Murray McDonald - Assassin

“What did Mr Sakamoto do?” she asked.

“He expelled them instantly, all of them,” replied Mia.

“Excellent,” replied Lela, although privately disappointed. She wanted revenge. Her anger about the Kennedys’ deaths needed venting and Yuri and his gang would have be perfect fodder.

“Yes but two hours later, they were reinstated. It appears that Mr Sakamoto was told to either take them back or leave. Mr Sakamoto decided he had no option, he didn’t want to leave.” Tom and Lela both knew Mr Sakamoto would never leave, not now while he could help them.

“Where are Chen and Oleg now?”

“In Oleg’s room. They’re quite badly bruised and didn’t want to upset you.”

“Rubbish,” replied Tom. “Lets go.”

The group moved to Oleg’s room. Oleg and Chen were delighted to see them. However, Lela took one look at their bruised and swollen faces and left. Tom tried to stop her but saw the look on her face and stepped back. He almost considered warning Yuri, almost.

Tom looked at his watch, it was 5.45 p.m.. Lela had been gone for over two hours. He couldn’t wait any longer. He made his excuses, left Oleg’s room, went back to his room and picked up what he needed for the meeting. He double-checked to see if Lela was in her room. She wasn’t so he left a note reminding her where the meeting was and to make her way across to the conference centre as soon as possible.

“Hi guys,” said Tom as he entered the room. Zach and Tristan were already there waiting for him.

“Hi,” they replied. “Did you find Lela?” asked Tristan.

“No and it’s been more than two hours now,” replied Tom. He was now very worried, Lela was very angry. He could only imagine what she might do to Yuri.

Daniel and Sofie arrived, quickly followed by Jin, Thabo and Elena. Everybody was there except Lela. With two minutes to go before 6.00 p.m., Tom dialled in Rolf and his smiley face appeared on the large screen. They were ready. Just as Tom was about to call the meeting to order, the door opened and Lela strode in.

“Sorry I’m late, I got a little caught up in what I was doing,” she said smiling.

Tom just looked at her and feared the worst, Lela was very cheery, totally different from when she had left Oleg’s room. She took a seat next to Tom and sat ready for the meeting to start. Tom was paralysed with curiosity. He had to know she had done. He leaned over and whispered in her ear.

“What did you do to Yuri?”

“Jesus Tom, what do you think I did to him. He’s just a bully. Will you calm down!” Lela was taken aback at Tom’s reaction and quite hurt by it.

Tom realised his imagination had run wild. Lela was a highly trained and extremely disciplined individual. She was trained in an ancient art which forbade gratuitous violence. Only violence necessary for protection or self defence was allowed. Even then, the violence should be at a level necessary to eliminate danger, no more. Their skill was such that the islanders didn’t make errors or mistakes. If defensive moves were sufficient, no offensive moves would be made. If offensive moves were necessary, the strikes would be calculated to minimise the damage inflicted. Any injury would be precise, intentional and perfectly executed. If an islander decided that the middle bone of someone’s little finger needed to be broken to stop a situation, then that is exactly what would happen.

“Sorry, you’re right,” apologised Tom.

“No problem. Look, I’ll fill you in later. This is much more important than Yuri,” said Lela gesturing towards the group of people around them.

Tom took his big sister’s advice and turned to the group. He got up and started pacing. He could think more clearly when he paced, a trait inherited from his father.

“Guys, three weeks ago we met and discussed the fact that there may be a group or an individual responsible for the assassinations around the world. Since then, the story of my father being the mastermind behind the assassinations has broken and evidence has come to light, almost daily, to support that theory. Even I have doubted my father’s innocence over the last two weeks. What I need to know before we start is how many of you believe that my father was capable of the acts he stands accused of, not whether the evidence proves it.”

Tristan responded first.

“I know exactly what you mean Tom. The evidence is overwhelming but every time I hear it, I just can’t believe it and at the same time, no stone has been left unturned. Every doubt that he could be innocent is soon crushed by a new piece of evidence. But I still can’t believe it.”

“Thanks Tristan, you’re a better man than me. I was at the point of beginning to believe it.”

Before long, it appeared that they were all of a similar mind, the evidence was overwhelming but it just didn’t fit, Donald was not capable of those atrocities.

Tom listened to everybody and was happy that each believed deep down that there was somebody behind everything, the assassinations, the framing of his father and ultimately, the death of his family. Had anybody believed that the evidence was irrefutable, they would have been politely excluded from the group. It was imperative that the members of the group had an open mind.

“Ok. Now that we’ve got that out the way, let’s get down to business.” Tom picked up the box of files next to him and placed them on the table. The files were the ones from his father’s safe.

“I believe that the information contained in these files will help to lead us to the people who are behind everything.”

“What’s in them?” asked Daniel.

“The results of my father and Saki’s investigation into what was going on. They knew something very big was happening and they even knew that my father was going to be set up. They just couldn’t do anything about it or prove it,” replied Tom.

“Bloody hell, you should give it to the papers and clear his name,” suggested Tristan.

“We can’t, it might scare whoever it is into covering their tracks. The only way we can catch them is if they don’t know we’re coming. Even then, there’s no real evidence, just my father and Saki’s findings. That’s why we need to have an open mind. It doesn’t give us the answers but it may tell us what the questions are,” replied Tom. He looked again at the group in front of him. There wasn’t a question in the world that this group couldn’t get an answer to. They just needed to know what to ask. He began to get excited at the possibility of actually getting to the bottom of exactly what was going on.

The group spent the next few hours poring over the detail of the files and learning how Donald and Saki had. over the previous 6 months, begun to smell a rat. Their investigations had led them around the world as they had looked into the links between the assassinations and who stood to gain from them. Links between each assassination were tenuous but they did exist. In each instance, the successor had been relatively unknown prior to the assassination. And each successor was exceedingly wealthy in their own right with extensive business interests. Apart from these, no other links seemed to exist, or at least no common link was obvious.

Their investigations had also looked into Alan, Alba’s CFO. Donald had sensed something suspicious about him early on. All other candidates capable of the role had either not applied or withdrawn their applications early in the process. Alan’s application had been excellent, his credentials unmatched, his references incomparable. He was perfect and, with no competition, was appointed. But Donald soon began to notice that Alan was not as good as his application suggested. Donald also noticed that Alan took a great interest in areas of the business which didn’t concern him or he got involved in levels of detail which were well below his level of seniority. Donald had asked Saki to look into it and it appeared that that was Saki’s secret mission over the summer. Saki had looked into Alan’s background and hunted down the other candidates, whom it appeared, would have been delighted to join Alba but had been devastated to receive rejection letters. Alba had not issued any rejection letters. On the contrary, it had received letters of withdrawal from the candidates.