The Orphan Uprising (The Orphan Trilogy, #3) (5 page)

Nine stood on the side of the road listening until the sound of the Jeep’s engine completely faded. He suddenly felt very lonely. The feeling took him back to when, as an operative in Omega’s employ, he had experienced such utter loneliness he’d been driven to despair. That had all changed when he met Isabelle and they had a child. Now Omega had separated him from them both.

The feeling of loneliness was gradually replaced by another feeling. It burned like hot coals in his gut. At first he didn’t recognize the feeling. It gradually intensified. Now he recognized the feeling: it was anger. Nine welcomed it. He embraced it and vowed to channel his anger to enable him to find his son and destroy those who had taken him away.

#

Elsewhere in the Pacific at that moment, in a different time zone, Francis was about to be transferred ashore from a freighter. The location was Honolulu Harbor, on the main Hawaiian island of Oahu, and the freighter was the Liberian-registered
Seven Seas
.

After Francis was abducted in Taiohae, the floatplane had flown north toward Hawaii, not south to Tahiti as Nine had presumed. It had flown almost to the limit of its fuel reserves before landing at sea to rendezvous with a vessel. After refueling at sea, it had continued its flight north and rendezvoused with the
Seven Seas
, which took delivery of the abducted boy. The seaplane had refueled again and continued to Honolulu followed by the freighter and its human consignment.

In the sick bay aboard the
Seven Seas
, a sedated Francis was being attended to by a nurse in Omega’s employ. Sixtysomething Nurse Hilda had cared for Nine and the other orphans as children and then as teenagers at the Pedemont Orphanage. The irony of caring for the son of one of them wasn’t lost on her. She was aware Francis had been abducted.

In Francis’ drugged state, conversation with him had been limited to a few words. He’d asked when he could see his parents, and Nurse Hilda had assured him he’d be reunited with them soon. The nurse knew that was unlikely. While her low level security rating meant she was not privy to many of Omega’s dark secrets, she knew enough about its scientific experiments on children, and the clandestine experimental labs it operated around the world, to know that Francis would be considered a prize catch by her Omega masters. With the superior genes he’d inherited from his genetically engineered father, it was a no-brainer those same genes could be used in the cloning of more
perfect
human beings.

Although the agency’s scientists had long since mastered the science of cloning, they’d never had access to the progeny of any of the Pedemont orphans before. To Omega’s knowledge, Nine was the only orphan-operative to have had a child. An experimental drug the agency had given to the other orphans – after Nine had fled Omega five years earlier – had inadvertently rendered them infertile. The drug had been intended to enhance mind-control prompts Omega had imbedded in the minds of each in their childhood. While it had the desired effect, it had also had unfortunate side-effects of which infertility was one.

Fortunately, Nine had escaped all that. Even more fortunate, from Omega’s perspective, his wife had given birth to a child.

Nurse Hilda was also aware that Francis’ DNA would be useful in some of the illicit scientific experiments the agency’s medical people were carrying out on human guinea pigs in its various underground labs. One of its many legitimate businesses,
KaizerSimonsKovak
, just happened to be the world’s number one pharmaceutical company, and Omega was anxious to protect its market share and the huge revenues it generated. Those same revenues helped finance Omega’s activities.

Like all companies in the legal drug trade,
KaizerSimonsKovak
needed to test new drugs before releasing them onto the market. While its competitors tested their new drugs mostly on rats, mice and monkeys,
KSK
had the advantage of being able to test them on humans. No
KSK
employee, or indeed anyone outside Omega, was aware of that, however. All testing was contracted out – to another Omega-owned company. And its modus operandi was far from legal.

Francis drifted off to sleep, prompting Nurse Hilda to study the boy’s angelic face. She brushed a strand of his dark, curly hair from his forehead. The nurse had no children of her own. She’d lost a child – a son – in childbirth. Even though that had been thirty years ago, she still had strong maternal instincts and these were being aroused now.

Nurse Hilda tried not to think about what was in store for Francis. She busied herself preparing a change of clothes for him to wear later.

A wall-mounted telephone rang. The nurse answered it.

The caller was her immediate superior, Doctor Andrews, who ran the agency’s cloning initiative and also its underground labs around the world. He was calling from Omega’s HQ. “How’s our patient?” Doctor Andrews asked.

“He’s fine. Sleepy but fine.”

“Good. He’s to be kept sedated for the transfer to the airport.”

“Of course.”

“Stay close to him. Naylor doesn’t want any slip-ups.” The line went dead.

Nurse Hilda knew Francis was to be flown to his final destination – wherever that may be – aboard a private jet, which had arrived in Honolulu around the same time as the freighter. If the rumors she’d heard about the experimental labs were even half true, she thought it likely the boy would never reach adulthood – certainly not with all his faculties intact.

The nurse looked down at Francis, and her heart went out to him.

8

Papeete’s Faa'ā International Airport was already bulging at the seams when Nine arrived to catch his mid-morning Air Tahiti Nui flight to Los Angeles. His arrival at the airport coincided with the arrival in quick succession of three international flights and the delayed departure of two international flights including the one he was booked on; he was resigned to further delays.

While Nine was booked to continue on to Chicago after a two-hour stopover in Los Angeles, he had no intention of being on that particular flight. He suspected people would be looking out for him and he didn’t intend making it easy for them.

After reporting to the Air Tahiti Nui check-in counter and handing over his suitcase, he chose to wait in the busy Public Lounge rather than going through to the more private Departure Lounge. This suited Twenty Three who was at that moment observing Nine from a distance. He was under orders to report back to Omega as soon as the former orphan-operative boarded his flight.

Twenty Three made sure he kept several people between him and his mark at all times. Even if Nine had looked directly at his former colleague he probably wouldn’t have recognized him: Twenty Three was disguised as a hippy complete with dreadlocks and droopy moustache, and he even carried a guitar which hung by its cord over one shoulder. Even so, Twenty Three wasn’t taking any chances.

Like all Omega’s orphan-operatives, the twenty third-born orphan was an accomplished shapeshifter, adept at taking on new guises at short notice. It was an art they’d had to perfect as they traveled the globe, usually to hostile places and often to terminate someone. Their lives depended on it.

Twenty Three was relieved Nine hadn’t resorted to disguising himself. The ninth orphan was acknowledged among his former colleagues as being without peer in the art of shapeshifting. A
human chameleon
, his former Omega masters had called him. The fact that Nine was traveling as himself flagged to Twenty Three that he didn’t believe Omega would be looking for him, or he didn’t care.

Closer to the delayed departure time, Nine disappeared into a men’s restroom, carrying an airline travel bag. Twenty Three thought nothing of it, but when his former colleague hadn’t re-emerged after ten minutes, he began to fret. After another five minutes, he was sure something was wrong and hurried to investigate. His heart sank when he found the restroom unoccupied.

Twenty Three discovered Nine’s discarded travel bag in one of the vacant cubicles. It was stuffed full of the former operative’s discarded clothing. A quick inspection of the contents revealed Nine had replaced his shirt, jacket and even his shoes.

Nine had vacated the restroom ten minutes earlier. Not as himself, but as an elderly man. Five minutes was all he’d needed to effect his new guise. Making full use of the disguise aids he carried on his person and in his travel bag, he could now pass for an eighty-year-old. His smart casual gear had been replaced by grey trousers and matching grey cardigan, which he wore over a white shirt and striped tie; his fashionable slip-ons had been replaced by black lace-up shoes; he wore spectacles, and colored contact lenses ensured his distinctive green eyes were now brown.

To top off his disguise, Nine walked with a stoop and appeared reliant on a walking-stick he used with practiced precision. It was a telescopic stick he’d secreted into the restroom in his travel bag.

Cursing, Twenty Three hurried from the restroom and frantically searched the faces of people in the Public Lounge. He didn’t realize it, but he’d looked straight at Nine as he emerged from the restroom earlier.

While Twenty Three was pursuing a lost cause in the Public Lounge, Nine had already checked himself in again, but this time as a Mister Charles Morris, the fictional resident of a Los Angeles rest home for the aged. And this time he was booked to fly to Honolulu, not Los Angeles, and he was flying Air New Zealand, not Air Tahiti Nui.

While Nine was anxious to get to mainland America to pick up his son’s trail, he knew Omega would be expecting him to do exactly that. So he’d opted to fly to Honolulu first. It would add a few hours to his flight, but it would help keep Omega off his scent.

Minutes later, as a frustrated Twenty Three unsuccessfully tried to identify Nine among the passengers boarding the Air Tahiti Nui flight to Los Angeles, the former operative was boarding the Air New Zealand flight to Honolulu.

Twenty Three realized he’d been duped. Fishing his cell phone from his shirt pocket, he speed-dialed a number. Omega boss Andrew Naylor answered the call. Twenty Three proceeded to deliver the bad news to Naylor. He had to hold the phone away from his ear until Naylor finished shouting at him.

Meanwhile, aboard the Air New Zealand plane that was now preparing for take-off, Nine allowed himself to be assisted to his Business Class seat by a pretty Maori hostess who was keen to ensure the elderly traveler didn’t have a mishap. Safely seated, he thanked the hostess and smiled to himself: he considered the sacrifice of the empty suitcase he’d handed over at the Air Tahiti Nui check-in counter, and the travel bag he’d left behind, a small price to pay for his anonymity.

As the Air New Zealand flight took off, Nine had no way of knowing his sleeping son was being stretchered aboard a private jet that was about to depart Honolulu International Airport at that very moment.

9

While Francis and his father were being whisked across the Pacific in separate aircraft, Nine’s former colleague and fellow orphan, Seventeen, was sitting down for dinner with her elderly grandfather in the neat bungalow they shared in Glen Ellyn, in Chicago’s upmarket western suburbs.

Eighty eight-year-old Sebastian Hannar had aged alarmingly since Seventeen had arrived unannounced on his doorstep on a windy winter’s evening four years earlier. Frail then, he’d deteriorated to the point where his doctor considered he should now be in a rest home. However, Seventeen, now thirty-five, wouldn’t hear of it. She credited her grandfather with saving her life, and had vowed she wouldn’t hand over responsibility for caring for him while she was still able to draw breath.

However, looking at him now as he pecked at the dinner she’d lovingly prepared, she knew his days were numbered. Sebastian suffered Alzheimer’s and had advanced osteoporosis. The former had rendered his memory almost useless and the latter had left him permanently stooped and confined to a wheelchair. With each passing week, his symptoms worsened and his quality of life waned.

Despite all that, prescription drugs kept him largely pain-free, and Seventeen imagined that deep down, on some level, he enjoyed his granddaughter’s company and the comforts of home, though he couldn’t articulate that: his utterances were monosyllabic these days.

The bungalow they shared was at least half a century old and small, but it was comfortable and all either of them needed or desired. For Seventeen, it was a refuge from a world that frightened her – a world she no longer felt part of.

Over the past four years, Seventeen had largely gotten herself together with the help of her grandfather in the first couple of years. Physically, she was almost back to her old self: her icy, blue eyes were clear, her blonde hair shone and her body was still toned and athletic. Mentally, she had somehow pulled herself out of the abyss she’d fallen into, and had managed to retain her sanity.

She had never regained her old confidence, however, and seldom ventured out of the house except to shop for essentials or take Sebastian to the doctor. Occasionally, she’d work out at a local gym or go to a movie, but such outings were becoming less frequent.

Seventeen had often tried to make sense of what happened to her before she’d landed on her grandfather. She remembered snippets of her years as an elite operative with the Omega Agency, and prior to that as an orphan at the Pedemont Orphanage, but the memories were hazy.

The memories, and the nightmares, were also disturbing. Flashes came to her at the oddest of times: in the shower, watching television, baking, gardening. They included assassinations – shootings, knifings, strangulation, poisoning – she’d carried out for Omega. She could remember the victims’ faces, and occasionally their names, but couldn’t recall why she’d killed them.

Seventeen had given up trying to banish the ugly memories. She accepted they were part of who she was, and had decided to get on with life as best she could.

For some reason, memories of her years at the orphanage over on Chicago’s South Side were clearer. She could recall nearly every one of her fellow orphans and much of the relentless training regime they were forced to follow in order to graduate as Omega operatives.