State of Honour Read Free

wondered if he’d missed something important in terms of the assessment. But the training his team underwent continually was based on repetition, the type that created confidence and long-term muscle memory. If an attack of whatever nature happened, be it a flung bag of flour or a multiple-armed assault, they would act instinctively, almost without conscious effort.
    Steve sniffed. “The paper shuffler thinks he’s a comedian.”
    “He’s a deputy director of the CIA,” Tom said, “and he ain’t here to tell Lyric a joke.”

2.
    Linda Carlyle looked up as the heavy door opened, hoping her rising sense of unease didn’t show on her face. The dimly lit room was fifteen metres square, the few pieces of furniture functional rather than decorative. Sitting at an oak desk, she lifted a pair of black-rimmed eyeglasses off her aquiline nose. For the past forty-five minutes, she’d been speed-reading a departmental report she’d commissioned on the near-past disputes between Iran and Pakistan; all of which had stemmed from Islam’s major schism. While Iran was ruled by Shias, Pakistan was Sunni dominated. In the nineties, they’d backed opposing sides in the Afghan Civil War, and had sponsored sectarian terrorism in each other’s major cities. Now they were on the brink of a conflict that could ignite the whole region.
    “Good morning, Madam Secretary,” the deputy director said, walking towards her, his hand massaging the folded skin at his neck.
    “You’re not harassing my boys, are you, Bill?”
    “Sometimes I forget I swopped fatigues for a suit.”
    Forcing a smile, she said, “Take a seat. I’ll be right with you.”
    Deputy Director Bill Houseman, who had travelled to Islamabad with the secretary, together with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Under-Secretary of Defense, sat in a padded chair two metres from the desk and crossed his muscular legs.
    Linda closed the marble-coloured lever arch file and tapped a remote. The room lit up. “So let’s have it,” she said, switching off the antenna-like arc lamp she’d been reading under.
    “The switchboard operator just got a call. I think we should ask the head of your security detail to join us.”
    “I’d like to hear what you have to say first. Please continue.”
    “A threat has been made.” He clenched his teeth.
    “I see.”
    “The caller said the Leopards of Islam would ensure that the US Secretary of State never leaves Pakistan soil. We’re putting it down to a random individual. Low-level risk assessment.”
    “And why’s that?”
    Houseman cleared his throat, putting his hand to his mouth. “Because as a rule, the Leopards don’t make threats before an attack, ma’am.”
    “That makes me feel a whole lot better,” she said, shaking her head. “And the current situation here?”
    “The Leopards are launching fresh attacks in Karachi, Bahawalpur, Lahore. The list goes on. There’ve been three bomb attacks in Islamabad in the past twelve days.”
    “Is civil war on the cards?” she asked, fearing the worst.
    “We have reports that Shia elements of the army are joining the insurgency, so it’s a possibility.”
    “And the Leopards are definitely backed by Iran?”
    Houseman nodded. “No question. But the Sunnis brought it on themselves. The atrocities against the Shia minority were bound to result in an armed response.”
    “How serious is the Iranian threat?”
    Houseman drew in an audible breath through his nose and shuffled his buttocks a fraction. “Satellite images and drone feeds show that Iranian Special Forces have already made incursions across the border. And there are three divisions of the Revolutionary Guard massed just four miles from the largest of Pakistan’s five provinces–”
    “Balochistan.”
    “That’s right. Our analysts believe that Iran is planning to occupy the port of Gwadar and help themselves to the huge resources of natural gas in the province if Pakistan becomes a failed