'Scarecrow, no!' Mother called, tears welling in her eyes. 'Please, Shane, don't. . .'
And for some reason, that stopped him.
Schofield paused.
Then he realised what it was.
For as long as he could remember, Mother had never called him by his first name. Not even in situations outside the Marine Corps.
He lowered the gun an inch, gazed at her.
She looked pathetic: on her knees on the ground, covered in mud, tears streaking down her face.
'Shane,' she called, 'the world may not care. The world may not know that it needs people like you and Gant. But I care! And I know that I need you! Shane, I have a husband and some beautiful nieces—they're thirteen years old and they all dress like Britney fucking Spears—and I have a mother-in-law who hates my guts.
'But I love them all, love 'em to death, and I don't want to see them living in a world of suffering and death that is run by a bunch of billionaire motherfuckers. But I can't stop that from happening. I can't. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, in the end I'm just not smart enough, not quick enough, not good enough. But you are. You can beat them. And do you know why? I do. I've always known it. And my little Chickadee knew it, too, and that was why she loved you. It's because you can do things that other people can't.'
Mother was on her knees in the mud, eyes filled with tears.
'Shane, I ain't the smartest kid in the class, but I know this: people are people. They're selfish and they're self-centred, they do stupid things and they have absolutely no idea that there are heroes like you out there looking after them every day.'
Schofield didn't say a word.
The rain smacked against his cheeks.
But Mother had broken the spell.
Life was coming back into his eyes.
'I don't call you Shane,' she said. 'You probably know that. But do you know why?'
Schofield was rooted to the spot. Frozen.
'No. Why?'
'Cause you ain't a regular fucking fella. You ain't a "Brad" or a "Chad" or a "Warren". You're the Scarecrow. The fucking Scarecrow.
'You're more than just an ordinary guy. Which is why I've never treated you like an ordinary guy. You're better than all of them. But if you off yourself now, if you take the easy way out, then you're taking the path that Brad or Chad or Warren would take. That ain't you. That ain't the Scarecrow. The Scarecrow is made of tougher stuff than that. Now, I ain't saying living is going to be easy—I don't know if any normal person could bounce back after hearing what you just heard—but if anyone can, it's you.'
Schofield was silent for a long time.
Then at last he spoke.
'I'm going to kill them all, Mother,' he said. 'The bounty hunters who caught her. All the bounty hunters involved in this hunt. Plus everyone on Majestic-12 who made this happen. And when it's all over—however it turns out, whether the world survives this crisis intact or whether it goes to hell on a handcart—I'm going to find Jonathan Killian and I'm going to blow his fucking brains out.'
Mother smiled through her tears. 'Sounds good to me.'
'But Mother,' he added somewhat ominously, 'I won't guarantee what I'll do after that.'
'Then I guess I'll just have to fight you again,' Mother said.
And at that, Schofield blinked.
Life had fully returned.
Mother nodded. 'Scarecrow. Nobody else may ever say this, so
I'll just say it for me . . . and for Ralph, and for the six Britney clones and my bitch from hell mother-in-law. Thank you.'
Schofield came over to her, extended his hand. Mother clasped it and let him haul her up.
Before he could move off, however, she embraced him in a mighty hug, engulfing his body in her massive frame. Then she kissed him on the forehead and guided him back to the Raven with one arm around his shoulders.
'I miss her already,' she said as they walked.
'Me, too,' Schofield said. 'Me, too.'
They walked together.
'Mother, I'm sorry I hit you.'
'Hey, it's okay. I hit you first.'
'Thanks for fighting me. Thanks for not letting me go.'
UPPER NEW YORK BAY, USA
26 OCTOBER, 1125 HOURS LOCAL TIME
Exactly eleven minutes after his Concorde had touched down on the tarmac at JFK, Book II was sitting in the back of a Marine Corps CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter, blasting over the Statue of Liberty and Upper New York Bay, the mighty steel-and-glass mountain range of New York City spread out behind him.
Seated in the hold with him were twelve fully-armed Force Reconnaissance Marines.
'You found terrorists at the plant?' Book shouted into his mike, puzzled. He was talking to the leader of the Department of Defense team that had checked the Axon plant earlier, a man named Dodds.
'Yes. All from Global Jihad, including—wait for it—Shoab Riis. Looks like it was a hell of a fight there,' Dodds said.
'Global Jihad,' Book said. 'But that just doesn't make—' He cut himself off.
Suddenly he understood.
Majestic-12 needed someone to blame for all this. And who better than a terrorist organisation?
For, really, how could Axon Corp help it if Global Jihad terrorists stole their missiles and ships. But where could Majestic-12 find a team of genuine Global Jihad terrorists?
'France,' Book II said aloud. 'It's always fucking France.'
Dodds said, 'Book, what the hell is going on? Everyone here is
scared shitless. This could be the biggest terrorist attack in history and they're going to use our own missiles against us.'
'This isn't a terrorist thing, Dodds,' Book said. 'It's a business thing. Trust me, the terrorists were already dead when they got to that plant. I'm starting to think that the French Secret Service has been giving Majestic-12 some quiet assistance. I gotta go. Book, out.'
Book turned his gaze back toward the container ships and supertankers resting at anchor off Staten Island—a pack of leviathans awaiting permission to enter the Hudson and East Rivers.
Thanks to the Kormoran project, each one of them was a potential missile launch vessel.
'So which one is it?' the pilot asked.
'Just go to GPS co-ordinates 28743.05—4104.55,' Book said. 'That's where it'll be.'
The pilot adjusted his dials, flew by his GPS locator.
Book checked the launch list on his hand-held computer for the hundredth time. After he had spoken with Schofield earlier, he and Scott Moseley had calculated the GPS locations of the last two Kormoran tanker-launchers:
After that, he and Moseley had then plotted all the boats on a map of the world:
The sum of it all?
In addition to the three tankers set to fire their nuclear-tipped missiles on America, England, France and Germany, there were two extra Kormoran ships out there: one in the Arabian Sea, ready to fire on both India and Pakistan, and another in the Taiwan Straits, aiming cloned Taep'o-Dong ICBMs at Beijing and Hong Kong.
'Jesus H. Christ. . .' Book whispered.
He shook himself out of it, hit his satellite mike.
'Fairfax? You there? How you doing out West?'
PACIFIC OCEAN,
TWO MILES OFF SAN FRANCISCO BAY
0825 HOURS LOCAL TIME
(1125 HOURS E.S.T USA)
Dave Fairfax sat in a Super Stallion of his own, flanked by his own Marine Recon team, his right foot shaking incessantly—a nervous gesture that betrayed his rather extreme fear.
He wore a helmet that was too big and a bulletproof vest that
was even bigger, and he held in his lap a real-time satellite uplink unit. He felt very small compared to the Marines all around him.