The gigantic elevator platform rumbled past the open
doorway of Level 2, continued slowly upward. As it did so,
Gant peered around the landing gear of the AWACS.
The scene looked like something out of a horror movie.
They were standing on the rising elevator platform-- holding flaming torches above their heads; shotguns and pistols
in their spare hands--and they howled like animals,
whooping it up, their shrill calls grating like fingernails on a
chalkboard in the dark silence of the complex.
The prisoners from the Level 5 cell block.
area 7 325
Half of them were not wearing shirts--their bare chests
shone in the firelight of their torches. Others wore bandannas
wrapped around their heads and biceps.
All of them, however, wore soaking-wet trousers,
caused by the rising water on Level 5.
Then the elevator rose out of Gant's view, and she
emerged from her hiding spot to watch its underside climb
and climb until it arrived at the main hangar with an ominous,
thunderous boom.
caesar russell strode purposefully across the control
room overlooking the main hangar.
He had just seen the aircraft elevator platform--with its
cargo of howling and shotgun-firing prisoners--rise into
view. No sooner had it stopped than prisoners bolted off it,
scattering in every direction.
"Get on the handhelds," Caesar ordered coolly. "Tell
Charlie to wait at the top door and prepare for evacuation to
the secondary command post. We'll come to them. Where's
Echo?"
"I can't raise them, sir," the nearest radioman replied.
"Never mind. We'll contact them later. Let's go."
Everyone started moving. Logan and his three Alpha
men. Boa McConnell and his four Bravo men.
Caesar used a keypad to unlock a small pressure door
set into the northern wall of the control room, hurled it open.
A smooth concrete passageway stretched away from
him, sloping down and to the left, where it would ultimately
connect with the top door's passageway.
The three Alpha men led the way. They charged into the
passageway, guns first. Caesar himself went next, followed
by Logan.
Colonel Jerome Harper was next in line, but he never
got the chance.
For just as Logan disappeared inside the passageway's
entrance, the regular door on the other side of the control
room flew open, revealing five shotgun-toting prisoners!
Boom!
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An entire console was blasted to pieces.
In the escape passageway, Logan spun--and saw the intruders,
and realized that the others weren't going to make it
into the tunnel--and with a look to Harper, he made the call
and slammed the escape door shut behind him, sealing off
the passageway, sealing Harper and the remaining Air Force
men inside the control room.
Eleven men in total were left behind: Harper, Boa McConnell, Boa's four Bravo Unit men, the four radio operators,
and the unseen man who had been observing the
morning's events from the shadows.
All were left in the control room, at the mercy of the
murderous prisoners.
down in the level 6 x-rail station, schofield and book
II hurried out from their hiding spot underneath the compact
maintenance vehicle, leapt up onto the platform and dashed
for the door to the fire stairs.
9:56.
Schofield yanked open the door and instantly heard
shotgun fire echoing down the stairwell, followed by a loud
"Arroooo!"
He shut the door quickly.
"Well, it's official," he said. "We have just arrived in
hell."
"Four minutes to find the President," Book II said.
"I know. I know," Schofield looked about himself. "But
to do that we have to get up into the complex somehow."
He stared out into the darkness of the underground railway
station.
"Quickly, this way," he started racing down the platform.
"What?" Book II said, chasing after him.
"There's another way up into the complex. Those 7th
Squadron guys used it before—the air vent at the other end
of the platform!"
9:57.
The two of them reached the air vent.
Schofield tried his mike again, hoping he hadn't busted
it during that swim through Lake Powell.
"Fox! Fox! Can you read me?"
Pop. Fizz. Nothing.
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He and Book clambered into the air vent, hurried down
its length, their boots reverberating with every step.
They came to the base of the vent's four-hundred-foot
tall vertical shaft.
"Whoa," Book II said, looking up the shaft. It disappeared
into black infinity.
9:58.
Schofield said, "Quickly, up the air vent. We use the
cross-vents to reach the aircraft elevator shaft and then we
cut across the platform and see if we can find them."
Schofield fired his Maghook up into the darkened air
vent, delaying the activation of its magnet. The grappling
hook boomed up the shaft, flying fast, before Schofield initiated
its magnetic charge and immediately--whump!--the
hook snapped left in midair, dragged sideways by its powerful
magnetic pull, and attached itself to the vertical wall of
the vent.
9:58:20.
Schofield went first, whizzing up into the shaft on the
Maghook's rope. Book II came up behind him.
9:58:40.
They hurried into the nearest horizontal cross-vent,
charged down it, the Football flailing in Schofield's spare
hand.
9:58:50.
They came to the enormous aircraft elevator shaft. It yawned before them, shrouded in black. The only light: some orange firelight way up at the top of the shaft winking through the tiny square aperture that usually contained the mini-elevator. The main platform, it seemed, was right up at ground level, up in the hangar there.
Schofield and Book II stood at the mouth of the cross
vent. They were on Level 3.
Schofield brought his mike to his lips.
"Fox! Fox! Where are you!"
"Hey!" a familiar female voice echoed down through
the shaft.
area 7 329
Schofield snapped to look up, brought his gunlight
around.
And saw a small white spot--the beam of another
barrel-mounted flashlight--blinking back at him from the
other side of the shaft, but from one level above, from the
massive hangar doorway of Level 2.
And above the flashlight, in the glow of its beam,
Schofield saw the very anxious face of Libby Gant.
9:59:00.
"Fox!"
"Scarecrow!"
Gant's voice came through Schofield's earpiece loud
and clear now. The water damage must have only affected its
range.
"Damn it!" Schofield said. "I thought the elevator platform
would be here!"
"The prisoners took it up to the main hangar," Gant
said.
9:59:05.
9:59:06.
"Jesus, Scarecrow. What do we do? We only have a
minute left ..."
Schofield was thinking the same thing.
Sixty seconds.
Not enough time to go down to the bottom of the shaft,
swim across, and come back up again. And not enough time
to shuffle hand-over-hand around the walls of the shaft, either.
And they couldn't swing across on a Maghook--it was
too far.
Damn, he thought.
Damn-damn-damn-damn-damn-damn-damn-damn.
"What about a Harbour Bridge? " Mother's voice came
in over Schofield's earpiece.
The "Harbour Bridge" was a legendary Maghook trick.
Two people fired two oppositely charged Maghooks in such
a way that the two hooks hit in midair and stuck together. It
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was named after the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the famous
Australian landmark that was built from opposite sides of
Sydney Harbour, two separate arcs that ultimately met in the
middle. Schofield had seen a number of Marines try it. None
of them had succeeded.
"No," he said, "the Harbour Bridge is impossible. I've
never seen anyone hit another Maghook in mid-flight. But
maybe ..."
9:59:09.
9:59:10.
He looked over at the President and Gant standing in the
doorway to Level 2, gauged the distance.
Then he looked up--and saw the darkened underside of
the aircraft elevator platform, way up at the top of the shaft.
Mother's suggestion, however, had given him an idea.
Maybe with two Mag hooks they could ...
"Fox! Quickly!" he said. "Where is the mini-elevator?"
"Where we left it before, up on Level 1," Gant said.
"Go up to Level 1. Get on it. Take it up the shaft and
stop it a hundred feet below the main elevator platform. Go! Now!"
Gant knew not to argue. There was no time. She
grabbed the President and dashed out of Schofield's sight.
9:59:14.
9:59:15.
Schofield dashed past Book II, heading back along the
horizontal cross-vent to the main vent.
He came to the vertical ventilation shaft and without
even a blink, fired his Mag hook up into it again.
This time he waited until the Maghook had played out
its entire one hundred and fifty feet of rope before initiating
the grappling hook's magnetic pull.
As before, the Maghook's powerful magnetic charge
yanked the upwardly flying hook sideways in midair, and it
thunked hard against the metal wall of the vent, and held fast.
9:59:22.
9:59:23.
area 7 331
Schofield whizzed up the shaft again.
This time Book II didn't go with him--Schofield didn't
have the time to send the Maghook back down for him. He'd
have to do this alone, and besides, he needed the
Maghook ...
Schofield shot up the shaft on the Maghook's rope, the
air vent's close steel walls rushing past him on all four sides.
He stopped the hook's reeling mechanism as he came to another
cross-vent three levels up--but still a hundred feet below
the main hangar. He charged into the cross-vent.
9:59:29.
9:59:30.
Came to the aircraft elevator shaft again. The underside
of the giant elevator platform loomed closer now, only a
hundred feet above him. He could hear the gunshot blasts
and catcalls of the prisoners up in the hangar and wondered
for the briefest of moments what on earth they were doing
up there.
9:59:34.
9:59:35.
And then, by the light of his barrel-mounted flashlight,
he saw the mini-elevator whizzing up the concrete wall on
the other side of the massive elevator shaft. The small figures
of Gant, Juliet, Mother and the President were on it.
9:59:37.
9:59:38.
As the mini-elevator drew level with him, Schofield
said, "Okay! Stop there!"
The mini-elevator jolted to a halt, now diagonally opposite
Schofield but separated from him by a sheer concrete
chasm two hundred feet wide.
And so they faced each other, from opposite sides of the
enormous shaft.
9:59:40.
"Okay, Fox," Schofield said into his radio. "I want you
to fire your Maghook into the underside of the elevator platform."
"But it's not long enough to swing across on ..."
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"I know. But two Maghooks will be," Schofield said.
"Try and hit the platform about a quarter of the way across.
I'll do the same from this side."
9:59:42.
Schofield fired his Maghook. With a loud, puncturelike
whump, the hook flew into the air, flying diagonally up into
the shaft.
And then--clunk!--the magnetic head of the hook affixed
itself to the underside of the elevator platform.
9:59:43.
Clunk! A similar noise came from the other side of the
shaft. Gant had done the same with her Maghook.
9:59:45.
9:59:46.
Schofield held his Maghook with one hand. Then he
opened the Football, revealing the countdown timer inside it--00:00:14 ... 00:00:13--and held it by its handle, folded
open.
"Okay, Fox," he said into his mike. "Now give the rope
to the President. We've got twelve seconds now, so we'll
"Oh, you have got to be kidding," Mother's voice said.
On the other side of the shaft, Gant gave the Maghook's
launcher to the President of the United States. "Good luck,
sir."
Now, Schofield and the President stood on opposite
sides of the great concrete elevator shaft, holding on to the
diagonally stretched ropes of their respective Maghooks,
looking like a pair of trapeze artists about to perform their
act.
9:59:49.
9:59:50.
"Go!" Schofield said.
and they swung.
Out over the shaft.
Two tiny figures, on two equally tiny threadlike ropes.
area 7
Indeed, as the two of them swung in mirroring pendulum
like arcs, they did look like trapeze artists--swinging toward each other, aiming to meet in the middle, Schofield holding
out the open briefcase, the President reaching forward with
his outstretched hand.
9:59:52.
9:59:53.
Schofield reached the base of his arc, started coming up.
In the dim light, he saw the President swooping in toward him, a look of sheer terror plastered across his face.
But the chief executive swung well, gripping his rope
tightly, reaching forward with his right hand.
9:59:54.
9:59:55.
And they came close, rising in their pendulum motion,
reaching the extremities of their arcs ...
9:59:56.
9:59:57.
... and, four hundred feet above the base of the elevator shaft, swinging in near total darkness, they came together, and the President pressed his outstretched palm
against the analyzer plate in Schofield's hand.
Beep!
The timer on the Football instantly reset itself.
00:00:02 became 90:00:00 and the clock immediately
began counting down once more.
As for Schofield and the President, having briefly
shared the same space of air four hundred feet above the
world, they now parted, swooping back toward their respective starting points.
The President arrived back at the mini-elevator platform, where he was caught by Gant, Mother and Juliet.
On the other side of the elevator shaft, Schofield swung
back to his cross-vent.
He landed lightly on the edge of the tunnel, breathing
deeply with relief, the stainless-steel Football hanging open
in his hand.
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Matthew Reilly
They'd done it. At least for another ninety minutes.
Now all he had to do was get himself and Book over to the
President. Then they'd be back in business.
Schofield reeled in his Maghook, then turned to head
back down the cross-vent to get Book--
Shuck-shuck
Three men were blocking his way--men wearing blue
jeans but no shirts. They also brandished pump-action Remingtons
and they variously had tattooed chests, bulging biceps,
or no front teeth.
"Reach for the sky, pardner," one of the shotgun-toting
prisoners said.
caesar russell charged through the low concrete Escape
tunnel.
The three remaining men from Alpha Unit ran in front
of him. Kurt Logan hurried along behind.
They'd just left Harper and the others in the control
room to be captured by the escaped inmates, and were now
bolting down the escape-passageway, racing for the point
where it met the top door exit.
They rounded a bend, came to a heavy steel door half buried
in concrete, keyed the code. The door opened.
The top door's exit tunnel appeared before them, heading
right and left.
To the right ... freedom, via the exit that opened onto one
of the exterior hangars here at Area 7.
To the left, around a bend, the regular elevator shaft,
and ...
... something else.
Caesar froze.
He saw a combat boot protruding around the corner that
led to the regular elevator shaft.
The black combat boot of a dead commando.