As Tom hugged his parents in Glasgow, ten Royal Marine choppers landed at The Academy. They had been stationed as the defensive force for the Naval base to the north west. Their commander had received a call at 6.00 a.m. (3.00 a.m. Glasgow time) from Tristan, the UK Prime Minister’s son, who had insisted that they make haste to the school. He informed them that terrorists were ensconced in the Special Forces base and were holding the Headmaster captive. Tristan had also requested that no communication be made outwith the base and had made the Commander promise that he would pretend to order a routine mission. Recognising Tristan’s voice, the Commander acceded to his requests and carried out the operation, believing it wasn’t bad training if nothing else. On arrival at the base, the Commander found exactly what he’d been told. His men arrested Reaper’s men and unfortunately, during an exchange of fire, two hostages, Weadle and one of the terrorists were killed. The Commander’s men swore blind that they had not killed the Deputy Headmaster. It had been one of the terrorists who had shot him, whom they unfortunately had had to shoot as he refused to give himself up.
As Mr Sakamoto, Ms Anderson and Mia were being freed from their captors, the final Citation X landed on a small island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Within ten minutes, the two islanders on board had achieved their objective. They rescued the real Chen from his captors. Within thirty minutes, they were making their way to Hong Kong to reunite him with his father. Chen’s father had been blissfully unaware of his predicament. Chen had been forced over the previous two weeks to contact his father and pretend he was at school and that everything was fine, all part of the plan to keep Ling’s cover.
As quietly as they had entered the schools, the islanders had left. Their flights had taken off from Washington, Paris, London and Moscow before anybody even knew they had been there.
Only the islanders in Glasgow were still on duty. Two of Reaper’s men had been unaccounted for and were eventually apprehended as they made their way back to the Estate from the airport. A flight home was arranged for the islanders later in the day as Rachel had insisted they stay for something to eat.
The authorities were totally perplexed. They now had over 200 semi-conscious terrorists bound and gagged with no understanding of who had caught them. The handcuffs and binding materials did not help identify their users as they emanated from many different countries. The terrorists themselves had no idea what had happened to them. One minute everything was fine and the next they were tied up and being interrogated as to whom had tied them up by the people they assumed had tied them up. They were totally confused.
Another twenty terrorists were discovered sitting bound and gagged outside the main police station in Johannesburg. The only reason the police knew they were involved was because of the Post-it notes stuck on their foreheads, which read: “I am a terrorist and I was involved in the school hijackings. I am therefore partly responsible for the deaths of five children.” They were immediately arrested and locked up.