Instantly, a streamlined warhead shoomed out from the M-72 on his shoulder, streaking through the air at phenomenal speed, heading straight for the Penetrator's cockpit.
The warhead smashed through the helicopter's glass windshield and detonated violently. The walls of the attack helicopter blasted outwards, the chopper just disintegrating in midair.
It dropped out of the sky - a blazing, flaming wreck, trailing a plume of thick black smoke - and crashed down against the tarmac, shattering into pieces.
The final episode of the sequence was the inflating of Schofield's parachute.
It blossomed to life above his ejection seat, lifting him out of it. Then the parachute carried him safely back down to earth, landing him gently on the runway a short way from the twin flaming ruins of the space shuttle and the Penetrator.
The President and Kevin rushed up to him.
"That was so cool!" Kevin gasped.
"Yes. Remind me never to point a loaded weapon at you," the President said.
Schofield discarded his parachute, gazed back down the runway toward the buildings of Area 7.
Area 7...
Strangely, the first thing he thought about was not the Football nor the fate of the country.
It was Libby Gant.
He'd last seen her during their battle in the pit, when Colonel Harper's Sinovirus grenade had gone off and they'd been separated.
But then he saw the helicopter.
Saw the second Penetrator - Caesar and Logan's Penetrator – sitting empty and abandoned outside the main hangar complex.
"Caesar came back to Area 7..." Schofield said aloud. "Why would he do that?"
It was then that he saw a figure emerge from the base of the airfield's control tower, waving one arm weakly.
It was Book II.
Schofield, Kevin and the President met book at the base of the tower.
Book II looked pale, weary. He wore a thick bandage over a wound on his left biceps, the rest of the arm was held in a makeshift sling.
"Scarecrow. Quick," he said, obviously still in pain. "You better come and see this. Now."
As they climbed the stairs of the control tower, Schofield said, "When did Caesar come back to Area 7?"
"They landed only a few minutes before you did. They were all heading for that top door entrance when you guys arrived. I was looking after Janson up in the tower, and we saw the whole ejection-seat thing. Caesar and Logan watched it from the hangar entrance, but when you blasted their boys to kingdom come, they headed straight inside the complex again."
"Caesar went back inside the complex....Why?" Schofield said, thinking hard. Then he looked up. "Any word from Gant?"
"No," Book II said. "I figured she was with you."
"We got separated when that Sinovirus grenade went off before. She must still be inside the complex."
They arrived at the top level of the tower. Juliet Janson lay slumped on a chair, a bandage over her bullet-wounded shoulder, alive but very pale.
Beside her lay the Football.
"So what did you want me to see?" Schofield asked Book.
"This," Book II said, indicating one particular computer screen. It was flashing:
1005
*********WARNING*********
EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.
IF YOU DO NOT ENTER AN AUTHORIZED LOCKDOWN EXTENSION OR TERMINATION CODE BY 1105 HOURS, FACILITY SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE WILL BE ACTIVATED.
SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE DURATION: 10:00 MINUTES.
*********WARNING*********
Schofield looked at his watch.
It was 10:43.
Twenty-two minutes till the complex's thermonuclear self-destruct mechanism was set in motion.
And they'd had no word from Gant...
Shit.
"There's another thing," Book II said. "We've managed to get the generators back on line, but the power's still very low. We've been able to get a couple of systems back on, some light systems, a few communication lines and the internal broadcast system."
"And...?"
"Have a look at this."
Book II hit a switch, and one of the console monitors blinked to life.
On it, Schofield saw the image of the control room overlooking the main hangar.
And standing inside the heavily battered room, looking directly into the camera as he had done on several occasions earlier that morning, was Caesar Russell.
Russell grinned at the camera.
When he spoke, his voice boomed out from the tower's speakers.
"Greetings, Mr. President, people of America. I know it's a little early for my hourly update, but since, alas, it appears that my race has been run, I'm sure you won't mind an early commentary.
"My men are vanquished, my cause lost. I would commend the President and his brave bodyguards for their efforts, but such is not my way. I merely leave you all with one parting comment: this country can never be the same, after today..."
Then Caesar did something that made Schofield's blood completely freeze.
He pulled open the front of his combat fatigues, revealing his chest.
Schofield's jaw dropped. "Oh no..."
There, on Russell's chest, was a long vertical scar, right over his heart - the scar of a man who had had heart surgery sometime in the past.
Caesar grinned, an evil, maniacal, completely insane grin.
"Cross my heart," he said, "and hope to die."
"What?" the President said. "I don't get it."
Schofield was silent.
He got it.
He snatched a piece of paper from his pocket. It was the printout he'd gotten Brainiac to on the plane right at the very start of all this - when he'd needed to know if there really was a radio transmitter planted on the President's heart.
Schofield scanned the printout. It still had the circles Brainiac had drawn on it before.
He recalled Brainiac's earlier explanation. "It's a standard rebounding signature. The satellite sends down a search signal - they're the tall spikes on the positive side - and then, soon after, the receiver on the ground, the President, bounces that signal back. Those are the deep spikes on the negative side.
"Search and return. Interference aside, the rebounding signature seems to repeat itself once every twenty-five seconds."
"Interference aside..." Schofield said as he stared at the printout.
"Only there is no interference. There are two separate signals. The satellite needs to pick up two signals..." He grabbed a nearby pen and joined the four circles into two pairs.
"This graph indicates two distinct signal patterns," Schofield said. "The first and the third. And then the second and fourth."
"What are you saying?" the President asked.
"What I'm saying, Mr. President, is that you're not the only man at this complex with a radio transmitter attached to his heart. It's Caesar's trump card, his last resort, so that even if he loses, he still wins. Caesar Russell has a transmitter attached to his heart. So now, if he dies, the devices at the airports go off."
"But he's inside the complex," Book II said, wincing with pain, "and in exactly twenty minutes, the self-destruct sequence will be initiated."
"I know," Schofield said, "and so does he. Which means I now have to do something that I never thought I'd ever want to do. I have to go back into Area 7 and stop Caesar Russell from getting killed."
SEVENTH CONFRONTATION
3 July, 1045 Hours
Schofield re-armed himself.
With Book II and Juliet both wounded, he was going back inside alone.
He got his Maghook back from Book, slid it into the shotgun holster on his back. He also grabbed the P-90 that Seth Grimshaw had brought out of the complex. It only had about forty rounds left in it, but that was better than nothing. He jammed Book's M9 and his own Desert Eagle pistol into his thigh holsters. And last of all, he swapped his water damaged wrist mike and earpiece for Juliet's working unit.
Book and Juliet would r
emain up in the tower armed with a P-90, guarding the President, the Football and Kevin until the Army and Marine forces arrived at the base.
Schofield pulled out Nicholas Tate's cell phone, dialled the operator. He got Dave Fairfax's voice straight away, cutting into the call.
"Mr. Fairfax, I need a favor."
"What?"
"I need the lockdown release codes for Special Area 7, the codes that turn off the self destruct mechanism. Now, I can't imagine they're kept in a book somewhere. You're going to have to get onto the local network itself and somehow pull them out."
"How long have I got?" Fairfax asked.
"You've got exactly nineteen minutes."
"I'm on it."
Fairfax hung up.
Schofield jammed a fresh clip into his M9. As he did so, a figure appeared at his side.
"I think she's still alive, too," Kevin said suddenly.
Schofield looked up, appraised the little boy for a moment "How did you know I was thinking that?"
"I just know. I always know. I knew that Dr. Botha was lying to the Air Force men. And I could tell that you were a good man. I can't see exactly what someone's thinking, just what they're feeling. Right now, you're worried about someone, someone you care about. Someone who's still inside."
"Is this how you knew it was me on the space shuttle?"
"Yes."
Schofield finished loading his guns. "Any final tips, then?" he asked Kevin.
The little boy said, "I only saw her once, when you were both standing outside my cube. I only sensed one thing about her: she really likes you. So you'd better save her."
Schofield gave him a wry smile. "Thanks."
And then he was away.
He tried the top door entrance first.
No luck.
Caesar had changed the code, manually it seemed. No time for Fairfax to crack that one.
That left only one other option: the Emergency Exit Vent.
Schofield ran for Caesar's abandoned Penetrator helicopter.
It was 10:48 a.m.
Two minutes later, Caesar's Penetrator – now flown by Schofield - landed next to the EEV in a swirling cloud of dust and sand.
The EEV hadn't been hard to find. Mr. Hoeg's lime green biplane - still sitting there on the desert floor – betrayed the exit's location quite unambiguously.
No sooner had the black helicopter touched the ground than Schofield was out of it and running toward the EEV.
He leapt down into the earthen trench and disappeared inside the exit's open steel doorway at a run.
It was 10:51 when Schofield stepped out onto the darkened X-Rail tracks on Level 6, his gun raised.
The world down here was pitch-black, save for the thin beam of his P-90's barrel-mounted flashlight.
He saw bodies laid out before him, shadows in the dim light - the remnants of the previous battles that day.
Air Force vs. Secret Service.
South Africans vs. Air Force.
Schofield and his Marines vs. Air Force.
Christ...
But another thing weighed on his mind. Kevin, of course, had been right. Apart from saving Caesar Russell, Schofield had a far more personal reason for entering Area 7 again.
He wanted to find Libby Gant.
He didn't know what had happened to her after the Sinovirus grenade had gone off up in the main hangar, but he refused to believe that she was dead.
Schofield brought his wrist mike to his lips. "Fox. Fox. Are you out there? This is Scarecrow. I'm back inside. Can you hear me?"
In a dark place somewhere inside Area 7, Libby Gant stirred, a voice invading her dreams.
"...you hear me?"
She'd been unconscious for nearly an hour now, and she didn't have a clue where she was or what had happened to her.
Her last memory was of being inside the control room upstairs and seeing something important and then suddenly... nothing.
As she blinked awake, she saw that she was still wearing her bright-yellow biohazard suit, except for the helmet. It had been removed.
It was only then that she became aware of a pain in her shoulders. Gant opened her eyes fully - and an ice-cold chill rippled down her spine.
Her entire upper body was bound to a pair of steel girders that had been arranged in the shape of an X. Her wrists were held high above her head - crucifix-style - affixed to the arms of the cross with duct tape, while more thick tape held her throat tightly up against the junction of the X. Her legs - duct-taped at the ankles - were laid out flat in front of her.
Gant began to breathe very very fast.
What the hell was this?
She was someone's prisoner.
As she hung helplessly from the cross, eyes wide and terrified, she slowly began to regain her senses. She took in the area around her.
The first thing she noticed about this place was that there was no electric lighting. Three small fires illuminated the immediate area.
It was in this grim firelight that she saw Hagerty.
Colonel Hot Rod Hagerty sat immediately to her right, similarly "crucified" - his legs stretched out on the floor in front of him, his arms outstretched on his own cross. His eyes were shut, his head bent. Every few seconds he groaned.
Gant looked at the room around them.
She was sitting underneath an overhang of some sort, in dark shadow; a stagelike structure stood out in the open space in front of her. Some children's toys lay scattered about the stage, amid shards of glass.
It looked as if - once - a glass cube of some sort had encased the stage, but now only half of that cube remained standing.
Gant realized where she was.
She was in the area that had contained Kevin's sterilized living area. Right now, she must be sitting directly underneath the observation lab that had overlooked the cube, beneath the overhang it created.
And then Gant saw the third crucified figure in the room, and she gasped in revulsion.
It was the Air Force colonel, Jerome Harper.
Or what was left of him.
He lay to Gant's left, also under the overhang, his arms taped to a cross high above his head, his head leaning as far forward as the duct tape around his throat would allow.
But it was his lower body that seized Gant's shocked attention.
Harper's legs were missing.
No, not just missing.
Hacked off.
Everything from the Air Force colonel's waist down had been brutally carved away - like a carcass in an abattoir - leaving a gigantic slab of raw hacked flesh around his hips. Indeed, Harper's whole waist region was just a foul bloody mess that ended at the curved bony hook of his spinal column.
It was the most disgusting thing Gant had ever seen in her life.
Her eyes swept the room, as the full extent of her predicament became clear.
She was the prisoner of a monster. An individual who, until today, had been a guest here at Area 7.
Lucifer Leary.
The Surgeon of Phoenix.
The serial killer who had terrorized hitchhikers on the Vegas-to-Phoenix interstate - the former medical student who would kidnap his victims, take them home, and then eat their limbs in front of them.
Gant looked about herself in horror.
Leary - a big man, she recalled, at least six-eight, with a hideous facial tattoo - was nowhere to be seen.
Except for Hagerty and herself, the whole observation area was completely and utterly empty.
Which, in a strange way, was even more frightening.
Schofield made for the stairwell at the eastern end of Level 6.
He had to get to the control room overlooking the main hangar - to enter the termination codes before 11:05; or if he couldn't do that, to capture Caesar and get him out of Area 7 before the nuke went off at 11:15.
He threw open the stairwell doorway - and was instantly confronted by an enormous black bear, caught in the beam of his small flashlight, rearing up on its hind legs,
baring its massive claws and bellowing loudly at him!
Schofield dived off the edge of the X-rail platform as the family of bears ambled out of the stairwell - papa bear, mama bear and three little baby bears, all in a row.
Nicholas Tate had been right.
There were bears on the loose.
Papa bear seemed to sniff the air for a moment. Then he headed westward, toward the other end of the underground railway station, followed by his brood.
As soon as they were a safe distance away, Schofield dashed into the open stairwell.
Dave Fairfax was tapping feverishly at the keyboard of his supercomputer.
After five minutes' work, the computer had found a source number that represented Area 7's self-destruct release code.
Not bad progress, really. There was only one problem.
The number had 640 million digits. He kept typing.
10:52.
Schofield bounded up the stairwell, in near pitch darkness, his flashlight beam wobbling.
As he ran, he tried to get Gant on the airwaves. "Fox, this is Scarecrow. Can you hear me?" he whispered. "I repeat, Fox, this is Scarecrow..."
No reply.
He ran past the firedoor to Level 5 - the door with the thin jets of water shooting out from its edges - then came to Level 4, the lab level, hurried past its open door, heading upward.
On the other side of Level 4, Gant heard the voice again. It sounded tinny and distant.
"...repeat, Fox, this is Scarecrow..."
Scarecrow...
The voice was coming from Gant's earpiece, which now hung loosely from her ear. It must have been dislodged when her captor had knocked her unconscious.
Gant looked up at her left wrist, duct-taped to the cross high above her head.
She still had her Secret Service wrist mike attached to it. But there was no way she could bring it to her mouth, and the mike only worked when you spoke into it at close range.
So she started tapping her finger on the top of the microphone.
Schofield came to the floor door that opened onto Level 2 and suddenly stopped.
He'd heard a strange tapping in his earpiece.
Tap-tap-taap. Tap-taap-tap....
Long and short taps.
Morse code.
Morse code that read, "F-O-X. F-O-X..."
"Fox, is that you? One tap for no, two taps for yes."
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