Scarecrow Returns

THE ANTONOV’S hold was now a truly crazy place: tilted at a steep upward angle with a maelstrom of wind whipping through it.

Another savage blow from Typhon sent Schofield flailing onto the back of the jeep parked at the rear of the hold. In total control, Typhon straddled him and punched him again.

As Schofield recoiled from the blow, spitting blood, he suddenly became aware of a second source of wind in the already blustery hold.

He glanced up to see that the rear ramp was opening—a sideways look revealed that Marius Calderon had entered the hold and was at the ramp controls on the side wall.

“Why, Captain Schofield, we meet again!” he called. “Your determination is truly admirable, but you are finally too late. We have arrived at the gas cloud and the warhead has been activated. It cannot be stopped now. Typhon! Finish him! We have to get that jeep out of the way!”

Calderon nodded at the tarp-covered object at the front end of the hold, hemmed in by the jeep.

“Yes, sir!” Typhon shouted as he gripped the weakened and battered Schofield by the throat with one hand.

He looked down at Schofield with murderous eyes. Schofield was lying defenseless on the back of the jeep, one hand hanging off it, his face dirty and bruised, his mouth dripping blood.

Typhon pulled his fist back to deliver the death blow, a blow that would drive Schofield’s nose up into his brain and kill him.

His fist came rushing down, just as Schofield reached out with his free hand and pulled on a lever by the jeep’s tires.

The lever released some chains holding the jeep inside the hold and as Typhon’s fist came rushing down, the jeep rolled suddenly, straight out of the back of the steeply rising plane where it dropped out into the sky, with Schofield and Typhon on it!

Marius Calderon gaped at the sudden disappearance of the jeep and his right-hand man. One second they were there, the next they were gone.

“Fuck me,” he gasped.

He recovered quickly: losing Typhon was a shame but not a disaster. Typhon was an excellent second-in-command, but since he knew Calderon’s real identity as a senior CIA agent, Typhon had always faced liquidation when this was all over. This had saved Calderon the effort.

As for Schofield: thank Christ—the fucking Energizer Bunny was finally gone.

Calderon kept moving. He still had a getaway to make.

The plane had just entered the gas cloud and, now flying on autopilot, it was programmed to penetrate deeper into the cloud. In less than two minutes, the warhead in the cockpit would go off.

Calderon hurried over to the tarp-covered object and threw off the tarpaulin . . .

. . . to reveal a compact mini-submarine.

It was a Russian Mir-4 Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle, a variant of the Mir-2. Only fifteen feet long with a curved glass bubble for its bow, it was capable of holding six crew, and while it was claimed by the Russians to be used only for scientific research, the Mir-4 was actually used for submarine transfers and clandestine insertions into hostile waters. This Mir-4 had been one of two submersibles that had been on the Russian freighter the Okhotsk when it had been taken six months ago.

With the jeep now out of the way, Calderon flicked a switch and jumped aboard the sub as it was shunted by an under-floor cable to the back of the hold, ready for release. Once it reached the end of the rear ramp, it simply tipped over the edge and like the jeep before it, dropped away into the gray Arctic sky.

Unlike the jeep, however, the Mir was fitted with four parachutes, which all blossomed above it as it fell, guiding the sub and Calderon to a gentle landing in the cold waters of the Arctic Ocean.

The mini-sub landed in the ocean with a soft splash and Calderon quickly drove it under the surface, heading away to a designated retrieval location where he would be met by a CIA Sturgeon-class submarine, his years-long mission now over save for the big bang.

Calderon had taken care of everything: the gas cloud, the warhead, the destruction of Dragon Island, his own escape.

He’d only missed one thing:

The figure dangling from the underbelly of the Antonov at the end of a Maghook: Captain Shane Michael Schofield.