Scarecrow (20 page)

Cowboy spun: to see Aloysius Knight standing behind him, now wearing a new pair of amber-lensed glasses.

‘Not bad, Cowboy. You remembered my Achilles heel.'

Then Knight grabbed the machete and smiled at the IG-88 assassin. ‘And I remember yours. Your inability to fly.'

Knight then walked to the driver's door of the Humvee, leaned inside and shifted the car into reverse. He nodded to Schofield and Gant: ‘Stand clear.'

Cowboy and Rocko—cuffed to opposite sides of the Humvee—stared at Knight in horror.

‘Goodbye, boys.'

And with that, Knight stabbed the Humvee's gas pedal to the floor with the machete.

The Humvee shot off the mark, racing backwards, toward the open rear cargo ramp.

It hit the edge doing twenty, before it tipped off it, rear-end first, and to Cowboy and Rocko's absolute terror, dropped out of sight and fell 20,000 feet straight down.

 

After the Humvee had disappeared out the back door of the Hercules, Schofield rushed over to Gant and held her tightly in his arms.

Gant returned his grip, her eyes closed. Others might have cried at such a reunion, but not Gant. She felt the emotion of the moment, but she was not one to shed tears.

‘What the hell is going on?' she asked when they separated.

‘Bounty hunters,' Schofield said. ‘My name is on a list of people who have to be exterminated by noon today, New York time. They grabbed you to get to me.'

He told Gant about his experience in Siberia and then in Afghanistan, about the bounty hunters he had met—Executive Solutions, the Hungarian, the Spetsnaz Skorpions, and of course, Demon Larkham's IG-88. He also showed her the bounty list.

‘What about him?' Gant nodded at Knight as he disappeared inside the cockpit to disengage their plane from the tanker. ‘Who is he?'

‘He,' Schofield said, ‘is my guardian angel.'

There came a pained groan from over by the wooden crates.

Schofield and Gant spun quickly . . .

. . . and saw one of the suit-wearing British agents lying on the floor, clutching his broken ribs. It was the man Schofield had hit in the chest with his Maghook.

They went over to him.

The suited man was wheezing desperately, coughing blood.

Schofield bent down, examined him. ‘His ribs are smashed. Punctured lungs. Who is he?'

Gant said, ‘I only caught part of it. He and the other suit were interrogating the General with some disinhibiting drug, asking him about the American Universal Disarm Code. They said Weitzman oversaw the code's incorporation into something called the Kormoran Project.'

‘Is that so?' Schofield said. ‘A disinhibiting drug.' He looked around the hold, saw a medical kit on the floor. It had spilled out some syringes, needles and serum bottles. He grabbed one of the serum bottles, checked its label.

‘Then let's see how he handles a dose of his own medicine.'

Aloysius Knight returned from the cockpit to find the suit-wearing British agent seated up against the wall of the cargo hold, his sleeve rolled up, and with 200 mg of EA-617 coursing through his veins.

Knight touched Schofield on the shoulder.

‘I've disengaged us from the tanker plane,' he said. ‘We're currently on autopilot, staying on the course they already set: heading for a private airstrip in Brittany, on the French Atlantic coast. And Rufus just called. He's going to drop your people at an abandoned airfield about forty miles outside of London.'

‘Good,' Schofield said, thinking of Book II and Mother heading for the Mossad's headquarters in London.

Then he turned his attention to the captured British agent.

After a few vain efforts to resist the disinhibiting drug, it soon emerged that the man's name was Charles Beaton and he was a member of MI-6, British Intelligence.

‘This bounty hunt. What do you know about it?' Schofield asked.

‘Nearly twenty million per head. Fifteen heads. And they want you all out of the picture by 12 noon today, New York time.'

‘Who are
they
? Who's paying for all this?'

Beaton snorted derisively. ‘
They
go by many names. The Bilderberg Group. The Brussels Group. The Star Council. The Majestic-12. M-12. They are an elite group of private industrialists who rule this planet. Twelve of them. The richest men in the world, men who
own
governments, men who bring down entire economies, men who do whatever they want . . .'

Schofield leaned back, his eyes widening.

‘O-
kay
 . . .' Knight said drily.

‘Give me names,' Schofield said.

‘I don't know their names,' Beaton said. ‘That's not my area. My area is the American military. All I know is that Majestic-12 exists and that it's bankrolling this bounty hunt.'

‘All right, then. Do you know what they hope to achieve by staging this hunt?'

‘No,' Beaton said. ‘My job was to get the Universal Disarm Code from Weitzman and then give him to the bounty hunter, Larkham. To take advantage of this bounty hunt. I don't know about the hunt itself or Majestic-12's reasons for staging it.'

‘So who at MI-6 does know?'

‘Alec Christie. He's our man on the inside. He knows everything about Majestic-12 and presumably, this bounty hunt. But the problem is MI-6 doesn't know where Christie is anymore. He disappeared two days ago.'

Christie
.

Schofield remembered the name from the list:

2. CHRISTIE,  Alec P.    UK    MI-6

‘But this Christie guy must have blown his cover,' he said, ‘because Majestic-12 put him on the list as well.'

He tried a new angle. ‘What are these Kormoran and Chameleon Projects that you were interrogating Weitzman about?'

Beaton winced, still trying to resist the drug. ‘Kormoran is a US Navy project. Deep black. In World War II, the German Navy disguised some of their strike vessels as commercial freighters. One of these was called the
Kormoran
. We believe that the US Navy is doing the same thing but on a modern scale: building warships capable of launching intercontinental ballistic missiles, only these warships don't look like warships. They're disguised as supertankers and container ships.'

‘Whoa,' Gant whispered.

‘Okay. That's Kormoran,' Schofield said. ‘What about the Chameleon Project?'

‘I don't know about Chameleon.'

‘You sure?'

Beaton groaned. ‘We know it's linked to Kormoran, and we know it's big—it has the highest US security classification. But at this stage, we don't know exactly what Chameleon entails.'

Schofield frowned, thinking.

This was like building a jigsaw puzzle, piece by piece, until slowly a picture emerged. He had some pieces, but not the whole picture. Yet.

He said, ‘So who does know, Mr Beaton? Where has MI-6 been getting all this top secret US information from?'

‘The Mossad,' Beaton breathed. ‘They have a field office in London at Canary Wharf. We managed to bug it for a few weeks last month. Trust me, the Mossad knows
everything
. They know about Majestic-12. They know about Kormoran and Chameleon. They know about every name on that list and why they are on it. They also know one other thing.'

‘What's that?' Schofield said.

‘The Mossad knows Majestic-12's plan for October the 26th.'

 

KING'S TOWER, CANARY WHARF, LONDON 26 OCTOBER, 1200 HOURS LOCAL TIME (1300 HOURS IN FRANCE—0700 HOURS E.S.T. USA)

Book II and Mother rode up the side of the 40-storey King's Tower inside a speeding glass elevator.

The Thames stretched out before them, brown and twisting. Old London receded to the horizon, veiled in rain.

The Canary Wharf district stood in stark contrast to the rest of London—a crisp clean steel-and-glass business district that boasted skyscrapers, manicured parks, and no less than the tallest building in Britain: the magnificent Canary Wharf Tower. While much of London was faded 19th-century Victorian, Canary Wharf was crystal-cut 21st-century futurism.

Book and Mother rose high into the grey London sky. Four other glass elevators ferried people up and down the side of the King's Tower, identical glass boxes rushing past them in either direction.

Book and Mother wore civilian clothes: suede jackets, boots, blue-denim jeans and turtleneck jumpers that covered their throat-mikes. Each had a Colt .45 pistol wedged into the back of their jeans.

A pretty young executive in a Prada suit stood in the lift with them, looking very small next to the broad-shouldered and shaven-headed Mother.

Mother inhaled deeply, then tapped the girl on the shoulder. ‘I really love your perfume. What is it?'

‘Issey Miyake,' the girl replied.

‘I'll have to get some,' Mother smiled.

They'd made good time.

After entering British airspace under active stealth, Rufus had dropped them off at an abandoned airfield not far from London City Airport. From there they'd hitched a ride on a charter helicopter, piloted by an old friend of Rufus's. He'd dropped them at Canary Wharf's commercial heliport 15 minutes later.

Ping.

Their elevator stopped on the 38th floor. Book II and Mother stepped out into the enormous reception area for Goldman, Marcus & Meyer, Lawyers. Goldman Marcus occupied the top three floors of the tower—the 38th, 39th and 40th floors.

It
looked
like the reception area of a big city law firm—plush, spacious, great view. And indeed to the casual visitor Goldman Marcus was a full-service legal provider.

Only this wasn't just a law firm.

In amongst its many offices, meeting rooms and open-plan areas, Goldman Marcus's offices contained three rooms on the 39th floor that all the lawyers were forbidden to enter—rooms that were kept for the sole and exclusive use of the Mossad, the notorious Israeli Secret Service.

The Mossad.

The most ruthless intelligence service in the world, protecting the most targeted nation in history: Israel.

No other nation has experienced such a continued threat of terrorism. No other nation has been surrounded by so many openly hostile enemies—Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, not to mention the Palestinians inside its borders. No other nation has seen eleven of its Olympic athletes killed on international television.

So how has Israel dealt with this?

Easy. It finds out about foreign threats first.

The Mossad has people everywhere. It knows about international upheaval before anyone else does, and it acts according to an immovable policy of ‘Israel First, Last, Always'.

1960. The kidnap of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina.

1967. The pre-emptive strikes on Egyptian air bases during the Six Day War.

August 31, 1997. There had been a Mossad agent in the bar at the Ritz Hotel in Paris on the night Princess Diana died. He had been shadowing Henri Paul, Diana's driver.

It has even been said that the Mossad knew about the September 11 attacks on America before they happened—and
didn't
tell the Americans. Because it suited Israel to have the US enter the war on Islamist terrorism.

In global intelligence communities, there is one golden rule: the Mossad always knows.

‘May I help you?' the receptionist's smile was polite.

‘Yes,' Book II said. ‘We'd like to speak to Benjamin Rosenthal, please.'

‘I'm afraid there is no-one here by that name.'

Book II didn't miss a beat. ‘Then please call the Chairman of Partners and tell him that Sergeants Riley and Newman are here to see Major Rosenthal. Tell him we're here on behalf of Captain Shane Schofield of the United States Marines Corps.'

‘I'm terribly sorry, sir, but—'

At that moment, as if by magic, the receptionist's phone rang and after a short whispered phone call, she said to Book: ‘The Chairman is sending someone down to collect you.'