Matthew Reilly - Area 7

The President bestowed upon Schofield and his team of

Marines the Congressional Medal of Honor (Classified), for

acts of valor in the field of battle despite the endangerment

of their own lives.

It was, however, an award they could tell no one about.

But then again, they all agreed it was probably better

that way.

while the others stayed to eat in the white house dining

room--during which dinner the President had a particularly

lively conversation with Mother and Ralph about the

Teamsters--Schofield and Gant took their leave, and went

out, alone, on their second date.

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When they got to the venue, they found that they had

the place to themselves.

A single candle-lit table stood in the center of the wide

wood-paneled room.

And so they took their places and dined.

Alone.

In the President's private dining room, on the upper floor

of the White House, overlooking the Washington Monument.

"Give them whatever they want," the President had instructed

his personal chef. "Just put it on my tab."

By flickering candlelight, they talked and talked till late

in the evening.

As dessert arrived, Schofield reached into his pocket.

"You know," he said, "I meant to give you this on your

birthday, but the day kind of got away from me."

He pulled a crumpled piece of cardboard from his

pocket. It was small, about the size of a Christmas card.

"What is it?" Gant asked.

"It was your birthday present," Schofield said sadly. "It

was in my trouser pocket all day--I had to take it with me

every time I changed uniforms--so I'm afraid it got a little,

well, beat up."

He handed it to Gant.

She looked at it, and she smiled.

It was a photograph.

A photograph of a group of people standing on a beautiful

Hawaiian beach. Everyone was wearing board shorts

and loud Hawaiian shirts.

And standing next to each other at the very edge of the

group, smiling for the camera, were Gant and Schofield.

Gant's smile was a little uncomfortable, and Schofield's

kind of sad, behind his reflective silver sunglasses.

Gant remembered the day as if it were yesterday.

It had been that barbecue held on a beach near Pearl Harbor, celebrating her promotion to Schofield's Recon Unit.

"It was the first time we met," Schofield said.

"Yes," Gant said. "Yes, it was."

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"I've never forgotten it," he said.

Gant beamed. "You know, this is the nicest birthday

present I've received this year."

Then she lifted herself up out of her seat, leaned over the table and kissed him on the lips.

after their dinner, they arrived downstairs, where

they were met by a presidential limousine. It was flanked

however, from in front and behind, by four Marine Corps

Humvees, six police cruisers and four motorcycle outriders.

Gant raised her eyebrows at the elaborate motorcade.

"Oh, yeah," Schofield said sheepishly, "there was something else I had to tell you about."

"Yes?" Gant said.

Schofield opened the limousine's rear door wide--

--to reveal the small sleeping figure of Kevin lying in the backseat.

"He needed a place to stay, at least until they find him

a new home," Schofield shrugged. "So I said I'd take him

as long as they needed. The government, however, insisted on providing a little extra security."

Gant just shook her head and smiled.

"Come on," she said. "Let's go home."

AN INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW REILLY

THE WRITING OF AREA 7

How did you come up with the idea for Area 7?

I actually conceived the core idea for Area 7--namely, that a

character has a transmitter attached to his heart and if his

heart stops, something terrible happens--just after I finished Ice Station, way back in 1997. (I still remember finishing Ice

Station and saying to myself, "Okay, Matt, you now have

two options for your next book: you can do that transmitter

on-the heart one or you can do that mean two-stories-told-in-parallel

novel." Obviously, I chose the latter option, and it

became Temple.)

The thing was, back then, I couldn't figure out a way to

make the transmitter-on-the-heart idea work. My main problem

was that I didn't know whose heart to put the transmitter

on! I had this great idea, but didn't have a story to wrap it up

in. Then, nearly three years later, when I decided to do a new

Shane Schofield book, I said, "Wait a second, what if I attached

the transmitter to the U.S. President's heart and made

Schofield one of his bodyguards ..." And so Area 7 was born.

What was it like to write a sequel?

Area 7 is the first sequel I've ever written, and it was a very

different experience to creating a wholly new novel. The

first thing that must be said is that I didn't make the decision

to do a sequel to Ice Station lightly. As a keen moviegoer, I

am very conscious of sequels that ruin the original story. So

I decided that if I was going to write a sequel to Ice Station, that book would have to (a) have a rip-roaringly original

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story that at least matched the story in Ice Station', and

(b) somehow add to the experience of Ice Station. It was also

important to me that Area 7 should stand on its own, that

readers who hadn't read Ice Station would still be able to enjoy

it just as much as those who had read the earlier book. I

reckon Area 7 stands up to all three of those stipulations, but

ultimately that's for my readers to decide.

So, to you, how does Area 7 "add to the experience of Ice

Station"?

To my mind, a sequel should reveal some kind of extra dimension

to the lead characters of the original. In Area 7, for

example, we learn a little more about Schofield and Gant's

relationship, and about Mother's home life. To my mind, the

biggest addition comes in the character of Book II. (For

those who haven't read Ice Station, I suggest, at this point,

that you skip to the next question as I'm about to give away

a couple of plot points.)

I loved the original "Book" Riley in Ice Station. I loved

his loyalty to Scarecrow, his nuggety strength, and his overall

"fatherly" influence on Schofield. As such, it was a big

decision to kill him in Ice Station (his death, I've been told,

shocked a lot of people; in fact, my girlfriend, Natalie, still

hasn't forgiven me for doing that). And so, in Area 7, I

thought I'd "resurrect" Book in the shape of his son, Book

II. I felt it might do two things: first, it would bring Book Sr.

back in the new book, at least in spirit; and second, it would

add something to the Ice Station experience by showing that

the story in Ice Station was not quite over at the end of the

book, that the events depicted there had consequences,

repercussions.

Now, I know what you're thinking: Matthew Reilly books aren't exactly known for their character development.

Hey, one reviewer once said that the characters in my books

don't live long enough to justify any "development." My response,

however, is simple: I want to write about action and

thrills and adventure, and if developing characters slows

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down the action, then developing characters gets the chop!

The introduction of Book II, however, was an effort to give a

little more character depth than usual.

Why did you choose to set Area 7 in the American desert?

Several reasons. First, because I love stories about Area 51,

the top-secret base where the U.S. government supposedly