Scarecrow Returns ss-5

by Matthew Reilly

  As for Schofield: thank Christ—the fucking Energizer Bunny was finally gone.

  Calderon kept moving. He still had a getaway to make.

  The plane had just entered the gas cloud and, now flying on autopilot, it was programmed to penetrate deeper into the cloud. In less than two minutes, the warhead in the cockpit would go off.

  Calderon hurried over to the tarp-covered object and threw off the tarpaulin . . .

  . . . to reveal a compact mini-submarine.

  It was a Russian Mir-4 Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle, a variant of the Mir-2. Only fifteen feet long with a curved glass bubble for its bow, it was capable of holding six crew, and while it was claimed by the Russians to be used only for scientific research, the Mir-4 was actually used for submarine transfers and clandestine insertions into hostile waters. This Mir-4 had been one of two submersibles that had been on the Russian freighter the Okhotsk when it had been taken six months ago.

  With the jeep now out of the way, Calderon flicked a switch and jumped aboard the sub as it was shunted by an under-floor cable to the back of the hold, ready for release. Once it reached the end of the rear ramp, it simply tipped over the edge and like the jeep before it, dropped away into the gray Arctic sky.

  Unlike the jeep, however, the Mir was fitted with four parachutes, which all blossomed above it as it fell, guiding the sub and Calderon to a gentle landing in the cold waters of the Arctic Ocean.

  The mini-sub landed in the ocean with a soft splash and Calderon quickly drove it under the surface, heading away to a designated retrieval location where he would be met by a CIA Sturgeon-class submarine, his years-long mission now over save for the big bang.

  Calderon had taken care of everything: the gas cloud, the warhead, the destruction of Dragon Island, his own escape.

  He’d only missed one thing:

  The figure dangling from the underbelly of the Antonov at the end of a Maghook: Captain Shane Michael Schofield.

  AS SCHOFIELD’S jeep had tipped out the back of the Antonov, it had dropped away toward the ocean with Typhon still on it, screaming. He had screamed all the way down.

  But Schofield hadn’t.

  As the jeep had dropped out the back of the plane, he had called upon his trusty Maghook—small compared to the Magneteux and not nearly as sexy or strong—but it was all he had.

  Leaping off the falling jeep, he’d fired the Maghook back up at the plane before he fell too far and the Maghook’s bulbous magnetic head thunked against the underside of the rear ramp and held. The jeep had fallen away beneath him, but he hadn’t. He was still in the game.

  Schofield then reeled himself up using the Maghook’s internal spooler, arriving under the ramp just as a submersible of some kind came rumbling out of the hold and dropped into the sky, issuing some parachutes.

  “That son of a bitch,” Schofield said as he climbed back up into the blustery hold, now the doomed Antonov’s only occupant. “But this isn’t over yet.”

  Schofield hurried through the windblown hold and up into the empty cockpit.

  He took it all in quickly: the autopilot, the spectroscope’s screen showing that the plane was now inside the flammable gas cloud, the fearsome warhead, and on the warhead, a timer that currently read:

  00:34 . . . 00:33 . . . 00:32 . . .

  “Thirty-two seconds to the end of the world . . .” Schofield breathed. “How do I get myself into these situations?”

  He looked about himself for options, ideas, solutions.

  He was basically on a flying bomb, one that would ignite a global atmospheric firestorm.

  00:30 . . . 00:29 . . . 00:28 . . .

  He stared at the warhead. Calderon had replaced all its exterior panels and they were all screwed shut. He’d never be able to extract the uranium sphere from it in time.

  How do I stop this? How can I?

  I can’t.

  It’s too late . . .

  And for the first time in his career, Schofield knew that it was true: he had finally run out of time.

  Twenty-eight seconds later, the warhead detonated with all its mighty force.

  THE DETONATION of the warhead containing the red-uranium sphere was devastating in its intensity. It sent out a blinding white-hot blast that expanded laterally in every direction.

  Inside his Mir submersible, under the surface of the Arctic Ocean, Marius Calderon felt it. It shook his sub, even from this distance.

  And then he frowned.

  Deep underwater, he shouldn’t have felt the detonation. Water was an excellent buffer against concussion waves. But he had still felt it. The only way he would feel it underwater was if . . .

  “No!” Calderon shouted in the solitude of his mini-sub. “No!”

  For the warhead had most assuredly detonated, with the red-uranium sphere inside it. The only problem was, it had not detonated in the gas-infused sky.

  As Calderon had just realized, it had detonated underwater.

  It was the only thing Schofield could think to do.

  Roll the warhead out of the cockpit into the hold—

  00:20 . . . 00:19 . . . 00:18 . . .

  Then pushing it off the back of the ramp—

  00:11 . . . 00:10 . . . 00:09 . . .

  The warhead tumbled end over end as it fell through the sky, its timer ticking all the way down—

  00:08 . . . 00:07 . . . 00:06 . . .

  Before it hit the ocean’s surface with a great splash and immediately went under, sinking fast—

  00:05 . . . 00:04 . . . 00:03 . . .

  Where it sank and sank into the blue haze—

  00:02 . . . 00:01 . . . 00:00.

  Beeeeeeep!

  Boom.

  The explosion of the warhead under the surface of the ocean looked like the standard undersea detonation of a thermonuclear device.

  After the initial white-hot blast, a great circular cloud of superheated water—packed with billions of swirling micro-bubbles—materialized and expanded, shooting out laterally before it hit the surface, sending an absolutely gargantuan geyser of water spraying up into the sky, the greatest fountain in history.

  Thankfully, the warhead had sunk deep enough before it blew. The heavy weight of ocean water above it had defused its potent catalytic power and so it did not ignite the sky.

  Indeed, the only person it shook was Marius Calderon.

  As he climbed back into the cockpit of the Antonov and saw the great circular explosion down on the ocean’s surface, Schofield breathed a huge sigh of relief.

  Battered, bloody, tortured, almost overcome with exhaustion and having lost many brave people in the process, he and his team had beaten impossible odds and stopped the Army of Thieves from setting fire to the world.

  It was only then that he saw the uplink dish, sitting on the cockpit’s floor in front of him with all its lights extinguished.

  It had been switched off.

  “Oh, shit . . .” he said. “The Russians.”

  If the Russians had detected this and launched a nuke, Dragon Island and everyone on it had less than twenty minutes to live.

  Schofield turned off the autopilot and swung the plane around, banking hard and fast, heading back toward Dragon Island.

  FINAL PHASE

  SCARECROW VS THE ARMY OF THIEVES

  DRAGON ISLAND

  4 APRIL, 1400 HOURS

  T PLUS 3:00 HOURS AFTER DEADLINE

  It’s easy to feel when the daisies return to the battlefield that no battle was ever fought at all.

  —GRE TEL KILLEEN

  AIRSPACE OVER DRAGON ISLAND

  1400 HOURS

  SCHOFIELD’S ANTONOV shot through the air at phenomenal speed.

  On the distant northern horizon, Schofield saw the silhouette of Dragon Island: its jagged southern mountains, and on the northern plateau, the disc-shaped tower with its lone spire and the two colossal vents.

  He keyed the Antonov’s radio. “American listening post, do you copy? This is Captain Shane Schofie
ld, USMC, in distress. Is anyone out there monitoring this frequency?”

  A voice immediately came on the line, jabbering in angry Russian. Then suddenly, static cut over him and an American voice came in.

  “Captain Schofield, hold for secure line,” some clicks, then: “Captain Schofield, this is United States Air Force Listening Post Bravo-Charlie-Six-Niner, operating out of Eareckson Air Station in the Aleutian Islands. We’d been instructed to keep an ear out for you, in case you called. Please state your service number and comm-security passcode for verification.”

  Schofield did so, adding, “Now put me through to the White House Situation Room.”

  “Patching you through now, sir.”

  The President’s crisis team were still gathered in the White House Situation Room. With them now, however, were two extra people from the Defense Intelligence Agency: Dave Fairfax and Marianne Retter. And the CIA’s representative was no longer present: when Dave and Marianne had commenced their briefing, they had requested that he leave the room.

  When word came in that Scarecrow was on the line, the National Security Advisor and former Marine general, Donald Harris, jammed his finger down on the speakerphone.

  “Scarecrow, Don Harris. I have the President and the crisis team here with me. Where are you and what’s happened with the atmospheric device?”

  “I stopped the activation of the device, sir, but I need to know: with the uplink signal down, have the Russians launched a nuke at Dragon?”

  “Yes, they have. Three minutes ago.”

  “How long till it hits?”

  “Nineteen minutes.”

  “Shit. Can you get the Russians to self-destruct it?”

  “No. Satellite scans reveal that this missile’s guidance control systems have been disabled to prevent any outside takeover, even from its own base. After what happened to the last nuke they fired at Dragon, the Russians made sure this one would hit its target. Nothing can stop that missile now.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line.

  “Scarecrow?” Harris asked. “Where are you?”

  “In a plane about sixty klicks south of Dragon.”

  “Then what the hell are you thinking? Get out of there. In nineteen minutes that island is gonna be a mushroom cloud.”

  “I have people back there, sir,” Schofield’s voice said.

  The President leaned forward.

  “Captain Schofield, this is the President—”

  “Excuse me, sir, but by any chance did a guy named Dave Fairfax get in touch with the White House?”

  The President turned to look at Fairfax.

  “Why, yes, in fact he did. He drove right through the side gate, actually. He’s here now, with Ms. Retter from the DIA. They were just briefing us on some CIA plan called ‘Dragonslayer’ and an agent named Calderon.”

  “I’ve been doing battle with Mr. Calderon all morning. Hey, Dave.”

  “Hey, Scarecrow,” Fairfax said to the speakerphone, aware of all the eyes now on him. “How ya doin’ over there?”

  “I died for a while, but I’m okay now. Thanks for everything, buddy. That info you sent made all the difference. Hope it didn’t get you into too much trouble.”

  “A little,” Dave said.

  “Well, thanks. Tell the DIA director and the President that this Marine thinks you deserve a promotion. And Mr. President, one more thing. I may have stopped the ignition of the atmospheric device, but Calderon got away—the bastard had an exit plan—but he’ll have to turn up at Langley sometime. I may not come back from this, but I want him brought in. Can you do that for me?”

  “We’ll find him,” the President said. “You have my word on that, Captain.”

  “Thank you, sir. I’ve gotta go now. I just arrived back at Dragon.”

  THE ANTONOV soared over Dragon Island.

  Schofield checked the timer on his old Casio digital watch. As soon as he’d been told that the Russian nuke was nineteen minutes out, he’d started the watch’s timer. It was now at:

  14:41 . . . 14:40 . . . 14:39 . . .

  Schofield did the calculations in his head. Another minute to land—perhaps ten to find whoever of his team was still alive: Zack, Emma, Mother, Baba and Champion—and then four to get back on the Antonov and get to MSD, minimum safe distance from the blast.

  The numbers didn’t look good. There wasn’t nearly enough time, nor did he have enough weaponry to take on the Army of Thieves. All he had was Bertie on his back—out of ammo—and a couple of pistols he’d found on the Antonov.

  Either we all survive together or we all die together, he remembered his own words back in their camp.

  “Fuck it,” he said.

  He scanned the base as he came in for landing and saw men running every which way.

  The Army of Thieves had lost not only its supreme leader but its whole command group. Now the thugs were looking for someone to tell them what was happening and what to do.

  He keyed Bertie’s short-range radio: “Mother, Baba! Zack, Emma! Renard! Can any of you hear me—?”

  A man’s voice came in. “I hear ya, buddy, although I sure ain’t your fucking mother.”

  “I hear ya, too,” another reedy voice hissed. “Calling for your mommy, eh? I think I fucked her once and she loved every minute of it.”

  There was no reply from Mother, Baba or any of the—

  “Captain, it’s me,” a softer voice came in.

  It was Zack.

  “I’m alive and have E with me.” Knowing others were listening, he was obviously being careful not to mention Emma’s name.

  “We gotta get everyone off this island. You’ve got nine minutes to meet me at the spot where Baba emptied out some diesel fuel.” Schofield didn’t want to broadcast their meeting point.

  “Copy that. See you there.”

  A few seconds later, a woman’s voice came in, her accent French:

  “Scarecrow, this is”—a pained cough—“Renard. You”—cough—“came back?”

  “Where are you now, Renard?”

  “Where you left me. But I have”—Blam! a gunshot, loud and close—“a bit of a problem here.”

  “Stay there. I’m on my way.”

  Blam! Another. “Hurry.”

  “Ooh, aah! Yeah, stay there, Renard, we’re coming, too!” another voice mimicked Champion’s over the airwaves.

  14:01 . . . 14:00 . . . 13:59 . . .

  As he banked over Dragon Island, Schofield tried to reach Mother and Baba, but he only got more crude replies from snarling Thieves.

  Nothing from Mother or Baba.

  Damn . . . he thought sadly.

  Schofield brought the Antonov in for landing, shooting past the mighty vents before sweeping low over the disc-shaped tower—with one of its spires now lying on its side—and touching down on the runway. The Antonov’s tires hit the tarmac and it taxied down the length of the runway, before pulling up fifty meters short of the western cliffs.

  At least twenty members of the Army of Thieves had been gathered by the airstrip’s hangars when the plane had come roaring in and landed.

  They immediately leapt into jeeps and charged after it, to see if their boss was on board.

  Schofield leapt out of the Antonov—

  13:10 . . . 13:09 . . . 13:08 . . .

  —and saw it.

  Saw the motorcycle-and-sidecar lying askew on the northern side of the runway, the one whose rider and gun-toting partner Bertie had shot earlier. Their dead bodies still lay beside it.

  Schofield ran over to the bike-and-sidecar, lifted it upright and kick-started it. It roared to life.

  He peeled out, kicking up a spray of dirt behind him.

  12:30 . . . 12:29 . . . 12:28 . . .

  He couldn’t believe what he was doing.

  He was going back into Dragon Island—doomed Dragon Island, inhabited by a leaderless throng of Thieves—with only twelve minutes left to save his friends.

  SCHOFIELD GUNNED his motorbik
e up the hill that lay between Dragon Island’s runway and its abandoned whaling village—the same hill he’d hurtled down half an hour earlier.

  11:00 . . . 10:59 . . . 10:58 . . .

  He glanced back at the runway and saw four jeeps filled with Thieves arrive at his plane; saw them swarm inside it.

  They emerged shortly after, looking confused and bewildered. One of them saw Schofield speeding away, pointed and opened fire. Two jeeps took off in pursuit.

  Schofield reached the fork in the road at the top of the hill and swung left, heading for the whaling village as his timer passed through ten minutes.

  10:00 . . . 9:59 . . . 9:58 . . .

  A minute later, he came to the roadblock guarding the whaling village, the same one where Typhon had outwitted him earlier.

  A single Army of Thieves jeep was still parked sideways there, but the men who had been manning it lay dead: shot by Bertie in the smoke-grenade haze that Champion had provided for him.

  Schofield raced past the roadblock and skidded to a halt in front of the frost-covered village.

  He leapt off the bike, gun up. “Renard!” he called.

  Movement to his left—

  —a shaggy polar bear flashed between a pair of sheds and went bounding away.

  Blam! Blam!

  Gunshots.

  From within the village, from the direction the bear had gone.

  Schofield ran that way.

  He rounded a corner just as—Blam! Blam! Blam!—more gunshots rang out and he saw Veronique Champion, sitting in a corner with her back to the wall, her last remaining gun, her tiny Ruger LCP pocket pistol, extended and firing at a shaggy white bear!

  That bear dropped, punctured all over with bullet wounds—and in a fleeting instant, Schofield saw three more dead bears lying in the snow beside it, and in that instant, he saw what Champion had been dealing with in his absence: holding off a steady supply of polar bears with a very small-caliber gun.

  The newly arrived bear roared as it bounded toward Champion and she fired at it, too, but after one more shot, the little Ruger went dry and she looked up in horror as the bear, furious and deranged, charged at her unhindered.