Scarecrow by Matthew Reilly Read Free Book Online Page A

underneath them, also heading for the tower.
    Schofield knew one thing: he and Book had to get over to the office tower and then down to the ground before the bad guys got there. Otherwise, the two of them would be stuck in the 15-storey building.
    They bolted through the overpass bridge, whipped past its cracked concrete window frames.
    Then they burst out the other end of the bridge, entered the office tower . . .
    . . . and stopped dead.
    Schofield found himself standing on a balcony—a tiny catwalk balcony, one of many that rose up and up for 15 floors, all connected by a network of ladders—overlooking a gigantic square-shaped chasm of open space.
    This wasn’t an office tower at all.
    It was, in truth, a hollowed-out glass-and-steel structure.
    A false building.
    It was an amazing sight, kind of like standing in a gigantic greenhouse: the grey Siberian landscape could be seen beyond the cracked glass windows that formed the four sides of the building.
    And at the base of this gigantic crystalline structure, Schofield saw its reason for being.
    Four massive ICBM missile silos, half-buried in the wide concrete floor in a neat square-shaped formation. Covered by the false office tower, they could never have been spotted by US spy satellites. Schofield guessed that three more silo clusters could be found under the other ‘buildings’ in Krask-8.
    On the ground beside the silos, one level below him, he saw ten slumped figures—the six members of Farrell’s Delta team and Bull Simcox’s four-man Marine squad.
    Schofield glanced at his watch, at the countdown indicating when the Typhoon’s missile would return to Krask-8: 15:30 . . . 15:29 . . . 15:28 . . .
    â€˜The ground floor,’ Schofield said to Book. ‘We have to get to the ground floor.’
    They dashed for the nearest rung-ladder, started down it—
    â€”just as it was assailed by a volley of gunfire.
    Shit.
    The mercenaries had got to the ground floor first. They must have run across the snow-covered road between the dry-dock warehouse and the tower.
    â€˜Damn it!’ Schofield yelled.
    â€˜What now!’ Book II called.
    â€˜Doesn’t look like we have much choice! We go up!’
    And so they went up.
    Up and up, climbing rung-ladders like a pair of fleeing monkeys, dodging the mercenaries’ fire as they went.
    They were ten floors up when Schofield dared to stop and take a look down.
    What he saw crushed any hope of survival he’d had until then.
    He saw the whole mercenary force arrayed around the concrete missile silos on the ground floor of the tower—about 50 men in all.
    And then the crowd of mercenaries parted as a lone man walked into the middle of their ranks.
    It was Cedric Wexley, his nose all smashed up with blood.
    Schofield froze.
    He wondered what Wexley would do now. The mercenary commander could send his men up the ladders after Schofield and Book—and watch Schofield and Book pick them off one by one until the two Marines ran out of ammunition and became sitting ducks. Not exactly an appealing strategy.
    â€˜ Captain Schofield! ’ Wexley’s voice echoed up the wide shaft of the tower. ‘ You run well! But now there is nowhere else for you to go! Mark my words, very soon you will run no more! ’
    Wexley pulled several small objects from his combat webbing.
    Schofield recognised them instantly, and stopped dead.
    Small and cylindrical, they were Thermite-Amatol demolition charges. Four of them. Wexley must have taken them from the bodies of Schofield’s dead Marines.
    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