Shane Schofield

Captain Shane M. Schofield, USMC is a fictional character, whose exploits form the basis of a loosely bound series created by the Australian author, Matthew Reilly. He appears in "Ice Station", "Area 7", "Scarecrow" and the spin off "Hell Island". While the plot differs from novel to novel, it is mainly based around Schofield's legendary reputation as Marine, revered by the Marines that serve under his command and known for his high-risk tactical maneuvers.

Schofield's callsign "Scarecrow" refers to the vertical scars running over each of his eyes. They were inflicted upon him in 1995 when he was tortured in Serbia during the Yugoslav Wars after his plane was shot down. A Marine Force Reconnaissance unit was sent in, one of its members being Buck "Book" Riley, who later joins Schofield's team in Ice Station. The Serbs technically blinded him, believing that he was helping US forces that were killing Serb soldiers. At Johns Hopkins University Hospital, they fixed his eyesight, yet the scars remained, leaving him to cover them with silver, wrap-around, anti-flash sunglasses for the future. Due to military regulations, Schofield was never allowed to fly a military plane again.

He then decided to become a ground soldier and returned to Basic School in Quantico. There "he did every course they had. He did tactical weapons training. He did strategic planning. Small arms, Scout/Sniper". A couple of months afterwards, Schofield was promoted in rank and was eventually given his own Recon unit. He was given command of the unit approximately two years before the events in Ice Station.

In Ice Station Schofield and Marine Reconnaissance Unit 16 were sent to answer a distress signal from an isolated American research station in Antarctica, claiming to have discovered an alien spaceship buried under the ice before the divers sent to investigate were killed. Schofield finds more than he bargained for when they are attacked by a French paratrooper unit before uncovering a secretive and insidious government intelligence organisation and meeting a former mentor intent on securing the secret of Wilkes Ice Station for himself.

Area 7 happens following the fallout from the Wilkes Ice Station incident. Schofield and his team are assigned to Presidential Detail, stationed on Marine One. While paying a routine visit to an Air Force Base on the Utah desert, Schofield is called upon to act as bodyguard for the President when he is greeted by hostile forces: if the President's heart stops, fourteen major American cities will be destroyed.

Eighteen months later and Schofield finds himself as one of fifteen names on an international bounty hunt list, with each head valued at $18.6 million. Trying to constantly stay one step ahead of his enemies, Schofield uncovers a global conspiracy to frame other countries for starting wars with imitation nuclear warheads, controlled by twelve of the world's most powerful businessmen.

Schofield is an expert with all weapons and in hand-to-hand combat. He knows how to use almost all of the fictional weapons created in the books by Matthew Reilly, including the Armalite MH-12 Maghook - a magnetic grappling hook, the signature weapon of Marine Force Reconnaissance unit soldiers (in the novels, not in the actual USMC).

In the latest book of the series, Hell Island, Schofield is reequipped with a new team of Force Recon Marines - a notable exception being Book II (A colleague in Area 7 and Scarecrow). In this book, Schofield went to a remote island for a special mission. It turned out that the "mission" was actually a test to pit super soldiers, gorillas, equipped with a chip (nanotechnology) within their brains,which, allowed them to track and eliminate the marines and other US crack troops thrown at them during the "mission".