99.99999 % of it will be completely innocent.” He didn’t hold out any hope whatsoever.
“Did you get anything while you were going through the stuff last night?”
“No. But there’s something there. I can feel it, we’re getting closer,” said Tom, as he began to pace.
He cleared a whiteboard and put his hand in his pocket to get a pen. He had changed jeans and didn’t find a pen but found the business card they had pulled out of Alan’s sofa. He had forgotten all about it. He quickly dialled the number, it was dead, the recruitment consultant had obviously given up on recruitment.
“What’s that?” asked Daniel.
Tom explained where they had got it.
“I’ll do some checking on it, you never know what we might get,” offered Daniel, already dialling a contact.
Tom took a pen, found a quiet spot and began to write down everything he knew and had to date. He went back a year to the very first assassination and considered the circumstances of each. He then overlaid each of the new heads of government and studied the circumstances of each of those.
The day flew past and before they knew it, it was 6.00 p.m., nobody had even stopped for lunch. Tristan was the first to notice and panicked.
“Oh my God, it’s 6.00 p.m. What’s the time in Barbados?”
“Hmm, 10 a.m., why?” answered Tom.
“I promised I’d call my dad before his conference starts at 11.00 a.m.”
“Very nice, sounds like a nice little junket, Barbados in October, lovely!”
“Not quite it’s the Heads of Government meeting for the Commonwealth Nations.”
“Don’t you believe it for a second, I’m sure they’ll be living it up, staying in a lovely hotel.”
“Not sure about living it up but certainly lovely hotel, the Sandy Lane, nothing less don’t you know,” joked Tristan.
“Where did you say?” Tom couldn’t believe it, it couldn’t be that simple.
“Sandy Lane,” repeated Tristan, realising the significance.
Tom checked the board again. He was now also certain he knew who the targets would be, why had he not seen it earlier? The G20, the twenty most powerful leaders in the world.
“Sofie, Jin, I need a copy of your mother and grandfather’s itinerary for the next month. Lela, call Papa and tell him to meet us at the plane. Tristan, Zach you’d better come with us. Daniel can you run things from here? We need to find out who’s behind this and what or where David is.”
Tom sprinted out the door with Lela, Zach and now a very worried Tristan right behind him.
Chapter 75
Tristan phoned his father on the way to the airport, it didn’t go particularly well. His father was confident that his security was tight. He then launched into a debate with Tristan about how sometimes things were hard to accept, despite one’s best instincts, one sometimes just had to accept the cold hard facts. The call had ended, Tristan decided against telling Tom about the last part of the call, his father’s doubt’s about Donald’s innocence. Tristan was very disappointed with his father.
“Zach, what do you think?” asked Tom as they sped towards the airfield.
“I think Barbados is a very long way away and if anything does happen, we may well miss it.”
Tom pulled the cart to a stop and tried to think through what they knew and what they needed to do. Everybody in the cart realised what was happening and stayed quiet.
Tom finally spoke and asked. “What time is it now?”
“It’s 6.20 p.m.,” replied Lela.
“OK, it’s about a thirteen hour flight to Barbados,” said Tom checking his PDA. “And if we leave within the next hour, that’ll get us there at roughly 8.00 a.m. And they’re 8 hours behind us, as it’s still summer time which means we’ll be there at midnight their time…” Tom continued to think through the options.
“I could see if we could get the scramjet?” offered Zach, having done so before. There weren’t many things Zach’s guys couldn’t get.
“No, not yet. I think we should only go down that route when we run out of options. We don’t want to let anyone know we’re onto them unless we really have to. Whoever is behind this already tried to kill your dad. I know we can trust your guys but unfortunately, we don’t know if we can trust their parents.”
Zach was about to object but then realised that Tom was right.
“Wait a minute,” said Tom pulling out his phone and dialling a number.
“Jason, hi, it’s Tom.” He didn’t give Jason the time to even say hello. “What deadline did they give for my response to their offer?”
“You’re not changing your mind are you?” asked Jason, taken aback.
“No! God no! Their little consequences were kidnapping Lela.”
“Jesus! What can I do?” said Jason panicking.
“They didn’t stand a chance, she let them take her, got some info and kicked their arses. They’re all dead now so don’t worry.”
“What the hell do you mean they’re all dead, Lela killed the kidnappers?” Jason asked, astounded.
“No, she beat them up and they killed themselves.”
Jason gave up, he didn’t know which was worse, the guys killing themselves or the fact that little Lela beat up ten kidnappers.
“So what can I do?” he asked.
“What was the deadline the lawyer set on the bid?”
“48 hours from Friday 7.00 p.m. UK time.”
“Excellent thanks,” said Tom, hanging up and leaving a bemused and very stunned Jason to try to work out what on earth was going on.
As he ended the call, three blank faces looked at him. He really had lost them.
“When I received the bid for the company, they stipulated that I had to respond by 10.00 p.m. our time, 7.00 p.m. UK time. It was an absolute. If I failed to respond within that time, the offer would lapse.” The four faces looked even more blank.
“Guy’s, don’t you see? The assassination will be at some time after that time tomorrow.” Tom was becoming frustrated. He would have to spell it out.
“Alba is currently valued at about 30 % less than its actual value because my dad is public enemy number one. But after the new assassinations, my dad will be in the clear. Alba’s value will then jump back up. They wanted me to respond while the value was down so they could buy it cheap. So now we know when they’re going to strike.”
“When?” asked Tristan.
“Jesus!” replied Tom, giving up, he turned to Zach. “Can you explain it to him?” he asked.
Tom started the cart up again and continued to the airfield. Papa and the others were already waiting. Kisho was topping up the tanks on the Gulfstream jet, getting her prepped for flight.
“Every last drop you can squeeze in, we’re flying right to the limits of this thing. Shame we’re not qualified to fly that one,” said Tom pointing to the 777.
“How far is it?” asked Kisho.
“Let’s just say that that one drop of fuel that spilled on the runway might be the difference between flying and gliding onto the runway,” replied Tom who wasn’t joking.
Twenty minutes later, the plane was airborne and on its way to Bridgetown, Barbados. Everybody settled in, it was going to be long flight. Papa and his three islanders had taken their seats at the back of the plane and the snores were already resonating around the plane. Lela, Zach Tristan and Kano were at the front. Zach was still explaining to Tristan what was happening.
Lela leaned over and whispered to Kano.
“Thanks for saving Tom and I think you were right not to tell him.”
“Tell him what?” he asked, not sure if he had heard her correctly.
