TA - Explosion Run

When he looked up, he saw the explosives packed along the ceiling.

Then he noticed a camera, operated by remote, in the corner of the hallway. It hadn’t been there during his initial trip for the hostage videotaping. Now, however, it was, and it was moving.

Finally, he heard a voice from above, yelling in Farsi: “Police. Stay in your home.” The Farsi had a slight American accent.

He pushed himself to his feet and sprinted, lungs screaming for air, down the hallway.

“RUN, YOU MORONS!” he shouted. When the operatives finally recognized General Brett Hawthorne, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and covered with blood, they turned and ran. They smashed their way down the hallway—no time for discretion now—as the basement exploded, rocking the ground beneath them. Two of the men fell; Brett vaulted them, yelling at them to get up, grabbing one by his bulletproof vest and virtually throwing him down the hallway with his good hand. Civilians’ heads popped out into the hallway as the explosion registered; Brett looked over his shoulder to see them engulfed in the flame that poured down the hallway like water through a flooding pipeline. A blast of heat rocketed him through the door at the end of the hallway. The other operatives sprinted ahead of him; one man behind him screamed inhumanly as the fire caught him.

Brett turned back, pushed the man down into the dust, smelling his sizzling flesh as he tried to put out the flames. The man’s screams finally stopped as he fell unconscious. One of the other operatives grabbed the burning man by one arm; Brett grabbed the other. Together, they ran down the alleyway into the darkness.

- True Allegiance, Part 2: President Prescott