The Ninth Orphan

by Morcan, James

  “This is the only way,” Nine said. He climbed out the window and, holding a drainpipe for support, looked up at Isabelle. “Climb onto my back.”

  Looking down at Nine, Isabelle knew this was a defining moment. She could easily flee and leave Nine where he was, hanging from the first floor window. Nine looked back at her. He knew what she was thinking. Their eyes locked.

  Isabelle sensed if she left him now she could be leaving behind a dead man. On top of that, she didn’t trust Kentbridge, so it was a case of better the devil she already knew. Besides, this was a devil she’d begun to fall for. Logic told her it was best to just leave him now, but her heart was in no mood to compromise. I must be insane, she thought. Finally, without a word, she climbed through the window and onto Nine’s back.

  Using the drainpipe and other precarious hand-holds, Nine climbed down the side of the building with Isabelle on his back. Although she was light, it took all his strength.

  Seconds later, inside the hotel, Kentbridge paused outside the door to Nine's vacated room. Unlocking the door, he raised his pistol and burst into the empty room. A fluttering curtain by the open window caught his attention. He strode over to the window and poked his head outside just in time to see the fugitive couple running down the road toward Gare de Nord Railway Station.

  Kentbridge remained at the window, watching to ensure they did enter the station. As they ran, he wondered at the pair’s relationship. Although the undisguised Nine was pulling Isabelle along by the hand, she didn’t appear to be an unwilling hostage. There was no sign of resistance and she seemed to be running as fast as she could. A minute later, as they disappeared inside the railway station, Kentbridge hurried from the room.

  Within the busy station, the fugitive pair found themselves being jostled by crowds of commuters. Nine spotted a female janitor heading for the Ladies restroom. Holding tight to Isabelle’s hand, he followed the janitor. Inside the restroom, they found her preparing to clean a mirror. Nine locked the door then walked up to the janitor and pointed his pistol in her face. She opened her mouth to scream but was silenced by Nine's menacing glare. “We need your clothes, madam,” he instructed her in French.

  The terrified woman removed her hat and clothes. Nine snatched them from her and handed them to Isabelle who, without needing to be asked, changed into them and placed the hat on her head. The hat was a little big. It hung low over Isabelle’s eyes.

  “Perfect,” said Nine in mock seriousness. He then turned to the janitor and fixed her with his most threatening stare. “If you want to live,” he said in French, “then don't leave here for fifteen minutes. Understand, madam?”

  The wide-eyed janitor nodded furiously, indicating she understood very clearly.

  Nine moved the near-naked janitor into a cubicle and jammed the door shut. He then led Isabelle out of the restroom and onto the main station platform at the same time as Kentbridge pushed his way through the crowds and entered the station. Like Nine, the senior agent was no longer in disguise.

  Entering the departure terminal, Nine scanned his surroundings while walking as quickly as the crowds would allow. Isabelle followed several paces behind in her janitor's disguise. Nine's eyes rested on a tarpaulin-covered trolley almost totally concealed behind a pile of outbound goods. He turned to Isabelle and nodded toward the trolley. Guessing his intentions, she walked over to it.

  Nine continued through to the main platform where he joined travelers queuing to board a train. According to the electronic Arrivals Departures board, it was bound for Marseille. Good timing. He then spotted a ticket machine nearby.

  One floor above, Kentbridge stood alongside ticketing staff and scanned the faces of passengers queuing for tickets. Something caught his eye on the floor of the departure terminal below. He ran for the exit door. Seconds later, he emerged from a stairwell and hurried to intercept a middle-aged, male tourist with a moustache.

  The closer he got, the more Kentbridge was convinced the man was Nine in disguise. The tourist, who looked Latin American, seemed nervous and constantly looked over his shoulder. Kentbridge wasn’t to know the man was a Bolivian who had a nervous condition and a fear of traveling on trains or on any form of public transport.

  The senior agent caught up to the Latino and threw him against a wall. He reached out and tugged the innocent tourist's moustache in an unsuccessful attempt to confirm it wasn’t a fake.

  “¡Párese! ¿qué hace usted?” the surprise Latino exclaimed.

  Ignoring his protests, Kentbridge frisked the man to ensure he wasn’t carrying a weapon and thereby eliminate any remaining doubt this could be Nine. At the same time, he apologized in perfect Spanish, explaining he was conducting a security check.

  Satisfied the man was who he appeared to be, he walked away without another word. Behind him, the angry tourist let fly with a torrent of Spanish swear words. Kentbridge waved one hand dismissively as he resumed his search for Nine.

  Walking toward the senior agent at that very moment, wheeling a tarpaulin-covered trolley, was Isabelle in her janitor’s disguise. Following Nine’s instructions, she was heading for the entrance to the Departures terminal. Her heart lurched when she saw Kentbridge. He was too close to consider any kind of evasive action. Praying he would not recognize her, she looked straight ahead and kept walking. She breathed a sigh of relief when Kentbridge barely gave her a second-glance.

  Now on the station’s main platform, she pushed the trolley toward the Marseille-bound train’s nearest freight car and, with some difficulty, wheeled it up a ramp. Inside the freight car, two railways clerks ignored her as they ticked off items of cargo.

  Isabelle pushed the trolley through to an adjoining passenger carriage, checking compartment numbers as she went. The effort of handling the trolley alone was causing her to sweat profusely. That and she was incredibly nervous. Thankfully, no-one challenged her as she wheeled the trolley through to the next carriage.

  Stopping outside a sleeper compartment door, she checked the number against the number of the ticket Nine had hastily purchased from the ticket machine moments earlier. Isabelle wheeled the trolley into the sleeper compartment and locked the door behind her. She removed the tarpaulin to reveal the still undisguised Nine curled up in a pile of women's clothing. Isabelle helped him out. She giggled as she lifted a bra off his shoulder.

  Nine suppressed a smile as he hurried to the window and pulled down the blind. He then turned to Isabelle. “You did well. Thank you.”

  Meanwhile, on the platform, Kentbridge was anxious. He sensed his quarry was on the departing train, but couldn’t be sure. The senior agent looked up at the electronic board to confirm the train’s destination. By now, the train had left the station.

  Behind Kentbridge, the female janitor whom Nine had accosted suddenly appeared. Now wrapped in a blanket, the distressed woman attracted considerable attention as she ran up to a gendarme. Kentbridge suddenly noticed her. At the same time, he remembered the trim janitor he saw pushing the trolley toward the train earlier. Putting two and two together, he sprinted for the station exit.

  Emerging into the station car park, he headed for the nearest manned vehicle, a white shuttle van whose driver was reading a paper while waiting for passengers. Kentbridge flashed his fake police ID at the driver and addressed him in French. “I need your vehicle.” Kentbridge pulled the startled driver from the van.

  “What the hell do you think you're doing?” the driver asked.

  “This is official police business and I’m a senior officer.”

  “I don’t care if you’re the President!”

  Ignoring the man, Kentbridge jumped in, started the engine and drove off at speed.

  32

  Moonlight shone brightly onto a limestone cave five thousand feet above sea level in the Philippines. Located on a mountainside near Baguio, in Benguet Province, the cave's narrow entrance had been concealed for decades by overgrown vines.

  Two dozen MSS secret agents posing as miners a
nd laborers had been drilling for Yamashita’s long lost treasure since night fell. Having purchased the surrounding land and paid off certain corrupt Filipino politicians, all that was left to do was seize the gold and precious artifacts then transport them safely to China.

  In double quick time, they’d set up silver mining equipment above the cave, which was located on the precise co-ordinates Nine had supplied Cho-Wu in their recent exchange. The operation was complex as the Japanese had buried the war booty in a series of tunnels they’d dug beneath the cave. The site had also been booby trapped.

  One of the MSS special agents found an ancient Chinese artifact with a golden dragon painted on it. His colleagues took this to be a good omen, especially as the Chinese New Year had only just fallen.

  Their hopes proved to be false, however, when the drilling team eventually confirmed there was no treasure where Nine’s maps indicated there should have been. Instead of gold and ancient artifacts, the Chinese found only empty treasure chests.

  What the Chinese couldn’t know was just days earlier, a Japanese treasure hunter had beaten them to it. The man, a distant relative of General Tomoyuki Yamashita, had spent many years searching for the gold after inheriting the general’s war diaries. Collaborating with a Japanese consortium, the treasure hunter and his team had removed the two hundred and fifty billion dollar windfall only forty-eight hours before the Chinese arrived at the location.

  In a strange twist of fate, after remaining undiscovered for sixty odd years, the last of Yamashita’s massive hoard had been found in quick succession by two treasure hunters: first by Nine and then by the Japanese man.

  The head of the Chinese operation relayed the bad news to his employers at the MSS headquarters in Beijing.

  #

  At roughly the same time in Paris, Cho-Wu entered The Red Dragon Chinese Restaurant. The surly-faced agent was due to meet Lhozang and was expecting to be given his leave from France.

  Cho-Wu, whose dark, sexual fantasies now almost completely dominated his every thought, was looking forward to seeing his psychiatrist in Beijing for some much needed therapy – and to receiving his bonus for the recent trade with Nine.

  Inside the restaurant, diners paid little attention to Cho-Wu as he strolled through the dining area. He descended a flight of stairs to a secret basement which served as an undercover cell. The MSS had relocated to the restaurant’s basement as they’d received word from Beijing that their operation at the Chinese Embassy had been compromised.

  An armed guard stepped aside and Cho-Wu entered the basement. It was a hive of activity as technicians monitored satellite and radar equipment, while other officials sent and received coded messages at computer stations along one wall.

  Cho-Wu walked into the center of the basement where his supervisor, Lhozang, greeted him briefly. Lhozang had been waiting all morning to hear word from his Beijing superiors as to whether or not they had found the last of Yamashita’s Gold. Cho-Wu accepted a cup of traditional green tea served by a waitress who had been seconded from the restaurant upstairs. Before he had a chance to drink from the cup, a loud beep on Lhozang’s computer announced the arrival of an email.

  Lhozang adjusted his spectacles as he opened it. “It’s from Beijing,” he announced. Lhozang squinted while waiting for the email to open. Cho-Wu tapped his fingers impatiently on the table as he awaited the verdict. Finally, Lhozang removed his spectacles and looked up. “No gold was found where the American indicated,” Lhozang said bitterly.

  Cho-Wu's face hardened. He looked at his supervisor in disbelief. Furious, Cho-Wu hurled tables over, sending documents, computers and tea cups flying. Having battled in vain against his sex addiction for almost a week now, he had reached the end of his tether. “I will slay that Changing-Face Dragon!” he swore.

  Only a half hour earlier, Lhozang had received a message relating to the rogue American operative. Another MSS cell in Paris had learned of Isabelle’s cash withdrawal in the café earlier that day and, after studying security camera footage, had been able to identify the hotel where the American and Isabelle were staying.

  Lhozang hadn’t expected they would ever need to focus on the American again, but now that the Philippine operation was back to square one, he was their sole lead. Lhozang handed Cho-Wu a piece of paper with the name and address of the hotel.

  “The American’s at this hotel.”

  Cho-Wu snatched the paper from his superior’s hand and glanced at the address.

  “Squeeze every last bit of information out of him,” Lhozang ordered. “Then terminate him and confiscate whatever documents he has in his possession.”

  Cho-Wu was out the door of the restaurant in less than sixty seconds. He caught a taxi to the other side of Paris then entered the hotel he believed his target was staying at. He wasn’t to know the couple had left only an hour earlier hotly pursued by Kentbridge.

  Inside the hotel, Cho-Wu found the reception counter unattended. He took the stairway to the second floor. Holding a pistol with silencer attached, he strode along the same corridor where Kentbridge had been earlier. The Chinese operative’s eyes flicked left and right as he looked for any telltale sign that could give Nine’s whereabouts away.

  He froze when the hotel’s duty manager walked around a corner just a few paces ahead. The man took one look at the weapon in Cho-Wu's hand and turned to run. Cho-Wu tripped him up and knocked him unconscious with a well-timed Kung Fu blow to the back of the head. He then bundled the duty manager into a broom closet and closed the door on him before calmly resuming his search.

  Cho-Wu entered the nearest room and found the same old man Kentbridge had walked in on earlier. The man was now asleep in the arms of the young hooker. Cho-Wu backed out into the corridor and paused outside the door of Nine's vacated room. Noticing it was ajar, he burst into the room only to find it had been vacated.

  A fluttering curtain drew his attention to the still-open window. He strode over to the window and looked outside. Seeing nothing unusual, he walked through to the bathroom and observed the hole left where Nine had punched the wall.

  Cho-Wu studied the hole thoughtfully. He could sense the Changing-Face Dragon had been in the room not long ago.

  #

  Only minutes after Cho-Wu left the hotel, Isabelle’s father, Monsieur Alleget, arrived with local gendarmes from the Paris Police Department. Like the MSS and Omega before them, the police had also traced Isabelle’s recent whereabouts following her ATM cash withdrawal. As usual, the police were several steps behind the intelligence agencies.

  Monsieur Alleget and the gendarmes realized the same thing Kentbridge and Cho-Wu had before them: they were too late. The gendarmes conducted a cursory search of the room then left the hotel, leaving an increasingly worried Monsieur Alleget alone.

  He searched the entire room more thoroughly than the gendarmes had, but found nothing of Isabelle’s. Before leaving, he had an insight to check under the bed. There, he found the digital camera Nine had purchased for Isabelle while disguised as an Arab.

  Monsieur Alleget hurried down to reception where he downloaded the photos from the camera onto a hotel computer. He was shocked to find Isabelle smiling in some of the photos. He figured her captor must have drugged her.

  The former politician bristled when he saw his daughter was only dressed in her underwear in one of the images. There was also a picture of her in bed with her captor. Monsieur Alleget couldn’t believe it. He was totally perplexed. As he studied the beautiful face of his only child, he felt a lump in his throat.

  The one bit of good news was he now had an image of Isabelle’s abductor – something that the media could broadcast nationwide. As he studied Nine’s undisguised face, Monsieur Alleget swore he’d bring the criminal down.

  #

  The train Nine and Isabelle had boarded two hours earlier was now well out of Paris and trundling south through the Loire Valley. As it approached the city of Orleans, it chugged along the tracks that ran alongside the
River Loire. Although not as fast as the bullet train that used an adjacent track, it was making reasonable time.

  On a motorway alongside the tracks, the white shuttle van Kentbridge had stolen traveled at top speed to keep pace with the train. The senior agent kept one eye on the train and one on the traffic as he drove. He cursed himself for having selected this particular vehicle. The accelerator was flat to the floor and still the van was barely keeping pace with the train. He was thankful his quarry hadn’t caught the bullet train.

  Minutes later, Kentbridge just beat the train into the Orleans Railway Station, its first scheduled stop. As the train pulled in, he waited with others on the platform. The train slowed to a halt and those waiting to board pressed forward. Kentbridge scanned the faces of the passengers in the nearest carriage. He wondered what guise Nine would have adopted.

  The senior agent purchased a ticket from a conductor then waited until the last second to board the train. It wasn’t until it started to pull away that he jumped on board, satisfied his quarry had not disembarked. As he did so, he caught sight of his own reflection. He was racking his brains regarding his next disguise. He knew he needed something convincing to be able to get close to Nine.

  33

  Inside his private compartment near the back of the train, Nine was unaware Kentbridge was on board. His attention was focused on his own reflection in a wall mirror as he donned a new disguise.

  Isabelle sat nearby watching the transformation taking place. Nine had told her they were going to Marseille and from there they would go on a journey on a yacht. After that, he’d assured her, he would free her. Isabelle believed him. What she didn’t realize was the journey Nine referred to would be to the other side of the world and he planned to free her on his island which was separated from the nearest living person by fifty miles of ocean.