PLEDGE OF HONOR: A Mark Cole Thriller

by J. T. Brannan

  It was a man, disappearing around a corner.

  It didn’t register immediately, but there was something out of place about him.

  Franks’ mind processed the information in seconds. The man was young, perhaps about twenty; possibly Muslim, certainly of south Asian ethnicity. Dressed in what looked like combat fatigues, heavy jacket and boots, a large bag slung over his shoulder. Perhaps nothing in and of itself, and he knew the Met had got into serious trouble with ‘racial profiling’ in the past; just because someone was of a certain ethnic group didn’t mean anything at all.

  And yet almost all terrorist attacks in the country – since the IRA, anyway – had been perpetrated by people of south Asian descent, and of the Islamic religion. Often carrying a bag of some sort.

  But that wasn’t what had attracted Franks’ attention anyway; instead, it was the way the man had reacted when he’d seen a police officer walking toward him. He’d panicked, moved quickly out of his eye line, darting round a corner to get away. He’d tried to do it casually, but such behavior was obvious to Franks now, after so many years on the job.

  It was the behavior of someone with something to hide.

  Not a terrorist perhaps, but someone of interest nevertheless.

  His legs were moving before his mind had consciously made the decision, and his hand was depressing the radio toggle switch as he went, calling it into his station.

  ‘This is Quebec Delta Two Four Six,’ he said as he moved into a light jog, ‘be advised of suspicious activity concerning a young man, early twenties, Asian, five seven, sixty-five kilos. Dressed in combat fatigues, carrying a large bag. Ran when he saw me.’

  ‘Location?’ the female voice came back.

  ‘Sudbury Avenue,’ Franks answered, ‘following him onto East Lane.’

  ‘East Lane?’’ the voice came back. ‘Near the . . .’

  But Franks had already rounded the corner, saw where the man was headed, and a cold feeling of dread swept through his entire body.

  ‘Primary school,’ Franks finished for her. ‘Shit! He’s headed for the primary school!’

  8

  Aabid Karam cursed his bad luck. A policeman!

  Hadn’t he and his friends checked the patrol routes? They had, and they hadn’t seen anyone around this area at this particular time before. But then again, the police officers they had seen weren’t following any patterns, which theoretically meant that they could be anywhere at any time.

  Like here.

  Like now.

  Karam increased his pace, rushing now for the school, desperate to get there before the policeman could alert anyone.

  Would it change his plans?

  No, he thought, shaking his head. No; it just meant they would have to do things even faster.

  He turned his head, saw the cop rounding the corner, speaking into his radio.

  Damn!

  He pulled his own radio up, speaking to his brothers, warning them of the compacted timetable.

  And then, as he watched the lone policeman running across the street toward him, he swung the bag off his shoulder, unzipping it as it fell to the rain-soaked ground.

  Through the ice-cold, driving rain, Franks saw the man reaching into the huge bag, saw the long-barreled automatic rifle that came out moments later, aimed his way.

  It looked familiar to him, Russian perhaps. A Kalashnikov?

  The thoughts came too quickly, his mind a jumble, making him unable to respond appropriately to the sight that confronted him. Was there time to run, to close the distance and wrestle the gun away? Or should he turn and run for cover? Dive to the side?

  But then the thought of the school overran everything, and he knew he had to try and make it, to try and stop the man before he could get near the children.

  ‘Gun!’ he called into his radio as he ran. ‘The man’s got a bloody rifle!’

  And then he was almost there, hands reaching out toward the young man.

  But the young man just smiled at him and pulled the trigger.

  Karam was gratified to see the English pig blasted back by the force of the 7.62mm rounds, the explosive force ripping open the man’s chest even through the body armor he wore under his uniform.

  The cop landed on his back in the street, steam rising out of his chest from the warm air of his punctured lungs.

  Karam strode over to him and kicked off the man’s helmet; and, aiming the assault rifle down at the prone body, he fired a single round through the policeman’s skull, the back of his head exploding across the sidewalk beyond.

  A cold chill passed through Karam; it was his first kill, and he felt slightly nauseated.

  But the feeling was soon replaced by exhilaration, a thrill unlike any other he had ever known.

  He had been tested, and had come through the victor. He had killed when he had to, and a mindless automaton of the godless British state had now been executed, in accordance with the will of Allah.

  It wasn’t how he had expected this mission to start, he thought as he stared down at the dead body, but it was perhaps even better this way.

  Yes, he decided as he picked up the bag and shouldered it, keeping the rifle ready in his hands, it was even better this way.

  The only good cop was a dead one, after all.

  Ha!

  And so it began, as Karam sprinted toward the entrance of East Lane Primary School, gun at the ready.

  9

  Ben Yance was just leaving the staff room when the man raced past him, knocking the contents of his coffee mug all over him.

  He recoiled from the burning liquid as it hit his legs, but the pain was short-lived as something else seared its way into his mind.

  Was the man carrying some sort of gun?

  He’d seemed to barely notice Yance, moving fast toward the corridor that led to . . .

  No!

  He was headed back toward the classrooms Yance had just left, the sector of school that housed the key stage one kids, the youngest in the school, some as young as four.

  The burning in his legs long forgotten, he took off at a run after the armed man, determined to stop him.

  Ibrahim Nasrallah didn’t have time to bother with the young teacher he’d bumped into. The police already knew what they were up to, and would doubtless have armed units here before long; he didn’t have time to waste on the adults.

  He took one look at the doors that ranged down the long corridor, turned to the first and kicked it open with one large, booted foot.

  He span into the doorway, taking in the sight before him.

  Kids sitting in their little chairs around shared tables, thirty of them, maybe forty; a male teacher behind a desk, fat and balding; a younger woman at the back of the class, kneeling to help one of the children with her shoes.

  It was a scene of innocence, surely repeated in classrooms all over the country.

  But Nasrallah was not a believer in innocence, and the sight did nothing to melt his hardened heart.

  They were targets, and nothing more.

  And so, even as realization dawned on the faces of the adults – and even on some of the little children – he opened fire into the room on full-automatic.

  ‘No!’ Yance screamed as he tackled the madman from behind, knocking him across one of the nearby tables.

  There were already bodies strewn over the room, blood on the floor, the walls, but Yance didn’t look at it, didn’t dwell on it; his entire attention focused instead on the man beneath him, who even now was trying to force his way up off the table.

  But Yance held him down, screaming at the kids. ‘Get out!’ he cried. ‘Get out!’

  He noticed the body of Trish Saunders at the rear of the class, but Rob Butler was still alive and burst into action, ushering the children out of the side doors, the ones that let out onto the school’s central courtyard.

  Toward safety.

  Nasrallah kicked his heel up backward, disgusted that he’d allowed himself to be caught like that. His
boot caught the man right in the balls, and he felt the grip slacken. He reared backward, swinging the butt of the rifle round in an arc that connected with the side of the young man’s head, dropping him to the floor.

  The man twisted to look up at him, and Nasrallah finished him off with a 7.62mm round to the chest.

  He saw the classroom emptying, children racing out of the door to the courtyard beyond, and fired a few shots after the fleeing targets.

  A few got away, a few fell – injured or dead, he couldn’t be sure – to the classroom floor.

  But he had other targets to pursue, and turned quickly on his heel, racing out of the room and down the corridor to the next classroom.

  10

  McKenna Ross heard the sounds, and quickly identified it as gunfire.

  She was a member of Britain’s army reserve, a captain in the Royal Artillery, and had heard plenty of it before. She even thought she could recognize the type, the distinctive blast of the long 7.62 round used in the Kalashnikov assault rifle and its various derivatives.

  A terrorist attack?

  Here?

  The sound of the gunfire was close, she knew that, and wasted no more time on thinking; action was what was now required.

  She leapt from her position, resting against her wooden desk, took off a shoe, and smashed the heel against the glass of the fire alarm on the wall next to her.

  The eyes of her children went wide with surprise at her actions, but she spoke first, before they had a chance to question her.

  ‘Fire drill!’ she shouted over the deafening sound of the alarm. ‘Come on, let’s go!’

  And with that, she flung open the door to the courtyard, leading her charges out of the danger zone and into the courtyard beyond.

  Nasrallah burst into the third classroom, but it was already empty.

  No matter; he’d already killed many infidel children, and it mattered not one bit that this class had escaped his punishment.

  They would be headed for the courtyard, and he knew that they wouldn’t escape punishment for long.

  With the fire alarm sounding, the entire school would be fleeing, many of them to the central courtyard. He wondered momentarily who had sounded the alarm, and even thought that it was a good idea, although he knew that – ultimately – it would be quite pointless.

  11

  Helen Ranson was leading the gathered children in the large assembly hall in a rendition of the school hymn when the gunman appeared, her voice breaking as she saw the figure burst through the doors opposite her and open fire on the crowd sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her.

  In all her years, she had never seen anything – could never have even imagined anything – remotely like what she was experiencing now, blood flying everywhere, bodies tossed this way and that.

  Without even knowing what she was doing, she turned and – with other teachers – threw open the big glass doors that led to the courtyard, screaming at the children to run for it, to run for their lives.

  The fire alarm went off then, and the frightening wail just served to increase the feelings of confusion that threatened to overwhelm her.

  What was happening?

  Why?

  The gunfire was interrupted as two of her colleagues jumped on the terrifying, bearded killer, but she did not wait to see what happened, just carried on trying to get the rest of the children to safety.

  Aabid Karam tossed and turned underneath the two men, but it was a struggle; they outweighed him by thirty or forty pounds apiece, and panic had imbued their muscles with extraordinary strength.

  Another person was on him then, a woman, trying to wrestle the gun away from his grasp.

  He relaxed at that moment, let the gun go; and when the person fell backward, not expecting the sudden release, she knocked into the two men pinning him down, made them slacken their hold for just a moment; just long enough for him to pull the curved dagger from his waistband and plunge it into the ribs of one of them, slash at the face of the other.

  The dagger cut deep into the second man’s flesh, and he recoiled, even as the first man’s dead weight sank down harder onto Karam.

  But Karam rolled the man off, kicked out at the man whose face he’d slashed, making room for him to get to his feet.

  He looked after the running children, pulled out a hand grenade from the bag that lay at his feet, and pulled the pin.

  It was then that he felt the sudden, horrible impact as the women who had taken his gun shot him in the stomach, the powerful rounds bursting right through him, ripping him apart.

  He watched – still conscious – as the recoil pushed the barrel upward, the remaining rounds flying high toward the ceiling, almost laughed at the woman’s weakness; but then he realized that the grenade was falling to the floor right by his feet, and there was no time left to do anything about it.

  He smiled as he embraced his martyrdom.

  At least he would take the woman with him.

  Ranson watched with amazement – just as the last able-bodied child ran past her into the courtyard – as one of her teachers, a middle-aged woman named Janice Johnson, who had been here longer even than Ranson herself, shot the killer in the gut with his own weapon.

  But then she saw the small object drop from the dead man’s hand, and amazement was replaced by horror as the grenade exploded in a burst of flame and debris that destroyed the bodies nearest to it, and that knocked her off her feet and out into the rain-soaked courtyard beyond.

  12

  Osman Massoud watched as the children poured into the courtyard, screaming and shouting, the adults struggling to contain them, frantically trying to cope with the utter chaos and confusion.

  Aabid and Ibrahim had done their jobs well, had forced everyone out of the school, funneled them toward Massoud, the third man.

  And Massoud was ready and waiting for them.

  Ross saw the man too late; he had been hiding behind the swings in the playground higher up the small hill that led out of the courtyard, and had been all but invisible, hidden by the torrential rain.

  But she saw him clearly now, turning toward the hundreds of people – men, women and children – who were gathered in the courtyard. Shivering, cold and terrified, they were also – Ross now understood – sitting ducks, right in the middle of a killing ground.

  The man opened fire then, and Ross was horrified to see that it was a belt-fed machine gun – and she threw herself on the children near her, using her body to shield them from the hundreds of rounds which were blasting across the enclosed area.

  Another man exited from the classrooms then, his Kalashnikov barking loudly.

  She felt the earth shake, heard screams, and looked up to see smoke and debris coming from her right – then saw the man in the playground pulling the pin from another grenade and throwing it to her left.

  She hunkered down even deeper, pulling the children in close; no idea who they were, only that she had to protect them.

  The explosion sounded deep, powerful, and a new surge of screaming was heard above the gunfire.

  She turned to the second man, her breath caught in her throat as she observed him pulling out a long tube from his large bag, a long tube that could only be . . .

  A rocket launcher!

  She pressed her face into the ground, and prayed for mercy.

  Nasrallah smiled at the scene in front of him as he aimed the rocket at the central mass of people.

  Dead and injured bodies were littered everywhere, blood and tissue visible even through the dark rain; everyone was screaming and crying, everywhere was chaos.

  It was perfect, and with the rocket it would soon be even more perfect.

  He looked down the sights, saw a woman lying on top of a group of children, covering them with her own body.

  Brave, and a perfect target; she was right in the center of the courtyard.

  His hand moved to the trigger and – with a prayer to Allah – depressed it, sending the 40mm anti-per
sonnel fragmentation warhead streaking above the courtyard to its target.

  His hands were working again even as he watched the rocket strike, exploding in a glorious whump of flame and flying shrapnel, the damage it caused simply indescribable, corpses ripped to shreds everywhere he looked, the brave woman’s the first to be eviscerated.

  Thrilled with the power at his disposal, he couldn’t wait to do it again and quickly loaded another 40mm warhead onto the launcher, picked it up and aimed it at the fleeing children.

  He put his finger back onto the trigger, his brain giving the signal; but nothing happened.

  Indeed, Nasrallah no longer had control of his hand, his finger; nor of anything at all.

  He wondered for an instant if he’d been shot in the back – that would explain why he couldn’t move, the bullet having severed his spinal cord.

  But who – ?

  He never finished the thought, his vision turning black as his body – still holding the rocket launcher – collapsed to the ground.

  Helen Ranson looked up from her positon in the courtyard, concussed and half deaf from her journey through the window just a few minutes earlier, and saw the man dead on the floor next to her, black-suited armed police officers swarming out around him, over him, into the courtyard.

  Her head snapped over in the other direction, looking for survivors, seeing instead movement over in the playground.

  She pulled herself to her knees, pointing to the playground, getting the attention of the cops. ‘Over there!’ she shouted. ‘Another one!’ She pointed again, desperately, over and over. ‘By the playground!’

  The black-suited figures nodded and surged past her, submachine guns at the ready as they set out after the third gunman.

  13

  Massoud had seen his friend fall to the ground, had turned and fled even before the first police officers had come storming out of the school, knowing what Nasrallah’s collapse meant, knowing that he would be next if he didn’t move now.