The Orphan Uprising (The Orphan Trilogy, #3)

by James Morcan

  Nine thought it was appropriate in a ghoulish kind of way that Eighteen had been killed by an explosion: he recalled the operative had once boasted he’d lost count of the number of people he’d killed using explosive devices.

  The former operative hurried to check on the other body. One of the rebels, a scar-faced Angolan, was already standing over it.

  “This one’s dead, too,” the Angolan said.

  Nine saw at a glance he’d been right the first time. It was Twelve. The twelfth-born orphan’s face was unscathed, but flying shrapnel had carved a large hole in his chest and there was only metal where his heart had once been.

  Twelve’s unmarked face looked innocent in death. Looking down at him, Nine had to remind himself he was looking at the operative who, arguably, had more kills to his name than any of Omega’s operatives. Nine recalled his good friend Ten had told him Twelve was rumored to have terminated fifty-three targets. That had been six years earlier. God knows how many he killed since then. Nine guessed there had been many more.

  The sound of running feet alerted the raiders to the presence of others on the ground floor. A bald Congolese rebel snuck a quick look around the corner of a corridor and saw three armed men running toward a stairwell at the far end of the building. He let off a burst of gunfire from his AK-47 in their direction before they disappeared downstairs. The bald rebel didn’t know it, but the three were the surviving Omega operatives.

  Thirteen had made the decision to relocate to the next defensive position – on the floor below – as soon as he’d realized he and his fellow operatives were up against some serious firepower. He hadn’t bargained on facing grenades and AK-47’s. Rather, he’d assumed – as had Naylor – that Nine would try to infiltrate the lab building on his own, just as he did in Thule. This was something else altogether.

  On the ground floor, Nine and his companions began a room-to-room sweep of the floor to root out any other opposition and commence their search for Francis and the other children. They found the floor deserted. Anyone who may have been working the night shift had obviously fled as soon as the shooting started. Nine guessed they would be holed up in the admin building opposite.

  Nor was there any sign of any of the children or any other experimental subjects thought to be interned in the building. That was no surprise either as the confidential files Nine had uplifted showed the ground floor was purely an admin floor, and the labs and the lab’s subjects were accommodated on the two levels below ground.

  The sound of continued gunfire and explosions outside told the men the fire-fight was continuing. From inside the building, there was no way of knowing if Lusambo’s rebels were holding their own.

  The three rebels with Nine then conferred on their next move. Nine noted the Angolan and the young Congolese rebel deferred to the bald rebel. He was older than them and seemed a natural leader.

  Using hand signs, the bald rebel motioned to Nine and the young Congolese to descend to the next floor via the stairwell at the rear of the building. Baldie and the Angolan ran back to a stairwell they’d noticed near the front of the building.

  The strategy made sense to Nine. They would access the floor below from opposite ends of the building and trap any hostiles between them.

  As Nine and the young rebel descended the stairs, the former operative glanced at his watch. He saw twenty minutes had elapsed since the shooting started at the refinery. Lusambo had warned that the refinery would alert the authorities in Kindu as soon as the attack began. Armed reinforcements would be mobilized within twenty minutes and it would only take them another thirty minutes to reach the refinery by road. If the captain was right, Nine realized they had another thirty minutes before their escape route would be sealed off.

  Nearing the bottom of the stairs, the former operative thought he saw a shadow flit across the floor just beyond the bottom step. There it is again! This time it was more discernible. The shadow was that of a man holding an automatic weapon. It was now motionless. Nine flashed a warning sign to the young rebel who hadn’t yet seen the danger.

  The gunman obviously wasn’t one of the other rebels. Nine calculated there hadn’t been enough time for Baldie or the Angolan to have reached this end of the building.

  Noting the corridor’s walls were concrete, the former operative silently stepped to his right and aimed his machine pistol at the far wall at an angle that was close to forty-five degrees. He planned to fire a burst from his machine pistol and hope a ricochet would hit the target.

  Nine aimed and fired a long, sustained burst. His plan worked. At least one bullet ricocheted and struck the gunman – not fatally but sufficient to drop him. Before the gunman could recover, Nine was onto him, shooting him dead with another burst.

  The gunman lay face-down on the floor. Nine rolled him over onto his back and immediately saw it was yet another fellow orphan-operative. Four! As with most of the orphans, Nine had never been close to the fourth-born orphan. However, he recalled spending many an hour playing chess with him at the orphanage. He also recalled that Four was the only orphan who could sometimes beat him at chess.

  Gunfire and shouting from the other end of the floor startled Nine and his companion. It sounded as though a full-blown firefight was underway. The shooting intensified as the pair moved cautiously toward the sounds of conflict. Then silence. The pair quickened their pace. Before they’d gone far, the faint sound of crying children reached them.

  The corridor they followed took them past labs and medical facilities – all unoccupied and apparently vacated in a hurry not that long ago. They came across a staff cafeteria where half-full mugs of still-steaming coffee and plates of uneaten food indicated the diners had also departed hurriedly.

  Nine and the young rebel hesitated as they came to yet another corridor. A sign at its entrance read: Children’s Quarters: Authorized personnel only. The sound of crying children was louder here. Some of them were screaming.

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  Nine could imagine how terrifying the continuing gunfire and explosions would be for any child. He was sorely tempted to check the quarters immediately, but he knew it was important to ensure the floor had been cleared of hostile forces first.

  The former operative and the young Congolese rebel ran to the stairwell at the front of the building. As they proceeded, passing more labs, they noticed the sounds of conflict from outside had quieted. Nine hoped that meant Lusambo’s rebels had gained the upper hand.

  Before they reached the stairwell, they found three bodies whose number included Baldie and the Angolan. All three were riddled with bullet holes.

  The Congolese rebel checked to ensure his comrades were dead. However, Nine was more interested in the third body. The gunman was lying on his back. He’d flung his arm across his face – his final act – so his identity was momentarily concealed. Nine reached down and pulled the man’s arm away from his face.

  The former operative recognized the man immediately. It was Twenty Two. Nine had clear recollections of clashing with him during their many Teleiotes sessions in the Pedemont Orphanage’s gym. He remembered Twenty Two as one of the toughest orphans.

  A noise alerted the pair to the approach of others descending the stairs. They waited, weapons at the ready, for whoever it was to arrive.

  “Mai Mai!” someone shouted, using the mission’s agreed codename.

  Nine thought the voice was Lusambo’s.

  “Mai Mai!” the young rebel responded.

  Lusambo appeared. He was accompanied by two other rebels. The signs of conflict were visible on all three. Their faces and uniforms were blood-flecked, and Lusambo himself had sustained a flesh wound in his left leg. Blood flowed from the wound, which appeared to be just above his knee and which made walking difficult.

  The captain scanned the three bodies on the floor then conferred with Nine’s young companion in Swahili. Nine understood most of what Lusambo was saying. It seemed the captain’s rebels had secured the grounds around the refinery with the
loss of five lives and another seven wounded. The two rebels lying at his feet lifted the militia’s death toll to seven. Nine also deduced that most of the refinery’s guards had holed up in the nearby admin building, but they were safely contained for the moment.

  Lusambo turned to Nine. “Are there children on this floor?”

  “Yes,” Nine said. “A lot, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Lusambo ordered the two rebels he’d brought with him to return upstairs to prevent enemy forces gaining access to the elevator or stairwells. Then he, Nine and the young rebel began a room-to-room search of the floor they were on, secure in the knowledge someone was watching their backs.

  As was the case on the floor above, there were no staff members. They’d all fled.

  The search took the trio to the corridor leading to the children’s quarters. It opened up into a maze of large rooms that could best be described as barracks – not too dissimilar to the sleeping quarters Nine had accessed at the medical lab at Thule. It was the same chamber of horrors as at Thule, only worse. The young inmates of this facility appeared to have been exposed to the same type of bizarre scientific experiments, but over a longer period.

  All the children had been wakened by the firefight, and were highly distressed. The sight of strangers bearing arms in their midst caused even more distress.

  Nine estimated there could be fifty children on this floor alone. He glanced at Lusambo. The captain was grim-faced. The photos hadn’t prepared them for what they were seeing in the flesh. They recoiled at the sight of children displaying the most grotesque deformities imaginable. A once pretty, young girl had the facial features of a Neanderthal while a little boy was covered from head to foot in long hair. Worse was to come.

  As the trio went from room to room, the two rebels constantly referred to the photos of the children they’d come to rescue, looking for a match.

  Nine didn’t need to do that. He was solely interested in finding his son. Desperate to locate Francis, he began shouting the boy’s name. “Francis! Francis!” There was no answer. He ran ahead of the others, checking on the children in each room. As he went, he showed Francis’ photo to children, asking them if they’d seen him. None had.

  Behind him, Lusambo gave a shout of joy. “Sonny!” He’d recognized his nephew.

  Then, in another room, the young rebel uttered a shout of recognition. He’d found a young girl who was the spitting image of a girl in one of the photos.

  By now, Nine had already determined that Francis wasn’t on this floor. He’d checked every room and was becoming increasingly desperate for some sign that his son was here. Without waiting for his companions, he raced for the stairwell leading down to the next floor.

  As he descended the stairs, Nine didn’t give any thought to the possibility he could encounter more resistance. It hadn’t occurred to him that Naylor would have sent more than four elite operatives to stop one ailing, over-the-hill, former operative whose best days were most certainly behind him. All he could think about was finding Francis.

  So it was a shock when a dark, muscular figure launched itself at him at the bottom of the stairs. Nine was quick enough to avoid the wickedly sharp blade that had been meant for his throat, but too slow to avoid the karate punch that knocked him to the floor and sent his machine pistol flying from his grasp.

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  Thirteen had opted to kill Nine silently rather than use his machine pistol and advertise his presence to one and all. Suspecting his fellow operatives had all been killed, the Polynesian operative didn’t fancy his chances of fighting his way out of the building on his own. Not with so many Mai Mai rebels to contend with. Hence the decision to use his knife.

  Though stunned, Nine had the presence of mind to roll over and over as soon as he hit the floor. That action saved his life. Thirteen had launched himself at Nine a second time, intent on finishing him quickly. His flashing blade missed its target again, striking the floor and jarring his wrist. He grunted in pain and cursed his fellow orphan.

  Only now, as he jumped to his feet, did Nine recognize his attacker. “Thirteen!”

  The Polynesian’s eyes seemed glazed over and only registered fleeting recognition of the former operative. Nine identified the symptoms immediately. MK-Ultra! He’d seen the same glazed-over look in the eyes of Three and Fourteen when he’d clashed with them in Greenland, and in Seventeen’s eyes before that.

  In the precious seconds he’d bought himself, Nine had drawn his hunting knife from its sheath. He awaited Thirteen’s next assault.

  Breathing hard, the two orphans began warily circling each other, knives extended.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” Thirteen said.

  “You shouldn’t have tried to stop me rescuing my son.”

  Thirteen came at Nine, his blade flashing. Nine was forced to back-peddle before the onslaught. His head was still fuzzy from the initial attack and he desperately tried to clear it while parrying his opponent’s blows.

  Nine didn’t see the knife-thrust that caught him. The blade sliced through his right shoulder, causing him to drop his knife. Crying out in pain, he automatically placed his left hand over the wound to prevent the blood from gushing out.

  Thirteen followed up with a ju-jitsu style kick that felled Nine. As he prepared to finish the former operative off, a shot rang out and Thirteen fell to the floor, mortally wounded.

  At first, Nine wasn’t sure where the shot had come from. Then he saw the young Congolese rebel. Lusambo had sent him to assist after he’d seen his client run downstairs. The rebel was preparing to shoot Thirteen dead. “No!” Nine shouted.

  Pushing himself painfully to his knees, Nine moved over to Thirteen. Blood was trickling from the operative’s nose and mouth, and he was struggling to breath. It appeared he’d been shot thorough the lungs.

  Nine cradled Thirteen’s head in his hands. Blood from his shoulder wound dripped down onto the dying operative’s face. “Where’s my son?” he asked.

  “Your son’s not here,” Thirteen gasped as his life rapidly faded.

  “Where is he?” Nine was becoming desperate. He could see Thirteen was barely alive. Don’t die on me now, you son of a bitch! He shouted, “Where is he, man?”

  Thirteen seemed to rally, as if making a conscious effort to communicate with another human being one last time. “At Omega’s lab in Nevada,” he whispered. His words were so faint, Nine had to put his ear close to his fellow orphan’s mouth to hear.

  “Where in Nevada?”

  The light in Thirteen’s eyes began to fade.

  “Where in Nevada?” Nine shouted. Stay with me! He shook his fellow orphan.

  “At Omega’s new laboratory…at…Nellis…Air Force…Base.” Thirteen exhaled one last time as his life expired. His final breath was accompanied by frothy, reddish-pink spittle that settled on his lips and chin.

  Nine was left looking at Thirteen in disbelief. He was having trouble coming to grips with what he’d just heard. If the Polynesian operative had told the truth, Omega had sent Francis to a new secret lab at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada – a facility Naylor hadn’t mentioned and a facility that hadn’t shown up in the confidential files Nine had accessed at Naylor’s residence.

  The former operative looked up the young Congolese rebel. His bemused expression indicated he hadn’t a clue what was going on.

  Nine didn’t know it, but of all the operatives he could have questioned about Francis’ whereabouts, Thirteen was the only one who knew. While Naylor had made a point of not divulging which Omega lab the boy had been sent to, for some reason known only to himself the Polynesian operative had made it his business to find out.

  Nine was suddenly possessed with the need to find out if Thirteen had been telling the truth. Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, he pushed himself to his feet, recovered his fallen machine pistol and embarked on a desperate search of the floor he was now on.

  The bottom floor was a virtual replica of the floor above. More barra
cks-like rooms accommodated another fifty or so kids. All were African. Francis wasn’t among them. Nor did any of them recognize Francis from the photo Nine showed them.

  By now, the former operative was so despondent he felt like shooting himself. Shouts of alarm from a nearby room distracted him. He ran to investigate.

  The young rebel had found half a dozen lab scientists and other staffers huddled together in a small office. They’d left their flight from the lab building too late to escape the gunfire that erupted after the rebels attacked so had opted to hide out on the bottom floor in the hope they’d remain undiscovered.

  By the time Nine arrived, the staffers were cowering in fear before the young rebel who looked like he was ready to shoot them. Nine deliberately didn’t do or say anything to alleviate their fears. Instead, he grabbed a middle-aged, female scientist and held his pistol to her head. “What’s your name?”

  “Madeleine Swindell,” the frightened woman stammered. Her eyes swivelled from the pistol Nine held to the blood that now soaked his shirt and back to the pistol.

  Nine noted her accent was American. He held the photo of Francis up to her face. “Have you seen this boy?”

  Madeleine shook her head. “No.”

  “Are you sure he’s not here? His name is Francis Hannar and he’s my son.” He glared at Madeleine as if he held her personally responsible for his son’s welfare. “Well?”

  “I’m sure. He’s not here.”

  Nine showed the photo to the other staffers for the same result. Damn it! Thirteen was telling the truth. The sinking feeling he’d experienced earlier returned tenfold. He pushed Madeleine back over to the others. “Where’s the database of this facility’s inmates?”

  The staffers looked at him blankly.

  “Patients!” Nine snapped. “Where can I find the database of your patients?”

  “In the IT room on the ground floor,” a senior scientist said.

  Nine looked at the man’s name tag. It read: Professor Michael Lindsay. “Take me there, professor,” Nine said, motioning with his pistol for the man to lead him to the IT room.