Heaven on Hell Island an Enemies to Lovers Romance Read Online

  Matthew Reilly is the internationally all-time-selling author of Competition, Ice Station, Temple, Expanse 7, Scarecrow, Hover Car Racer and Seven Ancient Wonders. His novels have been translated into nineteen languages and are sold in over twenty countries. To appointment he has sold over three million books around the globe. Matthew has too written several brusk stories, all of which are available for free at his website:

www.matthewreilly.com

He lives in Sydney.

Also by Matthew Reilly

Competition

Water ice STATION

TEMPLE

AREA 7

SCARECROW

HOVER CAR RACER

Seven Aboriginal WONDERS

MATTHEW

REILLY

HELL

ISLAND

Published in association with Books Live

Books Live is an Australian Authorities initiative developed through the Australia Council

This is a piece of work of fiction. Characters, corporations, institutions and organisations mentioned in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously without any intent to describe bodily conduct.

A curt novel written for and in clan with 'Books Alive' 2005

Books Alive is an Australian Authorities initiative developed through the Australia Quango.

Get-go published 2005 in Pan past Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Express

This Pan edition published in 2007 past Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited

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Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Reilly, Matthew.

Hell Island.

ISBN 978 0 3304 2343 4.

ane. Experimental rangelands – Fiction. I. Championship.

A823.4

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Hell Isle

Matthew Reilly

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PROLOGUE

THE LAST Homo STANDING

Terrified, wounded and now out of ammo, Lieutenant Rick 'Razor' Haynes staggered down the tight passageway, blood pouring from a gunshot wound to his left thigh, scratch-marks crisscrossing his face.

He panted as he moved, gasping for breath. He was the last ane left, the last member of his entire Marine force still alive.

He could hear them behind him.

Grunting, growling.

Stalking him, hunting him downwardly.

They knew they had him—knew he was out of armament, out of contact with base of operations, and out of comrades-in-arms.

The passageway through which he was fleeing was long and straight, barely wide enough for his shoulders. It had greyness steel walls studded with rivets—the kind y'all observe on a military vessel, a warship.

Wincing in desperation, Haynes arrived at a majority-head doorway and fell awfully through information technology, landing in a stateroom. He reached upwards and pulled the heavy steel door shut behind him.

The door closed and he spun the flywheel.

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

His face covered in sweat, Haynes breathed deeply, glad for the brief reprieve.

He'd seen what they had done to his teammates, and been horrified.

No soldier deserved to dice that way, or to have his body desecrated in such a manner. It was beyond ruthless what they'd done to his men.

That said, the way they had systematically overcome his force of six hundred United states Marines had been tactically vivid.

At one point during his escape from the hangar deck, Haynes figured he'd end his own life before they caught him. At present, without any bullets, he couldn't fifty-fifty exercise that.

A grunt disturbed him.

It had come from nearby. From the darkness on the other side of the stateroom.

Haynes snapped to look up—

—but equally a shape came rushing out of the darkness, a night hairy shape, human being-sized, screaming a vehement high-pitched shriek, like the cry of a deranged chimpanzee.

Only this was no chimpanzee.

Information technology slammed into Haynes, ramming him back against the door. His head hit the steel door hard, the blow stunning him only non knocking him out.

And as he slumped to the floor and saw the creature draw a glistening long-bladed Thou-Bar pocketknife from its sheath, Haynes wished information technology had knocked him unconscious, considering then he wouldn't have to witness what it did to him next . . .

The expiry-scream of Razor Haynes echoed out from the aircraft carrier.

It would not be heard by a single friendly soul.

For this carrier was a long way from anywhere, docked at an old World War 2 refuelling station in the eye of the Pacific, a station attached to a small island that had curiously ceased to appear on maps later the Americans had taken it by force from the Japanese in 1943.

Once known as Grant Island, it was a thousand kilometres south of the Bering Strait and v hundred from its nearest island neighbor. In the war it had seen fierce fighting as the Americans had wrested it—and its highly-prized airfield—from a suicidal Japanese garrison.

Because of the ferocity of the fighting and the heavy losses incurred there, Grant Isle was given another proper name by the US Marines who'd fought in that location.

They called information technology Hell Island.

Kickoff ASSAULT

HELL Island

1500 HOURS

ane Baronial, 2005

AIRSPACE OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN

1500 HOURS, 1 Baronial, 2005

The vicious-looking aircraft shot beyond the sky at near supersonic speed.

Information technology was a modified Hercules cargo aeroplane, known as an MC-130 'Combat Talon', the delivery vehicle of choice for United states Special Forces units.

This Combat Talon stayed high, very loftier, it was as if it was trying to avert being seen by radar systems down at ocean level. This was unusual, because there was nothing down in that location—according to the maps,

the nearest land in this role of the Pacific was an atoll 500 klicks to the due east.

Then the rear loading ramp of the Combat Talon rumbled open and several dozen tiny figures issued out from it in rapid sequence, spreading out into the heaven behind the soaring plane.

The forty-strong flock of paratroopers plummeted to earth, men in high-altitude jumpsuits—full-face breathing masks; streamlined black bodysuits. They angled their bodies downwards as they fell, so that they flew head-first, their masks pointed into the onrushing current of air, becoming human spears, freefalling with serious intent.

It was a archetype HALO driblet—high-altitude, low-opening. You lot jumped from 37,000 feet, savage fast and hard, and then stopped dangerously shut to the ground, right at your drop zone.

Curiously, nevertheless, the twoscore aristocracy troops falling to earth today fell in identifiable sub-groups, ten men to a group, equally if they were trying to remain somehow separate.

Indeed, they were separate teams.

Scissure teams. The best of the all-time from every corner of the Usa war machine.

One unit of measurement from the 82nd Airborne Partitioning.

One SEAL squad.

Ane Delta squad, e'er aloof and secretive.

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

They shot into the cloud layer—a dense band of dark thunderclouds—freefell through the haze.

Then after well-nigh a full minute of flying, they burst out of the clouds and emerged in the midst of a total-scale five-alarm ocean storm: pelting lashed their facemasks; dark clouds hung depression over the heaving ocean; giant waves rolled and crashed.

And through the rain, their target came into view, a tiny isle far beneath them, an isle that did not appear on maps anymore, an island with an aircraft carrier parked alongside it.

Hell.

Leading the Marine team was Captain Shane M. Schofield, call-sign 'Scarecrow'.

Behind his HALO mask, Schofield had a rugged creased confront, black hair and blue eyes. Slicing downwards across those eyes, however, were a pair of hideous vertical scars, 1 for each eye, wounds from a mission-gone-wrong and the source of his operational nickname. One time on the ground, he'd hide those eyes behind a pair of reflective wraparound anti-flash glasses.

Quiet, intense and when necessary deadly, Schofield had a unique reputation in the Marine Corps. He'd been involved in several missions that remained classified—but the Marine Corps (like whatsoever group of homo beings) is filled with gossip and rumour. Someone always knew someone who was there, or who saw the medical report, or who cleaned upwards the aftermath.

The rumours nearly Schofield were many and varied, and sometimes simply too outrageous to be truthful.

One: he had been involved in a gigantic multiforce boxing in Antarctica, a battle which, it was said, involved a bloody and brutal confrontation with two of America'southward allies, France and U.k..

Two: he'd saved the President during an attempted military coup at a remote USAF base. It was said that during that misadventure, the Scarecrow—a onetime airplane pilot—had flown an experimental infinite shuttle into low earth orbit, engaged an enemy shuttle, destroyed it, and then come back to earth to rescue the President.

Of course none of this could possibly be verified, so information technology remained the stuff of fable; legends, yet, that Schofield'southward new unit of measurement were acutely aware of.

That said, there was one thing about Shane Schofield that they knew to be true: this was his start mission back after a long layover, 4 months of stress leave, in fact. On this occasion someone really had seen the medical written report, and now all of his men on this mission knew virtually it.

They also knew the cause of his stress leave.

During his last mission out, Schofield had been taken to the very edge of his psychological endurance. Loved ones close to him had been captured . . . and executed. It was fifty-fifty said in hushed whispers that at ane bespeak on that mission he had tried to accept his own life.

Which was why the other members of his team today were slightly less-than-confident in their leader.

Was he up to this mission? Was he a time-flop waiting to explode? Was he a basketcase who would lose it at the showtime sign of trouble?

They were virtually to detect out.

As he shot downward through the sky, Schofield recalled their mission briefing earlier that day.

Their target was Hell Island.

Actually, that wasn't quite true.

Their target was the ageing supercarrier parked at Hell Island, the USS Nimitz, CVN-68.

The problem: shortly after it had arrived at the isolated island to pick up some special cargo, a devastating tsunami had struck from the north and all contact with the Nimitz had been lost.

The oldest of America'due south twelve Nimitz-class carriers, the Nimitz had been heading home for decommissioning, with only a skeleton crew of 500 aboard—downward from its regular 6,000. Similar-wise, its Carrier Boxing Group, the cluster of destroyers, subs, supply ships and frigates that unremarkably accompanied it around the globe, had been trimmed to just ii cruisers.

Contact with the two escort boats and the island's communications centre had also been lost.

Unfortunately, the unexpected tidal wave wasn't the merely hostile entity in play here: a North Korean nuclear submarine had been spotted a day earlier coming out of the Bering Ocean. Its whereabouts were currently unknown, its presence in this surface area suspicious.

And so a mystery.

Equally suspicious to Schofield, however, was the presence of the other special operations units on this mission: the 82nd, the SEALs and Delta.

This was exceedingly odd. You never mixed and matched special ops units. They all had different specialties, different approaches to mission situations, and could easily trip over each other. In curt, it just wasn't washed.

You added all that upwards, Schofield thought, and this smelled suspiciously similar an practice.

Except for one thing.

They were all carrying live armament.

Hurtling toward the world, freefalling at final velocity, bursting out of the cloudband . . .

. . . to behold the Pacific Ocean stretching away in every direction, the only imperfection in its surface: the pocket-sized dot of land that was Hell Island.

A gigantic rectangular grey object lay at its western end, the Nimitz. Not far from the carrier, the island featured some big gun emplacements facing south and due east, while at the northward-eastern tip there was a colina that looked like a mini-volcano.

A vocalisation came through Schofield'due south earpiece. 'All squad leaders, this is Delta Vi. We're going for the eastern end of the island and we'll piece of work our fashion back to the gunkhole. Your DZ is the flight deck: Airborne, the bow; SEALs, aft; Marines, mid-section.'

Only similar we were told in the briefing, Schofield thought.

This was typical of Delta. They were born bear witness-ponies. Great soldiers, sure, but glory-seekers all. No matter who they were working with—even today, alongside three of the best special forces units in the world—they ever assumed they were in charge.

'Roger that, Delta leader,' came the SEAL leader's voice.

'Copy, Delta Six,' came the Airborne response.

Schofield didn't reply.

The Delta leader said, 'Marine Six? Scarecrow? You copy?'

Schofield sighed. 'I was at the mission briefing, as well, Delta Vi. And last I noticed, I don't have any short-term memory problems. I know the mission plan.'

'Cut the mental attitude, Scarecrow,' the Delta leader said. His proper name was Hugh Gordon, then naturally his call-sign was 'Flash'. 'We're all on the same squad here.'

'What? Your team?' Schofield said. 'How nigh this: how almost you don't interruption radio silence until y'all've got something important to say. Scarecrow, out.'

Information technology was more important than that. Even a frequency-hopping encrypted radio point could be caught these days, then if you transmitted, you had to assume someone was listening.

Worse, the new French-made Signet-v radio-wave decoder—sold by the French to Russian federation, Islamic republic of iran, North Korea,

Syria and other fine upstanding global citizens—was specifically designed to seek out and locate the American AN/Prc-119 tactical radio when it was broadcasting, the very radio their 4 teams were using today. No-one had all the same thought to ask the French why they had built a locater whose only use was to pinpoint American tactical radios.

Schofield switched to his team'southward private aqueduct. 'Marines. Switch off your tac radios. Listening style simply. Go to short-wave UHF if you want to talk to me.'

A few of his Marines hesitated before obeying, just obey they did. They flicked off their radios.

The 4 clusters of parachutists plummeted through the storm toward the earth, zeroing in on the Nimitz, until a thousand feet higher up it, they yanked on their ripcords and their chutes opened.

Their superfast falls were abruptly arrested and they at present floated in toward the carrier. The Delta team landed on the island itself, while the other three teams touched down lightly and gracefully on the flight deck of the supercarrier right in their assigned positions—fore, mid and aft—guns up.

They had merely arrived in Hell.

Rain hammered downward on the flight deck.

Schofield's team landed one later the other, unclipping their chutes before the neat mushroom-shaped canopies had even striking the ground. The chutes were whipped away past the wind, leaving the ten Marines continuing in the slashing rain on the flight deck, holding their MP-7s pointed outwards.

One subsequently the other, they ripped off their facemasks, scanned the deck warily.

Schofield shucked his facemask and donned his signature silver wraparound glasses, masking his eyes. He beheld the deck around them.

The entire flying deck was deserted.

Except for the other teams that had simply landed on it, not a soul could be seen. A few planes saturday parked on the runways, some Tomcats and Hornets, and one chunky CH-53 Super Stallion helicopter.

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