In the escape passageway, Logan spun — and saw the intruders, and realized that the others weren't going to make it into the tunnel — and with a look to Harper, he made the call and slammed the escape door shut behind him, sealing off the passageway, sealing Harper and the remaining Air Force men inside the control room.
Eleven men in total were left behind: Harper, Boa McConnell, Boa's four Bravo Unit men, the four radio operators, and the unseen man who had been observing the morning's events from the shadows.
All were left in the control room, at the mercy of the murderous prisoners.
Down in the Level 6 X-Rail station, Schofield and Book II hurried out from their hiding spot underneath the compact maintenance vehicle, leapt up onto the platform and dashed for the door to the fire stairs.
9:56.
Schofield yanked open the door and instantly heard shotgun fire echoing down the stairwell, followed by a loud 'Arroooo!'
He shut the door quickly.
'Well, it's official,' he said. 'We have just arrived in hell.'
'Four minutes to find the President,' Book II said.
'I know. I know,' Schofield looked about himself. 'But to do that we have to get up into the complex somehow.'
He stared out into the darkness of the underground railway station.
'Quickly, this way,' he started racing down the platform.
'What?' Book II said, chasing after him.
'There's another way up into the complex. Those 7th Squadron guys used it before — the air vent at the other end of the platform!'
9:57.
The two of them reached the air vent.
Schofield tried his mike again, hoping he hadn't busted it during that swim through Lake Powell.
'Fox! Fox! Can you read me?'
Pop. Fizz. Nothing.
He and Book clambered into the air vent, hurried down its length, their boots reverberating with every step.
They came to the base of the vent's four-hundred-foot tall vertical shaft.
'Whoa,' Book II said, looking up the shaft. It disappeared into black infinity.
9:58.
Schofield said, 'Quickly, up the air vent. We use the cross-vents to reach the aircraft elevator shaft and then we cut across the platform and see if we can find them.'
Schofield fired his Maghook up into the darkened air vent, delaying the activation of its magnet. The grappling hook boomed up the shaft, flying fast, before Schofield initiated its magnetic charge and immediately — whump! — the hook snapped left in midair, dragged sideways by its powerful magnetic pull, and attached itself to the vertical wall of the vent.
9:58:20.
Schofield went first, whizzing up into the shaft on the Maghook's rope. Book II came up behind him.
9:58:40.
They hurried into the nearest horizontal cross-vent, charged down it, the Football flailing in Schofield's spare hand.
9:58:50.
They came to the enormous aircraft elevator shaft. It yawned before them, shrouded in black.
The only light: some orange firelight way up at the top of the shaft winking through the tiny square aperture that usually contained the mini-elevator. The main platform, it seemed, was right up at ground level, up in the hangar there.
Schofield and Book II stood at the mouth of the cross vent. They were on Level 3.
Schofield brought his mike to his lips.
'Fox! Fox! Where are you!'
'Hey!' a familiar female voice echoed down through the shaft.
Schofield snapped to look up, brought his gunlight around.
And saw a small white spot — the beam of another barrel-mounted flashlight — blinking back at him from the other side of the shaft, but from one level above, from the massive hangar doorway of Level 2.
And above the flashlight, in the glow of its beam, Schofield saw the very anxious face of Libby Gant.
9:59:00.
'Fox!'
'Scarecrow!'
Gant's voice came through Schofield's earpiece loud and clear now. The water damage must have only affected its range.
'Damn it!' Schofield said. 'I thought the elevator platform would be here!'
'The prisoners took it up to the main hangar,' Gant said.
9:59:05.
9:59:06.
'Jesus, Scarecrow. What do we do? We only have a minute left…'
Schofield was thinking the same thing.
Sixty seconds.
Not enough time to go down to the bottom of the shaft, swim across, and come back up again.
And not enough time to shuffle hand-over-hand around the walls of the shaft, either. And they couldn't swing across on a Maghook — it was too far.
Damn, he thought.
Damn-damn-damn-damn-damn-damn-damn-damn.
'What about a Harbour Bridge? ' Mother's voice came in over Schofield's earpiece.
The 'Harbour Bridge' was a legendary Maghook trick. Two people fired two oppositely charged Maghooks in such a way that the two hooks hit in midair and stuck together. It was named after the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the famous Australian landmark that was built from opposite sides of Sydney Harbour, two separate arcs that ultimately met in the middle. Schofield had seen a number of Marines try it. None of them had succeeded.
'No,' he said, 'the Harbour Bridge is impossible. I've never seen anyone hit another Maghook in mid-flight. But maybe…'
9:59:09.
9:59:10.
He looked over at the President and Gant standing in the doorway to Level 2, gauged the distance.
Then he looked up — and saw the darkened underside of the aircraft elevator platform, way up at the top of the shaft.
Mother's suggestion, however, had given him an idea.
Maybe with two Mag hooks they could…
'Fox! Quickly!' he said. 'Where is the mini-elevator?'
'Where we left it before, up on Level 1,' Gant said.
'Go up to Level 1. Get on it. Take it up the shaft and stop it a hundred feet below the main elevator platform. Go! Now!'
Gant knew not to argue. There was no time. She grabbed the President and dashed out of Schofield's sight.
9:59:14.
9:59:15.
Schofield dashed past Book II, heading back along the horizontal cross-vent to the main vent.
He came to the vertical ventilation shaft and without even a blink, fired his Mag hook up into it again.
This time he waited until the Maghook had played out its entire one hundred and fifty feet of rope before initiating the grappling hook's magnetic pull.
