Honour Bound Read Online Free Page B

as the Unit’s control
centre.
    The
ATU had been in operation for twenty years, but until the terrorist attack on
the twin towers, it had been a secret government department, certainly not
publicised like MI5 or MI6. The ATU, mainly staffed by ex Special Forces
personnel, had been tasked to eliminate terrorist groups and their support
networks, both in the UK and abroad. Since that devastating attack on the twin
towers, the Unit’s existence, but not its methods, had come to the attention of
the press, mainly to emphasise the commitment of the government in the fight
against global terrorism.
    Throughout
the years, numerous files had found their way onto Talbot’s desk, the majority
of them a catalogue of pointless destruction and indiscriminate killing. His
mind had been numbed to the violence and death that was regularly meted out for
useless causes by worthless people on innocent victims. Victims
who, in all probability, had never heard of the group that had so casually
taken their lives. There was yet to be an atrocity that man could
inflict on his fellow man that Talbot had not already seen the results of. This
latest outrage had been a well planned clinical operation for as yet an unknown
purpose. The warning given had left insufficient time to evacuate the terminal
building, a fact that the bombers would have been more than aware of. Usually
the groups were not shy in coming forward to claim the ‘glory’ for their cause.
Perhaps the disgusted public outrage or the number of casualties, 276 dead,
another 365 injured had made the rats crawl back into the stinking cesspool of
their own making.
    He
read the report again, he’d lost track of the number of times he had thumbed
through it, reading and re-reading the contents hoping to find something,
anything, out of the ordinary, something that would help point the finger. The
caller used the codeword CARUSO in the call before the blasts, the same
codeword used in the four hoax calls. The same male had made all of the calls
to the airport central switchboard. As each threat came through, it was graded
into different levels, from red through a spectrum of colours to green. Any
call made using a known codeword was automatically coded red and the
appropriate action taken. Not that the appropriate action helped these poor
buggers, he thought.
    Three
vehicle borne bombs had been left in the central terminal area. The two that
exploded with such devastating effect, and a third in
a taxi left on the cab rank on the ground floor. The primer in the taxi had
gone off, but the main charge had failed to detonate. The taxi had burned out
along with a fire brigade hose layer that had parked alongside.
    He
leaned back in his chair, watching the flashing cursor on his laptop as though
hoping one of the flashes would turn into inspiration. It was at times like
this he wished he were on active operations, able to play a more positive role
in the elimination of the groups who carried out these attacks. Collation and
dissemination of information was an important part in the fight against
terrorism, and though he recognised that, it didn’t stop the longing he felt
when the field operators were receiving their briefings on a new job. He wanted
to be out there with them, feeling the rush of adrenaline, the surge of inner
strength as the reckoning drew near. He knew it was not to be. He had played
his part in the active battles, played and lost. With a grim smile, he recalled
the event that had so devastatingly altered his life.
    It
was during a covert operation seven years previously. He had been on a team
tasked to release a hostage taken by a group purporting to be the Voice of
Freedom. As it turned out, they were the voice of a Columbian drugs gang who
were trying to divert severely stretched resources from a massive drugs deal.
During the final seconds of the operation, while the hostage was under escort
from the building, he had been shot in the back, the last act of a dying man,
by