Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow

While the missiles firing from the MV Whale on New Delhi were clones of the Pakistani Ghauri-II—and the ones being fired on Islamabad were replicas of the Indian Agni-II.

'Hot damn . . .' Schofield breathed.

How would China react to Taiwanese nuclear strikes?

Badly.

And how would Pakistan and India react to mutual nuclear bombardment?

Very badly.

Schofield frowned.

He couldn't understand why his list differed from Book's.

Okay, think. Where did Book get his original list from?

From the Mossad agent, Rosenthal, who had acquired it during his many months shadowing Majestic-12.

So where did I get mine from?

Schofield thought back.

'Oh, Jesus . . .' he said, remembering.

He'd received it on his Palm Pilot when he and Gant had been sitting in the stone ante-room in the Forteresse de Valois, waiting while Aloysius Knight had been in Monsieur Delacroix's office, hacking wirelessly into Delacroix's standalone computer.

Schofield turned to Knight. 'When you were with Delacroix at the castle, did he say anything about whose office you were in?'

Knight shrugged. 'Yeah. He said something about it not being his office. Said it belonged to the man who owned the castle.'

'Killian,' Schofield said.

'Why?'

But now Schofield understood.

'There must have been another computer in that office. In a drawer or on a side table,' he said. 'You said it yourself. Your Pilot would retrieve documents from any computer in the room. When you initiated the wireless hack, you picked up documents from another computer in that office. Killian's computer.'

'Yeah, so?'

Schofield held up the new list. 'This isn't Majestic-12's plan. Their plan involves starting a global Cold War on Terror. M-12 wants terrorist missiles striking major centres—Shahabs and Taep'o-Dongs. Which was why they left the bodies of the Global Jihad guys at the Axon plant and on the supertankers: to make the world think that terrorists stole the Kormoran ships.

'But this list shows something else entirely. It shows that Killian's company installed different Chameleon missiles on the Kormoran ships—not the ones Majestic-12 was expecting. Killian is planning something much worse than a global war on terrorism. He's set it up so that each of the world's major powers is seemingly hit by its most-hated enemy.

'The West is hit by terrorist strikes. India and Pakistan are hit by each other. China is hit by what appear to be Taiwanese missiles.'

Schofield's eyes widened at the realisation.

'It's Killian's extra step. This isn't M-12's plan at all. This is Killian's own plan. And it won't produce any kind of Cold War at all. It'll produce something much much worse. It'll produce total global warfare. It'll produce total global anarchy.'

Rufus said, 'You're saying that Killian has been deceiving his rich buddies on Majestic-12?'

'Exactly,' Schofield said.

But then, again, he remembered Killian's words from the Forteresse de Valois: 'Although many don't know it yet, the future of the world lies in Africa.'

'The future of the world lies in Africa,' Schofield said. 'There

were African guard squads on each of the boats. Eritreans. Nigerians. Oh, shit. Shit! Why didn't I see it before . . .'

Schofield brought up one of the other documents on his Palm Pilot:

This was the itinerary of Killian's tour of Africa the previous year.

Asmara: the capital of Eritrea.

Luanda: the capital of Angola.

Abuja: Nigeria.

N'djamena: Chad.

And Tobruk: the site of Libya's largest Air Force base.

Killian hadn't been opening factories—he had been forging alliances with five key African nations.

But why?

Schofield spoke: 'What would happen if the major powers of the world descended into anarchic warfare? What would happen elsewhere in the world?'

'You'd see some old scores settled, that's for sure,' Knight said. 'Ethnic wars would reignite. The Serbs would go after the Croats, the Russians would wipe out the Chechens, and that's not even mentioning everybody who wants to nail the Kurds. Then there'd be the opportunists, like the Japanese in WWII. Countries seizing the opportunity to grab resources or territory: Indonesia would snatch East Timor back . . .'

'What about Africa?' Schofield said. 'I'm thinking of National Security Council Planning Paper Q-309.'

'Whoa; Knight said.

Schofield remembered the policy word for word. 'In the event of a conflict involving the major global powers, it is highly likely that the poverty-stricken populations of Africa, the Middle East and Central America—some of which outnumber the populations of their Western neighbours by a ratio of 100-to-l—will flood over Western borders and overwhelm Western city centres.'

Q-309 was a policy based on history—the long history of wealthy self-indulgent elites falling to impoverished but numerically overwhelming underclasses: the fall of Rome to the barbarians, the French Revolution, and now the wealthy Western world succumbing to the sheer numbers of the Third World.

Jesus, Schofield thought.

Anarchic global warfare would provide just such an opportunity for the Third World to rise up.

And if Killian had given forewarning to a few key African nations, then . . .

No, it's not possible, Schofield's mind protested. For the simple reason that Killian's plan just didn't seem big enough.

It didn't guarantee total global anarchy.

And then Schofield saw the final entry on the missile list—the entry that had not been on Book II's list at all, an entry describing a missile to be fired nearly two hours after all the others.

He brought it up on his screen:

Arbella Jericho-SB U-flfl DMMDB.2S OMmS-lO 1MDD

IbSD-SD 213Q.00

A Jericho-2B clone, Schofield thought. The Jericho was a long-range ballistic missile belonging to Israel; and this one was armed with an American W-88 warhead.

And the target?

Using Book IPs map, Schofield plotted the GPS co-ordinates of the target.

His finger came down on the map . . . and as it did so, Schofield felt a bolt of ice-cold blood shoot through his entire body.

'God save us all,' he breathed as he saw the target.

The last clone missile—ostensibly Israeli in origin, with an American nuclear warhead on it—was aimed at a target in Saudi Arabia.

It was aimed at the holy city of Mecca.

The cockpit fell silent.

The sheer idea of it was just too great, too shocking, to contemplate. An Israeli missile armed with an American warhead striking the most sacred Muslim site on the planet on one of the most holy Muslim days of the year.

In the post-September 11 world, there could be no more provocative act.

It would ignite global chaos—no American citizen or embassy or business would be safe. In every city in every country, enraged Muslims would seek vengeance.

It would create a worldwide Muslim-American war. The first truly global conflict between a religion and a nation. Which would itself become the precursor for total global revolution—the rise of the Third World.

'God, October 26, it's been staring me in the face all day,' Schofield said. 'The first day of Ramadan. I hadn't even thought about the significance of the date. Killian even chose the most provocative day.'

'So where's it going to fire from?' Knight asked.

Schofield quickly plotted the GPS co-ordinates of the last Chameleon missile's launch location . . . and he frowned.

'It's not coming from a boat,' he said. 'The launch location is on land. Somewhere inside Yemen.'