He had cracked open a bottle of champagne and was in the process of toasting himself when the phone rang.
“Hello?” he answered.
“We may have a problem,” said Smith.
“What, we hit the target and everybody’s dead, what’s the problem?”
“There’s a witness,” replied Smith coldly.
“A What??!!” choked Beaumont. “What do you mean there’s a witness?”
“Exactly what I just said. Somebody saw the explosion,” replied Smith, tension building in his voice.
“Jesus man, I’m sure thousands of people saw the explosion, it was huge,” said Beaumont beginning to relax and thinking this guy would have to go, what a panic merchant.
“No, they witnessed the missile flying down the shaft, only they thought it was a meteor or something,” explained Smith.
“Impossible! It’s a stealth missile, you can’t see it,” replied Beaumont.
“If you had read the specs properly, you would have noticed that the reason the weapon is still experimental is that they solved every problem except for the glow of the missile on its way back to earth.”
“Damn, I missed that bit.” Beaumont thought for a second. “Who’s the witness? Some goat farmer or something?” He began to see a way to cover their tracks.
“I don’t know, I just heard it third-hand but they say they couldn’t have hoped for a better source. It’s going to break soon, they’re finalising the editing on the piece.”
“Oh God,” said Beaumont as he paused for thought. There was only one thing he could do. “I’ll call you back.”
He hung up on Smith and hit Speed Dial Button 1. The phone dialled the anonymous number and it began to ring.
“Hello, what’s wrong?” answered The Chairman.
“We may have a problem you should be aware of,” replied Beaumont.
“What is it?”
“Our Africa operation has begun and has exceeded our expectations. However, it appears we may need to kill a story. Do you have contacts at CNN?”
The laughter at the end of the phone told Beaumont all he needed to know, it had been a silly question, The Chairman had contacts everywhere.
“What do you need quashed?”
“CNN Africa have a witness and are about to run the story.”
“OK, give me a minute.”
Beaumont waited as The Chairman made his call. After two minutes, he came back to the phone.
“Done, dead and buried. But I can tell you it’s going to cost me. They had one of their biggest stories of the year. It would have wiped the floor with other press agencies.”
“What, a witness to an explosion in the back of beyond in Africa? I think perhaps they were sensationalising just a touch.”
“Not just any witness,” explained The Chairman. “Donald Kennedy himself!”
Beaumont’s brain computed this information and before he knew what he was saying, he blurted out.
“Call them back quickly, get them to run the story, this is brilliant!”
“What the hell are you saying Beaumont! Pull yourself together, do you want this story quashed or not?”
“Not!!!” he almost screamed.
“Fine, consider it done.” The Chairman hung up.
Five minutes later, a breaking news story interrupted the evening news. Donald Kennedy’s face filled the screen as his photo accompanied his voice speaking to a reporter and relaying his account of the strange object falling to earth.
Beaumont raised his glass and toasted himself again. The operation could not have gone any better.
Chapter 16
Tom woke up with the TV still on. He had missed the breaking news story the night before but he couldn’t fail to miss his father’s report when he woke up. Every news channel in the world was playing and replaying his father’s VT. The images on the screen also showed the specialists from the UK and the US sifting through the debris. The speed at which they had been deployed was truly remarkable and was heralded as a triumph of global unity.
When the story began to repeat, Tom’s attention turned to the stream of planes landing on The Academy’s runway. At the beginning and end of each term, the small island became the busiest airport in the world, not that any records would ever show it. The school remained a closely guarded secret.
Lela knocked on Tom’s door.
“Are you awake?” she asked.
“Yep, come in,” he replied.
She opened the door and walked in.
“Come on, hurry up. The planes have started landing and the first carts are heading down the road.”
“OK, OK. Have you seen the news?” asked Tom pointing at the TV.
“Yes, it’s terrible, they’ve still not found any survivors.”
Tom had meant Donald’s piece but thought better of saying that was what he meant. “I know,” was all he could think to say in agreement.
“Well come on, get ready,” instructed Lela as she headed downstairs.
Five minutes later, Tom was showered, dressed and on his way downstairs to catch up with Lela, arriving just as the first cart pulled up to their block. Tom and Lela strained to see who it was.
“It’s Chen!” exclaimed Lela.
“The real one I hope,” joked Tom who received a playful punch from Lela. Chen had been held captive at the start of the previous year while an impostor had taken his place. Once freed and allowed to take his rightful place at school, he had soon become close friends with Tom and Lela. Lela also enjoyed the fact that Chen was a martial arts student and although not in her league, he was a useful sparring partner. He, on the other hand, had been known to complain that she made him feel like a complete novice and not the 5 Dan Black Belt expert that he really was.
Before they had a chance to say a proper hello to Chen, other carts began to arrive and discharge their passengers. Within half an hour, the old friends were reunited and it was almost as though they had never left.
“So what do you guys want to do today?” asked Tom.
“Sleep,” was the unilateral answer. Only he and Lela had had a decent night’s sleep and before they knew it, they were left standing on their own as all their friends had gone to unpack and get some sleep.
“What shall we do?” asked Tom.
“A bit of newbie spotting at breakfast?” suggested Lela.
“Sounds good to me,” replied Tom.
The pair walked towards the restaurant which was already buzzing. Students were arriving in droves and would continue to do so for the next 36 hours. They selected their food and picked a table which offered them the best vantage point for people watching.
Within five minutes, the happy, almost party atmosphere was shattered when the restaurant doors flew open and the queue was barged into by a gang of thugs. Tom and Lela recognised the leader instantly. They also noticed that his entourage had grown, a number of oriental students having joined his gang.
“What the hell is he doing here?” asked Tom, referring to the hulking lump of oxygen waster, Yuri.
“God knows but do you know what that means?” asked Lela.
“Yep, trouble and plenty of it,” replied Tom, remembering his dunking from the previous year. Yuri was the older step-brother of their good friend Oleg. He had been expelled the year before for attacking Tom, Chen’s impersonator and Oleg.
Lela looked at Tom with a glint in her eye and rubbed her hands together.
“No, not trouble,” she said. “Practice and plenty of it,” she added, eyeing up her new sparring partners.
Chapter 17
Smith was back at the Guinean President’s side in order to be aware of all developments as they unfolded. The rescue operation had swung into full force with incredible efficiency. Of course, it always helped to know where a disaster was going to strike and it was no coincidence that a full battalion of US army engineers were on a training exercise less than 10 miles from the scene. Within two hours of the explosion, their enormous ground-moving
machines were in place and helping the relief effort aided by the Guinean army who ‘just happened’ to have been part of the US training exercise.
The forensic experts from the UK and the US had arrived during the night and had begun the task of investigating the cause of the massive explosion. With the revelations of a possible meteor strike, NASA had also dispatched a team of experts to investigate the scene.
Smith had just heard that the lead scientist of the NASA team was on his way to update the Guinean President on his preliminary findings. Nobody yet knew what the findings were and Smith had issued orders to rush the scientist to them as soon as he arrived.
Smith and the Guinean President heard the helicopter land in the courtyard below them and less than thirty seconds later, a man dressed in forensic whites was ushered into the room.
“Good morning Doctor,” said Smith.
“Good morning and it’s Professor actually,” replied the NASA scientist.
“Good morning Professor, what’s the news?” demanded the Guinean President.
“All I can tell you just now is that the explosion was not caused by anything which originated from outside our planet. That is, no meteor struck the site.”
“You can say this categorically?” asked Smith.
“Without a shadow of a doubt. We have scanned the entire area, taken samples from the centre of the explosion, examined satellite scans and imagery and absolutely nothing indicates the existence of extra terrestrial material near the area, which means there was no meteorite.”
“Did you find anything that you believe may have caused it?” asked the Guinean President.
“That, Sir, is a question I cannot answer. My expertise is meteorites, not explosives. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for the explosives experts, there is nothing further NASA can offer.”
“Thank you again for your prompt response and assistance.”
“Not at all Mr President, the President of the USA is very keen to assist in any way he can. We were contacted before we’d even heard about Mr Kennedy’s sighting.”
“Thank you again Professor and please pass on my sincere gratitude to your team.”
“Thank you Mr President and goodbye.”
As the professor made his way back to the disaster site and his team, Smith excused himself and called Beaumont.
“Hello,” answered Beaumont instantly.
“Hi. NASA have just given us an update. They’ve found no evidence of any meteorite at the site.”
“Hmm, looks like our Mr Kennedy may face some interesting questions,” sniggered Beaumont more to himself than to Smith.
“Anything else?” he asked on a more serious note.
“Not yet. But things are moving quickly, we’re probably a couple of hours ahead of schedule. My guys have confirmed that samples of explosive residue have already been recovered and it’ll be a matter of hours for the test results to be confirmed. After that, things should move very quickly.”
“Excellent. Keep me up to date.”
Beaumont ended the call and checked the time, it was only 3.00 a.m. Things were moving very quickly. In fact, perhaps a little too quickly. If anybody looked too closely at response times, they might realise that things were just a little too neat. The exercise involving both the US Army Engineers and the Equatorial Guinean Army had been arranged with a little less notice than would be expected. In fact, it was unprecedented how quickly it had been arranged, to the extent that the unit had been airlifted rather than shipped. This had caused chaos with transport planes of food and ammunition scheduled for front line troops and had resulted in critical shortages. Questions had been asked but fortunately Beaumont had been able to quash them before they were escalated to the Joint Chiefs Office. The Joint Chiefs Office was Beaumont’s only weak spot. It was headed up by a General Powers, whose formal title was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was the boss of all the US armed services, squeaky clean and completely incorruptible and unfortunately for Beaumont, the most respected man to have held the position.
He simply had to go. And very, very soon. He had been timetabled to be taken care of the following month but Beaumont now decided that he could not afford to wait, the schedule would have to change.
Beaumont fired up his laptop and accessed the emergency contact list for the government’s key personnel. The list was continually updated and recorded the exact whereabouts of the Government’s top 200 staff. Selecting the ‘Armed Forces’ tag, a list of names appeared, headed by General Powers. Beaumont double clicked on the General’s name and waited for his diary to appear.
As he waited, he wondered how they would do it. General Powers was not going to be the easiest target, a battle hardened war hero with an incredibly loyal team of bodyguards. Beaumont was going to have to use his very best men. As the page came up, Beaumont smiled. This was a very good day, General Powers was at a conference in South Africa and Beaumont had his very best men not far away.
He dialled the number and the phone answered.
“Jones speaking,” answered the man.
“Hi, it’s me, I’ve got a job for you.”
“What?”
Beaumont explained what needed to be done.
“Not a problem, we can be there in less than four hours.”
“Good, call me when it’s done.”
They ended the call. Jones was Beaumont’s man in the Committee’s army and he and his team had carried out the majority of the assassinations over the previous year. The Committee’s army had four Commanders, Smith, Jones, Johnson and Williams. Whoever had attributed their pseudonyms had not spent long, they were the four most common names in America.
Smith was the most senior of the four Commanders and normally reported directly to The Chairman of the Committee. He made Beaumont nervous. Although Beaumont had appreciated The Chairman seconding his best team to him, he felt he could never fully trust Smith. In addition, Smith was perhaps a little too honourable and Beaumont was unsure as to whether he would have accepted the mission to assassinate General Powers.
Jones, on the other hand, was just happy to be busy. He was disappointed not to have been involved in the Equatorial Guinea mission. However, Beaumont had pacified him by explaining that he needed him available to handle other missions. As back up to Smith, Beaumont had stationed Jones in nearby Congo with a team of men. It seemed that his prudence was about to pay off. The only man with the power to ask too many questions would be dead before the week-end was over.
Chapter 18
Tom looked at Lela warily.
“What the hell do you mean practice?”
Lela didn’t answer, she just stood up and walked towards Yuri. Tom didn’t know what to do, should he follow? He couldn’t just let Lela walk over to them alone. But then what could he do? He’d probably get in her way. But then he didn’t want to look like a coward, so he got up and followed her anyway.
“What are you doing?” he whispered in her ear as he caught up with her.
“Don’t worry, I’m just going to have some fun.”
The twinkle in her eye had turned rather wicked.
“Oh God,” said Tom, he knew that look.
“Just stay behind me, out of my way, OK,” said Lela. Her fun tone disappeared as she saw Yuri push a new first year to the ground because he had dared to be in front of him in the queue.
Tom dropped back a step and then fell back another step for good measure as he noticed Lela’s demeanour change again.
Lela approached Yuri who was still blissfully unaware of her presence. Lela stopped when she reached the First Year student on the floor behind Yuri and helped him up. Tom could not help but notice how small Lela looked in comparison to the first year let alone Yuri who towered over them both. Lela was very small or as his mother said, petite.
Lela checked round to see where Tom was. He knew what was coming and took a third step back.
Lela was right behind Yuri who was too busy piling his plate with food to not
ice her. She took a step to her left, tipped her right shoulder down and barged into Yuri, her shoulder crashing into his back as she stepped forward. Yuri’s plate fell, emptying its contents down his front and an audible wince could be heard as he stifled a scream.
Silence fell across the restaurant. Yuri had not moved, baked beans were dripping from his hoody, some had even managed to get into his pocket. His trousers were soaking wet.
“Oh, sorry about that,” said Lela.
On hearing her voice, a disorientated Yuri realised what had happened to him. He spun around.
“What the hell…” He dropped his gaze to see who had done this to him and saw two huge brown eyes staring up at him. He knew those eyes very well.
“Oh hi Yuri, I didn’t see you there, sorreee, ” she said, changing her tone from cute to very ugly.
The last time they had met, Lela had got the better of him but things were going to be very different this year.
“What do you think you’re doing?” said Yuri moving closer to Lela who didn’t flinch. “Your fancy moves don’t impress me anymore,” he added.
From the corner of her eye, Lela was monitoring the movements of his new gang members. As Yuri moved closer to her, she noted the oriental ones were well trained, their eyes moved well and their posture was good. She might even get some decent practice this year. She turned her attention back to Yuri, having not even bothered to register what he had said, although she had sensed every movement of his body.
She curled her nose up as Yuri got closer.
“Euoouh, what is that smell? Yuri you really should get that potty training sorted or wear the nappies, the toilets are over there,” she shouted across the restaurant pointing to the toilets.
Yuri couldn’t help but look down at himself. He had felt the wetness but only now did he realise it was his own. He had wet himself after Lela bumped into him. He hadn’t even felt it. He just stood in the middle of the restaurant looking at his own mess while everybody watched him. A laugh started at the back of the restaurant and soon the place was filled with it. Yuri did not even look up, he just ran out of the restaurant with his head down, his face bright red. His gang following closely behind but were careful not to get too close.
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