agents hurried in after them, jamming the stairwell door shut behind them.
They were standing in a wide, dark room, lined on three sides with grim-looking cages — forged steel bars set into walls of solid concrete. On the fourth side of the room were some more modern-looking cages: these cages had clear, floor-to-ceiling fiberglass walls and were filled with inky black water. Janson couldn't see what lurked inside the sloshing opaque water.
A sudden grunting sound made her spin.
There was something very large inside one of the steel cages to her right. In the dim light of the dungeon, she could make out a big, hairy, lumbering shape moving behind the thick black bars.
There came an ominous scratching sound from the cage — like someone dragging a fingernail slowly and deliberately down a chalkboard.
Special Agent Curtis went over to the cell, peered into the darkness beyond the bars.
'Don't get too close,' Janson warned.
Too late.
A hideous bloodcurdling roar filled the dungeon as an enormous black head — a blurred combination of matted hair, wild eyes and flashing six-inch teeth — burst out from behind the bars and lunged at the hapless agent.
Curtis fell back from the cage, landing on his butt as the animal — enraged, ferocious, frenzied — reached in vain for him with a long hairy claw, held back only by the super strong bars of the cell.
The would-be ambush over, Janson now got a better look at the creature.
It was huge, at least nine feet tall, and covered in shaggy black fur — and it looked completely out of place in a concrete underground cell.
Janson couldn't believe it.
It was a bear.
And it didn't seem to be a very happy bear either. Its fur was matted and stringy, sweat stained, growing in clumps. The animal's own feces clung to the fur on its hindquarters, making the world's largest living land carnivore look like some deranged horror movie monster.
The three other cages on the northern side of the dungeon held more bears — four females and two cubs.
'Jesus…' the President breathed.
'What the hell is going on in this place?' Julio Ramondo whispered.
'I don't care,' Janson said, pulling the President toward a heavy-looking door on the far side of the dungeon. 'Whatever it is, we can't stay here.'
The hangar bay on Level 1 was silent.
The giant AWACS plane stood in the center of the vast hangar, surrounded by the ring of 7th Squadron commandos.
'This isn't the situation I was hoping for,' Schofield said.
'How do they keep knowing where we are?' Mother asked.
Gant looked at Schofield. 'I would imagine a base like this is wired up the kazoo.'
'Agreed,' Schofield said.
'What are you talking about?' Mother said.
'Cameras,' Schofield said. 'Surveillance cameras. Somewhere in this base, someone's in a room watching a bank of monitors and telling these guys where we…'
Whump!
There came a heavy thump from somewhere outside.
Gant peered out through the window in the escape door. 'Shit! They're on the wing!'
'Oh, Christ!' Schofield said, 'they're going for the doors…'
He exchanged a look with Gant.
'They're going to storm the plane,' he said.
They looked like ants crawling over a toy airplane. Eight 7th Squadron men — four to each side — stalking along the wings of the giant Boeing 707.
Captain Luther 'Python' Willis, commander of the 7th Squadron's third sub-unit, Charlie Unit, stood on the hangar floor, watching his men move along the wings of the stationary plane.
'The Avengers are on the way up,' his master sergeant said.
Python said nothing, just nodded coldly.
Inside the AWACS plane, Schofield was charging down the central aisle, checking the plane's rear entry points. Gant and Brainiac manned the two side windows.
'There's nobody back here!' Schofield called from the aft section of the plane, where there were two emergency doors. 'Fox!'
'I got four on the left wing!' Gant yelled.
'I got four on the right!' Brainiac said.
'Mother!' Schofield called.
No answer.
'Mother!'
Schofield strode quickly through the main cabin, moving forward.
There was no sign of Mother anywhere. She was supposed to be checking the plane's forward entrances — the bail-out door in the floor of the forward cabin, and the roof hatches in the cockpit above the pilots' ejection seats.
As he hurried forward, Schofield looked out through the nearest window, saw the armed commandos on the left-hand wing.
He frowned. What were they doing out there?
They couldn't just burst in through the wing doors. Even with their nickel-plated pistols, Schofield and his Marines could easily repel a single-file entry through such a small entrance.
It was at that moment, however — out through the window in the side door of the Boeing 707 — that he saw the Avengers.
There were two of them and they entered the hangar bay from the vehicle access ramp at the far eastern end of the floor.
The Avenger air-defense vehicle is a modified Humvee. It has the basic wide-bodied chassis of a Humvee, but mounted on its back are two square-shaped pods, which each hold four Stinger surface-to-air missiles. Attached to the underside of these missile launchers is a pair of powerful fifty-caliber machine guns. It is basically a highly efficient, highly mobile airplane killer.
'Okay, now I know what they're going to do,' Schofield said aloud.
They were going to blast the plane with the Stingers and then, in the smoke and confusion that followed, make a forced entry.
Good plan, Schofield thought. And very painful for him and his three Marines.
The two Avengers split up as they raced across the wide-open floor of the hangar, one heading for the right flank of the AWACS, the other heading for the left.
Schofield saw them go, disappearing from his limited field of vision. Shit. He had to do something, and fast… VROOOM!
The wing-mounted engines of the AWACS plane thundered to life. In the enclosed space of the hangar, their roar was positively deafening.
Schofield spun where he stood. 'Mother,' he said.
The avengers skidded to a halt on either side of the AWACS plane just as the massive Boeing 707 began to roll forward, its engines filling the hangar with the thunderous roar of blasting air.
At the sudden movement of the plane, the eight men on its wings were jolted off balance.
Schofield charged into the cockpit of the AWACS.
Mother was sitting in the captain's seat.
