Scarecrow Returns

FLANKED BY Mother, Baba and Zack, Schofield blew the lock on the exterior door of the gasworks and peered outside—in time to see Calderon, flanked by Big Jesus and a half-dozen men, striding off toward the missile battery.

A short distance ahead of them was Typhon, carrying the Samsonite case with the spheres in it. He was about to cross the high bridge that gave access to the missile battery.

Without warning, Calderon turned and saw Scarecrow and, at his shout, his men opened fire on Schofield and his people, trying to keep them at bay long enough for Typhon to get to the missile battery with the spheres.

Schofield immediately saw that he was too late.

He couldn’t overcome Calderon’s men and stop Typhon.

“Damn it,” he said. “There’s no way we can—”

He cut himself off as he saw the tiny figure in the distance, seemingly sitting at the far end of the high bridge that Typhon was now in the process of crossing, a figure Schofield recognized.

He never finished his sentence, for it was at that exact moment that the explosion came and the missile battery blew sky high.