Kidnap (The Billionaire Series) (21 page)

The groaning died as everybody became intrigued by the reference
to spicing things up.

“As you’ll see, you are all sitting in separate sections, A thru
J. You are sitting in the section that corresponds to your class that is 3C and
7C and all years class C’s are in section C. These are your teams.” Mr Sakamoto
stopped talking as the students all confirmed what he had just said.

“It’s a competitive world out there and to succeed you need to be
competitive and that is exactly what we are going to be Sports at The Academy
is going to be a competition. Everything you do will gain points for your team.
At the end of the year, one team will emerge the winner and one the loser. It
is up to you to do all you can to make sure your team does as well as it can.
I’m sure no one here wants to finish tenth or do they?” he shouted.

“NO!” the stadium lifted as the students got into the spirit of
the event.

“Excellent! Your Class Principals will select a captain for each
class and explain how the events will work. Good luck and let the games begin!”

A huge cheer echoed around the stadium before manic conversations
erupted as the impact of the sports competition sank in.

“OK, OK, quiet down everybody,” shouted Miss Sullivan over the
noise around the stadium. She then explained, along with the other the class
principals, how it would work. A captain would be selected for the class and
would represent 1H at the Team H Captains’ Committee. Each week would see a different
sport. One hour’s practice would precede selection for the competition against
classes in their year. On that day, Judo was the Year 1 sport. The following
week would be a yacht race and the week after, tennis. Everybody in the class
must take part, the practice allowing the captain to select their strongest
contenders and use them strategically to maximise their points.

After she had finished explaining, she asked for volunteers for
team captain. Tom and Tristan’s hands both shot up along with Chen. Nobody else
had even had a chance to think before the three hands had gone up. With no
other takers, it seemed a popularity vote would decide the winner.

“Hmm, we have a slight problem I’m afraid,” said Miss Sullivan
awkwardly. Everybody turned to look at her.

“The captains’ meetings are to be held on Sundays at noon. They
won’t last long but I believe from a note I received yesterday evening, two of
our candidates will be unavailable to attend.”

Tom and Tristan’s hands
fell,
they knew
straight away that Ms Anderson had not selected Sunday lunch by coincidence.
Bitch!

“OK, so we still have Chen, to make it fair, does anyone else
want to do it…” she paused to allow other hands to go up, nobody’s did, it
wouldn’t have seemed right after not putting their hands up at first.

“OK, well Chen it is then. Congratulations Chen.”

A small round of applause welcomed Chen as the 1H captain.

“Our first competition is Judo. We have a
one
hour
training session before the competition begins. Anyone have any
experience?” asked Miss Sullivan hopefully, it seemed she was as keen as
anybody to do well.

A few hands went up.
Tom raising his proudly,
following his experience with the Ned.
Chen raised his, as did
Mingmei
, Mia and Dev. Lela however did not. Tom nudged her.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m not going to parade myself in front of the school, what are
you doing?”

“You showed me a few moves and look what I did!” he said
proudly.”
 

“Oh for God’s sake Tom, you were just lucky! Put your hand down
and don’t be silly, Chen,
Mingmei
and Mia are all
black belts, I’m not sure about Dev.”

At the mention of black belts, Tom’s hand slunk back down for the
second time in five minutes.

They made their way across to the Dojo area to start training for
the competition. An hour later, Chen had an excellent idea of his squad’s
capabilities although despite Lela’s average performance, he knew she was his
secret weapon. He just had to find out how to get her to fight properly, like
she had with Yuri and his gang.

At 11.15 a.m., the competitions began. The first years in their
judo contest while the other years tackled other sports.

Chen,
Mingmei
,
Dev
and Mia were superb and Chen had played an excellent strategic game, using his
weaker
team mates
very well and had taken class 1H to
the final, having beaten a number of other classes. Each student had to take
part in at least one bout and as they moved into their final three bouts
against class 1C, the other finalists, Chen was left with Tom and Lela who had
still had not had a fight. The other team had already played each of
their
team at least once and could use anybody.

“Can you please let me fight,” whispered Lela to Chen,
exasperated at not having been used. She wanted her one bout out of the way.
“I’m not going to fight properly, so you can forget it I don’t care if we win
or lose, I’m not a sideshow,“ she added.

“Look, you can go last. I’ll put Tom in now, then me. All we need
is one win and we’ve done it. You might not even need to fight,” he replied.

He entered the sheet detailing the running order. They would not
know who they faced until the bout commenced.

Tom was first and stepped forward, Lela wishing she had spent
more time training him. He was up against Yuan, an ugly brute who was
uncharacteristically large for his age both in height and weight. He was well
trained and despite his size was surprisingly agile. He also had a tendency to
use just a little more force than necessary. Lela quickly gave Tom
instructions.

“Take a dive,” she said.

“What?” he stammered. “That’s your advice? That’s the best you
can do to gee me up?”

“I don’t want to see you get hurt, just take the dive. Chen can
win the next match, don’t try to be a hero, Yuan plays dirty,” she pleaded.

Tom walked towards the mat looking back towards her as if she
were nuts. He took the stance and began to circle his opponent. He didn’t stand
a
chance,
Yuan moved and flipped him up and over,
laying Tom out on his back. Rather than simply pin his shoulders down, he
reacted to his
team mates
’ cheers and body-slammed Tom
with all his weight, completely and totally unnecessarily. A gasp of air
blasted out of Tom’s mouth as he was winded by Yuan’s bulk. Lela immediately
jumped out of her seat but Mia had anticipated it and grabbed her.

Tom had lain still for a few minutes while he was attended to. He
then hobbled back to the team in agony. Lela was incensed and
had to be restrained
by both
Mingmei
and Mia. Chen was up next and was met by 1C’s best fighter and current Junior
Judo Champion of Japan.
It was a tough and close match with
neither of them able to get the winning move
,
it was a
tie
. Chen looked to Lela as he came back to the team.

“It’s down to you Lela,” he said.

“I warned you all along Chen, you realise you’ve cost us the win.
I will not fight in front of an audience.”

Lela walked towards the mat to a huge cheer from 1H, although
most wondered why the hell Chen had left the smallest girl in the class to
fight the last bout. Class 1C began to laugh at who was stepping up for 1H,
they knew who she was up against. Chen was gutted, he was sure he would have
got her on side but she was serious. She was going to throw her fight and she
was right, it was his fault. Lela had warned him from the start.

However Chen began to smile as a huge cheer erupted from class
1C. Yuan had just stepped forward, the 1C captain had decided to use Yuan twice
in the last three bouts which he was perfectly entitled to do, having used
everyone at least once already.

The giant Yuan towered over Lela.

“I’ll try not to hurt you too badly as you’re a girl,” he said to
her as they waited to start
..

“I won’t, seeing as you’re an ugly git and deserve whatever you
get,” she replied angrily.
Yuan had committed the cardinal
sin
,
he had hurt her brother
.

The bell sounded to announce the start. Yuan lunged, Lela dropped
and as she seemed to fall, she caught Yuan perfectly and transported his energy
over her dropping shoulder and threw him like a rag doll across the mat and
into class 1C. The bell sounded again even though it hadn’t quite stopped
ringing from the start of the bout. Class 1H had won. However, the hall was
silent as a stunned audience were still trying to understand what had just
happened.

Tom and the rest of class 1H began cheering, and, although still
confused, so did the other classes, except for 1C.

Chapter
35

Sunday lunch was everything Tom and Tristan thought it would be,
only much worse. Ms Anderson had planned a French style Sunday ‘
déjeuner
’ a full eight courses, over five hours. They had
both gone into the lunch with a game plan, to fully apologise and throw
themselves on her mercy, thinking they might manage to wangle their way out of
the lunch. It failed
miserably,
she thanked them for
the gesture and then sat them down to 5 hours of hell. However that was nothing
compared to what she had planned for the following week, a full 12 courses.

***

The rest of the week improved slightly as the tiredness began to
lift and the students settled into their new regime. By Thursday, they almost
began to admit that they were beginning to enjoy themselves. The upcoming yacht
race was the event of the week. Miss Sullivan was a keen sailor and had been
running training sessions each evening to get her crew into shape. Each of the
yachts was over 90 feet in length and, as usual, every member of the class
would be involved in the race. The
race course
was
around a circuit of buoys which circled the island. If any boat failed to
circumnavigate each of the buoys, they would be disqualified.

The black figure stole across the school grounds, avoiding the
camera sweeps by timing each move to perfection. Within ten minutes, the black
figure was busy at work on the yacht. There were only a few modifications
required before the big race on Saturday. After thirty minutes, everything was
done. Saturday was going to be a very profitable day. It was time to leave.

“Hey, what are you doing?” came a shout from behind.

“Wait a minute, I recognise you! We played bowls last week, why
are you dressed like that?” asked the girl as she came closer.
But
 
she
came too
close and a swift movement to the back of her neck had her unconscious.

***

Reaper’s phone rang.

“Hello?” he answered

“We have a problem, I’ve been spotted and recognised,” said Ling.

“Damn,” replied
Reaper, that
was not
good. “Where are you?”

“I’m hiding on a boat, the girl is unconscious but I’ve not left
any marks. Should I kill her and dump her?”

Reaper thought for a second.

“No, too risky. We can’t afford to have jumpy parents. I’ll call
you back.”

Reaper made a quick call and then phoned Ling straight back.

“OK, here’s what you need to do.”

He explained the plan.
Ling smiled
,
it was brilliant
.

***

Friday morning started like any other morning but it did not take
long to change. Madeleine had not stopped crying during their Maths lesson and
no matter how much the girls tried to console her, she just got worse. It got
so bad that she was eventually allowed to leave the lesson, her constant
drawing in of large breaths to commence her next bawling was driving the
teacher insane.

It was not until their break that they heard from Madeleine what
had happened. She was waiting for them in their usual spot, next to the beach,

The girls all rushed over to her when they saw her sitting there
and immediately began to console her again. The boys were less
consoling,
they just wanted to know what the hell was wrong.

“Madeleine, what’s wrong? What’s happened?” asked Chen putting
his arm around her.

“It’s Erika, she’s been expelled,” she managed between sobs.

“She’s what?” exclaimed a chorus of devastated
boys,
most of their wilder fantasies had included Erika and Madeleine.

“Expelled for being drunk, they found her on one of the boats and
had to pump her stomach.” She started bawling again.

“NO!” said the girls.

Pulling herself together, she continued.

“They think she drank a full bottle of Vodka and they found four
full ones in her room.”

“Oh my God, have you seen her? Is she OK now?” asked Mia.

“Briefly, a half hour ago. She’s still quite ill, they’re sending
her home as soon as she’s well enough.”

The bawling started again as Madeleine realised her friend would
not be with her any more at school.

“Did she say why she did it?” asked Tom, waiting for a break in
the sobs.

“She started to say something about catching somebody sabotaging
a boat but the nurse sedated her and explained that they had checked the boat
just in case, nobody had touched a thing. They think she must have been
hallucinating with the alcohol.”

The group of friends were devastated. However, one broke off to
make a phone call.
They were not devastated
,
they were terrified
.

***

Erika felt better by evening and had spent the day protesting her
innocence but to no avail. She had been well and truly stitched up. She wasn’t
even allowed to call Madeleine before she left to tell her what had really
happened. She knew Madeleine would believe her. The first thing she would do
when she got home would be to call her.