Assassin (The Billionaire Series) (31 page)

“He did, I understand perfectly what’s happening.” Tristan did
not find it funny.

“Well you know where we’re going then,” replied Tom.

“You can’t have, they are no rooms available, they’re fully
booked,” said Zach.

“Not a room per se, the villa at Sandy Lane, 7,500 sq ft of
unadulterated luxury.”

“How did you manage that?” asked Lela.

“Money, we need to be where the action is so I just offered
more and more until they couldn’t refuse. They had to kick out some rock star,
I think, to get us in.”

Thirty minutes later, they checked into their luxury villa.

Chapter 77

The Chairman checked his bedside clock. It was 3.00 a.m., who
the hell was ringing him at that time? He answered and waited to hear who it
was. If it were that idiot Beaumont, he would just hang up.

“Sir, it’s Williams. We have a problem, well actually we have
two problems.”

“Go ahead,” said The Chairman who had been very impressed with
Williams since his promotion.

“The first is a problem with the General Powers mission. It
appears that our men got in, put three bullets in him but that he pulled a gun
from under his pillow and shot our men dead.”

“Is he still alive?”

“Yes, he’s in hospital and unconscious but stable and will
make it.”

“Jesus, he really is a tough old bastard. Sleeps with a gun
under his pillow, probably had his boots on as well!” joked The Chairman.
“That’s not too disastrous, he’s out of the way for a few days, we’ll deal with
him after David, at least he won’t be around to interfere with that.”

“True, he’ll be in hospital for at least a couple of weeks.
The next problem is confusing me somewhat.”

“What is it? Just spit it out,” said The Chairman.

“One of my guys just radioed me to tell me that Tom Kennedy
and entourage just checked into the hotel.”

“The Sandy Lane?” The Chairman sat bolt upright in his bed.

“Yes.”

“Who’s in the entourage?”

“His sister, a couple of other boys and some sort of Asian
looking guys,” replied Williams.

The Chairman took one second to make his decision.

“Go!! Now!! Hit the Prime Ministers, the Kennedys and their
entourage right now! Hit them with everything you’ve got. You hear me?? Kill
them all and quick,” he demanded before hanging up.

The Chairman then hit a speed dial button. The phone answered.
He didn’t wait for a hello before screaming down the phone.

“BEAUMONT START TALKING AND DON’T GIVE ME ANY BULLSHIT!!! I AM
SO NOT IN THE MOOD. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!!!!”

Chapter 78

Williams sat with three of his lieutenants. The operation had
just changed dramatically. The initial operation was to have involved an attack
on a convoy due to take the UK and Australian Prime Ministers to a cricket
match the following day in Bridgetown. They now had to assault the hotel which
meant penetrating two suites, each containing a PM and the villa containing Tom
and his entourage.

Three target zones, three teams of ten, five snipers and five
men waiting as back-up should they be needed. They would hit the three
locations simultaneously and with overwhelming force. In order to make the most
of the darkness, the teams had to rush, sunrise was a 5.51 a.m. Williams wanted
to go in at 4.45 a.m. and be gone long before the first rays of sunlight.

Williams organised his men brilliantly and with ten minutes to
spare, everybody was on station and ready to go. He checked in with his
lieutenants and got their good-to-go responses.

A few seconds later, he gave the signal to the snipers. Four
guards at the entrance to the hotel dropped before his eyes, each killed
instantly with head shots. As the bodies slumped to the floor, the three teams
were up and running.

***

A man, dressed in black, watched from the bushes as the three
teams had formed up. Three targets he thought. He had to hand it to them, they
were very good. They had reacted quickly to the surprise guests and altered
their plans accordingly. He had been as surprised as they had when the limo
turned up and disgorged its passengers. How did they know where to come? But he
didn’t have much time, there were too many, he needed help and fast.

Chapter 79

The Chairman listened to Beaumont whine on pitifully for ten
minutes. He was bored.

“Stop,” he commanded. “Enough, so what you’re saying is that
Jones had her but that she somehow she got away and he’s dead?”

“Yes.”

“OK. I didn’t like the sneaky little turd but he was a damn
good soldier. Just what the hell are we up against?”

Beaumont could see a chink of hope, he may not be dead just
yet.

“I’m trying to work that out. They had her on a boat in the
middle of the ocean. Ten men and her.”

“You’re sure?”

“Definitely. But one thing sticks in my mind. There’s a note
in the file, written by that Reaper guy, the guy the President used last year.
He made reference to some fancy martial art the girl and her father practised.
He seemed quite impressed by it,” said Beaumont.

“Come on, that girl is fifteen and small for her age. What,
she attacked ten grown men?” He pondered the possibility and it seemed
extremely unlikely, if not impossible.

“I can’t explain it, nothing else makes sense. Their boat had
every conceivable detector, no person or boat could have got within half a mile
of them without them knowing. If Jones had been attacked he would have told
me.”

The Chairman hung up on Beaumont. He had begun to remember the
story from the year before about the hostage situation at schools around the
world and the unexplained release of the students. The rumours afterwards were
that ninja type men had freed the students with amazing displays of martial
arts.

He tried to call Williams. His phone was off. They must be
launching the attack. He was too late. Perhaps he was just being silly. They
were Beaumont’s scare stories. But what if they weren’t? Williams and his men
would be slaughtered.

Chapter 80

The villa was lovely with the main feature being the living
area which opened onto a spectacular Roman-style pool. Nobody, however, took
any notice of the surroundings. Tom had put the news on the moment they entered
the house and all sat either glued to the screen or comforting Zach. The news
of his father’s shooting was the major news story on every channel. The story
suggested he had disturbed burglars and although wounded, had managed to kill both
intruders.

Zach contacted his mother immediately. She had been
desperately trying to get hold of him and seemed more concerned about his
whereabouts than his father’s condition. He finally discovered that his father
was in a drug induced coma to speed healing, some new thing they were trying.
None of the injuries were bad and he’d be fine in a couple of weeks.

“Burglars my ass. I ask you, who burgles a house with two
Military Police cars sitting outside it?” asked Zach rhetorically as another
news reporter proposed the scenario.

“Thank God you warned him he might be a target. It was lucky
he had his gun to hand.”

“Yes I warned him but the gun is always there, he even sleeps
with his slippers on. He’s always telling me you can never be too prepared. My
mum moved into the spare room, she’s been petrified for years that he’ll blow
her head off in his sleep.”

“So what did he do about being a target?” asked Tom.

“Nothing, he just said whoever tries to kill him had better
have a big set of balls and a damn good aim. They’d only get one chance.”

“Seems he was right,” replied Tristan as he watched the body
bags of the ‘burglars’ being removed from Zach’s house.

“He’ll have to be careful now though, I don’t think they’ll…”
Lela stopped mid sentence, the colour draining from her face. Her mouth making
as if to scream but nothing came out. Everyone was so busy trying to see if she
was OK, that they failed to notice what was frightening the life out of her.

Chapter 81

“Lela! Lela! Look at me! What’s wrong?”

Tom didn’t know what to do, one minute she was sitting
talking, the next she couldn’t speak and was struggling for breath.

Lela tried to speak but the vision through the window had
caused her to go into shock. Her mind could not compute what her eyes were seeing.
It just didn’t make sense. Why would nobody look round. They were all just
staring at her, she had to get them to look round. They must look and explain
it to her or tell her she was dreaming. They had to look!

“Lela! You’re really scaring me now! What’s wrong, talk to me
please!!” Tom was on the verge of tears, he didn’t know what to do or what was
wrong with her.

A tap tap on the window caught most of their attention bar
Tom’s who was too worried about Lela.

“Tom! Tom! Please turn around and look at the door to the
pool?” said Tristan sounding, as though he were asking Tom to look at a mad axe
man.

“What?…” Tom turned round and realised what was wrong.
Standing in the full glare of the spotlights and directly in front of Lela was
Saki.

“Is it really him?” asked Lela, tears were now streaming down
her face. If other people saw him as well, it might be real.

“Yes, it is. It’s Saki,” replied Tom gently, as tears began to
roll down his cheeks.

Lela jumped and ran to the door, unlocked it and threw her
arms around her father. He hugged her and tears welled in his eyes. Tom joined
them and the three hugged. Saki spoke before Tom had a chance to ask.

“Your parents are fine, they’re out there on the Tylanni.
Explanations will have to wait, we’ve got visitors coming.”

Papa, who had been in the kitchen and had missed everything,
nearly knocked them all flying as he rushed across the room to join in the hug.

“Papa. We have trouble coming.”

Saki disengaged himself from Tom and Lela and began to explain
what they needed to do. He quickly organised the islanders and split them into
three teams. Within a few minutes, the three groups had disappeared into the
night.

Lela, Zach, Tristan and Tom were left with strict instructions
to stay upstairs in the master bedroom, under no circumstances were they to
leave the room.

Lela punched Tom in the arm.

“Hey! What was that for?” he said rubbing the top of his arm.

“You knew! I saw the look on your face, you weren’t that
surprised when you saw him.”

“I didn’t! I just thought it might be possible, remember the
text I got from my dad?”

“Yeah, the weird one that made them sound guilty?”

“Yeah and the numbers, well it turns out that the numbers,
when you type them out in text, say
we’ll be back.
Daniel
phoned me just before we landed. His guys worked it out, seems it had even
their master code cracker beat until one of their kids said try it as a text
rather than numbers. That, combined with the
please
forgive us
and the Tylanni being renamed The Beautiful lady, made
things come together.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Lela was hurt that he had kept it
from her.

“And if I was wrong and got your hopes up?” he responded.

“True…God I can’t believe it! They’re alive!” she shook Tom as
she said it. The worry that she was dreaming was slowly disappearing. It was
real, they were back.

Chapter 82

The three teams made their way through the grounds towards
their targets. Team One towards the UK Prime Minister, Team Two towards the
Australian Prime Minister and Team Three to the villa to deal with the kids and
their acquaintances. It was slow going. With fifty three heads of government,
the teams had a lot of security to avoid or dispose of.

The grounds were vast, over 320 acres. Williams was worried
about the time it would take them to find their final positions, three areas
offering excellent cover and close enough to their targets. He checked his
watch as his three teams radioed in to confirm they had arrived and were in
position, it was 4.42 a.m. Perfect, he thought, three minutes early.

Williams sat over a mile away with the back-up team. He was
watching everything as it happened through video feeds from cameras attached to
his lieutenants’ helmets. He watched carefully as each lieutenant scanned the
scene in front of them for him. Teams One and Two had four and five guards to
deal with respectively, Team Three had a clear run to the villa.

“Snipers One and Two come in,” he radioed to the snipers who
covered the south end of the Hotel. They would be able to knock out the four guards
for Team One.

“Snipers One and Two come in,” he repeated. He looked towards
the high ground where they were, it was over half a mile away and dark, he
couldn’t see a thing.

“Sniper Three and Four come in,” he said, trying the snipers
who covered the North end and would knock out the guards for Team Two. Nothing.

Williams looked again into the distance where they should be.
Again, it was dark, there was nothing to see.