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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,
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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
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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.
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"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.
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"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. "G
o.
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 rear 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.
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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!"
A 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 ..."
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"Ah, shit," Schofield said sadly.
"... and we're about to lose Elvis."
"What?" Schofield said, perplexed and horrified at the
same time.
But he didn't get to discuss it further, for at that moment,
three more puncturelike whumps reverberated
through the underground station.
Thwump!
Thwump!
Thwump!
Three rocket-launched grenades sped across the width
of the station, zeroing in on the slow-moving X-rail train,
three thin lines of smoke cutting through the air behind
them, before suddenly--swoop!-swoop!-swoop!--one after
the other they shot in through the shattered windows of the
second X-rail car.
The X-rail car that held the President.
As if on cue, Schofield heard Mother's voice roar over
his earpiece: "Oh, fuck me!"
THE TWIN-ENGINED X-RAIL TRAIN BEGAN TO PICK UP SPEED,
heading for the tunnel.
In the second railcar, Gant couldn't believe what was
happening.
Three grenades!
All in her carriage.
She saw the options in a nanosecond: If we stay, we die
for sure. If we get out, we take our chances with the 7th
Squadron. In that case, death is probable, but not certain.
"We can't stay here!" she yelled instantly. "Out! Out!"
She and Juliet immediately grabbed the President by his
coat and hauled him toward the door. They didn't miss a step
as they ran through the doorway and dived out of the moving
train onto the platform, rolling quickly as they landed.
Hot Rod Hagerty and Nicholas Tate jumped nervously
from the moving rail car, landing awkwardly.
A split second later, the figure of Mother--obviously
not wanting to wait in line behind Hagerty and Tate--came
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flying out through one of the broken windows next to the
doorway. She somersaulted as she hit the platform, gun
tucked up against her chest, rolled to her feet.
A moment later, the three grenades went off--three
consecutive blasts, booming out from the second rail car.
A trio of brilliant fireballs expanded laterally throughout
the interior of the rail car--illuminating the entire carriage
like a spectacular elongated lightbulb--consuming
every available inch of space within it.
Angry flames billowed out from the windows of the carriage,
snapping the window frames like twigs, cracking the
car's walls.
The fireballs fanned out over the underground platform,
expanding over Gant and the others' heads as they scurried
behind the station's concrete pillars to avoid the fire of the
advancing 7th Squadron men.
THE ENTIRE X-RAIL TRAIN ROCKED WITH THE TRIPLE GRENADE
explosion, but it kept on going, picking up speed with every
yard.
In the front carriage, Schofield was almost knocked off
his feet by the blast. When he managed to regain his balance
and look back down the track, he felt a rush of horror sweep
through him.
He saw the President--flanked by Gant and Mother and
Juliet--taking cover on the underground station's platform.
Damn it!
The President was off the train!
The accelerating X-rai
l train was now approaching the
western end of the station, coming alongside the 7th
Squadron commandos positioned there. Schofield saw the
7th Squadron men, right alongside his carriage, but they
paid him no heed.
They only had eyes for the President.
And suddenly Schofield had a decision to make.
Leap off the train and stay with the President--the President
on whose back the fate of the country rested.
Or go after the boy ...
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Then, in a fleeting instant, just as the train was about to
disappear into the tunnel, Schofield saw him, and he knew
then that the President would get away--at least away from
the Level 6 station. And he knew that Gant and Mother
would see it, too.
And with that, he made his decision to go after Kevin.
A second later, Schofield's view of the X-rail station--
the image of the ten 7th Squadron commandos leapfrogging
their way down the platform toward the President of the
United States and his last few guardians--was replaced with
that of the impenetrable black wall of the tunnel.
gant ducked, covering her head from the chunks of
concrete that were raining down all around her.
They were screwed.
The 7th Squadron had them.
There was nowhere they could go, nowhere they could
run. They were stuck out in the very middle of the platform,
outnumbered, outgunned and out of goddamned luck.
And then she saw Elvis.
Walking like a robot--an automaton, completely out in
the open--toward the advancing 7th Squadron men, despite
the raging gunbattle going on all around him.
He had no weapon in his hands. Indeed, his massive
fists were clenched firmly on either side of his body as he
walked. His face was entirely devoid of emotion--his eyes
fixed, his jaw set.
Elvis, it seemed, had his own mission now.
"Oh, Jesus," Gant breathed. "Take care, Elvis."
Then she turned to the others, "Get ready, people. We're
leaving."
"What?" Hot Rod Hagerty blurted. "How?"
"Elvis is going to buy us some time. Take cover and get
ready to move."
sergeant wendall "elvis" haynes, USMC, strode purposefully
toward the oncoming 7th Squadron commandos, in between them and the President's group.