by James Morcan
Isabelle relaxed. She realized Seventeen was right.
“I’ll check the flight,” Seventeen said. The former operative immediately phoned the local Aircalin office and confirmed the flight Nine and Francis were to connect with in Fiji had departed on schedule.
#
For Isabelle, the next three hours were unbearable. She passed them making small talk with Seventeen, pacing up and down the villa’s shady veranda, and feeding and changing a fretful Annette. Like her mom and aunt, the baby wasn’t comfortable in Port Vila’s oppressive heat and humidity.
Seventeen was first to see the cab as it pulled up outside the villa. “They’re here!” she called out.
Isabelle, who was holding Annette, handed the baby to Seventeen then ran down the veranda’s front steps to greet the cab.
At that very moment, light rain began falling, but the Frenchwoman didn’t even notice. Behind her, Seventeen remained on the veranda with Annette. She wanted to give her sister-in-law and brother some space.
In the cab’s rear seat, Nine and Francis had changed out of their Sikh guises. No-one was happier about that than Francis who was enjoying being a boy once more.
Nine was first to spot Isabelle approaching. She looked even more beautiful than he remembered. “There’s your mom,” he said, fighting back tears. He opened the near door for Francis to let him scramble over him and run to his mother.
“Francis!” Isabelle shrieked when she saw her son.
Francis ran straight into her arms. Crying with joy, Isabelle swept him off the ground and showered him with kisses.
Nine wanted to join them, but he couldn’t. The invisible band that had been tightening around his chest since he’d disembarked from the plane was now so tight he could hardly breathe. He suspected he was going into cardiac arrest.
Using the last of his strength, he reached forward and tapped the cabbie’s shoulder. “I am feeling unwell,” he muttered. “Would you help me out?”
The cabbie, an elderly Melanesian man, climbed out of the cab and helped his ailing passenger from the rear seat onto the grassy kerb.
Only then did Isabelle see Nine. Realizing something was wrong, she released Francis and hurried over to her husband. “Sebastian!”
Nine began to topple over. He was too heavy for the cabbie to hold, but the old man was able to cushion his passenger’s fall and lay him gently down on the grassy strip alongside the cab. The cabbie then returned to the front seat and called for an ambulance on his radio-telephone.
The light rain that had begun earlier was still falling and the grass was now wet, but the ailing Nine didn’t even notice that. Before he knew it he was in Isabelle’s embrace. She was kneeling beside him, cradling his head in her loving arms and kissing his forehead.
“My darling!” Isabelle murmured. “What is wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong…sweetheart.” Hiding his pain behind a smile, he reached up and stroked his wife’s beautiful face. “Everything’s exactly as it should be now.”
“What’s wrong with papa?” Francis asked.
Nine recognized his son’s voice. Sensing he didn’t have long, he grasped Isabelle’s arm. “Help me sit up!” he muttered through gritted teeth.
Isabelle looked around at the concerned cabbie who was now hovering close by. “Help me, will you?”
Together, Isabelle and the cabbie propped Nine up so he was sitting, his back resting against the side of the cab.
Without waiting to be asked, Francis went to his father’s side and sat down beside him. It was then Nine saw Seventeen approaching. He could see she was holding a tiny bundle in her arms.
Seventeen stopped just short of Nine and lowered the tiny bundle into her brother’s arms. “Sebastian, meet your daughter, Annette Nicia Hannar.”
Nine looked at his daughter’s face in wonderment then held her to his chest. “Annette,” he whispered. A solitary tear rolled down his cheek as he was reminded of Annette Hannar, the mother he’d never known.
Seventeen stepped back to allow Nine to enjoy a loving reunion with his small family. She had no idea what was ailing her brother, but she had a bad feeling. He didn’t look well.
Nine could feel himself slipping away. The chest pains that had gripped him earlier had been replaced by a numbness and he was finding it even harder to breathe. Everyone around him looked worried and seemed to be talking to him, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying.
Despite his precarious physical state, Nine felt an amazing calmness descend – almost as if he was in a state of euphoria. I did it! The ninth-born orphan had achieved what he’d set out to do and rescued his son from the very people who had so cruelly taken his own childhood away. He had also lived to hold his daughter in his arms, he’d been reunited with Isabelle, his soul mate and one true love, and he’d seen his long-lost sister once more.
Thinking on all that, Nine knew he’d die a happy man.
As if on cue, the rain stopped and the clouds cleared, allowing a shaft of sunlight to break through. A beautiful rainbow formed directly above the small gathering.
Only Nine noticed it. But that wasn’t the last thing he saw. The last thing he saw was his mother’s ruby dangling from the silver necklace around Isabelle’s neck. He reached up and touched it. As always, its touch brought him comfort.
Epilogue
After Nine’s tragic passing, Isabelle and Seventeen made their home in Aneityum, the southernmost island in Vanuatu. With its remote location, tiny population and fledgling tourism industry, it was effectively off the grid, which suited the two women just fine.
Isabelle considered Aneityum an ideal environment in which to raise Francis and Annette. Reminiscent of the tropical island she and Nine had fled to in the Marquesas Islands, it was paradise. Its coast was ringed by reefs and lined with white sand beaches, coconut palms and pine forests, while its rugged interior was mountainous with superb views out over the blue Pacific.
Isabelle and Seventeen used local builders to convert an old church into a guesthouse conveniently located between two of the biggest settlements on the island. Business was slow with few visitors, but that didn’t worry them. Nine had left Isabelle very well looked after and Seventeen had a few dollars of her own salted away. Besides, there was little to spend money on at Aneityum and the women were more interested in the lifestyle anyway.
For Seventeen, her new life was a dream compared to the horrors of her previous one. Working with Isabelle, babysitting her sister-in-law’s children and being an aunt to her niece and nephew served as a daily reminder of the promise she made to her brother – that she’d look after his family and keep them safe.
Francis re-adapted to island life as if he’d never left it. He made friends with the Melanesian children almost immediately and quickly picked up their language and customs. Baby Annette, too, thrived in her new surroundings, endearing herself to the local island women with her cute looks, engaging smile and impish manner.
Isabelle and Annette only ever visited Port Vila to pay their respects to Nine who was buried in a private cemetery overlooking the picturesque bay. Sometimes they’d visit alone, sometimes together and at other times with the children. They always found it a moving experience. Nine had left a hole in their hearts that could never be filled.
The fallout that resulted from the emails Nine sent out far and wide exposing Omega never touched the former operative’s loved-ones. Once they reached Vanuatu and got off the grid, they effectively became removed from the outside world and all its politics and perils.
The detailed, incriminating, explosive emails resulted in more suicides, stress-related deaths and sackings as well as accusations that went as far as the Oval Office and beyond. Casualties included the Omega Agency, its secret medical labs and every surviving director and senior staffer within the organization. Beyond the agency, casualties included senior intelligence agents in the CIA, the FBI and the NSA, high profile politicians, respected judges, magistrates, lawyers and law enfo
rcement officers, and many more.
Although the emails had the immediate results Nine had hoped for, the status quo had returned inside two years. New splinter groups – reminiscent of Omega in its infancy – formed, intent on accumulating wealth and power; soldiers of First World countries continued to occupy mineral-rich Third World nations under the pretext of protecting the oppressed; the oppressed in those same places and in other mineral-rich nations continued to starve while their leaders grew fat; and people in high places continued to accept bribes while people lower down the ladder continued to offer bribes.
However, none of that touched on the lives of Nine’s loved-ones.
On the fifth anniversary of Nine’s passing, Isabelle, Seventeen and the children visited Nine’s burial plot as they did every anniversary. It was a day not too dissimilar to the day he died: light rain fell as it had done that terrible day five years earlier.
Had Nine been looking down at his loved-ones, he’d have glowed with pride. Ten-year-old Francis was a chip off the old block with his shock of long, black hair, his startling green eyes and a frame that was tall for his years; five-year old Annette was already a miniature model of Isabelle with her mom’s dark, cascading locks, caramel skin and hazel-flecked eyes.
As for the love of Nine’s life, Isabelle had become even more beautiful with the passage of time. The faint ageing lines on her face and even more faint tinges of gray in her hair gave her that special beauty of a mature woman in her prime. Her beguiling eyes still sparkled, though they were now tinged with a sadness that hadn’t been there when Nine knew her.
Isabelle hadn’t remarried. She’d had one or two opportunities – once when she’d dated an Australian bureaucrat who visited Vanuatu’s outer islands periodically and once when she was befriended by a New Zealand Red Cross official who was based at Aneityum for a year – but had never taken those opportunities up. Her heart was always somewhere else.
Seventeen, too, had aged well. She’d discovered a joie de vivre she’d never known before Nine and then Isabelle and the children had come into her life. That self-discovery had manifested in laugh-lines around her mouth and eyes – lines she’d never had before.
Tugging at Seventeen’s hand, little Annette asked her aunt to read aloud the memorial dedication engraved at the top of Nine’s headstone.
Seventeen tried to keep the quaver out of her voice as she did as her niece asked. “Here lies Sebastian H. Beloved son of Annette, loving husband of Isabelle, father of Francis and Annette Nicia, and brother of Jennifer.” Seventeen paused to clear her throat. “Born in the year Nineteen Eighty. Died August ten, Two Thousand and Sixteen.”
While Seventeen read the dedication aloud, Isabelle was silently reading an italicized inscription engraved at the bottom of the headstone. The sad Frenchwoman thought the inscription’s wording couldn’t be more appropriate for her beloved Sebastian.
The inscription read:
I am a free man and a polymath.
Whatever I set my mind to, I always achieve.
The limitations that apply to the rest of humanity,
Do not apply to me.
THE END
Table of Contents
Copyright
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
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62
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70
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76
77
78
79
80
81
82
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84
85
86
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89
90
91
92
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95
Epilogue