The broken plane just sat there in the center of the enormous hangar — silent, unmoving — a great big pile of junk.
More silence.
'How's it gogin down there, Mother?' Schofield's voice whispered in Mother's earpiece, borrowed from one of the dead Secret Service agents.
Down on Level 1, Mother surveyed the damaged electricity junction box in front of her. Fully half the switchboard had been destroyed by the missile impact. The other half was a mixed bag — some parts were intact, others were just mounds of melted wires. At the moment, Herbie Franklin was tapping the keys on a computer terminal that had survived the impact.
'Just a second,' she said into her wrist microphone. 'Yo, Poindexter. What's the story?'
Franklin frowned. 'It doesn't make sense. Somebody's been here already, about twenty minutes ago at eight o'clock. They cut the main power. The whole base is running on auxiliary power…'
'Can you cut the cameras?' Mother asked.
'Don't have to. They were shut down when the main power was disabled.' Herbie turned to face Mother. 'They're already off.'
Up in the main hangar. The regular elevator's doors opened.
Out of the lift stepped Kurt Logan and the three other survivors from Alpha Unit. They met up with Boa McConnell and the men of Bravo Unit.
'What's happening?' Logan asked.
'Nothing…' Boa replied. 'Yet.'
'…Control, this is Charlie leader' Python Willis's voice said over the control room's speakers.
'There's no one down here on Level 4.'
'…Copy, Charlie Leader. Bring your team up to the main hangar in the personnel lift. Echo, stay down there. Caesar wants you roving around the lower levels. We've lost all camera visuals and we need some eyes down there…'
On Level 1, Mother keyed her wrist mike. 'Scarecrow, this is Mother. Cameras are down. Repeat: Cameras are down. We're heading for the aircraft elevator shaft.'
'Thanks, Mother.'
'All right, we're in business,' Schofield said, turning to the President, Book II and Juliet.
They were in a dark place.
He looked at his watch:
8:25:59.
8:26:00.
This was going to be close.
'Fox, Elvis, Love Machine, get ready. On my mark. In three…'
The main hangar was silent.
'Two…'
Marine One stood about thirty feet away from the wreck of the AWACS plane, shining in the harsh artificial light.
'One…'
The men of Bravo Unit eyed the shattered AWACS bird cautiously, guns up, trigger fingers tensed.
'…Mark.'
Schofield pressed a button on a small handheld unit — it was the remote detonation switch for one of the RDX-based grenades that he had found on the 7th Squadron men in the decompression room. Pound for pound, aluminized RDX is about six times more powerful than C4 — it blows big and it blows wide, a superblasting charge.
As soon as he hit the button, the RDX charge that he had left in the cockpit of the AWACS plane exploded — blasting outwards, showering the hangar with a star-shaped rain of glass and shrapnel.
And then everything happened at once.
The men of Bravo Unit dived away from the explosion.
Sizzling-hot pieces of the plane's cockpit shot low over their heads, lodging in the barricade all around them like darts smacking into a corkboard.
As they clambered back to their feet, they saw movement, saw three shadows climb out from the air vent underneath Marine One.
'There!' Boa pointed.
One of the shadows ran out from beneath the President's helicopter, while the other two slithered up through a hatch in its underbelly.
A moment later, Marine One's engines roared to life.
Its tail boom folded into place from its stowed position, as did its rotor blades. No sooner were the rotor blades extended than they began to rotate, despite the fact that the President's helicopter was still attached to its towing vehicle.
Gunfire erupted as the lone Marine who had dashed out from underneath the chopper — Love Machine — disengaged the cockroach attached to its tail and climbed inside the towing vehicle's tiny driver's cabin.
'What the fuck…?' Kurt Logan said as the cockroach skidded out from behind Marine One and swung around the elevator platform, heading directly for the 7th Squadron men guarding the Football.
'Open fire,' Logan said to Boa and his men. 'Open fire now.'
They did.
A barrage of P-90 fire assaulted the speeding towing vehicle's windscreen, shattering it.
Inside the driver's cabin, Love Machine ducked below the dashboard. Bullets tore into the seatback behind him, sending the fluffy innards of the seat showering everywhere.
The cockroach careened across the hangar, bouncing wildly, taking fire.
Then suddenly, behind it, Marine One rose into the air — inside the hangar — the deafening thump-thump- thump of its rotor blades reverberating off the walls, drowning out all other sound.
Inside its cockpit, Gant worked the controls while Elvis hit switches everywhere.
'Elvis! Give me missiles!' she shouted. 'And whatever you do, don't hit the Football, okay!'
Elvis slammed his finger down on a launch button.
Shoom!
A Hellfire missile shot out from a pod mounted on the side of the Presidential helicopter, a finger of smoke extending through the air behind it, the missile shooting at tremendous speed toward the internal building on the eastern side of the hangar.
The missile hit the exact center of the building — right above the Bravo troops guarding the Football — and detonated.
The middle section of the internal building blasted outwards in a shower of glass and plasterboard. A section of the glassed-in upper level collapsed to the ground behind the Bravo men guarding the Football.
The 7th Squadron commandos leapt clear of the falling debris — only to have to roll again a split second later to avoid a second source of danger: the oncoming cockroach driven by Love Machine.
It was chaos.
Mayhem.
Pandemonium.
Exactly as Schofield had planned.
Schofield watched the confusion from his position inside the destroyed AWACS plane. His watch read:
8:27:50.
8:27:51.
Two minutes left.
'Okay, Book, let's go.' He turned to Juliet and the President. 'You two stay here until we've checked the status of the Football. If we can get it, we'll bring it back to you. If not, you'll have to come out.'
