Assassin (The Billionaire Series) (8 page)

“What, a witness to an explosion in the back of beyond in
Africa? I think perhaps they were sensationalising just a touch.”

“Not just any witness,” explained The Chairman. “Donald
Kennedy himself!”

Beaumont’s brain computed this information and before he knew
what he was saying, he blurted out.

“Call them back quickly, get them to run the story, this is
brilliant!”

“What the hell are you saying Beaumont! Pull yourself
together, do you want this story quashed or not?”

“Not!!!” he almost screamed.

“Fine, consider it done.” The Chairman hung up.

Five minutes later, a breaking news story interrupted the
evening news. Donald Kennedy’s face filled the screen as his photo accompanied
his voice speaking to a reporter and relaying his account of the strange object
falling to earth.

Beaumont raised his glass and toasted himself again. The
operation could not have gone any better.

Chapter 16

Tom woke up with the TV still on. He had missed the breaking
news story the night before but he couldn’t fail to miss his father’s report
when he woke up. Every news channel in the world was playing and replaying his
father’s VT. The images on the screen also showed the specialists from the UK
and the US sifting through the débris. The speed at which they had been
deployed was truly remarkable and was heralded as a triumph of global unity.

When the story began to repeat, Tom’s attention turned to the
stream of planes landing on The Academy’s runway. At the beginning and end of
each term, the small island became the busiest airport in the world, not that
any records would ever show it. The school remained a closely guarded secret.

Lela knocked on Tom’s door.

“Are you awake?” she asked.

“Yep, come in,” he replied.

She opened the door and walked in.

“Come on, hurry up. The planes have started landing and the
first carts are heading down the road.”

“OK, OK. Have you seen the news?” asked Tom pointing at the
TV.

“Yes, it’s terrible, they’ve still not found any survivors.”

Tom had meant Donald’s piece but thought better of saying that
was what he meant. “I know,” was all he could think to say in agreement.

“Well come on, get ready,” instructed Lela as she headed
downstairs.

Five minutes later, Tom was showered, dressed and on his way
downstairs to catch up with Lela, arriving just as the first cart pulled up to
their block. Tom and Lela strained to see who it was.

“It’s Chen!” exclaimed Lela.

“The real one I hope,” joked Tom who received a playful punch
from Lela. Chen had been held captive at the start of the previous year while
an impostor had taken his place. Once freed and allowed to take his rightful
place at school, he had soon become close friends with Tom and Lela. Lela also
enjoyed the fact that Chen was a martial arts student and although not in her
league, he was a useful sparring partner. He, on the other hand, had been known
to complain that she made him feel like a complete novice and not the 5 Dan
Black Belt expert that he really was.

Before they had a chance to say a proper hello to Chen, other
carts began to arrive and discharge their passengers. Within half an hour, the
old friends were reunited and it was almost as though they had never left.

“So what do you guys want to do today?” asked Tom.

“Sleep,” was the unilateral answer. Only he and Lela had had a
decent night’s sleep and before they knew it, they were left standing on their
own as all their friends had gone to unpack and get some sleep.

“What shall we do?” asked Tom.

“A bit of newbie spotting at breakfast?” suggested Lela.

“Sounds good to me,” replied Tom.

The pair walked towards the restaurant which was already
buzzing. Students were arriving in droves and would continue to do so for the
next 36 hours. They selected their food and picked a table which offered them
the best vantage point for people watching.

Within five minutes, the happy, almost party atmosphere was
shattered when the restaurant doors flew open and the queue was barged into by
a gang of thugs. Tom and Lela recognised the leader instantly. They also
noticed that his entourage had grown, a number of oriental students having
joined his gang.

“What the hell is
he
doing here?” asked Tom,
referring to the hulking lump of oxygen waster, Yuri.

“God knows but do you know what that means?” asked Lela.

“Yep, trouble and plenty of it,” replied Tom, remembering his
dunking from the previous year. Yuri was the older step-brother of their good
friend Oleg. He had been expelled the year before for attacking Tom, Chen’s
impersonator and Oleg.

Lela looked at Tom with a glint in her eye and rubbed her
hands together.

“No, not trouble,” she said. “Practice and plenty of it,” she
added, eyeing up her new sparring partners.

Chapter 17

Smith was back at the Guinean President’s side in order to be
aware of all developments as they unfolded. The rescue operation had swung into
full force with incredible efficiency. Of course, it always helped to know
where a disaster was going to strike and it was no coincidence that a full
battalion of US army engineers were on a training exercise less than 10 miles
from the scene. Within two hours of the explosion, their enormous ground-moving
machines were in place and helping the relief effort aided by the Guinean army
who ‘just happened’ to have been part of the US training exercise.

 
The forensic
experts from the UK and the US had arrived during the night and had begun the
task of investigating the cause of the massive explosion. With the revelations
of a possible meteor strike, NASA had also dispatched a team of experts to
investigate the scene.

Smith had just heard that the lead scientist of the NASA team
was on his way to update the Guinean President on his preliminary findings.
Nobody yet knew what the findings were and Smith had issued orders to rush the
scientist to them as soon as he arrived.

Smith and the Guinean President heard the helicopter land in
the courtyard below them and less than thirty seconds later, a man dressed in
forensic whites was ushered into the room.

“Good morning Doctor,” said Smith.

“Good morning and it’s Professor actually,” replied the NASA
scientist.

“Good morning
Professor,
what’s the
news?” demanded the Guinean President.

“All I can tell you just now is that the explosion was not
caused by anything which originated from outside our planet. That is, no meteor
struck the site.”

“You can say this categorically?” asked Smith.

“Without a shadow of a doubt. We have scanned the entire area,
taken samples from the centre of the explosion, examined satellite scans and
imagery and absolutely nothing indicates the existence of extra terrestrial
material near the area, which means there was no meteorite.”

“Did you find anything that you believe may have caused it?”
asked the Guinean President.

“That, Sir, is a question I cannot answer. My expertise is
meteorites, not explosives. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for the explosives
experts, there is nothing further NASA can offer.”

“Thank you again for your prompt response and assistance.”

“Not at all Mr President, the
 
President of the USA is very keen to
assist in any way he can. We were contacted before we’d even heard about Mr
Kennedy’s sighting.”

“Thank you again Professor and please pass on my sincere
gratitude to your team.”

“Thank you Mr President and goodbye.”

As the professor made his way back to the disaster site and
his team, Smith excused himself and called Beaumont.

“Hello,” answered Beaumont instantly.

“Hi. NASA have just given us an update. They’ve found no
evidence of any meteorite at the site.”

“Hmm, looks like our Mr Kennedy may face some interesting
questions,” sniggered Beaumont more to himself than to Smith.

“Anything else?” he asked on a more serious note.

“Not yet. But things are moving quickly, we’re probably a
couple of hours ahead of schedule. My guys have confirmed that samples of
explosive residue have already been recovered and it’ll be a matter of hours
for the test results to be confirmed. After that, things should move very
quickly.”

“Excellent. Keep me up to date.”

Beaumont ended the call and checked the time, it was only 3.00
a.m. Things were moving very quickly. In fact, perhaps a little too quickly. If
anybody looked too closely at response times, they might realise that things
were just a little too neat. The exercise involving both the US Army Engineers
and the Equatorial Guinean Army had been arranged with a little less notice
than would be expected. In fact, it was unprecedented how quickly it had been
arranged, to the extent that the unit had been airlifted rather than shipped.
This had caused chaos with transport planes of food and ammunition scheduled
for front line troops and had resulted in critical shortages. Questions had
been asked but fortunately Beaumont had been able to quash them before they
were escalated to the Joint Chiefs Office. The Joint Chiefs Office was
Beaumont’s only weak spot. It was headed up by a General Powers, whose formal
title was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was the boss of all the
US armed services, squeaky clean and completely incorruptible and unfortunately
for Beaumont, the most respected man to have held the position.

He simply had to go. And very, very soon. He had been
timetabled to be taken care of the following month but Beaumont now decided
that he could not afford to wait, the schedule would have to change.

Beaumont fired up his laptop and accessed the emergency
contact list for the government’s key personnel. The list was continually
updated and recorded the exact whereabouts of the Government’s top 200 staff.
Selecting the ‘Armed Forces’ tag, a list of names appeared, headed by General
Powers. Beaumont double clicked on the General’s name and
 
waited for his diary to appear.

As he waited, he wondered how they would do it. General Powers
was not going to be the easiest target, a battle hardened war hero with an
incredibly loyal team of bodyguards. Beaumont was going to have to use his very
best men. As the page came up, Beaumont smiled. This was a very good day,
General Powers was at a conference in South Africa and Beaumont had his very
best men not far away.

He dialled the number and the phone answered.

“Jones speaking,” answered the man.

“Hi, it’s me, I’ve got a job for you.”

“What?”

Beaumont explained what needed to be done.

“Not a problem, we can be there in less than four hours.”

“Good, call me when it’s done.”

They ended the call. Jones was Beaumont’s man in the
Committee’s army and he and his team had carried out the majority of the
assassinations over the previous year. The Committee’s army had four
Commanders, Smith, Jones, Johnson and Williams. Whoever had attributed their
pseudonyms had not spent long, they were the four most common names in America.

Smith was the most senior of the four Commanders and normally
reported directly to The Chairman of the Committee. He made Beaumont nervous.
Although Beaumont had appreciated The Chairman seconding his best team to him,
he felt he could never fully trust Smith. In addition, Smith was perhaps a
little too honourable and Beaumont was unsure as to whether he would have
accepted the mission to assassinate General Powers.

Jones, on the other hand, was just happy to be busy. He was
disappointed not to have been involved in the Equatorial Guinea mission.
However, Beaumont had pacified him by explaining that he needed him available
to handle other missions. As back up to Smith, Beaumont had stationed Jones in
nearby Congo with a team of men. It seemed that his prudence was about to pay
off. The only man with the power to ask too many questions would be dead before
the week-end was over.

Chapter 18

Tom looked at Lela warily.

“What the hell do you mean
practice
?”

Lela didn’t answer, she just stood up and walked towards Yuri.
Tom didn’t know what to do, should he follow? He couldn’t just let Lela walk
over to them alone. But then what could
he
do? He’d probably get in
her way. But then he didn’t want to look like a coward, so he got up and
followed her anyway.

“What are you doing?” he whispered in her ear as he caught up
with her.

“Don’t worry, I’m just going to have some fun.”

The twinkle in her eye had turned rather wicked.

“Oh God,” said Tom, he knew that look.

“Just stay behind me, out of my way, OK,” said Lela. Her fun
tone disappeared as she saw Yuri push a new first year to the ground because he
had dared to be in front of him in the queue.

Tom dropped back a step and then fell back another step for
good measure as he noticed Lela’s demeanour change again.

Lela approached Yuri who was still blissfully unaware of her
presence. Lela stopped when she reached the First Year student on the floor
behind Yuri and helped him up. Tom could not help but notice how small Lela
looked in comparison to the first year let alone Yuri who towered over them
both. Lela was very small or as his mother said, petite.