Chapter 14
The EH-101 helicopter, another of Tom’s winning proposals, touched down. The eight friends who had spent the morning travelling, in some cases over a thousand miles, rushed out to greet Tom and Lela. After a very noisy reunion, the group split in two, Tom and his four friends headed straight to the basement for a bit of flying, while Lela and her four friends headed across to the Lodge House.
The Kennedy Estate had three houses, the Main House with five bedrooms, the Lodge House with four and the Guest House with three. The Lodge House was Saki and Lela’s, a mere 250 yards away from the Main House. The only difference between it and the Main House was that one bedroom had been replaced by a small gym for Lela’s training. Other than that, everything else was identical. During the construction of the two houses, Rachel had ensured that both Tom and Lela’s rooms were identical (in size, not decor). Although they would live in separate houses, they were to be raised as brother and sister and one would never feel more special than the other.
Lela and her friends spent the next few hours listening to music and catching up on gossip. The boys enjoyed a slightly more adventurous time, crashing as dramatically as possible in the simulator. They had given up trying to do the best landing and resorted instead to the best deaths.
“That was definitely better than Tom’s,” said Tristan, the UK Prime Minister’s son and one of Tom’s best friends, as the A380 somersaulted end over end on the runway.
“Close call I think,” replied Ahmad, the son of the Saudi Ambassador to the UK.
“Guys?” Tom turned to Ben and Leo for support but they both sat on the fence. “OK, you win Trist,” said Tom, anything to keep the peace.
“Cool, who’s next then?” asked Tristan, triumphant in victory.
Tom checked his watch. It was almost 7.00 p.m. they had been down there for almost three hours.
“God, we’d better hurry up, the movie starts in forty minutes, let’s go,” urged Tom as he undid his seat- belt.
“But I thought you had a cinema down here?” asked Ben, pointing to the cinema housed in the vault behind them.
“Yeah but unfortunately my dad organised the movie so unless you speak German, we need to go to the local cinema complex,” replied Tom. “But it does have a ten pin bowling alley,” he added.
Tristan groaned.
“What, don’t you like tenpin bowling?” asked Ben.
“No, I love it but not when Lela plays,” replied Tristan.
When they arrived in the lounge, the girls were waiting patiently for them.
“Dad’s just gone to get the minibus,” said Lela as they entered. “He won’t be long, in fact, he’s probably already waiting outside.”
“OK, let’s go then, what are we waiting for?” said Tom, as he ushered them out, discussing tactics with the boys on how they would beat the girls at bowling.
Chapter 15
Conor’s phone buzzed.
“Hello,” he answered, hearing a lot of background noise.
“It’s Kevin, we’ve got a problem,” he announced over the noise of the wind as he rode his motorbike.
“Where are you? You’re supposed to be watching the gate!” he replied angrily recognising the wind noise.
“I know, I was, but they’ve just gone, a minibus with about ten kids in it just left the estate,” he replied.
“Damn, are they in it?” He couldn’t believe it, not a soul had left the estate for two weeks and less than two hours before they were due to go in, they left.
“No idea, the windows are heavily smoked, I can just make out their shapes.”
“Which way are they heading?” asked Conor, his mind racing with what to do.
“South, we’ll be coming past you guys any minute now. I’m right behind them.”
Conor covered the mouthpiece, “Sinead?” he called.
“Yeah,” she replied, rushing to his side.
“Take three guys and follow the minibus. If the kids are on it, take them when you get the chance but don’t do anything until you eyeball them, OK? I don’t want to jump the minibus, find they’re not on it and then ruin our chances later.”
Sinead was already running towards the car, grabbing three crew members on her way. Within a minute, their tyres screeched as they sped off, the car hurtling down the small dirt track towards the main road. Sinead was now on the phone to Kevin, they were only going to be a minute behind him when they got to the main road.
They quickly caught up with Kevin and stayed a car length behind him. Kevin was a car behind the minibus. Sinead considered the options, should they confirm the kids were on board. Ramming the minibus off the road was definitely not an option. Even from three cars back, she could see that the minibus was riding very low. After seeing the Estate, she was fairly certain that the reason the suspension was so low was from the weight of armour plating and bullet proof glass, exacerbated by the two huge bull bars on the front and back. A direct hit from an anti tank missile would struggle to move it, let alone their small car.
They would therefore have no option but to take them when and if they got off the bus. She also couldn’t help think it was strange that Kevin had not mentioned any bodyguards. Ten kids with one small Asian guy didn’t make sense. You don’t spend the money the Kennedys had on security and then walk out into the open, unprotected. She called Kevin back, perhaps he had just not noticed the bodyguards.
Conor was praying the kids were on the bus. If they were, it would avoid a raid on the Estate. He had listened to Sinead’s concerns but he was the only one aware of the timescale and repercussions if it wasn’t met. As far as the rest of the crew were concerned, this was Conor’s operation, he gave the orders. But Conor was under no illusion, the man who had offered him the job had been very clear that failure was not an option if Conor planned to see another birthday.
Chapter 16
Saki parked right at the front door of the cinema. Tom, Lela and their friends jumped out and ran straight in. It was going to be close but they should just make the start. Tom and Lela were on drinks and sweets duty and once the all-important seats had been reserved, they rushed back out to the foyer with a list long enough to feed a small village for a week. Ahmad, the Saudi Ambassador’s son, offered to help them carry the food back.
“Hey, Raghead!” came a shout from across the foyer.
Ahmad had never quite got used to jeans and T-shirts. He preferred to stick to the traditional Thoub, a white robe and the Shumagg and Ogal, the traditional head-dress of the Gulf countries. He ignored the shout.
“What did he just say?” Tom was furious and hoped to have misheard the taunt.
“Just ignore them and they’ll go away. Don’t rise to their ignorant jibes,” said Lela trying to calm him down.
“Hey Raghead, you deaf or stupid?” came another shout.
Again, Ahmad ignored the shout. Tom, however, could not. He looked over at the group of boys who were laughing in their direction. There were eight of them, all of a certain type, wearing track-suits, hoodies, trainers, baseball caps, thick gold necklaces and enormous rings. What they lacked in intelligence and education, they made up for in stupidity and ignorance. To Tom, they were known as Neds which stood for Non Educated Delinquents. Every country has them and every country has their own name for them. They even look genetically similar and
