His training, however, was an unmitigated disaster. Lessons were a nightmare, It wasn’t that Tom couldn’t do the moves, it was just that he couldn’t do them quickly. By the time he had blocked a punch, it could have hit him five times. Lela had therefore focussed on defensive measures, if nothing else, she thought it may give her a little extra time to come and kick whosever arse was messing with her brother.
Tom carried on flicking from screen to screen as he searched for the elusive new school which he and Lela may be sent to. His email pinged. He flicked across to his inbox, his whatjet. com website was proving a phenomenal success. Two new enquiries were awaiting his response.
It had all started over a year earlier when his father had brought home a proposal for his company’s new jet. Tom had always been fanatical about flying and knew everything there was to know about aircraft. He took a keen interest in the proposal and spotted a number of flaws made by his father’s procurement team. His father was baffled by most of the technical detail and was glad to hand it over to Tom. He had thought nothing more of it until Tom produced a detailed reasoning the following morning as to why each of the options was flawed and why an entirely different plane was more appropriate.
Donald, armed with the new proposal, presented it to his procurement team who could not disagree with the new choice of aircraft. Donald did not have the heart to tell his Procurement Director that he had been beaten by an eleven year old. However, from that day forward, he always pit the might of his Procurement Division against Tom and Tom had never been beaten. Whenever a new aircraft request came in, the Alba team would drop everything as they tried, in vain, to better ‘Donald’s’ proposal.
It hadn’t taken Tom long to see the commercial viability of his services and so he launched WhatJet. com, the home of a truly independent advice service for those wanting to buy the best fit-for-purpose aircraft they could. When people were spending tens of millions of dollars on something, they tended to want to make sure that they were buying the right thing at the right price. Tom had also built an enviable list of ‘actual’ cost rather than ’list’ price and in general, saved his customers around 5 % on the purchase price. His fee was 0.5 % of the purchase price which was minimal compared to the savings made, so nobody had ever complained. In his first year of business, Tom had made over $2 million profit and his company was valued at double that amount.
Only Lela knew about Tom’s little ‘sideline’. His father was famous for having started Alba at the age of 14 and keeping it a secret until his 16 ^ th birthday when he announced to his bewildered parents that he was leaving school and going to run his multi-million pound business. Tom was planning to trump that, although he perhaps would forget the leaving school part, not many people left school at 16 any more.
Tom flicked back to his search. He would deal with the new enquiries the next day, after his friends had left. Thirty minutes later, he hit the print button and the page shot out of the printer.
“Done it, got it,” announced Tom grabbing the sheet of paper.
“Got what?” asked Lela, pausing MTV.
“The school’s location, of course!”
Lela looked at her watch, they had only been there 45 minutes.
“What, you’ve just found the secret school on the internet in less than an hour?”
“Yep and I’ll tell you something, if you thought my mum was pissed off earlier, just wait ‘til she hears this,” said Tom as he led the way to the study. He thought it was only fair to warn his father first.
Tom knocked and they both entered. His father was on one phone and had another call sitting off the hook on the desk. He didn’t normally work from home but had decided he wanted to spend as much time as he could with Tom on his birthday.
Donald ended his call and retrieved the other handset from his desk.
“I’m so sorry about that Sam, we’re just finalising the IBC bid, it’s all rather hectic. Now where were we?”
Donald looked down at his list and began to run through the list of questions Rachel had given him.
Tom and Lela waited patiently as Donald talked. They assumed their favourite seats on the huge sofa in front of the fireplace. They both jumped when Donald suddenly raised his voice.
“What do you mean you can’t tell me!” he shouted. “Don’t be ridiculous! How can you expect me to say yes without knowing that?!”
Tom walked over to the desk and looked at the sheet of paper in front of Donald, his pen was doodling next to the world ‘Location’. As Donald argued, the pen began to bounce up and down. Tom put his hand over his father’s to stop his tapping and placed his sheet of paper in front of him and directed his father attention to it.
“Hold on Sam, Tom’s just giving me something.”
He looked at the sheet of paper and then at Tom, quizzically. Tom nodded.
“Sam, I’ll just put you on speaker, Tom and Lela are both here.”
“OK,” replied Sam, his Southern American drawl booming across the study.
“Tom just handed me a sheet of paper which has the name of two islands on it — one’s called Bassas da India and the other Ile Europa. Their geographic locations are 21 30 S 39 50 E and 22 20 S 40 22 E respectively.”
The former president said nothing.
“Sam, are you still there?” asked Donald.
“Yes. Tom, where did you get that information?” he asked, shocked.
“My dad mentioned your conversation earlier and talked about two secret islands and told us the story about the bankruptcy. I just worked back from that.”
Both Lela and Donald did not follow his logic and looked at him blankly and Sam Mitcham appeared to be in the same boat.
“I’m sorry son, can you just explain that again so this old brain here can understand just how you discovered, in a matter of hours, what we believe to be one of the best kept secrets.”
“Actually it took him 45 minutes,” blurted Lela. “I timed him,” she added nervously, realising she was not helping matters.
“What!? How in the hell did you do that?” asked Sam.
“Quite simple really,” began Tom explaining his process. “The five years gave me a timeline to work with, I deduced it probably took at least a year for any decision to be made so I reduced that to four years. I then focussed on areas which had marine and air exclusion zones enforced within that time scale. Only a few areas had both, narrowing my search down dramatically. I then looked at those areas and found only one with two uninhabited islands which fitted the profile, secluded and remote. You don’t get much more remote than those two in the middle of the Mozambique Channel. You can pretty much find anything on the internet but you do have to know what you’re looking for.”
“Very impressive Tom and very concerning.” Sam paused as he considered the implications of Tom’s discovery. Finally he added, “Donald if you don’t mind, I’ll call you back tomorrow. Do you want to talk to Rachel and Saki in the meantime?” he asked.
“Will do, speak to you later,” replied Donald.
“OK, cheers,” said Sam as he ended the call.
Donald wasted no time in calling a family conference. Rachel, Saki and the grandparents joined them in the study.
“Well?” asked Rachel after everyone was settled.
“It sounds amazing,” replied Donald. “Really amazing, he’ll get back to us as soon as he can…”
Donald was interrupted by the sound of a helicopter coming into land. Tom and Lela’s friends had arrived.
“I suppose you two should go and greet your friends,” said Donald to Tom and Lela. “We won’t hear back from Sam until tomorrow, OK?”
“Yep,” they replied as they got up to leave.
“Just one thing, can I at least know where the school is?” asked Rachel.
Tom and Lela shot a look at each other, before rushing out of the room as fast as they could. Fortunately, Donald paused before answering, allowing the door to protect their ears from Rachel’s scream.
&
nbsp; “It’s where???!!!!”
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 perhaps are the closest thing in existence to the missing link with their deep set eyes and thick foreheads.
Tom recognised a couple of the Neds from when he was younger and knew they were a couple of years older than him. However, he was not going to stand back and let them insult one of his friends.
“What did you say?” he shouted back.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing Tom?” asked Lela.
“We said, ‘Hey Raghead’, you got a problem with that?”
“Damn right I do. Why don’t you come here and say that to my face?” Tom was now furious and could not contain himself.
/> “Stop it Tom, they’re idiots. Just ignore them and come on,” said Lela grabbing Tom’s arm and dragging him towards the kiosk.
The group started walking towards Tom, Lela and Ahmad.
“So what’s your problem then?” responded the biggest Ned, walking towards him.
“TOM, leave it and let’s go.” Lela was now pushing Tom and Ahmad out of the way.
“Aw, are the boys frightened and need their little cutie to protect them,” said the big Ned.
“She’s really cute, wonder what she’s doing with those losers, huh? Bit young for me but I bet her mum’s really hot!” he said loudly to his friends causing a roar of laughter.
At the mention of her mother, Lela’s mood changed instantly. Tom saw the anger well up and the tables turn. He grabbed Lela’s arm and pulled her towards him.
“Lela you’re right, let’s ignore them, come on.”
Lela didn’t move. She stood firm, her petite frame belying her hidden strength.
“What did you say?” said Lela to the Ned in a tone which chilled Ahmad and Tom.
“Lela, please!. Let’s go!” said Tom.
“I said, I bet your mum is a real hottie. In fact, I’d really like to meet her. Is she coming to pick you up?”
“Lela, please leave it. They’re idiots, let’s go!”
Lela was not listening to Tom. She was totally focussed on the Ned who continued to make reference to her mother. She felt Tom’s hand on her shoulder and brushed it aside. She stepped towards the oncoming group.
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