The Orphan Uprising (The Orphan Trilogy, #3) (6 page)

One orphan in particular stood out whenever she thought of them: Number Nine. Seventeen also knew him as Sebastian, for Nine had confided in her that their mentor, Special Agent Kentbridge, had advised him of the Christian name his mother had given him before she’d had to give him up to Omega.

What Seventeen couldn’t remember was that Nine’s mother was also hers. While they came from the sperm of numerous fathers as part of
The Pedemont Project
, they shared the same mother, Annette Hannar, which meant they were siblings. Nine was aware of that as Kentbridge had told him. That meant Annette’s father, Sebastian Senior, was grandfather to both Seventeen and Nine, though the latter had no idea of his existence.

How Seventeen had learned of Sebastian Senior’s existence, or where he lived, she couldn’t recall. What she could recall was how grateful she’d been to be taken in by him. He’d nursed her back to health and, she truly believed, had saved her from going completely insane.

Seventeen had obviously registered that her grandfather and Nine shared the same Christian name, but had considered that nothing more than one of life’s coincidences.

Looking at him now, as he slept in his wheelchair, Seventeen felt she’d burst with love and devotion for him. Sebastian was the only real family she’d ever known. Before he’d developed Alzheimer’s, he told Seventeen about her mother, about how fun-loving she’d been as a girl and what a beautiful young woman she’d grown into. Every day, he’d assured his granddaughter that she reminded him of Annette.

Seventeen’s gaze went to the faded color portrait photograph of her mother that had pride of place on the dining room mantelpiece. She never tired of looking at it, and wished she’d known the beautiful, dark-haired woman whose striking green eyes seemed to look right into her soul.

As she often did when she looked at her mother’s photo, Seventeen looked wistfully at the index finger of her left hand. It had once displayed a ruby ring – the only thing she’d inherited from her mother. She couldn’t remember what had happened to it.

Omega boss Andrew Naylor had given Seventeen the ring in another lifetime. That was back when she was the agency’s golden girl. Naylor had told Seventeen it was her mother’s. He’d also told her that Annette had died of a drug overdose a year or two after giving birth to her.

The first part at least was true: the ring had belonged to her mother. However, Annette hadn’t died of an overdose. She’d been terminated on Naylor’s orders
.

10

Although Seventeen hadn’t a clue what had caused her memory loss, her meltdown or her dismissal from the Omega Agency, there was someone who did.

Andrew Naylor knew very well what had gone down. It was on his orders that Seventeen and all her fellow orphans be subjected to an insidious mind control program while still only children. Known as
MK-Ultra
, the program allowed the orphans’ controllers to put their young charges into a mind-controlled state by using voice-commands. The same program was widely reported by mainstream media to have been used by the CIA, using American soldiers as guinea pigs – a fact the firm later admitted.

As it transpired, MK-Ultra was never actively used long-term on any of the Omega orphans – with one notable exception: Seventeen.

Naylor, who had always lusted after the seventeenth-born orphan, had misused his powers and treated the blue-eyed blonde as his personal sex slave. He’d resorted to using the MK-Ultra voice-commands to induce her to do whatever he asked. No-one else was aware of this. Not even his victim. In the process, after years of abuse, Seventeen had finally cracked. In medical terms, she had suffered a mental breakdown; in truth, she’d become yet another victim of MK-Ultra, and of Naylor.

Although he was the cause of Seventeen’s miserable state, Naylor had not a shred of conscience. In his own words, he didn’t
do
conscience.

After Seventeen had botched her last two assignments for Omega, Naylor’s first instinct had been to order her termination. Only the timely intervention of Marcia Wilson had dissuaded him. That was back when Marcia was Naylor’s second-in-command at Omega and before she took over directorship of the CIA from him. Marcia had cautioned that Seventeen could be useful should her brother, Nine, ever come out of hiding and cause Omega any problems.

Naylor had immediately seen the wisdom in that, and took steps to release Seventeen into the custody of her grandfather whose existence he’d known of since he’d recruited the orphan’s mother for
the Pedemont Project
. Using MK-Ultra for the last time, Naylor programmed Seventeen so she would remember her grandfather’s Glen Ellyn address even though she’d never been there and had no knowledge of the old man’s existence.

Thus it had been almost inevitable that Seventeen would end up at 123 College Avenue, Glen Ellyn.

Naylor hadn’t thought about Seventeen in a while. Only the unexpected reappearance of Nine had reawakened his interest in the woman. Truth be known, he still harbored lustful feelings for her.

For now, though, his focus was on Nine and his son Francis. Three days had elapsed since the boy’s abduction and two days since the last sighting of Nine at Papeete’s Faa'ā International Airport. Isabelle’s whereabouts were unknown also as she hadn’t been seen since she and Nine checked in at the hotel in Papeete.

Naylor was certain that Isabelle was still in Tahiti, and had ordered Twenty Three to find her. She would give him leverage if Nine caught up with him or otherwise caused problems. Naylor knew the best disguise in the world wouldn’t hide Isabelle’s pregnant state and she’d be spotted if she tried to fly anywhere as Omega had
eyes
at all the airports.

The Omega boss was also certain Nine was coming for him. Nine would know that he had ordered Francis’ abduction and therefore would assume he knew where the boy was being taken. In anticipation of that, Naylor had turned his castle-like mansion in rural Illinois’ Saint Clair County into a veritable Fort Knox and was guarded around the clock by handpicked Omega operatives. He traveled with an armed escort to and from his place of work at Omega’s nearby underground headquarters, and made sure he was never alone.

In the past twenty-four hours, the Omega boss had come round to the idea that Nine should be terminated at the first opportunity. While Naylor remained nervous about the inevitable scrutiny he and Omega would be subjected to if and when the Black Forest lab documentation was released, he’d realized that Nine, alive, presented a greater risk. The bottom line was the evidence had been destroyed and the allegations could never be proven.

As for Francis, he’d been delivered safely to another of Omega’s underground medical labs the previous day after a full physical assessment by Doctor Andrews. The doctor had given the boy the all-clear, confirming he was in good health and, more to the point, a perfect candidate for the experimentation that awaited him.

Yawning, Naylor’s thoughts turned to bed, or more accurately they turned to what awaited him there. He’d been burning the midnight oil in his den. Despite the late hour, it was hot and humid. Sweat rolled down his brow and he dabbed at it with a handkerchief. Not for the first time that day, he cursed Illinois’ summers. They were long and hot. Naylor was already looking forward to the fall, and it wasn’t even mid-summer yet.

Before retiring, he made a quick call to the cell phone of one of the three operatives he knew were currently on duty either inside or outside his home. “Leroy, this is Naylor,” he said into the phone. “Everything alright?”

“Yessir,” the answer came back loud and clear.

“Good. I’m turning in.” Naylor hung up then hurried upstairs. Long-since divorced, he was anxious to entertain the latest piece of skirt to have taken his fancy – a sultry, teenage, Asian hooker who had been chauffeured to Naylor’s home earlier by another long-suffering Omega staffer.

An excited Naylor found the hooker stretched out and near-naked on his bed. A whirring overhead ceiling fan did little to ease the humidity. Both Naylor and his young companion were sweating and they hadn’t even done anything yet. As he threw off his dressing gown and prepared to join the hooker between the sheets, he found himself thinking about Seventeen.

Later, after a frenzied bout of lovemaking aided in no small way by the Viagra pills Naylor took religiously, he found he was still thinking about Seventeen. It hit him like a bombshell: he still lusted after the former orphan-operative with the blonde hair and icy blue eyes. He vowed to do something about that.

#

The female CIA agent didn’t give the portly clergyman a second glance as he entered the Arrivals Lounge in the company of other travelers at Chicago’s Midway Airport. If she’d known the clergyman was the man she was looking out for, she would have taken a little more interest.

Nine had adopted his latest guise after arriving in Los Angeles from Honolulu. A believer in never using the same disguise twice, he’d forsaken his elderly gent’s guise for that of a middle-aged clergyman for the flight to Chicago.

Safely past the CIA agent whom Nine had spotted the minute he entered the Arrivals Lounge, the former operative headed for the nearest car rental counter. He was planning to drive to Saint Clair County to confront Naylor about Francis’ abduction. Nine would have preferred to fly, but he knew Omega would have people looking out for him at every airport, large and small, in Illinois. It would be safer to drive.

While he knew every minute counted if he was to rescue his son, he was mindful of the fact he’d be of no use to Francis if Omega took him out of circulation, permanently or otherwise.
More haste, less speed
. At the Avis counter, he booked a mid-size family sedan so as not to draw attention to himself when on the open road.

Within ten minutes, he was safely out of the terminal and driving toward downtown Chicago. En route, he stopped at a shopping mall where he purchased clothes and footwear.

In the mall’s outdoor car park, as he loaded his newly purchased items into the rental car, he experienced a sudden sharp pain in his chest. It passed as quickly as it came, but it served as a timely reminder that he’d been neglecting to take the heart medication as often as his specialist had prescribed. In fact, it had been over a day since he’d taken anything. Erring on the side of caution, he popped four of the little yellow heart pills rather than the prescribed two.

The ninth-born orphan shook his head as he thought about the irony of his heart condition. He was supposed to have
perfect
genes and yet here he was enduring a potentially fatal disease at the age of only thirty six.

Nine sat quietly behind the wheel to allow the pills to take effect. He knew from experience, they acted quickly. Already he imagined he was feeling better.
Psychosomatic!
The somewhat frightening experience reminded him of his mortality. He was aware he needed an operation, but was resigned to finding Francis first.
The rogue operative promised himself he’d
take his medication as prescribed from now on.

Dusk was falling as a revived Nine drove out of the car park and continued into the city center. He had something else to do before driving to Saint Claire County.

11

There was no sign of life in the apartment Nine had been studying for the past few minutes in Chicago’s busy Loop district. Still in his clergyman’s guise, he was standing on the pavement opposite the upmarket apartment building. The apartment he studied – one of five on the third floor – was the only one on that floor in darkness. He hoped that meant it was unoccupied.

Nine would have been surprised if there had been signs of occupation. After all, he owned the apartment. He’d purchased it under an assumed name before he’d left Chicago five years earlier. That had been just before he’d opted out of the Omega Agency. Since then, he’d kept all rates and levies up to date to ensure the unused property didn’t come to the attention of the local authorities.

Reasonably satisfied the apartment wasn’t occupied, Nine strode across the street and entered the apartment building. He took the elevator to the third floor and let himself into the apartment using his own key. Inside, he closed the curtains and switched on the lights. A quick scout around confirmed the place was as he’d left it: unlived-in and unfurnished apart from a stretcher bed resting against one wall of the main room. A never-used sleeping bag and pillow, still in their original plastic wrapping, lay atop the stretcher.

Nine had purchased the apartment as an insurance policy. Now he had come to collect. He’d always viewed it as his own personal safe house. A sanctuary to crash in if he needed somewhere to hide in the event of his ever returning to Chicago for any reason. It also served as a place to stash a few emergency items.

Walking through to the smaller of the two bedrooms, Nine opened a wardrobe door and entered the walk-in wardrobe. He pulled up the carpet to reveal a locked trapdoor, which he unlocked using the same key he’d used moments earlier. He raised the trapdoor and reached in to retrieve a leather bag he’d stored there. Then he returned to the main room and dropped the bag on top of the stretcher. Kneeling down, he unzipped the bag and inspected its contents.

The contents included more falsified passports and disguise aids, plus maps, a pen-torch, first-aid kit, flick-knife, and a Glock 18 machine pistol with ammunition. There was also a wad of hundred dollar bills. Satisfied everything was as he’d left it, Nine returned the items to the bag before changing out of his clothes and dispensing with his clergyman’s collar.

Stripped down to his undershorts, he removed the black kit he wore strapped around his chest. It contained mini-dispensers of cosmetics and other disguise-aids. As an active operative, it had been an indispensable part of his modus operandi, allowing him to literally change guises on the run. The contents of such kits had helped save his life more than once. He never dreamed he’d have cause to use them again.