Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow Returns

“Some of the wildest and most sustained battles in an action thriller in a long time. . . . Nonstop action,

LOTS OF EXPLOSIONS—AND A LITTLE BIT OF CONSPIRACY.”

—CHICAGO TRIBUNE

“Matthew Reilly novels should come with health

warnings on the cover. . . . The nonstop

life-threatening action . . . is not for the fainthearted.

IT’S A WILD RIDE.” —THE TELEGRAPH (Australia)

“For fans of action,

[MATTHEW REILLY] IS ESSENTIAL READING.”

—LIBRARY JOURNAL

PRAISE FOR

MATTHEW REILLY AND THE SCARECROW SERIES

“NOBODY WRITES ACTION LIKE MATTHEW REILLY.”

—VINCE FLYNN, New York Times bestselling author of Kill Shot

“MATTHEW REILLY IS THE KING OF HARD-CORE ACTION.”

—BRAD THOR, New York Times bestselling author of Full Black

To my loyal readers,

This one’s for you

So energetic are these actions and so strangely do such powerful discharges behave that I have often experienced the fear that the atmosphere might be ignited. . . .

—NIKOLA TESLA, INVENTOR

MORE: What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

ROPER: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

MORE: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you—where would you hide?

—ROBERT BOLT, A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts.

—JAMES BOND IN CASINO ROYALE, WRITTEN BY

IAN FLEMING

DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

BACKGROUND REPORT

CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET/EYES ONLY

AUTHOR: RETTER, MARIANNE (D-6)

SUBJECT: THE “ARMY OF THIEVES”

INCIDENT 1: 9/9

THE CHILEAN PRISON BREAKOUT

The first incident occurred on 9 September and it involved the mass breakout of one hundred prisoners from a maximum security military prison at Valparaiso, Chile.

Shortly before dawn, a small force of heavily armed men attacked the prison using military tactics and suppressed weapons. The operation took less than thirty minutes. All of the prison’s guards were killed.

Among the prisoners released were twelve former high-ranking members of the Comando de Vengadores de Los Martires, the “Avengers of the Martyrs,” a right-wing paramilitary group that performed abductions and assassinations for the Pinochet regime.

On their departure, the attackers left a message on the gates of the prison:

THE ARMY OF THIEVES IS RISING!

It had been painted in the dead guards’ blood.

INCIDENT 2: 10/10

THE THEFT OF THE “OKHOTSK”

One month and one day later, on October 10, a Russian cargo freighter, the OKHOTSK, was seized by persons unknown off the west coast of Africa.

According to its cargo manifest, the ship was carrying timber, fuel and building supplies destined for Zimbabwe, and its seizure was initially believed to be the work of West African pirates. But then the Russians sent half of their Atlantic fleet to find the ship.

Our investigations have revealed that the OKHOTSK was actually carrying a large weapons shipment intended for sale to three embargoed African regimes. Its cargo was:

• 310 AK-47 ASSAULT RIFLES;

• 4.5 million rounds of 7.62mm AMMUNITION for those rifles;

• 90 RPG-7 GRENADE LAUNCHERS;

• 9 STRELA-1 AMPHIBIOUS ANTI-AIRCRAFT VEHICLES, each equipped with four 9M31 surface-to-air missiles;

• 12 ZALA-421-08 unmanned aerial surveillance DRONES;

• 18 machine-gun-mounted JEEPS;

• 9 SHIPBORNE TORPEDO LAUNCH PODS containing four APR-3E torpedoes each; and

• 2 MIR-4 DSRV (Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle) mini-submarines.

The freighter was manned by a ten-man squad of Spetsnaz special forces troops.

This last fact makes it extremely unlikely that the OKHOTSK was taken by African pirates. African pirates are usually poor fishermen who attack commercial vessels for the purpose of securing ransoms; at the first sign of any military presence on a ship, they invariably flee.

On the contrary, the force of men that took the OKHOTSK knew exactly what was on it and were skilled enough to defeat a team of crack Russian paratroopers to get it.

To this day, the OKHOTSK has not been found.

INCIDENT 3: 11/11

A ROBBERY OVER GREECE

In the early hours of 11 November, an unmarked German Gulfstream jet carrying nine billion euros from Germany to Greece disappeared from the skies above northern Greece.

The plane’s cargo of hard currency was intended for use in the latest stage of Greece’s financial bailout.

The wreckage of the plane was discovered the following morning. One crew member was missing; the other three had all been shot in the head at close range.

The money was gone.

Painted on the interior walls of the plane was the same symbol seen at the Chilean military jail: a circle with an “A” inside it plus the taunt: “THE ARMY OF THIEVES WAS HERE!”

INCIDENT 4: 12/12

ATTACK ON A MARINE BASE

Helmand Province, Afghanistan

In the early hours of 12 December, a large and heavily armed force of over one hundred men attacked a remote United States Marine Corps staging and supply base in southern Afghanistan.

The force attacked with precision, skill and overwhelming violence, killing all of the twenty-two engineers and maintenance staff stationed at the isolated base.

The attackers’ objective, it seems, was not the murder of U.S. servicemen. They were after the aircraft kept at the base.

The attackers took four AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters plus two Marine Corps V-22 Osprey “Warbird” gunships (one of which contained eight crates of brand-new USMC cold weather Arctic/mountain warfare clothing intended for U.S. forces fighting in Afghanistan over the winter).

The attackers painted on the walls of a tent “SEASON’S GREETINGS, YANKEE SCUM! FROM THE ARMY OF THIEVES!” plus the “A” symbol.

INCIDENT 5: 1/1

A SECOND BREAKOUT (DARFUR)

Soon after midnight on 1 January, a temporary U.N. prison camp in the Darfur region of Sudan was raided by a force of armed and masked men.

102 prisoners variously described as “revolutionary fighters, Islamic militants and narco-mercenaries” from several African nations were freed from the prison and spirited away. All but two of the camp’s U.N. guards were killed.

The two surviving guards reported that the raiding force used a variety of Russian-made assault weapons and two American Cobra attack helicopters. The raiders departed with their large number of escapees in two V-22 Osprey gunships with U.S. Marine Corps markings.

Before they left, they spray-painted a message on one of the prison’s walls: “THE ARMY OF THIEVES JUST GOT STRONGER . . . ”

INCIDENT 6: 2/2

APARTMENT BOMB IN MOSCOW

The spectacular destruction of a twenty-story luxury apartment building in Moscow on 2 February has been well documented in the media.

What was not revealed to the media was the graffiti found covering every wall of the destroyed building’s adjoining parking lot: hundreds of A’s in circles had been spray-painted there.