The Ninth Orphan (6 page)

At one point, Nine imagined she glanced at his reflection in an outdoor mirror hanging from a nearby stall.
It was only a fleeting look.

Whoever she was and whichever agency she worked for, Nine resolved then and there she’d be dead before the day was out.

Finally, the woman placed her digital camera inside a shoulder bag and strolled off, attracting admiring glances from people nearby.
Several looked at her as if they recognized her. Little wonder. She was Isabelle Alleget, the twenty-seven-year-old daughter of a former high-profile politician.

Unaware of the woman’s identity, Nine calculated his options as he followed her. He had a feeling of dread as the knowledge of what he’d soon have to do sunk in.

#

Dusk was descending as Nine trailed Isabelle through Place Du Tertre. The streets surrounding the square grew busier as workers made their way home.

Isabelle approached a taxi rank on the corner of Place Du Tertre and climbed into the rear passenger seat of the front taxi. Nine climbed into the next taxi in line and instructed the driver to follow the taxi in front. After checking his reflection in the near window to ensure his African disguise was still in place, he kept his eyes glued on the taxi ahead as they traveled past the numerous cafes along the narrow streets of Montmartre.

Upon reaching the neighboring district of Saint Lazare, Isabelle’s taxi pulled up outside an upmarket, seven-storied, apartment complex on the street of Rue de Rome. From his taxi, Nine watched as Isabelle paid her driver, disembarked and walked toward the complex’s entrance. Nine did the same. From the foyer, he watched, unseen, as she entered a lift. He waited to see which floor the lift stopped at, hoping his quarry lived on a lower floor. Fortunately, it stopped at the second floor. Nine sprinted up the stairs.

In the corridor outside her apartment, Isabelle was preparing to unlock her door when Nine loomed up behind her and clamped her mouth shut, smothering a scream. In his other hand, he held his Glock pistol, its silencer resting against Isabelle's forehead.

“
If you lie to me, you die. Understand, madame?” Nine whispered in French into Isabelle’s ear. She nodded fearfully. Nine listened for any sounds within the apartment. There were none. “You live alone?” Isabelle nodded. “Good. Open the door.”

Isabelle’s hand shook. She slowly unlocked the door. As soon as it opened, Nine shoved her inside. He followed her into the spacious lounge of her well-appointed apartment, closing the door behind him. Having recovered from her initial surprise, Isabelle opened her mouth to scream for help. Nine punched her in the stomach, effectively silencing her. Winded, she fell to the floor, gasping for air.

Unconcerned about her welfare, Nine stood astride her. As before, he questioned her in French. “Why did you photograph me?” Breathless, Isabelle was unable to respond. Nine bent down and slapped her face. “Answer me!” He slapped her face again, harder this time. The impact raised a red welt under one eye.

“
I was only taking pictures!”

Refusing to entertain excuses and determined to find out who she was working for, Nine knelt and stuck his menacing face close to Isabelle's. He jammed his pistol against her cheek and removed the safety with an audible click.

Isabelle became desperate. “Please! Don't kill me! I'm just a photographer!”

Nine remained unconvinced. “But why photograph me?”

“
Look around you,” Isabelle implored, pointing at the near wall of her lounge.

Nine looked up and noticed scores of photos – not only on the near wall but on the far wall too. They were mostly portraits. Realizing she was actually the innocent photographer she claimed to be, Nine shook his head unapologetically and stood up, turning to study the photos more closely. As he did, the airline ticket he’d purchased earlier fell from his trouser pocket and landed on Isabelle. Nine didn’t immediately notice.

Despite her distress, Isabelle grabbed the ticket. Her eyes locked onto the destination beside the Air Tahiti logo. It read:
Les îles Marquises en Polynésie Française
.

Nine looked back down at Isabelle.
Damn it
, he inwardly cursed. Alarmed to see she had his airline ticket, he snatched it back and stared hard at her. Thinking carefully, he knew he now had a difficult decision to make. The same feeling of dread he’d experienced earlier returned. He resumed studying the photos on the walls.

The Frenchwoman remained on the floor. She was in shock and began to sob. Seemingly unconcerned, Nine went to the fridge and removed some ice-cubes. Wrapping them in a tea-towel, he returned and placed the tea-towel in Isabelle’s hand. He raised her hand so the ice pressed against her swollen face.

Isabelle could feel his eyes on her and avoided his gaze. Nine was momentarily mesmerized by her beauty as he took in her exotic features. There was something fragile yet strong about her. Her slender limbs reminded him of a gazelle. Yet her dark eyes flashed anger. Nine forced himself to look away. Scanning a nearby bookshelf, he noticed
The Catcher in the Rye
among the titles.
He turned back to Isabelle. “Keep that ice against your skin. You'll be fine.”

Isabelle looked up into his austere, African face and glared disdainfully at him. Taking that as his cue to leave, Nine grabbed her digital camera and left. Isabelle struggled to her feet, stumbled to her phone and dialed 112, the number for the French emergency service. Gendarmes arrived minutes later, but Isabelle’s black assailant was long gone.

A
China Airlines jumbo jet touched down at Charles De Gaulle International Airport, on the outskirts of Paris. MSS Special Agent Cho-Wu was among the passengers.

After passing through Customs carrying only a briefcase, the surly-faced Chinese agent walked purposefully toward a waiting taxi. Its driver was also Chinese. Without a word being exchanged, the driver
accelerated away
as soon as his broad-shouldered, formidable-looking fare opened the rear door and climbed in.

As the taxi headed toward the city center, Cho-Wu opened his briefcase and studied some documents. He was very aware that, apart from some incomplete intel relating to a treasure site in the Philippines along with a solitary photo of a US operative disguised as a Hasidic man, his superiors hadn’t given him much to go on. Cho-Wu was hoping his contact at the Paris embassy could bring him closer to the enigmatic American.

While Cho-Wu skimmed the documents, he found himself thinking about women, in particular the buxom blonde prostitute whose company he’d enjoyed while in Washington D.C. recently. Determined to block out the inappropriate thoughts, he shook his head in a feeble attempt to drive away the distracting images of naked breasts, curvaceous asses and long, slender legs.

He grew aroused as he imagined the various body parts pressed tight against his own taut body. Such thoughts had recurred with tiresome regularity of late.

Cho-Wu wished he had Dr Liu, his Beijing psychiatrist, here to help him ward off the graphic fantasies that now possessed him. Dr Liu had been treating the agent for sex addiction for the past three years.

Dr Liu’s client had made very little improvement during that time. In fact, Cho-Wu was a sex maniac unlike anyone else the doctor had treated. Almost any female turned him on, from slender teenage girls to voluptuous, mature women old enough to be his mother. He also enjoyed killing people – something he did often and well in the employ of the MSS – and even experienced erections when squeezing the trigger of his automatic pistol.

Like all sex addicts, Cho-Wu had to constantly find new and creative ways to satisfy his randy urges. His superiors at the MSS knew about his unusual problem and the treatment he was undergoing, but because he was one of the most brilliant agents they’d ever recruited, they turned a blind eye. He’d successfully completed all thirty seven assassination missions they’d given him and, as far as his superiors could ascertain, he showed no signs of being affected negatively by his addiction.

Cho-Wu knew differently. There had been numerous missions where his addiction had put his life, and those of his fellow operatives, in grave danger.

As the taxi approached the Chinese Embassy on George V Avenue, in central Paris, Cho-Wu noticed a well-dressed, brunette lady walking along the sidewalk. His eyes locked on to her trim body and shapely calves. He fantasized about tying her up and ravaging her.

Having a special lust for beautiful European women, Cho-Wu wished his current assignment could have been anywhere but the city of love, or the city of lust as he often referred to it. Memories of debauchery were still fresh in his mind from previous assignments in Paris. Cho-Wu looked back down at the documents on his lap and forced himself to refocus his mind on the job at hand.

The taxi stopped directly outside the embassy. Without a word, Cho-Wu disembarked. Briefcase in hand, he approached the embassy and flashed his ID to an armed guard manning the gated entrance. The guard stepped aside to allow the agent in. An embassy secretary led Cho-Wu to a first floor office where he met with Lhozang, the MSS official in charge of French operations.

At five foot nothing, the middle-aged Lhozang was the unlikeliest of agents – a fact which had saved his life more than once. Cho-Wu knew not to underestimate him. He handed Lhozang the photo of Nine that Ji'an Yang had given him in Beijing. The diminutive Lhozang produced a magnifying glass and reading glasses, then studied it.

A full minute later, Lhozang looked up at the younger man. “The MSS Deputy Director in Beijing has authorized payment of the sum the American requested,” Lhozang smiled, revealing a set of disconcertingly over-sized false teeth.

Cho-Wu nodded to Lhozang. He wondered why the American in the photo only wanted a hundred million dollars for a quarter-of-a-trillion-dollar booty. Cho-Wu didn’t dwell on that. He knew it would be a major coup for him personally if he secured the maps that lead to one of the biggest, if not
the
biggest, treasure finds of the Post-Mao era.

The agent excused himself and left the embassy. Outside, the same taxi was waiting for him. He jumped in the back seat again and the taxi pulled out into early evening traffic. The inner city streets were near gridlock as Parisians made their way home from work.

Cho-Wu’s taxi eventually stopped outside
The Red Dragon Chinese Restaurant
. Still holding his briefcase, Cho-Wu disembarked and went to the restaurant’s front door. He and other patrons had to step over a mangy dog asleep in the entrance. Cho-Wu deliberately stepped on the dog’s tail. The dog woke with a yelp and ran off down the street. Cho-Wu didn’t give it a second glance as he entered the establishment.

#

Within MI6 headquarters on Vauxhall Bridge Road, in Vauxhall Cross, London, Kentbridge and Seventeen sat with three British secret agents – a woman and two men. Like almost everyone else in so-called positions of power, the MI6 secret agents were totally unaware of the existence of the Omega Agency. They simply believed the two Americans before them were CIA employees, which officially they were. Had the British known the pair’s true identity, they’d have detained them immediately.

Kentbridge and Seventeen
were part of the dark, invisible element operating within the CIA.
Over the past decade or so, the Omega Agency had infiltrated the highest ranks of the CIA. It was a silent coup d'état. Ironically, despite having official CIA status, Kentbridge and his orphans hardly ever set foot in the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters at Langley, Virginia, and only ever did so to preserve their cover.

The meeting had been set up for the Omegans by CIA Deputy Director, Marcia Wilson, the Omega Agency’s star mole within the CIA.

Marcia Wilson was a good example of Omega’s core strategy for creating a New World Order. It involved placing their people
, or moles, in positions of power within the CIA, the NSA, the Pentagon, the White House and global organizations like the UN, the IMF and the World Bank. This enabled Omega to pull some of the strings of these organizations and to direct American, and world politics, to an extent.

Yamashita’s Gold was the opportunity the Omega Agency had been waiting for
–
two hundred and fifty billion dollars would fund numerous covert ops around the world. Kentbridge knew Naylor wouldn’t relent until he had hunted Nine down and secured the co-ordinates for the treasure location.

Kentbridge looked on as the MI6 agents studied photos of Nine in some of the disguises he’d adopted on assignment over the years. There were images of him as a Mexican drug dealer, an Elvis impersonator, a wheelchair-bound geriatric and even one of him as a double for the President of East Timor.

The female MI6 agent looked impressed by Nine’s ability to alter his appearance. “Absolutely bloody amazing,” she gushed. “He's a real, live chameleon.”

Seventeen bristled at her opposite’s show of appreciation for Nine’s skills. “What information did you receive from your EU sources?” she asked impatiently.

Kentbridge had instructed Seventeen not to mention anything about Yamashita’s Gold. The last thing they needed was another competitor. As much of the lost treasure was originally Britain’s, Kentbridge knew they’d want it back if they found out about it.