Scarecrow Returns ss-5
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Schofield nodded at Baba. “How is he?”
“He’s still critical. They put him in an induced coma. The doc doesn’t know if he’ll pull through.”
Schofield said, “I gotta go to quarantine and get scrubbed. I’ll talk to you later.”
As he said this, Veronique Champion was placed on the bed to Mother’s right.
Schofield said to Champion, “I’ll come back to check on you, too.”
Champion nodded. “Thank you . . . again.”
Mother saw this exchange and threw a wide suggestive grin at Schofield. She raised her eyebrows. “Take your time, Scarecrow. I got some girl-talk to do with my new French chickadee here.”
OUTER BALTIMORE
24 SEPTEMBER, 1650 HOURS (FIVE MONTHS LATER)
SHANE SCHOFIELD sat in the basement office of a little townhouse in the suburbs of Baltimore.
Oddly, he wore his full dress uniform: white peaked cap, fitted blue coat with medals, gold belt buckle and pale-blue trousers with red piping. His attire looked far too formal for the little basement office, but then when he was done here, he was going to the White House.
Across from him, behind her desk, sat Brooke Ulacco, his plain-looking, plain-spoken, sixty-bucks-an-hour suburban psychologist.
It was nearing the end of the day, and Schofield had just spent the afternoon recounting his experiences at Dragon Island, including his torture at the hands of Marius Calderon.
Until that day, he hadn’t been allowed to talk to Ulacco about his mission to Dragon—as it involved CIA matters, he’d been informed by his superiors that her existing TS/SCI clearance was not high enough. He’d insisted that they get her the appropriate clearance, so he could tell her everything. It had taken a few months and even more background checks but Ulacco had passed and a SAP—or Special Access Program—addendum was attached to her existing Top Secret clearance. For Schofield it was well worth the wait to be able to tell her everything.
When he had finished recounting his story, Ulacco nodded slowly.
“So, how’d you do it?” she asked.
“What?”
“How did you keep your head together? This Calderon guy tortured you both physically and mentally. He taunted you about your father and about Gant’s death and then, so far as you knew, he killed your closest friend, Mother, in front of you with rats in a goddamn box. As your therapist, I would have serious problems with someone doing this to you. So. How did you do it?”
Schofield leaned back in his chair.
He knew exactly how he’d done it.
“I did what you taught me,” he said.
“What I taught you?” Ulacco was rarely surprised. Her calm, cock-sure, seen-it-all facial expression was not often broken. But now it was. “What did I teach you?”
“You taught me to compartmentalize my mind,” Schofield said. “In a memory location. Or in my case, a, ahem, memory submarine.”
Ulacco eyed him closely. “I’ve often wondered about this, Shane. You chose a submarine as a memory locale because it is a perfectly sealable structure, but one with a purging option—one from which you can jettison memories. Did you jettison your memories of Libby Gant?”
Ulacco asked that question without expression, poker-faced. And even though she actually hung on the answer, she added, “There’s no right or wrong answer to this question, by the way.”
Schofield paused for a full minute, thinking long and hard.
Ulacco watched him, waiting.
Then he spoke.
“No. I didn’t. I could never jettison my memories of Libby. She was an incredible woman and I loved her and to remove all the wonderful memories of her would be to remove something that makes me whole, makes me who I am, makes me me. During my torture—and especially when I thought Mother had been killed—I just shoved all those good memories into a compartment deep within the submarine of my mind, shut the steel door and spun the flywheel till it was sealed tight. After that, Calderon couldn’t touch Gant. Nothing he could say or do to me would reach those memories, all those great memories. And I was okay.”
“You were okay? You died.”
“Only for a little while.”
Ulacco cracked a wry half-smile. “So you’re telling me that a memory technique that I taught you here in my crappy basement in Baltimore kept you sane while you were being tortured by one of the world’s foremost experts in breaking the human mind?”
Schofield nodded. “Yep.”
Ulacco turned away for a second, and despite herself, actually looked a little proud. It only lasted a second, but Schofield saw it. Then her usual self kicked back in.
“And then you sorta saved the northern hemisphere from annihilation?” she said.
“Yes.”
“So you could say that by saving you, I actually saved the world?” she said cheekily.
Schofield returned her smile. “I think you could say that.” And they laughed, for the first time in any of their meetings.
Ulacco stood. “Your time’s up, Captain. And you have an appointment with the President to keep.”
Schofield stood and nodded seriously. “Thanks, Doc. Thank you for all your help. Oh, there’s just one more thing.”
THE OVAL OFFICE
THE WHITE HOUSE
24 SEPTEMBER, 2000 HOURS
Shane Schofield stood to attention in the Oval Office in his full dress uniform while the President of the United States hung a medal around his neck.
Beside him stood Mother, also in her dress blues and also at attention. Beside her stood four civilians—Dave Fairfax, Marianne Retter, Zack Weinberg and Emma Dawson—and one robot. Standing happily by Zack’s side, his lower body completely rebuilt and his exoskeleton shining, was Bertie.
Watched by the Commandant of the Marine Corps, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Director of DARPA, they had all received various medals for “gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of their lives above and beyond the call of duty.”
Off to one side stood Brooke Ulacco, dressed in her quickly assembled Sunday best, looking a little stunned to be there. When the President stood before her, he had no medal in his hands.
“Dr. Ulacco,” he said softly. “Captain Schofield has nothing but the highest regard for you and your skills as a therapist. Being President is a pretty stressful job and I’ve been looking for someone to talk to about it, a therapist of sorts. Someone who’ll be tough but fair, yet also discreet. And I hear you now have a substantial amount of security clearance; this would only require a few more background checks. You up for it?”
For the first time since he had met her, Schofield saw the unflappable Dr. Ulacco go wide-eyed with shock.
Once the medal ceremony was over, the President had the Oval Office cleared of everyone but Schofield.
“I have someone here to talk with you, Captain,” the President said. He keyed an intercom. “Mary, please send in the ambassador.”
A side door opened and into the Oval Office walked three figures: one of whom Schofield had never seen before and two that he had.
The man he didn’t know was a tall regal-looking fellow with swept-back silver hair, a long aquiline nose and an imperious bearing; he wore an obviously expensive suit.
The other two—also wearing civilian clothes—were Veronique Champion and Baba. Champion looked fit and svelte in a tailored skirt-suit and heels. She wore perfectly applied makeup and her sleek black hair hung down to her shoulders, having been cut for the occasion. For his part, Baba had trimmed his beard a little but he looked very uncomfortable in a suit. He still wore one arm in a sling.
“Captain Schofield,” the President said, “may I introduce to you the French Ambassador to the United States, Monsieur Philippe de Crespigny.”
Schofield noticed that the President had used the formal method of introduction; only when someone did that, they usually introduced the more senior person to the more junior person. For the President to name Schofield first was to suggest that i
n this room, he ranked higher than the French ambassador. Schofield was sure the ambassador didn’t miss that either.
“Monsieur,” the French ambassador bowed as he shook Schofield’s hand. “I believe you know Major Champion and Master Sergeant Huguenot.”
Schofield nodded to Champion and Baba. “I do. It’s good to see them again and looking so well.”
The President said, “The ambassador has a message to deliver to you, Captain, from his president.”
The ambassador stood a little taller. “Captain Schofield,” he said stiffly, formally, “the Republic of France sends its sincere thanks to you. Major Champion and Master Sergeant Huguenot have informed the President of France that your actions in the field, in addition to saving several other nations, saved France. It is my duty to inform you that the President has thus rescinded the standing bounty on your head. The Republic of France no longer has a grievance with you, Captain Schofield.”
Schofield’s mouth fell open.
Champion smiled at him. Baba grinned.
And the President of the United States, in particular, looked very, very pleased.
A SHORT BUFFET of cakes and coffee followed in the Roosevelt Room, as usually happened after a presidential audience.
Zack and Emma were showing the President Bertie’s many features while Champion chatted with Brooke Ulacco.
Mother’s husband, Ralph, was also there in his best suit and a truly awful tie, yet Mother looped her arm firmly through his as they chatted amiably with Baba and Schofield.
“So, Scarecrow,” Mother said. “Did they ever find that CIA asshole, Calderon, the ‘Lord of Anarchy’?”
Schofield shook his head. “No, but I’m guessing that one day I’ll be called into a high-level meeting and at that meeting will be a very senior CIA asshole who will tell me that Marius Calderon has been found, dead.”
“Only he won’t be dead . . .” Mother said.
“No. Calderon is one of the CIA’s best and brightest. He formulated that plan for Dragon Island nearly thirty years ago and it worked perfectly—everything went as he foresaw it, except for one variable: us. If we hadn’t been up there, all of China and most of the northern hemisphere would be in ashes right now. No, I wouldn’t be surprised if Marius Calderon is already back in the States, back at Langley with a new face and a new name, but probably the same office.”
A few minutes later, the President quietly tapped Schofield on the shoulder. “Captain, a word, please.” He guided him out of the room.
They went downstairs to the Situation Room, where some intelligence people waited, including the directors of the DIA and CIA.
“Captain,” the President said, “I want you to hear this right from the source. Director.”
The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency stepped forward, looking suitably grim. Despite himself, he looked Schofield up and down before he spoke, as if assessing the man who had ruined a long-laid CIA plan.
“Mr. President. Captain Schofield. We finally found Marius Calderon. He’s dead. Two weeks ago, his submersible was found by a Norwegian fishing trawler, drifting in the Arctic Ocean. The submersible’s oxygen supply had malfunctioned sometime after Calderon went under. He suffocated.”
Schofield looked the CIA director square in the eye.
“Thank you, Director. I never expected to hear that.”
Schofield returned to the soirée in the Roosevelt Room.
He was met at the door by Mother and Brooke Ulacco.
“Hey, Scarecrow. We were just talking with Sexy French Chick.” Mother jerked her chin over at Champion. “Guess what? Do you know what renard means in English?”
“No.”
“Renard,” Mother said slowly, “is French for fox.”
Schofield took this in. “Is that so?”
“Uh-huh. I think there might be something in that,” Mother said. “You know what else? She asked if you might be open to joining her for a drink after this.”
Schofield glanced over at Champion—and caught her looking at him before she turned quickly away.
He turned to Ulacco. “Thoughts?”
Brooke Ulacco shrugged. “It was always going to take a formidable woman to light a spark in you again. And that woman is pretty damn formidable. I say, go for it. A date would be good for you. Mother?”
“I approve,” Mother said softly as she gave Schofield a peck on the cheek. “And I think the old Fox would, too.”
Schofield gazed at Veronique Champion—Renard, Fox—for a long moment, thinking about it.
And then he walked over to join her.
Later that night, Schofield and Champion could be seen in an all-night coffee shop a few blocks from the White House, talking, smiling and, occasionally, laughing.
They talked long into the night.
It was late, after two A.M., when Schofield returned to his temporary barracks apartment at the Marine Corps complex in Arlington.
There was something on his bed.
On the pillow.
A pair of battered wraparound reflective glasses, with an A-in-a-circle etched into them.
His glasses, last seen in the possession of Marius Calderon.
There was nothing else with them. No note. Nothing.
Scarecrow glanced uneasily around the apartment. Then he picked up the glasses and gazed at them long and hard.
About the Author
MATTHEW REILLY is the internationally bestselling author of more than ten novels: Contest, Ice Station, Temple, Area 7, Scarecrow, the Hover Car Racer books, Seven Deadly Wonders, The Six Sacred Stones, The Five Greatest Warriors, Scarecrow Returns, and the novella Hell Island. His books are published in more than twenty languages, with worldwide sales exceeding four million copies. The film rights to Hover Car Racer have been acquired by Walt Disney Pictures and the rights to Scarecrow and Seven Deadly Wonders have also been optioned.
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