PLEDGE OF HONOR: A Mark Cole Thriller

by J. T. Brannan

  Jones had come to him soon after he’d taken over command of JSOC, disturbed by requests for special operations personnel and materiel authorized by his predecessor Lieutenant General Miley Cooper, but made by persons unknown. It screamed out non-approved covert unit, and Jones – sniffing an opportunity – had sought out the vice president for political muscle.

  The idea was that Jones would dig deep for the evidence, and Mason would then run with it to congress, and the world media if necessary.

  They wanted to catch the Paradigm Group’s secretive combat units in the act, discover the incontrovertible proof that could impeach the president and send to prison anyone else who was involved, but then – just as soon as Jones took over – such requests seemed to immediately dry up, almost as if they suspected what was afoot.

  But now Jones apparently did have something, and Mason was keen to hear what it was.

  ‘Well, Colonel?’ Mason asked with a raised eyebrow. ‘Are you going to share?’

  Jones smiled. ‘I am,’ he said happily, ‘I certainly am. Now, I know we wanted to catch them – whoever ‘they’ are – in the act, so to speak, but given the fact that they’ve been scared off, I decided to try a different tack and look at old operations, things I thought could be traced to the group’s secret units. Now,’ Jones continued after another sip of coffee, ‘it wasn’t easy – the tracks have been well hidden, believe me – but I think I’ve managed to find something . . . potentially very damaging, and not only to Vinson and the Paradigm Group, but to President Abrams herself.’

  Mason couldn’t help the huge grin which spread wide across his face. ‘Tell me more,’ he said eagerly. ‘Please, tell me more.’

  7

  The young man’s head rocked back with the force of the blow, blood flying from his broken nose as he fell heavily to the floor.

  The gang around him reacted quickly, two of the men striking down with their fists as the other two pulled their feet back to deliver their punishing kicks.

  ‘Down, down, down!’ the armed cop screamed at the men, Heckler and Koch submachine gun aimed at them, as two of his colleagues came rushing over, weapons also at the ready. ‘Do it now!’ he shouted again as the men looked at him in surprise.

  But slowly, reluctantly, they moved away from the prone form of the man they’d been hitting, hands up in the air.

  The cops rushed in, forced them down to the ground and cuffed them before hauling them off, away from the airport passport control line; another pair of police officers approached the victim, helped him to his feet and took him away with his screaming girlfriend to Heathrow’s medical center.

  Cole looked on from the line, surprised by the violence, but far from shocked. On reflection, it had been building up all night.

  On his arrival at Heathrow, he’d noted that security at the airport had been heavily beefed up; armed police officers were all over the place, barriers and barricades had been set up to channel the throngs of people, and extra checks had been put on. Cole wasn’t surprised in the least – the British threat alert would be on its highest possible setting, as attacks often came in twos and threes, and airports were considered prime targets. Some people would see it as shutting the stable door after the horse had already bolted, but the alternative – to not prepare, then to be hit again – was totally out of the question.

  It had already taken Cole over an hour to pass halfway through passport control, much longer than on his previous visits, and during his wait in line he was struck by just how angry the crowds were. They weren’t angry about being kept waiting though, as they might ordinarily be; no, this time they were angry about something much more real, much more important.

  The attack on the school and the synagogue – which whispered rumors said now totaled seventy-six dead, fifty of which were children – had set people’s tempers aflame. Some people were subdued, obviously very upset; some sat on the floor, or leant against the walls, heads in their hands, openly weeping; but for the most part, there was just pure anger at the senselessness of it all. Cole heard more than a few people in the crowds chatting about how all Muslims should be expelled from the country, how the whole of the Middle East should be carpet-bombed.

  The loudest of these people consisted of a small group of young Englishmen, unshaven and wearing loose sports clothes. They had obviously been drinking, and were discussing what had happened that morning in loud, aggressive voices.

  Then they’d spotted a young couple who looked South Asian – Cole thought possibly from Pakistan – and had started making comments to them which had become more and more aggressive within the space of less than a minute.

  And that was when the punches started to get thrown.

  In all his years of international travel, Cole had never seen anything like it at a major airport.

  It was especially bad for any passengers who seemed to be of Middle Eastern or Arabic appearance; at first there were just muttered curses, and now there was actual physical violence.

  Cole watched with interest as the security forces now set about organizing an entirely separate line for passengers from certain countries, or of certain ethnicities, counting them as they went. In the end, there were nearly fifty of them.

  The segregation had started already, Cole noted, and was disappointed that the terror tactics of the three killers were already working on the British people. It was only the first day, too – how much worse would it get over the coming days and weeks?

  Dylan Travis, an FBI liaison officer working in London with MI5, met him in the arrivals lounge, and they quickly escaped the madness of the airport as he led Cole to the rental car parked up outside.

  Travis was highly professional, but amiable enough. He quizzed Cole about his journey in friendly tones, before asking the more problematic questions about Cole’s own FBI history. Cole had worked with the FBI many times in the past, and knew a lot about its broad-brush operations and tactics; but he’d needed a more personal insight to properly fill the boots of his latest character, Special Agent Mark White, and so had used his journey to memorize a lot of little details about the Bureau.

  It was always the little things which made an impersonation more genuine, and Cole had had decades of practice. He’d sent for all sorts of information to be remotely downloaded onto his secure tablet from the computer mainframes back at Forest Hills – names and faces of FBI agents, their private lives and work histories; cases, both well-known and minor; personal gossip from the various field offices he was supposed to have worked in; details of the training staff at the FBI Academy in Quantico when he was supposed to have been there, along with information on anything out of the ordinary that happened during the training cycle, as well as the names and records of the other students on the course. Such information was the sort of thing which separated an effective cover story from one which would become quickly unraveled.

  Cole had also found out the details of the current FBI liaison staff working in London, along with their Bureau friends and contacts; his own work history was also designed to not conflict with theirs, so that they wouldn’t have been in the same place at the same time.

  Cole knew that Dylan Travis, for instance, had been in London for just over six months, and before that had done a stint over in Canberra with the Australian Federal Police. There, Cole knew, he might well have met Tyler Spinks; based in Australia at the same time as Travis, Spinks was also trained during the same intake as ‘Mark White’ and might therefore come up in conversation.

  Such knowledge enabled Cole to reply to Travis’s inquiries in just the right way as to arouse no suspicion in the man at all; Cole even used that knowledge to ask a few questions of his own, further cementing his cover, and by the time Travis had pulled the Ford rental off the M25 highway and into the city itself, the relationship was secure.

  ‘Might take a while longer than normal getting to your hotel,’ Travis said as he eased the vehicle into the merging traffic, ‘quite a few streets are going to be clos
ed tonight due to the marches.’

  ‘Marches?’ Cole asked.

  ‘You know, protest marches, demonstrations like they did in France after the Charlie Hebdo thing a few years ago. Latest news is that there are ten thousand people gathered in Trafalgar Square alone, loads more in the parks too, St. James’s has at least five thousand. Everyone’s out, everyone’s feeling hurt by this thing, and I can’t say I blame them.’

  ‘Peaceful?’ Cole asked.

  ‘So far,’ Travis said. ‘Candlelit vigils, placards denouncing terrorism and violence, that sort of thing. But the police are out in force, and not just in case there are more attacks. There’s a worry that people might start targeting Muslims in the streets, firebombing mosques, you know the sort of thing – revenge attacks, vigilantism.’

  ‘They might be right too,’ Cole said, before telling Travis what was happening inside the airport.

  ‘Yeah, it’s inevitable. Same sort of thing happened after Nine Eleven, remember?’

  ‘All too well,’ Cole replied. ‘And the trouble is, that’s just what terrorists want. Discord, disharmony, segregation, getting people in a society to start fearing each other.’

  ‘Well, the Brits are all over it from what I can see, I didn’t even know those guys had so many weapons, literally every officer on the street’s carrying now. They’re not taking any chances, that’s for damn sure. Recalled every officer they can from leave, got some retired personnel drafted back in too. MI5 are also working their asses off, checking both sides – Islamic terrorists in case of a secondary attack, but also fascist, nationalist and neo-Nazi groups in case they try and stir up more trouble by attacking Muslim interests.’

  ‘Sounds like I’ve landed in a real shit-storm,’ Cole said.

  Travis nodded his agreement. ‘You’ve got it dead-on,’ he confirmed. ‘But from your record, I guess that’s how you like it.’

  Cole smiled. ‘I guess it must be.’

  8

  Cole looked across the River Thames as he sipped his morning coffee, feeling the chill of the incoming winter in the air.

  The previous night’s journey – as Travis had predicted – had been long and troublesome, full of barricades and detours; but eventually they had arrived at his hotel, after passing through the candle-bearing, voluminous crowds gathered around Westminster.

  He was staying at the DoubleTree, a Hilton hotel just on the other side of Thames House, the building which housed the British Security Service, MI5. Located in the heart of Westminster, close to the Houses of Parliament and the seat of the UK government, the hotel was also just a short stroll north to New Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police. He was therefore ideally placed to visit the people involved with the investigation, although rather further from the scene of the crime than he would have liked – Wembley was over ten miles to the northwest, which Travis told him could well take an hour or more in bad traffic. The tube – what the British called the famed London Underground train system – might be quicker, but not by much.

  But the hotel suited Cole just fine, and he’d enjoyed a good night’s rest before rising early and using the on-site gym. The morning news indicated that the demonstrations had been pretty peaceful, although several mosques had been vandalized and three Muslim-owned stores had had their windows smashed through. There had been a few assaults as well, but nothing too serious.

  There had also been demonstrations and vigils held throughout the rest of the world, including the United States, where President Abrams had made a speech denouncing terrorism and declaring her support for the United Kingdom.

  British Prime Minister Adam Gregory had declared today a national day of mourning, and the decision had been made to close all schools for the day. It was thought that many of the students would join the solidarity marches through the towns and cities of the UK, and many businesses had also chosen to close as a mark of respect.

  Cole wondered how the security services were going to cope, and hoped that nothing else would happen to make their job even harder.

  After the gym, Cole had showered and changed into a business suit, before having breakfast and taking a stroll round the corner to meet up with Travis at Thames House.

  But when he’d seen the River Thames ahead of him, he’d bought a coffee from a local vendor and crossed the busy road toward the opposite sidewalk. He had plenty of time, and wanted to familiarize himself once again with the city, as a dull sun rose gradually over the rooftops, turning the river waters from black to gunmetal gray.

  He’d been operational in Britain twice before, not including training visits with her various special forces and intelligence units. The first time had involved the assassination of a Peruvian drug lord who’d come out of his South American fortress for the first time in years, in order to attend the funeral of his youngest daughter, who’d married an Englishman and had lived in London. With bleak irony, she’d died of a cocaine overdose.

  Cole had done what he’d been trained to do and eliminated the man, getting so close to him that he had been able to manipulate three vital nerve points on his large, heavy body without him even realizing. The points had been struck in such an order and manner that – with no forewarning – the drug lord had toppled over just an hour later, dead of a suspected heart attack.

  It was what the Chinese referred to as the delayed death touch, although Cole himself had been taught the art by an Indian prisoner who’d lived in a neighboring cell during Cole’s time in a brutal Pakistani mountain prison. The Indians knew it as Marma Adi, a constituent part of Kalaripayattu which many experts believed to be the oldest martial art in the world.

  But whatever its history, it worked; and when Cole had his release secured by Admiral Charles Hansard, Director of National Intelligence and Cole’s mentor and boss, he had put his new skills to good use as a deniable operator known only as ‘the Asset’. He’d killed many times over the years for Hansard, right up until his second operational visit to London when Hansard had instead ordered Cole’s death.

  He had been asked to come to London for a covert debrief on Cole’s recent assassination of Bill Crozier, the head of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service; but it quickly transpired that Hansard was a rogue element, ordering assassinations to satisfy his own agenda, and had needed Cole taking out of the picture to ensure his silence.

  But Cole hadn’t gone quietly and – pursued by the Metropolitan Police, the Security Service, and Hansard’s own kill-teams – he had been chased across the city until he’d taken a dive off the top of a double decker bus as it slowed for a roadblock on Tower Bridge, right into the dirty waters of the Thames that now lay before him once again, the wide gray river causing a flood of memories to wash over him.

  Hansard had also put out a kill order for Cole’s family, and he remembered calling his wife Sarah after dragging himself out of the Thames, warning her to move immediately, get away from their home in the Caymans and get to a safe location.

  She’d managed to get there, to the small Austrian hamlet of Kreith and the home of Stefan Steinmeier, an old friend of Cole’s and a former member of Germany’s elite GSG-9 counter-terrorist unit. But Hansard had got to Steinmeier too, offered him a suitcase full of cash to sell his old friend out. Cole had reached the hamlet, but it was too late – one of Hansard’s hit-teams was already there waiting for him.

  He’d taken out the trained killers that guarded the house, but had been unable to stop one of Hansard’s men – the psychopathic Dan Albright – from killing his wife and children, right in front of him.

  He shook his head sadly, finished the coffee and tossed the Styrofoam cup into a trash can.

  So much pain.

  He’d taken his revenge, of course; killed Steinmeier, Albright, and even Hansard eventually; but it had never been able to fill the tragic hole that had been ripped in his heart, his soul.

  He’d been a broken man for a time, worked as a bouncer in strip clubs and go-go bars in Thailand, tried to lo
se himself in the pain of a hundred beatings, allowed himself to be a human punch bag to make up for what had happened, for not being good enough to save his family.

  But eventually, he had fought back, rediscovered the beast inside him, and had come to a realization; a normal life was not for him, not anything he should ever have tried to find. He was a killer, a predator, born for violence and death.

  But whether it was from his Catholic upbringing, or his early military life, he had believed in using that violence to help others, the sheep dog versus the wolf. His job was to protect the sheep, not to terrorize them. Hansard might have misused his skills, but they were the only skills he had, and his only choice was to use them for what he believed to be the common good.

  That purpose was now ultimately being used within Force One, and he was at last satisfied, both with his life, and his nature.

  He’d also been blessed with another daughter, a connection to family that he thought he could never have again. Michiko was a blessing, he knew that; and he also knew that he had to keep her safe, to make sure that the same fate that befell his last family would be spared her.

  He had brought her close, so he could keep an eye on her, could protect her. But she was a headstrong girl, and Cole knew that she was keen to get some operational experience with Force One, use her technical skills on the ground. It was something that she had asked often of him, and something he had always turned down, citing the fact that security considerations wouldn’t allow her to join the unit. But the fact was that he was scared that something would happen to her, and wanted her somewhere safe, behind a computer.

  But at the back of his mind, his understanding of human nature told him that she wouldn’t stay still for long; she had a taste for adventure like her father’s, and the thought terrified him.