"How do we know it isn't just a beacon or something?" Schofield said.
"The irregularity of it," Brainiac said. "See how it isn't quite a perfectly replicating sequence? See how, every now and then, there's a medium-sized spike in between the search and the return signals?" Brainiac tapped the midsized spikes inside two of the circles.
"So what does that mean?"
"It's an interference signature. It means that the source of the return signal is moving."
"Jesus," Schofield said. "It's real."
"And it just got worse," Gant said from the window set into the escape door on the left-hand side of the cabin. "Have a look at this."
Schofield came over to the small window, looked out through it.
And his blood went cold.
There must have been at least twenty of them.
Twenty 7th Squadron soldiers running quickly across the hangar outside - P-90 assault rifles in their hands, ERG-6 masks covering their faces - forming a wide circle around the AWACS plane, surrounding it.
* * *
It was the smell that hit them first.
It smelled like a zoo - that peculiar mix of animal excrement and sawdust in a confined space.
Juliet Janson led the way into Level 5, pulling the President along behind her. The other two Secret Service agents hurried in after them, jamming the stairwell door shut behind them.
They were standing in a wide, dark room, lined on three sides with grim-looking cages - forged steel bars set into walls of solid concrete. On the fourth side of the room were some more modern-looking cages: these cages had clear, floor-to-ceiling fiberglass walls and were filled with inky black water. Janson couldn't see what lurked inside the sloshing opaque water.
A sudden grunting sound made her spin.
There was something very large inside one of the steel cages to her right. In the dim light of the dungeon, she could make out a big, hairy, lumbering shape moving behind the thick black bars.
There came an ominous scratching sound from the cage - like someone dragging a fingernail slowly and deliberately down a chalkboard.
Special Agent Curtis went over to the cell, peered into the darkness beyond the bars.
"Don't get too close," Janson warned.
Too late.
A hideous bloodcurdling roar filled the dungeon as an enormous black head - a blurred combination of matted hair, wild eyes and flashing six-inch teeth - burst out from behind the bars and lunged at the hapless agent.
Curtis fell back from the cage, landing on his butt as the animal - enraged, ferocious, frenzied - reached in vain for him with a long hairy claw, held back only by the super strong bars of the cell.
The would-be ambush over, Janson now got a better look at the creature.
It was huge, at least nine feet tall, and covered in shaggy black fur - and it looked completely out of place in a concrete underground cell.
Janson couldn't believe it.
It was a bear.
And it didn't seem to be a very happy bear either. Its fur was matted and stringy, sweat stained, growing in clumps. The animal's own feces clung to the fur on its hindquarters, making the world's largest living land carnivore look like some deranged horror movie monster.
The three other cages on the northern side of the dungeon held more bears - four females and two cubs.
"Jesus..." the President breathed.
"What the hell is going on in this place?" Julio Ramondo whispered.
"I don't care," Janson said, pulling the President toward a heavy-looking door on the far side of the dungeon. "Whatever it is, we can't stay here."
* * *
The hangar bay on Level 1 was silent.
The giant AWACS plane stood in the center of the vast hangar, surrounded by the ring of 7th Squadron commandos.
"This isn't the situation I was hoping for," Schofield said.
"How do they keep knowing where we are?" Mother asked.
Gant looked at Schofield. "I would imagine a base like this is wired up the kazoo."
"Agreed," Schofield said.
"What are you talking about?" Mother said.
"Cameras," Schofield said. "Surveillance cameras. Somewhere in this base, someone's in a room watching a bank of monitors and telling these guys where we..."
Whump!
There came a heavy thump from somewhere outside.
Gant peered out through the window in the escape door. "Shit! They're on the wing!"
"Oh, Christ!" Schofield said, "they're going for the doors..."
He exchanged a look with Gant.
"They're going to storm the plane," he said.
* * *
They looked like ants crawling over a toy airplane. Eight 7th Squadron men - four to each side - stalking along the wings of the giant Boeing 707.
Captain Luther "Python" Willis, commander of the 7th Squadron's third sub-unit, Charlie Unit, stood on the hangar floor, watching his men move along the wings of the stationary plane.
"The Avengers are on the way up," his master sergeant said.
Python said nothing, just nodded coldly.
* * *
Inside the AWACS plane, Schofield was charging down the central aisle, checking the plane's rear entry points. Gant and Brainiac manned the two side windows.
"There's nobody back here!" Schofield called from the aft section of the plane, where there were two emergency doors. "Fox!"
"I got four on the left wing!" Gant yelled.
"I got four on the right!" Brainiac said.
"Mother!" Schofield called.
No answer.
"Mother!"
Schofield strode quickly through the main cabin, moving forward.
There was no sign of Mother anywhere. She was supposed to be checking the plane's forward entrances – the bail-out door in the floor of the forward cabin, and the roof hatches in the cockpit above the pilots' ejection seats.
As he hurried forward, Schofield looked out through the nearest window, saw the armed commandos on the left-hand wing.
He frowned. What were they doing out there?
They couldn't just burst in through the wing doors. Even with their nickel-plated pistols, Schofield and his Marines could easily repel a single-file entry through such a small entrance.
It was at that moment, however - out through the window in the side door of the Boeing 707 - that he saw the Avengers.
There were two of them and they entered the hangar bay from the vehicle access ramp at the far eastern end of the floor.
The Avenger air-defense vehicle is a modified Humvee. It has the basic wide-bodied chassis of a Humvee, but mounted on its back are two square-shaped pods, which each hold four Stinger surface-to-air missiles. Attached to the underside of these missile launchers is a pair of powerful fifty-caliber machine guns. It is basically a highly efficient, highly mobile airplane killer.
"Okay, now I know what they're going to do," Schofield said aloud.
They were going to blast the plane with the Stingers and then, in the smoke and confusion that followed, make a forced entry.
Good plan, Schofield thought. And very painful for him and his three Marines.
The two Avengers split up as they raced across the wide-open floor of the hangar, one heading for the right flank of the AWACS, the other heading for the left.
Schofield saw them go, disappearing from his limited field of vision. Shit. He had to do something, and fast...VROOOM!
The wing-mounted engines of the AWACS plane thundered to life. In the enclosed space of the hangar, their roar was positively deafening.
Schofield spun where he stood. "Mother," he said.
The avengers skidded to a halt on either side of the AWACS plane just as the massive Boeing 707 began to roll forward, its engines filling the hangar with the thunderous roar of blasting air.
At the sudden movement of the plane, the eight men on its wings were jolted off balance.
Schofield charged into the cockpit of the AWACS.
Mother was sitting in the captain's seat.
"Hey there, Scarecrow!" she yelled above the din. "Want to join me for a Sunday drive!"
"You ever driven a plane before, Mother?"
"I saw Kurt Russell drive one in a movie once! Hell, it can't be much different from driving Ralph's eighteen wheel..."
Whack-whack whack whack-whack!
A volley of bullets assaulted the windshield of the cockpit, shattering it, sending glass flying all over Mother and Schofield, the upwardly directed shots punching into the ceiling.
And then Schofield saw one of the Avengers skid to a halt off to the left of the AWACS plane, saw its twin missile pods tilt upward on their hinges, getting ready to fire at the cockpit.
"Mother! Quickly! Go left!" he shouted.
"What?" Going left would put them on a collision course with the Avenger.
"Just do it!" Schofield leapt into the right-hand co-pilot's seat and using the plane's pedal operated steering controls, brought her hard to port, at the same time as he pushed forward on the plane's thrusters.
The giant AWACS plane responded immediately.
It picked up speed, moving quickly inside the confines of the enormous hangar, swinging sharply to the left – heading directly for the Avenger.
The 7th Squadron men on the Avenger saw what was going to happen.
Abandoning their efforts to get a lock on the plane with their Stingers, they dived from the missile-mounted Humvee a bare second before the enormous forward wheels of the Boeing thundered right over the top of the Avenger, crushing it like a tin can, rolling over its crumpled remains like a monster truck at a car rally.
"Yee-hah!" Mother yelled as the airplane bounced wildly over what was left of the Humvee.
"It's not over yet," Schofield said. "There's still another one out there. Fox! Where's that other Avenger!"
Gant and Brainiac were still in the main cabin of the AWACS, covering the wing-entry doors on either side of the plane - Gant with her MP-10, Brainiac with his Beretta.
"It's behind us to the left!" Gant yelled. Out her window, she saw the Humvee on the hangar floor outside, over by the northern wall, its missile pods raised and ready. Then, without warning, there came a puff of smoke from one of the pods.
"Bracing positions!" she called. "Missile away!"
There came a sudden monstrous explosion and abruptly the whole AWACS plane shuddered violently as its rear wheels were lifted clear off the ground.
Billowing smoke rushed into the main cabin, shooting forward from the rear as the giant plane came back down to earth, jouncing on its suspension.
"They've hit our tail!" Gant yelled.
It was worse than that.
The second Avenger had reduced the entire tail section of their 707 to a smoking, gaping hole.
The high tail fin of the plane lay bent and broken on the floor of the hangar, completely detached from the plane.
The AWACS continued to turn in a wide circle, its massive wheels rolling quickly, at the same time as it was pummelled by a continuous rain of fire from the 7th Squadron soldiers on the ground.
In the enormous space of the underground hangar, the plane's movement seemed almost comical - for something so big and so heavy to move so quickly and so recklessly was a sight to behold.
The plane came around 180 degrees - the tip of its right wing bouncing off the flank of the parked SR-71 Blackbird - so that now it was facing the opposite direction from which it had started, its open rear end now exposed to the withering fire of the 7th Squadron men on the ground.
Bullets raked the interior of the central cabin, smashing into the ceiling and walls. Gant and Brainiac hit the deck as fragments of plastic and plaster rained down all around them.
"Fuck!" Brainiac yelled. "They don't teach this at Parris Island!"
* * *
Book II was also moving fast.
He slid quickly down one of the vertical counterweight cables that ran up the side of the regular elevator shaft. Calvin, Elvis and Love Machine slid down the cables after him, lowering themselves down the shaft.
After avoiding the barrage of fire up on the roof of the elevator, they now had to find a way out of the shaft, before the 7th Squadron men up there got around the elevator that now formed an obstacle between them.
Book II stopped at a pair of outer doors marked with a large black-painted "I," and immediately heard the muffled sounds of a firefight - clattering automatic gunfire, booming explosions, squealing tires.
"Not this one," Calvin Reeves said as he came alongside Book II. "Let's try the next one."
They slid farther down the shaft.
* * *
Inside the hangar bay, Python Willis watched the AWACS plane as it sped in a wild circle around the enormous hangar.
He spoke without emotion into his headset mike: "Avenger Two. Go for the cockpit. Two missiles."
* * *
In the cockpit of the AWACS plane, Schofield pumped on the steering pedals.
"Mother!" he yelled. "Get back in the main cabin! Cover the tail! Make sure no one gets in through there! I'll take care of the driving up here!"
Mother grabbed her M-16 and headed aft.
As she left, Schofield saw the second Humvee appear in front of him, over by the northern wall. It swung around quickly, taking up a new position, getting ready to fire again.
He keyed the plane's intercom.
"Brainiac!" Schofield's voice boomed over the plane's speaker system. "Engage electronic countermeasures!"
Back in the main cabin, Brainiac looked up at the sound of Schofield's voice. "Oh, yeah. Of course!"
"What is he talking about?" Gant yelled as Mother joined them in the main cabin.
But Brainiac was already clambering toward one of the consoles. He slid into the seat, began typing quickly.
Gant peered out her door-window - saw the walls of the hangar streaking by outside - saw the surviving Humvee skid to a halt over by the wall, preparing to fire another of its missiles.
"It's going to hit us again!" she called.
"Brainiac..." Schofield's voice said expectantly over the speakers.
Brainiac typed fast. The words "engage mf scrambler" appeared on his screen.
"Bracing positions!" Gant yelled.
Two clouds of smoke puffed out from the Humvee's missile pods - at exactly the same moment as Brainiac slammed his finger down on the enter key.
A pair of Stinger missiles shot out from the pods on the back of the Humvee, twin smoke trails zooming out behind them. They were heading directly for the forward section of the AWACS plane, flying in perfect formation.
And then, all of a sudden, the Stingers went crazy.
Despite the fact that the missiles were heat-seekers, the AWACS's powerful antimissile countermeasures still affected them - disrupting their chip-to-chip electronics, scrambling their internal-logic systems. It was as if a tidal wave of electronic noise, blasting invisibly outward from the AWACS's enormous rotodome, had slammed into the two Stingers.
The two missiles responded accordingly.
They went haywire.
They broke formation in an instant, parting in a looping Y-shape - one rolling wildly to the right, the other swinging left. The right-hand one shot quickly underneath the rolling AWACS plane, while the left-hand one sailed clear over it.
From the cockpit of the AWACS Schofield watched in amazement as one of the missiles shot across his bow and then - bizarrely - headed back toward the Humvee that had launched it!
A second later the missile slammed into the concrete wall above the Humvee - thundering at tremendous speed right into a ten-foot-high box-shaped compartment mounted above the floor of the hangar.
The missile detonated - sending an enormous gout of concrete spraying out from the wall all around the compartment. The compartment's wide steel door was blasted off its hinges by the stunning impact and went bouncing across the hangar, a twisted metal wreck. Large chunks of concrete rain
ed down on the very Humvee that had fired the missile.
Whatever that compartment was, Schofield thought, it was toast now.
But there was still one more out-of-control missile swooping around the hangar.
This second missile swung around the destroyed rear section of the moving AWACS plane, rolling wildly through the air, before it too doubled back and hit the hangar's northern wall, right alongside the regular elevator's doors.
A hailstorm of concrete blasted out from the wall, showering chunks everywhere.
This blast of concrete, however, was followed by a most peculiar sight.
A shockingly powerful geyser of water - yes, water - began to shoot out from the newly formed hole in the wall, jetting outward with tremendous force.
Schofield frowned. "What the hell...?"
* * *
An ominous explosion shook the walls of the regular elevator shaft.
Book II, now hanging with his group next to the outer doors of Level 3 - the doors to Level 2 had also been locked, so they'd moved down to the next floor - looked up sharply at the sound.
The sight that met him was as terrifying as it was unexpected.
A whole section of the concrete wall alongside the Level 1 doorway sixty feet above them just blasted outward, showering the shaft with chunks of concrete.
And then, right behind the concrete, came the water.
It rained down on Book II and the others like spray from a goddamned firehose.
Torrents and torrents of pouring water, roaring like a waterfall down the narrow elevator shaft, gushing out of the hole in the wall on Level 1, pounding down against their bodies.
It was all they could do to hold on to their cables.
But as soon as he felt the surging weight of the waterfall, Book II saw the future: the wall of water was just too strong.
They were going to fall.
* * *
"…All units, be aware. We have rupture of the long term water tanks on Level 1. Repeat: integrity of water tanks on Level 1 has been broken..."
"...Water from the tanks is entering the regular elevator shaft..."
"Initiate airtight countermeasures," Caesar Russell said calmly. "Seal off the shaft. Keep that water contained. Let it flood the shaft."
Area 7 Page 9
