Scarecrow Returns

SCHOFIELD STARED out at the spot where his Antonov had disappeared over the cliff, stunned.

Champion said, “There must be another way out of this. Another plane or helicopter, or maybe some kind of bunker we can hide in—”

Gunfire sizzled over their heads from the two Army of Thieves jeeps that had just arrived from the runway.

It roused Schofield from his reverie and he snapped around to face Champion, something in his eyes. “A bunker, yes . . . a nuclear bunker.”

Champion said, “Ivanov said there was a special bunker-like laboratory buried under the main disc—”

“No. Not that one. We’d never reach it in time anyway. I saw another one. Earlier. But where was it . . . ?”

More bullets whistled past them.

Champion ducked. “Can you think as we ride!”

“Right,” Schofield gunned the bike away with renewed intensity, fleeing from the jeeps.

A few seconds later, he turned to Champion. “I just remembered where it is.”

6:00 . . . 5:59 . . . 5:58 . . .

Schofield’s bike-and-sidecar skidded to a halt in front of the cable car terminal.

Schofield carried Champion toward the terminal’s side garage, the door of which was suddenly hurled open from within by Zack and Emma. As requested, they’d gone to the place where Baba had released diesel fuel earlier.

Zack ushered them inside. “What’s going on?”

5:10 . . . 5:09 . . . 5:08 . . .

Schofield hurried past him, still carrying Champion. “When they saw the uplink had been turned off, Russia fired a nuclear missile at this island. It’s five minutes away.”

Zack went pale. “Five minutes? What can we possibly do in five—?”

“We get to a nuclear bunker.” Schofield raced through the garage and entered the terminal proper. He hurried over to the cable car and looked up at its cable stretching all the way down to Acid Islet.

He recalled seeing the thick lead door in the hall on Acid Islet earlier, the one down on the bottom level with a nuclear symbol and a warning sign in Cyrillic on it. At the time, he’d thought it was a chamber for nuclear storage, but it wasn’t: it was a nuclear bunker.

Of course, Dragon Island would have several fallout bunkers on it. It was a first-strike Cold War target. And placing a bunker under Acid Islet made sense: the islet was already partially protected by the cliffs of the bay, plus the sea water separating it from Dragon Island would act as an extra buffer against the concussion wave from any nuclear explosion.

“That cable car is too slow. It won’t get us down fast enough,” Emma said.

“You’re right, it won’t.” Schofield was still looking up at the cable. It stretched steeply away from them, sweeping down to the station on Acid Islet 1,000 feet away.

He turned.

“Everybody up onto the roof of the cable car. We’re gonna zip-line down that cable.”

4:20 . . . 4:19 . . . 4:18 . . .

They all clambered up onto the roof of the bullet-battered cable car.

The cable stretched away from them, impossibly long and dizzyingly steep, ending at the islet far, far away.

Once they were all up there, Schofield said, “Okay, Zack and Emma: use your belts. Loop them over the cable like this.”

He looped Zack’s belt over the cable, then crossed its two ends so they formed an X. “We dislodged most of the ice on the cable when we came up earlier, so the cable shouldn’t be too icy. To slow yourself as you slide, pull your hands outward; that’ll cause your belt to squeeze on the cable and arrest your slide. Got it? Good. Go.”

Zack went. He leapt off the cable car and with a scream of terror shot down the superlong cable. He became very tiny very quickly as he slid away.

Emma was next. She stepped tentatively to the edge of the cable car’s roof.

“We’re seriously out of time, Emma,” Schofield urged. “You gotta go now.”

“Right,” she said, and with a final deep breath, she slid away down the outrageously long zip-line.

That left Schofield and Champion. Schofield lashed his own belt over the cable—

3:31 . . . 3:30 . . . 3:29 . . .

—and pulled Champion into a tight embrace.

Their faces were inches apart. Her arms were wrapped tightly around his neck while his hands were stretched upward, holding his belt looped over the cable.

“Hang on tight,” he said.

And for the briefest of moments, Veronique Champion looked deep into his scarred eyes.

And to Schofield’s complete surprise, she suddenly gave him a quick but passionate kiss on the lips. “I’ve never met a man like you. You are special.” She pulled back from him. “Now fly, Scarecrow! Fly!”

As she said it, five members of the Army of Thieves burst through the terminal’s door, machine guns blazing.

But their bullets hit nothing, for the moment they entered the terminal, Schofield—with Champion gripping him tightly and Bertie still on his back—leapt off the cable car’s roof.