Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow Returns

“On my way—uh-oh . . .”

One of the balaclava-clad men dropped to a prone position, took aim down the sights of a very powerful bipod-mounted machine gun and squeezed the trigger—

— Braaaaaaaaack!

The gunman was himself thrown backward by a terrible burst of machine-gun fire.

Schofield snapped up to see—of all things—Bertie’s gun-barrel smoking.

“Oh, good robot,” he said. “Good robot.”

Bertie lay down some more deadly fire and the other attackers variously dived for cover behind the Beriev itself or returned fire at Bertie. Bullets bounced off the little robot’s metal flanks while Bertie just kept panning left and right, emitting short controlled bursts.

But then while Bertie was facing right, Schofield glimpsed another enemy commando to their left—appearing between the Beriev and the lead containing their escape boats—as he swung a Russian-made RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher onto his shoulder.

The man was only just in Scarecrow’s field of vision. Schofield had to peer up through the cracked windshield of the Beriev just to see him. The angle was too narrow to fire at the man and, in any case, Schofield didn’t have anything to match the firepower of an RPG.

He looked about himself for options.

Wait a second . . .

The parka-clad commando peered down the sight of his rocket launcher, steadied it on his shoulder—as inside the cockpit of the Beriev, Shane Schofield pushed Ivanov backward and said, “Cover your ears!”

Then Scarecrow yanked on the ejection lever of the Beriev’s co-pilot’s seat.

A gaseous whoosh filled the cockpit as a section of the plane’s roof was jettisoned and the co-pilot’s seat blasted out of the Beriev. Since the plane was lying on its side, the flight seat rocketed laterally through the air, shooting low over the ground on a flat horizontal trajectory before it struck the RPG-wielding commando with terrible force, square in the chest, cracking every one of his ribs before sending him flying backward, all but breaking the man in two.

Vasily Ivanov’s eyes boggled as he looked out through the newly opened hole in the roof of the cockpit and saw the dead commando on the ice plain.

“You see that?” Schofield yelled to Ivanov as the other parka-clad commandos opened fire again. “Cause that’s how we’re getting out of here, too! Is that flightsuit you’re wearing good in Arctic waters?”

“It is designed to survive in icy water for a short time, yes,” Ivanov stammered.

“Good enough.” Schofield reached out through the smashed cockpit windshield with one hand, yanked Bertie back inside, and handed him to Ivanov. “Here, hold my robot!” Schofield then sat on the remaining pilot’s seat and pulled Ivanov onto his own lap. “Now hold on to your breakfast.”

Then, with all three of them sitting on the pilot’s seat, Schofield pulled that seat’s ejection lever.

The flight seat shot out of the Beriev—with Schofield, Ivanov and Bertie on it—blasting through the ring of enemy commandos surrounding the plane!

The seat flew—on its side—a foot above the ice plain, the world around it blurring with speed, the force of its screamingly-fast lateral flight pushing Schofield and Ivanov down into it.

After about forty yards of this kind of flight, the speeding flight seat hit the ground where it bounced twice like a skimming stone before shooting clear off the lip of the ice floe and out over the watery alleyway—out over the stunned faces of Mother and the others still in the two assault boats.

Having cleared the lip, the flight seat arced downward and speared down into the freezing water of the lead, entering it with an almighty splash.

“What was that?” Chad asked, astonished.

“That was the Scarecrow,” Mother said, shoving the Kid out of the driver’s saddle, taking the controls and gunning the engine. “Hang on, people! We gotta grab him!”

UNDERWATER SILENCE.

As the flight seat shot under the water’s surface, Scarecrow and Ivanov separated, floating apart in the ice-blue haze. Bertie’s flotation balloons activated immediately on contact with the water and Schofield saw the little robot float up and away to the surface.

Scarecrow felt the sting of the water against his face, the only part of his body not covered by his drysuit. It was outrageously cold, like daggers of ice.

The impact with the water had flipped his reflective glasses onto his forehead, and as he hovered there in the clear blue water of the Arctic, he was enveloped by eerie silence.

But not total silence. An odd thrumming could be heard.

It was then that Schofield realized that he was not alone.

There was something in front of him.

Something impossibly huge, black and enormous, hovering there in the void like a leviathan of the deep. Only it wasn’t an animal of any sort. It was man-made, mechanical.

It was a submarine.

A screaming sense of déjà-vu overcame Schofield.

This had happened to him once before, during that mission in Antarctica, when he had come face-to-face with a French nuclear ballistic-missile submarine. On that occasion, he had managed to destroy the submarine in question. It was one of the events that had made him a marked man by the French.

No. It couldn’t possibly be French —

And then Schofield saw the markings on the sub’s dome-shaped bow, saw the distinct blue-white-and-red flag painted on it.

Yes, it could. This submarine was French.

In the meta-time in which the brain operates, Schofield’s mind rapidly connected some dots.

The wrist guard’s proximity sensor had picked up this submarine only minutes ago—which meant the sensor might not have been broken earlier in their trip and may actually have picked up the same submarine back then—the sub had followed them here—which meant it was a good guess that the sub wasn’t part of what was happening at Dragon Island—indeed, it was a better guess that this sub, this French sub which appeared to be following his team, probably had no idea at all what was going on at Dragon.

This French submarine, he realized with a shock, was up in the Arctic trying to find him.

Gazing at the gigantic submarine, Schofield suddenly noticed that there were three smaller submersibles mounted on its back, compact Swimmer Delivery Vehicles—similar to his AFDVs but smaller—carrying three frogmen apiece and which were at that very moment lifting off from the sub and coming toward Schofield.

It was an assassination squad.

A French hit team, coming for him, and yet totally unaware that they’d walked into a far more deadly firestorm.

Schofield swam for the surface.

Schofield burst up from the icy water and found himself treading water beside Ivanov and Bertie—the little robot was floating happily thanks to his flotation balloons, his fat tires propelling him slowly but valiantly toward Schofield.

“ Captain Schofield, do you require assistance? My buoyancy features can keep you afloat till our colleagues arrive. ”

Just then, like a shark rising from the depths, the first French SDV breached the surface ten yards from Scarecrow, Ivanov and Bertie.

One frogman drove while two more held short-barreled FAMAS assault rifles, raised and ready to fire—

With a roar, something slammed into the first French SDV, sending all three of the frogmen on it flying into the water.

It was Mother’s assault boat and it crunched over the top of the smaller French submersible, breaking it clean in two, before Mother swung her AFDV to a perfect halt beside Schofield.

“Haul them out!” she yelled to the Kid, Emma and Zack in the rear tray.