PLEDGE OF HONOR: A Mark Cole Thriller Read Online Free Page A
Author: J.T. Brannan
exited from the classrooms then, his Kalashnikov barking loudly.
She felt the earth shake, heard screams, and looked up to see smoke and debris coming from her right – then saw the man in the playground pulling the pin from another grenade and throwing it to her left.
She hunkered down even deeper, pulling the children in close; no idea who they were, only that she had to protect them.
The explosion sounded deep, powerful, and a new surge of screaming was heard above the gunfire.
She turned to the second man, her breath caught in her throat as she observed him pulling out a long tube from his large bag, a long tube that could only be . . .
A rocket launcher!
She pressed her face into the ground, and prayed for mercy.
Nasrallah smiled at the scene in front of him as he aimed the rocket at the central mass of people.
Dead and injured bodies were littered everywhere, blood and tissue visible even through the dark rain; everyone was screaming and crying, everywhere was chaos.
It was perfect, and with the rocket it would soon be even more perfect.
He looked down the sights, saw a woman lying on top of a group of children, covering them with her own body.
Brave, and a perfect target; she was right in the center of the courtyard.
His hand moved to the trigger and – with a prayer to Allah – depressed it, sending the 40mm anti-personnel fragmentation warhead streaking above the courtyard to its target.
His hands were working again even as he watched the rocket strike, exploding in a glorious whump of flame and flying shrapnel, the damage it caused simply indescribable, corpses ripped to shreds everywhere he looked, the brave woman’s the first to be eviscerated.
Thrilled with the power at his disposal, he couldn’t wait to do it again and quickly loaded another 40mm warhead onto the launcher, picked it up and aimed it at the fleeing children.
He put his finger back onto the trigger, his brain giving the signal; but nothing happened.
Indeed, Nasrallah no longer had control of his hand, his finger; nor of anything at all.
He wondered for an instant if he’d been shot in the back – that would explain why he couldn’t move, the bullet having severed his spinal cord.
But who – ?
He never finished the thought, his vision turning black as his body – still holding the rocket launcher – collapsed to the ground.
Helen Ranson looked up from her positon in the courtyard, concussed and half deaf from her journey through the window just a few minutes earlier, and saw the man dead on the floor next to her, black-suited armed police officers swarming out around him, over him, into the courtyard.
Her head snapped over in the other direction, looking for survivors, seeing instead movement over in the playground.
She pulled herself to her knees, pointing to the playground, getting the attention of the cops. ‘Over there!’ she shouted. ‘Another one!’ She pointed again, desperately, over and over. ‘By the playground!’
The black-suited figures nodded and surged past her, submachine guns at the ready as they set out after the third gunman.
13
Massoud had seen his friend fall to the ground, had turned and fled even before the first police officers had come storming out of the school, knowing what Nasrallah’s collapse meant, knowing that he would be next if he didn’t move now.
It wasn’t that he was afraid of capture, afraid of dying; he just had more to do, if he could make it.
He saw armed men racing around from the sides and stopped, threw a grenade toward one group while pivoting and loosing off another burst of automatic gunfire toward the other.
It caused enough of a pause for Massoud to react, racing across the green playing fields for the fences that led to the road beyond. He heard gunfire behind him, but he was too far ahead now, and the conditions were so bad, that he knew they wouldn’t hit him.
Besides, with Allah on his side, how could they?
Laying down a burst of covering
She felt the earth shake, heard screams, and looked up to see smoke and debris coming from her right – then saw the man in the playground pulling the pin from another grenade and throwing it to her left.
She hunkered down even deeper, pulling the children in close; no idea who they were, only that she had to protect them.
The explosion sounded deep, powerful, and a new surge of screaming was heard above the gunfire.
She turned to the second man, her breath caught in her throat as she observed him pulling out a long tube from his large bag, a long tube that could only be . . .
A rocket launcher!
She pressed her face into the ground, and prayed for mercy.
Nasrallah smiled at the scene in front of him as he aimed the rocket at the central mass of people.
Dead and injured bodies were littered everywhere, blood and tissue visible even through the dark rain; everyone was screaming and crying, everywhere was chaos.
It was perfect, and with the rocket it would soon be even more perfect.
He looked down the sights, saw a woman lying on top of a group of children, covering them with her own body.
Brave, and a perfect target; she was right in the center of the courtyard.
His hand moved to the trigger and – with a prayer to Allah – depressed it, sending the 40mm anti-personnel fragmentation warhead streaking above the courtyard to its target.
His hands were working again even as he watched the rocket strike, exploding in a glorious whump of flame and flying shrapnel, the damage it caused simply indescribable, corpses ripped to shreds everywhere he looked, the brave woman’s the first to be eviscerated.
Thrilled with the power at his disposal, he couldn’t wait to do it again and quickly loaded another 40mm warhead onto the launcher, picked it up and aimed it at the fleeing children.
He put his finger back onto the trigger, his brain giving the signal; but nothing happened.
Indeed, Nasrallah no longer had control of his hand, his finger; nor of anything at all.
He wondered for an instant if he’d been shot in the back – that would explain why he couldn’t move, the bullet having severed his spinal cord.
But who – ?
He never finished the thought, his vision turning black as his body – still holding the rocket launcher – collapsed to the ground.
Helen Ranson looked up from her positon in the courtyard, concussed and half deaf from her journey through the window just a few minutes earlier, and saw the man dead on the floor next to her, black-suited armed police officers swarming out around him, over him, into the courtyard.
Her head snapped over in the other direction, looking for survivors, seeing instead movement over in the playground.
She pulled herself to her knees, pointing to the playground, getting the attention of the cops. ‘Over there!’ she shouted. ‘Another one!’ She pointed again, desperately, over and over. ‘By the playground!’
The black-suited figures nodded and surged past her, submachine guns at the ready as they set out after the third gunman.
13
Massoud had seen his friend fall to the ground, had turned and fled even before the first police officers had come storming out of the school, knowing what Nasrallah’s collapse meant, knowing that he would be next if he didn’t move now.
It wasn’t that he was afraid of capture, afraid of dying; he just had more to do, if he could make it.
He saw armed men racing around from the sides and stopped, threw a grenade toward one group while pivoting and loosing off another burst of automatic gunfire toward the other.
It caused enough of a pause for Massoud to react, racing across the green playing fields for the fences that led to the road beyond. He heard gunfire behind him, but he was too far ahead now, and the conditions were so bad, that he knew they wouldn’t hit him.
Besides, with Allah on his side, how could they?
Laying down a burst of covering
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