Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow

'So what do you need?' Fairfax asked.

'Four things,' Schofield said. 'First, I need you to tell me where Gant is stationed in Afghanistan. Exact GPS location.'

'Jesus, Scarecrow, that's operational information. I don't have clearance for that. I could get arrested just for accessing it.'

'Get clearance. Do whatever you have to do. I just lost six good Marines because my mission to Siberia was compromised by someone back home. It was a set-up designed to put me in the hands of some bounty hunters. I can't trust anybody, David. I need you to do this for me.'

'Okay. I'll see what I can do. What else;"

Schofield pulled out the list of names he'd taken from Wexley, the ExSol leader. 'I need you to look up the following names for me . . .'

Schofield read out the names on the bounty list, including his own.

'Find out what these names have in common. Career history, sniper skills, hair colour, anything. Cross-check them on every database you've got.'

'Got it.'

'Third, look up a base in Siberia called Krask-8. Find out whatever you can about it. I want to know why it was chosen as an ambush site.'

'Okay. And the last impossible task?'

Schofield frowned, thinking—thinking about one of the names he had heard mentioned on the radio at Krask-8.

At last he said, 'This is going to sound weird, but can you look

Gant's armoured eight-wheeler skidded to a halt inside the darkened cave entrance.

Its double rear doors were flung open from within and the six-man team of Marines thundered out of it, boots slamming against the ground, guns up.

Gant stepped out of the LAV and scanned the area, the gigantic Mother Newman by her side. Both were dressed in sand-coloured fatigues, helmets and body armour, and held MP-7s and pistol-sized crossbows in their hands.

The cave here was wide and high and completely concrete-walled. A wide set of train tracks disappeared down a very steep tunnel in front of them. The tunnel was called a drift and it was how you entered the mine.

'Sphinx, this is Fox,' Gant said into her throat-mike. 'We're in. Where are you?'

A British-accented voice came in: 'Fox, this is Sphinx. Christ, it's bedlam down here! We're at the eastern extremity of the mine! About two hundred metres from the drift! They're bunkered down in front of the two vents, in an air pock —'

The signal cut off.

'Sphinx? Sphinx? Damn,' Gant turned to two of her men. 'Pokey. Freddy. Flush out those RPG foxholes upstairs. There's gotta be some internal tunnels giving access to them. Nail those suckers so we can open a safe corridor into this mine.'

'Yes, ma'am.' The two young Marines took off.

'The rest of you,' Gant said, 'follow me.'

• • •

up a guy called the "Black Knight"? Check the mercenary databases in particular, anything ex-military. He's a bounty hunter-and so far as I know, a very good one-and he's after me. I want to know who

16'/r will be done, Scarecrow. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.'

Schofield's Yak-141 zoomed over the mountain peaks of Tajikistan.

Fairfax came on the line.

'Okay, you listening. I found Gant for you. Her unit is working out of Mobile Command Station California-2, under the command of Colonel Clarence W. Walker. California-2 is located at GPS co-ordinates 06730.20, 3845.65.'

'Got it,' Schofield said, punching the co-ordinates into his trip

computer.

Fairfax went on. 'I also got a couple of hits on that list of yours. Seven of the fifteen names matched up immediately on the NATO personnel database: Ashcroft, Kingsgate, McCabe, Farrell, Oliphant, Nicholson and you are all mentioned in something called the "NATO Joint Services MNRR Study". It's dated December 1996. Looks like some kind of joint medical study we did with the Brits'

'Where is it kept?'

'USAMRMC — Army Medical Research and Materiel Command.'

'Think you can get it?'

'Of course.'

'And the other hit?' Schofield asked.

'One of our Echelon spy satellites caught a voice transmission from an unknown aircraft flying over Tajikistan only this morning. Several of the names on your list were mentioned. I'll read you the transcript:

' "BASE, THIS IS DEMON. WE HAVE WEITZMAN, ALIVE, AS INSTRUCTED. HEADING FOR THE KARPALOV MINE SYSTEM NOW. IT'S THE MONEY SHOT—THE BIGGEST CONCENTRATION OF TARGETS ON THE LIST. FOUR OF THEM IN THE ONE PLACE: ASHCROFT, KHALIF, KINGSGATE AND ZAWAHIRI. PLUS SCHOFIELD'S GIRL IS THERE, TOO."'

Schofield felt his insides tighten.

Fairfax said, 'There's a notation here. It says that the voice on the intercept had a British accent, and that its owner is — whoa 'Keep talking.' Fairfax started reading: 'Voice identified as that of Damon F.

Larkham, call-sign "The Demon", former colonel in the British SAS.' Fairfax paused. 'He was big in the '90s, but was court-martialled in '99 because of his links with the former head of the SAS, a real bad dude named Trevor J. Barnaby.'

'Yeah, I've met Barnaby,' Schofield said.

'Larkham was sentenced to eleven years' jail but he escaped en route to Whitemoor Prison, killing nine guards in the process.

'Now alleged to be a principal in the freelance bounty hunting organisation known as the Intercontinental Guards, Unit 88, or "IG-88", based in Portugal. Jesus, Scarecrow, what the hell have you got yourself into}'

'Something that could lose me my head if I'm not careful.' Schofield swapped a look with Book II.

'As for that place you mentioned, Krask-8,' Fairfax said, 'the only thing I could find was this: in June 1997, the whole town of Krask, plus its surrounding maintenance facilities, was sold to an American company, the Atlantic Shipping Corporation. In addition to its shipping businesses, Atlantic also has oil interests. It got Krask-8 when it purchased about 10,000 hectares of northern Siberia for oil exploration.'

Schofield thought about that. 'Nope. Doesn't help me.'

Fairfax said, 'Oh, and I haven't found anything on that Black Knight guy on the regular ex-military databases. I'm running a search program now on some of the classified intelligence databases.'

'Thanks, David. Keep at it. Let me know when you find something. I've got to go now.'

He hit the afterburners.

Nine minutes later, the Yak-141 landed vertically in a cloud of dust in a clearing not far from a large gathering of American desert vehicles and command tents.

Schofield had heard that the campaign in Afghanistan had become like Vietnam all over again—principally because Afghanistan, even in war, was one of the world's foremost producers of heroin.

Not only did the Afghan mountain-men have the uncanny ability to vanish into hidden cave systems, but every now and then, when they were cornered, they would try to bribe Allied soldiers with bricks of 100% pure heroin. And when one such brick was worth about a million dollars on the street, it sometimes worked.

Why, only last week, Schofield had heard of a Russian unit going AWOL. A whole unit of special forces Spetsnaz soldiers—24 men in total, supposedly there as an observer unit—just stole an Mi-17 Russian-made transport helicopter and disappeared in search of a cavern reputedly filled with thirty pallets of heroin bricks.

Welcome to Afghanistan.

Schofield's plane was met by a ring of heavily-armed Marines who didn't take kindly to an unauthorised Russian fighter landing in their midst. But within seconds they recognised Schofield and Book II and escorted them to the tent of the base commander, Colonel Clarence Walker, USMC.

The command tent stood at the bottom of a low hill, beyond which lay the entrance to the Al-Qaeda mine.