Matthew Reilly: Scarecrow

00:01 . . .

00:02 . . .

00:03 . . .

'Captain Schofield! When this is over, we will sift through the rubble and we will find your body! And when we do, I will personally rip your fucking head off and piss down your throat!

Gentlemen!''

With that, the mercenaries scattered, dispersing like a flock of

birds to every exit on the ground floor.

Schofield and Book II could only watch them go. Schofield pressed his face to the nearest window to see them appear on the snow-covered ground outside and spread out in a wide circle, covering every exit from the building with their weapons.

He swallowed.

He and Book were stuck in this building—a building which in

52 seconds was going to explode.

It was while he was peering out the window at the mercenary troops on the ground that Schofield heard it.

A deep reverberating throbbing sound.

The unmistakable sound of a fighter jet.

'The transmission from before,' Schofield breathed.

'What?' Book II asked.

'When we were inside the Typhoon, they picked up an incoming aerial contact: a Yak-141 strike fighter. Flown by someone they called "the Hungarian". On his way here.'

'A bounty hunter?'

'A competitor. But in a Yak-141. And a Yak-141 is a . . .' Schofield said. 'Come on! Quickly!'

They dashed for the nearest rung-ladder and climbed it—heading upwards—heading for the roof of the doomed office tower.

Schofield threw open the hatch to the roof. He and Book II climbed out—to be immediately assaulted by the bitter Siberian wind.

His stopwatch ticked upwards:

00:29

00:30

00:31

They cut a lonely sight indeed: two tiny figures on the roof of the tower, surrounded by the deserted buildings of Krask-8 and the stark Siberian hills.

Schofield hurried to the edge of the roof, searching for the source of the engine noise.

00:33 00:34 00:35 There!

It was hovering in the air over by a low dome-shaped building five hundred yards to the west: a Yakovlev-141 strike fighter.

The Russian equivalent of a Harrier jump-jet, the Yak-141 is potentially the ugliest fighter plane ever built; indeed with its squared edges and single fat afterburning engine, it was never meant to look beautiful. But a hinged rear nozzle allows it to redirect its afterburner so that it points downward, allowing the plane to take off and land vertically, and also hover like a helicopter. 00:39 00:40 00:41

Schofield drew his MP-7 and loosed a full clip of thirty rounds across the bow of the hovering Yak, desperately trying to get the pilot's attention. It worked.

Like a T-rex disturbed from its meal, the Yak-141 pivoted in the air and seemed to gaze directly at Schofield and Book II. Then with an aerial lurch, it powered up and approached the glass tower. Schofield waved at the plane like an idiot. 'Over hereV he yelled. 'Closer! Get closer . . . !' 00:49 00:50 00:51

The Yak-141 came closer, so that it now hovered about fifty yards out from the roof of the tower. Still not close enough . . .

Schofield could see its pilot now—a wide-faced man wearing a flight helmet and a confused frown. Schofield waved frantically, calling him over. 00:53 00:54

00:55

The Yak-141 edged a fraction closer.

Forty yards away . . .

00:56

'Jesus, hurry up!' Schofield yelled, looking down at the roof beneath his feet, waiting for the Thermite charges to blow.

00:57

'Too late.' Schofield turned to Book and with a meaningful look, drew his signature weapon. Seeing him do so, Book did the same.

'Just do what I do,' Schofield said, 'and you'll stay alive. Now runV

And so they ran—hard, together, side-by-side—rushing toward the edge of the 15-storey roof.

00:58

They hit the edge, moving fast, legs pumping—

00:59

—and as Schofield's stopwatch hit 1:00, he and Book II leapt out into the clear open sky, their feet stepping off the parapet just as the whole lower section of the building exploded in a billowing cloud of concrete and the entire office tower—all 200 feet of it, the roof, the glass walls, the concrete pillars—just fell away beneath them like a gigantic falling tree.

The pilot of the Yak-141 watched in absolute amazement as the 15-storey building in front of him just disintegrated, crumpling to the earth in eerie slow motion, collapsing into its own dustcloud.

A stocky bear of a man with a wide round face forever set in a heavy-browed Eastern European frown, his name was Oleg Omansky.

But no-one ever called him that.

A former major in the Hungarian Secret Police with a reputation for employing violence rather than brains, he was known in freelance bounty-hunting circles simply as 'The Hungarian'.

Right now, however, the Hungarian was confused.

He had seen Schofield—whom he recognised immediately from the bounty list—and Book II leap off the roof a moment before the building had collapsed.

But he couldn't see either of them now.

A massive dustcloud rose up from the wreckage of the building, enveloping everything within a half-mile radius.

The Hungarian circled the site, looking for the spot where

Schofield had landed.

He noticed a force of men forming a perimeter around the fallen building—a bounty-hunting force, no doubt—saw them rush forward when the collapse of the tower had ceased.

But still he saw no Schofield.

He readied his weapons, and made to land on the roof of a nearby building.

• • •

The Yak-141 landed lightly on the roof of one of Krask-8's smaller buildings, its downward-pointed rear thruster blasting the rooftop clear of any debris.

No sooner was it down than the fighter's canopy opened and the Hungarian climbed out, his body as heavy as his face, carrying an AMD assault rifle—the crude but effective Hungarian variant of the AK-47, notable for its extra forward handgrip.

He was four steps away from the plane when—

'Drop the gun, mister.'

The Hungarian turned . . .

... to see Shane Schofield emerge from the underside of the Yak-141, an MP-7 held in his hand and pointed right at the Hungarian's nose.

While the glass tower had smashed down into the earth, Schofield and Book II had launched themselves into the air above it, falling in matching arcs underneath the bow of the hovering Yak-141.

Before they'd started their run, Schofield had drawn his signature weapon—his Maghook—from his back-holster. Then as he had fallen through the air, he had aimed it at the underbelly of the Yak and fired. Book II had done the same.

Their Maghooks had shot into the air, unspooling wobbling tails of rope behind their hooks. With a pair of dull clunks, the two powerful magnetic heads had slammed into the underside of the Yak—and Schofield's and Book's respective falls had abruptly ceased as they were yanked up by their Maghooks' ropes.

As the Yak had made its way toward the nearest rooftop, they had initiated the internal spoolers on their Maghooks which had reeled them upwards, toward the safe forward underbelly of the hovering fighter jet—while at the same time they were hidden from the eyes of the mercenary force on the ground by the billowing dustcloud below.

The landing had been a little hairy, what with all the flying debris and the deflected heat-blast from the Yak's downward thruster, but they'd made it.

The Yak-141 had touched down, and Schofield and Book II had dropped down to the roof underneath it and rolled away. Now Schofield had one simple plan for the Yak-141. To steal it.

Schofield and Book II faced off against the Hungarian on the roof of the low building.

The Hungarian dropped his assault rifle. It clattered to the ground. Schofield scooped up the ugly gun.