[3] During a routine re-staffing of Dragon Island, an old Soviet weapons installation in the Arctic, a Russian Spetsnaz team comes under fire from an unknown enemy.

Vasily Ivanov, a researcher assigned to Dragon, manages to send out a distress signal which is intercepted by an American listening station in Alaska before his plane is shot down.

Self-proclaimed anarchists, the Army is made up of former enforcers of the Pinochet regime, Sudanese Janjaweed militants, Islamic fundamentalists and narco-terrorists.

The Tesla Weapons were constructed on Dragon Island, as prevailing air currents will disperse the acid-fuel mixture around the world.

Still reeling from the events of Scarecrow, United States Marine Corps Captain Shane Schofield has been reassigned to an equipment-testing project in the Arctic; this equipment includes BRT-E, or "Bertie", a multi-functional, independently intelligent robot.

Schofield is one of just two units close to Dragon Island; the other is a Navy SEAL team stationed on the USS Miami, a Los Angeles–class submarine.

Ira Barker, the leader of this unit, warns Schofield to stay away from Dragon Island or else risk being caught in the crossfire.

Realising the threat posed by the Army, Schofield saves Renard and two members of the French commando team sent after him, Dubois and Huguenot, also known as "The Barbarian", or "Baba" and described as Mother's equal.

Fairfax realises that Calderon let the Soviet Union discover the plans to the Tesla Weapon, and that the acid-rocket fuel mix will be distributed by the jetstream over China, India and Europe; once ignited, these regions will be decimated, but the United States will be relatively unaffected and able to preserve its position as the world's only economic superpower.

Calderon succeeds in firing a missile armed with red uranium into the gas cloud, igniting it, but it is revealed that Ira Barker survived the SEAL team's assault and was able to shut down the gas diffusion process long enough to create a safe buffer, thereby limiting the ignition.

The subsequent explosion disables Calderon's submarine; he is found two weeks later by a Norwegian fishing trawler, having suffocated at the bottom of the ocean.

They are commended by the President for their actions, and the French government lift the bounty on Schofield's head for rescuing Veronique's team.

Having finally come to terms with the death of Elizabeth Gant, Schofield starts a relationship with Veronique Champion – however, upon returning to the Marine barracks, he finds his sunglasses in his room, implying that Marius Calderon is alive.

A brilliant Marine Captain who is considered broken from the bounty hunt in the book Scarecrow after his girlfriend, Elizabeth "Fox" Gant, was killed.