Area 7 ss-2 Page 11
behind the bars and lunged at the hapless agent.
Curtis fell back from the cage, landing on his butt as the
animal--enraged, ferocious, frenzied--reached in vain for
him with a long hairy claw, held back only by the super
strong bars of the cell.
The would-be ambush over, Janson now got a better
look at the creature.
It was huge, at least nine feet tall, and covered in shaggy
black fur--and it looked completely out of place in a concrete
underground cell.
Janson couldn't believe it.
It was a bear.
And it didn't seem to be a very happy bear either. Its fur
was matted and stringy, sweat-stained, growing in clumps.
The animal's own feces clung to the fur on its hindquarters,
making the world's largest living land carnivore look like
some deranged horror movie monster.
The three other cages on the northern side of the dungeon
held more bears--four females and two cubs.
"Jesus ..." the President breathed.
"What the hell is going on in this place?" Julio Ramondo whispered.
"I don't care," Janson said, pulling the President toward
a heavy-looking door on the far side of the dungeon. "Whatever
it is, we can't stay here."
THE HANGAR BAY ON LEVEL 1 WAS SILENT.
The giant AWACS plane stood in the center of the vast
hangar, surrounded by the ring of 7th Squadron commandos.
"This isn't the situation I was hoping for," Schofield
said.
"How do they keep knowing where we are?" Mother
asked.
Gant looked at Schofield. "I would imagine a base like
this is wired up the kazoo."
"Agreed," Schofield said.
"What are you talking about?" Mother said.
Area 7 107
"Cameras," Schofield said. "Surveillance cameras.
Somewhere in this base, someone's in a room watching a
bank of monitors and telling these guys where we--"
Whump!
There came a heavy thump from somewhere outside.
Gant peered out through the window in the escape door.
"Shit! They're on the wing!"
"Oh, Christ!" Schofield said, "they're going for the
doors ..."
He exchanged a look with Gant.
"They're going to storm the plane," he said.
they looked like ants crawling over a toy airplane.
Eight 7th Squadron men--four to each side--stalking along
the wings of the giant Boeing 707.
Captain Luther "Python" Willis, commander of the 7th
Squadron's third sub-unit, Charlie Unit, stood on the hangar
floor, watching his men move along the wings of the stationary
plane.
"The Avengers are on the way up," his master sergeant
said.
Python said nothing, just nodded coldly.
inside the AWACS plane, schofield was charging down
the central aisle, checking the plane's rear entry points. Gant
and Brainiac manned the two side windows.
"There's nobody back here!" Schofield called from the
aft section of the plane, where there were two emergency
doors. "Fox!"
"I got four on the left wing!" Gant yelled.
"I got four on the right!" Brainiac said.
"Mother!" Schofield called.
No answer.
"Mother!"
Schofield strode quickly through the main cabin, moving
forward.
There was no sign of Mother anywhere. She was supposed
to be checking the plane's forward entrances--the
108
Matthew Reilly
bail-out door in the floor of the forward cabin, and the roof
hatches in the cockpit above the pilots' ejection seats.
As he hurried forward, Schofield looked out through the
nearest window, saw the armed commandos on the left-hand
wing.
He frowned. What were they doing out there?
They couldn't just burst in through the wing doors.
Even with their nickel-plated pistols, Schofield and his
Marines could easily repel a single-file entry through such a
small entrance.
It was at that moment, however--out through the window
in the side door of the Boeing 707--that he saw the
Avengers.
There were two of them and they entered the hangar bay
from the vehicle access ramp at the far eastern end of the
floor.
The Avenger air-defense vehicle is a modified Humvee.
It has the basic wide-bodied chassis of a Humvee, but
mounted on its back are two square-shaped pods, which
each hold four Stinger surface-to-air missiles. Attached to
the underside of these missile launchers is a pair of powerful
fifty-caliber machine guns. It is basically a highly efficient,
highly mobile airplane killer.
"Okay, now I know what they're going to do," Schofield
said aloud.
They were going to blast the plane with the Stingers and
then, in the smoke and confusion that followed, make a
forced entry.
Good plan, Schofield thought. And very painful for him
and his three Marines.
The two Avengers split up as they raced across the
wide-open floor of the hangar, one heading for the right
flank of the AWACS, the other heading for the left.
Schofield saw them go, disappearing from his limited
field of vision.
Shit.
He had to do something, and fast--
VROOOM!
Area 7 109
The wing-mounted engines of the AWACS plane thundered
to life. In the enclosed space of the hangar, their roar
was positively deafening.
Schofield spun where he stood. "Mother," he said.
the avengers skidded to a halt on either side of the
AWACS plane just as the massive Boeing 707 began to roll
forward, its engines filling the hangar with the thunderous
roar of blasting air.
At the sudden movement of the plane, the eight men on
its wings were jolted off balance.
Schofield charged into the cockpit of the AWACS.
Mother was sitting in the captain's seat.
"Hey there, Scarecrow!" she yelled above the din.
"Want to join me for a Sunday drive!"
"You ever driven a plane before, Mother?"
"I saw Kurt Russell drive one in a movie once! Hell, it
can't be much different from driving Ralph's eighteen
wheel--"
Whack-whack whack whack-whack!
A volley of bullets assaulted the windshield of the cockpit,
shattering it, sending glass flying all over Mother and
Schofield, the upwardly directed shots punching into the
ceiling.
And then Schofield saw one of the Avengers skid to a
halt off to the left of the AWACS plane, saw its twin missile
pods tilt upward on their hinges, getting ready to fire at the
cockpit.
"Mother! Quickly! Go left!" he shouted.
"What?" Going left would put them on a collision
course with the Avenger.
"Just do it!" Schofield leapt into the right-hand co-pilot's
seat and using the plane's pedal-operated steering controls,
Area 7
brought her hard to port, at the same time as he pushed forward
The giant AWACS plane responded immediately.
It picked up speed, moving quickly inside the confines
of the enormous hangar, swinging sharply to the left--heading
directly for the Avenger.
The 7th Squadron men on the Avenger saw what was
going to happen.
Abandoning their efforts to get a lock on the plane with
their Stingers, they dived from the missile-mounted Humvee
a bare second before the enormous forward wheels of the
Boeing thundered right over the top of the Avenger, crushing
it like a tin can, rolling over its crumpled remains like a
monster truck at a car rally.
"Yee-hah!" Mother yelled as the airplane bounced
wildly over what was left of the Humvee.
"It's not over yet," Schofield said. "There's still another
one out there. Fox! Where's that other Avenger!"
Gant and Brainiac were still in the main cabin of the
AWACS, covering the wing-entry doors on either side of the
plane--Gant with her MP-10, Brainiac with his Beretta.
"It's behind us to the left!" Gant yelled. Out her window,
she saw the Humvee on the hangar floor outside, over
by the northern wall, its missile pods raised and ready. Then,
without warning, there came a puff of smoke from one of the
pods.
"Bracing positions!" she called. "Missile away!"
There came a sudden monstrous explosion and abruptly
the whole AWACS plane shuddered violently as its rear
wheels were lifted clear off the ground.
Billowing smoke rushed into the main cabin, shooting
forward from the rear as the giant plane came back down to
earth, jouncing on its suspension.
"They've hit our tail!" Gant yelled.
It was worse than that.
The second Avenger had reduced the entire tail section
of their 707 to a smoking, gaping hole. The high tail fin of
112
Matthew Reilly
the plane lay bent and broken on the floor of the hangar,
completely detached from the plane.
The AWACS continued to turn in a wide circle, its massive
wheels rolling quickly, at the same time as it was pummeled
by a continuous rain of fire from the 7th Squadron
soldiers on the ground.
In the enormous space of the underground hangar, the
plane's movement seemed almost comical--for something
so big and so heavy to move so quickly and so recklessly
was a sight to behold.
The plane came around 180 degrees--the tip of its right
wing bouncing off the flank of the parked SR-71 Blackbird-- so that now it was facing the opposite direction from which
it had started, its open rear end now exposed to the withering
fire of the 7th Squadron men on the ground.
Bullets raked the interior of the central cabin, smashing
into the ceiling and walls. Gant and Brainiac hit the deck as
fragments of plastic and plaster rained down all around
them.
"Fuck!" Brainiac yelled. "They don't teach this at Parris
Island!"
BOOK II WAS ALSO MOVING FAST.
He slid quickly down one of the vertical counterweight
cables that ran up the side of the regular elevator shaft.
Calvin, Elvis and Love Machine slid down the cables after
him, lowering themselves down the shaft.
After avoiding the barrage of fire up on the roof of the
elevator, they now had to find a way out of the shaft, before
the 7th Squadron men up there got around the elevator that
now formed an obstacle between them.
Book II stopped at a pair of outer doors marked with a
large black-painted "I," and immediately heard the muffled
sounds of a firefight--clattering automatic gunfire, booming
explosions, squealing tires.
"Not this one," Calvin Reeves said as he came alongside
Book II. "Let's try the next one."
They slid farther down the shaft.
Area 7 113
inside the hangar bay, python willis watched the
AWACS plane as it sped in a wild circle around the enormous
hangar.
He spoke without emotion into his headset mike:
"Avenger Two. Go for the cockpit. Two missiles."
IN THE COCKPIT OF THE AWACS PLANE, SCHOFIELD PUMPED
on the steering pedals.
"Mother!" he yelled. "Get back in the main cabin!
Cover the tail! Make sure no one gets in through there! I'll
take care of the driving up here!"
Mother grabbed her M-16 and headed aft.
As she left, Schofield saw the second Humvee appear in
front of him, over by the northern wall. It swung around
quickly, taking up a new position, getting ready to fire again.
He keyed the plane's intercom.
"brainiac!" schofield's voice boomed over the plane's speaker system. "Engage electronic countermeasures!"
Back in the main cabin, Brainiac looked up at the sound
of Schofield's voice. "Oh, yeah. Of course!"
"What is he talking about?" Gant yelled as Mother
joined them in the main cabin.
But Brainiac was already clambering toward one of the
consoles. He slid into the seat, began typing quickly.
Gant peered out her door-window--saw the walls of the
hangar streaking by outside--saw the surviving Humvee
skid to a halt over by the wall, preparing to fire another of its
missiles.
"It's going to hit us again!" she called.
"Brainiac ..." Schofield's voice said expectantly over
the speakers.
Brainiac typed fast. The words "engage mf scrambler"
appeared on his screen.
"Bracing positions!" Gant yelled.
Two clouds of smoke puffed out from the Humvee's
missile pods--
114
Matthew Reilly
--at exactly the same moment as Brainiac slammed his
finger down on the enter key.
A pair of Stinger missiles shot out from the pods on the
back of the Humvee, twin smoke trails zooming out behind
them. They were heading directly for the forward section of
the AWACS plane, flying in perfect formation.
And then, all of a sudden, the Stingers went crazy.
Despite the fact that the missiles were heat-seekers, the
AWACS's powerful antimissile countermeasures still affected
them--disrupting their chip-to-chip electronics,
scrambling their internal-logic systems. It was as if a tidal
wave of electronic noise, blasting invisibly outward from the
AWACS's enormous rotodome, had slammed into the two
Stingers.
The two missiles responded accordingly.
They went haywire.
They broke formation in an instant, parting in a looping
Y-shape--one rolling wildly to the right, the other swinging
left. The right-hand one shot quickly underneath the rolling
AWACS plane, while the left-hand one sailed clear over it.
From the cockpit of the AWACS Schofield watched in
amazement as one of the missiles shot across his bow and
then--bizarrely--headed back toward the Humvee that had
launched it!
A second later the missile slammed into the concrete
wall above the Humvee--thundering at tremend
ous speed
right into a ten-foot-high box-shaped compartment mounted
above the floor of the hangar.
The missile detonated--sending an enormous gout of
concrete spraying out from the wall all around the compartment.
The compartment's wide steel door was blasted off its
hinges by the stunning impact and went bouncing across the
hangar, a twisted metal wreck. Large chunks of concrete
rained down on the very Humvee that had fired the missile.
Whatever that compartment was, Schofield thought, it
was toast now.
But there was still one more out-of-control missile
swooping around the hangar.
Area 7 115
This second missile swung around the destroyed rear
section of the moving AWACS plane, rolling wildly through
the air, before it too doubled back and hit the hangar's northern
wall, right alongside the regular elevator's doors.
A hailstorm of concrete blasted out from the wall,
showering chunks everywhere.
This blast of concrete, however, was followed by a most
peculiar sight.
A shockingly powerful geyser of water--yes, water--
began to shoot out from the newly formed hole in the wall,
jetting outward with tremendous force.
Schofield frowned. "What the hell ... ?"
AN OMINOUS EXPLOSION SHOOK THE WALLS OF THE REGULAR
elevator shaft.
Book II, now hanging with his group next to the outer
doors of Level 3--the doors to Level 2 had also been locked,
so they'd moved down to the next floor--looked up sharply
at the sound.
The sight that met him was as terrifying as it was unexpected.
A whole section of the concrete wall alongside the
Level 1 doorway sixty feet above them just blasted outward,
showering the shaft with chunks of concrete.
And then, right behind the concrete, came the water.
IT RAINED DOWN ON BOOK II AND THE OTHERS LIKE SPRAY
from a goddamned firehose.
Torrents and torrents of pouring water, roaring like a
waterfall down the narrow elevator shaft, gushing out of the
hole in the wall on Level 1, pounding down against their
bodies.
It was all they could do to hold on to their cables.
But as soon as he felt the surging weight of the waterfall,
Book II saw the future: the wall of water was just too