Kidnap (The Billionaire Series) (22 page)

Chapter
36

It was not the best day for being out in a
boat,
visibility was poor although the water was fairly calm. Pieter and his crew had
been on the water since 5.00 a.m. Their small fishing trawler was perfect cover
for the operation. They had spent the week overhauling the engine and were
confident that the old pile of junk could manage an amazing 40 knots. If the
plan
was
to work, they would probably need every knot.

***

Class 1H were top of the Year 1 sports chart and had every
intention of growing that lead following the yacht race. However, Team H were
sitting third overall. Years 6 and 7 had faired particularly badly the previous
week in their swimming and yachting events. If preparation were the key to
success, 1H were in with a very good chance. Miss Sullivan had trained them
well and had them splicing the main sail and heaving to, like the best of them.

Once on board, the rules of the race were re-iterated for clarity
and to avoid silly mistakes. They had to circumnavigate the buoys which circled
the island and return to the marina as quickly as possible. It didn’t matter in
which direction. The previous week the year 7Hs had lost because they had
misjudged the winds and gone anti-clockwise, all the other boats had gone
clockwise. However, Miss Sullivan had studied the charts and weather conditions
very carefully and suggested they go anti-clockwise again. Chen looked at the
rest of the team as the other boats had followed the previous week’s precedent
and gone clockwise.

A quick vote was a close call but the decision was made to go
anti-clockwise. They turned about and immediately slowed down as the wind died.

“Maybe we should turn back round?” asked Tristan.

“Don’t worry, it all evens out in the end,” replied Lela, who had
always loved sailing.

***

Reaper had received the message from Ling the previous day. By
the time the girl landed, it wouldn’t be an issue. The yacht race would be over
and the authorities would know something had happened. It wasn’t until later in
the day that he realised he was not covering in the event of a failure. He
immediately called Leo and sent him on a mission.

***

Pieter received the text from Ling, a change of plan and new
co-ordinates. They opened the throttles on the old boat and immediately felt
the speed increase as she reacted to the increased power. They would be in
place just in time.

***

The buoys were a good distance from the island and it wasn’t long
before Team 1H lost sight of land, the visibility was very poor.

“Miss Sullivan?” somebody shouted from behind her. She turned
round and was hit by the boom as it swung across the boat. The boat began to
turn as people rushed to Miss Sullivan’s aid. She was unconscious and would
need to go to hospital immediately.

Ahmad was nearest the radio and grabbed it. He hit the mayday
button and the radio died. Ling’s
short circuiting
had
worked perfectly. Tristan ran to grab the backup radio but the batteries were
dead. A few tried their mobile phones, none worked. Nobody had noticed the boat
turning as they tried to make their calls. Ahmad suddenly noticed the tiller
was full to the right but had no idea how much they had turned.

“What do we do?” asked Tristan, staring helplessly at the
controls.

“Just use the compass, we were sailing west, just head east,”
reasoned Lela.

“Good idea,” said Chen. “Ahmad you’re nearest, tell Tristan where
to steer and hurry!”

“How’s Miss Sullivan?” asked Tom.

“She seems to be OK just now but we should hurry,” shouted
Mingmei
.

***

Pieter received another message from Ling, they were on their
way, the compass had been tampered with and they were heading straight towards
them. They should be in sight within the hour. Pieter and his crew were
watching their co-ordinates very closely. They were sitting uncomfortably close
to the exclusion zone for the NATO base.

***

Tom realised he was being really stupid and disappeared down
below. It was not a good move however. After 5 minutes of being below deck, he
felt incredibly
sea sick
. Miss Sullivan had warned
them all to keep their eye on the horizon if they felt at all funny. This would
let their brains understand why their body was moving and would stop the motion
sickness. Tom couldn’t get back up quickly enough and by the time he did, he
was green and hung over the side, being sick. He prayed hard for the sickness
to go. Lela tried to talk to him but every time he opened his mouth, he threw
up.
She gave up
,
it wasn’t a
pleasant sight
.

***

7000 miles away, Erika’s plane was touching
down,
the Prime Minister of Sweden’s daughter was arriving home in disgrace. Her
parents were so angry that they had not even travelled to the airport to pick
her up, opting instead to send their driver.

Leo followed closely behind as the young girl made her way
through the airport, his jammer causing havoc to every mobile phone within a
200 yard
radius.

Erika had been trying desperately to call Madeleine since she
landed but couldn’t get a signal to dial her. She’d call her from the car.

***

Pieter could see the outline of the yacht as it appeared through
the greyness. His ten men began to prepare, cocking their weapons but keeping
them out of sight.
They were only interested in the two kids
,
even Ling was expendable
.

***

Leo called Reaper.

“She’s about to get into the car, what do you want me to do?”

Reaper paused. He hadn’t heard how the mission had gone yet. If
it failed, he couldn’t risk the girl talking, even leaving a voicemail would be
a disaster.

“Kill her.”

***

“What the hell is that?” screamed Zach looking out across the
water.

“Tristan hard to Port!!” screamed Lela.

***

Pieter heard the scream and looked at his men, no weapons were
evident and the yacht was still over 50 yards away.

***

Leo dialled a number and the explosive he had smuggled into the
girl’s handbag as she had waited for her luggage exploded. The car she was in
was ripped to shreds as the extremely powerful C4 explosive killed not only the
girl
but
her driver and a number of innocent passers-by.
He was already out of the airport before it was closed down.

***

“Jesus Christ, it’s going to hit us!!” screamed Chen.

The water began to bubble in reaction to some kind of underwater
explosion. Then came a huge torpedo like mass bursting through the surface,
coming directly towards them.

***

“Get the weapons over the side!” commanded Pieter as the
submarine surfaced in front of his eyes. Any closer and his boat would have
been sunk.

His men quickly changed persona and became the fishermen their
disguises alluded to. A distant rumble announced the arrival of even more
firepower, a special Ops motor boat thundered into view at over 50 knots,
Pieter flinching as it headed straight for his boat and stopped at a skid by
his side. Ten heavily armed soldiers jumped onto their boat and holding his men
at gunpoint searched his vessel. Even though the all clear was given, the
officer on board did not order their release.

Just when Pieter thought he had seen it all, two Apache attack
choppers appeared. They had obviously been checking the surrounding ocean.

***

The Captain of the USS Texas, the US navy’s newest Attack Sub
took control. He boarded the yacht and discovered that it appeared the children
had simply sailed the wrong way. However, Ahmad protested indignantly that they
were definitely sailing the correct way, the Captain checked their compass, it
was working fine,
east
was in the opposite direction.
While everybody had been watching the Submarine surface, Ling had removed the
small magnet she had placed on the compass the night before.

“Where’s Tom Kennedy?” asked the Captain.

A hand was raised from the body slumped over the railing. Tom was
still being sick.

“Why?” asked
Lela.
“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just wanted to say well done. It was him who told us
you guys were in trouble. He called us on his satellite phone and we latched on
to his signal. If it
wasn’t
for him, you guys would
have been in Africa before you knew it. You were going completely the wrong
way.”

Ahmad began to protest again but the Captain just pointed to the
compass and shut him up.

After twenty minutes, the captain gave the all clear to release
the fishing trawler, concluding it had all been an innocent error by
inexperienced sailors and that the fishermen had nothing to do with it. Miss
Sullivan was checked by the doctor and flown back to the school’s hospital
while class 1H jumped on the Mark V Special Ops boat and were transported back
to the school in less than thirty minutes, much to Tom’s relief.

***

The twins were surprised to see their targets back. They had seen
the commotion and had wondered what had happened, it was only by chance that
they had wondered down to the marina and seen the Special Ops boat pull into
the Marina and drop them off. They were not supposed to be back on duty until
that afternoon. With the targets back, duty recommenced earlier than expected.

***

Pieter called Reaper the second he was clear of the area. Reaper
listened carefully before placing the call to the client.

“What is it?” asked the client.

“It’s back to the original plan, we failed.”

“I know,” replied the client angrily before hanging up, no
goodbyes,
no
pleasantries.

Part
Four

Chapter
37

Only twelve hours to the ‘Go’ command. All the camps had been
disbanded, leaving no trace of their existence. Over the previous week,
Reaper’s operatives had moved into place. It had been a logistical nightmare.
Reaper could not believe the number of
warnings which
flashed up on some of the terrorists’ passports. Over 60% of his operatives would
have been arrested at customs had they used their own names so they were
provided with fake passports. Commissioning some 130 forgeries had been no
small task. Routes to their final destination were carefully planned to ensure
that no patterns emerged which may alert the CIA, the FBI, MI6, MI5, Mossad,
Interpol or any other counter terrorist or intelligence network. With only one
day to go, everything was going exactly to plan.
 

Leo remained in Scotland with Reaper while Pieter remained in
Mozambique with his ten elite mercenaries. Pieter’s role was to ensure that
everything went to plan at the school. Leo and Reaper would take care of
business in Scotland with the remaining forty operatives and their elite
mercenaries, one of
whom
was a communications’ specialist.

Reaper had received regular calls from his client over the
previous seven days. He knew that the reason behind the operation was a
commercial one but he was unsure as to whether the deal directly affected the
client. He did not know whether his client was the top man or whether he was
the puppet for someone else. Over the last few calls, the client had become
increasingly anxious and had let a few things slip. Reaper now knew that he was
definitely dealing with the top man and that whoever he
was,
he was very powerful with an inexhaustible list of contacts. From those clues,
Reaper narrowed down his client’s identity to one of three possible
individuals. He wasn’t sure which one, but on reviewing the mission plan again
and its consequences, two stood out as the most likely contenders but he could
not rule out a third.

Reaper’s planning room had now become his communications hub.
Satellite links connected him to his four teams of operatives.

Kevin and Erich, the Team Leaders in the Idaho camp, had had
an
horrendous journey to the school. Despite that, they had
moved into position with their terrorists and were ready for the Go command.
However, they had lost two operatives on the way, arrested for a racially
motivated murder committed the previous year.

Their headsets buzzed into life.

“Reaper here. Team Idaho, what is your position?”

“We are on station and ready to
Go
,”
responded Kevin.

Fadi
and Muhammad, from the Syrian
camp, had had as similarly tortuous journey with their team but were now in position
outside the school, ready to Go.

“Reaper here. Team Syria, what is your position?”

“We are on station and ready to
Go
,”
responded
Fadi
.

Mark and Leroy, from the Zimbabwe camp, had had the easiest
journey. They were excited, fresh and itching to go. The school was directly in
front of them.

“Reaper here. Team Zimbabwe, what is your position?”

“We are on station and ready to
Go
,”
responded Leroy.

Andrej and Marco, from the Colombian camp, had had the worst
journey of all the groups. They had managed to lose five of their team as a
result of over efficient border guards and immigration officers. Marco had had
a close call himself and was only able to continue on his travels by disposing
of two police officers. Their decimated team was nonetheless in position and
ready to Go.