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.
&
nbsp; 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 rush
ed 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.
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