State of Honour Read Online Free PDF Page B

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