Scarecrow Returns

NORTHERN BAY OF DRAGON ISLAND

4 APRIL, 1026 HOURS

34 MINUTES TO DEADLINE

THE NORTHERN coast of Dragon Island was shaped like a gigantic U in the middle of which lay the last islet.

Ivanov had called it “Acid Islet”—after the enormous acid research laboratory that stood on it—and while it was actually quite large, the 300-foot-high cliffs of Dragon Island that ringed it on three sides made it look tiny.

At the northern end of the islet was the pontoon bridge that joined Acid Islet to Bear Islet. Branching eastward from that bridge was its longer side-bridge that led to the shed and the gantry elevators on the eastern side of the bay.

Overlooking the whole bay from a commanding position on top of the eastern promontory was a lighthouse that also acted as a watchtower.

On that lighthouse, two sentries from the Army of Thieves looked out at the Stadium on Bear Islet with keen interest. They knew that Bad Willy had been sent in from behind to flush the intruders toward Thresher Team, which had crossed the pontoon bridge not long ago—

Suddenly, four parka-clad members of Thresher Team came dashing out across the bridge from the Stadium, running for their lives, heading back toward the shed. The first man helped the second, who limped along as best he could; the third and fourth ones covered them, firing defensively back at Bear Islet as they fled.

They then stopped firing as four more Army of Thieves men followed, also running desperately, and also firing behind them as they ran. All around the fleeing figures, the wooden posts and floorboards of the bridge shattered and splintered under heavy-caliber gunfire.

The Army sentries on the lighthouse spotted two or three figures firing from an oversized doorway at the Bear Islet end of the pontoon bridge.

The intruders.

They were forcing Thresher back.

The retreating men from Thresher Team reached the halfway point of the bridge, the spot where it intersected with the longer side-bridge that would take them to the shed and the gantry elevators—when suddenly one man convulsed and fell, hit. He was scooped up by the man beside him.

As this happened, the junior of the two sentries keyed his radio. “Base, this is Lighthouse. Intruders appear to have established a position at the south end of Bear Islet. They’re forcing Thresher back across to the supply shed and the elevators.”

“Copy that, Lighthou—” came the reply.

“Wait!” the more senior man on the lighthouse said abruptly. He was a very large and very capable Chilean lieutenant known in the Army of Thieves as Big Jesus.

He was watching the retreating men on the pontoon bridge closely.

“That’s not Thresher Team . . .” Big Jesus said slowly. “Members of the Army of Thieves are trained to leave any wounded men behind. It’s the intruders, wearing Thresher’s uniforms. Cliff Team: RPG that pontoon bridge now! Destroy it!”

Down on the pontoon bridge—sixty yards from the shed and the elevators—dressed in a bulky Marine Corps parka that he’d taken from a dead Army of Thieves man on Bear Islet, Shane Schofield started down the longer side-bridge, racing backward toward the shed.

In his ear was a very high-tech radio earpiece-mike he’d also stolen from the dead Army of Thieves man—it was small, earbud-sized, with a tiny 10mm-long filament microphone that he had switched off for the moment. But it could still receive and through it, he’d been listening to a conversation between his enemies that had sounded very promising: a sentry on the lighthouse high above him had bought his illusion, that he and the others were actually Army of Thieves men in retreat.

As he listened, Schofield fired back at Bear Islet—each shot, of course, going wildly high—while helping the “wounded” Kid. Beside him, Baba did the same with a similarly “wounded” Champion, who had done a stellar job imitating that she had been shot. Emma, Zack, Chad and Ivanov, also dressed in stolen parkas, ran along behind them.

At the Bear Islet end of the bridge, Mother and Mario—with Bertie—were crouched in a doorway, ostensibly firing at the fleeing team, but hitting only the timber of the bridge, completing the deception.

But then the radio conversation turned sour. Someone had figured out their plan, ordering: “It’s the intruders, wearing Thresher’s uniforms. Cliff Team: RPG that pontoon bridge now! Destroy it!”

Gunfire came blazing out from the cliff-top above Schofield, and out of it emerged an RPG, screaming downward. It slammed into the pontoon bridge right in front of Schofield and the bridge went flying up into the air, water spraying all around it. When the geyser settled, Schofield saw that his route to the shed was gone: a broad section of the pontoon bridge had been destroyed. There was no way across it now.

He called as he turned. “We’re made! Everybody! Go the other way! Get to the next islet! Mother and Mario! Haul ass!”

Their cover blown, Schofield, Champion and Baba opened fire on the cliff-top, covering the others as they all turned and ran full-tilt across the shorter pontoon bridge toward Acid Islet. Mother and Mario scooped up Bertie and raced out into the open, also firing up at the cliff-top as they went.

But Schofield’s cover fire wasn’t enough. As they all changed direction, the terrified Chad was hit in the back by a line of bullets and his chest burst with bloody exit wounds and he fell into the water beside the intersection of the two bridges. He was dead before he hit the surface.

Zack and Emma paused wide-eyed beside his body, but Champion pushed them on. “He’s dead! You can’t help him! Allez! Allez!”

Schofield also glanced silently at Chad’s floating corpse as he hurried past.

Mother came alongside him as he did so. “These assholes aren’t stupid, Scarecrow!”

“No, they’re not.”

Once they were all across the shorter bridge and on the islet, huddled inside a small abandoned guardhouse there, Schofield tossed a grenade behind them onto the pontoon bridge and it detonated. The near-end of the bridge blew apart, so that it now had a gaping void in it. No one would be following them that way.

But they still hadn’t made it to Dragon and now the Army of Thieves knew exactly where they were.

“What do we do now?” Mother said, breathless. Beside her, Emma had started sobbing and Zack looked horrified.

“Emma, Zack,” Schofield said sharply, making them look up. “I’m sorry, but we can’t grieve now. We knew this was going to be bad and we knew people might get shot. Trust me, Chad’s in a better place now. He doesn’t have to go through any more of this.”

Schofield turned to gaze southward, across this new islet at Dragon Island. His eyes fell on the cable car station at the southern tip of the islet.

A steeply sloping cable rose up from the station, soaring out over the waters of the bay to meet a much larger terminal that hung off Dragon Island, off the summit of the nearest cliff. Made of grim gray concrete, the cable car terminal looked about as inviting as a World War II gun emplacement. But it was their only choice now.

“We just lost any element of surprise we ever had,” he said, “and since we don’t have the advantage of numbers, all we have left is speed. So we go in fast and we go in hard, and we absolutely do not stop.”