Love Machine was in a world of pain.
His Volvo towing vehicle wasn't as bulletproof as Marine One and he was taking all kinds of shit from the 7th Squadron men.
Tires squealed, bullets impacted, glass shattered.
And now he had to get over to Marine One.
His biggest problem, however, was that he had just swung his cockroach around for another pass at the 7th Squadron men on the eastern side of the platform when Schofield's call had come in.
He was now on the other side of the shaft from Marine One, heading northward, and the elevator platform — now sinking slowly into the shaft — was no longer there to drive on.
He'd have to go around.
More bullets hit his cockroach as three 7th Squadron commandos appeared right in front of him and assailed his vehicle with a harrowing wave of gunfire.
Bullets riddled the driver's compartment.
Two slugs slammed into Love Machine's left shoulder, spraying blood.
Love Machine roared.
A separate volley hit both of his front tires and they punctured loudly, and suddenly he was skidding out of control, sliding precariously close to the edge of the elevator shaft and the now ten-foot drop to the slowly descending platform.
Somehow, he didn't fall into the shaft. Instead, he bounced across the northeastern corner of the great square hole, shooting past the 7th Squadron men who had hammered him with gunfire, and slammed at tremendous speed into the remains of Nighthawk Two, which still sat near the northern wall of the hangar — attached to its own towing vehicle, its cockpit blasted open — right where Book II had left it ninety minutes earlier.
Elvis saw the crash from his position inside Marine One, saw Love Machine's cockroach plough into Nighthawk Two and lurch to a thunderous halt, the bricklike towing vehicle half-buried in the helicopter's crumpled side.
And then he saw the three 7th Squadron men rushing toward the crashed cockroach.
'Oh, no…' he breathed.
Meanwhile, Schofield, Book II, Juliet and the President — still dressed in their black 7th Squadron uniforms — were fighting their own unique kind of battle.
Since it was now descending into the square-shaped shaft, the aircraft elevator platform had effectively become a great walled pit, the four walls of the shaft bounding it on every side. And with the remains of the AWACS plane still strewn about the platform, it was also now a twisted steel maze.
Seven members of Bravo Unit moved among the pieces of the plane, searching for them, hunting them.
Schofield guided his people along the eastern edge of the platform, leading the way, hurdling broken pieces of plane, eyes watchful for the enemy, but searching the floor for something else, something he had planted…
There.
The broken section of wing was right where he had left it.
Schofield hurried over to it. It was resting on the ground at the corner of the moving elevator platform, up against the northern and eastern walls. With Book II's help, he lifted the portion of wing off the elevator's floor, revealing a wide square hole in the platform.
The hole was about ten feet square. It was that part of the platform that usually housed the detachable mini-elevator.
Right now, the detachable section of the elevator platform lay about fifteen feet below them, farther down the shaft — nestled in the corner, unmoving, waiting for them.
By placing the broken section of wing over the top of it earlier, Schofield had ensured that the 7th Squadron didn't know this exit existed.
It was their escape route.
'Love Machine! You still alive?' Elvis yelled into his mike from the cockpit of Marine One.
'Aw, fuck…' came the pained reply.
'Can you move?'
'Get out of here, man. I'm gone. I'm hit and my ankle was busted in the crash…'
'We don't leave anyone behind,' another voice said firmly over the same frequency.
It was Schofield's voice.
'Elvis. You and Fox get clear. I'm closer — I'll take care of Love Machine. Love Machine, sit tight. I'm coming for you.'
On the downward-moving elevator platform, Schofield spun and looked upwards.
'What are you doing?' Book II asked.
'I'm going to get Love Machine,' he said, eyeing the destroyed fuselage of the AWACS plane above him. It was still tilted sharply forward — nose down, ass up. The elevated rear section of the plane was still above the rim of the hangar floor. But not for long. Soon the downward movement of the platform would bring it below the rim.
'Take the President down,' he said to Book II and Juliet.
'What are you going to do?' Juliet said.
'I'm going to get my man,' Schofield said. 'I'll meet you downstairs.'
With that he took off into the twisted metal forest around them.
Book II and Juliet could only watch him go. And then they set about their own task of leaping down to the detachable mini-elevator in the shaft below them.
Schofield ran.
Up the steeply sloping left-hand wing of the destroyed AWACS plane.
He reached the top of the wing, then used some dents in the side of the fuselage to climb up onto the battered plane's roof. It was then that he was spotted by two of the Bravo Unit men on the platform below him.
Their P-90 assault rifles erupted.
But Schofield never stopped moving. He just kept running, dancing up the slanted roof of the plane, heading aft — toward the point where the rear section of the downward-moving plane was about to swing past the rim of the shaft.
He hit the rear edge of the plane's roof just as it swooped past the rim and he jumped — diving forward, leaping full-stretch — and landed with a thud, face-first, out of the line of fire, on the main hangar's shiny concrete floor, twenty feet away from Love Machine's crashed cockroach.
He looked up just in time to see the three 7th Squadron commandos arrive at the cockroach's door.
Love Machine sighed as he saw the muzzle of a P-90 Assault rifle appear a few inches in front of his face.
The features of the 7th Squadron commando holding the gun were obscured by the soldier's half-faced gas mask, but the man's eyes weren't covered. They glinted with satisfaction.
Love Machine closed his eyes, waited for the end.
Blam!
No end.
Confused, he opened his eyes again — to see his executioner, now with only half a head, sway unsteadily on his feet, and then fall in a kind of stunned slow motion to the ground.
The other two commandos spun instantly, only to be cut down by a ferocious volley of semiautomatic pistol fire. They were hurled out of view and then to Love Machine's complete surprise, he saw, standing in their place — The Scarecrow.
Dressed in his black 7th Squadron clothing.
