Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow

The two rigs rushed through the curving tunnel side-by-side, whipping past its ocean-side columns.

Schofield drove, glancing at the wounded Gant beside him. She was hit badly this time.

There came a loud aerial boom from somewhere nearby, and Schofield snapped round to see the second Mirage fighter whip past the blurring columns on his left, shooting ahead of the chase.

Not a good sign, he thought.

And then the snub-nosed rig came fully alongside his own on the right. He saw two ExSol men inside its cabin, and as it drew level with the Mack, he saw the gunner climb quickly across the driver and throw open the door closest to the Mack.

He was going to come across.

Schofield raised his Desert Eagle pistol in response— click.

No ammo left.

'Crap!'

The Executive Solutions man leapt across the gap between the two speeding semi-trailer rigs, landing on the passenger step of Schofield's Mack. He raised his machine-gun, pointing it in through the window, an unmissable shot—

—at the same time as Schofield drew his Maghook from his thigh holster, aimed it at the thug and pulled the trigger—

Ppp-fzzz . . .

The Maghook didn't fire. It just emitted a weak fizzing sound. It was out of propulsion gas.

'Goddamn it!' Schofield yelled. 'That never happens!'

But now he was out of options: he and Gant were sitting ducks.

The ExSol man in the window saw this, and he leered, his finger squeezing on his trigger.

At which moment he was squashed like a pancake as the Kenworth rig—his rig—rammed viciously into the Mack, hitting it so hard that both trucks were lifted momentarily off the road!

The hapless mercenary simply exploded, his body popping in a burst of red, his eyes bugging before he dropped out of Schofield's view and fell to the rushing roadway beneath the two rigs.

And as the man dropped from sight, he revealed the new driver of the snub-nosed Kenworth rig—Aloysius Knight.

For when the ExSol mercenary had jumped over from the doorway of the Kenworth to the doorway of the Mack, another figure had crossed over in the other direction, from the rear section of the Mack to the rear section of the Kenworth rig.

Knight.

Now the two rigs raced side-by-side through the long curving tunnel, pursued only by the last yellow Peugeot.

But with its blown-open rear tyres, Schofield's Mack was dangerously unstable. It slipped and slid wildly, trying to get traction.

Schofield keyed his radio. 'Knight! I can't hold this truck! We have to come over to you!'

'All right, I'll come in closer. Send your lady over.'

The Kenworth swung in next to the Mack, rubbing up against its side.

Schofield quickly secured the Mack's steering wheel in place with his seatbelt. Then he shuffled over, kicked open the passenger door, and started to help Gant move.

At the same time, Knight opened his driver's side door and extended his spare hand.

Abruptly, gunfire.

Smacking into both trucks' frames. But it was just wild fire from the trailing Peugeot.

Schofield made the transfer, handed Gant over to Knight—who pulled her across the gap into the Kenworth's cab, before laying her gently on the passenger seat.

With Gant safely across, Schofield started to step across the gap__

—just as a shocking burst of a zillion tracer bullets ripped horizontally through the air in front of him, creating a lethal laser-like barrier, cutting him off from Knight and Gant's rig.

Schofield snapped to look forward and saw the source of this new wave of gunfire.

He saw the end of the curving tunnel, saw the road bend away to the right beyond it, and saw, rising ominously into the air just out from the turn, the second Mirage 2000N-II fighter, its six-barrelled mini-gun blazing away.

And then, to Schofield's horror, the line of sizzling tracer rounds swung in toward his rig and— baml-baml-baml-baml-bami-baml-baml-baml-baml-baml-baml —an unimaginable barrage of bullets slammed into the metal grille of the Mack, hammering it with a million pock-marks.

The Mack's engine caught fire, hydraulic fluid sprayed everywhere, and suddenly Schofield could see nothing through his windshield. He pumped the brakes—no good; they were history. Tried the steering wheel—it worked only slightly, enough for him to say to the fighter plane:

'If I'm going down, you're going down with me.'

The Mack careered down the length of the tunnel, together with the Kenworth.

And still the Mirage's withering fire didn't stop.

The two rigs hit the end of the tunnel—separated now and Aloysius Knight had no choice but to take the bend to the right, while Schofield's Mack—its bonnet blazing, its rear tyres sliding— could do nothing but rush straight ahead, ignoring the corner.

Schofield saw it all before it happened.

And he knew he could do nothing.

'Good God . . .' he breathed.

A second later, the speeding Mack truck missed the corner completely and blasted right through the guard-rail fence and shot out into the clear afternoon sky, heading straight for the hovering Mirage fighter.

The Mack truck soared through the air in a glorious arc, nose high, wheels spinning, its path through the sky traced by the line of black smoke issuing out from its flaming bonnet.

But its arc stopped abruptly as the massive trailer rig slammed at tremendous speed into the Mirage fighter hovering just out from the cliff-side roadway.

The truck and the plane collided with astonishing force, the Mirage lurching backwards in mid-air under the weight of the mighty impact.

Already on fire, the Mack completely blew up now, its flaming bonnet driving into the nose of the hovering French fighter. For its part, the Mirage just rocked—then swayed—and then exploded, blasting out in a brilliant blinding fireball.

Then it dropped out of the sky, falling four hundred feet straight down the cliff-face with the remains of the Mack truck buried in its nose, before it smashed into the waves below with a single gigantic splash.

And in the middle of it all, in the middle of the tangled mechanical mess, without a rope or a Maghook to call on, was Shane M. Schofield.

Knight and Gant saw it all from their rig as they sped away along the winding cliff-side road.

They saw Schofield's Mack blast through the guard-rail and crash into the hovering Mirage after which came the fiery explosion and the long drop to the ocean below.

No-one could have survived such an impact.

Despite her wounds, Gant's eyes widened in horror. 'Oh God, no. Shane . . .' she whispered.

'Son of a bitch,' Knight breathed.

A flurry of thoughts rushed through his mind: Schofield was dead—a man worth millions to Knight // he could have kept him alive—what did he do now—and what did he do with this wounded woman who was worth absolutely nothing to him?

The first thing you do is get out of here alive, a voice said inside him.

And then suddenly— shoom! —the last-remaining Peugeot rally car whizzed past his rig, heading quickly down the road.

Surprised, Knight looked ahead and saw the road before him.

It contained a strange but impressive feature: at the next curve, a small castle-like structure arched over the roadway.

Made of stone and topped with tooth-like battlements, it was a two-storey gatehouse which must have been as old as the Forteresse de Valois itself. Presumably, it marked the outer boundary of the Forteresse's land.

On the far side of this gatehouse, however, was a compact drawbridge, spanning a 20-foot section of empty space in the roadway. You only got over the gap if the drawbridge was lowered, and at the moment, it was.