Kidnap (The Billionaire Series) (14 page)

“This is one of the world’s first working prototypes of the
Scramjet,” explained the Colonel to the quizzical faces around him.

“Holy …” Tom received a swipe from his mother before he could
finish his expletive.

“A what?” asked
Donald.

Tom smiled and just managing to contain his excitement,
explained.

“It’s the latest technology in high speed jet flight. They can
fly at speeds of between Mach 5 – 15,” he said as he turned to the
Colonel to ask a question.

“But I thought they were still at the experimental stage with the
X43?”

“That’s exactly what we want people to think. We’ve been working
on these beauties for over twenty years. This is one of only two fully
operational Scramjets in existence and has been flying for over a year. We use
it mainly for surveillance purposes but today it gets a special outing for you
guys.”

The colonel paused, everyone bar Tom, was staring at him like he
was speaking Russian. He gave up and moved on.

“Now, if you don’t mind, we do have a strict time plan to adhere
to. We have to create holes in air traffic to ensure we don’t fly close to any
other aircraft. We’ve caused more than a few UFO stories over the last year.”

Donald, Rachel and Saki started to say their farewells to Tom and
Lela.

“I’m sorry, I should have said, parents are invited on the trip,
we’ll bring you back later,” said the Colonel.

“What do you mean?” asked the three of them at once.

“Mr
Mitcham
is expecting you to travel
with us. I believe he’s waiting for you at the other end,” he explained.

“I’m sorry but I can’t, it’s 6,000 miles away and I have very
important meetings tomorrow,” said Donald.

“Dad. This is a SCRAMJET,” he said slowly. “We’ll be there in
less than an hour,” said Tom exasperated at his father’s lack of comprehension.

“Less than hour? Now, that’s ridiculous!”

Tom realised at this point that his father did not know what MACH
5 – 15 actually meant. “Dad, this plane flies up to fifteen times the
speed of sound which is about fifteen times 760mph which is around eleven
thousand miles per hour.”

“Holy …” Rachel swiped Donald this time before he had a chance to
finish his expletive.

“Well actually, we top out at MACH 10, we haven’t quite managed
to hit 15 yet,” added the Colonel.

Without further delay, the plane left the hangar with five
passengers on board. It was airborne in no time at all, rose like a rocket and
levelled on the edge of space. The Colonel explained some of the more
digestible statistics, such as the acceleration, the fuel burn, its maximum
altitude and so on. Tom was fascinated and kept the Colonel busy with questions
for the entire
journey which
lasted all of 52 minutes.

In less than an hour, they had travelled 6,000 miles, crossed two
continents and the equator. They touched down in yet another deserted airbase
and were met by a beaming Sam
Mitcham
.
 

“Unbelievable! Amazing! Thank-you so much! It was fantastic!”
said Tom, still on a high while the others were still in a daze, not quite
believing they had really travelled the distance.

Sam led them to a waiting
car which
whisked them off to The Academy, only four miles away.

Donald, Rachel and Saki received a whirlwind tour of what looked
like a stunning complex but time was too short to see it properly. They joined
Tom and Lela for a quick lunch before being flown home. It was imperative that
they left before a stream of private jets began to deposit some other 1858
students. They thanked Sam profusely for his kind gesture and they all,
including Saki and Donald, shed a tear as they said goodbye to Tom and Lela. To
their surprise, Sam joined Donald, Rachel and Saki on the scramjet. He
explained that he was Chairman of the Board of Governors and not the
Headmaster. The Headmaster would be arriving shortly and he did not want to
undermine him. The scramjet took off and 50 minutes later, they were back on
Scottish soil minus their precious cargo
who
were
already making their way to their new bedrooms.
 

Chapter 2
6

The twins watched the silver dart pierce the sky. They had never
seen anything like it nor heard anything like it. Peculiarly, there was no
sound, just the whoosh of the air parting as the dart swooped overhead and
landed majestically on the landing strip.

As the doors opened and the passengers disembarked, they realised
their “holiday” was over. Their targets had arrived. Round the clock
surveillance would commence with immediate effect. They were certain that
others would be watching too but their job was the most crucial and most
important one.

***

Within an hour of their landing, Reaper was made aware that the
targets were in situ and under surveillance. He was nervous. Not because they
had landed but because it was on that day that one of his most daring moves
would either pay off or be a complete disaster.

He had recently been made aware of an exceptionally young looking
and exceptionally talented Chinese assassin. Pieter had worked with this
assassin before and was very complimentary about the talented young Ling. Not
only was she a highly trained killer
but
due to a very
rare childhood illness, she had never grown beyond her twelfth birthday. She
was now
twenty four
, had six years’ experience as an
assassin and looked no older than the day she turned thirteen. Her eternal
youth had given Reaper an idea. She would make an excellent plant as a student
at the school. She would be able to gather valuable information as easily as
she would be able to kill any encumbrance. Reaper was very pleased with
himself,
this was a perfect addition to an already brilliant
plan.

With Ling’s services secured, Reaper attended to the more
difficult task, identifying a student she could replace. Following a telephone
conversation with his client, Reaper was sent a list of possible targets. After
two days of analysis, Pieter, Leo and Reaper agreed on the most suitable candidate.

The operation was to be a simple one but at the same time very
expensive. It was imperative that the family of the swapped student knew
nothing of the swap until the main mission was well underway. They knew that
there would be
no opportunity to snatch the student before
they departed nor
any chance once they landed. They would, therefore,
have to intercept the student’s plane and replace the student during the
flight. This would involve a significant amount of equipment and exceptional
timing.
 

It was imperative that nobody knew anything was amiss. Therefore,
the plan involved two Mig29s, an old Soviet spy plane and a secret island in
the middle of the Indian Ocean close to the student’s flight path.

The student’s flight would take off as normal and as it neared
the secret island, the spy plane would electronically jam communications and
the two
Migs
would force it to land. The original
crew and the student would disembark to be replaced by Reaper’s crew and the
impostor. The flight would then resume its course to The Academy. It was
imperative that the real
student remain
alive in case
any messages were required to be sent to their parents. The original crew would
not be so lucky. After the impostor was dropped at the school, the plane would
return for them on the secret island, they would be forced to take off and
return to their original airport. Of course, they would never make it beyond
the electronic jamming, as they would be shot down in the middle of the Ocean.
Being a small private plane, little fuss would be made over the crash.

Reapers phone buzzed.

“Hello?” he answered.

 
“The switch is done
and the exercise complete,” said Pieter.

“Any issues?”

“None. It was perfect. The crew of the plane will never be found.
The rescuers think it went down 300 miles from where it actually did. I think
we owe our Russian friends an extra bonus for that piece of genius. They ripped
the black box out of the plane and dropped it 300 miles away in the deepest
waters they could find. Nothing in the world can go that deep.”

“Excellent. Make sure they receive their bonus before you
complete your mission,” said Reaper callously.

“Of course.”

That night, Pieter rewarded the Russians with a case of Vodka and
double their original fee. The next morning, Pieter bid the Russian pilots
farewell and then shot them dead. They would not be telling this story to
anyone but their ancestors.

Ling assumed her new persona and went to work. Through his
client, Reaper had managed to ensure that Ling would share the same block as Tom
and Lela. It was up to Ling to befriend them and ensure she remained at their
side.

Chapter 2
7

Tom and Lela had been the first to arrive at The Academy and
after their whistle-stop tour and dropping off their parents at the scramjet,
they went back to their block. Although ‘block’ failed to adequately describe
what looked more like a luxury condominium. It was lovely. Each block was quite
small and with only 24 student rooms in each, they were perfect. The blocks
were spread across the grounds, seventy in total, ten blocks for each year. Tom
and Lela’s was smack bang in the centre of the school and seemed to be where
the blocks for the seven different years converged. Being first to arrive, Tom
and Lela headed straight for the third floor, right at the top
..
As they reached the corner room, they agreed to toss for
it and Lela won. They opened their doors and walked in, their rooms were
massive with separate sleeping and seating areas. They also, as Tom quickly
discovered, had everything they could wish for and more.

The richest and most powerful parents had obviously decided that
The Academy would be an excellent test market and each had tried to outdo the
other. Each room was full of the next generation of games consoles, music and
entertainment systems. They were so new that they were not yet available in the
shops and all had a small
questionnaire which
the
students were asked to complete should they have the opportunity or want to
give the likes of Mr Sony or Mr Microsoft their feedback. Tom had brought a
selection of his latest PS3 and Xbox360 games and just hoped the newer systems
were backward compatible. However, he soon realised that that wasn’t an issue,
any game he wanted downloaded in an instant via the latest
internet
broadband technology.

Tom had brought a lot of his own gadgets with
him
which
now seemed quite redundant. He had been concerned about access to
the internet for his Whatjet.com business and had brought along the latest
satellite wireless technology which operated at what he had thought was an
amazing 100MB speed. However, it now seemed that that was about a thousandth of
what was available to him in his room. He had also brought a satellite phone,
reckoning his mobile phone reception would be dodgy in the middle of the Ocean
off the coast of Africa but the signal was perfect on his normal mobile.
However, he really did like the look of the amazing next
generation
 
iphone
handset which was waiting for him.
 

Lela rushed in after ten minutes of checking out her room.

“So what do you think?” she asked expectantly.

They had not had a chance to discuss anything since they had
arrived.

“It’s amazing, unbelievable! Don’t you think?”

“God yeah, I can’t think of anything they haven’t thought, can
you?” she said, jumping up and down with excitement.

“What about the classrooms, how amazing are they?” he said.

Tom was very impressed with the ultra hi-tech classrooms. Desks
were replaced with electronic notepads, seats were made of plush leather and
where a blackboard would normally be was an enormous electronic touch screen.
He had touched one of the notepads and it immediately sprung to life, the
screen flashing ‘Welcome Tom’ before flashing to
his
 
own
 
home page. The notepad had recognised hi
fingerprint! A tab at the top of the screen indicated Timetable. Tom clicked on
it,
he was desperate to know what subjects they had.
The screen went blank and Tom waited for the timetable to appear but all that
appeared was a message ‘not available until Monday 8.00 a.m.’

 
“I know! And everything
else, the Marina, the golf course, the restaurants and there’s even a Dojo,
although I think I’ll stick to my room for training,” said Lela.

Her training would continue despite her 6,000 mile and 3 hour
time difference. Saki had arranged for a
video conference
unit for Lela to take with her for her lessons. However, as with Tom’s gadgets,
it wasn’t needed. Each room was already fitted with the facility.
 

Tom was dubious about the restaurants. Lunch had been amazing but
they were feeding an ex-President on that day so he reserved judgement until
the next day.

“Let’s see what slop they serve up when he’s not there,” he
suggested.

They both walked out onto the balcony as they heard the first
plane arrive. It was soon followed by the
next which
heralded the start of what would be an almost constant flow of small jets as
the students arrived from around the globe.