the assassination. And each successor was exceedingly wealthy in their own right with extensive business interests. Apart from these, no other links seemed to exist, or at least no common link was obvious.
Their investigations had also looked into Alan, Alba’s CFO. Donald had sensed something suspicious about him early on. All other candidates capable of the role had either not applied or withdrawn their applications early in the process. Alan’s application had been excellent, his credentials unmatched, his references incomparable. He was perfect and, with no competition, was appointed. But Donald soon began to notice that Alan was not as good as his application suggested. Donald also noticed that Alan took a great interest in areas of the business which didn’t concern him or he got involved in levels of detail which were well below his level of seniority. Donald had asked Saki to look into it and it appeared that that was Saki’s secret mission over the summer. Saki had looked into Alan’s background and hunted down the other candidates, whom it appeared, would have been delighted to join Alba but had been devastated to receive rejection letters. Alba had not issued any rejection letters. On the contrary, it had received letters of withdrawal from the candidates.
Donald had a dilemma. Should he sack Alan, thereby tipping off whoever had planted him, or keep a very close eye on him to see if he led them anywhere. He had opted for the latter. However it was obviously too late, Alan had done the damage. Tom and Lela could link most of the evidence fabricated against Donald to Alan. The sales invoice of explosives to the mine company had been done by Alan. The expenses signed off by Donald for individuals who had been near the assassination areas, done by Alan. The list continued. For each piece of financial evidence which linked Donald to the assassinations, Alan had had the opportunity and the motive.
One of the last entries in Donald’s notes had been his firm belief that Jason’s family had been murdered. Everything to do with Alan pointed to an extensive and complicated operation which required access to the Finance Department and therefore the removal of Donald’s old CFO. He had realised that Jason was also meant to have been dead, along with his family, all treated as expendable pawns. Jason’s subsequent breakdown and resignation had probably saved his life. His job had become vacant so they didn’t need him dead anymore.
After Tom finished running through the content of the files, the group broke the files down and methodically brainstormed each piece of information and what it could tell them. The information was categorised by level of importance, high, medium and low. However, they were aware that something which may seem of low importance could nonetheless hold the vital link they needed. Therefore, everything had to be worked through, no matter how irrelevant it seemed.
At 1.00 a.m. with questions flowing onto the whiteboards around the room, they noticed the time and agreed to reconvene in the morning. Despite the vast number of questions they had raised, answers were beginning to emerge.
As they made their way to their rooms, Tom finally had a chance to speak to Lela.
“Well?”
Lela said nothing. She just placed her hand in her pocket and pulled something out. She placed in Tom’s hand and smiled.
Tom opened his hand and found a pair of Latex gloves.
“Worked brilliantly, you should have seen him, it was actually quite pathetic,” said Lela as she watched Tom open his hand.
“What did you do?” asked Tom.
“Exactly what Kano and Kisho said. I caught up with the gang, pushed a few around, they bolted and left Yuri on his own. I had him backed into a corner, explained I was very, very upset with him. Told him I had given up on the softly, softly approach before pulling out the gloves. I took my time putting them on. He was crying like baby, sobbing, pleading. It was pathetic. I actually felt so sorry for him, I let him go but the only way he could leave was through the canteen, blubbering and whimpering in front of everyone. I warned his gang that if they went anywhere near him again, it’s them I’ll be looking for. Yuri is officially an outcast. He won’t trouble anyone again.”
“Just because of these?” Tom asked, incredulous.
“Yep, anyway we need to get to bed, we’ve got to be back there at eight,” said Lela making her way to her room.
The next morning, they picked up exactly where they had left off and by 4.00 p.m. had finished. The unanswered questions were broken down into chunks and each person took the chunk most relevant to them. Zach took anything which could possibly be linked to the military, Tom adding at the last minute the meteor like object his father had witnessed fly towards the mine before the explosion. Daniel took anything at all linked to intelligence, Lela quickly adding the loss of Tylanni. Questions regarding the backgrounds of the new leaders or old ones went to Jin, Sofie, Elena and Thabo, each taking the relevant continent. Tristan picked up any commonwealth countries and a number of other questions linked to the UK. Tom and Lela took the rest of the non specific and more global questions and would work through them with their extensive network.
With such a vast volume of information to gather, it was agreed that the next meeting would be on Friday. Most of them were going on the daytrip to Machu Picchu which all agreed was unfortunate as they had a lot to do.
Chapter 63
At the end of The Academy’s first year, the History Department had submitted a request. They informed the Headmaster, Mr Sakamoto that they would like to enrich their students’ understanding of history through real life experience. Mr Sakamoto asked them to drop the sales pitch and cut to the chase. The history department said that they wanted to visit sites of historical importance.
However, being located on a secret island in the middle of the Ocean, The Academy was not best placed to offer school trips. Despite this, Mr Sakamoto could see the merits of such a programme and agreed to raise it at the next Governors’ meeting. The Governors agreed in principle but made it clear that no funds would be made available to fund the excursions. If the parents could raise the funds, the Governors had no objection to the visits. As term ended, the students took home a letter requesting funds for the history trips.
By September, the funds had arrived and the first trip was about to take place, a daytrip to Machu Picchu in Peru. Tom, Lela and their friends were among the first to experience the history department’s new initiative.
By the time Tom and Lela had returned from their meeting, had had their dinner and got changed, it was almost time to leave. They were due to leave from the airfield at 10.30 p.m. but Tom wanted to get there early to see their plane arrive.
“Tom it’s only 9.00 p.m., what’s the big rush?” asked Lela who was beginning to get fed up with being harassed.
“I just don’t want to miss it land,” he replied, glancing at his watch.
“Oh for God’s sake, just go ahead without me. I’ll come later with Mingmei and Mia,” offered Lela not thinking for a second he would take her up on it.
“OK, brilliant I’ll see you there!” he replied as he ran out of the door. Lela did not have a chance to respond.
Tom ran down the stairs and almost knocked Thabo flying as he careered into him.
“Where the hell are you going?” asked Thabo.
“To the airfield, I don’t want to be late!” replied Tom.
“Oh, just give me a second, I’ll grab my bag and come with you,” said Thabo thinking that his watch must be broken.
One minute later, the small golf cart was being pushed as fast as it would go to get them to the airfield. They drew up next to the small office building, parked the cart and made their way to the runway. It was 9.09 p.m. and completely deserted.
“Oh God, have we missed it?” asked Thabo.
Tom checked the runway and the apron, the plane was nowhere to be seen.
“No, it looks like we made it.”
“But there’s no one here, no plane. We must have missed it.” Thabo looked around him.
“But that’s the point,” said Tom looking at Thabo as though he were mad. “If the plane were already here, we would have missed it landing.”
