Scarecrow Returns

FACING OFF against Marius Calderon and his Army of Thieves in the gasworks—two against forty—Schofield and Bertie opened fire together.

Bertie blazed away with his cannon on full auto, sending forth a three-foot-long tongue of fire from the muzzle of his gun-barrel. His wave of heavy-caliber bullets cut into the crowd of Thieves, scything across them, and in the first burst alone, sixteen men fell, practically cut in half, bloody fountains spurting everywhere.

Schofield was more precise with his fire, but no less deadly.

The first man he took aim at was Calderon, but the Lord of Anarchy was quick. As Schofield fired, Calderon yanked Mobutu in front of him and Mobutu was hit twice in the chest while Calderon dived through the nearby exit door, disappearing outside, followed by Mario.

Next, Schofield took down the two men holding Zack, dropping them with one shot each before yelling, “Zack, lie down and stay down!” Zack immediately dropped to his belly and covered his head with his hands.

Schofield then took rapid aim at the Thief holding Emma—a wiry bald man with a silver chain stretched between two facial piercings—but as Schofield fired, the man dropped down a ladder behind him, yanking Emma with him. Schofield wasn’t sure if he hit the man or not, but he didn’t have time to check, because right then a horizontal finger of fire rushed past him at very close range and he had to dive away.

It had actually been aimed at Bertie. The little robot had been doing so much damage that a Thief with a flamethrowing unit slung from a harness over his shoulders had unleashed a lance of fire at him. The flames washed over Bertie, engulfing him completely, but the little robot just rolled out of them, his rubber tires alight, and shot the flamethrowing Thief right between the eyes.

But then a far more dangerous attack came: the Caucasian officer known as Mako snatched up an RPG from the floor and fired it at Bertie.

The grenade shot across the wide space and hit Bertie square in the lower body.

Bertie blew apart.

His already-flaming tires went flying out in four different directions while shards of steel sprayed wildly outward. The little robot disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Schofield saw it happen and his heart sank, but he couldn’t stop shooting. He was now alone in this fight, which meant he had to finish it quickly.

And so, in the single minute that followed, Shane Schofield, the Scarecrow, unleashed all of his fearsome skills as a warrior on the remaining twenty members of the crowd of Thieves.

He killed like a force of nature.

His face was blank, devoid of emotion. He just marched forward, firing coolly and calmly, without a single wasted bullet, an unstoppable, relentless, merciless Marine rifleman.

He nailed every man in sight.

The few members of the crowd who managed to raise a weapon in defense went down in sprays of blood, thrown off their feet by Schofield’s powerful fire. After firing the RPG, Mako used one of his own men as a human shield and took aim at Schofield but Schofield dropped them both with the same volley from his Steyr, firing it through the first man’s chest so that the same bullets punctured Mako’s heart, too.

Schofield then saw Big Jesus trying to unsling the unwieldy Kord from his back and took aim at him, but the big Chilean lieutenant was smart and he dived out the exit door, shutting it behind him—and those who fled for the door after him found that he had locked it behind him, sealing them in with Schofield.

They looked back in horror at the grim face of the man whose torture they had cheered only a short while ago.

Schofield shot them where they stood until there was no member of the Army of Thieves left alive on the balcony.

His enemies dead, Schofield raced to Mother’s side.

As he arrived at her body, hanging motionless from the forklift, to his great surprise, he saw her head move slightly, as if cocking to one side.

“Mother?” he said, unsure. It could have been a post-death reflex.

“Scarecrow?” Her voice was muffled by the wooden box over it. “No way. Was all that gunfire yours?”

Schofield hurriedly lowered the forklift, bringing Mother and Baba down to the floor, where he quickly shot open their handcuffs and hastily removed the boxes from their heads.

Mother’s box came off first.

Two dead rats tumbled out of it . . . headless. Their necks ended in ragged bloody stumps. Their heads had been wrenched off.

Mother’s teeth, Schofield saw, were bloody.

“Oh, Mother . . .” he said, clutching her in a firm embrace.

“Ozzy fucking Osbourne’s got nothing on me,” she said, hugging him back. “Anyone can bite the head off a bat onstage. Try biting the heads off of two wild fucking rats while they’re trying to get at you! Now that takes balls.”

Zack came over and removed Baba’s box and, just like Mother’s, out of it dropped two headless rats.

The Frenchman spat out some tiny rat bones. “Eugh! The fur gets between your teeth!”

“That was your plan?” Schofield said to Mother. “Fake your death and maybe make a move when they dumped your body?”

Mother shrugged. “Hey. Last I saw, you’d been crispy-fried and told me to fight on after your death. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”

“Nice plan, actually.”

Mother shrugged. “When they put those boxes on our heads, I said to Baba, ‘Do what Ozzy Osbourne would do and then play dead.’ Luckily, Baba is a man of fine musical taste and understood what that meant.”

Schofield smiled. “I love you to death, Mother. And you’re growing on me, too, Baba.”

Baba nodded at Schofield’s weapons. “And I know those guns, monsieur. A fine woman owns them. Is she alive?”

“For now, yes, but we can talk about that later. This resurrection isn’t over yet. We gotta stop those bastards from firing another missile.”

As he turned to move, Schofield saw Zack crouching a short distance away. He was bent over the remains of Bertie.

Schofield came over.

Bertie lay on the floor, horrifically mutilated. His entire lower half—his wheels and motor—had been blown apart by the grenade blast. It was now a tangled mess. His upper half was still intact and his internal battery was evidently still working, too: both his cannon and his stalk-mounted lens kept roving around, searching bravely for enemies even though he could no longer move.

“How is he?” Schofield asked.

“He wants to keep fighting, but he isn’t going anywhere anymore.”

Schofield looked down at the little robot. “That little guy brought me back from the dead. He stays with me.”

Schofield quickly grabbed an object off the nearby corpse of an Army of Thieves man. Then he picked up Bertie—what was left of him—and did something that made Zack smile.

“Hey, nice . . .” Zack said.

Last of all, Schofield went over to Mobutu’s body and took his Maghook back. When he had it, he nodded at the exit door. “This way.”

They all hurried for the door.

Mother and Baba were at the rear of the group. They crouched to grab an AK-47 each from a couple of dead Thieves, plus some spare clips and also an earpiece radio each.

As she hurried after Schofield, Mother looked back at the carnage behind them: nearly forty bloody corpses.

“Mental note,” she said softly to Baba. “Never ever make the Scarecrow angry.”