State Of Honour

He turned, saw that the secretary had almost reached the nearest SUV. It couldn’t drive up to her due to the fracas on the road. But the MSD agents had surrounded her with their body-armoured chests and backs, their weapons sweeping the crowd and the roofs of the surrounding buildings for any sign of a shooter. Evacuation was the best defence. He knew they’d manoeuvre her swiftly into the rear vehicle and exit at speed.

He had a gut feeling and decided to stay put. A sixth sense that had developed over the years. He checked the windows opposite, the tattered drapes half drawn. After a three-second scan, he saw what looked like the muzzle of an assault rifle disappear from view, although he couldn’t be sure. He shouted into the radio and drew his SIG, releasing the safety. Two MSD agents raced towards the building’s entrance, shoving people out of the way as they went.

He aimed his SIG at the window, deciding that if the image re-emerged he’d empty a full clip into the dirt-stained glass, irrespective of the outcome.

Then his worst nightmare began.

5.

Smoke and stun grenades hit the ground first, quickly followed by tear gas and bursts of automatic fire. Flashes of white light erupted, the high-pitched blasts blowing people off their feet. Others flailed about, blood leaching from their bodies. The two agents who were sprinting towards the building were dropped at the double doors. Panic-stricken, the crowd began to stampede, desperate to escape the kill zone. The air was swamped by hysterical screams, the police rendered useless, hunkering down as bullets cut chunks from wooden beams and ricocheted off metal posts and concrete overhangs.

Tom swayed, disorientated, his ears throbbing. Shaking his head in an attempt to revive himself, he glimpsed at least ten armed men rappelling from open windows, their faces obscured by gas masks. They had what looked like HK sub-machine guns strapped to their backs, with scopes, which he guessed were of the thermal imaging variety and would allow them to see in the smoke. He half raised his SIG, thought he was going to black out. Before he had a chance to get off a round, they vanished into the grey haze rising menacingly from ground level. Due to the state he was in, he guessed he would’ve capped an innocent by mistake, even if he’d been able to squeeze the trigger.

He did his best to turn his head. He couldn’t make out the SUVs or the secretary, either, now, and sensed the first tendrils of panic, his heart rate escalating. He just hoped the MSD agents had evacuated her already. As dopamine kicked in, the pain eased, and his muscles began to take in oxygen at an increased rate, counteracting his ebbing strength. He searched the roofs above as best he could. The snipers, he thought. Where the hell are they?

A massive explosion erupted, sending him to the ground. He landed on his left shoulder, the pain making him grit his teeth and moan. Blinking rapidly, he just about made out an SUV somersaulting above the smoke. He knew the car had an anti-explosion fuel tank laced with fire-resistant cladding, and was leak proof. This protected it from a high-velocity round or an anti-personnel landmine. But as flames engulfed it he figured it must have been parked over an IED. That and the force of the blast. He damned the Pakistani ISI. It was either incompetence or complicity. Either way, he blamed them.

Pushing himself up with his grazed hands, he stumbled forward, bursts from sub-machine guns tearing into flesh and bone about him. But he barely heard them, his hearing impaired by the blast. His eyes felt as if soap had been rubbed into them, the tear gas almost blinding him and making him feel nauseous. He began retching, and his shades slipped off. Looking up, he squinted as the bright light hit him.

Move, he thought. Keep moving.

As he got closer to where the SUVs were parked he felt the intense heat from the burning wreckage of the lead vehicle. The armour plating could withstand a grenade blast, but the IED had all but shredded the doors. The car had landed on top of a police motorcycle, the rider spreadeagled under the front right-hand wheel. As the smoke lifted a little he counted five bodies around it, bloody and contorted. But none was that of the secretary.

Another explosion erupted, taking out the façade of an office block, the shockwave flinging people to the ground. Many were hit or buried by falling masonry. As he buckled at the knees his eyes levelled on the bodies of his two agents, Dave and Becky, stacked against the second SUV like effigies. He half crawled, half scrambled over to them. Their heads had flopped forward. They both had centimetre-wide entry wounds in the backs of their necks. Executed, he thought, resisting the urge to gag. He’d known Dave for three years, and Becky had been married just two months.

As grey ash settled on the talc-like dust that already smeared his suit he inched over the rubble. His eyes felt as if they were melting, the stinging sensation so great that he groaned. But he knew he had to focus.

The rear vehicle was covered by chunks of concrete and twisted iron girders. Wincing, he caught sight of four MSD agents strewn around it. They looked as if they’d been hit by a hundred rounds, their bare heads lacerated and unrecognizable. He moved back and rolled under the middle SUV, his jacket tearing on a protruding piece of metal. As he emerged on the other side the smoke had almost cleared.

Then he saw her. An MSD agent ran by her side, pursued by five armed men. They wore ballistic vests, heavy Kevlar helmets, blast-resistant goggles and respirators. He couldn’t risk firing his SIG because, although the crowd had thinned out here, there were still enough people to hinder a clear shot. If it hadn’t been for the pursuers, he knew the agent would’ve flung her to the ground and covered her body to protect it from careering debris. Now the guy was doing the right thing by getting her out of the danger zone in the only manner available to him.

Feeling a surge of adrenalin jump-start his muscles, Tom pushed himself up and broke into a sprint.

As the secretary reached the remnants of a fruit store he saw one of her pursuers kneel. He raised what looked like an M4 carbine, his eye pressed to a scope, a red-dot laser beam showing up on the back of the agent’s unprotected neck. A shot rang out, and the agent fell. The secretary stopped, her hands going to her head, clearly traumatized. When the men reached her, she was lifted off her feet.

“Jesus.”

Rushing up the road, Tom vaulted over clumps of shattered bricks and mounds of concrete and steel. The men carrying the secretary turned down a side alley, flanked by jerry-built buildings. Three re-emerged and crouched down at the entrance, emptying their magazines into a small group of policemen who’d appeared on the other side of the road. They were all killed or maimed instantly. Tom kept close to the building line, his SIG hovering above a low wall. It was a risky position. If there was another catastrophic explosion, he could be buried. If it happened next door, the shock wave could travel down the wall and kill him.

Seeing the men disappear, he bent down and moved forward, just as a Pakistani squad car came screeching around the far bend. It raced up the opposite end of the road, its siren blaring. But the men returned, together with another, carrying a compact RPG. Tom fired a couple of rounds, although he had to dive for cover behind a concrete pillar immediately afterwards to avoid a volley.

After a few seconds, he risked glancing around it. The telltale trail of white-grey smoke was spewing out of the rear of the rocket launcher.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispered, realizing that his hearing had returned to normal.

The police car was shunted sideways, a dust-filled cloud enveloping it. Shards of glass and red-hot chassis shrapnel ripped through the air. He hoped the occupants had died on impact, because the decimated vehicle was engulfed by flames soon afterwards, the tails of burning gasoline curling over the imploded windows and fractured bodywork.

Seeing the men retreat, Tom jogged forward, speaking into his radio to the temporary command centre, his laboured breath resembling an asthmatic’s as he reported what had happened and where the secretary was likely to be. He was told that a helicopter was on its way. On its way, he thought. It was meant to be overhead.

He stopped a few metres from the alley entrance. He heard car engines revving furiously, then the distinctive sound of the helicopter above. He looked up and, squinting against the white sun, saw that it was the Pakistani police. He waved his arms, and pointed in desperation in the direction of the cars.

Reaching the alley, he ducked down as a swath of bullets was fired from a HK, brick fragments raining down on him. But he’d managed to glimpse at least five cars, parked hood to trunk, although it’d been impossible to tell which one the secretary was in. The helicopter hovered low, the wash from the rotor blades creating a whirlwind of dust and litter. Kneeling in the open side door, a police commando scanned the ground through the day-scope on his G3 assault rifle. The helicopter is her only hope, Tom thought.

But then he noticed movement below it. A man had appeared on the edge of the flat roof opposite, the unmistakable shape of a Stinger perched on his right shoulder. Tom shouted out to the commando, his words lost in the cacophony of voices coming from behind him, and the wave of sirens from fast-approaching fire crews and ambulances. He aimed his SIG at the man, but there were a good three hundred metres between them. He let off four rounds, but realized there was nothing he could do. The effective range of the handgun was a third of that on a good day.

Stunned, he watched the flash at the tail end of the Stinger’s launch tube, the small engine falling away after about three metres, propelling the missile at a rate of over a thousand miles per hour. Using infrared to lock onto the heat in the helicopter’s exhaust, the missile impacted the target with devastating precision. The explosion created a fireball and caused the rotor blades to buckle and the windshields to shatter. As the helicopter lost altitude, zigzagging like a massive kite, a second explosion occurred as the fuel ignited. It fell the remainder of the distance to the ground horizontally, black smoke spewing from the tangled metal. When it hit the asphalt, the rotor blades snapped off and splintered, sending a flurry of lethal fragments through the air.

Tom gritted his teeth and ran forward, ducking down as he reached the alley entrance. But the men had disappeared and the cars, half on the narrow sidewalk under awnings and store overhangs, sped away, each one taking a different exit along the rutted track.

He realized he had one option left open to him.

6.

Tom turned towards the entrance of the run-down apartment block where the man had fired the Stinger. If he could capture him alive, it might be a start. He pressed the PTT button, waited for the static to clear, and reported his position, asking for back-up. He raced across the road, jumping over chunks of jagged metal and smouldering craters, oblivious now to the pepper-like stinking still in his dark, streaming eyes.

As he got to the door of the building he saw that the security system was one step up from a Yale lock. Phlegm rose in his throat, impeding his breathing. He bent over and spat it out, the taste in his mouth like pure acid. He ejected the clip from his SIG, took a fresh one from the pouch on his belt. Slipping it in, he chambered a round in what appeared to be one smooth action. Deftly.

He shielded his eyes with one hand and shot open the entrance door, the rapid impact of the rounds acting like a ripsaw, the spent cases spinning to his right and clanking on the glass-ridden floor. He ducked in, his pulse racing, his shirt sticking to his aching body. There was an elevator directly in front, a concrete staircase to the right. He decided to take the stairs.

He reached the top in twenty seconds. A slick of sweat covered his ribboned forehead, and he was breathing heavily, the debilitating combination of tear gas, inhaled smoke and the build-up of lactic acid taking its toll. He hadn’t met anyone on the way up, but had heard muted shouts and cries from the apartments he’d passed. There was a solid wooden door leading to the flat roof, but it was padlocked. You don’t shoot padlocks with a round—the ricochet could kill you, he’d told a rookie agent once. It was a good rule. One he wasn’t about to discount now.

He spun around, saw a red firefighter’s axe in a metal case on the breeze-block wall. Below it, a regular fire extinguisher and a couple of gas canisters. He used the butt of the SIG as a hammer on the Plexiglas cover. After the first hit, the plastic broke, and he jerked out the axe from its perch. He holstered his weapon, and held the axe firmly in both hands. He stood to the side of the door, and began hacking at the wood, knocking out the lock with the splintering chunks.

Dropping the axe, he drew his SIG. He kicked open the door, but ducked down behind the wall immediately afterwards. It was a sound move. A burst of automatic rounds tore into the doorframe and lintel, and peppered the wall to the rear. He felt blood run down his face, but felt no pain save for something akin to a paper cut. He brushed his forehead, pulled out a large splinter.

He glanced around the door, seeing a portion of the ill-kempt rooftop: an array of rusted TV aerials, mouldy tarps, and a weather-beaten awning hung over plastic chairs. There was no visible sign of the shooter. He moved back, picked up one of the canisters, and held it before him. Turning, he launched it into the centre of the rooftop.

As he sank down against the wall a second burst was unleashed. But he’d figured out the trajectory of the bullets. Smarting, he aimed his SIG around the doorway at the canister. Fired. The round pierced the metal and a huge mushroom of white smoke spewed out, the safety valve preventing it from exploding into a thousand lethal shards as he’d hoped it would. He stepped back, grabbed the axe and flung it, so that it somersaulted handle over blade to the left.

As it clattered to the concrete floor he darted out from the wall, using the smoke as cover. He dived into a forward roll to the right. Springing up into a crouch position, he glimpsed a man in black fatigues and a gas mask, holding a MAC-10 machine pistol: a stubby weapon fitted with a suppressor and a holographic sight. Just as the smoke was thinning Tom shot him twice in the legs, guessing he was wearing ballistic plates. The pistol fell from his victim’s hands. He ran over.

The man was still, save for his twitching left leg. Tom didn’t have the time to frisk him, the Stinger being nowhere in sight. He spoke into his mic, reporting his position and saying that one terrorist was down. Badly wounded.

He checked behind a pile of bricks, and noticed the curved iron handrails of a fire escape on the rear wall about four metres away. He sprinted over, saw a man descending three-quarters of the way down, the Stinger strapped to his back. The ground-to-air weapon weighed a mere sixteen kilograms, but it could hit anything flying below four-thousand metres. The helicopter had been hovering at less than thirty and hadn’t stood a chance.

The fire escape was rusted and unstable, the steps grating against the concrete under the weight of the black-clad terrorist. But at least it reached all the way to the side road beneath, which was the reason the access door was locked, Tom guessed.

If the man had a handgun, Tom knew he would be ridiculously vulnerable. But if he used his SIG to shoot him from above, he wouldn’t be any further forward. Unless he just winged him, and the man didn’t die from the fall. Concluding that that was far too risky, Tom spoke into his mic and asked for back-up again, said that the area should be cordoned off. The short reply crackled over the radio: “With what?” He figured all the nearby local resources were still dealing with the devastation outside the hospital.

He eased over the ledge, his right foot hitting the third step. He saw the man look up, a tinted gas mask and woollen skullcap covering his face and head. The man half slid down the remainder of the steps, hitting the ground with a crunch of his boots. Tom hurtled after him, almost losing his balance twice, the fire escape threatening to bust loose from the wall and either swing under his weight or collapse backwards. Conscious that the man could escape, he placed his feet outside the steps. He plummeted the last five metres, crouching into a parachute roll at the bottom.

He heard a motorcycle engine and saw the man hobbling along, his left leg dragging behind him. He was heading towards a teenage boy sitting astride the bike. The boy, twisted around on the two-man saddle and wearing only thin white cotton and sandals, was calling out and beckoning with his hand. The man released the clip on the canvas bag, and the Stinger fell to the floor. In his condition, the dead weight was slowing him to a crawl.

The side street was narrow, bordered by open-fronted stores, a smattering of people running about or pointing at the flames and smoke rising above the buildings opposite. A motorcycle was undoubtedly the best option. Tom broke into a run behind the shooter, saw him cock his leg over the back of the motorcycle and grab the saddle bars. He realized he had to act decisively. He stopped, bent down onto one knee, his lungs heaving. He raised his SIG, steadying his aim with his left hand, the tear gas still forming a milky sheen on his eyes. The motorcycle sped away, the engine screeching like a kicked cat as the back tyre skidded and threw up dust and grit.

You got one shot, Tom thought. Make it your best.

7.

The SIG bucked and the spent case skipped out. Tom didn’t move. The motorcycle was doing maybe thirty when it lurched to the left at a ninety-degree angle, smashing into a stack of wooden cages full of chickens. The few people in the street ran for cover, the women pulling at their hijabs. Tom stood up just as the owner of the store stormed out, a rotund middle-aged man wearing a long white shirt. He dragged the boy up by his arm, and cuffed him over the head. But when he saw Tom running towards him, gun in hand, he rushed back into the store.

Tom pointed the SIG at the boy, gestured to him to stand still. The shooter was strewn on the ground, the motorcycle’s battered fuel tank lying on his right thigh. He lifted his gas mask, clearly struggling to breathe. Gasping, he held it out for a second before letting it drop back. Tom didn’t see his face, just the sunlight glinting off a gold necklace, half lost among the curling black hairs, damp with sweat. He was a tall man, Tom estimated, perhaps six-four, his limbs beneath his dark fatigues appearing well-muscled. But he wasn’t strapped.

Holstering his SIG, Tom bent over, about to jerk the man up, put an arm lock on him and half drag him back to … what? he thought. The Pakistani police would get him talking soon enough, but that kind of harsh treatment made a man say anything to save his ass. He thought briefly if he should get the CIA to pick him up and take him to a remote, classified detention centre. Maybe he should ask him some questions of his own.

Halfway down, Tom saw the boy, who looked about seventeen years old, pull out a handgun from his waistband. He pointed it at Tom, who recognized it as a Kel-Tec P11 semi-auto; a little over thirteen centimetres long, with rounded edges designed for concealment. But it was chambered in 9mm Lugar and could stop a gorilla in its tracks. They were rare in this part of the world, so Tom figured it was a gift from the kidnappers; an inducement, perhaps.

The boy shouted at him to step back. Tom straightened up, told the boy in Urdu to relax. The boy’s eyes were glazed, he noticed, his face unusually gaunt, the skin sallow and spot-ridden. There was something in those oyster-flesh eyes that told Tom the boy was both unstable and fearless.

The man managed to ease out from under the motorcycle and, grunting, struggled up. Tom stretched towards him, but the boy shot at the dirt between them and he stepped back. The man remained silent, turned and limped off. The boy smiled at Tom, his teeth stained a dull yellow. An opiate addict, Tom thought. He knew that, despite being a Muslim country, Pakistan was awash with drugs. The kid was high or coming down. Either way, he was capable of putting a bullet in his chest.

Tom offered him his watch and wallet. The boy just grinned. Seven metres, he thought, the takedown zone. The kid was less than two metres away, but the gun was pointing at Tom’s head now, and making a grab at it would be suicidal.

He watched the man slink into an alley and cursed himself. But even if he hadn’t holstered his SIG, he knew he wouldn’t have shot the boy. He’d joined the DS to protect people, and that meant he might have to kill. But not like this. Not a kid on drugs with no immediate and direct danger to his charge.

Tom said he should put the gun down, that he’d done his job and that he would vouch for him. Truth was, he needed him alive. With the man gone, he was a potential link to those who had abducted the secretary. Although he knew that meant probable brutality at the hands of the Pakistanis, there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

He could see that the boy was wavering, that, despite the drugs, he didn’t have it in him to kill a man without cause. He would wait. The boy would succumb to his prompting, and if he didn’t drop the weapon he would risk disarming him as he lowered it, just in case he changed his mind. He kept talking, his tone sober and sympathetic. The boy’s head began to bow, his eyes blinking frantically, his mouth forming words he couldn’t speak.

He’s going to drop it, Tom thought.

A shot rang out. The boy buckled. Instinctively, Tom reached out to him, but he knew he was dead as soon as he slumped to the ground. A fountain of blood had spurted out from his left temple as the round impacted. A split second later, another round pinged through the air just centimetres from Tom’s head. He drew his SIG, and, spinning around and ducking down, he heard rapid fire.

He saw Steve Coombs about six metres away, his gun raised towards the flat roof of an adjacent store. His face was creased, his body relaxed. He had both hands on his SIG and was leaning forward a little from the waist, as if he were on a range doing target practice. But the roof was empty.

Tom turned back around, holstering his SIG. He took off his jacket and, bending down, placed it over the kid’s upper body and head. He heard Steve come up behind him, sniffing and clearing his throat. Tom figured the unknown assassin had killed the boy to prevent him from talking. He glanced over his shoulder just as his friend jerked out the silver crucifix he always wore around his neck. Placing it to his lips, Steve kissed the crucified Christ.

8.

Linda lay face down in the rear footwell of a car that was now travelling at a sensible speed. She had a boot on her neck and another on her ankles. Her hands and feet had been secured with flex-cuffs. She was gagged with grey masking tape and a hessian sack had been placed over her head. The car radio blared out what sounded like a string of Pakistani pop songs. She hadn’t seen her captors’ faces. They hadn’t spoken. She’d travelled in the footwell before, after a nut had fired what turned out to be a starting pistol at her. An agent had covered her whole body with his and hadn’t let her up for what seemed like miles. This time it was different.

She felt sweat bead on her forehead, and dug a fingernail into her thumb to stop herself from weeping. She thought about her husband, John, and her two girls. She cursed herself for agreeing to visit the hospital and for not heeding the advice of the deputy director and Tom Dupree. But she still had the presence of mind to know that that wouldn’t help her now, so she did her best to concentrate on counting her breaths.