Scarecrow Returns

FIRST PHASE

THE CALL TO ARMS

DRAGON ISLAND

4 APRIL, 0830 HOURS

The U.S.-Soviet “Cold War” will go down in history as the most prolonged period of military madness ever seen. Weapons of extraordinarily destructive capability were built, to the extent that if a war were ever fought, there would have been no world left for the winner to live in.

—RICHARD WAINWRIGHT, THE COLD WAR (LONDON; ORION, 2001)