Matthew Reilly: Scarecrow Returns

“I have seven people. Four Marines, including me, and three civilians.”

“Which means you’ll be about as helpful as a fart in an elevator. Jesus, civilians . Why don’t you leave saving the world to the experts and stay in your heated tents.”

“What about the plane, then?” Schofield asked pointedly. “The Beriev that started all this? Shouldn’t you check that out before you go in? The pilot might still be alive, he might also have some better intel on disabling the device—”

“Fuck the plane and fuck the pilot. I already have the layout of the island and I know enough to disable the weapon. That pilot can’t help me.”

“Well, I’m going to check him out.”

“Fine. Do that. I don’t care. I’ve heard about you, Scarecrow. Heard you got initiative , which to me means you’re unpredictable. And I don’t like unpredictable. Do what you want, just stay out of my way or else you might get shot. Understand?”

“I understand.”

“Ironbark, out.” The line went dead.

And that was how Schofield and his little team came to be zooming south through a maze of ice-walled canals, heading for the site of Vasily Ivanov’s crashed Beriev Be-12.

SEVEN WEEKS IN AN ARCTIC CAMP

MARCH–APRIL

HOW SHANE Schofield—a former commander of a crack Force Reconnaissance unit–came to be in the Arctic with a small team of scientists was a story all by itself.

Over the years, he and Mother had gone through a lot together: a mission in Antarctica during which they had defended a remote U.S. ice station from French and British Special Forces units; that business concerning the former President at a secret base in the Utah desert called Area 7; and, of course, the bounty hunt in which a group called Majestic-12 had put an $18 million price on Schofield’s head.

It was during that last incident that Schofield’s girlfriend, Lieutenant Elizabeth “Fox” Gant, had been captured and brutally executed, for no reason other than to taunt Schofield. And although Schofield had ultimately prevailed in that mission, it had been at tremendous cost.

Some people in authority believed that the matter had taken him to the limit of psychological endurance and even broken him. There were rumors that at one point in the mission he’d tried to take his own life. Even Mother had wondered if he’d ever be the same again.

But after four months of mourning that was labeled stress leave, he’d gone to his superiors at Marine Headquarters in the Naval Annex Building in Arlington and announced that he was ready to get back to work.

Given the concerns about his mental state—and the wariness some Marines had about working with him—he was at first assigned to a teaching position at the Marine Corps’s recruit training facility at Parris Island in South Carolina.

For such an experienced and decorated warrior, the appointment was seen by many as an insult, but it had actually been a good fit.

As the former commander of a Force Recon unit, the new recruits at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, had hung on his every word. And Schofield had turned out to be an excellent teacher: generous with his knowledge, uncommonly patient and always willing to stay late to work with a recruit who wasn’t quite getting it. His students adored him.

That said, everyone at Marine HQ knew it was bullshit. It was just that no one wanted to rush Scarecrow back into active service. (Although there were rumors that as a damaged and therefore expendable leader he had been sent on a particularly bloody mission to an island in the Pacific Ocean called Hell Island. But no one could verify these rumors and Schofield himself would not be drawn on them.)

And then came the first French assassination attempt.

They were waiting for him one Sunday night outside a restaurant in Beaufort as he emerged from dinner with his grandfather: a pair of DGSE agents looking to bag the French military’s 5-million-euro floating bounty on the Scarecrow.

Schofield had spotted them lurking across the street, had seen them follow him and his grandfather to the nearby parking structure. Upon entering the parking lot’s stairwell, he’d quickly doubled back, disarmed and disabled them both.

The two French agents were now in Leavenworth in a special section reserved for protected inmates. The prisoners at Leavenworth, despite their own crimes, were oddly patriotic when it came to foreigners who tried to kill United States Marines and had not given the two Frenchmen a pleasant welcome.

The second attempt had come six months later.

It had happened on a quiet country road a few miles from Parris Island, as Schofield had been driving back there late one night. Another pair of French agents had pulled up alongside his car and abruptly opened fire. A short running gun-battle had followed, and it ended with Schofield firing back with his Desert Eagle pistol and killing the gun-toting passenger before ramming the rival car off a bridge, sending the second French assassin plunging into a swamp.

The driver had survived. He was next seen sitting slumped on the footsteps of DGSE headquarters in Paris, still covered in mud, handcuffed, with a pink bow tied around his mouth. A message was written in permanent marker on his forehead: THIS BELONGS TO YOU.

Despite a face-to-face meeting between the new American President and his French counterpart on the subject, the French resolutely refused to remove the bounty on Schofield’s head.

And then this assignment had come up.

The Corps needed experienced Marines to test new equipment in extreme climates. It would involve accompanying scientists from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the famous DARPA, and some private contractors to the ends of the Earth—baking deserts, steaming rain forests and the brutal cold of the Arctic—to test prototypes of new weapons, tents, armor and vehicles.

Naturally, it wasn’t the kind of mission that the Corps wanted to waste on top talent, but so far as the brass were concerned, it was perfect for Scarecrow: psychologically scarred, possibly unpredictable and the target of a vengeful foreign nation, it would keep him usefully occupied and out of harm’s way.

Schofield didn’t mind the Arctic.

It was quiet and peaceful and at this time of year it was actually quite beautiful. It was always a perfect dawn—the sun lurked just above the horizon, never setting but never rising either, bathing the ice plain in spectacular horizontal light. It was bitingly cold, sure, but still beautiful.

It also helped that he had a good team up there with him.

Eight people and one robot.

OVER THE last seven weeks, huddled in their camp of silver-domed tents, Schofield’s team had got along pretty well—as well as eight human beings living in close proximity in freezing conditions could get along, really.

Having Mother around helped.

She could silence anyone who bitched or moaned with a single withering look. And even then, the only member of the team who’d been even remotely problematic was the senior executive from ArmaCorp Systems, Jeff Hartigan, and getting “the Look” from Mother usually shut him up.

Mother, of course, had insisted on coming along. Not even the Commandant of the Marines Corps dared say no to Mother Newman. After many years of loyal and distinguished service in the Corps, she had her choice of deployment and she went where Scarecrow went.

“Because I’m his Fairy Godmotherfucker,” she would say when asked why.

The other two Marines in the group were considerably younger: Corporal Billy “the Kid” Thompson and Lance Corporal Vittorio Puzo, a hulking Italian-American who because of his famous surname quickly got the nickname “Mario.”