Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow

'Now known to be working as a freelance international bounty hunter. Get this. Apparently, insurance companies keep track of these things for kidnap scenarios: he's rated by Carringtons of London as the second-best bounty hunter in the world.''

'Only second? Who's the best?'

'That Demon Larkham guy I told you about before. Wait a second, I'm not finished with Knight yet. ISS believes that in 2000, Knight tracked down and killed twelve Islamic terrorists who'd kidnapped the daughter of Russia's Deputy President, cut off four of her fingers, and demanded a ransom of US$100 million. Knight traced them to a terrorist training camp in the Iranian desert, went

there, razed the whole frigging camp to the ground, grabbed the girl — minus the fingers — and returned her to Moscow without the media getting a whiff of it. In return, it says here, the Russian government gave him . . . wait for it ... a test-damaged Sukhoi S-37 jet fighter, plus refuelling privileges at any Russian base in the world. Apparently, the plane is known in bounty hunting circles as the Black Raven.'

'Black Raven, huh,' Schofield turned to look at the black Sukhoi S-37 standing nearby . . . and saw that Aloysius Knight was walking towards him.

7 tell you, Scarecrow,' Fairfax said, 'this is not the kind of guy you want hunting you. '

'Too late,' Schofield said. 'He's standing right in front of me.'

Schofield and Knight rejoined the others underneath the Black Raven.

Book II and Mother came up to Schofield.

'You all right?' Mother asked softly. 'Book told me what happened in Siberia. Excuse my French, Scarecrow, but what the fuck is happening here?'

'It's been a tough morning,' Schofield said, 'and a lot of people have died. Any idea what happened to Gant?'

'The last time I saw her was when those cocksuckers with the green laser sights came rocking in and I was knocked onto that conveyor belt—'

'She was taken,' a voice said from behind Mother.

It was Aloysius Knight.

'Taken by a bounty hunter named Demon Larkham and his men from IG-88.'

'How do you know that?' Book II asked.

'Rufus,' Knight nodded to his partner, the mountainously tall pilot.

With his great bushy beard, Rufus had a wide smiling face and earnest eyes. He hunched slightly, as if trying to diminish his seven-foot height. When he spoke, he spoke quickly and matter-of-factly, report-style.

'After I lowered Aloysius down the air vent,' he said, 'I went to hover over by the back entrance. I dropped a MicroDot aerosol charge onto the turnaround outside the exit tunnel—just like you told me to, Boss. Then I took up a hovering pattern about a mile away—again just like you told me to.

'About five minutes before you all came charging out, a great big Chinook helicopter flanked by a couple of Lynx attack choppers landed on that turnaround. Then two LSVs and a Driftrunner came speeding out of the mine tunnel and shot straight up the ramp of the Chinook and into its belly. Then the Chinook lifted off and headed out over the hills, back toward Afghanistan.'

Schofield said, 'How do you know Gant was with them?'

'I got photos,' Rufus said simply. 'Aloysius told me that if anything unusual happened while he was inside the mine, I was to take photos of it, so I did.'

Schofield assessed Rufus as the big man spoke. For a guy who could manoeuvre a hover-capable Russian fighter with incredible skill—something which required an almost innate knowledge of physics and aerodynamics—his speech seemed oddly formal and direct, as if he took comfort in military formality.

Schofield had seen men like Rufus before: often the most gifted pilots (and soldiers) had great difficulty in social situations. They were so focused on their area of expertise that they often had trouble expressing themselves, or missed conversational nuances like irony and sarcasm. You just had to be patient with them. You also had to make sure their fellow troops were equally patient. Direct but not stupid, there was more to this Rufus than met the eye.

Knight pulled a handheld monitor from the cockpit of the Sukhoi, showed it to Schofield.

On the monitor was a series of digital photos showing three speeding vehicles blasting out of the mine's rear entrance, out onto the turnaround and up the ramp of a waiting Chinook helicopter.

Knight flicked a switch, blowing up several of the photos, zooming in on the lead Light Strike Vehicle.

Knight said, 'See the three white boxes on the passenger seat. Medical transport cases. Three cases: three heads.'

He clicked to another photo, which showed a blurry zoomed-in image of the Driftrunner racing along behind the two LSVs.

'Check out the rear tray on the truck,' Knight said. 'Notice that all of Larkham's guys are dressed in black. One person, however . . . that one . . . the one without the helmet... is wearing sand-coloured Marine fatigues.'

And Schofield saw her.

Although the figure was blurred and out-of-focus, he recognised her shape, the fall of her short blonde hair.

It was Gant.

Slumped unconscious in the rear tray of the Driftrunner.

Schofield's blood ran cold.

The greatest bounty hunter in the world had Gant.

More than anything else, Schofield wanted to go after her—

'No. That's exactly what the Demon wants you to do, Captain,' Knight said, reading his thoughts. 'Don't rush into anything. We know where she is. And Larkham won't kill her. He needs her alive if he's going to use her to flush you out.'

'How can you be sure of that?'

'Because that's how I'd do it,' Knight said evenly.

Schofield paused, holding Knight's gaze. It was almost like looking in a mirror—Schofield with his silver anti-flash glasses masking his scars, Knight with his yellow-lensed wraparounds covering his defective eyes.

A tattoo on Knight's forearm caught Schofield's eye. It showed an angry bald eagle and the words:

SLEEP WITH ONE EYE OPEN.

Schofield had seen that image before: on posters that had come out soon after September 11. On them, the American eagle said, 'Hey terrorists, sleep with one eye open.'

Underneath Knight's eagle tattoo was another one which simply read: brandeis. Schofield didn't know what that one meant.

He locked eyes with Knight.

'I've heard about you, Mr Knight,' he said. 'Your loyalty isn't exactly something to brag about. You sold out your unit in the Sudan. Why should I think you won't sell me out, too?'

'Don't believe everything you read in the, papers,' Knight said, 'or what you read in US Government files.'

'Then vou're not going to kill me?'

'Captain, if I was going to kill you, you'd already have a bullet

in your brain. No. My job is to keep you alive.' 'Keep me alive?'

Knight said, 'Captain, understand. I am not doing this because I like you or because I think that you are in any way special. I am being paid to do this, and paid well. The bounty on your head is 18.6 million dollars. Rest assured, I am being paid considerably more than that to make sure that you don't get killed.'

'Okay, then,' Schofield said. 'So who's paying you to keep me alive?'

'I can't say.' 'Yes, you can.'

'I won't say.' Knight's eyes didn't waver. 'But your employer—'

'—is not a subject for discussion,' Knight said. Schofield chose another tack.

'All right, then, so why is this all happening? What do you know about this bounty hunt?'

Knight shrugged, looked away.

Rufus answered for him. Released from straight reportage, his tone was simple, honest. 'Bounty hunts happen for all kinds of reasons, Captain Schofield. Catch and kill a spy who goes AWOL with a secret in his head. Catch and retrieve a kidnapper who's been paid his ransom—mark my words, hell hath no fury like a rich guy who wants payback. Some of those rich assholes prefer to pay us two million dollars so they can catch some kidnapper who took them for one. It ain't often, though, that you get a list worth ten million dollars in total, let alone almost twenty million dollars per head.'' 'So what do you know about this hunt then?' Schofield asked. 'The ultimate sponsor is unknown,' Rufus said, 'as is the reason for staging it, but the assessor—a banker from AGM-Suisse named Delacroix—is experienced at this sort of thing. We've run into him before. And so long as the assessor is legitimate, most bounty hunters don't care about the reason for a hunt.' Rufus turned to Knight. Knight just cocked his head. 'Big hunt. Fifteen targets. All have