‘The boss thought you might come back,’ Typhon said. ‘You have a reputation for it.’
Schofield said, ‘If you’re going to kill me, kill me. Cut the pompous speeches.’
‘Oh, we plan to kill you, Captain, of that you can be certain. But the short life left to you still has some worth to us. The boss would like to speak with you.’
Schofield saw the nod Typhon gave to one of the men standing behind him and he turned in time to see the man’s rifle-butt come rushing at his face and Schofield’s world went black.
DRAGON ISLAND
4 APRIL, 1230 HOURS
Schofield was slapped in the face and he awoke.
To find himself handcuffed to a steel bedframe that stood upright. His hands were spread-eagled, cuffed to the upper corners of the old bedframe. His feet were tied to the lower edge of the frame by a rope. He looked like a warped version of Christ on the cross.
Typhon stood before him. ‘Wakey, wakey, Scarecrow . . .’
Schofield took in his predicament with not a little horror.
He was bare-chested. The upper half of his one-piece snow-camouflaged drysuit had been slipped off his shoulders and rolled down to his waist in the same way a car mechanic might roll down the upper part of his overalls.
Schofield shivered in the cold.
His parka, weapons belt and combat webbing had all been removed. Curiously, his boots and socks had also been taken, leaving his feet bare. His high-tech wristguard was also missing but his old Casio digital watch, clearly so crappy it was unworthy of taking, remained on his wrist. His weapons and Maghook were gone, but not his reflective glasses: they had been perched comically on top of his head.
He looked around.
He was in a small room with ceramic tile walls, drains in the floor and shower heads on the walls: a shower room of some sort.
Suddenly, the roar of a crowd came in through the only door to the room. Schofield couldn’t quite get his head around the sound. Cheering?
Typhon slapped him again. Harder. ‘He’s awake.’
A second man stepped into Schofield’s field of vision.
Schofield recognised him instantly. It was the man who had taunted the Russian President on the videolink, the one who called himself the ‘Lord of Anarchy’.
He was older than Typhon, in his mid-fifties maybe, but he was fit, strong, still in shape. The acid scar on his left jawline was very prominent when seen up close. And his eyes: they were a strange pale grey, oddly hypnotic.
And they weren’t like Typhon’s. They were not psychotic; not empty of pity or care. In fact, they were the opposite of that: this man’s eyes seemed designed solely to detect emotion, feelings, pain. They gleamed with intelligence and they saw right through you. Typhon was an enforcer. This man was something else, something more.
The Lord of Anarchy gazed at Schofield—crucified half-naked on the vertical bedframe—analysing him, evaluating him.
‘So this is the famous Scarecrow,’ he said. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is—’
‘I’m guessing you’re Calderon,’ Schofield said. ‘Marius Calderon. From the CIA.’
Calderon smiled sadly. ‘That, I fear, is a sliver of knowledge that means you cannot, ever, leave this island alive.’
‘You like that piece of knowledge?’ Schofield said. ‘How about this one then: that this whole thing was a CIA set-up. You assholes at the Agency let the Russians steal the plans for this facility, knowing that they would build it. That’s how you knew there was an extra sphere down in the bunker, because our people designed this whole complex in the first place. And now that China is an economic powerhouse threatening America’s dominance, you created this fake terrorist army to set off the atmospheric weapon.’
Calderon smiled wanly. ‘This terrorist army isn’t fake. Its foot soldiers are real, or at least they think they are part of a real terrorist army.’
‘What about you? The “Lord of Anarchy”? Let me guess, that acid scarring on your face isn’t real, is it?’
Calderon touched the foul scarring on his left jaw. ‘A good bit of plastic surgery, no? It’s like your eyes: it’s all anyone notices. When I go home, my skin will be repaired and my tattoos removed. So, too, these striking grey contact lenses. One does have to be something of a chameleon in this line of work.’
Calderon leaned in close to Schofield, pinned to the bedframe. ‘In the end, Captain, I do all this, including changing my face, only for the betterment of the United States of America. A newly rich China threatens the livelihood of three hundred million Americans. The Communist Party of China is a brutal and corrupt regime. Do you really want it ruling the world? There are many things wrong with America but as a world leader, we are a much better option than China. But it seems you would prefer to see China as the leading superpower in the world. I thought you were supposed to be fighting for America.’
‘I do fight for America,’ Schofield said, ‘but when it comes to the leadership of the world, that’s not for me to decide. If America can’t maintain its dominant status fairly, it doesn’t deserve to be the world’s leader. If America has to annihilate any country that threatens its dominant position, then we’re as bad as the Chinese.’
Calderon nodded. ‘Then it would seem that you and I are at an ideological impasse. A shame, really. You’re bright and determined. If our goals were aligned, you and I would make a powerful team.’
And right then, quite abruptly, Schofield realised something.
‘You haven’t found the spheres yet,’ he said. He glanced at Typhon. ‘That’s why your boy here didn’t kill me on the spot.’
Calderon nodded philosophically. ‘My men are scouring the island as we speak for your civilian colleagues, Mr Weinberg of DARPA and Ms Dawson from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.’
Schofield was surprised that Calderon might know Zack’s and Emma’s names. While his own details could be found quite easily on a military database, theirs would have been harder to come by. His surprise must have shown.
‘You’re wondering how I know their names,’ Calderon said. ‘You notice details, Captain, even in your current circumstances. I’m impressed. Here is how I know. Lance Corporal?’
At that moment, at Calderon’s call, into the shower room—uncuffed and totally free—walked Mario.
‘Mario,’ Schofield breathed. ‘You didn’t . . .’
‘He did,’ Calderon said. ‘Shot your other young Marine in the head from point blank range. Lance Corporal Puzo and I speak the same language. I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.’
‘Mario . . .’ Schofield said again.
Mario eyed him indifferently. ‘Sorry, sir. Had to choose a side and I chose the one I thought would win.’
‘And the Kid?’
Mario shrugged. ‘He died quick.’
‘You fucking piece of shit,’ Schofield said.
‘Captain,’ Calderon said, ‘I know Mr Weinberg and Ms Dawson are somewhere on this island—on this base, no less—and my men will find them. But I am hoping that you will assist us in speeding up that process.’
‘I can’t see myself doing that.’
‘Captain, please,’ Calderon chuckled. ‘You may know my name but you clearly do not know who I am. While you may deplore my methods, over the last nine years, I have personally prevented six 9/11-scale acts of terror on American soil by extracting information from captured terrorists. I am that worst of things: a necessary evil. I am the dark side of America’s psyche.
‘And for nearly thirty years now, in my quest to keep America safe, I have been a student of the human mind and the effects of torture on it—how to motivate a captive, how to hurt him, how to give him hope, and in some cases, how to break him. Right now, you need not concern yourself with doing anything to help me. Because what you are about to experience is not about what you will do. It’s what we will do to you in order to get Mr Weinberg and Ms Dawson to reveal themselves.’
Cald
eron nodded to Typhon. The tall XO stretched some duct tape roughly over Schofield’s mouth.
‘And solely for my own amusement,’ Calderon said as Typhon slid a rolling hand-truck under the vertical bedframe, ‘I intend to break your mind while I torture you.’
Then, led by Marius Calderon—now once again in his role as the Lord of Anarchy—and trailed by the treacherous Mario, Typhon wheeled Schofield’s bedframe out of the shower room, where it was greeted by an enormous cheer from the crowd massed outside.
THE GASWORKS
Schofield was wheeled out into an enormous hall-sized space, where a crowd of forty members of the Army of Thieves was waiting for him.
He realised immediately that he was inside the gargantuan gasworks beneath Dragon Island’s mighty vents. He was on the highest of three levels, on a large balcony overlooking a massive, massive space. Immediately below him was a middle level, the main feature of which was a long conveyor belt. This belt fed an industrial furnace that sat on the third and bottommost level alongside three gigantic circular vats.
These vats—their green liquid contents steaming ominously and stirred constantly by rotating steel arms—were positioned directly beneath one of the mighty vent towers. An identical set of vats lay further away, beneath the second enormous vent. Fed by a complex network of interconnected pipes, gauges and valves, the vats were the beating heart of the atmospheric device: the shimmering gas that rose from them was the combustible TEB mixture that would allow the sky to ignite.
On the northern side of the vast space, Schofield saw, of all things, a huge black train—twice the width of a normal train and made of ultra-thick reinforced steel—parked at a platform that opened directly onto the gasworks via a broad ramp. Judging from the direction of its tracks, Schofield guessed the industrial-sized train had been used during the original construction of the gasworks to convey material from the submarine dock on the east coast.
The whole place stank of a foul chemical odour, the reek of TEB, plus another rank smell that Schofield recognised with horror: burnt human flesh.
The crowd of ruffians from the Army of Thieves cheered loudly at Schofield’s appearance.
It was then that Schofield saw the other prisoners.
There were four of them in total: two closer to him—their torture had already begun, inspiring the grim cheers he had heard earlier—and two further away on the balcony.
Schofield took in the nearer pair first: one was attached to a bedframe just like his. The other hung from the raised prong of a forklift in a most painful position: from his wrists, which had been handcuffed behind his back. His feet hovered a metre above the ground.
The man on the bedframe was Ironbark Barker: the Navy SEAL leader whose team had been shot to shit in the submarine bay and who himself had later been captured, after successfully sabotaging the TEB gas dispersal for a time.
Ironbark’s face bulged with bruises and cuts, while his naked back was imprinted with a foul grid of charred burns. Schofield saw a thick industrial electrical cable at Ironbark’s feet, attached by a transformer to the steel bedframe. A moment later, he noticed the small wooden bit clenched between Ironbark’s bloody teeth.
The second prisoner, the one hanging from the forklift, was Jeff Hartigan, the haughty contractor who had stayed behind in Schofield’s camp against Schofield’s advice.
His head was bent low and he did not move at all—he could have been dead for all Schofield knew. It was hard to tell. Suspended from his cuffed wrists, Hartigan’s shoulders had dislocated some time ago.
Calderon caught Schofield looking at Hartigan. ‘It is a torture position known as strappado, or “reverse hanging”. It has been used for hundreds of years, by the Medici family in Florence and the Nazis in their concentration camps, and also the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. It is still used today in Turkey—I know this for a fact as I instructed their torturers in its correct use. Strappado causes excruciating pain and if left for too long in this position, the subject will suffer first, permanent ligament damage, and second, dislocation of the shoulders, and eventually full loss of use of the arms.’
Calderon smiled. ‘I personally just like the look of it. The subject is at my complete mercy, with his hands pinned behind his back and his chest thrust outward so that his heart—his life force—is totally exposed.’
Schofield turned to face the other two prisoners and when he recognised them, his jaw dropped.
They were both suspended from a second forklift, one from each prong, also in the strappado position. Unlike Hartigan, however, their heads were unbowed, allowing Schofield to identify them easily.
Mother and Baba.
Like Schofield, their cold-weather outer garments had been removed—Baba hung from his swept-back wrists with his massive chest bare to the cold; it was hairy, muscled and huge. Beside him, Mother had been stripped to her trousers and grey sports bra.
Both bore bloody lips and noses, evidence of beatings already received. Schofield also noticed that a huge Army of Thieves man—it was Big Jesus—was standing nearby with a new acquisition slung across his back: Baba’s massive Kord machine gun.
At the loud cheer from the crowd of thugs, Mother snapped round and saw Schofield being wheeled out on the bedframe.
‘Scarecrow!’ she called.
Schofield couldn’t reply through his duct-taped mouth, but he locked eyes with her.
Mother yelled, ‘Stay strong, boss! We got ’em just where we want ’em!’
Schofield’s bedframe was erected vertically alongside Ironbark’s. As he jolted to a halt, Schofield saw Ironbark look up at him—the totally exhausted gaze of a man who had been tortured to within an inch of his life. It seemed to take all of his energy just to raise his head. The smell of his burnt skin was sickening.
Calderon stood before Schofield and jerked his chin at Ironbark. ‘Specialist Barker here is a fair bit further along on his journey of pain than you are. But fear not, Captain, you will catch up with him soon.’
Calderon then turned to the Army of Thieves trooper manning the electrical transformer connected to Ironbark’s bedframe. He was a Sudanese fellow with studded skin and bloodshot yellow eyes; and on his back, Schofield saw, still in its holster, he wore Schofield’s Maghook.
‘Corporal Mobutu,’ Calderon said, ‘I need the electrical cable to use on Captain Schofield. Splash Mr Barker and kill him, please.’
The Sudanese torturer grabbed a nearby bucket of water and hurled its contents over Ironbark’s limp body.
Calderon explained to Schofield, ‘The trouble with electrocuting a human being, Captain, is that human skin, when dry, is actually quite resistant to electricity. The result is burning—you can ramp up the voltage as much as you want, but you only end up scorching the skin more. And the smell, God, it really is quite offensive. But if you wet the subject’s skin, the skin’s resistance drops and it becomes one hundred times more receptive to electricity. One moment, please. This is all for nothing if I don’t broadcast it.’
Calderon grabbed a microphone from nearby. It was connected to a communications console on the wall. Calderon pressed the ‘TALK’ button and when he spoke again, his voice was magnified through every one of the many loudspeakers in the gasworks; indeed, through every loudspeaker on Dragon Island.
‘Zack Weinberg. Emma Dawson. I know you can hear me.’ Calderon’s voice blared. ‘Please listen to this. It is the sound of one of your comrades-in-arms dying.’
Calderon turned to his Sudanese assistant. ‘Mobutu, 10,000 volts, please.’
The Sudanese flicked a dial on the transformer and immediately the steel springs on Ironbark’s bedframe flashed with blue lightning.
Ironbark’s entire body shook violently as electricity coursed through him, his terrible shuddering sending droplets of water flying outwards. His teeth clenched around the wooden bit in his mouth. He grunted and strained in absolute agony, the tendons of his neck bulging, before abruptly his groans became high-pitc
hed screams.
Calderon held the microphone close to Ironbark’s mouth the whole time, broadcasting his horrific screams across the island.
Then Ironbark’s screams cut off and he went completely limp, even though the transformer was still sending the charge flowing through the bedframe.
Schofield was thunderstruck by the savagery of it.
Ironbark was dead, but this wasn’t over yet.
The crowd started chanting, ‘Fire! Fire!’
Calderon nodded and Ironbark’s dead body was wheeled away and tipped—still attached to the bedframe—off the edge of the balcony, where it fell a short distance before landing on the conveyor belt. The slow-moving belt then carried it away. The corpse on the bedframe disappeared for about ten seconds as it passed under the broad ramp from the train platform, only to reappear again at the lip of the furnace on the far side.
Ironbark and the bedframe then tipped into the furnace where they were swallowed by the flames and the crowd of Thieves cheered with macabre, crazed delight.
In a dark corner of Dragon Island, Zack and Emma heard it all over a nearby loudspeaker.
They looked at each other in horror.
‘Oh my God . . .’ Emma whispered. ‘Oh my God . . .’
In the gasworks, Calderon stepped over to the figure of Jeff Hartigan, suspended strappado-style from the forklift.
He slapped Hartigan’s face and the executive stirred, groaning. He was alive.
Calderon turned theatrically to the crowd. ‘What do you say? Rat time?’
The crowd of Thieves roared with delight.
‘Mobutu,’ Calderon said. ‘Bring in the rats.’
Mobutu disappeared into a side room, returning a few moments later with a large wire-framed crate inside of which were six rats.
Schofield’s eyes went wide.
They were of various sizes, from small and scurrying to fat and huge. They all had black furry backs, long hairless tails and frightening buck teeth. They snapped at each other with considerable viciousness.