Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [66]
‘I never knew,’ Sarah said.
‘Not many people do,’ Schofield said. ‘But it’s one of the main reasons my unit was sent to this station. To defend it against any of our “allies” who might decide to make a play for it.’
Schofield pulled his parka tight around himself, and grabbed the handle to the main door leading outside.
‘You said you wanted to ask me about something,’ he said. ‘Can you talk as you walk?’
‘Uh, yeah, I guess so,’ Sarah said as she quickly grabbed a parka off one of the hooks.
‘Then let’s go,’ Schofield said.
Down on E-deck, Libby Gant was checking the calibration on a depth gauge.
She and Riley were on the outer perimeter of the deck that surrounded the pool. It had been a good forty-five minutes since they had seen a killer whale, but they weren’t taking any chances. They stayed well away from the water’s edge.
Gant and Riley were checking the unit’s scuba gear, in preparation for the dive that would be made in the station’s diving bell.
They were alone on E-deck, and they worked in silence. Every now and then, Riley would wander over to the storeroom in the south tunnel and check on Mother.
Gant put down the depth gauge she was holding and grabbed another. ‘What happened to his eyes?’ she asked quietly, not looking up from what she was doing.
Riley stopped working for a moment, and looked up at Gant. When he didn’t speak immediately, Gant raised her own eyes.
For a while, Riley seemed to evaluate her. Then, abruptly, he looked away.
‘Not many people know what happened to his eyes,’ Riley said. ‘Hell, until today, not that many people had even seen his eyes.’
There was a short silence.
‘Is that why his call-sign is Scarecrow?’ Gant said softly. ‘Because of his eyes?’
Riley nodded. ‘Norman McLean gave it to him.’
‘The general?’
‘The general. When McLean saw Schofield’s eyes, he said he looked like a scarecrow McLean had once had guarding his corn field back in Kansas. Apparently, it was one of those scarecrows that had two slits for each eye, you know, like a plus sign.’
‘Do you know how it happened?’ Gant asked gently.
At first Riley didn’t answer. Then, finally, he nodded. But he didn’t say anything.
‘What happened?’
Riley took a deep breath. He put down the helium compressor he was holding in his hand and looked at Gant. ‘Shane Schofield wasn’t always in command of a ground Recon unit,’ he began. ‘He used to be a pilot, based on the Wasp.’
The USS Wasp is the flagship of the United States Marine Corps. It is one of seven Landing Helicopter Dockships in the Corps, and it is the battle centre for any major Marine expedition. Most casual observers mistake it for an aircraft carrier.
What a lot of people don’t know about the Marine Corps is that it maintains a sizeable aviation wing. Although this air wing is used primarily to transport troops it is also used to support ground attacks. For this purpose, it is equipped with lethal AH-1W Cobra Attack Helicopters – instantly recognisable because of their skinny shape – and British-made (but American-modified) AV-8B Harrier II fighter jets, or, as they are more widely known throughout the world, Harrier jumpjets. Harriers are the only attack planes in the world with the ability to take off and land vertically.
‘Schofield was a Harrier pilot on the Wasp. One of the best, so they tell me,’ Riley said. ‘He was in Bosnia in 1995, during the worst of the fighting there, flying patrol missions over the no-fly-zone.’
Gant watched Riley closely