moving at phenomenal speed.
'One…'
'…facility self-destruct activated.'
Boom time.
It sounded like the end of the universe.
The colossal roar of the nuclear explosion inside Area 7 was absolutely monstrous.
For a structure that had been designed in the Cold War to withstand a direct nuclear strike, it did quite well containing its own supernuclear demise.
The W-88 self-destruct warhead was situated inside the walls of Level 2, roughly in the center of the underground facility. When it went off, the whole underground complex lit up like a lightbulb, and a white-hot pulse of energy rocketed through its floors and walls — unstoppable, irresistible.
Everything inside the complex was obliterated in a nanosecond…aeroplanes, test chambers, elevator shafts. Even the bloodied and broken Caesar Russell.
From his position on the floor of the main hangar, the last thing he saw was a flash of blinding white light, followed by an instant's worth of the most intense heat he had ever felt in his life.
And then nothing.
But to a large extent, the complex's two-foot-thick titanium outer wall contained the blast.
The concussion wave that the momentous explosion generated, however, shook the sandy earth well beyond the structure's titanium walls, making it shudder and shake for several miles around Area 7, the wave of expanding energy fanning outward in concentric circles, like ripples in a pond.
The first thing to go was the Emergency Exit Vent.
Its tight concrete walls were assaulted by the expanding wall of energy within a second of the blast. They were turned instantly to powder. Had Schofield and Gant been inside it, they would have been pulverized beyond recognition.
It was then, however, that the most spectacular sight of all appeared.
Since the entire complex had effectively become a hollowed-out shell, the superheavy layer of granite above the underground section caved in on it.
From the sky above Area 7, it looked as if a perfectly circular earthquake had struck the facility.
Without warning, an eight-hundred-yard-wide ring of earth around the complex just gave way, turned to rubble, and Area 7's buildings — the main hangar, the airfield tower, the other hangars — were just swallowed by the earth, dropping from sight, until all that remained in the place of Area 7 was a gigantic half-mile-wide crater in the desert floor.
From his position on board a Marine Corps Super Stallion that had arrived at the complex only ten minutes earlier, the President of the United States just watched it all go down.
Beside him, Book II, Juliet Janson and the boy named Kevin just stared in stunned awe at the spectacular end of Area 7.
Down in the X-Rail tunnel, it wasn't over yet.
When the nuke had gone off, Schofield and Gant's maintenance pod had been shooting through the tunnel like a speeding bullet.
Then they'd heard the boom of the blast.
Felt the shudder of the earth all around them.
And then Schofield looked out through the rear window of the two-person pod.
'Son of a…' he breathed.
He saw an advancing wall of falling rock, rampaging through the tunnel behind them!
The roof of the tunnel was caving in, shattering into pieces as the expanding pulse of the concussion wave rippled outward from Area 7. The problem was, it was catching up with them!
The X-rail pod shot through the tunnel at two hundred and fifty miles per hour.
The advancing wall of falling rock shot forward after it, doing at least two-sixty.
Chunks of falling rock rained down on the tunnel. It was as if the passageway were now a living creature biting down at the heels of the speeding X-rail pod.
Bang!
A chunk of concrete the size of a baseball landed on the roof of the pod. Schofield snapped to look up at the sound. And then…
Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!
A deafening hailstorm of chunks rained down on top of the pod.
No! Schofield's mind screamed. Not now! Not this close to the end!
The advancing wall of collapsing rock had caught them.
Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!
Chunks assaulted the pod's windscreen, shattering it. Glass exploded everywhere.
Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!
Small chunks started entering the cockpit. The whole pod started to shudder violently, as if it were about to run off its…
And then all of a sudden the concrete rain slowed and the pod blasted clear of the falling chunks.
Schofield turned in his seat and saw the moving waterfall of concrete receding into the tunnel behind them, shrinking back behind a bend, falling back like a hungry monster that had given up on the chase. The ripplelike expansion of the concussion wave had run its course and petered out.
They'd outrun it.
Just.
And as the X-rail pod continued on its way down the tunnel, Shane Schofield fell back into his seat and breathed a long and deep sigh of relief.
By the time Schofield and Gant were airlifted from the canyonway outside the X-Rail loading dock adjoining Lake Powell by a Marine CH-53E, there was a veritable armada of Army and Marine Corps helicopters in the air above Area 7.
They looked like a swarm of tiny insects, black dots hovering in the clear desert sky — all keeping at a safe distance to avoid any lingering radiation.
The President was now safely ensconced in his Marine helicopter, which itself was surrounded by no less than five other Marine Super Stallions. Until the radio transmitter attached to his heart was removed, the Marines would stay by his side.
And the moment he had been lifted off the tarmac at Area 7, he had issued a standing order that all Air Force aircraft in the continental United States be grounded pending further notice. Schofield and Gant — and their precious microwave-transmitting black box — were reunited with the President, Book II, Juliet and Kevin at Area 8, which had been secured twenty minutes before their arrival by two Marine Recon units.
During their sweep of the base, the Marines had found no live personnel except one Nicholas Tate III, Domestic Policy Adviser to the President of the United States, rambling incoherently, saying something about calling his stockbroker.
Gant was immediately placed on a stretcher and her ankle attended to by a corpsman.
Schofield was given a temporary gauze dressing for his bullet wounds, a sling for his arm, and a dose of codeine for the pain.
'Nice to see you made it out, Captain,' the President said as he came over to where they sat.
'Not so Caesar, I take it?'
'I'm afraid he couldn't make it, sir,' Schofield said. He held up the black box, its green transmission light blinking. 'But he's with us in spirit.'
The President smiled. 'The Marines who swept this base said they found something outside it that you might like to see.'
Schofield didn't understand. 'Like what?'
'Like me, you sexy thing,' Mother roared as she stepped out from behind the President.
Schofield grinned from ear to ear. 'You made it!'
The last he had seen, Mother had been flipping end over end inside a speeding cockroach.
