Aux System
Terminal 1-A2 not responding
08:58:00
WARNING: Auxiliary power capacity: 15 %
Aux System
Terminal 1-A2 not responding
09:04:43
Lockdown special release command entered (terminal 3A2)
077-01E
Door 62-E opened
09:08:00
WARNING: Auxiliary power capacity: 10 %
Aux System
Initiate system reboot?
09:18:00
WARNING: Auxiliary power capacity: 5 %
Aux system
Initiate system reboot?
09:28:00
WARNING: Auxiliary power capacity: 0 %
Aux System
Commence system shutdown
'Jesus, we've been running on auxiliary power since eight o'clock!' the senior console operator said.
Colonel Harper stepped forward. 'But that should have kept us going for at least three hours, enough time to reboot the main power supply.'
While they spoke, Caesar gazed at the computer screen, at the entry:
09:04:43
Lockdown special release command entered (terminal 3 A2)
077-01E
Door 62-E opened
The '77' prefix indicated a member of the 7th Squadron. 'E' stood for Echo Unit; and '01,' its leader, Cobra Carney.
Caesar's eyes narrowed. It appeared that during the last lockdown window period, Cobra Carney had opened Door 62-E — the eastern X-rail blast door down on Level 6…
Jerome Harper and the radioman were still debating the power situation.
'It should have, yes,' the radioman said. 'But it appears the system only had half power: when it kicked in, so it only lasted an hour and a half…'
The senior man's monitor blinked out. It was the last one to go.
Then, all at once, the overhead lights in the control room went out.
Caesar and the console operators were devoured by darkness.
Caesar spun, turned to look out through the windows overlooking the enormous ground-levelhangar. He saw the bright halogen lights running along the length of the hangar shut off in sequence, one after the other after the other.
The hangar — and all its contents: Marine One, the destroyed cockroach towing vehicles, the blasted-open Nighthawk Two, the overhead crane system — was consumed by inky blackness.
'All systems down,' someone said in the darkness. 'The whole complex has lost power.'
Down in the AWACS plane on Level 2, Libby Gant and the others were preparing to head up through the underground base, to locate and take out Caesar Russell's control room, when without warning every single light in the subterranean hangar went out.
The gigantic hangar was plunged into darkness.
Pitch darkness.
Gant flicked on the pencil-sized flashlight attached to the barrel of her MP-10. Its thin beam illuminated her face.
'The power,' Mother whispered. 'Why would they cut the power?'
'Yeah,' Juliet said, 'surely that would only make it harder to find us.'
'Maybe they had no choice in the matter,' Gant said.
'What does this mean for us?' the President asked coming up beside them.
'It doesn't change the plan,' Gant said. 'We're still going for the command center. What we have to figure out though, is how it affects this environment.'
At that moment, from somewhere deep within the bowels of the complex, they heard a scream — a wild scream; human, but at the same time, somehow not human; the terror-inspiring howl of a seriously deranged individual.
'Oh, Jesus,' Gant breathed. 'The prisoners. They're out.'
FIFTH CONFRONTATION
About ten minutes before the power went out at Area 7, a chunky CH-53E Super Stallion transport helicopter was sinking slowly through the aqua-green water of Lake Powell.
It made for a peculiar sight.
With its tail section completely blown apart, the chopper sank rear end first, almost vertical, its open loading ramp swallowing water by the ton. Against the hazy green backdrop of the water all around it, it looked as if the Super Stallion was free-falling in silent ultra-slow motion.
Thin streams of bubbles weaved their way to the surface above it — the same bubbles that were being watched by the two Air Force Penetrators hovering above the lake.
Shane Schofield and Buck Riley Jr. stared out through the sinking helicopter's Lexan windshield — looking straight up.
They saw the water's surface high above them, rippling like a glass lens, fifty feet away and getting more and more distant.
Beyond the distorted lens of water they could make out the twin images of the Penetrator attack choppers hovering above the surface, waiting for them to emerge, if they dared.
In the water all around them, a bizarre yet extraordinary underwater landscape revealed itself. Giant boulders rested on the lakebed, desert trails that had once been dry land twisted and turned, there was even a giant submerged cliff that soared upward, disappearing above the water's surface. The submerged desert world appeared as a ghostly pale green.
Book II turned to Schofield. 'If you've got any more magic escape plans, now would be the time to use them.'
'Sorry,' Schofield said. 'I'm all out.'
