Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves (7 page)

The Kid said, ‘Why the delay in setting off the weapon?’

‘It takes time to prime the weapon’s principal element, some small uranium spheres, and they’re not fully primed yet. That’s why we have this window.’

‘Cutting it a little close, aren’t we?’

‘Closer than you think,’ Schofield said. ‘We need to prep all our gear. After that, it’ll take us nearly three hours just to get there. And the island itself is seriously fortified. Even if they open the front door for us, we’ll have maybe an hour to get in and
get to
the weapon in time, then disable or destroy it. And somehow I don’t think they’ll be opening the front door for us.’

He turned to the four civilians: Zack, Emma, Hartigan and Chad.

‘But four Marines is not enough to do this. We need as many bodies as we can get and if you’re willing to come along and help us, I will gladly take you. However, let me say this very clearly from the outset:
this is not compulsory
. None of you has to come. We’ll be a secondary team—I repeat, a secondary, back-up team—but if the primary SEAL unit fails to resolve this, we will be going in. And that will be ugly.

‘So none of you has any illusions about what “ugly” means, let me tell you now: it means shooting to kill, bloody wounds, broken bones and dead bodies right in your face. So, if you don’t want to go, you don’t have to and no-one will hold it against you.

‘But . . .’ he held up a finger, ‘if you do come, then I ask only one thing of you: that you obey my orders. However crazy or bizarre they seem, there will always be some logic to them. In return, I promise that I will not leave you. If you are captured or caught, while I still have breath in my body, I will come for you. Got that? Good. All right then. Who’s in and who’s out? Speak now or forever hold your peace.’

The group fell silent.

The civilians variously stared at the flickering gas flame or at their feet, deciding what to do.

Zack spoke first, swallowing, then nodding. ‘I’m in.’

‘Me, too,’ Emma Dawson said uncertainly. ‘Although I’m not much with a gun. I fired one once at my uncle’s ranch.’

‘Don’t worry, honey babe,’ Mother said gently. ‘Give me a couple of minutes with you and you’ll be a kick-ass bitch from Hell, just like me.’

Jeff Hartigan snorted. ‘This is ridiculous. What chance have you got—four Marines and some untrained civilians—against a dug-in military force? Like hell I’m going. I’m staying here and so is Chad.’

‘No, I’m not,’ Chad said quietly. ‘I’ll go.’

‘What?’ His boss whirled.

Schofield turned, too. He hadn’t expected this.

‘I said I’m going.’

‘You will do no such thing,’ Hartigan said. ‘You’ll stay here with me while these others go off and get themselves killed.’

The assistant shook his head. Schofield wondered if he’d ever stood up to his boss before.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Hartigan, but I think we have to do something—’

‘You think we have to do something,’ Hartigan mimicked. ‘Please. Chad, I thought you were smarter than this.’

Chad bowed his head. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

Schofield said, ‘I’m not. It’s good to have you aboard, Chad.’ He turned to Hartigan. ‘Sir, if everyone else is going, staying here on your own does present certain dangers. Perhaps you’d like to reconsider—’

‘I’ll be perfectly fine, thank you very much, Captain,’ Hartigan said. ‘You are the ones who should rethink your positions. Idiots.’

Schofield just nodded and said no more.

They spent the next half-hour hurriedly preparing for the mission: the Marines field-stripped their weapons, checked their mags; Zack loaded up Bertie with ammunition; and Mother even gave Emma and Chad a quick lesson in marksmanship.

When Schofield saw that Zack was bringing the experimental wristguard, he grabbed it and sent off a message to Dave Fairfax:

He then ordered everyone, civilians included, to put on drysuits in case they fell into the freezing water. Schofield and his Marines wore new snow-camouflaged drysuits—they looked like regular battle fatigues, only they were made of ultralight watertight material that retained body heat—with their gunbelts and holsters on the outside. On their backs, as always, all the Marines carried their signature weapon, the Armalite MH-12 Maghook, a magnetic grappling hook.

The civilians wore simple grey drysuits with hooded parkas on top for extra warmth; and since they didn’t have combat boots, they just wore their cold-weather Arctic boots, a mixture of heavy-duty Nikes and Salomons.

When everyone was ready, the seven members of the departing team boarded the two assault boats and set off on the long journey south to Dragon Island.

Jeff Hartigan watched them go, remaining at the camp, alone. His last words to Schofield were, ‘You’re a fool, Captain. You must realise that you cannot win this.’

Schofield didn’t reply. He just started his boat and pulled away.

ARCTIC ICE FIELD 4 APRIL, 0840 HOURS 2 HOURS 20 MINUTES TO DEADLINE

Killer whales and extreme cold are two things that the Arctic and the Antarctic have in common, but in many other respects they are actually quite different.

While Antarctica is a vast landmass covered in snow and ice, the Arctic is simply a giant frozen sea. Even the North Pole itself is situated on floating ice. In 1953, a submarine called the USS
Nautilus
sailed under the Pole; six years later, the USS
Skate
surfaced at the Pole, bursting up through the ice itself.

Around March every year, as the sun rises for the first time in months, the sea ice begins to melt, creating long cracks called ‘leads’. As the region warms, these leads get wider and wider, forming a labyrinthine network of canals and alleyways in the sea ice, some a few feet deep, others over thirty feet deep. Polar bears hunt in leads because seals and small whales surface in them to breathe.

The leads were also useful for an insertion team, as any land-based radar system could only scan the surface of the sea ice: anything down in the sunken network of leads would not be detectable to such devices. The leads could really only be monitored by human eyes looking down from a surveillance aircraft, and as Scarecrow’s little assault boats raced down a major lead to the site of the crashed Beriev, no such aircraft could be seen.

At 8:40 a.m., Schofield’s boats came to a small pancake-shaped ice floe floating out in the middle of their lead.

A large white shape lay slumped on it, unmoving.

‘
What is that . . . ?
’ Mother said over the radio.

Schofield slowed his boat, bringing it in close to the little ice floe. The white shape became clearer.

‘It’s a polar bear,’ he said.

‘
Great, now we can test that stupid bear repellent
,’ Mother said. ‘
Hey Kid, go on. Go over and pat the nice widdle bear.
’

‘Not this time, Mother,’ Schofield said as his boat came further around the ice floe and he saw the other side of the unmoving bear. ‘This bear’s deader than disco.’

It certainly was. The bear’s throat was ripped open, its belly a grisly mess of blood, flesh and sprawling intestines. This polar bear had practically been disembowelled.

The Kid said, ‘Jesus . . . the thing’s been gutted.’

‘But not eaten,’ Schofield observed. ‘That’s not right.’

Emma said, ‘No, it’s not right at all. The polar bear is an apex predator. The only other animal in these parts that could do something like this is
another
polar bear. You’re correct: another bear might attack a fellow bear out of starvation or for territorial reasons, but it would almost always eat its fallen rival. Polar bears are the most dangerous bear in the world primarily because they are opportunists; they’ll eat anything they can find, including humans and other bears. But this bear has been slaughtered
and then abandoned
. Polar bears just don’t do that.’

‘
Are there any gunshot wounds?
’ Mother asked.

‘Not that I can see.’ Schofield stared at the dead bear for a long moment. It was absolutely huge, and its snow-white coat was matted with blood. Who or what could have done this?

It didn’t escape his notice that they were now only about thirty miles from Dragon Island.

‘Come on,’ he said, turning. ‘We’ve got a plane to find.’

He gunned the engine and his sleek assault boat powered away from the remains of the dead polar bear.

THE BERIEV CRASH SITE

THE BERIEV CRASH SITE 4 APRIL, 0900 HOURS 2 HOURS TO DEADLINE

Twenty minutes later, the two assault boats pulled to a halt at a junction of two major leads. The ice walls that bounded the watery junction rose about twenty feet above the boats. After two hours of travel, they were close to the co-ordinates of the crashed Beriev.

Scarecrow extended a ladder, hooked its curved upper prongs over the lip of the ice wall and started climbing. His team remained in the boats below him, huddled in their drysuits and parkas, looking very anxious.

Schofield’s head appeared above the flat edge of the ice plain.

The crashed Beriev was right there, barely fifty yards away.

It was tipped over on its left-hand side, its nose pointing southward. Its tail section was completely destroyed, and its left wing had snapped under the weight of the fuselage rolling onto it. Beyond the plane, a vast expanse of ice stretched away to the west, cracked here and there by leads.

Far to the south, Schofield saw Dragon Island for the first time.

It loomed on the horizon, small but visible, a jagged upthrust of mountains on the otherwise perfectly flat horizon. Low clouds hovered above it. It looked dangerous, even from here.

Scarecrow peered warily up at the sky, scanning for surveillance aircraft.

Nothing. Only the purple dawn-like sky and some high-altitude clouds, although to the south, around Dragon, the sky did seem to shimmer somewhat.

He saw something.

A tiny object, circling lazily high above him. It wasn’t a surveillance plane; it was too small. It looked like a large Arctic bird, gliding on the thermals.

Schofield swore. He was completely unprepared for a combat mission and he knew it. He was working with untrained civilians just to make up the numbers and he had almost zero surveillance equipment. He wished he had a simple waveguide radar or even just a parabolic dish to scan the immediate airspace. But he didn’t even have that. Right now, all he had were his eyes and they just weren’t good enough.

‘Mother, come on up. Bring Bertie with you. Everyone else, stay in the boats for now.’

He stepped up onto the flat surface of the ice plain, MP-7 submachine gun poised and ready.

A few moments later, Mother joined him. She plonked Bertie on the ground between them and the little robot beeped and spun on his chunky tyres.

Mother stood beside Scarecrow, clasping a menacing Heckler & Koch G36A2 assault rifle in her hands.