With the hunt in the pit now over, the prisoners gathered around the aircraft elevator shaft turned their attention to the President and his guardians.
An older prisoner stepped out of the larger group of inmates, a shotgun held lazily in his hand.
He was a very distinctive-looking individual.
He appeared to be about fifty, and judging from the confidence of his stride, he clearly had the respect of the group. Although the top of his head was bald, long gray-black hair flowed down from its sides, growing past his shoulders. A narrow angular nose, pale white skin, and hollow bloodless cheeks completed his very Gothic appearance.
'Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly,' the long-haired man said as he stepped in front of the President. He had a soft silky voice, menacing in its slow articulation.
'Good morning, Mr. President,' he said pleasantly. 'How nice of you to join us. Remember me?'
The President said nothing.
'But of course you do,' the prisoner said. 'I'm an 18–84. In one way or another, you've met all nine of the people who during your presidency have been convicted under Title 18, Part I, Chapter 84 of the United States Code. It's that part of the Code that prohibits ordinary Americans from attempting to assassinate their President.
'Grimshaw, Seth Grimshaw,' the long-haired prisoner said, offering his hand. 'We met in February, just a couple of weeks after you — became President, as you were leaving the Bonaventure Hotel in LA viaits underground kitchen. I was the one who tried to put a bullet in your skull.'
The President said nothing.
And he didn't take Grimshaw's proffered hand.
'You managed to keep that whole incident quiet,' Grimshaw said. 'Very impressive.
Especially since all someone like me really wants is publicity. And besides, it's not wise to scare the nation, is it? Better to keep the ignorantmasses unaware of these troublesome little attempts on your life. As they say, ignorance is bliss.'
The President said nothing.
Grimshaw looked him up and down, cast a bemused eye over the black combat clothing that the Chief Executive now wore. The President, Juliet and Schofield were all still dressed in their black 7th Squadron combat attire. Gant and Mother, on the other hand, still wore their formal — but now very dirty — Marine dress uniforms.
Grimshaw smiled, a thin, satisfied smile.
Then he strolled over to the inmate holding the Football and took the silver briefcase from him. He opened it, then glanced from its countdown display screen to the President.
'It would appear that my recently liberated associates and I have intruded upon something rather interesting. A game of cat-and-mouse, it would seem, judging by your clothes and the way you unceremoniously scampered through my cell block earlier.' He clucked his tongue reproachfully. 'Really, Mr. President, I must say, this is not at all presidential. Not at all.'
Grimshaw's eyes narrowed.
'But who am I to stop such an imaginative spectacle? The President and his loyal bodyguards versus the treacherous military-industrial complex.' Grimshaw turned. 'Goliath. Bring the other captives over here.'
At that moment, an extraordinarily large prisoner — Goliath, Schofield guessed — stepped out from behind Grimshaw and headed off in the direction of the hangar's internal building. He was an absolute giant of a man, with massive tree-trunk-sized biceps and a squared-off head reminiscent of Frankenstein's monster. He even had a flat square bulge that protruded from his forehead — the signature mark, Schofield knew, of someone who'd had a steel plate inserted in his skull. Goliath carried a P-90 assault rifle in one massive fist and Schofield's Maghook in the other.
He returned moments later.
Behind him came the seven Air Force men who — along with the four unfortunate radio operators — had been captured inside the control room earlier: Colonel Jerome T. Harper.
Boa McConnell and his four Bravo Unit men, two of whom were badly wounded.
And the lone individual who had been observing the morning's events from the shadows of Caesar Russell's control room.
Schofield recognized him instantly.
So did the President.
'Webster…' he said softly.
Warrant Officer Carl Webster, the official guardian of the Football, stood with the Air Force people, looking very uncomfortable. Beneath his thick hairy eyebrows, his eyes darted left and right, as if searching for an escape.
'You cocksucking little bastard,' Mother said. 'You gave the Football to Russell. You sold out the President.'
Webster said nothing.
Schofield watched him. He had wondered whether Webster had been abducted by the 7th Squadron earlier that morning. More than anything else, Caesar Russell had needed the Football to carry out his presidential challenge, and Schofield had speculated as to how he had obtained it from Webster.
Quite clearly, force hadn't been necessary — the blood on the Football's handcuffs had obviously been a ruse. Webster, it seemed, had been bought long before the President had arrived at Area 7.
'Now, now, children,' Seth Grimshaw said, waving the Football in his hand. 'Save your strength. You'll be able to settle all your scores in a moment. But first' — he turned to the Air Force colonel, Harper — 'I have a question that needs answering. The exit to this facility. Where is it?'
'There is no exit,' Harper lied. 'The facility is in lock down. You can't get out.'
Grimshaw raised his shotgun, pointed it at Harper's face, shucked the pump action. 'Perhaps I'm not being specific enough.'
He then turned and fired two booming shots into the two injured Bravo Unit men standing next to Harper. They were blasted off their feet.
Grimshaw turned the gun back to Harper, raised his eyebrows expectantly.
Harper's face went white. He nodded over at the regular elevator: 'There's a door that branches off the personnel elevator shaft. We call it the top door. It leads outside. Keypad code is 5564771.'
'Thank you, Colonel, you really are too kind, Grimshaw said. 'Now then, we must let you children finish what you've started. As I'm sure you'll understand, once we depart this dreadful place, we can't allow any of you to leave it alive. But as a final gesture of good will, I am going to offer you all one last favor — albeit one that is more for my entertainment than ours.'
'I am going to give you all one last chance to kill each other. Five against five. In the killing pit. So at least the winner will die knowing who won your impromptu civil war.' He turned to Goliath. 'Put the Air Force people in here. Stand the President's little posse on the other side.'
Schofield and the others were marched at gunpoint to the far side of the pit, the eastern side.
The five remaining Air Force men — Jerome Harper, Boa McConnell, the last two men from Bravo Unit, and the traitor, Warrant Officer Webster — stood directly opposite them, separated by the two-hundred-foot-wide sunken aircraft elevator platform.
'Let the battle begin,' Seth Grimshaw bared his teeth. 'To the death.'
Schofield dropped down into the pit and immediately found himself confronted by a twisted metal maze — the enormous broken pieces of the smashed AWACS plane.
The Boeing 707's wings lay at all angles, snapped and broken and still dripping with water. Its gigantic barrel-like jet engines stood on their ends. And in the very center of the pit — easily the largest single piece of the destroyed plane — stood the AWACS's horribly broken fuselage. Long and cylindrical, it lay diagonally across the pit, nose down, like a massive dead bird.
The darkness of the main hangar didn't help things.
The only light was the firelight from the inmates' torches — they cast long shadows down into the maze, turning it into a dark metal forest where you couldn't see more than a few feet in front of your face.
How the hell did we get into this? Schofield thought.
