Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow Returns

Every so often, Bad Willy would command his men to silence and hold up a wand-shaped listening device and listen intently through its headphones.

When Schofield’s electric shock torture began, Bad Willy had been holding the wand pointed at the open rear hold of the Antonov and as Schofield had screamed through his wooden bit, Willy heard it in his headphones.

A woman’s soft gasp.

His men stormed the plane and found Zack and Emma huddled behind a tarp-covered mound with their Samsonite case.

ZACK AND Emma were shoved into the gasworks by Bad Willy and his triumphant team.

Mother and Baba’s rat torture had only just finished and the two new arrivals took in the grim scene: Schofield strung up on his vertical bed frame, connected to the electrical cable; Mother and Baba hanging strappado-style, their heads covered by the wooden boxes, both deathly still.

Bad Willy carried the Samsonite case over to Calderon who opened it and beheld the two small maroon spheres inside.

“Thank you, Willy,” he said. “Thank you. You have done well.” He nodded at Emma. “You may have as your reward this delightful young lady, who will no doubt be somewhat fresher than our current crop of female companions. She’s yours to do with as you wish.”

Willy leaned forward. “ All mine?”

“All yours. Men! Let it be known that this woman is Bad Willy’s, to keep as his own, or to share and rent out at any price he names. She is his property, a reward for duties well performed!”

“Thank you, sir,” Bad Willy bowed cravenly. “You are too kind.” He gripped Emma by the arm and took her over to the edge of the balcony.

“No!” Zack yelled, but he was backhanded by a Thief standing nearby and he fell to the floor, bleeding from the mouth, while the other Thieves laughed cruelly.

Calderon handed one of the spheres to Typhon. “Colonel Typhon. Take this to the missile battery and fire it off into the gas cloud, taking into account the empty section of gas closer to this island. Set the sky on fire.”

Typhon hurried out the door with the sphere.

Fatigued beyond measure, his body aching, Schofield watched the awful scene play out.

Things couldn’t get any worse: Mother and Baba were dead, Emma was about to become way-too-intimately acquainted with a member of the Army of Thieves and Typhon was about to launch a missile into the contaminated atmosphere and incinerate all of China, most of India, and much of the rest of the northern hemisphere in an act that had been conceived, planned and executed by one of the Central Intelligence Agency’s best minds.

Only then it got worse.

Calderon came over to him, smiling his smug torturer’s grin. When he spoke, he spoke softly, so that only Schofield could hear:

“Congratulations, Captain, you have served your purpose. Alas, you are of no further use to me, which means you will not see the spectacular end of the world as we know it. I have no more speeches for you and no more torture either. Now you must simply die.”

He lifted Schofield’s reflective glasses off his face and appraised them like a jeweler examining a diamond. They bore many nicks and scratches, including the mark from the bullet that had sliced across them before.

Calderon said, “I like to keep a souvenir from the men I defeat, trophies that remind me of past victories. These glasses will be my reminder of the day I beat the Scarecrow.”

He pulled out a knife and scratched a deep A-in-a-circle into the wraparound lens of the Oakleys and then held the glasses aloft for the crowd to see.

They roared their approval.

Slipping the glasses into his jacket, Calderon stepped away from Schofield. “Mobutu, attach an extra electrode to his heart and apply 10,000 volts. Sorry, Captain, it was nice knowing you. You were a worthy adversary, but America needs me more than it needs you.”

Mobutu attached an extra electrode to the wet skin over Schofield’s heart and resumed his position by the transformer.

Calderon nodded once.

Mobutu turned the dial.

And Schofield jolted more violently than ever before.

Naked sparks flew off the bed frame this time.

Schofield spasmed terribly, his back arching as far as his bonds would allow. His head was thrown backward and his eyes rolled up into his head and, in an instant, it was over.

His body fell completely limp.

It hung from the steel bed frame, unmoving.

Mobutu flicked off the dial and as the Army of Thieves waited tensely, Calderon himself checked Schofield’s pulse.

And found nothing.

Calderon turned . . . and smiled.

He didn’t have to say anything. The crowd roared.

Shane Schofield was dead.

SIXTH PHASE

THE END OF

THE WORLD

DRAGON ISLAND

4 APRIL, 1255 HOURS

T PLUS 1:55 HOURS AFTER DEADLINE

We shall never surrender.

—WINSTON CHURCHILL

WASHINGTON, D.C. 2355 HOURS 1255 HOURS ON DRAGON

DAVE FAIRFAX sped through the streets of Washington, D.C., with Marianne Retter by his side in a little Toyota Prius.

After they had opened Marius Calderon’s classified CIA plan to use Russia to destroy China—appropriately named Operation Dragonslayer—they had given away their position and so had had to run.

Which was why they were now driving in the Prius. It was actually part of the Zipcar network—an eco-friendly car-sharing network that Dave belonged to; Zipcars were parked at various sites around the city and if you had a Zipcard, you could access them. Dave guessed—correctly—that not long after he used his swipe-card to access the car, someone somewhere would detect the ensuing deduction on his credit card and flag the car for immediate detention by the D.C. police. But it was worth the risk, because he didn’t plan on being in the car for long.

“Where are we going?” Retter asked.

Dave looked determinedly forward. “There’s only one place we can go: the one place they don’t want you to go.”

They swung onto the north-west arm of Pennsylvania Avenue and beheld the famous mansion at the other end, lit up by floodlights, glowing in the night.

“We have to get you to your appointment at the White House,” Dave said.

“The CIA will be watching it for sure,” Retter said as they cruised down Pennsylvania Avenue with the gentle flow of nighttime traffic. “They’ll have people stationed all around it.”

“I imagine they will,” Dave said, “so we’re gonna need a little luck.”

They came to the corner of Pennsylvania and West Executive Avenue, the road that gave access to the West Wing Entrance. They turned onto West Executive Avenue.

Dave’s eyes fell on the West Wing Entrance and its boom-gated guardhouse.

Retter scanned the wider area, searching for CIA agents: Lafayette Square was filled with the usual crowd: tourists, cops and . . . four pairs of men in suits positioned at strategic points, several of whom were touching their ears and whispering into their cuffs as they surveyed the area.

“You see ’em?” Dave said.

Retter said, “They could just be Secret Service—”

Suddenly, one of the men pointed at their Prius and started running.

“Shit!” Retter said. “We’ve been spotted!”

Dave snapped to look at the West Wing Entrance.