Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [86]
Schofield’s head snapped up.
He had completely forgotten about James Renshaw. Renshaw was the scientist Sarah Hensleigh had said had killed one of his fellow scientists only days before the Marines had arrived at Wilkes. He was the man the residents of Wilkes had locked inside his room on B-deck. After Samurai’s death, Schofield hadn’t even checked to see if Renshaw was still in his room. If Renshaw had escaped, then maybe he had . . .
‘Shit, I forgot all about him,’ Schofield said. He quickly keyed his helmet mike. ‘Book, Rebound, Snake, you out there?’
‘Copy, Scarecrow,’ Snake’s voice replied.
‘Snake, I need someone up there to go down to B-deck right away and make sure that that guy who was shut up in his room is still there, okay.’
‘I’m on it,’ Snake said.
Schofield clicked off his intercom.
Mother smiled, spread her arms wide. ‘Honestly, where would you be without your Mother, Scarecrow?’
‘Lost,’ Schofield said.
‘Don’t you know it,’ Mother said. ‘Don’t you know it.’ She eyed Schofield carefully; he was staring at the floor. ‘What’s wrong?’ she said softly.
Schofield kept his head down. He shook his head slowly.
‘I should have known they were soldiers, Mother. I should have anticipated it.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I should have locked them up as soon as I saw them –’
‘You couldn’t do that.’
‘We lost three men.’
‘Honey, we won.’
‘We got lucky,’ Schofield said seriously. ‘We got very, very lucky. They’d flushed five of my men out onto that catwalk and were about to slaughter them when they dropped into that pool. Christ, look at what happened down in the drilling room. They had a plan right up to the end. If Rebound hadn’t caught wind of it beforehand, they would have got us, Mother, even at the very end. We were on the back foot the whole damn time. We didn’t even have a plan at all.’
‘Scarecrow. Listen to me,’ Mother said firmly. ‘You wanna know something?’
‘What?’
Mother said, ‘Did you know that about six months ago, I was offered a place in an Atlantic Recon unit?’
Schofield looked up at that. No. He hadn’t known.
‘I still have the letter back home if you want to see it,’ Mother said. ‘It’s signed by the Commandant himself. You know what I did after I got that letter, Scarecrow?’
‘What?’
‘I wrote back to the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps and said thank you very much but I would like to stay with my current unit, under my commanding officer, Lieutenant First Class Shane M. Schofield, USMC. I said that I could find no better unit, under no better commander, than the one I was currently in.’
Schofield was momentarily stunned. That Mother would do such a thing was quite incredible. To reject an offer to join an Atlantic Recon unit was one thing, but to politely decline the personal invitation of the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps to join such a unit was something else.
Mother looked Schofield squarely in the eye. ‘You are a great officer, Scarecrow, a great officer. You are smart and you are brave and you are something that is very, very rare in this world: you are a good man.
‘That’s why I stayed with you. You’ve got a heart, Scarecrow. You care about your men. And I’ll tell you right now, that puts you above every other commander I have ever known. I am prepared to risk my life at your judgement because I know that whatever the plan is, you’re still worried about me.
‘A lot of commanders, they’re just looking for glory, looking for a promotion. They ain’t gonna care if that dumb ol’ bitch Mother gets herself killed. But you do care and I like that. Shit, look at you now. You’re beating up on yourself because we almost got our asses capped. You are smart, Scarecrow, and you are good and don’t you ever doubt that. Ever. You just have to believe in yourself.’
Schofield was taken aback by the force of Mother’s words. He nodded. ‘I’ll try.’
‘Good,’ Mother said, her tone now a little more upbeat. ‘Now. Was there anything else you wanted to hear from “Dear Abby” while you were down here?’
Schofield snuffed