Free Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves by Matthew Reilly Page A

left—appearing between the Beriev and the lead containing their escape boats—as he swung a Russian-made RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher onto his shoulder.
    The man was only just in Scarecrow’s field of vision. Schofield had to peer up through the cracked windshield of the Beriev just to see him. The angle was too narrow to fire at the man and in any case, Schofield didn’t have anything to match the firepower of an RPG.
    He looked about himself for options.
    Wait a second . . .
    The parka-clad commando peered down the sight of his rocket launcher, steadied it on his shoulder—as inside the cockpit of the Beriev, Shane Schofield pushed Ivanov backward and said, ‘Cover your ears!’
    Then Scarecrow yanked on the ejection lever of the Beriev’s copilot’s seat.
    A gaseous whoosh filled the cockpit as a section of the plane’s roof was jettisoned and the co-pilot’s seat blasted out of the Beriev. Since the plane was lying on its side, the flight seat rocketed laterally through the air, shooting low over the ground on a flat horizontal trajectory before it struck the RPG-wielding commando with terrible force, square in the chest, cracking every one of his ribs before sending him flying backwards, all but breaking the man in two.
    Vasily Ivanov’s eyes boggled as he looked out through the newly-opened hole in the roof of the cockpit and saw the dead commando on the ice plain.
    ‘You see that?’ Schofield yelled to Ivanov as the other parka-clad commandos opened fire again. ‘’Cause that’s how we’re getting out of here, too! Is that flightsuit you’re wearing good in Arctic waters?’
    ‘It is designed to survive in icy water for a short time, yes,’ Ivanov stammered.
    ‘Good enough.’ Schofield reached out through the smashed cockpit windshield with one hand, yanked Bertie back inside, and handed him to Ivanov. ‘Here, hold my robot!’ Schofield then sat on the remaining pilot’s seat and pulled Ivanov onto his own lap. ‘Now hold on to your breakfast.’
    Then, with all three of them sitting on the pilot’s seat, Schofield pulled that seat’s ejection lever.
    The flight seat shot out of the Beriev—with Schofield, Ivanov and Bertie on it—blasting through the ring of enemy commandos surrounding the plane!
    The seat flew—on its side—a foot above the ice plain, the world around it blurring with speed, the force of its screamingly-fast lateral flight pushing Schofield and Ivanov down into it.
    After about forty yards of this kind of flight, the speeding pilot’s seat hit the ground where it bounced twice like a skimming stone before shooting clear off the lip of the ice floe and out over the watery alleyway—out over the stunned faces of Mother and the others still in the two assault boats.
    Having cleared the lip, the flight seat arced downward and speared into the freezing water of the lead, entering it with an almighty splash.
    ‘What was that?’ Chad asked, astonished.
    ‘That was the Scarecrow,’ Mother said, shoving the Kid out of the driver’s saddle, taking the controls and gunning the engine. ‘Hang on, people! We gotta grab him!’
     
     
    Underwater silence.
    As the flight seat shot under the water’s surface, Scarecrow and Ivanov separated, floating apart in the ice-blue haze. Bertie’s flotation balloons activated immediately on contact with the water and Schofield saw the little robot rise up and away to the surface.
    Scarecrow felt the sting of the water against his face, the only part of his body not covered by his drysuit. It was outrageously cold, like daggers of ice.
    The impact with the water had flipped his reflective glasses onto his forehead, and as he hovered there in the clear blue water of the Arctic, he was enveloped by eerie silence.
    But not total silence. An odd thrumming could be heard.
    It was then that Schofield realised that he was not alone.
    There was something in front of him.
    Something impossibly huge, black and enormous, hovering there