'The thing is, just as the Chameleon Project has been contracted to the Axon Corporation, the Kormoran supertanker shells are built by Kopassus Shipping. And that is the key. Both projects are contracted to companies owned by M-12 members.'
'At 11.45 on October 26 we are going to see a rain of nuclear missiles. A rain such as the world has never seen. Co-ordinated. Precise. Missiles falling in fifteen-minute intervals, to accommodate the global news media. One missile hit is reported just as another lands, then another—striking major cities around the world. London, New York, Paris, Berlin. The world is plunged into chaos, wondering which major city will be next.
'And when it is over, the investigation begins, and the missiles— by their flight characteristics and blast signatures—are determined to be Iranian and North Korean.
'Terrorist weapons.
'The world is aghast. Then, naturally, horror turns to anger. The War on Terror must be expanded. It has already been going for two years. Now it runs for another fifty. A new Cold War has begun and the military-industrial complex is mobilised like never before. And Majestic-12 makes billions.''
Book's mind raced.
Disguised supertankers. Cloned missiles. And all of it created by his own government. He couldn't believe it. He knew the US Government could do terrible things, but setting up other nations with false missiles?
And now these cloned missiles were to be fired—not by the US Government, but by the missiles' builders, the men of Majestic-12— on major cities around the world: New York, London, Paris and Berlin . . .
New York, London, Paris . . .
And now Book saw the decimalised numbers on the list in a new light.
They were co-ordinates.
GPS co-ordinates of both the launch boats and the targeted cities.
It was then that he noticed the names of the Kormoran supertankers—Ambrose, Talbot, Jewel Hopewell, Whale. Cute joke. They were all named after ships from the Mayflower fleet, the ships that had seeded the New World. Just as Majestic-12 was now attempting to create a new world.
But what did all this have to do with Shane Schofield and a bounty hunt requiring his death by 12 noon today? Book thought.
And then he recalled Rosenthal himself, shouting in the rain on the roof of the King's Tower in London:
'It's all about reflexes. Superfast reflexes. The reflexes of the men on that list are the best in the world. They passed the Cobra tests, and only someone who passed the Cobra tests can disarm the
CincLock-VII missile security system, and CincLock-VII is at the core of Majestic-12's plan.'
CincLock-VII. . . Book thought.
He flicked through the many folders in front of him, searching for those words.
It didn't take him long to find them.
There was a whole file marked 'axon corp—patented cinclock
SECURITY SYSTEM'.
It was filled with documents belonging to Axon Corp and the US Department of Defense. The first document's cover sheet was marked:
Book flicked to the section marked 'security', read the lead paragraph:
DISARM SYSTEM—CINCLOCK VII
In keeping with the high level of security necessary for such a weapon, the Chameleon series of missiles has been equipped with Axon's patented CincLock-VII disarm system. The most secure anti-tamper mechanism in the world today, CincLock-VII employs three unique defensive protocols. Unless all three protocols are applied in the prescribed sequence, system activation (or de-activation) is impossible.
The key to the system is the second protocol. It is based on the well-established principles of pattern-recognition (Haynes & Simpson, MIT 1994, 1997, 2001), whereby only a person who is familiar with, and well-practised in, an established sequential pattern can enter it on demand. A stranger to the system, unless he or she is possessed of abnormally quick motor-neural reflexes, cannot hope to overcome such a system (op. cit. Oliphant &C Nicholson, USAMRMC, 1996, NATO MNRR study).
Employing these principles, field tests have shown the CincLock VII system to be 99.94% secure against unauthorised use. No other security system in the military can boast such a success rate.
PROTOCOLS
The three protocols of the CincLock VII unit are as follows:
1. Proximity. To ensure against unauthorised arming/disarming, the CincLock unit is not attached to the delivery system. It is a portable disarming unit. The first protocol, then, is proximity to the delivery system. CincLock will only operate within sixty (60) feet of a Chameleon missile's central processing unit.
2. Light-sensor response unit. Once inside the proximity perimeter, the user must establish a wireless modem connection with the disarm system. This is effected by satisfying Axon's patented light-sensor interface. It is here that the principles of pattern recognition play their crucial part. (See NATO MNRR Research Program results, USAMRMC, 1996.)
3. Security code. Entry of the relevant disarm or override code.
To this last line Rosenthal had added: 'Universal Disarm Code insertion was supervised by subject Weitzman. Latest intelligence suggests use of a yet-to-be-determined Mersenne Prime.'
Another page, however, was clipped to this protocol section. It was a Mossad telephone intercept transcript:
Trans log: B2-3-001-889
Date: 25 April, 1515 hours E.S.T.
Rec from: Axon Corp, Norfolk, VA, USA
Katsa: ROSENTHAL, Benjamin Y (452-7621)
VOICE 1 (DALTON, P.J. AXON CHIEF OF ENGINEERING) : Sir, the D.O.D. inspection report is in. It's good. They're very pleased with our progress. And they particularly loved CincLock. Couldn't get enough of it. Christ, they were like kids with a new toy, trying to crack it.
VOICE 2 (KILLIAN, J.J. AXON CHAIR AND CEO): Excellent, Peter. Excellent. Anything else?
VOICE 1: (DALTON) The next oversight inspection. D.O.D asked if we had a preferred date.
VOICE 2: (KILLIAN) Why don't we make it October 26.
I believe that date would suit some of our partners on this project very nicely.
Book II leaned back in his chair.
So there was the significance of the date.
October 26.
Killian had set it as the date for a Department of Defense oversight team to examine his installation plants.
But then Book saw the next document, and suddenly the meaning of the bounty hunt became clear.
Ironically, it was the most innocuous of all the documents he had seen so far. An internal email from Axon Corp:
From: Peter Dalton
To: All Engineering Staff, Project C-042'
Date: 26 April, 2003, 7:58 p.m.
Subject: NEXT D.O.D. INSPECTION
Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that last week's six-monthly inspection by the Department of Defense Oversight Committee went spectacularly well. I thank you all for your hard work, especially over the past few months.
They were impressed with our progress and amazed by our technological gains.
The next six-monthly inspection is slated for 26 October at the Norfolk installation plant, to commence at 12 noon, department heads only. As usual, strict security clearance provisions will apply for the week preceding the inspection.
Regards,
PD
And that was it.
At 12 noon today, October 26, the Department of Defense would be sending an inspection team into Axon's missile construction facility in Norfolk, Virginia.
And presumably at that time, they were going to discover that something was amiss at the plant, that the missiles had been tampered with in some way, or perhaps even gone—stolen—at which point. . .
. . . the US Government would go searching for the only men in the world who were able to disarm the CincLock system.
Men with abnormally quick reflexes.
The men on the list.
And then it dawned on Book—for some reason, Jonathan Killian and Majestic-12 wanted the US Government to carry out that inspection today. Although he didn't know why yet, somehow today's inspection was an integral part of their plan.
Which made him understand something else more clearly. It had always bothered Book that this bounty hunt might only serve to warn the very men who could foil M-12's plans.
But now this explained it.
At 12 noon today, the US Government was going to discover something at Axon's Norfolk plant, something about the state of the Chameleon missiles and the Kormoran launch ships. Something which was crucial to Majestic-12's plan to start a new Cold War.
'We have to get to that plant,' Book said aloud.
He turned to Scott Moseley. 'Mr Moseley. Call the Department of Defense. Tell them to send their Kormoran-Chameleon inspection team in early. And get on the horn to our people in Guam. Get someone to check out Axon's plant there as well.'
'Got it,' Moseley said.
Book then turned his attention to the stream of decimalised numbers on the launch list: the GPS co-ordinates of the launch sites and
the targets. 'Better find out where these missiles are going to be fired from and what they're aiming at.'
As he booted up a GPS plotting program on his computer, he keyed his satellite radio. 'Scarecrow! It's Book! Come in! I've got some big news for you . . .'
NEAR THE FORTERESSE DE VALOIS BRITTANY, FRANCE
26 OCTOBER, 1500 HOURS LOCAL TIME (0900 HOURS E.S.T USA)
The Axon chopper that had swung to a halt in front of Aloysius Knight and Libby Gant could be seen zooming away along the coastline, getting smaller and smaller, heading back toward the Forteresse de Valois—with Knight and Gant now inside it.
A lone figure treading water in the ocean waves at the base of the cliffs watched it fly away.
Schofield.
Naturally, when his blazing Mack had launched itself off the roadway and smashed into the hovering Mirage fighter jet, Schofield hadn't been in it.
As soon as his truck's tyres had left the road, he had bailed out the driver's side door, dropping into the air beneath the flying rig.
The truck hit the fighter.
Gigantic explosion. Colossal noise. Metal flying everywhere.
But Schofield had been under the blast when it had happened— well below the fireball, but also out of Gant or Knight's sight—and he fell like a bullet through the air.
His first thought had been: Maghook.
Not this time. Out of propellant.
Damn.
He kept falling—not vertically, but at a slanting angle thanks to the inertia of the truck—the cliff-face streaking past him at phenomenal speed. He saw the ocean waves below him, rushing upwards. If he hit the water from this height, his body would explode against the surface and burst like a tomato.
Do something! his mind screamed.
Like what!
And then he remembered—
—and quickly yanked the ripcord on his chest webbing. The rip-cord that was attached to the attack parachute still on his back. He'd been wearing it ever since the battle on board the Hercules. It had been so compact that he'd almost forgotten it was there.
The attack parachute blossomed above him, a bare 80 feet above the water.
It didn't slow his fall completely, but it did enough.
He lurched in the air about 20 feet above the waves, his downward speed significantly reduced, before—shoom—he entered the water feet-first and disengaged the parachute, allowing himself to shoot into the ocean trailing a finger of bubbles above him.
And not a second too soon.
For a moment later, the Mack rig and the Mirage fighter crashed down in a flaming metal heap into the waves nearby.
Schofield surfaced a short distance out from the cliffs, amid some of the burning remains of the fighter jet.
Careful to stay out of sight, he trod water amid the floating debris and sure enough, a minute later, he saw the Axon chopper swing around a nearby cliff-bend and zoom back toward the castle.
Had Gant and Knight got away? Or were they in that chopper?
'Fox! Fox! Come in! This is Scarecrow,' he whispered into his throat-mike. 'For what it's worth, I'm still alive. Are you okay?'
A single laboured cough answered him. It was an old technique—she was up there but she obviously couldn't talk. They'd caught her.
'One for yes, two for no. Are you in that Axon chopper I just saw?'
Single cough.
'Are you wounded badly?'
Single cough.
'Really badly?'
Single cough.
Shit, Schofield thought.
'Is Knight with you?'
Single cough.
'Are they taking you back to the castle?'
Single cough.
'Hang in there, Libby. I'm coming for you.'
Schofield looked around himself and was about to start swimming for the shore when abruptly he saw the French destroyer surging to a halt 200 yards away from him off the coast.
On the side of the great ship, he saw a small patrol boat being lowered into the water, with at least a dozen men on board it.
The patrol boat dropped into the ocean and immediately zipped away from the destroyer, heading directly for him.
Schofield could do nothing except watch the French patrol boat approach him.
'I'm sure the French have forgotten about that thing in Antarctica,' he muttered to himself.
Then his earpiece burst to life.
'Scarecrow! It's Book! Come in! I've got some big news for you.'
'Hey, Book, I'm here.'
'Can you talk?'
Schofield rose and fell with the waves of the Atlantic. 'Yeah, sure, why not.' He eyed the patrol boat, now only 150 yards away. 'Although I have to warn you, I think I'm about to die.'
'Yes, but I know why,' Book II said.
'Book, patch Gant and Knight in on this transmission,' Schofield said. 'They can't talk, but I want them to hear this, too.'
Book did so.
Then he told them all about the Kormoran 'supertankers' and the Chameleon clone missiles, and Majestic-12's plan to start a new Cold War—on Terror—by firing those missiles on the major cities of the world. He also told them about the CincLock VII security system which only Schofield and those on the list could disarm, and the incorporation by Ronson Weitzman of the US Universal Disarm Code into it, a code which Rosenthal had described as 'a yet-to-be-determined Mersenne Prime'.
Schofield frowned.
'A Mersenne Prime . . .' he said. 'A Mersenne prime number. It's a number . . .'
The image of General Ronson Weitzman in the Hercules flashed across his mind, babbling incoherently under the influence of the British truth drug: it wasn't just Kormoran. It was Chameleon, too . . . oh God, Kormoran and Chameleon together. Boats and missiles. All disguised. Christ. . . But the Universal Disarm Code, it changes every week. At the moment, it's . . . the sixth ... oh my God, the sixth m . . . m . . . mercen . . . mercen—'
Mercen . . .
Mersenne.
At the time, Schofield had thought Weitzman was just mixing up his sentences, trying to say the word 'mercenary'.
But he wasn't.
Under the influence of the drug, Weitzman had been telling the truth. He had been naming the code.
The Universal Disarm Code was the sixth Mersenne prime number.
As Book relayed his tale to Schofield and the others, behind him Scott Moseley was busy inserting the GPS co-ordinates from the launch list into the plotting program.
'I've got the first three boats,' Moseley said. 'The first co-ordinate
must be the location of the Kormoran launch boat, the second is the target.'
He handed Book the document: now with place names added to
it and highlighted:
Book relayed this to Schofield, 'The first boat is in the English Channel, near Cherbourg, off the Normandy beaches. It'll fire on London, Paris and Berlin. The next two boats are in New York and San Francisco, each set to take out multiple cities.'
'Christ,' Schofield said as he hovered in the water.
The patrol boat was 50 yards away, almost on him now.
'Okay, Book. Listen,' he said, just as a low wave smacked him in the face. He spat out a mouthful of salt water. 'Submarine interdiction. Those missile boats can't launch if they're on the bottom of the ocean. Decode the GPS locations of all the Kormoran supertankers and contact any attack subs we have nearby. 6881s, boomers, I don't care. Anything with a torpedo on board. Then send them to take out those Kormoran launch boats.'
'That might work for some of the tankers, Scarecrow, but it won't work for all of them.'
'I know,' Schofield said. 'I know. If we can't destroy a launch vessel, then we'll have to board it and disarm the missiles in their silos.
'The thing is, a light-signal response unit would require the dis-armer—me—to be reacting to a disarm program on the unit's screen. Which means I'd have to be sitting within sixty feet of each missile's control console to disarm them, but I can't be everywhere around the world at the same time. Which means I'll need people on each launch boat connecting me via satellite to that boat's missiles.'
'You need people on each boat?'
'That's right, Book. If there are no subs in the area, someone's going to have get on board each Kormoran boat, get within sixty feet of its missile console, attach a satellite uplink to that console and then patch me in via satellite. Only then can I use a CincLock unit to personally stop all the missile launches.'
'Holy shit,' Book said. 'So what do you want me to do?'
Another wave splashed over Schofield's head. 'Let's tackle the first three boats first. Get yourself to New York, Book. And call
Moseley plotted the points on a map. 'The first boat is in the English Channel—off Cherbourg, France, up near the Normandy beaches.'
David Fairfax. Send him to San Francisco. I want people I know on those tankers. If I get out of this alive, I'll try for the tanker in the English Channel. Oh, and ask Fairfax what the sixth Mersenne prime number is. If he doesn't know, tell him to find out.
'And last, send that Department of Defense inspection team in early—the one that was going to visit Axon's missile-construction plant in Norfolk, Virginia, at 12 noon. I want to know what's happened at that plant.'
'Already done that,' Book II said.
'Nice work.'
'What about you?' Book said.
At that exact moment, the French patrol boat swung to a halt above Schofield. Angry-looking sailors on its deck eyed him down the barrels of FAMAS assault rifles.
'They haven't killed me yet,' Schofield said. 'Which means someone wants to talk with me. It also means I'm still in the game. Scarecrow, out.'
And with that Schofield was hauled out of the water at gunpoint.
THE WHITE HOUSE,
WASHINGTON, USA
26 OCTOBER, 0915 HOURS LOCAL TIME
(1515 HOURS IN FRANCE)
The White House Situation Room buzzed with activity.
Aides hustled left and right. Generals and Admirals spoke into secure phones. The words on everyone's lips were 'Kormoran', 'Chameleon' and 'Shane Schofield'.
The President strode into the room just as one of the Navy men, an Admiral named Gaines, pressed his phone to his shoulder.
'Mr President,' Gaines said, 'I've got Moseley in London on the line. He's saying that this Schofield character wants me to deploy attack submarines against various surface targets around the world. Sir, please, I'm not seriously supposed to let a thirty-year-old Marine captain control the entire United States Navy, am I?'
'You'll do exactly as Captain Schofield says, Admiral,' the President said. 'Whatever he wants, he gets. If he says deploy our subs, you deploy the subs. If he says blockade North Korea, you blockade North Korea. People! I thought I was clear about this! I don't want you coming to me to check on everything Schofield asks for. The fate of the world could be resting on that man's shoulders. I know him and I trust him. Hell, I'd trust him with my life. Anything short of a nuclear strike, you do it and advise me later. Now do as the man says and dispatch those subs!'
OFFICES OF THE DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE
AGENCY,
SUB-LEVEL 3, THE PENTAGON
26 OCTOBER, 0330 HOURS LOCAL TIME
(1530 HOURS IN FRANCE)
A battered and bruised David Fairfax trudged back into his office on the bottom floor of the Pentagon, flanked by a pair of policemen.
Wendel Hogg was waiting for him, with Audrey by his side.
'Fairfax!' Hogg roared. 'Where in all hell and damnation have you been!'
'I'm going home for the day,' Fairfax said wearily.
'BuWshit you are,' Hogg said. 'You are going on report! Then you are going upstairs to face a disciplinary hearing under Pentagon Security Regulations 402 and 403 . . .'
Too tired to care, Fairfax could only stand there and take it.
'. . . and then, then, you're going to be outta here for good, you little wise-ass. And you're finally gonna learn that you ain't special, that you ain't untouchable, and—' Hogg shot a look at Audrey— 'that this country's security is best left to men like me, men who can fight, men who are prepared to hold a weapon and put their lives
on the—'
He never finished his sentence.
For at that moment a squad of twelve Force Reconnaissance Marines stomped into the doorway behind Fairfax. They wore full battle dress uniforms and were heavily armed—Colt Commando assault rifles, MP-7s, deadly eyes.
Fairfax's eyes widened in surprise.
The Marine leader stepped forward. 'Gentlemen. My name is Captain Andrew Trent, United States Marine Corps. I'm looking for Mr David Fairfax.'
Fairfax swallowed.
Audrey gasped.
Hogg just went bug-eyed. 'What in cotton-pickin' hell is going on here?'
The Marine named Trent stepped forward. He was a big guy, all muscle, and in his full battle dress uniform, a seriously imposing figure.
'You must be Hogg,' Trent said. 'Mr Hogg, my orders come direct from the President of the United States. There is a serious international incident afoot and at this critical time, Mr Fairfax is perhaps the fourth most important person in the country. My orders state that I am to escort him on a mission of the highest importance and guard him with my life. So if you don't mind, Mr Hogg, get out of the man's way.'
Hogg just stood there, stunned.
Audrey just gazed at Fairfax, amazed.
Fairfax himself hesitated. After this morning's events, he didn't know who to trust.
'Mr Fairfax,' Trent said. 'I've been sent by Shane Schofield. He says he needs your help again. If you still don't believe me, here . . .'
Trent held out his radio. Fairfax took it.
At the other end was Book II.
Within twenty-two minutes, Dave Fairfax was sitting on board a chartered Concorde jet, heading west across the country at supersonic speed, his destination: San Francisco.
On the way to the airport, Book had briefed him on what Schofield needed him to do. Book had also asked him a maths question: what was the sixth Mersenne prime number.
'The sixth Mersenne?' Fairfax had said. 'I'm going to need a pen, some paper and a scientific calculator.'
And so now he sat in the passenger cabin of the Concorde—head bent over a pad, writing furiously, concentrating intensely—shooting across the country all alone.
Alone, that is, except for the team of twelve United States Marines protecting him.
AXON CORPORATION SHIPBUILDING AND MISSILE ATTACHMENT PLANT, NORFOLK, VIRGINIA, USA 26 OCTOBER, 0935 HOURS LOCAL TIME (1535 HOURS IN FRANCE)
Surrounded by two teams of United States Marines, the Department of Defense inspection team in charge of the Kormoran-Chameleon Joint Project approached the missile installation facility in Norfolk, Virginia.
The Axon plant loomed above them—a giant industrial landscape comprising a dozen interconnected buildings, eight enormous dry-docks and innumerable cranes lancing into the sky.
This was where Axon Corp installed its cutting-edge missile systems onto US naval vessels. Sometimes Axon even built the vessels here as well.
At the moment, a lone mammoth supertanker sat in one of the plant's dry-docks, covered by gantry cranes, towering above the industrial shoreline.
But strangely, at 9.30 in the morning, there was not a sign of life anywhere.
The Marines stormed the plant. There was no firefight. No battle. Within minutes, the area was declared secure, the Marine
commander declaring over the radio:
''You can let those D.O.D. boys in now. But let me warn you, it ain't pretty in here.'
The smell was overwhelming.
The stench of rotting human flesh.
The main office area was bathed in blood. It was smeared on the walls, caked on benchtops, some of it had even dried as it had dripped down steel staircases, forming gruesome maroon stalactites.
Fortunately for Axon's legions of construction workers, the plant had been in security lockdown for the week preceding the official inspection, so they had been spared.
The company's senior engineers and department heads, however, hadn't been so lucky. They lay slumped in a neat row in the main lab side-by-side, having been executed on their knees, one after the other. Foul starbursts of blood stained the wall behind their fallen bodies.
Over the past week, rats had feasted on their remains.
Five bodies, however, stood out amid the carnage—they had quite obviously not been Axon employees.
The men of Axon, it seemed, had not gone down without a fight. Their small security force had nailed some of the intruders.
The five suspicious bodies lay at several locations around the plant, variously shot in the head or in the body, AK-47 machine-guns lying on the ground beside their corpses.
All were dressed in black military gear, but all also wore black Arab howlis, or headcloths, to cover their faces.
And despite the sorry state of their vermin-ravaged bodies, one other thing about them was clear: they all bore on their shoulders the distinctive double-scimitar tattoo of the terrorist organisation, Global Jihad.
The Department of Defense inspection team assessed the damage quickly, aided by agents from the ISS and FBI.
They also took a call from a secondary team checking out Axon's Pacific plant in Guam. A similar massacre, it seemed, had happened there as well.
When this news came in, one of the D.O.D. men got on the phone, dialling a secure line at the White House.
'It's bad,' he said. 'In Norfolk: we have fifteen dead—nine engineers, six security staff. Enemy casualties: five terrorists, all dead. Forensics indicate that the bodies have been decomposing for about eight days. Actual time of death is impossible to tell. Same story in Guam, except only one terrorist was killed there.
'All the terrorists here have been identified by the FBI as known members of Global Jihad—including one pretty big fish, a guy named Shoab Riis. But sir, the worst thing is this: there must have been more terrorists involved. Three of the Kormoran supertankers are missing from the Norfolk plant, and two more from the Guam facility . . . and all of them are armed with Chameleon missiles.'
AIRSPACE ABOVE THE FRENCH COAST 26 OCTOBER, 1540 HOURS LOCAL TIME (0940 HOURS E.S.T USA)
The Black Raven rocketed down the French coastline heading toward the Forteresse de Valois.
'So, Rufus,' Mother said, 'there's something I've got to know. What's the story with your boss? I mean, what's an honest grunt like you doing with a murderous bastard like this Knight guy?'
In the front seat of the Sukhoi, Rufus tilted his head.
'Captain Knight ain't a bad man,' he said in his drawling Southern accent. 'And definitely not as bad as everyone says he is. Sure, he can kill a man cold—and believe me, I seen him do it— but he weren't born that way. He was made that way. He ain't no saint, for sure, but he isn't an evil man. And he's always looked after me.'
'Right. . .' Mother said. She was worried about this bounty hunter who was supposedly protecting Schofield.
'So what about all that stuff in his file then? How he betrayed his Delta unit in the Sudan, warned Al-Qaeda of the attack and let his own guys walk into a trap. Thirteen men, wasn't it? All killed because of him.'
Rufus nodded sadly.
'Yeah, I seen that file, too,' he said, 'and let me tell you, all that stuff about Sudan, it's horseshit. I know because I was there. Captain Knight never betrayed no-one. And he sure as hell never left thirteen men to die.'
'He never left them there?' Mother asked.
'No ma'am,' Rufus said, 'Knight killed those cocksuckers himself.'
'I was a chopper pilot back then,' Rufus said, 'with the NightStalkers, flying D-boys like Knight in on black ops. We were doing night raids into Sudan, taking out terrorist training camps after the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in '98. We were flying out of Yemen, skimming into Sudan from across the Red Sea.
'I got to know Knight at the base in Aden. He was kinda quiet, kept to himself most of the time. He read books, you know, thick ones, with no pictures. And he was always writing letters to his young wife back home.
'He was different to most of the guys in my unit, the chopper pilots. They weren't so nice to me. See, I'm kinda smart, but in my own way—I can do maths and physics easy as pie, and because of that I can fly a plane or a helicopter better than any man alive. Thing is, I ain't so good in social environments. Sometimes I just don't get the humour in jokes, especially dirty ones. That kinda thing.
'And the other NightStalker pilots, well, they liked to joke with me—like sending one of the hospital nurses over to my table in the mess hall to talk all sexy with me. Or putting me down for briefings that I wasn't meant to attend. Stuff like that. Instead of calling me Rufus, they called me "Doofus".
'Then some of the Rangers at the base started calling me that, too. I hated it. But Captain Knight, he never called me that. Never once. He always called me by my name.
'Anyway, one time, he was walking past my dorm just after some of them pilot bastards had taken all my bedside books while I was sleeping and switched 'em with some dirty magazines. They was all laughing at me when Captain Knight asked what was going on.
'A pilot named Harry Hartley told him to fuck off, mind his own business. Knight just stood there in the doorway, dead still. Again Hartley told him to beat it. Knight didn't move. So Hartley approached him angrily and took a swing at him. Knight dropped
the asshole using only his legs, then he pressed a knee to Hartley's throat and said that my pilot skills were very much his business and that I was to be left alone ... or else he'd come back.
'No-one ever played a joke on me again.'
Mother said, 'So what happened with the thirteen soldiers who died in Sudan then?'
'When he went out on a mission,' Rufus said, 'Knight often worked alone. Delta guys are allowed to do that, run solo. One man acting alone can often do more damage than an entire platoon.
'Anyway, one night, he's in Port Sudan, staking out an old warehouse. Place is a ghost town, deserted, run-down to all hell. Which is why Al-Qaeda had a training camp there, inside a big old warehouse.
'So Knight gets inside the warehouse and waits. That night, there's a big meeting there but this ain't your usual backstreets-of-Sudan meeting between Al-Qaeda buyers and Russian arms dealers. No, it's fucking Bin Laden himself and three CIA spooks, and they're talking about the Embassy bombings.
'Knight sends a silent digital signal out, giving his location, calling for back-up, and indicating that OBL himself is there. He offers to liquidate OBL, but command tells him to stand down. They're sending a Delta hit team in on his signal.
'The Delta team is sent from Aden, sixteen men in a Black Hawk, flown by me. Of course, by the time we get to the warehouse in Port Sudan, Bin Laden is gone.
'We meet Knight at the rendezvous point on the coast—an abandoned lighthouse. He's pissed as hell. The leader of the Delta hit squad is a punk named Brandeis, Captain Wade Brandeis. He tells Knight that something bigger is at stake here. Something way over Knight's head.
'Knight turns on his heel, heads for the chopper in disgust. Then, behind him, that fucker Brandeis just nods to two of his guys and says, "The chopper pilot, too. He can't go back after seeing this." And so these Delta assholes raise their MP-5s at Knight's back and at me in my chopper.
'There was no time for me to shout, but I didn't have to. Knight
had heard 'em move. He told me later that he heard the sound of their sleeves brushing against their body armour—the sound of someone raising a gun.
'A second before they fired, Knight dashed forward and tackled me into my own helicopter's hold. The Delta guys rushed us, silenced guns blazin' away, hammering the chopper. But Knight is moving too fast. He pushes me out the other side of the chopper, yanks me across a patch of open ground and into the lighthouse.
'You wouldn't believe what happened inside that lighthouse after that. The Delta team came in after us, the whole Delta hit team. Sixteen men. Only three came out.
'Knight killed nine Delta commandos inside that lighthouse before Brandeis and two other guys cut their losses and headed outside. Then, knowing that Knight was still inside fighting with four of his own men, Brandeis planted a Thermite-Amatol demolition charge at the front door.
'Don't know if you've ever seen a Thermite charge go off before, but they are mighty big blasters. Well, that charge went off and that old lighthouse fell like a big old California redwood. The whole area shook like an earthquake when it hit the ground.
'When the dust settled, there was nothing left—nothing—just a pile of rubble. Nobody inside could have survived. Not us. Not the four Delta guys Brandeis had left in there.
'So Brandeis and the other two took off in my chopper and headed back to Aden.
'As it turned out, the building's collapse did kill the last four D-boys. Squashed 'em like flapjacks. But not Knight and me. Knight had seen Brandeis leave the lighthouse, and guessed that he'd blow the building. So Knight zip-lined us down the hollow well-shaft of the lighthouse—past the four Delta guys on the stairs—and bundled us both into a storm cellar at the base of the building.
'The lighthouse fell, but that storm cellar held. It was strong, concrete-walled. Took the pair of us two whole days to dig ourselves out of the rubble.'
'Man . . .' Mother said.
'Turned out Brandeis was working for some group inside the US military called the Intelligence Convergence Group, or ICG. Heard of them?'
'Yeah. Once or twice,' Mother said grimly.
'Don't hear about the ICG much anymore,' Rufus said. 'They say it was a bad-ass government agency that infiltrated military units, big companies and universities with its agents and then reported back to the government. But there was a purge a couple of years back that wiped it out. But some members like Brandeis survived. Turned out the ICG had been behind the attacks on the US embassies in Africa—they were liquidating some spies in those offices and had got Al-Qaeda to do their dirty work.
'To cover itself for the lighthouse bloodbath, though, the ICG blamed the whole thing on Knight. Said that he'd been taking millions from Al-Qaeda. Attributed all thirteen Delta deaths to Knight by saying that he pre-warned Al-Qaeda of their arrival. Knight was placed at the top of the Department of Defense's Most Wanted Persons List. His file was marked Classification Zebra: shoot on sight. And the US Government put a price on his head: two million dollars, dead or alive.'
'A bounty hunter with a price on his head. Nice,' Mother said.
Rufus said, 'But then the ICG did the worst thing of all. Remember I told you that Knight had a young wife. He also had a baby. ICG had them killed. Set it up as a home invasion gone wrong. Killed the woman and the baby.
'And now, now the ICG is dead and Knight's family is dead, but the price on Knight's head remains. The US Government occasionally sends a hit squad after him, like they did in Brazil a few years ago. And, of course, Wade Brandeis is still on active duty with Delta. I think he's a major now, still based in Yemen.'
'And so Knight became a bounty hunter,' Mother said.
'That's right. And I went with him. He saved my life, and he's always been good to me, always respected me. And he ain't never forgot Brandeis. Got a tattoo on his arm just to remind himself. Boy, is he waiting for the chance to meet that cat again.'
Mother took this all in.
She found herself reliving the mission she'd endured with Schofield and Gant at that remote ice station in Antarctica a few years back, an adventure which had involved their own battle with the ICG.
Fortunately for them, they had won. But at around the same time, Aloysius Knight had also been doing battle with the ICG— and he'd lost. Badly.
'He sounds like a Shane Schofield gone wrong,' she whispered.
'What?'
'Nothing.'
Mother gazed out at the horizon, a peculiar thought entering her mind. She found herself wondering: what would happen to Shane Schofield if he ever lost such a contest?
A few minutes later, the Black Raven hit the coast of Brittany.
Rufus and Mother saw the cliff-side roadway winding away from the Forteresse de Valois—saw the exploded-open craters in the road, the shell impacts on the cliffs, saw the crashed and smoking remains of trailer rigs, rally cars and helicopters strewn all over the place.
'What the hell happened here?' Rufus gaped.
'The Scarecrow happened here,' Mother said. 'The big question is, where is he now?'
THE FRENCH AIRCRAFT CARRIER, RICHELIEU, ATLANTIC OCEAN, OFF THE FRENCH COAST 26 OCTOBER, 1545 HOURS LOCAL TIME (0945 HOURS E.S.T USA)
The giant French Super Puma naval helicopter landed on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier—with Shane Schofield in it, handcuffed and disarmed and covered by no fewer than six armed sailors.
After the patrol boat had picked him up near the cliffs, Schofield had been taken to the French destroyer. From there he had been whisked by helicopter to the colossal Charles de Gaulle-class carrier, Richelieu, hovering on the ocean farther out.
No sooner had the helicopter landed on the flight deck than the ground beneath it moved—downward. The Super Puma had landed on one of the carrier's gigantic side-mounted elevators, and now that elevator was descending.
The elevator lurched to a halt in front of a massive internal hangar bay situated directly underneath the flight deck. It was filled with Mirage fighters, anti-submarine planes, fuel trucks and jeeps.
And standing in the middle of it all, awaiting the arrival of the elevator containing the chopper, was a small group of four very senior French officials:
One Navy Admiral.
One Army General.
One Air Force Commodore.
And one man in a plain grey suit.
• * •
Schofield was shoved out of the Super Puma, his hands cuffed in front of him.
He was brought before the four French officials.
Apart from Schofield's half-dozen guards, the maintenance hangar had been cleared of personnel. It made for an odd sight: this cluster of tiny figures standing among the aeroplanes inside the cavernous but deserted hangar bay.
'So this is the Scarecrow,' the Army General snorted. 'The man who took out a team of my best paratroopers in Antarctica.'
The Admiral said, 'I also lost an entire submarine during that incident. To this day, it has not been accounted for.'
So much for forgetting about Antarctica, Schofield thought.
The man in the suit stepped forward. He seemed smoother than the others, more precise, more articulate. Which made him seem more dangerous. 'Monsieur Schofield, my name is Pierre Lefevre, I am from the Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure.'
The DGSE, Schofield thought. The French version of the CIA. And aside from the Mossad, the most ruthless intelligence agency in the world.
Great.
'So, Pierre,' he said, 'what's the story? Is France in league with Majestic-12? Or just Jonathan Killian?'
'I do not know what you are talking about,' Lefevre said airily. 'All we know is what Monsieur Killian has told us, and the Republic of France sees a tactical advantage in allowing his organisation's plan to run its course.'
'So what do you want with me?'
The Army General said, 'I would like to rip your heart out.'
The Navy Admiral said, 'And I would like to show it to you.'
'My objective is somewhat more practical,' Lefevre said calmly. 'The Generals will get their wish, of course. But not before you answer some of my questions, or before we see for ourselves whether Monsieur Killian's plan is truly foolproof.'
Lefevre laid his briefcase on a nearby bench and opened it ... to reveal a small metallic unit the size of a hardback book.
It looked like a mini-computer, but with two screens: one large touch-screen on the upper half, and a smaller elongated screen on the bottom right. The top screen glowed with a series of red and white circles. Next to the smaller screen was a 10-digit keypad, like on a telephone.
'Captain Schofield,' Lefevre said, 'allow me to introduce to you the CincLock-VlI security system. We would like to see you disarm it.1
FORTERESSE DE VALOIS
BRITTANY, FRANCE
26 OCTOBER, 1600 HOURS LOCAL TIME
(1000 HOURS EST USA)
They dragged Libby Gant into the dark underground pit.
Bloodied and wounded and teetering on the edge of consciousness, she noticed its circular stone walls, the pool of tidal seawater that filled most of its floor area. Seawater which contained two prowling sharks.
Thunk.
The upper half of the guillotine's wooden stocks came down over Gant's neck, pinning her head firmly in place.
The armed man covering her shot home the lock. Gant had never seen him before: he had carrot-red hair, vacant black eyes, and an exceedingly ugly rat-like face.
The imposing frame of the guillotine loomed above her—her head now fastened twelve feet beneath its suspended blade.
Gant grimaced. She could barely even kneel. The tracer wound to her chest burned with pain.
Next to Rat Face stood one of the bounty hunters—Cedric Wexley's No. 2, a psychotic ex-Royal Marine named Drake. He covered Gant with a Steyr-AUG assault rifle.
Gant noticed that Drake was wearing a strange-looking flak vest—a black utility vest equipped with all manner of odd-looking devices, like a Pony Bottle and some mountaineering pitons.
It was Knight's vest.
That made her look up.
And she saw him.
There, fifteen feet in front of her—standing on a stone platform which was itself two inches under the waterline, his eyes squeezed painfully shut since his amber glasses had been removed, his back pressed against the curved stone wall of the pit, his wrists manacled and his holsters glaringly empty—was Aloysius Knight.
A voice echoed across the watery dungeon.
'"Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer. Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." Yeats, I believe.'
Jonathan Killian appeared in the viewing balcony—with the bounty hunter Cedric Wexley at his side.
Killian gazed out over the Shark Pit like an emperor at the Colosseum, his eyes falling on Gant, fifty yards away, on the other side of the pit.
'Anarchy is loosed upon the world, Lieutenant Gant,' he said pleasantly. 'I must say I like the sound of that. Don't you?'
'No,' Gant groaned with pain.
They didn't have to raise their voices; their words echoed across the dungeon.
Killian said, 'And Captain Knight. I find your actions most disturbing. A bounty hunter of your fame hindering a hunt. There can be only one conclusion: you are being paid to do so.'
Knight just stared back at the young billionaire, said nothing.
it concerns me to think that someone wishes to foil the plans of the Council. Who is paying you to save Schofield, Captain Knight?'
Knight said nothing.
'Noble silence. How predictable,' Killian said. 'Perhaps when I have your tongue wrenched from your mouth, you will wish you had spoken sooner.'
'We know your plan, Killian,' Gant said through clenched teeth.
'Start a new Cold War to make money. It won't work. We'll blow the lid on it, inform the US Government.'
Killian snorted.
'My dear Lieutenant Gant. Do you honestly think I fear governments} The modern Western government is but a gathering of overweight middle-aged men trying to gloss over their own mediocrity with the attainment of high office. Presidential planes, Prime Ministerial offices, they are but the illusion of power.
'As for a new Cold War,' Killian mused, 'well, that is more the Council's plan than my own. My plan would embody somewhat more vision.
'Consider that poem by Yeats. I particularly love the notion of the falconer no longer being able to command his falcon. It suggests a nation that is no longer capable of controlling its most deadly weapon. The weapon has developed a mind of its own, realised its own deadly potential. It has outgrown its owner and attained dangerous independence.
'Now place that in the context of the US defence industry. What happens when the missile builders no longer choose to obey their masters? What happens when the military-industrial complex decides it no longer needs the United States Government?'
'The Scarecrow will stop you,' Gant said defiantly.
'Yes. Yes. The Scarecrow,' Killian said. 'Our mutual friend. He is a special one, isn't he? Did you know that the Council was so concerned about his presence on the list that they went to the trouble of arranging a sham mission to Siberia just to trap him? Needless to say, it didn't work.'
'No shit.'
'But if he is still alive,' Killian said, 'then, yes, it is something of a problem.'
Killian locked eyes with Gant. . .
. . . and she felt her spine turn completely to ice. There was something in his glare that she had never seen before, something truly terrifying.
Aloysius Knight saw it, too, and he immediately became concerned.
This was happening too fast. He shifted in his stance, strained against his manacles.
'Now,' Killian said, 'in any standard story, a villain like me would seek to draw out the troublesome Schofield by holding his beloved Lieutenant Gant hostage. I believe this was exactly Demon Larkham's thinking earlier today.'
'Yes,' Gant said warily. 'It was.'
'But it didn't work, did it?' Killian said.
'No.'
'Which is why, Lieutenant Gant, I must do something more to flush Shane Schofield out. Something that will make finding me far more important to him than disrupting the Council's plan. Mister Noonan.'
At that moment Rat Face—Noonan—grasped the release lever on the guillotine and Gant swallowed in horror.
Then she looked over at Knight, locking eyes with him.
'Knight,' she said. 'When you get out of here, tell Schofield something for me. Tell him I would have said yes.'
Then, without pause or patience, Rat Face pulled the lever and the guillotine's terrible blade dropped from its perch and rushed down its guide-rails toward Gant's exposed neck.
Chunk.
Libby Gant's headless body dropped to the ground at the base of the guillotine.
A hideous waterfall of blood gushed out from its open neck, spilling across the stone stage before flowing off it into the seawater at the platform's edge.
The blood in the water quickly attracted the sharks. Two pointed grey shadows appeared at the edge of the guillotine's stage, searching for the source of the blood.
'Jesus, noV Aloysius Knight yelled, straining at his chains, staring at the gruesome sight in total apoplectic shock.
It had happened so fast.
So quickly.
Without any hesitation.
Libby Gant was dead.
Despite the pain of the light hitting them, Knight's eyes were wide, his face white. 'Oh God, no . . .' he gasped again.
He snapped to glare up at Jonathan Killian—but Killian's face was a mask. His cool hard stare had not changed at all.
And then suddenly one of the men in the pit was coming towards Knight.
It was Drake, the ExSol mercenary, carrying one of Knight's Remington shotguns and wearing his utility vest. The other man, Rat Face, was leaving the pit via a steel door over by the guillotine.
'What about this one?' Drake asked Killian.
Killian waved a hand. 'No guillotines for the Black Knight. No games that might permit him to escape. Shoot him in the head and then feed him to the sharks.'
'Yes, sir,' Drake said.
The giant mercenary strode across a narrow stone bridge between the guillotine's stage and Knight's wall-platform, each step kicking up a shallow splash.
As Drake approached him, the squinting Knight assessed his options.
There weren't many.
He could barely see.
His hands were manacled.
Drake was coming closer.
Thinking furiously, Knight bit his lip so hard that he drew blood. He spat the gob of bloody saliva away in disgust.
Drake halted about six feet from him, out of range from anything Knight could do—like strangle him with his legs, or kick him in the crotch.
Drake raised Knight's silver Remington, aimed it at Knight's head. 'Heard you were better than this, Knight.'
At which point, Knight nodded down at Drake's feet and said, 'I am.'
Drake frowned.
And looked down—to see one of the tiger sharks in the water right next to his boots, drawn to the edge of the platform by Knight's blood-laced saliva.
Just as Knight had hoped.
'Ah—' Drake took an involuntary step back from the big ten-foot shark at his feet. . .
. . . and walked into the strike zone of a far more dangerous predator.
What Knight did next, he did very very fast.
First, he whip-snapped his body upwards, lashing out with his legs, and grabbed Drake hard around the ribs from behind. Knight squeezed and there came a hideous snap-snap-snap, the sound of Drake's ribs breaking.
Drake roared with pain.
Then Knight yanked the mercenary closer so that he could reach
something hanging from the utility vest—his utility vest—that Drake was wearing.
Knight pulled a mountaineering piton from the vest and one-handed, jammed the piton into his left-hand manacle and pressed its release.
With a powerful spring-loaded thwack, the piton expanded in an instant—
—and the old iron manacle around Knight's wrist cracked open and suddenly his left hand was free.
Up on the viewing balcony, Cedric Wexley saw what was happening and immediately whipped up his gun, but Knight was holding Drake in the way with his legs.
And he wasn't finished with Drake either.
He used his now-free left hand to grab a second item from the vest: the miniature blowtorch.
Knight yanked the blowtorch from its pouch and immediately pulled the trigger, firing it at point-blank range into Drake's back.
The mini-blowtorch burst to life, emitting a superheated blue flame.
Drake roared.
The spike-like blue flame lanced right through his body, emerging from the other side—the front side—like the blade of a luminescent sword.
Drake's face, shocked and dying, fell back against Knight's chest.
'You got off lightly,' Knight growled, applying more power, blasting the insides of Drake's body to nothing.
Then the body went limp, and fell, and as it did so, Knight unclasped his utility vest from it, at the same time using his piton to break open his other manacle.
As Drake fell, however, Knight became exposed to Cedric Wexley up in the viewing balcony, who started firing.
But now Knight was completely free.
He dived behind Drake's corpse, let bullet after bullet hit it before, without warning, he rolled Drake's body into the blood-stained
water, right in front of the nearest tiger shark, and then, to everyone's surprise . . .
. . . leapt into the water after it himself.
The shark lunged at Drake's corpse, bit into it with an almighty crunch, started tearing it to shreds. The second shark came over quickly and joined in the frenzy.
A churning bloody foam spilled out across the pool. Waves sloshed every which way.
After a few minutes, however, the frenzy died down and the water was calm once more.
But there was no sign of Knight.
Indeed, Aloysius Knight never surfaced again inside the deadly pool.
He did surface, however, outside the Forteresse de Valois, amid the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.
Exactly six minutes after he'd dived underneath the sharks feeding on Drake's body, he breached the surface of the ocean, still holding his Pony Bottle to his lips.
The mini-scuba bottle had only just had enough air in it to get him through the long underwater passage that connected the Shark Pit to the open sea.
Knight didn't bob in the water for long. A homing transponder on his vest took care of that.
In a matter of minutes, the hawk-shaped shadow of his Sukhoi S-37 swung into place above him, blasting the water around him with its thrusters.
Then a harness fell out of the plane's bomb bay and slapped into the water beside him, and within moments, Aloysius Knight was sitting inside the Black Raven, back with Mother and Rufus.
'You all right, Boss?' Rufus said, throwing him a new pair of yellow-lensed glasses.
Knight caught them as he slumped to the floor of the Raven's rear holding cell, put them on. He didn't answer Rufus's question. Just nodded. He was still shell-shocked by the horrific execution he had just witnessed in the Shark Pit.
Mother said, 'What about the Scarecrow? And my little Chickadee?'
Knight looked up at her sharply.
Behind his yellow glasses, his eyes were the picture of horror. He gazed at Mother, wondering what to say.
Then abruptly he stood. 'Rufus. Do you have a fix on Schofield? Those MicroDots I put on his Palm Pilot should have rubbed off on his hand.'
'I've got him, Boss. And he's still moving. Looks like someone took him to that French carrier off the coast.'
Knight turned to Mother, took a deep, deep breath. 'Schofield's alive, but'—he swallowed—'there could be a problem with the girl.'
'Oh dear God, no . . .' Mother said.
'I can't talk about it now,' Knight said. 'We have to rescue Schofield.'
THE FRENCH AIRCRAFT CARRIER RICHELIEU, ATLANTIC OCEAN, OFF THE FRENCH COAST
Shane Schofield was thrown into a small steel-walled room adjoining the below-decks hangar. The door slammed shut behind him.
There was nothing in the room but a table and a chair.
On the table sat Lefevre's CincLock-VII disarming unit. Next to the unit, with a little red pilot light burning brightly on its top, was:
A phosphorus grenade.
High in the corner of the room, hidden behind a dark glass plate, Schofield heard a camera whirring.
'Captain Schofield,' the DGSE agent's voice came over some speakers. 'A simple test. The phosphorus grenade you see before you is connected by shortwave radio to the CincLock unit on the table. The only way to disarm the grenade is through the CincLock unit. For the purposes of this exercise, the final disarm code is 123. The grenade will go off in one minute. Your time starts . . . now.'
'Holy shit,' Schofield said, sitting down quickly.
He examined the CincLock unit up close.
White and red circles filled the main screen—red on the left, white on the right. Bing. A message appeared on the lower screen:
FIRST PROTOCOL (PROXIMITY): SATISFIED. INITIATE SECOND PROTOCOL.
Immediately, the white circles on the main screen began to flash—each one blinking for a brief instant, one at a time, in a slow random sequence.
The screen squealed in protest.
SECOND PROTOCOL (RESPONSE PATTERN): FAILED DISARM ATTEMPT
RECORDED.
THREE FAILED DISARM ATTEMPTS WILL RESULT IN DEFAULT
DETONATION.
SECOND PROTOCOL (RESPONSE PATTERN): RE-ACTIVATED.
'What?' Schofield said to the screen.
'Fifty seconds, Captain,'' Lefevre's voice said. 'You have to touch the illuminated circles in the prescribed order.'' 'Oh. Right.' The white circles began to flash again, one after the other.
And now Schofield began pressing them—just after they flashed.
'Forty seconds . . .'
The white circles' sequence became faster. Schofield's hands began to move faster with them, touching the circles on the screen.
Then, abruptly, one of the red circles on the left side of the display illuminated.
Schofield wasn't ready for it. But hit it anyway, and got it in time. The white circles resumed their sequence, now blinking very quickly. Schofield's fingers increased their pace, too.
'Thirty seconds . . . you're doing well. . .'
Then another red circle flashed.
And this time Schofield was too slow.
The screen beeped angrily.
SECOND PROTOCOL (RESPONSE PATTERN): FAILED DISARM ATTEMPT
RECORDED.
THREE FAILED DISARM ATTEMPTS WILL RESULT IN DEFAULT
DETONATION.
SECOND PROTOCOL (RESPONSE PATTERN): RE-ACTIVATED.
'Damn it!' Schofield yelled, eyeing the grenade on the table beside him.
And the white circles began their blinking sequence for a third and final time.
'Twenty-five seconds left. . .'
But this time Schofield was prepared, knowing what he had to do. His hands now moved fluidly across the screen, punching the white circles as they blinked, breaking left every so often as a red circle flashed.
'Ten seconds, nine . . .'
The sequence became faster. The darting moves to the reds became more frequent—to the point, Schofield thought, where it became a test of his reflexes.
'Eight, seven . . .'
His eyes stayed focused on the display. His fingers kept dancing. Sweat trickled into his eyes.
lSix, five . . .'
The lights kept blinking: white-white-red-white-red-white.
'Four, three . . .'
Bing—a message sprang up on the screen:
SECOND PROTOCOL (RESPONSE PATTERN): SATISFIED. THIRD PROTOCOL (CODE ENTRY): ACTIVE. PLEASE ENTER AUTHORIZED DISARM CODE.
'Two..:
Schofield typed '1-2-3-ENTER' on the keypad. The numbers appeared on the smaller screen. 'One...' Bing.
THIRD PROTOCOL (CODE ENTRY): SATISFIED. DEVICE DISARMED.
Schofield exhaled, slumped back in his chair.
The door to the room opened. Lefevre entered, dove-clapping.
'Oh, tres bien! Tres bien!' he said. 'Very good, Captain.'
Two burly French naval commandos covered Schofield on either side.
Lefevre smiled. 'That was most impressive. Most impressive. Thank you, Captain. You've just reassured us of the verity of Majestic-12's claims. Not to mention the merit of this disarm system. I'm sure the Republic of France will find many uses for it. It really is such a shame that we have to kill you now. Gentlemen, take Captain Schofield back up to the hangar and string him up with the other one.'
Schofield rose into the air, his legs and arms spread wide, star-like.
He stood on the forward lifting prongs of a forklift, one foot on each horizontal prong, while his wrists were handcuffed to the vehicle's vertical steel runners.
The forklift was parked in a corner of the Richelieu's deserted main hangar bay, behind the exhausts of several Rafale fighter jets. Seated in a semi-circle in front of it were the three French military officers and the DGSE agent, Lefevre.
'Bring in the British spy,' Lefevre said to one of Schofield's guards.
The guard hit a button on the wall nearby and the steel wall beside Schofield suddenly began to rise—it was in fact a door, a great fighter-sized steel door—revealing darkness beyond it.
Out from the darkness came a second forklift, on which stood another captured individual, crucified in the same manner as Schofield.
There was only one difference.
The man on this second forklift had been thoroughly tortured. His face, his shirt, his arms—they were all covered with blood. His head hung limply over his chest.
Lefevre said, 'Captain Schofield, I'm not sure if you have met Agent Alec Christie of British Intelligence.'
Christie. From MI-6. And the bounty list.
So this was where Christie had got to.
'Over the last two days, Mr Christie has been a fountain of information for us regarding Majestic-12,' Lefevre said. 'It seems that for the last eighteen months, he has been well placed in Loch-
Mann Industries as a personal bodyguard to Mr Randolph Loch, the Chairman of M-12. But while Mr Christie was watching Loch, we were watching Christie.
'However, in one of his more lucid moments last night, Mr Christie told us something of concern. He stated that Randolph Loch has been most displeased of late with one of the younger members of M-12, our friend Jonathan Killian.
'According to Mr Christie, Randolph Loch commented several times that Killian was quote, "pestering him with this follow-up idea". It appears that Mr Killian does not think Majestic-12's plan goes far enough. In light of your own investigations, Captain Schofield, do you know anything about this "follow-up idea"?'
Schofield said, 'Killian's your friend. Why don't you ask him?'
'The Republic of France does not have friends.'
'I can see why.'
'We have useful acquaintances,' Lefevre said. 'But sometimes, one must watch one's acquaintances as closely as one's enemies.'
'You don't trust him,' Schofield said.
'Not an inch.'
'But you give him protection, sanctuary.'
'For as long as it suits us. It may no longer suit us.'
Schofield said, 'But now you're worried he's playing you.'
'Yes.'
Schofield thought about that for a moment.
Then he said, 'One of M-12's Chameleon missiles is aimed at Paris.'
'Oh, please. We know that. We are prepared for that. That is the very idea behind my country's involvement with Majestic-12. That was why we provided them with the bodies of the Global Jihad terrorists. For while America, Germany and Britain suffer catastrophic losses, France will be seen as the only Western nation to have defeated this threat.
'Where New York, Berlin and London will be lost, Paris will stand tall. France will be the only nation to have successfully shot down one of these terrible terrorist missiles.
'It took America three whole months to retaliate for September 11. Imagine how shell-shocked they will be when they lose five entire cities. But France, France will be the nation who beat off these heinous attacks. The only Western nation who moved fast enough. It will make us—strong and capable and completely unhurt—the world's leader in this new Cold War period.
'Captain Schofield, our friends in Majestic-12 want money out of all of this, because for them money is power. The Republic of France does not want that kind of power—we want something far more important than that. We want a global power shift. We want to lead the world.
'The 20th century was the American century. A sad bankrupt time in the history of this planet. The 21st century will be the French century.'
Schofield just stared at Lefevre and the generals.
'You guys are really messed up, you know that,' he said.
Lefevre pulled some photos out of his briefcase, showed them to the elevated Schofield.
'Back to Killian. These are photos of Monsieur Killian during his tour of Africa last year.'
Schofield saw standard newspaper pics: Killian standing with African leaders, opening factories, waving to crowds.
'A goodwill tour to promote his charitable activities,' Lefevre said. 'During that tour, however, Killian attended meetings with the leaders and defence ministers of several strategically significant African nations: notably Nigeria, Eritrea, Chad, Angola and Libya.'
'Yes . . .' Schofield said expectantly.
Lefevre paused, delivered the punch. 'Over the last eleven hours, the Air Forces of Nigeria, Eritrea, Chad and Angola have all scrambled, with over two hundred fighter planes converging on airfields in eastern Libya. Now, taken individually, these air forces are relatively small. Taken together, however, they make up a veritable aerial armada. My final question for you, Captain, is what are they doing}'
Schofield's mind raced.
'Captain Schofield?'
But Schofield wasn't listening. He could only hear Jonathan Killian's voice in his head, saying: 'Although many don't know it, the future of the world lies in Africa.'
Africa . . .
'Captain Schofield?' Lefevre said.
Schofield hlinked. Came back.
'I don't know,' he answered honestly. 'I wish I did, but I honestly don't.'
'Hmmm,' Lefevre said. 'That is exactly what Mr Christie said, too. Which might mean you are both speaking the truth. Of course, it might also mean that you need some more persuasion.'
Lefevre nodded to the driver of Christie's forklift.
The driver fired up the engine and drove the vehicle a few yards to the left, so that Christie—raised up on the forklift's prongs—was positioned right behind the thrusters of a nearby Rafale fighter jet. The driver then quickly jumped out of his seat and ran away.
A moment later, Schofield saw why.
ROOOOAAAARRRRR!
The fighter's engines rumbled to life. Schofield saw another French soldier standing in its cockpit.
The battered and ragged Alec Christie looked up at the sound of the colossal noise, and found himself staring into the yawning rear thruster of the Rafale fighter. He didn't seem to care. He was too beaten, too weary to bother straining at his bonds.
Lefevre nodded to the man in the cockpit.
The man hit the plane's thrust controls.
Instantly, a shocking tongue of white-hot fire blasted out from the rear thruster of the Rafale, engulfing the immobile Christie.
The heat-blast battered the British agent's body like a wind-fan—the piping-hot air blasted his hair backwards, ripped the skin off his face, burned his clothes in a nanosecond—until ultimately it tore his body to pieces.
Then, abruptly, the burst stopped and the hangar was silent again.
All that remained of Alec Christie were four grisly quarters, charred and disgusting, dangling from the forklift's prongs.
'This is very bad,' Schofield swallowed.
Lefevre turned to him. 'Does that refresh your memory at all?'
'I'm telling you, I don't know,' Schofield said. 'I don't know about Killian or the African countries, or if they have anything in common. This is the first I've heard of them.'
'Then I am afraid we have no further need for you,' Lefevre said. 'It is now time for the Admiral and the General to have their wish and watch you die.'
And with that, Lefevre nodded to Schofield's forklift driver. Schofield's vehicle moved forward, stopping alongside Christie's charred forklift, in front of the Rafale's second rear thruster.
Schofield gazed into the dark depths of the thruster.
'General?' Lefevre said to the old Army officer, the man who had lost an entire paratrooper unit to Schofield in Antarctica. 'Would you like to do the honours?'
'With pleasure.'
The General stood up from his chair, and climbed up into the Rafale's cockpit, glaring at Schofield all the way.
He leaned into the cockpit, reached for the flight stick, his thumb hovering over the 'afterburn' switch.
'Good-bye, Captain Schofield,' Lefevre said matter-of-factly. 'World history will have to continue without you. Au revoir.'
The General's thumb came down on the 'BURN' switch.
Just as a gigantic explosion boomed out from somewhere above the main hangar.
Klaxons sounded.
Warning lights flashed to life.
And the entire aircraft carrier was suddenly awash with the red lighting of an emergency.
The General's thumb had frozen a millimetre above the burn
switch.
An ensign ran up to the Navy Admiral. 'Sir! We're under attack!'
'What?' the Admiral yelled. 'By whom!'
'It looks like a Russian fighter, sir.'
'A Russian fighter? One Russian fighter! This is an aircraft carrier, for God's sake! Who in their right mind would attack an aircraft carrier with a single plane?'
The Black Raven hovered level with the flight deck of the Richelieu, raining gunfire and missiles down on the fighter planes parked there.
Four missile smoke-trails extended out from the Sukhoi's wings and then separated to pursue different targets.
One Rafale fighter on the deck was instantly blasted to pieces, while two anti-aircraft missile stations were obliterated. The fourth missile whizzed into the main hangar bay and rammed into an AWACS plane, destroying it in a billowing explosion.
Inside the Raven, Rufus flew brilliantly.
In the gunner's seat behind him sat Knight, swivelling around in the plane's 360-degree revolving rear chair, lining up targets and then blazing away with the Raven's guns.
'Mother! You ready?' Knight called.
Mother stood in the converted bomb bay behind the cockpit—armed to the teeth: MP-7, M-16, Desert Eagle pistols; she even had one of Knight's rocket launcher packs strapped to her back.
'Fuckin'-A.'
'Then go!' Knight hit a button.
Whack!
The floor of the bomb bay/holding cell snapped open and Mother dropped down through it, whizzing down on her Maghook's rope.
Inside the French aircraft carrier's control tower, chaos reigned.
Comm-techs were shouting into their radio-mikes, relaying information to the captain.
'—damn thing got under our radars! Must have some sort of stealth mechanism—'
'—They've hit the anti-aircraft stations on the flight deck—'
'—Get those fighters to the catapults nowV
'Sir! The Triomphe says it has a clear shot. . .'
'Tell it to fire!'
In response to the order, an anti-aircraft missile streaked out from one of the destroyers in the carrier group—heading straight for the Black Raven.
'Rufus! I hope you fixed our electronic countermeasures when we were in Archangel!'
'Taken care of, Boss.'
The missile zoomed towards them at phenomenal speed.
But at the last possible moment, it hit the Raven's electronic jamming shield and veered wildly away . . .
. . . and slammed into the outer hull of the aircraft carrier!
'Escorts! Cease fire! Cease fire!' the captain yelled. 'That plane is too close to us! You're hitting us! Electronics Department—find out what its jamming frequency is and neutralise it! We'll have to destroy it with fighters.'
Inside the main hangar bay of the carrier, Schofield was still quasi-crucified in front of the thrusters of the parked Rafale fighter.
Abruptly, the deck around him banked steeply as the immense carrier wheeled around in the face of the Black Raven's surprise assault.
Lefevre and the French generals were now all on radios, looking for answers.
All, that is, except for the Army General in the cockpit of the Rafale.
After the initial distraction, he now glared back at Schofield. He wasn't going to miss this opportunity.
He reached for the 'afterburn' switch again, gripped the control stick just as—sprack!—a bullet entered his ear and the cockpit around him was sprayed with his brains.
In all the confusion, no-one had noticed the shadowy figure that had landed on the open-air starboard elevator adjoining the main hangar, a figure that had whizzed to the bottom of a vertical rope like a spider on a thread, a figure bearing arms.
Mother.
Carrying an MP-7 in one hand and an M-16 in the other, Mother stormed through the hangar bay towards Schofield. She was like an unstoppable force of nature.
The squad of French paratroopers that had been guarding Schofield came at her from all sides—from behind vehicles, from around parked fighter jets.
But Mother just strode forward, nailing them left, right and centre, never once losing her stride.
She loosed two shots to the left—hit two paratroopers in their faces. Swung right—firing her M-16 pistol-style—and another three bad guys went down.
A paratrooper rose from the wing of a Rafale above her and Mother just somersaulted, firing as she rolled, peppering him with bloody holes.
She threw two smoke grenades next, and in the haze that followed, she moved and hunted like a vengeful ghost.
Four French paratroopers went down, sucked into the smoke-haze—so, too, the French Admiral. Not even the spy, Lefevre, could escape her. A four-bladed shuriken throwing knife whistled out of the smoke near him and entered his Adam's apple. He would die slowly.
Then suddenly, Mother burst out of the cloud haze right next to Schofield on his forklift.
'Hey, Scarecrow. How's it hanging?' she said.
'Feeling much better now that you're here,' Schofield said.
Two of Knight's pitons made short work of his handcuffs. In seconds he was on solid ground again, free.
But before Mother could hand him some guns, Schofield dashed over to Lefevre's body lying on the ground nearby.
He picked up something from the ground beside the dying Frenchman, returned to Mother's side. She handed him an MP-7 and a Desert Eagle.
'Ready to do some damage?' she asked.
Schofield turned to her, his eyes catching the RPG pack on her back.
'I'm ready to do some serious damage,' he said.
They ran towards a jeep parked nearby.
In rapid two-by-two catapult launches, four state-of-the-art Rafale fighters shot down the runway of the Richelieu and took off.
They wheeled around in the sky above the carrier, turning back in deadly formation, heading for the hovering Black Raven.
'They're coming!' Rufus yelled.
'I see them!' Knight called.
He whirled around in his revolving seat, hammering on his triggers like a kid playing a video game.
Two Rafales shot toward them, cannons blazing.
A phalanx of orange tracer bullets sizzled through the air all around the Raven. The Raven banked and rolled in the sky, dodging the tracers, at the same time returning fire from its own revolving belly-mounted gun.
Then the first two planes overshot them—twin sonic booms. But that was only the first act, a distraction to hide the main show.
For the other two French fighters had swung around low, skimming over the ocean waves from the other direction, coming at the Sukhoi from below and behind.
Still hovering above the carrier's starboard elevator, the Sukhoi swivelled in mid-air, faced these two new planes head-on.
'Damn it,' Rufus said, eyeing his countermeasures screen. 'The bastards are screwing with our jamming frequency . . . it's flicking on and off. We're losing missile jam.'
The two new Rafales fired two missiles each.
Knight blasted away with his cannons at the missiles, hit two of them, but the other two missiles ducked and rose and swerved too well.
'Rufus . . . !'
The missiles roared toward them.
Rufus saw them coming, and a moment before it was too late, saw the answer.
The missiles rushed forward, zooming in for the kill . . .
. . . just as Rufus swung the Black Raven inside the massive doorway that opened off the aircraft carrier's starboard elevator, manoeuvring his airborne fighter inside the ship's main hangar!
The missiles—unlike the shots from the destroyer, he Triomphe— were fitted with electronic detection systems that didn't allow them to strike their own carrier. As such, they ditched into the ocean, detonating in twin hundred-foot geysers.
Inside the carrier's tower, radar operators stared at their screens in confusion, shouted into their radio-mikes:
'—Where the fuck did it go?—'
'—What? Say again—'
'What happened?' the captain asked. 'Where are they?'
'Sir. They're inside us!'
The Black Raven now hovered inside the cavernous hangar of the French aircraft carrier.
'I like your style, Rufus,' Knight said as he started firing indiscriminately at the array of parked planes, helicopters and trucks.
Like a giant bird trapped inside a living room, the Black Raven powered over the interior of the hangar, overturning entire planes with its backwash, flinging fuel trucks into the walls.
It shoomed across the hangar causing untold mayhem and destruction, its two high tail fins even scraping against the ceiling once.
Knight called into his radio: 'Mother! Where are you?'
A lone jeep shot towards the aft end of the elongated hangar bay, driving at full speed, zooming under tilting planes and bouncing fuel trucks, with Mother at the wheel and Schofield crouched in the back.
Mother yelled. 'I'm at the other end of the hangar bay, trying to avoid your mess!'
lDo you have Schofield?'
'I've got him.'
' Want us to pick you up while we're in here?'
Mother turned to Schofield, bent over in the back with her—or rather, Knight's—RPG pack. 'You wanna be picked up in here?'
'No! Not yet!' he yelled. 'Tell Knight to get outside. He doesn't want to be in here in the next two minutes! In fact, he doesn't want to be anywhere near this ship! Tell him we'll meet him outside!'
'Copy that,' Knight said, moments later.
He turned. 'Rufus! Time to bail!'
'You got it, Boss!' Rufus said. 'Now, where is that other . . . ah,' Rufus said, spotting a second open-air elevator on the opposite side of the hangar bay.
He powered up the Sukhoi, brought her swooping across the interior of the hangar bay, the roar of her engines drowning out all other sound, before—shoom—the Raven blasted out through the port-side elevator and into blazing sunlight.
Meanwhile, in the back of his speeding jeep, Schofield rummaged through the RPG pack that Mother had brought.
It was indeed Knight's Russian-made RPG pack—which meant it contained a disposable rocket launcher and various explosive-tipped rocket charges.
He found the one he was looking for.
The notorious Soviet P-61 Palladium charge.
A Palladium charge—comprising a palladium outer shell around a liquid core of enhanced hydrofluoric acid—has only one purpose: to take out civilian nuclear power plants in a terrible, terrible way.
Nuclear weapons require a core consistency of 90% enhanced uranium. The nuclear reactors in civilian power plants, on the other hand, have a core consistency of around 5%; while reactors on nuclear-powered aircraft carriers hover at around 50%—as such, neither of these reactors can ever create a nuclear explosion. They can leak radiation—as happened at Chernobyl—but they will never create a mushroom cloud.
What they do release every single second, however, are massive quantities of hydrogen—highly flammable hydrogen—an action which is nullified by the use of 'recombiners' which turn the dangerous hydrogen (H) into very safe water (H20).
Mixing palladium with hydrogen, however, has the opposite effect. It multiplies the deadly hydrogen, producing vast quantities of the flammable gas which can then be triggered by the addition .of a catalyst like hydrofluoric acid.
As such, the P-61 charge operates as a two-stage detonator.
The first stage—the initial blast—mixes Palladium with hydrogen, multiplying the gas at a phenomenal rate. The second stage of the weapon ignites that gas with the acid.
The result is a colossal explosion—not quite as big as a nuclear blast, but perhaps the only explosion in the world big enough to crack the reinforced hull of an aircraft carrier.
'There!' Schofield yelled, pointing at two gigantic cylindrical vents at the aft end of the hangar bay, fan-covered vents which expelled excess hydrogen out the rear port flank of the carrier. 'The reactor's exhaust vents!'
The jeep whipped through the hangar bay, weaving past flaming fighter jets.
Schofield stood up in the rear section of the jeep, hoisted the
RPG launcher onto his shoulder, aimed it at a gigantic fan set into the side of the exhaust stacks.
'As soon as I fire, Mother, hit the gas and head for the ascending ramp! We're gonna have about thirty seconds between the first stage and the second stage. That means thirty seconds to get off this boat!'
'Okay!'
Schofield peered down the sights of the launcher. 'Au revoir to
you, assholes.'
Then he jammed his finger down on the trigger.
The launcher fired, sending its Palladium-tipped RPG rocketing into the upper reaches of the hangar, a dead-straight smoke-trail extending through the air behind it.
The Palladium charge smashed through the fan in the right-hand exhaust vent and disappeared inside it, heading downward, searching for heat.
No sooner was it away than Mother floored the jeep, wheeling it around in a tight circle before disappearing into the tunnel-like ascension ramp that allowed vehicle access from the hangar to the upper flight deck.
Round and round the jeep went, rising upwards.
As it circled higher, tyres squealing, there came an awesome muffled boom from deep within the bowels of the aircraft carrier.
The Palladium charge had hit its target.
Schofield hit his stopwatch: 00:01 . . . 00:02 . . .
In the air above the Richelieu, the Black Raven was still engaged in the dogfight of its life with the four French Rafale fighters.
It banked hard, screaming through the air, and took one of the Rafales out with its last remaining missile.
But then Rufus heard a shrill beeeeeeeeep from his console.
'They've fully hacked our countermeasure frequency!' he called.
'We just lost missile shield completely!'
At that moment, another of the Rafales got on their tail and the two planes roared over the ocean together, the Rafale trailing the Sukhoi, blazing away at it with orange tracers.
As the Raven rushed forward, Knight swung around in his revolving gunner's chair and opened fire on the trailing plane with the Raven's underslung revolving gun, raking the French fighter's cockpit with a withering rain of fire, shattering its canopy, ripping the pilot to bits, causing his plane to plough into the sea with a jarring explosive splash.
'Boss!' Rufus called suddenly. 'I need guns forward! Now!'
Knight spun. What he hadn't seen was that this trailing Rafale had been driving the Raven toward . . . the other two French fighters!
The two waiting Rafales launched one missile each—
—twin fingers of smoke lanced into the air, arcing in towards the Black Raven's nose—
—but Rufus rolled the sleek black plane, flying it on its side just as he engaged his custom-fitted—and very rare—secondary coun-termeasures: a system known as 'Plasma Stealth' that enveloped the entire aircraft in a cloud of ionised gas particles.
The two missiles went berserk, splitting in a V-shape to avoid the ion cloud around the Sukhoi, and the Raven bisected them at blinding speed—leaving one missile to ditch wildly into the sea and the other to wheel around in the sky.
But the Raven was still on a collision course with the two incoming Rafales.
Knight swung forward, opened fire—and destroyed the left-hand wing of one Rafale a moment before the Raven overshot the two French fighters with a deafening roar.
There was only one Rafale left now, but not for long. A moment after it passed Knight's plane, the last French Rafale was hit by its own missile—the one that had gone rogue after being assailed by the Sukhoi's Plasma Stealth mechanism.
Knight and Rufus turned to see the final explosion, but as they
did so, there came another noise from across the waves—a deep ominous boom from within the aircraft carrier.
'Faster, Mother. Faster,' Schofield eyed his stopwatch:
00:09 . . .
00:10...
The jeep shot up the circular ramp, kicking up sparks against the ramp's close steel walls.
Abruptly, the entire carrier banked sharply, turning to port, tilting the whole world thirty degrees.
'Keep going!' Schofield yelled.
The first-stage blast of the Palladium charge had knocked out the Richelieu's hydrogen recombiners: that was the ominous boom.
Which meant that uncontrolled hydrogen was now building inside the carrier's cooling towers at an exponential rate. In exactly 30 seconds the second stage of the palladium charge would detonate, igniting the hydrogen and bringing about aircraft carrier Armageddon.
00:11
00:12
The jeep burst out from the ascension ramp into sunlight, bounced to a halt.
There was pandemonium on the flight deck.
Smoking planes, charred anti-aircraft guns, dead sailors. One Rafale fighter—nose down, its front wheels destroyed—blocked the Richelieu's No. 2 take-off runway. The fighter must have been just about to take off when the Black Raven had hit it with a missile.
Schofield saw it instantly.
'Mother! Head for that broken fighter!'
'That thing ain't gonna fly, Scarecrow! Not even for you!' Mother yelled.
00:15
00:16
Amid the chaos, the jeep skidded to a halt beside the destroyed
Rafale fighter. Mother was right. With its nose down and its front wheels crumpled, it wasn't going anywhere.
00:17
00:18
'I don't want the plane,' Schofield said. 'I want this.'
He jumped out of the jeep, reached down and grabbed the catapult hook that lay on the runway in front of the destroyed plane. The small, trapezoidal catapult hook had formerly been attached to the front wheels of the plane. Normally you would attach it to the steam-driven catapult mechanism that ran for the length of the flight deck in order to get your plane to take-off speed in the space of 90 metres.
Schofield, however, wedged the catapult hook crudely under the front axle of his jeep and then clipped the other end of the hook to the deck catapult.
00:19
00:20
'Oh, you cannot be serious . . .' Mother said, eyeing the empty runway in front of their jeep—a runway that simply stopped at the bow horizon of the ship. The catapult's rails stretched away for the length of the flight deck like a pair of railway tracks heading toward a cliff edge.
00:21
00:22
Schofield jumped back into the jeep beside Mother.
'Put her into neutral and buckle up!' he said.
00:23
00:24
Mother snatched up her seatbelt, clicked it on. Schofield did the same.
00:25
Then he drew his MP-7 and levelled it at the nearby catapult controls, long since abandoned during the Black Raven's attack . . .
00:26
. . . and fired.
00:27 Ping!
The bullet slammed into the launch lever, triggering the catapult. And the jeep shot off the mark at a speed that no humble jeep had ever gone before.
Ninety metres in 2.2 seconds.
Schofield and Mother were thrust into their seats, felt their eyeballs ram into the backs of their sockets.
The jeep shot down the runway at unbelievable speed.
The deck blurred with motion.
The jeep's front tyres blew out after fifty metres.
But it still kept rocketing forward—like a cannonball out of a cannon—propelled by the tremendous force of the catapult.
Truth be told, they weren't travelling as fast as a fighter jet on take-off, since a fighter is also propelled by its own thrusters.
But Schofield didn't want to fly.
He just wanted to get off this aircraft carrier before she—
Blew.
The jeep hit the edge of the runway . . . and shoomed straight off it . . . blasting out into the sky . . . nose up, wheels spinning . . . just as the entire aircraft carrier behind it shattered spontaneously.
There was no fire.
No billowing clouds.
There was just a mighty, mighty BANG! as every exterior steel wall of the aircraft carrier instantaneously expanded outward—pushed out by the tremendous pressure of ignited hydrogen—bursting at the seams like the Incredible Hulk busting out of his clothes.
A starburst of a billion rivets was thrown high into the sky.
The rivets were thrown for miles, and rained down for the next whole minute. A helicopter that had just taken off from the rear of
the carrier was shredded by the sudden rivet-wave, destroyed in
mid-flight.
Dislodged pieces of the carrier—including entire plates of steel—flew out into the air and slammed down into the surrounding French destroyers, denting their sides, smashing their bridge
windows.
The greatest damage to the Richelieu occurred at the aft end of the carrier, around the epicentre of the blast: the cooling vents.
The exterior walls there were simply ripped apart at the seams— at the vertical rivet joints—opening up wide gashes on both sides of the carrier, gashes into which the Atlantic Ocean flowed without
mercy.
And the Richelieu—the largest and greatest aircraft carrier ever built by France—began to sink unceremoniously into the ocean.
Schofield and Mother's jeep, however, flew off the bow of the massive carrier.
As it soared through the air in front of the ship, they undipped their seatbelts and pushed themselves up and out of the jeep, allowing themselves to sail through the sky above it.
The drop from the flight deck to the water level was about
twenty-five metres.
The jeep hit the water first. A large foamy explosion of spray.
Schofield and Mother hit it next. Twin splashes.
It hurt, but they angled their bodies as they entered the water—so that they entered it boots-first and knifed under the surface not a moment before the carrier erupted and its storm of rivets blasted across the surface of the ocean like a rain of deadly shrapnel.
The mighty aircraft carrier was sinking fast, ass-end first. It was a truly spectacular sight. And then, as its hapless crew hurried for the lifeboats or simply
leapt for their lives into the ocean, the great warship went vertical— its bow rising high, its aft section completely submerged.
The rest of the French carrier group was frozen in shock.
Outside full-scale war, this sort of thing was unthinkable. No country had lost an aircraft carrier since World War II.
Which was probably why they were slow to react when, a minute after the explosion, the Black Raven swung into a hovering position ten feet above the waves of the Atlantic and plucked two tiny figures from the chop, raising them up on a cable-harness into its rear bomb bay.
Once the two figures were safely inside it, the sleek Sukhoi rose into the air and blasted off into the sky, away from the shattered remains of the Richelieu carrier group.
Aloysius Knight strode back into the holding cell of the Black Raven, saw Schofield and Mother lying there looking like a pair of drowned rats.
Schofield glanced up at Knight as he entered. 'Set a course for the English Channel, off Cherbourg. That's where the first Kormoran ship is. We have to find it before it launches its missiles on Europe.'
Knight nodded. 'I've already told Rufus to take us there.'
Schofield paused.
Knight appeared unusually sombre, almost. . . sensitive. What was going on?
Schofield looked around the tight confines of the holding cell, and it hit him.
'Where's Gant?' he asked.
It was then that, behind his amber-tinted glasses, Knight's eyes wavered—just slightly. Schofield saw it and at that moment, he felt something inside him that he had never felt before.
Absolute, total dread.
Aloysius Knight swallowed.
'Captain,' he said, 'we have to talk.'
ENGLISH CHANNEL COASTLINE, NORTHERN
FRANCE
26 OCTOBER, 1700 HOURS LOCAL TIME
(1100 HOURS E.S.T USA)
With a burst from its thrusters, the Black Raven landed on a cliff-top overlooking the English Channel, lashed by driving rain.
Out of its cockpit stepped Shane Schofield. He dropped to the muddy ground and staggered away from the fighter, oblivious to the storm around him.
After Knight had finished telling him about what had happened in the Shark Pit with Gam and Jonathan Killian and the guillotine, Schofield had said only three words.
'Rufus. Land now.'
Schofield stopped at the edge of the cliff, jammed his eyes shut.
Tears mixed with the rain hammering against his face.
Gant was dead.
Dead.
And he hadn't been there. Hadn't been there to save her. In the past, no matter what happened, he'd always been able to save her.
But not this time.
He opened his eyes. Stared into space.
Then his legs gave way beneath him and he dropped to his knees in the mud, his shoulders heaving violently with every desperate sob.
Mother, Knight and Rufus watched him from the open cockpit of the Raven, twenty yards away.
'Fuck me . . .' Mother breathed. 'What the hell is he going to do now?'
Schofield's mind was a kaleidoscope of images.
He saw Gant—smiling at him, laughing, holding his hand as they strolled along the beach at Pearl, rolling up close against him in bed. God, he could almost feel the warmth of her body in his mind.
He saw her fighting in Antarctica and in Utah. Saving his life with a one-in-a-million Maghook shot inside Area 7.
And then—shocking himself—he saw Killian at the castle saying, 'I love to observe the look of pure horror that appears on a person's face when they realise that they are, without doubt, going to die.'
And he saw the world from now on . . .
Without her.
Empty.
Meaningless.
And with that, he looked down at the Desert Eagle pistol in his holster . . . and he drew it.
'Hey there, champ,' a voice said from behind him. 'Whatcha planning on doing with that gun?'
It was Mother.
Standing right behind him.
Schofield didn't turn around when he spoke. 'Nobody cares, Mother. We could save the world and nobody would give a shit. People would go on living their lives, completely unaware of soldiers like us. Like Gant.'
Mother's eyes were locked on the gun in his hand. Rain dripped off it.
'Scarecrow. Put the gun away.'
Schofield looked down at the Desert Eagle, seemed to notice it for the first time.
'Hey,' Mother said. Solely to distract him, she asked a question that she already knew the answer to. 'What did she mean when she said, "Tell him, I would have said yes"?'
Schofield looked away into the distance, spoke like an automaton.
'She could read me like a book. I could never keep anything secret from her. She knew I was going to propose in Tuscany. That's what she was gonna say yes to.'
He shifted his grip on the gun. Bit his lip. Another tear streaked down his face. 'Jesus, Mother. She's dead. She's fucking dead. There's nothing left for me now. Screw it. The world can fight its own battles.'
With a quick move, he placed the gun under his chin and pulled the—
But Mother moved faster.
She tackled him just as the gun went off and the two of them went rolling in the mud by the cliff edge.
And they fought—Mother trying to pin his gun-hand, Schofield trying to push her clear.
Taller, stronger and far bulkier, at first Mother had the jump on him. She pinned him underneath her great weight and punched his gun-wrist. The Desert Eagle dropped out of his hand. Then she smacked him hard in the face—
The blow had a strange effect on Schofield.
It seemed to focus him.
With almost disturbing ease, he grabbed Mother's left wrist with two fingers and twisted it. Mother roared with pain and Schofield—with perfect centre-of-gravity manipulation—threw her clear off him.
And they both stood.
Facing each other on the wind-lashed cliff, squaring off in the driving rain.
'I won't let you do it, Scarecrow!' Mother yelled.
'I'm sorry, Mother. It's too late.'
Mother moved.
She advanced quickly, unleashing a bone-crushing right, but Schofield ducked it, hit her back, square on the nose. Mother swung again, but Schofield—perfectly balanced in the mud— avoided that blow too, and hit her again.
Mother staggered back to a standing position. 'You're gonna have do more than that to get rid of me!'
She lunged at him again, driving into him with her shoulders, tackling him linebacker-style, lifting him off his feet and sending them both crashing to the earth.
Over by the Black Raven, Aloysius Knight and Rufus just stood there in the rain, watching the fight like stunned spectators.
Rufus took a step forward, making to intervene—but Knight stopped him with a light hand to the chest, never taking his eyes off the battle.
'No,' he said. 'This is for the two of them to sort out.'
Schofield and Mother rolled in the mud, struggling.
Mother seemed to have him pinned when suddenly Schofield landed a short sharp elbow to her jaw and—again with surprising strength—rolled her clear.
He stood.
She stood.
Both were dripping with mud.
Mother staggered slightly, tiring, but she re-engaged anyway, swinging blindly.
Schofield parried every blow easily now, martial-arts-style. Mother roared in frustration just as he spun on one knee and swept her legs out from under her, and Mother fell unceremoniously onto her butt in the mud.
Having won for himself the distance he needed, Schofield walked back over to his gun, picked it up.
'Scarecrow, no!' Mother called, tears welling in her eyes. 'Please, Shane, don't. . .'
And for some reason, that stopped him.
Schofield paused.
Then he realised what it was.
For as long as he could remember, Mother had never called him by his first name. Not even in situations outside the Marine Corps.
He lowered the gun an inch, gazed at her.
She looked pathetic: on her knees on the ground, covered in mud, tears streaking down her face.
'Shane,' she called, 'the world may not care. The world may not know that it needs people like you and Gant. But I care! And I know that I need you! Shane, I have a husband and some beautiful nieces—they're thirteen years old and they all dress like Britney fucking Spears—and I have a mother-in-law who hates my guts.
'But I love them all, love 'em to death, and I don't want to see them living in a world of suffering and death that is run by a bunch of billionaire motherfuckers. But I can't stop that from happening. I can't. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, in the end I'm just not smart enough, not quick enough, not good enough. But you are. You can beat them. And do you know why? I do. I've always known it. And my little Chickadee knew it, too, and that was why she loved you. It's because you can do things that other people can't.'
Mother was on her knees in the mud, eyes filled with tears.
'Shane, I ain't the smartest kid in the class, but I know this: people are people. They're selfish and they're self-centred, they do stupid things and they have absolutely no idea that there are heroes like you out there looking after them every day.'
Schofield didn't say a word.
The rain smacked against his cheeks.
But Mother had broken the spell.
Life was coming back into his eyes.
'I don't call you Shane,' she said. 'You probably know that. But do you know why?'
Schofield was rooted to the spot. Frozen.
'No. Why?'
'Cause you ain't a regular fucking fella. You ain't a "Brad" or a "Chad" or a "Warren". You're the Scarecrow. The fucking Scarecrow.
'You're more than just an ordinary guy. Which is why I've never treated you like an ordinary guy. You're better than all of them. But if you off yourself now, if you take the easy way out, then you're taking the path that Brad or Chad or Warren would take. That ain't you. That ain't the Scarecrow. The Scarecrow is made of tougher stuff than that. Now, I ain't saying living is going to be easy—I don't know if any normal person could bounce back after hearing what you just heard—but if anyone can, it's you.'
Schofield was silent for a long time.
Then at last he spoke.
'I'm going to kill them all, Mother,' he said. 'The bounty hunters who caught her. All the bounty hunters involved in this hunt. Plus everyone on Majestic-12 who made this happen. And when it's all over—however it turns out, whether the world survives this crisis intact or whether it goes to hell on a handcart—I'm going to find Jonathan Killian and I'm going to blow his fucking brains out.'
Mother smiled through her tears. 'Sounds good to me.'
'But Mother,' he added somewhat ominously, 'I won't guarantee what I'll do after that.'
'Then I guess I'll just have to fight you again,' Mother said.
And at that, Schofield blinked.
Life had fully returned.
Mother nodded. 'Scarecrow. Nobody else may ever say this, so
I'll just say it for me . . . and for Ralph, and for the six Britney clones and my bitch from hell mother-in-law. Thank you.'
Schofield came over to her, extended his hand. Mother clasped it and let him haul her up.
Before he could move off, however, she embraced him in a mighty hug, engulfing his body in her massive frame. Then she kissed him on the forehead and guided him back to the Raven with one arm around his shoulders.
'I miss her already,' she said as they walked.
'Me, too,' Schofield said. 'Me, too.'
They walked together.
'Mother, I'm sorry I hit you.'
'Hey, it's okay. I hit you first.'
'Thanks for fighting me. Thanks for not letting me go.'
UPPER NEW YORK BAY, USA
26 OCTOBER, 1125 HOURS LOCAL TIME
Exactly eleven minutes after his Concorde had touched down on the tarmac at JFK, Book II was sitting in the back of a Marine Corps CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter, blasting over the Statue of Liberty and Upper New York Bay, the mighty steel-and-glass mountain range of New York City spread out behind him.
Seated in the hold with him were twelve fully-armed Force Reconnaissance Marines.
'You found terrorists at the plant?' Book shouted into his mike, puzzled. He was talking to the leader of the Department of Defense team that had checked the Axon plant earlier, a man named Dodds.
'Yes. All from Global Jihad, including—wait for it—Shoab Riis. Looks like it was a hell of a fight there,' Dodds said.
'Global Jihad,' Book said. 'But that just doesn't make—' He cut himself off.
Suddenly he understood.
Majestic-12 needed someone to blame for all this. And who better than a terrorist organisation?
For, really, how could Axon Corp help it if Global Jihad terrorists stole their missiles and ships. But where could Majestic-12 find a team of genuine Global Jihad terrorists?
'France,' Book II said aloud. 'It's always fucking France.'
Dodds said, 'Book, what the hell is going on? Everyone here is
scared shitless. This could be the biggest terrorist attack in history and they're going to use our own missiles against us.'
'This isn't a terrorist thing, Dodds,' Book said. 'It's a business thing. Trust me, the terrorists were already dead when they got to that plant. I'm starting to think that the French Secret Service has been giving Majestic-12 some quiet assistance. I gotta go. Book, out.'
Book turned his gaze back toward the container ships and supertankers resting at anchor off Staten Island—a pack of leviathans awaiting permission to enter the Hudson and East Rivers.
Thanks to the Kormoran project, each one of them was a potential missile launch vessel.
'So which one is it?' the pilot asked.
'Just go to GPS co-ordinates 28743.05—4104.55,' Book said. 'That's where it'll be.'
The pilot adjusted his dials, flew by his GPS locator.
Book checked the launch list on his hand-held computer for the hundredth time. After he had spoken with Schofield earlier, he and Scott Moseley had calculated the GPS locations of the last two Kormoran tanker-launchers:
After that, he and Moseley had then plotted all the boats on a map of the world:
The sum of it all?
In addition to the three tankers set to fire their nuclear-tipped missiles on America, England, France and Germany, there were two extra Kormoran ships out there: one in the Arabian Sea, ready to fire on both India and Pakistan, and another in the Taiwan Straits, aiming cloned Taep'o-Dong ICBMs at Beijing and Hong Kong.
'Jesus H. Christ. . .' Book whispered.
He shook himself out of it, hit his satellite mike.
'Fairfax? You there? How you doing out West?'
PACIFIC OCEAN,
TWO MILES OFF SAN FRANCISCO BAY
0825 HOURS LOCAL TIME
(1125 HOURS E.S.T USA)
Dave Fairfax sat in a Super Stallion of his own, flanked by his own Marine Recon team, his right foot shaking incessantly—a nervous gesture that betrayed his rather extreme fear.
He wore a helmet that was too big and a bulletproof vest that
was even bigger, and he held in his lap a real-time satellite uplink unit. He felt very small compared to the Marines all around him.
At the moment, his Super Stallion was powering low over the waves of the Pacific, heading toward—
A lone supertanker lying silently at anchor off the San Francisco coast.
'Hi, Book,' Fairfax yelled into his newly-acquired throat-mike. 'We have our tanker, and she's a big one, all right. She's exactly where she should be; her position matches the GPS co-ordinates you gave me. Tanker identified as the MV Jewel, registered in Norfolk, Virginia, to the Atlantic Shipping Company, a deep subsidiary of Axon Corporation.'
Fairfax's foot kept shaking. He wished it would stop.
'Oh, and I got that Mersenne prime for you,' he said. 'God, man, Mersennes are very cool mathematics. There are only thirty-nine that we know of, but some of those are, like, two million digits long. They're a very rare kind of prime number. You get them by applying a strict formula: Mersenne Prime = 2P-1, where "p" is a prime number, but where the answer is also prime. Three is the first Mersenne Prime because 22-l = 3, and both 2 and 3 are prime. So they start small, but end up very big. The sixth Mersenne is 131071. It's based on the prime number, 17. That is, 2I7-1 = 131071, which is also prime—'
'So the answer is 131071,' Book said.
'Uh, yes,' Fairfax said.
Til pass that on to the Scarecrow," Book said. 'Thanks, David.
Out:
The signal went dead.
Fairfax scowled at his treacherous foot.
'Goes with the job, Mister Fairfax,' the Marine leader, Trent, said, nodding at Fairfax's foot. 'But if the Scarecrow trusts you to do this, then you must be up to the challenge.'
'I'm glad he thinks I'm up for it,' Fairfax muttered.
The Super Stallion roared toward the tanker.
ENGLISH CHANNEL, NORTH OF CHERBOURG,
FRANCE
26 OCTOBER, 1725 HOURS LOCAL TIME
(1125 HOURS E.S.TUSA)
The Black Raven shot like a bullet through the rain-driven sky, searchlights blazing, zooming high over a constellation of supertanker lights on the English Channel.
While Rufus, Mother and Knight searched the sea for their target, Schofield was talking on the radio with Book II.
'Okay, I'm sending it all through now,' Book's voice said.
Schofield's Palm Pilot pinged: it now had Book's plots of all the Kormoran ships on it. Schofield's eyes widened at the location names: the Arabian Sea, the Taiwan Straits . . .
'And Fairfax figured out the sixth Mersenne for you,' Book said. 'It's 131071:
'131071 . . .'Schofield wrote it down on his hand. 'Thanks, Book. Tell David I'll be in touch with him shortly. Scarecrow, out.'
He switched channels, patched in to the US Embassy in London. 'Mr Moseley. What's the word on our submarines?'
'I've got good news and bad news,' Scott Moseley's voice said.
'Give me the good news.'
'The good news is we have Los Angeles-class attack subs in both the Arabian Sea and the Taiwan Straits—close enough to take out the launch boats at those locations.'
'And the bad news.'
Moseley said, 'The bad news is the other three launch boats: the ones in New York, San Francisco and the English Channel. They're going to fire too soon. We don't have any 688s close enough to get to any of those launch vessels in time. Book and Fairfax are going to have to go in and disarm them in situ, on board.'
'Okay,' Schofield said.
'Found it!' Rufus pointed to a supertanker rolling at anchor in the raging sea, its deck illuminated by powerful floodlights—just
another gigantic supertanker nestled in amongst all the others waiting off the French coast. 'Transponder signal identifies it as the MV Talbot and its location matches the GPS location perfectly.'
'Good work, Rufus,' Schofield said. 'Mr Moseley, thanks for your help. Now I have to get to work.'
Schofield turned to Knight and Mother. 'We take the launch tankers in the order that they'll fire. This one first. Then we hightail it out of here and disarm the others by remote from a safe location. Good for you?'
'Good for me,' Knight said.
'Fuckin' dandy,' Mother said.
'Hold on, people,' Schofield said, his face deadly. 'We're going in.'
ENGLISH CHANNEL 1730 HOURS LOCAL TIME (1130 HOURS IN NEW YORK)
The Black Raven swooped in low over the supertanker's main deck, cutting across the beams of the ship's floodlights.
Rain fell all around it—slanting, stinging rain.
Forks of lightning slashed the sky.
Then the bomb bay on the Raven opened and three figures rap-pelled down from it: Schofield, Knight and Mother.
They were all fully armed—MP-7s, Glock pistols, Remington shotguns—thanks to the Raven's onboard arsenal. Schofield and Mother even wore two spare utility vests that Knight kept for himself aboard the Raven.
The three of them landed on the superlong foredeck of the Talbot, in front of its control tower, while above them the Black Raven peeled away into the rainy sky.
And not a moment too soon.
For no sooner were Schofield and the others on the deck than the entire area around them exploded with bullet sparks from a pair of snipers firing from the control tower.
NEW YORK BAY EAST COAST, USA
At the exact same time on the other side of the Atlantic, Book II and his team of Marines were storming their supertanker—the Ambrose—in New York Bay.
Like Schofield, they rode ziplines from their chopper down to the tanker's elongated foredeck.
Like Schofield, they entered under fire.
Unlike Schofield, however, they didn't have the advantage of darkness and pouring rain. It was 11:30 a.m. on this side of the world. Broad daylight.
The two snipers waiting for them inside the bridge of the Ambrose opened fire before Book's men had reached the bottom of their ropes.
Two Marines fell immediately. Dead.
Book hit the deck hard, landing with a heavy thump, returned fire.
SAN FRANCISCO WEST COAST, USA
It was the same on the West Coast.
Fairfax's team stormed their supertanker—the Jewel—under heavy sniper fire from its control tower.
But Trent's men saw it coming.
Their own crack shooter nailed both of the enemy snipers with two shots from the open door of their Super Stallion.
The Marines stormed the ship, landing on the roof of the supertanker's control tower—with Dave Fairfax running in their midst.
They found the snipers' nest on the bridge: two snipers had been firing out through the supertanker's high-visibility bridge windows.
The two snipers had deep black skin, and wore khaki African military fatigues.
'What the hell?' Andrew Trent said when he saw their shoulder insignia.
Both snipers wore the badge of the Eritrean Army.
THE ENGLISH CHANNEL
Lightning lit up the sky—waves crashed against the side of the supertanker—thunder roared—bullets banged down against the foredeck.
Knight and Mother nailed the two snipers up on the bridge of the Talbot with a blitzkrieg of fire.
'I should have known!' Schofield shouted as they charged across the foredeck toward a door at the base of the control tower. 'Killian wouldn't leave the ships unguarded!'
'So who are they? Who did he get to do the guarding?' Mother yelled.
On the way to the tower, they found a large access hatch sunk into the deck. Knight and Schofield opened it . . .
... to be met by the deafening brack-a-brack! of automatic gunfire and the sight of a long vertical ladder disappearing down into the ship's vast missile hold.
Of more immediate interest to Schofield and Knight, however, was what they saw at the base of the ladder.
The source of the gunfire.
To their utter amazement, they saw a team of black-clad commandos—brandishing Uzis and M-16s with clinical precision, and firing them ferociously at an unseen enemy.
Schofield jammed the hatch shut again.
'I think we interrupted someone's battle,' he said.
Mother yelled, 'What did you see down there?'
'We're not the first people to arrive at this tanker,' Schofield said.
'What! Who's down there?'
Schofield exchanged a look with Knight.
'Not many elite units use Uzis these days,' Knight said. 'Zemir. I'd say it's the Sayaret Tzanhim.'
'I agree,' Schofield said.
'Would someone please tell me what's going on!' Mother yelled in the rain.
'My guess,' Schofield called, 'is that we've been beaten to this ship by the only other man in the world who can disarm the CincLock security system. It's that Israeli Air Force guy from the list—Zemir—with a crack team of Israel's best troops, the Sayaret Tzanhim, protecting him.'
'Hey, this day has been so weird, I'd believe fucking anything,' Mother said. 'So where now?'
Schofield checked his watch.
1735 hours.
1135 in New York.
Ten minutes to launch.
He said, 'We let the Israelis do the dirty work downstairs. Hell, I'm happy to let Zemir be the hero and disarm those missiles. As for us: into the tower. I want to check those snipers. See who we're up against before we go running into that mess downstairs to help Zemir.'
They came to the door at the base of the tower, flung it open just as—
Bam!
—they were assaulted by the blinding white beam of a helicopter searchlight.
Schofield spun in the doorway, rain in his face.
'Oh, you have got to be joking . . .' he said.
There, landing on the long flat foredeck of the supertanker—a hundred yards away, its searchlight panning the area—was an obviously stolen Alouette helicopter.
It touched down on the deck.
And out of it stepped three men in Russian battle-dress uniforms and carrying Skorpion machine pistols . . .
Dmitri Zamanov and the last two remaining members of the Skorpions.
'Damn. I forgot,' Knight said, 'you've still got a price on your head. It's Zamanov. Run.'
Into the control tower. Up some ladder-stairs. Emerging onto the bridge.
1736.
Fairfax's voice in Schofield's ear: 'Scarecrow. We've taken the bridge of the San Francisco tanker. Found enemy snipers wearing the uniforms of the Eritrean Army . . .'
Schofield went straight over to the bodies of his snipers.
African soldiers.
Commandos. Khaki fatigues. Black helmets.
And on their shoulders, a crest—but not the crest of Eritrea.
Rather, it was the badge of the Nigerian Army's elite commando unit: the Presidential Guard.
As veterans of Africa's many civil wars, the Nigerian Presidential Guard were CIA-trained killers who in the past had been used against their own citizens as much as against their nation's enemies. In the streets of Lagos and Abuja, the Presidential Guards were known by another name: the Death Squads.
Killian's protection team.
Two snipers up here. And more men downstairs, guarding the missile silos—the unseen enemy that the Israelis were fighting right now in the hold.
'Mr Fairfax. Did you say yours were Eritrean?'
'That's right:
'Not Nigerian?'
'Nope. My Marines confirm it. Definitely Eritrean insignia.'
Eritrea? Schofield thought—
'Scarecrow,' Mother said, opening a storeroom door wide. Four
body bags lay on the floor of the storeroom. Mother quickly unzipped one—to reveal the stinking corpse of a Global Jihad terrorist.
'Ah, now I get it,' Schofield said. 'The whipping boys.'
He keyed his sat-mike: 'Mr Fairfax. Tell your Marines to stay sharp. There'll be more African troops down in the main hold, guarding the silos. Sorry, David. It's not over for you yet. You have to get past those troops and get your satellite uplink unit within sixty feet of the missiles' control console for me to disarm them.'
'Ten-four,' Fairfax's voice signed off. 'We're on the case.'
Mother joined Knight at the windows of the bridge, searching the area outside for Zamanov.
'Do you see him?' Mother said.
'No, the little Russian ratbastard's disappeared,' Knight said. 'Probably gone after Zemir.'
Suddenly Rufus's voice exploded in their earpieces:
'Boss. Scarecrow. I got a new contact closing in on your tanker. A large cutter of some kind. Looks like the French Coast Guard.'
'Christ,' Schofield said, moving to the windows, seeing a large white boat approaching them on their starboard side.
Schofield couldn't believe it.
In addition to the Nigerian Death Squad, the Israeli shock troops and the Russian bounty hunters already on this supertanker, they now had a group of French maritime police on the way!
'That ain't the Coast Guard,' Knight said, peering through some night-vision binoculars.
Through them he could see a big white cutter, charging through the chop—could see its knife-like bow, its big foredeck gun, its glassed-in wheelhouse, and bloodbursts all over the wheelhouse's windows.
Armed men stood at its wheel.
'It's Demon Larkham and IG-88,' Knight said.
1738.
Seven minutes to launch.
'Damn it, more bounty hunters,' Schofield said. 'Rufus! Can you take them out?'
'Sorry, Captain, I'm outta missiles. Used them all against that French carrier.'
'Okay, okay . . .' Schofield said, thinking. 'All right, Rufus, you keep to your instructions, okay. If we can't disarm those missiles in time, we'll be needing your special help later.'
'Got it:
Schofield spun, still thinking, thinking, thinking.
Everything was happening too fast. The situation was spiralling out of control. Missiles to disarm, the Israelis already on board, Nigerian troops, more bounty hunters . . .
'Focus!' he shouted aloud. 'Think, Scarecrow. What do you ultimately have to achieve?'
Disarm the missiles. I have to disarm the missiles by 1745 hours. Everything else is secondary.
His eyes flashed to an elevator at the back of the bridge.
'We're going down to the hold,' he said.
1739 hours.
NEW YORK BAY 1139 HOURS
On the foredeck of their supertanker, in bright morning sunshine, Book's team of Marines dived for cover.
Book scrambled into a deck hatch, slid down a very long ladder into darkness, followed by his Marine escorts.
He hit the floor, looked around.
He stood in a cavernous hold, easily three hundred yards long. A dozen cylindrical missile silos stretched away into darkness, like colossal pillars holding up the ceiling.
And bunkered down in front of the farthest missile silo, taking cover behind a heavily fortified barricade of steel crates and fork-lifts, was a team of heavily-armed African commandos.
THE ENGLISH CHANNEL 1739 HOURS
The elevator doors opened to reveal the aft section of the supertanker's main hold.
Schofield, Knight and Mother emerged, leading with their guns.
The missile hold was absolutely enormous—a massive interior space the size of three football fields stretched end-on-end. And in its forward half, the Chameleon missile silos: high reinforced titanium cylinders stretching all the way up to the underside of the supertanker's foredeck. Inside them: the most devastating weapons known to man.
And in that forward section of the ship, a brutal battle was underway.
A dozen Nigerian commandos were bunkered down beneath the farthest pair of missile silos, covering the missile control console— an elevated platform mounted ten feet off the ground on steel struts, and the place Schofield needed to be within sixty feet of in order to disarm the missiles.
The Nigerians were positioned behind a very well-prepared barricade, and they fired machine guns and hurled grenades at their Israeli attackers.
Bullets and grenades hit the silos, but did no damage—the walls of the silos were far too strong.
In between Schofield and this battle were all sorts of supply materials: shipping containers, missile spare parts; he even saw two yellow mini-submarines with hemispherical glass cockpits suspended from chains high up near the ceiling catwalks.
Schofield recognised the subs as heavily-modified ASDSs—
Advanced SEAL Delivery Systems. With their glass domes, these shallow-water mini-submarines were often used by the US Navy to visually inspect the exterior hull of an aircraft carrier or ballistic missile submarine for sabotage devices. It was a given that a project as important as Kormoran-Chameleon would be equipped with them.
1740.
Schofield, Knight and Mother dashed forward, ducking low, winding their way between the supply materials, observing the battle.
Just as the Israelis launched a ruthless offensive.
They sent a few men to the right to draw the Nigerian fire, then they hit the Nigerian barricade with three rocket-propelled grenades from the left.
The grenades shot down the length of the missile hold . . . three white smoke-trails, flying together . . . and hit the Nigerian barricade.
It was like a dam bursting.
The Nigerians flew into the air. Some screamed. Others burned.
And the Israelis stormed forward, killing the Nigerians where they fell, shooting them in the heads, at the same moment as . . .
... a gigantic steel loading door set into the starboard wall of the hold rumbled open, rising into the air on its runners.
The massive door opened fully and—whump!—a wide steel boarding plank clanged to the floor from outside the aperture and like a crew of 16th-century pirates boarding a galleon, the men of IG-88 flooded into the missile hold, charging into it from their stolen Coast Guard boat, their devastating MetalStorm guns blazing.
Schofield watched as—now under fire from at least twenty IG-88 men—the Israeli commandos, the crack Sayaret Tzanhim, seized the area around the missile control console.
They formed a tight semi-circle around the elevated console platform, all facing aft, firing their Uzis and M-16s at IG-88.
Under their protection, the Israelis' leader—a man who could only be Simon Zemir—climbed up onto the steel platform and went
straight over to the console, flipped open a briefcase and extracted a CincLock-VII disarm unit.
'Sneaky bastard Israelis,' Mother said. 'Is there any US technology that they haven't stolen?'
'Probably not,' Schofield said, 'but today they're our bestest buddies. We watch over them while they watch over Zemin'
1741.
From behind his missile silo, Schofield watched as Zemir's CincLock unit illuminated like a laptop and Zemir stared at its touchscreen, flexing his fingers in anticipation of the disarm sequence he was about to face.
He's going to disarm the missile system, Schofield thought.
Excellent. We might get out of here without much hassle after all.
But then, to his absolute horror, Schofield saw three shadowy figures descending by rope from the rafters of the missile hold above and behind Zemir's console platform.
None of the Sayaret Tzanhim saw them. They were too busy firing at Demon Larkham and his IG-88 bounty hunters.
'No,' Schofield whispered. 'No, no, no . . .'
The three shadowy figures whizzed down their ropes at lightning speed.
Zamanov and his Skorpions.
Ziplining down from the ship's foredeck, from a hatch near the bow.
Schofield broke cover, yelled uselessly above the gunfire: 'Behind you!'
Of course, the Israelis responded immediately.
By firing at him. Even Zemir himself looked up, about to start the disarm sequence.
Schofield dived back behind his silo, rolled to the ground, peered back out—
—just in time to see the three Skorpions land lightly on the elevated platform a few yards behind the preoccupied Zemir.
And Schofield could only watch, powerless, as in the strobe-like glare of the Israelis' muzzle-flashes, Zamanov crept silently forward,
drew his Cossack fighting sword and swung the blade at Zemir's neck from behind in a brutal horizontal slashing motion.
And in that instant, Shane Schofield became the last person on the bounty list still alive.
And the only man on Earth capable of disarming the CincLock-VII missile security system.
Zemir's head dropped off his shoulders. He had not even been able to start the disarm sequence.
Schofield's mouth fell open. 'This cannot be happening.' One of the Sayaret Tzanhim glanced over his shoulder—in time to see Zemir's headless corpse drop off the console platform and down to the floor, spilling blood; to see Zamanov stuff Zemir's ragged head into his rucksack and whiz back up his retractable zipline—
Blam!
Covering the fleeing Zamanov, the other two Skorpions shot the Israeli trooper in the face—just as two more Sayaret Tzanhim soldiers were blasted by IG-88 fire from the other direction.
Fire from both directions—twin forces of professional bounty hunters—assailed the Israeli commando team.
And as the remaining Sayaret Tzanhim noticed Zemir's fallen body and the fleeing Skorpions above it, they became confused and in the face of IG-88's superior firepower, lost formation.
They were decimated.
IG-88 overwhelmed them. Within moments, the entire Israeli
force was dead.
1742.
IG-88 took control of the barricade. Demon Larkham strode like a conquering general into the enemy blockade. He pointed up at the ceiling, at Zamanov and his Skorpions fleeing on their retractable ziplines with Zemir's head in their possession.
The three Skorpions hit the ceiling next to a wide cargo hatch.
Zamanov's two companions climbed up through the hatch first, stepping up into the pouring rain on the foredeck, reached back down as Zamanov handed them the severed head of Simon Zemir.
Supermachine-gun fire riddled their bodies.
The two Skorpions on the foredeck convulsed violently, their chests exploding in bloody fountains.
A six-man subteam of IG-88 troopers stood in the rain waiting for them. Demon Larkham had anticipated this, and so had already dispatched a second team to the foredeck.
The rucksack containing Zemir's head dropped to the deck, and the IG-88 subteam ran forward, grabbed it.
Outnumbered and outgunned, Zamanov ducked below the floorline, swung over to a catwalk high above the missile hold and disappeared into the shadows.
Down in the missile hold itself, Schofield was speechless.
This was unbelievable.
With three minutes to go till the nuclear missiles fired, Zemir was dead and IG-88 held the control console. Twenty of them, with MetalStorm guns!
He needed some kind of distraction, a really big distraction.
'Call Rufus,' he said to Knight.
'You sure?'
'It's the only way.'
'Right,' Knight said. 'You're a truly crazy man, Captain Schofield.' Then Knight spoke into his throat-mike. 'Rufus. How is Plan B coming along?'
Rufus's voice came in. 7 got the nearest one for you! And she's one big momma! I'm a hundred yards out, engines running, and pointed straight at your
One hundred yards away from the Talbot, a second supertanker was powering through the storm with Rufus at the helm.
Waiting its turn to unload its cargo at Cherbourg, the giant 110,000-ton container ship, the MV Eindhoven, had been sitting at rest in the Channel, its engines idling, when Rufus had landed the Black Raven on its foredeck.
Now, but for Rufus, it was empty, its sailing crew of six having wisely decided to depart on a lifeboat after Rufus had strafed their bridge windows with two M-16s.
'What do you want me to do!' Rufus shouted into his radio.
On the Talbot, Schofield assessed the situation.
The Rufus Plan was always meant to be a last resort—a means by which Schofield could sink the false supertanker if he failed to disarm its missiles.
He stole a glance at the control console and its barricade and suddenly his blood froze.
Demon Larkham was looking directly back at him. He'd spotted them.
The Demon smiled.
'Rufus,' Schofield said. 'Ram us.'
17:42:10.
Demon Larkham's men charged out from behind their barricade, winding their way between the missile silos, their MetalStorm rifles blazing.
Coming after Schofield.
Schofield led Mother and Knight over to a lifeboat positioned beside the open cargo door on the starboard side of the hold.
'Quickly,' he yelled. 'Get in!'
They all dived into the lifeboat, then snapped up to return fire.
The IG-88 men closed in.
Schofield fired hard. So did Mother and Knight, trying to hold them off until Rufus arrived.
But the IG-88 troopers kept advancing.
'Come on, Rufus,' Schofield said aloud. 'Where are you . . . ?'
And then—magnificently—Rufus arrived.
/
It sounded like the end of the world.
The shriek of rending metal, of steel striking steel.
The collision of the two supertankers on the surface of the English Channel, veiled in sleeting rain, was an awesome, awesome sight.
Two of the largest moving objects on the planet—each nearly a thousand feet long and each weighing more than 100,000 tons— collided at ramming speed.
Rufus's stolen tanker, the Eindhoven, ploughed bow-first right into the port flank of the Talbot, hitting it perfectly perpendicularly.
The sharpened bow of the Eindhoven drove like a knife into the side of the Talbot, smashing into it like a battering ram.
The port flank of the Talbot just crumpled inward. Seawater gushed in through the gigantic gash the Eindhoven created in its side.
And like a boxer recoiling from a blow, the entire supertanker rocked wildly in response to the impact.
At first, it rolled to starboard, so great was the force of Rufus's ramming strike. But then as seawater began to enter the Talbot en masse, the missile-firing supertanker tilted dramatically—and fatally—back to port.
At which point it rolled over onto its left-hand side and began to sink.
Fast.
The scene inside the missile hold of the Talbot would have made Noah gulp.
In here, the impact had been a thunderous experience.
Not even Schofield had been prepared for the sheer power of the blow, or the sudden appearance of the Eindhoven's pointed bow thrusting unexpectedly right through the port-side wall of the missile hold.
In response, the entire hold had swayed to starboard, throwing everyone off their feet.
Then seawater began to enter the hold through the gigantic gash—in monumental proportions.
A tidal wave of water, ten feet high and utterly immense in its force, rushed into the hold, swallowing several members of IG-88 in an instant, lifting forklifts and cargo containers and missile parts clear into the air.
The water rushed underneath Schofield's lifeboat, lifting it off its mounts. Schofield immediately released the craft from its davits and gunned the engine.
Within seconds, the hold's floor was completely under water, the water level rising fast.
And as it filled, the Talbot rolled dramatically to port—toward the fatal gash, tilting at least 30 degrees—and Schofield, blasting forward in the motorised lifeboat on the level surface of the water, saw the whole hold all around him start to roll.
17:42:30
From outside, it all made for a very unusual sight.
The Eindhoven was still embedded in the side of the Talbot— while the Talbot, taking on water in incredible quantities, lay foundering half-tilted on its left-hand side, literally hanging off the bow of the Eindhoven.
But so great was the weight of the water rushing into its belly, the Talbot was actually driving the bow of the Eindhoven under the surface as well—as such, the Talbofs long foredeck and bridge tower remained above the waterline, slanted at a steep 30-degree sideways angle, while its left-hand flank drove the Eindhoven's bow relentlessly downward, toward the waves.
On board the Eindhoven, Rufus didn't need to be told what to do. He raced for the Raven, still parked on the foredeck of his tanker, climbed into the cockpit and lifted off into the rain-swept sky.
17:43:30.
Inside the rapidly-filling Talbot, Schofield was moving fast.
In fact, very very fast.
His motorised lifeboat whipped across the surface, slicing in between the now-slanted missile silos with Mother and Knight positioned on its flanks, shooting at their enemies floating in the water. It was like speedboating through a forest of half-fallen trees.
After the impact, Demon Larkham and most of his men had all made for the starboard side of the hold—the high side—the only part of the hold still above water.
Schofield, however, cut a beeline for the control console at the forward end of the missile hold.
17:43:48
17:43:49
17:43:50
His lifeboat carved through the chop, his two loyal shooters blazing away, killing IG-88 men as they whistled by.
The lifeboat came alongside the elevated control console. The wire-frame control console was also tilted at a dramatic angle, barely a foot above the rising waterline.
'Cover me!' Schofield yelled. From where he stood in his lifeboat, he could see the console's illuminated display screen, saw stark red numerals on it ticking downward in hundredths of a second—the countdown to missile launch.
00:01:10.88 00:01:09.88 00:01:08.88
The digitised hundredths of a second whizzed by in such a blur that they looked like 8s.
Schofield pulled his CincLock-VII unit—the one he'd taken from the French—from a waterproof pouch on his vest and once again saw the unit's display.
White and red circles hovered on the touchscreen.
Bing.
A message appeared:
MISSILE LAUNCH SEQUENCE IN PROGRESS. PRESS 'ENTER' TO INITIATE DISARM SEQUENCE. FIRST PROTOCOL (PROXIMITY): SATISFIED. INITIATE SECOND PROTOCOL.
Like before, the white circles on the screen began to blink slowly on and off.
Schofield punched them as they did so. The countdown ticked ever-downward.
00:01:01 00:01:00 00:00:59
Then abruptly the Talbot lurched sharply. The entire supertanker, still hanging off the bow of the Eindhoven, was now slowly slipping off it!
With the unexpected jolt, Schofield missed one of the white circles.
The display beeped:
SECOND PROTOCOL (RESPONSE PATTERN): FAILED DISARM ATTEMPT
RECORDED.
THREE FAILED DISARM ATTEMPTS WILL RESULT IN DEFAULT
DETONATION.
SECOND PROTOCOL (RESPONSE PATTERN): REACTIVATED.
'Shit,' Schofield said.
He started all over again.
The supertanker was still sinking.
He felt water lapping against his boots.
• • •
While Schofield punched at the touchscreen, Aloysius Knight fired at the IG-88 force on the high starboard side of the hold.
He loosed a new burst, before suddenly he saw it.
'Oh, no . . .' he breathed.
'What?' Mother called.
'The starboard-side cargo door,' Knight said. 'It's about to go
under.'
He was right. Owing to the leftward tilt of the ship, the massive starboard-side cargo doorway had until now been well above the
waterline.
But now the rising water was about to hit it. And that was very bad—because once it did, seawater would start entering the Talbot from both sides of the ship.
After that, the Talbot would go down with frightening speed—
'Knight!' Mother yelled. 'Check right!'
'Oh, crap,' Knight said.
Over to their right, six of Demon Larkham's men were climbing out of the water into two motorised lifeboats.
They were coming for them.
'Captain Schofield!' Knight called. 'Are you done yet?'
'Almost. . . !' Schofield yelled, his eyes locked on the screen.
00:00:51 00:00:50 00:00:49
The two IG-88 lifeboats swung over to the starboard side of the water-filled hold, picked up the Demon and the remaining IG-88 force—sixteen men in total.
Then they charged toward Schofield and the missile control
console.
Knight and Mother fired.
The two IG-88 boats blasted across the water, skimming through the forest of slanted missile silos, firing as they sped.
In the meantime, Schofield was still in his own world, punching red and white circles.
00:00:41 00:00:40 00:00:39
Then he hit the final white circle and the screen changed to:
SECOND PROTOCOL (RESPONSE PATTERN): SATISFIED. THIRD PROTOCOL (CODE ENTRY): ACTIVE. PLEASE ENTER AUTHORIZED DISARM CODE.
'All right,' Schofield said. The Universal Disarm Code. The sixth Mersenne prime was still written on his hand: 131071.
He started punching the numerical keypad on the CincLock unit when without warning the lifeboat beneath him moved and—
Beep!
The screen squealed in protest.
FIRST PROTOCOL (PROXIMITY): FAILED. ALL PROTOCOLS REACTIVATED.
'What!' Schofield snapped his eyes up to find Knight gunning their lifeboat away from the missile console, while Mother fired off their stern at two pursuing IG-88 boats.
They weaved in between the missile silos.
'Sorry, Captain!' Knight yelled. 'But we had to go! We were dead if we stayed there!'
'Yeah, well we have to get back within range of that console in about ten seconds! Because I need at least twenty-five seconds to complete the response pattern!'
Bullet geysers raked the water all around their speeding lifeboat.
00:00:35 00:00:34 00:00:33
Knight brought the lifeboat round. 'How close do you have to be!'
'Sixty feet!'
'All right!'
Bullets whizzed past their ears, pinged off the missile silos.
Knight swung their boat around and brought it into a wide circular path around the steel island that was the control console, a circle that included the occasional weaving run in amongst the forest of silos.
00:00:27 \
00:00:26
00:00:25
Schofield's screen beeped to life.
FIRST PROTOCOL (PROXIMITY): SATISFIED. INITIATE SECOND PROTOCOL.
The light-response display began—which meant so did Schofield's screen-tapping.
Mother kept firing at the IG-88 boats behind them.
Knight drove with one hand, fired with the other, careful to keep their boat within sixty feet of the control console.
00:00:16 00:00:15 00:00:14
But then the IG-88 boats, now aware of the circular path Knight was taking, split up.
One of them pivoted in the water, and took off in the opposite circular direction: the effect being that the first IG-88 boat was now driving Schofield's boat toward the second one.
Oblivious to the chase, Schofield's hands moved more quickly now.
Red-white-white . . .
Tap-tap-tap . . .
00:00:11 00:00:10 00:00:09
Knight saw IG-88's plan. He fired at the oncoming boat's driver. Blam!-blam!-blam! . . . Miss-miss-miss . . .
00:00:08 00:00:07 00:00:06
Schofield's hands were a blur now, tapping smoothly left and right.
Mother hit one of their pursuers. But then roared as she took a sizzling-hot round to her shoulder.
00:00:05 00:00:04 00:00:03
They came on collision course with the second IG-88 boat, Knight still firing at its driver. Blam'.-blam'.-blam!. . . Miss-miss . . . Hit.
00:00:02
The driver flopped and fell, dead. The IG-88 boat peeled away, and Knight kept his boat within the 60-foot zone of the console.
00:00:01
And Schofield's hand movements changed slightly. Instead of tapping circles, it looked as if he was entering a—
00:00:00
Too late.
None of the Chameleon missiles, however, fired. The countdown timer on the console was frozen at:
00:00:00.05
The seconds may have hit zero, but the very last second—calculated in blurring digital hundredths—had yet to fully expire when Schofield had punched in the Universal Disarm Code and hit 'enter'.
The screen now read:
THIRD PROTOCOL (CODE ENTRY): SATISFIED. AUTHORIZED DISARM CODE ENTERED. MISSILE LAUNCH ABORTED.
Schofield breathed a sigh of relief. No missiles had launched. London, Paris and Berlin were safe.
It was then, however, that the open starboard side door of the MV Talbot went slowly under the waterline.
SHOOOOOOMH!
The roar was absolutely deafening.
It was, literally, like the opening of the floodgates.
Like an invading army overwhelming its enemy's lines, an unimaginable quantity of seawater came gushing in over the threshold of the Talbot's wide starboard-side doorway.
A wall of water—a super tidal wave of unstoppable, ravenous liquid.
The result was instantaneous.
The entire supertanker rolled dramatically, righting itself as the inrushing water from the starboard side began to balance off against the inflow from port.
This righting of the Talbot, however, had one very important side-effect: it served to disengage the Talbot from the bow of the Eindhoven. And with the loss of its grip on the other supertanker, the Talbot lost its only means of staying afloat.
And so it began to sink—at speed—into the depths of the English Channel.
For Schofield, Knight and Mother, in their lifeboat on the water's surface inside the missile hold, the noise was all-consuming.
The roar of the waterfall flooding into the hold echoed throughout the ship. Waves crashed against steel walls. Whirlpools formed.
And the water level rose at frightening speed.
Indeed, to Schofield, it seemed as if the ceiling was lowering itself toward them. Quickly.
Within moments, they found themselves speeding along the surface halfway up the gigantic missile silos, 20 feet below the steel catwalks suspended from the roof.
In addition to this, with the breaching of the starboard-side door, Demon Larkham and his IG-88 men broke away from their chase, heading instead for the various ladders that led to the hold's ceiling.
'Damn, he's good,' Knight said. 'The Demon's heading topside, for the foredeck. He's going to cover all the hatches. Then he just waits for us to come up—which we'll have to do eventually.'
'Then we have to find another way out,' Schofield said. 'All I need now is to get away from this ship and find a safe place to hole up while I disarm the missiles aimed at America.'
Schofield pulled out his Palm Pilot to see which was the next Kormoran ship to launch.
He called up the bundle of documents that he had seen on the Pilot before:
He clicked on the abbreviated launch list. The full list came up:
He saw the familiar list.
It was the same as the one Book II had decrypted before. He saw the GPS locations of the first three boats: Talbot, Ambrose and Jewel.
The Ambrose was next: set to fire at 12 noon from GPS co-ordinates Efl7M3.05-,mOM.S5.
That's right, he remembered. New York.
Wait a second, his mind stopped short.
This list was different to Book's list.
He looked at it more closely.
Some of the missiles on the lower half of the list had been
altered.
Book's list had featured only two varieties of missile: the Shahab
and the Taep'o-Dong.
Yet this one featured several others in their place: the Sky Horse (from Taiwan), the Ghauri-II (Pakistan), the Agni-II (India) and the Jericho-2B (Israel).
It also, Schofield saw, had an extra launch vessel on it—the last entry, the Arbella—set to fire more than two hours after the first group of missiles.
This wasn't even mentioning another disturbing fact: the Taiwanese and Israeli missiles on this list were armed with American nuclear warheads, the powerful W-88—
A withering volley of bullets smacked the water next to Schofield. He hardly noticed.
When he looked up, he saw that Knight had brought their lifeboat alongside a ladder leading up to a ceiling catwalk. Once upon a time that catwalk had been suspended eighty feet above the floor of the hold. Now it was barely eighteen feet above the fast-rising water level.
On it, however, sixty yards away in both directions and closing fast, were two four-man teams of IG-88 troops. They had just burst down through hatches in the ceiling and were now charging down the length of the catwalk from either end, firing hard, their bullets hitting the girders all around Schofield's boat. Ping!-ping!-ping!-ping!-ping!
'Bastard!' Knight yelled. 'He's not waiting for us to come up. He's forcing us up!'
Mother lifted Schofield up by the collar. 'Come on, handsome,
you can get back to your computer later.' She hauled him out of the lifeboat and up the ladder, covering him with her body.
They climbed the ladder quickly, shooting as they did so, reached the catwalk, where they were met by a million impact sparks.
Mother took up a covering position while Knight led Schofield aft.
Ping!-ping!-ping!-ping!-ping!
Bullets were spraying everywhere.
Knight and Schofield fired at the IG-88 men coming from the stern-end of the catwalk. Schofield went dry.
'Are we actually going anywhere in particular!' he yelled.
'Yes! To a safe place!' Knight called, still firing. 'A place where you can do your disarming thing, and where, at the same time, we can all get out of this sinking death-trap! Here!'
Knight cut sharply right, running past a small maintenance shack erected at a T-junction of this catwalk and another, emerging behind the shack to behold—
—the two yellow mini-submarines suspended on chains from the ceiling of the missile hold.
Like the catwalks, the subs weren't very high up anymore. Seventeen feet above the water level. A wide hood-like awning covered both the two subs and the catwalk between them. It now partially covered Schofield and Knight from the IG-88 teams.
Ping!-ping!-ping!-ping!-ping!
Trailing a dozen yards behind Knight and Schofield, Mother came to the maintenance shack at the T-junction, still returning fire at the IG-88 troops, now only twenty yards away from her on either side.
Schofield watched as she tried to make a break for the mini-subs, but the IG-88 troops blocked her way with a storm of bullets.
Mother ducked inside the shelter of the maintenance shack.
She was cut off.
'Mother!' Schofield yelled.
'Get out of here, Scarecrow!' she said over the radio.
The IG-88 men assaulted her shack with the most violent fusillade of MetalStorm rounds Schofield had seen yet.
The shack erupted in bullet impacts.
Mother ducked out of view—and Schofield feared that she'd been hit—but then she popped up again, firing and yelling, and took out two of the IG-88 men. 'Scarecrow! I said, get out of hereV 'I'm not leaving without you!' 'GoV She loosed two more shots. 'I won't lose you and Gant in one day!'
Mother's voice became serious. 'Scarecrow. Go. You're more valuable than an old grunt like me." Mother looked over at him from the shack. 'You always were. My value comes in keeping you alive. At least let me do that. Now, go, you sexy little thing! Go! Go! Go!'
And with that, Schofield saw Mother do something both courageous and suicidal.
She stood fully upright in the windows of the shack and, issuing a primal yell of 'Yaaaahhhhhhh!', started firing with two guns at both of the IG-88 forces.
Her sudden move stopped the two IG-88 teams in their tracks— each of them lost their front man in a gruesome fountain of blood—but crucially, it gave Schofield and Knight the opening they needed to escape.
'Get in!' Knight yelled, hitting the 'hatch' button on one of the yellow submarines. With a quick iris-like motion, the circular hatch on top of the sub opened. 'Don't let her sacrifice count for nothing!'
Schofield took a half-step into the hatch, looked back at Mother—just as the two IG-88 forces overwhelmed her with their fire.
'Damn it, no . . .' he breathed.
A volley of MetalStorm bullets hit Mother, slamming into her chest armour . . .
Mother snapped upright, swaying, not firing anymore, her mouth open, her eyes suddenly blank—
—and then she fell and in the haze of smoke and flying glass,
Schofield lost sight of her as she dropped out of sight below the maintenance shack's window frames.
A moment later the two IG-88 forces put the issue beyond doubt.
At the exact same time, both IG-88 teams fired rocket launchers at the maintenance shack.
Two fingers of smoke lanced toward Mother's little shack from both fore and aft.
They hit it together and—boom!—the shed's four walls blasted outward, the whole structure exploding in an instant, its flat floor section just dropping through the air to the water sixteen feet below.
Schofield made to step out of the sub but Knight pushed him back in.
'No! We go! Now!' Knight yelled above the gunfire.
He shoved Schofield into the mini-sub, and Schofield landed inside it—
—only to discover that someone else was already there.
Schofield's feet hit the floor of the mini-sub, and he looked up to see a sword blade rushing directly at his face.
Reflex action.
He whipped up his empty H&cK pistol and—clang!—the blade rushing at his throat hit the pistol's trigger-guard and stopped: one inch from Schofield's neck.
Dmitri Zamanov stood before him.
He held a short-bladed Cossack sword in his hands, and his eyes blazed with hatred.
'You chose the wrong hiding place,' the Russian bounty hunter
growled.
Then before Schofield could move, he punched two buttons.
First, the internal 'hatch' button.
The hatch whizzed shut, its steel door irising closed.
And second, the 'asds release' button, and suddenly Schofield felt his stomach turn as the entire mini-submarine dropped from its chains and fell sixteen feet straight down, landing with a massive splash in the rising body of seawater.
'Goddamn it!' Aloysius Knight couldn't believe it. 'What is this
shit!'
One moment, he'd been shoving Schofield into the yellow ASDS and was about to climb in after him—the next, the sub's hatch closed right in front of him and then the whole fucking thing dropped down into the water below!
Hypercharged bullets hit the girders all around him as the IG-88
teams rushed past the destroyed maintenance shack and onto the submarine catwalk.
So Knight did the only thing he could do. He dived into the second mini-submarine, bullet-marks sizzling across the soles of his boots as he did so.
Schofield and Zamanov fought.
No style here. No graceful technique.
It was pure street-fight.
In the tight confines of the mini-sub, they rolled and punched— and punched and punched.
Schofield's empty gun was useless, but Zamanov's Cossack sword was the key.
Which was why the first thing Schofield had done after their sub had bounced with a splash into the water was hit Zamanov's wrist, causing him to drop the sword.
And then they wrestled—ferociously—Schofield because he was fuelled by Mother's recent sacrifice, Zamanov because he was a psychopath.
They hurled each other into the sub's walls, fighting with venom, drawing blood with every blow.
Schofield broke Zamanov's cheekbone.
Zamanov broke Schofield's nose, while another of his blows dislodged Schofield's earpiece.
Then Zamanov tackled Schofield, throwing him against the sub's control panel, and all of a sudden—shoosb—the mini-sub began to . . .
. . . submerge.
Schofield peeled himself off the instrument panel, saw that he'd knocked the 'BALLAST' switch. The ASDS was going under.
And suddenly they were underwater. Out through the sub's two hemispherical domes, Schofield saw the now-submerged world of the missile hold.
Everything was silent, tinged with blue—the floor, the missile
silos, the dead bodies—an amazing man-made underwater
seascape.
The Talbot was now leaning slightly to starboard, the hold's
floor tilted at least 20 degrees to that side. Zamanov scooped up his sword. The yellow mini-sub continued its slow-motion freefall through
the watery hold.
And Zamanov and Schofield engaged—Zamanov swinging lustily, Schofield grabbing the bounty hunter's sword-hand as it
came down.
But then, with a muffled crash, their ASDS hit the floor of the
missile hold . . .
. . . and started to slide on its side toward the open starboard
cargo door\
Schofield's world tilted crazily.
Both men were thrown sideways.
The sub slid down the sloping floor before, to Schofield's utter horror, it tipped off the edge of the doorway and fell out through it, into the open sea.
The little yellow sub fell quickly through the darkened water of the English Channel—beneath the gigantic hull of the MV Talbot.
The sheer size of the foundering supertanker above it dwarfed the ASDS. The mini-sub looked like an insect underneath a sinking blue whale.
But while the supertanker was sinking slowly and gradually, the mini-sub—its ballast tanks full—was descending at speed.
More than that.
It shot vertically down through the water, free-falling like an
express elevator.
The average depth of the English Channel is about 120 metres. Here, off Cherbourg, it was 100 metres deep, and the ASDS was covering that depth quickly.
Inside it, Schofield and Zamanov fought in near darkness,
struggling in the ghostly blue glow of the mini-sub's instrument lights.
'After I kill you, I am going to cut your fucking American heart out!' Zamanov roared as he struggled to extract his sword-hand from Schofield's grasp.
Up until then, the fight had used more or less standard moves. But then Zamanov went for what Marines call 'the Lecter move'— a very uncivilised tactic.
He bared his teeth and tried to bite Schofield's face.
Schofield recoiled instantly, stretched his face out of range, and Zamanov got what he really wanted—his sword-hand back.
He made to swing, just as with a jarring thud, their sub hit the bottom of the Channel and both men fell to the floor.
They rose together, moving like lightning.
Zamanov leapt up and swung—just as Schofield lunged forward, ducking inside Zamanov's swing arc, at the same time whipping something metallic from his borrowed utility vest and jamming it into the Russian's mouth!
Zamanov didn't have time for shock, because Schofield didn't hesitate.
He activated the mountaineering piton—and turned his head away, not wanting to see this.
With a powerful snap! the piton's pincer-like arms expanded, shooting instantaneously outward, searching for something to wedge themselves against.
What they found were Zamanov's upper and lower jaws.
Schofield never saw the actual event, but he heard it.
Heard the foul crack of Zamanov's lower jaw being stretched far further than it ever was designed to go.
Schofield turned back to see the Russian's jaw hanging grotesquely from his face, dislocated and broken. The upper arm of the piton, however, had done more damage: it had bruised Zamanov's brain, leaving Zamanov frozen bolt upright in mid-stance, the shock having shut down his entire body.
The Russian fell to his knees.
Schofield seized his sword, stood over the fallen bounty hunter.
Zamanov's eyes blinked reflexively. The only sign that he was still conscious.
Schofield wanted to run him through, or even cut his head off, to do to Zamanov what he had done to others . . .
But he didn't.
He couldn't.
And so he just let the Russian waver where he knelt, and then he watched as a moment later Zamanov fell flat on his face with a final bloody splat.
The fight over, Schofield grabbed his dislodged earpiece, put it back in his ear—
'Schofield! Schofield! Come inV Knight's voice blared in his ear. 'Are you alive out there!'
'I'm here,' Schofield said. 'I'm on the bottom. Where are you?'
'I'm in the other sub. Put your exterior lights on so I can see where you are.'
Schofield did so.
At which moment Knight's voice said, 'Oh, fuck me . . .'
'What?'
'Do you have power?' Knight said quickly.
Schofield tried his instrument panel. No response. 'I have air, but no propulsion. Why? What is it? Can't you just come and get me?'
'There's no way I can make it in time.'
'In time? In time for what? What's the problem?'
'It's a . . . uh . . . very big one . . .'
'What?'
'Look up, Captain.'
Schofield peered up through the top dome of his mini-submarine.
And saw the hull of the supertanker—impossibly huge—gliding steadily down through the water above him, freefalling through the Channel waters like the moon falling out of the sky . . . its colossal mass heading straight for him.
Schofield swallowed at the awesome sight: 100,000 tons of pure supertanker was about to land right on top of his tiny submarine.
Its bulk was so vast, so immense, that it generated a deep vibrating rrmmmmmm as it moved down through the water.
'Now you don't see that every day,' Schofield said to himself. 'Knight!'
'I can't make it in time!' Knight yelled in frustration.
'Shit,' Schofield said, looking left and right.
Options! his mind screamed. He couldn't swim away from the tanker. At 1000 feet long and 200 feet wide, it was just too big. He'd never get out from under it in time.
The only other alternative was to stay here and be crushed to death.
Some choice. Certain death or certain death.
But if that was all there was, then at least he might be able to achieve something before death came.
And so on the bottom of the English Channel, Shane Schofield keyed his satellite mike.
'Book! How are you doing over there in New York?'
'We own the Ambrose, Scarecrow. All enemy troops are down. We're at the control console now, and I've plugged the satellite uplink into it. I have the time as 1152. You've got eight whole minutes to disarm this thing.'
Schofield saw the supertanker falling through the water above him—a silent freefalling giant. At its current speed, it would hit the bottom in less than a minute.
'You might have eight minutes, Book, but I don't. I have to disarm those missiles now.'
And so he pulled his CincLock-VII unit from its waterproof pouch and hit its satellite uplink. The unit came to life:
sat-link: connect 'ambrose-049'~uplink connection made.
activate remote system.
missile launch sequence in progress.
press 'enter' to initiate disarm sequence.
first protocol (proximity): satisfied.
initiate second protocol.
The red and white circles from the New York launch ship's missile control console appeared on Schofield's screen.
And with the mighty hull of the Talbot thundering down through the great blue void above him, Schofield started the disarm sequence.
The supertanker was gathering speed.
Falling, falling . . .
Schofield's moves became faster.
The supertanker was eighty feet above him.
A red circle blinked, Schofield punched it.
Sixty feet. . .
Fifty feet. . .
The noise of the falling supertanker grew louder—rrmmmmmm.
Forty feet. . .
Thirty feet. . .
Schofield hit the last red circle. The display blinked:
SECOND PROTOCOL (RESPONSE PATTERN): SATISFIED. THIRD PROTOCOL (CODE ENTRY): ACTIVE. PLEASE ENTER AUTHORIZED DISARM CODE.
Twenty feet. . .
The water all around his little submarine darkened dramatically, consumed by the shadow of the supertanker.
Schofield entered the Universal Disarm Code: 131071. Fifteen feet. . . The screen beeped:
THIRD PROTOCOL (CODE ENTRY): SATISFIED. AUTHORIZED DISARM CODE ENTERED. MISSILE LAUNCH ABORTED.
And as he waited for the end—the true end; the end that he physically could not escape—Schofield closed his eyes and thought about his life and people who had been in it:
He saw Libby Gant smiling that thousand-watt smile, saw her kissing him tenderly—saw Mother Newman shooting hoops on her garage basketball court, saw her big wide grin on her big wide face—and tears welled in his eyes.
That there were still missiles to disarm somehow didn't bother Schofield. Someone else would have to solve that this time.
When it came, the end came swiftly.
Ten seconds later, the supertanker MV Talbot hit the bottom of the English Channel with an earth-shaking, earth-shuddering boom.
It landed right on top of Schofield's stricken ASDS and crushed it in a single pulverising instant.
I
The thing was, Schofield wasn't in the sub when it happened.
Seconds before the Talbot hit the bottom—when it was barely twelve feet off the seabed, its shadow looming over the mini-sub, and Schofield was lost in his thoughts—a dull metallic clunk was heard hitting the outside of his ASDS.
Schofield snapped to look out the windows and saw a Maghook attached to the metal exterior of his little submarine, its rope stretching away across the ocean floor, disappearing into the darkness to the side of the falling supertanker.
Knight's voice exploded in his ear: 'Schofield! Come on! Move! Move! Move!'
Schofield was electrified into action.
He took a breath and hit the 'hatch' button.
The hatch irised open and water gushed into the sunken mini-submarine. It took barely two seconds for it to completely fill the sub, and suddenly Schofield was outside, moving fast, grabbing the Maghook attached to the sub's flank.
No sooner had he clutched it than Knight—at the other end of the rope—hit the hook's demagnetise switch and the Maghook's rope began to reel itself in quickly.
Schofield was yanked across the ocean floor at phenomenal speed—the falling supertanker looming above him, its great endless hull hovering over his body like the underside of a planet, while a foot below him, the sandy ocean floor zoomed by at dizzying speed.
And then abruptly Schofield emerged from beneath the supertanker, his feet sliding out from under it just as the gigantic vessel
hit the bottom of the English Channel with a singular reverberating boom that sent sand and silt billowing out in every direction, consuming Schofield in a dense underwater cloud.
And waiting for him in that cloud—sitting atop the second ASDS, breathing from a new Pony Bottle and holding Gant's Maghook in his hands—was Aloysius Knight.
He handed Schofield the Pony Bottle and Schofield breathed its air in deeply.
Within a minute, the two of them were inside Knight's mini-sub. Knight repressurised the sub, expunged it of seawater.
And then the two warriors rose through the depths of the English Channel, a short silent journey that ended with their little yellow sub breaching the storm-riddled surface—where it was assaulted by crashing waves and the blinding glare of brilliant halogen spotlights: spotlights that belonged to the Black Raven hovering low over the water, waiting for them.
AIRSPACE ABOVE THE ENGLISH CHANNEL 1805 HOURS LOCAL TIME (1205 HOURS E.S.T USA)
The Black Raven shot through the sky, heading south over the English Channel.
A dripping-wet Aloysius Knight dropped into his gunner's chair. The equally-soaked Schofield, however, never stopped moving.
Inside the Raven's rear holding cell, he pulled out his modified Palm Pilot. There was unfinished business to attend to.
He pulled up the missile-firing list—the one that was different to Book's earlier list. He compared the two lists.
Okay, he thought, the first three entries are the same as on Book's list.
But not the last three: the missiles are different. And there's that extra entry at the end.
To those last three entries, he added the GPS locations that he'd got from Book. The first two of them read:
And suddenly this list took on a whole new dimension.
The cloned missiles being fired on Beijing and Hong Kong from the MV Hopewell were clones of the Taiwanese Sky Horse ICBM. They were also armed with American warheads.
While the missiles firing from the MV Whale on New Delhi were clones of the Pakistani Ghauri-II—and the ones being fired on Islamabad were replicas of the Indian Agni-II.
'Hot damn . . .' Schofield breathed.
How would China react to Taiwanese nuclear strikes?
Badly.
And how would Pakistan and India react to mutual nuclear bombardment?
Very badly.
Schofield frowned.
He couldn't understand why his list differed from Book's.
Okay, think. Where did Book get his original list from?
From the Mossad agent, Rosenthal, who had acquired it during his many months shadowing Majestic-12.
So where did I get mine from?
Schofield thought back.
'Oh, Jesus . . .' he said, remembering.
He'd received it on his Palm Pilot when he and Gant had been sitting in the stone ante-room in the Forteresse de Valois, waiting while Aloysius Knight had been in Monsieur Delacroix's office, hacking wirelessly into Delacroix's standalone computer.
Schofield turned to Knight. 'When you were with Delacroix at the castle, did he say anything about whose office you were in?'
Knight shrugged. 'Yeah. He said something about it not being his office. Said it belonged to the man who owned the castle.'
'Killian,' Schofield said.
'Why?'
But now Schofield understood.
'There must have been another computer in that office. In a drawer or on a side table,' he said. 'You said it yourself. Your Pilot would retrieve documents from any computer in the room. When you initiated the wireless hack, you picked up documents from another computer in that office. Killian's computer.'
'Yeah, so?'
Schofield held up the new list. 'This isn't Majestic-12's plan. Their plan involves starting a global Cold War on Terror. M-12 wants terrorist missiles striking major centres—Shahabs and Taep'o-Dongs. Which was why they left the bodies of the Global Jihad guys at the Axon plant and on the supertankers: to make the world think that terrorists stole the Kormoran ships.
'But this list shows something else entirely. It shows that Killian's company installed different Chameleon missiles on the Kormoran ships—not the ones Majestic-12 was expecting. Killian is planning something much worse than a global war on terrorism. He's set it up so that each of the world's major powers is seemingly hit by its most-hated enemy.
'The West is hit by terrorist strikes. India and Pakistan are hit by each other. China is hit by what appear to be Taiwanese missiles.'
Schofield's eyes widened at the realisation.
'It's Killian's extra step. This isn't M-12's plan at all. This is Killian's own plan. And it won't produce any kind of Cold War at all. It'll produce something much much worse. It'll produce total global warfare. It'll produce total global anarchy.'
Rufus said, 'You're saying that Killian has been deceiving his rich buddies on Majestic-12?'
'Exactly,' Schofield said.
But then, again, he remembered Killian's words from the Forteresse de Valois: 'Although many don't know it yet, the future of the world lies in Africa.'
'The future of the world lies in Africa,' Schofield said. 'There
were African guard squads on each of the boats. Eritreans. Nigerians. Oh, shit. Shit! Why didn't I see it before . . .'
Schofield brought up one of the other documents on his Palm Pilot:
This was the itinerary of Killian's tour of Africa the previous year.
Asmara: the capital of Eritrea.
Luanda: the capital of Angola.
Abuja: Nigeria.
N'djamena: Chad.
And Tobruk: the site of Libya's largest Air Force base.
Killian hadn't been opening factories—he had been forging alliances with five key African nations.
But why?
Schofield spoke: 'What would happen if the major powers of the world descended into anarchic warfare? What would happen elsewhere in the world?'
'You'd see some old scores settled, that's for sure,' Knight said. 'Ethnic wars would reignite. The Serbs would go after the Croats, the Russians would wipe out the Chechens, and that's not even mentioning everybody who wants to nail the Kurds. Then there'd be the opportunists, like the Japanese in WWII. Countries seizing the opportunity to grab resources or territory: Indonesia would snatch East Timor back . . .'
'What about Africa?' Schofield said. 'I'm thinking of National Security Council Planning Paper Q-309.'
'Whoa; Knight said.
Schofield remembered the policy word for word. 'In the event of a conflict involving the major global powers, it is highly likely that the poverty-stricken populations of Africa, the Middle East and Central America—some of which outnumber the populations of their Western neighbours by a ratio of 100-to-l—will flood over Western borders and overwhelm Western city centres.'
Q-309 was a policy based on history—the long history of wealthy self-indulgent elites falling to impoverished but numerically overwhelming underclasses: the fall of Rome to the barbarians, the French Revolution, and now the wealthy Western world succumbing to the sheer numbers of the Third World.
Jesus, Schofield thought.
Anarchic global warfare would provide just such an opportunity for the Third World to rise up.
And if Killian had given forewarning to a few key African nations, then . . .
No, it's not possible, Schofield's mind protested. For the simple reason that Killian's plan just didn't seem big enough.
It didn't guarantee total global anarchy.
And then Schofield saw the final entry on the missile list—the entry that had not been on Book II's list at all, an entry describing a missile to be fired nearly two hours after all the others.
He brought it up on his screen:
Arbella Jericho-SB U-flfl DMMDB.2S OMmS-lO 1MDD
IbSD-SD 213Q.00
A Jericho-2B clone, Schofield thought. The Jericho was a long-range ballistic missile belonging to Israel; and this one was armed with an American W-88 warhead.
And the target?
Using Book IPs map, Schofield plotted the GPS co-ordinates of the target.
His finger came down on the map . . . and as it did so, Schofield felt a bolt of ice-cold blood shoot through his entire body.
'God save us all,' he breathed as he saw the target.
The last clone missile—ostensibly Israeli in origin, with an American nuclear warhead on it—was aimed at a target in Saudi Arabia.
It was aimed at the holy city of Mecca.
The cockpit fell silent.
The sheer idea of it was just too great, too shocking, to contemplate. An Israeli missile armed with an American warhead striking the most sacred Muslim site on the planet on one of the most holy Muslim days of the year.
In the post-September 11 world, there could be no more provocative act.
It would ignite global chaos—no American citizen or embassy or business would be safe. In every city in every country, enraged Muslims would seek vengeance.
It would create a worldwide Muslim-American war. The first truly global conflict between a religion and a nation. Which would itself become the precursor for total global revolution—the rise of the Third World.
'God, October 26, it's been staring me in the face all day,' Schofield said. 'The first day of Ramadan. I hadn't even thought about the significance of the date. Killian even chose the most provocative day.'
'So where's it going to fire from?' Knight asked.
Schofield quickly plotted the GPS co-ordinates of the last Chameleon missile's launch location . . . and he frowned.
'It's not coming from a boat,' he said. 'The launch location is on land. Somewhere inside Yemen.'
'Yemen?' Rufus said.
'It borders Saudi Arabia to the south. Very close to Mecca,' Knight said.
'Yemen . . .' Schofield said, thinking fast. 'Yemen . . .'
At some time today, he had been told about Yemen, had heard of something inside Yemen—
He remembered.
'There's a Krask-8 clone in Yemen,' he said.
He'd heard it right at the start of all this, during his briefing on Krask-8. During the Cold War, the Soviets had constructed land-based ICBM facilities identical to Krask-8 in their client states—states like Syria, the Sudan, and Yemen.
Schofield's mind raced.
Krask-8 had been owned by the Atlantic Shipping Company. David Fairfax had discovered that earlier today.
And the Atlantic Shipping Company—he now knew—was a subsidiary of Axon Corp.
'Goddamn,' Schofield breathed. 'Rufus: set a course heading due south-east and give it everything you've got. Afterburners all the way.'
Rufus looked doubtful. 'Captain, I don't mean to be rude, but even flying at full speed, there's no way we can get from here to Yemen inside of two hours. That's a 6,000-kilometre trip, which is at least four hours travel time. Besides, on full burn, we'll chew up all our gas before we even reach the French Alps.'
'Don't worry about that,' Schofield said. 'I can arrange for fuel to be delivered in flight. And we're not going all the way to Yemen in this bird.'
'Whatever you say,' Rufus said. He banked the Raven, directed her south-east, and hit the afterburners.
While this was happening, Schofield keyed his satellite mike. 'Mr Moseley. You still with us?'
'Sure am,' came the reply from London.
'I need you to do an asset search on a company for me. It's called the Atlantic Shipping Company. Search for any land holdings that it has in Yemen, especially old Soviet sites.
'I also need two more things. First, I need express passage across Europe, including several mid-air refuellings. I'll send you our transponder signal.'
"Okay. And the second thing?'
'I need you to fuel up a couple of very special American planes for me. Planes that are currently at the Aerostadia Italia Airshow in Milan, Italy.'
The next thirty minutes went by in a blur.
Around the world, an array of forces sprang into action.
THE ARABIAN SEA
OFF THE COAST OF INDIA
26 OCTOBER, 2105 HOURS LOCAL TIME
(1205 HOURS E.S.T USA)
The supertanker MV Whale hovered off the coast of India on a languid sea, the giant vessel seemingly gazing at the shared coastline of India and Pakistan, its missiles ready to fire.
It never saw the Los Angeles-class attack submarine approach it from behind, two miles away.
Likewise, the African commandos in its control tower never saw the sub's torpedoes on their scopes until it was too late.
The two Mark 48 torpedoes hit the Whale together, blasting open its flanks with simultaneous explosions, sinking it.
THE TAIWAN STRAITS INTERNATIONAL WATERS BETWEEN CHINA AND TAIWAN 0110 HOURS (27 OCT) LOCAL TIME (1210 HOURS E.S.T USA, 26 OCT)
The MV Hopewell suffered a similar fate.
Parked inconspicuously in a sealane in the middle of the Taiwan
Straits, not far from a long line of supertankers and cargo freighters, it was hit by a pair of wire-guided American Mark 48 torpedoes.
Some night-watchmen on other ships claimed to see the explosion on the horizon.
Radio calls to the Hopewell went unanswered and by the time anyone got to its last known location, there was nothing there.
The Hopewell was gone.
No-one ever laid eyes on the submarine that sank it. Indeed, the US Government would later deny that it had any 6881s in the area at the time.
WEST COAST, USA
NEAR SAN FRANCISCO
26 OCTOBER, 0912 HOURS LOCAL TIME
(1212 HOURS IN NEW YORK)
Inside the vast missile hold of the Kormoran-class supertanker Jewel, covered by twelve United States Marines and standing over the bodies of a dozen dead African commandos, David Fairfax plugged his satellite uplink into the vessel's missile control console.
The satellite signal shot up into the sky and bounced over to Schofield in the Black Raven, flying over France, heading for Italy.
And while Schofield disarmed the CincLock system from afar, Fairfax held the console—at times protecting the uplink with his body, shielding it from two Eritrean commandos who had survived his Marine-enhanced entry.
He was scared out of his mind, but in the midst of bullets and gunfire and exploding grenades, he held that console.
Within a couple of minutes, the last two Eritrean soldiers were dead—nailed by the Marines—and the MV Jewel's launch system was neutralised by Schofield in the Raven and David Fairfax fell to the floor with a deep sigh of relief.
AEROSTADIA AIRFIELD
MILAN, ITALY
26 OCTOBER, 1900 HOURS LOCAL TIME
(1300 HOURS IN NEW YORK)
With a blast from its retros, the Black Raven landed vertically on the tarmac of the Aerostadia Airfield in Milan.
It was evening already in northern Italy, but the US Air Force contingent at the airshow had been working overtime for the last forty-five minutes, fuelling two very special aeroplanes at the express orders of the State Department.
The Raven landed a hundred yards from a spectacular-looking B-52 bomber, parked on the runway.
Two small black bullet-shaped planes hung from the big bomber's wings, looking like a pair of oversized missiles.
But these weren't missiles.
They were X-15s.
Many people believe that with a top speed of Mach 3, the SR-71 'Blackbird' is the fastest plane in the world.
This is not entirely true. The SR-71 is the fastest operational plane in the world.
One plane, however, has gone faster than it has—a lot faster, in fact—attaining speeds of over 7,000 km/h, more than Mach 6. That plane, though, never made operational status.
That plane was the NASA-built X-15.
Most aeroplanes use jet engines to propel them through the sky, but jet power has a limit and the SR-71 has found that limit: Mach 3.
The X-15, however, is rocket-powered. It has few moving parts. Instead of shooting ignited compressed air out behind it, an X-15 ignites solid hydrogen fuel. Which makes it less like a jet plane, and more like a missile. Indeed, the X-15 has been described by some observers as a missile with a pilot strapped to it.
Only five X-15s were ever built, and two of those—as Schofield knew—were making an appearance at the Aerostadia Italia Airshow, scheduled to start in a few days.
Schofield leapt out of the Raven, crossed the tarmac with Knight and Rufus by his side.
He gazed at the two X-15s slung from the wings of the B-52.
They weren't big planes. And not exactly pretty either. Just functional—designed to cut through the air at astronomical velocity.
Speed-slanted letters on their tailfins read: NASA. Along the side of each black plane were the words us air force.
Two colonels met Schofield: one American, one Italian.
'Captain Schofield,' the American colonel said, 'the X-15s are ready, fully fuelled and ready to fly. But we have a problem. One of our pilots broke his ribs in a training accident yesterday. There's no way he can handle the G-forces of these things in his condition.'
'I was hoping I could use my own pilot anyway,' Schofield said. He turned to Rufus. 'Think you can handle Mach 6, Big Man?'
A grin cracked Rufus's hairy face. 'Does the Pope shit in the woods?'
The Air Force colonel guided them to the planes. 'We've also received some satellite radar scans from the National Reconnaissance Office. Could be a problem.'
He held up a portable viewscreen the size of a clipboard.
On it were two infra-red snapshots of the south-eastern Mediterranean, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. One wider shot, the other zoomed in.
On the first image, Schofield saw a large cloud of red dots that seemed to be hovering over the Suez Canal area:
On the second satellite photo, the image became clearer. There were about one hundred and fifty dots in the 'cloud'.
'What the hell are those dots?' Rufus said slowly.
The colonel didn't have to answer him, because Schofield already knew.
'They're planes,' he said. 'Fighter jets from at least five different African nations. The French saw them scramble but they didn't know why. Now I do. They're from five African nations that would like to see the world order changed. Nations that do not want to see us stop that last missile hitting Mecca. It's Killian's last safeguard. An aerial armada protecting the final missile.'
The B-52 bomber thundered down the runway with the two X-15s hanging from its outstretched wings.
It soared into the sky, rising steadily to its release height.
Schofield sat with Rufus inside the two-man cockpit of the right-hand X-15. It was a tight fit for Rufus, but he managed. Knight was in the other plane, with a NASA pilot.
Schofield had his CincLock-VII disarm unit strapped to his utility vest, next to the array of other weapons in its pouches. The plan was a long shot—since no-one else in the world could disarm the Chameleon missile aimed at Mecca, he would have to go into the Krask-8 clone in Yemen with only Knight by his side.
They expected resistance to be waiting for them—probably in the form of an African commando unit—so Schofield had requested a Marine team be dispatched from Aden to meet them there. But whether it would arrive in time was another question.
Scott Moseley called in from London.
'Captain, I think I've found what you're looking for,' he said. 'The Atlantic Shipping Company owns two thousand acres of desert in Yemen, about two hundred miles south-west of Aden, right on the mouth of the Red Sea. On that land are the remains of an old Soviet submarine repair facility. Our satellite pics are from the '80s, but it looks like a big warehouse surrounded by some support buildings—'
'That's it,' Schofield said. 'Send me the co-ordinates.'
Moseley did so.
Schofield punched them into his plane's trip computer.
Flight distance to southern Yemen: 5,602 KILOMETRES.
Flight time in an X-15 travelling at 7,000 km/h: 48 MINUTES.
Time till the Mecca ICBM launched: ONE HOUR.
It was going to be close.
'You ready, Rufus?' he said.
'Yeah, baby,' Rufus replied.
When the B-52 reached release height, its pilot came over the comms: lX-15s, we just got word from the USS Nimitz in the Med. She's the only carrier within range of your attack route. She's sending every plane she has to escort you: F-14s, F/A-18s, even five Prowlers have volunteered to ride shotgun for you. You must be one important man, Captain Schofield. Prepare for flight systems check. Release in one minute—'
As the pilot signed off, Knight's voice came over Schofield and Rufus's earpieces. His voice was low, even.
'Hey, Ruf. Good luck, buddy. Remember, you're the best. The best. Stay low. Stay focused. Trust your instincts.'
'Will do, Boss,' Rufus said. 'Thanks.'
'And Schofield,' Knight said.
'Yes?'
'Bring my friend back alive.'
'I'll try,' Schofield said softly.
The B-52 pilot spoke again. 'Flight systems check is complete. We are go for launch. Gentlemen, prepare for release. On my mark, in five, four . . .'
Schofield stared forward, took a deep, deep breath.
'Three . . .'
Rufus gripped his control stick firmly.
'Two . . .'
Over in his plane, Knight looked over at Schofield and Rufus on the other wing.
'One . . . mark.'
CLUNK-CLUNK!
The two X-15s dropped from the wings of the B-52 bomber, swooping briefly before—
'Engaging rocket thrusters . . . now!' Rufus said.
He hit the thrust controls.
The X-15's tail cone ignited, hurling its afterburner flame a full hundred feet into the air behind it.
Schofield was thrown back into his seat with a force he had never even imagined.
His X-15 shot off into the sky—cracking the air with sonic booms, literally ripping the fabric of the sky—its flight signature just one continuous roar that would be heard all the way across the Mediterranean Sea.
And so the two X-15s rocketed to the south-east, toward the Suez Canal and the Red Sea and a small decrepit base in Yemen from which a Chameleon missile would soon be launched, a missile that would shatter the existing world order.
In their way: the greatest aerial armada ever assembled by man.
After only twenty minutes of flying, Rufus caught sight of it.
'Oh my Lord . . .' he breathed.
They hung in the orange evening sky like a swarm of insects: the squadron of African fighters.
It was an incredible sight—a veritable wall of moving pinpoints spread out across the Egyptian coastline, guarding the airspace over the Suez Canal.
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