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.
“Reaper here. Team Colombia, what is your position?”
“We are on station and ready to Go,” replied Marco.
Reaper was ecstatic. In twelve hours, he would issue the Go command and the teams would move.
However, he was concerned about the losses in transit and made a couple of phone calls. These would ensure that the seven men who had been arrested would not discuss the mission with anybody. Within an hour of their arrests, they were all dead, each receiving a bullet through the head. As they were arrested in different countries, it would take months for the intelligence communities to link the murders.
The twins were increasingly concerned about their commander’s attitude towards them. He was acting very strangely and had made them both stand guard for twelve hours at the same time. They had protested that they did not like working on the same rota but the commander dismissed their complaint and ordered them to remain on gate duty together. This meant that they could not keep an eye on their targets and could not even file a report to that effect as they could not move from their posts.
It had been a blisteringly hot day and even though the twins were super fit, the heat in their full kit was unbearable, the sweat was pouring off of them. A group of rowdy soldiers walked passed carrying canteens of water. One of the twins shouted out to them.
“Hey guys, give us a canteen, this heat is killing us!”
“Sorry. We can’t. These have to go to Hut 8.”
“Come on, we can’t move from here, just give us one, we’re dying here.”
The soldier looked over to one of his colleagues who shrugged his shoulders and said “OK.”
The canteen was tossed over to the twins and within seconds they drank the lot. They looked at each other in relief but were deeply worried. They were failing in their mission and they did not like failure.
It had been a very difficult week at The Academy. Erika’s death had stunned the whole school. It was believed that Erika was killed in an assassination attempt on her father. However, nobody was claiming responsibility for it and the evidence was leading nowhere fast. Erika’s father had immediately resigned as PM following the death of his daughter, the guilt of not meeting her at the airport would haunt him forever. Her best- friend Madeleine had been a complete wreck and was sent home to Sweden, nobody knew when or if she would return.
Even Ms Anderson had shown some compassion allowing Tom and Tristan to stay with their friends on the Sunday rather than join her for lunch. Although she did make it clear, that it was only for one week. They were to be back the following week as normal.
Chapter 38
Rachel was worried. Donald had hardly slept in the last week. The IBC deal was wearing him down.
“Donald enough of that, come to bed, it’s late.”
“I just need to go through this draft and then I’ll come.”
“No Donald, you’re coming right now. There won’t be a deal if you’re dead and at this rate, you’ll be dead within the hour because I’m going to kill you if you don’t come to bed and get some sleep.”
“OK but I need to get up at 4.00 a.m. to read through it.”
“OK, we’ll see.”
Donald undressed and got into bed.
“It was great to see the kids tonight. They seem to be loving the school,” said Rachel changing the
