The Orphan Factory (The Orphan Trilogy, #2) (16 page)

Nine glanced down at the magazine on the seat beside him. It was the international edition of a conspiracy magazine called
Disclosure
. On its cover was an image of a Freemason symbol. Headings advertising articles inside the magazine indicated it covered a variety of subjects ranging from alleged health cover-ups to lost civilizations and political conspiracies.

Less than half a mile down the highway they crossed a bridge that connected one side of the Mississippi River with the other, and Illinois with Iowa.

As they continued west toward their destination in south-east Iowa, Mahamdou turned the radio on and began to sing softly to himself. Nine returned his attention to the cover of the conspiracy magazine beside him. His companion caught him staring at it and suddenly became very interested in his passenger.

“You know about that stuff, kid?” he asked, glancing at the magazine.

“Yeah, a little.”

“Let me tell you somethin’,” Mahamdou said. “You don’t know nuthin’!”

Nine knew better, but held his tongue.

“You’re a spoilt American boy born into a privileged existence. You’ve been brainwashed by the education system and your mind has been numbed by a diet of watching MTV and playing Nintendo all day.” 

Nine opened his mouth to defend himself, but Mahamdou continued before he could say a word. “Anyone with half a brain knows
they
are trying to control us. And they are succeeding!”

As they drove further into Iowa, Nine quickly ascertained Mahamdou was a raving conspiracy theorist who had a little knowledge yet thought he knew everything. 

The trucker proceeded to deliver a nonstop sermon on who
they
were and on some of the many conspiracy theories he believed in. His former tight-lippedness had vanished and the floodgates had opened.

In a rambling dissertation, Mahamdou spoke of Western scientists creating the HIV virus to wipe out the African race then moved on to how misguided Government officials tried to explain crop circles and UFO sightings as natural phenomena; how his brother had personally seen aliens; how Western nations purposely kept Third World countries like Mali poor through the World Bank and the IMF, and many other out-there conspiracy theories.

By the time Mahamdou got on to the subject of how the moon landings had actually been secretly filmed in a Hollywood studio, Nine had fallen asleep again.

#

Approaching the outskirts of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, at around midnight, they drove in silence. Mahamdou had mercifully talked himself out. The truck’s headlights illuminated the entrance to a long driveway leading to a big farmhouse. 

Nine pointed to the entrance. “That’s my home. Could you drop me there please?”

The African trucker pulled the truck over to the side of the road and stopped alongside the farmhouse’s mailbox. He smiled at Nine. “Good luck, kid.” It was the first time the orphan had seen him smile.

“Thanks.” Nine grabbed his backpack and windbreaker, then jumped out of the warm cab. The cold night air hit him like a physical blow. The orphan quickly donned his windbreaker and waved goodbye to Mahamdou. He pretended to check the mailbox as the trucker drove off.

Standing alone in the dark, Nine took stock of his situation. He reveled in his newfound freedom as he looked up at the starry sky and smelt the country air.
I’ve done it!
It was a wonderful feeling. He knew his pursuers wouldn’t have a clue where on earth he was right now.
First things first
. He knew he needed to find somewhere to spend the night.

Looking around, he spied the outline of a barn a hundred yards beyond the farmhouse. He immediately set off for it, jogging across the paddocks. Somewhere a dog barked. Otherwise, the night was still.

Nine approached the barn cautiously. A quick reconnoiter around it and then inside confirmed he had the place to himself. He climbed up onto its mezzanine floor where he located a tarpaulin and a pile of sacks. Rearranging these, he made himself a makeshift bed, complete with make-do blankets, and bedded down for the remainder of the night. He was asleep within minutes.

28

Kentbridge felt drained. It was now well after midnight. He’d had no sleep and little to eat since Nine had gone AWOL a day and a half earlier. And his temper was worsening by the hour. He knew his job was on the line. For possibly the hundredth time in the past thirty six hours, he cursed the ungrateful ninth-born orphan.

After Senior Agent Marcia Wilson had returned from their fruitless monitoring of surveillance footage at Attorney Howard-Witten’s downtown chambers, they’d spent several hours grilling each of the remaining twenty two orphans, trying to establish whether Nine had confided in any of them or inadvertently indicated what he planned to do. That exercise proved equally fruitless.

Kentbridge had been confident Nine had acted alone for the boy was something of a loner, but it was an exercise they had to go through nevertheless – if only to satisfy Naylor who was becoming increasingly stressed, not only because of Nine’s antics but because of the deteriorating Nexus situation.

Despite the hour, the Pedemont Orphanage was a blaze of lights. None of its residents or rostered staff slept. And Kentbridge was determined none of them would sleep until the rogue orphan had been found and brought back in. There was too much at stake.

Having not long finished questioning the orphans, Kentbridge was now in their sleeping quarters on the first floor. He was going through Nine’s possessions, looking for clues as to his plans or his whereabouts. The fugitive’s bed and bedside drawers had been upended and his clothing and other items lay scattered over the floor.

The orphans looked on. They were a subdued lot. Nine’s departure had caught them by surprise as much as it had Kentbridge. While their master tried not to look flustered, they could tell by his body language that he was. Nine had succeeded in getting under his skin.

Kentbridge realized he’d drawn a blank there. Glaring at the orphans, he said, “Chances are Nine said something to one of you that seemed innocent at the time, but could provide a clue to what he was planning. Let me know if there’s anything you recall, no matter how seemingly insignificant.” He strode from the orphans’ quarters.

Behind him, the orphans looked at each other. None could still quite believe one of their own had actually had the temerity to flee the only home he, or they, had ever known.

Finally, Seventeen voiced her opinion. “I always knew Nine would turn out to be a traitor.”

“Remind us exactly how he’s a traitor, Seventeen,” One, the Native American orphan, asked.

“He’s spurned us and our masters, and as always he’s put his own interests ahead of anyone else.”

There were murmurs of assent from some of the other orphans.

“Perhaps he was tired of living like a robot and blindly following the orders of people who aren’t even our real parents.” It was Seven, the African-American boy who spoke up for Nine.

“We don’t have parents,” Twenty Three, the youngest orphan, said.

“Of course we do!” Eight, the Asian girl snapped. “It’s just that we don’t know who they are.”

“Well Doc Pedemont sure as hell knows,” said Fourteen, the Aryan-looking Nordic boy.

“Enough!” Numero Uno shouted. “Tommy made it clear we won’t get any sleep until Nine’s back with us, so we’ll be doing ourselves a favor, and probably Nine too, if we can come up with any ideas on where he might be.”

The others saw the wisdom in this. They broke up into small groups and, using the training they’d received since birth, tried to intuit where the missing orphan could be.

One didn’t join them immediately. As a friend of Nine, part of him felt guilty that he’d encouraged the others to co-operate with their masters. However, part of him felt aggrieved the younger orphan hadn’t thought to confide in him before he acted. He’d have confided in Nine had their roles been reversed. Not to be confided in was like a slap in the face.

Despite the perceived insult, One had a grudging respect for his friend’s bold act. Fleeing the all-powerful Omega Agency had required guts and tenacity; disappearing off the radar and remaining undiscovered had required nothing short of magic. Numero Uno couldn’t begin to work out how Nine had managed that.

The Native American smiled to himself and joined the nearest group of orphans to establish whether they had any theories on how the magician had disappeared.

#

As the orphans put their heads together in their quarters on the first floor, Kentbridge and Marcia sat in earnest discussion with Doctor Pedemont in a third floor conference room. They were talking to Naylor via a live video feed from the Omega director’s office in the agency’s underground HQ.

Naylor was visibly stressed. He paced up and down as he spoke. His voice was becoming higher and higher, and every time he looked into the camera his lazy eye could be seen working overtime.

Again, despite the severity of the occasion, Kentbridge had to control himself not to burst out laughing.
That damned lazy eye’s gonna be the death of me
.

“So what you’re telling me is you don’t have a clue where the brat is?” Naylor shouted into the video camera at his end.

“That’s correct, sir,” Kentbridge said. “But we know he can’t have got far because we’ve taken all public transport options away from him and--”

“Great,” Naylor interjected. “So he can’t catch a train, plane or bus, but he’s free to stow away on a lorry or hitch a ride to any damn place he wants to go.”

“Even allowing for that, he can’t have got far,” Marcia said defensively.

“He’s been missing for hours,” Naylor retorted, his voice rising another octave. “He could easily be in another state now. Who knows, maybe he’s even crossed the border into Canada!”

Marcia and Kentbridge had no immediate response.

“What light can you shed on this, doc?” Naylor’s comments were directed at Doctor Pedemont whose entire attention until now had been on reading a file on Nine. “You’re his creator, so perhaps you can tell us where he is?” 

“His psychological profile suggests he’ll have given his escape a lot of thought, so wherever he is right now, is exactly where he planned to be.”

Naylor looked as though he was about to blow a gasket. His lazy eye swiveled violently as he struggle to compose himself. “Tell me doctor, how does that help exactly?” Before Doctor Pedemont could answer, Naylor directed a question to Kentbridge. “You said you’d have the kid reined in by now, Tommy.” His tone was accusatory.

Bristling, Kentbridge said, “It’s fair to say he’s had some luck. We had a tight cordon downtown and he’s managed to slip through it somehow.”

“I’m aware of that. What I want to know is what’s next?”

“How about publicity?” Doctor Pedemont asked. He was keen to recover some of the ground he’d just lost. “We could get Nine’s mug shot in the media, with a press release saying he’s a runaway orphan with a severe mental illness.”

“No media,” Naylor said. “We don’t want some snoopy, investigative journalist sticking his or her beak into our affairs.” Naylor finally stopped pacing and sat down. “Okay, here’s how it is. You’ve got two weeks to reel the brat in. I want you to call in all favors with all our friends. I’m talking FBI, NSA, CIA, every police department in the country, the lot. Got that?”

“Got it,” Kentbridge and Marcia responded in unison.

“I want to go after him personally,” Kentbridge announced. “Can you cut me loose from my duties here for a while?”

“Why you?” Naylor asked. “We’ve got people you can use for tracing missing persons.”

“I trained the boy. I know how he thinks and I’m certain I’ll find him.”

Naylor thought for a moment. “Alright, but if you can’t find the little bastard within a fortnight, we are going to have to cut our losses. You’ve got twenty two other orphans to mind out for.”

“Understood,” Kentbridge said.

“And this damned Nexus problem is getting worse by the day. I may need to pull you in to work on that soon.”

“Where are we at with that now?” Kentbridge asked.

“It’s very clear we have a Nexus mole in our midst. So this will have to take priority over your missing orphan I’m afraid. Two weeks, Tommy. That’s all you’ve got.” Naylor leaned forward and flicked a switch. The screen turned black as the connection was terminated.

Kentbridge and Marcia looked at each other.

“I’ll have the boy inside one week,” Kentbridge promised.

Marcia wasn’t convinced, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

29

Nine was wide awake. The sound of trucks coming and going along the highway that led into nearby Mount Pleasant had woken him, and now he couldn’t get back to sleep.

The fugitive orphan was too excited to sleep a minute longer anyway. Feelings of exhilaration and elation coursed through his body. He still couldn’t believe he’d successfully escaped from Omega and the orphanage. He’d done the impossible.
I am a pawn of the Pedemont Project no longer.
He laughed out loud then immediately stopped when he remembered where he was.

Moonlight streamed through an opening in the wall of the barn he had sought refuge in. The revving of truck engines in the distance was all that broke the silence – that and the occasional mooing of one of the herd of cows fenced in between the nearby farmhouse and the highway.

Lying stretched out on the hay, the orphan adjusted one of the sacks that served as make-do blankets. He was snug, warm and, for the moment at least, free.  

Nine thought about all the things he could do now that he’d escaped Omega’s tentacles. He imagined a future living as an ordinary person and suddenly realized he hadn’t a clue what normal American life was like.

How should I behave and will people find me different or weird?

The boy had no answers. Since birth, and right through his pre-puberty years, he’d been groomed to become an elite operative for Omega, not to live as an everyday citizen. Espionage training was the only existence Nine and his fellow orphans had been ever known and as a result it felt entirely normal to them. They all had a vague idea theirs was an abnormal childhood, but beyond that they’d basically accepted their lot.