Area 7

by Matthew Reilly

  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 purp
ose: 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 rea
r 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..."