

He snatched a piece of paper from his pocket. It was the printout he'd gotten Brainiac to

on the plane right at the very start of all this--when he'd needed to know if there really was a radio transmitter planted on the

President's heart.

Schofield scanned the printout. It still had the circles

Brainiac had drawn on it before:

50

75

100

He recalled Brainiac's earlier explanation. "It's a standard rebounding signature. The satellite sends down a search signal--they're the tall spikes on the

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positive side--and then, soon after, the receiver on the

ground, the President, bounces that signal back. Those are

the deep spikes on the negative side.

"Search and return. Interference aside, the rebounding

signature seems to repeat itself once every twenty-five seconds."

"Interference aside ..." Schofield said as he stared at

the printout.

"Only there is no interference. There are two separate signals. The satellite needs to pick up two signals ..." He

grabbed a nearby pen and joined the four circles into two pairs.

"This graph indicates two distinct signal patterns,"

Schofield said. "The first and the third. And then the second

and fourth."

"What are you saying?" the President asked.

"What I'm saying, Mr. President, is that you're not the

only man at this complex with a radio transmitter attached to

his heart. It's Caesar's trump card, his last resort, so that

even if he loses, he still wins. Caesar Russell has a transmitter

attached to his heart. So now, if he dies, the devices at the

airports go off."

"But he's inside the complex," Book II said, wincing

with pain, "and in exactly twenty minutes, the self-destruct

sequence will be initiated."

"I know," Schofield said, "and so does he. Which means

I now have to do something that I never thought I'd ever want to do. I have to go back into Area 7 and stop Caesar

Russell from getting killed."

SEVENTH

CONFRONTATION

3 July, 1045 Hours

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

SPECIAL AREA (RESTRICTED) NO.7

1045 HOURS

GROUND LEVEL: Main Hangar

LEVEL 1: Hangar Bay

LEVEL 2: Hangar Bay

LEVEL 3: Living Quarters

SCHOFIELD RE-ARMED HIMSELF.

With Book II and Juliet both wounded, he was going

back inside alone.

He got his Maghook back from Book, slid it into the

shotgun holster on his back. He also grabbed the P-90 that

Seth Grimshaw had brought out of the complex. It only had

about forty rounds left in it, but that was better than nothing.

He jammed Book's M9 and his own Desert Eagle pistol into

his thigh holsters. And last of all, he swapped his water damaged

wrist mike and earpiece for Juliet's working unit.

Book and Juliet would remain up in the tower armed with a P-90, guarding the President, the Football and Kevin until the Army and Marine forces arrived at the base.

Schofield pulled out Nicholas Tate's cell phone, dialed

the operator. He got Dave Fairfax's voice straight away, cutting

into the call.

"Mr. Fairfax, I need a favor."

"What?"

"I need the lockdown release codes for Special Area 7,

the codes that turn off the self-destruct mechanism. Now, I

can't imagine they're kept in a book somewhere. You're going

to have to get onto the local network itself and somehow

pull them out."

"How long have I got?" Fairfax asked.

"You've got exactly nineteen minutes."

"I'm on it."

Fairfax hung up.

Schofield jammed a fresh clip into his M9. As he did so,

a figure appeared at his side.

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"I think she's still alive, too," Kevin said suddenly.

Schofield looked up, appraised the little boy for a moment

"How did you know I was thinking that?"

"I just know. I always know. I knew that Dr. Botha was

lying to the Air Force men. And I could tell that you were a

good man. I can't see exactly what someone's thinking, just

what they're feeling. Right now, you're worried about someone,

someone you care about. Someone who's still inside."

"Is this how you knew it was me on the space shuttle?"

"Yes."

Schofield finished loading his guns. "Any final tips,

then?" he asked Kevin.

The little boy said, "I only saw her once, when you were

both standing outside my cube. I only sensed one thing

about her: she really likes you. So you'd better save her."

Schofield gave him a wry smile. "Thanks."

And then he was away.

He tried the top door entrance first.

No luck.

Caesar had changed the code, manually it seemed. No

time for Fairfax to crack that one.

That left only one other option: the Emergency Exit Vent.

Schofield ran for Caesar's abandoned Penetrator helicopter.

It was 10:48 a.m.

TWO MINUTES LATER, CAESAR'S PENETRATOR--NOW FLOWN

by Schofield--landed next to the EEV in a swirling cloud of

dust and sand.

The EEV hadn't been hard to find. Mr. Hoeg's lime

green biplane--still sitting there on the desert floor--betrayed

the exit's location quite unambiguously.

No sooner had the black helicopter touched the ground

than Schofield was out of it and running toward the EEV.

He leapt down into the earthen trench and disappeared

inside the exit's open steel doorway at a run.

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it was 10:51 when schofield stepped out onto the darkened

X-rail tracks on Level 6, his gun raised.

The world down here was pitch-black, save for the thin

beam of his P-90's barrel-mounted flashlight.

He saw bodies laid out before him, shadows in the dim

light--the remnants of the previous battles that day.

Air Force vs. Secret Service.

South Africans vs. Air Force.

Schofield and his Marines vs. Air Force.

Christ ...

But another thing weighed on his mind. Kevin, of

course, had been right. Apart from saving Caesar Russell,

Schofield had a far more personal reason for entering Area 7

again.

He wanted to find Libby Gant.

He didn't know what had happened to her after the

Sinovirus grenade had gone off up in the main hangar, but he

refused to believe that she was dead.

Schofield brought his wrist mike to his lips. "Fox. Fox.