“Positive. In fact, your dad mentioned she needed some work to be done and would not be able to leave port for a month.”
“Very strange, very, very strange,” mumbled Tom to himself.
“Unless you want to land here, I suggest we get back on course soon or we we’ll have to land to refuel,” said Kisho.
Tom looked at Lela.
“What do you want to do?”
“There’s not a lot we can do, I’ll send your dad a message and see what he says. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation.” Lela tried to be positive.
“Yep, I’m sure there is too. Let’s go Kisho.”
Kisho pushed the throttles to full power and the small jet rocketed back towards its fifty thousand feet cruising altitude and 650mph. They would land in just over 9 hours.
Donald responded quickly to Lela’s text and explained that he forgot to mention that the works on Tylanni were being completed in Marseille, not Monaco. Tom and Lela stared at each other, they knew it was another lie. Tom used the on-board internet facilities to visit a number of websites to check out his father’s claim. Like train spotting and plane spotting, mega yacht spotting had its fanatics who logged the movements of all yachts, in particular famous ones. At present, Tylanni was the hottest boat on the yacht-spotter circuit. Everybody wanted to know about her. Her exact performance and specifications were a closely guarded secret but everybody knew she was extremely fast, they just didn’t know how fast. From the internet, Tom discovered that Tylanni had left port three days earlier and had disappeared. Spotters were discussing predicted destinations but one thing was for sure, she was not in Marseille and in fact, was last seen heading in the opposite direction. Tom and Lela decided to keep a close eye on the websites to find out exactly what was going on.
***
“The coastline you can see to your left is Equatorial Guinea. We’ll be landing in 30 minutes,” announced the captain over the intercom.
Donald turned to Rachel and Saki but both were sound asleep. He looked out at the darkened sky which, with little light pollution, looked stunning. Donald turned to wake Rachel as a shooting star streaked across the sky. But something wasn’t right. He looked again. It wasn’t a shooting star at all…
Chapter 11
Smith’s helicopter took two hours to reach its destination. The Committee’s secret army was based in the centre of Equatorial Guinea’s mainland. Equatorial Guinea was a strange country with its capital located on a small island off the coast of Cameroon. Smith himself couldn’t quite understand why they didn’t just move to the mainland but then, having spent the previous few days with the Guinean President, he didn’t really understand why they did anything the way they did.
The base was only accessible by air, ensuring complete secrecy. The nearest road was 50 miles away and the nearest town over 70 miles away.
“Good evening Sir,” said the Deputy Commander as Smith stepped out of the helicopter.
“Good evening. Are we ready?”
“Yes Sir.”
“Good, let’s get things moving!” he ordered.
As he gave the order, five men ran to the hangar on their left, unlocked the doors and disappeared. Two minutes later, a long and strange looking machine emerged. It looked liked an elongated stealth fighter with wheels. It was articulated and moved surprisingly fast for its size, zipping across the compound and coming to a swift stop at Smith’s side. Smith could not get used to the machine’s ugly and awkward demeanour, it was the only one in existence. It was completely invisible to radar, heat seeking missiles and just about any other missile. Its external skin was built from a non-metallic composite which could withstand a direct hit from a tank and, most amazingly, could change its colour like a chameleon. Its shape meant that from a distance of anything over 50 metres, the vehicle literally disappeared into the background. Protruding from the rear stood its main purpose for being, its missile launch system, containing the experimental Stealth Strike Missile. This missile was designed to be undetectable in flight and more importantly would leave no trace of its existence on hitting its target. It was the ultimate fire and deny weapon.
The missile system began to rise as the weapon readied itself to fire. Once in position, Smith checked his watch and looked across to his firing team, it was nearly time. At any moment they would be notified that the target was ready.
“Are we ready gentlemen?” he asked.
“Yes Sir, we’re locked on the target and ready to fire.”
“Excellent.”
His phone buzzed, he answered the call, said nothing and hung up.
“Fire,” he said calmly.
The missile slowly lifted from the tube and smoothly made its way into the night sky in almost complete silence. A long tube covered the exhaust area meaning that only those directly under it could see the flames firing its climb into the sky. It slowly made its way to 5,000 feet at which point its main system ignited producing a flash of light as the missile accelerated to over Mach 5. It was the first time Smith had witnessed a launch of this missile and he was impressed. Not only was it barely visible, it was inaudible and the delay in acceleration meant that the characteristic boom of a missile launch simply didn’t happen.
The missile continued on a trajectory which would take it into the inner atmosphere where its warhead would bend for a fraction of a second allowing the propulsion portion of the weapon to power it into a downward track. This was the most crucial stage. If successful, the propulsion system would continue ever upwards and burn away in the earth’s outer atmosphere. In the meantime, the warhead would power downwards, picking up more and more speed. During its downward journey, the outer core of the missile would also burn off leaving only the new and undetectable core of the warhead to complete its deadly mission.
After the missile had left its launcher, it soon disappeared from view. Smith and his men continued to stare up at the sky. Although they couldn’t see it, the missile bent and split as intended and the warhead began its downward course towards its unsuspecting victims. Smith continued to stare at the sky watching for any sign of the returning warhead. One thing they had not been able to do was stop the glow of the warhead on its way back down. Smith supposed that was why it was still experimental, refinements were still in development. After a minute or so, a shout came from his left.
“There it is! Look towards the coast at 11 o’clock.”
Smith turned his gaze and there it was. It looked like a shooting star, except that instead of streaking across the sky horizontally, it was streaking downwards. Smith followed the glow as it fell towards earth and saw it turn into a bright flash as the missile impacted its target at over Mach 5. Although over a hundred miles away, the ground shook as the explosion ripped through the ground.
“Direct hit Sir! Perfect!” shouted one of his men.
“Excellent,” said Smith picking up his mobile and pushing the anonymous dial button. Two seconds later and 6,000 miles away a voice answered.
“Yes?”
“It’s done, perfect hit,” said Smith
“Excellent, well done,” replied a very happy Beaumont.
Chapter 12
Tom and Lela were still discussing the missing Tylanni when Kano came rushing through from the cockpit.
“Where were your parents heading to?” he asked panicking.
“Why, what’s wrong?” asked Tom.
“Just tell me where they were going!” shouted Kano.
“Gabon, they’re going to Gabon. Why?” asked Tom who felt instantly sick.
“Oh, thank God for that,” said Kano.
“Why, what’s happened?” asked Tom, still concerned about Kano’s panic.
“It’s just that we were listening to a news station and they reported a huge explosion in West Africa but it wasn’t Gabon. We just put two and two together and got about 45, sorry Tom.”
Tom’s concern did not wane.
“Where exactly in West Africa?” he asked.
> “Some place called Equatorial Guinea,” he replied.
“Oh, my God!!”
“What’s wrong?” asked Lela as she watched the colour drain from Tom’s face.
“Gabon is next to Equatorial Guinea. It could be Alba One, the timing’s right, they’re due to land in about ten minutes which would put them over Equatorial Guinea for the last 15 minutes.”
Tom stood up and made his way to the cockpit. Kisho had heard what Tom had said and was frantically radioing for confirmation of what the explosion was caused by.
“This is Tom One. Can you please confirm source of explosion in Equatorial Guinea. Was it a plane crash, repeat, was it a plane crash?”
No response came. Kisho tried again and again. Finally the radio came to life.
“Sorry Tom One, nobody knows. Reason for explosion so far unknown.” The radio died again.
Tom grabbed his mobile and dialled his father’s number. It went straight to voicemail.
He tried again but it went straight to voicemail again.
He put the phone down and turned to Lela who shook her head as if to say it couldn’t be happening.
Tom’s phone rang. Without thinking, he answered.
“Hello?” and a huge smile appeared on his face. “Dad! You’re OK! Thank God! We were so worried. Hang on, I’ll put you on speaker.”
“Of course I’m OK, I was trying to call you but you kept going to voicemail,” said Donald.
“I was trying to call you, we just heard about the explosion.”
“I know, I know, I was calling to tell you all about it. I was looking out of the window and saw what looked like a shooting star but it fell straight into the ground and the whole thing just blew up.”
They were all so relieved they couldn’t say anything so they just listened to Donald telling them about the explosion and what he thought may have been a meteor. He then made his apologies for having to go as they were on their final approach and the captain was asking him to get off the phone.
Chapter 13
Beaumont relaxed in his office, the first stage of the African operation had been a success. In fact, a greater success than they had expected. CNN were covering the story, along with every other world news agency. Beaumont could not believe his luck. The missile had caused far more damage than anticipated, over 2,000 people were presumed dead. He was delighted. Human life meant nothing to him.
The missile had targeted a remote mining town near the coast of Equatorial Guinea. Timing was of the essence as the only moment the missile could make a direct entry into the mine shaft was when the miners finished their shift at 18.45. At that time, the mine’s elevator was lifted out of the shaft and manoeuvred to the side to allow the miners to disembark. On target and on time, the missile plunged down the shaft and exploded, igniting a heavily laden explosives room. The kinetic energy and force of the missile increased the explosive potential of the mining explosives by 10 fold. The explosion ripped through the mine network uncovering numerous weak points and resulting in a massive implosion which had the effect of swallowing the surrounding town in one huge catastrophe. It was not anticipated that any survivors would be found. Certainly the bemused miners who had witnessed the strange meteor hurtling past them and then down the shaft would never be found alive.
***
The file on Beaumont’s desk would commence the next stage of the operation, namely, the Misinformation Stage. He put on his latex gloves before handling the file as it was likely that the information contained within it would be handed over to the authorities at some stage. The material inside was even more explosive than the missile. He extracted the documents and placed them in an envelope. The envelope would be sent out that night to the head office of an international media organisation.
He closed the envelope and stopped himself from licking it closed, avoiding a schoolboy error and instead dabbed it with a damp sponge to seal it. He smiled as he placed the envelope in his briefcase, he would drop it in a postbox on his way home. Mr Donald Kennedy was not going to know what hit him.
Chapter 14
Tom One touched down on the school’s runway just after midnight local time and the four transferred to a waiting golf cart, the only method of transport on the school’s island.
The cart dropped Tom and Lela off at their accommodation block before continuing on to the Special Forces base where Kano and Kisho had been given accommodation.
The Special Forces base was located at one end of the island and housed over 200 Special Forces soldiers from around the world. The location of the base was a well-kept secret and served as an excellent training ground for those specialist soldiers. They also offered unique and overwhelming protection to the island’s main inhabitants, the children of the world’s elite.
The base however was not the only protection afforded to the students. The island also stood within the shadow of a fully operational NATO base which lay a mere 75 miles away and housed the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines. There was no doubt that The Academy was in the most highly protected area in the world.
The Academy in itself was spectacular, no expense had been spared creating the world’s most elite school. The grounds were perfectly manicured, the beaches were spectacular, white sand lapped by the crystal clear waters of the Indian Ocean. The facilities were second to none, Olympic sized pools, golf course, tennis courts, sports stadiums and a Marina stocked with every conceivable type of boat.
The classrooms were full of the latest technology. Desks were replaced by notepads which recognised students by their fingerprints and allowed them to log on with one touch. Their virtual desktop opened up a fully computerised curriculum and coursework. The Academy was the first truly paperless environment.
For entertainment, the students could choose between cinemas, ten pin bowling, ice skating or playing about in a recording studio, amongst many other activities. Everything had been thought of and if it hadn’t, it was added. Following feedback from the previous year, a new skate park had been added, modelled on the famous Marseille skate park.
The quality of accommodation and food was such that many students whose parents were amongst the richest in the world, actually complained that it was all much better than at home.
When it came to protecting Tom and Lela, following the events of the previous year, Mr Sakamoto had offered to shuffle students around to enable Kisho and Kano to live in the same block as Tom and Lela. However, everyone had agreed that this would alienate them from the other students and in any event, new procedures were in place to prevent an impostor from assuming another student’s identity and infiltrating the premises. On arrival, students’ identities were checked using DNA samples from their parents. Initially, this led to some embarrassing discoveries about the parentage of a number of students when the mothers’ DNA matched but the fathers’ didn’t. In one instance, the mother’s DNA and father’s DNA matched but unfortunately it was not the right father, it was another student’s father. Mr Sakamoto had spent a sleepless night before calling a Special Governors’ Meeting, special in that only governors with no children at the school were invited. The special session had lasted most of the day before reaching the decision that it was not up to the school to destroy families. A very relieved Mr Sakamoto went back to work, the DNA tests were immediately changed and only a maternal match would be required. The offending results were destroyed and forgotten forever.
Tom and Lela entered their empty block. As in the previous year, they were the first to arrive. Tom wasted no time. On entering his room, he switched on the TV to catch up on developments in Equatorial Guinea. He managed to navigate through the TV menu, it was new and like most of the gadgets in his room appeared to have been upgraded. The Play Station and the XBOX had definitely been upgraded, even though the ones they had had the previous year were not in the shops yet. He looked forward to having a go on them later. He finally found CNN.
“They think up to 2,500 people may have died,” he shouted through to L
ela’s room, next door to his. Lela joined him a minute later dressed in her pyjamas and jumped on the end of his bed.
“It’s dreadful. And to think your dad watched it happen. Have they identified what it was? Was it really a meteor?”
“They haven’t mentioned what it was. But there were definitely some dodgy explosives involved but they won’t know until they sift through the debris. I’ll give my dad a call and see if he knows any more.”
As Tom made the call, Lela continued to watch the TV. An explosives forensics team from the UK were due to arrive and would be joined shortly afterwards by specialists from the ATF, the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agency from the US. Both teams were recognised as the best in the world and had been requested by the Guinean President to find the reason behind the most tragic disaster to have befallen his country. Both the UK and the US had responded promptly and had their teams in the air within the hour.
“What did he say?” asked Lela as Tom hung up the phone.
“He tried to call the Guineans to tell them about the meteor but can’t get through. He’s going to phone CNN Africa instead. He reckons they should be able to pass on the information.”
“I can’t believe a meteor could do so much damage,” said Lela.
“I know, it’s unbelievable.”
“I’m sorry Tom, I can’t watch anymore, it’s too upsetting. I’m going to bed, goodnight, see you tomorrow,” she said as she disappeared to her room.
“Goodnight,” replied Tom as his door swung closed.
Chapter 15
Beaumont watched the scenes unfold on his giant plasma screen. CNN were reporting a 100% fatality rate. His best estimations had predicted a 40% fatality rate, nobody had predicted that the whole town would just cease to exist, killing everybody.
Assassin (The Billionaire Series) Page 5
