Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow

The IG-88 men raced up a beautiful curving internal staircase, up to the 39th floor.

Book and Mother gave chase.

They reached the top of the staircase just in time to see three members of the IG-88 team break away from the others and enter an interrogation room, where they promptly killed two senior Mossad men and dragged a third—a young man who could only be Rosenthal—from the room. Rosenthal was thirty-ish, olive-skinned and handsome; he wore an open-necked shirt and he looked tired beyond belief.

Book and Mother wasted no time. They bounded off the stairs and took out the three bounty hunters, working perfectly as a pair—Book dropped the man on the left, Mother the one on the right, and both of them nailed the man in the middle, blowing him apart with their guns.

Rosenthal dropped to the floor.

Book and Mother raced to his side, scooped him up, draped his arms over their shoulders.

'You Rosenthal?' Book demanded. 'Benjamin Rosenthal?'

'Yes . . .'

'We're here to help you. Shane Schofield sent us.'

A glint of recognition appeared on Rosenthal's face. 'Schofield. From the list . . .'

Blam!

Mother dropped another IG-88 man as he emerged from the next room and saw them.

'Book!' she yelled. 'No time for chit-chat! We have to keep moving! You can debrief him as we run! Up the stairs! Now!'

They swept further up the internal staircase, heading for the 40th floor, running past a set of curving picture windows that looked out over London—before the view of the city was abruptly replaced by that of an evil-looking assault helicopter swinging into position, hovering right outside the windows, staring in at Book and Mother and Rosenthal!

It was a Lynx gunship, the British equivalent of a Huey, equipped with side-mounted TOW missiles and a six-barrelled mini-gun.

'Go!' Mother yelled, hauling them upward. 'Go-go-go-go-go!'

The Lynx opened fire.

There came a cataclysmic shattering of glass as the picture windows encasing the curving staircase collapsed under the weight of the helicopter's fire.

Glass rained down all around Book and Mother as they scampered up the stairs carrying Rosenthal between them, a whole section of the staircase itself falling away behind them, ripped clear from its mountings by the barrage of fire, just as they dived off it to the safety of the 40th floor.

Demon Larkham strode through the wreckage of the 39th floor, listening as reports came in over his headset radio.

'— This is Airborne One. They're up on 40. Two contacts in civilian clothing. They appear to have Rosenthal with them —'

'— Airborne Two, landing on the roof now. Offloading second unit —'

'— This is Airborne Three. We're coming round the north-east corner. Heading for 40 —'

'— This is Tech Team. Elevators are locked down. Four elevators are frozen on 38, the fifth is down in the lobby. No-one's going anywhere now —'

'Gentlemen,' Demon said, 'exterminate these pests. And get me Rosenthal.'

Seen from a distance, the three IG-88 Lynx choppers buzzing around the peak of the King's Tower looked like flies harassing a picnicker.

One had landed on the roof, while the other two prowled around the upper floors, peering in through the windows.

At the sound of the windows being blasted to oblivion, a few local businesses called the police.

Book II and Mother charged down a hallway on the 40th floor, dragging Benjamin Rosenthal with them.

'Talk to me!' Book said to Rosenthal as they ran. 'The list. Why are you and Schofield on it?'

Rosenthal heaved for breath. 'Majestic . . . Majestic-12 put us on it. . . I'm on the list because I know who the members of Majestic-12 are, and I can expose them when they carry out their plan.'

'And Schofield?'

'He's different. He's a very special individual. He's one of the few who passed the Cobra tests . . . one of only nine men in the world who can disarm CincLock-VII, the security system on the Chameleon missiles—'

Just then, a fire stairwell door right next to them burst open, revealing four IG-88 mercenaries brandishing MetalStorm rifles and green laser sights.

Book and Rosenthal had no time to react, but Mother did.

She pushed them round a nearby corner, into another corridor,

while she herself dashed the other way down a long hallway, inches ahead of a wave of hypermachinegun fire.

Book and Rosenthal ran northward down their corridor, burst into a small office branching off it.

Dead end.

'Shit!' Book yelled, racing over to the window and looking out just as a Lynx helicopter shoomed past.

And then, outside the window, he saw it.

The four IG-88 bounty hunters who had burst out of the fire stairwell had split into two pairs—two going after Book and Rosenthal, the other pair going after Mother.

The two commandos pursuing Book and Rosenthal saw them enter the side-office twenty yards down the corridor.

They approached the office's door, flanked it silently on either side. The door was marked '4009'.

'Tech Team, this is Sterling Five,' the senior commando whispered into his headset. 'I need a floor schematic. Office number four-zero-zero-niner.'

The response came back. 'It's a dead end, Sterling Five. They've got nowhere to go.'

The senior man nodded to the trooper beside him—and the junior trooper kicked open the door, blazing away with his MetalStorm rifle.

He hit nothing.

The office was empty.

Its single floor-to-ceiling window was already shattered, the pouring London rain sweeping in through it.

No Book.

No Rosenthal.

• * *

The two IG-88 men rushed to the broken window, looked down.

Nothing. Only the sheer glass side of the tower and a grassy park below.

Then they looked up—just as a mechanical whirring came to life above them—and they saw the steel underside of a window-washer's platform rising up the side of the building, heading for the roof.

Book and Rosenthal stood on the window-washer's platform as it rose quickly up the side of King's Tower.

The long rectangular platform hung from two sturdy winch-cranes that stuck out from the tower's roof.

Moments before their attackers had stormed the office, Book had blasted open the window, and with Rosenthal in front of him, leapt up and grabbed its catwalk.

He'd pushed Rosenthal up, and then hauled himself onto the platform, yanking his feet out of view just as the two IG-88 men had burst into the office.

A wave of hypercharged bullets chased Mother as she dashed westward down her hallway with two IG-88 bounty hunters on her tail.

Just as the bullets caught up with her, she dived sharply left, into an office—and found herself standing in a beautifully appointed boardroom.

It had a polished wooden floor, deep leather chairs, and the most gigantic boardroom table she had ever seen. It was easily 30 feet long.

'Fucking lawyers,' Mother breathed. 'Always overcompensating for their teeny-weeny dicks.'

It was a corner office, with floor-to-ceiling windows lining one side, providing a breathtaking view of London. The other side backed onto the exterior elevators.

Mother knew that her Colt pistol didn't stand a chance against the MetalStorm guns of the IG-88 men, so she waited behind the door.

Bang!

They kicked it in, rushed inside.

Mother shot the first man in the side of the head before he even saw her, turned her gun on the second man—

Click.

'Fuck!'

Out of ammo.

She crashtackled the second man instead, sending the two of them flying onto the boardroom table, the bounty hunter's MetalStorm rifle firing wildly in every direction.