Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow Returns

The original rat box was lifted off Hartigan’s head and Schofield saw the gruesome remains of Hartigan’s face. It was beyond disgusting.

Both of Hartigan’s eyes had been chewed out and were now just empty bloody sockets, dangling with ragged flesh. Schofield stifled the urge to vomit as he saw the smaller of the two rats scurry in through Hartigan’s left eye socket and then race out his gaping mouth.

Hartigan’s corpse was unceremoniously tossed onto the conveyor belt, and to the chants of the crowd of Thieves—“Fire! Fire!”—it disappeared into the furnace.

Mobutu walked with the box over to Mother’s forklift and Schofield’s heart sank.

He couldn’t handle this. First Gant, now Mother. His mind reeled at the thought of what was about to happen.

Abruptly, Calderon called, “Let’s make this a double feature! Bring out a second box! For her French friend!”

The crowd loved this. They cheered as a second, identical box was brought out.

The veins in Schofield’s forehead bulged as he tried with what little energy he had left to yell through the bit in his mouth.

Mobutu used his stepladder to reach up and place Hartigan’s grisly box over Mother’s head. As this happened, for the briefest of instants, Schofield caught Mother’s eye . . .

She was looking directly at him .

The look on her face was one of the most profound sadness, of longstanding friendship and deep affection. She mouthed the word, “Goodbye” just as the box came down over her head and cut off Schofield’s view of her face.

Schofield strained against his bonds, but it was useless. He slumped against the bed frame, out of energy, out of determination and finally, completely, out of options.

There was nothing he could do to stop this. All he could do was watch as his closest friend in the world died a foul death at the hands of Marius Calderon.

Calderon saw this.

Shane Schofield was beaten, his mind, his spirit broken.

The second box came down over Baba’s head and as its neck-hole was stuffed with rags, Schofield thought he heard Mother say something to Baba. It was muffled, so he couldn’t hear what she said, but it was short, just a few final words.

Then, grinning with delight at the show he was putting on for his cohorts, Mobutu mounted his stepladder between Mother and Baba, opened the top panels of both boxes and held a rat in each hand poised above the boxes, ready to be dropped.

The crowd cried for him to put them in, but Mobutu waited for the signal from Calderon.

Calderon held up his microphone. “Zack. Emma. Me again. If you’re out there, this is the sound of Gunnery Sergeant Newman and her French friend, Master Sergeant Huguenot, having their faces eaten by rats.”

He nodded to Mobutu.

Mobutu dropped the rats, one into each box.

The crowd cheered.

A second rat for each box quickly followed, then Mobutu flipped the panels shut.

Schofield watched helplessly.

Then the kicking, thrashing and screaming began.

It was exactly as it had been with Hartigan.

As Calderon held up his microphone, both Mother and Baba started shrieking in pain, bobbing from their suspended arms, their bound legs trying to lash out.

Hideous noises came from their headboxes—screaming, grunting, crunching sounds.

As with Hartigan, the terrible scene lasted about thirty seconds before first Mother, then Baba, went limp and they both just hung there, strappado-style, hands behind their backs, their heads bent and still.

Tears began to form in Schofield’s eyes.

Calderon said sadly, “You, Captain, are a dangerous man to know. I honestly can’t fathom how you live with yourself. Of course, from what I hear, you struggle to do even that: I know you tried killing yourself once—like your father, aren’t you—but the plucky Sergeant Newman stopped you. The question is: who will stop you now? ”

Schofield clenched his teeth around his bit, tears pouring down his face.

Calderon grinned callously, his gray eyes alive. “Captain Shane Schofield: son to a brutal father, lover to a doomed woman, and now witness to the death of his truest friend. Consider yourself broken. Which means now it is time for you to die—”

“Sir!” a voice called from the exit doorway.

Both Calderon and Schofield turned to see a Thief standing by the door.

“What?” Calderon called.

“We got ’em! The two civilians with the spheres! Bad Willy just caught ’em! He’s bringing ’em in now!”

IN THE end, the capture of Zack and Emma had come about almost exactly as Calderon had planned.

After separating from Mother at the quarry-mine, Zack and Emma had searched desperately for a place to hide with the two spheres.

Upon crossing the river, they’d arrived back at the base’s runway, where they found a cluster of barracks structures: superlong halls that had once been living quarters for the substantial Soviet force stationed at Dragon Island.

Zack thought they’d be perfect: dusty and abandoned, and presumably filled with bunk beds, trunks and footlockers, plus locker rooms, toilets and shower rooms that would offer many places to hide.

Zack and Emma had come to the first barracks and cautiously peered inside it—

A long-legged woman in fishnet stockings, high heels and black lace lingerie walked by, casually smoking a cigarette.

Zack frowned. “What the hell—?”

Emma hushed him. “Look. There’s another one.”

Sure enough, a second, similarly dressed woman joined the first, also smoking a cigarette as they stood beneath a glowing wall-mounted heater. In addition to the sexy underwear, both women, Zack and Emma now saw, wore garish makeup; they started talking, in a drawling east European tongue.

Emma realized it first. “They’re prostitutes . . .”

Zack said, “Six weeks in the Arctic is a long tour, especially for an army of hooligans. They have needs. Their boss thought of everything. Come on, let’s check out the next barracks.”

Unfortunately, the second barracks building wasn’t any better: it, too, was clearly being used by the Army of Thieves. While currently empty, its long hall was filled with row upon row of slept-in bunk beds and half-open footlockers. They couldn’t hide there.

Zack and Emma hurried past the second barracks, came to one of the hangars adjoining the runway, and ducked inside it.

An enormous Antonov cargo plane filled the space. It was identical to the one that Schofield had driven into the river, another An-12.

Zack peered in through its open rear ramp: plenty of crates, some large objects covered in tarps and netting.

Emma said, “They have another plane?”

“With a lot of stuff in it to hide behind,” Zack said. “Inside, now!”

He guided Emma into the big plane’s hold and they huddled behind some crates piled up in a dark corner.

It was from here that they heard the torture over the base’s loudspeakers: first Ironbark’s, then Hartigan’s.

But it was Schofield’s electric shock treatment on the parrilla that betrayed their location.

Ever since he had spotted Zack’s Nike boot-prints in the mud earlier, Bad Willy had smelled blood.

Unlike Zack and Emma’s desperate stumbling flight, his movement had been slow and methodical: he and his men had been progressing steadily, patiently, searching for and ultimately finding a new Nike print in the snow or mud; until they stopped at one muddy print that had been left on the concrete doorstep of the hangar containing the second Antonov cargo plane.

Bad Willy and his men had stalked quietly through the dark hangar as Hartigan’s shrill screams had come blaring in over the loudspeakers.