Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [67]
‘One day, late in 1995, he got shot down by a mobile Serbian missile battery that Intelligence said didn’t exist. I think they found out later that it was a two-man strike team in a jeep with six American-made Stingers in the back seat.
‘Anyway,’ Book said, ‘Schofield managed to eject a second before the Stingers took out his fuel tanks. He came down bang in the middle of Serb-held territory.’
Riley turned to face Gant.
‘Our lieutenant survived for nineteen days in the Serbian woodlands – alone – while over a hundred Serbian troops swept the forest looking for him. When they found him, he hadn’t eaten in ten days.
‘They took him to a deserted farmhouse and tied him to a chair. Then they beat him with a wooden plank with nails stuck into it and asked him questions. Why was he flying over this area? Was he a spy plane? They wanted to know how much he knew about their positions because they thought he was up there providing air support for US ground forces inside Serb territory.’
‘US ground forces were inside Serbian territory?’ Gant asked.
Riley nodded silently. ‘There were two SEAL teams in there. Carrying out covert surgical hits on Serbian leadership positions. Night hits. Good hits. They’d been causing chaos among the Serbs, absolute chaos. They’d be in and out before anyone knew they even existed. They’d go in, slash their victims’ throats and then they’d vanish into the night. They were so good that some of the locals started saying they were ghosts come to haunt them for what they were doing to their own people.’
Gant said, ‘Did Scarecrow know about them? The SEAL teams inside Serb territory?’
Book was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘Yes. Officially, Schofield was patrolling the no-fly-zone. Unofficially, he was sending grid co-ordinates of Serb leadership farmhouses to the SEALs on the ground. It didn’t make any difference anyway. He never said a word.’
Gant watched intently as Riley took a deep breath. He was building up to something.
‘In any case,’ Book said, ‘the Serbs decided that Schofield had been carrying out reconnaissance for the SEAL teams; that he had been spotting strategic targets from the air and transmitting their co-ordinates to men on the ground. They decided that since he’d been seeing things that he wasn’t supposed to be seeing, they would cut his eyes out.’
‘What?’ Gant said.
Riley said, ‘They pulled a razor blade out of a drawer and they held him down. Then one of them stepped forward and slowly cut two vertical lines down across Schofield’s eyes. Apparently, as he did it, the man with the razor blade quoted something from the Bible. Something about if your hand sins, cut it off, and if your eyes sin, cut them out.’
Gant felt sick. They had blinded Schofield. ‘What did they do then?’ she asked.
‘They locked him in a cupboard and they let him bleed.’
Gant was still shocked. ‘So how did he get out?’
‘Jack Walsh sent a Recon team to go in and get him,’ Riley said.
Gant’s ears pricked up at the name. Every Marine knew of Captain John T. Walsh. He was the captain of the Wasp, the most revered Marine in the Corps.
Some thought he should have been Commandant, the highest ranking officer in the United States Marine Corps, but Walsh’s history of disdain for any kind of politician had prevented that. The Commandant is required to liaise regularly with members of Congress and everyone knew – Walsh more than anyone – that Jack Walsh wouldn’t be able to stomach that. Besides, Walsh had said, he would rather command the Wasp and liaise with soldiers. The Marines loved him for it.
Riley went on. ‘When Scott O’Grady got lifted out of Bosnia on June 8 1995, they put him on the cover of Time magazine. He met the President. He did the whole PR thing.
‘When Shane Schofield got lifted out of Bosnia five months later, nobody heard a thing. There were no TV cameras waiting on the deck of the Wasp to photograph him as he stepped off that helicopter. There were no newspaper reporters there to take down his story. Do you know