Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow

Out through the cockpit canopy, Schofield saw the lights of a city down in the evening darkness below.

The holy city of Mecca.

TIME TO TARGET: 0:28 . . . 0:27 . . . 0:26 . . .

And the X-15 came level with the mid-point of the missile and Schofield's disarm unit beeped:

FIRST PROTOCOL (PROXIMITY): SATISFIED. INITIATE SECOND PROTOCOL.

'I'm gonna get you,' Schofield said to the ICBM.

The reflex response pattern on his unit began its sequence, and Schofield began hitting its touchscreen.

The two rocket-propelled aircraft carved a sonic tear through the sky, travelling side-by-side at astronomical speed.

And then the AMRAAM behind the X-15 made its move.

Rufus saw it on his scopes. 'Come on, Captain . . . !'

'I just. . . have ... to do . . . this first. . .' Schofield grimaced, concentrating on the reflex-response test.

TIME TO TARGET: 0:19 . . . 0:18 . . . 0:17 . . .

The AMRAAM powered forward, closing in on the tailflame of the X-15.

'It's approaching lethal range!' Rufus yelled. Lethal range for an AMRAAM was twenty yards. It didn't have to actually hit you, only explode close to you. 'You've got maybe five seconds!'

'We don't have five seconds!' Schofield shouted, not taking his eyes off the screen, his fingers moving quickly over it.

TIME TO TARGET: 0:16 . . . 0:15 . . . 0:14 . . .

'I can't take evasive action!' Rufus yelled desperately. 'I'll move us out of proximity! Jesus Christ! We can't come this far to lose now! Two seconds!'

Schofield kept hitting the touchscreen.

TIME TO TARGET: 0:13 . . . 0:12 . . .

'One second!'

And the AMRAAM entered lethal range—20 yards from the X-15's tailpipe.

'No!' Rufus yelled. 'Too late—!'

'Not if I can help it? a voice said suddenly in their earpieces.

Then, in a supersonic blur, something black and fast shot sideways across the wake of the X-15 —cutting in between the AMRAAM and Schofield's X-15, so that the AMRAAM hit it and not Schofield's plane.

An explosion rocked the sky and Rufus whirled around in his seat to see the front half of another X-15 rocket plane go tumbling through the air, its rear-end vaporised, destroyed by the AMRAAM.

Knight's X-15.

He must have survived the death of his pilot and then stayed on their trail, catching up with them while they'd made their two time-consuming circling manoeuvres. And now he had flown himself into the path of the AMRAAM missile that had been about to take them out!

The shattered front half of Knight's X-15 fell through the sky, nose-first, before abruptly, its canopy jettisoned and a flight seat blasted out from the falling wreckage, a parachute blossoming above it a moment later.

TIME TO TARGET: 0:11 . . . 0:10 . . .

Schofield hardly even noticed the explosion. He was consumed with the reflex pattern on his touchscreen: white, red, white, white, red . . .

TIME TO TARGET: 0:09 . . .

'Whoa, shit! It's going vertical!' Rufus yelled.

With a sickening roll, the Chameleon missile abruptly changed course, banking downward, pointing its nose directly down at Mother Earth.

Rufus manoeuvred his control stick and the X-15 copied the move—and went vertical with the ICBM—and suddenly the two rocketcraft were travelling supersonically, side-by-side, heading straight down!

'Aaaaaaaaahhh!' Rufus yelled.

Schofield's eyes remained fixed to the touchscreen, focused, his fingers moving quickly.

TIME TO TARGET: 0:08 . . .

The X-15 and the ICBM raced toward the Earth like two vertical bullets.

TIME TO TARGET: 0:07 . . .

The lights of Mecca rushed up toward Rufus's eyes.

TIME TO TARGET: 0:06 . . .

Schofield's fingers danced.

And the CincLock disarm unit beeped.

SECOND PROTOCOL (RESPONSE PATTERN): SATISFIED. THIRD PROTOCOL (CODE ENTRY): ACTIVE. PLEASE ENTER AUTHORIZED DISARM CODE.

TIME TO TARGET: 0:05 . . .

Schofield punched in the Universal Disarm Code and the screen beeped again:

THIRD PROTOCOL (CODE ENTRY): SATISFIED. AUTHORIZED DISARM CODE ENTERED.

At which point the crucial line appeared:

MISSILE FLIGHT ABORTED.

What happened next happened in a blur.

High above the minarets of Mecca, the supersonically-travelling Chameleon missile self-destructed in a spectacular explosion. It looked like a gigantic firecracker—a spectacular starburst of sparks spraying out in every direction.

It was moving so amazingly fast, however, that its blasted-apart pieces were just stripped away by the onslaught of uprushing wind. The charred remains of the cloned Jericho-2B would later be found over an area 100 miles in diameter.

Schofield's X-15, on the other hand, suffered a far different fate.

The shock wave from the Chameleon's blast sent it spiralling away from the explosion, completely out of control, rocketing toward the Earth.

Rufus fought heroically with his stick and by doing so managed one single thing: to avoid crashing into any of the inhabited parts of Mecca.

But that was all he achieved. For a bare second later, the X-15 slammed into the desert like a meteor from outer space, smashing vertically into the sandy landscape in a thumping, slamming, earth-shuddering impact that could be heard more than fifty miles away.

And for a moment its fiery explosion lit up the dark desert sky as if it were midday.

The X-15 hit the desert floor doing Mach 3.

It hit the ground hard and in a single flashing, blinding instant, the rocket plane transformed into a ball of fire.

Nothing could have survived the crash.

A split second before the impact, however, two ejection seats could be seen catapulting clear of the crashing plane's cockpit, shooting diagonally out into the sky—seats that contained Schofield and Rufus.

The two flight seats floated back down to earth on their parachutes, landing a mile away from the flaming crater that marked the final resting place of the X-15.

The two seats hit the dusty ground, rocked onto their sides.

There was no movement in them.

For there, lying slumped against their seatbacks, sat Shane Schofield and Rufus, both unconscious, both knocked out by the colossal G-forces of their supersonic ejection.

After a time, Schofield awoke—to the sound of voices.

His vision was blurry, blood seeped down his face, and his head throbbed with a terrible ache. Bruises were forming around his eyes—the natural by-product of ejecting.

He saw shadows surrounding his flight seat. Some men were trying to unbuckle his seatbelts.

He heard their voices again.

'Crazy sons of bitches, ejecting at that speed.'

'Come on, man, hurry up, before the fucking boy scouts from the Marines arrive.'

At the edge of his consciousness, Schofield noted that they were speaking English.

With American accents.

He sighed with relief. It was over. /

Then, with the whistling cut of a knife, his seatbelt came free and Schofield tumbled out of his seat onto the sand.

A man appeared at the rim of his vision. A Westerner, wearing military gear. Through the haze of his mind, Schofield recognised the man's uniform: the customised battle outfit of the US Special Forces' Delta Detachment.

'Captain Schofield . . .' the man said gently, his voice blurry to Schofield's slow mind. 'Captain Schofield. It's okay. You're safe now. We're from Delta. We're on your side. We've also picked up your friend, Captain Knight, a few miles from here.'

'Who—' Schofield stammered. 'Who are you?'

The Delta man smiled, but it wasn't a friendly smile. 'My name is Wade Brandeis. From Delta. We've come from Aden. Don't worry, Captain Schofield. You're perfectly safe with me.'