Scarecrow Returns

DRAGON ISLAND’S airstrip was situated on a plain of lower ground to the west of the main complex.

Getting to it meant driving down a steep asphalt road that swept around the north-western side of the crater containing the main tower.

With four Army trucks behind them, Schofield’s two vehicles—the cement mixer and the jeep—raced down the steep slope at reckless speed. Gunmen on the various towers they passed fired at them, their bullets strafing the road all around the fleeing vehicles. A couple of the mixer’s tires were hit and punctured and it began to slip and slide wildly as it sped down the narrow cliff-side road.

A couple of Army of Thieves men in jeeps tried to cut them off by parking their jeeps across the roadway, but Mother drove the cement mixer like a rampaging NFL blocker: she just plowed straight through the roadblocks, the heavy cement mixer smashing the jeeps out of the way, sending one flying off the edge of the road and crunching the other one against the rocky cliff on the inner side.

More Army of Thieves troops joined the chase. Five, six, then seven trucks containing armed men now pursued the two fleeing vehicles. Schofield and Baba fired back at them while Champion drove hard. Bullets flew every which way. A stray one hit a jerry can full of gasoline mounted on the back of the jeep and it caught fire.

Schofield ducked away from the spraying blaze and keyed his radio. “Dr. Ivanov! We’ve got the spheres but we also have an entire army on our tail! Our vehicles have taken heavy fire and I don’t think they’ll make it to the coast! Do you have a plane ready?”

“Yes, Captain!” Ivanov’s voice replied. “I am in an Antonov-12 in the first hangar.”

“Get it out onto the runway!” Schofield yelled.

“What about the Strelas? They shot me down the last time I tried to flee this place!”

“We don’t need to get away! We just need to get to the end of the runway so we can dispose of these spheres and you did manage to do that last time! And if we’re in a plane, we might just escape, too!”

“Okay . . .”

Thirty seconds later, the shot-up cement mixer and the flaming jeep swept off the steep cliff-side road and sped out onto the runway, just as a huge prop-driven cargo plane rumbled out of the first hangar there, propellers whirring.

It was an Antonov An-12, a medium-sized transport plane capable of carrying 45,000 pounds of payload in its rear hold, either vehicles or ninety fully armed troops. Born in the 1950s, it was a dependable warhorse, the Soviet equivalent of the C-130 Hercules, and it was known for its distinctive nose: the An-12 had a glass nose-cone from which a spotter could look out.

The big plane pivoted, pointing its glass nose westward. The long black runway stretched away from it for a mile in that direction, ending at some high cliffs. Running along the runway’s left-hand side, parallel to it, was a wide free-flowing river fed by snowmelt from the mountains of Dragon Island. It, too, ended at the high cliffs, tipping over them in a spectacular 300-foot waterfall.

Also at the end of the runway, however, speeding full-tilt in an effort to get into a position to fire on the plane before it lifted off, were the same two Strela-1 amphibious anti-aircraft vehicles that had shot down Ivanov’s Beriev seven hours earlier. And they still had their deadly surface-to-air missile pods on their backs.

As the Antonov came fully around, its rear ramp lowered and Schofield’s two vehicles sped into it, Mother’s cement mixer first and then the flaming jeep.

“We’re in!” Schofield yelled into his radio as he kicked the flaming jerry can off the back of his jeep. “Go! Go!”

The plane immediately powered up, its four turbo-props blurring ever faster, and with a shrill whine, it slowly began to accelerate.

Schofield leapt out of the jeep and raced forward, up a short flight of steel stairs and into the cockpit, where he found Ivanov at the controls.

The Antonov picked up speed—

The two Strelas skidded to twin halts at the end of the runway—

All we have to do is get in the air, Schofield thought. Even if they hit us and we crash, I can send these spheres to the bottom of the ocean, never to be found again.

The Antonov was halfway down the runway and almost at takeoff speed—

The Strelas’ missile pods began to lower, taking aim—

“We’re gonna make it . . .” Schofield breathed, an instant before he caught sight of a lone Army of Thieves trooper off to the right of the runway, holding a Predator RPG launcher on his shoulder. The lone man fired the Predator and Schofield watched in horror as it zeroed in on the accelerating Antonov and disappeared under its nose.

A colossal thump shook the Antonov.

A second later, the entire cockpit lurched downward, throwing Schofield and Ivanov forward in their seats, and an ear-piercing shriek of metal-on-asphalt assailed their ears as the big plane’s nose slammed down against the runway and started grinding terribly, kicking up sparks.

The Antonov’s forward wheels had been completely destroyed by the Predator and all of its forward momentum was lost. It peeled away to the left, turning sideways as it slowed, fatally wounded, a little more than halfway down the runway.

And as the big plane ground to a halt, Schofield saw all of the Army of Thieves’ pursuit vehicles converge on it like hyenas closing in on a wounded water buffalo: the two Strelas from in front, the many trucks from behind.

His mission—a desperate and daring snatch-and-grab—was over.

In record time, he had island-hopped across bear-infested islets, penetrated Dragon Island by cable car, got across the moat, taken the lab at the summit of the spire, grabbed the spheres, got out of there by toppling the spire while he was in it and now he had failed within sight of the coast.

He bowed his head. “Fuck.”