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  And now he saw Wexley's plan.

  Wexley passed the Thermite charges to four of his men who promptly scattered to the four corners of the ground floor and attached them to the tower's corner pillars.

  Schofield snatched his field binoculars from his webbing, pressed them to his eyes.

  He caught a glimpse of one of the Thermite charges affixed to its P'Har, saw the coloured timer switches on it: red, green and blue.

  'Initiate the timers!' Wexley called.

  The man Schofield was watching hit the blue timer switch on his Thermite-Amatol charge.

  Blue meant one minute.

  The three mercenaries manning the other demolition charges did

  the same.

  Schofield's eyes went wide.

  He and Book II now had sixty seconds till the building blew.

  He started his watch's stopwatch:

  00:01 . . .

  00:02 . . .

  00:03 . . .

  'Captain Schofield! When this is over, we will sift through the rubble and we will find your body! And when we do, I will personally rip your fucking head off and piss down your throat!

  Gentlemen!''

  With that, the mercenaries scattered, dispersing like a flock of

  birds to every exit on the ground floor.

  Schofield and Book II could only watch them go. Schofield pressed his face to the nearest window to see them appear on the snow-covered ground outside and spread out in a wide circle, covering every exit from the building with their weapons.

  He swallowed.

  He and Book were stuck in this building—a building which in

  52 seconds was going to explode.

  It was while he was peering out the window at the mercenary troops on the ground that Schofield heard it.

  A deep reverberating throbbing sound.

  The unmistakable sound of a fighter jet.

  'The transmission from before,' Schofield breathed.

  'What?' Book II asked.

  'When we were inside the Typhoon, they picked up an incoming aerial contact: a Yak-141 strike fighter. Flown by someone they called "the Hungarian". On his way here.'

  'A bounty hunter?'

  'A competitor. But in a Yak-141. And a Yak-141 is a . . .' Schofield said. 'Come on! Quickly!'

  They dashed for the nearest rung-ladder and climbed it—heading upwards—heading for the roof of the doomed office tower.

  Schofield threw open the hatch to the roof. He and Book II climbed out—to be immediately assaulted by the bitter Siberian wind.

  His stopwatch ticked upwards:

  00:29

  00:30

  00:31

  They cut a lonely sight indeed: two tiny figures on the roof of the tower, surrounded by the deserted buildings of Krask-8 and the stark Siberian hills.

  Schofield hurried to the edge of the roof, searching for the source of the engine noise.

  00:33 00:34 00:35 There!

  It was hovering in the air over by a low dome-shaped building five hundred yards to the west: a Yakovlev-141 strike fighter.

  The Russian equivalent of a Harrier jump-jet, the Yak-141 is potentially the ugliest fighter plane ever built; indeed with its squared edges and single fat afterburning engine, it was never meant to look beautiful. But a hinged rear nozzle allows it to redirect its afterburner so that it points downward, allowing the plane to take off and land vertically, and also hover like a helicopter. 00:39 00:40 00:41

  Schofield drew his MP-7 and loosed a full clip of thirty rounds across the bow of the hovering Yak, desperately trying to get the pilot's attention. It worked.

  Like a T-rex disturbed from its meal, the Yak-141 pivoted in the air and seemed to gaze directly at Schofield and Book II. Then with an aerial lurch, it powered up and approached the glass tower. Schofield waved at the plane like an idiot. 'Over hereV he yelled. 'Closer! Get closer . . . !' 00:49 00:50 00:51

  The Yak-141 came closer, so that it now hovered about fifty yards out from the roof of the tower. Still not close enough . . .

  Schofield could see its pilot now—a wide-faced man wearing a flight helmet and a confused frown. Schofield waved frantically, calling him over. 00:53 00:54

  00:55

  The Yak-141 edged a fraction closer.

  Forty yards away . . .

  00:56

  'Jesus, hurry up!' Schofield yelled, looking down at the roof beneath his feet, waiting for the Thermite charges to blow.

  00:57

  'Too late.' Schofield turned to Book and with a meaningful look, drew his signature weapon. Seeing him do so, Book did the same.

  'Just do what I do,' Schofield said, 'and you'll stay alive. Now runV

  And so they ran—hard, together, side-by-side—rushing toward the edge of the 15-storey roof.

  00:58

  They hit the edge, moving fast, legs pumping—

  00:59

  —and as Schofield's stopwatch hit 1:00, he and Book II leapt out into the clear open sky, their feet stepping off the parapet just as the whole lower section of the building exploded in a billowing cloud of concrete and the entire office tower—all 200 feet of it, the roof, the glass walls, the concrete pillars—just fell away beneath them like a gigantic falling tree.

  The pilot of the Yak-141 watched in absolute amazement as the 15-storey building in front of him just disintegrated, crumpling to the earth in eerie slow motion, collapsing into its own dustcloud.

  A stocky bear of a man with a wide round face forever set in a heavy-browed Eastern European frown, his name was Oleg Omansky.

  But no-one ever called him that.

  A former major in the Hungarian Secret Police with a reputation for employing violence rather than brains, he was known in freelance bounty-hunting circles simply as 'The Hungarian'.

  Right now, however, the Hungarian was confused.

  He had seen Schofield—whom he recognised immediately from the bounty list—and Book II leap off the roof a moment before the building had collapsed.

  But he couldn't see either of them now.

  A massive dustcloud rose up from the wreckage of the building, enveloping everything within a half-mile radius.

  The Hungarian circled the site, looking for the spot where

  Schofield had landed.

  He noticed a force of men forming a perimeter around the fallen building—a bounty-hunting force, no doubt—saw them rush forward when the collapse of the tower had ceased.

  But still he saw no Schofield.

  He readied his weapons, and made to land on the roof of a nearby building.

  • • •

  The Yak-141 landed lightly on the roof of one of Krask-8's smaller buildings, its downward-pointed rear thruster blasting the rooftop clear of any debris.

  No sooner was it down than the fighter's canopy opened and the Hungarian climbed out, his body as heavy as his face, carrying an AMD assault rifle—the crude but effective Hungarian variant of the AK-47, notable for its extra forward handgrip.

  He was four steps away from the plane when—

  'Drop the gun, mister.'

  The Hungarian turned . . .

  ... to see Shane Schofield emerge from the underside of the Yak-141, an MP-7 held in his hand and pointed right at the Hungarian's nose.

  While the glass tower had smashed down into the earth, Schofield and Book II had launched themselves into the air above it, falling in matching arcs underneath the bow of the hovering Yak-141.

  Before they'd started their run, Schofield had drawn his signature weapon—his Maghook—from his back-holster. Then as he had fallen through the air, he had aimed it at the underbelly of the Yak and fired. Book II had done the same.

  Their Maghooks had shot into the air, unspooling wobbling tails of rope behind their hooks. With a pair of dull clunks, the two powerful magnetic heads had slammed into the underside of the Yak—and Schofield's and Book's respective falls had abruptly ceased as they were yanked up by their Maghooks' ropes.

  As t
he Yak had made its way toward the nearest rooftop, they had initiated the internal spoolers on their Maghooks which had reeled them upwards, toward the safe forward underbelly of the hovering fighter jet—while at the same time they were hidden from the eyes of the mercenary force on the ground by the billowing dustcloud below.

  The landing had been a little hairy, what with all the flying debris and the deflected heat-blast from the Yak's downward thruster, but they'd made it.

  The Yak-141 had touched down, and Schofield and Book II had dropped down to the roof underneath it and rolled away. Now Schofield had one simple plan for the Yak-141. To steal it.

  Schofield and Book II faced off against the Hungarian on the roof of the low building.

  The Hungarian dropped his assault rifle. It clattered to the ground. Schofield scooped up the ugly gun.

  'You another bounty hunter?' he demanded, yelling above the roar of the idling fighter.

  'Da,' the Hungarian grunted.

  'What's your name?'

  'I am the Hungarian.'

  'Hungarian, huh? Well, you're too late. The mercenaries beat you here. They got McCabe and Farrell.'

  'But they did not get you.' The Hungarian's voice was entirely

  devoid of emotion.

  Schofield's eyes narrowed. 'They told me that you have to bring my head to a castle in France to claim the money. Which castle?'

  The Hungarian eyed Schofield's gun warily. 'Valois. The Forteresse de Valois.'

  'The Forteresse de Valois,' Schofield said. Then he asked the money question. 'And who is paying for all this? Who wants me

  dead?'

  The Hungarian held his gaze.

  'I do not know,' he growled.

  'You sure about that?'

  'I said I do not know.'

  There was something in his simple directness that made Schofield believe him. 'Right . . .'

  Schofield headed for the Yak, walking backwards, his guns still up, but as he did so, he felt a twinge of pity for this chunky bounty hunter in front of him. 'I'm taking your plane, Hungarian, but I'm

  also going to tell you something that I don't have to. Don't be here in eleven minutes.'

  Schofield and Book II ascended the cockpit ladder of the Yak-141, their guns trained on the Hungarian.

  'You know,' Book II said. 'One day your Maghook isn't going to work . . .'

  'Shut up,' Schofield said.

  They climbed in.

  A former Harrier pilot, Schofield had little difficulty figuring out the Yak's controls.

  He keyed the vertical take-off thruster and the Yak-141 lifted into the air above the rooftop.

  Then he charged up the plane's afterburners and blasted off over the barren Siberian hills, leaving the lone figure of the Hungarian staring dumbly and helplessly after him.

  Schofield and Book II left Krask-8 disappearing in their wake.

  As he sat at the controls of the Yak-141, Schofield contemplated his next move.

  Sitting in the back, Book II said, 'What are you thinking? We go to that castle?'

  'The castle is important,' Schofield said. 'But it's not the key.'

  He pulled Wexley's bounty list from his pocket.

  'This is the key,' he said.

  He looked at the names on the crumpled sheet and wondered what they all had in common.

  In short, the list was a Who's Who of international warriors: crack commandos like McCabe and Farrell; British spies from MI-6; an Israeli Air Force pilot. Even Ronson Weitzman was on it—Major General Ronson Weitzman from the United States Marine Corps, one of the highest-ranking Marines in America.

  And that wasn't even mentioning the Middle-Eastern terrorists on the list: Khalif, Nazzar and Hassan Zawahiri.

  Hassan Zawahiri. . .

  The name leapt out at Schofield.

  He was the second-in-command of Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's right-hand man.

  And a man being hunted right now in the mountains of northern Afghanistan by the United States, by Schofield's Marine Corps friends: Elizabeth Gant and Mother Newman.

  Wexley's voice invaded Schofield's thoughts: 'Bounty hunters do so have a proclivity to hold friends and loved ones as bait to draw out a target

  Schofield pursed his lips.

  His friends, plus at least one target on the list—Zawahiri—were in the same place. It was the perfect starting point for any bounty hunter.

  And so he made the decision.

  He set the Yak's autopilot for south-south-west, destination: northern Afghanistan.

  Eleven minutes after Schofield left Krask-8, a finger of white smoke blasted out of the clouds above the base—led by the point of the submarine-launched SS-N-20 missile that had been launched twenty minutes earlier.

  It descended like a lightning bolt towards the remains of Krask-8, ready to do whatever damage it could.

  The missile rushed downward at supersonic speed.

  5,000 feet. . .

  2,000 feet. . .

  1,000 feet. . .

  And then in a fleeting shocking instant. . .

  ... it exploded . . .

  ... a clear 800 feet off the ground.

  The descending missile blasted out into a million fragments, bursting like a firecracker as it was hit by a smaller laser-guided missile from the side.

  Glittering fragments of the submarine-launched missile rained down on Krask-8 harmlessly.

  And when the smoke cleared, there, hovering in the sky above the mini-city, was the second fighter jet to arrive at Krask-8 that morning.

  This one was far sleeker than the Hungarian's Yak-141, longer too, and it was painted almost entirely black. The only trace of another colour could be found in its white-painted nose cone. It was also possessed of rare forward-swept wings and a two-man cockpit.

  It was a Sukhoi S-37—a Russian-made hover-capable fighter that was far more advanced than the old Yak-141.

  The sleek S-37 hovered like a hawk above the destroyed Siberian base, surveying the scene. The streets were deserted. The members of ExSol were nowhere to be seen.

  After a few minutes of aerial surveillance, the Sukhoi landed on a stretch of open ground not far from the enormous dry-dock

  warehouse.

  Two men climbed out of its cockpit.

  One was exceedingly tall, at least seven feet, and armed with a massive G-36 rifle.

  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.