by James Morcan
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 L
oop 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.
After showering, he adopted the guise of a bespectacled tourist complete with a false moustache, Hawaiian shirt and fake suntan. Nine then returned to the rental car he’d left parked nearby and began driving south toward Saint Clair County. As the miles passed, he could think of nothing else except the wife and son he’d been separated from.
#
While Nine was driving toward Naylor’s residence, Omega orphan-operative Twenty Three entered an afterhours medical center in downtown Papeete, in Tahiti. He approached the duty nurse in reception and showed her a recent photo of a pregnant Isabelle. Speaking fluent French, he asked if she’d seen anyone resembling Isabelle. The nurse assured him she hadn’t.
Undeterred, the operative left the center and drove to Papeete’s public hospital. Entering the hospital’s maternity ward, he asked the male duty nurse if he’d seen anyone resembling the pregnant woman in the photo. The nurse laughed, pointing out that the ward’s patrons were all pregnant woman, so, yes he had seen someone resembling her.
Twenty Three wasn’t amused. He strongly advised the nurse to study the photo closely. Something about the visitor unsettled the nurse so he studied the woman in the photo. Still he didn’t recognize Isabelle. Twenty Three cursed and marched from the ward.
The operative was beginning to feel frustrated. He’d shown Isabelle’s photo to scores of people and not one had recognized her. Not for the first time that night he questioned what was so damned important about the woman, or her baby for that matter. Naylor had told him he wanted mother and baby, alive, but he hadn’t said why.
Twenty Three lamented the fact that this is what his life had come to. He knew any half-trained private eye could do what he’d been tasked with. Yet here he was, an elite operative with perhaps thirty kills to his name, and he’d been relegated to working all day and night to find some pregnant woman.
12
An urgent after-hours board meeting Andrew Naylor had called for was taking place at Omega HQ in south-west Illinois. Every chair around the large table in the agency’s boardroom was occupied except for one – Marcia Wilson’s. However, the CIA Director was still present courtesy of a live holographic video feed from her office in Langley, Virginia. Her life-size image was so lifelike it was as though she was there in the flesh.
At the head of the table, Naylor rose to speak. He paused theatrically for a moment to ensure he had the attention of everyone present. The twelve people who made up his audience included all of Omega’s directors as well as Doctor Andrews, the only non-director present. “We all know why we are here,” he said without preamble.
The directors nodded. They had all been well briefed before the meeting. Among them were Omega’s remaining four founding members. Besides Naylor, they included billionaire Fletcher Von Pein, pharmaceutical magnate Lincoln Claver and computer software designer Bill Sterling.
The other eight founding members had either died, resigned or in two unfortunate cases disappeared mysteriously without trace. Naylor had personally led the investigation into their disappearance, but gotten nowhere. Marcia and another director had misgivings over the manner in which Naylor had conducted the investigation, though they didn’t voice their criticisms too loudly. The incident served as a reminder to the directors that no-one was indispensable.
Naylor continued, “Before we get into that, I’m pleased to report the boy arrived at the school in good health.” Everyone present was aware the school was a euphemism for one of the agency’s underground medical labs. Naylor turned to Doctor Andrews who sat at the far end of the table. “Doc. Over to you.”
The stern-looking doctor, who was spearheading the agency’s cloning activities, stood up and pressed a button on a remote control device. Video images immediately appeared on a screen on the wall behind him. “This footage was taken last night. It shows the boy arriving at the school.”
Every eye in the room was fixed on the video that showed a sleepy Francis being carried into an austere, hospital-like facility by a burly, white-coated orderly. He was placed on a bed and immediately subjected to a physical inspection by a team of white-coated doctors and nurses. Behind them, more white-coated personnel scurried back and forth as they went about their everyday business.
As he was prodded and probed, a wide-eyed Francis reacted as any five-year-old would, and began howling for his mother. A nurse immediately jabbed him with a needle and the boy soon quietened.
Throughout all this, Doctor Andrews kept up a steady patter, assuring the Omega directors that the boy had suffered no ill-effects from his sudden separation from his parents.
“Get to the point, Doc.”
The interjection came from one of the agency’s founders. Fletcher Von Pein, who was appropriately seated at Naylor’s right hand, was known for his directness. A former Federal Reserve majority shareholder, the elderly but still dynamic Von Pein wasn’t one to mince his words. “What do our friends at KSK think of our latest acquisition?”
Doctor Andrews knew Von Pein referred to Omega’s pharmaceutical company, KaizerSimonsKovak, and the acquisition he referred to was Francis. “They’re delighted by the initial test results.”
“That seems very quick,” a sceptical Von Pein commented.
“Blood samples were taken from the boy in Papeete and immediately air-freighted to the school,” Doctor Andrews explained. “KSK’s people confirmed the results showed the boy’s DNA is unique. It’s like noth
ing they’ve seen before.”
Noting the bemused looks on the faces of several directors who had not been privy to the decision to seize Francis, Naylor instructed the doctor to outline the reasons for the boy’s abduction.
“Certainly.” Doctor Andrews was now in his element, lecturing on cutting-edge medical matters. “As the progeny of one of the original Pedemont orphans, the boy obviously inherited his father’s superior genes. Those genes will help fast-track Stage Three of our cloning program to create more perfect human beings.”
The directors hung on his every word. They were very aware of the spectacular success he’d had in recent years in the cloning field – success that was already translating to huge revenues for the agency.
Doctor Andrews continued, “The boy will also be a good test subject.” He deliberately avoided using the term human guinea pig, preferring test subject to convey what was in store for Francis. It sounded more benign. “KSK have a new cancer drug our testers are currently testing on monkeys.” The directors knew the testers he referred to were the illicit drug testers the agency used to shield its legitimate KSK operation from any accusations of wrongdoing. “Our testers can’t wait to put the boy on a course of the new drug to see how he responds.”
“How are the monkeys doing?” Von Pein asked.
Doctor Andrews shuffled uncomfortably. “None have survived to date, but our scientists are confident humans will prove more resilient.”
Von Pein didn’t look convinced, but he refrained from further comment.
The other directors fired a barrage of questions at Doctor Andrews, which he fielded to the best of his ability.