'As for a new Cold War,' Killian mused, 'well, that is more the Council's plan than my own. My plan would embody somewhat more vision.
'Consider that poem by Yeats. I particularly love the notion of the falconer no longer being able to command his falcon. It suggests a nation that is no longer capable of controlling its most deadly weapon. The weapon has developed a mind of its own, realised its own deadly potential. It has outgrown its owner and attained dangerous independence.
'Now place that in the context of the US defence industry. What happens when the missile builders no longer choose to obey their masters? What happens when the military-industrial complex decides it no longer needs the United States Government?'
'The Scarecrow will stop you,' Gant said defiantly.
'Yes. Yes. The Scarecrow,' Killian said. 'Our mutual friend. He is a special one, isn't he? Did you know that the Council was so concerned about his presence on the list that they went to the trouble of arranging a sham mission to Siberia just to trap him? Needless to say, it didn't work.'
'No shit.'
'But if he is still alive,' Killian said, 'then, yes, it is something of a problem.'
Killian locked eyes with Gant. . .
. . . and she felt her spine turn completely to ice. There was something in his glare that she had never seen before, something truly terrifying.
Aloysius Knight saw it, too, and he immediately became concerned.
This was happening too fast. He shifted in his stance, strained against his manacles.
'Now,' Killian said, 'in any standard story, a villain like me would seek to draw out the troublesome Schofield by holding his beloved Lieutenant Gant hostage. I believe this was exactly Demon Larkham's thinking earlier today.'
'Yes,' Gant said warily. 'It was.'
'But it didn't work, did it?' Killian said.
'No.'
'Which is why, Lieutenant Gant, I must do something more to flush Shane Schofield out. Something that will make finding me far more important to him than disrupting the Council's plan. Mister Noonan.'
At that moment Rat Face—Noonan—grasped the release lever on the guillotine and Gant swallowed in horror.
Then she looked over at Knight, locking eyes with him.
'Knight,' she said. 'When you get out of here, tell Schofield something for me. Tell him I would have said yes.'
Then, without pause or patience, Rat Face pulled the lever and the guillotine's terrible blade dropped from its perch and rushed down its guide-rails toward Gant's exposed neck.
Chunk.
Libby Gant's headless body dropped to the ground at the base of the guillotine.
A hideous waterfall of blood gushed out from its open neck, spilling across the stone stage before flowing off it into the seawater at the platform's edge.
The blood in the water quickly attracted the sharks. Two pointed grey shadows appeared at the edge of the guillotine's stage, searching for the source of the blood.
'Jesus, noV Aloysius Knight yelled, straining at his chains, staring at the gruesome sight in total apoplectic shock.
It had happened so fast.
So quickly.
Without any hesitation.
Libby Gant was dead.
Despite the pain of the light hitting them, Knight's eyes were wide, his face white. 'Oh God, no . . .' he gasped again.
He snapped to glare up at Jonathan Killian—but Killian's face was a mask. His cool hard stare had not changed at all.
And then suddenly one of the men in the pit was coming towards Knight.
It was Drake, the ExSol mercenary, carrying one of Knight's Remington shotguns and wearing his utility vest. The other man, Rat Face, was leaving the pit via a steel door over by the guillotine.
'What about this one?' Drake asked Killian.
Killian waved a hand. 'No guillotines for the Black Knight. No games that might permit him to escape. Shoot him in the head and then feed him to the sharks.'
'Yes, sir,' Drake said.
The giant mercenary strode across a narrow stone bridge between the guillotine's stage and Knight's wall-platform, each step kicking up a shallow splash.
As Drake approached him, the squinting Knight assessed his options.
There weren't many.
He could barely see.
His hands were manacled.
Drake was coming closer.
Thinking furiously, Knight bit his lip so hard that he drew blood. He spat the gob of bloody saliva away in disgust.
Drake halted about six feet from him, out of range from anything Knight could do—like strangle him with his legs, or kick him in the crotch.
Drake raised Knight's silver Remington, aimed it at Knight's head. 'Heard you were better than this, Knight.'
At which point, Knight nodded down at Drake's feet and said, 'I am.'
Drake frowned.
And looked down—to see one of the tiger sharks in the water right next to his boots, drawn to the edge of the platform by Knight's blood-laced saliva.
Just as Knight had hoped.
'Ah—' Drake took an involuntary step back from the big ten-foot shark at his feet. . .
. . . and walked into the strike zone of a far more dangerous predator.
What Knight did next, he did very very fast.
First, he whip-snapped his body upwards, lashing out with his legs, and grabbed Drake hard around the ribs from behind. Knight squeezed and there came a hideous snap-snap-snap, the sound of Drake's ribs breaking.
Drake roared with pain.
Then Knight yanked the mercenary closer so that he could reach
something hanging from the utility vest—his utility vest—that Drake was wearing.
Knight pulled a mountaineering piton from the vest and one-handed, jammed the piton into his left-hand manacle and pressed its release.
With a powerful spring-loaded thwack, the piton expanded in an instant—
—and the old iron manacle around Knight's wrist cracked open and suddenly his left hand was free.
Up on the viewing balcony, Cedric Wexley saw what was happening and immediately whipped up his gun, but Knight was holding Drake in the way with his legs.
And he wasn't finished with Drake either.
He used his now-free left hand to grab a second item from the vest: the miniature blowtorch.
Knight yanked the blowtorch from its pouch and immediately pulled the trigger, firing it at point-blank range into Drake's back.
The mini-blowtorch burst to life, emitting a superheated blue flame.
Drake roared.
The spike-like blue flame lanced right through his body, emerging from the other side—the front side—like the blade of a luminescent sword.
Drake's face, shocked and dying, fell back against Knight's chest.
'You got off lightly,' Knight growled, applying more power, blasting the insides of Drake's body to nothing.
Then the body went limp, and fell, and as it did so, Knight unclasped his utility vest from it, at the same time using his piton to break open his other manacle.
As Drake fell, however, Knight became exposed to Cedric Wexley up in the viewing balcony, who started firing.
But now Knight was completely free.
He dived behind Drake's corpse, let bullet after bullet hit it before, without warning, he rolled Drake's body into the blood-stained
water, right in front of the nearest tiger shark, and then, to everyone's surprise . . .
. . . leapt into the water after it himself.
The shark lunged at Drake's corpse, bit into it with an almighty crunch, started tearing it to shreds. The second shark came over quickly and joined in the frenzy.