Matthew Reilly - Area 7

microwave signal--using it to impersonate Caesar's signal.

If she'd done it right, the satellite in orbit above them

wouldn't be able to tell that it was a new return signal coming

back to it.

A tiny green strobe light on top of the black box started

blinking.

Gant keyed her radio mike.

"Scarecrow! I just took care of the radio signal! Nail the

bastard!"

As soon as gant said it, caesar came into schofield's

view.

The Air Force general smiled at the sight of Schofield,

slumped in the cockpit of the destroyed Super Stallion, defiantly

raising his ornamental pistol in defense.

Caesar wagged a finger at Schofield. "Oh, no, no, no, Captain, you're not allowed to do that. Remember, no shooting Uncle Caesar."

"No?" Schofield said.

"No."

"Oh ..." Schofield sighed.

Area 7 465

Then--blam!--quick as a flash, he snapped his gun up

and shot Caesar square in the chest.

A gout of blood erupted from Caesar's torso.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

Caesar reeled with each shot, staggering backwards, his

eyes bulging in astonishment, his face completely aghast.

He dropped his P-90 and fell unceremoniously to the floor,

landing hard on his butt.

Schofield rose to his feet, stepped out of the chopper

and strode over to the fallen Caesar, kicking the general's

P-90 away from his clawing fingers.

Caesar was still alive, but only just.

A trickle of blood gurgled out the side of his mouth. He looked pathetic, helpless, a shadow of his former self.

Schofield stared down at him.

"How ... how ... ?" Caesar stammered through the

blood. "You ... you can't kill me!"

"As a matter of fact, I could," Schofield said. "But I

think I'll leave that to you."

And then he hurried off to rejoin Gant and get the hell

out of Area 7.

"warning. three minutes to facility self-destruct ..."

Schofield carried Gant in his arms onto the detachable

mini-elevator. Her right ankle had been completely shattered

by Caesar's shot, and she couldn't walk on it at all.

But that didn't stop her contributing.

While Schofield carried her, she held the most important

black box in the world in her lap.

Their goal now ... more than saving their own lives ... was to get that flight data recorder out of Area 7 before it

was destroyed in the coming nuclear blast. If its signal

died now, everything they had fought for would be for

nothing.

"Okay, smart guy," Gant said, "how are we gonna get

out of this seven-story nuclear grenade?"

Schofield hit the floor panel of the mini-elevator and it

began to whiz down the wall of the shaft. He looked at his

watch.

11:12:30.

11:12:31.

"Well, we can't get out through the top door," he said.

"Caesar changed the code, and it took my DIA guy ten minutes to crack the lockdown codes. And I don't like our

chances of getting out through the EEV in time. It took

Book and me a good minute to come down through that

vent before. I can't imagine the two of us getting up it in

less than ten. And by then, that Escape Vent is gonna be vapor."

"So what are we going to do?"

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"There's one way," Schofield said, "if we can get to it in

time."

11:12:49.

11:12:50.

SCHOFIELD STOPPED THE MINI-ELEVATOR AT THE LEVEL 2

hangar, and still carrying Gant, hustled down its length,

making for the entry to the stairwell at the other end.

"Warning. Two minutes to facility self-destruct ..."

They reached the stairwell.

11:13:20.

Schofield burst into it, leapt down it with Gant in his

arms, taking the stairs three at a time.

They passed Level 3, the living quarters.

11:13:32.

Level 4, the nightmare floor.

11:13:41.

Level 5, the flooded floor.

11:13:50.

Schofield kicked open the door to Level 6.

"Warning. One minute to facility self-destruct ..."

He saw their escape vehicle right away.

The small X-rail maintenance vehicle still sat right next

to the stairwell door, on the track that led out to Lake Powell,

in the spot where it had been sitting all day.

Schofield remembered what Herbie Franklin had said

about the maintenance car before. It was smaller than the

other X-rail engines, and faster, too--just a round capsule

and four long struts, with room for only two people in its

podlike cabin.

"Forty-five seconds to facility self-destruct ..."

Schofield yanked open the pod's door, heaved Gant

into it, then he clambered up into the small round capsule

after her.

"Thirty seconds ..."

Schofield hit the black start button on the pod's console.

468

Matthew Reilly

The compact X-rail engine hummed to life.

"Twenty seconds ... nineteen ... eighteen ..."

He looked at the tracks in front of him. They stretched

away into flashing red darkness, four parallel tracks converging

to a point in the far distance.

"Hit it!" Gant said.

Schofield jammed the throttle forward.

"Fifteen ..."

The small X-rail pod leapt off the mark, thundered forward,

shooting along the length of the underground subway

station, crashing through the strobing red shadows.

"Fourteen ..."

Schofield was thrust back into his seat by the speed.

The pod hit 50 mph.

"Thirteen ..."

The X-rail pod gained speed quickly. Schofield saw the

quartet of tracks both beneath and above the windshield

rushing past them.

100 mph.

"Twelve ... eleven ..."

Then suddenly--shoom!--the X-shaped pod entered

the tunnel leading out to Lake Powell, leaving Area 7 behind

it.

150 mph.

"Ten ..."

250 mph. Two hundred and fifty miles per hour equaled

about 110 yards per second. In ten seconds, they'd be nearly

a mile away from Area 7.

"Nine ... eight ..."

Schofield hoped a mile would be enough.

"Seven ... six ..."

He urged the little pod onward.

"Five ... four ..."

Gant groaned with pain.

"Three ... two ..."

The little maintenance pod rocketed through the tunnel,

Area 7 469

shooting away from Area 7, banking with every bend, moving

at phenomenal speed.

"One ...

"... facility self-destruct activated."

boom time.

IT SOUNDED LIKE THE END OF THE UNIVERSE.

The colossal roar of the nuclear explosion inside Area 7

was absolutely monstrous.

For a structure that had been designed in the Cold War

to withstand a direct nuclear strike, it did quite well containing

its own supernuclear demise.

The W-88 self-destruct warhead was situated inside the

walls of Level 2, roughly in the center of the underground

facility. When it went off, the whole underground complex

lit up like a lightbulb, and a white-hot pulse of energy rocketed

through its floors and walls—unstoppable, irresistible.

Everything inside the complex was obliterated in a

nanosecond ... aeroplanes, test chambers, elevator shafts.

Even the bloodied and broken Caesar Russell.

From his position on the floor of the main hangar, the

last thing he saw was a flash of blinding white light, followed

by an instant's worth of the most intense heat he had

ever felt in his life. And then nothing.

But to a large extent, the complex's two-foot-thick titanium

outer wall contained the blast.

The concussion wave that the momentous explosion

generated, however, shook the sandy earth well beyond the

structure's titanium walls, making it shudder and shake for

several miles around Area 7, the wave of expanding energy