Scarecrow Returns

SCHOFIELD STARED down the barrel of Veronique Champion’s Steyr.

His team stood behind him—Mother, the Kid and Mario, plus the three civilians, Zack, Emma and Chad.

Champion’s two French companions stood behind her, their weapons raised. The big one’s Kord looked like a Howitzer in the tight, confined space.

And off to the side stood the Russian, Vasily Ivanov.

An uneasy standoff.

Champion—Renard—stared intently at Schofield, evaluating him. She was tall, as tall as he was, and in other circumstances, she would have been striking: she had an athletic figure, slender and lithe, a short bob of black hair pulled back off her angular face, flawless pale skin and eyes that were as black as pitch and which did not waver.

As far as weapons were concerned, in addition to the state-of-the-art Steyr, she wore a weapons belt with various smoke and stun grenades on it, a couple of five-minute scuba breathing bottles the size of energy-drink cans, two knives, a silver SIG-Sauer P226 pistol and in a small holster across her chest, a Ruger LCP, a pocket pistol of last resort.

Schofield cocked his head to one side.

“Veronique Champion?” he said.

“You recognize the name?”

“I once encountered a French scientist named Luc Champion at an ice station in Antarctica,” he said carefully.

The woman did not blink. “I am aware of this.”

“Luc Champion was related to you? Your brother?”

“My cousin. I had known him since childhood.”

In his mind’s eye, Schofield could see Luc Champion as if it were yesterday: he had been the French scientist from Dumont d’Urville Station who had led a team of disguised French paratroopers into Wilkes Ice Station to kill everyone there.

“He was a civilian, a scientist—” Veronique Champion said.

“—who intended to kill all the civilian American scientists at that station so that he could be the first man to study an alien spaceship which turned out not to be an alien spaceship,” Schofield hit back.

Champion’s face went cold. “Did you kill him yourself?”

“He was complicit in a murderous plan—”

“Did you kill him?”

“No. Barnaby had him killed.” In the face of an overwhelming incoming force of British SAS troops, Schofield had fled Wilkes Ice Station with his people on some hovercrafts. He’d left Luc Champion behind, handcuffed to a pole. The SAS commander, Trevor Barnaby, had had Champion shot in the head. They’d found the body later.

Veronique Champion still had her gun pointed at Schofield.

Her dark eyes scanned him closely—for a long, tense moment—before abruptly she tilted her head, frowning in genuine confusion, and Schofield realized why.

She’d been searching for a lie but hadn’t found one. This had surprised her and Schofield imagined she wasn’t used to being surprised. She had come to kill a killer but had instead found—

“Captain Schofield. As you are no doubt aware, the Republic of France wants you dead. For what you did at Wilkes Ice Station and for other actions elsewhere, including the destruction of the aircraft carrier Richelieu. I also want you dead, for my own reasons. Yet a short while ago, you plucked me and my men from hostile waters knowing that we had been sent to kill you. Why would you do this?”

Schofield said simply, “I’m facing an almost impossible task here, something much bigger than your country’s vendetta against me. I figured if I rescued you and you were someone who would stop and listen for a moment, you might help me on my mission. You just lost an entire submarine and I need as many soldiers as I can get. I took the risk that you might hear me out.”

Champion didn’t move.

Her gun stayed level.

Then, very slowly, she lowered it.

“All right, Captain. I’m listening . . . for now. But know this: if we choose to help you and we emerge from this alive, the old score must be settled.” She waved at her men. “This is Master Sergeant Huguenot and Sergeant Dubois. Now, tell us what is going on.”

Schofield quickly told Champion and her men what he knew about the situation at Dragon Island, the Army of Thieves, and the atmospheric weapon they had initiated. It was, he added, the Army of Thieves that had destroyed her submarine when the French had inadvertently intruded upon their skirmish.

Schofield took the wrist guard from Zack and used it to show Champion the video clip of the leader of the Army of Thieves addressing the Russian president. While he did this, Mother sidled up to the big French commando.

“Hey,” she said.

“’Allo.”

“Nice gun. A Kord.”

“Merci beaucoup,” he said with a quick nod. He glanced at her rifle. “G36. A fine weapon, too.”

Mother extended her hand. “Gunnery Sergeant Gena Newman, USMC, but everyone calls me Mother.”

“I am Master Sergeant Jean-Claude François Michel Huguenot, on secondment to the DGSE from the First Parachute Regiment. I am known as Le Barbarian.”

With his shaggy hair and beard, Mother could see why. “Barbarian. Nice.”

“Trust me, it is a title well earned. I eat like a bear, drink like a Viking, kill like a lion and make love like a silverback gorilla! Bah! My friends call me Baba and I have just decided that you, Gunnery Sergeant Mother Newman, with your impressive G36, may call me Baba.”

Mother eyed him sideways. Who was this guy? With his big physique, big gun, big hair, big beard and big mouth, he was—

“Oh, God. You’re my mirror,” she said aloud.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Fortunately, at that moment she heard the French woman mention the Army of Thieves, and she and Baba joined that conversation.

“The Army of Thieves . . .” Veronique Champion said, having just finished watching the MPEG of its leader addressing the Russian President.

“You’ve heard of them?” Schofield said.

“The tracking of terrorist organizations is not the primary occupation of my division within the DGSE but, yes, I have been to briefings in recent months where this organization has been mentioned.”

“And?”

Champion said, “DGSE has been monitoring a series of incidents perpetrated by this group over the last year, one incident per month, in accordance with a crude pattern. The CIA and the DIA know all this.”

“We were sent this summary.” Schofield showed Champion the DIA report by the agent named Retter on the wrist guard’s screen. She scanned it quickly.

“I have seen a similar report.”

“So who are they and why are they doing this?”

“Who are they?” Champion shrugged. “A new terrorist group? A franchise of Al Qaeda? A renegade army with no allegiance to any nation? No one knows.”

“What about their leader? The guy who taunted the Russian President? Any idea who he is?”

“The man who leads them is unknown to us. In the few pieces of CCTV footage that exist of the Army’s actions, he always wears large sunglasses plus a hood or helmet of some sort to conceal his identity. But he makes no effort to hide the acid scars on the left side of his face: the DGSE searched every military database we have for soldiers or specialists with such a distinctive facial feature but found nothing.

“Having said that, some of his lieutenants have also been caught on closed-circuit cameras during those incidents and some of them are known. I recall that his right-hand man, for instance, is an ex-Chilean torturer named Typhoon or Typhon or something like that.”

Champion paused, thinking.

“By all appearances, the Army of Thieves is an army of rogue soldiers led by a small cadre of very capable veterans. Its members are volatile, but they are no rabble. On the contrary, it is a very effective and disciplined fighting force. It has successfully attacked Russian military vessels and United States Marine Corps bases.”

“But what do they want?” Schofield asked. “Groups like this always want something: recognition of a new state, the freeing of prisoners, the removal of American troops from their land. On that video clip, their leader told the Russian President that his Army was an alliance of the angry and enraged, the disenfranchised and the poor, the ‘dog starved at his master’s gate.’ That last phrase, by the way, is a quote from William Blake, from a poem called Auguries of Innocence.”

“Nice poetry reference, boss,” Mother whispered. “Classy.”

“Is he some kind of demented Robin Hood?” Schofield said. “Bringing down rich nations on behalf of poor ones?”

“I do not know,” Champion said. “We do not know.”

Schofield bit his lip in thought. “The first breakout in Chile released approximately one hundred prisoners. The second in the Sudan released another hundred or so. Add to that an inner sanctum of commanders and we’re looking at two hundred, perhaps two hundred and twenty men.”

“And only ten of us,” Mario said sadly. “Good fucking luck . . .”

“Hey, I count for ten,” Mother said.

“And I, twenty,” Baba said.

“Ironbark’s team said they encountered a hundred men waiting for them at that submarine dock,” Mario said despairingly. “Look at what happened to them and they were SEALs!”

Schofield checked his watch.

It was 9:35 A.M.

“We still have an hour and twenty-five minutes.”

Mario stood up. “Are you listening? Even if we had fifty fully-trained men, we couldn’t storm that island in a week! Look at us: stuck in a stinking hole with nowhere to go. If they decide to send anyone in after us, we’re screwed. This has officially become a suicide mission.”

Schofield gave Mario a long hard look but said nothing, because in all honesty, the young Marine was right.