Eriq removed the gun from his waistband and directed its aim to the bottles. "If they break in," he said, "that acid will consume flesh and bone. We can cripple them and get by."

"Do you have any idea how many of those things are out there?" Michelin went on, obviously frustrated. "There's no way in Hell we can go out that way. We need another route."

"There is no other way out!" he countered loudly. Then he spoke softer, as if regretting his harsh measure, "There's no other way."

. . . BANG . . .

The door began to give on its hinges.

. . . BANG . . .

And the bottles continued to rattle against the force of the blows.

. . . BANG . . .

President Michelin stood next to Eriq. "Well, Mr. Wyman, it appears that you failed us again. Good . . . job!"

Eriq closed his eyes.

. . . BANG . . .

And waited for the inevitable.

"We're never gonna get there in time. You know that, right?"

Skully knew of no such thing as they rounded the final corner to the shaft's panel, so he ignored Funboy.

Skully had removed the panel leading into the freight shaft. Seeing that the channel was as black as pitch, they utilized the night-vision faceplates of their helmets. After they entered the chute and locked the panel behind them, they began to climb the rungs. Several flights up they could see the bottom of the freight elevator, which didn't bode well with either of them since the elevator clung to the rails by the use of magnets. Should the energy of the magnets fail, then the elevator would fall and clip them off the walls.

"We're in the shaft and moving up the levels," Skully stated into his lip mic. "You got eyes on the prize?"

"You need to step it up, boss. They got company on the thirteenth," said Meade.

They moved quickly along the rungs, bypassing numbers on the shaft's walls denoting the levels of the mausoleum. When Skully reached the thirteenth level, he pressed his ear against the wall.

Nothing.

The elevator was suspended a few levels up.

"I'm at the location now," he told Meade.

"On the other side of that wall is the primary asset. You need to blow it now, Skully. If you don't, then the mission's over. Game goes to the walking dead."

Skully reached down to Funboy with an open hand. "Semtex," he said.

Funboy removed the doughy, off-white plastique from his cargo pocket and handed it over, along with the detonator pin. "The wall's one inch of steel," he told him. "I don't think that's gonna be enough."

Skully removed his last grenade and molded the dough around it before attaching the gummy wad to the wall, and then he fixed the pin to it. "How about now?" he asked hm.

Funboy pointed to the elevator above. The message was clear: The concussive wave may generate enough force to detach the elevator from its moorings, despite any attempt to blow out the wall.

Skully looked up to appraise the situation, then he turned back to Funboy and nodded. I got your meaning. "You blow the pin," he told him. "But only after we get above the rupturing point, so that we're clear of flying debris."

Once they climbed to the fifteenth level, Funboy removed the detonator from his pocket, lifted the safety cap, and depressed the plunger with his thumb.

Suddenly the world below them exploded.

. . . BANG . . .

Everyone could see the hinges begin to bend against the driving force.

And Eriq had never felt so impotent in his entire life.

. . . BANG . . .

A few more raps would do it.

. . . BANG . . .

And somewhere inside the room the priest prayed, his words loud and clear and free of any measure of fear.

. . . BANG . . .

And then the world around them exploded.

. . . BANG . . .

The plastique and the grenade went off simultaneously, the explosion so powerful that the entire mausoleum appeared to shake to the point that it threatened to throw Skully and Funboy from the rungs.

Whereas Skully caught himself, Funboy hung on by the grip of one hand while he kicked his feet for purchase until he found a lower rung.

A boil of smoke shot up the shaft like the cap of a mushroom cloud, and enveloped them, but as soon as the dust settled, they could see that the wall had been breached.

Then something above them whined like the hull of an ancient tall-ship, something like old wood bending and creaking. The elevator wobbled on its electromagnetic moors as if it had a life of its own and tried to pull free. The entire cab shook.

And then it slipped, the rails beginning to lose their grip.

And the creaking got louder as the mooring attachments cried out in unbearable stress.

"Move!" yelled Skully.

Funboy took the rungs quickly to the lower level with Skully following so closely that he almost stepped on Funboy's fingers on the way down.

. . . schreeeeeeee . . .

The elevator began to buck violently.

. . . schrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeee . . .

And then it parted from the rails, the 2500-pound cab falling and bouncing off the walls as it made its long descent to the bottom level.

"Moooooooove!"

Funboy was going as fast as he could, the opening so close, yet so far.

The cab loomed large as it closed on them, falling.

Funboy saw the opening, and dived into the hole where he hit the floor and rolled to a standing position.

Skully saw the opening as well, could feel the elevator almost upon him. When he looked up he could see sparks as the cab bounced off the walls, the bursts of flames flying, then dying as the elevator suddenly became enormous as it neared him with incredible speed.

He instinctively raised his arm over his head as if to ward off the blow of the elevator's fall.

But as a true soldier of the Force Elite, he did not scream.

When the wall blew inward, everyone inside the Chem Lab were lifted off their feet and sent airborne. The only collateral damage was Senator Newel, who was driven across the room like an incoming missile against the racks, and broke some of the containers of bottled acids.

As he lay there in a daze, acid cascaded over him, the fluid devoured his flesh to the bone as skin bubbled and bled, the smell sickening as it filled the room with acidic stench.

Thickening smoke also filled the room, causing coughing jags.

And in this smoke stood the outline of a man standing beside a passageway against the far wall.

A savior?

And then one of the hinges against the chamber's door gave, the screws popping loose as something massive tried to force its way into the chamber.

. . . BANG . . .

Skully's mind had little time to register the fact that he was about to die when a hand lashed out, grabbed him by the ammo belt around his waist, and tugged him into the opening. While he was in flight and not fully inside the room, the cab of the elevator skinned the soles of his boots as it fell by.

Moments later, it crashed at the base of the mausoleum, the sound of metal twisting was quite clear to those thirteen levels above the wreckage.

Skully's breath came in hitches and gasps, his life so close to getting snuffed.

"You all right?" Funboy was standing over him.

Yes and no.

Skully immediately got to his feet and surveyed his surroundings.

And when he saw Eriq Wyman standing before him, his heart almost misfired.

Eriq watched the shape distend a hand out of the opening to snatch something from within the shaft, and tossed it to the floor of the chamber.

Another savior?

But through the smoke and haze they were mere shapes. So he closed in.

When he saw who it was that the man had saved from the shaft, his stomach turned into a slick fist with revulsion.

"Eriq Wyman," Skully said with an edge. "So this is where they put your ass, huh?"

Eriq was furious. On the day he was in the Wastelands doing field ops with his unit to protect the Fields from the savages, Skully was the sergeant and second-in-command who took over the platoon when Wyman laid his gun down and refused to execute the savages. It was by Skully's command that the killings went on. Eriq could recall the moment he closed his eyes but could see the muzzle flashes through his lids during the volley of gunfire, knowing that the young girl who waved to him was now dead.

"Still executing children?" Eriq stated bitterly.

"You still a coward?" he returned.

"Enough!" intervened the president. "The last thing I need right now is a couple of ball-swinging commandos dissing each other." He pointed to the door. Of the four hinges holding the door in place, a second hinge was starting to give. "We need to get out of here," he said. "Now!"

Skully nodded. "Yes, sir."

. . . BANG . . .

"How far have we drifted?" asked the president. "Can Air Force Six still make it back? Or have we drifted beyond the point of no return?"

"Air Force Six, Mr. President, has been compromised and rendered unserviceable, but you'll be all right," he told him. "We'll be returning to the Fields inside of a Winged Banshee."

Eriq's heart dropped inside his chest. He knew exactly what that meant for the rest of them. A Winged Banshee had very limited carrying space that could hold no more than six people, and since the president and members of status were guaranteed transport, that left the majority to stay behind to fend for themselves.

This was not good news.

When Skully gave Eriq a sidelong glance after making the statement, and then seeing the obvious expression of enlightenment on the man's face, he smiled with malicious delight.

And Eriq took umbrage to this. You prick!

"We need to get you below, Mr. President," said Skully.

"Through there?" The president pointed to the gap in the wall.

"Yes, sir. All you have to do is climb the rungs all the way down. Simple. But we need to move."

. . . BANG . . .