Scarecrow (novel)

Scarecrow

Paperback Edition Cover
Author	Matthew Reilly
Country	Australia
Language	English
Series	Shane Schofield
Genre	Techno-thriller novel
Publisher	Pan Macmillan
Publication date	November, 2003
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	462
ISBN
OCLC	60315778
Preceded by	Area 7
Followed by	Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves

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

Majestic-12, a group of the world's richest men, make up a bounty list of fifteen targets that have to be eliminated before 12 noon of October 26. Among the targets is Shane Schofield, who at that moment is on a mission in Siberia with Book II and a group of Marines. Schofield's team is supposed to meet up with two Delta groups, the leaders of the which are also on M-12's hit list. Schofield's unit comes under fire from a group of bounty hunters led by Cedric Wexley and all but Schofield and Book II are killed. Schofield and Book II escape via a hijacked plane owned by a bounty hunter known as the Hungarian.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, Schofield's girlfriend Elizabeth Gant leads a group of Marines, along with Mother, to a cave system where Osama bin Laden's number two man is. Schofield races to Afghanistan to find Gant so that none of the bounty hunters can use her to get to him, but arrives too late to save her and she gets captured by a bounty hunter group known as IG-88, led by Damon "Demon" Larkham. Schofield meets a bounty hunter named Aloysius Knight who has been paid to protect him and teams up with him. Knight and Schofield go to save Gant while Book II and Mother go to London to confront another person on the hit list.

Meanwhile, the other people on the hit list are being taken out. Schofield's friend David Fairfax goes to help one of them but the man he is going to help is killed, as is the person Book II and Mother are attempting to meet. Schofield, Knight, and Gant disguise themselves as bounty hunters to get into a castle owned by Jonathan Killian, one of the men in Majestic-12, to find out more about the bounty hunt. While Knight claims the bounty on two heads, Killian sets a trap for Schofield and Gant, forcing them to escape in one of Killian's cars with Wexley's men in hot pursuit, followed by Knight in his Sukhoi . Schofield goes over a cliff and is presumed dead while Knight and Gant are captured.

Mother is picked up by Rufus, Knight's pilot, and goes to help Knight while Schofield is captured by the French and brought to an aircraft carrier to explain to him why he is to be terminated. At Killian's castle, Gant is brutally murdered on a guillotine. However, Knight escapes, Gant's final words being for Knight to tell Schofield she would have said yes to his planned proposal. Rufus, Mother, and Knight go to rescue Schofield.