The Orphan Uprising (The Orphan Trilogy, #3) (8 page)

Anxious that Naylor didn’t wake and sound the alarm, Nine glided over to the sleeping man. He reached out and his strong fingers tightened around the vagal nerve in Naylor’s neck. The old man woke, but he only remained awake for a second. In that time, Nine saw fear in his startled eyes.

Naylor appeared to be sleeping again, but Nine new differently. He was actually unconscious and would remain that way for several minutes at least. Now the former operative could turn his attention to dealing with the Omega staffer whom he guessed was downstairs.

A quick search revealed the staffer was in the kitchen. Nine wasn’t surprised to see it was the young driver who had delivered Naylor to the house a short time earlier. He was making a coffee for himself. Nine had no doubt the man was an operative. Tall and lithe, he had the air of someone who knew how to take care of himself.

Not willing to risk a physical confrontation, Nine drew out his Glock 18 machine pistol from the holster hidden beneath his loose-fitting Hawaiian shirt and stepped into the kitchen. The young operative did a double-take and immediately reached for his firearm.

“Don’t do it,” Nine warned.

The surprised operative deliberately placed both hands on the tabletop in front of him so as not to prompt the stranger with the gun to do anything silly – like shoot him. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’ll ask the questions,” Nine said. “Now stand up and turn around. I want to frisk you.”

The young operative did as he was told. He stood up and turned, expecting to be frisked. Instead, Nine reversed his grip on the pistol and whacked his opposite across the back of the head. He caught the unconscious operative before he hit the floor so as to minimize the noise and not attract the attention of the staffer patrolling outside. That done, he tied the operative up using a dressing gown cord he’d brought from Naylor’s bedroom, and he gagged him using his own handkerchief. As a precaution, he removed the operative’s firearm, a Magnum .44 revolver, from its holster and hid it in a cupboard.

Nine had planned to deal with the other staffer outside, but changed his mind. He wanted to get back to Naylor, and was prepared to gamble that he could extract the information he needed from the old man and depart the premises before the other staffer knew anything was amiss.

The former operative quickly returned upstairs armed with a jug of cold water he’d poured from the tap over the kitchen sink. Reaching Naylor’s bedroom, he tipped the water over the still unconscious man, waking him. Startled, Naylor tried to sit up, but Nine restrained him. “Just catch your breath for a minute,” Nine said quietly. He knew from experience it would take a few moments for Naylor to come round fully.

As his senses slowly returned, Naylor could only stare up at Nine and wonder what the rogue operative had in store for him. He didn’t have to wait long to find out.

“You know why I’m here, Naylor.” Nine didn’t wait for a response. “You took my son and I want to know where he is.”

“I don’t know- -”

Nine rammed the end of his Glock’s barrel into Naylor’s open mouth. “Don’t tell me you don’t know where he is!” he hissed.

Naylor’s eyes bulged with fear. Unable to speak, he could only shake his head impotently.

Nine withdrew the pistol from Naylor’s mouth. “You have one more chance to tell me the truth. Otherwise you’re dead.”

“I have some files down in my den!” Naylor blurted out, his lazy eye twitching violently.

Nine yanked Naylor out of bed. Only now, did he realize the old man was naked. Screwing up his nose in disgust, he retrieved Naylor’s dressing gown from the foot of the bed and threw it at him. “Put that on before I’m sick.”

Naylor hurriedly donned his robe.

Nine then pushed him out of the room toward the stairs. “You lead the way. And quietly.”

As Naylor led Nine down to the den, he wondered why his staffer wasn’t coming to his rescue. He had his answer when they walked past the kitchen. Through the open door, he saw the young operative – trussed up and still unconscious.

14

On reaching Naylor’s den, Nine quickly checked that there were no windows or other openings to the outside of the house. He needn’t have bothered: the den was below ground level. Satisfied, he switched on the light and motioned to Naylor to sit down.

By now, Naylor had recovered some of his composure. As he sat down behind his desk, he looked pointedly at the machine pistol levelled at his gut. “Any shots from that thing will be heard for miles around. My men outside will be onto you like a ton of bricks.”

“There’s only one man outside,” Nine countered, “and you’ll be dead so it won’t matter a damn to you what anyone else may or may not do to me.”

There was a long, drawn out silence as the two arch enemies surveyed each other. Scanning the den, Nine’s eyes rested on a small, framed photograph of a young, blonde woman on a bookshelf behind Naylor. The woman seemed familiar. Looking closer, he realized he was looking at Seventeen.
What the hell?
He guessed the photo would have been taken around ten years earlier. It dawned on him that Naylor must be carrying a torch for his fellow orphan-operative.
You dirty, old man
. Finally, Nine returned his attention to his captive. “Okay, where is he?”

Resigned to giving his rogue operative some information, Naylor started talking. “Francis has been taken to one of our medical labs.”

“The Black Forest lab?”

“No, we shut that operation down years ago.” Naylor said.

That made sense to Nine. He guessed Naylor wouldn’t have risked doing anything to prompt him to release the incriminating evidence he’d gathered if the Black Forest lab was still operating.

“We have secret labs in Greenland and the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” Naylor continued, “so he’ll be interned in one of those.”

“Which one?” Nine was losing patience.

“That I don’t know.” Ignoring Nine’s disbelieving look, Naylor hurried on. “A lot has changed since you were with the agency.”

“I don’t doubt that, but let’s not pretend you don’t have your finger on the pulse.”

“The chain of command has shifted.” As Naylor spoke, he slowly opened his desk drawer and reached for the loaded pistol he kept there. “Our operation is now run by Omega splinter groups and other shadow organizations which have links to elite, secret societies.”

As Naylor’s hand closed around his pistol, Nine leaned across the desk and slammed the draw against the old man’s wrist. Naylor yelped in pain. Nine then reached into the drawer and pulled out the weapon. Extracting the cartridge, he threw the pistol into a wastepaper bin and continued as if nothing had happened. “Exactly where are these labs?”

“I can show you,” Naylor grunted as he massaged his injured wrist.

“Okay, but no more tricks. You can’t fool me, so don’t even try.”

Naylor stood up and walked to another desk that supported a computer. He booted it up, entered his personal password and brought up two files marked
Confidential
.

Nine looked on over Naylor’s shoulder as the Omega boss opened the first of the files. It related to the agency’s lab in Greenland and was headed
Medical Laboratory #3
. Nine immediately pointed that out to Naylor. “You said there were only two labs.”

“There are now that the Black Forest lab has been closed,” Naylor said. “The Greenland lab was established while the one in Germany was still functioning.”

Nine studied his opposite closely. For once, he seemed to be telling the truth. He motioned to Naylor to move over. The old man gave up his seat for Nine who resumed reading, scrolling through the file’s contents at the rate of a page a second just as he’d been taught to do as an operative-in-waiting at the Pedemont Orphanage.

With every page, his concern for Francis grew. The document contained a litany of medical horrors that ranged from never-before attempted organ and face transplants to unsanctioned cloning procedures and flat-lining experiments. Medical and scientific text was supported by graphic photographs of subjects – children and teenagers – who had been subjected to these experiments. Some were grotesque in the extreme.

Nine opened the second confidential file. It was headed
Medical Laboratory #1
and related to Omega’s secret lab in DRC, or the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Scrolling through the pages of this file, the former operative could see it made for equally gruesome reading. If anything, the scientific experiments being conducted at the DRC lab were even more horrific than at the lab in Greenland.

Naylor fidgeted nervously as Nine continued reading. He could imagine what was going through his rogue operative’s mind.

The awful reality of what Francis was going to be subjected to slowly dawned on Nine. It was clear he’d been abducted for some sort of experiment.
But what?
He looked up at Naylor and pointed his Glock at his head. “Talk old man. And make it good. Tell me why you took my son.” With that, he pulled a mini-digital recording device from his pocket and placed it on the desktop between them. A red light indicated it had been recording all along. “You’ve already hung yourself, so you might as well tell me everything.”

Naylor’s eyes were drawn to the recorder. Tearing his eyes away from the device, he could tell from the expression on Nine’s face that there was murder in his heart. He had to control the sudden pressure in his bladder to prevent himself from pissing where he sat. “I can explain.” He took a deep breath. “You’re the only one of the Pedemont orphans who has a child. Coming from a mixture of your exceptional genes and your wife’s regular genes, Francis has unique DNA. He’s a one-of-a-kind.”

“What will be done to him exactly.”

Naylor hesitated. Nine waved his Glock menacingly, prompting him to continue. “He will assist our cloning program,” Naylor continued. “He’ll undergo a range of tests- -”

“Tests? What tests?” Nine was growing more alarmed by the second.

“I don’t have specifics, but they’ll be scientifically conducted and monitored by Doctor Andrews’ team.”

Nine could feel his disbelief and anger growing in equal measure. He felt like his head was about to explode. Irate beyond words, he jumped to his feet and pistol-whipped Naylor, leaving the old man’s face cut and bloodied. “You bastard!” Nine swore at the Omega boss who now lay groaning on the carpet. “Just what gives you the right to play God with my son?”

As Nine remonstrated with Naylor, he didn’t hear the faint sound of someone behind him until it was too late.

15

The first that Nine realized something was wrong was when he tried to sit up. He couldn’t. And he had a splitting headache. When he attempted to open his eyes, the light was blinding and everything seemed to be spinning.

As normality slowly returned, Nine realized he was lying on the floor of Naylor’s den. It dawned on him he’d been bushwhacked and he cursed that he hadn’t been more attentive.

The staffer he’d seen outside was now standing alongside Naylor, talking to someone on his cell phone. He was holding Nine’s Glock in his other hand and he surveyed the intruder as he spoke. Naylor was gingerly dabbing at his bloodied face with a tissue.

“He’s conscious now,” the staffer said into his phone. “Don’t worry, he won’t give us any more trouble.”

“Tell them to get here fast,” Naylor said, glaring at Nine. “I want this son-of-a-bitch in secure confinement at HQ.”

“Get here quick,” the staffer said before ending the call. He turned to Naylor. “They’re only ten minutes away.”

Nine guessed the staffer was referring to reinforcements from Omega. The former operative knew once he was interned at Omega’s underground HQ, he’d never be seen again. And neither would Francis. He realized he had to escape within the next minute or two.
How to distract them?
A desperate plan came to mind.

Naylor remembered the mini-recorder on the desktop. Its red light indicated it was still recording. He picked up the device and hurled it against a wall, smashing it. 

Nine chuckled. “You realize I’m also wired,” he lied.

Naylor looked down at him, horrified. He hadn’t considered that someone on the outside could have been listening to the conversation these past few minutes. If that was the case, he knew he was finished. Naylor turned to his staffer. “Search him.”

The staffer handed the Glock to Naylor. “Shoot him if he tries anything, sir.”

Naylor trained the Glock on Nine as his staffer bent down to frisk the intruder. That was the opening Nine had been waiting for. He reached up, grabbed the staffer by his ears and pulled his head down. At the same time, he raised his own head sharply off the floor, effectively delivering an old fashioned Liverpool Kiss, or head-butt, knocking the man senseless.

Lying beneath the now unconscious staffer, Nine prayed that Naylor wouldn’t shoot for fear of hitting his own man. If he did shoot, he was aware the Glock’s kick was such the bullet would go right through the staffer and through him as well. Fortunately, Naylor didn’t shoot. That hesitation was all Nine needed. Pushing the staffer off him, he rolled beneath Naylor’s desk. Only now did the Omega boss shoot. The bullet travelled through the desktop and missed Nine by a whisker. The former operative thought he felt the wind of the bullet as it passed his left ear, but couldn’t be sure.

Before Naylor could loose off a second shot, Nine hurled the desk forward, crushing the old man between it and the wall. Naylor slumped to the floor unconscious.

The efforts of the past few minutes caught up with Nine. Breathing hard, he sat down as the now familiar chest pains coursed through him. He prayed he wasn’t having another heart attack. Fumbling in his trouser pocket, he retrieved the small container of pills he now carried on his person permanently. Popping two into his mouth, he waited for them to take effect. It wasn’t long before the pain passed.

Retrieving his Glock, Nine quickly tied the hands of both men behind their backs. He used his own belt to tie the staffer’s hands then removed the staffer’s belt and used it to tie Naylor’s.