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--"
area 7 149
"--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
area 7 151
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?"
152
Matthew Reilly
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?"
area 7 153
"Yes ..."
"Right. Cool. Becau
se 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.
area 7 155
"--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."
156
Matthew Reilly
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
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--
area 7 157
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."
SCHOFIEL
D'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
area 7 159
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