A sudden noise made him spin, pistol up.
Brainiac froze in the doorway to the driver's compartment, his hands snapping into the air.
'Whoa-whoa-whoa! It's me!'
Schofield lowered his gun. 'Knock next time, will you?'
'Sure thing, Boss.' Brainiac sat down in a spare seat.
'Where have you been?'
'In the back of the second carriage. I got separated from the others when those rocket grenades came flying in. Dived into a storage compartment just as the three grenades went off.'
'Well, it's good to have you here,' Schofield said. 'We need all the help we can get.' He turned to Herbie. 'Can we get telemetry on any of the other trains on this system?'
'I think so,' Herbie said. 'Just give me a second here…'
He punched some keys on the driver's console. A computer monitor on the dashboard came to life. In a few seconds, Herbie brought up an image of the X-Rail system.
X-RAIL NETWORK 3-589-001
Schofield saw an elongated S-bend that stretched horizontally from Area 7 to the network of canyons that was Lake Powell. He also saw two blinking red dots moving along the trackline toward the lake.
'The dots are X-Rail trains,' Herbie said. 'That's us closer to Area 7. The other one must have left about ten minutes ahead of us.'
Schofield stared at the first blinking dot as it arrived at the loading bay and stopped.
'So, Herbie,' he said, 'since we've got a bit of time, this Botha character. Who is he?'
No sooner had Elvis's hand grenade gone off than Gant and Mother and Juliet were up on their feet and firing their guns hard, covering the President as they all ran back toward the fire stairwell from which they had entered Level 6.
The blast of Elvis's RDX grenade had killed five of the 7th Squadron men instantly. Their bloodied limbs now lay splayed across the X-Rail tracks on either side of the central platform.
The five remaining members of Bravo Unit had been farther away from the grenade when it had gone off. They had been knocked over by the concussion wave, and were now scrambling to find cover — behind pillars and down on the X-Rail tracks — in the face of Gant and the others' retreating fire.
Into the fire stairs.
Gant led the President up the stairwell. She was breathing hard, legs pumping, heart pounding, Mother, Juliet, Hagerty and Tate close behind her.
The group came to the Level 5 firedoor.
Gant reached for the door's handle — then pulled her hand back sharply.
Small jets of water spurted out from the edges of its frame. The jets of water shot out from the door's rubber seal, mainly from down near the floor, losing intensity as they moved higher. No water sprayed out from the top of the door.
It was as if there was a waist-high body of water behind the fireproof door, just waiting to break through.
And then, from behind the door, Gant heard some of the most hideous shrieking sounds she had ever heard in her life. It was horrific — pained, desperate. The cries of trapped animals…
'Oh, no…the bears,' Juliet Janson said as she came alongside Gant and saw the firedoor. 'I don't think we want to go in there.'
'Agreed,' Gant said.
They raced up the stairs and came to Level 4. After checking the decompression area beyond the door, Gant gave the all-clear.
The six of them entered, fanned out.
'Hello again!' a voice boomed out suddenly from above them.
Everyone spun. Gant snapped her gun up fast, and found herself drawing a bead on a wall mounted television set.
Caesar's face was on it, grinning.
'People of America, it is now 9:04, and thus time for your hourly update.'
Caesar gave his report smugly.
'…And your Marines, inept and foolish, have yet to inflict any losses on my men. They do little but run. Indeed, His Highness was last seen making a desperate bid for freedom down on the lowest level of this facility. I am informed that a firefight has just taken place down there, but await a report on the result of that exchange…'
As far as Gant was concerned, it was all bullshit. Whatever Caesar said, whatever lies he told, it didn't affect their situation. And it certainly didn't help to watch him gloat.
So while Caesar spoke on the television and the others watched him, Gant investigated the sliding door set into the floor that led down to Level 5.
She could just make out muffled shouts coming from the other side of it. People yelling.
She hit the door open switch, raised her gun. The horizontal door slid away.
The shouts became screams as the prisoners down on Level 5 heard the door grind open.
Gant peered down the ramp.
'Good God,' she breathed.
She saw the water immediately, saw it lapping against the ramp below her. In fact, the ramp simply disappeared into it.
While Caesar's voice continued to boom, she edged down the sloping walkway, until her spit polished dress shoes stepped ankle-deep into the water.
She crouched down on the ramp, looked out over Level 5.
What she saw shook her.
The entire level was flooded.
Easily to chest height.
It was terribly dark as well, which only served to make the flooded cell block look all the more frightening.
The inky-black indoor lake stretched away from her, to the far end of the floor, its liquid form slipping in through the bars of all the cells — cells which held an assortment of the most wretched-looking individuals Gant had ever seen.
And then the prisoners saw her.
Screams, shrieks, wails. They shook the bars of their cells, cells that they would ultimately drown in if the water level continued to rise.
Like Schofield, Gant hadn't seen the cell bay before. She had only heard the President talk about it when he'd told them about the Sinovirus and its vaccine, Kevin.
'We'd better go.' Juliet appeared at her shoulder. Caesar's broadcast, it seemed, had concluded.
'They're going to drown…' Gant said, as Janson pulled her gently back up the ramp to Level 4.
'Believe me, drowning's too good for the likes of them,' the Secret Service agent said. 'Come on. Let's find somewhere to hole up. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell need a rest.'
She hit the door close button and the horizontal door slid shut, cutting off the prisoners' pained shouts.
Then, with the President and Mother and Hot Rod and Tate in tow behind them, Gant and Juliet headed for the western side of the floor.
None of them noticed the long decompression chamber as they departed.
Although from a distance it appeared normal, had they looked at it more closely, they would have seen that the timer-activated lock on its pressurized door had timed out and unlocked itself.
The door was no longer fully closed.
The decompression chamber was now empty.
It was 9:06 a.m.
'…Bravo leader, come in. Report…' one of the radio operators said into his microphone.
