Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow

The AMRAAM shot through the air behind the speeding X-15, closing in on it like a hungry hawk.

'I can't shake it!' Rufus yelled.

'How long will it stay on our tail?' Schofield asked. 'Doesn't it have a cut-out switch if the chase goes too long?'

'No! That's the thing about AMRAAMs! They just chase you all day and all night! Wear you down and then kill you.'

'Well, no AMRAAM has ever chased one of these planes before! Keep going! Full throttle! Maybe we can outrun it—'

A voice in his earpiece cut him off.

It was Scott Moseley, and his voice sounded dead, shocked.

'Uh, Captain Schofield. I have some really bad news'

'What?'

'Our early warning satellites just picked up an ICBM launch signature from south-central Yemen. Flight characteristics indicate that it is a Jericho-2B intercontinental ballistic missile, heading north toward Mecca. Captain, Killian knows you're coming. He's fired the missile early.'

'Oh, no way!' Schofield yelled, staring off into the sky. 'You have got to be kidding. That is not fair. That is not fucking fair!'

He looked at the weapons strapped to his chest, guns that he had planned to use to storm the missile base in Yemen. All useless now.

He held up the CincLock-VII disarm unit and just shook his head . . .

Then he froze.

Staring at the CincLock unit.

'Mr Moseley. Do you have telemetry on that missile signal?'

'Sure:

'Send it through.'

"You got it:

A moment later, Schofield's trip computer beeped and a map similar to the one he had seen earlier appeared on its screen. An arrow-like icon representing the Chameleon missile approaching Mecca tracked northwards up the screen.

Schofield punched in his own transponder signal into the computer and a second icon appeared on the screen, tracking southward:

Schofield saw the flight data on the screen: signal IDs, airspeeds, altitudes.

He almost didn't need to do the math.

The picture said it all.

Two aircraft were converging on Mecca: his X-15 and the Chameleon missile, labelled by the satellite's automated recognition system as a Jericho-2B intercontinental ballistic missile.

Both aircraft were travelling at practically the same speed and were roughly equidistant from Mecca.

'Rufus,' Schofield said flatly.

'Yeah?'

'We're not going to Yemen anymore.'

'I kinda figured that,' Rufus said, defeat in his voice. 'What are we going to do now?'

But Schofield was hitting buttons on his computer, doing rapid calculations. It would be absolutely incredible if this worked.

He and Rufus were still about 1,000 kilometres from Mecca. Time to target: 8:30.

He did the calculations for the Chameleon missile.

It was slightly further away. Its countdown read:

TIME TO TARGET: 9:01 . . . 9:00 . . . 8:59 . . .

That's good, Schofield thought. We'll need the extra thirty seconds to overshoot Mecca and swing around . J.

Schofield's eyes gleamed at the very idea of it. He looked down at the CincLock unit strapped to his chest, gripped it in his hands.

'Sixty feet,' he whispered aloud.

Then he said, 'Hey Rufus. Have you ever chased a missile?'

TIME TO TARGET: 6:00 . . . 5:59 . . . 5:58 . . .

Schofield's X-15 shot through the darkening sky at bullet speed—still pursued by the AMRAAM missile.

'You want me to fly alongside it?' Rufus said, dumbstruck.

'That's exactly what I want you to do. We can still disarm that ICBM, we just have to be within sixty feet of it,' Schofield said.

'Yeah, but in flight} Nobody can keep a plane side-by-side with a missile at Mach 6.'

'I think you can,' Schofield said.

From where he was sitting, Schofield didn't see the grin cross Rufus's broad bearded face.

'What do you need me to do?' the big pilot said.

Schofield said, 'ICBMs fly high and then come down vertically on their targets. This Chameleon is currently at 27,000 feet. She should stay at that altitude until she's practically over Mecca, and then she'll start her dive. At Mach 6, it'll take her about five seconds to make that vertical run. But I need at least twenty-five seconds to disarm her. Which means we have to get alongside her while she's flying level at 27,000 feet. Once she goes vertical, it's all over. We're screwed. Think you can bring us around so that we're travelling beside her?'

'You know, Captain,' Rufus said softly, 'you're a lot like Aloysius. When you talk to me, you make me feel like I could do anything. Consider it done.'

TIME TO TARGET: 2:01 . . . 2:00 . . . 1:59 . . .

The X-15 blasted into the sky, chased by the AMRAAM, shooting

down the length of the Red Sea while at the same time rising—rising, rising—to an altitude of 27,000 feet.

'We just passed Mecca!' Rufus yelled. 'I'm going to start our turn now. Keep an eye out, we should be able to see that Chameleon any minute now . . .'

Rufus banked the speeding rocket plane, bringing it round in a wiiiide 180-degree arc that would hopefully end with the X-15 coming alongside the nuclear missile, joining it on its flight path toward Mecca.

The X-15 rolled onto its side, shot through the air, banking left in its gigantic turn.

The sudden course-change allowed the AMRAAM missile behind it—ever-closing, ever-ravenous—to reel them in even more. It was only a hundred yards behind the X-15 now, and still closing.

TIME TO TARGET: 1:20 . . . 1:19 . . . 1:18 . . .

'There it is!' Rufus yelled. 'Dead ahead!'

Schofield strained against the G-forces to peer out over Rufus's shoulder, out at the twilight Arabian sky.

And he saw it.

The mere sight of the intercontinental ballistic missile took his breath away.

It was incredible.

The Jericho-2B clone ICBM looked like a spaceship from a science fiction movie—something that was far too big, far too sleek, and moving far too fast to exist on Earth.

The 70-foot-long cylinder shot like a spear through the sky, a white-hot tailflame blazing from its base like a magnesium flare, leaving an impossibly long smoketrail in its wake. The smoketrail extended, snakelike, a God-sized python, over the distant horizon, streaking away toward the missile's source, Yemen.

And the sound it made.

A single, continuous BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

If Schofield's X-15 was ripping the fabric of the sky, then this baby was shredding it to pieces.

The banking X-15 roared round in a giant semi-circle, careering

in toward the moving ICBM, while itself trailed by the dogged AMRAAM.

TIME TO TARGET: 1:00 . . . 0:59 . . . 0:58 . . .

One minute.

And then, like the arms of a flattened Y converging to meet at the stem, the X-15 rocket plane and the Chameleon missile came alongside each other.

But they weren't level yet.

The X-15 was just behind and to the left of the ICBM—parallelling the horizontal column of smoke shooting out of the ICBM's base.

TIME TO TARGET: 0:50 . . . 0:49 . . . 0:48 . . .

But the rocket plane was moving slightly faster than the missile, so it was gradually hauling the ICBM in.

Noise was everywhere. The roar of supersonic speed.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

TIME TO TARGET: 0:40 . . . 0:39 . . . 0:38 . . .

'Get me closer, Rufus!' Schofield called.

Rufus did so—and the nose-cone of the X-15 came alongside the tail of the roaring ICBM.

The CincLock VII unit didn't respond. They still weren't close enough to the missile's CPU.

The X-15 crept forward, edging up the length of the Chameleon missile.

'Closer!'

TIME TO TARGET: 0:33 . . . 0:32 . . . 0:31 . . .