Scarecrow Returns ss-5

by Matthew Reilly

  Both bore bloody lips and noses, evidence of beatings already received. Schofield also noticed that a huge Army of Thieves man—it was Big Jesus—was standing nearby with a new acquisition slung across his back: Baba’s massive Kord machine gun.

  At the loud cheer from the crowd of thugs, Mother snapped around and saw Schofield being wheeled out on the bed frame.

  “Scarecrow!” she called.

  Schofield couldn’t reply through his duct-taped mouth, but he locked eyes with her.

  Mother yelled, “Stay strong, Boss! We got ’em just where we want ’em!”

  Schofield’s bed frame was erected vertically alongside Ironbark’s. As he jolted to a halt, Schofield saw Ironbark look up at him—the totally exhausted gaze of a man who had been tortured to within an inch of his life. It seemed to take all of his energy to just raise his head. The smell of his burnt skin was sickening.

  Calderon stood before Schofield and jerked his chin at Ironbark. “Specialist Barker here is a fair bit further along on his journey of pain than you are. But fear not, Captain, you will catch up with him soon.”

  Calderon then turned to the Army of Thieves trooper manning the transformer connected to Ironbark’s bed frame. He was a Sudanese fellow with studded skin and bloodshot yellow eyes; and on his back, Schofield saw, still in its holster, he wore Schofield’s Maghook.

  “Corporal Mobutu,” Calderon said, “I need that transformer to use on Captain Schofield. Splash Mr. Barker and kill him, please.”

  The Sudanese torturer grabbed a nearby bucket of water and hurled its contents over Ironbark’s limp body.

  Calderon explained to Schofield, “The trouble with electrocuting a human being, Captain, is that human skin, when dry, is actually quite resistant to electricity. The result is burning—you can ramp up the voltage as much as you want, but you only end up scorching the skin more. And the smell, God, it really is quite offensive. But if you wet the subject’s skin, the skin’s resistance drops and it becomes one hundred times more receptive to electricity. One moment, please. This is all for nothing if I don’t broadcast it.”

  Calderon grabbed a microphone from nearby. It was connected to a communications console on the wall. Calderon pressed the TALK button and when he spoke again, his voice was magnified through every one of the many loudspeakers in the gasworks; indeed, through every loudspeaker on Dragon Island.

  “Zack Weinberg. Emma Dawson. I know you can hear me.” Calderon’s voice blared. “Please listen to this. It is the sound of one of your comrades-in-arms dying.”

  Calderon turned to his Sudanese assistant. “Mobutu, 10,000 volts, please.”

  The Sudanese flicked a dial on the transformer and immediately the steel springs on Ironbark’s bed frame flashed with blue lightning.

  Ironbark’s entire body shook violently as electricity coursed through him, his terrible shuddering sending droplets of water flying outward. His teeth clenched around the wooden bit in his mouth. He grunted and strained in absolute agony, the tendons of his neck bulging, before abruptly his groans became high-pitched screams.

  Calderon held the microphone close to Ironbark’s mouth the whole time, broadcasting his horrific screams across the island.

  Then Ironbark’s screams cut off and he went completely limp, even though the transformer was still switched on, its electrical charge still flowing through the bed frame.

  Schofield was thunderstruck by the savagery of it.

  Ironbark was dead, but this wasn’t over yet.

  The crowd started chanting, “Fire! Fire!”

  Calderon nodded and Ironbark’s dead body was wheeled away and tipped—still attached to the bed frame—off the edge of the balcony, where it fell a short distance before landing on the conveyor belt. The slow-moving belt then carried it away. The corpse on the bed frame disappeared for about ten seconds as it passed under the broad ramp from the train platform, only to reappear again at the lip of the furnace on the far side.

  Ironbark and the bed frame then tipped into the furnace where they were swallowed by the flames and the crowd of Thieves cheered with macabre, crazed delight.

  In a dark corner of Dragon Island, Zack and Emma heard it all over a nearby loudspeaker.

  They looked at each other in horror.

  “Oh my God . . .” Emma whispered. “Oh my God . . .”

  In the gasworks, Calderon stepped over to the figure of Jeff Hartigan, suspended strappado-style from the forklift.

  He slapped Hartigan’s face and the executive stirred, groaning. He was alive.

  Calderon turned theatrically to the crowd. “What do you say? Rat time?”

  The crowd of Thieves roared with delight.

  “Mobutu,” Calderon said. “Bring in the rats.”

  MOBUTU DISAPPEARED into a side room, returning a few moments later with a large wire-framed crate inside of which were six rats.

  Schofield’s eyes went wide.

  They were of various sizes, from small and scurrying to fat and huge. They all had black furry backs, long hairless tails and frightening buck teeth. They snapped at one another with considerable viciousness.

  Calderon said, “You know, Captain, one can’t help but be impressed by vermin. Rats, cockroaches, they’re so resilient. They will outlast us, that’s for sure. These rats, for instance, have survived on this island far longer than their old Soviet masters did. Consider this a demonstration for your benefit.”

  Calderon jerked his chin at Hartigan. “Put a box on him.”

  Mobutu obliged. Climbing a stepladder, he placed a large wooden box over Hartigan’s bowed head. The box had solid wooden walls, save for a round hole cut into its base, which was designed to accommodate the victim’s neck. Once the box was in place over Hartigan’s head, Mobutu stuffed some rags around the edge of this hole, sealing the gap between the box and the skin of his neck. Hartigan now looked like the Man in the Iron Mask.

  There was also a hinged panel on the top side of the box—and when Schofield saw Mobutu open this panel and pick up a particularly large rat by the tail with his spare hand and hold it above the opening, every ounce of blood in his veins turned to ice.

  “Oh, Lord, no . . .” he breathed.

  Calderon saw this. “I imagine a man as learned as you, Captain, is familiar with Orwell’s beautiful novel 1984. In it, a similar form of rat torture is used on the protagonist, Winston Smith. But there the rat torture is only employed as a threat to break Smith’s will; it is not actually used. Know this about me, Captain: I do not bother with threats. Mobutu, do it.”

  Mobutu dropped the rat into the box, and then quickly added a second one, a smaller one, before he shut the upper panel.

  As he did this, Calderon raised his microphone again: “Zack. Emma. You remember your camp-mate, Mr. Jeffrey Hartigan. This is him, being eaten alive by rats.”

  Until that instant, Jeff Hartigan’s body had been practically motionless as it hung suspended from the forklift’s prong. But then with alarming suddenness, Hartigan started screaming like a madman. His legs kicked frantically, lashing and thrashing, his arms strained at their bonds, but there was no escape.

  Schofield couldn’t see what was happening inside the wooden box covering Hartigan’s head, but he could imagine it and it made him nauseous with horror.

  The rats were eating Hartigan’s defenseless face.

  Soon they would eat through his eyes and burrow into his brain, eating that, too, and only then would death come. It was a cruel and painful way to die.

  Hartigan’s screams filled the air, hideous shrieks of agony that were only barely muffled by the box. Through it all, Calderon held up the microphone to catch every cry.

  After thirty seconds of this, mercifully, death came.

  Hartigan’s body abruptly went still, although the box on his head continued to shake, jostled from within by the movement of the rats.

  Again, the crowd cheered. Again, Calderon smiled.

  Mother and Baba both stared, openmouthed, in di
sbelief.

  Schofield did the same.

  “Jesus Christ in Heaven, save us,” he breathed.

  Calderon came up to him, still the picture of casual calm.

  He looked straight at Schofield as he spoke into his microphone. “Zack? Emma? Are you still there? You can stop this, you know, simply by revealing yourselves. That’s all you have to do. Or else I can continue on sergeants Newman and Huguenot and Captain Schofield here.”

  Calderon shrugged, addressed Schofield. “While we wait for them, Captain, let’s talk. Now, I understand from reading your file that you had a fractured relationship with your father. You defended your mother from his beatings and I wonder if this laid the foundations for your rather heroic adulthood. But even heroes suffer loss. Forgive me for opening an old wound, but I’m led to believe that your girlfriend, Ms. Elizabeth Gant, was beheaded by a rather nasty fellow named Jonathan Killian. For a heroic type like you, being helpless to save the woman you loved must have been a most painful thing. As I understand it, you weren’t there when she was killed, were you?”

  Schofield stared straight ahead, said nothing.

  Calderon said, “To see or hear a loved one being subjected to torture is, in my experience, the most motivating thing for a human being. It is by far the best way to get information from a captive. Those masters of torture, the Japanese in World War II, used such methods regularly both during the war and before it during their infamous sack of Nanking.

  “Right now, you have nothing that I want, but Zack and Emma do. My torture of you is solely for the purpose of drawing them out.”

  Calderon leaned close and whispered in Schofield’s ear: “I will take you within an inch of death and you will beg me to kill you, but I’m not going to do that right now. As I said, I want to break your mind before I kill you. Mobutu, put the bit between his teeth.”

  The Sudanese stepped forward and with a leering gap-toothed grin, ripped off the duct tape and made to jam the wooden bit into Schofield’s mouth.

  Schofield took the opportunity to call out: “Mother! When I’m gone, you keep fighting, you hear!” but then Mobutu wedged the bit between his teeth and he could shout no more.

  Mother’s and Schofield’s eyes met, matching gazes of helplessness.

  Mother called across the space, “I will, Scarecrow! You bet I fucking will!”

  Calderon said, “Captain, the device you are strapped to is known as a parrilla, a torture device used widely in Chile during the reign of the Pinochet regime. The word parrilla translates roughly as ‘barbecue.’ It is a form of electric shock torture, with the current shot through the metal frame to which the victim is strapped. I have found that old military-barracks bed frames, with their steel springs and thin crossbars, distribute the electric current to maximum effect while also leaving a unique burn pattern on the back of the victim that never goes away. Mobutu, a taste for the captain: 2,000 volts, please.”

  Mobutu turned the dial.

  Schofield convulsed violently.

  White light flooded his field of vision and excruciating—excruciating—pain shot through his entire body. He wanted to arch his back, stretch out the vertebrae, but he couldn’t, he was pinned down too tightly. His teeth clamped down on the bit and he grunted, trying to scream.

  As he did this, Calderon held the microphone up close to his mouth, broadcasting his pained grunts and stifled screams across the island.

  “Zack and Emma,” he commentated, “what you are hearing is the sound of the brave Captain Schofield being electrocuted.”

  Then, through the blinding pain, Schofield smelled it.

  The smell of skin burning. His own skin burning.

  He tried to scream again.

  Mother strained at her bonds. “You motherfucker!” she yelled at Calderon. “I am gonna rip your fucking head off!”

  Calderon nodded to Mobutu and the Sudanese flicked off the dial and Schofield slumped against the bed frame, spent, exhausted, sweating, gasping. His head fell forward as he tried to suck in oxygen.

  Calderon smiled. “That was but a mere 2,000 volts against your dry skin, Captain. As you saw with your SEAL friend, Mr. Barker, when the skin is wet, its conductivity increases one-hundredfold. Soon I will have Mobutu douse you in water and turn that dial to a much higher voltage. Then the current won’t burn your skin—it will flow directly through your heart and kill you.”

  Calderon nodded at Mobutu and the Sudanese again grabbed the nearby bucket and hurled its remaining contents over Schofield’s body. Schofield hung there on the bed frame, dripping with water.

  Calderon threw a sideways glance at Mobutu.

  Schofield, despite his overwhelming exhaustion, felt his heart skip—this was it, this was the end—but Calderon suddenly laughed.

  “Oh, no, not yet, Captain,” he said with a torturer’s relish. “I told you. I was going to break you before I killed you. You didn’t witness Elizabeth Gant’s death, but trust me, you will see your loyal friend, Mother Newman, die before your very eyes.”

  Despite his own pain, Schofield shot a look at Mother.

  “Really, Scarecrow. To lose one loved one is tragic. To lose a second is simply careless. What if it happened again: your closest friend horribly executed, dying in extreme pain, right in front of your eyes. That would break a man.”

  Schofield’s face went pale, draining of blood.

  Calderon smiled.

  “Mobutu. Put the box on her and insert the rats.”

  WHAT FOLLOWED was more than Schofield—weakened, pinned down, helpless—could bear.

  The original rat box was lifted off Hartigan’s head and Schofield saw the gruesome remains of Hartigan’s face. It was beyond disgusting.

  Both of Hartigan’s eyes had been chewed out and were now just empty bloody sockets, dangling with ragged flesh. Schofield stifled the urge to vomit as he saw the smaller of the two rats scurry in through Hartigan’s left eye socket and then race out his gaping mouth.

  Hartigan’s corpse was unceremoniously tossed onto the conveyor belt, and to the chants of the crowd of Thieves—“Fire! Fire!”—it disappeared into the furnace.

  Mobutu walked with the box over to Mother’s forklift and Schofield’s heart sank.

  He couldn’t handle this. First Gant, now Mother. His mind reeled at the thought of what was about to happen.

  Abruptly, Calderon called, “Let’s make this a double feature! Bring out a second box! For her French friend!”

  The crowd loved this. They cheered as a second, identical box was brought out.

  The veins in Schofield’s forehead bulged as he tried with what little energy he had left to yell through the bit in his mouth.

  Mobutu used his stepladder to reach up and place Hartigan’s grisly box over Mother’s head. As this happened, for the briefest of instants, Schofield caught Mother’s eye . . .

  She was looking directly at him.

  The look on her face was one of the most profound sadness, of longstanding friendship and deep affection. She mouthed the word, “Goodbye” just as the box came down over her head and cut off Schofield’s view of her face.

  Schofield strained against his bonds, but it was useless. He slumped against the bed frame, out of energy, out of determination and finally, completely, out of options.

  There was nothing he could do to stop this. All he could do was watch as his closest friend in the world died a foul death at the hands of Marius Calderon.

  Calderon saw this.

  Shane Schofield was beaten, his mind, his spirit broken.

  The second box came down over Baba’s head and as its neck-hole was stuffed with rags, Schofield thought he heard Mother say something to Baba. It was muffled, so he couldn’t hear what she said, but it was short, just a few final words.

  Then, grinning with delight at the show he was putting on for his cohorts, Mobutu mounted his stepladder between Mother and Baba, opened the top panels of both boxes and held a rat in each hand poised above the boxes, ready to be
dropped.

  The crowd cried for him to put them in, but Mobutu waited for the signal from Calderon.

  Calderon held up his microphone. “Zack. Emma. Me again. If you’re out there, this is the sound of Gunnery Sergeant Newman and her French friend, Master Sergeant Huguenot, having their faces eaten by rats.”

  He nodded to Mobutu.

  Mobutu dropped the rats, one into each box.

  The crowd cheered.

  A second rat for each box quickly followed, then Mobutu flipped the panels shut.

  Schofield watched helplessly.

  Then the kicking, thrashing and screaming began.

  It was exactly as it had been with Hartigan.

  As Calderon held up his microphone, both Mother and Baba started shrieking in pain, bobbing from their suspended arms, their bound legs trying to lash out.

  Hideous noises came from their headboxes—screaming, grunting, crunching sounds.

  As with Hartigan, the terrible scene lasted about thirty seconds before first Mother, then Baba, went limp and they both just hung there, strappado-style, hands behind their backs, their heads bent and still.

  Tears began to form in Schofield’s eyes.

  Calderon said sadly, “You, Captain, are a dangerous man to know. I honestly can’t fathom how you live with yourself. Of course, from what I hear, you struggle to do even that: I know you tried killing yourself once—like your father, aren’t you—but the plucky Sergeant Newman stopped you. The question is: who will stop you now?”

  Schofield clenched his teeth around his bit, tears pouring down his face.

  Calderon grinned callously, his gray eyes alive. “Captain Shane Schofield: son to a brutal father, lover to a doomed woman, and now witness to the death of his truest friend. Consider yourself broken. Which means now it is time for you to die—”

  “Sir!” a voice called from the exit doorway.

  Both Calderon and Schofield turned to see a Thief standing by the door.

  “What?” Calderon called.