Area 7

by Matthew Reilly

  Beyond the distorted lens of water they could make out the twin images of the Penetrator attack choppers hovering above the surface, waiting for them to emerge, if they dared.

  In the water all around them, a bizarre yet extraordinary underwater landscape revealed itself. Giant boulders rested on the lakebed, desert trails that had once been dry land twisted and turned, there was even a giant submerged cliff that soared upward, disappearing above the water's surface. The submerged desert world appeared as a ghostly pale green.

  Book II turned to Schofield. "If you've got any more magic escape plans, now would be the time to use them."

  "Sorry," Schofield said. "I'm all out."

  Behind them - or rather, below them - water was flooding up into the cargo bay. It rose quickly through the hold, entering the helicopter via the wide-open loading ramp and any other orifice it could find.

  Thankfully, the cockpit was airtight, so at seventy feet down, the still-sinking helicopter reached equilibrium – and an air pocket formed in the upturned cockpit, the same way a drinking cup submerged upside-down in a bathtub will form an air bubble.

  The helicopter glided downwards until, at ninety feet, it hit the bottom.

  A billowing cloud of silt exploded all around the Super Stallion as its destroyed tail section impacted against the floor of the lake and came to rest - still upright - against a massive submerged boulder.

  "We haven't got much time," Schofield said. "This air will go bad real fast."

  "What do we do?" Book II said. "If we stay, we die. If we swim to the surface, we die."

  "There has to be something..." Schofield said, almost to himself.

  "What do you mean?"

  "There has to be a reason..."

  "What are you talking about?" Book II said angrily. "A reason for what?"

  Schofield spun to face him. "A reason why Botha stopped here. In this spot. He didn't stop here for the hell of it. He had a reason to drop anchor here..."

  And then Schofield saw it.

  "Oh, you cunning bastard..." he breathed.

  He was staring out over Book II's shoulder, out into the murky green haze of the underwater world.

  Book II spun, and he saw it, too.

  "Oh my God..." he whispered.

  There, partially obscured by the aqua-green mist of the water, was a structure - not a boulder or a rock formation, but a distinctly man-made structure - a structure which looked totally out of place in the green underwater world of Lake Powell.

  Schofield and Book saw a wide flat awning, a small glass-windowed office, and a wide garage door. And underneath the awning: two old-style petrol pumps.

  It was a gas station.

  An underwater gas station.

  It was nestled up against the base of the cliff, at the point where the enormous circular crater containing the small mesa met a wide canyon stretching westward, right on the corner.

  It was then that Schofield remembered what this gas station was.

  It was the rest-stop petrol station that had been flooded over when Lake Powell had been created in 1963 by the damming of the Colorado River - the old 1950's-era gas station that had been built on the site of an old trading post.

  "Let's move," he said. "Before we use up all the oxygen in here."

  "To where?" Book II asked incredulously. "The gas station?"

  "Yep," Schofield said, looking at his watch.

  It was 9:26.

  Thirty-four minutes to get the Football back to the President.

  "Gas stations have air pumps," he said, "for inflating tires. Air that we can breathe until those Penetrators go away. Maybe when the government compensated him, the guy who owned this station just upped and left everything behind."

  "That's your magic escape plan? Any air left in those pumps will be forty years old. It could be rancid, or contaminated by God-only-knows what."

  "If it's air-sealed," Schofield said, "then some of it may still be good. And right now, we don't have any other options. I'll go first. If I find a hose, I'll signal you to come over."

  "And if you don't?"

  Schofield unclipped the Football from his webbing and handed it to Book II. "Then you'll have to come up with a magic plan of your own."

  The Super Stallion lay on the bottom of the lake, surrounded by the silent underwater world.

  Abruptly, a finger of bubbles issued out from its open rear section - trailing the figure of Shane Schofield, still dressed in his black 7th Squadron battle uniform, as he entered the water from within the sunken helicopter.

  Schofield hovered in the void for a moment, looked about himself, saw the gas station, but then suddenly he saw something else.

  Something resting on the lakebed directly beneath him about three feet away.

  It was a small silver Samsonite container - heavy duty obviously designed to protect its contents from strong impacts; about the size of two videocassettes placed side by side. It sat on the silty lake floor, perfectly still, weighed down by a small anchor.

  It was the object Gunther Botha had tossed over the side of his bipod when Schofield and Book had interrupted him.

  Schofield swam down to it, cut away the anchor with a knife, and then attached the silver container's handle to the clip on his combat webbing.

  He'd look at its contents later.

  Right now he had other things to do.

  He headed for the underwater gas station, pulling himself through the water with long powerful strokes. He covered the distance between the Super Stallion and the gas station quickly, and soon found himself hovering in front of the ghostlike submerged structure.

  His lungs began to ache. He had to find an air hose soon...

  There.

  Beside the open doorway of the gas station's office.

  A black hose, connected to a large pressurized drum.

  Schofield swam for it.

  He came to the hose, grabbed it and pressed down on its release valve.

  The hose's nozzle sputtered to life, spewing out some pathetically small bubbles.

  Not a good sign, Schofield thought.

  And then, in a sudden billowing rush, a wash of big fat bubbles came bursting out of the hose.

  Schofield quickly put his mouth over it and, without a second thought, breathed in the forty year-old air.

  At first, he gagged, and coughed awfully. It tasted bitter and stale, foul. But then it got cleaner and he began to breathe it in normally. The air was okay - just.

  He waved to Book in the helicopter, gave him the thumbs-up.

  As Book swam over with the Football, Schofield pulled the air hose into the gas station's little office, so that any stray bubbles got trapped against the office's ceiling rather than rising to the lake's surface and alerting the Penetrators to their new air source.

  While he did so, he looked at the submerged gas station all around him.

  He was still thinking about Botha.

  The South African scientist's escape plan couldn't have involved just coming to this sunken petrol station. It had to be something more than that...

  Schofield looked around the gas station's office and the garage adjoining it. The whole structure was nestled up against the base of the sunken cliff.

  Just then, however, through the rear window of the little office, Schofield saw something built into the base of the cliff behind the gas station.

  A wide boarded-up doorway.

  It was constructed of thick wooden beams, and it appeared to burrow into the cliff face. A pair of mine-car tracks disappeared underneath the planks that sealed its entrance.

  A mine.

  Botha's plan was beginning to make more sense.

  Thirty seconds later, Book II joined him inside the office and gulped in some air from the hose.

  Another minute and Schofield leaned outside the office and saw the blurred rippling outlines of the Air Force Penetrators above the surface wheel around in the air and depart heading back for Area 7.

  As soon as t
hey were gone, he got Book's attention and pointed at the mine entrance behind the gas station, signalling, I'm going there. You wait here.

  Book nodded.

  Schofield then flicked on the small barrel-mounted flashlight on his Desert Eagle pistol and swam out through the rear window of the office, heading for the mine entrance at the base of the cliff.

  He came to the boarded-up mine, and found that some of its rotting planks had been removed - possibly recently.

  He swam inside.

  Darkness met him. Impenetrable underwater darkness.

  The narrow beam of his flashlight revealed rough rocky walls, submerged support beams, and the pair of mine-car tracks on the floor, disappearing into the shadows.

  Schofield swam quickly through the mine tunnel, guided by the beam of his flashlight.

  He had to keep track of how far he had gone. There would come a time very soon when he would have to make a choice: go back to Book and get some more air from the hose, or keep going, and hope he made it to a part of the mine that wasn't filled with water.

  The only thing that convinced him that he would find such an air source was Botha. The South African scientist wouldn't have come here if he couldn't...

  Suddenly Schofield saw a narrow vertical shaft branching off his tunnel. A rung ladder ran up its length.

  He swam over to the shaft, pointed his flashlight up into it. The shaft went both up and down, disappearing into blackness in both directions. It was an access shaft of some sort, allowing quick and easy movement to all levels of the mine.

  Schofield was running out of air.

  He did the math.

  The lake was about ninety feet deep here. Hence, ninety feet up that rung ladder, the water should level out.

  Screw it.

  It was the only option.

  He turned back to get Book.

  Two minutes later, he returned to the mine tunnel, this time with Book II - and the Football - beside him, plus a new lungful of air.

  They headed straight for the vertical access shaft, used its rung ladder to pull themselves up it.

  The shaft was a tight cylinder, with earthen doorways opening off it every ten feet or so.

  Climbing it was like climbing up a very narrow sewer pipe.

  Schofield led the way, moving quickly, counting the rungs as he climbed, calculating one foot for every rung.

  At fifty rungs, his lungs began to burn.

  At seventy, he felt bile crawling up the back of his throat.

  At ninety, he still saw no sign of the surface, and he started to worry that he had got it all wrong, that he had made a fatal mistake, that this was the end, that he was about to black out – then suddenly, gloriously, Schofield's head exploded out of the water into beautiful cool air.

  He immediately swung his body to the side to allow Book II to surface next to him. Book burst out of the water and both of them gulped in the fresh air as they hung from the ladder in the tight vertical well.

  The shaft still rose into darkness above them – only now it was no longer filled with water.

  Once he had regained his breath, Schofield climbed up out of the water and stepped through the nearest earthen doorway.

  He emerged inside a wide flat-floored cavern, an old administration chamber for the mine.

  What he saw inside the chamber, however, stopped him cold.

  He saw boxes of provisions - food, water, gas cookers, powdered milk - hundreds of boxes.

  Hundreds and hundreds of boxes.

  A dozen fold-out cots lined the walls. A table covered with fake passports and drivers' licenses stood in one corner.

  It's a camp, Schofield thought. A base camp.

  With enough food to last for weeks, months even – for however long it would take for the United States government to stop searching Lake Powell for the men who had stolen the Sinovirus and its prized vaccine source: Kevin.

  Then, once the coast was clear, Botha and his men would leave the lake and make their way back to their homeland at their leisure.

  Schofield looked at the stacks of boxes. Whoever had done this had been bringing stuff here for a long time.

  "Geez." Book II joined Schofield in the chamber. "Somebody came prepared."

  Schofield looked at his watch.

  9:31 a.m.

  "Come on. We've got twenty-nine minutes to get this briefcase back to the President," Schofield said. "I say we go for the surface, and see if there's a way to get back to Area 7."

  Schofield and Book II climbed.

  As fast as they could. Up the vertical access shaft. Schofield with Botha's small Samsonite container. Book II with the Football.

  Within a minute, they reached the top of the ladder and stepped up into a wide aluminum building of some sort, kind of like an oversized shed.

  A set of mine-car tracks began over on the far side of the shed, disappearing into the earth. They were flanked by a collection of rusty loading trays and old conveyor belts. Everything was covered in dust and cobwebs.

  Schofield and Book raced for the external door, kicked it open.

  Brilliant sunlight assaulted their eyes, wind-blown sand blasted their faces. The sandstorm was still raging.

  The two tiny figures of Schofield and Book II stepped out of the mine shed...and they found themselves standing on a gigantic flat-topped desert peninsula that stretched out into Lake Powell. They looked like ants against the magnificent Utah landscape - the magnitude of the earth around them dwarfing even the large aluminum shed from which they had emerged.

  Strangely, though, there was another structure on this vast flat-topped peninsula. It stood a bare fifty yards away from the mine shed: a small farmhouse, with a barn attached to its side.

  Schofield and Book ran for it through the storm-tossed sand.

  The letterbox at the gate read: Hoeg.

  Schofield bolted past it, into the front yard. He came to the side of the farmhouse, crouched underneath a window, peered inside, just as the wall beside him exploded with automatic gunfire. He spun to see a man dressed in denim overalls come charging around the corner of the farmhouse with an AK-47 assault rifle in his hands.

  Blam!

  Another shot rang out above the sandstorm and the farmer dropped to the dusty ground, dead.

  Book II appeared at Schofield's side, his M9 pistol smoking.

  "What the hell is going on here?" he yelled.

  "I'm guessing," Schofield said, "that if we live through this, we'll find that Mr. Hoeg is a friend of Gunther Botha's. Come on."

  Schofield ran for the barn, threw open its doors, hoping against hope that he would find some kind of transportation inside it...

  "Well, it's about time we had a bit of luck," he said. "Thank you, God. We deserved a break."

  Standing there before him - glistening like a new car in a showroom - was a vehicle common to the farms in these parts: a beautiful lime-green biplane, a crop duster.

  Three minutes later, Schofield and Book were shooting through the sky, soaring high over the snakelike canyons of Lake Powell.

  It was 9:38 a.m.

  This is going to be close, Schofield thought.

  The plane was a Tiger Moth - an old World War II biplane often used for crop dusting in the dry southwest. It had two parallel wings, one above the fuselage and one below, that were joined by vertical struts and criss-crossing wires. Two spindly landing wheels stretched down from the forward end of its body, like the elongated legs of a mosquito, and an insecticide sprayer was attached to its tail.

  Like most biplanes, it was a two-seater - the pilot sitting in the backseat, the co-pilot up front.

  And it was a good plane, too, well looked after. Mr. Hoeg, it seemed, in addition to being a goddamned spy, was obviously an airplane enthusiast.

  "What do you think?" Book said into his flight helmet's microphone. "Do we go for the X rail?"

  "Not now," Schofield replied. "There's not enough time. We head straight for Area 7. For the Emergency Exit Vent
."

  * * *

  Dave Fairfax's heart was racing.

  This had turned into quite an eventful day.

  After he'd heard Dave's assessment of the situation at Area 7 and the presence of a rogue unit there, the DIA assistant director in charge of surveilling the Chinese space shuttle had ordered a blanket tap of a one-hundred-mile circle surrounding Areas 7 and 8. Now, any signal coming out of that zone would be picked up by the DIA's surveillance satellites.

  Impressed by Fairfax's work on the matter thus far, the assistant director also gave the young cryptanalyst free rein to further pursue the case. "Do whatever you have to, young man," he'd said. "You report directly to me now."

  Fairfax, however, was still puzzled.

  Perhaps he was just excited, but something still nagged at him. The pieces still didn't quite add up.

  The Chinese had a shuttle up in space, communicating with a rogue unit at a U.S. Air Force base.

  Okay.

  So there was something at this base that the Chinese wanted. Fairfax guessed it was the virus vaccine that kept getting mentioned in all the decoded messages.

  Okay...

  And the shuttle was the best way to communicate directly with the men on the ground.

  No.

  That wasn't right. The Chinese could use any of a dozen different satellites to communicate with men on the ground. You didn't need a whole shuttle to do that.

  But what if the shuttle had another purpose...

  Fairfax turned to one of the Air Force liaison people the DIA had called in. "What sort of hardware does the Air Force keep at Area 7?"

  The Air Force guy shrugged. "Couple of Stealths, an SR-71 Blackbird, a few AWACS birds. Apart from that, it's mainly used as a biological facility."

  "What about the other complex then? Area 8?"

  The Air Force man's eyes narrowed. "That's another story altogether."

  "Hey. This is need-to-know. Believe me, I really need to know."

  The Air Force man hesitated for a moment.

  Then he said, "Area 8 contains two working prototypes of the X-38 space shuttle. It's a satellite killer - a smaller, sleeker version of the standard shuttle that gets launched off the back of a high-flying 747."

  "A satellite killer?"