Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow

Thunk.

The upper half of the guillotine's wooden stocks came down over Gant's neck, pinning her head firmly in place.

The armed man covering her shot home the lock. Gant had never seen him before: he had carrot-red hair, vacant black eyes, and an exceedingly ugly rat-like face.

The imposing frame of the guillotine loomed above her—her head now fastened twelve feet beneath its suspended blade.

Gant grimaced. She could barely even kneel. The tracer wound to her chest burned with pain.

Next to Rat Face stood one of the bounty hunters—Cedric Wexley's No. 2, a psychotic ex-Royal Marine named Drake. He covered Gant with a Steyr-AUG assault rifle.

Gant noticed that Drake was wearing a strange-looking flak vest—a black utility vest equipped with all manner of odd-looking devices, like a Pony Bottle and some mountaineering pitons.

It was Knight's vest.

That made her look up.

And she saw him.

There, fifteen feet in front of her—standing on a stone platform which was itself two inches under the waterline, his eyes squeezed painfully shut since his amber glasses had been removed, his back pressed against the curved stone wall of the pit, his wrists manacled and his holsters glaringly empty—was Aloysius Knight.

A voice echoed across the watery dungeon.

'"Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer. Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." Yeats, I believe.'

Jonathan Killian appeared in the viewing balcony—with the bounty hunter Cedric Wexley at his side.

Killian gazed out over the Shark Pit like an emperor at the Colosseum, his eyes falling on Gant, fifty yards away, on the other side of the pit.

'Anarchy is loosed upon the world, Lieutenant Gant,' he said pleasantly. 'I must say I like the sound of that. Don't you?'

'No,' Gant groaned with pain.

They didn't have to raise their voices; their words echoed across the dungeon.

Killian said, 'And Captain Knight. I find your actions most disturbing. A bounty hunter of your fame hindering a hunt. There can be only one conclusion: you are being paid to do so.'

Knight just stared back at the young billionaire, said nothing.

it concerns me to think that someone wishes to foil the plans of the Council. Who is paying you to save Schofield, Captain Knight?'

Knight said nothing.

'Noble silence. How predictable,' Killian said. 'Perhaps when I have your tongue wrenched from your mouth, you will wish you had spoken sooner.'

'We know your plan, Killian,' Gant said through clenched teeth.

'Start a new Cold War to make money. It won't work. We'll blow the lid on it, inform the US Government.'

Killian snorted.

'My dear Lieutenant Gant. Do you honestly think I fear governments} The modern Western government is but a gathering of overweight middle-aged men trying to gloss over their own mediocrity with the attainment of high office. Presidential planes, Prime Ministerial offices, they are but the illusion of power.

'As for a new Cold War,' Killian mused, 'well, that is more the Council's plan than my own. My plan would embody somewhat more vision.

'Consider that poem by Yeats. I particularly love the notion of the falconer no longer being able to command his falcon. It suggests a nation that is no longer capable of controlling its most deadly weapon. The weapon has developed a mind of its own, realised its own deadly potential. It has outgrown its owner and attained dangerous independence.

'Now place that in the context of the US defence industry. What happens when the missile builders no longer choose to obey their masters? What happens when the military-industrial complex decides it no longer needs the United States Government?'

'The Scarecrow will stop you,' Gant said defiantly.

'Yes. Yes. The Scarecrow,' Killian said. 'Our mutual friend. He is a special one, isn't he? Did you know that the Council was so concerned about his presence on the list that they went to the trouble of arranging a sham mission to Siberia just to trap him? Needless to say, it didn't work.'

'No shit.'

'But if he is still alive,' Killian said, 'then, yes, it is something of a problem.'

Killian locked eyes with Gant. . .

. . . and she felt her spine turn completely to ice. There was something in his glare that she had never seen before, something truly terrifying.

Aloysius Knight saw it, too, and he immediately became concerned.

This was happening too fast. He shifted in his stance, strained against his manacles.

'Now,' Killian said, 'in any standard story, a villain like me would seek to draw out the troublesome Schofield by holding his beloved Lieutenant Gant hostage. I believe this was exactly Demon Larkham's thinking earlier today.'

'Yes,' Gant said warily. 'It was.'

'But it didn't work, did it?' Killian said.

'No.'

'Which is why, Lieutenant Gant, I must do something more to flush Shane Schofield out. Something that will make finding me far more important to him than disrupting the Council's plan. Mister Noonan.'

At that moment Rat Face—Noonan—grasped the release lever on the guillotine and Gant swallowed in horror.

Then she looked over at Knight, locking eyes with him.

'Knight,' she said. 'When you get out of here, tell Schofield something for me. Tell him I would have said yes.'

Then, without pause or patience, Rat Face pulled the lever and the guillotine's terrible blade dropped from its perch and rushed down its guide-rails toward Gant's exposed neck.

Chunk.

Libby Gant's headless body dropped to the ground at the base of the guillotine.

A hideous waterfall of blood gushed out from its open neck, spilling across the stone stage before flowing off it into the seawater at the platform's edge.

The blood in the water quickly attracted the sharks. Two pointed grey shadows appeared at the edge of the guillotine's stage, searching for the source of the blood.

'Jesus, noV Aloysius Knight yelled, straining at his chains, staring at the gruesome sight in total apoplectic shock.

It had happened so fast.

So quickly.

Without any hesitation.

Libby Gant was dead.

Despite the pain of the light hitting them, Knight's eyes were wide, his face white. 'Oh God, no . . .' he gasped again.

He snapped to glare up at Jonathan Killian—but Killian's face was a mask. His cool hard stare had not changed at all.

And then suddenly one of the men in the pit was coming towards Knight.

It was Drake, the ExSol mercenary, carrying one of Knight's Remington shotguns and wearing his utility vest. The other man, Rat Face, was leaving the pit via a steel door over by the guillotine.

'What about this one?' Drake asked Killian.

Killian waved a hand. 'No guillotines for the Black Knight. No games that might permit him to escape. Shoot him in the head and then feed him to the sharks.'

'Yes, sir,' Drake said.

The giant mercenary strode across a narrow stone bridge between the guillotine's stage and Knight's wall-platform, each step kicking up a shallow splash.

As Drake approached him, the squinting Knight assessed his options.

There weren't many.

He could barely see.

His hands were manacled.

Drake was coming closer.

Thinking furiously, Knight bit his lip so hard that he drew blood. He spat the gob of bloody saliva away in disgust.

Drake halted about six feet from him, out of range from anything Knight could do—like strangle him with his legs, or kick him in the crotch.

Drake raised Knight's silver Remington, aimed it at Knight's head. 'Heard you were better than this, Knight.'

At which point, Knight nodded down at Drake's feet and said, 'I am.'