surprise, he saw Schofield lying curled up on the floor.
Gunless and defenseless, Schofield saw the masked commando's black-gloved trigger finger begin to squeeze — and so he lashed out with his foot.
Not at the man's legs, but at the lever that ran alongside the flight seat underneath him — the ejection lever.
Schofield's kick connected.
The lever snapped backward.
And with a loud, blasting whoosh! the pilot's ejection seat shot up through the hole in the cockpit's roof — taking the 7th Squadron commando with it!
Python Willis watched in complete and utter astonishment as one of his men went rocketing up at incredible speed out of the cockpit of the AWACS and past his shocked colleagues on the roof of the plane, on top of an ejection seat!
The man shot into the air like a bullet, before smashing — violently, concussively — into the concrete ceiling of the hangar.
The crack of the man's neck echoed sickeningly throughout the underground hangar bay — it was distinct even above the roar of the AWACS's engines, so hard did his body hit the ceiling. He was killed instantly, the force of the three-hundred-pound ejection seat snapping his spine like a twig as it squashed him against the concrete roof.
In the meantime, Schofield had gotten his own Beretta pistol out and, sliding on his back onto the floor behind the pilots' seats, was firing it up at the roof of the cockpit — trying to deter anyone else from following their comrade into the flight deck.
In seconds, his gun went dry and he stood up and looked out through the forward windshield — and saw that the plane was heading directly for the massive doorway leading to the elevator shaft!
'Oh, this just keeps getting better and better,' he said.
In a fleeting second, he tried to find a solution to the situation.
The plane was heading for the shaft.
The 7th Squadron were all over its roof — all over the hangar for that matter.
And he and Gant and Mother and Brainiac were stuck inside the plane.
What was the solution?
Simple.
Get out of the hangar.
But there is no way out. We're stuck in this plane, and if we leave it, we're dead.
Unless, of course, we get out of the hangar while we're still on board the plane…
Oh, yeah…
And with that, Schofield climbed back into the co-pilot's seat and took control of the plane again. Despite the bullet damage, the controls still worked.
He pushed forward on the collective, speeding up the big Boeing 707, keeping it pointed directly at the enormous steel doorway that led out to the elevator shaft.
'What the hell is he doing…?' Python said.
The giant AWACS plane was picking up speed, rumbling across the wide expanse of the hangar, heading straight for the open elevator doorway.
The commandos on the roof of the plane felt it surge forward, gaining momentum.
They looked forward, saw where it was heading, and their eyes widened.
'He can't be serious,' Python breathed, as he watched his men leap off the roof of the moving airplane as it careered toward the open doorway.
In the cockpit of the speeding plane, Schofield was strapping on his seat belt. As he did so, he keyed the intercom switch.
'Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Find a chair and buckle up tight, because we're about to take off.'
Back in the main cabin, Gant and the other two Marines spun to look forward.
Through the AWACS's cabin, they could see all the way through to the cockpit — could see the open elevator shaft looming ahead of them, rapidly approaching.
'Is he thinking what I think he's thinking?' Gant said to Mother.
Mother paused before she spoke. 'Yes, he is.'
They leapt as one for the nearest available seats and clutched desperately for the seat belts.
The converted boeing 707 — deprived of its entire tail section — thundered across the wide subterranean hangar bay, the wet concrete floor rushing by beneath it, heading straight for the open elevator shaft.
And then, before anyone could even hope to stop it, the plane shot through the doorway and tipped off the edge and fell down into the shaft, disappearing from view.
The AWACS plane soared down the elevator shaft fast — nose-first — looking like a crazed kamikaze fighter.
Down the wide concrete shaft it went — down, down, down — before it crashed, loudly, on the massive hydraulic elevator platform resting on Level 4, one hundred and eighty feet below.
The nose of the AWACS plane crumpled instantly as it thundered into the elevator platform. Loose parts flew everywhere, blasting outward like shrapnel. Two of the plane's jet engines bounced high into the air as they smashed into the platform.
The plane itself, however, seemed to teeter on its broken nose for an eternity. And then, with a loud metal- on-metal groan, like a slow-falling California redwood, it fell, landing with a colossal thump on its left-hand wing, snapping the wing in an instant, before the whole ruined aircraft slammed down against the elevator platform with a resounding boom.
Inside the AWACS plane, the world was tilted forty-five degrees to the left.
Mother, Gant and Brainiac all sat comically in their seats, strapped in, but hanging dramatically to the side. They were starting to unbuckle themselves from their seat belts when Schofield hurried into the main cabin from the cockpit.
'Come on,' he said, helping Mother with her belt, 'we can't stay here. They'll be down soon.'
'Where are we going?' Gant asked, as she dropped out of her seat and stood up.
Schofield pursed his lips. 'We have to find the President.'
'…Jesus! He just drove the plane off the fucking edge…'
'…Charlie and Echo Units, initiate pursuit…'
'…President is on Level 5, heading into the confinement area. Delta Unit, you are free to enter the animal quarters…'
'…Copy that, Bravo leader. Yes, they're in the water at the bottom of the shaft. Good idea…'
'What's Boa doing?' Caesar Russell asked. Captain Bruno 'Boa' McConnell was in command of Bravo Unit, one of the Five Snakes.
'He's on top of the personnel elevator, sir. He's going to lower the elevator down the shaft.
Drown the bastards. And if they try to crawl up the sides, shoot them dead.'
Book II and the others hovered in the ever-deepening pool of water at the base of the regular elevator shaft.
The super-heavy rain of water blasted down all around them. It showed no sign of stopping and the elevator shaft was flooding rapidly, the water level rising fast, lifting them to the nearest pair of outer doors.
And then abruptly, above the roar of falling water, a loud clunking noise echoed down the shaft, followed by the hum of mechanical movement.
Book II looked upwards — just as the rain of water stopped.
