Free Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves by Matthew Reilly

and ice.
    Schofield struggled with Ivanov’s seatbelt. It was jammed with frost.
    ‘Mother!’ he called. ‘Get back to the boats! Before that Osprey lands and unloads ground troops!’
    ‘What about you?’ Mother shouted back.
    ‘I gotta get this guy out! I’ll catch up! Now, go!’
    Mother bolted, hauling the dazed young Russian private with her. As they ran across the fifty yards of open ground between the Beriev and the lead containing their boats the second Cobra tried to loose another missile, but this one also went haywire and smashed into the ice.
    ‘Cobras, forget it. They’ve got anti-missile countermeasures,’ the pilot named Hammerhead said. ‘I’m going to unload the ground team. You take care of those two runners.’
    The Osprey powered ahead of the two Cobras, up-tilted its rotors and swung into a hover.
    As it did so, its side doors were pulled open from within and drop ropes were tossed out. Within seconds, eight heavily armed men in black balaclavas and Marine Corps parkas were sliding down the ropes and hitting the ground one after the other.
    They fanned out in perfect formation, AK-47s up, moving in on the crashed Beriev.
    At the same time, one of the Cobras pivoted in the air and aimed its M134 at the fleeing figures of Mother and the Russian private.
    The minigun whirred to life, barrels spinning, and unleashed a thunderous burst of hypermachine-gun fire.
    The ice behind Mother’s running feet leapt upward as bullets strafed it.
    ‘Dive!’ she yelled to the young private limping along beside her.
    They dived forward, toward the ladder hooks looped over the edge of the ice, chased by bullets.
    Mother hit the ice on her belly and slid forward like a batter trying to steal second, before she hit the edge and went flying off it into open space, falling suddenly as she felt a bullet slap against the sole of her left boot. She dropped in a clumsy heap onto the first boat waiting at the base of the ladder.
    Behind her, the Russian private did the same, but he was a split second behind Mother and that made a world of difference to the result.
    As he slid over the lip, he was literally ripped apart by the hail of bullets. Blood fountains spurted all over his body, but propelled by his own dive, his corpse continued off the edge and, like Mother, it also dropped into the first AFDV, right next to Emma Dawson, who screamed at the sight of the bullet-riddled body that thudded down next to her like a slab of meat on a butcher’s block. It was no longer recognisable as a human being.
    Mother gasped, out of breath. ‘Mother fucker , that was close! Oh, Jesus, Scarecrow . . .’
    The roar of the hovering Osprey was deafening. A tornado of ice and snow swirled around the Beriev.
    Inside the crashed plane’s cockpit, Schofield splashed some water from his canteen onto Ivanov’s buckle and the frost melted and the seatbelt unjammed. Schofield yanked the Russian from his flight seat.
    ‘Come on, buddy,’ he said, peering outside and seeing the eight-man balaclava-and-parka-wearing force approaching the Beriev from the south. He glanced eastward.
    ‘Mother, you okay?’
    ‘ I’m clear, but my guy’s toast. What about you? ’
    ‘On my way—uh-oh . . .’
    One of the balaclava-clad men dropped to a prone position, took aim down the sights of a very powerful bipod-mounted machine gun and squeezed the trigger—
    — braaaaaaaaack!
    The gunman was himself thrown backwards by a terrible burst of machine-gun fire.
    Schofield snapped up to see—of all things—Bertie’s gunbarrel smoking.
    ‘Oh, good robot,’ he said. ‘Good robot.’
    Bertie lay down some more deadly fire and the other attackers variously dived for cover behind the Beriev itself or returned fire at Bertie. Bullets bounced off the little robot’s metal flanks while Bertie just kept panning left and right, emitting short controlled bursts.
    But then while Bertie was facing right, Schofield glimpsed another enemy commando to their