The Discarded Read online

  She hesitated before finally moving over. Abraham pulled out the seat belt and buckled her into place. The shoulder strap was a problem. It cut right across the side of her neck and could easily choke her.

  “Lean forward a bit,” he said, and then moved the strap behind her. “Perfect.”

  The lap belt would have to do for now

  As he started to close the door, she said, “Are the other people helping Mommy?”

  “Other people?”

  “They came right after Mommy got hurt and fell down.” The girl touched the center of her forehead. “They told me to wait in the kitchen. I go and…and…” Her brow was furrowed in deep thought for a second before she looked at him again. “And then I see you.”

  Dear God, Abraham thought. He had no trouble picturing what had happened. The termination of the girl’s mother, a bullet to the head right in front of Tessa.

  What the hell was going on?

  It took all his will to smile and say, “Let’s go get that food, huh?”

  __________

  THEY HID OUT in the small, isolated house in the hills above Miyazaki. Abraham had arranged for its use through a friend in the business who was not connected to Carter, so he and Tessa would have a place to stay while false documents were created by a woman he trusted in Seoul, South Korea.

  Due to a concerted effort on his part to make Tessa feel safe, her fear of him soon began to fade. The food helped, as did finally getting out of the car and moving into the house. In one of the closets, he discovered an old checkers set. The game was missing several pieces, but a few stones from outside worked as acceptable replacements.

  He had worried that Tessa might be too young to play—she said she was four—but she quickly picked up the concept, and they passed the rest of that initial day and nearly all of the second in an almost endless tournament.

  At least once an hour, she would ask about her mother. Abraham would either tell her he didn’t know or try to distract her with the game. No matter what he did, though, he could feel his own sense of guilt building. Of course he couldn’t be sure the woman was dead, but he’d been in the business too long to ignore his intuition.

  He couldn’t help but wonder what had triggered the events that now had him playing babysitter. At first, he thought Tessa might’ve been a pawn in some kind of high-powered custody struggle. Maybe her father had been in a position to use resources most people didn’t even know existed to retrieve his daughter and eliminate her mother. But Abraham quickly dismissed that theory when he remembered Carter saying the interested party would think Tessa was dead.

  Perhaps, then, the girl had just been a byproduct of an ordered termination. Her mother damned for whatever reason, and the transporting of the girl was a mission to return her to where she belonged, minus one parent. Or had this been a purposeful kidnapping? Maybe the girl would now be used to influence a relative in some important position. Maybe the mother wasn’t meant to be killed but had gotten in the way, or maybe Abraham had incorrectly interpreted Tessa’s description of what had happened and the girl’s mother was still alive.

  Stop it, he told himself.

  No matter how distasteful the events that had brought him and the girl together, he couldn’t let himself get involved. He had a job to do. That was all.

  I really am getting too old for this.

  “Your turn, Abe,” Tessa said after she jumped one of his game pieces, tilting the balance in her favor.

  “You are a tricky one, aren’t you?” he said as he studied the board.

  She smiled. “Go, go, go.”

  “Give me a moment.”

  He picked up one of his pieces, knowing his intended move would open him up to losing in another three turns, but he wanted to see what she would do.

  As he set the piece down again, she clapped and said, “Ha, ha,” and he knew she’d seen it, too.

  Tessa was a smart girl.

  A minute later, as she was making her winning move, the disposable phone Abraham had picked up before they’d arrived at the house began to ring.

  “Moshi moshi,” he said, answering.

  “Is this Mr. Black?” a male voice asked in Japanese.

  “It is.”

  “There is a package waiting here for you.”

  The man didn’t need to say more than that. The package would contain the documents and Abraham knew exactly where to pick them up. “Thank you. I’ll be there soon.”

  As he hung up the phone, he saw that Tessa had set up the board again.

  “Me first,” she said, then moved one of the pieces.

  “Okay. But we need to leave after this game.”

  She looked at him, disappointed. “No. Not yet.”

  “I’ll tell you what—we can take the game with us. How about that?”

  She lit up. “Really?”

  “Really.” He looked at the board and made a move. “Your turn.”

  CHAPTER 2

  ABRAHAM ARRANGED FOR a private plane to fly them from Miyazaki to Busan, South Korea. Tessa was fine on the drive to the airport, but once she saw the plane, she pulled to a stop.

  It took Abraham another couple steps before he realized she was no longer beside him. He walked back and crouched down in front of her.

  “You’ve been on an airplane before, right?” he said, keeping his tone light.

  She hesitated before nodding.

  “This one’s just a little smaller than those big jets you’re probably used to.” He held out his hand. “I’ll be right there with you the whole time.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Tessa, it’ll be fine.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Someplace safe,” he said.

  Her cheeks pinched up the way they did before she was about to cry. “Will…will Mommy be there?”

  Hold it together, he told himself.

  “Your mommy wants you to be somewhere safe. That’s why I’m here, to make sure nothing happens to you.”

  Though it wasn’t an answer to her question, it seemed to keep her tears in check. She put her hand in his. The gesture was a simple one, but he could feel the weight of the trust behind it. Instead of making her walk beside him, he picked her up and carried her on board.

  The flight took only an hour. Through the whole trip, Tessa squeezed herself against the edge of her seat, as close to Abraham as she could get. She did the same when they first boarded the train from Busan to Seoul. An older woman in the seat across the aisle finally teased the girl out of her shell. She smiled at Tessa and offered her a piece of fruit from a bag. After some prodding from Abraham, Tessa took it.

  “Thank you,” Tessa said, her voice almost a whisper.

  The woman replied in Korean and laughed good-naturedly.

  Tessa was initially taken aback by the response, but soon she was smiling and laughing, too. Within minutes, she was sitting next to the woman, playing a game with a deck of cards the woman had brought.

  Abraham took advantage of the situation to move to an empty area near the doors, where he could still see Tessa, and pulled out his phone. He hesitantly stared at the screen for several seconds. Since not long after Tessa had been put in his arms, he’d been telling himself he was a disinterested courier simply doing a job, but the fissures in his attempt at self-delusion had grown too wide to close. He wanted to know what had happened to the girl’s mother—needed to know. Because maybe then he could be sure he was helping Tessa, not hurting her.

  Though 525—Gavin Carter’s organization—had a good reputation, there were plenty of similar agencies becoming unintentionally entwined in something they shouldn’t have been involved with. Abraham had no proof that was the case here, but it sure felt like it. Then again, the girl could be messing him up. There was no question she had affected him. If the package had been inanimate as he’d expected, everything would have been fine. Hell, if Tessa had been an adult, he could have handled the situation without forming any emotional attachments.
>
  But she was a little kid. A trusting, good little kid.

  And he could no longer deny he was in it deep.

  He checked to make sure Tessa was still okay and then dialed a number he had long ago memorized.

  “Hello?” a familiar female voice said.

  “It’s Abraham.”

  “Abraham?” A short pause. “What are you doing in…South Korea?”

  Of course Orlando would know that. She had been his best apprentice, and had turned out to be an even better tech specialist than he’d ever been.

  “Well, I’m not on vacation,” he said.

  “That thought never crossed my mind. Just checking in?”

  He called her once or twice a month to see how she was doing, more often when things weren’t going well for her, like when Durrie had died. She was his special one, the closest he’d ever come to having a daughter.

  “Actually, I need an assist,” he told her.

  Her tone turned serious. “Problems?”

  “No, just…well, I had to destroy my phone and haven’t had time to redownload my address book. Hoping you can connect a call for me.”

  “Consider me your personal switchboard,” she said. “Who are we calling?”

  “Langley.”

  “You doing a job for the Agency?”

  “There’s someone there I need to talk to.”

  “I’ll need a name.”

  “Actually hoping you can get me in the back door. I can find my way from there.”

  “You do realize that it’s two a.m. in DC, right?”

  “I do.”

  “Okay. Hold on.”

  The line sounded like it went dead but he knew better than to hang up. After several seconds of silence, there was a series of beeps. These were followed by another moment of dead air, and then a long tone.

  As soon as the tone ended, Abraham punched in the number for the office he was trying to reach. The line rang three times, then—

  “Becker,” a male voice said.

  “Good morning, Eli. It’s Abraham.”

  “You’re up late.”

  “Where I am, the sun’s been up for some time.”

  “And where would that be?”

  Though Abraham had no doubt one of the CIA’s computers had already determined his location, Eli probably didn’t have access to that info yet.

  “Asia,” Abraham said, not feeling the need to get too specific.

  “You on something for us?”

  “Not at the moment,” Abraham replied, though he had no idea who had hired 525.

  “Then why—”

  “I’m hoping you can do a little digging for me.”

  “Depends, I guess.”

  Abraham had met Eli a few years earlier during a briefing for an Agency job. Eli was one of those intelligence wonks who balanced a superior analytical ability with substandard social skills. In other words, a smart guy with few friends. Somehow he had developed the idea that one of those friends would be Abraham. Having an analyst contact inside the CIA was something Abraham could not pass up on, but as it turned out, he really liked Eli, and would get together with him whenever Abraham was in the DC area, whether or not he needed a favor.

  “Looking for some information on a job.”

  “So you are working for us.”

  Abraham hesitated the appropriate amount of time before saying, “For 525.” Most of the work 525 did was subbed out from the Agency, though Abraham had no idea if this was one of those.

  “Operation title?”

  “Overtake.”

  “What exactly am I looking for?”

  “There was a termination—a woman, I believe. In Japan. Probably in or near Osaka. Three, maybe four days ago. I want to know who she was and, if possible, why she was taken out.”

  “If you were meant to know that, don’t you think you would have been told?” Leave it to Eli not to beat around the bush.

  “Which is why I’m calling you and not my contact.”

  “What are you going to use the information for?”

  “Not important.”

  “Yes, it is. I can’t give you something that you might use to cause problems.”

  “I’m not going to cause any problems. I just…I just need to know.”

  “Curiosity killed the cat.”

  The line was delivered so close to monotone that Abraham nearly laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. “Can you help me?”

  “Maybe. This number you’re using, is it the correct number for calling you back?”

  “Will be for another few hours.”

  The line clicked dead.

  Abraham was tempted to figure out if there was anyone else he could ask for help, but decided it was probably best to limit his inquiries. If Eli came up empty, then Abraham could try a different route.

  He slipped the phone back into his pocket and returned to his seat.

  “Whatcha you got there?” he asked Tessa.

  “Candy!” she said excitedly, holding out a wrapper-covered treat. “For you.”

  “For me? I don’t want to take your candy.”

  “For you.” The look she gave him made him feel like her whole world would dissolve if he didn’t take it. He was fairly sure her world already had, though she wasn’t aware of it yet.

  He lifted the candy out of her hand. “Thank you.”

  In a way only kids seemed to do, she jumped up next to him and gave him a tight hug. Then, just as quickly, she returned to the old woman.

  “Can I have another?” she asked, holding out her hand.

  __________

  ELI CALLED BACK as Abraham and Tessa were waiting at Incheon International Airport for a flight to Shanghai.

  “There’s not much I can tell you,” he said. “Access to information on Overtake is tightly controlled. I assumed you wouldn’t want me setting off any red flags.”

  Abraham couldn’t help but feel disappointed. “No. Of course not. It was worth a try, I guess.”

  “I said there’s not much I can tell you. I didn’t say there was nothing.”

  “I’ll happily take whatever you have.”

  “There was indeed a termination in Osaka three days ago.”

  “And it was part of Overtake?”

  “Yes.”

  Abraham’s shoulders sagged. While Eli’s news did not definitively mean it was Tessa’s mother who had been killed, who else could it be?

  “Do you know the target’s name?”

  “I do not. But the subject was a woman, apparently in her twenties.”

  “Anything else?”

  “The initial order was apparently for two targets, but was changed to one at the last minute.”

  “Who was the other target?” he asked, knowing full well the answer was sitting next to him.

  “No information on that.”

  “Is that it?”

  “That’s all I’ve found,” Eli said. “I could keep looking, I guess, but I do have other things I need to do.”

  “No, it’s fine. You’ve done more than enough. Thanks, Eli. I’ll call you next time I’m in town.” This time, Abraham was the first to hang up.

  He looked over at Tessa. She was curled up in a ball on the seat next to him, asleep. If her name had been on the termination list, why had it been removed?

  The overhead speaker came to life, Korean first, then: “Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to begin pre-boarding for Korean Air Flight 895 to Shanghai. Please remain seated until your row is called. We now ask that those passengers needing extra time and those traveling with infants and small children to approach the gate. Thank you.”

  __________

  FROM SHANGHAI THEY flew to Dubai, and then Dubai to Nairobi, and Nairobi north to Europe. By the time Abraham and Tessa arrived in Nice, France, they had missed the preferred package delivery time by over twenty-four hours, no doubt sending Carter into a panic.

  There was, however, a safety built into the schedule, an additional forty
-eight-hour window that Abraham was to use if he felt it necessary. When this was explained to him at the beginning of the project, he had laughed. Having a delivery window of a few hours was not unusual, but one that was two days long definitely was. Now he understood why.

  The handoff to the pickup team was to take place in Amsterdam, so Abraham and Tessa took a train to Paris, where they caught another to Brussels, Belgium. There, Abraham arranged for a car and drove the rest of the way, entering Amsterdam a mere ninety minutes before the final deadline.

  He ditched the car not far inside the city limits and took Tessa onto a tram. The particular line they were using passed very near the transfer point. Abraham, however, had them exit four stops early and walk the remaining distance.

  The air was brisk but not unpleasant, so the coats he’d purchased for them in France were more than up to the task of keeping them warm. And while he had also picked up some gloves, he wasn’t wearing his, preferring to hold Tessa’s hand without them.

  “Abe,” the girl said.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  “It won’t be long now.”

  She looked at him, confused. “What won’t be long now?”

  He had yet to figure out how to tell her he would be giving her to someone else, so he said nothing, knowing from their all-too-short time together that her attention would soon move on to something else.

  She began to slow. He looked back at her and saw she was looking across the street at a coffee shop.

  “Hot chocolate?” she asked, her eyes wide in hope.

  He checked his watch. Twenty minutes to go. “Sure,” he said. If they were late, so be it.

  He led her over to the shop. As they entered, they were engulfed by a cloud of warmth that smelled of coffee and chocolate and cinnamon. After they got their drinks, they found a quiet table in the back.

  “Careful,” he said as Tessa’s mouth approached the rim of her overly filled cup. “It’s hot.”

  She took a tentative sip and pulled back, her lips pursed.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She patted her lips with the tips of her fingers. “Hot,” she said.

  “I told you. Here.” He handed her a spoon. “Stir it with this. That’ll cool it down. But slowly. You don’t want to spill any.”