Assassin (The Billionaire Series) (30 page)

Tom and Lela eventually went to bed at 4.30 a.m. and decided
an extra hour in bed was probably deserved. Unfortunately, they didn’t tell
anybody else and both woke up to their doors being thumped by Tristan, checking
they were OK and explaining that they were waiting for them to start the
meeting. They quickly got dressed and rushed down to Conference Room One.

The group sat in complete silence as the events of earlier
that morning were explained. Even after they had finished. nobody had a clue
what to say. This wasn’t something happening to other people, this was now at
their school. Ten men had killed themselves to keep their identity from them.
These were not two-bit mercenaries, these were highly motivated operatives.

“Sandy and David,” mulled Daniel. “I’ll get my guys on it and
see if they can come up with anything. I doubt it though, using first names is
very clever. They’ll be spoken millions of times every second all over the
world and 99.99999% of it will be completely innocent.” He didn’t hold out any
hope whatsoever.

“Did you get anything while you were going through the stuff
last night?”

“No. But there’s something there. I can feel it, we’re getting
closer,” said Tom, as he began to pace.

 
He cleared a
whiteboard and put his hand in his pocket to get a pen. He had changed jeans
and didn’t find a pen but found the business card they had pulled out of Alan’s
sofa. He had forgotten all about it. He quickly dialled the number, it was
dead, the recruitment consultant had obviously given up on recruitment.

“What’s that?” asked Daniel.

Tom explained where they had got it.

“I’ll do some checking on it, you never know what we might
get,” offered Daniel, already dialling a contact.

Tom took a pen, found a quiet spot and began to write down
everything he knew and had to date. He went back a year to the very first
assassination and considered the circumstances of each. He then overlaid each
of the new heads of government and studied the circumstances of each of those.

The day flew past and before they knew it, it was 6.00 p.m.,
nobody had even stopped for lunch. Tristan was the first to notice and
panicked.

“Oh my God, it’s 6.00 p.m. What’s the time in Barbados?”

“Hmm, 10 a.m., why?” answered Tom.

“I promised I’d call my dad before his conference starts at
11.00 a.m.”

“Very nice, sounds like a nice little junket, Barbados in
October, lovely!”

“Not quite it’s the Heads of Government meeting for the
Commonwealth Nations.”

“Don’t you believe it for a second, I’m sure they’ll be living
it up, staying in a lovely hotel.”

“Not sure about living it up but certainly lovely hotel, the
Sandy Lane, nothing less don’t you know,” joked Tristan.

“Where did you say?” Tom couldn’t believe it, it couldn’t be
that simple.

“Sandy Lane,” repeated Tristan, realising the significance.

Tom checked the board again. He was now also certain he knew
who the targets would be, why had he not seen it earlier? The G20, the twenty
most powerful leaders in the world.

“Sofie, Jin, I need a copy of your mother and grandfather’s
itinerary for the next month. Lela, call Papa and tell him to meet us at the
plane. Tristan, Zach you’d better come with us. Daniel can you run things from
here? We need to find out who’s behind this and what or where David is.”

Tom sprinted out the door with Lela, Zach and now a very
worried Tristan right behind him.

Chapter 75

Tristan phoned his father on the way to the airport, it didn’t
go particularly well. His father was confident that his security was tight. He
then launched into a debate with Tristan about how sometimes things were hard
to accept, despite one’s best instincts, one sometimes just had to accept the
cold hard facts. The call had ended, Tristan decided against telling Tom about
the last part of the call, his father’s doubt’s about Donald’s innocence.
Tristan was very disappointed with his father.

“Zach, what do you think?” asked Tom as they sped towards the
airfield.

“I think Barbados is a very long way away and if anything does
happen, we may well miss it.”

Tom pulled the cart to a stop and tried to think through what
they knew and what they needed to do. Everybody in the cart realised what was
happening and stayed quiet.

Tom finally spoke and asked. “What time is it now?”

“It’s 6.20 p.m.,” replied Lela.

“OK, it’s about a thirteen hour flight to Barbados,” said Tom
checking his PDA. “And if we leave within the next hour, that’ll get us there
at roughly 8.00 a.m. And they’re 8 hours behind us, as it’s still summer time
which means we’ll be there at midnight their time…” Tom continued to think
through the options.

“I could see if we could get the scramjet?” offered Zach,
having done so before. There weren’t many things Zach’s guys couldn’t get.

“No, not yet. I think we should only go down that route when
we run out of options. We don’t want to let anyone know we’re onto them unless
we really have to. Whoever is behind this already tried to kill your dad. I
know we can trust your guys but unfortunately, we don’t know if we can trust
their parents.”

Zach was about to object but then realised that Tom was right.

“Wait a minute,” said Tom pulling out his phone and dialling a
number.

“Jason, hi, it’s Tom.” He didn’t give Jason the time to even
say hello. “What deadline did they give for my response to their offer?”

“You’re not changing your mind are you?” asked Jason, taken
aback.

“No! God no! Their
little consequences
were
kidnapping Lela.”

“Jesus! What can I do?” said Jason panicking.

“They didn’t stand a chance, she let them take her, got some
info and kicked their arses. They’re all dead now so don’t worry.”

“What the hell do you mean they’re all dead, Lela killed the
kidnappers?” Jason asked, astounded.

“No, she beat them up and they killed themselves.”

Jason gave up, he didn’t know which was worse, the guys killing
themselves or the fact that little Lela beat up ten kidnappers.

“So what can I do?” he asked.

“What was the deadline the lawyer set on the bid?”

“48 hours from Friday 7.00 p.m. UK time.”

“Excellent thanks,” said Tom, hanging up and leaving a bemused
and very stunned Jason to try to work out what on earth was going on.

As he ended the call, three blank faces looked at him. He
really had lost them.

“When I received the bid for the company, they stipulated that
I had to respond by 10.00 p.m. our time, 7.00 p.m. UK time. It was an absolute.
If I failed to respond within that time, the offer would lapse.” The four faces
looked even more blank.

“Guy’s, don’t you see? The assassination will be at some time
after that time tomorrow.” Tom was becoming frustrated. He would have to spell
it out.

“Alba is currently valued at about 30% less than its actual
value because my dad is public enemy number one. But after the new
assassinations, my dad will be in the clear. Alba’s value will then jump back
up. They wanted me to respond while the value was down so they could buy it
cheap. So now we know when they’re going to strike.”

“When?” asked Tristan.

“Jesus!” replied Tom, giving up, he turned to Zach. “Can you
explain it to him?” he asked.

Tom started the cart up again and continued to the airfield.
Papa and the others were already waiting. Kisho was topping up the tanks on the
Gulfstream jet, getting her prepped for flight.

“Every last drop you can squeeze in, we’re flying right to the
limits of this thing. Shame we’re not qualified to fly that one,” said Tom
pointing to the 777.

“How far is it?” asked Kisho.

“Let’s just say that that one drop of fuel that spilled on the
runway might be the difference between flying and gliding onto the runway,”
replied Tom who wasn’t joking.

Twenty minutes later, the plane was airborne and on its way to
Bridgetown, Barbados. Everybody settled in, it was going to be long flight.
Papa and his three islanders had taken their seats at the back of the plane and
the snores were already resonating around the plane. Lela, Zach Tristan and
Kano were at the front. Zach was still explaining to Tristan what was
happening.

Lela leaned over and whispered to Kano.

“Thanks for saving Tom and I think you were right not to tell
him.”

“Tell him what?” he asked, not sure if he had heard her
correctly.

“About you saving him.”

“Lela, I’ve got absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,”
he replied.

“In Peru, somebody was about to shoot him but didn’t, maybe it
was Kisho then?”

“Definitely not. We weren’t there. Remember, we weren’t
allowed to go? You had 20 Special Forces soldiers with you instead.”

“I know that, but who stopped the guy then? When I heard the
men say that their sniper had just disappeared, I just assumed you guys
followed us as usual. I thought you didn’t tell Tom so as not to freak him
out.”

“Will you stop blabbering for one minute and explain to me
from the start what on earth you’re talking about,” said Kano holding his hand
up to slow her down.

Lela then explained exactly what had happened in the cruiser’s
cabin, what she had heard and what she had assumed must have happened. Kano was
now as puzzled as she was as to what had happened to the sniper. Both agreed,
however, that what Tom didn’t know couldn’t worry him but that they would keep an
extra close eye on him.

Chapter 76

With just under an hour’s flight and fuel to go, Tom’s phone
rang. It was Daniel reporting that the group at The Academy had pulled an
all-nighter and had some updates. It had proved quite a successful session.

“It looks like you’re right on the G20 countries. With only a
couple of exceptions, those who have been assassinated have been replaced by a
relatively unknown contender. And, of all the G20 countries, only the UK,
France, Germany, China, Saudi Arabia, the US, Australia and the Commissioner of
the EU have not been replaced due to assassination in the last year. It was so
bloody obvious, we didn’t see it.”

“Which ones have the most prominent new candidates waiting in
the wings?”

“All of them bar the US. It’s different there, because there’s
a Vice President already in place to immediately replace the President. Tom,
looking at the positioning, it’s all going to happen very soon.”

“OK. we know the timetable for the UK and Australia, what
about the others?”

“We haven’t got them yet, it appears that even being the
grand-daughter of the Chinese ruler doesn’t have access to his diary. As for
Sofie, her mum isn’t in the office until Monday and she left her diary there.
She can’t remember but thinks she might be going to America this week.”

“You’re joking!” said Tom.

“’Fraid not, it’s for real, she’s Dutch and a European MP,
what can I say!” Daniel shrugged his shoulders, it mystified him also.

“Track down any students related to any of the other leaders.
We need to find out what the hell operation David is and quick.”

“OK. But two more things. We tracked down the number on that
business card and are sifting through the phone calls made. There are a few to
the law firm which made the offer to buy Alba, they’ve obviously been involved
for some time. I’ve managed to call in a few favours, I have an operation to
raid their offices tonight. I’ll let you know what we find.”

“Excellent and the other thing?” asked Tom.

“That thing you gave me. My guys almost missed it, it was so
obvious, it reads ‘
We’ll be back’.
” Tom almost dropped the phone
as he heard the words, it couldn’t be, it wasn’t possible.

The tower at Grantley Adams International Airport interrupted
his chain of thought as he began entering the final approach. He looked at his
fuel, it was going to be very close, he knew he should have flown a little
slower. He could not believe it when they gave him the longest approach run,
landing in an easterly direction. He would have to swing out and come back on
himself before landing.

“This is going to be very close,” whispered Kisho. Warning
bells had started to ring ten minutes earlier. The intermittent beeping had now
become a continuous tone
 
as the
plane pleaded to land.

“Just made it,” said Tom as the wheels touched down in
Barbados. “Don’t know what the panic was,” he said just before they lost all
power.

They tried to use as much of their landing speed as possible
to get them to the terminal but they fell just short. All momentum was lost on
the taxiway and with no engines, they had the indignity of having to wait for a
small truck, more commonly used for pushing large jets, to come and rescue
them.

“Hmm, I think next time we’ll have a refuelling stop,”
suggested Tom as they sat stranded, it had been just a little too close for
comfort.

Once they reached the terminal, it took them 5 minutes to
clear customs. It was 2.00 a.m. local time and the airport was deserted.

“What now?” asked Lela, looking for a taxi or anything which
would get them to a bed.

Tom smiled as he watched the stretch limo approach.

“Tacky but perfect. People, your chariot awaits,” announced
Tom to the group showing them to the limo.

“Where are we going?” asked Tristan.

“Zach, I thought I told you to explain things to him,”
 
said Tom, his eyes twinkling
mischievously.