Murray McDonald - Assassin

“Good god Daniel, what are you doing with all that?” asked Tom.

“Standard issue my friend. Covert mission equipment,” replied Daniel proudly.

“Do you know how to use it all?” asked Lela.

“Doh, of course. This isn’t a fancy dress outfit you know,” replied an offended Daniel.

“Ok. He can come,” said Lela to Tom, surprising Daniel who hadn’t realised he might not have been. He now knew who wore the trousers in the Kennedy household.

“I just need to do one more thing before we go,” said Tom.

“What now?” asked Lela desperate to leave.

Tom looked at her and said, “you know very well what we need to do before we go.” She nodded. They had discussed the possibility earlier. Tom picked up the receiver and called Jonathan, he had become their link into the Alba empire.

“Hi Tom, how’s things?”

“Not good. I’ve just heard that the story will break tomorrow.”

“Oh no! What do you want to do?”

“I want to do what we discussed. Break the story now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Tom put the phone down.

Within the next ten minutes, the full might of the Alba empire would break the story that evidence linked its owner to the recent assassinations.

Beaumont was standing next to the podium where the White House Press Secretary was taking his morning briefing. As expected, there were a lot of questions regarding the shocking events over the weekend and the arrest of Donald Kennedy. What was the US Government doing to help him, etc. etc. Beaumont was bored. When he had booked himself into the briefing on Friday, he had expected an entirely different scenario. ‘Donald Kennedy, an assassin?’ ‘Surely not?’ blah blah blah.

He now wanted to get out of the press briefing but after making such a fuss to be there, he thought he had better stay, particularly as he wanted to be there when it broke the following morning.

He began to think about any loose ends they may have missed but there was nothing. Smith’s team would start the riot in the prison and then assist the guards in stopping it. Of course, only after the Kennedys were pumped full of bullets. He had placed Jones and his team as back up. If anything did go wrong, they would be standing by to take care of things. In fact, every eventuality was covered.

Beaumont was suddenly aware that the briefing had stopped, not because it had finished but because the room had filled with the sound of ringing phones. Everyone had their phones on silent, but emergency numbers for reporters overrode this feature. What was happening, thought Beaumont. He looked across at the press secretary who looked as lost as he was.

“Mr Press Secretary?” one of the reporters had finished his call. “Does the Whitehouse wish to comment on the story currently being run by Global Media?”

“If you’d like to tell me what the story is, I’ll be happy to comment.”

“Are you saying therefore that the Whitehouse does not wish to comment or won’t comment on the story?”

Beaumont had a feeling of dread. This had all the signs of another disaster about to happen.

“John, will you stop being obtuse and tell me the damn story you’re referring to?” said the Press Secretary to a reporter he had known for years.

“You really don’t know? Global who are owned by Alba International have just broken the story that Donald Kennedy, their owner and CEO, is the number one suspect in the recent spate of assassinations.”

“They’ve what?” blurted Beaumont a little too loudly and found himself under the media spotlight. He quickly stepped back and left the room, leaving the press secretary to deal with it. He needed to see the report. Why would they buy a channel to kill a story and then break it first? He burst into his room and selected the Global channel. He immediately went to their interactive area and selected the ‘Top Story’ banner. The story played from the beginning and Beaumont had to congratulate whoever had pulled this one off. They had given the details but in such a way to leave just enough doubt, their use of words was very clever. They had run the story to take the sting out of the tail and every other broadcaster and newspaper was now playing catch up. Global would lead the story from now on. They had been first to break it and people would now look to them as the definitive source. Very clever indeed.

“What do you think?” asked the President as he entered Beaumont’s office, pointing to the TV.

“Very smart, they’ve planted just enough doubt for the short-term but when the press start to dig, he’s had it.”

“I know, great move. How quickly can we leak the evidence we’ve got?”

“Not too quickly. If it all rushes out, we expose ourselves. It has to be slow and as though it’s only just being uncovered. That’ll probably buy a couple of days of doubt. But it’s irrelevant anyway,” replied Beaumont.

“True,” pondered the President. “In less then 24 hours, it won’t be an issue.”

“So let me get this right. We’re going to land the plane at an airport 3,000 miles from here, make our way secretly to a prison we don’t know the exact location of, break in avoiding heavily armed guards, find your parents whose location in the prison is unknown, break them out avoiding heavily armed guards, find our way back to the airport and leave,” said Kano to Lela and Daniel who were in the back of the plane.

“That about sums it up,” replied Lela.

Kano shook his head. This was going to be impossible he thought. Daniel, in turn, realised that he hadn’t really thought through what they were about to do before deciding to join them and now wished he hadn’t.

Tom joined them from the flight deck.

“We just need to make a quick stop on the way, shouldn’t take long and we don’t even need to get off.”

“Fuel stop?” asked Daniel.

“Something like that,” he said disappearing back into the cockpit.

“What does he mean something like that?” asked Daniel.

“I’m sure it’s just that, don’t worry. Come and help me find the location of the prison before we lose the signal,” said Lela who was searching the internet to find the prison. However, coverage over Africa was still patchy and there was a good chance they would lose the signal at any moment.

“So what is the plan?” Kisho asked Tom as they flew towards their first destination, Owando — an airstrip in Congo.

“I reckon I’ve got the flight and ground transport covered. You guys just need to sort out the getting in and out part.”

“You do realise this is not going to be easy,” replied Kisho.

“Of course I realise but we have to try.”

“I know, I know.”

Three hours later, they were making their approach to Owando airfield. Flaming torches guided them in towards the darkened runway. Owando airport was closed, it only operated in the daylight hours. Tom could see a huddle of people awaiting their landing. Kisho also spotted an Alba International logo on a Citation X jet sitting on a taxi way. He looked across at Tom.

“What have you been up to?” he asked with a smile.

“Nothing much,” answered Tom craftily.

The landing was a little bumpier than normal. It always helped when you could see where you were going. It really was pitch black, the flaming torches offering nothing more than a rough guide to the runway’s edges. They taxied to a stop and were immediately met by a fuel tanker which began the process of refuelling the plane. Tom opened the door.

“Best everybody wait on board, I have some business to deal with and they’re not expecting anyone but me.”

“That’s the funniest thing you’ve said all day,” replied Kano. “You have two options, one you don’t go or two you go with one of us.”