PLEDGE OF HONOR: A Mark Cole Thriller (2 page)

5

McKenna Ross looked up from her paperwork as the children started to file into her classroom, most drenched to the skin from their walk to school and complaining loudly about it.

‘I’m soaking!’ Maycie Robbins said in her usual high-pitched tones.

‘I bet I’m more soaking!’ argued Alejandro Rocha, shaking the rain from his hair, splattering Maycie as he did so.

‘Hey!’ the little girl complained. ‘You did that on purpose!’

Ross knew what was coming next. This class of five and six year olds – all forty-one of them – could be read like a book. ‘Miss!’ Maycie called. ‘Miss! Ali’s putting water on me!’

Ross put her papers down and rose from her chair. Better she got up now, she figured; there would be a lot more of this before registration was over.

‘Cut it out, both of you,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing we can do about the rain, it falls on all of us just the same. Now why don’t both of you go and put your coats away and take a seat?’

The children exchanged looks, then did as Ross suggested, retreating to the cloakroom to get rid of their things.

The day would consist of this a lot, Ross knew; rainy days always made the children a little irritable. She’d been teaching for over two decades now, and it had never been any different. It had even been the same when she’d been a student herself, she supposed, although those days were now rather lost in the mists of time.

She didn’t mind though; children were children, what could you do? It was part of her job, and she loved it. She always had. She loved the children too, even those who others found ‘difficult’. They were children too, just sometimes needed handling in a different way, that was all.

But she loved every last one of them as if they were her own, members of an extended family that over so many years now ran into the hundreds, perhaps thousands.

The long parade ended with Ben Yance, her teaching assistant, taking up the rear, making sure everyone made it into the classroom.

‘Just two short so far,’ he told her, ‘Kyle and Bethany.’

Ross nodded her head; Bethany’s mother had already called in to let her know that the girl was ill and wouldn’t be in today. Kyle was never on time, and would surely turn up soon enough.

‘Okay Ben, thank you,’ Ross said, feeling sorry for the young man, who was as wet as the children after waiting for them in the playground. ‘Why don’t you go and get yourself a cup of tea from the staff room?’

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ Yance said with a smile. ‘Won’t be long.’

He turned on his heel and left, leaving Ross to control the masses. She didn’t mind though.

It was just another day, like so many before.

6

The rain was falling even more heavily now, and Karam saw that people’s heads were down, too busy with their own affairs, too busy trying to stay dry and warm, to pay any attention to the others around them.

It was perfect.

Karam, despite his eagerness, wasn’t walking fast; the weight of the bag strapped across his shoulders precluded it. He therefore strolled slowly through the residential streets of northwest London, letting the cold rain refresh and revive him.

Prepare him.

Osman and Ibrahim were also mobile now, approaching the target from different angles, all due to converge at the same time.

Karam was longer interested in the streets of London that he now wandered; he had left the melancholy and nostalgia behind him earlier that morning. It was gone now altogether, the remnants of a past life, obliterated almost entirely.

His mind now was on other things; his approach, his entry, his movements once inside.

It had all been planned in meticulous detail, had even been practiced – as much as it could be, while needing to be covert – many times over the past weeks and months.

And today was the day that it was all going to come together, the payoff for all of their hard work, their sacrifice.

It was then that he saw the target, rising ahead of him in the pouring rain.

He looked down at his watch, checked the time, and breathed out slowly, controlling himself.

Just five more minutes.

7

Constable Peter Franks of London’s Metropolitan Police Service was just over an hour into his morning foot patrol, and the rain was starting to piss him off.

His body was dry enough, the modern materials of his uniform serving to drive away most of the moisture, but his face was taking the full brunt of the weather. The traditional, conical ‘custodian’ helmet he wore – while being a world famous symbol of the British police – did nothing to protect him from the elements, which seemed to be getting worse and worse as the morning wore on.

Nothing much had happened so far this morning either, as he’d made his way through the streets after setting off from Wembley Police Station a little after eight o’clock. One person had stopped to ask him for directions, and that was about it.

Not that there was a lot he could do if something
did
happen anyway – as one man, he was hardly going to be able to singlehandedly stop anything major, especially with only an extendable baton and a Taser gun to help him. A lone pickpocket, perhaps; an armed gang raiding a jewelry store? He’d be hard pressed to do more than call it in and try and remember the license plate of the getaway car.

But the public wanted foot patrols, the local ‘bobby on the beat’, and so that’s what the public got; never mind if it was any use or not. Two-person foot patrols would be better of course, but the budget didn’t run to that. It never did.

And so Franks was forced to wander the dark, murky streets of northwest London, looking for crimes he couldn’t stop, and reassuring the people that all was well.

He was just thinking about calling in for a large steaming mug of tea from one of the nearby cafés – in the interests of community relations, of course – when he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

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.