Like the other Black-Green squad leader, the bald man had a British accent. He looked about 40. Experienced. Cunning.
He pulled Gant's Maghook out of her back-holster and threw it to the ground tar away from her.
'Can't let you keep that either, I'm afraid,' he said. 'Elizabeth Louise Gant, eallsign: Fox. Twenty-nine years old. Recent graduate of OCS. Graduated second in your class, I believe. Former member of Marine Force Reconnaissance Unit 16 under the command of then-Lieutenant Shane M. Schofield. Former member of HMX-1, the Presidential Helicopter Detachment, again under the command of Captain Shane M. Schofield.
'And now... now you are no longer under the command of Captain Schofield because of Marine Corps regulations about troop fraternisation. Lieutenant Gant, my name is Colonel Damon Larkham, eallsign: Demon. These are my men, the Intercontinental Guards, Unit 88. I hope you don't mind, but we just need to borrow you for awhile.'
And with that, one of Larkham's men grabbed Gant from behind and clamped a rag soaked in trichloromethane over her mouth and nose and in an instant Gant saw nothing but black.
A moment later, the handsome young squad leader whom Gant had seen cut off Zawahiri's head arrived at Demon Larkham's side, holding three head-sized medical transport containers.
'Sir,' the squad leader said, 'we have the heads of Zawahiri, Khalif and Kingsgate. We found the body of Ashcroft, but his head was already missing. I believe the Skorpions are here and that they got to him first.'
Larkham nodded thoughtfully. 'Hmmm, Major Zamanov and his Spetsnaz Skorpions. Thank you, Cowboy. I think we have gained more than enough from this incursion already.' He looked down at Gant's prone body. 'And we might have just added to our catch. Tell everybody to head for the back door. Time to get back to the planes. This mine has been lased for an airstrike and the bombers are on their way.'
Two minutes later, Schofield's Light Strike Vehicle slid around the conveyor-belt end of the Al-Qaeda barricade and skidded to a dusty
halt.
Schofield, Book II, Mother and the two junior Marines piled out
of it, guns up, searching for Gant.
'Mother. Time to the bomb?' Schofield called.
'Six minutes!'
Gant was nowhere to be seen. As was the Black-Green force. The area behind the Al-Qaeda barricade was deserted, the battle over.
Mother stood at the near end of the barricade, not far from the conveyor belt. 'This is where I last saw her. We saw a good-looking guy from that black-and-green group cut some terrorist dude's head off and then suddenly a whole bunch of Al-Qaeda chumps came stampeding at us from over there.'
She indicated the far north-eastern corner of the cavern, beyond the air vents. There Schofield saw a small tunnel about the size of a garage door.
And then he saw something else—on the floor. A Maghook.
He went over to it and picked it up, saw the words 'Foxy Lady' written in white marker on its side. Gant's Maghook. He clipped it
to his belt.
When he rejoined the others, Mother was saying: \ . . and don't
forget the fourth force that's down here.'
'A fourth force?' Schofield said. 'What fourth force?'
'There are four separate forces in this mine,' Mother said. 'Us,
Al-Qaeda, those black-and-green fuckers who took my little
Chickadee, and a fourth force: that bunch of guys who killed Ashcroft and took out the Allied barricade from behind.'
'They killed Ashcroft?' Schofield said.
'Fuckin'-A. Cut off his goddamn head.'
'Jesus. It's another group of bounty hunters,' Schofield said. 'So where is this fourth force now?'
'I, uh, think they're already here . . .' Book II said ominously.
They materialised from within and around the Al-Qaeda barricade—about twenty armed troops dressed in tan desert fatigues, caramel ski-masks and yellow Russian combat boots. They stepped out of the Driftrunner vehicles and tip-trays that made up the Al-Qaeda barricade.
Most of them held sinister-looking short-barrelled VZ-61 Skorpion machine pistols: the signature weapon of Russia's elite special forces unit, the Spetsnaz. It was from this gun that they had garnered their bounty hunting nickname: the Skorpions.
They'd been waiting.
A man wearing major's bars stepped forward from the group. 'Drop your weapons,' he said crisply, curtly.
Schofield and the other four Marines did so. Two Spetsnaz soldiers immediately rushed to his side and held him firmly.
'Captain Schofield, what a pleasant surprise,' the Spetsnaz major said. 'My intelligence did not mention that you would be at this site, but your appearance is a welcome bonus. Your head may pay exactly the same price as the others, but there is no doubt a certain prestige that goes with being the bounty hunter who brings in the famous Scarecrow.'
The major seemed to appraise Schofield down his long aquiline nose. He snorted. 'But perhaps your reputation is unwarranted. Kneel, please.'
Schofield remained standing. He nodded at Gant's laser-emitting diode on the ground. 'You see that device down there. That diode is leading a 21,000-pound laser-guided bomb to this mine. It'll be here in five minut—'
'I said kneel.'
One of the guards whacked Schofield behind the knees with his rifle butt. Schofield dropped to the ground underneath one of the cathedral-like domes of the air vents.
With a sharp slicing noise, the major then withdrew a glistening sword from his back-holster: a short-bladed Cossack fighting sword.
'Really,' the major said as he approached Schofield, rotating the sword lazily in his hand, 'I am somewhat disappointed. I had thought killing the Scarecrow would be more difficult than this.'
He raised the sword and, gripping it with both hands, started to swing it. . . just as a pair of blue laser dots appeared on the chests of Schofield's guards. The next instant, the two guards were blown away.
Schofield snapped up—
The Spetsnaz major whirled around—
And they all saw him.
He was standing out in the open, underneath the other air vent, two silver Remington shotguns in his hands, held like pistols. High-tech blue laser-sighting devices were attached to the shotguns' stainless steel barrels.
Erected next to him on collapsible tripods were two remote-operated FN-MAG machine-guns—also equipped with blue laser sights. One of the robot guns was now illuminating the Spetsnaz major's chest with its blue targeting laser, the other gun just roved randomly among the Russian troops.
Whoever this man was, he was dressed entirely in black.
Black fatigues.
Black body armour, scratched with battle scars.
Black hockey helmet.
And on his face—a rugged face, weathered and hard, unshaven—he wore a pair of wraparound anti-flash glasses with yellow lenses.
Schofield caught a glimpse of a thick rope hanging vertically from the air vent above the man, before—whoosh—it whiplashed up into the vent, disappearing like a spooked snake.
'Why hello, Dmitri,' the man in black said. 'Gone AWOL again have you?'
The Spetsnaz major didn't look at all pleased to see the man in black. Nor was he thrilled at the blue laser dot now lighting up his own chest.
The Russian major snarled. 'It is always easier to disappear on these international missions. As I'm sure you of all people would know, Aloysius.' He pronounced the name: allo-wishus.
The man in black—Aloysius—stepped forward, walking casually in amongst the heavily-armed Spetsnaz unit.
Schofield noticed his black utility vest. It was equipped with a bizarre array of wow-military devices: handcuffs, mountain-climbing pitons, a small hand-held scuba tank called a Pony Bottle, even a miniature welding torch—