Assassin (The Billionaire Series) (9 page)

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 notice 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.

“You’re nasty,” said Tom to Lela.

“He deserved it, the big bully,” replied Lela although she did
feel a little guilty. Her behaviour was no better than Yuri’s really. However,
the rest of the students didn’t feel that way and gave her a round of applause.

“How did you do that?” asked Tom, who was always fascinated to
know more about Lela’s special skills.

“It’s quite simple actually, if you hit the lower back in just
the right place, it relaxes the bladder and whoosh,” she replied nonchalantly.
She underplayed her scientific knowledge of the body, even the best trained
doctors could not have done what she did. The only other people who could do
these ‘simple things’ were the islanders.

“I was surprised you were so public back there, you don’t
normally let people see your moves,” said Tom as he realised the implications
of what had just happened.

“What are you talking about? I just bumped into him. That’s
all anybody would have seen,” replied a smug Lela.

“Hmmm, anyway, come on, we need to speak to Oleg. He never
mentioned anything about Yuri coming back,” said Tom, leading the way back to
their block.

It took them two minutes of hard knocking to wake up Oleg
despite the complaints from his neighbours.

The door opened and a very drowsy Oleg stood in front of them.

“What’s wrong?” he asked rubbing his eyes and yawning.

“We want to know what the hell Yuri is doing back here?”
responded Tom.

Oleg woke up immediately and looked behind them. “Where?” he
said panicking.

“Well, that clears up that point,” said Tom to Lela. “He
obviously doesn’t know, that’s why he didn’t tell us.”

Oleg became very agitated at the mention of his step-brother’s
name. Lela took him over to the bed and sat him down.

“He’s here, back at The Academy?” he asked, incredulous.

“’Fraid so,” replied Tom. “But there’s no need to worry,
Lela’s already declared war on him and his gang, so we’ve got that out of the
way nice and early.”

Oleg looked at Lela as if she were crazy.

“You’ve what?”

“He’s just being over dramatic, don’t worry about it,”
comforted Lela.

Tom proceeded to describe every gory detail of what had
occurred in the restaurant.

A smile crept across Oleg’s face.

“Really?” he asked.

Lela nodded while Tom pulled out his mobile phone and showed
Oleg the pictures he had taken of Yuri’s most embarrassing moment.

“Let me call my dad and see if he knows why he’s here,” said
Oleg picking up his phone.

Tom and Lela listened as Oleg talked to his dad, waiting for
him to finish and translate. The call ended and Oleg filled them in.

“It appears that after my dad threw Yuri’s mother out of the
house, she became friendly with a fairly low level Minister in my country’s
government. Unfortunately, it’s the same one who very surprisingly and recently
became the new Russian President. They were married during the summer. It
appears Yuri has a very powerful new step-father. My father is calling Mr
Sakamoto now, he’ll call me back soon.”

All three sat in silence as they waited for the call from
Oleg’s father. They all privately hoped that some clerical mistake had been
made. Yuri had been expelled under a different name, perhaps the school had
failed to make the connection. The phone rang and despite the language barrier,
Lela and Tom knew it was not good news. Oleg ended the call and translated.

“It’s no mistake, they know exactly who he is. The pressure
placed on Mr Sakamoto to accept him back was overwhelming. In fact, he offered
to resign over it and they would have accepted it. He only stayed because he
had a duty to the rest of the students. He told my dad that things are very
strange just now with all the assassinations and God knows who would have
replaced him. The new Chairman of School Governors is apparently very friendly
with a lot of the new leaders. My dad thinks he was insinuating something but
he doesn’t know what.”

“So we’re stuck with Yuri?” asked Tom.

“It seems so and he could well be untouchable.”

“It was so good of you to go out of your way to say hi to Yuri
today,” said Tom sarcastically to Lela.

Lela smiled back weakly. She was going to have to be careful.
She could handle Yuri and his gang but her friends couldn’t.

Chapter 19

It had been a hectic and depressing day. Donald had spent the
day visiting villages and aid centres with Rachel and Saki. Child mortality was
high and education pretty non-existent. Donald, a well grounded man, was deeply
humbled and thanked God for what they had. He was moved by the degree of
poverty and suffering he had seen and promised Rachel to do all in his power to
help.

“Donald, this is nothing. This is as good as it gets. These
people receive funding.”

“What? These people don’t need help?” he asked, bewildered.

“Yes but they’re way down on the list. What you’re going to
see this week will make this look like a first world country.”

Donald was speechless. From what he had already seen, he did
not know whether he was up to seeing anything worse. In the meantime, they made
their way back to the capital, Libreville.

The evening was to be spent as guests of the Gabonese
President and no doubt a number of high powered local businessmen keen to meet
him. He would have more than happily headed straight back to Alba One and gone
home. Instead, they got in to the army car sent by the Gabonese President and
began their short journey to the palace.

As they neared the extravagant presidential residence, Donald
noticed satellite dishes and bright lights which signified the media were in
attendance. He began to think something was amiss as they drew closer, he
expected perhaps two or three of the local media to attend but not the world’s
press. Media trucks from every major news broadcaster were lined up outside the
gates to the palace.

Chapter 20

The rest of the day had passed uneventfully. Tom, Lela and
their friends had kept a relatively low profile. Most of the day was spent
showing their friends around Tom One. They had all decided against going to the
restaurant for dinner and had instead decided to order in some pizzas. Before
they knew what was happening, an impromptu party had broken out and all twenty
four students in their block had piled into Lela’s room.

Zach, having been quiet all day, seemed to have perked up.

“Hey Zach, you’re looking a bit happier?” asked Tom trying to
find out what had been wrong with him.

“Yeah sorry about earlier. I’ve hardly seen my dad all summer
but he just called. His conference finished early and he’s going to pay me a
visit tomorrow,” he replied smiling.

“Cool, a visit from the big boss General Powers himself. I’m
sure the Special Forces base will be manically preparing for his arrival,”
suggested Tom laughing.

“Doubt it, they don’t know he’s coming, nobody does apart from
me and you, now.”

“Tom?” interrupted Lela.

“Yeah?” he said turning towards her and, seeing her face,
said, “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

“I think you should come and see the news,” she replied.

Tom walked over to the TV which was now surrounded by his
friends who let him through to see the screen. The picture on the screen was a
picture of the Presidential Palace in Gabon where his father was due to have
dinner. The breaking news banner read: ‘Alba International linked to mine
explosion.” The banner then changed to a more damning headline: ‘Kennedy’s
false meteor statement was part of elaborate cover-up.’

“What the hell’s going on?” Tom looked at Lela who just
shrugged her shoulders, she had no idea. His phone buzzed in his pocket.

“Hello,” he answered.

“Hi, it’s me, are you OK?” asked Saki.

“I’m fine but what about Dad?” he asked. “Can I speak to him?”

“He’ll call you soon. We just heard this nonsense ourselves,
he’s on the phone to his Head of Legal. He asked me to call you to assure you
it’s all rubbish.”

“It didn’t cross my mind that it was anything else,” he
replied indignantly.

“I know Tom, don’t worry, we’ll get it sorted. Is Lela there?
Can I have a quick word?”

“Yes of course,” he said handing the phone to Lela.

As Lela received the same reassurances from Saki, Tom explained
to his friends what Saki had said.

“They’ve messed with the wrong people, your dad’s legal guys
will have the press on their knees for this,” replied Tristan, the son of the
UK Prime Minister and one of Tom’s closest friends.

“But they know that, why would they be so stupid as to go up
against my dad?” asked Tom. He could not help think about the strange goings on
over the previous few weeks.

“Hey come on, don’t be silly,” Zach slapped him on the back.
“If your dad’s lawyers don’t get them, I’ll get my dad to bomb them to hell and
back!”

Despite their best efforts, their friends could not lift their
spirits and the party ended with everybody leaving before 10.00 p.m..

Tom phoned Kisho and Kano. He had to let them know what was
happening.

***

Saki ended the call with Lela and looked around at Donald who
was still on the phone to the lawyers. He could tell by Donald’s body language
that the call wasn’t going well. It sounded as though whatever evidence they
had against Donald was going to be difficult to refute. As they approached the
palace the media circus drew closer and closer, cameramen and reporters vying
for the best position.

Donald and Saki had known something was going to happen to
them but had not anticipated being framed for mass murder. Saki took another
look at the frenzied mass of press ahead of them and realised they could not
possibly stay.

“Turn round, take us straight to the airport,” he barked at
the soldier driving them.

“Sir I’m afraid I cannot do that, you have an appointment with
the President,” he replied.

Saki asked again but the driver was insistent that they could
not possibly turn around, he had his orders. Saki pulled the handbrake on and
forced the car to a stop.

“What the hell are you doing Saki?” asked Rachel.

“Getting us the hell out of here!” he replied.

The driver did not take kindly to Saki’s interference with his
driving and made for his pistol. Saki, having anticipated the soldier’s moves,
had already removed the pistol from his belt. As the soldier’s hand fell on his
empty holster, he looked up to find a smiling Saki holding his gun.

“Airport please,” asked Saki as if nothing had happened.

“Of course Sir,” replied the soldier.

 
Their trip to
Africa was over.

Chapter 21

Tom was woken up by his phone ringing. Who was calling him at
3 o’clock in the morning?

“Hello?”

“Hi, Tom it’s me,” said Donald.

“Hi Dad, what’s up?” said Tom who was still only half awake.