Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow Returns

The other Thieves, Schofield saw, bore similar tattoos on their throats, although some had more than others.

“What do they mean?” Chad asked.

Schofield was silent for a moment. Then he got it. “They’re medals. Markers of participation in certain military engagements.”

“Holy shit. What kind of army is this?” Chad said distastefully.

Schofield stood and turned back to face his team. They were variously breathless, dirty and bloodstained—Chad looked particularly pale, and the older Ivanov was sweating profusely. Only the big Frenchman named Baba seemed okay: he looked like he was out at a picnic, fresh as a daisy.

Having lost Dubois, they were down to ten now, and in a dark corner of his mind Schofield wondered how many more of them would be lost on this mission.

“So what’s the plan now, boss?” Mother said, coming alongside him and peering out at the last remaining islet.

“Now we get across to those gantry elevators.”

“How?” Champion asked.

Schofield stared out at the pontoon bridge that angled toward the supply shed and the gantry elevators.

“By going backward,” he said.

INSIDE THE command center on Dragon Island’s high disc-shaped tower, the Lord of Anarchy gazed at a freeze-frame of Shane Schofield, caught on a surveillance camera inside the Bear Lab.

“So who is he?” he said.

“He’s a Marine, sir. Captain Shane Michael Schofield. Call sign ‘Scarecrow,’” Typhon said. “He’s got a history.”

The Lord of Anarchy stared intently at the head shot of Schofield on the screen.

Then he read the accompanying bio . . . and grinned meanly. “How very interesting.”

He looked up. “What about the others?”

Typhon said, “We counted eleven of them in the Bear Lab, including the Russian, Ivanov, but it looks like one of their people was killed in the Stadium. Of those remaining, in addition to Schofield, I got hits on five in the military databases.”

“And?”

“Three more Marines and two French paratroopers who are now with the DGSE.”

“Let me see.” The Lord of Anarchy took a seat at the console and clicked through the service records of Mother, the Kid, Mario, Champion and Baba.

When he was done, he leaned back in his seat and smiled to himself.

NORTHERN BAY AND SURROUNDS

NORTHERN BAY OF DRAGON ISLAND

4 APRIL, 1026 HOURS

34 MINUTES TO DEADLINE

THE NORTHERN coast of Dragon Island was shaped like a gigantic U in the middle of which lay the last islet.

Ivanov had called it “Acid Islet”—after the enormous acid research laboratory that stood on it—and while it was actually quite large, the 300-foot-high cliffs of Dragon Island that ringed it on three sides made it look tiny.

At the northern end of the islet was the pontoon bridge that joined Acid Islet to Bear Islet. Branching eastward from that bridge was its longer side-bridge that led to the shed and the gantry elevators on the eastern side of the bay.

Overlooking the whole bay from a commanding position on top of the eastern promontory was a lighthouse that also acted as a watchtower.

On that lighthouse, two sentries from the Army of Thieves looked out at the Stadium on Bear Islet with keen interest. They knew that Bad Willy had been sent in from behind to flush the intruders toward Thresher Team, which had crossed the pontoon bridge not long ago—

Suddenly, four parka-clad members of Thresher Team came dashing out across the bridge from the Stadium, running for their lives, heading back toward the shed. The first man helped the second, who limped along as best he could; the third and fourth ones covered them, firing defensively back at Bear Islet as they fled.

They then stopped firing as four more Army of Thieves men followed, also running desperately, and also firing behind them as they ran. All around the fleeing figures, the wooden posts and floorboards of the bridge shattered and splintered under heavy-caliber gunfire.

The Army sentries on the lighthouse spotted two or three figures firing from an oversized doorway at the Bear Islet end of the pontoon bridge.

The intruders.

They were forcing Thresher back.

The retreating men from Thresher Team reached the halfway point of the bridge, the spot where it intersected with the longer side-bridge that would take them to the shed and the gantry elevators—when suddenly one man convulsed and fell, hit. He was scooped up by the man beside him.

As this happened, the junior of the two sentries keyed his radio. “Base, this is Lighthouse. Intruders appear to have established a position at the south end of Bear Islet. They’re forcing Thresher back across to the supply shed and the elevators.”

“ Copy that, Lighthou— ” came the reply.

“Wait!” the more senior man on the lighthouse said abruptly. He was a very large and very capable Chilean lieutenant known in the Army of Thieves as Big Jesus.

He was watching the retreating men on the pontoon bridge closely.

“That’s not Thresher Team . . .” Big Jesus said slowly. “Members of the Army of Thieves are trained to leave any wounded men behind. It’s the intruders, wearing Thresher’s uniforms. Cliff Team: RPG that pontoon bridge now! Destroy it!”

Down on the pontoon bridge—sixty yards from the shed and the elevators—dressed in a bulky Marine Corps parka that he’d taken from a dead Army of Thieves man on Bear Islet, Shane Schofield started down the longer side-bridge, racing backward toward the shed.

In his ear was a very high-tech radio earpiece-mike he’d also stolen from the dead Army of Thieves man—it was small, earbud-sized, with a tiny 10mm-long filament microphone that he had switched off for the moment. But it could still receive and through it, he’d been listening to a conversation between his enemies that had sounded very promising: a sentry on the lighthouse high above him had bought his illusion, that he and the others were actually Army of Thieves men in retreat.

As he listened, Schofield fired back at Bear Islet—each shot, of course, going wildly high—while helping the “wounded” Kid. Beside him, Baba did the same with a similarly “wounded” Champion, who had done a stellar job imitating that she had been shot. Emma, Zack, Chad and Ivanov, also dressed in stolen parkas, ran along behind them.

At the Bear Islet end of the bridge, Mother and Mario—with Bertie—were crouched in a doorway, ostensibly firing at the fleeing team, but hitting only the timber of the bridge, completing the deception.

But then the radio conversation turned sour. Someone had figured out their plan, ordering: “ It’s the intruders, wearing Thresher’s uniforms. Cliff Team: RPG that pontoon bridge now! Destroy it! ”

Gunfire came blazing out from the cliff-top above Schofield, and out of it emerged an RPG, screaming downward. It slammed into the pontoon bridge right in front of Schofield and the bridge went flying up into the air, water spraying all around it. When the geyser settled, Schofield saw that his route to the shed was gone: a broad section of the pontoon bridge had been destroyed. There was no way across it now.

He called as he turned. “We’re made! Everybody! Go the other way! Get to the next islet! Mother and Mario! Haul ass!”

Their cover blown, Schofield, Champion and Baba opened fire on the cliff-top, covering the others as they all turned and ran full-tilt across the shorter pontoon bridge toward Acid Islet. Mother and Mario scooped up Bertie and raced out into the open, also firing up at the cliff-top as they went.