Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow Returns

“You still got your smoke grenades?”

Champion did.

“Give me two.”

She pulled two grenades from her weapons belt and handed them to Schofield.

“Here’s the plan,” he said. “I get up close to their roadblock, toss these, and in the smoke that follows, you take down the men on the right, I take down the ones on the left.”

“That’s it? That’s your plan?”

“You got anything better?”

“I suppose not,” Champion said. “Wait. How are you going to get to the roadblock? There’s at least fifty yards of open ground between us and them, and those grenades won’t work over that distance.”

Schofield nodded. “I have a plan for that.”

“And that is?”

“Surrender.”

A moment later, Schofield emerged from cover, walking toward the roadblock across the short section of open ground, his hands held high.

The Army of Thieves team immediately whipped up their weapons, alert and wary.

Schofield’s heart was beating loudly in his head. He just needed to get close enough—maybe ten yards—and then grab and throw the two smoke grenades now clipped behind his shoulders, out of his enemies’ view.

He came closer. Thirty yards away.

“I want to give myself up!” he called as he walked.

They did not fire.

“Keep your hands where we can see ’em!” one of the Army men yelled nervously.

Closer still. Twenty yards . . . fifteen . . . ten . . .

Now , he thought as his hands tensed to reach back and grab the grenades—

“ Freeze , Captain! And keep those fucking hands away from those grenades,” a deep voice said from down to Schofield’s right.

Schofield froze and shut his eyes.

He swore inwardly. He hadn’t seen the little corrugated-iron shed just below the edge of the roadway.

Nor had he seen the man who had been hiding behind it: a tall Army of Thieves man with a modern assault rifle held expertly in his hands and TYPHON stenciled in Magic Marker on his parka.

The man named Typhon stepped up onto the road, his gun trained on Schofield. He yanked the two grenades off Schofield’s webbing and tossed them to the roadway.

“Wouldn’t want you using those now, would we?” Typhon said. The other members of the roadblock team now surrounded Schofield. Typhon took his guns. “Hands behind your head, Captain Schofield.”

Schofield clasped his hands behind his head.

He thought of Champion and that maybe she could save him, but while she could manage simple tasks like swimming, she was in no state to launch a rescue. And right now, the only weapons she had were her Steyr TMP and her two pistols—the SIG-Sauer P-226 and her little Ruger—and they would be no match against this many men.

Typhon stepped in front of Schofield, stood nose-to-nose with him, filling his field of vision.

The man’s eyes were frightening. Black and hard, they were lifeless, pitiless. Schofield knew that kind of stare. The cold gaze of a sociopath.

“The boss thought you might come back,” Typhon said. “You have a reputation for it.”

Schofield said, “If you’re going to kill me, kill me. Cut the pompous speeches.”

“Oh, we plan to kill you, Captain, of that you can be certain. But the short life left to you still has some worth to us. The boss would like to speak with you.”

Schofield saw the nod Typhon gave to one of the men standing behind him and he turned in time to see the man’s rifle-butt come rushing at his face and Schofield’s world went black.

FIFTH PHASE

THE TORTURE

AND DEATH OF

THE SCARECROW

DRAGON ISLAND

4 APRIL, 1230 HOURS

T PLUS 1:30 HOURS AFTER DEADLINE

The only truly effective form of torture involves inflicting severe pain on a friend or loved one of the person you seek information from. Everything else is a waste of time.

—“THE TORTURE MEMO” [UNREDACTED]

OBTAINED UNDER FOI,

U.S. DEPT OF JUSTICE, APRIL 2004

DRAGON ISLAND 4 APRIL, 1230 HOURS

SCHOFIELD WAS slapped in the face and he awoke.

To find himself handcuffed to a steel bed frame that stood upright. His hands were spread-eagled, cuffed to the upper corners of the old bed frame. His feet were tied to the lower edge of the frame by a rope. He looked like a warped version of Christ on the Cross.

Typhon stood before him. “Wakey, wakey, Scarecrow . . .”

Schofield took in his predicament with not a little horror.

He was bare-chested. The upper half of his one-piece snow-camouflaged drysuit had been slipped off his shoulders and rolled down to his waist in the same way a car mechanic might roll down the upper part of his overalls.

Schofield shivered in the cold.

His parka, weapons belt and combat webbing had all been removed. Curiously, his boots and socks had also been taken, leaving his feet bare. His high-tech wrist guard was also missing but his old Casio digital watch, clearly so crappy it was unworthy of taking, remained on his wrist. His weapons and Maghook were gone, but not his reflective glasses: they had been perched comically on top of his head.

He looked around.

He was in a small room with ceramic tile walls, drains in the floor and showerheads on the walls: a shower room of some sort.

Suddenly, the roar of a crowd came in through the only door to the room. Schofield couldn’t quite get his head around the sound. Cheering?

Typhon slapped him again. Harder. “He’s awake.”

A second man stepped into Schofield’s field of vision.

Schofield recognized him instantly. It was the man who had taunted the Russian president on the video link, the one who called himself the “Lord of Anarchy.”

He was older than Typhon, in his mid-fifties maybe, but he was fit, strong, still in shape. The acid scar on his left jawline was very prominent when seen up close. And his eyes: they were a strange pale gray, oddly hypnotic.

And they weren’t like Typhon’s. They were not psychotic; not empty of pity or care. In fact, they were the opposite of that: this man’s eyes seemed designed solely to detect emotion, feelings, pain. They gleamed with intelligence and they saw right through you. Typhon was an enforcer. This man was something else, something more.

The Lord of Anarchy gazed at Schofield—crucified half-naked on the vertical bed frame—analyzing him, evaluating him.

“So this is the famous Scarecrow,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is—”

“I’m guessing you’re Calderon,” Schofield said. “Marius Calderon. From the CIA.”

Calderon smiled sadly. “That, I fear, is a sliver of knowledge that means you cannot, ever, leave this island alive.”

“You like that piece of knowledge?” Schofield said. “How about this one then: that this whole thing was a CIA setup. You assholes at the Agency let the Russians steal the plans for this facility, knowing that they would build it. That’s how you knew there was an extra sphere down in the bunker, because our people designed this whole complex in the first place. And now that China is an economic powerhouse threatening America’s dominance, you created this fake terrorist army to set off the atmospheric weapon.”

Calderon smiled wanly. “This terrorist army isn’t fake. Its foot-soldiers are real, or at least they think they are part of a real terrorist army.”