Area 7 ss-2 Read online

  "Frank," the President said to the Chief of the Detail,

  "see what's going on--"

  The big-screen television came on.

  The President and his Detail whirled around.

  "What the fuck ..." somebody said.

  On the screen, large and bold, was the bright yellow insignia

  of the Emergency Broadcast System--the special all

  spectrum broadcast network that was capable of cutting off

  regular broadcasting in the event of a national emergency.

  Then, abruptly, the BBS symbol disappeared, and a face

  appeared in its place.

  "What the hell ..." this time it was the President who

  spoke.

  The face on the screen was that of a dead man.

  It was the face of Lieutenant General Charles Samson

  Russell, USAF, call-sign: "Caesar."

  ON EVERY TELEVISION SCREEN IN AREA 7--AND, IT APPEARED,

  every television in the United States--the round, heavy

  browed face of Charles Russell began to speak.

  "Mr. President. People of America. Welcome to Area 7.

  My name is General Charles Russell, United States Air

  Force. For too long, I have watched this country eat itself. I

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  will do so no longer." His tone was measured, his Louisiana

  accent thick.

  "Our representatives at both federal and state levels are

  incapable of genuine leadership. Our free press is no longer

  the tool for controlling government that it was intended to

  be. To every man who has ever fought or died for this country,

  this state of affairs is a disgrace. It can no longer be allowed

  to continue."

  IN THE COMMON ROOM, THE PRESIDENT JUST STARED AT THE

  big-screen television.

  "And so I propose a challenge, Mr. President--both to

  you and to the system you represent.

  "Implanted on your heart is a radio device. It was attached

  to the outer tissue of your cardiac muscle during an

  operation on your left lung four years ago."

  Frank Cutler spun to face the President, a look of horror

  spreading across his face.

  "I will initiate its signal now," Caesar said. He pressed

  some buttons on a small red unit that he held in his hand.

  The compact unit had a black stub antenna sticking out from

  its top.

  Frank Cutler pulled a debugging wand from his coat--a spectrum analyzer used to detect any signal-emitting device-- and waved it over the President's body.

  Feet and legs ... okay.

  Waist and stomach... okay.

  Chest ...

  The wand went crazy.

  "MY CHALLENGE TO YOU, MR. PRESIDENT, IS SIMPLE." Russell's voice echoed throughout the underground base.

  "As you well know, at every major airport in the United

  States there are at least three hangars devoted to the storage

  of United States Air Force bombers, fighters and ordnance.

  "Right now, inside fourteen of those hangars, sit fourteen

  Type-240 blast plasma warheads. The airports include

  John F. Kennedy, Newark and La Guardia in New York,

  Area 7 75

  Dulles in Washington, O'Hare in Chicago, LAX in Los Angeles,

  and airports in San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle,

  Boston, Philadelphia and Detroit. Each plasma warhead, as

  you know, has a blast radius of sixteen miles and a detonation

  yield of ninety megatons. All are armed."

  IN THE COMMON ROOM ON LEVEL 3, EVERYONE WAS SILENT.

  "The only thing that will stop the detonation of these

  warheads, Mr. President," Charles Russell said with a smile,

  "is the continued beating of your heart."

  russell went on.

  "All the devices at the airports are patched in to a single

  satellite in geosynchronous orbit above this base. That satellite,

  Mr. President, emits a high-powered microwave signal

  which is picked up and bounced back to it by the transmitter

  placed on your heart.

  "But the radio transmitter on your heart, once started, is

  kinetically operated. If your heart should stop beating, the

  transmitter will cease to operate, and the satellite's signal

  will not be bounced back to it—in which case, the satellite

  will instruct the bombs in the airports to detonate.

  "Mr. President. If your heart should stop, America as

  we know it dies. If your heart keeps beating, America lives.

  "You are the symbol of a bankrupt culture, sir: a politician,

  a man who seeks power for power's sake, but, like the

  people you represent, one who lives safe in the knowledge

  that he will never ever be called upon to stand up and fight

  for the system that gives him that power.

  "Well, you have lived safely for too long, Mr. President.

  Now you have been called to account. Now you have been

  called to fight.

  "I, on the other hand, am a warrior. I have spilled my

  blood for this country. What blood have you spilled? What

  sacrifices have you made? None. Coward.

  "But like an honest patriot, I will give you and the system

  you represent a final chance to prove your worth. For

  the people of this country need proof. They need to see you

  flounder—see you fall—see you sell them out to save your

  Area 7 77

  skin. They elected you to represent them. Now you shall do

  that--literally. If you die, they die with you.

  "This facility has been completely sealed. It is designed

  to withstand the full force of a nuclear blast, so there is no

  way out of it. Inside it with you is a fifty-man detachment of

  the best ground force this country has to offer, the 7th Special

  Operations Squadron. These men have orders to kill

  you, Mr. President.

  "With your Secret Service Detail, you will face them in

  a fight to the death. Whoever wins, gets the country. Whoever

  loses, dies.

  "Of course, the American people must be kept apprised

  of the score in this challenge," Caesar said. "Therefore,

  every hour on the hour, I shall address them via the Emergency

  Broadcast System and give them an update on the

  pursuit."

  The President looked up at the nearest security camera.

  "This is ridiculous! You couldn't possibly have put a--"

  "Jeremiah K. Woolf, Mr. President," Caesar Russell

  said from the TV screen. The President immediately fell

  silent.

  No one else spoke.

  "I will assume from your silence that you have seen the

  FBI file."

  Of course the President had seen the file--the peculiarities

  of the ex-senator's death had demanded it.

  At the exact moment that Jeremiah Woolf had died in

  Alaska, his home in Washington, D.C., had exploded. No

  culprit--for either incident--had ever been found. It was a

  coincidence too bizarre to ignore, but in the absence of any

  evidence to explain it, to the mass media it had remained

  simply that, a tragic coincidence.

  As the President knew, however, one particular aspect

  of the ex-senator's death had never been made public:

  namely, the elevated levels of red blood cell production in

  his bloodstream, plus extremely low alveolar and arterial

 
; phosphate pressures. All of these symptoms indicated a

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  prolonged period of hyperventilation before Woolf had been

  shot--a period during which the ex-senator had experienced

  a heightened state of "fight or flight" physiology.

  In other words, the ex-senator had been running from

  someone when he'd been shot. He had been hunted.

  And now it made sense.

  Woolf had been implanted with a transmitter ...

  ... and then in Alaska he had been hunted and shot,

  and when, finally, his heart had stopped, his home on the

  other side of the country had been destroyed.

  Caesar Russell's voice invaded his thoughts. "Former

  Senator Woolf's unexpected retirement from government

  left me with an extra transmitting device. And so he became

  a guinea pig, a test run. A test run for today."

  The President exchanged a look with Frank Cutler.

  Caesar said, "Oh, and just in case you're harboring ambitions

  of escaping this facility ..." He lifted an object into

  view.

  It was a stainless steel briefcase.

  Warrant Officer Carl Webster's steel briefcase.

  The case's handle still had the pair of handcuffs attached

  to it--only now the open-ended cuff was no longer

  attached to anything. It was splattered all over with blood.

  It was the Football.

  And it was open.

  The President saw the briefcase's flat-glass palm-print

  analyzer and keypad. The palm-print analyzer was an identification

  feature programmed to recognize the President's

  palm print, so that only he could activate--and deactivate--

  America's thermonuclear arsenal.

  Somehow, though, Russell had managed to falsify the

  President's palm print and enter the arming codes. But how

  could he have gotten a copy of the President's hand print?

  "In addition to the transmitter on your heart, Mr. President,"

  Russell said, "all the devices in the airports have been

  networked to a recycling timer of exactly ninety minutes, as

  is shown on the Football's display screen. Only the application

  of your palm print to the analyzer--once every ninety

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  minutes--will reset that timer and stop the plasma warheads

  from going off, so don't think of leaving. The Football, for

  your information, will be kept up here in the main hangar.

  "This is a great day in the history of the nation, Mr.

  President, a day of reckoning. Come the dawn of tomorrow,

  the glorious Fourth of July, we shall see if we all awake in a

  new, reborn America. Good luck, Mr. President, and may

  God have mercy on your soul."

  At that moment, as if right on cue, the main doors to the

  common room burst open and a team of 7th Squadron commandos

  --led by Major Kurt Logan and wearing their fearsome

  ERG-6 gas masks--rushed into the room, their

  devastating P-90 machine guns blazing.

  The challenge had begun.

  SECOND CONFRONTATION

  3 July/ 0700 Hours

  UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

  SPECIAL AREA (RESTRICTED) NO.7

  0700 HOURS

  GROUND LEVEL: Main Hangar

  LEVEL 1: Hangar Bay

  LEVEL 2: Hangar Bay

  LEVEL 3: Living Quarters

  LEVEL 4: Laboratories

  LEVEL 5 gafinsflien

  LEVEL 6: X-rail platform

  THE MAIN HANGAR HAD BECOME A BATTLEFIELD.

  Bullet holes raked the floor at Shane Schofield's feet as

  he raced for the doorway to the northern glass-walled office.

  He poked his head around the doorway: "Marines!

  Scatter!"

  But that was all he could say before the window next to

  him shattered into a thousand fragments and he dived away,

  crawling for the cover of the two Presidential helicopters

  and their towing vehicles.

  He looked back just in time to see a couple of full dress-uniformed

  Marines burst out through the windows of

  the office a moment before the small structure was hit by a

  Predator shoulder-launched missile and its walls blasted

  outwards in a shower of glass and billowing fire.

  Schofield slid under Marine One, and found himself lying

  next to Libby Gant and Brainiac.

  Gunfire echoed out all around them. And then bizarrely,

  above the gunshots, Schofield heard a voice booming out

  from the hangar's loudspeaker system: "Good luck, Mr.

  President, and may God have mercy on your soul."

  "Holy shit!" Brainiac yelled.

  "This way!" Schofield said, crawling on his stomach

  underneath the big helicopter.

  He arrived at a wide grille in the floor. It came away easily.

  An air vent opened up beneath it. The steel-walled vent

  plunged down into the earth, disappearing into darkness.

  "Let's go!" Schofield yelled above the gunfire.

  Abruptly, a metal panel in the bottom of Marine One

  burst open—almost decapitating Schofield—and a figure

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  with an M-16 dropped down behind him, the gun leveled at

  his forehead.

  "Fuck! It's you," Mother said as she lowered herself out

  of the helicopter's emergency escape hatch onto the ground.

  "Here, happy birthday," she said, tossing an MP-10 machine

  pistol to Gant. "Sorry, Scarecrow, nothing for you.

  That was all I could find in the basic arms cabinet on board.

  There's more in the forward armory, but Gunman's got the

  key to that."

  "Never mind," Schofield said, "the first thing we've got

  to do is get out of here and regroup. Then we have to figure

  out a way of taking these bastards down. This way."

  "Did you catch any of that shit on the television?"

  Mother said as she crawled over to the vent.

  Gant and Brainiac climbed down into the vent first,

  bracing their legs against its walls, shimmying themselves

  down into it.

  "No," Schofield said, "I was too busy dodging bullets."

  "Then I've got a lot to tell you," Mother said as they

  lowered themselves into the shaft.

  the president of the united states was moving faster

  than he had ever moved before. In fact, his feet barely even

  touched the ground.

  At the first sight of the 7th Squadron commandos

  storming the common room, his nine-man Protective Detail

  had thrown itself into action.

  Four men immediately took up defensive positions in

  between the President and the oncoming assault troops,

  throwing their coats open to reveal Uzi submachine guns.

  The Uzi's buzzed as they unleashed a brutal wave of gunfire

  at a crushing 600 rounds per minute.

  The other five members of the Detail crash-tackled the

  President out into the nearby fire escape, practically lifting

  him off his feet as they gang-rushed him out of the room,

  covering his body with their own.

  The door to the fire stairs slammed shut behind them,

  but not before they saw the 7th Squadron troops clinically

  Area 7 83

  take up covering positions behind couches, doors and cupboards

  and leap-frog each other and
tear to shreds the four

  Secret Service men who had remained behind--drowning

  out the buzz of their Uzi's with the whirring drone of their

  P-90 assault rifles.

  The Uzi's might have fired at 600 rounds per minute.

  But the P-90, made by the FN Herstal company in Belgium,

  fired at an astonishing 900 rounds per minute. Indeed, with

  its rounded hand guard, internal blowback system, and incredible

  hundred-round magazine mounted above the barrel,

  it looked like something out of a science fiction movie.

  "Down the stairs! Now!" Frank Cutler yelled as bullets

  slammed into the other side of the firedoor. "Head for the alternate

  exit!"

  The President and what was left of his Detail flew down

  the stairs, taking them four at a time, hurling themselves

  around every turn. Every one of them had a weapon in his or

  her hand now--Uzi's, SIG-Sauers, anything ...

  The President himself could do nothing but run with

  them, so tightly was he flanked by his bodyguards.

  "Advance Team One! Come in!" Cutler yelled into his

  wrist microphone as he ran.

  No reply.

  "Advance Team One! Come in! We are approaching

  Exit Point One with Patriot and we need to know if it is

  open!"

  He received no reply.

  UP IN THE MAIN HANGAR, BOOK II WAS IN HELL.

  Bullets strafed the floor all around him, glass rained

  down on his head.

  He was tucked up against the outside of the northern office

  with Elvis--in the tiny gap between it and the hangar's

  armored door--the two of them having dived out through

  the office's bullet-shattered windows a moment before it had

  been blasted to smithereens by the Predator missile.

  The three ten-man teams of 7th Squadron men were

  everywhere, moving with precision and speed, racing around

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  the helicopters, leaping over dead men, their guns pressed

  against their shoulders, eyes looking straight down the

  barrels.

  On the other side of the hangar, Book saw the White

  House people come streaming out of the southern glass

  walled office--about ten people in total--screaming, looking