Scarecrow Returns ss-5

by Matthew Reilly

  Schofield ducked away from the spraying blaze and keyed his radio. “Dr. Ivanov! We’ve got the spheres but we also have an entire army on our tail! Our vehicles have taken heavy fire and I don’t think they’ll make it to the coast! Do you have a plane ready?”

  “Yes, Captain!” Ivanov’s voice replied. “I am in an Antonov-12 in the first hangar.”

  “Get it out onto the runway!” Schofield yelled.

  “What about the Strelas? They shot me down the last time I tried to flee this place!”

  “We don’t need to get away! We just need to get to the end of the runway so we can dispose of these spheres and you did manage to do that last time! And if we’re in a plane, we might just escape, too!”

  “Okay . . .”

  Thirty seconds later, the shot-up cement mixer and the flaming jeep swept off the steep cliff-side road and sped out onto the runway, just as a huge prop-driven cargo plane rumbled out of the first hangar there, propellers whirring.

  It was an Antonov An-12, a medium-sized transport plane capable of carrying 45,000 pounds of payload in its rear hold, either vehicles or ninety fully armed troops. Born in the 1950s, it was a dependable warhorse, the Soviet equivalent of the C-130 Hercules, and it was known for its distinctive nose: the An-12 had a glass nose-cone from which a spotter could look out.

  The big plane pivoted, pointing its glass nose westward. The long black runway stretched away from it for a mile in that direction, ending at some high cliffs. Running along the runway’s left-hand side, parallel to it, was a wide free-flowing river fed by snowmelt from the mountains of Dragon Island. It, too, ended at the high cliffs, tipping over them in a spectacular 300-foot waterfall.

  Also at the end of the runway, however, speeding full-tilt in an effort to get into a position to fire on the plane before it lifted off, were the same two Strela-1 amphibious anti-aircraft vehicles that had shot down Ivanov’s Beriev seven hours earlier. And they still had their deadly surface-to-air missile pods on their backs.

  As the Antonov came fully around, its rear ramp lowered and Schofield’s two vehicles sped into it, Mother’s cement mixer first and then the flaming jeep.

  “We’re in!” Schofield yelled into his radio as he kicked the flaming jerry can off the back of his jeep. “Go! Go!”

  The plane immediately powered up, its four turbo-props blurring ever faster, and with a shrill whine, it slowly began to accelerate.

  Schofield leapt out of the jeep and raced forward, up a short flight of steel stairs and into the cockpit, where he found Ivanov at the controls.

  The Antonov picked up speed—

  The two Strelas skidded to twin halts at the end of the runway—

  All we have to do is get in the air, Schofield thought. Even if they hit us and we crash, I can send these spheres to the bottom of the ocean, never to be found again.

  The Antonov was halfway down the runway and almost at takeoff speed—

  The Strelas’ missile pods began to lower, taking aim—

  “We’re gonna make it . . .” Schofield breathed, an instant before he caught sight of a lone Army of Thieves trooper off to the right of the runway, holding a Predator RPG launcher on his shoulder. The lone man fired the Predator and Schofield watched in horror as it zeroed in on the accelerating Antonov and disappeared under its nose.

  A colossal thump shook the Antonov.

  A second later, the entire cockpit lurched downward, throwing Schofield and Ivanov forward in their seats, and an ear-piercing shriek of metal-on-asphalt assailed their ears as the big plane’s nose slammed down against the runway and started grinding terribly, kicking up sparks.

  The Antonov’s forward wheels had been completely destroyed by the Predator and all of its forward momentum was lost. It peeled away to the left, turning sideways as it slowed, fatally wounded, a little more than halfway down the runway.

  And as the big plane ground to a halt, Schofield saw all of the Army of Thieves’ pursuit vehicles converge on it like hyenas closing in on a wounded water buffalo: the two Strelas from in front, the many trucks from behind.

  His mission—a desperate and daring snatch-and-grab—was over.

  In record time, he had island-hopped across bear-infested islets, penetrated Dragon Island by cable car, got across the moat, taken the lab at the summit of the spire, grabbed the spheres, got out of there by toppling the spire while he was in it and now he had failed within sight of the coast.

  He bowed his head. “Fuck.”

  THE SITUATION on the runway quickly became a standoff.

  The Army of Thieves’ vehicles formed a wide circle around the halted Antonov, parked at right angles across the snow-rimmed runway, its forward landing gear destroyed, its nose pointed down.

  “Cover the entrances!” Mother called as she and Baba quickly took up positions in the Antonov’s two side doors, while Schofield rushed to its still-open rear ramp and hit CLOSE.

  The ramp didn’t close.

  A bullet from the surrounding Army of Thieves force smacked off a steel strut beside his head and he ducked back inside.

  “The ramp won’t close!” he called.

  Ivanov came back from the cockpit. “Many things in my country do not work. Ramps, doors. This is a very old plane.”

  Suddenly, a familiar voice came alive in Schofield’s ear: “Oh, Captain, so close!” the Lord of Anarchy said. “My, that was exciting! You came so very close to getting away. I bet you can see the ocean from where you are.”

  “Screw you.”

  The Lord of Anarchy chuckled.

  “I still have your spheres,” Schofield said.

  “You do indeed, but that doesn’t concern me greatly. You see, while it may look like one, this is not a standoff. It is a woefully one-sided siege. Because you are isolated with a finite amount of ammunition, while my men surrounding you have all the time and firepower in the world. No, Captain, now it is time for me to screw you. Mako, send in three berserkers, as an example to Captain Schofield.”

  Schofield frowned. What—

  Suddenly three men burst forth from the surrounding force: they were Africans, each holding two AK-47s and firing madly as they ran toward the stricken Antonov. They had the same excessive facial piercings that the two suicidal maniacs in the Bear Lab had had.

  Their bullets hammered the plane. Some rounds whizzed in through the open rear ramp and Schofield had to dive behind the jeep parked there before he could raise his MP-7 and return fire. Mother and Champion joined him, blasting away with their guns.

  The first mad runner convulsed as he ran, but he must have been juiced up on ganja weed or some kind of hyper-stimulant because he took at least ten hits to his body before he finally stopped moving forward; then Mother shot him in the face and his whole head popped in a spray of red and he flopped to the ground, still.

  But the other two berserkers kept coming, their rain of gunfire undisturbed.

  Schofield, Champion and Mother fired and fired, using an inordinate amount of ammo to bring them down. The second madman fell, then finally so did the third—he skidded hard onto his face at the base of the ramp, having almost made it inside the plane.

  Silence.

  Gun smoke.

  Schofield was completely fucking shocked. If the Lord of Anarchy had more of these crazy suicide runners, then it was only a matter of—

  “Captain, I’m sure that by now the mathematics of your situation is becoming clear: if I keep sending in my berserkers, eventually you will run out of bullets. And I have many such men, who will gladly run to their deaths for me, if only to use up your ammunition. Mako, three more, please.”

  There came another battle cry and three more crazed, multi-pierced runners came charging across the open runway firing wildly at the Antonov, and Schofield and his team were forced to cut them down, too.

  Mother shook her head. “This is fucking nuts! It’s like a shooting gallery where the targets fire at you! Who the hell does suicide runs like this?”


  “And how does their leader get them to do it?” Champion asked.

  “Addictive drugs, conditioning, torture, I don’t know,” Schofield said.

  “However the fuck he does it,” Mother said, “I can’t keep this up much longer. I’m down to my last clip.”

  Baba said grimly, “Me, too.”

  Schofield bit his lip in thought. There was only one way this could end—and that was very ugly. Out of ammo and with nowhere to go, they’d be at the mercy of the Army of Thieves. Death at their hands would not be quick and—if only for a fleeting instant—Schofield actually considered putting a bullet through each of his people’s brains; it might be the most humane thing to do in this—

  “How are you feeling in there, Captain? Getting low on ammo now, aren’t you? Feeling desperate? Thinking of cutting a deal? I mean, how will you feel when your people are completely defenseless and my men storm that plane? My men, I fear, are not the kind of boys you bring home to meet Mother. They are very zealous in their fanaticism, sometimes a little overzealous. They truly are the children of anarchy and I am their lord and master.

  “Of course, you could nobly kill your own people: line them up, smile kindly and then put a bullet in each of their heads, so that their deaths are quick. Let me assure you that such a death will be better than the one I will provide them.”

  Champion shot a look at Schofield as she heard this, too.

  Schofield returned her worried glance. It also didn’t escape his notice that the Lord of Anarchy had practically read his mind. He looked around himself for options, but there were none. They were screwed.

  “Captain, go to the cockpit of your plane. Switch on the video communication screen.”

  Schofield went into the cockpit where he found a video screen attached to the instrument panel—a modern addition to an old plane—and flicked it on. It was like a laptop screen, with a small camera on its upper rim.

  The Lord of Anarchy’s face appeared on the screen, smiling.

  “Hello, Captain. I thought we should do this face-to-face.”

  “Do what?”

  “I want to show you something. This.”

  On the screen, the Lord of Anarchy lifted something up into the frame.

  Schofield’s blood turned to ice.

  It was a red-uranium sphere, another one, a seventh one. The Lord of Anarchy held it between his thumb and forefinger.

  Schofield’s face fell. The Lord of Anarchy saw this and he grinned malevolently.

  “You see, Captain. I don’t need your spheres at all.”

  Schofield’s mind was racing, trying to put all this into some kind of order, and suddenly it all made sense: that extra sphere had come from the emergency bunker Ivanov had mentioned before, the one buried deep beneath the main tower, the bunker that the Russian traitor, Kotsky, couldn’t know about . . . but which the Lord of Anarchy evidently did know of.

  On the screen, the Lord seemed to peer intently at Schofield, trying to read his reaction to this.

  “It occurs to me, Captain, that you and I are very much alike. We will do anything to achieve our goals. You will risk your life to save the world, while I will do the same to destroy it. We are both passionate about what we desire. It’s just that we each desire the opposite of what the other does. Which is why I will take so much pleasure in letting you see this. I will see the world go up in flames. You will see your own failure.”

  With those words, the Lord of Anarchy stepped away from his camera . . .

  . . . to reveal that he was not inside his command center anymore but rather outside, standing in front of a sixteen-wheeled missile launcher: a classic snub-nosed semi-trailer-sized “transporter erector launcher” that bore a single Russian SS-23 intermediate-range ballistic missile on its back.

  The Lord of Anarchy handed his red-uranium sphere to a pair of subordinates, who placed it into an insertion capsule which was then slotted inside a waiting warhead. The warhead was attached to the missile and the missile was slowly aimed skyward.

  Schofield could only watch helplessly as all this happened. There was nothing he could do—

  Wait.

  He keyed his own radio: “Kid? Mario? You anywhere near the missile battery yet?”

  The Kid’s voice came in. “We just arrived at the bridge leading to it, as ordered. But that bridge is guarded like Fort Knox. They got men all over it. We can’t get to the battery. Why?”

  “Because they’re already there and they’re about to launch,” Schofield said sadly. “They have an extra sphere and they’re going to fire it right now.”

  He bowed his head.

  Now there really was nothing he could do but watch the end of the world.

  “Oh, Captain,” the Lord of Anarchy said suddenly in his ear, “keep an eye out for berserkers.”

  A sudden spray of bullets pummeled the outside of the Antonov. Down in the hold, Baba and Mother fired back, cutting down another three berserkers.

  Champion came alongside Schofield in the cockpit, stared at the screen. “SS-23,” she said. “Medium-range ballistic missile, capable of striking a target perhaps 250 to 300 miles away. The Soviets claimed they discontinued building them under the INF Treaty of 1987.”

  They could see at least four more transporter erector launchers parked behind the one on the screen, each with an SS-23 on its back.

  “Looks like they ended up here,” Schofield said. “This island is the graveyard of the Cold War.”

  The missile’s slow rise stopped.

  It was vertical.

  Ready for launch.

  Ready to ignite the atmosphere and there was not a damn thing Schofield could do about it.

  The Lord of Anarchy turned to the camera. “Witness your failure, Captain. Witness the end of the world as we know it. Launch the missile.”

  A switch was thrown and the SS-23’s thrusters burst to life, spewing flames and a billowing cloud of smoke. It rose into the air.

  Schofield looked away from the screen and up into the southern sky.

  Lancing up into the atmosphere, a tail of thick smoke extending out behind it, was the missile carrying the uranium sphere.

  It rose rapidly and in a few moments it was a tiny speck high above the southern horizon, a speck that in a few seconds would change the face of the planet.

  Schofield stared at it helplessly as the Lord of Anarchy said in his ear, “Detonate.”

  A BLINDING FLASH lit up the southern sky.

  What followed was a sight the likes of which neither Schofield nor Champion had ever seen in their lives.

  A dazzling, incandescent, white-hot body of air expanded laterally from the point where they had last seen the SS-23 missile. The blast flame expanded with shocking speed, at an exponential rate. And in a single, horrifying instant, the entire sky to the south of Dragon Island went from pale blue to flaming yellow-white.

  The atmosphere had been ignited.

  The Earth was on fire.

  THE WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  SAME TIME

  In the Situation Room, an Army tech manning a satellite console turned sharply.

  “Sir!” he called to the Army general in the Crisis Response Team, “I have a missile launch from Dragon Island!”

  The President strode over and saw a real-time overhead satellite image of Dragon Island and the Arctic Ocean surrounding it.

  “They’re igniting the gas cloud,” DIA Deputy Director Gordon said. “Our efforts have failed . . .”

  No sooner had she said this than, on the monitor, a section of the ocean to the south of Dragon Island flared suddenly with blazing white light.

  The tech said, “Missile detonation detected . . .”

  The President stared at the image, horror-struck. “God help us.”

  FOURTH PHASE

  INCINERATION

  DRAGON ISLAND

  4 APRIL, 1120 HOURS

  T PLUS 20 MINUTES AFTER DEADLINE

  Every H
arlot was a Virgin once.

  —WILLIAM BLAKE

  TO THE ACCUSER WHO IS THE GOD OF THIS WORLD

  IF SOMEONE were looking down on the Earth from space, Schofield figured, they would have seen a blinding flash from up near the North Pole, and then they would have seen the extending yellow-white inferno advancing around the globe in a spiral of fiery devastation—

  At that thought, Schofield whipped up his wrist guard and flicked on its satellite imagery, bringing up his own real-time overhead view of Dragon Island and the Arctic Circle.

  On the black-and-white screen, he saw the atmospheric inferno.

  It reached outward from Dragon Island like the claw of some mythical creature, reaching southward before curving eastward, following the course of the jet stream.

  Schofield felt ill. He was literally watching the end of the—

  And then suddenly the expanding wave of devastation and destruction stopped.

  Abruptly and without warning, as if it had come up against an invisible wall in the atmosphere.

  Schofield frowned. “What the hell . . . ?”

  By his crude reckoning, the roaring atmospheric fire had only gone about six hundred miles before it hit the invisible wall and stopped.

  Then he heard the Lord of Anarchy’s voice, only it wasn’t directed at him: “What the fuck just happened?!”

  Another voice: “Sir! We just caught an intruder in the gasworks under the main vents! He cut the TEB pipes feeding the vents! By the look of the oxidation around the valves, he must’ve cut them two hours ago! We’ve been pumping useless gas up into the sky for the last two hours!”

  “What? Who is he?” the Lord of Anarchy demanded.

  “Says his name is Barker. Navy SEAL. Musta slipped past us when we killed the others in the submarine dock.”

  Schofield’s mind raced.

  It was Ira Barker.