The Orphan Uprising (The Orphan Trilogy, #3) (17 page)

Fourteen just shook his head.

Nine wasn’t fazed.
I already know the answer anyway
. He was resigned to having to travel to the other orphanage in Africa. The former operative stood up and looked around.

“Over there.” Fourteen nodded to a cushion on one of the chairs. He’d already deduced what Nine was looking for.

Nine picked up the cushion and knelt down beside Fourteen again. “Sorry I have to do this.”

Fourteen shrugged. “I know. It ain’t personal. It’s business.”

Resigned to what was coming, the operative closed his eyes as Nine placed the cushion against his head. Nine pushed the barrel of his pistol hard against the cushion and prepared to pull the trigger.

32

“You could try American Summit Camp,” Fourteen said. His muffled voice could just be heard through the pillow.

“What’s that?” Nine lowered the pillow, but kept his pistol trained on the operative.

“I said you could try American Summit Camp. It’s a scientific station in the dead centre of the ice sheet.”

Nine had heard of the station. He recalled it was established in the late Eighties to support the country’s deep ice-coring efforts. “What about it?”

“I heard new subjects bound for the laboratory here in Thule are sometimes processed at a branch lab near the Summit Camp.”

“How near?”

“Five miles south of the camp. It’s signposted.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Fourteen didn’t answer.

Satisfied he’d learned all he could from his fellow orphan, Nine returned the cushion to Fourteen’s head and pushed the barrel of his pistol hard into the cushion once again.

This time, Fourteen didn’t close his eyes. He just looked calmly at his fellow orphan.

Nine steeled himself to pull the trigger. He couldn’t do it. Despite their differences, the Pedemont orphans were like family. They’d been brought up together as siblings and the boys looked on each other as brothers. Although they’d since all gone their own separate ways, there was still that bond between them.

With a mighty effort, the former operative forced all such thoughts from his mind.
You have to do what’s best for Francis
. He steeled himself once more. This time he pulled the trigger.

The retort was muffled so efficiently it wouldn’t have been heard unless someone was standing right outside the door. Fourteen sagged to the side, clearly dead.

Nine quickly checked for a pulse. There was none. He stood up and prepared to leave.

Looking down at the body, he said, “You’re wrong Fourteen. This is very personal.”

For a split second he wondered why the operative had told him about Omega’s branch lab at American Summit Camp.
An attack of conscience maybe
. He decided his fellow orphan must have wanted to do one decent thing before he met his Maker.

Nine felt himself becoming emotional. He was suddenly filled with remorse. It felt like he’d just killed a brother.
Pull yourself together man!
He reminded himself that Fourteen had been trying to stop him finding his son, and he daren’t risk leaving him alive as he’d have presented too big a threat.

As he left the room, Nine clung to the hope he may yet find his son in Greenland. Striding along the same corridor he’d trodden earlier, he debated whether to find and kill Three. He dismissed that idea almost at once. Every minute he delayed increased his risk of discovery.

A recurrence of the chest pains he’d suffered earlier caused him to pull up. The pains weren’t as bad as before, but they were bad enough to cause him to lean against the near wall to support himself.

“Are you okay?”

An American woman’s voice startled him.

Nine looked around to see a uniformed nurse hurrying toward him. “I’m fine,” he assured her. “Something I had for dinner doesn’t agree with me.” He managed a smile.

“Well, if you’re sure.” The nurse walked on ahead.

“Thank you,” Nine called after her. He quickly popped a couple of heart pills. As always, they did the trick. He cautiously resumed walking along the corridor and dared not think head to the day the pills no longer worked their magic.

The former operative passed a door that had previously been closed. Glancing through the doorway he saw a sign that read:
Children’s Quarters. No unauthorized entry
. Nine hesitated. He knew he should keep moving, but here was an opportunity to verify once and for all that Francis wasn’t at this facility.

33

Nine stepped through the doorway into a corridor leading to the advertised sleeping quarters. He strode along it, passing a group of nurses on the way. They took no notice of him. His white coat and clipboard seemed to be a passport to all areas underground.

A door at the end of the corridor opened up into a large dormitory. In the semi-dark, it appeared to be home to some twenty or more sleeping children. These were obviously children who were not currently being tested, poked, electrocuted or otherwise tortured. Nine guessed it was probably one of a dozen or more such dormitories on the premises. It reminded him the lab’s young inmates probably never got to see daylight – not even in a land where the summer sun never set.

A burly English orderly appeared out of the darkness and challenged Nine. “Who are you?” His accent signalled he was a Cockney.

“Anker Frevert,” Nine replied falling back on his Danish accent. Recalling the name tag of one of the scientists he’d seen earlier, he added, “Professor Hipkiss asked me to check the sleeping patterns of the children in this room.”

“Why?”

“Who knows why the good Professor wants anything? I just carry out orders.”

The orderly chuckled. “You ’n me both, mate.” He continued on his rounds.

Nine approached the nearest bunk and found a young girl fast asleep beneath the blankets. He woke her gently. Showing her the photo of Francis by the light of a pen torch he carried, he asked, “Do you know this boy?”

The sleepy girl studied the photo then shook her head. “No sir, I don’t.” She spoke in the gruff voice of a grown man.

Nine recoiled from her and hurried to the next bunk where he got the same answer – this time from a boy whose face and hands showed signs of recent burn marks. He repeated the exercise another six times, each time getting the same answer the first two children had given him. None had seen Francis.

Now convinced beyond doubt his son wasn’t here, Nine hurried to remove himself from the premises. He felt sad for all the children he was leaving behind, but in truth there was nothing he could do. He’d need an army to help them.

#

Nine’s departure from Thule Air Base was surprisingly uneventful. Surprising because he’d spent three hours impersonating someone else inside one of the most secure facilities in the Northern Hemisphere, and in that time had incapacitated three people – in one case permanently – and still hadn’t been found out let alone apprehended.

The former operative had slipped back into the guise of Danish photo-journalist Johannes Petersson complete with fake ginger beard. As he drove his rental car from the base to the nearby port, he wasn’t to know he’d had a freakish run of good luck that was set to continue for a few hours yet.

Firstly, the hapless airman he’d left trussed up in the back of the Land Rover and the frightened controller he’d left tied up in the lab’s control office wouldn’t be discovered until the day shift personnel reported for duty. That wouldn’t be until eight in the morning, another five hours away. And secondly, Three wouldn’t find Fourteen’s body until the air base’s alarms woke him from his slumbers and alerted him to the fact that there’d been a serious security breach.

If Nine had known that, he’d have relaxed a little. As it was, he drove to the port fully expecting to be pulled over at any second.

It was with some relief he arrived at the main wharf and saw his Albermarle charter boat ready and waiting for him. After passing through the security gate without incident, he drove to the end of the wharf and parked the car beside the same yellow boatshed he’d visited earlier. There was no sign of Hans, the boatshed owner, which suited Nine just fine.

The former operative quickly transferred his luggage to the boat then locked the car, placed the key in an envelope and slipped it beneath the boatshed’s locked door, just as he’d arranged with the car hire firm. Then he returned to the Albermarle, cast off her mooring lines, fired up her powerful twin inboard diesel engine and motored out into the bay.

Ahead of him was a journey of some seventy-four nautical miles south to the small settlement of Savissivik.

Despite the early hour, Nine had plenty of company in the bay. The crew of a fishing boat returning to the port gave him a wave, and a crewmember aboard another fishing boat departing the port also acknowledged him. He noticed stevedores working the night shift also taking an interest in the Albermarle as she headed for open sea.

There was no doubt the Albermarle’s departure had been noted and that would be duly reported. Sooner or later, someone would put two and two together.

Nine knew full well when the alarm finally went up at the air base, the authorities would act quickly to cut off all escape routes from Thule. And if they didn’t, Three certainly would.

The former operative had estimated that traveling at near-maximum speed he had a journey of almost two hours ahead of him.
Plenty of time to be apprehended, or blown out of the water!
He just hoped he’d reach his destination before the balloon went up.

34

While Nine was cruising south from Thule along Greenland’s ice-free west coast, Isabelle was preparing for sleep in the bedroom she shared with one of her host family’s children in Tahiti. She was exhausted after another day of doing nothing in the tropical heat.

The day had gone like every other since Seventeen had joined her at the commune that was now home to them both. In the three days they had been together, they’d hardly shared more than a dozen words. Such was the animosity Isabelle felt toward the woman who had killed her parents. Most of the time had been spent keeping out of each other’s way and staying out of the hot sun as much as they could.

Seventeen’s only respite had been a daily visit to one of Papeete’s Internet café’s to check the email account Nine had set up for her under an assumed name before she’d left Chicago. So far, after each visit, she’d had to report back to Isabelle that there was no word from her husband.

That had only served to depress Isabelle further. If that wasn’t bad enough, the baby had been moving a lot of late, causing the Frenchwoman added discomfort on top of her other aches and pains.

As she lay in the dark, idly fondling the ruby that rested on her chest, Isabelle’s thoughts were with her husband and their abducted son. When she wasn’t thinking about them, she was thinking about her unborn child.

The nightmare that had begun with Francis’ abduction one week earlier continued with no end in sight. Nine hadn’t communicated with her and she remained beside herself with worry for him and their son.

Slowly, mercifully, sleep came to her.

Isabelle didn’t know how long she’d been out to it when she awoke to find herself being shaken roughly by the shoulders.

“It’s me, Jennifer.”

In the dark, Isabelle recognized Seventeen’s voice.

“We have to go,” Seventeen said. She spoke quietly so as not to wake the child sleeping in a bed nearby.

“What is it?” Isabelle asked sleepily, sitting up in bed.

“We are in danger,” Seventeen said simply.

“What?”

“I’ll explain later. Get dressed.”

Seventeen was in operational mode now. The Frenchwoman recognized the change in her immediately. She remembered how Nine became a different person when danger threatened.

“We leave in ten minutes,” Seventeen said as she left the room.

Isabelle climbed out of bed, switched on a bedside lamp and began dressing. She always kept a change of clothes on top of a trunk next to the bed for just such an emergency, so it didn’t take her long to dress. Then she retrieved her pre-packed travel bags from inside the trunk, turned out the lamp and headed for the door. Isabelle hesitated then walked over to the sleeping child. She kissed the child’s head then left the room.

The Frenchwoman found a stranger waiting for her in the kitchen. It was Seventeen, though Isabelle didn’t recognize her as the former operative was now disguised as a man. A fake stubble gave her normally smooth skin an unshaven look, and clever use of a prosthetic nose gave her a distinctly mannish appearance. Her face was partly concealed by a baseball cap which she wore low on her forehead. Beneath the cap, her hair was parted in boyish fashion, though that wasn’t evident at the moment.

“It’s me,” Seventeen said.

Isabelle gaped at the woman as the realization set in it was Seventeen she was looking at. She became distracted as the sound of voices coming from outside reached her.

The back door opened and Chai’s head appeared. He looked at Seventeen. “Your vehicle’s ready,” he said.

“Thanks Chai,” Seventeen said.

Chai disappeared back outside.

Isabelle turned to Seventeen. “What is happening?”

“One of Chai’s cousins works on a market garden a couple of miles down the road. Chai just happened to call in to see her on his way back from Papeete and she mentioned some guy had called in earlier, flashing your photo and asking if anyone had seen a pregnant Frenchwoman matching your description. Chai didn’t have to see the photo to know it was you.”

Alarmed, Isabelle asked, “Where is the man now?”

“Chai’s cousin said he drove back toward Papeete, but she said he mentioned he’d be back tomorrow. He’s checking all the properties along the road.”

“Can’t we just hide out here?”

Seventeen shook her head. She had considered that, but dismissed it as she realized it was too risky. It would be different if Isabelle wasn’t in the advanced stages of pregnancy. If that had been the case, they could take a tent and a couple of sleeping bags and hide out in the mountains. Given the life-threatening complications Isabelle had suffered in her last pregnancy, Seventeen agreed with Nine’s assessment that it was important Isabelle remain close to medical facilities.