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  his cell phone to his ear--was Nicholas Tate in.

  Schofield hit the elevator's call button.

  As he waited for the lift to arrive, he noticed Tate for the

  first time. The White House suit was clearly rattled, freaked

  out by the morning's events. But it was only then that

  Schofield realized that Tate was speaking into his cell phone.

  "No," Tate said irritably into the phone, "I want to know

  Area 7

  who you are! You have interrupted my phone call to my

  stockbroker. Identify yourself."

  "What on earth are you doing?" Schofield asked.

  Tate frowned, spoke very seriously--in doing so, indicating that he had gone completely bonkers. "Well, I was calling my broker. I figured by the way things are going today, I'd sell off my U.S. dollars. So, after we got out of that train tunnel, I called him up, but no sooner do I get him on the line than this asshole cuts across the connection."

  Schofield snatched the phone from Tate's hand.

  "Hey!"

  Schofield spoke into it. "This is Captain Shane M.

  Schofield, United States Marine Corps, Presidential Detachment, serial number 358-6279. Who is this?"

  A voice came through the phone: "This is David Fairfax of the Defense Intelligence Agency. I'm speaking from

  a monitoring station in D.C. We have been scanning all transmissions emanating from two Air Force bases in the Utah desert. We believe that there may be a rogue Air Force unit

  at one of those bases and that the President's life may be in

  danger. I just enacted an emergency breakthrough on your

  friend's telephone call."

  "Believe me, you don't know the half of it, Mr. Fairfax,"

  Schofield said.

  "Is the President safe?"

  "He's right here." Schofield held the phone out for the

  President.

  The President spoke into it: "This is the President of the

  United States. Captain Schofield is with me."

  Schofield added, "And we are currently in pursuit of

  that rogue Air Force unit you just mentioned. Tell me everything

  you know about it--"

  Just then, the elevator pinged.

  "Hold on." Schofield raised his P-90 toward the elevator.

  The doors opened ...

  ... revealing horribly blood-splattered walls and a particularly

  grisly sight.

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  Matthew Reilly

  The gunned-down bodies of three dead Air Force men

  lay strewn about the elevator--no doubt members of the

  skeleton crew stationed at Area 8.

  "I think we got a fresh trail," Mother said.

  They hurried into the lift.

  Tate stayed behind, determined not to go near any more

  danger. The President, however, insisted on going with

  Schofield and Mother.

  "But, sir--" Schofield began.

  "Captain. If I'm going to die today as the representative

  of this country, I'm not going to do it cowering in some corner,

  waiting to be found. It's time to stand up and be

  counted. And besides, it looks like you could do with some

  numbers."

  Schofield nodded. "If you say so, sir. Just stay close and

  shoot straight."

  The elevator doors closed and Schofield hit the button

  for ground level.

  Then he brought Tate's cell phone back to his ear.

  "Okay, Mr. Fairfax. Twenty-five words or less. Tell me

  everything you know about this rogue Air Force unit."

  IN HIS SUBTERRANEAN ROOM IN WASHINGTON, DAVE FAIRFAX

  sat up straighter in his chair.

  Events had just gotten a lot more real.

  First, he had picked up the cell phone call coming out of Area 8. Then he had cut across the line--interrupting some moron--and now he was speaking to this Schofield character, a Marine on the President's helicopter detail. As soon as

  he had heard it, Fairfax had punched Schofield's serial number into his computer. Now he had Schofield's complete military history--including his current posting on Marine One--right in front of him.

  "Okay," Fairfax said into his headset mike. "As I said, I'm DIA, and recently I've been decoding a set of unauthorized transmissions coming out of those bases. Now, first of all, we think a team of former South African Reccondos are heading there--"

  "Don't mind them. Killed them already," Schofield's voice said. "The rogue unit. Tell me about the rogue unit."

  "Oh ... okay," Fairfax said. "By our reckoning, the rogue unit is one of the five 7th Squadron units guarding the

  Area 7 complex: the unit designated 'Echo' ..."

  at area 8, the elevator whizzed up the shaft.

  Fairfax's voice came through the cell phone. "... I believe that this unit is aiding Chinese agents in an attempt to steal a biological vaccine that was being developed at

  Area 7."

  Schofield said, "Do you have any idea how they're going to get the vaccine out of America?"

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  Matthew Reilly

  "Uh, yeah ... yeah I do," Fairfax's voice said. "But you

  might not believe it ..."

  "I'll believe just about anything, Mr. Fairfax. Try me."

  "Okay ... I believe they're going to load the vaccine

  onto a satellite-killer shuttle based at Area 8 and fly it up

  into a low orbit where they will rendezvous with the Chinese

  space shuttle that launched last week. They will then transfer

  both themselves and the vaccine onto the Chinese shuttle

  and land it back inside Chinese territory where we can't get

  to it or them ..."

  "Son of a bitch," Schofield breathed.

  "I know it sounds crazy, but ..."

  "... but it's the only way to get something out of the

  United States," Schofield said. "We could stop any other extraction

  method--car, plane, boat. But if they went up into

  space, we'd never be able to follow them. They'd be home by

  the time we got a chase shuttle onto the pad at Canaveral."

  "Exactly"

  "Thanks, Mr. Fairfax. Call the Marines and the Army,

  and get them to mobilize whatever air-capable units they

  have--carriers, choppers, anything--and send them directly

  to Areas 7 and 8. Do not use the Air Force. Repeat: Do

  not use the Air Force. Until further notification, treat all Air

  Force personnel as suspicious."

  As he spoke, Schofield saw the illuminated numbers on

  the elevator ticking upward: "SL-3 ... SL-2 ..."

  "As for us," Schofield said, "we have to go now."

  "What are you going to do? What about the President? "

  "sl-!" became "g" and suddenly Schofield heard muffled

  gunfire beyond the elevator doors.

  Ping!

  The elevator had reached the ground floor.

  "We're going after the vaccine," he said. "Call you

  later."

  And he hung up.

  A second later, the elevator's doors opened--

  SIXTH CONFRONTATION

  3 July, 1023 Hours

  --AND SUDDENLY SCHOFIELD AND THE OTHERS ENTERED A

  whole new ball game.

  In the main hangar of Area 8, a fierce gun battle was already

  under way.

  Explosions boomed, gunfire roared.

  Shafts of sunlight streamed in through the hangar's gigantic

  open doors. About fifty yards away from the elevator,

  filling the open doorway--partially blocking the incoming

  sun--was the birdlike rear end of a silver Boeing 747.

  "Son of a bitch," Schofield breathed as he saw the

&n
bsp; streamlined space shuttle mounted on the 747's back.

  Gunfire rang out from over by the hangar doors.

  Five black-clad 7th Squadron commandos--the treacherous men from Echo Unit, Schofield guessed--were taking cover behind the doors, firing their P-90's at something outside the hangar.

  "This way," Schofield said, hurrying out of the elevator.

  The three of them skirted around a Humvee and a pair of

  cockroach towing vehicles until they could see what lay beyond

  the hangar doors: two black Penetrator helicopters,

  hovering low over the tarmac outside the hangar, blocking

  the way of the shuttle-carrying 747.

  The six-barreled Vulcan miniguns mounted underneath

  the noses of the two Penetrators were raining down a storm

  of bullets on the Echo Unit men in the hangar--pinning

  them down, preventing them from dashing across the twenty

  yards of open ground to the wheeled stairway that led onto

  the 747.

  Missiles lanced out from the wing stubs of the Penetrators,

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  zeroing in on the 747. But the jumbo must have been

  using the latest electromagnetic countermeasures, because

  the missiles never got near them--they just went berserk as

  soon as they got close to the big plane, rolling through the

  air away from it, before slamming into the ground and detonating

  in showers of concrete and sand.

  Even the onslaught of flashing orange tracer bullets

  from the helicopters just veered away from the body of the

  giant jumbo, as if some invisible magnetic shield prevented

  them coming near it.

  From his position behind the cockroach, Schofield recognized

  two of the men seated inside one of the helicopters:

  Caesar Russell and Kurt Logan.

  I'll bet Caesar's not happy with Echo, he thought.

  Caesar and Logan must have arrived only moments

  earlier--just as the men of Echo had been boarding their escape

  plane. Caesar's choppers, it seemed, must have opened

  fire before all the Echo men had been able to get on the

  plane, before they'd been able to get away with Kevin.

  Kevin ...

  Schofield scanned the battlefield. He couldn't see the

  little boy anywhere.

  He must already be on board the plane ...

  And then without warning the 747 powered up, its four

  massive jet engines blasting air everywhere, sending any

  loose objects tumbling across the hangar.

  The plane started moving forward--away from the

  hangar, out onto the runway--toward the two black Penetrators.

  Its wheeled staircase clattered to the ground behind it.

  It was a good tactic.

  The Penetrators knew that they stood no chance against

  the weight of the rolling 747, so they split like a pair of

  frightened pigeons, moving out of the way of the massive

  jumbo.

  It was then that Schofield saw an Echo man standing in

  the open side door of the 747, saw him wave to his men still

  in the hangar and then toss a thin rope ladder from the doorway.

  area 7 393

  The rope ladder hung from the small doorway, swaying

  beneath the rolling plane.

  At that same moment, movement near the hangar's entry

  caught his eye and he spun, and saw the five Echo men

  at the hangar door dash for the Humvee parked near his

  cockroach.

  They were going to try to board the 747 ...

  ... while it was moving!

  As soon as the Echo men moved, a withering burst of

  tracer fire from the Penetrators outside flooded in through the

  hangar's open doorway, shredding the ground at their feet.

  Two of the men fell, hit, their bodies erupting in a thousand

  explosions of red. The other three made it to the

  Humvee, clambered inside, started her up. The big car

  peeled off the mark, turning in a wide circle--

  Shoooooom!

  A missile rocketed in through the open hangar doors,

  heading straight for the skidding Humvee.

  The Humvee's life was short.

  The missile hit it square on the nose--so hard that the

  wide-bodied jeep was sent flailing back across the slippery

  hangar floor, before it slammed against a wall and filled with

  light and blasted outwards in a shower of metal.

  "Holy exploding Humvees, Batman!" Mother said.

  "Quickly!" Schofield said. "This way!"

  "What are we doing?" the President asked.

  Schofield pointed at the moving jumbo outside. "We're

  getting on that plane."

  AS WITH MANY DESERT BASES, AREA 8'S ELONGATED RUNWAY

  was roughly L-shaped, with the shorter arm of the "L" meeting

  the open doorway of the complex's main hangar.

  Aircraft took off and landed on the longer arm of the "L" but to get out to that runway, all planes had to taxi along

  the shorter strip first. While the main runway was over five

  thousand yards long, the shorter runway--or taxiway--was

  only about four hundred yards in length.

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  Matthew Reilly

  The silver 747--with the glistening white X-38 space

  shuttle on its back--rumbled along the taxiway, flanked by

  the two black Air Force Penetrators.

  Windblown sand whistled all around it, the brutal desert

  sun glinted off its sides.

  The big jumbo had reached the halfway point of the

  taxiway when a speeding vehicle came blasting out of the

  main hangar behind it.

  It was a cockroach.

  One of the white flat-bodied towing vehicles that had

  been parked inside the hangar. Looking like a brick with

  wheels, it thundered along the taxiway, chasing after the big

  plane.

  In the cramped driver's compartment of the cockroach,

  Mother drove. Schofield and the President shared the passenger

  seat.

  "Come on, Mother, pick it up!" Schofield urged.

  "We've got to catch it before it gets to the main runway!

  Once it gets there and starts on its flight run, we're screwed."

  Mother jammed the cockroach into third, its highest

  gear. The towing vehicle's V8 engine roared as it leapt forward,

  accelerating through the shimmering desert heat.

  The cockroach whipped across the taxiway, closed in on

  the shuttle-carrying 747.

  The Penetrators opened fire on it, but Schofield kicked

  open the passenger-side window and unleashed a burst from

  both his and Mother's P-90 assault rifles, hitting the nose mounted Vulcan cannon on one of the Penetrators, causing it to bank away. But the other chopper kept firing hard, kicking up sparks all around the speeding cockroach.

  "Mother! Get us under the plane! We need its countermeasures!"

  Mother hit the gas and the cockroach surged forward,

  hit its top speed. It reeled in the lumbering 747--inch by

  painful inch--until at last the speeding towing vehicle sped

  underneath the silver jumbo's high tail section.

  It was like entering an air bubble.

  The bullets from the second Penetrator no longer hit the

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  ground all around them. The fireworks display of their impact

  sparks ended abruptly.

  The cockroach kept rushing forward--now speeding


  along in the shadow of the shuttle-carrying 747--pushing

  past its rear landing gear while still remaining in the shelter

  of its massive body.

  The cockroach weaved under the left-hand wing of the

  747, the tarmac rushing by beneath it, heading for the rope

  ladder that dangled from the plane's still-open left-hand

  door.

  The cockroach came to the rope ladder--

  --just as the entire 747 abruptly swung right.

  "Goddamn it!" Mother yelled as the cockroach swung

  out from the shelter of the jumbo into glaring sunlight.

  "It's turning onto the main runway!" Schofield shouted.

  Like a giant, slow-moving bird, the silver 747--with the X-38 shuttle on its back--turned onto Area 8's elongated runway.

  "Get to that ladder, Mother!" Schofield called.

  Mother gunned it, yanked the steering wheel hard-right,

  directing the cockroach--now momentarily deprived of the

  jumbo's electromagnetic protection--back in toward the

  flailing rope ladder, but not before one of the Penetrators

  swung quickly around in front of the turning 747 and

  opened fire.

  A devastating line of tracer bullets impacted against the

  tarmac in front of the cockroach, kicking up sparks that ricocheted

  everywhere.

  Several bullets smacked against the cockroach's windscreen,

  cracking it. Many more, however, bounced up underneath the towing vehicle's speeding front bumper and

  impacted against the underside of the cockroach--three of them hitting the vehicle's steering column.

  The response was instantaneous.

  The steering wheel in Mother's hands went haywire.

  The cockroach fishtailed wildly, lurching sideways as it

  sped along the runway under the wing of the 747, swinging

  left and right.

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  Matthew Reilly

  Mother had to use all her strength just to keep a grip on

  the steering wheel, to keep the cockroach under control.

  The 747 finished its turn, began to straighten up.

  The runway in front of it stretched away into the distance

  --a long, straight ribbon of black that disappeared into

  the shimmering desert horizon.

  "Mother ...!" Schofield yelled.