Area 7

THIRD CONFRONTATION

Space division, that part of the defense intelligence Agency which deals with foreign powers' space capabilities, is located on the second-to-bottom floor of the Pentagon, three stories directly below the famous Pentagon Situation Room.

And although its title may sound exotic and exciting, as David Fairfax knew, such a perception couldn't have been further from the truth.

In short, you got sent to Space Division as punishment, because nothing ever happened in Space Division.

It was nearly 10.00 a.m. on the East Coast as Fairfax — oblivious to any commotion going on in the outside world — tapped away on his computer keyboard, trying to decipher a collection of phone taps that the DIA had picked up over the past few months. Whoever had been using the phones in question had fitted them with sophisticated encoders, masking their content. It was up to Fairfax to crack that code.

It's funny how times change, he thought.

David Theodore Fairfax was a cryptanalyst, a code breaker. Of medium height, lean, with floppy brown hair and thin wire-frame glasses, he didn't look like a genius. In fact, in his Mooks T-shirt, jeans and sneakers, he looked more like a gawky university student than a government analyst.

It was, however, his brilliant undergraduate thesis on theoretical nonlinear computing that had brought him to the attention of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense's chief intelligence-gathering organization. The DIA worked in close consultation with the NSA, America's chief signals gatherer and code breaker. But that didn't prevent it from running its own team of code crackers — who often spied on the USA — of which Dave Fairfax was a part.

Fairfax had taken to cryptanalysis immediately. He loved the challenge of it, the battle between two minds: one which hopes to conceal, the other which hopes to reveal. He lived by the maxim: No code is unbreakable.

It didn't take him long to get noticed.

In the early 1990's, U.S. authorities were confounded by a man named Phil Zimmerman and his unbreakable encryption software, "PGP." In 1991, Zimmerman had posted PGP on the Internet, to the great consternation of the U.S. government — principally because the government couldn't crack it.

PGP employed a cryptographic system known as the "public key system," which involved the multiplication of very large prime numbers to obtain the code's all-important "key." In this case "very large prime numbers" meant numbers with over 130 digits. It was unbreakable.

It was claimed that it would take all the supercomputers in the world twelve times the age of the universe to check all the possible values for a single message.

The government was annoyed. It became known that certain terrorist groups and foreign governments had started using PGP to encrypt their messages. In 1993, a grand jury investigation into Zimmerman was initiated on the basis that by uploading PGP onto the Internet, he had exported a weapon out of the United States, since encryption software came under the government's definition of a "munition."

And then strangely, in 1996, after hounding Zimmerman for three years, the U.S. Attorney General's office dropped the case.

Just like that.

They claimed that the horse had bolted and the case wasno longer worth pursuing, so they closed the file.

What the Attorney General never mentioned was the call she had received from the Director of the DIA on the morning she dropped the case, saying that PGP had been cracked.

And as anyone in cryptography knows, once you crack your enemy's code, you don't let them know you've cracked it.

And the man who cracked PGP: an unknown twenty-five-year-old DIA mathematician by the name of David Fairfax.

It turned out that Fairfax's theoretical nonlinear computer was no longer theoretical. A prototype version of it was built for the express purpose of breaking PGP, and as it turned out, the computer, with its unimaginable calculative abilities, could factor extremely large numbers with considerable ease.

No code is unbreakable.

History, however, is tough on cryptanalysts — for the simple fact that they cannot talk about their greatest victories.

And so it was with Dave Fairfax. He might have cracked PGP, but he could never talk about it, and in the great maze of government work, he had simply been given a small pay raise and then moved on to the next job.

And so here he was in Space Division, analyzing a series of unauthorized phone transmissions coming into and out of some remote Air Force base in Utah.

In a similarly isolated room across the hall from him, however, was where all the good stuff was happening today. A joint taskforce of DIA and NSA cryptanalysts were tracking the encrypted signals coming out of the Chinese space shuttle that had launched from Xichang a few days earlier.

Now that was interesting, Fairfax thought. Better than decrypting some phone calls from a stupid Air Force base in the desert.

The recorded phone calls appeared on Fairfax's computer screen as a waterfall of cascading numbers — the mathematical representation of a series of telephone conversations that had taken place in Utah over the last couple of months.

A huge pair of headphones covered Fairfax's ears, emitting a steady stream of garbled static.

His eyes were fixed on the screen.

One thing was clear: whoever had made these calls had encrypted them well. Fairfax had been at this for the last two days.

He tried a few older algorithms.

Nothing.

He tried a few newer ones.

Nothing.

He could do this all month if he had to. He tried a program he had developed to crack Vodafone's newest encryption system –

"…Kan bevestig dot in-enting plaasvind…"

For a brief second, a strange guttural language materialized in his ears.

Fairfax's eyes glowed to life.

Gotcha…

He tried the program on some of the other telephone conversations.

And in a miraculous instant, formless static suddenly became clear voices speaking in a foreign tongue, interspersed with the odd sentence of English.

"…Toetse op laaste paging word op die vier-entwientigste verwag. Wat van die onttrekkings eenheid?…"

"…Reccondo span is alreeds weggestuur…"

"…Voorbereidings onderweg. Vroeg oggend. Beste tyd vir onttrekking…"

"…Everything is in place. Confirm that it's the third…"

"…Ontrekking kan 'n probleem wees. Gestel ons ge bruik die Hoeb land hier naby. Verstaan hy is 'n lid van Die Organisasie…"

"…Sal die instruksies oordra…"

"…Mission is a go…"

"…Die Reccondos is gereed. Verwagte aankoms by be plande bestemming binne nege dae…"

Fairfax's eyes gleamed as he gazed at the screen. No code is unbreakable. He reached for his phone.

After the short battle in the decompression area, Schofield and the others retreated to the opposite side of Level 4, to the observation lab overlooking the giant cube… locking the doors behind them and then blasting the security keypads with gunshots.

Of all the places Schofield had seen so far, this area was the most easily defended.

Barring the regular personnel elevator, it had only two entrances: the short ramp leading back to the aircraft elevator and the doorway leading to the staircase that went down to the cube.

Juliet Janson flopped to the floor of the lab, exhausted.

The President did the same.

The Marines — Book II, Elvis, Love Machine, Mother and Brainiac — formed a huddle and quickly told each other of their respective adventures inside flooding elevator shafts and runaway AWACS planes.

The last member of their rag-tag group — the lab coat-wearing scientist, Herbert Franklin — took a seat in the corner.

Schofield and Gant remained standing.

They had a few weapons now, gear that they had scavenged from the bodies of the 7th Squadron men in the decompression area… guns, a few radio headsets, three extremely high powered grenades made of RDX compound, and two thumbtack-sized lock-destroying explosives known as Lock-Blasters.

Logan's men, however, had spoiled well.

The brutal gunfire that they had directed at their own fallen men hadn't been intended as kill shots — it had been intended to destroy any weapons the dead men might offer their enemy. Consequently, only one P-90 assault rifle had been salvaged from the battlefield. All the others had been shattered, as had many of the fallen men's semiautomatic pistols.

"Mother," Schofield said, tossing the P-90 to her, "keep an eye on the ramp entrance. Elvis, the stairs going down to the cube."

Mother and Elvis dashed off.

Although just about everyone else in the world would have gone straight over to the President at that time, Schofield didn't. He could see that the President hadn't been injured — still had all his fingers and toes — and so long as his heart was still beating, he was all right.

Instead, Schofield went over to Juliet Janson.

"Update," was all he said.

Janson glanced up at Schofield, looked into the reflective silver lenses of his wraparound antiflash glasses.

She'd seen him around the Presidential helicopters before, but had never really talked to him. She'd heard about him from the other agents, though. He was the one from that thing in Antarctica.

"They ambushed us in the Level 3 common room, just after the message came over the Emergency Broadcast System," she said. "Been right on our tails ever since. We hit the stairwell, made for the Emergency Exit Vent down on Level 6, but they were waiting for us. We came back up the stairs — they were waiting for us again. We diverted through 5 and came up the ramp to 4 — and they were waiting for us again."

"Casualties?"

"Eight agents from the President's Personal Detail killed. Plus the whole Advance Team down on Level 6. That makes seventeen in total."

"Frank Cutler?"

"Gone."

"Anything else?"

Janson nodded at the little lab-coated man. "We picked him up on 5, before we walked into that ambush in the decompression room. Says he's a scientist working here."

Schofield glanced over at Herbert Franklin. Small and bespectacled, the little man just bowed his head in silence.

"What about you?" Janson asked.

Schofield shrugged. "We were up in the main hangar when it went down. Scrambled down the ventilation shaft, arrived in one of the underground hangars, destroyed a Humvee, crashed an AWACS plane."

"The usual," Gant added.

"How did you know about the ambush next door?" Janson asked.

Schofield shrugged. "We were down next to the cube when the lights went out in the decompression area. We were hoping it was someone friendly, trying to hide from the security cameras. So we checked it out from above, from the catwalks. When we saw who it was, saw them surrounding that ramp in the middle of the room, we figured they were waiting for the big score" — he nodded at the President — "so we set up a little counter-ambush of our own."

On the other side of the room, Brainiac sat down next to the President.

"Mr. President," he said with deference.

"Hello," the President replied. "How you feelin', sir?"

"Well, I'm still alive, which is a good start, considering the circumstances. What's your name, son?"

"Gorman, sir. Corporal Gus Gorman, but most of the guys just call me Brainiac."

"Brainiac?"

"That's right, sir," Brainiac hesitated. "Sir, if you don't mind, I was wondering, if it wasn't too much trouble, if I could ask you a question."

"Why not?" the President said.

"Okay, then. Okay. Well, you being' President and all, you'd know certain things, right?"

"Yes…"

"Right. Cool. Because what I always wanted to know was this: is Puerto Rico a United States protectorate because it has the highest number of UFO sightings in the world per annum?"

"What?"

"Well, think about it, why the hell else would we want to hold on to Puerto-fucking-Rico, there ain't nothing there…"

"Brainiac," Schofield said from across the room. "Leave the President alone. Mr. President, you better come and see this. It's almost eight o'clock and Caesar will be giving his hourly update any second."

The President went over to join Schofield — but not before he gave Brainiac a strange look.

At the tick of eight o'clock, Caesar Russell's face appeared on every television set in Area 7.

"My fellow Americans," he boomed, "after one hour's play, the President is still alive. His cause, however, is not looking good.

"His personal Secret Service Detail has been decimated, with eight of its nine members already confirmed dead. Two more Secret Service units — advance teams, one stationed down in the lowest floor of this facility, another at one of the exterior exits, consisting of nine men each — were also eliminated, bringing the total of presidential losses to twenty-six men. On both occasions, no losses were sustained by my 7th Squadron men."

"That said, some knights in shining armor have arrived on the scene. A small band of United States Marines — members of the President's ornamental helicopter crew, looking very pretty in their dress uniforms — have come to his defen…"

Just then, completely without warning, the television sets throughout Area 7 abruptly died, their screens shrinking to black.

At the same moment, all the lights in the complex blinked out, plunging Area 7 into darkness.

Inside the lab on Level 4, everybody looked up at the sudden loss of power.

"Uh-oh…" Gant said, eyeing the ceiling.

Then, a second later, the lights whirred back to life and the TV system rebooted, Caesar's face still looming large, still talking.

"…Which leaves us with five 7th Squadron units versus a handful of United States Marines. Such is the state of play at eight o'clock. I shall see you again for another update at 0900 hours."

The TV screens cut to black.

"Liar," Juliet Janson said. "That son of a bitch is Distorting the truth. The advance team down on Level 6 was already dead when we got there. They were killed before all this started."

"He also lied about his losses," Brainiac said. "Sneaky bastard."

"So what do we do?" Gant asked Schofield. "They have us outnumbered, outflanked and outgunned. Plus, this is their turf."

Schofield was wondering exactly the same thing.

The 7th Squadron had them completely on the run. They had all the leverage, and more importantly, he thought, looking down at his formal full dress uniform, they had come prepared to fight.

"Okay," he said, thinking aloud. "Know your enemy."

"What?"

"First principles. We have to even things up, but to do that, we need knowledge. Rule Number One: know your enemy. Okay. So who are they?"

Janson shrugged. "The 7th Squadron. The Air Force's crack ground unit. The best in the country. Well trained, well armed…"

"And on steroids," Gant added.

"More than just steroids," another voice said.

Everyone turned.

It was the scientist, Herbert Franklin.

"Who are you?" Schofield said.

The little man shuffled nervously. "My name is Herbie Franklin. Until this morning, I was an immunologist on Project Fortune. But they locked me up just before you all arrived."

Schofield said, "What did you mean, 'more than just steroids'?"

"Well, what I meant was that the 7th Squadron men at this base have been… augmented… for want of a better word."

"Augmented?"

"Enhanced. Improved for better performance. Ever wondered why the 7th Squadron does so well at interservice battle competitions? Ever wondered why they can keep fighting while everyone else is falling over with exhaustion?"

"Yes…"

Franklin spoke quickly: "Anabolic steroids to enhance muscle and fitness levels. Artificial erythropoietin injections for increased blood oxygenation."

"Artificial erythropoietin?" Gant repeated.

"EPO for short," Herbie said. "It's a hormone that stimulates production of red blood cells by the bone marrow, thus increasing the supply of oxygen in the bloodstream. Endurance athletes, mainly cyclists, have been using it for years.

"The 7th Squadron are stronger than you, and they can run all day long," Herbie said. "Hell, Captain, these men were tough when they got here, but since their arrival they have been augmented by the latest pharmacological technology to fight harder, better and longer than anybody else."

"Okay, okay," Schofield said, "I think we get the picture."

He was thinking, however, of a small boy named Kevin, living fifty feet away, inside a glass cube. "So is that what you do here? Is that what this base is all about? Enhancing elite soldiers?"

"No…" Herbie said, casting a wary glance over at the President. "The augmentation of the 7th Squadron troopers is only performed as an ancillary task, since they guard the base."

"So what the hell is this place?"

Again Herbie looked at the President. Then he took a deep breath before answering…

It was another voice, however, that spoke.

"This base houses the most important vaccine ever developed in the history of America," it said.

Schofield spun.

It was the President.

Schofield appraised him. The President was still wearing his charcoal colored suit and tie.

With his neatly combed light-gray hair and familiar wrinkled face, he looked like a middle aged country businessman — albeit a businessman who had been sweating hard for the last hour.

"A vaccine?" Schofield said.

"Yes. A vaccine against the latest Chinese genetic virus. A virus that targets Caucasian people by way of their pigmentation DNA. An agent known as the Sinovirus."

"And the source of this vaccine…?" Schofield said.

"…is a genetically constructed human being," the President said.

"A what?"

"A person, Captain Schofield, who since the embryonic stage of his existence has been purpose-built to withstand the Sinovirus, whose very blood can be harvested to produce antibodies for the rest of the American population. A human vaccine. The world's first genetically tailored human being, Captain, a boy named Kevin."

Schofield's eyes narrowed.

It explained a lot — the tight security surrounding the complex, the presidential visit, and a boy living inside a glass cube. He was also struck by one other aspect of what the President had just said: the president knew his name.

"You created a boy to use as a vaccine?" Schofield said. "With respect, sir, but doesn't that bother you?"

The President grimaced. "My job is not made up of black and whites, Captain. Just gray, infinite gray. And in that world of gray, I have to make decisions — often difficult ones. Sure, Kevin existed long before I became President, but once I knew about him, I had to make the call to continue the project. I made that call. I may not like it, but in the face of an agent like the Sinovirus, tough decisions are necessary."

There was a short silence.

Book spoke. "What about the prisoners downstairs?"

"And the animals. What are they used for?" Juliet said.

Schofield frowned. He hadn't seen Level 5, so he didn't know about any animals or prisoners.

Herbie Franklin answered. "The animals are used for both projects, the vaccine and the 7th Squadron augmentation. The Kodiak bears are utilized for their blood toxins. All bears have extremely high blood-oxygen levels for use when they hibernate. The blood enhancement research for the 7th Squadron came from them."

"So what about the other cages, the water-filled ones?" Janson asked. "What's in them?"

Herbie paused. "A rare breed of monitor lizard known as the Komodo dragon. The largest lizard in the world, about thirteen feet long, as big as a regular crocodile. We have six of them."

"And what are they used for?" Schofield asked.

"Komodos are the most ancient reptilian species on earth, found only on the scattered middle islands in Indonesia. They're great swimmers — been known to swim between islands — but they're equally fast on land, easily capable of running down a man, which they do regularly. Their internal antibiotic system, however, is extraordinarily robust. They are all but impervious to illness. Their lymph nodes produce a highly concentrated antibacterial serum that has protected them against disease for thousands of years."

The President said, "The Komodo dragons' blood byproducts have been reconfigured to match the structure of human blood, and as such form the basis of Kevin's immune system. We then harvest Kevin's genetically constructed blood plasma to produce a serum that can be inserted into America's water supply — a serum-hydrate solution — thereby immunizing the general population against the Sinovirus."

"You spike the water supply?" Schofield said.

"Oh, it's been done before," Herbie said. "In 1989, against botulinum toxin, and in 1990 — because of Iraq — against anthrax. Although Americans don't know it, they're resistant to all the world's major biological weapons."

"What about the human prisoners?" Book II asked. "What are they here for?"

Herbie looked to the President, who nodded silently. The little scientist shrugged. "The human prisoners are another story altogether. They're not here to provide any sort of blood byproduct or serum. Their role is simple. They're guinea pigs for the testing of the vaccine."

"Jesus Christ," Gant breathed when she saw the list of prisoner names.

After Herbie had told them the purpose of the prisoners downstairs, he had brought up a list of their names on one of the laboratory's computer terminals.

There were forty-two of them in total, all multiple lifers or death-row candidates who had somehow escaped the chair.

"The worst of the worst," Herbie said, nodding at the list of names.

Schofield had heard of many of them. Sylvester McLean — the child-murderer from Atlanta. Ronald Noonan — the Houston baker turned clock-tower sniper. Lucifer Leary — the serial killer from Phoenix. Seth Grimshaw — the notorious leader of the Black League, an ultra-violent terrorist organization that believed the U.S. government was preparing America for a United Nations takeover.

"Seth Grimshaw?" Gant said, seeing the name. She turned to Juliet Janson. "Wasn't he the one who…?"

"Yes," Janson said, glancing nervously at the President over on the far side of the lab. "In early February. Just after the inauguration. He's a genuine 18–84."

Gant said, "Oh, man, do I hope their cages are sturdy."

"All right. Great," Schofield said. "which brings us back to the here and now. We're shut in here. They want to kill the President. And because of the radio transmitter on his heart, if he dies, fourteen major cities go up in smoke."

"And all right in front of the people of America," Janson said.

"Not necessarily," the President said, "because Caesar wouldn't know about the LBJ Directive."

"What's the LBJ Directive?" Schofield asked.

"It's a feature of the Emergency Broadcast System, but known only to the President and the Vice-President. It's essentially a safety valve, brought in by Lyndon Johnson in 1967, to stop the BBS from being used too soon."

"So what does it do?"

"It provides for a forty-five-minute delay of any broadcast sent over the system, unless a presidential override code is entered. In other words, except in the most urgent circumstances, it stops a panic broadcast from being sent out, effectively allowing for a forty-five-minute cooling-off period.

"Now, since it's 8:09, Caesar's initial broadcast has got out there, but if we were to find the BBS transmission box inside this complex, we could stop all his subsequent transmissions."

Schofield pursed his lips, thinking. "That has to be a secondary consideration. Something to do only if we happen to be in the right place at the right time."

He turned to Herbie. "Tell us about this complex."

Herbie shrugged. "What's there to know? It's a fortress. Used to be NORAD headquarters.

When it shuts down, it shuts down. The thing is, I don't think anyone ever expected it to be used to keep someone locked in."

"But even a total lockdown must have a release procedure," Schofield said. "Something which opens the doors when the crisis is over."

Herbie nodded. "The time lock."

"Time lock?"

"In the event of total lockdown, a timer-controlled security system is activated. Every hour on the hour, those people still alive inside the base have a five-minute window period to enter one of three possible codes."

"What kind of codes?" Gant asked.

"Remember," Herbie said, "this facility was intended for use in a full-scale U.S.-Soviet nuclear exchange. The codes reflect that. As such, there are three possible entry codes."

"The first code simply continues the lockdown. The nuclear crisis is still going, so the facility remains locked down. The second code assumes the crisis has been resolved. It calls an end to the lockdown — armored blast doors are retracted and all entrances and exits are reopened."

"And the third code?" Gant asked.

"The third code is a halfway measure — it allows for messenger escape. It authorizes title opening of individual exits and entrances for messengers to leave the facility."

Schofield was listening to Herbie carefully.

"What happens when no code is entered during the hourly window period?" he asked.

"You're fast, Captain. You see, that's the kicker, isn't it? If no code is entered, the complex's computer is warned that the facility may have been taken by the enemy. It then gives you one chance to reenter one of the other codes at the next hourly window period. If no code is entered at that time, then the computer assumes that the facility has been taken by the enemy, at which point the facility's self-destruct mechanism is activated."

"Self-destruct mechanism?" Brainiac blurted. "What the fuck is that?"

"A one-hundred-megaton thermonuclear warhead buried beneath the complex," Herbie said simply.

"Oh, Christ…" Brainiac said.

Gant said, "Surely they removed that when the Soviet Union collapsed."

"I'm afraid not," Herbie said. "When this base was reconfigured as a chemical weapons facility, it was decided that the self-destruct device still had value. If there was an accident and a virus spread throughout the facility, the whole contaminated complex — virus included — could be destroyed by a superheated nuclear blast."

"Okay," Schofield said, "so if we want to leave, we have to wait for the hourly window period, find a computer connected to the central network, and then enter the correct code."

"That's right," Herbie said.

"So what are the codes?" Schofield asked.

Herbie shrugged helplessly. "That I don't know. I can initiate a lockdown if there's been an outbreak, but I don't have clearance to undo one. Only the Air Force guys can do that…"

"Uh, excuse me," Juliet Janson said, "but aren't we forgetting something?"

"Like what?" Brainiac said.

"Like the Football," Janson said. "The President's briefcase. The one that's been rigged to stop him from escaping this complex. He has to press his palm against the analyzer plate on the Football once every ninety minutes, otherwise the plasma bombs in the cities go off."

"Damn it," Schofield said. He had forgotten all about that. He looked at his watch.

It was 8:12 a.m.

This had all started at 7:00 a.m. Which meant they had to get the President's hand onto the Football by 8:30.

He looked up at the others. "Where are they keeping the Football?"

"Russell said it would be kept in the main hangar, up on ground level," the President said.

"What do you think?" Gant said to Schofield.

"I don't think we have much choice. Somehow, we have to get his hand onto the Football."

"But we can't keep doing that forever."

"No," Schofield said, "we can't. At some point, we'll have to come up with a more long-term solution. But until then, we deal with the short-term ones."

Janson said, "It'd be suicide to bring the President out into the open upstairs, they'll almost certainly be waiting."

"That's right," Schofield stood up. "Which is why we don't do that. What we do is quite straightforward. We bring the Football to him."

"The first thing we have to do," Schofield said, rounding everyone up, "is take care of those security cameras. While they're still operating, we're screwed." He turned to Herbie Franklin. "Where's the central junction box in this place?"

"In the Level 1 hangar bay, I think, on the northern wall."

"Okay," Schofield said. "Mother, Brainiac, I want you guys to take care of those cameras. Cut the power if you have to, I don't care, just shut down the camera system. You got me?"

"Got it," Mother said.

"And take Dr. Franklin with you. If he's lying, shoot him."

"Got it," Mother said, eyeing Herbie suspiciously. Herbie gulped.

"What about the rest of us?" Juliet asked.

Schofield headed toward the short ramp that led to the wide aircraft elevator shaft.

"The rest of us are going upstairs to play some football."

"…System reboot is complete…" "Status?" Caesar Russell asked.

Ten minutes previously, during Caesar's second BBS broadcast, the entire complex had experienced an abrupt power shutdown, causing all its interior systems to switch off.

"…Confirm: main power supply has been cut," one of the radio operators said. "We're running on auxiliary power now. All systems operational."

"…We lost that enhanced satellite image of the EEV that was coming through. Renewing contact with the satellite now…"

Another operator: "Copy that. Main power supply was switched off at the Level 1 junction box at exactly 0800 hours, by operator 008-72…"

"8-72?" Caesar frowned, thinking.

"…Sir, we have no visual feed. All cameras went down with the cutting of the main power supply…"

Caesar's eyes narrowed. "All units, report in."

"…This is Alpha," Kurt Logan's voice said. "Initiate frequency swap. Possibility that enemy has obtained some of our radio equipment…"

"…Frequency swap complete," the senior operator said. "Go ahead, Alpha Leader…"

"…We are in the Level 2 hangar bay. Heading for the personnel elevator for rendezvous up in the main hangar. Report six dead…"

"…This is Bravo Leader, we're up in the main hangar, covering the Football. All men present and accounted for. No casualties…"

"…This is Charlie Leader. We are moving in tandem with Echo through the common worn area on Level 3. We have one dead, two wounded from that AWACS shit before. Understand targets were last sighted on Level 4. Preparing for joint assault through floor-to-ceiling hatches between 3 and 4. Please advise…"

"…Charlie, Echo, this is Control. We have lost all visual contact on the Level 4 lab area…"

"Engage at will, Charlie and Echo," Caesar Russell cut in sharply. "Keep them moving. They can't run forever."

"…This is Delta. We are still on 5. No casualties. By the time we broke down that door on 5, the targets had already gone up the ramp to Level 4. Be advised, there is substantial flooding in the Level 5 confinement area. Awaiting instructions…"

"…Delta, this is Caesar," Russell said coolly, "head back down to Level 6. Cover the X-rail exits."

"…Affirmative, that, sir…"

Twenty black-clad 7th squadron commandos hurried down one of the corridors of the Level 3 living area, their boots thundering on the floor — the men of Charlie and Echo Units.

They came to a pressure-sealed manhole in the carpet. A code was entered and the circular hatch came free with a sharp hiss, revealing a crawl space between the floor of Level 3 and the ceiling of Level 4. Another pressure hatch lay directly beneath this one — the entry to Level 4.

One of the commandos lowered himself through the manhole.

"Control, this is Charlie Leader," Python Willis said into his headset mike. "We are at the manhole leading to the observation lab on Level 4. Preparing to storm the floor from above."

"Do it!" Caesar's voice replied.

Python nodded to his man in the crawl space. The commando released the pressure valve and let the hatch drop to the floor ten feet below him. Then he jumped down to the ground after it, three others close behind him, their P-90's aimed and ready.

Nothing.

The lab around them was empty.

There came a loud mechanical rumbling from within the walls.

The 7th Squadron men whirled around as one.

It was the sound of the hydraulic aircraft elevator platform.

The commandos of Charlie and Echo Units hurried down the short sloping walkway that ledfrom the observation lab to the aircraft elevator shaft.

They got there just in time to see the underside of the giant elevator platform rising up into the shaft above them, heading for the main hangar.

Python Willis spoke into his helmet mike. "Control, this is Charlie Leader. They're going for the Football."

The gigantic aircraft elevator groaned loudly as it lumbered up the wide concrete shaft.

It moved slowly, carrying the crumpled remains of the crashed AWACS plane on its back.

The plane lay tilted forward, like a wounded bird, its nose lower than its destroyed rear section, its broken wings splayed wide. The plane's rotodome — still intact — towered high above the whole sorry image.

The massive elevator rumbled up the greasy concrete shaft.

As it passed the open doorway to the level 1 hangar bay, however, three tiny figures quickly leapt off it, hustling into the underground hangar.

It was Mother and Brainiac and, puffing along behind them, Herbie Franklin.

They were heading for the central junction box that Franklin had said was located in the Level 1 hangar bay, to disable Area 7's camera system.

The hangar was deserted now, the 7th Squadron men long gone. The two stealth bombers and the lone SR-71 Blackbird still stood silently in the cavernous space, like a trio of sleeping sentinels.

Mother checked her watch as she skirted the left-hand wall of the hangar.

8:20.

Ten minutes to get the President to the Football.

As she moved along the concrete wall, watchful for enemy soldiers, she saw a large box shaped compartment at the far end of it. The compartment's ten-foot-tall steel door was twisted and bent, partially destroyed.

"Oh, yeah," she said.

"What?" Herbie asked from behind her.

"Our little run-in with the 7th Squadron up here earlier," Mother said. "They got a couple of Stingers off — one hit that compartment, the other punctured some water tanks inside the wall over by the personnel elevator."

"Oh," Herbie said.

"Let's see what's left," Mother said.

Upstairs, the giant elevator platform rose slowly into the main hangar.

The remains of the AWACS plane appeared first, rising above the rim of the square-shaped shaft.

Then the exploded rear section of the fuselage…

…followed by the intact rotodome…

…then the snapped wings…

The rest of the battered plane rose slowly into view and then, with a loud boom! the platform came level with the hangar floor and stopped.

There was a long silence.

The ground-level hangar bore the scars of the battle that had taken place there nearly an hour and a half before.

Marine One — still attached to its towing vehicle — stood on the western side of the elevator platform, while its semi destroyed sister chopper, Nighthawk Two, and its cockroach stood on the northern side of the platform, over by the personnel elevator.

On the eastern side of the AWACS plane, however, stood something entirely new: a team of ten 7th Squadron commandos — Bravo Unit — positioned in between the elevator platform and the internal building, standing inside a semicircular barricade of wooden crates and Samsonite containers.

On a chair in the center of the barricade sat a familiar stainless-steel briefcase, folded open, revealing a series of red and green lights, a keypad, and a flat-glass analyzer plate.

The Football.

Captain Bruno "Boa" McConnell — the gray-eyed leader of Bravo Unit — gazed at the crumpled AWACS plane suspiciously.

The broken plane just sat there in the center of the enormous hangar — silent, unmoving — a great big pile of junk.

More silence.

"How's it gogin down there, Mother?" Schofield's voice whispered in Mother's earpiece, borrowed from one of the dead Secret Service agents.

Down on Level 1, Mother surveyed the damaged electricity junction box in front of her. Fully half the switchboard had been destroyed by the missile impact. The other half was a mixed bag — some parts were intact, others were just mounds of melted wires. At the moment, Herbie Franklin was tapping the keys on a computer terminal that had survived the impact.

"Just a second," she said into her wrist microphone. "Yo, Poindexter. What's the story?"

Franklin frowned. "It doesn't make sense. Somebody's been here already, about twenty minutes ago at eight o'clock. They cut the main power. The whole base is running on auxiliary power…"

"Can you cut the cameras?" Mother asked.

"Don't have to. They were shut down when the main power was disabled." Herbie turned to face Mother. "They're already off."

Up in the main hangar. The regular elevator's doors opened.

Out of the lift stepped Kurt Logan and the three other survivors from Alpha Unit. They met up with Boa McConnell and the men of Bravo Unit.

"What's happening?" Logan asked.

"Nothing…" Boa replied. "Yet."

"…Control, this is Charlie leader" Python Willis's voice said over the control room's speakers.

"There's no one down here on Level 4."

"…Copy, Charlie Leader. Bring your team up to the main hangar in the personnel lift. Echo, stay down there. Caesar wants you roving around the lower levels. We've lost all camera visuals and we need some eyes down there…"

On Level 1, Mother keyed her wrist mike. "Scarecrow, this is Mother. Cameras are down. Repeat: Cameras are down. We're heading for the aircraft elevator shaft."

"Thanks, Mother."

"All right, we're in business," Schofield said, turning to the President, Book II and Juliet.

They were in a dark place.

He looked at his watch:

8:25:59.

8:26:00.

This was going to be close.

"Fox, Elvis, Love Machine, get ready. On my mark. In three…"

The main hangar was silent.

"Two…"

Marine One stood about thirty feet away from the wreck of the AWACS plane, shining in the harsh artificial light.

"One…"

The men of Bravo Unit eyed the shattered AWACS bird cautiously, guns up, trigger fingers tensed.

"…Mark."

Schofield pressed a button on a small handheld unit — it was the remote detonation switch for one of the RDX-based grenades that he had found on the 7th Squadron men in the decompression room. Pound for pound, aluminized RDX is about six times more powerful than C4 — it blows big and it blows wide, a superblasting charge.

As soon as he hit the button, the RDX charge that he had left in the cockpit of the AWACS plane exploded — blasting outwards, showering the hangar with a star-shaped rain of glass and shrapnel.

And then everything happened at once.

The men of Bravo Unit dived away from the explosion.

Sizzling-hot pieces of the plane's cockpit shot low over their heads, lodging in the barricade all around them like darts smacking into a corkboard.

As they clambered back to their feet, they saw movement, saw three shadows climb out from the air vent underneath Marine One.

"There!" Boa pointed.

One of the shadows ran out from beneath the President's helicopter, while the other two slithered up through a hatch in its underbelly.

A moment later, Marine One's engines roared to life.

Its tail boom folded into place from its stowed position, as did its rotor blades. No sooner were the rotor blades extended than they began to rotate, despite the fact that the President's helicopter was still attached to its towing vehicle.

Gunfire erupted as the lone Marine who had dashed out from underneath the chopper — Love Machine — disengaged the cockroach attached to its tail and climbed inside the towing vehicle's tiny driver's cabin.

"What the fuck…?" Kurt Logan said as the cockroach skidded out from behind Marine One and swung around the elevator platform, heading directly for the 7th Squadron men guarding the Football.

"Open fire," Logan said to Boa and his men. "Open fire now."

They did.

A barrage of P-90 fire assaulted the speeding towing vehicle's windscreen, shattering it.

Inside the driver's cabin, Love Machine ducked below the dashboard. Bullets tore into the seatback behind him, sending the fluffy innards of the seat showering everywhere.

The cockroach careened across the hangar, bouncing wildly, taking fire.

Then suddenly, behind it, Marine One rose into the air — inside the hangar — the deafening thump-thump-thump of its rotor blades reverberating off the walls, drowning out all other sound.

Inside its cockpit, Gant worked the controls while Elvis hit switches everywhere.

"Elvis! Give me missiles!" she shouted. "And whatever you do, don't hit the Football, okay!"

Elvis slammed his finger down on a launch button.

Shoom!

A Hellfire missile shot out from a pod mounted on the side of the Presidential helicopter, a finger of smoke extending through the air behind it, the missile shooting at tremendous speed toward the internal building on the eastern side of the hangar.

The missile hit the exact center of the building — right above the Bravo troops guarding the Football — and detonated.

The middle section of the internal building blasted outwards in a shower of glass and plasterboard. A section of the glassed-in upper level collapsed to the ground behind the Bravo men guarding the Football.

The 7th Squadron commandos leapt clear of the falling debris — only to have to roll again a split second later to avoid a second source of danger: the oncoming cockroach driven by Love Machine.

It was chaos.

Mayhem.

Pandemonium.

Exactly as Schofield had planned.

Schofield watched the confusion from his position inside the destroyed AWACS plane. His watch read:

8:27:50.

8:27:51.

Two minutes left.

"Okay, Book, let's go." He turned to Juliet and the President. "You two stay here until we've checked the status of the Football. If we can get it, we'll bring it back to you. If not, you'll have to come out."

And with that Schofield and Book II leapt down from the gaping hole at the rear of the AWACS plane and ran out into the open.

At exactly the same moment, a six-barreled Vulcan minigun popped out from a compartment underneath the nose of Marine One and began spewing out a devastating stream of supermachine-gun fire.

The 7th Squadron men — already scattered everywhere — were dispersed even more. Some dived behind their barricade for cover, others found shelter among the ruins of the AWACS plane and fired up at the President's helicopter.

Gant sat at the controls of Marine One as her enemy's bullets left scratches on the Lexan windshield. And the armor-plated walls of the big Sikorsky were built to withstand missile impacts, so gunfire wasn't a problem.

Beside her, Elvis was yelling, "Yee-ha!" as he rained hell on the 7th Squadron men with the minigun.

Schofield and Book II ran eastward, sidestepping quickly toward the 7th Squadron men guarding the Football.

They moved in tandem, guns up, firing — bizarrely — at Love Machine's runaway cockroach and up at Marine One.

The fact that they were firing at their own people was probably best explained by the fact that they were dressed in the black fatigues, black body armor and half-face gas masks of the 7th Squadron — slightly damaged uniforms they had pilfered from the dead Air Force commandos in the decompression area down on Level 4.

Schofield and Book danced sideways, edging toward the barricade in front of the Football, firing hard at their own men — but missing woefully.

They reached the barricade, and Schofield immediately saw the Football on the chair.

Then he saw the tether.

"Damn it!"

The presidential briefcase was anchored to a tie-down stud on the floor by a thick metal cord.

It looked like titanium thread.

Watch.

8:28:59.

8:29:00.

"Shit," Schofield keyed his wrist mike. "Janson! The Football's tethered to the floor. We can't move it. You're going to have to bring the President out into the open."

"Okay," came the reply.

"Fox! Love Machine! I need another thirty seconds of mayhem! Then you know what to do."

Fox's voice: "Whatever you say, Scarecrow!"

Love Machine: "Roger that, Boss!"

And then Schofield saw Janson and the President leap out from the rear section of the AWACS plane — also dressed in full 7th Squadron attire and brandishing pistols, which they fired determinedly at Love Machine's cockroach.

Janson fired her SIG-Sauer with a firm two-handed grip. The President wasn't as fluid, but he did all right for a guy who'd never served in the military.

Marine One banked in a wide circle around the enormous hangar, drawing fire, the roar of its speed-blurred rotor blades thunderous in the enclosed space.

Love Machine's towing vehicle swung past the barricade protecting the Football, then veered left, heading north, smashing through some broken pieces of the AWACS plane and then disappearing behind it.

From the first-floor control room of the internal building, Caesar Russell watched the chaos unfolding below him.

He saw the Presidential helicopter performing death defying passes inside the enclosed hangar. He saw the speeding cockroach blasting through the remains of the AWACS plane on the elevator platform.

And he saw his own men — scattered and dispersed — firing wildly at both of these two crazy threats, as if they had been prepared for any ordered attack but not a totally insane one.

"Goddamn it!" he roared. "Where is Charlie?"

"Still coming up in the personnel elevator, sir."

And then, in an instant of total clarity, as he watched his men down on the hangar floor, Caesar saw him, and his jaw dropped.

"No…"

Caesar watched in stunned amazement as one of his own men raced over to the Football — which, of course, was still surrounded by a few men from Bravo Unit, all of them facing outwards — pulled off one of his black leather gloves, and under the watchful eye of three other black-clad impostors, moved his hand toward the palm-print analyzer inside the steel briefcase.

Schofield's watch ticked ever forward.

8:29:31.

8:29:32.

Amid the roar of the rampaging helicopter and the cacophony of gunfire all around him, and guarded by Schofield, Book II and Juliet Janson, the President stepped up to the Football.

He yanked off his glove, took a final look around himself, and then, as he strode past the Football, he inconspicuously placed his hand on the palm-print analyzer, just as the countdown timer on its display hit 0:24.

The briefcase beeped and the timer instantly ticked over from 0:24 to 90:00 and started counting down again.

When Schofield saw that the deed was done, he and Book II fell into step alongside Juliet and the President.

"Remember, guns up and firing," he said. He held his wrist mike to his lips, "Fox, Elvis, Love Machine: get out of here. We'll meet you downstairs. Mother, the platform. Now"

Mother stood inside the enormous hangar doorway down on Level 1, looking up into the elevator shaft.

Two hundred feet above her, she could see the underside of the massive aircraft platform, beyond which she could hear the sounds of the battle.

She hit the call button, and immediately the giant elevator platform high above her jolted sharply and slowly began to descend.

Up in the main hangar, the shattered remains of the AWACS plane — and the platform on which they stood — began to disappear into the floor.

The elevator was going down. Schofield, Book II, Juliet and the President charged toward it, firing up at Marine One as they did so — acting like good 7th Squadron soldiers.

In the control room overlooking the hangar, Caesar grabbed a microphone. "Boa! Logan! The President is there! He walked right in among you and hit the analyzer and now he's heading for the elevator platform. For Christ's sake, he's wearing one of our own goddamn uniforms! In the main hangar, Kurt Logan spun around where he stood, and he saw them — saw four 7th Squadron people leaping down onto the slowly descending elevator platform, now completely ignoring Marine One and the runaway cockroach.

"The platform!" he yelled. "Bravo Unit! Converge on the platform! Alpha, take out the helicopter and kill that fucking cockroach!"

Marine One was already swooping toward the ground again — her diversionary mission accomplished.

Gant landed the big chopper right where she had found it — over the air vent in the floor on the western side of the elevator shaft — and with Elvis's help, she maneuvered the big bird around so that her floor hatch stopped directly above the ventilation shaft.

Once the helicopter was stopped, she leapt out of the pilot's seat and headed for the floor hatch, while Elvis dashed for the rear left-hand door and threw it open for Love Machine.

Love Machine was in a world of pain.

His Volvo towing vehicle wasn't as bulletproof as Marine One and he was taking all kinds of shit from the 7th Squadron men.

Tires squealed, bullets impacted, glass shattered.

And now he had to get over to Marine One.

His biggest problem, however, was that he had just swung his cockroach around for another pass at the 7th Squadron men on the eastern side of the platform when Schofield's call had come in.

He was now on the other side of the shaft from Marine One, heading northward, and the elevator platform — now sinking slowly into the shaft — was no longer there to drive on.

He'd have to go around.

More bullets hit his cockroach as three 7th Squadron commandos appeared right in front of him and assailed his vehicle with a harrowing wave of gunfire.

Bullets riddled the driver's compartment.

Two slugs slammed into Love Machine's left shoulder, spraying blood.

Love Machine roared.

A separate volley hit both of his front tires and they punctured loudly, and suddenly he was skidding out of control, sliding precariously close to the edge of the elevator shaft and the now ten-foot drop to the slowly descending platform.

Somehow, he didn't fall into the shaft. Instead, he bounced across the northeastern corner of the great square hole, shooting past the 7th Squadron men who had hammered him with gunfire, and slammed at tremendous speed into the remains of Nighthawk Two, which still sat near the northern wall of the hangar — attached to its own towing vehicle, its cockpit blasted open — right where Book II had left it ninety minutes earlier.

Elvis saw the crash from his position inside Marine One, saw Love Machine's cockroach plough into Nighthawk Two and lurch to a thunderous halt, the bricklike towing vehicle half-buried in the helicopter's crumpled side.

And then he saw the three 7th Squadron men rushing toward the crashed cockroach.

"Oh, no…" he breathed.

Meanwhile, Schofield, Book II, Juliet and the President — still dressed in their black 7th Squadron uniforms — were fighting their own unique kind of battle.

Since it was now descending into the square-shaped shaft, the aircraft elevator platform had effectively become a great walled pit, the four walls of the shaft bounding it on every side. And with the remains of the AWACS plane still strewn about the platform, it was also now a twisted steel maze.

Seven members of Bravo Unit moved among the pieces of the plane, searching for them, hunting them.

Schofield guided his people along the eastern edge of the platform, leading the way, hurdling broken pieces of plane, eyes watchful for the enemy, but searching the floor for something else, something he had planted…

There.

The broken section of wing was right where he had left it.

Schofield hurried over to it. It was resting on the ground at the corner of the moving elevator platform, up against the northern and eastern walls. With Book II's help, he lifted the portion of wing off the elevator's floor, revealing a wide square hole in the platform.

The hole was about ten feet square. It was that part of the platform that usually housed the detachable mini-elevator.

Right now, the detachable section of the elevator platform lay about fifteen feet below them, farther down the shaft — nestled in the corner, unmoving, waiting for them.

By placing the broken section of wing over the top of it earlier, Schofield had ensured that the 7th Squadron didn't know this exit existed.

It was their escape route.

"Love Machine! You still alive?" Elvis yelled into his mike from the cockpit of Marine One.

"Aw, fuck…" came the pained reply.

"Can you move?"

"Get out of here, man. I'm gone. I'm hit and my ankle was busted in the crash…"

"We don't leave anyone behind," another voice said firmly over the same frequency.

It was Schofield's voice.

"Elvis. You and Fox get clear. I'm closer — I'll take care of Love Machine. Love Machine, sit tight. I'm coming for you."

On the downward-moving elevator platform, Schofield spun and looked upwards.

"What are you doing?" Book II asked.

"I'm going to get Love Machine," he said, eyeing the destroyed fuselage of the AWACS plane above him. It was still tilted sharply forward — nose down, ass up. The elevated rear section of the plane was still above the rim of the hangar floor. But not for long. Soon the downward movement of the platform would bring it below the rim.

"Take the President down," he said to Book II and Juliet.

"What are you going to do?" Juliet said.

"I'm going to get my man," Schofield said. "I'll meet you downstairs."

With that he took off into the twisted metal forest around them.

Book II and Juliet could only watch him go. And then they set about their own task of leaping down to the detachable mini-elevator in the shaft below them.

Schofield ran.

Up the steeply sloping left-hand wing of the destroyed AWACS plane.

He reached the top of the wing, then used some dents in the side of the fuselage to climb up onto the battered plane's roof. It was then that he was spotted by two of the Bravo Unit men on the platform below him.

Their P-90 assault rifles erupted.

But Schofield never stopped moving. He just kept running, dancing up the slanted roof of the plane, heading aft — toward the point where the rear section of the downward-moving plane was about to swing past the rim of the shaft.

He hit the rear edge of the plane's roof just as it swooped past the rim and he jumped — diving forward, leaping full-stretch — and landed with a thud, face-first, out of the line of fire, on the main hangar's shiny concrete floor, twenty feet away from Love Machine's crashed cockroach.

He looked up just in time to see the three 7th Squadron commandos arrive at the cockroach's door.

Love Machine sighed as he saw the muzzle of a P-90 Assault rifle appear a few inches in front of his face.

The features of the 7th Squadron commando holding the gun were obscured by the soldier's half-faced gas mask, but the man's eyes weren't covered. They glinted with satisfaction.

Love Machine closed his eyes, waited for the end.

Blam!

No end.

Confused, he opened his eyes again — to see his executioner, now with only half a head, sway unsteadily on his feet, and then fall in a kind of stunned slow motion to the ground.

The other two commandos spun instantly, only to be cut down by a ferocious volley of semiautomatic pistol fire. They were hurled out of view and then to Love Machine's complete surprise, he saw, standing in their place — The Scarecrow.

Dressed in his black 7th Squadron clothing.

"Come on," Schofield said. "Let's get you out of here."

Book II landed on the nonskid deck of the mini-elevator, next to Juliet and the President, eight feet below the downward-moving main platform.

It was dark down here, in the shadow of the principal platform.

As soon as they were all on the detachable deck, Juliet hit a button on a small console built into its floor.

The detachable deck began to glide quickly down the side of the shaft, traveling on its own set of wall-mounted rails, moving faster than the gigantic main platform above it.

Pulling away.

Schofield began to haul Love Machine out of the cockroach.

As he did so, he saw several weapons strewn about the exploded-open cockpit of Nighthawk Two — a couple of MP-10's, some grenades, a chunky.44 caliber "Desert Eagle" semiautomatic pistol, and, most pleasing of all for Schofield, two gunlike weapons, still in their black-leather back holsters, that must have spilled out of Nighthawk Two's weapons cabinet when it had been blown apart earlier.

They looked like high-tech Tommy guns, each possessed of a short stubby barrel and two handgrips. Sticking out of each gun's barrel, however, was a chrome grappling hook with a bulbous magnetic head.

It was the famous Armalite MH-12 Maghook, a grappling hook which also contained a high powered magnet for adhesion to sheer metallic surfaces.

"Oh, yes…" Schofield said, grabbing the two Maghooks and handing one of them to Love Machine. He also grabbed an MP-10, and the big Desert Eagle pistol, which he shoved into his belt…

Ping!

At that moment, the doors to the nearby personnel elevator abruptly opened — revealing ten fully armed 7th Squadron men!

Python Willis and the men of Charlie Unit.

Python's eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw Schofield standing so close and dressed in 7th Squadron attire.

His men raised their P-90's instantly.

"Oh, shit!" Schofield said as he shoved Love Machine back into the cockroach's driver's compartment and clambered in there with him as a volley of bullets slammed into the cockroach's frame.

Schofield jammed the stick into reverse — hoped to God it would still go — and planted the gas pedal to the floor.

The cockroach squealed off the mark, its rear tires smoking, shooting backwards out of the wreck of Nighthawk Two, impact sparks chasing it across the floor.

The cockroach rushed across the hangar floor in reverse, narrowly missing the edge of the elevator shaft as it rocketed toward the now-abandoned barricade on the eastern side of the shaft.

Schofield turned in his seat as he drove — saw the barricade rushing toward him a second too late.

He hit the brakes and the big three-ton towing vehicle did a wild 180-degree spin. The front end of the cockroach came swinging around like a baseball bat and took out the barricade with one devastating swipe, sending crates and Samsonite containers flying everywhere.

The cockroach jolted to a halt. In its driver's compartment, Schofield lurched forward. When he looked up to see where he was, he was surprised to see that, right next to his door, not three feet away, stood the chair upon which sat the President's briefcase — the Football.

Holy shit.

The briefcase's handgrip was still tethered to the floor by the length of superstrong titanium cord, but now, since the President had successfully reset its ninety-minute timer, it had been abandoned by the 7th Squadron men, rightfully assuming that the President's sole objective was now to get out.

So now the Football just sat there, alone, completely unguarded.

Schofield saw the opportunity, and took it.

He leapt out of the driver's compartment and slid to the floor beside the Football.

The men of Charlie Unit were charging across the hangar, guns blazing, pummeling the exposed rump of the cockroach with a million rounds of lead.

Sheltered by the big towing vehicle, Schofield brought one of the tiny 7th Squadron Lock Blasters out of his pocket, attached it to the tie-down stud in the floor that held the Football to the ground, hit the activate button, and dived away.

One, one-thousand…

Two, one-thousand…

Three…

The blast was short and sharp.

With a loud crack! the tie-down stud broke free from the floor, and suddenly the Football — with the length of titanium cord still attached to it — was free.

Schofield scooped it up and dived back into the cab of the cockroach, just as the first 7th Squadron men arrived.

Two of them leapt up onto the back of the cockroach, landing on it at the exact same moment that Schofield floored the accelerator and the cockroach took off, the sudden lurch of motion sending one of the commandos falling ass-over-head off the back of the towing vehicle.

The second man had better reflexes. He discarded his P-90, giving himself an extra hand, and somehow managed to hang on to the roof of the speeding vehicle.

Schofield swung the cockroach around the southern side of the enormous elevator shaft — tires squealing, engine roaring, and now with an extra passenger on its back.

He saw Marine One up ahead, standing on the western side of the shaft, its rotor blades still turning.

That was where he wanted to go. Pull alongside Marine One, race inside it and then leap down into its floor hatch and escape into the ventilation shaft below it.

But his hopes were dashed when he saw the three black clad men from Alpha Unit appear from the other side of the Presidential helicopter, guns up.

Ready for him.

But for some reason, they didn't fire.

Why weren't they?

With shocking suddenness, the small rear window of the driver's compartment behind Schofield's head exploded all around him, showering Schofield and Love Machine with glass, and a pair of black-gloved hands appeared on either side of Schofield's head, one of them brandishing a knife!

It was the 7th Squadron commando on the back of the cockroach. With his head held above the driver's compartment, he was reaching in with his hands to kill Schofield.

On a reflex, Schofield grabbed the man's knife hand, while the assassin's other hand clutched madly at his face. They were still rushing toward Marine One, the cockroach — its two front tires punctured, its driver fighting for his life — caroming wildly across the shiny hangar floor.

Grappling with the commando behind him, Schofield saw Marine One ahead of them, saw its rapidly spinning vertical tail rotor, a blurring circle of motion about six feet off the ground, a few inches higher than the roof of the cockroach…

Schofield didn't miss a beat.

He threw the fast-moving cockroach into a skid, fishtailing the big vehicle sideways — sliding it underneath the tail rotor of Marine One, so that the buzz saw-like blades of the vertical rotor passed low over the cockroach's roof.

Then he heard the commando behind him scream in terror before — abruptly — the yell was cut short as the tail rotor sheared the commando's head clean off his body and a shocking waterfall of blood gushed down from the roof of the driver's compartment.

The three men of Alpha Unit standing near Marine One hurled themselves clear of the sliding towing vehicle as it shot beneath the tail boom of the President's helicopter.

The cockroach emerged on the other side of the chopper, skidding to a sideways halt, so that now the bullet battered towing vehicle was facing the great square hole that was the elevator shaft.

Schofield saw the yawning shaft before him — with its wide hydraulic platform inside it, still making its ponderous descent; saw the AWACS plane's flying-saucer-like roto dome about ten feet below the floorline.

He revved the engine.

Love Machine saw what he was thinking.

"You are out of your mind, Captain."

"Whatever works," Schofield said. "Hang on."

He gunned it.

The cockroach shot forward, rear tires squealing, rushed toward the edge of the shaft.

Speed is everything, Schofield thought as he drove. He needed enough forward velocity so that the cockroach would reach the…

The cockroach rushed toward the rim.

Bullet sparks exploded all around it.

Schofield drove hard.

Then the cockroach hit the edge of the elevator shaft and launched itself out into the air…

The cockroach soared — wheels spinning, nose high.

Then, as it fell, its forward bumper began to droop and it resumed the appearance of three tons of steel that was never intended to fly.

By this time, the elevator platform had descended about thirty feet below floorline, but the body of the destroyed AWACS plane — and its intact rotodome — made the fall for the soaring cockroach only about ten feet.

The cockroach landed — smash! — right on top of the AWACS plane's downward-slanted rotodome.

The rotodome, titanium-based and very rigid, resisted the downward energy of the falling vehicle valiantly.

Its support struts, however, did not.

They buckled instantly, snapping like twigs, as did the body of the airplane underneath the rotodome.

The AWACS's cylindrical fuselage just crumpled like an aluminum can under the weight of the falling towing vehicle, effectively cushioning the roach's fall.

The rotodome was driven down into the fuselage, creating a ramplike effect which allowed Schofield's cockroach to skip off the other side of the plane and bounce down onto its destroyed left-hand wing.

Schofield and Love Machine were thrown about like rag dolls as the cockroach bounced and jounced and thundered forward.

Somehow, Schofield managed to hit the brakes and the cockroach skidded and spun, before slamming to an abrupt halt against the far wall of the shaft, right next to the square-shaped hole that normally housed the detachable mini-elevator.

Schofield was already moving when the cockroach stopped, helping Love Machine out of the driver's cabin just as the first 7th Squadron men emerged from the twisted steel forest around them and opened fire.

But their bullets were too slow.

Indeed, they could only watch in stunned amazement as Schofield handed Love Machine the Football, draped the wounded man's arms over his shoulders, and without even a blink, jumped with Love Machine down into the hole in the platform, disappearing into the blackness beneath it.

Like a pair of tandem skydivers, Schofield and Love Machine dropped down the side of the massive elevator shaft, dwarfed by its immense size.

As instructed, Love Machine gripped Schofield's shoulders as hard as he could — holding on to the Football as he did so. That didn't stop him screaming "Arrrrrgghh!!!" all the way down.

The gray concrete wall rushed past them as they free fell down the side of the shaft.

As he dropped, Schofield looked down and saw a square of white light stretching out from the hangar on Level 1, illuminating the tiny mini-elevator platform stopped there — two hundred feet below.

He unholstered his newly acquired Maghook, snapped open its grappling hook. He couldn't fire it up at the underside of the main platform. Maghooks only had one hundred and fifty feet of rope. It wouldn't be long enough.

No, he had to wait until they dropped about fifty feet, and then…

As he dropped past it, Schofield lodged the Maghook's grappling hook into a metal bracket sticking out from the greasy concrete wall. The bracket kept a series of thick cables running down the side of the shaft bundled together.

As the Maghook gripped the bracket, Schofield and Love Machine continued to fall, the hook's rope playing out above them, unspooling rapidly, wobbling through the air.

The mini-elevator's deck rushed up toward them at shocking speed.

Faster, faster, faster…

Jolt.

And they stopped, three feet above the mini-elevator's deck, in front of the massive doorway that led into the Level 1 hangar bay.

Schofield released his grip on a black button on the Maghook's forward grip — it was a trigger that initiated a clamping mechanism that bit into the Maghook's unspooling rope. He'd hit it just in time. He and Love Machine were lowered the final three feet.

Their boots touched the ground and they turned to find that they had company.

Standing in front of them just inside the hangar bay doors were Book II, Juliet and the President. With them were Mother, Brainiac and the scientist, Herbie Franklin.

"If anybody makes a joke about 'dropping in,'" Mother said, "I will personally rip that person's throat out."

"We have to keep moving," Schofield said when he'd reeled in his Maghook. The giant aircraft elevator was still lumbering down the shaft above them — with its cargo of 7th Squadron commandos.

Schofield's group headed for the vehicle ramp at the far end of the enormous underground hangar bay, Book II and Mother carrying the wounded Love Machine between them.

Juliet Janson came alongside Schofield. "So, now what?"

"We've got the President," he said. "And we've got the Football. Since the Football was the only thing keeping the President here, I say we ditch this party. That means finding a networked terminal. We use the computer to open up an exit during the next hourly window period and then we get out of Dodge.

"Dr. Franklin," he turned as they all started down the circular vehicle access ramp. "Where's the nearest security computer? Something that will open up an exit during the next window period."

Herbie said, "There are two on this level — one in the hangar's office, the other in the junction box."

"Not here," Schofield said. "The bad guys'll be here any minute."

"Then the nearest one is on 4, in the decompression area down there."

"Then that's where we're going."

A woman's voice came through Schofield's earpiece as he moved: "Scarecrow, this is Fox. We are at the bottom of the ventilation shaft. What do you want us to do?"

"Can you cut across the bottom of the aircraft elevator shaft?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Meet us in the Level 4 lab," Schofield said into his wrist mike.

"Got it. Oh, and Scarecrow, we — uh — picked up a couple of new passengers."

"Wonderful," Schofield said. "See you soon."

They raced down the vehicle ramp to Level 2, where they came to an opening in the floor that accessed the emergency stairwell. The eight of them hurried down the stairs until they arrived at the heavy firedoor that led to the decompression area on Level 4.

Brainiac tested the door.

It opened easily.

Schofield was immediately worried. This was one of the doors they had locked and then disabled earlier. Now it was unlocked. He made a hand signal: "Proceed with caution."

Brainiac nodded.

He quickly and silently swung the door open as Book II and Mother slipped inside, an M-16 and a P-90 pressed against their respective shoulders.

No fire was necessary.

Aside from the bodies on the floor — from their previous encounter with the 7th Squadron here — the decompression area was empty.

Juliet and the President went in next, stepping over the bodies. Schofield followed, with Love Machine draped over his shoulder.

A couple of computer terminals sat sunk into the wall on their right, partially hidden behind the telephone-booth-sized test chambers.

"Dr. Franklin, pick a terminal," Schofield said. "Brainiac, go with him. Find out what we have to do to get out of this rat maze. Book, take Love Machine. Mother, check the lab next door for a first-aid kit."

Mother headed for the doorway leading to the other side of the floor.

Book II lowered the grimacing Love Machine to the ground, then made to shut the door behind them.

"What the hell…?" he said as he looked at the door.

Schofield came over. "What is it?"

"Look at the lock."

Schofield did so, and his eyes narrowed.

The door's bolt mechanism — the thick rectangular part of the lock that extended out from the door and secured itself inside a matching slot in the doorframe — had been sheared off.

Cleanly.

Perfectly.

Indeed, the cut was so clean that it could only have been done by some sort of laser…

Schofield frowned.

Somebody had been through here since the battle.

"Scarecrow," someone said.

It was Mother.

She was standing in the doorway leading to the western side of Level 4. Standing with her was Libby Gant, who had appeared from the other side of the floor.

"Scarecrow. You better see this," Mother said.

Schofield went over to the doorway set into the white wall that divided Level 4.

He checked the lock on the door as he met Gant and Mother. Its bolt had also been sheared off with a laser cutting device.

"What is it?" he said.

He looked up and was surprised to see, standing with Gant, Colonel Hot Rod Hagerty and Nicholas Tate III, the President's slick Domestic Policy Adviser. Gant's new passengers.

Gant jerked her thumb at the area behind her — the high ceilinged hall-like space that housed the great glass cube.

Schofield looked into it… and immediately felt his blood run cold.

The cube looked like a bomb had hit it.

Its clear walls lay at all angles, shattered and broken. Entire sections of glass had fallen in on the bedroom inside it, exposing the room to the outside air. Toys lay on their sides. The colorful furniture had been overturned, hurled roughly aside.

There was no sign of the boy, Kevin.

"Looks like they took a whole bunch of stuff from up in the lab, too," Gant said. "The entire area has been ransacked."

Schofield bit his lip in thought as he looked at the scene before him.

He didn't want to say it. Didn't even want to think it. But there was no denying it now.

"There's someone else in here," he said.

The language was Afrikaans. The official language of the white regime that had ruled South Africa up until 1994, but which now, for obvious reasons, was no longer the country's official language.

After consulting with the DIA's two African language specialists, Dave Fairfax now had all of his recorded conversations translated and ready for presentation to the Director.

He looked at the transcript again and smiled. It read:

"That is some seriously weird shit, my friend," one of the African language experts said as he was putting on his jacket to leave. He was a short, pleasant fellow named Lew Alvy. "I mean, Reccondo Units. Die Organisasie. Jesus."

"What do you mean?" Fairfax asked. "What are they?"

Alvy took a quick look around himself.

"The Reccondos," he said, "are the baddest of the bad when it comes to elite units. They're the South African Reconnaissance Commandos. Before Mandela, they were the crack assassination squad of the white regime. Specialists in cross-border raids, covert hits — usually on black resistance leaders — trained to be ghosts. They would never leave a trace of their presence, but you'd know they'd been there because of all the cut throats."

"Tough bastards, too. I heard once, in Zimbabwe, a squad of Reccondos lay in ambush for nineteen days, not moving, hiding in the veldt under heat-deflecting dirt covers, until their target arrived. The target came by, thinking the area was secure, and — boom — they nailed him. Some say that in the eighties they bolstered their numbers by enlisting Angolan mercenaries, but the argument became academic in 1994 when Mandela took power and the unit was disbanded in light of its previous missions. Suddenly they all became mercenaries, a crack hit squad for hire."

"Shit," Fairfax breathed. "And Die Organisasie? What's that?"

Alvy said, "Part myth, part reality. No one's really sure. But MI6 has a file, so does the CIA. It's an underground organization of exiled white South Africans who actively plot the demise of the ANC government in the hope of returning South Africa to the bad old days. Rich bastards — rich, racist bastards. Also known as the 'Third Force,' or the 'Spider Network.' Hell, it was listed last year on Interpol as an active terrorist organization."

Fairfax frowned as Alvy departed.

What could an ultra-rich right-wing South African organization and an elite light commando unit possibly want with a remote U.S. Air Force base?

Typically, Hot Rod Hagerty and Nicholas Tate went straight over to the President. Elvis, on the other hand, rushed over to check on his wounded buddy, Love Machine.

Schofield stood in the center of the decompression area on Level 4, with Gant at his side.

Gant nodded at Hagerty and Tate. "We found them inside Marine One, holed up inside the Presidential escape pod. Hiding."

"He'll take command," Schofield said.

"He is the ranking officer," Gant said.

"He's never been under fire."

"Shit."

A few yards to their left, over by the test chambers, Brainiac and Herbie Franklin sat before a computer terminal.

Schofield stepped up behind them. "So, what's the story?"

"This is very odd," Herbie said. "Here, look," he pointed at the screen. It read:

"Okay," Herbie said. "Well, it starts out all right. Standard system checks by a local operator. Probably one of the console operators up in the main hangar on ground level. Then comes the lockdown at 6:58, keyed in by operator number 105-02. That's someone high up. A 105 prefix indicates a colonel or above. Probably Colonel Harper.

"But then, at 7:37, something must have happened up on Level 1. At that time nearly half the complex's auxiliary power supply went up in smoke."

"A missile hit the junction box " Schofield said, recalling his battle with the missile-mounted Humvees up in the Level 1 hangar bay earlier. His tone made it sound like this sort of thing happened every day.

"O-kay" Herbie said. "That would explain it. That junction box housed the auxiliary power generators. The unfortunate consequence of that, however, happened here," he pointed at another line:

"Somebody turned off the main power supply," Herbie said. "That was why I couldn't disable the cameras before. See here, you can see my entry at 8:21. I'm operator 008-93.

"The problem was somebody else — operator number 008-72 — had already turned the cameras off by shutting down the main power supply. As soon as anyone shuts off the main power, the system switches over to auxiliary power — but now, because of your missile impact, this place only has half its auxiliary power remaining, which as you can see, is draining fast.

"But… when the auxiliary power supply kicks in, the system switches off all nonessential power drains — things like excess lighting and the security camera network. That's the low power protocol that keeps getting mentioned."

"So by cutting the power, he cut the cameras…" Schofield thought aloud.

"Yes."

"He didn't want to be seen…"

"More than that," Herbie said. "Look at what he did next. He keyed in three special lockdown release codes — once at 8:01 and twice at 8:04 — opening three exit doors."

"The five-minute window period," Schofield said.

"That's right."

"So which doors did he open?"

"Just a second, I'll find out." Herbie tapped some keys. "Now, the first one was 003-V." A schematic diagram of the Area 7 complex came up on his screen. "There it is. The Emergency Exit Vent."

"And the other two?"

"062-W and 100-W…" Herbie said aloud, scanning the screen. "Door 062-W stands for door sixty-two/west. But that would mean it was part of the…"

"What?" Schofield said.

Herbie said, "62-West is the blast door that seals off the westward X-rail tunnel down on Level 6."

"And the other one? 100-West?"

"It's where that X-rail tunnel ends, over by Lake Powell, about forty miles west of here. 100 West is the security door leading out to the lake."

Brainiac asked, "Why would he open those three doors?"

"You open the Emergency Exit Vent to let your companions in. To help you steal the booty," Schofield said.

"And the other two doors?"

"You open them so all of you can get out."

"So why cut the power?" Gant asked.

"To disable the security cameras," Schofield said. "Whoever did this didn't want the Air Force people to see him doing it."

"See him doing what?" Brainiac said.

Schofield exchanged a look with Gant.

"See him taking the boy," he said.

"Quickly," Schofield said to Herbie, "can you find out who operator number 008-72 is?"

"Sure." Herbie began typing fast.

A moment later, he said, "Got it." A list appeared on his screen. Schofield scanned the list until he found the entry he was looking for:

008-72 BOTHA, Gunther W.

"Who's Gunther Botha?" Schofield asked.

"Son of a bitch," a voice said from behind them. It was the President. He stepped up behind Schofield's shoulder.

"Botha," he spat. "I should have known."

"South african scientist, working here on the vaccine," the President said. "You make a deal with the Devil, and it comes back to bite you in the ass."

"Why would he want to take the boy?"

"The Sinovirus kills both white people and black people, Captain," the President said. "Only people of Asian origin are safe from it. That boy, however, has been genetically designed to be a universal vaccine, for both blacks and whites. But if only white people are given the vaccine, then only white people would survive an outbreak of the Sinovirus. And if Botha is working for who I think he's working for…"

"So what do we do now?" Herbie said.

"We go after the boy," Schofield said instantly. "And we…"

"No, you do not, Captain," Hot Rod Hagerty said, appearing suddenly behind Schofield. "You will stay here and you will guard the President."

"But…"

"In case you haven't been paying attention, if the President dies, so does America. One little boy can wait. I think it's time you got your priorities straight, Captain Schofield."

"But we can't just leave him…"

"Yes, we can, and yes we will," Hagerty said, his face reddening. "In case you have forgotten, Captain, I am your superior officer, and I am now ordering you to obey me. The United States government pays me to do the thinking for you. So this is what you will think: your country is more important than the life of one little boy."

Schofield didn't move a muscle. "I wouldn't want to live in a country that leaves a little boy to die…"

Hagerty's eyes blazed. "No. From now on, you will do as I say, how I say, and when I say…"

The President himself seemed about to interfere when Schofield stepped forward, right in front of Hagerty.

"No, sir" he said firmly, "I will not follow you. Because if you'd waited for me to finish what I was going to say earlier, you would have heard me say: 'We go after the boy, and we take the President with us.' Because in case you haven't been paying attention, that Botha guy and whoever's with him opened up an exit to this place! They've given us a way out." Hagerty fell silent, grinding his teeth.

"Now, if you don't mind," Schofield said, "and if nobody else has any better ideas, what do you say we all get the hell out of this place?"

Up in the control room overlooking the main hangar, Caesar Russell's four radio operators were working overtime.

"…Main power's down, no cameras operational at all. All systems running on auxiliary power supply…"

"…Sir, someone's initiated the lockdown release codes. The western X-rail door has been opened…"

"Who?" Caesar Russell asked pointedly.

The console operator frowned. "It looks like it was Professor Botha, sir."

"Botha," Caesar said quietly. "How predictable."

"Sir," another operator said, "I have movement on the X-rail system. Someone heading westward toward the canyons…"

"Oh, Gunther. You couldn't help yourself, could you? You're trying to snatch the boy," Caesar smiled sadly. "What's the ETA on that X-rail train at the lake?"

"Forty miles of track at one hundred and seventy miles per hour. About fourteen minutes, sir."

"Get Bravo down to Level 6 on the double, to pursue Botha on the X-rail. Then open the top door and send Charlie out in the AH-77's to cut him off at the lake — we'll get him from in front and behind. Now go. Go. Although Gunther could never know it, we need that boy. This will all be for nothing if we don't have that child."

Schofield, Mother, Gant and Book II flew down the fire stairs at full speed.

Schofield ran with his Desert Eagle held out in front of him. The Football now dangled from his waist, its hand-grip attached to a clip on his 7th Squadron combat webbing.

Behind them came the President and Juliet, Herbie the scientist, Hot Rod Hagerty and Nicholas Tate. Bringing up the rear were Elvis and Brainiac, carrying Love Machine between them.

They came to the Level 6 doorway. Frank Cutler's bloodied and broken body still lay on the floor beside it.

"Be careful," Juliet said to Schofield as he put his hand on the doorknob. "This was where they got us before."

Schofield nodded.

Then — quickly, silently — he whipped open the door, and took cover.

There was no sound.

No gunshots went off.

No bullets whistled into the stairwell.

"Holy Christ!" Mother said, as she looked beyond the doorway.

The massive aircraft elevator lumbered down the shaft.

On its back, amid the pieces of the destroyed AWACS plane, stood the ten men of Bravo Unit. They were moving down through the complex, heading for Level 6, in pursuit of Gunther Botha and the boy.

The gigantic elevator platform rumbled down the shaft, the dirty gray concrete walls sliding past the Bravo Unit men.

They swung by Level 3, moving downward… then Level 4… then the elevator platform plunged into water. As it came to Level 5, the cell block level, the elevator platform rushed down into a wide body of water that had formed at the bottom of the shaft. Several tons of water immediately gushed onto the platform, slithering in among the pieces of the crumpled AWACS plane.

"Goddamn!" the leader of Bravo Unit, Boa McConnell, exclaimed as the water rushed up to his waist.

He reached for his radio mike.

"…Bravo Unit reports substantial flooding on level 5. It's starting to fill the main elevator shaft. Only access to Level 6 is via the eastern fire stairs or the western ventilation shaft. Bravo is going for the ventilation shaft…"

"…Sir. That enhanced satellite image of the Emergency Escape Vent is coming through now."

A sheet of high-gloss paper edged out of a nearby printer. A radio operator tore it clear, checked the time code at the top. "This one's from ten minutes ago. Another one coming through — what the fuck…?"

"What is it?" Caesar Russell said, taking the printout from the operator. Russell recalled the subject of the satellite scans: the twenty-four rodlike objects that had been picked up on the infrared satellite earlier, the ones that had been fanned out in a wide circle around the EEV.

Caesar's eyes narrowed.

The enhanced satellite image showed a few of the "rods" very clearly. They weren't rods at all.

They were combat boots — sticking out from underneath heat-deflecting covers.

The second satellite scan came through. Caesar grabbed it. It was more recent than the first.

Only a minute old.

It showed the same image as the first scan: the Emergency Exit Vent and the desert floor around it.

Only now the cluster of combat boots surrounding the Vent was nowhere in sight.

They were gone.

"Mmmm, very clever, Gunther," Caesar said softly. "You brought the Reccondos with you."

There were bodies everywhere.

Christ, Schofield thought. It looks like a war has been fought down here.

He wasn't far wrong.

Level 6 resembled a subway station — with a central elevated concrete platform, flanked on either side by train tracks. Like a regular train station, at both ends of the extremely elongated space were a pair of train tunnels that disappeared into darkness. Unlike a regular train station, however, three of those four tunnels were sealed off by heavy gray-steel blast doors.

On the central platform lay nine corpses, all dressed in suits.

The nine members of the Secret Service's Primary Advance Team.

Their bodies lay at all angles, bathed in blood, their suits ripped to shreds by the penetration of countless bullets.

Beyond them, however, lay another set of bodies — ten of them — all dressed in black combat clothing.

7th Squadron men.

All dead.

Three of them lay spread-eagled on the platform, with enormous star-shaped holes in their chests. Exit wounds. It seemed that these men had been shot in their backs as they'd clambered up onto the platform from the right-hand railway track, their rib cages exploding outwards with the sudden gaseous expansion of the hollow-pointed bullets that had hit them.

More 7th Squadron men lay sprawled on the track itself, in various states of bloodiness. Three of them, Schofield saw, bore very precise bullet holes in their foreheads. Four of the 7th Squadron commandos, however, had not been shot.

They lay slumped next to a steel door sunk into the wall of the right-hand track — the entrance to the Emergency Exit Vent.

Their throats had been slit from ear to ear.

They had been the first to die, Schofield thought, when their assailants had emerged from the Vent behind them.

Schofield stepped out from the stairwell doorway, onto the platform.

The underground station was empty.

It was then that he saw them.

They sat on either side of the central platform, one to each track: X-Rail engines.

"Whoa," he breathed.

X-Rail systems are high-speed underground railway systems used by the U.S. military for equipment delivery and transport. X-Rail engines — or "railcars" as they are known — move so fast that they require four railway tracks for stability: two tracks on the ground and two fastened to the ceiling above the railcar.

The X-Railcars that Schofield saw now exuded power and speed.

They were about sixty feet long — about the size of regular subway carriages — but their sleek curves and sharp pointed noses were quite clearly designed for one purpose: to slice through the air at tremendous speed.

Each train's design was based on that of the most well known high-speed train in the world, the Japanese Bullet Train. A steeply slanted nose, aerodynamically grooved sides, even a couple of winglike canards jutting out from the bow of each train were all included as part of the relentless pursuit of speed.

The X-Rail train to Schofield's left was actually made up of two carriages connected by way of an accordion-like passageway. The two railcars were positioned back-to-back, their sharpened noses pointed in opposite directions. Both engines were painted glistening white, so that they looked like a pair of space shuttles connected tail-to-tail.

It was only when Schofield saw their struts, however, that he realized why the system was called an "X"-Rail.

Jutting out from both the front and rear edges of each engine, swept back like the wings of a fast-flying bird, were four elongated struts, which when seen from head-on would look like an "X." The lower struts reached down to the wide railway-like tracks beneath the railcar, while the upper struts reached up to an identical pair of tracks attached to the ceiling of the tunnel.

All the struts, top and bottom, were contoured like airplane wings to allow for maximum speed.

Nestled up against the blast door behind the double engined train was a smaller type of X-Rail vehicle — a kind of miniature car that was barely a third the size of the longer engines. It was little more than a round two-person cockpit mounted in the center of a set of four struts.

"Maintenance vehicle," Herbie said. "Used for tunnel upkeep and cleaning. Faster than the bigger engines, but it only holds two."

"Now why don't they have these on the New York subway?" Elvis said, eyeing the double engined X-Rail train.

"Hey, over there," Brainiac said, pointing at the open tunnel door at the far end of the left hand railway track. It was the only tunnel that wasn't sealed off by a blast door.

"That's door 62-West," Herbie Franklin said. "That's how they got out."

"Then that's where we're going," Schofield said.

They all hurried for the twin-engined X-Rail train, dashing out into the open, halfway down the length of the station's platform.

Schofield reached the forward engine's side door and hit a button. With a soft shoosh, all the side doors of the two rail cars — two doors per car — slid open.

Schofield stood inside the lead rail car's forward doorway, the Football hanging from his waist, as he ushered the others inside. Book II dashed in first, headed straight for the driver's cabin, Herbie close behind him.

The President and Juliet came next, rushing in through the lead car's rear doorway. They were flanked by Gant and Mother, and followed by Hot Rod Hagerty and Nick Tate — always keen to stay close to the President.

Trailing last of all, still making their way across the platform, were Elvis and Brainiac with the wounded Love Machine draped between them.

"Elvis! Brainiac! Pick it up! Come on!"

Schofield looked back into the interior of the rail car. The inside of the car looked like a cross between a standard subway carriage and a freight car. It had a few rows of passenger seats near the back, and a wide open empty space near the front for cargo boxes and the like to be stored.

Schofield saw the President over by the rear door, about forty feet away, slumping into a passenger seat in exhaustion.

And then it happened.

Completely without warning.

One moment, Schofield was looking down the interior of the rail car, looking at the seated figure of the President; the next, every single window on the platform side of the rail car just exploded, glass spraying inwards under the weight of a shocking amount of automatic gunfire, blasting tiny shards of glass all over the inside of the carriage.

More gunfire followed — loud, relentless, booming. It impacted hard against the right-hand flank of the X-Rail engine, so hard in fact that it caused the entire carriage to shudder violently.

Schofield ducked, shielding his face from the rain of flying glass. Then he spun and peered out through the shattered window beside him — and saw a phalanx of 7th Squadron commandos come leaping out of the air vent at the far western end of the platform, armed with P-90 rifles and a couple of devastating six-barreled miniguns.

The miniguns whirred, spewing out an unbelievable storm of bullets, pummeling the side of the rail car.

"You okay?" Schofield yelled to Juliet and the President, his voice barely audible above the thunderous gunfire.

The President, now lying facedown on the floor, nodded feebly in reply.

"Stay down!" Schofield called.

Abruptly, the X-Rail engine beneath them roared to life.

Schofield snapped around to see Book II and Herbie in the driver's compartment, flicking switches, pushing throttles. The rail car's power system thrummed loudly, warming up.

Let's go, Schofield thought anxiously. Let's go…

And then suddenly a voice exploded in his earpiece: "Hey! Wait for us!"

It was Elvis.

Elvis, Brainiac and Love Machine were still out on the platform.

Lagging behind the others under Love Machine's weight, they hadn't been able to make it to the two connected rail cars by the time the 7th Squadron commandos had appeared at the other end of the underground station.

Now they were pinned down behind a concrete pillar, only ten feet away from the rearmost door of the second rail car, the area all around them shredded by the 7th Squadron's brutal minigun fire.

"All right! We have to move! Get ready!" Elvis yelled. "Okay, now!"

They burst out from their position. Bullets slammed into the pillars all around them. Chunks of concrete flew everywhere. Two bullets blasted clean through Elvis's left shoulder.

"Come on, Love Machine, stay with us!" he yelled.

They reached the rear door of the second rail car, began to shove Love Machine inside it when…

Smack! Love Machine's head jolted violently to the left, snapping at an unnatural angle, smacking hard against the side of Elvis's shoulder.

"Oh, man," Brainiac said, seeing it. "No."

Elvis turned.

Love Machine's head lolled lifelessly against his shoulder, a goopy syrup of brains and blood dripping slowly out of a bullet hole in the back of it.

Love Machine was gone.

Elvis just froze, oblivious to his own wounds.

Brainiac said, "Elvis, come on. Get him inside. The train's about to go."

Elvis didn't reply. He just looked at the lifeless body of Love Machine, slumped against his shoulder.

"Elvis…"

"Go," Elvis said softly, as bullets hit all around them. He lowered Love Machine's body to the ground beside the X-Rail car. Then he looked Brainiac square in the eyes. "Go. Now."

"What are you doing?" Brainiac said.

"I'm staying here with my friend."

And then Brainiac saw the sadness in Elvis's eyes — saw Elvis look lethally over at the 7th Squadron men sidestepping their way toward them from the far end of the platform.

Brainiac nodded. "Take care of yourself, Elvis."

"Never," Elvis said.

"Brainiac!" Schofield yelled, gun in hand, trying to see what was happening at the back of the train without getting his head blown off. "What's going on back there!"

Brainiac's voice said, "We lost Love Machine, sir, and Elvis has… oh, fuck!"

Just then, two loud puncturelike booms echoed out through the underground station.

Thawump!

Thawump!

Schofield turned — just in time to see two black baseball-sized grenades come rocketing through the air toward him and the X-Rail car!

They had been shot from a pair of M-203 grenade launchers held by the 7th Squadron commandos.

The two high explosive rounds shot in through the blasted-open windows of the lead X-Rail car… one entering near the front of the car, right next to Schofield; the other rocketing in through a broken window near the rear of the car, near Gant and Mother and the President.

The grenade near Schofield bounced off the far wall and spun to a halt on the floor a couple of yards away from him.

Schofield didn't waste a second.

He dived forward — toward the grenade, sliding across the floor on his chest — and swiped the charge back out through the open door of the railcar with his hand. The grenade whipped across the hard floor of the carriage and disappeared through the door. Schofield then ducked back behind the wall as the grenade detonated outside, sending a vicious ball of flames rushing in through the doorway.

At the other end of the carriage, Gant and Mother weren't so lucky.

Their grenade had landed in among the passenger seats that occupied the rear half of the carriage. There was no way anyone could get to it before it detonated.

"Everybody! This way!" Gant said, yanking the President to his feet and shoving him toward the accordion-like tunnel that connected the two X-Rail cars.

A glass door slid sideways as Gant pushed the President through the passageway. Mother, Juliet, Hot Rod and Tate clambered through behind them.

The glass door slid shut as a second connecting door opened and Gant and the President dived through it — entering the second rail car — and threw themselves sprawling to the floor, closely followed by the others, just as the grenade in the first rail car exploded brilliantly, spreading fire in every direction, shattering the first connecting door, but only cracking the second one, its flaming claws left to scratch hungrily at the glass.

Schofield was thrown to the ground by the blast of the second grenade.

He staggered to his feet, spoke into his radio mike: "Fox! Mother! You guys all right?"

Gant's voice: "We're still here, and we've still got the President. We're in the second carriage now."

"Brainiac," Schofield said. "Are you on board?"

"Yeah, I'm in the back of the second car…"

"Book!" Schofield yelled forward. "Have you figured out how to drive this thing yet?"

"I think so!"

"Then punch it!"

moment later, the X-Rail train began to move forward on its tracks, heading toward the oncoming 7th Squadron soldiers.

"Sir," it was Brainiac's voice. "I have to tell you something. We lost Love Machine…"

"Ah, shit," Schofield said sadly.

"…and we're about to lose Elvis."

"What?" Schofield said, perplexed and horrified at the same time.

But he didn't get to discuss it further, for at that moment, three more puncturelike whumps reverberated through the underground station.

Thwump!

Thwump!

Thwump!

Three rocket-launched grenades sped across the width of the station, zeroing in on the slow moving X-Rail train, three thin lines of smoke cutting through the air behind them, before suddenly — swoop! — swoop! — swoop! — one after the other they shot in through the shattered windows of the second X-Rail car.

The X-Rail car that held the President.

As if on cue, Schofield heard Mother's voice roar over his earpiece: "Oh, fuck me!"

The twin-engined X-Rail train began to pick up speed, heading for the tunnel.

In the second railcar, Gant couldn't believe what was happening.

Three grenades!

All in her carriage.

She saw the options in a nanosecond: If we stay, we die for sure. If we get out, we take our chances with the 7th Squadron. In that case, death is probable, but not certain.

"We can't stay here!" she yelled instantly. "Out! Out!"

She and Juliet immediately grabbed the President by his coat and hauled him toward the door.

They didn't miss a step as they ran through the doorway and dived out of the moving train onto the platform, rolling quickly as they landed.

Hot Rod Hagerty and Nicholas Tate jumped nervously from the moving rail car, landing awkwardly.

A split second later, the figure of Mother — obviously not wanting to wait in line behind Hagerty and Tate — came flying out through one of the broken windows next to the doorway. She somersaulted as she hit the platform, gun tucked up against her chest, rolled to her feet.

A moment later, the three grenades went off — three consecutive blasts, booming out from the second rail car.

A trio of brilliant fireballs expanded laterally throughout the interior of the rail car — illuminating the entire carriage like a spectacular elongated lightbulb — consuming every available inch of space within it.

Angry flames billowed out from the windows of the carriage, snapping the window frames like twigs, cracking the car's walls.

The fireballs fanned out over the underground platform, expanding over Gant and the others' heads as they scurried behind the station's concrete pillars to avoid the fire of the advancing 7th Squadron men.

The entire X-Rail train rocked with the triple grenade explosion, but it kept on going, picking up speed with every yard.

In the front carriage, Schofield was almost knocked off his feet by the blast. When he managed to regain his balance and look back down the track, he felt a rush of horror sweep through him.

He saw the President — flanked by Gant and Mother and Juliet — taking cover on the underground station's platform.

Damn it!

The President was off the train!

The accelerating X-Rail train was now approaching the western end of the station, coming alongside the 7th Squadron commandos positioned there. Schofield saw the 7th Squadron men, right alongside his carriage, but they paid him no heed.

They only had eyes for the President.

And suddenly Schofield had a decision to make.

Leap off the train and stay with the President — the President on whose back the fate of the country rested.

Or go after the boy…

Then, in a fleeting instant, just as the train was about to disappear into the tunnel, Schofield saw him, and he knew then that the President would get away — at least away from the Level 6 station. And he knew that Gant and Mother would see it, too.

And with that, he made his decision to go after Kevin.

A second later, Schofield's view of the X-Rail station — the image of the ten 7th Squadron commandos leapfrogging their way down the platform toward the President of the United States and his last few guardians — was replaced with that of the impenetrable black wall of the tunnel.

Gant ducked, covering her head from the chunks of concrete that were raining down all around her.

They were screwed.

The 7th Squadron had them.

There was nowhere they could go, nowhere they could run. They were stuck out in the very middle of the platform, outnumbered, outgunned and out of goddamned luck.

And then she saw Elvis.

Walking like a robot — an automaton, completely out in the open — toward the advancing 7th Squadron men, despite the raging gunbattle going on all around him.

He had no weapon in his hands. Indeed, his massive fists were clenched firmly on either side of his body as he walked. His face was entirely devoid of emotion — his eyes fixed, his jaw set.

Elvis, it seemed, had his own mission now.

"Oh, Jesus," Gant breathed. "Take care, Elvis."

Then she turned to the others, "Get ready, people. We're leaving."

"What?" Hot Rod Hagerty blurted. "How?"

"Elvis is going to buy us some time. Take cover and get ready to move."

Sergeant Wendall "Elvis" Haynes, USMC, strode purposefully toward the oncoming 7th Squadron commandos, in between them and the President's group.

The 7th Squadron men slowed slightly, if only because this was such an odd thing for Elvis to do. He was quite obviously unarmed and yet he just kept moving slowly forward — twenty yards from them, twenty yards from the President — completely calm.

The 7th Squadron commandos never heard the mantra he was repeating softly to himself as he walked. "You killed my friend. You killed my friend. You killed my friend…"

Quickly and efficiently, one of the 7th Squadron men raised his P-90 and fired a short burst. The volley ripped Elvis's chest to shreds and he fell, and the 7th Squadron men resumed their advance.

It was only when they reached Elvis that they heard him speaking, gurgling through his own blood: "You killed my friend…"

And then they saw his bearlike right hand open like a flower — to reveal, resting in his palm, a high-powered RDX hand grenade.

"You killed my…"

Elvis drew his final breath.

And his hand relaxed completely — releasing the grenade's spoon — and to the utter horror of the men of Bravo Unit standing close around it, the powerful RDX grenade went off with all its terrible force.

The X-Rail train rocketed through the tunnel system.

Sleek and streamlined, with its bullet-shaped nose and its flat X-framed fuselage, the twin carriage train whipped through the wide tunnel at a cool two hundred miles per hour — and this despite its blasted-out windows and bullet battered walls.

It moved with little noise and surprising smoothness. This was because it was propelled not by an engine, but rather by a state-of-the-art magnetic propulsion system that had been developed to replace the aging steam-operated catapults on the Navy's aircraft carriers. Magnetic propulsion required few moving parts yet yielded phenomenal ground speeds, making it very popular among engineers who lived by the rule that the more parts a piece of machinery has, the more parts it has that can break.

Book II sat in the driver's compartment, hands on the controls. Herbie sat beside him. The driver's compartment was the only part of the X-Rail car that hadn't had all its windows blasted to pieces.

"Aw, shit!" Schofield's voice yelled from behind them. "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

Schofield strode into the driver's compartment.

"What's wrong?" Book II asked.

"This is what's wrong," Schofield said, indicating the silver Samsonite briefcase dangling from his combat webbing. The Football. "Damn it! Everything was happening too fast. I never even thought about it when the President dived off the train. What time is it?"

It was 8:55.

"Great," he said. "We now have just over an hour to get this suitcase back to the President."

"Should we turn around?" Book II asked.

Schofield paused, thinking fast, a thousand thoughts swirling through his head.

Then he said decisively: "No. I'm not leaving that boy. We can get back in time."

"Uh, but what about the country?" Book II said.

Schofield offered him a crooked smile. "I've never lost to a countdown yet, and I'm not about to start today." He turned to Herbie. "All right, Herbie. Twenty-five words or less: tell me about this X-Rail system. Where does it go?"

"Well, it's not exactly my area of expertise," Herbie said, "but I've traveled on it a few times. So far as I know, it's actually made up of two systems. One heads west from Area 7, taking you to Lake Powell. The other heads east, taking you to Area 8."

As Herbie explained, they were on the system that extended forty miles to the west, out to Lake Powell.

Schofield had heard of Lake Powell before. Truth be told, it was not so much a lake as a vast one-hundred-and-ninety-mile-long mazelike network of twisting water-filled canyons.

Situated right on the Utah-Arizona border, Lake Powell had once looked like the Grand Canyon, an enormous system of gorges and canyons that had been carved into the earth by the mighty Colorado River, the same river that would create the Grand Canyon farther downstream.

Unlike the Grand Canyon, however, Lake Powell had been dammed by the U.S. government in 1963 to generate hydroelectric power — thus backing up the river, creating the lake, and turning what was already a striking vista of rock formations into a spectacular desert canyonland that was half-filled with water.

Now giant sand-yellow mesas rose majestically out of the lake's sparkling blue waters, while towering templelike buttes lorded over its flat blue horizon. And, of course, there were the chasms and canyons, now with canals at their bases instead of dusty rocky paths.

Kind of like a cross between the Grand Canyon and Venice, really.

Like any large project, the damming of the Colorado River in 1963 had raised howls of protest. Environmentalists claimed that the dam raised silt levels and threatened the ecosystem of a two-centimeter-long variety of tadpole. This seemed like nothing, however, to the owner of a tiny rest stop gas station, who would see his store — built on the site of an old western trading post — covered by a hundred feet of water. He was compensated by the government.

In any case, with its ninety-three named gorges and God-only-knew how many others, for a few years Lake Powell became a popular tourist destination for house boaters. But times had changed, and the tourist trade had slackened off. Now it lay largely silent, a ghostlike network of winding chasms and ultra-narrow "slot canyons," in which there was to be found no flat ground, only sheer vertical rock and water, endless water.

"This X-Rail tunnel meets the lake at an underground loading bay," Herbie said. "The system was built for two reasons. First, so that the construction of Areas 7 and 8 could be kept absolutely secret. Materials would be hauled on barges up the lake and then delivered forty miles underground to the building site. We still use it occasionally as a back-door entrance for supplies and prisoner delivery."

"Okay," Schofield said. "And the second reason?"

"To act as an escape route in the event of an emergency," Herbie said.

Schofield looked forward.

X-Rail tracks rushed by beneath him — and above him — at incredible speed. The wide rectangular tunnel in front of the train bent away into darkness.

A sudden noise made him spin, pistol up.

Brainiac froze in the doorway to the driver's compartment, his hands snapping into the air.

"Whoa-whoa-whoa! It's me!"

Schofield lowered his gun. "Knock next time, will you?"

"Sure thing, Boss." Brainiac sat down in a spare seat.

"Where have you been?"

"In the back of the second carriage. I got separated from the others when those rocket grenades came flying in. Dived into a storage compartment just as the three grenades went off."

"Well, it's good to have you here," Schofield said. "We need all the help we can get." He turned to Herbie. "Can we get telemetry on any of the other trains on this system?"

"I think so," Herbie said. "Just give me a second here…"

He punched some keys on the driver's console. A computer monitor on the dashboard came to life. In a few seconds, Herbie brought up an image of the X-Rail system.

X-RAIL NETWORK 3-589-001

Schofield saw an elongated S-bend that stretched horizontally from Area 7 to the network of canyons that was Lake Powell. He also saw two blinking red dots moving along the trackline toward the lake.

"The dots are X-Rail trains," Herbie said. "That's us closer to Area 7. The other one must have left about ten minutes ahead of us."

Schofield stared at the first blinking dot as it arrived at the loading bay and stopped.

"So, Herbie," he said, "since we've got a bit of time, this Botha character. Who is he?"

No sooner had Elvis's hand grenade gone off than Gant and Mother and Juliet were up on their feet and firing their guns hard, covering the President as they all ran back toward the fire stairwell from which they had entered Level 6.

The blast of Elvis's RDX grenade had killed five of the 7th Squadron men instantly. Their bloodied limbs now lay splayed across the X-Rail tracks on either side of the central platform.

The five remaining members of Bravo Unit had been farther away from the grenade when it had gone off. They had been knocked over by the concussion wave, and were now scrambling to find cover — behind pillars and down on the X-Rail tracks — in the face of Gant and the others' retreating fire.

Into the fire stairs.

Gant led the President up the stairwell. She was breathing hard, legs pumping, heart pounding, Mother, Juliet, Hagerty and Tate close behind her.

The group came to the Level 5 firedoor.

Gant reached for the door's handle — then pulled her hand back sharply.

Small jets of water spurted out from the edges of its frame. The jets of water shot out from the door's rubber seal, mainly from down near the floor, losing intensity as they moved higher. No water sprayed out from the top of the door.

It was as if there was a waist-high body of water behind the fireproof door, just waiting to break through.

And then, from behind the door, Gant heard some of the most hideous shrieking sounds she had ever heard in her life. It was horrific — pained, desperate. The cries of trapped animals…

"Oh, no…the bears," Juliet Janson said as she came alongside Gant and saw the firedoor. "I don't think we want to go in there."

"Agreed," Gant said.

They raced up the stairs and came to Level 4. After checking the decompression area beyond the door, Gant gave the all-clear.

The six of them entered, fanned out.

"Hello again!" a voice boomed out suddenly from above them.

Everyone spun. Gant snapped her gun up fast, and found herself drawing a bead on a wall mounted television set.

Caesar's face was on it, grinning.

"People of America, it is now 9:04, and thus time for your hourly update."

Caesar gave his report smugly.

"…And your Marines, inept and foolish, have yet to inflict any losses on my men. They do little but run. Indeed, His Highness was last seen making a desperate bid for freedom down on the lowest level of this facility. I am informed that a firefight has just taken place down there, but await a report on the result of that exchange…"

As far as Gant was concerned, it was all bullshit. Whatever Caesar said, whatever lies he told, it didn't affect their situation. And it certainly didn't help to watch him gloat.

So while Caesar spoke on the television and the others watched him, Gant investigated the sliding door set into the floor that led down to Level 5.

She could just make out muffled shouts coming from the other side of it. People yelling.

She hit the door open switch, raised her gun. The horizontal door slid away.

The shouts became screams as the prisoners down on Level 5 heard the door grind open.

Gant peered down the ramp.

"Good God," she breathed.

She saw the water immediately, saw it lapping against the ramp below her. In fact, the ramp simply disappeared into it.

While Caesar's voice continued to boom, she edged down the sloping walkway, until her spit polished dress shoes stepped ankle-deep into the water.

She crouched down on the ramp, looked out over Level 5.

What she saw shook her.

The entire level was flooded.

Easily to chest height.

It was terribly dark as well, which only served to make the flooded cell block look all the more frightening.

The inky-black indoor lake stretched away from her, to the far end of the floor, its liquid form slipping in through the bars of all the cells — cells which held an assortment of the most wretched-looking individuals Gant had ever seen.

And then the prisoners saw her.

Screams, shrieks, wails. They shook the bars of their cells, cells that they would ultimately drown in if the water level continued to rise.

Like Schofield, Gant hadn't seen the cell bay before. She had only heard the President talk about it when he'd told them about the Sinovirus and its vaccine, Kevin.

"We'd better go." Juliet appeared at her shoulder. Caesar's broadcast, it seemed, had concluded.

"They're going to drown…" Gant said, as Janson pulled her gently back up the ramp to Level 4.

"Believe me, drowning's too good for the likes of them," the Secret Service agent said. "Come on. Let's find somewhere to hole up. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell need a rest."

She hit the door close button and the horizontal door slid shut, cutting off the prisoners' pained shouts.

Then, with the President and Mother and Hot Rod and Tate in tow behind them, Gant and Juliet headed for the western side of the floor.

None of them noticed the long decompression chamber as they departed.

Although from a distance it appeared normal, had they looked at it more closely, they would have seen that the timer-activated lock on its pressurized door had timed out and unlocked itself.

The door was no longer fully closed.

The decompression chamber was now empty.

It was 9:06 a.m.

"…Bravo leader, come in. Report…" one of the radio operators said into his microphone.

"…Control, this is Bravo Leader. We have suffered serious casualties on the X-rail platform. Five dead, two wounded. One of their guys had an RDX grenade and did a fucking kamikaze…"

"…What about the President?" the radio man cut in.

"…The President is still in the complex. I repeat: The President is still in the complex. Last seen heading back up the fire stairs. Some of his Marine bodyguards, though, took off down the tunnel in the second X-rail train…"

"…And the Football?"

"…No longer with the President. One of my boys swears that he saw that Schofield guy with it on the train…"

"…Thank you, Bravo Leader. Bring your wounded up to the main hangar for treatment. We'll get Echo to flush the lower floors for the President now…"

"Gunther Botha used to be a colonel in south africa's Medical Battalion," Herbie said, as the X-Rail car hurtled down the tunnel toward the desert lake.

"The Meds," Schofield said distastefully.

"You've heard of them?"

"Yes. Not a very nice group to be involved with. They were an offensive bio-medical unit, a specialized subdivision of the Reccondos. Elite troops who used biological weapons in the field."

"That's right," Herbie said. "See, before Mandela, the South Africans were the world leaders in biowarfare. And, boy, did we love them. Ever wondered why we didn't do all that much about defeating apartheid? Do you know who brought us the Soviet flesh-eating bug, necrotizing fasciitis? The South Africans."

"But as good as they were, one thing still eluded them. They'd been trying for years to develop a virus that would kill blacks but not whites, but they never found it. Botha was one of their leading lights and apparently he was on the verge of a breakthrough when the apartheid regime was overthrown."

"As it turned out," Herbie said, "Botha's core research could be adapted for use on something the American government was working on — a vaccine against the Sinovirus, a virus that distinguishes between races."

"So we brought him here," Schofield said.

"That's right," Herbie said.

"And now it seems we're discovering that Professor Botha isn't all that trustworthy."

"It would seem so."

Schofield paused for a moment, thinking.

"And he's not working alone," he said.

"How do you know?"

Schofield said, "All those dead 7th Squadron men we saw when we arrived on Level 6 earlier. I've never met Gunther Botha before, but I'm pretty sure he couldn't wipe out an entire 7th Squadron unit all by himself. Remember, Botha opened three doors, the two X-Rail doors and the Emergency Escape Vent — which opens onto Level 6."

"He let a team of men in through that vent. They were the ones who killed the 7th Squadron men there. Judging by the bullet wounds in their backs and the amount of slashed throats, I presume Botha's friends caught the 7th Squadron men from behind." Schofield bit his lip. "But that still doesn't tell me what I want to know."

"And what is that?"

Schofield looked up. "If Botha is selling us out, what I want to know is: who is he selling us out to?"

"It was a security risk from the start, but we couldn't have done it without him," the President said.

He and the others were sitting in the observation lab overlooking the smashed glass cube on Level 4, catching their breath.

When they'd arrived moments earlier, they'd been confronted by the sight of a thick circular ceiling hatch lying on the floor of the lab.

The 7th Squadron had been through here.

Which hopefully meant they wouldn't be coming back soon. It would be a good place to hide, for a while.

Libby Gant was the only one who stood — still on edge — gazing down at the destroyed cube. The underground complex had grown strangely silent since Caesar's last update, as if the 7th Squadron weren't prowling around it anymore, as if they had stopped hounding the President, at least for the moment.

Gant didn't like it.

It meant something was up.

And so she had just asked the President about Gunther Botha, the man who had taken Kevin.

"Botha knew more about racially targeted viruses than all of our scientists put together," the President went on. "But he had a history."

"With the apartheid regime?"

"Yes, and beyond that. What we feared the most were his links with a group called Die Organisasie, or the Organisation. It's an underground network comprising former apartheid ministers, wealthy South African landowners, former elite troops from the South African armed forces, and ousted military leaders who fled the country when apartheid collapsed, rightfully fearing that the new government would have their heads for past crimes. Most intelligence agencies believe that Die Organisasie only wants to retake South Africa, but we're not so sure."

"What do you mean?" Gant asked.

The President sighed. "You have to realize what's at stake here. Ethnically selective bioweapons like the Sinovirus are like no other weapon in the history of mankind. They are the ultimate bargaining tool, because they have the power to sentence a defined population to death while absolutely, without question, protecting another."

"Our fears about Die Organisasie don't just relate to what they'd do to the Republic of South Africa. It's what they'd do to the entire African continent that frightens us."

"Yes…"

"Die Organisasie is a racist organization, pure and simple. They actually believe white people are genetically superior to black people. They believe that black people should be slaves to whites. They don't just hate South African black people, they hate all black people.

"Now, if Die Organisasie has the Sinovirus and the vaccine to it, they could release it Africa wide, and give the cure only to those white groups who supported them. Black Africa would die, and the rest of the world wouldn't be able to do a thing about it, because we wouldn't have the vaccine to the Sinovirus.

"Do you remember in 1999 when Ghaddafi spoke of uniting Africa like never before? He spoke of creating 'the United States of Africa,' but it was regarded as a joke. Ghaddafi could never have made that happen. There are far too many tribal issues to overcome to unite the various black African nations. But," the President said, "an organization that had the Sinovirus and its cure in its possession could rule Africa with an iron fist. It could turn Africa — resource rich Africa, complete with a billion-strong black slave workforce — into its own private empire."

Schofield's battered X-Rail car raced through the underground tunnel.

They had been traveling for ten minutes now and Schofield was beginning to feel anxious.

They would be arriving at the loading dock adjoining the lake soon and he didn't know what to expect.

One question about Area 7, however, was still bothering him. "Herbie, how did the Air Force get a sample of the Sinovirus?"

"Good question," Herbie said, nodding. "It took a while, but eventually we managed to turn two Chinese lab workers at the biowarfare facility in Changchun. In return for a one-way trip to America and twenty million U.S. dollars each, they agreed to smuggle several vials of the virus out of China."

"The guys in the decompression chamber," Schofield said, recalling the Asian faces he had seen inside the chamber on Level 4 earlier.

"Yes."

"But there were four men inside the chamber."

"That's right," Herbie said. "As you'd probably understand, in China, top-secret government lab workers can't just up and leave the country that easily. We had to get them out. The other two men inside that quarantine chamber were the two 7th Squadron soldiers who extracted them from China — two Chinese-American officers named Robert Wu and Chet Li. Wu and Li used to be a part of Echo Unit, one of the five 7th Squadron teams based at Area 7, which was why they were chosen…"

Abruptly, Schofield held up his hand, moved to the front windshield.

"Sorry, Dr. Franklin," he said, "but I'm afraid that'll have to do for the moment. I have a funny feeling that things are about to get a little hairy."

He nodded at the tunnel ahead of them.

At the end of the long concrete tunnel, beyond its rapidly streaking gray walls, was a tiny luminous speck of light — growing larger as they approached it — the familiar glow of artificial fluorescent lighting.

It was the loading dock.

They had arrived at the end of the tunnel.

"Don't go in," Schfield said to Book. "They could be waiting for us inside. Stop in the tunnel. We'll walk the rest of the way."

The bullet-riddled X-Rail train slowed to a halt in the darkness of the tunnel, a hundred yards short of the illuminated loading dock.

Schofield was out of it in an instant — Desert Eagle in one hand, the Football flailing from his waist — leaping down to the concrete next to the tracks. Brainiac, Book II and Herbie followed close behind him.

They ran down the tunnel toward the light, guns up.

Schofield came to the end of the tunnel, peered around the concrete corner.

Brilliant white light assaulted his eyes. He found himself staring at a giant rocky cavern that had been converted into a modern loading dock — a curious mix of flat concrete and uneven rocky surfaces.

Two sets of X-Rail tracks lay on either side of a long central platform. The track on Schofield's side of the platform was empty, while the track on the other side was occupied by another X-Rail train… Botha's.

It lay still, unmoving.

Some black steel cranes ran on wall-mounted rails, leading from the X-Rail tracks to a wide pool of water at the far end of the enormous rocky cavern.

The water in the pool glowed a brilliant aquamarine green, enriched by the minerals of Lake Powell. The pool itself disappeared to the west, winding its way into a twisting black cave that Schofield could only assume led out to the lake. Three ordinary-looking houseboats and a couple of strange-looking sand-colored speedboats bobbed on its surface, tied to the loading bay's concrete dock.

There was one other thing that Schofield noticed about the immense underground loading bay.

It was empty.

Completely and utterly empty.

Deserted.

Schofield stepped cautiously out from the tunnel, and climbed up onto the central platform between the two X-Rail tracks, dwarfed by the sheer size of the cavern.

And then he saw it.

Standing at the other end of the platform, over by the pool of water leading out to the lake.

It looked like some bizarre kind of supermarket display: a small chest-high "pyramid" of yellow ten-gallon barrels, in front of which sat a chunky Samsonite trunk — black and solid and high-tech. The trunk's lid was open.

As he approached them, Schofield saw that the yellow barrels had words stenciled on their sides.

"Oh, damn…" he said as he read them.

AFX-708 was a shockingly powerful explosive epoxy, used in the famous BLU-109 bombs that had ripped Saddam Hussein's bunkers to shreds in the Gulf War. A 109's super hardened nose would drive down into a solid concrete bunker and then the AFX-708 warhead inside it would detonate — hard — and blow the bunker up from the inside.

With Book II, Brainiac and Herbie behind him, Schofield looked inside the open Samsonite trunk that sat in front of the collection of AFX barrels.

A timer display stared back up at him.

00:19.

00:18.

00:17.

"Mother of God…" he breathed. Then he turned to the others, "Gentlemen! Run!"

Seventeen seconds later, a bone-crunching explosion ripped through the loading bay.

The cluster of AFX-708 barrels sent a devastating ball of white-hot light shooting out in every direction, expanding radially.

The rock-and-concrete walls of the loading bay cracked under the weight of the explosion, blasting outwards in a million lethal chunks, one entire wall just disintegrating to powder in the blink of an eye. Gunther Botha's X-Rail train — so close to the source of the blast — was simply vaporized.

Schofield never saw it.

Because by the time the explosives went off, he and the others were no longer inside the loading bay. They were outside.