Scarecrow (novel)

infobox Book |
name = Scarecrow
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Paperback Edition Cover
author = Matthew Reilly
cover_artist =
country = Australia
language = English
series = Shane Schofield
genre = Techno-thriller novel
publisher = Pan Macmillan
release_date = November, 2003
media_type = Print (Hardcover)
pages = 462 pp
isbn = ISBN 0-7329-1116-8
preceded_by = Area 7
followed_by = Hell Island

"Scarecrow" is the fifth Matthew Reilly novel, and the third to feature the main character Captain Shane Schofield, USMC. It was released in 2003.

Plot summary

As well as Schofield, Mother, Gant and Book II all return from previous Schofield adventures.

A gruesome USD $18.6 million per head bounty hunt is on for 15 targets across the world - all either intelligence officers, military personnel or terrorists. The bounty will be paid upon production of the decapitated head of each target to a castle in France. One of them is Shane Schofield (callsign "Scarecrow") our all-action hero. Schofield is leading a special forces team on a mission in Siberia, to reinforce a Delta Force team. Delta had been sent to quell some terrorists, and is led by two of those whose names are on the hitlist.

Arriving on the scene, Schofield proceeds with the mission, splitting his team into two groups. They are subsequently ambushed and a bloody battle against mercenaries ensues. One of the groups is decimated but, sensing a trap moments before the first shot, Schofield manages to remain unharmed, eventually ending the fight with the destruction of the Gulag facility by a missile launched from an abandoned Typhoon class submarine. Schofield and his NCO Book II escape by hijacking a fighter jet owned by a bounty hunter who has already arrived at the scene.

Schofield gains an unlikely ally in the "Black Knight", a bounty hunter being paid to keep Schofield alive rather than kill him, and their alliance takes them worldwide from Afghanistan to France in a desperate race to stay alive. Crucially, Knight's orders are to allow Schofield free rein, in order that he perform the tasks the bounty hunt is designed to prevent him from doing.

At the heart of the conspiracy are the twelve most powerful businessmen in the world; self-styled puppeteers manipulating the course of governments calling themselves the Majestic-12 (or M-12 for short). Member No. 12, Jonathan James Killian controls the Axon Corporation, a defence contractor of the United States commissioned to construct the sinister 'Chameleon' project, a series of nuclear warheads and missiles designed to imitate the weapons of another nuclear power. As an Israeli Mossad agent describes them, "they're designed to start wars ... but to make it look like someone else fired the first shot". The missiles are launched from ships belonging to the 'Kormoran' project: battleships disguised as ordinary cargo vessels. The intention is to begin a 50 year Cold War that would earn the companies within M-12 billions.

The Chameleon series of missiles is protected by the CincLock-VII security system which can only arm or disarm the missiles if three criteria are met: proximity to warhead (must be within 60 feet), a light-pattern reflex response test and a numerical code. It is the light-pattern reflex test that is the crux of CincLock-VII - only someone who knows the sequence of flashing lights by heart or with unusually fast reflexes will be able to disarm the system. The fifteen names on the bounty list include six soldiers who can disarm the program, two scientists who worked on the NATO precursor to the reflex test, three spies who variously know about Chameleon and Majestic-12, three terrorists who participated in the Soviet equivalent of the NATO tests, and one high-ranking soldier who oversaw key parts of the program.

The Majestic-12 plan to fire a series of Iranian nuclear warheads on London, Paris, Berlin, New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle and a series of North Korean missiles on New Delhi, Islamabad, Beijing and Hong Kong. With the aid of the French, Majestic-12 stage a series of terror raids on their missile plants and steal their own projects before starting the bounty hunt to stop anyone from preventing the execution of the plans.

Killian, however, has his own endgame. As an anarchist, he confesses his love for watching people in situations where there is no law or order. Directly in control of the missiles, he substitutes several of the missiles so that India and Pakistan apparently engage in mutual nuclear bombardment, while China is hit by Taiwan. Killian also adds an additional Israeli-made missile, based in Yemen and aimed at Mecca on the first day of Ramadan and armed with an American warhead. The book ends in a usual Scarecrow fashion, he blows up everything (several jokes are made about this by characters within the story) but before the end he nearly kills himself because of the death of his girlfriend Gant. With M-12's true intentions revealed to the government, its members all die in mysterious circumstances.

Main Characters

hane "Scarecrow" Schofield

Only in his early thirties, Captain Schofield is renowned for his level-headed demeanor and reflexes that afford him the ability to come out of devastating conflict alive. His callsign comes from two vertical scars that run from his eyebrows to his cheeks, over his eyes, wounds he sustained while he was a spy for the Marine Corps in Serbia. Although his rank is well below many others in the story, he frequently takes command of the entire United States military; the President personally agreeing to this due to Schofield having saved his life the preceding year. Often resorting to very dangerous strategies to win a battle, it has become the norm for any attempt on his life to end with him escaping while the surrounding environment is more or less demolished. He commands a recon unit of Marines called to aid the Russian government in what is later found to be a trap set up with the intention of killing him. Upon discovering M-12's plot to change world order, his soldier instincts and unquestioning morals lead him to embark on a campaign to ruin the Chameleon and Kormoran projects.

Elizabeth "Fox" Gant

Gant is Schofield's girlfriend (whom he started dating just before Area 7), and a Marine Sergeant in her own right. It is revealed that Schofield was intending to propose to her soon. Gant's callsign was bestowed upon her by admiring male colleagues due to her athletic figure and attractive features. Unlike Schofield and Mother, Gant has neither lightning-fast reflexes nor sheer brute strength and as a result has been seriously injured several times before. That said, she is more than capable of holding her own in fire fights and hand to hand combat. Due to a Marine Corps policy, she has been placed in the command of her own unit, rather than in Schofield's. Her other nickname is Dorothy, in reference to the Wizard of Oz, as Gant is in love with Schofield (the Scarecrow), and in The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy likes the scarecrow the most.

Gena "Mother" Newman

Thirty-four years old, 6'2" in height with a fully-shaved head and weighing in at over 200lbs, Mother's callsign is not meant to convey maternal qualities, it is short for Motherfucker. She is ordinarily under the command of Schofield, but begins the story instead as Gunnery-Sergeant to Libby Gant. An encounter with a killer whale in Ice Station has left her with a prosthetic left leg from the knee down (it has served not only to provide mobility but to save her life frequently). Fiercely loyal to Schofield and possessed of a similar luck which has allowed her to survive several near-death experiences, Mother opts for a violent solution more readily than her unit leader. Her short temper and eccentric nature lead her to many hand-to-hand fights with adversaries often even larger than her. Possessed of a sarcastic wit, she is also the helpful best friend to Gant, often offering advice or insight into her relationship with Schofield. Although in awe of Schofield's achievements, she has managed to evade certain death many times herself and is indispensable to Schofield, both as a soldier and a friend.

Aloysius "Black" Knight

A bounty hunter hired to protect the "scarecrow", Aloysius (Pronounced allo-wishus) "Black" Knight was a captain within Delta Team 7, regarded as the "elite within the elite" of the special forces. He became a fugitive from the US during a mission in Sudan, in which he was infiltrating an arms deal involving Osama bin Laden. Despite being in shooting range of the terrorist, Knight was ordered not to attack, allowing the terrorist to escape while Knight was forced to wait for reinforcements. Later, while preparing to board a Black Hawk piloted by his friend Rufus, he overhears his backup being ordered to kill him and his pilot. He finds out later that the men belong to the ICG (Intelligence Convergence Group), a complex web of civilian and military spies whose job is to ensure all intelligence obtained by the United States of America stays solely within the United States of America. He escaped, along with Rufus, and killed 13 of the men pursuing him. He was consequently placed him on the FBI Most Wanted List and his family killed in a supposedly botched home invasion. He turned to being a mercenary and after successfully rescuing the daughter of the Russian Vice-President, was given a fighter jet known as the "Black Raven" which Rufus pilots for him, as well as landing privileges at any Russian airfield. He is regarded as the second best bounty hunter in the world after "Demon" Larkham. More than six foot tall, he dresses entirely in black, in keeping to his call sign "Black Knight". Due to an eye disorder, photophobia, he must wear tinted lenses at all times. This weakness is sometimes exploited by others, as removing his shades will cause him to experience immense pain.

Buck "Book II" Riley Jr

Named after his father, a loyal friend of Schofield who was killed in action only a few years previously. 25 years old, with a heavy browed face and pug nose, he is described as a "tough-as-nails warrior". A lot quieter and composed than the others within his regiment, it's his level-head that allows him to be the only other survivor of the initial mission with Scarecrow. Less inclined to combat than Knight and especially Mother, he is very capable of deduction and serves as an accurate information gatherer for Schofield after managing to secure files on M-12 within the Mossad headquarters. Although initially there was of friction between he and Schofield over the death of his father, he has warmed to his new superior and is less cold and brooding than he first was upon joining Schofield's ranks.

Trivia

* Matthew Reilly described Scarecrow as the beginning of a Matthew Reilly 2.0 style.
* The name of Demon Larkham's bounty hunter team, IG-88 is taken from the robotic bounty hunter IG-88 who cameos in "".
* Aloysius Knight is named after Aloysius Gonzaga, a Jesuit saint who was the namesake of his old high school St Aloysius' College in Sydney, Australia.
* The plot of Scarecrow is suspected to have been used without permission in an unlicensed video game called "The Mark". Matthew Reilly and his lawyers are known to be looking into the matterFact|date=August 2007.
* The character of Lillian Mattencourt "the owner of the mattencourt cosmetics empire and the richest woman in the world" is based on the real life Liliane Bettencourt who really is the richest woman in the world and who has the biggest shareholding in L'Oreal the largest cosmetics in the world, which was founded by her father.
* A copy of the novel can be seen in an episode of Criminal Minds ("Natural Born Killer" Season 1 Episode 8) sitting on the bed of an undercover police officer's apartment which is raided by Morgan and Hotchner

Criticism

* This novel has many parallels with John Gardner's novel "Nobody Lives For Ever". In both stories, the returning protagonist (Schofield in "Scarecrow", James Bond in "NLF") is the target of a monetary contract posted by a villainous organisation (Majestic-12 in "Scarecrow", SPECTRE in "NLF") that requires delivery of the target's severed head, and both stories include the protagonist's loved ones (Gant in "Scarecrow", May and Moneypenny in "NOLF") being used as leverage against the protagonist.