'Hey there, Scarecrow!' she yelled above the din. 'Want to join me for a Sunday drive!'
'You ever driven a plane before, Mother?'
'I saw Kurt Russell drive one in a movie once! Hell, it can't be much different from driving Ralph's eighteen wheel…'
Whack-whack whack whack-whack!
A volley of bullets assaulted the windshield of the cockpit, shattering it, sending glass flying all over Mother and Schofield, the upwardly directed shots punching into the ceiling.
And then Schofield saw one of the Avengers skid to a halt off to the left of the AWACS plane, saw its twin missile pods tilt upward on their hinges, getting ready to fire at the cockpit.
'Mother! Quickly! Go left!' he shouted.
'What?' Going left would put them on a collision course with the Avenger.
'Just do it!' Schofield leapt into the right-hand co-pilot's seat and using the plane's pedal operated steering controls, brought her hard to port, at the same time as he pushed forward on the plane's thrusters.
The giant AWACS plane responded immediately.
It picked up speed, moving quickly inside the confines of the enormous hangar, swinging sharply to the left — heading directly for the Avenger.
The 7th Squadron men on the Avenger saw what was going to happen.
Abandoning their efforts to get a lock on the plane with their Stingers, they dived from the missile-mounted Humvee a bare second before the enormous forward wheels of the Boeing thundered right over the top of the Avenger, crushing it like a tin can, rolling over its crumpled remains like a monster truck at a car rally.
'Yee-hah!' Mother yelled as the airplane bounced wildly over what was left of the Humvee.
'It's not over yet,' Schofield said. 'There's still another one out there. Fox! Where's that other Avenger!'
Gant and Brainiac were still in the main cabin of the AWACS, covering the wing-entry doors on either side of the plane — Gant with her MP-10, Brainiac with his Beretta.
'It's behind us to the left!' Gant yelled. Out her window, she saw the Humvee on the hangar floor outside, over by the northern wall, its missile pods raised and ready. Then, without warning, there came a puff of smoke from one of the pods.
'Bracing positions!' she called. 'Missile away!'
There came a sudden monstrous explosion and abruptly the whole AWACS plane shuddered violently as its rear wheels were lifted clear off the ground.
Billowing smoke rushed into the main cabin, shooting forward from the rear as the giant plane came back down to earth, jouncing on its suspension.
'They've hit our tail!' Gant yelled.
It was worse than that.
The second Avenger had reduced the entire tail section of their 707 to a smoking, gaping hole.
The high tail fin of the plane lay bent and broken on the floor of the hangar, completely detached from the plane.
The AWACS continued to turn in a wide circle, its massive wheels rolling quickly, at the same time as it was pummelled by a continuous rain of fire from the 7th Squadron soldiers on the ground.
In the enormous space of the underground hangar, the plane's movement seemed almost comical — for something so big and so heavy to move so quickly and so recklessly was a sight to behold.
The plane came around 180 degrees — the tip of its right wing bouncing off the flank of the parked SR-71 Blackbird — so that now it was facing the opposite direction from which it had started, its open rear end now exposed to the withering fire of the 7th Squadron men on the ground.
Bullets raked the interior of the central cabin, smashing into the ceiling and walls. Gant and Brainiac hit the deck as fragments of plastic and plaster rained down all around them.
'Fuck!' Brainiac yelled. 'They don't teach this at Parris Island!'
Book II was also moving fast.
He slid quickly down one of the vertical counterweight cables that ran up the side of the regular elevator shaft. Calvin, Elvis and Love Machine slid down the cables after him, lowering themselves down the shaft.
After avoiding the barrage of fire up on the roof of the elevator, they now had to find a way out of the shaft, before the 7th Squadron men up there got around the elevator that now formed an obstacle between them.
Book II stopped at a pair of outer doors marked with a large black-painted 'I,' and immediately heard the muffled sounds of a firefight — clattering automatic gunfire, booming explosions, squealing tires.
'Not this one,' Calvin Reeves said as he came alongside Book II. 'Let's try the next one.'
They slid farther down the shaft.
Inside the hangar bay, Python Willis watched the AWACS plane as it sped in a wild circle around the enormous hangar.
He spoke without emotion into his headset mike: 'Avenger Two. Go for the cockpit. Two missiles.'
In the cockpit of the AWACS plane, Schofield pumped on the steering pedals.
'Mother!' he yelled. 'Get back in the main cabin! Cover the tail! Make sure no one gets in through there! I'll take care of the driving up here!'
Mother grabbed her M-16 and headed aft.
As she left, Schofield saw the second Humvee appear in front of him, over by the northern wall. It swung around quickly, taking up a new position, getting ready to fire again.
He keyed the plane's intercom.
'Brainiac!' Schofield's voice boomed over the plane's speaker system. 'Engage electronic countermeasures!'
Back in the main cabin, Brainiac looked up at the sound of Schofield's voice. 'Oh, yeah. Of course!'
'What is he talking about?' Gant yelled as Mother joined them in the main cabin.
But Brainiac was already clambering toward one of the consoles. He slid into the seat, began typing quickly.
Gant peered out her door-window — saw the walls of the hangar streaking by outside — saw the surviving Humvee skid to a halt over by the wall, preparing to fire another of its missiles.
'It's going to hit us again!' she called.
'Brainiac…' Schofield's voice said expectantly over the speakers.
Brainiac typed fast. The words 'engage mf scrambler' appeared on his screen.
'Bracing positions!' Gant yelled.
Two clouds of smoke puffed out from the Humvee's missile pods — at exactly the same moment as Brainiac slammed his finger down on the enter key.
A pair of Stinger missiles shot out from the pods on the back of the Humvee, twin smoke trails zooming out behind them. They were heading directly for the forward section of the AWACS plane, flying in perfect formation.
And then, all of a sudden, the Stingers went crazy.
Despite the fact that the missiles were heat-seekers, the AWACS's powerful antimissile countermeasures still affected them — disrupting their chip-to-chip electronics, scrambling their internal-logic systems. It was as if a tidal wave of electronic noise, blasting invisibly outward from the AWACS's enormous rotodome, had slammed into the two Stingers.
The two missiles responded accordingly.
They went haywire.
They broke formation in an instant, parting in a looping Y-shape — one rolling wildly to the right, the other swinging left. The right-hand one shot quickly underneath the rolling AWACS plane, while the left-hand one sailed clear over it.
From the cockpit of the AWACS Schofield watched in amazement as one of the missiles shot across his bow and then — bizarrely — headed back toward the Humvee that had launched it!
A second later the missile slammed into the concrete wall above the Humvee — thundering at tremendous
