Scarecrow ss-3

by Matthew Reilly

  The first Russian truck sped up, banged its bullbar against the rear bumper of Schofield's Driftrunner.

  Both vehicles rocked with the impact.

  Then the Skorpions kicked out the windscreen of the first Russian Driftrunner and clambered out onto its bonnet and before Schofield could do anything about it, in the confined space of the dark tunnel, three of them leapt over into the rear tray of his Driftrunner.

  They completely ignored Book II and Mother—instead they headed straight for Schofield, their machine pistols drawn.

  Knight saw them in the rear-view mirror, slammed down on the brakes.

  The Driftrunner lurched, and everyone was thrown forward, including Schofield, Mother, Book and Pokey in the back.

  Like dominoes falling, the three other trucks in the convoy all rammed into each other, thumping nose-to-tail, nose-to-tail, nose-to-tail.

  Up in Schofield's Driftrunner, the three Skorpions attacking him were all flung forward.

  One dropped his gun as he reached for a handhold; another tumbled to the floor next to Schofield; the third was thrown all the way forward into the driver's compartment where he slammed into the dashboard and looked up to find himself staring into the barrel of a silver shotgun, a blue laser dot illuminating his nose.

  Boom!

  Knight fired.

  The trooper's head exploded like a can of tomato soup.

  Knight jammed the accelerator back down and the Driftrunner shot forward again.

  The other two Spetsnaz guys, however, their balance now restored, only had eyes for Schofield.

  The gunless one drew a Warlock hunting knife, the other brought his VZ-61 machine pistol around fast—

  —and at that very same moment, Knight snapped round and saw them, and something in his eyes ignited, a look that said that Schofield could never ever be touched.

  Schofield reacted quickly.

  He parried the machine pistol away, karate-style, pushing its barrel to the side just as his enemy fired.

  But he couldn't hold off the two of them.

  The knife-wielding Skorpion lunged at him, swiping at his throat—

  —and suddenly Aloysius Knight was there—

  —and with incredible strength, Knight yanked both the knife-wielder and the VZ-61 man away from Schofield, down into the driver's compartment—

  —at precisely the same moment as their Driftrunner was rammed hard by the truck behind it.

  Knight and the two Spetsnaz commandos were hurled forward, and they smashed right through the windshield of their Driftrunner, went tumbling onto its bonnet.

  Truth be told, they didn't actually smash the windscreen. Constructed of shatterproof glass, the windscreen just burst into a spiderweb of cracks and popped out of its frame, landing on the bonnet as an intact but crumpled rectangular mat.

  The four Driftrunners continued to rocket down the narrow

  tunnel.

  Schofield now saw that Knight had wisely wedged a steel bar against the gas pedal, keeping their Driftrunner moving down the dead-straight tunnel, its steering corrected by the tunnel's close

  stone walls.

  Out on the bonnet of the first Driftrunner, Knight struggled with

  the two Skorpions.

  The knife-wielder was trying desperately to get back to Schofield, while the VZ-61-armed one had lost his gun in the scramble to get a handhold.

  Knight, however, had caught the worst of the smash through the windscreen—he lay with his legs dangling off the front of the speeding Driftrunner, hanging onto its bullbar for dear life.

  He saw the knife-wielder clawing his way back towards Schofield, grabbed the man's boot and yanked hard on it, dragging the knife-wielder toward the front of the bonnet . . . and off it!

  With a horrified scream, the Russian trooper went under the front of the Driftrunner, under its roaring tyres. He tumbled and smacked underneath the wheels of the whole convoy of Driftrunners before he was spat out the back of the fourth truck, crumpled and mangled and dead.

  The other Skorpion saw this and started kicking at Knight's hands, but Knight got a grip on the man's belt and started pulling on it too.

  'No!' the Skorpion yelled. 'Noooo!'

  'You can't have him!' Knight called, dragging the Spetsnaz trooper toward the front of the bonnet.

  The Skorpion came alongside Knight. He was a big guy, with a fierce angry face. He clutched Knight's throat.

  'If I go, Black Knight, you go too . . .' he growled.

  Knight looked him in the eye. 'Fine.'

  And with that Knight kicked himself clear of the front of the Driftrunner—dragging the aghast Russian commando with him— and dropped to the dusty roadway in front of the speeding truck . . .

  The Spetsnaz trooper hit the ground and rolled and—splat!—was flattened under the wheels of the lead Driftrunner.

  Unlike Knight, he hadn't grabbed the mat-like windscreen of the Driftrunner on his way down.

  As he'd fallen off the front of the Driftrunner, Knight had snatched the cracked-glass mat and thrown it to the rushing ground

  beneath him.

  The mat hit the ground—and Knight landed on it, cat-like—and the mat slid along the dusty ground, at first sliding forward, before whoosh the first Driftrunner roared over the top of it, and over the top of Knight, too!

  The convoy of Driftrunners—all four of them—rumbled quickly forward, over the tiny figure of Aloysius Knight sliding on his back on his makeshift mat.

  Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh . . .

  Knight shot underneath the quartet of trucks and was about to blast out behind the last Driftrunner when he drew his second shotgun, held it by the barrel . . . and hooked its pistol-grip on the underside of the rear bumper of the fourth and last

  Driftrunner.

  The mat swished out from under him, tumbled away into the darkness of the tunnel, and Knight was dragged along behind the Driftrunner, his flailing legs bouncing on the roadway.

  Then he reached up and hauled himself up into the tray of the last Driftrunner, ready to rejoin the fight.

  • • •

  Up in the first Driftrunner, Schofield was now sitting in the driver's seat. After Knight had gone flying out through the windshield and under the front of the truck, Schofield had kicked away the steel bar pinned to the gas pedal and taken the wheel.

  In the rear-view mirror, he saw Mother and Book II fighting hand-to-hand with their two Spetsnaz assholes—saw two more Skorpion troopers make the leap forward from the second Driftrunner onto his one.

  These two new guys charged straight for Schofield in the driver's compartment.

  There are just too many of them, Schofield's mind screamed.

  He saw the two new Skorpions rushing forward, guns drawn. They'd be on him in seconds.

  And then he remembered something about mining vehicles. He hurriedly reached for his seatbelt.

  'Book! Mother! Hang on to something!'

  Then he reached across the driver's compartment . . . and kicked open the passenger door of the Driftrunner.

  The response was instantaneous.

  The Driftrunner's handbrake immediately activated itself and the speeding truck came to a sudden bone-jarring halt. It was a safety feature on all mining vehicles—to prevent miners from being hurt, if the passenger door was opened, the vehicle was instantly disabled, its park-brake initiated.

  Caught by surprise, the second Driftrunner slammed into the back of the first one. The third and fourth trucks did the same, running into each other like a collapsing accordion.

  As for the two Skorpions who had been coming for Schofield, one went flying through the now-empty windscreen, hurled at least 15 feet clear of the vehicle, the other caught his chin on the roof of the driver's cabin and while his legs flew forward, his head stayed still, and with a sickening snap! his neck broke.

  Mother and Book II, on the other hand, had done as they'd been told and instead of fighting their assailants, had grabbed onto the nearest
handholds, so that when the truck stopped, their attackers

  had been thrown forward, smacking into the back of the driver and

  passenger seats.

  One was knocked unconscious by the fall.

  The other was only bruised, and he rose—only to be headbutted viciously by Mother, a blow that put his lights out for good.

  The damage done, Schofield reached over and closed the passenger door and hit the gas and soon they were speeding again.

  There was less damage and mayhem in the other Driftrunners. They sped along behind the first truck once more—still with at least ten men on board.

  But then the damage came.

  In the form of Aloysius Knight.

  When the impact had occurred, Knight had been in the process of climbing into the rear tray of the last Driftrunner, so it hadn't

  really affected him.

  Now that the Driftrunners were racing along again, however, he moved quickly through the last vehicle, dispatching the Skorpions in it with brutal—brutal—efficiency.

  The Russians tried to resist, tried to raise their own weapons and

  kill him first.

  But Knight was like a killing machine.

  Two Skorpions in the rear tray: he shot one in the head with his shotgun, while at the same time he shoved the other one's head above the roof of the driver's compartment . . . allowing it to be hit by a speeding overhead support beam, an impact that removed the

  soldier's head from his body.

  He came to the driver's compartment—levelled his short-barrelled Remington at the passenger and without so much as a blink, fired.

  Boom.

  The driver turned, surprised, just as Knight—ignoring him— blasted the windscreen out of its frame and climbed through it, leaping forward onto the tray of the third truck.

  Zamanov was on this truck.

  He dived for cover as Knight moved forward through the Driftrunner, blasting men left and right. Several of the Skorpions tried to return fire, but Knight was too fast, too fluid, too good. It was as if he anticipated their moves, even the order in which they would shoot.

  On his way through the driver's cabin, Knight glimpsed Zamanov cowering under the dash, but he only saw him momentarily and since Knight's first priority was to get forward, back to Schofield, he didn't stop to kill the Russian. He was only killing anyone who was in his way.

  He leapt over onto the second truck.

  Up in the first Driftrunner, Schofield was now driving hard—with only friends not foes on his truck.

  He could also now see a small white speck in the distance in front of him—the end of the tunnel.

  Mother climbed into the passenger seat beside him. 'Scarecrow! Who the fuck are these people! And who is that dude in black?'

  'I don't know!' Schofield yelled.

  He looked in his rear-view mirror and saw Aloysius Knight step out onto the bonnet of the Driftrunner immediately behind his own.

  'But he seems to be the only one around here who isn't trying to kill me.'

  'He could be planning to kill you later,' Book II suggested from the rear tray. 'I say we ditch him.'

  'I agree—' Mother began before cutting herself off.

  They had reached the end of the tunnel.

  Brilliant white light streamed in through a small square entryway.

  It was about 200 metres away.

  What had silenced her, however, was the enormous demonic object that had apparated in the air beyond the tunnel's exit.

  A jet fighter.

  A black Sukhoi S-37 fighter, hovering in the air just outside the tunnel.

  Seen from head-on, with its sharply-pointed nose and down- 1 ward-swept wings dripping with missiles, the S-37 looked like a gigantic evil hawk, staring right at them.

  There came a loud thump from behind Schofield as Knight landed in the tray of their Driftrunner and came up behind them. 'It's okay,' he said, nodding at the fighter, 'he's with us.' Knight pressed a button on his wrist guard, initiating a radio on it. 'Rufus, it's me! We're coming out and we're coming out hot, with three enemy vehicles on our tail. I need a Sidewinder. Just one. Aim low and to your right; arm at two hundred metres. Just like we did in Chile last year.'

  'Copy that, Boss,' a deep voice said in Knight's earpiece. 'May I?' Knight nodded at Schofield's steering wheel. Schofield let him take it.

  Knight immediately yanked the steering wheel hard over and drove the Driftrunner up against the left-hand wall of the tunnel.

  The big four-wheel-drive rode up against the wall, grinding against it until . . . whump ... it jolted upwards, and suddenly was speeding along at a 45-degree angle, riding with two wheels on the ground and two on the wall itself.

  'Okay, Rufus! Now!' Knight yelled into his wrist mike. Immediately, a horizontal finger of smoke shot out from the right wing of the hovering black fighter, and with a resounding phooni! a Sidewinder missile streaked into the tunnel system, rocketing at tremendous speed, hugging the ground.

  From Schofield's point of view, the missile stayed close to the left-hand wall, zooming fast and low before— —shoooooooom!—

  —it whizzed underneath his Driftrunner's 45-degree-tilted body and slammed into the truck immediately behind it.

  The explosion ripped through the tunnel. The first Spetsnaz Driftrunner was blasted into a million pieces. With no way to avow it, the two mine trucks behind the first one smashed into the bacK of it, driving their noses into the wreck, slamming to a halt.

  At the same time, Schofield's Driftrunner blasted out into glaring

  daylight, shooting onto a wide flat turnaround area carved into the side of the mountain. Beyond the turnaround—directly underneath the hovering fighter jet—was a sheer thousand-foot drop.

  Knight turned to Mother. 'You. How long till the bomb?'

  Mother checked her watch. 'Thirty seconds.'

  'That'll hurt Dmitri.' Knight then spoke into his wrist mike: 'Rufus. Meet us on the next turnaround down the mountainside.' He looked over at Schofield. 'I've got three passengers with me, including our man.'

  'Any problems?'

  Knight said, 'Nah, it was pretty light this time.'

  Thirty seconds later, the sleek Sukhoi landed in a cloud of dust on another turnaround area further down the precarious cliff-side roadway. Flat and round, the turnaround looked like a natural landing platform jutting out from the cliff-face. Schofield's Driftrunner skidded to a halt beside it.

  At that very same moment, guided by Gant's laser diode down in the mine, a 21,000-pound MOAB bomb was dropped out the back of a C-130 Hercules and angled in toward the mine's air vents.

  The precision guidance system worked perfectly.

  The bomb rushed toward the earth, hitting terminal velocity, its nns controlling its flight-path, before—whump—the giant weapon disappeared into the mine's now-open chimney.

  One, one thousand . . .

  Two, one thousand. . .

  Three . . .

  donation.

  the entire mountain shuddered.

  A volcanic boooom! echoed out from within the mine.

  Standing next to the Sukhoi's two-man cockpit, pushing Mother up into it, Schofield had to grab onto its ladder just to keep his

  balance.

  He glanced up at the mountain peak above them—at the layer of

  snow resting on top of it—and realised.

  'Oh no,' he breathed. 'Avalanche . . .'

  Then he snapped round to look back up the roadway, in time to see two bent-over figures stagger out of the mine tunnel on foot— a bare moment before a shocking blast of air came rocketing out of the tunnel, expelling the crumpled remains of the Skorpion Driftrunners that had been left in it.

  The three Driftrunners were catapulted clear off the edge of the upper turnaround—shooting horizontally out into the sky, past the two hunched figures—after which the three trucks fell a thousand feet straight down into the ravine below.

  It was then that an ominous
rumbling came from somewhere

  above Schofield.

  The gigantic body of snow resting on the mountain above the Sukhoi's perch was shifting, cracking, starting to . . .

  Slide.

  'Move!' Schofield yelled, climbing up the ladder.

  The sliding body of snow began to gather speed.

  'Quickly! Into the bomb bay!' Knight yelled.

  Book and Mother squeezed through the small cockpit and into the tight space behind it: a bomb storage bay that had been converted into a . . . holding cell.

  'Just get in!' Knight yelled from behind them. 'I'll be joining you!'

  Knight squeezed in with them. Schofield jumped into the cockpit last of all, climbed into the rear gunner's seat, looked up.

  The vertically-sliding snowdrift had taken on the appearance of a crashing ocean wave: blasting explosions of white preceding the full weight of the avalanche.

  Knight called forward, 'Er, Rufus . . . !'

  'Already on it, Boss!' the large man in the front seat hit the throttles and the Sukhoi rose.

  'Faster . . .' Schofield said.

  The avalanche came rushing down at them, tumbling, rumbling, smashing, crashing.

  The Sukhoi lifted higher, hovering for a moment before it powered out over the edge of the cliff just as the avalanche rushed past it, the falling wall of snow rushing by with a colossal roar, gobbling up the turnaround in a single enormous bite before rumbling past the floating black fighter jet and disappearing into the abyss below.

  'Now that was close,' Knight said.

  Three minutes later, the Sukhoi S-37 landed in a clearing on the Afghan side of the mountain, about a mile away from Schofield's

  parked Yak-141.

  Schofield, Knight, Book and Mother all climbed out, while the pilot—an enormous bushy-bearded individual whom Knight introduced simply as 'Rufus'—killed the engines.

  Schofield walked a few yards away to regather his thoughts. A lot had happened today and he wanted to clear his head.

  His earpiece crackled.

  'Scarecrow, it's me, Fairfax. You there?

  'Yeah, I'm here.'

  'Listen. I got a couple of things for you. A few facts on those USAMRMC guys on your list, and some big stuff on that Black Knight guy, most of it from the FBI and ISS Most Wanted lists. You got a moment?'1

  'Yeah,' Schofield said.