Matthew Reilly - Hell Island

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Hell Island

MatthewReilly

Scanned &Proofed By MadMaxAU

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PROLOGUE

THE LAST MANSTANDING

Terrified,wounded and now out of ammo, Lieutenant Rick Razor Haynesstaggered down the tight passageway, blood pouring from a gunshotwound to his left thigh, scratch-marks crisscrossing hisface.

He panted as hemoved, gasping for breath. He was the last one left, the lastmember of his entire Marine force still alive.

He could hearthem behind him.

Grunting,growling.

Stalking him,hunting himdown.

They knew they had himknew hewas out of ammunition, out of contact with base, and out ofcomrades-in-arms.

The passagewaythrough which he was fleeing was long and straight, barely wideenough for his shoulders. It had grey steel walls studded withrivetsthe kind you find on a military vessel, awarship.

Wincing in agony,Haynes arrived at a bulkhead doorway and fell clumsily through it,landing in a stateroom. He reached up and pulled the heavy steeldoor shut behind him.

The door closedand he spun the flywheel.

A second later,the great steel door shuddered violently, pounded from the otherside.

His face coveredin sweat, Haynes breathed deeply, glad for the briefreprieve.

Hed seen whatthey had done to his teammates, and been horrified.

No soldierdeserved to die that way, or to have his body desecrated in such amanner. It was beyond ruthless what theyd done to hismen.

That said, theway they had systematically overcome his force of six hundredUnited States Marines had been tactically brilliant.

At one pointduring his escape from the hangar deck, Haynes figured hed end hisown life before they caught him. Now, without any bullets, hecouldnt even do that.

A grunt disturbedhim.

It had come fromnearby. From the darkness on the other side of thestateroom.

Haynes snapped tolook up

just as a shapecame rushing out of the darkness, a dark hairy shape, man-sized,screaming a fierce high-pitched shriek, like the cry of a derangedchimpanzee.

Only this was nochimpanzee.

It slammed intoHaynes, ramming him back against the door. His head hit the steeldoor hard, the blow stunning him but not knocking himout.

And as he slumpedto the floor and saw the creature draw a glistening long-bladedK-Bar knife from its sheath, Haynes wished it had knocked himunconscious, because then he wouldnt have to witness what it didto him next...

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The death-screamof Razor Haynes echoed out from the aircraft carrier.

It would not beheard by a single friendly soul.

For this carrierwas a long way from anywhere, docked at an old World War IIrefuelling station in the middle of the Pacific, a station attachedto a small island that had curiously ceased to appear on maps afterthe Americans had taken it by force from the Japanese in1943.

Once known asGrant Island, it was a thousand kilometres south of the BeringStrait and five hundred from its nearest island neighbour. In thewar it had seen fierce fighting as the Americans had wrested itandits highly-prized airfield from a suicidal Japanesegarrison.

Because of theferocity of the fighting and the heavy losses incurred there, GrantIsland was given another name by the US Marines whod foughtthere.

They called itHell Island.

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FIRSTASSAULT

HELLISLAND

1500 HOURS

1 AUSUST,2005

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AIRSPACE OVER THEPACIFIC OCEAN

1500 HOURS, 1 AUGUST,2005

Thevicious-looking aircraft shot across the sky at near supersonicspeed.

It was a modifiedHercules cargo plane, known as an MC-130 Combat Talon, thedelivery vehicle of choice for US Special Forces units.

This Combat Talonstayed high, very high, it was as if it was trying to avoid beingseen by radar systems down at sea level. This was unusual, becausethere was nothing down thereaccording to the maps, the nearestland in this part of the Pacific was an atoll 500 klicks to theeast.

Then the rearloading ramp of the Combat Talon rumbled open and several dozentiny figures issued out from it in rapid sequence, spreading outinto the sky behind the soaring plane.

The forty-strongflock of paratroopers plummeted to earth, men in high-altitudejumpsuits full-face breathing masks; streamlined black bodysuits.They angled their bodies downward as they fell, so that they flewhead-first, their masks pointed into the onrushing wind, becominghuman spears, freefalling with serious intent.

It was a classicHALO drophigh-altitude, low-opening. You jumped from 37,000 feet,fell fast and hard, and then stopped dangerously close to theground, right at your drop zone.

Curiously,however, the forty elite troops falling to earth today fell inidentifiable subgroups, ten men to a group, as if they were tryingto remain somehow separate.

Indeed, they wereseparate teams.

Crack teams. Thebest of the best from every corner of the US armedforces.

One unit from the82nd Airborne Division.

One SEALteam.

One Delta team,ever aloof and secretive.

And last of all,one team of Force Reconnaissance Marines.

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They shot intothe cloud layera dense band of dark thundercloudsfreefell throughthe haze.

Then after nearlya full minute of flying, they burst out of the clouds and emergedin the midst of a full-scale five-alarm ocean storm: rain lashedtheir facemasks; dark clouds hung low over the heaving ocean; giantwaves rolled and crashed.

And through therain, their target came into view, a tiny island far below them, anisland that did not appear on maps anymore, an island with anaircraft carrier parked alongside it.

Hell.

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Leading theMarine team was Captain Shane M. Schofield, call-signScarecrow.

Behind his HALOmask, Schofield had a rugged creased face, black hair and blueeyes. Slicing down across those eyes, however, were a pair ofhideous vertical scars, one for each eye, wounds from amission-gone-wrong and the source of his operational nickname. Onceon the ground, hed hide those eyes behind a pair of reflectivewraparound anti-flash glasses.

Quiet, intenseand when necessary deadly, Schofield had a unique reputation in theMarine Corps. Hed been involved in several missions that remainedclassifiedbut the Marine Corps (like any group of human beings) isfilled with gossip and rumour. Someone always knew someone who wasthere, or who saw the medical report, or who cleaned up theaftermath.

The rumours aboutSchofield were many and varied, and sometimes simply too outrageousto be true.

One: he had beeninvolved in a gigantic multi-force battle in Antarctica, a battlewhich, it was said, involved a bloody and brutal confrontation withtwo of Americas allies, France and Britain.

Two: hed savedthe President during an attempted military coup at a remote USAFbase. It was said that during that misadventure, the Scarecrowaformer pilothad flown an experimental space shuttle into low earthorbit, engaged an enemy shuttle, destroyed it, and then come back to earth to rescue thePresident.

Of course none ofthis could possibly be verified, and so it remained the stuff oflegend; legends, however, that Schofields new unit were acutelyaware of.

That said, therewas one thing about Shane Schofield that they knew to be true: thiswas his first mission back after a long layover, four months ofstress leave, in fact. On this occasion someone really had seen the medicalreport, and now all of his men on this mission knew aboutit.

They also knewthe cause of his stress leave.

During his lastmission out, Schofield had been taken to the very edge of hispsychological endurance. Loved ones close to him had been captured... and executed. It was even said in hushed whispers that at onepoint on that mission he had tried to take his own life.

Which was why theother members of his team today were slightly less-than-confidentin their leader.