Area 7

by Matthew Reilly

  His face and body were soaking wet, covered in spray. Book II was the same.

  He looked at this new high-walled canyon around them, trying to get a bearing on where they were, and quickly realized that this wasn't a new canyon at all - it was the same subcanyon he had taken earlier when he and Book II had separated from Brainiac. Indeed, as he now saw, he and Book weren't far from the fork in the canyon where they had split up from Brainiac.

  Schofield revved the engine, started to swing around, to continue his pursuit of the rogue South African bipod, when suddenly he heard a strange thumping noise to his right.

  He snapped around.

  And saw another helicopter - a fourth helicopter - half-obscured by the vertical wall of the canyon, hovering fifty feet above the water at the fork of the two subcanyons.

  One thing about this helicopter struck him straight away.

  It wasn't a Penetrator. It was far too chunky, not nearly sleek enough.

  As he saw it swing around in midair, Schofield recognized the chopper to be a CH-53E Super Stallion, a powerful heavy-lift transport bird like the two that usually accompanied Marine One. The Super Stallion was renowned for its toughness and strength - with its lowerable rear loading ramp, it could hold fifty-five fully equipped men and carry them into hell and back.

  The Air Force men must have brought this Super Stallion along to carry the boy back in, as the attack-configured Penetrators only had room for three crew members.

  Judging by the way it hovered at the fork of the two canyons, however, slowly turning laterally, Schofield figured that this chopper was more than just a prisoner transport – it was providing support of some kind.

  Schofield spun his bipod around, headed slowly and cautiously toward the Super Stallion.

  "What are you doing?" Book II asked. "The kid is that way."

  "I know," Schofield said, "but the way I see it, we're not going to catch that boy on the water.

  It's time we got into the air."

  The three 7th Squadron commandos inside the Super Stallion all wore headsets. One flew the chopper while the other two spoke into microphones, speaking quickly amid the roar of the helicopter's rotor noise.

  They, too, were searching for the rogue South African bipod that had slipped away after the near collision in the X-intersection.

  "...Penetrator One, this is Looking Glass," one of them said. "There's a canyon coming up on your right, take that. It might have gone down that way..."

  The other radioman said, "Penetrator Two. Cut back to the north and check that slot canyon on your left..."

  A map of the canyon system glowed green on each of the men's computer screens.

  REAL TIME GEOSAT IMAGE

  SATELLITE: xs-0356-070

  TARGET AREA: Powell (lake) ct.

  GPS GRID: 114°U"I2"W; 23*>45'11"N

  OVERLAY: KILE usavsa (u) ?>Wv

  The three illuminated dots on the left - P-1, P-2 and P-3 - indicated the three Penetrators prowling the canyons for the rogue bipod. The stationary dot near the mesa crater, "L-G," depicted the Super Stallion, call-sign "Looking Glass." The black line indicated the path of the chase so far.

  While the two radiomen continued to issue instructions, the pilot peered forward through the bubblelike canopy of the helicopter, his eyes searching the canyon in front of them.

  Amid the roar of the rotor blades and the sound of their own voices in their headsets, none of the crew heard the dull thunk! of a Maghook hitting the underside of their mighty chopper.

  Schofield's bipod sat in the water directly beneath the Super Stallion - bucking and bouncing on the churning wash generated by the helicopter's downdraft - having approached the big transport bird from behind.

  A thin threadlike rope connected the bipod to the underside of the Super Stallion fifty feet above it - the black Kevlar fiber rope of Schofield's Maghook.

  And then suddenly a tiny figure whizzed up into the air toward the chopper, reeled upward by the Maghook's internal spooler.

  Schofield.

  In a second, he was hanging from the Super Stallion's underbelly - fifty feet above the water's surface, right next to an emergency access hatch built into the big helicopter's floor - gripping the Maghook as it clung to the helicopter's underside by virtue of its bulbous magnetic head.

  The noise was shocking up here, deafening. The wind blast from the rotors made his 7th Squadron clothes press against his skin, made the Football hanging from his webbing twist and flap wildly.

  Super Stallions have fully retractable landing gear, so Schofield grabbed a fat cable eyehole as a handhold. Then he hit a button on the Maghook, allowing it to unspool down to Book.

  Within seconds, Book II was beside him, hanging from the Maghook on the underside of the Super Stallion.

  Schofield grabbed the access hatch's pressure-release handle. "You ready?" he yelled.

  Book II nodded.

  Then, with a firm twist, Schofield turned the handle and the emergency hatch above them dropped out of its slot.

  The men inside the Super Stallion felt the blast of wind first.

  A gale of fast-moving air rushed into the rear cabin of the Super Stallion a second before Schofield swung up through the hatch in its floor, closely followed by Book II.

  They came up inside the chopper's rear troop compartment, a wide cargo hold separated from the cockpit by a small steel doorway.

  The two radiomen in the cockpit both spun at once, looking back into the hold. They went for their guns.

  But Schofield and Book II were already moving fast, guns up, mirroring each other's movements perfectly. One shot from Schofield and the first radioman went down. Another from Book and the second guy was history.

  The chopper's pilot saw what was happening, and realized quickly that a gun wasn't his best way out of this situation.

  He pushed forward on the Super Stallion's control stick, causing the entire helicopter to lurch dramatically.

  Book II lost his balance immediately, and fell.

  Schofield, already dancing quickly toward the cockpit, dived to the floor and slid - forward, fast, on his chest - toward the open cockpit door.

  The pilot tried to kick the door shut and seal off the cockpit, but Schofield was too quick.

  He slid head-first - rolling onto his back as he did so - sliding in through the doorway, into the cockpit, and jolting to a perfect halt inside the threshold - one hand propping open the door, the other gripping his .44 caliber Desert Eagle, aimed directly up at the bridge of the pilot's nose.

  "Don't make me do it," he said from the floor, his eyes looking up the barrel of his gun, his finger poised on the trigger.

  The pilot was stunned, his mouth open. He just glared down at Schofield - on the floor, with his gun held unwaveringly in the firing position.

  "Don't make me," Schofield said again.

  The pilot went for the Glock in his shoulder holster.

  Blam! Schofield put a bullet in his brain.

  "Damn it," he said, shoving the dead pilot out of his seat and taking the controls. "I told you, you asshole."

  Schofield and Book's Super Stallion roared down the narrow canyonway, banking with each bend, heading for the X-intersection where all the rivercraft had nearly collided earlier.

  In his mind's eye, Schofield remembered seeing the rogue bipod sneaking off down the western branch of that intersection and then disappearing off to the right, into a narrow slot canyon at the far end.

  With the help of the Super Stallion's map of the canyon system, he now saw that slot canyon - it snaked its way to the north, opening onto another lakelike crater with a small mesa in it.

  That was where the rogue bipod had been heading.

  But what's waiting in that crater? Schofield thought.

  Why are the South Africans heading there?

  The Super Stallion thundered down its narrow rock walled canyon, heading for the X intersection, rounded a bend - and came face-to-face with one of the Air Force Penetr
ators. Schofield yanked on the control stick, reining the Super Stallion to a lurching halt in midair.

  The Penetrator was hovering above the X-intersection, turning laterally in the air, looking down each of the four rock-walled alleyways that met there. It looked like a gigantic flying shark, searching for its prey.

  It saw them.

  "Looking Glass, this is Penetrator Three," a voice said sharply over Schofield's cockpit intercom. "Got any realtime imagery from the satellite yet?"

  Schofield froze.

  Shit.

  "Book, quickly. Weapons check."

  The Penetrator turned in the air to face the Super Stallion.

  "Looking Glass? You listening?"

  Book II said, "We got a nose-mounted Gatling gun. That's it."

  "Nothing else?"

  The two helicopters faced each other, hovering above the intersection like a pair of eagles squaring off, a hundred yards apart.

  "Nothing."

  "Looking Glass," the voice on the intercom became cautious. "Please respond immediately with your authentication code."

  Schofield saw the Penetrator's downturned wings – saw the missiles hanging from them.

  They looked like Sidewinders.

  Sidewinders... Schofield thought.

  Then, abruptly, he hit the talk button on his console. "Penetrator gunship, this is Captain Shane Schofield, United States Marine Corps, Presidential Detachment. I am now in command of this helicopter. I've only got one word to say to you."

  "And what is that?"

  "Draw," Schofield said flatly.

  Silence.

  Then: "Okay..."

  "What the hell are you doing?" Book II said.

  Schofield didn't reply. He just kept his eyes locked on the Penetrator's wings.

  A moment later, with a flash of light, an AIM-9M Sidewinder missile blasted forward from the left-hand wing of the Penetrator.

  "Oh, shit..." Book II breathed.

  Schofield saw the charging missile from head-on – saw its domed nose, saw the star-shaped outline of its stabilizing fins, saw the looping smoke trail issuing out behind it as it rolled through the air heading straight for them!

  "What are you doing!" Book II exclaimed. "Are you just going to sit there...?"

  And then Schofield did the strangest thing.

  He jammed his finger down on his control stick's trigger. With the Sidewinder missile hurtling toward it – and only a bare second away from impact - the Super Stallion's nose-mounted Gatling gun came to life, spewing forth a line of glowing orange tracer bullets.

  Schofield angled the line of laserlike bullets toward the oncoming missile, and just as the missile came within twenty yards of his helicopter - boom! - his bullets hit the Sidewinder right on its forward dome, causing it to explode in midair, fifteen yards short of the hovering Super Stallion.

  "What the...?" Book II said.

  But Schofield wasn't finished.

  Now that the Sidewinder was out of the way, he swung his line of tracer bullets back up toward the Penetrator.

  In the near distance, he could see the Penetrator's two pilots fumbling to launch another missile, but it was too late.

  Schofield's tracer bullets rammed into the canopy of the Penetrator - one after the other after the other - pummeling it, pounding it, causing the entire attack helicopter to recoil helplessly in the air.

  Schofield's relentless stream of bullets must have gone right through the Penetrator's cockpit, because an instant later, one of the chopper's fuel tanks ignited and the whole attack helicopter spontaneously exploded, bursting into a billowing ball of flames before the entire flaming chopper just dropped out of the sky and crashed into the water below.

  With the Penetrator out of the way, Schofield gunned his Super Stallion down the western canyonway, heading for the narrow slot canyon into which the rogue bipod had disappeared.

  "What the hell did you do back there?" Book II asked.

  "Huh?"

  "I didn't know you could shoot down a missile with tracer bullets."

  "Only Sidewinders," Schofield said. "Sidewinders are heat-seekers - they use an infrared system to lock in on their targets. But to accomplish that, the forward seeker dome on the missile has to allow infrared radiation to pass through it. That means using a material other than plate steel. The seeker dome of a Sidewinder is actually made of a very fragile transparent plastic. It's a weak point on the missile."

  "You shot it at its weak point?"

  "I did."

  "Pretty risky strategy."

  "I saw it coming. Not many people get to see a Sidewinder from head-on. It was worth taking the chance."

  "Are you always this risky?" Book II asked evenly.

  Schofield turned at the question.

  He paused before answering, appraised the young sergeant beside him.

  "I try not to be," he said. "But sometimes... it's unavoidable."

  They came to the narrow slot canyon into which the South African bipod had fled.

  The little canyon was cloaked in shadow, and it was a lot narrower than Schofield thought it would be. His Super Stallion's whizzing rotor blades only just fitted between its high rock walls.

  The giant helicopter roared along the narrow canyon, moving through the shadows, before abruptly it burst out into brilliant sunshine, out into a wide craterlike lake bounded by threehundred-foot-high vertical rock walls and with a small mesa at its northern end.

  As with the other crater, the sandstorm up above the canyon system invaded this open stretch of water. The wind-hurled sand fell like rain, in slanting wavelike sheets. It assaulted Schofield's windshield, drummed against it.

  "You see anything?" Schofield yelled.

  "Over there!" Book II pointed off to their left, at the vertical outer wall of the crater opposite the mesa, at a point where a particularly wide canyon branched westward, away from the circular mini-lake.

  There, Schofield saw a tiny rivercraft sitting on the water's surface, bucking with the mediumsized waves generated by the sandstorm.

  It was the rogue South African bipod.

  And it was alone.

  Schofield's Super Stallion zoomed over the water filled desert crater, flying low and fast, its rotors thumping.

  Schofield stared at the bipod as they came closer.

  It appeared to be stationary, as if it were lying at anchor about twenty yards out from where the sheer rock wall of the crater plunged down into the water.

  Schofield swung the Super Stallion to a halt thirty yards away from the bipod, kept it in a hovering pattern ten feet above the choppy surface of the water. Wind-hurled sand pelted the windshield.

  He looked at the bipod more closely - a rope of some sort stretched down into the water beneath it.

  The bipod was at anchor...

  And then suddenly he saw movement.

  On the bipod.

  Through the veil of flying sand, he saw a pudgy-looking, bald-headed man in shirtsleeves get to his feet inside the left-hand pod, the driver's pod.

  Gunther Botha.

  Botha had been bent over in his pod, doing something when Schofield's chopper had arrived under the cover of the roaring sandstorm.

  In the right-hand section of the bipod, however, Schofield saw someone else.

  It was the tiny figure of Kevin, looking very small and out of place in the fearsomely equipped gunner's pod.

  Schofield felt relief wash over his body. They'd found him.

  Schofield's voice boomed out from the exterior speakers of the Super Stallion: "Dr. Gunther Botha, we are United States Marines! You are now under arrest! Hand over the boy, and give yourself up now!"

  Botha didn't seem to care. He just hurriedly tossed something square and metallic over the side of his bipod. It splashed into the water and sank, disappearing. What the hell is he doing? Schofield thought.

  Inside the Super Stallion's cockpit, he turned to Book. "Open the loading ramp. Then bring us around, rear-end first."


  The Super Stallion turned laterally, rotating in midair as its rear loading ramp folded down, opening.

  The giant chopper's rear end came round toward the stationary bipod, hovering ten feet above the water. Schofield stood on the now-open loading ramp, his Desert Eagle pistol in his hand, a hand mike in the other, windblown sand flying wildly all around him.

  He raised the microphone to his lips.

  "The boy, Botha," his amplified voice boomed.

  Still Botha didn't seem to care.

  Kevin, however, turned in his seat and saw Schofield, standing in the hold of the Super Stallion. A broad smile appeared across the little boy's face. He waved - a child's wave, his arm swatting rapidly from side to side.

  Schofield waved back briefly.

  At the moment, he was more concerned with what Botha was up to, for now he could see the fat South African virologist much more clearly.

  Botha had a scuba tank strapped to his back, over his white shirtsleeves. He hurriedly threw a full-face diving mask to Kevin and gesticulated for the little boy to put it on.

  Schofield frowned. Scuba gear?

  Whatever Botha was doing, it was time to stop him.

  Schofield raised his gun and was about to fire across Botha's bow to get his attention, when suddenly there came a loud whumping noise from somewhere close above him and completely without warning, he saw the tail rotor of his Super Stallion blast out into a million pieces and separate completely from the rest of the chopper!

  Like a tree branch snapping, the Super Stallion's tail boom broke free of the chopper's main body and dropped down into the water, causing the entire helicopter to spin wildly and veer away from the bipod.

  With its tail rotor gone, the Super Stallion spun out of control - and wheeled down toward the water's surface below.

  Book II wrestled with the chopper's control stick, but the Super Stallion was beyond salvation. It rolled sharply in the air, heading nose-first for the water.

  In the rear cargo bay, Schofield was hurled against the side wall, somehow managed to get a grip on a canvas seat there.

  The Super Stallion hit the lake.

  Water flew everywhere, a gigantic Whitewater splash.

  The big helicopter's nose drove down into the water, going under for a full ten seconds before its buoyancy righted it again, and the massive chopper bobbed slowly on the surface.