Area 7

by Matthew Reilly

  "But, sir..." Schofield began.

  "Captain. If I'm going to die today as the representative of this country, I'm not going to do it cowering in some corner, waiting to be found. It's time to stand up and be counted. And besides, it looks like you could do with some numbers."

  Schofield nodded. "If you say so, sir. Just stay close and shoot straight."

  The elevator doors closed and Schofield hit the button for ground level.

  Then he brought Tate's cell phone back to his ear.

  "Okay, Mr. Fairfax. Twenty-five words or less. Tell me everything you know about this rogue Air Force unit."

  In his subterranean room in Washington, Dave Fairfax sat up straighter in his chair.

  Events had just gotten a lot more real.

  First, he had picked up the cell phone call coming out of Area 8. Then he had cut across the line - interrupting some moron - and now he was speaking to this Schofield character, a Marine on the President's helicopter detail. As soon as he had heard it, Fairfax had punched Schofield's serial number into his computer. Now he had Schofield's complete military history - including his current posting on Marine One - right in front of him.

  "Okay," Fairfax said into his headset mike. "As I said, I'm DIA, and recently I've been decoding a set of unauthorized transmissions coming out of those bases. Now, first of all, we think a team of former South African Reccondos are heading there..."

  "Don't mind them. Killed them already," Schofield's voice said. "The rogue unit. Tell me about the rogue unit."

  "Oh... okay," Fairfax said. "By our reckoning, the rogue unit is one of the five 7th Squadron units guarding the Area 7 complex: the unit designated 'Echo'..."

  At Area 8, the elevator whizzed up the shaft.

  Fairfax's voice came through the cell phone. "...I believe that this unit is aiding Chinese agents in an attempt to steal a biological vaccine that was being developed at Area 7."

  Schofield said, "Do you have any idea how they're going to get the vaccine out of America?"

  "Uh, yeah...yeah I do," Fairfax's voice said. "But you might not believe it..."

  "I'll believe just about anything, Mr. Fairfax. Try me."

  "Okay...I believe they're going to load the vaccine onto a satellite-killer shuttle based at Area 8 and fly it up into a low orbit where they will rendezvous with the Chinese space shuttle that launched last week. They will then transfer both themselves and the vaccine onto the Chinese shuttle and land it back inside Chinese territory where we can't get to it or them..."

  "Son of a bitch," Schofield breathed.

  "I know it sounds crazy, but..."

  "...but it's the only way to get something out of the United States," Schofield said. "We could stop any other extraction method - car, plane, boat. But if they went up into space, we'd never be able to follow them. They'd be home by the time we got a chase shuttle onto the pad at Canaveral."

  "Exactly"

  "Thanks, Mr. Fairfax. Call the Marines and the Army, and get them to mobilize whatever air capable units they have - carriers, choppers, anything - and send them directly to Areas 7 and 8. Do not use the Air Force. Repeat: Do not use the Air Force. Until further notification, treat all Air Force personnel as suspicious."

  As he spoke, Schofield saw the illuminated numbers on the elevator ticking upward: "SL-3...

  SL-2..." "As for us," Schofield said, "we have to go now."

  "What are you going to do? What about the President? "

  "SL-1" became "G" and suddenly Schofield heard muffled gunfire beyond the elevator doors.

  Ping!

  The elevator had reached the ground floor.

  "We're going after the vaccine," he said. "Call you later."

  And he hung up.

  A second later, the elevator's doors opened...

  SIXTH CONFRONTATION

  3 July, 1023 Hours

  And suddenly Schofield and the others entered a whole new ball game.

  In the main hangar of Area 8, a fierce gun battle was already under way.

  Explosions boomed, gunfire roared.

  Shafts of sunlight streamed in through the hangar's gigantic open doors. About fifty yards away from the elevator, filling the open doorway - partially blocking the incoming sun - was the birdlike rear end of a silver Boeing 747.

  "Son of a bitch," Schofield breathed as he saw the streamlined space shuttle mounted on the 747's back.

  Gunfire rang out from over by the hangar doors.

  Five black-clad 7th Squadron commandos - the treacherous men from Echo Unit, Schofield guessed - were taking cover behind the doors, firing their P-90's at something outside the hangar.

  "This way," Schofield said, hurrying out of the elevator. The three of them skirted around a Humvee and a pair of cockroach towing vehicles until they could see what lay beyond the hangar doors: two black Penetrator helicopters, hovering low over the tarmac outside the hangar, blocking the way of the shuttle-carrying 747.

  The six-barreled Vulcan miniguns mounted underneath the noses of the two Penetrators were raining down a storm of bullets on the Echo Unit men in the hangar – pinning them down, preventing them from dashing across the twenty yards of open ground to the wheeled stairway that led onto the 747.

  Missiles lanced out from the wing stubs of the Penetrators, zeroing in on the 747. But the jumbo must have been using the latest electromagnetic countermeasures, because the missiles never got near them - they just went berserk as soon as they got close to the big plane, rolling through the air away from it, before slamming into the ground and detonating in showers of concrete and sand.

  Even the onslaught of flashing orange tracer bullets from the helicopters just veered away from the body of the giant jumbo, as if some invisible magnetic shield prevented them coming near it.

  From his position behind the cockroach, Schofield recognized two of the men seated inside one of the helicopters: Caesar Russell and Kurt Logan.

  I'll bet Caesar's not happy with Echo, he thought. Caesar and Logan must have arrived only moments earlier - just as the men of Echo had been boarding their escape plane. Caesar's choppers, it seemed, must have opened fire before all the Echo men had been able to get on the plane, before they'd been able to get away with Kevin.

  Kevin...

  Schofield scanned the battlefield. He couldn't see the little boy anywhere.

  He must already be on board the plane...

  And then without warning the 747 powered up, its four massive jet engines blasting air everywhere, sending any loose objects tumbling across the hangar.

  The plane started moving forward - away from the hangar, out onto the runway - toward the two black Penetrators. Its wheeled staircase clattered to the ground behind it.

  It was a good tactic.

  The Penetrators knew that they stood no chance against the weight of the rolling 747, so they split like a pair of frightened pigeons, moving out of the way of the massive jumbo.

  It was then that Schofield saw an Echo man standing in the open side door of the 747, saw him wave to his men still in the hangar and then toss a thin rope ladder from the doorway.

  The rope ladder hung from the small doorway, swaying beneath the rolling plane.

  At that same moment, movement near the hangar's entry caught his eye and he spun, and saw the five Echo men at the hangar door dash for the Humvee parked near his cockroach.

  They were going to try to board the 747... while it was moving!

  As soon as the Echo men moved, a withering burst of tracer fire from the Penetrators outside flooded in through the hangar's open doorway, shredding the ground at their feet.

  Two of the men fell, hit, their bodies erupting in a thousand explosions of red. The other three made it to the Humvee, clambered inside, started her up. The big car peeled off the mark, turning in a wide circle - Shoooooom!

  A missile rocketed in through the open hangar doors, heading straight for the skidding Humvee.

  The Humvee's life was short.

  The
missile hit it square on the nose - so hard that the wide-bodied jeep was sent flailing back across the slippery hangar floor, before it slammed against a wall and filled with light and blasted outwards in a shower of metal.

  "Holy exploding Humvees, Batman!" Mother said.

  "Quickly!" Schofield said. "This way!"

  "What are we doing?" the President asked.

  Schofield pointed at the moving jumbo outside. "We're getting on that plane."

  As with many desert bases, Area 8's elongated runway was roughly L-shaped, with the shorter arm of the "L" meeting the open doorway of the complex's main hangar.

  Aircraft took off and landed on the longer arm of the "L" but to get out to that runway, all planes had to taxi along the shorter strip first. While the main runway was over five thousand yards long, the shorter runway - or taxiway – was only about four hundred yards in length.

  The silver 747 - with the glistening white X-38 space shuttle on its back - rumbled along the taxiway, flanked by the two black Air Force Penetrators.

  Windblown sand whistled all around it, the brutal desert sun glinted off its sides.

  The big jumbo had reached the halfway point of the taxiway when a speeding vehicle came blasting out of the main hangar behind it.

  It was a cockroach.

  One of the white flat-bodied towing vehicles that had been parked inside the hangar. Looking like a brick with wheels, it thundered along the taxiway, chasing after the big plane.

  In the cramped driver's compartment of the cockroach, Mother drove. Schofield and the President shared the passenger seat.

  "Come on, Mother, pick it up!" Schofield urged. "We've got to catch it before it gets to the main runway! Once it gets there and starts on its flight run, we're screwed."

  Mother jammed the cockroach into third, its highest gear. The towing vehicle's V8 engine roared as it leapt forward, accelerating through the shimmering desert heat.

  The cockroach whipped across the taxiway, closed in on the shuttle-carrying 747.

  The Penetrators opened fire on it, but Schofield kicked open the passenger-side window and unleashed a burst from both his and Mother's P-90 assault rifles, hitting the nose mounted Vulcan cannon on one of the Penetrators, causing it to bank away. But the other chopper kept firing hard, kicking up sparks all around the speeding cockroach.

  "Mother! Get us under the plane! We need its countermeasures!" Mother hit the gas and the cockroach surged forward, hit its top speed. It reeled in the lumbering 747 - inch by painful inch - until at last the speeding towing vehicle sped underneath the silver jumbo's high tail section.

  It was like entering an air bubble.

  The bullets from the second Penetrator no longer hit the ground all around them. The fireworks display of their impact sparks ended abruptly.

  The cockroach kept rushing forward - now speeding along in the shadow of the shuttle carrying 747 – pushing past its rear landing gear while still remaining in the shelter of its massive body.

  The cockroach weaved under the left-hand wing of the 747, the tarmac rushing by beneath it, heading for the rope ladder that dangled from the plane's still-open left-hand door.

  The cockroach came to the rope ladder - just as the entire 747 abruptly swung right.

  "Goddamn it!" Mother yelled as the cockroach swung out from the shelter of the jumbo into glaring sunlight.

  "It's turning onto the main runway!" Schofield shouted.

  Like a giant, slow-moving bird, the silver 747 - with the X-38 shuttle on its back - turned onto Area 8's elongated runway.

  "Get to that ladder, Mother!" Schofield called.

  Mother gunned it, yanked the steering wheel hard-right, directing the cockroach - now momentarily deprived of the jumbo's electromagnetic protection - back in toward the flailing rope ladder, but not before one of the Penetrators swung quickly around in front of the turning 747 and opened fire.

  A devastating line of tracer bullets impacted against the tarmac in front of the cockroach, kicking up sparks that ricocheted everywhere.

  Several bullets smacked against the cockroach's windscreen, cracking it. Many more, however, bounced up underneath the towing vehicle's speeding front bumper and impacted against the underside of the cockroach - three of them hitting the vehicle's steering column.

  The response was instantaneous.

  The steering wheel in Mother's hands went haywire.

  The cockroach fishtailed wildly, lurching sideways as it sped along the runway under the wing of the 747, swinging left and right.

  Mother had to use all her strength just to keep a grip on the steering wheel, to keep the cockroach under control.

  The 747 finished its turn, began to straighten up.

  The runway in front of it stretched away into the distance - a long, straight ribbon of black that disappeared into the shimmering desert horizon.

  "Mother...!" Schofield yelled.

  "I know!" Mother shouted. "You go! Get up on the roof! I'll bring us under the ladder! And take the Prez here with you!"

  "But what about you...?"

  "Scarecrow! In about twelve seconds, that jumbo is going to take off and if you aren't on it, we lose that kid! I have to stay at the wheel of this thing, otherwise it'll spin out!"

  "But those Penetrators will kill you once we're gone...!"

  "That's why you have to take him with you!" Mother said, nodding at the President. "Don't mind me, Scarecrow. You know it'll take more than a bunch of Air Force cocksuckers to get rid of me"

  Schofield wasn't so sure.

  But he saw the look in her eye, and he knew that she was prepared to keep driving the cockroach - to her almost certain death - so long as he and the President got on board that plane.

  He turned to the President. "Come on. You're coming with me."

  The cockroach raced alongside the 747, once again shielded by its electronic countermeasures, swung in underneath its forward left-hand entry door - the door from which the rope ladder dangled.

  The two tiny figures of Schofield and the President - still dressed in their black combat uniforms - climbed up onto the roof of the speeding towing vehicle. Conveniently, their 7th Squadron uniforms came with protective goggles, so they put them on to protect their eyes against the storm of sand blowing all around them.

  Down in the driver's compartment, Mother continued to grapple with the steering wheel of the cockroach, trying with all her might to keep the rampaging vehicle on a straight course.

  On the roof of the cockroach - in the face of the battering wind - Schofield reached for the flailing rope ladder. It fluttered and swayed just out of his reach...

  Then suddenly a deafening roar filled his ears.

  The 747's four wing-mounted jet engines were coming to life.

  Schofield's blood ran cold.

  The plane was powering up for take-off, starting its run down the airstrip. Any second now, it would accelerate considerably and pull away from the cockroach.

  The rope ladder continued to flutter in the raging wind, a few feet in front of the speeding cockroach. Billowing clouds of sand flew everywhere.

  Schofield turned to the President and yelled: "Okay! I grab the ladder! You grab me!"

  "What!"

  "You'll understand!"

  And with that, Schofield charged across the flat roof of the cockroach and leapt off its forward edge... and flew through the air, reaching up with his outstretched arms... and caught the bottom rung of the dangling rope ladder.

  He waved for the President to follow. "Now you grab me!"

  With a doubtful shake of his head, the President said, "Okay..."

  And he ran forward and jumped - just as the silver 747 shot forward, its engines engaging.

  The President flew through the short space of air in front of the speeding cockroach before his body slammed into Schofield's, and he threw his arms around the young captain's waist, clasping his hips tightly while Schofield himself held on grimly to the bottom rung of the rope ladder with b
oth of his hands!

  Mother's cockroach instantly peeled away behind them, unable to keep up. The two Penetrators also gave up the chase, wheeling to a halt in midair above the runway.

  Hanging from the rope ladder - and traveling at close to a hundred miles an hour, with the wind whipping all around him and the President of the United States hanging from his waist - Schofield watched in horror as one of the Penetrators loosed a missile at Mother's nowunprotected cockroach.

  The missile hit the cockroach's tail and detonated hard, lifting the rear end of the still speeding towing vehicle a clear five feet off the ground.

  With the missile impact, the cockroach fishtailed wildly - and shot off the runway, onto the sand, kicking up an enormous billowing dust cloud - and then it flipped - and tumbled - and rolled - once, twice, three times – before it came to a thumping crashing crushing halt, right on its cockpit, surrounded by falling sand.

  And as he hung from the doorway of the accelerating 747, Schofield could only stare at the dust-covered wreck and pray that Mother had died quickly.

  But right now he had other things to do.

  The 747 continued to rush down the runway.

  As it did so, the two tiny figures of Schofield and the President could be seen dangling from its forward left-hand doorway.

  The 747 picked up speed. With the extra weight of the X-38 on its back, it required an unusually long take-off run.

  Wind whipped all around Schofield and the President as they hung from the rope ladder.

  "You go first!" Schofield yelled. "Climb up my body and then go up the ladder!"

  The President did as he was told.

  With the runway rushing by beneath them, he first climbed up Schofield's body, using his combat webbing for hand- and footholds. Then he stepped off Schofield's shoulders onto the rope ladder itself and began to climb it.

  As soon as the President was on the ladder, Schofield began to haul himself up, using only his arms.

  The ground continued to whip by beneath them as they ascended the rope ladder, the wind slamming into their bodies.

  And then, all of a sudden, as they reached the doorway at the top of the ladder, the speeding runway beneath them just dropped away - dropped dramatically away - and receded rapidly into obscurity.