Murray McDonald - Kidnap

Tom woke up the next morning to his television screen still showing scenes of the four schools. It appeared that nothing had happened overnight and no more was known about the terrorists. It all seemed rather odd to Tom. Why take all those hostages and then not communicate with anybody nor make any demands? Speculation was rife, with numerous terrorist organisations being blamed and different theories emerging.

Hundreds of students at The Academy were affected, directly and indirectly, with friends or family caught up in the crisis. The Headmaster announced that classes would be suspended until the following Monday. This would be reviewed as events unfolded but in the meantime, it was important that all students support each other and help those in distress.

Tom went next door to speak to Lela. She was glued to her TV screen.

“I can’t believe it, why are they doing this?” she asked.

“Who knows why these idiots do anything,” was all Tom could think to say.

“Did you see, they named the dead boy in London,” said Lela.

“Yes, I can’t believe it, we met him a couple of years ago…oh God! He was a good friend of Tristan’s. Do you know how he is?”

“I tried to call but his line was engaged. He must be onto his parents,” said Lela.

“Let’s go and see him,” said Tom.

They went downstairs and walked along to Tristan’s room. His door was open and a few other Brits had had the same idea. His room was like a meeting of the Junior Cabinet. They gave him their sympathies and told him they were there if he needed to talk. He said he was fine but they could see that he was really shaken by the tragedy. A number of his close friends were still being held hostage. He had known them since primary school.

Chen, Mingmei, Ahmad, Mia, Oleg and Zach came up the stairs to catch up with Tom and Lela.

“Hey guys, how are you doing?” asked Mia.

“OK, considering,” came a subdued response from Tom.

“What do you think it’s all about?” asked Chen.

“Who knows why these idiots do anything.” Tom had not yet thought of a better response.

“Unbelievable, especially to hit on kids,” added Chen.

“Do you want to come for a bite to eat?” asked Oleg.

“No thanks, I’m really not hungry,” said Lela.

“No, me neither,” said Tom.

“Well, we’re just going to get a bite, we’ll come back and see you later,” said Oleg.

“I’ll just wait here,” said Mia.

“Me too,” said Chen.

Tom was beginning to think that Chen had a bit of a crush on Mia. He loved being around her and seemed to take every opportunity to be near her. Lela, on the other hand, suspected that Mia had a bit of a thing for Tom, as she always seemed to want to be around him.

“So what will we do with these two boys, Mia?” asked Lela, winking at Tom with a wicked grin.

“What do you mean?” said Mia, blushing.

“Oh nothing, come on guys what shall we do?” said Lela.

“I really don’t want to spend the rest of the day watching those four quarters of the TV screen. They’re just too disturbing,” said Tom changing the subject.

It had been an hour since Ling had received the ‘Ready’ command. Things were moving more quickly than she had anticipated. The Ready command signified that at any point during the following twelve hours, she would receive the Go command for her objective to be undertaken immediately. As a result, she had to be as close to the targets as possible for the rest of the day.

Reaper changed into combat dress and was ready to go. The final pieces of the jigsaw were coming together. Only forty soldiers remained in situ at the Special Forces base. Twenty eight of them were under his control and ready to move when required. The bug was now well out of their system and they were once again combat ready. Reaper had issued a readiness alert to all of them and they too waited for the Go command. Pieter was in position 6000 miles away with his team and ready to complete his objective.

Reaper turned to Leo, his other Lieutenant.

“Where is the target?” he asked.

“He’s airborne and due home in twenty minutes.”

“Why so early?”

“It appears the terrorists have everybody freaked. Alarms are going off constantly in his office and disturbing his work,” said Leo with a smile.

“That’s terrible, I wonder why that keeps happening,” said Reaper sarcastically.

“I couldn’t say,” said Leo, tossing the pay-as-you go phone into the river. He had used it to make hoax bomb threats to Alba International during the previous two hours, itself an imprisonable offence, not that he cared.

“Are you certain he’s going home?” Reaper asked more seriously.

“Definitely. I’ve been listening into his calls all morning. He asked his secretary to organise the helicopter as he couldn’t concentrate with all the alarms going off and the constant evacuations.”

“Where are the men?”

“Standing by, ready to go. All they need to do is saddle up and we’re out of here.”

“Excellent and our comms guy?”

“Sitting outside, he comes with us.”

Reaper looked at his watch, it was 9.00 a.m. in Glasgow and noon at The Academy.

“OK, let’s ruin the Kennedys’ day. We are GO!”

The twins were both on surveillance duty, observing the targets. On filing their latest report, they were given new orders. Things were happening and they should maintain a high state of alert. Surveillance at this stage was paramount and all other duties were to be ignored, even if it meant disciplinary sanctions.

“What was that noise?” asked Tom.

“What noise?” asked Mia.

“Like a buzzing sound, you know, like a phone on vibrate,” explained Tom.

“Didn’t hear a thing,” said Chen.

“Nor me,” said Mingmei.

Once the others had finished breakfast, they returned feeling slightly guilty that they had put their stomachs before their friends.

“I’m fed up with this,” announced Mia. “We’ve been watching nothing happen for hours, let’s go out, no?”

“Good idea,” said Lela.

Everybody agreed and they spent the next thirty minutes debating what to do. By a majority decision, they decided to go for a run in the golf carts.

Mia, Chen, Tom and Lela were in one cart while Ahmad, Zach, Mingmei and Oleg followed behind in another.

A new game was devised after they had become bored of racing each other at the death defying speed of 15mph. It was a derivation of hide and seek where one cart would turn around and face the other way, while the other would have a two minute head-start. The object of the game was to stay out of sight for as long as possible. On being spotted, the clock would stop and the other cart would hide.

After playing two games, the best time was ten minutes.

In the third game, it was Mia and Chen’s turn to drive. Mia was confident that she could beat the record and insisted she drove. With nobody disagreeing, she climbed into the driver’s seat. Everybody was thoroughly enjoying the new game and excitement levels were high. Tom and Lela looked at each other as Mia and Chen started talking to each other rapidly in Chinese. Obviously, the thrill of the chase had brought out their mother tongue.

With over a minute of their hiding time elapsed, Tom nudged Chen as Mia was far too busy to disturb.

“Where are we going? They’ll be after us in less than forty seconds and I can still see them,” said Tom perplexed at Mia’s strategy. He was beginning to wonder if they had understood the rules. “Don’t worry, Mia is certain that the bend ahead will hide the cart. She calculated the distance in the previous game and reckons we’ll make it with five seconds to spare. The others won’t think for a second that we’ll make it as they’ll assume the bend is too far away.”