The second man was shorter than the first but still tall, well-built, about six feet. He was dressed entirely in black—black combat fatigues, black body armour, black helmet—and he wore two short-barrelled Remington 870 pump-action shotguns in thigh holsters. Both shotguns were made of glistening silver steel.
He also had one other distinguishing feature.
He wore wraparound anti-flash glasses with black frames and
yellow-tinted lenses.
Drawing one of his silver shotguns and holding it like a pistol, the man in black left his partner to guard the Sukhoi while he himself strode toward the door that Schofield had used to enter the dry-dock hall earlier.
He stopped at the door, checked the snow-covered ground, touched it with a black-gloved hand.
He moved inside.
The dry-dock hall was deserted. The remnants of Schofield's smoke cloud lingered in the air. The Typhoon submarine towered in the middle of it all.
The ExSol mercenary force was long gone. Likewise its Akula
submarine.
The man in black examined the Delta corpses on the ground next to the now-flooded pit—the spent ammo shells on the ground—the headless corpse of McCabe—and the still-warm body of Schofield's Marine corporal, Rooster, who had been snipered when the mercenary trap had revealed itself.
Some bodies were floating face-down in the flooded dry-dock.
Moving with calm measured steps, the man in black went over to the sea gate that had once separated the dry-dock from the lake—noticed its exploded-open side section.
A sign of the Scarecrow, the man in black thought. After they shot one of his boys, they trapped him in the dry-dock. So he blew it open, flooding the dry-dock, killing the men who had followed him in . . .
The man in black strode over to the edge of the indoor lake, crouched beside a series of wet footprints smeared on the concrete there: the fresh outlines of combat boots.
Different brands of combat boots. Which meant mercenaries.
And all of them stepping onto the dock from a wet surface.
A submarine. A second submarine.
So, Executive Solutions had been here.
But they had got here very quickly. Too quickly.
They must have been tipped off by someone behind the bounty hunt. Given a head-start to claim the American heads.
There came a sudden grunt and the man in black snapped around, gun up, quick as a mongoose.
It had come from the balcony level overlooking the warehouse.
The man in black dashed up a nearby rung-ladder and arrived at a small internal office up on the balcony.
In the doorway to the shack lay two figures: the first was the dead body of Corporal Max 'Clark' Kent; the second was another soldier—judging by his French-made assault rifle, a mercenary from ExSol—and he was still alive.
But only just. Blood gurgled from a gaping bullet wound to his cheek. Half of his face had been blown off.
The man in black stood over the wounded mercenary, gazed at him coolly.
The wounded mercenary extended a hand toward the man, pleading with his eyes, moaning, 'Aidez moi! S'il vous plait. . . aidez moi . . .'
The man in black looked over at the concrete overpass that had connected this hall to the collapsed office tower.
A destroyed 15-storey building: another sign of the Scarecrow. The wounded mercenary switched to English. 'Please, monsieur.
Help me . . .'
The man in black turned to face him, looked coldly down at the
distressed fellow.
After a long moment, he spoke.
'No.'
Then he shot the wounded mercenary in the head.
The man in black returned to his sleek Sukhoi, rejoined his massive
companion.
They then climbed back into their fighter, took off vertically, and blasted off into the sky, heading south-south-west.
After the Sukhoi had gone, a lone figure emerged from one of the buildings of Krask-8.
It was the Hungarian.
He just stood there on the deserted street and watched the Sukhoi disappear over the hills to the south, his eyes narrowing.
FORTERESSE DE VALOIS
BRITTANY, FRANCE
26 OCTOBER, 0900 HOURS LOCAL TIME
(1300 HOURS IN AFGHANISTAN—0300 HOURS
E.S.T. USA)
The two bounty hunters crossed the drawbridge that gave entry to the Forteresse de Valois, a mighty castle that thrust out into the Atlantic Ocean from the rugged north-western coast of France.
Built in 1289 by the mad Compte de Valois, the Forteresse was not your typical French castle.
Whereas most fortified buildings in France put an emphasis on beauty, the Forteresse de Valois was far more utilitarian. It was a rock, a grim fortress.
Squat, fat and solid as hell, through a combination of sheer engineering audacity and the uniqueness of its location, in its time the Forteresse de Valois was ail-but impregnable.
The reason: it was built on top of an enormous rock formation that jutted up from the ocean itself, about sixty yards out from the high coastal cliffs.
As they stretched downward, the fortress's colossal stone walls blended seamlessly with the vertical sides of the rocky mount, so that the whole structure stood 400 feet above the crashing waves of the Atlantic.
The castle's only connection with the mainland was a 60-metre-long spanning bridge of stone, the last twenty metres of which was a lowerable drawbridge.
The two bounty hunters crossed the drawbridge, dwarfed by the dark castle looming above them, the relentless Atlantic wind blasting their bodies.
They carried between them a large white box marked with a red cross and the words: 'human organs: DO NOT OPEN—express
delivery'.
Once across the bridge, the two men stepped underneath the fortress's 700-year-old portcullis, and entered the castle.
They were met in the courtyard by a dapper gentleman dressed in perfectly-pressed tails and wearing a pair of wireframed pince-nez.
'Bonjour, messieurs,' the man said. 'My name is Monsieur Delacroix. How may I help you?'
The two bounty hunters—Americans, dressed in suede jackets, jeans and cowboy boots—looked at each other.
The bigger one growled, 'We're here to collect the bounty on a
couple of heads.'
The dapper gentleman smiled politely. 'But of course you are.
And your names?'
The bigger one said, 'Drabyak. Joe Drabyak. Texas Ranger. This here is my partner, my brother, Jimbo.'
Monsieur Delacroix bowed.
'Ah, oui, the famous brothers Drabyak. Why don't you come
inside.'
Monsieur Delacroix led them through a garage that contained a collection of rare and expensive automobiles—a red Ferrari Modena; a silver Porsche GT-2; an Aston Martin Vanquish; some race-ready rally cars, and taking pride of place in the centre of the showroom, a glistening black Lamborghini Diablo.
The two American bounty hunters eyed the array of supercars with delight. If their mission went according to plan, they'd be buying themselves some ail-American muscle cars very soon.
'They yours?' Big Drabyak grunted as he walked behind Monsieur Delacroix.
The dapper gentleman snuffed a laugh. 'Oh, no. I am but a humble banker from Switzerland supervising this distribution of funds for my client. The cars belong to the owner of this castle. Not me.'
Monsieur Delacroix led them down some stone stairs at the end of the pristine garage, down to a lower level . . .
. . . and suddenly they entered medieval times.
They came to a round stone-walled ante-room. A long narrow tunnel branched off it to the left, disappearing into torch-lit subterranean gloom.