The Ninth Orphan (36 page)

Nine continued to stare at her accusingly. Seventeen’s face filled with horror as she considered her brother’s words then quickly shook her head as if to dismiss them. Nine’s gaze was unwavering though.

Worried he was telling the truth, Seventeen thought hard for a second. She began shaking as small fragments of Kentbridge’s death came to her. Seventeen stared back down at Nine with a look of utter shock. Slowly, she removed her boot from his throat.

Nine sensed his sister must have killed Kentbridge while under the spell of MK-Ultra. His feelings toward her slowly shifted from loathing to forgiveness. He understood what had caused Seventeen’s violent actions. Her motivations were no different to those that had motivated him to kill over the years.

He looked up at Seventeen in a new light. “The hatred you feel for me should be directed toward our Omega bosses instead.”

Seventeen nodded as the truth behind Nine’s words registered. She began to cry as she thought of what she’d done to Kentbridge. As they stared knowingly into each other’s eyes, the two siblings seemed to connect for a millisecond.

In that brief moment, they both felt they were beyond the Omega Agency’s reach. Beyond the regime that had dominated every aspect of their lives. Whether it was a case of blood being thicker than water, or something else, neither could say, but for the first time in their lives neither Nine nor Seventeen felt anything but compassion toward each other.

Seventeen tensed as she heard police sirens in the distance. Her eyes grew cold and her posture instantly reverted back to its usual rigid state as her old training habits kicked in. She started to walk briskly away from the approaching sirens and from her brother.

Nine pushed himself to his feet slowly. “You need to wake up, Jennifer!” he shouted after her.

Seventeen slowed momentarily at the sound of her real name. It was the first time Nine had used it since they were teenagers.

“
You’re a robot, just like I was,” Nine shouted

Seventeen glanced back at him before hurrying from the park.

Hearing the police sirens drawing closer, Nine’s first instinct was to run. Instead, he steeled himself and walked back toward the hospital. The police cars sped past him. None of their occupants took any notice of him. They’d been told to look for an armed woman who was threatening a man.

Nine now knew for sure he was truly free. Seventeen had been looking for the slightest opportunity to blow him away all these years. The fact that she hadn’t terminated him confirmed his blackmail of Naylor had worked. The back of his neck ached where Seventeen had hit him, his throat hurt where she’d stood on it and his face was bruised from where he’d hit the ground, but he didn’t care. He was free.

The former operative nodded slowly to himself as his freedom sunk in. He stopped walking for a second, braced himself then continued purposefully on his way, mindful he really was a free man.

54

T
hree days later, in Montparnasse, Paris, Isabelle looked at her reflection in a bathroom mirror. She was in the house of her long-time family doctor and former close friend of her father, Doc Pichegru. The now retired doctor had been looking after Isabelle since Omega had released and returned her to Paris.

Studying her eyes and features in the mirror, Isabelle
felt like she was observing a stranger. Although still beautiful, she looked slightly more aged and world-weary now. She also noticed some lines that weren’t there before.

In a way she wasn
’
t surprised by this sudden physical transformation as she felt like she
’
d undergone a metamorphosis from when she
’
d innocently photographed Nine in Paris. Back then, she was just another trusting person who was engrossed in herself and her work. She felt older and wiser now, yet emotionally wounded. She also felt she
’
d lost something: her innocence. That had been replaced by feelings of skepticism and mistrust.

Doc Pichegru had told her she could look forward to a full recovery, physically at least, but Isabelle knew the trauma she’d experienced would always remain with her. She tried to suppress her feelings of grief as she thought of her parents and the manner in which they’d died. It was just too painful.

Today was the day of her parents’ funeral, something she’d been dreading.

Isabelle fingered the ruby hanging from the silver necklace Nine had given her before he’d departed from her life.

#

Isabelle and Doc Pichegru were among a dozen or so mourners who attended the graveside funeral service for the Allegets. It was a private funeral at a small Catholic cemetery in the 7
^th
District of Paris. The number of mourners would have been much higher, but Isabelle had requested a private service so the media wouldn’t turn up. Fortunately, her plan had worked and the media didn’t get wind of the funeral’s location.

Isabelle leaned on Doc Pichegru for support as the eulogies were delivered.
She sobbed as she remembered the wonderful times she
’
d had with her parents.

When the eulogies and prayers ended, preparations were made to lower the coffins into the adjoining graves. This was the moment Isabelle had been dreading. She wanted to rush forward and throw herself, screaming, onto the coffins. Sensing her inner torment, Doc Pichegru held her tight. Isabelle could only cry silently as her parents were lowered to their final resting places.

After the graves were filled in and the mourners began to disperse, Isabelle turned to Doc Pichegru. “I think I will stay here for a while. You go on home.” Sensing the doctor’s concern for her wellbeing, she added, “I’ll be alright.”

The doctor kissed her forehead. “God bless, my dear.” He walked slowly back along the tree-lined path toward his waiting car.

Alone at last, Isabelle paid a personal tribute to her parents. As she knelt beside their graves, she finally gave in to her grief and cried aloud.

Isabelle wasn’t totally alone. She didn’t realize it, but she was being observed by Nine. He’d been hiding in the nearby trees since the funeral service had started. His face was still bruised – a reminder of his recent run-in with Seventeen.

Since securing his freedom, and Isabelle's, the former operative had been consumed by the need to find her. He'd been able to think of nothing else.

Nine assessed her physical condition. He could see she still wasn
’
t her old self, but appeared to be in good shape considering what she
’
d been through.

As he continued to observe Isabelle, his heart went out to her. He knew she had suffered enormously, and it was all because of him. She had well and truly been caught in the crossfire – as had her parents. Crossfire that was meant for him. He worried she may blame him for the death of her parents.

Having never felt attached to a woman before, Nine was unsure how she would feel toward him now. He just hoped the spark of love he’d once seen in her eyes could be rekindled.

#

Isabelle never knew how long she spent beside her parents’ graves. In her grief, time seemed to stand still.

Almost incongruously, glorious sunshine broke through the clouds just as light rain began to fall. Isabelle turned her face to the sun. Rain drops mingled with the tears on her face. She pulled herself away from the graves and walked slowly toward the nearest exit.

Nine watched her, unobserved, from the trees as she neared his hiding place. As soon as she walked by, he stepped out behind her. Isabelle stopped, as if sensing his presence. She turned around and stared at him in disbelief.
They looked at each other for several seconds, each trying to gauge the other's feelings.

Nine was first to break the silence.
“
I
’
m sorry. For everything,
”
he ventured.

Isabelle looked
at him coolly. The former operative approached her hesitantly and stopped a yard short. The exotic beauty gave no clue to her feelings. Nine noticed she wore his mother
’
s ruby necklace.

“
Why did you return to me?
”
Isabelle suddenly asked.

Nine reached out and touched the ruby.
“
Because without you I
’
d always be invisible,
”
he whispered.

A feeling of happiness merged with the grief in Isabelle's heart. Still she gave no outward sign of how she felt. Nine searched her eyes with his, seeking some clue to her feelings toward him.

At last, she smiled and fell into his arms.
He held her tightly, enjoying the familiar feel of her soft body against his. Her strong feminine scent filled his nostrils.

They kissed. It was a long, heartfelt kiss.

Nine stepped back and admired her. “You're the only thing that matters to me now.”
H
e pulled her to him again and tenderly kissed her forehead.

The pair clung to each other as if their lives depended on it. Now, both were effectively orphans and each was the other’s entire world.

Epilogue

A
profusion of colorful, tropical birds soared above the cliffs of a remote island a thousand miles north east of Tahiti. Their squawks were all but drowned out by the constant boom of waves crashing against the rocks far below.

The island was one of the many that made up the savage and mysterious Marquesas Islands, that most northerly of archipelagos in French Polynesia. Its unprotected lava cliffs rose abruptly from the vastness of the sparkling Pacific Ocean – a result of huge undersea volcanic eruptions millions of years earlier.

A solitary man stood on the cliff top looking out to sea. It was Nine. He was dwarfed by the vastness of sea and sky whose horizons seemed to merge into one never-ending expanse of blue.

Suntanned and wearing only shorts and sandshoes, he looked totally relaxed. Here, on his own island, he could be himself. The former operative no longer needed to pretend to be someone else. 

As he took in his surroundings, Nine felt at peace for the first time in his life. He turned around and breathed in the tropical air as he studied the island’s interior. From here, it was easy to see why the island had been named Vahine, meaning
woman
, by early Polynesian explorers: its mountainous skyline resembled the contours of a woman’s body. He found it comforting he’d found his freedom in such a place.

Leaving the cliff top, he followed a rocky trail down into a lush valley that ran between the island’s two rain-forested mountains. The grassy valley was fringed by palm trees, adding to the tropical atmosphere. As he walked, he thought to himself how good it was to be alive.

It had been several months since he’d negotiated his freedom with Naylor at the Bilderberg Conference in Cornwall. After leaving Paris, he’d flown to Tahiti where he’d purchased a yacht and sailed to Vahine.

Although he didn’t need to hide from anyone anymore, Nine had opted to retire to his island hideaway regardless. Living off the interest from his one hundred million dollar nest egg, he planned to spend the remainder of his days on Vahine.

While he’d been settling into island life, a lot had happened back in the US. Naylor had been appointed to the post of CIA Director only weeks after attending the Bilderberg Conference. Along with securing the last of Yamashita’s Gold, Naylor’s enhanced power accelerated the Omega Agency’s New World Order agenda.

Some of the more independent thinkers in the media had compared Naylor’s unexpected rise to the top of the CIA ladder to fellow Bilderbergers Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Both of whom had speedy ascensions to the White House and caught many political analysts by surprise.

On the surface at least, there were similarities to Naylor’s appointment. While still a little known Governor of Arkansas, Clinton had attended his first Bilderberg Conference in Germany in 1991; the following year he’d easily won the US Presidential Election. Obama’s meteoric rise to the top had been even more spectacular and also followed a secretive Bilderberg Conference
in Chantilly, Virginia.

How Naylor had secured the top job within the CIA didn’t matter, though. The point was the Omega Agency now had one of their own in a major position of power. Their next target was to get an Omega man or woman to the very top of the White House.

Seventeen, meanwhile, had tried to flee the Omega Agency, just as Nine had. She hadn’t succeeded however, and was soon captured by Naylor who placed her in a new mind control program so he could continue to manipulate her.
Naylor planned to keep her indefinitely as his mistress.

The sad thing was Seventeen would remain completely unaware she was being exploited, such were the ramifications of the insidious mind control programs.

None of that mattered to Nine, though. Living on Vahine, he might as well have been on another planet. To his surprise, he rarely even thought about the world he’d left behind. He’d come to realize there was something about French Polynesia that encouraged its residents to take the time to smell the flowers and think less.