and boarding pupils. Its resources ensured it remained top of the academic tables and was the current school of choice for the children of the most powerful families in the UK.
Tom’s birthday was five weeks into the summer holidays and as many of Tom and Lela’s school-friends were boarders, they were mostly back home or on holiday across the four corners of the globe. However, Tom and Lela had managed to round up a few friends who were within easy reach. The Alba International corporate jets were put to use and sent to collect two of their friends from London, three from the South of France and two from Italy.
Between them Tom and Lela had an incredible list of contacts. They had made friends with the children of some of world’s best known power brokers. They had built up the list over years of attending social and sporting events with their parents. Donald would take care of business while Tom and Lela played with the children. If Donald was struggling to contact somebody, he would quite often ask Tom or Lela for their home number. Kids swapped home numbers whereas adults swapped office numbers. They had never let him down. From the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the Australian PM, to the King of Thailand, their numbers were on their list. Donald was certain that between them, there was nobody he couldn’t get hold of.
The list of attendees for the birthday party included the British Prime Minister’s son, the daughter of the American Ambassador to the UK, the Saudi Ambassador’s son and the children of a number of high ranking UK government officials. The corporate jets had been despatched to pick them up that morning and all were due to touch down in Glasgow at 3.30 p.m. They would then board Donald’s helicopter and arrive on the estate at 4.00 p.m. The return journey was planned for each of them the next morning.
“Anything exciting planned?” asked Saki. “Not really, thought we’d just watch a movie and chill out, unless Lela’s thought of anything else. Have you?” asked Tom.
“Nope, sounds good to me. Although what movie are we going to see?” she asked.
“You know, the one just out, we got our copy yesterday.”
“I was worried you’d say that. Last night I tried to read the cover but we’ve got the version. It’s in German.”
Tom stopped himself from looking at his father. He was in enough trouble with his mother.
“No problem, we’ll just go to the cinema down the road,” suggested Saki, also realising that the blame would lead to Donald.
“Excellent! We can go bowling as well then,” added Lela.
Tom winced. Lela was unbelievably good at ten pin bowling. In fact, she was good at anything which involved hand-to-eye coordination, a by-product of her intensive martial arts training.
The rest of the meal passed without incident and Donald quickly excused himself to make the call which would answer Rachel’s questions. Just what he needed, he thought to himself as he walked to his study. He was in the final stages of completing the largest corporate deal ever. Alba was bidding to buy IBC Ltd and would, if accepted, result in Alba becoming the largest corporation in the world and making Donald the richest man alive. Donald would employ more people than the Chinese Army and Wal-Mart combined. The deadline for bids to purchase IBC was Friday 12 ^ th August, less than 36 hours away.
Chapter 12
Conor finalised the details of the plan. He had spent the morning and early afternoon going over and over the results of their painstaking research of the Estate. If the answer were there, he couldn’t see it. The only option was to trigger the alarm and go for it, the police reaction would be minimal, they certainly would not be expecting nine heavily armed and experienced Irish Nationalists.
Conors crew had spent the last two weeks spending the millions they would receive from ransoming the two kids. Giving up was not an option and they all agreed to go ahead with the plan, except for one person, Sinead. Sinead was Conor’s number two and didn’t like it. She couldn’t help think that a man who spent that amount of money on visible security, probably spent at least the same amount on stuff they hadn’t seen. She voiced her concerns but they were ignored even though she was brighter, tougher and a damn site more ruthless than Conor. Had she not been a woman, she would most certainly have been the leader of the crew. Mercenaries in Ireland had still not caught up with equal rights. She couldn’t help think that they were making a huge mistake.
The plan was simple. That night, just after dark, they would use long ramps to get four high powered motorcycles into the grounds. Within 3 minutes, they would be at the house, grab the kids and use one of the Kennedys’ high powered boats to cross the Loch to two cars waiting on the other side. They would then drive the cars under tree cover to avoid detection by helicopter to the safe house 30 miles away. They would then issue their demands and either give the kids back or kill them, whichever proved easiest.
They began to prepare themselves for that night’s operation. Two of the team went back to the main gates to monitor all comings and goings. Two other members of the team set about constructing the ramps required to scale the walls, while the others prepared the weapons and vehicles.
Chapter 13
Tom and Lela had also excused themselves from the table, explaining they needed to get ready for their friends’ arrival However, instead of going their separate ways, they both went straight to Tom’s room.
“OK,” Tom said closing his door. “What do you think about this new school?” he asked.
“I don’t know, I mean, we don’t even know where it is and I can see why your mum is angry. By the sounds of it, your dad had accepted,” replied Lela as she sat on her favourite bean bag.
“I know, he forgets he’s not the boss sometimes, at least when it comes to home.”
“So what about you?” asked Lela.
“I thought it sounded really cool but I want to see if we can find where it is.”
“How??”
“My dad mentioned a couple of clues, remember he said it was on one of two islands cloaked in secrecy and it must have been built within the last five years because that’s when that bankruptcy happened, yeah?”
“Yes but…” Lela stopped, she knew Tom better than anybody. She was an ‘A’ student but Tom was in a different league entirely. His father’s genius genes had definitely rubbed off on him although, thankfully, with a good helping of his mother’s common sense.
Tom was much taller than his ‘big’ sister despite being a year younger. Lela had inherited her mother’s petite frame, while Tom seemed destined to at least equal his father’s almost six foot. For the last thirteen years, they had been inseparable. When Lela had started school a year before Tom, all hell had broken loose. Lela had screamed all day at school, while Tom had done the same at home. There were two options, either Tom started school early or Lela started school a year later. A family meeting resolved the situation, holding Lela back was unfair, the only option therefore was for young Tom to start school early. The dynamic duo were back together and peace renewed.
It had not taken long for Tom to fall under his ‘big’ sister’s protection. Being the youngest and the smallest in his class, Tom was easy prey for the class bully. However, Lela, even aged five, was a force to be reckoned with. Following Lela’s retribution for picking on her ‘little brother’, the bully had been rushed to hospital. The message was well and truly made, nobody messed with Lela’s brother, nobody.
Ever since, the two had never been apart, what one did the other followed, usually closely watched by the ever present Saki.
Lela watched Tom flick from one of his three monitors to another, scanning through page after page of information on the internet. Lela only wished Tom’s physical dexterity matched his mental ability. He had pestered her for years to give him some basic training which, although strictly forbidden for non Penarajans, she had agreed to. Lela fundamentally disagreed with the ancient rule of forbidding non islanders from mastering their art. As far as she was concerned, if she was a fully fledged Kennedy (which she was), by default, Tom was a fully fledged islander. He spent as much time as she did with her family, aunts and cousins and the two families really had become one, despite their very different genes. People even joked that if it was not for Lela’s Asian looks, the two
