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the floor, kicking up sparks.

  "Elvis!" Book II yelled. "Go for the elevator! The regular

  elevator!"

  Matthew Reilly

  The 7th Squadron soldiers dived out of the way as the

  speeding cockroach thundered in among them, wildly out of

  control.

  Elvis saw the elevator doors off to his right, and yanked

  the steering wheel hard over. The cockroach responded,

  swinging right, cutting the corner of the aircraft elevator

  shaft--so that for the briefest of moments, Book II, partially

  hanging off the roof of the vehicle, saw nothing but a wide

  chasm of emptiness falling away beneath him.

  Three seconds later, the cockroach--with the semi

  destroyed helicopter behind it--skidded to a squealing halt

  right in front of the elevator doors on the northern side of the

  hangar.

  Book II leapt off the top of the big Volvo and hit the call

  button, Elvis joining him, when suddenly two armed men

  leapt over the big towing vehicle behind them.

  Book II spun, snapping his guns up, triggers half-pulled.

  "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" one of the armed men said,

  holding his pistol up.

  "Easy, Sergeant," the other one said calmly. "We're

  with you."

  Book II eased back on his triggers.

  They were Marines.

  The first was Sergeant Ashley Lewicky, an extraordinarily

  ugly career sergeant with a thick monobrow, battered pug

  nose, and mile-wide grin. Short and stout, his call-sign was a

  slam dunk: "Love Machine." Of roughly equal age and rank,

  he and Elvis had been buddies for years.

  The second Marine, however, couldn't have been more

  different from Love Machine. Tall and handsome in a clean

  cut kind of way, he was a twenty-nine-year-old captain

  named Tom Reeves. A promising young officer, he'd been

  tagged for rapid promotion. Indeed, he'd already been promoted

  over several more-experienced lieutenants. Despite

  his obvious skills, the men called him "Calvin," because he

  looked like a Calvin Klein underwear model.

  "Jesus H. Christ, Elvis," Love Machine said, "where the

  hell did you learn to drive! A demolition derby?"

  Area 7 97

  "Why? Where have you two been?" Elvis asked.

  "Where do you think, knucklehead? Inside Nighthawk

  Two. We both dived in there when the shit hit the fan. And

  we were kinda happy there until you guys drove us into the

  sights of that rocket laun--"

  Just then, a volley of bullets smacked into the wall

  above their heads.

  Ten 7th Squadron men--Bravo Unit--were charging

  across the wide hangar after them.

  "I presume you had a plan when you drove over here,

  Sergeant," Calvin Reeves said to Book II.

  At that moment, the elevator pinged and its metal doors

  slid open. Thankfully, it was empty.

  "This was it, sir," Book II said.

  "I approve," Calvin said and they all rushed inside.

  Book II went straight to the control panel and hit "door

  close."

  The doors began to close. A bullet sizzled inside,

  smacked against the back wall of the lift.

  "Hurry up ..." Elvis urged.

  The doors kept closing.

  They heard boots thud onto the roof of the cockroach

  outside, heard machine-gun bolts cock--

  The doors came together ...

  ... a bare second before they erupted with domelike

  welts from the barrage of bullets outside.

  IT HAD TAKEN THEM A WHILE, BUT MOVING HAND OVER HAND,

  hanging by their fingertips from the cabling gutter that ran

  all the way around the elevator shaft, they had eventually

  made it to the wide hangar door on the other side.

  Hanging one-handed from the horizontal gutter,

  Schofield hit a button on a control panel beside the hangar

  door. Instantly, the massive steel door began to rumble upward.

  Schofield climbed up onto level ground first, made sure

  there were no enemy troops around, then turned to help the

  others up behind him.

  When they were all up, they gazed at the area before

  them.

  "Whoa, mama ..." Mother breathed.

  A cavernous--completely underground--aircraft hangar

  stretched away from them.

  IN THE CONTROL ROOM OVERLOOKING THE MAIN GROUND

  level hangar, the wall of black-and-white television monitors

  flashed an array of images from the underground complex:

  Juliet Janson and the President running up the stairwell.

  Book II, Calvin Reeves, Elvis and Love Machine inside

  the regular elevator, punching out the ceiling hatch and

  climbing up through it.

  Schofield and the others stepping up into the doorway

  of the underground hangar.

  "--okay, Charlie Unit, I have them. The ones who were

  in the ventilation shaft. Level 1 hangar bay. Four Marines:

  two male, two female. They're all yours--"

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  "--Bravo Unit, your targets have just exited the personnel

  elevator through the ceiling hatch. About to lose visual

  contact. But they're in the shaft. Sealing all elevator shaft

  doors except yours. Okay, they're shut in. Take them out--"

  "--sir, Echo Unit has cleaned out the rest of the main

  hangar. Awaiting further instructions--"

  "Send them to help Charlie," Caesar Russell said, eyeing

  the monitor with Shane Schofield on it.

  "--Echo, this is Control, proceed to Level 1 hangar bay

  for rendezvous with Charlie Unit--"

  "--Alpha Unit, Presidential Detail is climbing the stairs.

  Coming right for you. Delta Unit, the Level 6 fire door is unguarded.

  You are free to enter the stairwell and engage--"

  IT WAS ABSOLUTELY GIGANTIC.

  An enormous subterranean hangar, roughly the same

  size as the one up at ground level, perhaps even larger.

  It had several aircraft in it, too.

  One converted Boeing 707 AWACS plane, with the

  characteristic flying-saucer-like rotodome mounted on its

  back. Two sinister-looking B-2 stealth bombers, with their

  black radar-absorbent paint, futuristic flying-wing design,

  and angry furrowed-brow cockpit windows. And parked directly

  in front of the stealth bombers, one Lockheed SR-71

  Blackbird, the world's fastest operational aircraft, with its

  sleek super-elongated fuselage and twin rear thrusters.

  The massive airplanes towered above Schofield and his

  team, dominating the cavernous space.

  "What do we do now?" Mother asked.

  Schofield was momentarily silent.

  He was staring intently at the AWACS plane. It just

  stood there silently, pointing toward the wide aircraft elevator

  shaft.

  Then he said, "We find out if what they're saying about

  the President's heart is true."

  THE AIR IN THE FIRE STAIRS WAS FILLED WITH FLYING BULLETS.

  The Presidential Detail, down to three now, guided their

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  charge up the stairs, leading with their guns, a makeshift array

  of Uzis, SIG-Sauers and spare ankle revolvers.

  A young male agent named Julio Ramondo led the way,
/>   spraying the stairs above them with his Uzi, despite a bullet

  wound to his shoulder.

  Special Agent Juliet Janson came after him, having assumed

  command of the Detail more by action than protocol.

  She guided the President along behind her.

  The third and last surviving agent of the Detail--his

  name was Curtis--covered their rear, firing down the stairs

  behind them as they moved.

  At twenty-eight, Juliet Janson was the most junior

  member of the President's Detail, but that didn't seem to

  matter now.

  She had degrees in criminology and psychology, could

  run a hundred meters in 13.8 seconds and was an excellent

  marksman. The daughter of an American businessman father

  and a Taiwanese university lecturer mother, she had a

  flawless Eurasian complexion--smooth olive skin, a sharply

  defined jawline, beautiful almond-brown eyes and shoulder

  length jet-black hair.

  "Ramondo! Can you see it!" she shouted above the

  gunfire.

  After the horror of their attempt to get to Level 6 and

  the bloody death of Frank Cutler, the President and his Detail

  had been left in the middle of a 7th Squadron sandwich.

  The unit down on Level 6 was coming up after them,

  while the unit that had chased them out of the common room

  on Level 3 was closing in on them from above.

  What that had left them with was a race--a race to get

  to one of the floors in between Level 6 and Level 3 before

  they faced fire from both above and below.

  "Yes! I see it!" Ramondo yelled back. "Come on!"

  Juliet Janson arrived on the landing next to Ramondo,

  with the President beside her. Thumping footfalls echoed

  down the stairwell above them, bullets ripped apart the walls

  all around them.

  Janson saw the nearest door, saw the sign on it:

  Area 7 101

  LEVEL 5: ANIMAL CONTAINMENT AREA

  NO ENTRY

  THIS DOOR FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY

  ENTER VIA ELEVATORS AT OTHER END OF FLOOR

  "I think this qualifies as an emergency," she said, before

  blasting the door's locks with three shots from her

  SIG-Sauer.

  Then she kicked open the door and hauled the President

  into Level 5.

  BOOK II LOOKED UP INTO THE DARKNESS OF THE REGULAR elevator

  shaft, saw the outer doors that led to the ground-level

  hangar about fifty feet above him.

  He was standing on top of the personnel elevator--now

  stopped midway down the shaft--with Calvin, Elvis and Love Machine. A few widely spaced fluorescent lights illuminated

  the enclosed concrete elevator well.

  "Why did we have to get out of the elevator?" Elvis

  asked.

  "Cameras," Book II said. "We couldn't stay--"

  "We'd have been sitting ducks if we'd stayed inside it,"

  Calvin Reeves said, cutting in. "Gentlemen, as the ranking

  officer here, I am taking command."

  "So what's the plan then, Captain America?" Love Machine

  asked.

  "We keep moving--" Calvin began, but that was all he

  got out, because at that moment, the outer doors above them

  burst open and almost immediately three P-90 gunbarrels

  appeared, bright yellow flashes bursting forth from their

  muzzles.

  A flurry of ricochets impacted all around the elevator.

  Book II ducked and spun--and saw a series of vertical

  counterweight cables running down the wall of the shaft,

  disappearing down the side of the stationary elevator.

  "The cables!" he yelled, scampering over to the wall,

  not caring for the chain of command. "Everybody down! Now!"

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  Matthew Reilly

  SHANE SCHOFIELD BURST INTO THE FORWARD CABIN OF THE

  AWACS plane in the hangar on Level 1.

  "Brainiac"

  "Already on it," Brainiac headed aft, disappearing inside

  the main cabin of the aircraft.

  "Close the door," Schofield said to Mother, who had

  come in last.

  Schofield charged aft. The interior of the AWACS was

  very similar to that of a commercial airliner--albeit a commercial

  airliner that had had all its seats ripped out and replaced

  by large flat-topped surveillance consoles.

  Brainiac was already at one of the consoles. It was

  whirring to life as Schofield took a seat beside him. Mother

  and Gant went straight for the plane's two door-windows,

  peered out through them.

  Brainiac started typing at the console.

  "Mother said it was a microwave signal," Schofield

  said. "The satellite beams it down and then the radio chip on

  the President's heart bounces the signal back up."

  Brainiac typed some more. "Makes sense. Only a microwave

  signal could penetrate the radiosphere over this base--and then only if it knew the trapdoor frequency."

  "Trapdoor frequency?"

  Brainiac kept typing. "The radiosphere over this base is

  like an umbrella, a giant hemispherical dome of scrambled

  electromagnetic energy. Basically, this umbrella of garbled

  energy stops all unauthorized signals from either entering or

  escaping the base. But, like all good jamming systems, it has

  a designated frequency for use by authorized transmissions.

  This is the trapdoor frequency--a microwave bandwidth

  that wends its way through the radiosphere, avoiding the

  jamming signatures. Kind of like a secret path through a

  minefield."

  "So this satellite signal is coming in on the trapdoor frequency?"

  Schofield said.

  "That's my guess," Brainiac said. "What I'm doing now

  is using the AWACS's rotodome to search all the microwave

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  frequencies inside this base. These birds have the best bandwidth

  detection systems around, so it shouldn't take-- bingo. Got it."

  He slammed his finger down on the enter key and a

  new screen came up.

  "Okay, you looking at this?" Brainiac printed out the

  screen. "It's a standard rebounding signature. The satellite

  sends down a search signal--they're the tall spikes on

  the positive side, about 10 gigahertz--and then, soon after,

  the receiver on the ground, the President, bounces that signal

  back. Those are the deep spikes on the negative side."

  50

  75

  100

  Brainiac circled the spikes on the printout.

  "Search and return," he said. "Interference aside, the rebounding

  signature seems to repeat itself once every twenty-five seconds. Captain, that Air Force general ain't lying.

  There's something down here bouncing back a secure satellite

  microwave signal."

  75

  100

  "How do we know it isn't just a beacon or something?"

  Schofield said.

  "The irregularity of it," Brainiac said. "See how it isn't

  quite a perfectly replicating sequence? See how, every now

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  and then, there's a medium-sized spike in between the

  search and the return signals?" Brainiac tapped the midsized

  spikes inside two of the circles.

  "So what does that mean?"<
br />
  "It's an interference signature. It means that the source

  of the return signal is moving."

  "Jesus," Schofield said. "It's real."

  "And it just got worse," Gant said from the window set

  into the escape door on the left-hand side of the cabin.

  "Have a look at this."

  Schofield came over to the small window, looked out

  through it.

  And his blood went cold.

  There must have been at least twenty of them.

  Twenty 7th Squadron soldiers running quickly across

  the hangar outside--P-90 assault rifles in their hands, ERG-6

  masks covering their faces--forming a wide circle around

  the AWACS plane, surrounding it.

  IT WAS THE SMELL THAT HIT THEM FIRST.

  It smelled like a zoo—that peculiar mix of animal excrement

  and sawdust in a confined space.

  Juliet Janson led the way into Level 5, pulling the President

  along behind her. The other two Secret Service agents

  hurried in after them, jamming the stairwell door shut behind

  them.

  They were standing in a wide, dark room, lined on three

  sides with grim-looking cages—forged steel bars set into

  walls of solid concrete. On the fourth side of the room were

  some more modern-looking cages: these cages had clear,

  floor-to-ceiling fiberglass walls and were filled with inky

  black water. Janson couldn't see what lurked inside the

  sloshing opaque water.

  A sudden grunting sound made her spin.

  There was something very large inside one of the steel

  cages to her right. In the dim light of the dungeon, she could

  make out a big, hairy, lumbering shape moving behind the

  thick black bars.

  There came an ominous scratching sound from the

  cage—like someone dragging a fingernail slowly and deliberately

  down a chalkboard.

  Special Agent Curtis went over to the cell, peered into

  the darkness beyond the bars.

  "Don't get too close," Janson warned.

  Too late.

  A hideous bloodcurdling roar filled the dungeon as an

  enormous black head—a blurred combination of matted

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  hair, wild eyes and flashing six-inch teeth--burst out from