speed right into a ten-foot-high box-shaped compartment mounted above the floor of the hangar.
The missile detonated — sending an enormous gout of concrete spraying out from the wall all around the compartment. The compartment's wide steel door was blasted off its hinges by the stunning impact and went bouncing across the hangar, a twisted metal wreck. Large chunks of concrete rained down on the very Humvee that had fired the missile.
Whatever that compartment was, Schofield thought, it was toast now.
But there was still one more out-of-control missile swooping around the hangar.
This second missile swung around the destroyed rear section of the moving AWACS plane, rolling wildly through the air, before it too doubled back and hit the hangar's northern wall, right alongside the regular elevator's doors.
A hailstorm of concrete blasted out from the wall, showering chunks everywhere.
This blast of concrete, however, was followed by a most peculiar sight.
A shockingly powerful geyser of water — yes, water — began to shoot out from the newly formed hole in the wall, jetting outward with tremendous force.
Schofield frowned. 'What the hell…?'
An ominous explosion shook the walls of the regular elevator shaft.
Book II, now hanging with his group next to the outer doors of Level 3 — the doors to Level 2 had also been locked, so they'd moved down to the next floor — looked up sharply at the sound.
The sight that met him was as terrifying as it was unexpected.
A whole section of the concrete wall alongside the Level 1 doorway sixty feet above them just blasted outward, showering the shaft with chunks of concrete.
And then, right behind the concrete, came the water.
It rained down on Book II and the others like spray from a goddamned firehose.
Torrents and torrents of pouring water, roaring like a waterfall down the narrow elevator shaft, gushing out of the hole in the wall on Level 1, pounding down against their bodies.
It was all they could do to hold on to their cables.
But as soon as he felt the surging weight of the waterfall, Book II saw the future: the wall of water was just too strong.
They were going to fall.
'…All units, be aware. We have rupture of the long term water tanks on Level 1. Repeat: integrity of water tanks on Level 1 has been broken…'
'…Water from the tanks is entering the regular elevator shaft…'
'Initiate airtight countermeasures,' Caesar Russell said calmly. 'Seal off the shaft. Keep that water contained. Let it flood the shaft.'
'Yes, sir.'
Love Machine fell first.
In the face of the powerful waterfall, he lost his grip on the counterweight cable and dropped straight past Book.
He fell fast — falling away from Book II in a kind of nightmarish slow motion; eyes wide, mouth open, his shout drowned out by the roar of the waterfall — before he disappeared into the inky darkness of the shaft.
Book II swore. 'Damn it!'
And then he did the only thing he could think to do.
'Sergeant! No!' Calvin yelled, but it was too late.
Book II loosened his grip on his cable and slid like a bullet down the shaft after Love Machine, disappearing into the darkness.
Book II dropped into blackness.
He slid for a long time, whizzing down the counterweight cable, sliding fast, the heat from the cable burning through his white formal gloves.
Then suddenly, with a splash, he entered water — deep water — at the bottom of the shaft.
Just as he had hoped.
The elevator shaft was approximately ten feet square and if all its exit doors were sealed, then with the monumental quantities of water rushing out of the hole on Level 1, he'd figured it wouldn't take long for it to accumulate at the bottom and fill to a reasonable depth.
Sure enough, Love Machine hovered in the pool of water next to him, gasping for air, coughing water. But alive.
'You okay?' Book II yelled.
'Uh-huh!'
Calvin and Elvis arrived at the base of the shaft a few moments later, sliding down the counterweight cables. The roaring waterfall thundered into the pool all around them, kicking up spray.
'Okay, Captain Fantastic,' Elvis said to Calvin, 'our nice safe elevator shaft is now filling with water! What do you suggest we do now?'
Calvin hesitated.
Book II didn't. He nodded at the pair of outer doors a few feet above them. 'Simple. We bust out!'
'Motherfucker…' Brainiac said as he peered out from the rear of the AWACS plane's main cabin.
A high-pressure geyser of water was now shooting out of the hole in the wall over by the personnel elevator, throwing a carpet of water all over the concrete floor of the hangar. 'What the hell is this ride?'
'Just another day of mayhem and destruction with the Scarecrow,' Mother said.
'Hey,' Gant said, looking out through her door-window. 'What happened to the guys on the wings?'
Mother and Brainiac spun to look out at the plane's wings.
The AWACS's wings were bare.
The 7th Squadron men who had been out there before were nowhere to be seen.
It was only then that they heard the ominous sound of thumping footsteps on the roof.
The AWACS plane continued on its rampaging circuit of the hangar, now traveling through a layer of water one inch deep.
It had almost come full circle — so that now it was facing the empty section of the hangar that led to the wide-open doorway of the aircraft elevator shaft.
Schofield pumped on the steering pedals, trying to keep the enormous surveillance plane under control.
He saw the doorway to the aircraft elevator shaft directly in front of him. At the moment, a shallow film of water cascaded over it like Niagara Falls, dropping out of sight into the shaft.
The big hydraulic elevator platform was almost certainly the best way out of this jam', but the last he had seen, it was stopped down on one of the lower levels…
And then, more suddenly than Schofield could possibly have anticipated, the roof above him exploded in a shower of sparks.
In actual fact, it wasn't the roof — it was one of the blast hatches set into the roof of the cockpit, one of the hatches that blew open when the pilot's ejection seat was activated.
No sooner had the hatch blasted open than a veritable hailstorm of gunfire flooded down through it, smashing into the airplane's dashboard, shattering all its gauges and dials.
This torrent of bullets was quickly followed by a second volley which ripped through the empty pilot's seat — the lefthand seat; the seat Mother had been sitting in before — tearing it to shreds.
Schofield saw what was going to happen next and he quickly dived out of his seat, rolling forward into the tiny section of floor space in front of it.
Not a moment later, a pair of combat boots landed with a thump on the pilot's seat — boots that belonged to a fearsome-looking 7th Squadron commando.
The masked commando spun quickly, his P-90 assault rifle pressed firmly against his shoulder, searching for enemies at the rear of the cockpit. Then he turned to look forward, and downward — where, to his complete
