Matthew Reilly: Scarecrow

Schofield keyed his satellite radio, spoke into the VibraMike strapped around his throat. Rather than pick up actual spoken words, the vibration-sensing microphone picked up the reverberations of his voice box. The satellite uplink system driving it was the brand-new GSX-9—the most advanced communications system in use in the US military. In theory, a portable GSX-9 unit like Schofield's could broadcast a clear signal halfway around the world with crystal clarity.

'Base, this is Mustang 3,' he said. 'Sitrep?'

A voice came over his earpiece. It was the voice of an Air Force radio operator stationed at McColl Air Force Base in Alaska, the communications centre for this mission.

'Mustang 3, this is Base. Mustang 1 and Mustang 2 have engaged the enemy. Report that they have seized the missile silos and inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy. Mustang 1 is holding the silos and awaiting reinforcements. Mustang 2 reports that there are still at least twelve enemy agents putting up a fight in the main maintenance building.''

'All right,' Schofield said, 'what about our follow-up?'

'An entire company of Army Rangers from Fort Lewis is en route, Scarecrow. One hundred men, approximately one hour behind you.''

'Good.'

Book II spoke from inside the armoured Scout vehicle. 'What's the story, Scarecrow?'

Schofield turned. 'We're go for drop.'

Five minutes later, the box-shaped cargo-container dropped out of the belly of the Stealth Bomber and plummeted like a stone towards the Earth.

Inside the container—in the car resting inside it—sat Schofield and his seven Marines, shuddering and jolting with the vibrations of the terminal-velocity fall.

Schofield watched the numbers on a digital wall-mounted altimeter whizzing downwards:

50,000 feet. . .

45,000 feet. . .

40,000 . . . 30,000 . . . 20,000 . . . 10,000 . . .

'Preparing to engage chutes at five thousand feet. . .' Corporal Max 'Clark' Kent, the loadmaster, said in a neutral voice. 'GPS guidance system has us right on target for landing. External cameras verify that the LZ is clear.'

Schofield eyed the fast-ticking altimeter.

8,000 feet.

7,000 feet. . .

6,000 feet. . .

If everything went to plan, they would land about fifteen miles due east of Krask-8, just over the horizon from the installation, out of sight of the facility.

'Engaging primary chutes . . . now," 1 Clark announced.

The jolt that the falling container received was shocking in its force. The whole falling box lurched sharply and Schofield and his Marines all shuddered in their seats, held in by their six-point seat belts and rollbars.

And suddenly they were floating, care of the container's three directional parachutes.

'How're we doing, Clark?' Schofield asked.

Clark was guiding them with the aid of a joystick and the container's external cameras.

'Ten seconds. I'm aiming for a dirt track in the middle of the valley. Brace yourselves for landing in three . . . two . . . one . . .'

Whump!

The container hit solid ground, and suddenly its entire front wall just fell open and daylight flooded in through the wide aperture and the four-wheel-drive Commando Scout Light Attack Vehicle skidded off the mark and raced out of the container's belly into the grey Siberian day.

The Scout whipped along a muddy earthen track, bounded on both sides by snow-covered hills. Deathly grey tree skeletons lined the slopes. Black rocks stabbed upward through the carpet of snow.

Stark. Brutal. And cold as hell.

Welcome to Siberia.

As he sat in the back of the Light Attack Vehicle, Schofield spoke into his throat-mike: 'Mustang 1, this is Mustang 3. Do you copy?'

No reply.

'I say again: Mustang 1, this is Mustang 3. Do you copy?'

Nothing.

He did the same for the second Delta team, Mustang 2. Again, no reply.

Schofield keyed the satellite frequency, spoke to Alaska: 'Base, this is 3. I can't raise either Mustang 1 or Mustang 2. Do you have contact?'

'Ah, affirmative on that, Scarecrow,' the voice from Alaska said. 'J was just talking to them a moment ago —'

The signal exploded to hash.

'Clark?' Schofield said.

'Sorry, Boss, signal's gone,' Clark said from the Scout's wall console. 'We lost 'em. Damn, I thought these new satellite receivers were supposed to be incorruptible.'

Schofield frowned, concerned. 'Jamming signals?'

'No. Not a one. We're in clear radio airspace. Nothing should be affecting that signal. Must be something at the other end.'

'Something at the other end . . .' Schofield bit his lip. 'Famous last words.'

'Sir,' the Scout's driver, a grizzled old sergeant named 'Bull' Simcox, said, 'we should be coming into visual range in about thirty seconds.'

Schofield looked forward, out over Simcox's shoulder.

He saw the black muddy track rushing by beneath the Scout's armoured hood, saw that they were approaching the crest of a hill.

Beyond that hill, lay Krask-8.

At that same moment, inside a high-tech radio receiving room at McColl Air Force Base in Alaska, the young radio officer who had been in contact with Schofield looked about himself in confusion. His name was Bradsen, James Bradsen.

A few seconds before, completely without warning, the power to the communications facility had been abruptly cut.

The base commander at McColl strode into the room.

'Sir,' Bradsen said. 'We just—'

'I know, son,' the CO said. 'I know.'

It was then that Bradsen saw another man standing behind his base commander.

Bradsen had never seen this other man before. Tall and solid, he had carrot-red hair and an ugly rat-like face. He wore a plain suit and his black eyes never blinked. They just took in the entire room with a cool unblinking stare. Everything about him screamed 1SS.

The base commander said, 'Sorry, Bradsen. Intelligence issue. This mission has been taken out of our hands.'

The Scout attack vehicle crested the hill. Inside it, Schofield drew a breath. Before him, in all its glory, lay Krask-8. It stood in the centre of a wide flat plain, a cluster of snow-covered

buildings—hangars, storage sheds, a gigantic maintenance warehouse, even one 15-storey glass-and-concrete office tower. A miniature cityscape.

The whole compound was surrounded by a 20-foot-high razor wire fence, and in the distance beyond it, perhaps two miles away, Schofield could see the northern coastline of Russia and the waves of the Arctic Ocean.

Needless to say, the post-Cold War world hadn't been kind to Krask-8.

The entire mini-city was deserted.

Snow covered the complex's half-dozen streets. Off to Schofield's right, giant mounds of the stuff slouched against the walls of the main maintenance warehouse—a structure the size of four football fields.

To the left of the massive shed, connected to it by an enclosed bridge, stood the office tower. Enormous downward-creeping claws of ice hung off its flat roof, frozen in place, defying gravity.

The cold itself had taken its toll, too. Without an anti-freeze crew on site, nearly every window pane at Krask-8 had contracted and cracked. Now, every glass surface lay shattered or spider-webbed, the stinging Siberian wind whistling through it all with impunity.

It was a ghost town.

And somewhere underneath it all lay sixteen nuclear missiles.

The Scout roared through the already blasted-open gates of Krask-8 at a cool 80 kilometres an hour.

It shot down a sloping road toward the complex, one of Schofield's Marines now perched in the 7.62mm machine-gun turret mounted on the rear of the sleek armoured car.

Inside the Scout, Schofield hovered behind Clark, peering at the young corporal's computer screen.