by James Morcan
Intrigued, Helen watched the pair go through their impressive Teleiotes routines. She took photos of them and made notes in her shorthand notepad for the planned article in her university newspaper.
Although Nine was under orders to complete the tour and get the visitor on her way double-quick, he was content to allow her some more time. They’d started on the ground floor, visiting all the facilities, including reception and the well-stocked library and kitchen. All the facilities except the basement, that is. It automatically sealed off whenever it was not in use or when the building’s sophisticated surveillance cameras detected any outsiders on the premises. The kitchen and library were being used by other orphans, and Nine was able to personally introduce Helen to them, albeit by their adopted monikers. He’d also shown her the orphans’ sleeping quarters – now partitioned off into male and female quarters – on the floor above, and there, too, he was able to introduce her to more orphans.
In the course of the tour, Helen also met Doctor Andrews, Nurse Hilda and other staffers. Orphans and staff alike were well versed and pre-rehearsed in presenting a normal front to any visitor not part of the Omega Agency. Nurse Hilda was introduced as the orphanage’s receptionist and Doctor Andrews as its chef.
Helen was impressed by everything she’d seen so far. The Pedemont Orphanage was exactly what she expected an orphanage would be like, even if the décor looked a little dated and rundown. At least it was in keeping with the neighborhood.
Nine glanced at his watch. “Well, that’s really all there is to our humble abode.”
“What’s on the floor above?” Helen asked as she snapped another photo.
“Nothing, just admin offices and storage rooms.”
Helen nodded toward the two orphans who were still training on the far side of the gym. “Why the martial arts?”
“Tommy, I mean Mister Kentbridge, has a military background.”
Sensing Helen may have picked up something unusual, Nine flashed a subtle signal with one finger to his fellow orphans. Helen didn’t notice it, but Fourteen did. He immediately toned down the aggression. Following his lead, Eleven stopped using any of her advanced fighting skills. Their sparring now resembled boxing more than Teleiotes.
“Mister Kentbridge is a stickler for discipline. He believes martial arts will give us the discipline we need to succeed in life.”
“That’s interesting.” Helen replied absentmindedly. “I’m sure he’s right about that.” She continued to look around the gym, almost as if she were seeking a clue to something she couldn’t yet put her finger on.
#
In his office on the floor above the gym, a concerned Kentbridge monitored the conversation taking place between Helen and Nine courtesy of the microphones and cameras that were concealed in the gym. He studied the pair on his laptop monitor.
Helen now appeared to have her investigative reporter’s hat on and was formally interviewing Nine. “Is martial arts training compulsory for all the orphans?” Her voice came through the laptop speakers loud and clear.
“Not really. We all have different interests,” Nine lied.
Kentbridge used his mouse to zoom in on Helen’s face. Her expression was all business. The special agent worried she was getting a little too inquisitive. He then zoomed in on Nine.
“Anything else?” Nine asked his visitor.
Kentbridge grew more anxious.
C’mon Sebastian, move the bitch along and show her the front door.
#
Five minutes later, Nine was still patiently answering Helen’s questions. None were especially probing or intrusive and the orphan was more relaxed, confident his guest was not suspicious of anything. Even so, he was conscious of the need to wind things up. “Is that everything you need for your article?”
“I think so, thanks.”
Nine turned to leave, but noticed Helen had hesitated. “What?”
His ex studied him for a moment, as if trying to comprehend, or recall, something. “Last night,” she said, “I was thinking back to our time in Los Angeles.”
“That was so long ago,” Nine said dismissively.
“It was. But I wanted to clarify one thing.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“How did you know Bill Clinton would become President?”
Nine was surprised she remembered that prediction. At the time, he recalled she was certain he was mentally unstable. “Did I say that?”
“Yes. You predicted it and you told me to remember what you said. And at the time Clinton was not even one of the leading candidates within the Democratic Party.”
“I think some political analysts were already predicting he could--”
“I checked the dates online last night,” Helen interjected. “In early Nineteen Ninety Two, Clinton wasn’t even a serious contender for the presidency let alone a frontrunner. Bill was already considered a womanizer and the Wall Street Journal wrote an article saying he creatively dodged the Vietnam War draft. The guy was a real long shot when you made that prediction, Luke.”
Nine could feel himself starting to perspire. He subconsciously glanced up at the ceiling where he knew one of the hidden cameras was located.
“So honestly,” Helen asked, “how could you have predicted something like that?”
“I don’t even remember saying it. Must’ve been a lucky guess. Anyway, I was delusional at the time and on all kinds of meds, remember?”
“I remember. But if that were all there was to it, why did the FBI get involved?”
Nine was rapidly starting to realize he’d underestimated Helen’s intelligence. She had deciphered considerably more than he, or Kentbridge, had expected her to. And worse, he could see by the steely look in her eyes that she wasn’t going to let up.
Damn, she’s like a dog with a bone.
The orphan steeled himself for more of the same.
“I saw the FBI emblem on the vehicle that took you away,” Helen said.
Nine just shrugged as if to say there was nothing to the incident she referred to. He was anxious not to be misquoted, or quoted for that matter, so remained mute.
Helen continued, “It’s only now that I’m an adult that I can look back at all the things that happened with you. In hindsight, I find them highly unusual to put it mildly.”
The interview was interrupted by the arrival of Kentbridge. Nine saw he was puffing slightly, indicating he’d raced down from the floor above.
“Luke,” Kentbridge said as soon as he saw Nine. “The staff member from UCLA is here to see you.” His tone sounded urgent.
“Thank you, sir.” A relieved Nine turned back to Helen. “Sorry to cut our interview short, but my interviewer from UCLA’s Program for the Underprivileged is here.” Nine wasn’t even sure UCLA had such a program, but it sounded convincing. He smiled at Helen to diffuse the tension that had arisen seemingly from nowhere. “This is my chance to go back to California to study.”
“By all means. Go ahead, Luke. And thanks.”
Still smiling, Nine shook her hand then hurried off, leaving Kentbridge to complete Helen’s tour of the orphanage.
63
Kentbridge worked back late that evening, and for good reason: Helen had him worried. There was a knock at his office door. “Come in!”
Nine entered. “You wanted to see me again?”
“Shut the door,” the special agent said, motioning Nine to take a seat opposite.
The orphan sat down, resigned to yet another grilling. This would be the third meeting they’d had since Helen had left the orphanage earlier on. Such was the concern Kentbridge had over the journalism student’s visit.
“I thought the Katsarakis girl had accepted the explanations you and I gave her,” Kentbridge said. “Seemed to me she believed nothing untoward is going on here, but I have just this minute received intelligence that she’s--”
“You had her trailed?”
Kentbridge waved one hand angrily. “Sebastian, she was snooping aro
und the front gate at dusk taking more photos of the orphanage and surrounds. She also interviewed residents of her former apartment building behind us.”
Nine’s mind was in overdrive as the special agent listed his concerns. Like Kentbridge, he knew that one inquisitive journalist could threaten Omega’s invisibility and jeopardize everything the Pedemont Project had set out to achieve. What made it worse was Helen wasn’t just any old journalist. She was a student reporter unconnected to any of the mainstream media outlets – outlets Omega could usually control as a result of the moles the agency had planted in their midst. No, Helen and her university newspaper could not be bought or controlled. She was a free agent, able to investigate whatever took her fancy, and The Daily Illini newspaper was free to publish whatever it wanted to.
Kentbridge slid a file over his desk to the orphan. “This is some of what our intelligence department has sent through.”
Nine opened the file and saw photographs of Helen conducting her investigation around Riverdale. Using mind photography, the technique that allowed him and the other orphans to read a page per second, Nine digested the file’s contents almost instantaneously. Reaching the last page, he saw Helen’s Chicago street address had been underlined with a red pen.
Seconds passed as Kentbridge allowed time for the significance of that to sink in. Nine soon worked out what his mentor wanted him to do.
“If you can’t throw her off the trail, somebody else will take matters into their own hand,” Kentbridge said ominously.
“Naylor?”
Kentbridge nodded. “He’s navigating a difficult situ right now. This agency is on the brink and we don’t have the resources or time to tip-toe around some busybody reporter. The boss is in no mood to show mercy right now, if you get my drift.”
Nine got the drift at once. If Helen remained a problem, Naylor wouldn’t hesitate to order one of his operatives to organize an unfortunate accident.
Kentbridge stood up, signaling the meeting was over. “Fix this,” he said. “Otherwise someone will be feeding her body to the pigs on some farm in Nowhereville.”
Nine left the office in no doubt what fate awaited Helen if he didn’t convince her to drop her plans to write about the orphanage. As he slowly walked back downstairs with the file on his former girlfriend under his arm, the orphan contemplated the best way to scare her off and protect her at the same time.
64
Nine parked the late model Lexus he was driving outside Helen’s residence, an apartment building on North Ogden Avenue, in the Near West Side, not far from the University of Illinois’ Chicago campus. He’d driven straight there from his meeting with Kentbridge.
The Lexus was one of half a dozen unmarked Omega Agency vehicles available for the use of the Pedemont orphans. As Nine switched off the ignition, he glanced at the dashboard clock. It read: 11.03PM. Despite the lateness of the hour, the lights in Helen’s fifth floor apartment were still on. The orphan hoped she was alone.
In less than a minute, Nine re-read the file Omega’s intelligence division had compiled to bring himself fully up-to-date with the Greek-American student’s life. It included such detail as her phone and credit card records, her father’s current place of work and residence, and equally detailed information on her fiancé Caleb and her lecturer at the university’s School of Journalism.
At that same time, alone inside her small apartment, a somber Helen was watching television. Stretched out on a leather couch and wearing only a red singlet and orange cotton pants, she paid little attention to the sitcom that screened. Her mind was far away. In New York to be precise – for that was where Caleb was.
Soon after arriving home from the Pedemont Orphanage, Helen had received a disturbing phone call from a friend who claimed she had seen Caleb fraternizing with a young woman in a Manhattan restaurant. The young woman happened to be his former girlfriend. According to the source, the couple were acting like they were much more than just good friends.
Helen, who had been trying to reach Caleb all evening, picked up her phone and dialed his number yet again. As before, there was no reply. She was beginning to fear the worst, imagining all sorts of things. This was not how she envisaged her engagement would be.
Given the reliability of her source, she was now certain Caleb was cheating on her. Furious, she hurled the phone across the room, ripping the cord out from its wall socket in the process. She cried briefly, but pulled herself together before the floodgates could open.
The young student refused to let any man affect her like that. Then and there, she decided she would end the engagement as soon as she could reach Caleb.
Determined to put her relationship troubles out of her mind, she switched off the television and studied photographs of the Pedemont Orphanage that she’d left scattered over the coffee table before her. Alongside these were her notes on the orphanage and library books she’d borrowed on secret societies and political conspiracies.
Just as she began to get her mind back into her research, there was a loud knock at the door, causing her to jump. She wondered who could be calling unannounced at such a late hour. A glance at the conspiracy books on her coffee table caused a few paranoid thoughts to race through her mind. Dismissing these, she walked to the door and looked through its peephole. She was relieved, and surprised, to see it was Nine, or Luke as she knew him, and opened the door.
Nine could tell Helen was upset as soon as her saw her. It was obvious she’d been crying. For some reason, that made her look all the more beautiful to him, just as it had when he’d seen her crying through his binoculars in Riverdale all those years earlier. “Can I come in?”
“Sure.” Helen stood aside to let him enter. “But what are you doing here?”
“There’s some stuff I need to tell you.”
Helen closed the door and led her unexpected visitor into the lounge.
As he scanned the interior of the apartment, Nine noticed the phone on the floor and saw it had been ripped out of its socket. “Is everything alright?”
“No, I mean, yes.” Helen replied uncertainly. “Well, it’s been a long day.” There was an awkward pause. “I can’t reach my fiancé and I’m not sure what he’s up to.” She immediately regretted giving that away, and wasn’t even sure why she’d said it.
Helen’s fragile state flagged to Nine that problems had suddenly developed between the engaged couple. He even wondered if the relationship was already over. Wishful thinking? The Machiavellian side of him hoped it was over, or in trouble at least.
“Sit down,” Helen said.
The couch was the only place to sit, so Nine sat at one end of it while Helen sat at the other end. There was room for at least three cushions between them.
Scanning the coffee table in front of them, Nine saw the photographs of the Pedemont Orphanage along with Helen’s extensive handwritten notes and the array of conspiracy literature. One of the library books, titled Vaults of Power, had an image of a secret handshake taking place behind closed doors. Another, titled The Faceless Men, featured a still image of President Kennedy’s assassination on its cover. Next to it was a photocopied document headed The Registry of Foster Homes and Orphanages in the United States.
The material confirmed Nine’s suspicions that, if she hadn’t already, Helen could soon uncover enough evidence to prove that the orphanage was merely a front – one of many facilities belonging to an unidentified organization that operated above the law.
“Would you like a coffee?” Helen asked, anxious to take Nine’s attention away from the material on the tabletop.
“No thanks, I’m fine.”
Helen placed one of the books on top of her notes so her visitor couldn’t read what she’d written. “So what you had to tell me couldn’t wait until tomorrow, I take it?”
Nine shook his head.
“Am I getting close to discovering something crucial about the orphanage?”
Nine nodded without hesitation.
Helen looked
deeply into his startling green eyes for a moment. She grew a little afraid and wondered if she really wanted to know the truth. “What you told me in Los Angeles when we were kids was all true, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. And if I hadn’t divulged all that back then, none of this would be happening.”
“What exactly is happening?”
“You’re in real danger, Helen. You have no idea what you’re up against and what the faceless men will do to silence you.”
“I’m not going to stop.”
“You must. And you will.”
“What they did to you and the other orphans was a crime of the highest order. The public have a right to know.”
“You don’t know anything about what they did to us. You’ll never know.”
“I’ve seen and heard enough to know the Pedemont Orphanage is an orphanage in name only, and you and the others are much more than just orphans.” Helen took a deep breath and kept going. “Those two training in the gym today. It took me back to that time you effortlessly beat those thugs who accosted us in Santa Monica. And although I don’t yet have enough info to figure it all out, I feel sure you must be the victim of some far-reaching and monolithic conspiracy.”
Nine looked at her levelly. “No story on our orphanage will ever be aired in the public domain.”
“Is that a threat, Luke?”
“No, it’s a fact.”
Annoyed, Helen stood up. She went to a window and looked down at the street below. Nine stood and walked over until he was standing directly behind her, so close they were almost touching. Helen continued to look out the window, deep in thought.
“Listen, Helen,” Nine whispered, “I’m sorry I followed you out to California all those years ago. And I’m sorry for getting you involved in this gigantic mess.”
“Why did you follow me to California way back then anyway?” When she turned around her face was only six inches from his.
Nine found himself intoxicated by her beauty. Her dark, sultry eyes, her olive complexion and exotic features captivated him just as they had when he was only twelve. Except now it was the face of a woman, not a girl.
