by James Morcan
The email read: All is well. Both parcels are in transit. ETA in V is 48 hours from now.
Watching the email go, Nine was confident the recipients would realize the parcels referred to himself and Francis, and V referred to their agreed mutual destination: Vanuatu, the remote South Pacific island nation to the west of Fiji, near Papua New Guinea.
90
In the dwelling they now shared in Pomareville, the women Nine had been trying to reach were enjoying a late breakfast together. Isabelle was recovering well from the trauma of giving birth and Seventeen’s wound felt considerably less painful than it had the previous day.
Baby Annette lay sleeping in a bassinette next to the table.
Neither woman knew of the major news story that had broken the previous day and was still dominating world headlines. Daily newspapers didn’t arrive at the remote settlement until the day after their publication, and the power generator had been down for the past twenty-four hours, so the villagers hadn’t been able to watch TV or listen to the radio. Nor had there been any visitors to the settlement in over a day.
Effectively, that meant a news blackout was in force at Pomareville.
As if telepathically prompted by Nine’s attempts to reach them, the two women were talking about him at that very moment.
“How will Sebastian know where to contact us when he finds Francis?” Isabelle asked. “I mean for all we know he could be trying to contact us now.”
“He would contact Chai’s family,” Seventeen said. “If there was any news, we’d have heard.” Seventeen could see by the look on her sister-in-law’s face that comment hadn’t cheered her up. She hurriedly added, “I’m sure we’ll hear something soon.”
“I hope so- -”
The honking horn of an approaching truck interrupted their conversation.
“I’ll see what’s happening,” Seventeen said. She hurried outside to check.
Emerging from the dwelling, Seventeen saw Manoa’s old flat-deck truck approaching the settlement. The big Tahitian was driving and he was still honking the horn, indicating something was up. Seventeen hoped he had some good news.
As the truck drew close, Seventeen could see Manoa had a passenger. It wasn’t until the truck stopped close by that she identified the passenger as Chai. She gasped when she realized her Thai friend was dead. His lifeless body had slumped forward, leaving his forehead resting against the truck’s windscreen. Seventeen ran to investigate.
“What is it?” The voice was Isabelle’s. She’d ventured outside to investigate just as Seventeen was helping Manoa unload Chai’s body from the truck.
“Stay there!” Seventeen ordered.
The former operative noticed the bullet hole in the middle of Chai’s forehead as she and Manoa gently laid the young Thai on the grass. “He’s been shot!” she whispered. Turning to the Tahitian, she asked, “Where did you find him?”
“About an hour’s drive from here.”
“Anyone else around?”
Manoa shook his head. “I noticed a four-wheel drive rental vehicle parked off the track about half a mile back, but there was no sign of its driver.”
That worried Seventeen. The former operative considered it almost certain the vehicle’s driver was connected with Chai’s murder. She immediately thought of Nineteen. It has to be him! Seventeen looked around at the rainforest and shuddered at the thought her fellow orphan could have her in his sights right now.
A shadow announced Isabelle’s arrival. The Frenchwoman took one look at Chai’s lifeless body and broke down. Seventeen stood up and comforted her.
Over the next few minutes, villagers emerged from their homes and crowded around the small group. They, too, were shocked to learn that Chai had been shot.
No sooner had they recovered from their initial shock when shouts of alarm reached them from the nearby rainforest. Three village boys sprinted out from the trees some hundred yards distant, shouting and waving their arms.
Manoa went to greet them. They led him back into the trees to show him what they’d found.
Seventeen turned to Isabelle. “We have to leave,” she ordered. “Get the baby ready.” She ran after Manoa before Isabelle had time to answer.
Isabelle wasn’t about to argue. She could sense the sudden danger, and her only thought was to protect Annette and relocate her to a safe place.
On the edge of the rainforest, Seventeen caught up to Manoa and the three boys as they stopped to inspect an object. Pushing them aside, she saw the object was in fact a man. He was lying face-down on top of a powerful hunting rifle and appeared to be dead.
Seventeen used her foot to roll the body over. She recognized Nineteen immediately. The mix-race operative’s sightless eyes stared up at her. Disconcerted, Seventeen knelt down and quickly closed her fellow orphan’s eyes. She then checked his head and upper body for some sign of a fatal wound. There was none.
“How did he die?” Manoa asked.
Seventeen just shrugged. She hadn’t a clue. All appearances suggested the operative had died of natural causes. Seventeen was in no doubt the bullet she assumed was still in the rifle’s chamber had been meant for her. A quick check confirmed the bullet was still in the chamber.
Manoa ordered the boys to return to the settlement. He then turned to Seventeen. Glancing at the body, he said, “He came for you, didn’t he?”
“Yes I’m afraid he did.”
“We better get back.” The worried Tahitian began walking back to the settlement. He clearly wasn’t happy about the day’s developments.
“Manoa, wait!”
The Tahitian waited while Seventeen pulled Nineteen’s rifle from his lifeless hands and recovered an automatic pistol from his belt. She slung the rifle over her shoulder then pushed the pistol through her own belt. Before leaving, she quickly searched Nineteen’s pockets and found the keys to his rental vehicle. Pocketing them, she joined Manoa and they began walking back to the settlement.
“Isabelle and I will leave now,” Seventeen said.
“Thank you,” a relieved Manoa mumbled. He considered the continued presence of the two women a threat to the safety of his people and had been about to order the pair to leave. Seventeen had saved him considerable embarrassment without realizing it, or so he thought.
In fact, the former operative realized it was not the island way to order guests to leave at the first sign of trouble, but she understood: Manoa had to put the safety of his people first.
As they neared the others, Manoa said, “There is something else I must show you.”
Seventeen wondered what was coming next as Manoa led her back to his truck. Reaching inside, he pulled out a copy of Les Nouvelles de Tahiti, Papeete’s daily newspaper. He’d picked it up earlier. “I think this will interest you.”
The former operative looked at the front page and saw at a glance it was entirely devoted to the breaking Omega story. Photos of the Omega operatives who had died mysteriously within minutes of each other took up half the page. Seventeen guessed that whatever had caused the deaths had killed Nineteen also. She also assumed it was Naylor’s handiwork and wondered if all her fellow orphans had met the same fate.
91
Ukrainian Mafia soldiers Ivan Pasternak and Yuriy Borkovsky had wasted no time after their flight touched down at Papeete’s Fa'a'ā International Airport. They’d collected the hire Jeep that had been booked on their behalf and, after checking in to their waterfront hotel, had set off for the remote Tahitian settlement known as Pomareville.
Though low level soldiers, Ivan and Yuriy were useful. They were tough and resilient, and they knew how to handle the small arsenal of weapons they’d collected on arrival. They were also ambitious – especially Yuriy who had a couple of years on his younger partner. Both aspired to higher posts in their organization.
Their capo back in the Ukraine had assured them the information for their current assignment had come from an impeccable source. So it was with some confidence that they proceede
d to carry out the first part of their mission – to find and terminate Seventeen, and to capture Isabelle to use as bait to lure Nine out of hiding.
The pair had good reason to be confident about their source of information. Their capo’s Berlin contact had never let them down before.
As Yuriy slowed to avoid a fallen branch on the rough vehicle track neither he nor his passenger could have guessed their targets were driving toward them at that very moment.
#
Nine and Francis were asleep in the Air New Zealand 747’s First Class compartment when a hostess came by with a lunch trolley. They looked so peaceful the hostess opted to let them sleep on. Lunch could wait.
Had he been awake, Nine would have appreciated the hostess’s thoughtfulness. He was exhausted and his overtaxed heart needed rest. In Francis’ case, the unusual hours he’d been keeping since his rescue had tired him out, too.
The pair had fallen asleep as soon as the airliner had departed LAX. They would sleep until it landed at Honolulu International Airport for a scheduled one-hour stopover before continuing on to Fiji, their next stop.
Across the aisle from Nine, an American business traveler watched a live CNN News report on the television monitor set into the back of the seat in front of him. It showed a US Government vehicle collecting Naylor from the car park above the Omega Agency’s subterranean headquarters in Illinois.
Speaking to camera, a reporter advised viewers that Naylor had been summonsed to a meeting at the White House to answer the recent allegations that had been made against him and against the agency, and to explain the true purpose of the medical laboratories Omega was allegedly operating around the world.
Several seats behind Nine, another passenger – a Canadian businessman – pecked at his meal as he read that day’s issue of the Los Angeles Times. Its news pages were almost exclusively devoted to the Omega Agency story. Other passengers were similarly engaged.
Since it broke, the story had taken on a life of its own. One news story led to another as the world’s news agencies, television networks and newspapers tried to outdo each other in the competition to be first with the news.
No stone was left unturned. The details that whistleblower Sebastian Hannar had provided in his two bombshell emails had given journalists plenty of ammunition. They still had to earn their money and use their investigative skills to get to the truth, but with a little digging they were unearthing information that would keep their audience intrigued for a long time yet.
The airing of information was also having, and would continue to have, far-reaching ramifications for many, many people.
Most affected were the Omega Agency’s directors and senior staff. They were now being interviewed separately by senior FBI officials. At least those who were still available were. Yet another director, founding member Fletcher Von Pein, had been hospitalized after a failed suicide attempt, another two directors had ended up in medical care with stress-related complaints and several senior staffers had done runners, fleeing the country under assumed names.
As a result of the pressure now being applied by the FBI and others, some Omega staffers were singing like songbirds, revealing all they knew about the agency and its nefarious business dealings.
#
While Nine and Francis winged their way toward Hawaii, Naylor was flying toward Washington D.C. aboard an FBI-chartered Hawker 800 private jet. He shared the jet’s luxury passenger cabin with three senior FBI officials who at that moment were interviewing him.
The four men were sitting around a round table that was fixed in the middle of the cabin. Controlling the questioning was Senior Agent Stephen Dalby, a craggy-faced veteran of the bureau whose exemplary record commanded instant respect amongst his peers.
Dalby didn’t hold back as he questioned Naylor. “When did the unsanctioned experiments on children begin at the Thule Air Base laboratory?”
Naylor bristled. “As I’ve already said, there were no experiments on children, sanctioned or unsanctioned, at Thule.” The Omega boss wasn’t just upset by the line of questioning. He was also upset because Senior Agent Dalby had been recruited by him personally and had been developed over many years as an Omega mole within the bureau. What irked Naylor even more was that he knew he couldn’t accuse Dalby of wrongdoing without incriminating himself in the process.
Dalby knew exactly what Naylor was thinking as he continued to question him. He found the whole situation faintly amusing as well as highly ironic. “Oh, really?” He referred to a file he was holding. “Yet your senior physician, Doctor Andrews, contradicts you.”
Naylor felt his stomach drop.
Dalby continued, “Doctor Andrews said, and I quote, the Thule laboratory was the second one to be built after the Black Forest orphanage opened. He said, like the others, the Thule lab’s patients were almost exclusively children.”
Naylor glared at his mole as he rattled off one accusation after the other. “The good doctor also said none of the experiments had ever been sanctioned by any medical authority.”
The Omega boss felt like he was about to throw up. Everything around him started spinning. “Excuse me!” he stammered. He stood up and bolted for the restroom cubicle at the back of the cabin.
Behind Naylor, the three officials grinned at each other. They were enjoying themselves.
The first any of them realized there was a problem was when Naylor burst out of the restroom cubicle and hurled himself at the cabin’s exit door.
Dalby was the first to react. “Stop him!”
The official nearest the door lunged at Naylor, but was too slow. Naylor pushed the door open and was sucked through the opening.
In the cabin, the three officials had already forgotten about the recently departed. They were too busy hanging onto fixtures in around them to ensure they weren’t sucked out too.
92
Isabelle grinded the gears as she drove Nineteen’s four-wheel drive hire vehicle along the track leading away from Pomareville and back to civilization. Seventeen sat beside her, cradling the hunting rifle and the machine pistol she’d taken from her fellow orphan. Baby Annette slept on in a bassinette jammed on the seat between them.
Seventeen had chosen to ride shotgun in case Nineteen hadn’t been working alone when he’d come after them. She figured in the event they were ambushed or pursued, she’d be of more use if she wasn’t behind the wheel. After an hour of Isabelle’s driving, she was wondering if she’d made the right decision. Her sister-in-law seemed to be trying to run over every bump and pothole along the way.
Rounding a corner, they were confronted by a rare straight stretch of track. It extended for about a hundred yards.
“Gun it,” Seventeen ordered.
Isabelle accelerated and the vehicle shot forward. She braked almost immediately when a Jeep came into view. It was coming toward them at speed.
“Don’t stop!” Seventeen ordered.
Isabelle kept driving, but at a much slower speed. “Who could that be?” she asked.
Seventeen could hear the fear in Isabelle’s voice. “Stay calm and just keep driving.”
As the two vehicles approached, the women could make out two men in the front of the Jeep. They had no idea these were Ukrainians who were coming for them. When the vehicles were about fifty yards apart, the Jeep stopped and the passenger, Ivan, jumped out. He motioned for the approaching vehicle to stop.
“Slow down, but for God sake don’t stop,” Seventeen said as she considered the situation. She estimated there was just room for their vehicle to squeeze pass the Jeep.
Isabelle slowed until only a few yards separated the vehicles.
“Go!” Seventeen shouted.
Isabelle accelerated and the vehicle shot past the Jeep. A startled Ivan only just had time to jump aside.
Looking back, Seventeen saw Ivan reach into the Jeep and pull out an automatic weapon. He lifted it to his shoulder.
“Keep your head down!” Seventeen screamed.
Both women ducked as a burst of gunfire shattered their vehicle’s rear windscreen. Annette started crying, prompting Isabelle to look down at her.
“Keep your eye on the road!” Seventeen yelled. “I’ll watch out for Annette.” The former operative quickly checked the baby. “She’s okay.”
“Who are those people?” a terrified Isabelle asked.
“I don’t know.” Seventeen was wondering the same thing. “Never seen them before.” She knew they weren’t Omega orphan-operatives. Looking around again, she saw the Jeep was now turning around to chase after them.
Though Seventeen didn’t know the two men pursuing them, one thing was clear: she and Isabelle were still being hunted even if Omega, as an organization, was finished and even if all the agency’s orphan-operatives were dead.
“They are gaining on us!” Isabelle said, checking her rear vision mirror. “What do we do?”
“Keep driving. I’m thinking.” Seventeen went into a daydream state for a split-second – just as the Pedemont orphans’ mentor Tommy Kentbridge had taught her and all his young charges to do many years earlier. Then an answer came to her. “Let me off around the next corner!” she ordered.
As Isabelle steered around the next corner, she slowed to allow Seventeen to jump out. The former operative was clutching the rifle and the machine pistol as she jumped.
In the side mirror, Isabelle watched as her sister-in-law rolled over before scrambling to her feet and waiting for the Jeep to appear. Common sense told the Frenchwoman she should keep driving, but she slowed the vehicle to a stop and waited to see what happened. Beside her, Annette was still crying. “Don’t worry, little one,” Isabelle crooned. “Everything will be alright.”
While Isabelle consoled her baby, Seventeen stood in the middle of the vehicle track, legs astride and rifle raised, as she waited for the Jeep to appear. The leap from the vehicle had jarred her wounded collarbone, causing white hot streaks of pain to course through her. But Seventeen ignored that. She knew she’d only get one shot before the Jeep would be onto her.