Scarecrow (50 page)

The mighty Forteresse de Valois.

The lone truck crossed the massive drawbridge connecting the castle to the mainland, shrouded by rain and lightning.

During the short trip, Knight told Schofield about his history with Wade Brandeis: about that night in Sudan and Brandeis's treacherous ICG links.

‘Believe me, I know about the ICG,' Schofield said.

‘I've been meaning to catch up with Brandeis for a long time,' Knight said.

As he spoke, Schofield saw the two tattoos on Knight's arm again: ‘S
LEEP WITH ONE EYE OPEN
' and ‘
BRANDEIS
' and suddenly realised that they were in truth a single tattoo: ‘
SLEEP WITH ONE EYE OPEN BRANDEIS
'.

‘The thing is,' Knight said, ‘Brandeis isn't a bounty hunter, and it shows.'

‘How?'

‘He's just broken the first rule of bounty hunting.'

‘Which is?'

‘If you have a choice between bringing someone in dead or alive,' Knight said, ‘dead is better.'

At that moment, the truck entered the gravel courtyard inside the castle and crunched to a halt.

Schofield, Knight and Rufus were all shoved out of it, covered by Brandeis and his Delta men.

Monsieur Delacroix was waiting for them.

The Swiss banker stood at the entrance to the classic-car garage, prim and proper as ever.

He was flanked by Cedric Wexley and ten mercenaries from Executive Solutions, Jonathan Killian's private security force.

‘Major Brandeis,' Delacroix said. ‘Welcome to the Forteresse de Valois. We've been expecting you. Come this way, please.'

Delacroix guided them into the garage and then down some stone stairs to the ante-room that Schofield had seen before—but instead of turning
left
toward the long forbidding tunnel that took you to the verification office, he turned
right
, through a small stone doorway that opened onto a tight medieval stairwell that spiralled downwards.

Lit by flaming torches, the stairwell went down and down, round and round, descending deep into the bowels of the castle.

It ended at a thick steel door set into a solid stone frame.

Delacroix hit a switch and with an ominous rumble the steel door rose into the ceiling. Then the dapper Swiss banker stood aside, allowing Brandeis and his prisoners to enter first.

They passed through the doorway—

—and emerged inside a wide circular pit, a dungeon in which sloshing seawater wended its way between an irregular series of elevated stone platforms. In the laneways of water, Schofield saw two sharks, prowling. And on the nearest elevated stage he saw . . .

. . . a 12-foot-tall guillotine.

He froze, caught his breath.

This was the dungeon that Knight had told him about before. The terrible dungeon in which Libby Gant had met her end.

This was the Shark Pit.

Once they had all stepped out into the Shark Pit, the steel door behind them slid back into place, sealing them all inside.

Monsieur Delacroix, wisely, had remained outside.

Someone else, however, was waiting for them inside the Pit.

A man with carrot-red hair and a sinister rat-like face.

‘Hey, Noonan,' Brandeis said, stepping forward, taking the man's hand.

Schofield remembered Knight's horrifying description of Gant's death, and how a man with red hair and a rat face had pulled the lever that had ended her life.

Schofield glared at the murderer.

For his part, Rat Face turned and glared insolently back at him.

‘So this is the Scarecrow,' Rat Face said. ‘Resilient little fucker, aren't you. I went to a lot of trouble to arrange that little mission in Siberia yesterday. Set the scene. Sent ExSol to wait for you. Then made sure that it was McCabe and Farrell and you who were sent into the trap. Then I cut your comms from Alaska. McCabe and Farrell weren't good enough. But not you. You survived.

‘But not now. Now, there's no escape. In fact, you're gonna buy it the same way your girlfriend did.' Rat Face turned to the Delta men holding Schofield. ‘Put him in the guillotine.'

Schofield was shoved over to the guillotine by two of Brandeis's D-boys. His head was thrust into the stocks, while his hands stayed out, flex-cuffed behind his back.

‘No!' a voice called from across the Pit.

Everyone turned.

Jonathan Killian appeared on a balcony overlooking the Pit, flanked by Cedric Wexley and the ten men from Executive Solutions, plus the just-arrived Monsieur Delacroix.

‘Put him in face up,' Killian said. ‘I want Captain Schofield to see the blade coming.'

The Delta men did as they were told, and rolled Schofield over so that his face was pointed upwards. The 12-foot guide rails of the wooden guillotine stretched away from him to the stone ceiling. At their peak he saw the glistening blade, suspended high above him.

‘Captain,' Killian said. ‘Through courage and audacity, you have saved the existing world order. Spared the lives of millions of people who will never even know your name. You are, in the true sense of the word, a hero. But your victory is at best temporary. Because I will continue to live—continue to rule—and ultimately my time will come. You, on the other hand, are about to discover what really happens to heroes. Mr Noonan.

Drop the blade, and then shoot Captain Schofield's protectors in the head—'

‘Killian!' Schofield called.

Everyone froze.

Schofield's voice was even, cold. ‘I'll be coming for you.'

Killian smiled. ‘Not in this life, Captain. Drop the blade.'

Rat Face strode to the side of the guillotine, and looking down at Schofield, gripped the lever.

At the same time, Wade Brandeis raised his Colt .45 to Knight's head.

‘I'll see you in hell, Scarecrow,' Rat Face said.

Then he yanked the lever, releasing the blade.

The guillotine's blade thundered down its guide rails.

And Schofield could do nothing but watch it rush down toward his face.

He shut his eyes and waited for the end.

Chunk!

 

But the end didn't come.

Schofield felt nothing.

He opened his eyes—

—to see that the guillotine's diagonal blade had been stopped a foot above his neck, its deadly downward rush halted by a five-bladed shuriken throwing knife that had lodged itself with a loud
chunk
in the vertical wooden guide rail of the guillotine.

So recently had it been thrown, the shuriken was still quivering.

Aloysius Knight was also saved as—a split-second after the shuriken had hit the guillotine—a bullet slammed into Wade Brandeis's gun-hand, sending his pistol splashing into the water, blood gushing from his hand.

Schofield turned . . . to see an unexpected but very welcome apparition emerge from the waters of the Shark Pit.

It was a fearsome image—a warrior in grey battle uniform, scuba gear and bearing shuriken throwing knives and guns. Lots and lots of guns.

If Death exists, he's afraid of one person.

Mother.

Mother exploded from the water, now with an MP-7 in each hand, firing them hard. Two of the five Delta men dropped immediately, hit in their chests.

Then things started happening everywhere.

For Knight and Rufus, Mother's entry had been distraction enough to allow them to king-hit their captors and, together, leap over their bound hands jump-rope style—bringing their wrists in front of their bodies—and hold up their plastic flex-cuffs.

Mother didn't need instructions.

Two shots—and the flex-cuffs were history. Knight and Rufus were free.

Over on the viewing balcony, Cedric Wexley quickly threw his ten-man team into action—he sent four over the balcony into the Pit, while he ordered the other six out through the back door of the balcony, into a corridor.

Then he himself whipped up his M-16 and hustled Jonathan Killian out of the dungeon.

Down in the Pit, Knight snatched up a Colt Commando rifle from one of the fallen D-boys and started firing at the four ExSol men leaping down into the Pit from the balcony.

Beside him, Rufus—still unarmed—whirled and killed a third Delta man with a driving flat-palmed blow to the nose.

‘Rufus!' Knight yelled. ‘Get Schofield out of those stocks!'

Rufus scrambled for the guillotine.

Over by the guillotine, the rat-faced man named Noonan was ducking ricochets, a short distance from the still-pinned Schofield.

When he spotted a brief gap in the gunfire, he reached up for the shuriken throwing knife holding the guillotine blade suspended above Schofield's head. If he could remove it, the blade would fall, decapitating Schofield.

Noonan's hand gripped the shuriken knife—

—just as a diving backhand punch from Rufus sent him flying.

Noonan landed on his stomach near the edge of the stone platform, and found himself eye-to-eye with one of the tiger sharks in the water. He recoiled instantly, clambered to his feet.

Rufus, however, landed next to Schofield, and now covered by the rifle-firing Knight, yanked up the guillotine's stocks and pulled Schofield free.

One shot from Knight severed Schofield's flex-cuffs, but then suddenly, inexplicably, Rufus hurled Schofield around and covered him with his own body.

An instant later, the big man was assailed in the back by several rapid-fire bullets.

‘Ah!' he roared, his body jolting with three hits.

The volley had come from Wade Brandeis—standing nearby on one of the stone islands, nursing his bloodied right hand while firing a Colt Commando wildly with his unnatural left.

‘No!' Aloysius Knight yelled.

He turned his own gun on Brandeis—but the rifle went dry, so instead he just hurled himself across the slick platform, sliding on his chest, and slammed into Brandeis's legs, tackling the Delta man and sending both of them tumbling into the shark-infested pool.

Free from the guillotine, Schofield turned to see Noonan staggering toward the steel door that led out from the Shark Pit.

As he ran, Noonan pulled a remote from his jacket and hit a button.

The thick steel door rose, opening. Noonan bolted for it.

‘Damn it, shit!' Schofield yelled, taking off after him. ‘Mother!'

Mother was on a nearby stage, taking cover behind one of the random stone objects in the Pit and firing at the two remaining D-boys with a pistol when she heard Schofield's shout.

She turned fast and loosed a volley at the fleeing Noonan. She didn't hit him, but her burst did cut him off from the exit, forcing him to stop and take cover behind a stone block.

She didn't get to see if this actually helped Schofield, though, because the momentary distraction had given her two Delta opponents the opening they needed.

One of them nailed her in the chest with a dozen rapid-fire shots from his Colt. Of course, her borrowed flak vest was bulletproof, so the shots just jolted her backwards, shot after shot after shot.

Under the weight of heavy fire, Mother staggered backwards, and just as the D-boy firing at her raised his aim for the kill-shot to her head—

—she dropped abruptly—

—into the water, and the kill-shot went high.

Mother sank underwater.

Brief merciful silence.

Then she came up—knowing what would be waiting—breaching the surface with her pistol extended, and nailed the two D-boys just as they themselves fired at her.

The two Delta men dropped, their faces bloody messes.

Mother sighed with relief.

It was then that she felt an odd swell in the water around her.

She turned . . .

. . . and saw a large bow-wave
surging
through the water toward her, the high dorsal fin of a tiger shark scything through the waves, charging at her.

‘Oh, no way!' she yelled. ‘No fucking way! I've survived far too much today to end up as fish food!'

She fired her pistol at the inrushing shark—
blam!-blam!-blam!-blam!-blam!-blam!

The shark didn't slow down.

Mother's shots hit it, but the big shark just powered through the waves.

Blam!-blam!-blam!

The shark
still
didn't slow down.

It rose out of the frothing water, jaws wide—

—just as Mother, still firing, raised one of her legs instinctively and—

—
chomp!

The shark clamped down on her left leg.

And Mother didn't react at all.

Her left leg was her artificial leg, made of titanium. A replacement for an injury from a previous adventure.

Two of the shark's teeth broke. Shattered into fragments.

‘Try eating this, motherfucker,' Mother said, levelling her pistol at the tiger shark's brain.

Blam
.

The shark bucked violently in the water, but when it came down, it was stilled, dead, its jaws clamped around Mother's left leg, as if even in its last moment of life, it had been unwilling to let go of its prize.

For her part, Mother just kicked the 10-foot shark away from her and leapt out of the pool to get back into the action.

While Mother had been firing at the shark, on the other side of the Pit, Schofield had chased after Noonan and caught him—tackling him—just as he had arrived at the open doorway to the dungeon.

The ISS man tried to kick Schofield clear, but Schofield just flung Noonan back into the dungeon and started hitting him—with venom.

One punch, and Noonan staggered backwards.

‘I know you pulled the lever . . .' Schofield said grimly.

Second punch, and Noonan's nose broke, spraying blood.

‘I know she died in pain . . .'

The third punch, and Noonan's jaw broke. He slipped, lost his footing.

‘You killed a beautiful thing . . .'

Schofield grabbed Noonan two-handed and hurled him head-first
into
the guillotine. Noonan's head slid into the stocks underneath the razor-sharp blade, which itself was still held up by the shuriken.